Who: Callum and Gideon What: A brief encounter implying villainy and job offers. Where: Gideon's suite at the Venetian. When: Shortly before the Altersplosion. Warnings: None.
There had never been a time in his life when Gideon had deluded himself into thinking he wasn’t somehow fundamentally broken. By all rights, whatever he lacked was considered a positive trait in business, and he was rich enough that any negative results could be brushed away as neatly as sand off stone. But he’d never considered himself really abhorrent, either; he wasn’t his father or his brother. Unlike them, he’d developed subtlety and patience and - this was the important part - limitations. A reputation was a powerful thing in the current day and age, liable to be shattered permanently at the slightest mistake.
This lead to him not really getting along with Acheron, who tried to lure Gideon into worse things than he was used to. Murder, torture, blackmail - they were all fairly standard, but he wasn’t going to go out of his way to make use of them. He had a business to run. There wasn’t time to take a break and steal some priceless artifact only to smash it to pieces just to see if it broke people’s morale. Acheron didn’t mind having a tar-stained reputation, and in fact took pride in it, but that wasn’t Gideon’s place in the world. Rumors were fine. Dislike was par the course. But there would never be a scandal against him.
That was where other people came into use.
It didn’t take much time to get the name of someone who could potentially be of great use to him in hunting down information when he needed it. It would be tricky to try and use someone currently under the watchful eye of the CIA, but there were advantages to it, as well. And an alibi, of course. After all, his job was to give work to the unemployed, and who else could find a paycheck for a hacker at the bottom of the pit?
The leash the agency had on him was short, but long enough to let him roam and do what he wanted, so long as he didn’t leave the city. So when the invitation from Gideon Ayers came to him, Callum didn’t hesitate for too long before accepting it and penciling it in on his calendar. A knock on the office door and Callum stepped back to wait, glancing up towards the ceiling, eyes sweeping this way and that as he took in everything in the room without seeming so conspicuous as to what he was doing.
Gideon’s bodyguard opened the door, letting the young man in, and Gideon gave him a cursory once-over to ensure it was the right person walking in the door. The suite’s office was a little unkempt, or at least, the desk was; the rest maintained the strangely detached air of an untouched hotel room. Gideon himself kept up the distant appearance by glancing back down at his papers after a moment. The file, what little there was to it in the somewhat-rush of putting it together, was buried somewhere under the rest of his recently-acquired information.
“Mr. … Westerburg, was it?” he asked, finally digging up the file and setting it second on the other papers. “I’m glad you’re here. My name is Gideon Ayers. Please, have a seat.” He gestured to the chair across from his desk. His growing irritation of late thanks to various outside sources meant that the meeting would be rather more to the point than usual. Far fewer questions and subtle nuances - just like Acheron preferred, he thought darkly.
Callum was anything but a proper man, so the state of the office hardly bothered him as he stepped in, giving no notice or attention to the bodyguard as he was admitted entrance, his attention instead on the other man in the room. “Callum. Call me Callum,” he said as he took the offered seat, eyes narrowing slightly as his hands folded together between his knees, leaning forward slightly towards the desk and the man behind it. “So. I got your invitation, but you didn’t give a lot of details as to what you had in mind,” Callum said, one not to mince words or spend time with small talk. He got right to the point with little hesitation.
For a moment Gideon was silent, fingers tapping on the piled papers on his desk. Then he leaned back in his chair and watched Callum, eyes gray and emotionless, his face just barely edged with a tight line of stress against the usual flat disinterest.
“I need information, to put it simply.” The faint stress in his expression didn’t make it into his voice. “Nothing in particular right now, but my usual methods of getting what I need to know can’t always be depended upon. Having someone with your kind of skill on hand is becoming more and more of a necessity these days. I understand that you’re on a very short leash, and that the people holding the other end of it take themselves very seriously, and that I’m asking you to essentially go behind their backs to do what I ask, but I have the feeling that you don’t have much fondness for them.” Just because they hadn’t killed or jailed him didn’t mean he was going to fawn over them, Gideon assumed.
He didn’t respond for a long time, taking in the words, the implication behind them. Of course he needed. Of course he wanted. Everyone did at one point or another, and that was why people like him stayed in business. “And what kind of guarantee can you give me that any information I give you isn’t traced right back to me?” Callum asked, leaning back in the chair, his fingers threaded together. “Because I’ve got prison hanging over my head if I don’t keep up my end of the agreement I made with them. And I did this to stay out of prison, not to see myself back in a year out.” Eyebrows lifted, his expression almost bored. “So I need some guarantees before I say yes to anything you’re offering, Gideon Ayers.”
“I’m sure you can do your own research to find out about me,” he said simply. “Whether or not I’ve sent desperate hackers to jail or if my reputation among the underworld is a poor one. I don’t plan on cutting myself off from the criminal elite by turning felons in to the government, particularly over something as petty as information-gathering.” Until he was good and ready to do so, anyway. “In any case, it wouldn’t get me any favors. The fact that I reached out to you in the first place would be more than enough for them to start watching me more carefully, which I really don’t need.”
Gideon leaned back a little further in his chair, feeling the tenseness in his shoulders.
“I doubt you’ll take me at my word, but I won’t turn you in unless you force me to. As far as your handlers need to know, I’m helping you find a job, which is what this company does. A proper, law-abiding job, and potentially a better future ahead of you rather than waiting for the government’s next order.” And more, but that could all wait. “Of more interest to you, I can provide you with enough regular payment to keep you more than stable, as well as anyone else you need to support.” There was mention somewhere of siblings, though whether Callum had anything to do with them anymore was a mystery.
He squared his shoulders, giving Gideon’s words a long while to sit and simmer in his head, the silence bridging on for a good five minutes before he leaned forward again, arms coming forward, elbows on his knees. “They’ll be looking at you anyways because I came to see you. I can guarantee you that much. And I’ll be looking into you as well before I agree to anything.” Callum rose and started picking through the papers on Gideon’s desk at his own pleasure and ease, not looking for anything in particular, his touch light, picking at this and that before he turned his attention again towards the other man.
“And what kind of information are you looking for? Just so I have an idea of what I might be getting myself into should I agree.”
“They’ve always been looking into me,” Gideon said wryly - because his father had been a person of suspicion, and because there had always been something off about the man’s children - and watched Callum as the other man stood up and started shifting through his papers. Most of them would hold no interest for someone like Callum; only the ones directly in front of Gideon, one of them bearing the man’s own name and a smattering of information, would be anything of note. “Do you really think you’re so valuable to them that they’ll keep that close of an eye on me just for giving you a job?”
He stretched slightly in his chair, glancing at his bodyguard and shaking his head just slightly when the man looked ready to move forward and pull Callum back into the chair. Let the man think he had as much freedom as he liked; there were other ways to put a leash on someone than literally.
“Generally, I need information on people. Individuals and their histories. Almost certainly criminals, or at least those of a morally ambiguous nature.” He raised an eyebrow. “It can’t be too difficult for you.”
Callum gave him a look from where he was flipping through the papers, snorting in derision before he took his seat once more, dropping into the chair with little grace or care for the furniture. “I don’t think I’m valuable. But I think they’re suspicious enough of me to keep a closer eye on what I’m doing and who I’m associating with,” he responded. The offer was thought over but he wasn’t ready to give an answer here or now. “And let me think on it. I’ll give you an answer in a week, unless you’re not that patient.”
At the moment, Gideon really wasn’t that patient, but the only sign of that was the slightest possible narrowing of his eyes. Still, he wouldn’t push. Forcing someone into their work would only give them a grudge against him, and he preferred that those be caused from something really serious.
“They won’t know you’re doing anything except trying to live a normal life.” As normal as they thought he could get, anyway. “You have my number. Call me once you’ve made a decision; either way, I’m sure we’ll come to some sort of amicable agreement.” While in his head Acheron snorted and refused to involve himself in the proceedings. Amicability was only good on rare occasions, and when dealing with someone like Callum, he preferred condescending seniority above all.
Which explained quite a few things, Gideon thought.
The younger man responded with a look and a lift of his chin, rising from his chair without another word. He had no idea if he would respond or not, but it was something to think on. He didn’t doubt that Shailee and her people would have their eye on him, so he would have to figure that out first. Until then...
He left without another word, bypassing the few people that lingered in Gideon’s office before disappearing into the city.