ofelia zhou deals in secrets. (consultancy) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-02-11 21:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | !narrative, !playerplot: a building of rooks, ofelia zhou |
i'm building an empire, so little time and so much to do.
Who: Ofelia Zhou.
What: No rest for the wicked as the private eye works on—and gets a breakthrough on—the Lemach case.
Where: The Tenements.
When: Backdated to last weekend.
Rating: Tame.
Status: Complete!
Warehouse 108-B, near Fleetpurse Row. Ofelia sat on a cold and windy rooftop, lifting a pair of machinist’s goggles to her eyes and peering at the cement block in the distance. The warehouse was smeared in greens and whites, a sketchy image painted in night vision. It was suspiciously quiet as well: she’d been watching it for weeks and never seen the signs of a fully-functioning commercial warehouse. Normally they were beehives of activity, workers flowing in and out as they carted merchandise here and there. Instead, Warehouse 108-B was conspicuously desolate, almost abandoned. A few figures would flit in and out occasionally, but no one ever seemed to be doing much shipping. She’d worked her way in a week ago and planted a few surveillance bugs (commissioned from miss du Gard), which now brought a wispy voice to her ear. It was like the Bureau’s memstone communication system but not; the audio here crackled slightly with static. “Have Rozzo fetch the parts for this week,” one of the voices was saying. It was busywork, but every time this servant met with his employer, then Ofelia was on edge, waiting for them to drop any potential clues. ‘Who’s your master?’ she whispered to herself. Conti’s unnamed noble backer was the fingers on the purse-strings, the spider at the heart of the web, spinning and spinning. He’d covered his tracks well, but she knew his voice now. … And that voice was currently giving his servant the new security code for the warehouse. She sat up straight on the rooftop, the goggles lowering, her smile growing. It was bad timing; her loyal assistant was gone to Ordalia for intensive training with Fumiya, leaving the broker alone to handle it herself. But she’d already established that the warehouse was empty, so after they left for the night, she slipped in. She’d caught glimpses of the noble but hadn’t been able to definitively match him to anyone on her list; he always kept his cap low, a scarf wrapped tight around his face. A small flashlight clicked on in Ofelia’s hand as she shuffled through the paperwork, poking through scattered piles on the desk. (Her internal organisational instinct cringed at the mess.) Another click: the desk drawers were closed and locked. Not a problem, however. The hours she’d spent training her apprentice on machinist’s gadgets and humiliating water-filled balloons had come from somewhere, and that was Ofelia propping the light against her shoulder as she fetched her lockpicking kit, fidgeting with the lock, her nimble fingers feeling out the mechanism until the lock snapped back and she was free to riffle through the drawers and their papers. He was good, she had to grant him that. No convenient confessions, no contract signed between him and the stout worker who’d met with Lemach, no bankroll for the Rooks themselves. But she didn’t need all that. She already had the accomplice. She just needed a— “A name,” she breathed, pulling loose one signed slip for the maintenance fee on the warehouse. His signature was an elegant flourish, all looping letters and calligraphy. “Got you.” |