Checking in.

[citizenmoore]

To mervinmcginty:

Hopefully your flight went fine. Apparently I'm presently wanted for disturbing the peace, and the inspector's still leaning toward me being out of Lorena Station says I'm not disturbing it. Still, probably best to lie low. Might end up flying with you come spring with Damian. Depends on how he's feeling.

To citizendamian:

Your family's safely on dry land again. Your mother wrote some very long letters for you. Do you want to deal with them right now? I'll be back at the apartment tomorrow, I fear, since there's some things to deal with.

The Cafe Theatre is - artistic. I'm sitting in here going trough the mail / newsgroups. Do not check yours with the sound on. There's still some disturbing material being posted.

To Public:

Back on Paris IV. The Cafe Theatre has a lovely view at this time of year.

Comments

(IP Masked) (PGP protected)

[mervinmcginty]

Still getting those creepy threats wanting you to contact them to no longer be a dangerous terrorist?

Worries me that they seem to want to blackmail you and imply they'll get Damian arrested.

- Redeye

[stubbornlittleshit]

We DO, don't we? Decent place to do...just about anything you need if the proprietor's in the right mood.

Private:

the last I'd heard your name, I'd had a rumor there were threats being sent out your way. It turns out he can take care of that sort of thing too, if you'd be interested in passing the information along.

[citizenmoore]

Oh really? Are the mechanical chickens required to set the mood or merely accompaniment?

Private:

Price of getting involved. I suppose I could talk a little, if there's interest. ... Please tell me you're not a student and your professor didn't set this up for you?

[stubbornlittleshit]

I'm about eighty percent sure they're some sort of metaphor for industrialization. Maybe. ...The Cafe gets thirty percent of the box office, so...

Private:

And sometimes prices can be dealt with, vanish if they're big enough threats to the common good, or a thread unites people who have common enemies around. Oh, there's definitely interest. And no, no, DEFINITELY not.

[citizenmoore]

It's certainly an ambitious play.

Private:

Well, at the very least, there's a lady with a green striped blouse who's enjoying a lunch. She'd be interested to complement the establishment.

[stubbornlittleshit]

It IS, isn't it? ...Are the pigeons some symbol of freedom or...

Private:

Green Blouse. you've got it.

[citizenmoore]

There really are mechanical chickens and some sort of cooing line of possibly musical birds. She's not sure what the play's about or if she wants to, and thankfully she can't parse Parisian French rapidly sung.

On the other hand, the lunch is pretty good, she has a nice view of the street, and warm feet from a register under the window. Hard to complain.

Yvette's still not sure how to bring up the blackmailers to Damian. He's still acting like he's not sure that he'll wake up back in Lorena, and she's - got honestly no clue how to not make that worse. It doesn't help that he lost about 2 kilos while in prison.

[stubbornlittleshit]

Arno's spent most of the performance hiding in a corner near the backstage, starring as he gets a look at the performance going on. And yet...the house is full, people are actually buying food and even some of them are having wine, which is better than this time of day, usually. He can thank the performance, he supposes. Maybe if you're drunk enough, it starts to make sense? He makes a mental note to ask R about this when he drags his poor brother in to watch the thing some night. They're on tonight and for three performances after that too, so there's plenty of time.

Not that Arno's likely going to be around for the dinner crowd tonight. There's something to check out, even if he doesn't take long. At any rate, right now, something else is coming to mind, and he's glad of the private booths as he makes his way around, pretending to circulate, directing traffic, and...at one point, narrowly avoiding getting into an argument about Voltaire and how he would go about staging Candide. Personally? He wouldn't.

At any rate, he makes his way toward the right booth at last, and, smiling, raises a hand to his head, then catches himself in the gesture. It's not as if he's wearing his cloak here, after all, even if this IS other business.

"Mademoiselle?" He offers a smile. "I am told there are things to discuss."

[citizenmoore]

"Ah nothing so serious as that I fear," Yvette offers with a smile as she sets down her phone. "Please, have a seat. I'm sure with a crowd like this you've been on the move most of the evening."

Yvette suspects she probably looks - at the very least like she's been off planet for a while. Faint Lorenan accent, slightly off fashion clothing, and all that. At least she had time to swap out what she was wearing for Victoria. Mervin apparently was used to the general style from doing lectures for some Scottish colony (and apparently Scottish engineers was a magical thing to overhear, from his stories.)

Mervin pointed out that it was another thing that wasn't quite healthy with Damian. The man seemed to have this deep fear that he'd get noticed for standing out of the crowd. She couldn't remember if that pre-dated the arrest.

[stubbornlittleshit]

"It's been an..." Arno's face twitches as he glances at the stage, where the pigeons are apparently destroying a chicken. "Oh THAT'S going to leave a mess." he sighs, watching something leak. "I hope they actually used the drop cloth."

That said, he's taking the moment to study Yvette in more detail, now that he has the chance to do it. Certainly not from Paris naturally, though that's a good deal of people these days, and if what's clinging to her is true, better for that, honestly. He rests his left hand on the table, leaning forward a little, to lower his voice more. He hasn't rolled the sleeve up enough yet to reveal his ring finger, but he IS thinking that will happen soon.

"It so happens I have knowledge of some of the people working on Lorena. Those who are likely to be doing harm."

[citizenmoore]

"Done harm?" She slides her cup forward enough that she has to lean forward to put her hands around it. Off hand, she'd guess he's local Parisian, from the accent, and probably at least clever with his tongue. Probably not - too poor. Something in the banter lacks the studied lack of care that Mervin has, or Montague's slow quiet caution.

She takes a deep breath. "I thought you were talking about the blackmailers who were contacting me. But - tell me about Lorena Station? I feel like I've been shouting to the world about it far too much lately."

And there was something sickening about finding people posting that video of Damian or - there was this recording of him sounding like he was half befuddled and talking brokenly about running the tunnels.

To increase his Stockholm Syndrome, the interrogator said.

[stubbornlittleshit]

"Those too, at that. I would think they were most likely affiliated." Arno explains now, the thought having occurred earlier. "If someone wants you to stop speaking, what do they do when they can't make a fuss themselves? They get somebody else to do it. It's like...I hate to use a tired metaphor, but there are quite a few heads involved here. The Hydra comes to mind, only a rather specialized one with far more...I've lost that metaphor before it even got anywhere good, didn't I?" Arno stops, shaking his head a little.

"I think you have, actually in terms of people sprouting up. There are those in this world with the power to make problem for them or their friends disappear. And they do it rather painfully if you can't stop them."

[citizenmoore]

"It sounds as though the ones I have want me to do something for them, in return for being more benign." Yvette turns her cup of coffee in her hands and looks back at him. "It's a dangerous business, cornering someone and then expecting they'd work well for you. And usually you don't do that sort of thing with one person."

She sighs. "So it seems . . . like it might be good to find out who they are. That was what I was thinking. But - you think you know, I take it."

[stubbornlittleshit]

"I have a hunch." Arno nods slowly. "And sure, it's definitely dangerous, that. Been there...a few times." He adds, looking a little more serious for a second there. Sure, the offer was made to him and he was given the free will to decide, and to change his life, to make it better, but these days, that's not so much the case. He's felt...caged in the life for a while now, since he started learning all of the truths that go along with what he does, and all of the lies everyone's been telling each other along the way. It's also not any one side or person's fault and sometimes he wants to scream.

If he had to blame someone for that feeling though? Arno would blame Paris itself. It's become his city, both the beautiful lights and high vistas, and the dirt and muck of the sewers and the Court of Miracles, so called, anyway, for all that it doesn't hold half of what Hugo promised it did. It's everything else that's a mess, and all the people in it that make him...incredibly angry sometimes, and he just wants to scream. Of course, right now, there's more to focus on.

"So, more people, then? You're the first I've heard of getting threats but I do have the idea that we could track them if they aren't easily detected enough. I have some associates. Although, offhand. What do you know about the Knights Templar? Or, I've been told, in other places, they've started up a company called Abstergo."

[citizenmoore]

"You're the second person I've heard of interested in them. Though he was interested if Abstergo was directly working in producing finished yavanite out of Lorena Station. All I knew with them was NuFlor was a partnered company and there was some ties, but I think some was being filtered around."

Yvette sips her coffee and raises an eyebrow at him. "The Knights Templar are - wasn't that the Cathars? Or are you talking about something else?"

[stubbornlittleshit]

"Second person..." Arno frowns at that, running through a mental list of people he might know with connections that good that he was able to reach her there. "...Victorian?" Because that will tell him quite a lot there. "But yes, that Abstergo. And as for the Templars, well, that's what most would have you think. The truth's...a bit more complicated. Most are."

[citizenmoore]

"All right," she replies slowly. "A group, then. Running a company. You believe they are angry about Lorena Station falling apart, and then - they decided to blackmail me?"

It's possible. She hesitates, and then nods. "Probably Victorian. I don't remember if he mentioned it, but he used a Guy Fawkes reference."

She sets down the mug carefully, but it still makes a sound on the table. Mostly drowned out by the crowd. "What are you suggesting that I do?"

[stubbornlittleshit]

"I know they were doing...something in partnership out there." Arno frowns. "Could be them or another group they've got moving along. Unless...anybody else you've upset lately? If there's a trail, it WOULD be simple enough for contact to be made..." He hopes for her sake it's easily dealt with with resources already at hand but...

"That's more than likely who I'm thinking of. I'm part of a group working against Abstergo in general, but more against the Templars as a whole. They're heavily interested in changing our perception of history, finding powerful artifacts, or creating them that can create...a control state in most of the population..." His eyes blaze a little now.

"Here, we're so land locked they don't have much in the way of mining, obviously. What they DO have is the power to control political thought by selling lies dressed up as something else. In Victoria, I'm fairly sure, they're using the factories and influence to do the same. And if they have much access to Yavanite...who knows what they may come up with?"

Clearly it's not good.

[citizenmoore]

"The company itself has worked for better factory conditions, but - I don't think that's it." Yvette takes a breath. "I did break into a holding facility. A prison."

She's listening though. "So you . . . suspect that Lorena Station was popular as a source for cheaper technology or some other sort of plan."

She hesitates and flips through some pages on her phone to show a still of the Damian video. "Have you seen this?"