TWO MEN FIND THEMSELVES AT A POTENTIAL STALEMATE. NEITHER WANTS IT TO END THIS WAY. FOR ONE, IT WOULD MEAN FAILURE AND ANOTHER LONG NIGHT SPENT IN AN EVEN DEEPER PIT OF POLITICAL - CRIMINAL EXCREMENT AND VISCERA. FOR THE OTHER, IT MEANT A DEATH HE'D NEVER SEEN COMING, WHICH WAS UNDOUBTEDLY WORSE THAN ONE COULD SEE COMING.
The little bits of static that sparked and shot through the live audio feed did not begin until after the syndicate's current ranking top interrogator had kicked Charlotte out of the room for quote - unquote: disturbing the mark in a decidedly counterproductive manner. You're not helping, he'd said. Quit bothering my friend here, he'd said. You're making him cry, he'd said. With evidence of the man's imminent - and not to mention, irreversible - dissolution into sobs and waterworks right before her eyes, there hadn't been much Charlotte could do except acquiesce and make her exit.
" God. How come we never get to have any of fun around here, " she'd remarked as she joined Ghost in the monitoring room four flights of stars, three left turns, two - and - a - half right turns, and several doors away from Dobermann's so - called interrogation room much more than six feet below them. Conscious, she was,( though hardly self - conscious ), of her effect on electronics, Charlotte had seated herself as far from the equipment the room would allow her, which is to say, not far enough. Still in Ghost's peripherals, likely, the blonde had made herself comfortable. With her booted feet kicked up on the tabletop and her arms crossed her chest, she'd manage to balance herself perfectly on a single back leg of her chair.
In the right corner of the multiple screens that lit the small room, a digital clock ticked up the milliseconds, seconds, minutes, and hours. As the numbers fluxed, so did the occurrences of static pops and visual glitches in the live image. The time, however, never skipped. Much to Charlotte's annoyance, the man had managed to hold his tears back with her gone, but it wasn't going to be much longer before he broke under the pressure Dobermann's was relentlessly laying on. Top of his class at Harvard Law all those years ago, top of the tax bracket in his city for many years now, and the nigh - revered consigliere of a massive backing mafia in the recent years, and he was about to give it all up in exchange for nothing but a shovel. A shitty, rusty, chipped - up shovel to unbury himself once all the bloody dirt settled on top of him.
But even that was still better than nothing. Wasn't that how that one saying goes? Better the devil seen than one unseen? Better the devils you know than the ones you don't. Like mysterious women who seemed to form out of shadow and nothing else. Like a disembodied laugh and a sound so sharp, so loud, that you can't even be sure you've even died until a reaper's skeletal hand reaches for you. " That's a long fucking way to fall, " Charlotte said as they watched the man on screen crumple, his face as white as paper, the sheen of sweat on his face doing him very little favours in the single dim light of the cell room. " But at least he'll live. Sort of. "
@azraelreckoning / " THE PRICE'A FREEDOM IS HIGH. "
" That, it is. " In the odd psuedo - dark of the monitoring room, something changed in Charlotte's gaze as she watched the proceedings of the man's downfall. It might've been a trick of the light. That might be simply something one has to tell oneself. But something darker than the mere dilation of the vessel's pupils shifted then, as behind it, something uncoiled past the null of the pupil, past where science tells us light enters only to vanish into little more than electrical impulses and mirror - tricks. From comfortable to calm, the woman smiled in the dark as the names, numbers, and assignations began to pour out of their friend, the fallen man. Dobermann did not have pen nor paper with him because he assumed these videos would suffice as a record. As for Ghost. . . Well, Charlotte wasn't sure just how much she trusted his memory ( or just him in general ) when it came to these things. Maybe it was good enough, maybe it wasn't, maybe he just didn't care enough about the details. " S'good thing we're in charge of the price this time around, then, huh? " she said, shooting Ghost a quick grin as she drew a small notepad and pen from somewhere inside her blazer jacket. The pen clicked loudly, but then there was not a single sound to follow even as she clearly began to jot down everything the man was giving up in her own shorthand. Not the idle scratch of the paper or the quiet stick of the ink as she pressed and lifted the ballpoint tip from the page.
With one ordeal ( barely ) done, the agent was already looking for another curiosity case to pick apart, and even as her hand moved in an odd spiral pattern over her pages, her gaze slid back over to the phantom. " Hey. Be honest. Are you getting a little bit bored? With this job, I mean. " Without looking away from the eerie glow of the screens' blue light on the corner of his jawbone, Charlotte dotted an I, crossed a 7, and flipped to a fresh page. " I mean, we've only had one dead body and one assassination attempt so far. This guy wasn't even particularly difficult to find and break. I'm asking because you seemed bored. If you want, we could always find a way to fuck up the rendezvous tomorrow. Hm? "
