Who: Vex and Mal When: midday, Tuesday, Jan 16th Where: Vex’s house Status: complete
The Lord’s path was rarely a direct one, occasionally overgrown, but it always led somewhere. Mal was pretty sure of that, at least. It had been nearly two months since he’d met the man on the street who Knew Things, but Mal hadn’t been impatient to find him again. He knew that he would know when it was time. There had been plenty to do in the meantime -- there was his church to tend to, the holidays, his mysterious miraculous visitor, the fog tragedy. He couldn’t even describe to himself what that had been like. Outwardly it had been terrible, of course -- several people had taken shelter in the church, trapped with him and Sam until the disaster passed. Inside, however ... Mal had known something Important was happening.
On that bright Tuesday morning, as he sat sipping coffee and looking out the window, Mal had decided that today was the day. He hadn’t forgotten the address from his fellow AIR victim. Thirty-five Ludlow Lane. He’d waited until a decent hour and bundled up, then drove over to Ludlow to pay the man a visit. Mal parked in the driveway and kept his mind’s ears open as he walked up to the door. There was only one brain inside the house that he could discern, and it was familiar, so that was good. They would have privacy at least. Mal straightened his shoulders and knocked firmly.
Vex was home alone, music blasting from brand new bluetooth speakers as he busied himself with putting up the whiteboard he had so long wanted to have in the basement. Now that the body-barrel was gone the space felt more 'his', at least for most of the month when their friendly werewolf didn't need his cage. He didn't have names or photos for everyone he was thinking of so there were crude drawings and printed pictures of 'anonymous' heads in their place with little notes scrawled underneath. Funny how just a few days ago he had felt far too paranoid to put his thoughts out in the open like this but today he felt invincible. Let those fuckers come for him, let them try. He ended up dancing. Dancing. The music was catchy and fun and he felt amazing so why the fuck not. Too bad Lem wasn't home to dance with him.
When Mal knocked, Vex was taking a small break, grabbing some drinks from the kitchen. He probably wouldn't have heard the knock otherwise so that was lucky. Or fate - he thought when he opened the door and saw who it was. Yes, perfect! It had been almost two months since he last saw the preacher and he'd just been thinking about him an hour ago when he put two fat question marks below his marker. "Mal," he said with a wolfish grin. "Here I thought you'd forgotten all about me."
Vex looked just as mad as he had when Mal met him the first time, and for some reason that made him smile a little. The instant recognition and that big grin likely contributed too. “I would be surprised if that’s even possible,” he said with a faint chuckle. He’d made quite an impression just from their brief interaction -- even if they hadn’t had certain things in common, Vex did not strike him as a forgettable man. And good Lord, did his brain feel interesting, even on the surface. “Am I interrupting anything? Do you have some time to talk?”
"I'm retired, I have all the time in the world," Vex said and ushered him inside. The music was still blaring in the basement but it wasn't terribly loud up here so he decided to let it be, it provided a nice background ambience and fit his mood perfectly with its hard beat and weird melodies. "We have so much to talk about I don't even know where to start," he said urgently and while the thought that talking to Mal might be dangerous did occur to him, he felt confident that no matter what it'd turn out okay. He was untouchable and everything - Everything - happened for a reason.
Mal looked around as he stepped into the house, finding himself kind of amused but not surprised at the state of the place. When he met a man with a chaotic mind like Vex’s, he wasn’t shocked to find there was evident chaos in other parts of his life as well. Not to mention the punk-bleached hair and beard streaks and all that. Mal wondered what exactly he retired from, but decided not to go digging just yet. “It’s generally best to start at the beginning, yes?” he suggested in a murmur as he unbuttoned his coat. Mal shrugged out of it, glanced around for a second, then draped it over the back of a chair before his eyes came back to Vex. “AIR. They took you as a child?”
Vex nodded, his body still moving a tiny bit to the beat coming from the basement. A new song, the beat faster and harder so it was hard to ignore it and not move even if it wasn't loud up here. It wasn't really a conscious thing, he was focused on Mal and on the things they needed to talk about, trying his hardest to start at the beginning and not launch himself straight into the chaotic mass of all of it. Jane, Neil, werewolves, dimensions, gods, being chosen, being hunted, Miriam D'Onofrio, Anthony D'Onofrio, AIR, AIR, AIR. He took a deep breath when the beat dropped for a second and it worked almost like a meditative thing, his thoughts clearer when it started up again. "They took me and a lot of others but they fucked my brain up," he said, focusing on the start, the start, just the start. "I don't remember anything, they probably thought I wasn't special 'cause I wasn't, didn't get any kinda gift until I was all grown up. Thought I was crazy at first but I'm not. I am just a prophet trying to make sense of a shit ton of jumbled messages. You though, Zero Two Seven Eight, you remember. They didn't let you go."
In contrast, Mal was standing very still, his calm blue gaze locked onto the twitchy man in front of him. He seemed a bit more manic than he had been the first time they’d met, and he was just taking it all in with his hands slipped into his pants pockets. At least he got a mostly coherent answer. The last part made his eyes narrow slightly, a weird chill running down his back at being addressed by his number again. Vex had used it the first time too, and Mal still didn’t know how he knew it. “Call me Mal, please,” he murmured almost absently. “How do you know any of this? What do you mean when you say you’re a prophet?” Mal believed in prophecy to some extent, but he was pretty sure the man in front of him was not particularly holy. The Lord chose some unlikely heroes though, he supposed.
"Mal," Vex repeated indulgently. He was fixated on those numbers and that morning he had been trying to find meaning in them so he was possibly a little more obsessed than usual. But he could understand why those numbers might rub the man the wrong way and they certainly weren't his name. "One of your questions answers the other, Mal. I know this because I am a prophet. I see things, I've seen you countless times over a number of years. I've seen the others too and this has led me to find them and those who took us in the past." He waved at Mal to follow him to the kitchen because despite his manic energy he did actually remember to be a decent host today and the kitchen was the place with all the drinks and foodstuffs. "There are so many connections, so much going on that I don't know yet if AIR is responsible for but we'll know soon enough. I've run out of printer ink and I just bought the damn thing today so that should tell you what a massive amount of shit I'm piling together."
The phrase ‘I’ve seen you countless times’ was a perturbing one, but intriguing at the same time. Mal didn’t respond to that part though, listening to the rest of it as he moved to follow Vex deeper into the house. He wasn’t at all concerned with his stomach, but he was going to follow this conversation wherever it went. Vex obviously had visions of some kind, Mal was sure that made him some sort of psychic, but it was hard not to start making ties to God in his mind. Their paths had to have crossed for a reason. “What sorts of shit?” he asked, curious what Vex could possibly be printing out. Did he have files? Records? Some sort of concrete lead that could take them to AIR’s doorstep? “How many more of us have you found?”
"That's just it," Vex replied enthusiastically. "I've only found a handful of people but I've been digging through the library archives for old copies of the local newspaper and so many people have gone missing that even if I just focus on the kids? I still got so many files. So I'm gathering information on everyone who might have been taken, whether they came back or not, finding everything I can about the rebuilding of the AIR institute, who works there, blueprints, maps, the works. I bet they have their shit underground but who knows, if you compare the official blueprints to satellite pictures it might not add up." He opened the fridge, waving at Mal again to look inside. "You want anything?"
Mal hardly glanced at the fridge. “No, thank you,” he said in his formal sort of way. He didn’t need any food or drink as a distraction, his mind was busy churning over everything Vex had just said. It sounded like a surprisingly thorough investigation for some lunatic off the street, but Mal knew as well as anyone that appearances could be deceiving. Maybe Vex was a retired detective or private investigator or something of that nature. Those people could be eccentric, to stay the least. “It sounds like you’ve got a lot of balls in the air now,” he said, trying to figure out how to approach this whole situation. “... I want to help. If you need any extra eyes or hands to look over anything ...”
"Alright," Vex said as he grabbed a can of soda for himself and popped it open. "You can start by telling me what you do. I've told you what I am, I know some of the others but you? They sold you so it's gotta be good." He hoped Mal wouldn't hold out on him but he half expected him to, it was such a touchy subject, such a dangerous subject but Vex felt so confident now, the hope overrode that fear easily. He was trustworthy, he was important, of course Mal would tell him everything and it could go on the board that felt far too empty because he'd only just started filling in the blanks there.
It was an expected question, but it still gave Mal pause. His abilities were extremely powerful and he was aware that this man might instantly see him as dangerous. People tended to recoil from the idea that anyone could breach their brain. And Vex wouldn’t be wrong -- Mal was dangerous. Whether he would be dangerous to Vex was still up in the air. It depended on a lot of future factors. At the same time, Mal knew that he couldn’t build any trust if he didn’t tell him something. He decided to go a semi-cautious route and tell Vex half of the truth. “I’m a telepath,” he said. “I can hear the thoughts of others. I was sold as a human lie detector and used for espionage, mostly extracting secrets.” That wasn’t even close to everything he’d been forced to do, but it would suffice for now.
Vex cocked a brow at him. It made sense, even if he never would have guessed it, but hearing it from Mal's lips? Yeah, it made sense. Jane snooped in dreams, Mal snooped in minds, Vex snooped on real life events. They were all snoopers. "Can you hear what I'm thinking now?" he asked, focusing for a second on something ridiculous, something random. Mango muffins mixed with mead. Why the M? Probably because of Mal's name, no, focus. Mango muffins. Mead. Mixed with mead. He was staring at Mal expectantly, not fully ready to move onward until they'd sussed this one out.
Since he was being asked to, Mal tuned into Vex’s thoughts quickly and easily. He’d been getting a vague sense of the man’s mind since he’d stepped up onto the porch, but he’d been keeping that frosted-glass shield up until now. The sense of chaos that came to him when he dropped it was like walking into a noisy, crowded room, but he could pick up on what Vex wanted him to hear. “Mango muffins mixed with mead,” he repeated, a tiny smile crossing his face. “Very alliterative. And ... this is your deceased aunt’s house -- I’m sorry for your loss -- and the girl you live with is named Clementine, but she hates her name so she goes by Lem.” He could pull information that wasn’t on the surface, too. Mal raised his brows in a ‘satisfied?’ sort of expression.
Vex let out a mirthless chuckle, sizing Mal up for a moment before he spoke. "You're a dangerous man, Mal Last Name Unknown. Damn I could have used you on the job back in the day but... you'll definitely come in handy now." He should probably worry that Mal could stand in their way but worrying seemed so pointless now, they'd deal with whatever happened when it happened. "Must get noisy, hearing people thinking all the time. You got a way to block it out?" Vex couldn't imagine what his life would be like if he was constantly having visions, it was confusing enough when it did happen and sometimes he wasn't sure what he was seeing was really there. Hearing people thinking non stop had to be even worse than that.
Mal almost asked him what ‘back on the job’ was, but since he already had his fingers in Mal’s mind, he found the information himself. He’d been a cop. Arthur Knowles. Interesting. “If our goals are aligned, I certainly plan to be of use,” he answered, mentally withdrawing just a bit. “But yes, I’ve learned to control it, turn the volume down, so to speak. It was pretty unbearable early on, but that’s been so long ago now. I was subjected to a lot of isolation and training to learn precision.” They also taught him a lot about control, needing him not to self destruct. Mal was grateful for that part, at least. He paused, then added, “I hope this doesn’t make me untrustworthy in your mind. I believe we have common enemies.”
Vex waved his hand dismissively because he didn't really have the time to worry about a possible betrayal down the line. He wouldn't see it coming the way Mal would and that made him either a very powerful ally or - hopefully not -a dangerous enemy. "We have common enemies and they're rebuilding. I think they've started working again, the little girl who went missing might be going through what we did as we speak. Amelia Lucas, maybe others too. But we also have allies, Neil Wainscott - a librarian, not terribly useful. Jane Randolph, now that girl is interesting. She can enter and alter dreams." Why hold back when Mal could so easily pick the information from his mind? Vex decided it was better to show good will and trust since anything else was futile anyway. "You've already seen Lem and we have witches on our side too, powerful ones."
Mal had heard about the missing girl, of course. He still had the poster hanging at the front of the church. But it was interesting to hear her name brought up in this context. It hadn’t occurred to him that AIR might have taken her. Mal made mental notes of the other names, and had to admit his curiosity was piqued about the woman who could invade dreams. He’d never had much contact with the other experimental children when he’d been held captive, and now he wondered just how much variety in powers was out there. What they’d unleashed. “Witches,” he repeated in a murmur, disquiet running through him at that. Mal wasn’t sure he truly believed in witches, but that doubt warred with the parts of him that believed what was in the Bible. Mal decided to set that aside for the moment. “So you’ve found three of us, besides yourself? How old are Neil and Jane? I’m wondering now if one of them was there at the same time I was.”
Vex thought about it. It was hard to gauge Mal's age and he only really knew Jane and Neil's details from the research he'd done recently. "They went missing in ninety-nine, both of them," he said. "There are others too, some I haven't met and I'm not sure how they connect to us if at all. The visions have become more complicated. Now they include my god and the chosen ones - maybe that's related too though, everything connects somehow. Miriam D'Onofrio is one of us but she's hostile and may not be an ally. Wouldn't surprise me if her husband was involved with AIR, he's rich and the shadow demons are very curious about him. Crawled all over to get a glimpse, I've decided to steer clear of the D'Onofrios, they don't feel like allies."
From the rough math that Mal had done in his head about himself, he was around thirty-five. He wasn’t positive of that or when his birthdate was, he’d been taken so young and time tended to warp in captivity. He’d been out of AIR’s custody before the fire though, so he thought Neil and Jane must be younger than he was, they’d been there after him. Vex distracted him from puzzling it out though, as he started rambling about “his” god and the D’Onofrios -- a name that Mal knew, you couldn’t avoid it in this town -- and shadow demons. He blinked a bit and frowned again, wondering if this man was just delusional or if there was some Satanic influence involved here. “I’ll keep that in mind about them,” he murmured, not sure what else to focus on in everything Vex said. Mal definitely felt cautious though. He thought of Westin’s visit to the church and what other powerful forces might be at work in this town.
"There have been others I've seen but haven't found yet, not in the physical realm, this layer," Vex continued. "Some of them don't seem important but I know looks can be deceiving, others seem intense and crazy. I actually saw a girl a few weeks back who seemed to see me too but it was brief and I haven't seen her since. Then there's the kid with the pills, the kid with the fire, a woman who's just catatonic all the time... So many fucking people. I saw my aunt get killed by a werewolf so I don't know if werewolves are connected to AIR or if it was just, you know, blood is powerful." He'd written a lot of this down already and he wished he could plug his printer directly into his brain and print out everything that was going on in there, the images especially since he was no artist.
It was challenging for Mal to keep up just verbally, so he reached out with his mind again to try and listen to the thoughts surrounding what Vex was saying. At first it was even more confusing, but Mal was well practiced and started picking up on some of the context floating around in all of that chaos. He’d had visions, most of whom he thought were victims of AIR, including Mal and the others he’d found in Point Pleasant. Mal also caught a glimpse of the vision Vex had had about his aunt’s death in all of it’s gory detail. It was interesting, and a bit sad. Nobody should have to see that. There were a lot of other things going on in Vex’s brain that seemed impossible to sort out, thoughts all darting around like a feeding frenzy of fish. “Do you have any solid plans yet?” he asked, keeping the expectation low in his tone. He was just gathering information at the moment. “What can I do?”
Vex shook his head. "Right now it's just surveillance, gathering information, finding people. As much as I hated it back in the day, on the job we didn't move on a perp unless we had solid evidence to back us up. You didn't want it all to get thrown out in court; for some scumbag to walk just because you got an itch and moved too early. That shit can drive you crazy, when you know he's guilty. This isn't... quite like that, we know. This is more like.. Amassing an army before you storm the place. You don't wanna go in halfcocked. You want power on your side. I want to burn that fucking place down but what if there are more? What if our own private AIR building is just a fucking Walmart outlet of child abuse? That place burned down before and they're rebuilding. Took them over a decade, sure, but they're back." As he spoke he pictured the AIR building in his own unique way, like the building itself was a living, undulating creature, Much like his god except evil. There could be many just like it, like boils on a body, begging to be eradicated. "You can listen," he said. "I don't know how easy it is to get in there but Jane is planning to visit some dreams for more info, you could actually listen in without having to probe through dreams. That's... That's fucking useful."
Mal understood the essence of what Vex was saying -- they weren’t taking these particular assholes to court, but they did need to prepare before any action was taken. “I wish I could confirm that there are other facilities,” he said with genuine regret. “They were careful to keep me very drugged and isolated during my ah ... sale. The organization that purchased me, they were all trained to veil their thoughts, so I couldn’t get a solid hold on much. But I believe you’re right, AIR is not a single entity. If we can find someone who’s involved, it wouldn’t take much for me to find out everything they know.” When he’d been sold, Mal had still been young and relatively inexperienced. Now he felt like he could crack open anyone’s skull with ease. Telepathically, of course. “So if you have anyone to point me at, let me know. Until then I’ll continue to keep my ears open like I have been doing since I got here. We have the same goals, it seems.”
"Let's exchange phone numbers," Vex muttered. "That way we don't have to run around looking for each other when we find something we want to share." He looked around for his phone, frowning when he realized it was still in the basement. "Don't got my phone so- here." Thankfully he had scrap paper all over the house so he grabbed a piece and went hunting for a pen. "We've been watching the building, followed a couple of people but so far it's all dead ends. Starting to think the higher ups either don't go to that buildling or they all have a secret fucking tunnel leading to it to throw us off the scent, motherfuckers." He held up a pen triumphantly after digging one out of the random-crap drawer. "Give me your digits."
Mal moved in a little closer as Vex hunted down a pen. He recited his phone number for the man. He had it memorized unlike most people these days, since he gave it out so often for church purposes. “Just text me something and I’ll save your number too,” he said absently as he looked at Vex’s scrawl of numbers. Something else he’d said was more interesting to Mal at the moment. “Who have you followed? Can you tell me where to find them? Maybe I can tap into one of them and get an idea of what’s going on, who else is involved ...” Maybe he could find the names of people at the top. More effective targets.
"Well we followed a couple of people from the building," Vex said but Mal was right, his gift might prove more useful than Jane's as well as less of an effort. "One just works the front desk and knows nothing at all of any significance, the other is a doctor in behavioral science but he's very new so I guess he's not in the loop yet. I'll write a list of the names we have so far." He paused, squinting as he thought about it. "You know what we really need? Some motherfucker who can astral project and go investigate that building. Fuck, I wish I could do that, just walk around without anyone seeing me. If they're as powerful as they seem they might have some kinda psychic protections in place though, we're very much the students going up against the professor here, aren't we."
He wasn’t sure how Vex knew that the people he named didn’t know anything. Dreams could be amazingly insightful, yes, but Mal didn’t think they revealed everything contained within someone’s mind. He didn’t know the extent of this woman Jane’s powers, but he was inclined to believe that his own were stronger. Even if the individuals themselves didn’t know much, they would know someone who knew more, and then they would know someone else higher up the chain. That was how chains worked. He nodded his agreement that being able to astrally project would be incredibly useful, then his expression darkened a bit. Mal definitely didn’t think of himself as a student of any kind. At least not subordinate to anyone mortal. “No,” he said flatly. “We’re not. We are the reckoning, the fruits of their labors come back to call. They made us dangerous, and they will reap what they’ve sown.” Mal had a quick, vivid fantasy of walking through the halls of AIR, taking every mind he could reach and turning it against itself. Perhaps he would bring a guard with him and use their own security to execute everyone he saw. However it happened, they would pay. “We’re stronger and more powerful together, and they won’t see us coming. We’ll make a plan and destroy them.”
Vex's eyes widened as he listened and his lips slowly stretched into a wide smile too. He stepped forward when Mal was done, grabbing his face with both hands. "I knew I liked you," he said and gave him the smallest of shakes, his smile near-manic now. "Let me get you those names. This is going to be fucking amazing." He let go, spinning on his heel to find a new scrap of paper to write on. It was only two names, yes, but he remembered a few more details that could come in handy, the time he'd seen them come out of the building, where they'd gone after, even a home address for one of them. He really wanted to sketch up their likeness too but again he felt hobbled by his inability to do any sort of drawing. That did give him an idea though. "When you read minds, can you only hear words? Or can you see pictures?" he asked as he handed Mal the messily scribbled note, the words just barely legible.
Mal wasn’t the fondest person in the world of being touched by strangers, but he suffered through it all the time for his congregation, so he didn’t resist Vex’s grip on his face. The man just looked so delighted, and his manic brain was lit up like a Christmas tree. Mal accepted the scrawled paper, looking down at it while he probed Vex’s mind to translate a couple of the scribbles that he couldn’t read outright. “Both,” he answered Vex’s question, looking up to meet his eyes again as he slid the information into his coat pocket. “Different people think differently. Words, pictures, echoes of memory, emotions ... I can read them all, even if I can’t interpret everything.”
"Fantastic," Vex murmured. "Focus, I'm gonna show you some faces." He thought hard about the two people he knew worked for AIR but it didn't take long for him to get a little overwhelmed with all the things Mal probably should know and before he knew it he was thinking about his visions, the people he'd seen - both people he had found and then those he hadn't yet - situations he'd seen them in, some of in various stages of their lives. Some of the visions were of Mal and while he didn't need to see them, they slipped in too and Vex frowned as he tried to focus again. "I'm not good at still," he said with a little grin. "Can you draw, Mal? I need a psychic printer."
Mal focused, and he did get a decent look at the faces that Vex was trying to show him. He knew how quickly other thoughts tended to rush in and invade when you were trying to think of something specific, so he wasn’t surprised when it all started to get crowded and noisy again. What was a little jarring was seeing himself in there too. He obviously wasn’t as invisible as he’d thought himself to be for years. Mal pulled his mind back and gave Vex a rueful sort of smile. “Unfortunately not,” he said. “I’m a stick-figures sort of person. But you do have a lot going on up there, seems like, so I don’t blame you for wanting one. Think I got enough to track these people down, though.” And that was the first step that would lead to many others, he hoped.
"That's a start," Vex sighed, a little disappointed. A psychic printer would have been amazing but it was also probably a lot to ask one man, especially with a brain as busy as Vex's. "I might try to lucid dream with Jane, see if I can show her some. That girl's an artist." Was she any good at portraits, he wondered. Better than he was at least, she had to be. He might do a little better than stick figures but not by much. "I think you'd like Jane," he mused. "I'd love to know what's going on in her brain. Hers and her squirrely little friend's."
Mal generally wasn’t interested in people -- in his experience most of them were the same, selfish blind little monkeys running around doing the same monkey things. Once in a while a particularly bright mind caught his attention, but they mostly stayed an annoying blur to him. Vex was an exception, Vex was special like him. Mal was willing to bet Jane’s mind would also feel special. Not that he wanted her in his dreams, but he’d learned long ago that he had little control over things like that. “I look forward to meeting her. Who’s her squirrely little friend?” he asked, sounding curious. Mal wanted to know as much about all the other AIR victims as he could, and he had to assume Vex was referencing one of them.
"Neil Wainscott, the librarian," Vex replied easily. "He didn't think he was special but he is, got little lightning dancing in his hands last time I saw him." He huffed in amusement. "So don't startle him, I guess. Easier said than done. Like I said: Squirrely." It was a wonder he hadn't set electrical fires yet, Vex thought. Or fried a rude customer. The thought of that made him titter again. "I'd show you the database I'm building in the basement but I just started and it's a fucking mess," he told Mal. "Come back in a couple of days when I'm done printing."
Neil Wainscott, librarian, lightning hands. Mal wondered if that was a literal description or some of Vex’s flowery metaphorical sort of language. At least the name and occupation were specific, and it wasn’t like Point Pleasant was lousy with libraries. Maybe he would pay squirrely Mr. Wainscott a visit, just to get a feel for him. Mal didn’t mind startling people. They were more honest that way. Maybe his thoughts would be a bit less chaotic in comparison and he would know something Vex didn’t. He wanted to get to know all of the others that he could anyway. There would be days ahead when they would need to strategize. “I can wait until then,” he agreed with the man standing in front of him now. “And I’ll start doing my own digging. I’ll keep in touch.” Sensing this conversation coming to a close, he turned to start toward the door again.
Vex followed him, giddy with anticipation. Things were clicking into place so nicely, like there was a divine plan and they were following it to a t. "Don't be a stranger, let me know what you find. I wanna take these fuckers down and if we're heroes who find a missing little girl while we're at it? All the better." It wasn't often he could share the literal contents of his brain with someone and while most people would probably feel weary of Mal's ability, Vex just felt excited by it. At least at the moment. "You need to meet Lem sometime too," he told Mal once they reached the front door. "So come around."
Mal knew who Lem was just from the peek he’d gotten inside of Vex’s head -- she was all over the place in there. They seemed like an interesting pair, to say the lease. He doubted he would ever truly introduce Sam to these people, at least not with any sort of openness about how intimate they were. Sam was his adopted daughter to everyone but him, and it was going to stay that way. Regardless, Vex was obviously doing to be an invaluable source of information in this war, and perhaps a good partner. At least a useful one. “I will,” he said with a faint smile. Mal offered Vex his hand to shake one last time before he opened the door for himself. “Take care, Vex.”
Vex sucked at taking care of himself but he had Lem for that so he shrugged and smiled as he shook Mal's hand. "Sure thing, you too." He leaned against the doorframe as he watched Mal walk away for almost a whole minute, his mind racing with ideas and questions that needed answers. It certainly felt like the universe was aligning just right but what would happen when it finally did? Would it all go boom and then, in what way? He bounced on his feet again and shut the door, rushing back down to the basement to send Mal a text message and save his number in his phone. After that he could continue working on his board, keep printing and trying to connect the dots.