bigapplesauce | We Care for Your Safety

Another failure.

Noble and Wood have escaped, left the city and the world altogether it seems, and accordingly the rift is lashing out, a breached system desperately patching itself back up. So the researchers have reported. Gus does not particularly care. His job has been to acquire Iman Asadi, a job which has become more important than ever in the wake of the destruction she rained down on them, armed with only her mysteriously uncodified capabilities and an urban bestiary headed by a dinosaur. Gus has faced many trials in his life, none so absurd as this, and he will not be outdone now by a small arrogant woman and a herd of creatures.

Well, as it happens, one failure serves the rectification of another: with Noble and Wood went their reclaimed children, leaving Greta Baker available for his purposes. He, along with almost everyone, it seems, received Asadi's recent message concerning the woman. He hadn't given it much thought at the time, but some nights ago, when Ms. Baker met with Asadi, well. It seems there might be something to that.

So it is he arrives outside her door. He instructs the accompanying guard to wait nearby - no need for that, not yet. The woman may prove reasonable.

He raises a hand and he knocks gently.

The loss of the children stings more than it ought to. It's good that they're back with their parents, where they belong. Not just their parents, but Andrew, the first friend she made, here. She couldn't wish the children back, not knowing who she'd been depriving.

But the apartment is much quieter without them, and she feels very alone.

When the knock comes, she hesitates for a moment before quietly treading over to the door. It might just be the Balladeer, though his knocks tend to be a bit more cheerful. She peers through the peephole, sees a well-dressed stranger, and thinks: oh, dear. Someone from ROMAC? Who else would it be? She's already been questioned about the disappearance of the children, but they might want to question her again. Pressing her lips together, she retreats back towards her bedside table, where she's left her phone.

"Er - one moment," she calls out, unlocking the device with shaking hands.

She is not adept at hiding her fear. Most are not.

Gus motions to the guard to stay put, slips his master key into the door lock and opens the door with quick grace.

"Put the phone down, Ms. Baker," he says smoothly.

Edited 2015-04-27 03:34 (UTC)

It's almost impossible to type, and it's only thanks to her phone's autocorrect function that she manages to complete 'ROMAC is' before the door just opens. The man steps inside as if he has every right to be here - well, she thinks dismally, he would - and she glances down at her sorry excuse for a message. She's not in such a state that she can't hit 'send' as she sets the device back down on the table, though.

Iman will be so worried. She'll come running. Greta hopes she doesn't almost as much as she hopes she does.

"I'm sorry," she says, attempting to regain some of her faltering composure. "I... what is this about? Who are you?"

Edited 2015-04-27 03:43 (UTC)

"I am Gustavo Fring," he tells her. "I am assistant director of human resources at ROMAC. I would like you to tell me where to find Iman Asadi."

Brief. Simple. There is no sense being coy now.

"We know you were with her three nights ago," he says, "and I believe you just sent her some sort of warning, did you not?" He nods at the phone. "Ms. Asadi is a dangerous woman and a talented liar. I have no doubt she is using you to her own gain. It would be better for you, and easier for all of us, if you tell me where I might find her now." He spreads his hands in a show of passive rationality. "And we'll leave you in peace."

They--how do they know? Did someone follow her to Wilmot's? If so, why didn't they make their move that very night? She's heard, of course, that Wilmot's is neutral ground, but she wouldn't expect ROMAC to respect such unwritten rules. They're not above torture or murder or stealing someone's children away, why wouldn't they just invade the pub?

That doesn't matter. What matters is that ROMAC already knows so much. Mr. Fring knows she's met with Iman, he's even guessed that she texted her...

But.

He doesn't know everything. He doesn't know about the device on her door; otherwise he would have waited for her to open it. And he doesn't know Iman. His cold summary of her dear friend's character is--is outrageous. Iman might be dangerous to some, and she might be a gifted liar, but not to Greta. Never to her. And using her? Does he honestly think she'd take his word on that?

How dare he?

It's only a tiny seed of defiant indignation, but it's enough to straighten her spine and diminish the trembling in her hands. She barely processes the rest of his ridiculous request, but it doesn't matter. She knows what he wants, and she won't be giving it to him.

"I have nothing to tell you. I don't know where she is." And then she presses her lips together and flattens her palms against her skirt, waiting for his response.

He heaves a very small sigh, nodding slightly, as though this show of defiance does not surprise him, but rather disappoints him a little.

"Then I am afraid you'll have to come with me," he says. "If you cooperate you will not be harmed."

He believes this woman to be a relative innocent and he doubts his superiors would want her blood spilled for any reason. He has no desire to hurt her. But Asadi came to get Rush and she'll come for this woman as well; especially if she believes Gus would do to her anything like what he did to Rush.

"Please, do not resist me," he says, part advising, holding out a hand to draw her toward the door.

Greta hesitates a moment, a fresh shiver of fear passing through her. She knows what they did to Rush, seeking information they only presumed that he had. What might they do to her? She has nothing to give them, whatever they might think. Whatever they might do. However long her quiet defiance holds, she will have nothing to offer them.

And she has no recourse, now, no real means of resistance. What is she going to do, throw the kettle at him? She isn't a warrior maiden. She's only a baker's wife.

"I have told you all I know," she quietly insists, gripping fistfuls of her apron.

Edited 2015-04-27 04:41 (UTC)

"That is immaterial," he says softly. "Please." It is not a request but a suggestion. He beckons with a subtle motion of his wrist. She is afraid, of course - no doubt she knows about what happened to Dr. Rush. He means not necessarily to frighten but to encourage. He has a talent for performing both at once.

She is not especially encouraged, for all that his tone is so mild. He wants to find Iman. She neither wants to help him nor is capable of helping him, and that doesn't matter. He's hauling her off, anyway, or he likely will if she keeps dithering.

Iman might already be on her way. What sort of state does Greta want to be found in?

Sighing, she reaches round to untie her apron. At least she hadn't gotten very far at all into breadmaking; the ingredients on the counter are the ones that won't spoil if left to their own devices for a while, and she hadn't yet turned on the oven. "May I ask where we're going?" she says with a creditable attempt at dryness as she hangs her apron back on its hook and gives the kitchen a quick sweep with her eyes to make sure everything's turned off. Those tasks completed, out of excuses, she finally approaches Mr. Fring, hands still a bit shaky but chin up.

Edited 2015-04-27 11:57 (UTC)

He watches her attentively as she moves about, preparing herself with a composure he greatly appreciates. As she draws over to him he sets a hand at her elbow, not gripping, only escorting. He motions again to the guard, who turns away and moves toward the elevator - no need for any of that.

"Downstairs," he says. "Where we will wait."

Greta presses her lips together as he takes her arm - not roughly, but with polished grace that is almost worse. Bad things can hide behind good manners. Even the dismissal of the guard makes her stomach knot, because the guard is still there, ready to make things unpleasant for her if she sets a toe out of line.

'Downstairs,' then. Where else would they hold people they didn't want going anywhere? The top floor, maybe - and perhaps it's just as well they're not headed in that direction, presuming the building doesn't extend as far into the earth as it does into the sky. Iman will have a shorter distance to travel, which can only be a good thing...

And then the rest of his sentence sinks in, and Greta glances over at him, unable to mask her surprise - or her growing dread.

He'd guessed that she had sent Iman a warning, yet he hadn't really tried to stop her. Why wouldn't he have tried to stop her, if he thought she was warning Iman away?

"For what?" she asks, voice quavering with the sudden certainty that they're both waiting for the exact same thing.

He glances over at her as the elevator doors slide open. He doesn't answer right away, first stepping in with her and the guard. He swipes his badge and enters his access code for the cell block. "For Ms. Asadi, of course," he says once the doors have closed again.

She twitches, the result of an instinctive desire to pull away from him countered by the knowledge that it's useless to even try. They're in an elevator, for goodness' sake; even if they weren't, she'd only make it two steps before that guard got to her. There is nowhere for her to run.

And they know. They knew all along. Maybe they even knew about the device on her door, and Mr. Fring set it off on purpose. It's all a trap, and she - she is the bait.

She is not going to cry. Her eyes sting, but she presses her lips into a thin, wobble-proof line, and breathes deeply through her nose, and refuses to cry. She is not so--so faithless as that, and she won't give Mr. Fring the satisfaction.

But she can't muster any defiant words for him, either. Iman has done this before, it's true, but they know that, and they'll have shored up their defenses. Any brave words on her part about Iman burning everything would just be giving them more to work with. So she smoothes her palms over her skirt - it's either that or wrap her arms around herself, and she won't give Mr. Fring the satisfaction of seeing that, either - and says nothing as the elevator carries her down, swift and inexorable as a fall off of a cliff.

She's stepped back out when it happens. Needed to pace, get away from Rush's surliness and the fraught tension of the entire building, needed some time to breathe and think. Daniel is dead, just like that. For no reason that they can see. And he was one of the good ones. One of the ones that deserved to fuckin make it.

All that is excised when the little twitch of information seizes her hard and unyielding. Someone has opened Greta's door.

No. No, no, no. She wheels back sharply, nearly unbalancing herself as she staggers back to Gabriel's building. This can't be happening, not so soon, not now while everything's so fucked-

A text comes abruptly into her head.

ROMAC is

Oh fuck oh god oh god. She's breathing much too fast by the time she gets back into the building, hauls ass up the stairs, busts into Gabe's apartment where the freshly, this time deservedly bruised Rush is still trying to do his work.

"They took Greta," she gasps, standing in the doorframe. "Fring took Greta to lure me back in, the fucker! I'm going to get her. You coming or what?"

This is an even dumber non-plan than last time. This is obviously a fucking trap - she doesn't know it was Fring but of course it's fucking Fring - and there is no other reason for them to have an interest in Greta. This is her fault and she's fixing it, no time to plan, no time to find Daine or anyone. Rush is all she has now and as much as she's still stung about his attitude she fucking needs him now and she knows he won't disappoint. Not on this.

There are better, far better, things Rush could be doing to occupy his time rather than to nurse a fresh, darkened bruise, but wrenching his attention back to his disorganized scattering of papers has proved difficult. Exceptionally so.

Jackson Ascended.

How fucking excellent for him.

He scowls at the scrawl of ink on paper, attempting to breach that barrier in his concentration to little avail when the door crashes open again and Rush stiffens in alarm for the second time, now growing more than a little weary of these frequent interruptions.

Asadi stands in the doorway, eyes wide and urgent, expression set in the uncomfortable, unfamiliar lines of panic, a desolate lack of control he has only ever glimpsed and not seen laid so bare, open and horrified.

Rush surges to his feet at once, papers abandoned, and makes an unerring line for the door.

"Now," he hisses as he strides out of the apartment in a clipped, resolute sweep. His eyes flick to meet hers once, merciless and cold. "We have to go now."

There he is. She manages a grin, ragged and volatile. She follows him out, closing the door behind them. Shoots Gabe a text from the back of her mind. Someone should know where they are, at least.

"There's something you should know about Fring," she says as they descend to ground level, out to the street. "He tried to kill me in there, or subdue me, whatever the fuck. I shot him. I shot him point blank. Gun against his heart."

She grits her teeth at the memory. She wishes it had fucking worked. Maybe that would have been more trouble for them but on the other hand maybe Greta would be safe now. "I don't know what the hell happened and judging from his reaction he didn't either. Bullet ended up in the wall next to us, didn't touch him. He might be invulnerable somehow. Might be a Rift thing he didn't know about. Not sure." She sticks her arm out and hooks a cab. She's very good at it.

"When we see him," she says, opening the passenger door, "you watch yourself."

"Lexington and 53rd," she barks to the driver. "As close to now as you can fucking get."

They're already pretty close. It'll be a quick ride.

Good thing she's ready.

Rush digests the information silently, moving briskly out of the building and into the cab. He responds only with a taut, tight-jawed nod. His hands grind into fists and flex out again in a shuddering, uncontrolled motion, the thin scars on his wrists blanching into hard-edged white.

Fring has a means of protection against standard firearms.

That is not insurmountable.

Rush does not require firearms.

There's a darkly familiar adrenaline boiling in his veins, cold and coursing, the sting of the bruise on his face wholly disregarded. He uncoils from the cab, his brusque movements charged, his expression locked in a muted, grim blaze.

They'll be expecting them.

Rush does not care.

She walks them toward the building and stops across the street, looking up at it.

"He won't be hiding her away," she says. "He wants to draw me in, it'll be the same area they kept you. And he knows I know it's a trap, too, fucker knows I'm not stupid." She tilts her head to look up at Rush. "They don't know you'll be here."

Fring will expect Rush to be out of commission after all he did to him. So that at least is something.

She looks back at the building. "What're you thinkin?"

He scans the building's exterior, tracing its outline, calling to mind every fragment of knowledge of its internal schematics. He fucking loathes it, that rising structure, freezing cement encased in glass and steel. He always did. The pulsing, venomous spike of hatred toward that construction burns beneath lowered brows as he examines its design.

"We find access to a terminal." The words are broken out crisply, edged with a sharpened intensity. "Set off a sequence of distractions they can't afford to ignore. Disable holding cells. Set off alarms. Shut off any systems we can access."

He looks at Asadi evenly in wordless, adamant reassurance.

"No one," he promises quietly, with a deceptively measured, patient menace, "is going to be subjected to anything."

She's caught off guard by that. She's never seen him like this before, cold and hard and unyielding about the wellbeing of another person, and it's surprisingly energizing to see it now. She recovers with a tight nod.

"In no uncertain terms," she agrees.

The plan not hermetically sealed but sound enough by her questionable standards. She crosses the street between pulls of traffic, moving steadily toward the building. "Reception computers should suffice," she says. "That's assuming they didn't just jack up the front door waiting for us."

This is mostly a joke. That isn't Fring's style. The man has very few tactical flaws from what she can tell, but he does have that little bit of hubris, and that'll be his downfall.

The doors open, nothing goes off, no one stops them. Step one complete.

There's a solitary woman behind the front desk, looking harried and not even bothering to roll out her requisite corporate smile for the incomers. Just as well. Iman steps neatly in front of Rush and slides her elbows onto the desk, leaning in with a big friendly smile.

"Heyyyy, Sharon," she says with a little glance at the nametag. "I'm gonna need you to make a quick run to the restroom right now."

Sharon blinks up at her, confused, visibly unsure if she should be offended or what, then looks past Iman's shoulder at Rush. Getting no help from him, she looks back at Iman with a feebly uttered, "Excuse me?"

"It wasn't a request," says Iman calmly. "We're not supposed to be here. Either they're gonna take us or we're gonna take them. We need your computer. Doesn't involve you. Don't make it involve you."

Sharon takes a few moments to put all this together, but when she does, bless her, she gets up slowly, wiping her hands on her skirt.

"Leave your phone, please," says Iman. "Come back to get it in about five minutes."

That's all she needs.

Edited 2015-04-28 06:27 (UTC)

They wind around the passing inconsequentialities of cars, the spilling traffic, Asadi's unique abilities proving once again useful in opening those avenues that were formerly closed to them. Immediately after she directs the lone receptionist elsewhere, Rush slides behind the unoccupied computer, standing hunched over the faint blue flicker of the monitor. It takes very little effort to digitally access the mainframe functions, a success hardly befitting the term. ROMAC should have, perhaps, considered the exquisite irony of employing a cryptographer without making use of that clearly well-utilized skill set. Access and manipulation of systems unintended for Rush's eyes has always been a particular talent of his. The workarounds are contemptibly simple to establish, even simpler to apply to a delicate structure he has no qualms about dismantling in full.

He sluices adroitly into the core of those systems, navigating streamlined circuits of code with economical surety. His eyes rake the screen, fingers rattling a methodical tattoo against the keyboard. A virus is complex in theory, uncomplicated in design; an easily constructed, incomplete filigree of numbers and lines of code, launched into the binary void in its nascent stages with the sole purpose of unraveling every security protocol it encounters.

"We move quick," he says shortly, darting Asadi a look from over the desk, and this is his only warning before he executes the command.

The computer hums softly on its desk, processing the directive. A minute trickles past in agonizing silence.

Then the Base roars into a sequential chaos, alarms erupting, then lights slamming off, sending an echoing cascade of emergency sirens shrieking through ROMAC's darkened halls.

Edited 2015-04-28 06:50 (UTC)

"Beautiful," she remarks, smirking darkly. She leads him away from the desk to the stairs, the doors now uniformly open for their purposes. She could have done this as well but it's better to give her breathing room after last time, better to do it loudly like this. May as well make themselves known.

Down they go.

-

Gus anticipated this, and responds to the outbreak of alarm bells with only a casual tilt of the head. Asadi is here, and quickly, too. Favoring an approach even less subtle than last time, it would appear. Well, let her make her noise. Gus never had a wealth of faith for this sort of far-world technology ROMAC seems to love so much, even less so after witnessing what Asadi could do with it. As such Ms. Baker has been sealed off un-electronically, under old-fashioned lock and key. He and his pair of guards - the only two ROMAC had to spare in light of the day's generalized chaos - are stationed some doors down, waiting near the main stair entrance to the hall.

He slips off his jacket, folds it with great care, lays it flat on the unused chair beside him.

"You will not fire on her," he tells them again. He does not like to repeat himself but he likes less to be misunderstood. "She is to be taken alive."

The significant drawback to unleashing a stochastic, highly disorganized virus upon ROMAC's systems is, of course, the subsequent lack of a working elevator. Plunging down the stairs stirs the distant memory of being hauled up them in a set of circumstances that will, ideally, not be repeated. For anyone's sake.

The cold gray backdrop of the lower levels induces a low, inescapable chill that solidifies along the column of his spine. His fingernails have sunk into his palms, his neck taut, the slope of his shoulders rigid. He knows they are close. Fring is expecting them - expecting Asadi. He will doubtless not have anticipated involvement from the man he's presumed to have left thoroughly broken.

The alarms send subtle vibrations shrilling through the air, buried in the walls and ceiling and rumbling the floor beneath their feet. They tear down the stairs and into the hall and enter directly between a pair of unfortunate security personnel.

Rush's reaction is immediate, savage, and wordless. He throws himself gracelessly at the guard immediately beside him, bringing them both to the ground with a dull thud before the man even has his sidearm half-drawn. The full unintentional force of Rush's elbow crashes over the guard's larynx, and without hesitation he throws the remainder of his weight on it until he hears the wet crack.

Edited 2015-04-28 14:33 (UTC)

It feels as if she's already spent hours in this grim little cell, alone with her thoughts. There's little else to distract her. The room is all but featureless; a narrow bench that might double as a cot is bolted to the walls in one corner, and in the corner opposite, there's a black, bowl-shaped thing mounted to the ceiling, like a bubble of pitch. The floor slopes subtly towards a central drain, the purposes of which she can guess. She tries not to look at it with limited success, and is careful not to step near it as she paces anxious circles around the room.

Iman is on her way. She might already be in the building. And all of ROMAC is waiting for her. What if she's already been taken?

No. No. They can't have captured her.

But what if they have?

This is all her fault. Or all on her account, which is the next worst thing.

Greta unfolds her arms enough to swipe at her cheeks. She can't quite stop the tears from falling, but she doesn't have to let them fall far. Whoever next comes through that door - Iman, hopefully, or Mr. Fring if not - she is determined not to be a complete mess. Keeping her head is all she can do, now.

None of the awful scenarios her imagination unhelpfully conjured up had included being suddenly plunged into darkness. Greta freezes in her tracks with a little, wordless cry, then flinches as light returns in the form of a too-bright, flashing strobe up near the ceiling.

The fire alarm. The fire alarm. It makes no sound but a faint, rhythmic ticking, but the light must mean something.

Iman hasn't been captured. She's arrived.

There are other alarms, too, she realizes. They sound distant and muffled through the cell door, but there's some kind of unearthly howling out in the hallway. She makes her way to the door, stumbling and letting out an aborted, horrified groan when she steps squarely atop that awful drain by accident. But then she's at the door, palms braced against it, one ear pressed to its cold, unfriendly surface. The muted wail of the alarms grows a little louder, and it's possible she won't be able to make out anything else if it has to compete with that, but she has to at least try to hear what's going on out there.

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MEANWHILE in Hell's Kitchen

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in which I have no idea how coding actually works bear with me

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tw: violence, npc death

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