Orrie likes arrows (sagittal) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-03-25 13:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | green arrow, viola |
Who: Orin Arrow and Preston Rescue
What: Control laptop hand-off
Where: A closed cafe
When: Tuesday evening
Warnings: None
Arrow knew the Bat had received the comms. He’d watched on the control laptop until comm labeled 002 had turned on, and once it had, he’d packed the laptop away and strapped it to the back of his bike. His own comm was in his ear, tied to his cell and bluetooth as the new technology allowed in a way that was untraceable - unless the emergency failsafe on the comm was triggered by the true control laptop, the one he’d left for Cipher and the Bat - and he waited for Rescue to make contact.
Arrow had spent the better part of the week trying (fruitlessly) to find some trace of Oracle, and he was admittedly distracted as he waited for the call to come in. He didn’t think, not for a moment, that Rescue wouldn’t come through and make the call - that old gut instinct telling him the man would, just like it told him the man was hiding something, even if he wasn’t Mockingbird.
Preston managed to convince Anton to let him use his equipment. Not that it had exactly taken a lot of persuading, since Anton was suddenly all for Preston’s pet cause, in a way that was rather worrying. These days every other word Anton said was “plasma” and Preston hadn’t any idea exactly what he was doing, but whatever it was, it was probably going to cause him headaches.
After some debate, he had not told Eli or Shiloh what he was doing, and it all came down to whether or not he trusted the madman with the arrows not to kill, capture, maim, or arrest him. It was a leap, and it made Preston nervous, so his messages made Arrow go to two different locations before finally he arrived on the patio of a closed cafe in the near-dark, and Preston was waiting at one of the tables with a laptop.
He didn’t look like himself, of course. He looked rather a lot like a young Paul Newman, but with some skin color added. He even had the cigarette, which was a rather pathetic addition. The ashtray already had the remains of another cigarette in it, and he was ashing nervously while he waited.
Arrow didn’t appreciate the runaround, though he understood why Rescue had done it. Didn’t mean he wasn’t pissed about it, because he was, and by the time the bike pulled up to the edge of the sidewalk near the closed cafe, he was about ready to strangle Jeeves, Mockingbird or not. He put the kickstand down on the bike, and he cut the engine, already making out the man at the table, even from the distance.
Dressed in his standard dark green, Arrow hadn’t made any attempt to hide or alter his appearance. After all, Rescue had already seen him, heard him, and could (Arrow assumed) track him. So there wasn’t any subterfuge or sneaking when he climbed off the bike and grabbed the bag with the laptop and comm, and there weren’t any visible weapons as he neared the table, arrows in their sheath against his back.
Now, Arrow wasn’t a fan of cinema, but the man at the table looked familiar, without being someone whose name he knew, and his step slowed but didn’t stop as he approached. “Jeeves,” he said, something in the back of his mind telling him the man was too familiar, the thought too fleeting to latch onto fully. “Was all that chasing really necessary?”
He had on a nondescript black jacket rather than anything out of his usual closet, and he’d found some designer jeans that fit rather too close for comfort. They assisted with the illusion, however, and required less effort. Paul was rather stretched, but the clothes fit.
Stowing the cigarette into the corner of his mouth, he leaned forward and tapped onto the laptop. The familiar urbane British voice issued forth from it. “You would have done the same thing. Jeeves is not one of my more flattering titles. Would you like to sit down?”
For some reason, Arrow hadn’t expected Jeeves to actually be British, and he sure hadn’t expected the man to pre-record his voice onto the laptop that sat open in front of him. He’d thought it some kind of extension of the voice software, and he was surprised to hear it. It tripped him up for just a second, and he paused as he pulled out a chair and sat, tossing the bag on the table carefully. “Funny thing, Jeeves,” he said, still using the name, the hood over his head casting his features in dark shadow. “I got this gut instinct that hardly ever serves me wrong, and it’s yelling real loud right now. You got any notion why?” he asked, looking toward the laptop with an arched brow, before looking back at the oddly familiar man. “Maybe the fact your computer’s talking to me, instead of you talking to me.”
“It’s faster than writing it down,” Preston typed into the laptop. The dim light made his features even harder to pinpoint, but he definitely looked familiar, no denying it. Preston chose his faces from old film because they tended to look vaguely familiar and trustworthy without a name coming exactly to mind. Unless you happened to be a big fan of old film, which most people weren’t. Perhaps Newman was too prevalent. Damn. Too late now, anyway.
He sat back and tapped, “Change your mind about trusting me?” As it was saying it, he reached curiously for the bag.
Arrow put his hand on the bag, stopping any attempt on Rescue’s part to pull it forward. “I thought we had an agreement, you and me,” he said.
Preston stopped pulling immediately. “We did,” the voice projector said, soberly. “Here I am.”
“Why the hell you using a computer to talk to me, when I’m risking my ass and talking you without anything between us?” Arrow asked, the Bat’s suspicion about this man seeping through reluctantly.
Tap tap tap. “Because it’s faster than writing.” At the last word Preston picked up the cigarette and, not really all that guilty about lying, tapped his throat. Then he made a smoky gesture at Arrow and typed, “You’re wearing a mask.”
Arrow didn’t buy it, and he didn’t like being played, and he didn’t like hanging the bag over to someone he wasn’t one hundred percent sure he trusted. He let go of the bag, though, because this was about proving things, just as much as it was about having someone taking Oracle’s place on the comms. “There’s a laptop in there, the control for the comm system, and a comm for you. When you turn it on, you’ll see comm is labeled with a number and the alias of the person using it. No GPS, not on these, not when we’ve had people go missing,” he said, which wasn’t precisely the truth, but it was from Rescue’s standpoint.
Preston put the cigarette down in the tray and leaned forward with interest. The projection seemed utterly solid, and since it was only a few centimeters out from his skin (except for his face, which needed some remodeling, obviously) the shadows moved over it just like they should. It was far more expressive than a mask would ever be; in a word, perfect.
He looked troubled at this information about the GPS, taking some of the equipment out to examine it in the low light. He paused to type quickly on the keyboard: “Wouldn’t it be safer to know where they are in case they get in trouble and can’t say?” The laptop wasn’t particularly relevant to him, beyond a laptop, but he tried to make it look as if he was impressed, because no doubt it was impressive.
“We had GPS on our last comms, and they were a real sore spot,” Arrow explained. “None of us wants anyone dying to save us, Jeeves. We wouldn’t be doing what we do if that was the case. That’ll tell you who is who, which is more than we had before. It’ll tell you whose is on, and if they choose to check in, you’ll know where they did it. We’ll encourage as much of that as we can.” He gave the man a look. “You got to remember that someone is out there trying to kill the folks we love, and we’re all sure it’s the next person we’re talking to on the comms. It ain’t going to be an easy thing, getting people working on these things right again, and it’ll be even harder with Oracle missing. Folks trusted her.”
Preston nodded soberly. Newman didn’t look grave all that often, and this young it tended to look rather that he was just avoiding thinking rather than pondering the topic properly. However, his attention was mostly on the tech he was re-packing in the back, and there was some rustling silence before he put his fingers back on his laptop and said, “Still no sign of her. She didn’t leave any messages or research trails. I don’t know how someone could just vanish like that.” The urbane computer voice didn’t sound as troubled as Preston felt.
“I been looking most nights, and I haven’t found a damn thing,” Arrow admitted honestly. “I need to get my hands on Mockingbird, before my entire damn life gets outed because of her, and I think Mockingbird leads to Oracle. But, just so you know where my head’s at, there’s no real proof the two things are related. We might be making a mistake, all barking up the same tree. See, Oracle handed out assignments, and everyone’s working on their own now. Might be worth splitting up efforts,” he suggested, watching that strangely too-perfect face to see if it gave anything away, seeing as the computer voice certainly wasn’t going to. “Might want to ditch that computer voice on the network.”
Tap tap. “Can’t. I just told you.” Newman’s expression precisely reflected Preston’s insomuch as it was able. He looked just as troubled about Arrow getting “outed” as the other man no doubt felt, but he didn’t believe the two weren’t related. He shook his head slowly. “Too much coincidence.” He paused, and picked up the cigarette again to think. Then more tapping. “But... could be a good idea. You want me to try a different tack?”
“I want you to find her, and I want you to find a mole, if we got one and it ain’t her. And I want you to make a bunch of people that distrust each other work well together. You got some impressive shoes to fill,” Arrow said, pushing back his chair. “Mask named Cipher will have your back on this. She’s a good kid. If you need anything and I’m not around, feel free to scream her way.”
Preston had read all the back-issues of Creation Times, and while the articles had struck him as rather juvenile (and definitely missing the unbiased journalism angle) he hadn’t thought Cipher was a kid.
Arrow stopped moving once he got to his feet, and he looked down at this man that sent such mixed messages to his brain. “And your kid, your nephew, he’s probably got some mask friends. Everyone got jumped or attacked just before the lights went out as part of Mockingbird’s warnings.”
Preston’s surprise was visually spread out over Newman’s features. The sharply cut mouth slid open for a moment and he also nearly lost the cigarette. He quickly put it down. “Are you sure?”
“No point in hiding what you’re going to figure out soon as you turn that on,” Arrow said, nodding toward the laptop in the bag. “We got more kids than adults on that network. Least one person got beat up during the hits, something hiding as a hate crime, if that sounds like it fits the bill?”
Preston didn’t know what to think. He looked surprised and... faintly hurt, which Newman pulled off shockingly well. All he could do was nod. He stayed seated, since he’d figured Arrow would leave first.
Arrow looked down at the man a moment longer. “Can we trust you, Jeeves?” he asked bluntly.
Preston surfaced out of his own thoughts and looked quickly up. He smiled and lifted one palm up as if to say, It’s me. Of course.
“Turn that on soon as you get where you’re going.” Arrow looked at him a moment longer, the gaze intense without his eyes even being visible, and then he turned and walked away. He needed to call the Bat.