Roxanne "Roxy" Morton (no_heights) wrote in onewaythreads, @ 2017-11-01 16:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, leon orcot, roxy |
Who: Leon & Roxy
What: The Rally
When: WAY backdated to said rally
Where: Centurian Square
Rating: Low
Status: Complete!
So far, the rally was everything it had advertised it would be. Many people gathered in the square, some with signs and others just coming because they were curious. There had been nothing more than a few chants and shouts from the crowd but nothing that made Roxy worry. She was able to move around the crowds, checking in with people and even chatting with a few without raising suspicions or concerns from the citizens.
In all honesty, it was hard for Roxy. She understood both sides to this fight and she was being employed by one of them. She knew Preya was that escape for people when their lives had hit rock bottom and needed an escape. She also knew it wasn’t right to deny the right of talking to friends and family, let alone not allowing anyone to leave their new home. There had to be a happy medium for both parties, a way people could contact others without breaking the barrier. She was trying to give the council the benefit of a doubt that it could take awhile to figure that spell out, but how much longer could people wait?
It seemed that more and more people were arriving to Preya and the realization of their new life would hit almost as soon as they landed. She didn’t know which was better, knowing your fate right off the bat or pretending that everything would be ok.
She went with the former.
She started doing another round through the square, her eyes falling on someone standing in the center and making a big speech. People started to gather around and she leaned against a light pole, her arms crossed. She wondered how many other cops were out right now, in civilian clothes like herself. She saw enough in uniforms, but didn’t recognize any faces...yet. She knew that other departments had leant out officers to help with the rally as well.
Her eyes scanned the crowd, always on alert and reading for any signs that things might take a turn. Her eyes landed on a gentleman observing from farther back of the group, only his posture showed his own alertness to his surroundings. She studied him for a bit longer before making her way over to him, stepping up to stand next to him.
“What do you make of all it?” She nodded towards the speech maker. She glanced Leon’s way, sure it was the man she had talked to through the journals. He looked younger than she would have guessed, but everything else from her conversation with him seemed to fit this man.
Leon could not say he was happy with this Preya place. The first thing he’d done when he’d gotten into the country was look for a Chinatown, but he hadn’t managed to find it. Then he’d joined the forum to look for leads.
Then he’d been told he couldn’t leave.
His search for D had to be put on hold. It was possible that D was here, but it wasn’t looking very likely. Besides, if he was going to be stuck here, he was going to have to learn about the place. He’d never even heard of Preya before he’d packed up and left. So he’d spent the better part of the last week reading through newspaper articles and trying to learn about this place. He’d read a bit about their councilmembers, and their “Ruler.” And he’d tried to find all he could about the “peaceful protest.” He’d discovered that there had been an explosion just a few months ago in Centurion Square that had been attributed to the rebels. And so he came to the protest, hoping for no trouble, but expecting some.
When the woman approached him, he glanced at her but didn’t turn his entire face to her. He didn’t know her, but then, he’d spent the last decade going to places where he didn’t know anyone, and he’d honed his already keen intuition to help get a general measure on someone. He took a drag of his cigarette. “Of this?” he asked, not sure yet just how much he wanted to tell her about his feelings on Preya in general. “Looks peaceful enough. I’ve been keeping an eye out and if something suspicious is going on, I missed it. What do you make of that Clark Matthews guy?” A week of reading old news wasn’t going to beat actually talking to someone who lived here.
He didn’t given any indication that he knew who she was and she wasn’t going to let the facade drop away, at least not right away. “Are you working this rally?” she asked, almost unable to mask the smirk that wanted to play across her lips. Despite him saying he hadn’t been an official detective for quite some time, it was apparent old habits were hard to break. She appreciated another set of eyes for today, feeling like he was the sort of guy to help people out if things started to go south.
Roxy pursed her lips together at the mention of Clark, not sure how to voice her opinions. As a cop, she was suppose to make sure he did nothing more than speak out against Preya, but make sure she didn’t voice her own thoughts whether they were for or against him. He had been a big part of Roxy beginning to rethink everything about Preya and she still couldn’t quite make up her mind about him. If he was the “leader” of the rebels, was he also responsible for the bombing? He was leading a peaceful protest now, but Roxy knew how twisted people could be.
“He’s genuine.” Well, at least that was the truth. “Stands for what he believes in, but sometimes can seem a bit selfish. I know people want to leave, but they have to consider those who came here as a means of escape and rescue. We can’t just throw the security of all for the pleasure of some.”
Now Leon did look at Roxy, a little surprised. “Oh, No, I'm not a detective,” he said. He’d said it enough over the last decade that there wasn't much regret left in his voice. He’d loved being a detective, but he'd decided finding D was more important.
Leon’s jaw tightened. “I bet Jim Jones seemed real genuine too,” he said after a moment. What he didn't say was that he was sure that dystopians like North Koreans probably heard all about sacrificing their freedom for the ‘security of everyone.’ He didn't know where this woman stood on that side of things, and it seemed safer to be critical of one rogue man who was loosely linked to a bombing than a government that may or may not be linked to the multiple disappearances that Leon had also read about. He’d been sloppy his first night in town when he'd talked to the woman on the Network, but now that he'd had time to put some pieces together - mysterious, unnamed “ruler" who was rarely seen, keeping everyone trapped like animals on a country sized zoo, mysterious disappearances - he was going to be much more careful about who he spoke to. “I assume you are an officer?” he asked. “You guys think he might be leading these people like lambs to the slaughter?”
She laughed at his surprise, giving him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but you have some tall tell signs that you are...were?” She glanced him up and down; it was possible he could be the gentleman she had chatted with on the network the other day. He seemed much younger than she would have thought given the small amount of history he had given her, but who else would be casing the square that she didn’t recognize?
She raised an eyebrow at his statement, but didn’t make a comment concerning it. If he was Leon, it certainly seemed like he had done his own research since their conversation on Preya. While he may have been correct in that, Roxy had always tried to see the plus side to things in Preya; whether it was due to her job duties or trying to make the best of a bad situation, sometimes it was a success. Other times, she started to come up with her own plan to investigate.
“I am,” she said with a nod of her head. “So far, everything seems to be going smoothly. Let’s just hope it stays that way.” Her eyes scanned the crowd again, but everyone seemed to be pacified and intent on listening to the presenter.
“I was,” Leon confirmed. “But that was a long time ago. I guess you can take the man out of the police but you can’t take the police out of the man.” And it wasn’t like Leon hadn’t been using his police skills for the last ten years. Tracking a man down when he had the entire world to go through was a lot trickier than just trying to find him in a city, even when the city was as large as LA. The internet was by far the greatest invention of Leon’s lifetime.
Leon was different from Roxy. If a situation had a negative side, that was where he focused his attention. He was suspicious of almost everything. It wasn't that he couldn't see the bright side. It was just that he didn't need to do anything about the bright side. It was just going to be there, being bright, no matter what. The negatives needed attention before they became disasters.
Leon nodded. “Yeah. I've been wondering if this was a front to maybe set off another bomb, but this Matthews guy really does seem to want to keep things peaceful here.”
It had been a very long time since the last time Leon had to make actual connections with people that didn’t simply involve him asking for information about D or ordering a drink, and social niceties came back slowly to him. It occurred to him belatedly that introductions might be in order. “My name's Leon, by the way.”
Roxy nodded her head. “I know. I'm Roxy.” She glanced over at him and gave him a teasing grin. Despite him no longer being an officer of the law, he definitely gave signs of his past profession.
“Nice to meet you in person Leon.” She glanced back at the crowd, thinking about his observations. “I think Matthews is sincere in his efforts.” She had even began to wonder if he had anything to do with the bombing before or if it had been the doing of some of the more radical rebels. “Even if he had any part of the last bombing, I think he has the right views of keeping the citizens safe. The whole purpose are citizens wishing to leave but with the understanding that they may put others in danger who want to remain unfound.” She was sure this was information Leon would have found out by now, but recaps never hurt.
“Nothing seems out of place though and no one seems to be acting strangely. I think this rally has been quite a success.” Another look around before glancing back at Leon. “Think you'll stay much longer?”
Leon blinked, looking at the girl again. He hadn’t expected the woman he’d been talking to to look so young. She couldn’t have been a police officer more than a year or two, he thought, before he remembered that he himself had joined the police when he’d only been eighteen.
Back when he’d been a police officer, the idea of anyone wanting to ‘remain unfound’ would have raised all sorts of questions, but Leon now knew that sometimes it was for the best. Still, it wasn’t okay that whoever those people were could keep everyone else detained against their will. “Yeah,” he said. “I gathered that. But back where I come from, we call this kind of thing kidnapping,” he said. She already knew his thoughts on the matter, after all. If he mysteriously disappeared after this, well… he’d figure that out if it happened. “I’m going to stick around. I want to finish hearing what this guy has to say. Though you said ‘if’ he had something to do with the bombing. Do you have reason to believe he didn’t?”
If Leon had expressed his surprise out loud, Roxy would have echoed her sentiments about him. That was the only hardship about the network; you never really knew who you were talking to.
She couldn’t help but purse her lips at him, not being able to make a comment about it in public like this. He was right, keeping people here against their will was a form of kidnapping, but she wondered how the council would take to accusations like that. She knew that there were other people there, people like her that were dressed as a civilian and she couldn’t take that chance she would be found out for having differing views from the government she worked for.
She shrugged at his question. “He could be, but there are more radical people than him about in Preya. I’m sure you’ve seen it before, people who believe they won’t see action unless they make it themselves. They think extreme measures are needed since they’re being taken now.” She nodded her head towards the man standing at the podium. “He wants to go home, but he’s been more gentle about it. Or he’s just putting on a good game face.”
Leon pursed his lips. He had only been a cop with the LAPD for eight years, but he’d had plenty of experience dealing with people who thought they needed to take extreme measures. He’d been kidnapped by Peruvian terrorists, and had, on more than one occasion, been sent to guard foreign political leaders who had been threatened. He hadn’t paid much attention to that kind of thing since he’d quit the force and, well, quit humanity, but he still knew those types were out there.
And his gut was telling him that Clarke wasn’t one of them. He hadn’t stopped trusting his gut since he’d left America, at least. “You might be right,” he said after a moment. “You guys wouldn’t happen to have any more leads on these extremists, would you?”
Roxy gave a shake of her head. “No, this is all just things I’ve been able to pick up on him while I’ve seen him in public. No official word or anything of the like.” Now that Roxy thought about it, did they have someone on the inside? Someone to try and figure out what was exactly going on. She tucked it away for further inspection, instead looking over at Leon one last time. “If you’re interested in looking into it, you should stop by the department. We’re always looking for good detectives.” She gave him a grin, nodding her head.
“I’m going to mill around a bit more. But…” She hesitated before reaching for her back pocket, producing a business card. “If you think you might be interested, give me a call.”
Leon nodded. “Yeah, maybe I’ll do that,” he said, taking the business card. He read it over before slipping it into the front pocket of his jeans. At least, he’d do it if he couldn’t find a nice, legal way to buy a plane ticket and get the fuck out of dodge. He had no business here, and despite what people said, the government had no business keeping him here. Surely everyone would agree that Leon leaving would be the best thing for everyone. “Thanks, Roxy.”