| Full Disclosure |
[09 Feb 2008|12:14am] |
Faith was half-tempted to ask Connor to foot the gas bill.
Money was hard to come by since the Slayer parted ways with her Watcher, her share of the Council’s pay dwindling away. So to run to Vegas on her motorcycle with gas prices the way they were was slightly annoying.
Connor’s saving grace? The fact that whatever he wanted to meet up about sounded important.
Fortunately, he didn’t ask to meet at too fancy a place; Faith wasn’t one for dressing up, and she blanched at the thought of reservations. She preferred just strutting into a place and parking her butt in a seat and ordering. Which she would do, once she found Caveman Brow Junior.
Which took all of three seconds. Sauntering up to the boot, Faith took off her denim coat and took a seat. “You rang.”
( Keep that in mind )
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| Assembly Required |
[09 Feb 2008|02:03am] |
The mountains of paperwork stood still in Agent Rimes's office. A coffee pot ticked in the corner, and the air smelled faintly of scorched liquid, left too long on the burner. The overhead light had been cut off because it flickered and buzzed. The glow of a halogen lamp lent a cozier feeling to the room than it deserved. It was, after all, a bureaucratic office. It did sit at the end of a cold corridor full of interrogation rooms and doors that led beyond, to cells that would be filled if questions weren't answered in the right way.
Rimes slipped her shoes off under the desk. Even her toes were tense. Phone calls from Washington could cause that sort of reaction. It didn't seem possible that only weeks into the project, there were already demands being made to change the modus operandi. No amount of 'with all due respect' rebuttals on her part would change directives. Especially if she planned to keep her job, and with Purvis breathing down the back of her neck, replacing her wouldn't be difficult.
Sparrow, Purvis, herself and several others had hit the streets, and some initial contacts had been made. So far, there were no signatures on any dotted lines, but Rimes felt that things were going well. The telekinetic waitress had nearly wept over the thought of health insurance. Her own conversation with the vampire Grace Hutchinson had gone well, she thought. There were no guarantees, but it wasn't a bad start. This was how Rimes wanted Phase 2 to be. Individual contacts, personal touches, offers specially tailored to appeal to certain aspects of the recruits' personalities.
All that was about to change.
She tossed her glasses on the keyboard and let her eyes rest on the blurry monitor.
The sound of knuckles against door would provide at least a momentary escape from the labours of her day and, once being given verbal permission to come through, in stepped Agent Ballantine. "Afternoon," he spoke, by way of a greeting and shut the door behind. Homeland Security was not nearly so compartmentalised as certain agencies - mostly the military ones. It allowed work colleagues to drop in on one another, from time to time. "Was hoping I might take a moment of your time..."
The man dropped to the nearest seat in front of her desk and momentarily averted gaze to the computer monitor. Even though, from that angle, he could not see what was on the screen, it was human nature to do so.
"I was hoping you might be able to tell me how, uh, 'full' our capacity is, by now." He was referring, of course, to the specialised facilities designed for incarcerating supernatural entities. The basic construction had been modified since the days of the Initiative, but much of the pioneering work done there was being put into good use now, even as extra such places were being made and added to. "Because the attrition level in setting up all these meetings isn't going too much in our favour... Sent out ten Agents, last week, with support, to try and locate something nasty. Either something else was there or it was a nest, because they never came back. And that's just one example. We're going to be running into field personnel shortage issues, soon. Between that and what happened in Mexico, it looks like this entire project's going to get accelerated."
( Brainstorming a Better Way )
( Calling All Recruits to Town Hall )
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