birthright_npc (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} birthright_npc) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} free_form2,@ 2008-04-03 22:36:00 |
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Listen to Reason
The warm afternoon sun streamed through the living room windows as Julie curled up on the couch with one of the finds from her latest trip to the used bookstore. Her lunchtime shift downstairs was over and the rest of her roommates were out of the apartment for the day, so she had the place to herself to just relax and enjoy the rest of her day.
She'd opened the window to let fresh air into the apartment which had been sealed up for months due to a particularly harsh winter for southern Nevada. The werewolf could smell the scents of the various desert plants wafting in on the breeze, the desert in its all too brief spring blooming phase.
Romance novels were one of her guilty pleasures and Julie was looking forward to devouring most of the book over the course of the afternoon and evening. She took a sip from her drink and set it back on the coffee table before opening up her latest acquisition.
The knock on the door would've come as a surprise. There weren't many solicitors in the small town, so excluding the possibility that a roommate had forgotten a key, there was either a neighbor or a stranger at the door.
In this case, it was an Agent from the Department of Homeland Security.
Dahlia Rimes kept a miniature lint roller in her unmarked sedan; nevertheless, she checked her blazer for lint a second time. It was clean. She remembered the first time she'd seen a government employee with pet hair on his suit, and the entire facade of professionalism had been broken. She was fastidious not by nature, but by necessity. Having an Ivy Leaguer's resume rather than a military one made credibility even more difficult to gain in the intelligence community, and she wasn't about to be undone by something as menial as a run in her stockings.
A light breeze stirred. She clamped her arm more tightly against Julia Sanchez's file.
The knock did indeed came as a surprise, and Julie looked up from her book toward the door with a quizzical expression before getting up to respond to it. Her initial thought was to ignore it and hope whoever it was went away, but it could be something important and so she walked to the door and opened it.
Whatever she was expecting, the tall, serious looking woman in a dark business suit wasn't it. She definitely didn't have the appearance of a Jehovah's witness or a saleswoman, and there was no hint of perfume in her scent, only the faint odors of residual soap and shampoo that would be undetectable to the normal nose.
Julie tried not to let her annoyance at being taken from her book show, and simply plastered her professional bartender smile on her face. "I'm sorry, but the bar is downstairs. This is a residence."
"Yes, I know," the Agent answered without rancor. "My name is Dahlia Rimes. I've come to speak to you, Ms. Sanchez." With a graceful shuffle of her file, the brunette withdrew a business card from its holder and passed it Julie's way. It was white, embossed with the Department's seal and her rank and contact information. Dahlia carried on seamlessly. "I hoped I could take a few minutes' time to explain the Project to you personally. I trust you've heard about it... I want to make myself available for any questions you might have."
Dahlia's brown eyes reached beyond the woman at the door, into the darkened apartment. No curious onlookers, then. That was better. "Yours is an interesting file," she added, returning attention to Julie's face.
Julie's eyes widened slightly at the introduction, and she took the card automatically and glanced down at it. It appeared to be legit, not that she'd seen Homeland Security business cards every day, and the werewolf looked back up at Rimes. This was one of the times where she hated being short; the government woman had a good five inches on her at least.
Well, the agent was here, might as well get it over with. Julie stepped aside and indicated the other woman could come in. "Actually I only heard about it the other day, second hand and in bits and peices."
Agent Rimes nodded and stepped into the apartment. Training taught her to take a solid look around, but there was nothing out of place, other than a paperback novel. "Word of mouth's not the most efficient PR. Unfortunately when it comes to our kind of work, discretion is best, though it'd certainly be quicker to run an ad in the local paper." She smiled and brought the folder in front of her waist. She was not an unfriendly woman, despite her employer. Dahlia supervised intake and interrogation, but she came about it from a Psychology perspective, and generally had interest in what made personalities tick.
"I'll be up front with you. I'm recruiting today. This is the beginning of what I hope to make a personnel file." She saw no point in dancing around the subject, or in keeping the folder a mystery. She indicated a dinette table. "May I have a seat?"
"I'm surprised you have a file on me at all." Julie wondered just what was in that file; the agent had called it 'interesting' before and that made her a bit nervous. Whistler's talk of implants and forced induction into the program came back to the front of her mind and she wished she'd taken the hatted man more seriously.
"Go ahead and have a seat." The werewolf gestured toward the table and retreated to the couch just long enough to close the novel and pick up her drink. A lifetime of having good manners drilled into her compelled Julie to ask, "Can I get you a glass of water or something?"
"No, but thank you," the Agent replied. She pulled a chair for herself and sat at the table. She placed the folder before her, but did not open it. "I'll start by explaining the program. A few months ago, under executive order from the President, a few representatives from the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA were informed of the existence of the supernatural in the United States, in response to a terrorist threat. A high-ranking Mexican official was slaughtered by demons within our borders."
She crossed her ankles beneath the chair and settled more comfortably. "The President called upon those Agents to organize a fully-funded program with the purpose of studying supernatural entities and bringing generally peaceful, law-abiding citizens with experience in the supernatural under government employ. The order was called Project Integration." Her eyebrows arched. "Well, that order was tweaked, and soon we were asked to bring key players from multiple species under government employ... not just to study and learn to cooperate with demons, but to work jointly to help get the more dangerous creatures off the streets... harbingers of the apocalypse. We became more flexible with the rules... If we wanted to fully infiltrate such a well-networked underground world, we had to cooperate with some undesirables. It's not a new concept. For decades, the government's partnered with extremist groups and militant countries, to bring about results in other critical areas."
Agent Rimes adjusted her glasses. "We're scouting for talent. We want Agents who can help us keep the peace, Ms. Sanchez. We know that some of you have been waging this war for centuries. We're here to help fund and regulate it... add some teeth to it, all while keeping it out of the public eye. It's in no one's best interest for this to go public. Luckily we're in agreement on that point with Canada, Mexico, and China. Germany, on the other hand... Well, we have high hopes."
"I see," Julie sipped her coke, absorbing all the information that had just been presented to her. It sounded all very noble and patriotic, but the werewolf couldn't help but be suspicious of the motives. So a high ranking official was killed and suddenly it was a problem? Where was the concern when Brad was stalking her?
"I've heard stories about tracking devices implanted under the skin on people who 'volunteer', is that true?" The fact that the folder had yet to be opened hadn't gone unnoticed. "Why are you coming to me? I'm not really a player in that scene, I'm just a bartender."
Agent Rimes said, "I'll address the tracking device first. On missions, some of our Special Agents will be sent into dangerous situations. They'll confront demons, either to recruit from their numbers, or to thwart hostile initiatives. No matter how well we train them, there's the possibility that one will go missing... be taken, for interrogation or torture or worse. We need a way to find them, Ms. Sanchez. It's not completely altruistic, I'll give you that much. We don't want some of their knowledge about the government leaking into terrorist cells. It's in our best interest to get them out of there, and fast."
She opened her hands. "Also, to be quite honest, we know there will be some Agents that go rogue. It's a risk we take, recruiting from the demon population. How can we expect every vampire that takes an oath to be faithful? If we suspect they're holding secret meetings, we'd like the ability to track their whereabouts. It is not our intention to track the whereabouts of every Agent we employ. Honestly, we don't have the manpower."
Agent Rimes pulled back her sleeve. Because she didn't have supernatural healing, there was a small, pink line on her wrist. "I have one as well. Frankly it makes me feel better knowing they can find me if I'm compromised, and send in an extraction team." Smoothing the cuff back into place, she looked Julie in the eye. "On to your next question, about your candidacy. I'm not sure you're best suited for combat, because your strength is only at a peak at times when you're not in full control. Of course, we do have some very advanced spellwork technicians working on that issue, hoping to come up with a way to bring the lunar cycle to your advantage, rather than laying waste to your self-control once a month. But as a bartender in a town like this, you're ideally placed for intelligence work... Surveillance, for instance. Your hearing is... well it's impressive, to say the least."
[Thread: Open to Julie]
The warm afternoon sun streamed through the living room windows as Julie curled up on the couch with one of the finds from her latest trip to the used bookstore. Her lunchtime shift downstairs was over and the rest of her roommates were out of the apartment for the day, so she had the place to herself to just relax and enjoy the rest of her day.
She'd opened the window to let fresh air into the apartment which had been sealed up for months due to a particularly harsh winter for southern Nevada. The werewolf could smell the scents of the various desert plants wafting in on the breeze, the desert in its all too brief spring blooming phase.
Romance novels were one of her guilty pleasures and Julie was looking forward to devouring most of the book over the course of the afternoon and evening. She took a sip from her drink and set it back on the coffee table before opening up her latest acquisition.
The knock on the door would've come as a surprise. There weren't many solicitors in the small town, so excluding the possibility that a roommate had forgotten a key, there was either a neighbor or a stranger at the door.
In this case, it was an Agent from the Department of Homeland Security.
Dahlia Rimes kept a miniature lint roller in her unmarked sedan; nevertheless, she checked her blazer for lint a second time. It was clean. She remembered the first time she'd seen a government employee with pet hair on his suit, and the entire facade of professionalism had been broken. She was fastidious not by nature, but by necessity. Having an Ivy Leaguer's resume rather than a military one made credibility even more difficult to gain in the intelligence community, and she wasn't about to be undone by something as menial as a run in her stockings.
A light breeze stirred. She clamped her arm more tightly against Julia Sanchez's file.
The knock did indeed came as a surprise, and Julie looked up from her book toward the door with a quizzical expression before getting up to respond to it. Her initial thought was to ignore it and hope whoever it was went away, but it could be something important and so she walked to the door and opened it.
Whatever she was expecting, the tall, serious looking woman in a dark business suit wasn't it. She definitely didn't have the appearance of a Jehovah's witness or a saleswoman, and there was no hint of perfume in her scent, only the faint odors of residual soap and shampoo that would be undetectable to the normal nose.
Julie tried not to let her annoyance at being taken from her book show, and simply plastered her professional bartender smile on her face. "I'm sorry, but the bar is downstairs. This is a residence."
"Yes, I know," the Agent answered without rancor. "My name is Dahlia Rimes. I've come to speak to you, Ms. Sanchez." With a graceful shuffle of her file, the brunette withdrew a business card from its holder and passed it Julie's way. It was white, embossed with the Department's seal and her rank and contact information. Dahlia carried on seamlessly. "I hoped I could take a few minutes' time to explain the Project to you personally. I trust you've heard about it... I want to make myself available for any questions you might have."
Dahlia's brown eyes reached beyond the woman at the door, into the darkened apartment. No curious onlookers, then. That was better. "Yours is an interesting file," she added, returning attention to Julie's face.
Julie's eyes widened slightly at the introduction, and she took the card automatically and glanced down at it. It appeared to be legit, not that she'd seen Homeland Security business cards every day, and the werewolf looked back up at Rimes. This was one of the times where she hated being short; the government woman had a good five inches on her at least.
Well, the agent was here, might as well get it over with. Julie stepped aside and indicated the other woman could come in. "Actually I only heard about it the other day, second hand and in bits and peices."
Agent Rimes nodded and stepped into the apartment. Training taught her to take a solid look around, but there was nothing out of place, other than a paperback novel. "Word of mouth's not the most efficient PR. Unfortunately when it comes to our kind of work, discretion is best, though it'd certainly be quicker to run an ad in the local paper." She smiled and brought the folder in front of her waist. She was not an unfriendly woman, despite her employer. Dahlia supervised intake and interrogation, but she came about it from a Psychology perspective, and generally had interest in what made personalities tick.
"I'll be up front with you. I'm recruiting today. This is the beginning of what I hope to make a personnel file." She saw no point in dancing around the subject, or in keeping the folder a mystery. She indicated a dinette table. "May I have a seat?"
"I'm surprised you have a file on me at all." Julie wondered just what was in that file; the agent had called it 'interesting' before and that made her a bit nervous. Whistler's talk of implants and forced induction into the program came back to the front of her mind and she wished she'd taken the hatted man more seriously.
"Go ahead and have a seat." The werewolf gestured toward the table and retreated to the couch just long enough to close the novel and pick up her drink. A lifetime of having good manners drilled into her compelled Julie to ask, "Can I get you a glass of water or something?"
"No, but thank you," the Agent replied. She pulled a chair for herself and sat at the table. She placed the folder before her, but did not open it. "I'll start by explaining the program. A few months ago, under executive order from the President, a few representatives from the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA were informed of the existence of the supernatural in the United States, in response to a terrorist threat. A high-ranking Mexican official was slaughtered by demons within our borders."
She crossed her ankles beneath the chair and settled more comfortably. "The President called upon those Agents to organize a fully-funded program with the purpose of studying supernatural entities and bringing generally peaceful, law-abiding citizens with experience in the supernatural under government employ. The order was called Project Integration." Her eyebrows arched. "Well, that order was tweaked, and soon we were asked to bring key players from multiple species under government employ... not just to study and learn to cooperate with demons, but to work jointly to help get the more dangerous creatures off the streets... harbingers of the apocalypse. We became more flexible with the rules... If we wanted to fully infiltrate such a well-networked underground world, we had to cooperate with some undesirables. It's not a new concept. For decades, the government's partnered with extremist groups and militant countries, to bring about results in other critical areas."
Agent Rimes adjusted her glasses. "We're scouting for talent. We want Agents who can help us keep the peace, Ms. Sanchez. We know that some of you have been waging this war for centuries. We're here to help fund and regulate it... add some teeth to it, all while keeping it out of the public eye. It's in no one's best interest for this to go public. Luckily we're in agreement on that point with Canada, Mexico, and China. Germany, on the other hand... Well, we have high hopes."
"I see," Julie sipped her coke, absorbing all the information that had just been presented to her. It sounded all very noble and patriotic, but the werewolf couldn't help but be suspicious of the motives. So a high ranking official was killed and suddenly it was a problem? Where was the concern when Brad was stalking her?
"I've heard stories about tracking devices implanted under the skin on people who 'volunteer', is that true?" The fact that the folder had yet to be opened hadn't gone unnoticed. "Why are you coming to me? I'm not really a player in that scene, I'm just a bartender."
Agent Rimes said, "I'll address the tracking device first. On missions, some of our Special Agents will be sent into dangerous situations. They'll confront demons, either to recruit from their numbers, or to thwart hostile initiatives. No matter how well we train them, there's the possibility that one will go missing... be taken, for interrogation or torture or worse. We need a way to find them, Ms. Sanchez. It's not completely altruistic, I'll give you that much. We don't want some of their knowledge about the government leaking into terrorist cells. It's in our best interest to get them out of there, and fast."
She opened her hands. "Also, to be quite honest, we know there will be some Agents that go rogue. It's a risk we take, recruiting from the demon population. How can we expect every vampire that takes an oath to be faithful? If we suspect they're holding secret meetings, we'd like the ability to track their whereabouts. It is not our intention to track the whereabouts of every Agent we employ. Honestly, we don't have the manpower."
Agent Rimes pulled back her sleeve. Because she didn't have supernatural healing, there was a small, pink line on her wrist. "I have one as well. Frankly it makes me feel better knowing they can find me if I'm compromised, and send in an extraction team." Smoothing the cuff back into place, she looked Julie in the eye. "On to your next question, about your candidacy. I'm not sure you're best suited for combat, because your strength is only at a peak at times when you're not in full control. Of course, we do have some very advanced spellwork technicians working on that issue, hoping to come up with a way to bring the lunar cycle to your advantage, rather than laying waste to your self-control once a month. But as a bartender in a town like this, you're ideally placed for intelligence work... Surveillance, for instance. Your hearing is... well it's impressive, to say the least."
[Thread: Open to Julie]