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Post by Springer/Stella Ringer on May 9, 2012 11:00:56 GMT -5
Month 9, Week 1, Day 2, after Sand without Storm, private
In a dark, secret room, Stella attempts to eat a plate of escargot and complains, "This is bait. Give me a fishing pole, and I could catch a real dinner with this."
Control is punishing her for her recklessness, she's sure of it. She imagines the last Control agent she saw, a dark-skinned woman with blue-black eyes and blue-black hair, dressed in white and black, and she imagines punching her. Would it do any good? No. Would it make Stella feel better? Yes.
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Post by Carolyn Blake on May 9, 2012 11:23:52 GMT -5
Carolyn reaches over and spears one of the snails off Stella's plate, and drags it through the garlic butter sauce before popping it in her mouth. Once the morsel is swallowed, she says, "Eh, I like them. They're like mushrooms, only...muddier."
Carolyn's own dinner is a Parmesan and pistachio crusted trout served with a potato gratin. The meal is impeccable, but Carolyn looks decidedly displeased and uncomfortable. This probably has to do with the fact that she is trying to eat her meal while remembering which fork is for what, at the same time not getting anything on the designer pantsuit which Arlen directed her to wear for the day.
"So, why, exactly, did you have to pull the Interpol card?"
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Post by Springer/Stella Ringer on May 9, 2012 12:14:30 GMT -5
"Granted, a SERE graduate would probably love this," Stella allows grudgingly, glowering down at her escargot. She's hungry, though, so she's eating them. Her manners are not particularly good. "You look really weird in that monkey suit, you know?" Case proved. "Nice, I mean. But weird."
She swallows down another mouthful of her dinner and hems and haws, "I guess that I should start at the start, right? So I was on the beach, talking with this guy in line, waiting to get some drinks. Should have been a tip off, right there. Who talks in line?" Normal people! "Redhead, green eyes, fair skin, about this tall," she stands, gestures with her hand, and sits back down for another bite, "Said he worked for Paramount in special effects," which is something that they can check and will find confirmed, "I happened to mention my aunt," Carolyn has probably heard about Stella's aunt, "and he said he knew someone like that. Fishy, I know."
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Post by Carolyn Blake on May 9, 2012 17:27:41 GMT -5
"Feh," she waves a hand to indicate the her clothes, "They're for the job. Arlen picked them out." Idly, she touches her hair and frowns. It still feels weird to her.
She pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth as Stella mentions her aunt. "Seriously? You broke protocol for such obvious bait?" Carolyn sighs, sets her fork down, and leans back in her chair. She sends in a request information trace, tagging it as a person of interest in the current situation.
"Hrm. Keep going."
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Post by Springer/Stella Ringer on May 9, 2012 21:19:34 GMT -5
"What? No, don't put words in my mouth!" Stella protests. "No, he called her up."
"It was her."
Stella slumps in chair and morosely scoops up another snail. "Only it wasn't. Who the >firetruck> goes to all the trouble of making an evil clone and then doesn't program it to remember its supposed loved ones? I mean, this is the part where the redhead is supposed to say, 'Nyahaha, we have your aunt. Do as we want.' Completely barmy. Anyway, I tried to grab his phone, and he flipped me into the sand. Y'know how much I weigh?"
"So that is why I decided to apprehend him. Flipped me into the sand. Who does that?" See? This is completely logical, that Stella decided to try to capture some weirdo tourist.
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Post by Carolyn Blake on May 9, 2012 21:45:16 GMT -5
Carolyn gives Stella a Look and goes back to eating her dinner.
"And I suppose when you saw this person who looked like your aunt on the phone, you did not have a verbal outburst at the same time as you tried to liberate Mr. Rodney Pryor- that's his name, by the way- of his phone in a forceful manner?" she says between bites.
"There are any number of people who could put you flat on your back, Stella. That isn't grounds for making a public scene and getting the attention of the local yokels."
She gets why Stella snapped a bit. Carolyn is very aware of how much Stella's aunt means to Stella. But this may add a level of complication to the mission that Carolyn would prefer to avoid, and it's Carolyn's place to discipline her team.
"Maybe your aunt just had a separated at birth twin. It doesn't always have to be a conspiracy," Carolyn quirks a smile, "But we'll look into it after we're done with Slaughter. Promise."
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Post by Springer/Stella Ringer on May 9, 2012 21:55:11 GMT -5
Stella is telling the story somewhat out of order because human memory is fallible. She grumbles, "Look, he tried to steal my wallet first. Had it coming. Anyway... so they both denied her being an evil android duplicate and claimed they were both those alien robots stuck in human bodies. Alice in Wonderland junk. They were screwing with me."
She grits her teeth and tries to meet Carolyn's eyes, and she growls, "I am freaking sick of people screwing with me."
The alien robots have been awful quiet, though... Stella remembers a few training scenarios about the team trying to hypothetically kill a space robot or two.
Stella remembers being really good at it.
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Post by Carolyn Blake on May 14, 2012 22:15:06 GMT -5
Carolyn snorts, "Stella, you are in the worst possible line of work if you don't want people screwing with you."
"Anyway- the robot thing. It's a bunch of cock and bull, I'm sure, but at the same time, the higher profile of the aliens haven't been seen so much lately. Witwicky was pretty chummy with them, too."
She frowns and touches just behind her ear. "...That's odd. We might be making Mr. Pryor a bit more of a priority while we're here."
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Post by Springer/Stella Ringer on May 20, 2012 19:56:37 GMT -5
"Wrong. Working the red light district's worse," Stella corrects, smiling crookedly, "Besides, we put those people who do the head-screwing away. For good."
She actually believes that. There is still something of an idealist in Stella, for all that her ideals have become tarnished.
Stella asks, "Yeah? Say, do you... remember him from any missions? I feel like I've seen him before."
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Post by Carolyn Blake on May 27, 2012 21:42:57 GMT -5
"No," Carolyn says when she is asked if she remembers Rodney. Her tone is final and decisive. The man brings up no memory in her at all.
"But his history is faded. Crystal clear in the recent, muddied further back, and just gone in the far."
Carolyn's eyes flash with excitement. She always has liked a challenge. "We will definitely be keeping an eye on him."
She takes another bite of her trout. "I haven't been able to get a bead on Slaughter yet."
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Post by Springer/Stella Ringer on May 28, 2012 16:00:27 GMT -5
"Hmm. Maybe I saw him in Carbombya or Japan," Stella muses, rubbing her chin. She swallows down another snail. "Botched job making a fake ID?"
Stella shrugs over Slaughter. Sure, she would like to blow the guy away with a couple Hellfires. Who wouldn't? "Eh, so keep looking?" Intel is not her forte.
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Post by Carolyn Blake on May 31, 2012 22:55:50 GMT -5
"It doesn't read like a botched ID," Carolyn says, shaking her head.
She levels a look on Stella when the other woman tells her to keep looking. Her tone is sharp when she speaks again. "I am looking. I have been looking for him for entirely too long. He should not be able to vanish so completely when he isn't active, not from us, not from Control, and certainly not from me!"
The fork she is holding snaps. Very deliberately, she sets the pieces on the table and picks up another fork. What she really wants to do is toss the pieces across the room, but she tries not to have those sorts of outbursts in front of Stella.
"I'm not going to be happy until I put a bullet through his head and see his brains splattered out the other side."
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Post by Springer/Stella Ringer on Jun 2, 2012 8:38:47 GMT -5
"What does it read like, then?" Stella asks, taking the bait. She rolls her eyes when Carolyn gets defensive with her and mentally tunes out about half of what Carolyn is saying.
Stella notices the broken fork, though, and something prickles in the back of her head. She wants to say that Carolyn is reminding her of General Packer, but that's not quite right. Stella eats a snail and banishes the thought. She says something intended to be reassuring, "C'mon, Control's too busy jamming more sticks up their rears to find him. You know that."
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Post by Carolyn Blake on Jun 3, 2012 15:41:08 GMT -5
"I think it's more than that," Carolyn says as she sets aside her trout, and dips a spoon into a lighter-than-air chocolate mousse, "I think they don't want us to find him. Think about how well they can track people. They could find him if they really wanted to."
"They just don't <firetrucking> care. Just like they didn't care about losing Aeris."
The last is nearly growled out.
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Post by Springer/Stella Ringer on Jun 3, 2012 16:35:54 GMT -5
"I don't think they could find their own >accessories< with both hands and a map," Stella says, in the good-natured complaining way of career soldiers, "C'mon, they've been looking for him since you've been in diapers, right?"
Stella is not sure how old Carolyn is, but Stella generally assumes that Carolyn is a year or two younger than Stella is. It is not exactly Stella's dog in this fight. Yeah, yeah, Aeris being dead is sad and all, but Stella is more concerned about the Institute and Lord Chumley, really.
Then she pauses and frowns. "I'm going to eat my dessert now, because I don't think they'll let me have it after I say this."
Stella shoves her plate of snails aside and grabs her dessert, which appears to be a light pink pudding. Strawberry pudding? Stella's cool with that. She takes a huge spoonful and makes a face, sputtering, "This tastes like the inside of a florist shop. And it's mushy."
It is, in fact, rosewater rice pudding. It is excellently executed, but Stella is accustomed neither to the taste nor texture. She wolfs it all down anyway. Stella is hungry.
She spreads her hands and resumes her train of thought, "So I was saying... never assume malice when incompetence can explain the situation, but... seriously? Two or three decades and he's not dead yet? Maybe Control's got a reason they want him alive and out on the loose."
There will be consequences for Stella for saying that, but she doesn't care and, in this moment, is not even considering said consequences. Stella simply does things. What happens after, happens.
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