Leon Orcot (under_arrest) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-05-15 23:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, frank hardy, leon orcot |
Who: Frank Hardy and Leon Orcot
When: End of April
Where: The police station
What: Discussing the Agency
Warning/Rating: None/low
Status: Complete when posted
“I told you, kid. This isn’t a talent agency. We don’t have agents and we can’t take your resume. This is a police station and we don’t take kindly to people wasting our time.”
Frank frowned at the man. Kid? He had not been called that for a long time. He was nearly thirty, for goodness sakes! The Desk Officer in front of him could not have been more than a year or two older than him. “I wasn’t asking about a talent agency. I asked if you had knew anything about The Agency.”
The more Frank tried to research The Agency the more he was convinced that it was indeed a government cover up organization as the anonymous tipster had said. There were no records of it in City Hall or the Public Records Office, but in the newspaper archives of the local library he had found almost passing mentions of an agency that had stepped in during suspicious gas leaks and unusual weather phenomena. There had to be something here; his senses as a reporter were screaming to keep investigating until he got to the bottom of this conspiracy.
He glanced at the officer’s name plate and then gave the man his most charming smile. “You look like a man who knows and hears a lot, Officer Porter. I just wanted to see if you wanted to share some of that knowledge. That’s all.” From the look on the man’s face, the trip to the Irvine Police Department was going to be as fruitful (or fruitless) as his other destinations.
It was Leon’s turn to grab coffee and doughnuts - not a job he disliked. It got him away from his paperwork for a while, and it made people more amiable to him. Leon wasn’t the most personable of people, which meant he could take all the help in that department as he could.
He was just walking in, juggling about half a dozen coffees in a tray and a large box of doughnuts and hardly paid attention at all to the man who seemed to be arguing with Porter. At least, he didn’t pay attention until he heard the man talking about The Agency. Leon stopped mid-step and cocked his head to the side, listening to the rest of exchange.
Leon walked up to the Desk Officer and took a look at the civilian. He didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t mean much. There were a lot of people Leon didn’t recognize. “I’ll take him off your hands, Porter,” Leon said.
Porter gave him a surprised look, especially since Leon hated dealing with civilians. “You sure, Leon?” Porter asked. “I think the kid’s looking for his big break in the movies or something. Nothing worth bothering about.”
Leon shrugged. “Yeah, I’m sure,” he said. He didn’t bother to explain himself. “You,” he said, nodding at Frank. “You follow me.”
The sound of a new voice made Frank turn to look at the man that had just walked in the door. From his tone he was definitely more of a police officer than a gopher, even though he currently was carrying more coffees than he had hands. He was also not wearing the iconic blue uniform, but normal clothes. Frank's eyes lit up. A detective!
Finally, he was getting somewhere. Granted, that somewhere might just be to a desk to be given a reprimand about wasting police time. That was still better than trying to get information out of a desk clerk that had obviously seen one too many Hollywood rejection letters. “Thanks,” for nothing “Officer Porter.” He nodded at the man before pushing back from the desk and heading in the direction Detective Gopher had indicated.
“Can I help you with those, Detective?” Frank asked amenably as he followed the man’s lead. “Your hands look a bit full.” He was nothing if not polite. Besides, it could not hurt to engender a bit of good will before he found out that Frank was a reporter. Cops never seemed to like reporters.
“No, it’s fine,” Leon said. Indeed, he didn’t have far to go to the break room to put the snacks on a table with a “Soups up boys (“Hey!”) and girls!” Then he grabbed himself a coffee and a culler, not bothering to ask Frank if he wanted one.
Having dropped off his load, he began to lead Frank toward the interrogation rooms, opening the door for one that wasn’t occupied. “Wait in here for a minute, would you?” he asked. He wasn’t exactly friendly about it - Leon wasn’t typically friendly with strangers, especially ones that went around talking about the Agency, but it wasn’t a command either. It wasn’t like Leon was taking Frank back there on official police business or anything.
If there was ever a sign that Frank was intruding, it was probably the looks he was getting from the other officers. He could see a mix of curiousity and apathy in a few of their eyes before their attention was fully taken up by the coffee and donuts. What is it with cops and donuts? One day, he would have to figure out a way to get that question into a proper interview. In the meantime, he took no offense to not being offered any of their prized snacks.
The interrogation room, however, did make him pause a moment. He had typically interacted with the few NYPD detectives he knew at their desks, not in interrogation rooms. Frank hoped that he was on the right track, otherwise he was on a very wrong one.
He shook off the hesitation and gave the detective a smile. “Sure, Detective.” Frank walked over to the side of the table facing the mirror and sat down. His fingers itched for the pad and paper he had foolishly left in his car, but he trusted his memory palace enough to know that he could recreate the conversation if need be.
Leon left him alone in the interrogation room alone for a moment to make sure all the surveillance equipment was off before joining him in the room, sitting across the table from Frank.
“I thought we’d get a bit more privacy in here,” he explained. That, and the cop in Leon hoped the room would unnerve his visitor just a little. Maybe the man would let something slip that he hadn't meant to. “I'm Detective Leon Orcot. And you are…?”
Frank would be the first to admit that being on the other side of an interrogation table was definitely unnerving. This particular one reminded him all too much of the rooms he and Joe had been placed in following Iola’s murder, before the police ruled them out as suspects. No matter how many times he ended up on the other side of a brutal interrogation, those first few minutes alone with himself always seemed to be the worst.
This time he had not done anything wrong. Yet. So there was no reason for Frank to be nervous. Yet. “Frank Hardy.” He opened his hands, palms turned toward the ceiling in a universal ‘I have nothing to hide’ gesture. “Thanks for agreeing to talk to me. Officer Porter seemed to believe I was in the wrong place.”
“Maybe you are.” Leon shrugged, then he leaned back in his chair and took a bite of his cruller. “Tell me about this Agency of yours,” he said, prepared to sit back and listen before he revealed any of his own information. For all he knew, the man really was looking for some sort of talent Agency. Or, he was an Agency fanboy, in which case Leon didn’t want much to do with him.
“Fair enough.” Frank was no stranger to tit-for-tat and honestly, the paltry information he had managed to gather so far was not enough to warrant holding back just yet. Except for perhaps the woman’s name from the recording he had overheard. Or the fact that he had gotten most of his information by buying a homeless navy vet a bottle of gin. Sources were everything in his business.
“From what I’ve been able to gather, there’s a lot of weird things that have been happening in Orange County over the last few years. There’s been an abnormal number of gas leaks and freak weather, but no one seems to notice.” Except, of course, for a group people on a network who keep talking about their dreams over the internet, but even Frank had to admit that sounded hokey. “I believe that The Agency is related to all of that.”
“That’s it?” Leon deadpanned. “That’s all you know? Do you even know how they’re related?” He pinched the bridge of his nose, and then took an angry swig of his coffee, only to immediately regret it as the hot liquid burned all the way to his stomach. Still, maybe that wasn’t entirely fair. Two of his best friends worked for the hated organization, and his pseudo-girlfriend ran the place. And, well, Leon hadn’t learned of the Agency until Sharon straight-up told him about it, during the vampire attack nearly a year ago. “How long have you been looking into this thing?”
Frank blinked in surprise. Then he had to hide his grin. He had known there was a story here! The elder Hardy may be a bit eager for a mystery, but he was no fool. Building up enough evidence against this Agency would likely take months, not weeks. He knew when to bide his time and collect the interviews and evidence available and when to buckle down and send something to print. Hopefully he would eventually be able to get even more information from this Detective.
Unless, of course, Detective Orcot was part of the cover up.
“I don’t. Yet.” Frank decided to hedge his bets on the Detective. “I’ve only been in town a few weeks. That’s why I’m here, Detective. Trying to get more information.”
Leon was definitely not part of the cover-up. His main problem with the Agency was, in fact, the cover-up. But he wasn’t about to put his friends in danger either. “A couple of weeks, huh?” Leon said, and he had to admit that he was a teeny bit impressed. “And you didn’t start looking into this until you moved here? Alright, let’s say I have information for you,” Leon said, which he absolutely did and he didn’t bother trying to hide it. “What are you going to use it for?”
It was sheer luck that Frank had overheard that anonymous tip, and even more luck that he had not dismissed it as his co-workers had. But Frank Hardy had a nose for mystery and a knack for getting himself into sticky situations because of it. Even if had not heard the tip, the sheer number of people on the network that kept suggesting that crazy things happened around the area would have sent him on the same trail, albeit without an Agency connection.
“I’m going to tell the truth.” It sounded foolish and naive, but it was what Frank believed a journalist should strive to do. It was his job, his career, and his life’s passion to bring information to light about the world. Whether it was telling them that the cotton candy flavored caramel corn was really only for those who really liked cotton candy, or if it was sneaking a letter into print from a child in Egypt whose parents had been ‘disappeared’ by the current government. It was not his job to pass judgement, just information.
“I want to make people aware of what’s really going on in this county. People have a right to be informed about what’s going on around them without someone trying to pull wool over their eyes.” His eyes were stubborn and determined. Whatever this Agency was doing, Frank was determined to get to the bottom of it.
Leon warmed to the guy immediately. It’s what he’d always said too, and it had been a point of contention between himself and his friends in the Agency on more than one occasion.
“You a reporter of some sort?” Leon asked, because a lot of that sounded like something a journalist would say. Leon didn’t care for journalists at all - he thought most of them were unscrupulous swine who, more often than not, ruined major investigations - but some of them were okay. Especially ones who were willing to help bring down the Agency a peg or two. “You heard none of this - none of this - from me. You understand?”
“I am.” Frank replied. Which was still the truth. His current paycheck came from bogging about fluff pieces for the local news station, but it was still reporting. Not that he was going to admit who his current employer was to the detective. He could not risk anything getting back to the station while he was still on the typical six-month new-hire probation. At times like these, he missed the backing from his former editor at the paper back in New York.
“Not a word.” Frank had to keep himself from letting the excitement filter into his voice. This was it! He had finally found someone who not only knew about the agency, but was willing to talk about it. His fingers itched again for his absent notepad, so he laced them together on top of the table instead. “A journalist who gives up his sources never reports again.” He quipped, quoting his old thesis advisor. Information could be extremely dangerous and it was his job to protect the identities of those willing to tell the truth as much as it was for him to report it.
Although usually that was to protect sources from the police, not because they were police. The irony of the situation did not escape the reporter.
Leon leaned back and looked at Frank for a measured moment before he began, as if deciding one last time that he was going to trust him with this information. Evidently, he did. “The Agency claims that they have nothing to do with the dreams or the weird stuff that goes on here,” Leon said. He wasn’t sure if he believed them, though that was all conjecture so nothing he was going to say to Frank. Besides, he really did believe that Peggy, the director of the Agency, truly believed that the Agency hadn’t caused any of the stuff. He just wasn’t sold on the idea that there were aspects of the Agency that Peggy just didn’t know about.
“But the Agency deals with the aftermath. They’re the ones that tell people that a bunch of very hungry dream vampires are really just junkies instead of giving the public any information that might have actually protected them.” It had been obvious to any of the cops working on those cases that they had not been junkies - for one, none of the vics had been robbed - and it had confused more than a few of them about how they got the information. “Or spreading rumours about hallucinogens in the water. Things like that. They claim it’s to protect the people on the Network with… special abilities, to the detriment of everyone else. They might have something to do with dealing with the more… supernatural threats that tend to plague this city too, but I don’t know much about that.”
Hearing that the Agency was more cover-up than cause was a bit of a surprise for Frank. Usually the people doing the covering also did the deed that needed to be covered. Or at least they would hire people to do the covering for them. “You’re saying the Agency isn’t the cause of all the strange stuff that happens in the county, but do you think they know who - or what - is?”
Frank was not sure what to make of the rest of the Detective’s narrative. He had yet to meet anyone with ‘special abilities’ or that would qualify as a ‘supernatural threat’, but it was probably best to accept what the man was telling him and sort through it all later. He did not want to risk offending the first person who had willingly opened up to him about the Agency.
“So their primary purpose is to keep the general public from knowing what goes on here?” Supernatural or not, it did not sit well with Frank that anyone would try to bury a threat to the general public. “Do they work with the local police force to help contain any of these threats or keep people safe from whatever strange weather or people that might come after them?”
“They claim they’re as in the dark as the rest of us,” Leon muttered. He believed that even less than he believed that the Agency wasn’t directly responsible for things. If nothing else, they had to at least have some idea. But if the Director didn’t know, who in the organization would?
“As far as I can figure,” Leon said. “But no, we’ve got no clue either. I don’t know if they’ve got people in the higher ups, but they’d have to rank higher than detective I guess.”
The frown only deepened on Frank’s face. The United States had various forms of lawmen who specialized in different threats, from the FBI and NSA to local beat cops and meter maids, so there was always the possibility that this Agency was another such organization that was simply not as well known. Interagency politics and cooperation were almost always a mess, but that was where jurisdiction came into play. The FBI may be more likely to profile and track a serial killer, but it was the local LEOs that had the manpower for search teams and helping the families of the victims long after the suits had packed up and headed back to Quantico.
“That’s stupid.” Frank heard himself saying before he could stop himself. “You can’t protect people on a large scale with rumors alone. This isn’t the Manhattan Project, this is an outbreak of dangerous phenomena in a major city!” If coordination with the Agency was above a Detective’s pay grade, that did not bode well for the rest of the department. It also meant that proof to back up this particular story was going to be much more difficult than he had originally thought. And that was saying something.
Leon’s mouth quirked up at the edges, though he didn’t quite smile. He didn’t really think of the Agency as a smiling matter, but he was glad that this guy at least seemed to agree with him. With most of his friends working for the secret government agency, Leon was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t he who was a little crazy about all this.
“No, you can’t,” Leon agreed. “People need to know the kind of things that are happening here. And not from the crazy homeless guy who yells about it on the street corners.” Leon always made sure to drop him a couple of bucks when he passed him nevertheless, even though he didn’t usually give money to the homeless.
“I’m not so sure he’s crazy anymore.” Frank muttered. He was less concerned that the Detective would deduce one of his sources and far more concerned with finding new ones. He rubbed his chin as the wheels of his mind began working on how he was going to get actual, solid proof that he could take to his bosses at the station and not get laughed out of a job. A taped interview? No, just that would not be enough to convince the public that something was going on. There had to be documents out there, some sort of internal memo, that detailed at least one of these ‘events’ The Agency had covered up.
Before he got in over his head, Frank needed to know one crucial piece of information. “Detective, do you know if anyone has tried to go up against The Agency before? To try and reveal what they’re doing in some way?” The ‘and what happened to them?’ was left unsaid. Going after any major conspiracy was dangerous in many ways, but if other reporters had come before him trying for the same story, there might be some evidence or information that they had gathered that no longer existed in the places Frank had been searching.
Leon’s lip twitched again, and he had to scowl to stop from smiling. He liked this guy, and he was sure as shit glad that someone was willing to do what Leon couldn’t. At least, he couldn’t openly. If Frank wanted it, Leon was prepared to offer whatever help he could from behind the scenes.
“Couldn’t tell you,” Leon said, shaking his head. “The people who know of the Agency just seem to accept it as the best option, so as far as I know, no one’s tried to reveal them.” He hesitated. “But I know a few people involved. I don’t know for sure what would happen to someone who tried going against them, but they’re not the kind of people who would take punishments too far.”
“Really?” Frank brightened at the prospect of getting additional names of Agency...agents. Well, that did not sound very print-worthy, now did it? He would have to think of something else to call their members before pitching the story to his boss. He was disappointed that no other fellow journalists had attempted to take on the Agency before, but at the same time that only served to fuel his determination. He would take on any punishment if it meant getting the truth out.
“Would you be okay with giving me their names, Detective?” Frank held his hands up as if he were holding a small notepad and pen, even though his hands were empty. His mind was already clearing room in his Memory Palace to keep the names secure. A blank post-it ready to be filled on the desk in his old room in Bayport. He would use code names when writing down this information in his notebook later, but he would need the actual names in order to start digging.
Leon frowned at Frank’s question. It wasn’t an easy one to answer, and his urge to bring the Agency down and giving citizens the information they needed in order to protect themselves against the craziness that took place in their county wrestled with his need to protect his friends. He didn’t think that giving up their names would put them in any danger, but it still felt like a betrayal of sorts.
“I can’t do that,” he finally answered. Veronica, Sharon, and Peggy were too important to him for him to give them up. “But what I can do is try to gather intel from them. Anonymously. If there’s something you need that I can gather, I can do that.”
“I can respect that.” Frank folded his hands, linking his fingers together. “In return, I promise that your name will not be mentioned in any part of this that you do not wish it to be.” It was still early in the investigation and he did not want to push too far too soon and end up on the bad side of the first (sober) person who offered to provide information about the Agency. Maybe later on, if there were something the Detective did not feel comfortable asking his sources, Frank could try again. He was determined to find out everything about the organization, eventually.
“There’s just one more question that I have for you, Detective Orcot, and I realize that this might sound odd, but,” Frank leaned forward across the table. “Do you Dream?” Perhaps it was the perpetual science fiction nerd inside him, but he could not help but want to see if the ‘it can only be seen by those who have already seen it’ quality applied to the Agency as well. If there was some sort of ‘don’t notice me!’ mind games going on on top of the cover ups, it would be that much harder for Frank to convince the general public that they needed to pay attention to the strange things around them.
“I do. Did.” He frowned. He hadn’t had a new dream in a while, now that he thought about it, but there was no way his dreams could just be over. In his dreams, he’d quit his job and abandoned every aspect of his life in order to find D. He’d narrowly missed him in Berlin, and then again in Venice, but it would be way too cruel for his dreams to just never tell him whether or not he ever reconnected with the man he’d given up everything for. “I take it you do too?”
It’s true! Frank had to stop himself from grinning with excitement. It was positively fascinating how these Dreams seemed to pick a people from completely different places and walks of life. He wondered what criteria the phenomenon used, or if it was truly at random. Joe had also started dreaming the same night he had, so it was entirely possible that the residences themselves were chosen. If that were true, the homeless man would not be able to dream. Or would he? Frank would have to ask the next time he saw the man. “Just the once. I’ve found that the only people who seem to take the Agency seriously are those that also Dream.”
Leon nodded. “We’re the only ones who notice the weird shit that happens,” Leon acknowledged. “At least, as far as I can figure. I’ve lived here my whole life, and I didn’t realize any of this strange shit until I started dreaming. I’m not sure if it’s just the cover-ups either. I mean, sure, the Agency can say vampires are junkies, but they can’t explain away the bloodrain we got not long ago. None of my coworkers seemed to even notice it.”
“How could you not notice that it’s raining blood?” Frank looked incredulously at the Detective. Covering things up was one thing, but keeping an entire county nonchalant like people stuck in the Matrix was just absurd. ...Wasn’t it? “The people who don’t dream should be affected by the same general phenomena, right?”
Leon shook his head. “Damned if I know,” Leon muttered. “In my dreams it happens. Where people see things that no one else does. In my dreams, at least, it has to do with being open to the idea. People miss all sorts of things because they don’t think they’re possible. At least, I think so. I never got a crash course in the matter. Some things everyone notices, like the spider attacks. But some things are completely missed.”
Placing a hand on his chin, Frank processed the new information. A mental note was tucked away to look into the spider attacks Leon mentioned as well; the homeless man had not mentioned that particular incident. Did the city become overrun by spiders or- He shook his head to stop the thought. That doesn’t matter right now, Hardy. “So because people believe that being attacked by spiders is possible, they’re able to actually see it when it happens. Along the same vein, if the general public believes something isn’t possible, then they are willing to accept whatever mildly plausible the Agency gives them for what occurred.” He was living in a science fiction story. That was the only way any of this made any sense. “But everyone is affected by it, regardless of whether or not they see it, right?”
Leon’s eyebrows furrowed together. “I think so,” he said after a moment. “A few months ago there was this weird fog. I just saw it as fog so thick you could practically swim through it, though others told me the OC was a foggy abandoned wasteland filled with monsters. They might have stepped into some strange pocket dimension though. Believe it or not, but advanced physics isn’t really part of my job description.”
“Of course not,” Frank said quickly, hoping not to offend the man with his line of questioning. He did not expect the Detective to have all the answers, but he would not be a very good journalist if he did not ask the questions in the first place. “But I figured that since first responders are on the front lines for everyone, not just the people on the Network, you would be in the best position to see just who is affected by these events. As a detective I’m sure you’re also able to notice and put together a lot of facts that other responders might miss.”
The idea that the strange happenings in Orange County only happened to members of the Network was an interesting one as well. If learning the truth about what was going on could put people in more danger instead of help them prepare for it, he would have to reconsider his initial angle. His initial position on the matter had not changed, but the story might have to be adjusted so that people could be given a choice. It was one thing to make sure that everyone was given a fighting chance, but it was a completely different matter if giving them that chance also meant dragging them into danger in the first place.
“Whether someone thinks they’re being drained dry by a junkie or a vampire, the fact remains that they’re still getting drained dry,” Leon muttered. The first time Leon had ever heard of the Agency was when the Orange County had been under attack from a bunch of vampires. They’d apparently crawled straight from the dreams of a girl named Buffy. But the event crystallized in his mind what exactly the Agency was. It was a group of people who withheld information that could have protected people in favour of keeping their secrets.
“I’m sorry I can’t give you more concrete answers,” he said after a moment. “I’m sure you came here today hoping to get more than a couple of half-baked theories.”
So the events did affect normal people, not just the people on the Network. That was less science fiction and more disconcerting. Keeping people away from the Network would have been too easy and frankly, a boring solution to the Agency mystery. At least he did not have to worry about anything from his own dreams coming over to the real world. There was simply nothing supernatural about two teen detectives solving murders and clearing the names of innocent people.
Frank shook his head. It sounded as if they were nearing the end of this particular interview. Or at least the end of the Detective’s patience with an over enthusiastic reporter. “No, Detective, I just came for information. I haven’t been investigating long enough for me to start forming any theories of my own. Even half-baked theories can sometimes carry more information than we expect. Thank you for sharing them with me.” He had been given a number of leads that he would need to follow this weekend. At this rate, Frank would be more of a regular at the newspaper archives than the newspapers themselves.
Leon leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. He’d received no information himself which kind of pissed him off, but on the bright side, it was good to know he wasn’t alone in this anymore. All his other friends either worked for the Agency, were pro-Agency, or just didn’t give a shit. After a couple of moments, Leon stood up and offered his hand to Frank over the table. “It was my pleasure,” he said, not untruthfully. “If you learn anything or need anymore information from me, don’t hesitate to get in touch.”