Stages

[Ascendancy]

Trano struggled with something, but what it was, Reed had no clue.

She did not look amused by his whining. This was the badass the agency predicted to win the Presidency? Politics aside, she had a job to do. If Trano wasn't going to scoop his own balls off the sidewalk, she'd do it for him.

The short drive to the hotel was delayed by traffic. By the time they pulled to the front entrance, she'd transferred the bottle to the floor and rearranged her workwear. Just before exiting the car, a ding from her Wallet gave her pause long enough to glance at the screen....

...and flip into action mode.

She pulled the door shut and spun around. In a flash she was across the car and snatched Trano's hand, yanking him back before he had two feet on the ground.

"Custody agents," she warned with a hiss. Whatever Trano had done to get out of that room unmolested, well it was now coming back to bite him in the ass.

"Drive!" She ordered. The man behind the wheel, apparently unbothered by the proximity to government conduct, aggressively carried the vehicle back into traffic.

Somehow not disheveled, Reed punched command after command on the Wallet until a video screen lifted in front of her face.

Her jaw clenched at what was beheld.

It was their suite. Not a pillow was out of place, but two men in suits were walking around like they owned the place. "Abrams should be there." She said, seething, but watching closely. "Wait," she whispered to herself. The camera on their room was a static, single position view, and she cursed Abrams for not letting her put up the full perimeter.

Splayed fingers zoomed in on the image and sure enough, there he was. Dead.

She took an angry breath and flipped nearly upside down, reaching far under the seat. Double clicks quickly followed. She pulled out a spare .22, a jamming device, and a flask. The .22 she checked quickly and set aside. The jamming device she flipped on and jammed it into the flooboard. The flask she chugged.

She called to the driver an address southeast of the Kremlin in Zamoskvoreche. Very quickly, the neighborhoods took a downward turn.

Finally, she turned to Trano, "Let's cut the bullshit, Trano." She slid along the seat to get close enough to lower her voice to a quiet seething dare, "Either we're blown or you fucked something up. Custody agents, Trano!" There was a thin layer of fear behind all her bravado. "There has to be something else that you're not telling me."

[Nolan Trace]

Well shit.
He didn't have to see the screen to know things weren't right. The look on her face was enough for him to know it was bad. It took him a moment to notice Abrams lying dead on the floor.

Reed might have been a bitch, but any woman with an emergency flask was worthy of Nicholas Trano's respect. Still, there wasn't much talking between the two of them until she had their driver headed for a safe house in Zamoskvoreche.

Once the car was moving again, she slid close to him. "Let's cut the bullshit, Trano." He could tell whatever was in the emergency flask wasn't nearly strong enough--or she was a mean drunk.

"Either we're blown or you fucked something up. Custody agents, Trano!" If it weren't Reed, he'd have said she was terrified. "There has to be something else that you're not telling me."

Great. Back to explaining that I'm a wizard.

That was still a conversation he wasn't interested in having, so he looked for an alternate route--and found one.

"You already know everything I do."
Lying was only bad if you got caught. "Besides, it didn't even take us ten minutes to get back to the hotel. They didn't kill Abrams because of me. They must have been on to you--us--for a while."
He paused for a second to let that sink in.

"So is there something you're not telling me?"



Edited by Nick Trano, Oct 9 2013, 06:15 PM.

[Ascendancy]

As much as she hated to admit it, Trano was right. There was something Reed wasn't telling him. But she wasn't going to explain it all right now. She did, however, toss him the flask. "You're going to need this."


The neighborhood was dour and grim, but it was still in fact a neighborhood. The road itself was lined with cars parked in like canned sardines. The few people out were collar-up and head-down. Moscovites liked their personal space, and did not appreciate invasions of privacy.

Around the corner from an all-night corner store, the car pulled into a skinny drive that wound to the back of a three-floor, three-unit apartment.

The driver pulled some keys from a compartment in the door and jumped out. Reed followed.

A crickety flight of stairs led to a dingy hallway lit by broken sconces. The hall itself smelled of cat piss and vomit. In fact, yes, there were more than one questionable stain on the tattered runner stapled to the stairs.

Three flights later, the car driver, who coincidentally was the same man that had been driving Trano around all week, unlocked the door.

Reed said something quietly to him, then went on in the apartment. He stayed behind. He cleared his throat, and nodded that Trano follow.

Inside, Reed dumped her things on a table and tossed her coat across the back of the couch like grandma's afghan. At least it smelled better in here. Barely. Her study of the room quickly included the splay of Wallet screens hovering above a table, two of which were on screensaver -- a dark-skinned beauty bathing under a Tahitian waterfall, a nude beauty. She quickly moved on. The trash can overflowed with old take-out boxes. Firearms stripped for cleaning had the look of someone bored to tears, as did a muted television screen.

She put her hands on her hips, turning in that slow circle back until she faced Nicholas once more. Just then, they heard a bathroom flush from the other room. The guy who came out rubbing his hands on an old tea towel was a lanky, dark skinned man in his middle years with a fuzz of black hair on his chin. The appearance of strangers in his place startled him.

"What the--!"
He muttered, accent neutral, but definitely not Russian. He blinked at Nicholas, whom he instantly recognized, then turned to Reed with a very ghastly stare."Shit, Sam!"
He dropped the towel and rubbed his chin. "What the hell happened!"

[Nolan Trace]

"Thanks."
She'd emptied most of the flask, but when Nicholas shook it he could tell there was at least something left in it. Of course, the words that accompanied the flask were both ominous and cryptic. Either he was about to be bored out of his mind, or he was about to be faced with some really bad news.

Out the window, he could see the neighborhood wasn't poor, but it wasn't wealthy either. Cookie cutter houses were packed in almost as tightly as the cars, and the people wandering about looked shady at best. At least it was the last place Nikolai Brandon would expect him to hide. Bastard.


Trano couldn't exactly call Abrams a friend, but anyone who murdered--or ordered the murder of--an American deserved a violent death. That wasn't exactly a fair way of looking at things, but putting Americans first had always been his manner of thinking, and his duty. A healthy hatred of Nikolai Brandon helped, of course.

When they finally parked, the driver got out and beckoned them to follow. The guy didn't talk much, but it was plainly obvious--as if it hadn't been before--that he was one of the CIA agents working in the background. He led them inside one of the buildings--a small three-floored apartment building--and up a few flights of stairs. The place smelled like shit.

Finally they reached a door, and the driver stayed behind after ushering Trano and Reed inside. The room smelled a little bit better than the rest of the building, but not by much. The scent of rotting food and human habitation wasn't exactly pleasant. Still, he could tell that Reed had been there before. It was with confident familiarity that she tossed her coat on the couch and dumped the rest of her belongings on the table.

Then Trano heard a flush from the bathroom, and they both turned towards the door. A tall, dark-skinned and awkward looking man stood in the doorway. "What the hell--" Clearly he wasn't expecting guests. Maybe he'd have cleaned up a little better if he were.

Once he recognized Trano--which was to say, almost instantly--he rounded on Reed. "Shit, Sam! What the hell happened?"

Trano answered for her. "Abrams is dead,"
he glanced at Reed. "Assuming that's his actual name. Custody agents probably want to kill the rest of us too."


He took a moment to open the flask up. He took a whiff, and was pretty surprised. Whatever was in it was damn strong--smelled like the stuff one of his friends' grandmothers used to distill before he left for the Navy. His respect-o-meter for "Sam" was rising.

Of course, he still didn't like her that much, and she was more than happy to show him why. "Trano managed to escape a secure room right after some kind of terror attack." She put her hands back on her hips as she turned to examine Nicholas. Alright, not too bad. Didn't even insult me yet.


"When he got to the car--and he still hasn't explained how the hell he managed that--he kept babbling about exploding lights and Ascendancy staring at him." Trano sighed. She was on such a roll, too.


Incidentally, it was the longest consecutive speech Trano had ever heard out of Reed. He wasn't about to interrupt--she needed to work those vocal chords out for her own health. She turned back to Tall-Awkward and kept talking. "It took us eight minutes to get back to the hotel. When we got there," she flicked her eyes to Trano, "our camera showed a pair of men in suits walking around the suite, and Abrams was dead on the floor.

After all that, the tall guy didn't even have anything to say. He just turned and half-jumped to his computer chair. Within moments he had a half dozen holo screens floating in front of him. Trano took that time to walk closer to Reed. "What did you mean "our" camera?"
She'd clearly emphasized the word, but he didn't know why.

He heard her mutter "shit" before sighing and answering. "Guess there's no way around telling you now."
Edited by Nick Trano, Oct 10 2013, 10:01 PM.

[Ascendancy]

Reed was on the verge of following her teammate to the computer, but the pull of Trano's question turned her back.

"Caught that did you?"
She crossed her arms. Trano wasn't as dumb as he looked.

She sighed and walked to the kitchen. The old fridge had some bottles of water which she pulled one for each of them. However since the water wasn't spiked with vodka, she doubted Trano would be interested. Still, she tossed him one anyway.

The space would give Shawn space to work. "I meant the camera that CDPS doesn't know exists."
She popped the cap and chucked it toward the trashcan. It bounced off a take-out box and rolled away. She shrugged. "Six years ago I was recruited by Custody Intelligence. Two years ago I defected to the CIA. Shawn there,"
she nodded toward the man pounding away at the computers, "is also CIA. Your driver is CIA. Abrams,"
she took a breath. The man had been her partner, and despite being the enemy, they were friends. She peered into the water bottle, wishing she had the luxury to drink good hard liquor, but she had to remain clear-headed.

"Abrams is Custody Intelligence. The CCD brought you here under false pretenses, Trano."
She looked him in the eye, remembering the day she'd met him at his house. She'd been wearing TWO Lens Warriors, a contact in each eye, each hooked to separate agencies. She'd barely been able to see to walk up the steps to his place.

"Luckily, I informed the real CIA what was happening, and they have been supporting us in the background ever since. Why CDPS killed Abrams is a goddamn mystery! Either we're"
she yelled, hand waving around the room, "blown, or something else happened!"


Her mind buzzed. Maybe another agency was involved. Chinese intelligence crawled across Moscow like roaches. Even the Australians had a small presence here. Not to mention every cartel and drug lord in South America employing their own special forces.

She took a breath, "so I can't take you back to that hotel until we figure out what's going on and who knows what. So you might as well get comfortable, it looks like we might be here a while."
She looked stressed, but held it together for anyone in her situation.

She stepped into his sphere, lowering her voice. With her heels, she nearly looked him eye to eye. Close enough to scent a waft of her perfume. "To the Custody, you are small fish, Trano,"
she began critically, "but you could be a Great White. I'm going to make sure you live long enough to become the thing Brandon fears."
She smirked, "though I don't see what has him so worried."

[Nolan Trace]

He really wanted to believe her story--it'd be a lot simpler that way. But she did join Custody intelligence first, and he really had no proof that she wasn't playing him. For all he knew, Abrams was the CIA agent and she was still Custody.

She continued. "But you could be a Great White. I'm going to make sure you live long enough to become the thing Brandon fears." She smirked, "though I don't see what has him so worried."

Grand gestures and statements from Reed aside, Trano had only one question. "So why did you do it? Where are you actually from?"


She backed away pretty quickly from that one. "That's not an easy question to answer, Trano." The look on her face told him it was time to shut up.

He wasn't going to be deflected so easily, though. "We've got nothing but time, Reed. I want to trust the woman who has the power to get me killed on a whim."
He crossed his arms and waited.

She just smirked. "It looks like you have no other choice." She turned and walked back to the couch, sitting down to watch tall-awk--Shawn
--work.

Silence stretched for a few minutes--during which Trano took the chance to lean against the edge of the counter and empty the last of Reed's flask. Finally she glanced back at him. "St. Petersburg," she said with more than a hint of a Russian accent.

After she gave the opening, he dove right on in. "So why did a Russian decide to switch sides? I'm pretty damn certain the pay's worse."
The list of reasons for a natural born Russian to defect to the U.S. was very short.

She fixed him with that challenging stare of hers. "Why do you think?"

Logic rarely applied in decisions like those. "Realize Nikolai Brandon's a bit of a bastard?"
It was probably something personal, and he didn't want to guess. Best he could do was draw it out of her.

His question scored a smirk. "I'm not a double agent because of his cute ass." Not exactly the response he was looking for. Still, at least she didn't shut him out; he could keep probing.

"Then why?"


Reed went back to her flat stare. "Look. I'm not going to divulge every state secret I know," she stood back up and crossed her arms, "But yeah. He does Stalin proud." With that, she walked over to Shawn. Either something important came up that Trano missed, or she didn't want to go any further with that particular conversation. Probably the latter.


Trano sighed and went back to searching the kitchen. It was going to be a long, boring couple of days. Maybe they've got something to drink.


He only got to search for a couple minutes before his wallet started ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked the number. Jon Little Bird. The hell?
He must have moved his contacts over to the secure wallet the CIA had given him. That didn't explain how Jon got the number.

It was probably a dumb risk, but he picked up the call. He'd been told the encryption tech on the CIA-issued wallet offered some modicum of safety."Jon? Hello?"


There was a slight pause before Jon's voice came through the line. "Nick Trano? I thought that was your voice I heard earlier."


Now that was odd--Trano had no idea how Jon got the number. "It's me, but I think you're mistaken. I didn't call you."
Which still left the question of how Jon got the number. Nicholas was more than a little surprised to be getting a call from him of all people--then of all times.

"You sure did just a minute ago."
Jon seemed pretty sure of himself. "I wasn't aware you even had my number. What's up?"


<strong>Son of a bitch...</strong>
He must have butt dialed him. I thought you couldn't
do that with a wallet!
He didn't think Jon heard the muffled curse. "Nothing incredibly interesting."
He sent a flat look of his own at Reed and Shawn. "I've been meaning to call you though. How's Moscow treating you?"


"It's enough to make you miss home, that's for sure."
Again, that weird slight delay. Maybe it was the phone's security. "I read that you were out here as well, that correct?"


He shrugged it off--probably the liquor. "Yeah. I've been given the privilege of accompanying Nikolai Brandon's propaganda team for a few weeks."


Jon chuckled at that. He knew how much Trano hated the Custody's press. Not that it was exactly a secret. "That's got to be fun for you."


"Not really."
He sighed tiredly. "I'm better at being the marksman than the target."


Maybe it was something in his voice--he didn't think he sounded that stressed, but there was a long pause. "Target?"


"Turn of phrase."
He decided there was no time like the present to direct the conversation away from that uncomfortable subject. "So, you get the chance to talk to Napoli again after you thrashed him?"


"No, I haven't seen him around."
Sadly, the redirection didn't work out. "You sound a little stressed--everything okay?"


Trano figured what the hell, Jon would find out about the "terror attack" soon enough anyways. He half-chuckled as he begun, "Just keep an eye on the news tomorrow morning."


He didn't notice Reed until she was right in front of him and looking like she was about to punch him in the face. "Look, Jon, I've got to go. I'll talk to you soon."


Before the call ended, Jon got most of a sentence out. "That doesn't sound too good... need anything, let me know."


He looked down at Reed. She was pissed.


Edited by Nick Trano, Oct 20 2013, 04:26 PM.

[Ascendancy]

After Trano's phone rang, Reed was quickly at his side. Hands on her hips, she was not pleased. However, despite the ability to plant Trano's face to the floor and take his phone away, she refrained for now. "Who was that?" She demanded.

The Wallet was secure, of course. Then again, with a double agent in the room, Reed was highly suspect of mysterious calls. Rather than CIA issue, it was part of the scam like everything else on this trip. Trano's Wallet was CDPS-issued.

"You're still not getting this Trano," she stuck out her hand, demanding to see the Wallet. "You can thank Shawn over there for rerouting the GPS on your phone away from this location." As far as the Custody was concerned, Trano's phone was sitting in a quietly posh strip club two miles to the east.

She rubbed her temple a moment and turned away, momentarily feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. The moment of vulnerability ended quickly, and Reed checked the phone a few minutes until she was satisfied in its security.

[Nolan Trace]

"You can thank Shawn over there for rerouting the GPS on your phone away from this location."

That was more than a little embarrassing. Trano had no idea how he'd forgotten something so important. Everything the "CIA" had given him was Custody tech. It was definitely the liquor. He gave Reed's flask a pointed look.

"This is embarrassing."
He muttered as he glanced down at the compromised device. "It was Jon Little Bird. Hot shot lawyer, fights for the little guy. Heard of him?"


She gave him one of her smirks. "I might have heard something about him." At least she didn't seem quite as pissed off. "Did you hear the Solicitor General he went against--" she paused for dramatic effect and raised a pair of air quotes "--killed himself?"

"Yeah."
He said dryly. If he'd learned anything about the Custody from his time in Moscow, it was that some of his accusations had been a lot more accurate than he'd expected. "What, you know the guys who actually did it?"


Reed's mouth formed a thin line. From the look on her face, it was pretty obvious she knew exactly who did it.

"You don't have to tell me."
It didn't really matter to him which nameless faceless Custody spook did their killing anyways. No matter which one it was he'd be just as dead. Besides, if the culprit was who he thought it was he felt better not knowing for sure. "So, where do we go from here? Any information pop up?"
He gestured towards Shawn. "You ran over to his desk a while ago."


"He'll tell us when there's something to learn," she said flatly.

He sighed. "Cryptic."


Now that set her on the defensive. "Information isn't instantaneous you idiot!" He would have told her she was pretty when she was angry, but that would have probably gotten him decked. "Let the man do his job!"


Edited by Nick Trano, Oct 20 2013, 05:46 PM.

[Ascendancy]

Reed turned on her heel and left Trano alone with the heat of her flash lingering. Shawn was hard at work, and drifting between Russian and Chinese with every other call. All his work was hidden by simple rerouting codes that hackers would trace the signal across the world. His lanky torso was humped over a table crammed with holo-screens and equipment. Some of it required so much power, hard lines had to be run direct from the power box outside.

She prayed Shawn would come up with some kind of explanation. Meanwhile, she knew that Custody agents would be looking for her AND Trano.

The apartment was small. The kitchen, table, and living area was all one big room. There were only two other doors. One went to the bathroom, and Reed disappeared through the other. She flipped on the light in the bedroom as the corner of her mind that saw Abrams laying on the floor shut itself off in exchange.

She had her own phone call to make, and the steady pacing of her heels back and forth across the old floors said she was anxious while making it. Finally, the steady sound of her voice ended with an affirmation of orders, though she gave an identification number, there was no way to tell which side she was contacting, and she placed her own Wallet aside.

The furniture looked like it was in as good a shape in here as it was out there. In front of the silvery pool of a mirror, she pulled the lens warrior from one eye and blinked with relief. The lenses were thick and painful to wear, but she never really realized how much so until taking one out.

Finally, she turned in a slow circle, feeling powerless and played. From the other room, she could tell Shawn was still working hard. She wasn't hungry at all. She could go for a shower, but would rather stand out in the rain than bathe in a tub shared with Shawn. The guy was a pig. Which meant there wasn't much else to do. She sat on the edge of the bed, feet crossed at the ankle.

"Trano," she called him in. As he appeared in the door, Shawn turned and flailed one arm upward that they be quiet. Reed shrugged and lowered her voice, "shut the door behind you."

Her gaze narrowed considerably, studying him with a rather academic air. "Why does the Ascendancy give a shit about you?"

Trano waved the question off. "Probably because half the U.S. hangs on my every word, and a lot of those words are 'Nikolai Brandon is an asshole.'"


Full of himself, wasn't he? Media stars always thought they were the center of the universe. "You really going to run for President?"

He shrugged. "We'll see. I'm not exactly a traditional candidate."


Reed lifted a brow and shot off a quick response. "Why's that? Because you're not a fat old man who can't find his cock in the blubber?" He was far from that.

Trano answered with enough a serious tone that Reed almost believed his sincerity. "No wife. Never held public office. Don't go to church every Sunday. Only thing I've got is a stint in the military and the love of the people."
He leaned back against the dresser where Reed had plucked the contact lens. "I'd rather not be the real life Charlie Kane."


She stared flatly at that final reference, amused that he thought he was so clever. Honestly, she had no idea who Charlie Kane was.

"So you don't think you can win?"

"Just weighing my options, Reed. I can do a lot of good where I am. Failed presidential bids aren't great for credibility,"
he replied.

She shook her head with disappointment. "Trano," she got up and crossed to him, "Brandon doesn't want you to run. He wants you broken" she tapped him hard on the chest, deadly serious, "And here you are saying you don't think you're going to win because you're not a married Sunday School teacher?" She flushed in shock of what she was hearing, daring him to set her straight.

[Nolan Trace]

"And here you are saying you don't think you're going to win because you're not a married Sunday School teacher?" She really thought it was that simple.

"If I go with the republicans I'm not even getting my foot in the door--and with Dawson at their head they're almost as suicidal as they were when I was born. Democrats?"
He barked a humorless laugh. "I won't get their nomination--I'm not begging Brandon to take over. So what does that leave?"
He pretended to ponder the question. "It doesn't leave me very many good options, that's what. Third parties don't win in America."


She threw her hands up, "Well then it looks like his job is done then! She practically stabbed him in the chest with her finger. "I might as well toss you back to the wolves!" That was an empty threat if he'd ever heard one.

Still, if she was trying to bait him she was doing a damn good job. "You think it's because I'm scared of Brandon?"


She scoffed. "You should be scared of him." She had that 'about to punch someone' look on her face again.

"You don't even know what he--"
he started over. "I'm not backing down because the asshole's got me scared. I haven't even backed down for Christ's sake!"
He realized he was getting a little too heated. "All I'm trying to do is point out that I've got an uphill battle ahead of me. And it's a goddamn steep hill."


She frowned, ignoring the rest of his excuses. "What he--what?"

Crap. I was hoping she wouldn't pick up on that.
Fact was, he wasn't about to tell her he could use magic. But if I could show her...
Honestly, with the boat they were in keeping that a secret was probably not the best idea. He just needed to find the right time.

"Look, it's nothing. Just the usual--he's a dangerous psychopath."


Reed visibly exhaled, perhaps disappointed that he hadn't given a better excuse. She stalked away to sit on the edge of the bed once more, the only other place to sit in sight. Besides the old spring loaded mattress, there were two more cots crammed in the room. The bed looked relatively untouched.

She crossed her arms. "Dangerous, yes. Psychopath, maybe." She scoffed like she could attest to that fact more than most. "The only reason the CIA wants you alive is because he wants you gone. So there must be a reason. But clearly even you don't know what it is." She glanced at the reflection of herself in the mirror. She looked sharply away as though displeased with what she saw. "I guess I was wanting to hear there was a light at the end of this hellish tunnel."

He sighed, and crossed the room. <strong>This better work...</strong>
The focusing part wasn't as hard as it was the first time. Reach for the light at the edges of your vision... woah.
If he figured out how to do that on a whim he could quit drinking. Once he had a finger nail's grip on it, the rest was simple.

He could see everything perfectly. For the first time that night he noticed that he had left his glasses in the car. Every thread on the flea-ridden mattress, every hair on Reed's head. He had control--now he just had to prove it.

The yellow wires... they seemed the most harmless--almost like air. With a thought, they coiled around her wrist and he pulled her to him. "That count for your light at the end of the hellish tunnel?"


To be honest, he was more than a little surprised it even worked.


Edited by Nick Trano, Oct 20 2013, 08:24 PM.