The Palace

[HarleyQuip]

@0stinato

A text lit up Ira's phone, or caused an unpleasant vibration in his pocket. If he were to open it it would read:

From - 000-000-0000



"Oi! Ya fuck... Chess? Ya don't matter. Anyways what are you doin'? Just pulled the briefcase on an op if you're interested if not I can do it without you. Message me asap if you wanna get in on this shitstorm, shouldn't have to remind you BUT MAKE SURE YOU COVER YOUR ASS. This shit is real prison time"

-Nully

Briefcase was code for laptop

Op was short for operation

 

[0stinato]

And her eyes had the fear, that was for sure. Like a mouse cornered by the cat, the fear but not the fight. Nothing to protect but herself, not even worried about whose lives she might be putting at risk, all she worried about now was the horror of her own life lost. And why? Because that's all she did have. Because anything else that she knew either relied on her or could survive on its own. Because she couldn't sacrifice herself for anything she had, she had to keep alive to keep it running. A mouse with no babies in peril, a careful and contained daily panic, a paw almost on her tail.


Ira rolled his shoulders, loosening the tension in them while he considered her question. He knew, of course, why he'd threaten her, he had one good reason for it. As he fixed her stare with his own, half his mind wondering what type of coffee he could compare their colour to, wondering if it would be inappropriate to say that out loud, his other part of his brain saw no reason to keep the reason from her - after all, she'd already given a tacit agreement at this stage.
 


"The threat's just to ensure you stay loyal," he said lazily. "You could run to the constabulary, of course you could. Give them my name, everything you know of me. Of course you could. So the threat - not an empty one either - is just to ensure you remain on side. You help me, I help you. And, when your point is over, I'll let you go. You never have to see my face again if you don't choose to. Remain in the company of your partner, with a fifth of your debt taken care of. I'm not surprised you're willing to take this risk despite everything that screams to you it's wrong to. In all these years, you've made no dent in your debt - you've only added to it by... a thousand or so? But after you've done this, we'll take it down to 41,000 cr. That's fair," he nodded to her.


"But, to set your mind at rest, here's a bit of something I... I've speculated. It's not concrete, not by any means, but this is what I have worked out. A few factors point at these corpses being created by one of the corporations. No names at the moment, but if you're speculating you'll probably guess which one. And this is the thing about the corporations - their public visage would never admit to causing a death, but I think everyone knows that the corporations kill more people in this city than cancer does. Which means, what's one more corpse? They become as frequent as dust, so taking a couple shouldn't be an issue. Who keeps an eye on dust? So, just do what I say. Discharge them, deliver them. To--"


Ira's voice was cut off by his phone which, lying carelessly beside his laptop on the low, matt-white table, vibrated a few millimetres to the left. Before it could make more racket, Ira opened it and glanced at the start of the message


From - 000-000-0000



"Oi! Ya fuck... Chess? Ya don't matter. Anyways...


And there the message trailed off into an ellipses, a little sign there was more to read. Chess. Two people called him Chess - Ema, and Alias. Ema only jokingly, Alias with narrowed eyes. With an apologetic glance to Fleur, he opened the message, skimmed through it and shook his head as he rested his phone back down. If Fleur had seen the message at all, he was confident it wouldn't change his lie. Still a player in a chess tournament.


Though he couldn't accept Alias' offer, he was busy. Her plans would have to progress without Ira for now - he was doing something much more close to home, much more personal, much more... necessary. Whatever her offer, intriguing though it was, would be a game Ira wouldn't be playing or even observing. Fleur was more important now, Lull was more important now in this little side-quest he'd stumbled upon.


"Apologies, I thought it may be Lars texting to apologise... Suppose I thought too highly of him. Do you have younger siblings? Nothing like the immaturity of a younger brother... Anyhow. Well. There's a warehouse down by the docks, 2D-48. Lars has a warehouse himself, but that's on 4D. I'd rather not get him involved in this if he's going to explode about the Will... either way, bring them, both if you can, if not, certainly the hermaphrodite, to 2D-48. I will be there from tomorrow evening, no matter how long it takes you to acquire them. Do you understand? Do this, you'll get your 10,000 cr."


@Mr_DC

 

[0stinato]

MR_DC

Fleur looked away as he examined her debt. She made no progress. It was as if she didn't even work on the debt. It was as if she hadn't lived in a coffin for her whole life. Like she didn't spend days and nights rummaging through corpses. Like she had time to find someone who loves her. Like she spent every night living it up.
Fleur blinked rapidly as her eyes started to tear up. She was giving up everything. Every single aspect of her life which made her feel like she was human - gone. She had nothing and even that wasn't enough. She was still sinking deeper. Drowning. Like she wasn't doing everything she could to stay alive.

She looked back at Ira. The man who collared her like a dog and told to fetch. The man who offered her a hand with her debt but... "Corporation?" Her eyebrows lazily arched up. She would have put more emotion into it but she felt dead inside now. She wouldn't be surprised by anything now. She had to choice and the situation has to be bad. It has to be. It's just how her life works. First, it breaks your legs so you can't escape and then crushes your fingers one by one.
But... What stopped her from going to a corporation first? If she managed to figure out what corporation he was sneaking under then maybe they could get rid of him for her. Maybe they wouldn't kill her too.

Fleur closed her eyes as his phone vibrated. She just wanted to sink her face in her palms and cry. She never thought about dying. About having a corporation on her tail. About her debts piling up so high people would start coming over to threaten her. And one way out was always there. Always in the corner. Just a step off the right edge. But she wouldn't give up like that. Not yet. Not ever. She wasn't that kind of a person. She intended to pull through it. Even if her debt was there when she was an old woman, she didn't intend to let it crush her.

"Fine." She answered, her voice trembling in spite of how hard she tried to sound determined. "I understand." She nodded, feeling like she was talked down to. Like her life was no longer in her hands. Like Ira was just another thug, slapping her around, repeatedly asking her if she understood that whatever horrible task she had was for her own good.
She had no intention of answering his question about her family. Not to a snake like that. "W..." She hesitated but decided to go through with the question. "What if I wanted to do more after getting you the bodies? Earn more, I mean." She blinked, her entire head twitching along that hard blink. If she was going to pickpocket death then might as well do it for all it has.

 

[0stinato]

What if she wanted to do more.

Ira already planned for her to do more. In the hastily sketched-out grid of what he needed verses what he had to give, he knew he'd need to get Fleur to do more even after delivering the bodies. And thank God she'd brought up that point - she was already broken down enough that if he'd asked her, he'd surely have been walked out on whenever he brought the idea forward. So - she was making this easier for him, and he wasn't about to stop her.

He touched his glasses lightly, narrowing his eyes at her, letting a few seconds drag by before he decided to formulate his answer to her question. This was an excellent situation for him. Well, it'd require him to empty his funds more, or, rather, to invest more in the 'third party' he'd mentioned. He doubted Fleur would want to be paid off directly by him - that wouldn't be a good situation for her. She'd probably worry so much he was going to take rather than give she'd not agree.

Besides, Ira had learned from experience that having some sort of third party made a deal more trustworthy. It showed that there was more than one person behind that side of the table, that it at least sounded slightly more official. At the word, your deal-partner would get some stranger to inject funds into your account. He would - apparently - not be a part of it.

"More," Ira said. "Of course, if you'd like."

He wanted to let it sound like it was her idea. Let her think she could make some of the rules here, let her think she had some steadfast point here. Even if she didn't, it wasn't any issue to Ira. He wasn't about to rip her off, he wasn't about to turn around and stab her in the back. He had gains to possess and she had needs. Though he could afford to find someone else. It would just be an inconvenience to him to have to do so. He'd rather keep Fleur on, keep her with what she knew. Keep her eyes.

"You must do the autopsies on corpses... or, if not, you'll have some knowledge in that area. Why, I see no point in having you collect them for me, under the radar, and then not putting your skills to good use," he tapped his lip and sat up straight. "Very well. Along with the 10,000 cr, I'll give you extra for the autopsies. 3,500 if you just do one. But, if you bring both and get results on them, it'll be another... 8,000?" he let out a careless laugh. "I probably shouldn't be flinging money around like this but... I'm sure you're not complaining. Does that sound like an acceptable deal? 10,000 cr for the delivery of one or both of them, 8,000 if you manage to get and determine the information about death for both."

Fleur. Fleur de Lorraine.

He almost wanted to ask her to do something else for him. But then it would be much more like buying her company rather than exchanging funds for information and assets. It would be buying her, it would be ungentlemanly, even if he did succeed in it. It wouldn't be anything raunchy if he was to try... just persuade her gently to go to dinner with him... but he decided against it. Not because he didn't want to, not because of Miky... no, more because he was certain she'd refuse the offer. And he'd already pressed her a lot. It was time for her to return to the bliss of her own company, to leave the hotseat she was sitting in, legs together, lips tight, uncomfortable in anything.

He sat back again, raising his eyebrows as he looked at his fingernails. He wasn't pressuring her - he simply wanted her to, once more, agree.

 

[0stinato]

MR_DC

No, I wouldn't like. Fleur frowned. She had to but she didn't want to. She was forced to do it. And he knew it well. That's why he offered the job to her. Because she had no choice than to accept. And now she asked for more. What a disappointment she became to herself. Then again, she was always nothing more than a disappointment. Just a little fish with a deformed fin trying to survive in the sea of sharks.

She nodded at his offer. It was a good one. A great one. Almost too good. What guarantee did she have she would come out of that warehouse alive when all was said and done? What stopped him from just slitting her throat with one of her scalpels? Or maybe turning her in for stealing the corpses?
But she had little choice. In the end, she would have to comply. That, when it came down to it, was the only option she truly had. Obey.

"Fine." Fleur nodded, feeling like the ball was rolling. Like saying now was impossible now. She heard of those stories. People committing sins, each only slightly worse than the other. Each just to keep the previous a secret. In the end, they committed atrocities, just to keep one small sin a secret. One stolen corpse.

"Is that all?" She looked at him, her eyelids feeling heavy, her face numb. She needed air. Air and... Then she would get it over with. Just do as told.

 

[0stinato]

She wasn't... speaking as much as Ira would've liked to hear. Either it was his own desire to hear her voice or perhaps he didn't want her to feel in a situation of such weakness at this point. Even if she was tied to do everything he'd said - both by her own agreement and her need - he didn't want her to feel like she couldn't make a decision for herself. But the conversation was over, Ira could say no more without weakening his own position. And he'd rather he was on top than lower himself to meet her.

"That is all," he said, rising to his feet. He began to pat his pockets before remembering Ema had stolen his lighter, so sighed quietly before giving her yet another apologetic glance. "Do excuse me, for the time being. I'm going to head outside for a few minutes," he began to dig in the pockets of his satchel, the strap of which was rested on one edge of the coffin pod at the edge of the room. He eventually withdrew a shoddy-looking lighter.

This action, Ira knew, described him almost perfectly. His fancy-pants blue-flamed lighter had been stolen so he'd reverted to his Plan B - a worse-looking, worse-acting version of Plan A. It was exactly what Ira had in every aspect of his life. He'd set up Plan A, but, if something got in its way or stopped it, he'd always have a backup. And the backup did the job every time. Who cared if Ema had stolen his lighter, he had another one anyway.

He pocketed the small thing, organising anything else he might need on the short trip outside this evening, before meeting Fleur's eye again, "I'd say you'd be welcome to join me should you wish to, but I can tell you'd rather not be in my presence anymore. And you needn't be, at least, not until... shall we say... twenty hours have passed?" he smiled. "Though I'll be moving down to the docks early tomorrow, so whenever you get the bodies to me will be good. I suppose that's up to you. Depends how much you want the payment. And don't worry about tools, I'll provide them. Might be slightly different to what you're used to but either way. So."

Ira moved to the door, letting Fleur out as he himself left. As soon as they both left the threshold of the room, the lights faded out into nothingness, and Ira heard the soft click of the door lock behind him. It'd not open again until he laid his fingerprints on it, or forced it open with his decoder.

"Until tomorrow," Ira said with a smile, stretching his hand out so they could temporarily part ways civilly. The last thing he wanted was for her to distrust him too much. If she decided to do something else other than what he wished, it'd be a bother, but, as with the lighter in his pocket, he had a Plan B.

A Plan B which was, even at this second, a few keystrokes away from engaging on his PC. A Plan B that he'd almost turned to before Fleur had made herself known to him alone. A Plan B that he wasn't going to discard. After all, he there was no such thing as being too careful.

Mr_DC

 

[Mr_DC]

0stinato

"Yeah." Fleur said almost soundlessly. She wanted to go. To leave him. The man who trapped her. Or was she too rough on him? No. He didn't trap her but he took advantage of the situation she was in. Offering a hand, only to tie her to it. Momentarily. With a promise of payment in the end. Would he be good for it? Would it matter?

She looked down at his hand as they walked out of the apartment. A handshake? Her brow furrowed. A handshake. After what just happened. A handshake. With a sigh, she took his hand. She couldn't force a smile to match his, though. She didn't like how he made her feel. Weak. Like she was just a means to an end. Like she didn't matter. To anyone.

Fleur cut the handshake short and headed to the elevator. She wasn't sure if she would go up for some air or down and to the morgue to get it over with. A part of her wanted to just sit on the edge of the building and look at the city which kept taking her life away. At the city she would probably die in.
She was afraid of that part of her. The dark one. The one who saw no way out except sitting too close to the edge of The Palace. She was afraid of that part as it constantly grew stronger. At least Miky was there. To put that part to rest.

But she wasn't there now. She was out, relaxing. A night she deserved. She had the ability to relax. And didn't need Fleur's burdens on herself. Fleur decided - Go to the morgue and get it done without telling Miky a word about it. She didn't want her worrying. She didn't want her to do anything drastic.
It would be just a quick job. Back by the next day to spend a night with her partner. With the only person making life easier.

The elevator ride down passed quickly with Fleur preoccupied with her self-pity. She didn't even glance at a pair of ground floor residents sitting in the hallway, sticking syringes into their arms. It wasn't anything unusual. It actually made her feel better most of the time, as horrible as that sounded. Knowing that she could be like them, addicted to something which would kill her. Spending all her money on it. It made her feel better. As long as she didn't think about how similar that was to her debt.

With the keys to her bike in hand, Fleur walked out of the building and turned to the thin, cheap garages built into The Palace.
She froze, mouth slowly opening, eyebrows arching upwards, and her eyes unfocusing. Her bike keys slid between her fingers as she stared at the garage where her bike was, the door forced open and contents empty. The bike which would have cut her debt by a good quarter if she sold it - gone. The only possession which made her feel like she wasn't a complete deadbeat - gone.

Fleur blinked, her expression relaxing. She wouldn't cry. She couldn't. That was just how things were. She was on the ground and people lined up to kick her. She wasn't going to cry but she felt miserable. She was finally nothing. Completely insignificant. Boken.
But she wasn't over yet. Not just yet. Each step feeling like it was her last, Fleur continued. She walked on to her workplace. To the morgue.

 

[0stinato]

Ira waited a few minutes until Fleur had left. Going down in the elevator together wouldn't be ideal, not for him or for her. So he let her do what she had to, let her go. She had her free will back again, though he was still holding her lead loosely. Couldn't have her running off. He didn't want that.

So, to kill the time, he decided to take a few minutes preparing himself for the next steps. So, upon re-entering his rented room, he opened his laptop again, telling himself he'd have to get a more permanent desktop set up. It wasn't that his sleek machine couldn't handle the processes, it was that it couldn't do them quickly enough. Ira liked efficiency, enjoyed being able to leave a programme running through picking apart securities and firewalls while he had a cup of tea. That was a good break, the length of a cup of tea. But if he was able to fit in a three-mile jog into the time, he'd only get sarky and restless.

Still, today it would have to be a sarky and restless feeling. At least, in a few minutes. Firstly, Ira transferred 18,000 cr, in bitcoin form, from his occupational account to his third-party's account. At least, it was semi-third-party. In actual truth, it was a bot account, just there to fill space and keep active dependant on Ira's instructions. The bot spent enough to keep outside of the realm of suspicion, but was nothing more than that. Ira bought most of the things he thought Ema might require in her project from the bot account. Used it as his 'third-party' account.

He'd relay instructions to transfer Fleur's payment across when she completed her part of the deal. She needed the money, he wasn't about to stiff her on this. Didn't want to. Ira could lie all he liked, as long as everything was wrapped nicely in a veil of truth. Tell her he was a competitive chess player, tell her a thousand other little lies, but as long as he delivered the money... she'd have no reason to distrust him.

Ira sat back, about to call his work done for the day, before he frowned. After spending a few minutes considering, he sat forward again and injected another 5,500 cr into his bot account. For safety. Not sure he'd have to use it, but if not, he could make use of the bitcoins another way. He'd taken quite a substantial chunk out of his own account by now, one that made him wince a little, but it was all necessary. And, should he not need to fall back on the 5,500 cr, he might be able to afford another night in this place. Hopefully.

Deciding not to think about it, he set about privatising and purging his computer of the records of payment, as well as scrambling his IP address, rigging it to re-encrypt itself every fifteen seconds. This was a technique he'd learned from Nully. Now it was second-nature to him. Though he could only do this manually - his decoder hadn't the capacity to sort that out yet. Perhaps with an upgrade, perhaps if he worked on a second decoder later he could use what he needed and what he'd learned from Nully to improve himself.

He shrugged. Unimportant now. His business here was done, at least as far as he thought it needed to be done. Fleur would get the corpses for him, Ira had her payment ready. It would work.

He stood, pulling out his lighter as he left his computer to finish the final shutdown steps, before leaving the room. The lights dimmed once again as Ira made his lethargic way outside for a smoke.

Mr_DC
(Ira feels quite omnipotent at the moment, I've noticed. I suppose I see him as Fleur's "antagonist" of sorts so intimidating/omnipotent is a good feel? But still - bigger they are, the harder they fall and all that.)

 

[0stinato]

"So what happened with Fleur?"

"Nothing much. A deal was made, we're both going to get the cut we're entitled to and want, so... yeah, nothing too terrible. Took a bit of convincing but that's what I do, isn't it."

"Don't talk in epithets and implied phrases, it really pisses me off, you trying to sound all cool like this. I don't even know what you were going to talk about, how am I supposed to make sense of that?"

"... Ah, bad night?"

"No just... sorry I just... it's, no, it was fine, it was all fine, Miky was fine, the Dancer was fine... it was fine."

"Remember when one of the rooms in the Dancer got lit up by a rogue firework, you watched the news and laughed. I know you don't like the place, so it must've meant you really didn't want to be around me. But I suppose it's good to hear the time went by without too much fuss. You need friends, sometimes."

"Says you with no friends."

"Hah, I do have friends. I just can't see them very often--"

"Or talk about them, tell me that they exist--"

"I just can't see them very often because, well, I'm a fucking con man? Same with you, not seeing friends. I'm sure you'd be looked for either for your expertise or for Catastrophic to be taken away from you to be used as some sort of weapon for, I don't know, MosTech or something. Maybe not, you're trying to make her sleeker I suppose..."

"Yeah, well, all my friends are dead so it doesn't matter. And you get Lull's Will for some fucking reason."

"Better than it be traced back to you that's what I thought. He agreed, so we agreed I'd get it, I'd get power of attorney, I'd have the lawful authority about his possessions but honestly I'd let you take what you want. It was for safety, yours, his, mine. Didn't do him any good but he didn't care about dying anyway. If you'd let me explain we could've talked about it sooner."

"If you'd explained quicker we'd have been able to talk about it sooner."

"Christ. Does it matter, I've got his Will, we get his stuff. You get whatever you want. Sentiment or otherwise. And Lois' stuff too, obviously..."

"Yeah yeah. Fucking pin his old apron on my fucking wall."

"... Well, if you like. One thing I might need though--"

"God! See, you say one thing but you don't say the whole of it, do you? It's always You can have whatever you want except this."

"Listen to me, for Christ's sake. I might need his phone, but that's it, that's all I might need. If it's that important to you, I'll give it to you if I don't need it."

"Right, fine."

"Provided I can get access to his things, his and Lois' things. Might not be able to."

"Why not."

"Just... got a bad hunch and I don't want it to be the case but... yeah, don't get too excited about pinning his apron on your wall."

"What is it? What's the hunch?"

"I can't say for certain, and I don't want to say in case I jinx myself. Shouldn't have to tell you either, I'm relatively sure your mind already went there anyway. Before, when I met Miky and Fleur, I think you... had the same idea."

"No. Come on. No, you can't be serious, I mean... well..."

"Know how he died? Any idea? I just got the Will, I didn't... get anything else."

"Well, yeah, I went to the morgue to see him before I came here. Looked dreadful though.... like a colander, you know? Or that's what I imagined, they kept his body pretty well covered, said there were some things I wasn't really allowed to see unless I signed documents, which I didn't care for at the time..."

"So?"

"... Right well, Lois was strangled, I'm pretty sure, and Lull was shot. Like, a lot."

"Shot?"

"Fucking shot."

"Why wasn't Lois shot?"

"Pretty sure Lull killed her himself."