Soldiers [Detective Conan] [Crow series 1/2]

for a long night,

29 July, 2010
Berlin-Mitte, Berlin, Germany

a phone conversation.
cast: [the cinema owner] & [the femme fatale]

"Konbanwa, hello-hello darling!"

(audibly tense)
"Ah... good evening."

"Haha! Always a stick up your derriere, Monsieur Kim."

"How can I help, Mademoiselle Chanterelle?"

"Would you believe me if I told you that I was just in Europe and caught a breeze of nostalgia?"

"Not exactly."
(grinding teeth... then a resigned sigh.)
"Europe, was it? I imagine you had a few festivals there..."

"Oh yes – marvellous, simply marvellous! Cannes in May, Moscow in June, and even Odesa had her first one just last week! It's a lovely city, have you ever been?"

(slightly discomforted noise)
"No. And... that's not where you are right now, is it?"

(cheerfully)
"Nope! Can you figure it out, darling?"

"Given your manner of calling, I imagine it's not public work. And in Europe... oh. It's you, who's picking up the goods from that Dionysus exhibition?"

"You really are still so sharp, Monsieur Kim! Yes, that is exactly right. It's all so fascinating: the mythologies, the reinventions – drunken deaths, returning to mad life..."

(impatiently)
"Pft. Keep that superstitious drivel far away from me."

(a delighted laugh)
"Hah! Say no more, say no more. I know you're not a fan on the Occult."

"You even say it like it means anything. It's 2010, not 1936."

(laugh dies instantly. In a much lower, older voice:)
"As if you'd know the difference, young man."

"...I see."
(after a moment)
"I apologise. I forgot the exhibition was in Berlin, too."

(abruptly brightly, in her normal voice once more)
"That's right, it was! January this year, but then there were a handful of private showings to secure some deals, and it was used in a few film shoots too – so we're only getting the last odds and ends back now. But this city..."
(soft inhale, like she's breathing the sweet air along a certain linden tree boulevard)
"...she really does bring back memories, you know?"

(hesitation.)
"...which year?"

"Take your pick. Noriaki."

(sharply)
"What the fuck do you want."

"Hah, what makes you think I want anything?"

"People only ever call me that name when they want something."

"Is that so?"
(lowly threatening)
"Did your beloved Comrade call you that, too?"

"Wha-?!"
(catches himself – scoffs.)
"Oh, that's your game."

(with mock innocence)
"Game?"

"There's no point, you nosy old bitch. The Cold War is over, the Civil War is over."

"I sometimes wonder about that..."

(stiffly)
"I don't."

(huffing)
"Always so boringly loyal, Noriaki."

"Always so predictably combative, Bellum Americanum."

"Pax Americana, actually."

"Oh – wait, fucking hell, woman. Is this about the Red Label assassination attempt on Rye the other day? That's not even-"

"Ha! No-no, darling! Goodness no. Though I am curious how you know about that. Could it be that you still care about him? Or has Palinka been naughty and talked to you about this? Or are you keeping your eye out for any further developments in the Black Label directives after the Purge? Or-?"

(blankly)
"None of the above. Various cells in Afghanistan report to my officers. You know this."

(another delighted laugh)
"You're right, I do know. I was just hoping for some drama... Though judging by what's happening under your own scarred nose it seems you're perfectly capable of managing that all by yourself, huh?"

"Please get to the point, ma'am. Is this about the Tequila Croaking? The spilled Pinot? I can keep wasting both of our time guessing, or you can just tell me."

"Oh, we're getting warmer! Though Pinot's been cleaned up, I'm told."
(in a mock-conspiring tone-)
"The truth is, I didn't just get those exhibition pieces here in Berlin. They're so business-like in this City of Spies! Even after all this time, there's all this delicious subterfuge and intelligence here... So I also happened to receive a very juicy file."

(impatient and unimpressed)
"You always have some 'juicy' file. You've got your fingers up so far the CIA's ass they can taste your perfect manicure."

(a shocked laugh)
"That's vile, Noriaki!"

(dryly)
"Yeah. Old men tend to be."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, dear boy. You're the one who chose age over beauty."

(a disdainful grunt)

"Now, the files I got my hands on happened to be Interpol files from... two days ago, now?"

(breath catches, briefly.)

"Straight from Lyon, now that's real service. Turns out that they do share if you ask nice enough."

"Miss Chantal, you know I don't fuck with Interpol since the Civil War. I've learned my lesson. No more Krieks. No more Bishop cocktails."

"You say that – but be honest with yourself, honey. You do keep getting caught in messes like that... seventeen, nine, two years ago..."

(another grunt)
"Maybe you just can't teach an old dog new tricks."

"Maybe. But you're no dog, Noriaki."
(the softly assessing tone turns almost mocking again)
"You're a little – cowboy, a ronin, right? A solider on your own, with no family behind you. You aren't even afraid I'll tell your tou-chan, are you?"

(a bitter laugh)
"Will the old bastard finally put a bullet in my skull?"

"Oh good grief Noriaki, so dramatic! You talking like that would break his heart, if he had one."

(with grim realisation)
"So... you haven't told him."

"I'm an entertainer at heart, you know that. So what tale is most entertaining?"

"Pfah. Secrets always cut two ways, with you."

(an absolutely delighted laugh)
"Three, if they're lucky!"

(tired sigh)
"What do you think I owe you?"

"A favour I'll cash in immediately, if you don't mind. It's about those poor darlings left behind after that spillage in Tokyo and the Croaking follow-up. You see, I can't help but think we could expand into-"

"Oh, that? Yeah, you can have my offices."

"...ha, what? You're ready to give up so quick?"

"Hah, there's nothing for me to even give up. You've already got Ménthe cleaning up in New York and Soju setting up for that base in Qatar, right?"

"Sneaky, dropping your intel like that..."

"I... really wouldn't worry about me if I was in your position, ma'am."

(a slightly embittered hesitation)
"...the Tokyo office should be yours. It's your city."

"In the light of the latest Spill it's been ruled compromised. And that's years after both of you started planting your people in it."

"But the opening..."

"You know, you have a lot in common with our last Comrade."

(cautious and calculating)
"...how so?"

"Haha. You're both unstoppable forces."

(longer pause. perhaps more lost, than anything.)
"...do you think so?"

"Don't act so hurt now, I'm just teasing.
You know he's nothing like us."

"...he really isn't, huh? He doesn't play the game at all."
(with a forced bit of pep to her voice)
"It's not very fun!"

"We don't do this for fun."

(softly, unusually honestly-)
"What... what do we do it for, Noriaki?"

(with very final resignation)
"...Bonne nuit, Chanterelle."

"Ah. ...Gute Nacht."

-x-

Shuichi Akai's notes
(dated: 29 Jul 2010)

-x-

29 July, 2010
New York City, N.Y., USA

In the end, Grand Marnier, Kahlua, and Sangria agree to gut the office entirely.

Their snap decision turns out much easier than actually executing on it.

The familiar Crow guarding the office (same sunburnt blonde guy from yesterday) gives a vague go-ahead when Kahlua asks, and even gets them some moving trolleys, and so they get to work. It's a big office, there's three of them, and they never exactly had a cleaner. San turns on the radio and they start putting their calendars and desk succulents and rubber ducks into boxes.

Just an hour in, Jen finally crashes. Beyond natural exhaustion, it's her brain itself that starts feeling grey and blank and drained. No amount of sipping coffee and cranberry juice helps.

(Some clarification: on average, MDMA stays in your system around 12 to 24 hours, depending on dosage, mixing, and metabolism. Furthermore, to a much greater degree than with alcohol, the surge of serotonin and dopamine that MDMA causes gets 'taken away' from the next day, causing a so-called serotonin hangover.)

By midday, they've moved on to the actual electronic resources in the office.

Extra PC towers, internal hardware, monitors, and keyboards stack in a shopping trolley near the door. Jen has made a list of the non-essential server machines that can be safely unplugged, though no-one has dared yet. Lou's PC is ticking away on unzipping, quarantining, cleaning, and repackaging the contents of old hard-drives onto smaller and more modern storage devices.

At noon on the dot, the same Crow guard pokes in. He's quiet and their work in the office isn't (San is murmuring absently about the midday news, and Lou's asthmatic breathing has been stressed all morning), so Jen only catches the head of blonde hair as he vanishes back through the door.

Jen looks across the office with vague curiosity.

San hasn't noticed, he's struggling with a filing cabinet. But Kahlua is stood perfectly still, reading a slip of paper in silence. A burner phone she's never seen before is squeezed in one hand. His face is a mask of calm.

It's immediately alarming.

Before she can bring herself to say anything, Lou is suddenly moving: quick and deliberate, grabbing his backpack and work phone and leaving the office with little more than a strangely cheerful, "I'll be back!"

"Wait, what?!" San yelps, but Lou's already gone.

It echoes weirdly between the weather report and the bare cables of the former wall of flatscreen monitors.

"What's going on?" San wheezes frantically.

Abruptly – and more lucidly than anything she is doing or feeling right now – Jen remembers the cold interrogation rooms and tepid water that tasted wrong.

Her mouth says: "No idea," even as her thoughts suddenly start pick up.

Why didn't the blonde Crow guard say anything? Why did he just show up? Who...

An uncomfortable shiver begins at the base of Jen's neck.

Jen has seen that man almost every single day for the past five-odd years. He's a non-descript kind of guy, face usually hidden behind sunglasses and body hidden behind that body-armour-black-suit combination. Almost every day she exchanged awkward banal nothing-words with him, and almost every day he seemed faintly embarrassed for her.

Jen has seen this man almost every single day for the past five-odd years.

She has no idea who he is. She does not know his name. She does not know any designation. She doesn't know if she would recognise him in civilian clothes.

I never needed to, she tries to excuse herself.

It feels pathetic.

I should have tried to find out. I've grown rusty. The kid I was fifteen years ago would kick my ass for being so fucking careless-

-ancient barely-existent scars on her legs sting.

No... stop that. That's a bad time to compare yourself to, Janvier...

In that moment, Jen's phone buzzes, and San's pings. It's their work group chat, and Kahlua has sent a message:

K
[hi, got an emergency meeting.
will be back in 2 hours max.
keep packing! -K]

...which does not assuage Jen's sluggishly racing worries in the slightest.

"Bullshit," Sangria scoffs.

Jen glances at him, already knowing he's texting before her phone even vibrates with the message:

S
[0.o]
[Is everything ok???]
[youre not in trouble right?????]

K
[don't worry, we're not in trouble :}
I just need to run things back with other Crow officers. -K]

S
[x.x']
[take care Lou!!!]

Jen tries to force her exhausted anxious synapses into rationalising this.

(Her exhausted anxious synapses have other plans:
memories wander, even as her conscious thoughts get more frantic-...)

Another officer could make sense. Of course they're not the only ranked Crows in New York, that would be crazy and she knows full well that Tequila semi-regularly met them too.

But that doesn't quite add up, does it?

(In fact, she remembers back when the office was starting out around 2001, he specifically attended a lot of black-tie events with the more charismatic-seeming Crows [namely, Kir, Soju, and Claret]. In particular, Kir [so much younger then, her eyes so much bigger and sadder] complained about a lot of anonymous networking with what she called 'Old School Mafia'.)

Why didn't Lou say anything when leaving? Why didn't he elaborate in the texts?

(Grand Marnier had been jealous. Not because she wanted to network, but because she desperately craved moving past the mess of early transition and feeling like an overwhelmed teenager despite being in her early twenties. She needed to feel like she was part of the world.)

Why leave so suddenly? Why does this feel like a bizarre kidnapping?

(Eventually the surgeries and hormones got her to the point where she was readily passing. Tequila started taking her to those black-tie events, but overseas: Incirlik, Berlin, Cairo. They turned out even more bizarrely stressful than Kir had described; every interaction filled with double-edged meanings.)

Why does it feel like I know that blonde Crow? Is he really unnamed and unranked?

The uncomfortable shiver at the base of Jen's neck becomes more of a chilly drip, drip, drip

Is he familiar just because I see him every day, or did he help interrogate me back in December 2008?

"GM?" San pipes up, "What do you think?"

"I think," Jen starts slowly, and wonders what the hell she thinks, "That it's fine. Lou's got the most experience of us three. If he's gotten some kind of impromptu meeting with some ranked Crow then it's actually a pretty good thing."

      (distantly, like a black jagged rock
                                raising out of a sinking tide,
              the memory of an uncanny yet understated
                                         story rises in Jen's mind)

What? What the hell am I saying?

But San is nodding at her words, as if it makes perfect sense. "You know what... yeah."

            (the details escape her,
                    slosh under and over a frigid sea,
                             the black rock drips and drips
           and drips icy water down back into the sea
                    and further down the back of her spine)

What? What are you saying? Why are you looking at me like that?

"Yeah, you're right," San continues, with growing confidence, "That was – weird, but actually Lou's a pretty careful guy."

                                 (there was a brilliant japanese doctor
                          pursuing hope and justice and above all his belief
                    that everyone is equally deserving of life
             to the point he abandoned his hippocratic oath)

"Paranoid, even," Jen blurts.

           (there was a highly intelligent inspector
                  obsessed with the minutiae of the truth
                       unable to see the lies he was constructing
            and realising far too late what he lost in the process)

"Exactly!" San laughs, worries finally vanishing entirely. "He'll tell us if something's wrong. We'll be fine."

He cheerfully goes back to his work.

         (there was a brave young woman
                 dedicated to the truth and a promising future
                         with a fractured memory of a broken past
                                 but she could fight like a monster)

Jen is in complete disbelief.

                (and there was an            impossible case
                                      effortlessly    manipulative
                                              beautiful man
                 weaving webs of words and speaking in absolute moralities)

As far as she's concerned, Jen has never been that good with words. Her dad was the great storyteller – her brother still is, and her stepdad too, in a way – while she and her mother and later her half-siblings were always the rapt listeners and readers. Sure, Jen can get her way when flirting with sapphics, but that's just because she's observant. She's not a convincing liar.

(Unlike that Crow woman who found me in the Hague.
speaking of effortlessly manipulative monsters... Fuck, she can't be, can she? But if she's been in charge of this division all along...)

That's why Olivia Derringer and Janvier Magritte and Grand Marnier coexist how they do. That's why she even got the job at the Wall Street office. That's why she's ultimately better suited for office work and on-location hardware installation at most, rather than any kind of field work.

(That, and the complete lack of a PTSD diagnosis she received after Beirut. 2006 was a strange year. She sometimes wonders if it happened at all. What she experienced should have affected her, right? She can't just be okay. Her therapist's response about repression wasn't helpful.)

But here is Sangria (who this morning learned seemingly for the first time that their Black Organization is in fact a crime syndicate that operates more or less like a non-governmental secret intelligence agency), humming along to whatever inane pop song is on the radio as he finally manages to open the cabinet and liberate stacks of old motherboards.

He was somehow calmed down by her inane bullshit. He somehow didn't see the need to further investigate her claims. He...

He'll be alone in a new office and he'll be doomed.

(What was that manga about the Japanese doctor called again?)

Jen's eyes lower sluggishly back to her hands.

There's a hard drive the approximate size and weight of a 30-round AK-47 magazine in them.

(Her tongue itches for a smoke.)

The weight is abruptly hard and cold and real and familiar.

(Any strange metaphors about trying to remember a story she read ten years ago fades.)

...I was packing. I need to go back to packing.

There is something undeniably cathartic about the process, at least.

About an hour after vanishing, Lou texts them again. He tells them it'll take a bit longer than expected, but he's organising logistics with what seems like local Crow field officers. He doesn't mention any names, but it's obvious they're ranked.

K
[just keep packing! -K]

S
[yes chef! ^.^]

Jen crunches the ice cube between her teeth. She has to be awake. She has to stay sharp and alert, has to try and ascertain if her friend is safe-

GM
[only if you keep the trolleys & boxes coming :D ]

-but she isn't sure how. Despite everything, her mind feels cold and clammy.

K
[as the princess commands! :} -K]

Jen frowns as she tries to force herself to think clearly on this (even as San laughs somewhere in the background).

Much like the emoticon use and way of signing off text messages, 'princess' also checks out as Kahlua. But if they've tortured him or were tracking us before...

The thought drips through her, before abruptly starting to simmer, sour and sickly.

Stop. Don't think like that. The Crows have no reason to target him. They wouldn't waste resources trying to redistribute us otherwise.

The phone buzzes again:

K
[also, it occurs to me that the War Diaries
are still being hosted through our servers -
I will ask about those & where to transfer them to. -K]

At least that seems like his usual helpful and forward-thinking self. Jen had been wondering how to deal with clearing up the server room if the actual servers are still being used. Of course she knows which ones are essential (in fact she knows her server room like the back of her hand, she helped build it after all) but that's all fruitless if she doesn't know where the functions of those servers will be reallocated to.

GM
[thanks tio! <3]

And so they continue: 13:05 to 14:06 to 15:07.

Over these next few hours, the guts of the office are laid bare after a decade of being hidden. Ceiling panels are removed and carpeted flooring torn up to reveal carefully colour-coded cables, weaving purposefully under the surface like arteries and veins.

Even though time feels all kinds of soupy, even though they are actively deconstructing their lives, Jen and Sangria – manage.

Jen manages to drink a good litre of water to pull into a more manageable part of her serotonin hangover where her thoughts aren't constantly trying to drip or boil away from her.

San manages to figure out how to package the delicate laboratory equipment for transport, as well as how to source this packaging.

Jen manages to fix their coffee machine and get snacks for them all.

San manages to convince her to start working on the server room.

Jen manages to convince him not to be offended that she puts her headphones in to listen to her own music while she works on her spreadsheet for it.

Overall, San seems totally fine (Jen resents his youthful energy only a little) as he takes charge of physically moving the packed-full boxes across the office. Jen meanwhile crunches more ice cubes and drinks more cranberry juice to try and force her brain into working again as she curls over her laptop and reads the fresh emails for her.

Her brain has to start working again. She needs to be alert for this.

Since the rapid expansion of the Black Organisation's IT department from 1999 onwards, Grand Marnier had increasingly been promoted by Tequila to be one of a half-dozen Crows in charge of installing and maintaining servers around the world. (It's the main other reason why she'd never been taken to those black-tie events: her role was local-area-networking, not personal networking.)

Because of this, Jen's been copied into the ongoing email conversation regarding where the contents of the New York servers should be distributed to. Jen had initially suspected that this was Kahlua's talks with the NYC field office coming through, but it turned to have been Zinfandel who'd copied her in. So, Jen is now in the process of realising that there's a global and Organisation-wide clean-up happening in the wake of Tequila's death.

(Zinfandel is a Crow Jen met a brief couple of times during her various Middle East jobs, primarily in the transfer nodes of Bahrain, Doha, and Kuwait. She is an elegant middle-aged Arab woman in a long flowing black abaya. Her partner Metaxa Jen remembers being a little younger than her. He's also Arab, and while he usually dresses in suits, Jen once saw him in the traditional princely regalia of a gold-threaded black bisht cloak. Jen's mind pins on the memories of their fashion choices, because she remembers little else of the ephemeral pair aside from an air of imperious grace.)

The whole server-relocation thing seems to be a pretty politically intricate process. Arguments range from lists of infrastructure available at the location to international ease of access, but clearly what's really at stake is a major power struggle between the various IT offices.

Grand Marnier's only role is to eventually execute the transfer. So she knows where she stands, as she texts the group chat:

GM
[@K fyi: the server stuff is being sorted out atm]

[so: no pada nasa! :)
instead pls make sure that everything is safe for us]

K
[ententido -K]

[thanks for letting me know :} -K]

But even with that done, Jen can't help herself. She makes careful mental notes of the names involved and what they are advocating for:

             Claret and Stout as 'neutral parties' (Jen knows at least one of them isn't)
             Zinfandel arguing for Beirut, Lebanon (an office Jen equipped from the ground up, which means she knows first-hand that it's unsuitable for the job for several reasons)
              Metaxa for Doha, Qatar (an office Jen remembers more as a logistics hub than as a proper server facility, though the current hardware statistics are no doubt the most impressive here)
              Guaro for Bogotá, Colombia (where Sangria is set to go, an office that seems particularly equipped for gathering cyberintelligence)
              Chibuku for London, England (surprisingly lacking in the hardware department with server capacities at about a quarter of the Beirut one)
              Rosé for Accra, Ghana (where Jen herself is set to go, and another office she helped build – though she did this remotely, sending intermediaries floorplans and inventory lists)
             Shochu for Töretam, Kazakhstan (judging by the location and impressive statistics, this facility is likely built into a defunct Cosmodrome, which Jen finds very exciting)
             and Limoncello for Johannesburg, South Africa (writing in a surprisingly unprofessional way, though the hardware at the office seems decent enough)

Weird, Jen thinks as she reads over Claret's assessments, No-one is advocating for Tokyo.

She keeps her laptop running (fighting the urge to backtrack all of the involved people's IP addresses to find their true emails, suspecting they'd very likely discover her attempts, knowing she could absolutely prevent them from doing so) while she goes back to Lou's PC to begin extracting and repackaging the next batch of data from a five-year-old hard drive into a five-week-old one.

It still all feels like procrastination.

Sure, gutting the office of its electronics was Jen's idea. Sure, now that it's started it needs to be finished. Sure, it's something to do.

But it's – it's nothing, too. It's busywork.

The more she keeps her hands busy, the more her mind has time to tick away at processing the last four, no, ten, no, fourteen hours.

The first email from HR came at eight PM last night, 28/7. The second came at 21:25.

Their deadline is 23:59 on the 30th.

Jen glances down at her phone.

(She finds that there's a crack running through the screen – did that happen last night? She remembers vaguely seeing the email in the bathroom with that bright crack... god, that contact lens thing was a debacle.)

It's now 15:34 on the 29th.

Even if they all ultimately end up working under the same Executive, they will be split up regardless. It's written on all their work emails, screens displayed through liquid-crystal using polarisers and backlights: Accra, Tokyo, and Bogotá.

It's thirty-two hours and twenty-five minutes until their future arrives.

They can get back to HR with alternative suggestions for locations – or not – either way, evidence of this interaction is programmed to vanish automatically.

The future is inevitable. Time is ticking.

15:35.

Thirty-two hours and twenty-four minutes until they start getting their new addresses, flight tickets, contact details, lives, superior officers, cities.

Their future is inevitable. They're just making a carcass of their past.

Jen wonders, as she wraps up another set of cables between data transfers: will she get a new civilian name?

She wouldn't mind being a Jennifer. It's very close to Janvier, so they might not let her get away with it, but it would be nice to get something genuinely positive out of this. Maybe she can stop being Olivia Derringer, at least...

When it comes to the postings themselves, she can't find it in her to get excited.

She can identify two reasons for this. One: it doesn't feel real yet (in a way, Jen is still kind of stuck in that bathroom with one contact lens trying to process 'reading' as a concept as distant Drum 'n' Bass music echoes). Two: she's never been to any of the cities, so they feel very distant.

Sure, geographically Accra is relatively closest to where she had her overseas jobs, but she isn't stupid. She knows West Africa is a far cry from North Africa, is a far cry from the Arab Middle East. And just having seen floorplans and photographs of an office she was outfitting isn't the same as living and working there.

Still, it's not impossible to imagine.

              Still, it seems impossibly far from her imagination.

Still, the future is inevitable.

              Still, time is ticking.

Or maybe that's just the music she's put on for working.

Her usual Outrun music for staving off panic attacks has, ironically, run out. Within her first hour and six minutes she's played through her three Kavinsky EPs – another half-hour later and she's through with the Justice album too. After that, it's been film scores and video game soundtracks – starting in the area of Blade Runner, travelling on to Halloween, The Thing, Alien, 28 Days Later, Resident Evil 3, Silent Hill 2, Dead Space – compositions by the likes of Vangelis, John Carpenter, Jerry Goldsmith, John Murphy, Masami Ueda, Akira Yamaoka, Jason Graves.

The horror theme becomes increasingly apparent.

It's not just the stupid eyeball gore from yesterday – in truth, Jen is fascinated by horror. It's how horror art of all kinds exposes and challenges and fights (for) the human condition. It's how it is filled with political and emotional potential. It's how monsters (or people) slough their skin to become better (or worse). It's...

(...it's in the memory of a male warm voice in Dutch-accented German:
"Jeder Mensch ist ein Abgrund. Es schwindelt einem, wenn man hinabsieht.")

(Every human is an Abyss. It dazes you, to gaze into the depths.)

Jen blinks.

I really don't think Papa was talking about the innately queer euphoria of watching a werewolf tear his own skin off.

(But it occurs to her, distantly, that her Papa might've liked that manga about the Japanese doctor in Germany. Ever the clichéd cop, Rijkswacht inspecteur Magritte loved both classic murder mysteries and the grey tones of Scandinavian noir.
Of course, the Belgian Rijkswacht/Gendarmerie doesn't exist under those names anymore...)

This John Murphy track is calm. It's not the famous 'In the House - in a Heartbeat', but it's still just as menacingly deliberate. Jen only has a handful of words snatched from her flatmates' language for music, so she can't properly define what makes her resonate so much with the kind of music that (especially at a precarious moment like hers right now) should be everything but calming.

But then again, she listens to heart-racing car-drifting electro-synth to stave off panic attacks. This is only somewhat removed. Her pulse doesn't rise and her breathing remains still.

Business as usual. It's always business as usual.

And that – that's what the tone of all of these emails were supposed to convey. That's what the tone that any email response, whether to HR or to server-haggling Crows, will have to convey. That's what the Organisation is conveying, generally.

Tequila might be dead and their lives might be turned on their heads (scattered to the winds and to foreign cities and new partners), but it's also all business as usual.

By 16:02, the various Crows in the email correspondence come to the decision that the processes of the NYC servers are to be transferred to Doha. Both location and hardware are most suited, so it makes sense. Since Zinfandel and Metaxa are partners, Jen can't help but wonder if this was something the two had planned.

(That said, there's been several aspects of this conversation that have made Jen... 'can't help but wonder'. Claret and Stout, seemingly on the same level. Rosé, likely her future colleague. Shochu's very fucking cool facility. Jen knows curiosity is dangerous in this line of work, but she's naturally inquisitive and she just can't help but wonder...)

In Grand Marnier's first and only email within this self-deleting chain, she informs all of the esteemed Crows that she will begin the transfer as soon as she is forwarded the relevant information through the usual secure channels.

That is how, three minutes later, she simultaneously receives a separate email with a security program, and a text message on her work phone with access codes. She accesses the program on her PC (making sure that the package is properly quarantined first); and then quickly programs a bot to meticulously drag all of the NYC server data through various encryptions and then transfer it through to the new address.

Jen hits enter to begin the process, and then stands up and heads to the AC controls.

Transferring all this data might be the most processing power these machines have ever done.

"Hey Marina?"

Jen glances over her shoulder, plopping one headphone from an ear. "Yeah?"

"Um... about earlier," San is fiddling with the cable of his headphones, sitting on his haunches over a large plastic freight box. On his own laptop beside him, an episode of the Boondocks is paused on a very silly smear frame. "When you were talking about Claret, and the conspiracy stuff..."

Of course he won't just let it go.

In a way, she's relieved. This is better than him believing her and Lou without question, this is actually a little spark of hope that when he's alone (Bogotá, was it? Guaro seemed fairly deferential, at least...) he won't just be doomed to follow orders without a crumb of self-reliance.

"Yeah, I'm sorry," Jen says anyway, because she has to, "I shouldn't have tried to talk about that stuff. Lou was right about it being dangerous..."

"Come on, Marnie," San scoffs, "You don't believe that yourself."

"I do!" Jen insists, "I know it's dangerous. Do I have to remind you of how I was arrested?"

"No," he winces – but then he raises his eyes to glare stubbornly at her and gestures at her PC, "But that didn't stop you from putting so much work into uncovering the truth anyway."

She scowls guiltily at the AC controls. Sangria's right, of course – even completely exhausted and likely still a bit high as she was this morning, Jen had been perfectly aware that her attempts at hacking into Tequila's emails were probably treasonous.

I just figured they wouldn't be able to track me, given the precautions I took – especially in the disarray I suspected them to be in due to Tequila's death.

But now, hours later and with a much clearer mind, Jen realises how insane her attempt was. (And she resents the gut part of her that would still do it again.)

"I know you're not so careless to just forget what was done to you," San carries on as Jen silently stabs her finger against the number pad to input the new temperature, "Hell, looking back on it, it explains a lot."

"Like what?" Jen mutters, despite herself.

"Like why you don't like being touched," he says blankly, and Jen winces. "And why a pretty and passing European white girl would be scared of cops."

Actually, she thinks, That would be my previous employment as a getaway driver. We were no Brabant killers, but it wasn't sunshine in a bag either.

"So!" San carries on, "I've been thinking about how Lou's talking to that top dog Crow right now."

"Oh, yeah?" Jen perks up at the possibility of changing the topic, twirling on her heel with forced cheer: "Do you know who it is? Any theories?"

"Not really," San taps his painted fingernails against his coffee mug, raising an eyebrow in a cautious half-smile, "And that's the problem, right? We're being kept in the dark about a lot of this kind of stuff."

Jen returns to her seat and drops into it. "To be fair, we're just the IT division. It's probably a need-to-know type of thing."

"But we're, like, named Crows! That means we need to know!" San gestures wildly.

"Careful," Jen forces a chuckle, "You'll spill your coffee."

"It's fine, it's fine," he waves her off with his free hand and quickly gulps down whatever remains in his mug. "Ugh, went cold..."

At that word, Jen realises that the sweat that had been beading the back of her neck is starting to cool down rapidly with the AC on. She quickly pulls on her bomber jacket again, as Sangria continues:

"But anyway – having our codenames has to mean something, right? We're officers in our own right, we're a limited supply of – fuckin' alcohol, I guess? – we should get to have a say in how our lives are run in this Organisation."

Jen resists the urge to tell him about how she'd just spent the last few hours being made very aware of what this 'officer' position means. She also resists the urge to wonder aloud what he did to receive his codename, knowing full well he'd gladly admit any crime to her.

"This Organization..." Jen echoes slowly – sluggishly remembering a phrase she heard very early in her recruitment, "Crows aren't solitary birds. They're part of a flock. So our lives belong to this Organisation."

"What?" San half-laughs in disbelief, "Nami, you sound like you're reciting propaganda."

Jen shivers. He's not exactly wrong. "Don't you think that if our superiors tell us this is our role, then we're better off following that order? We're not exactly in a position to rebel or unionise."

"I..." San seems lost, absently fiddling with a loose button on his Hawaiian shirt, "...I guess."

After a moment, he looks back down at his laptop and puts his headphones in, and Jen sighs in relief because maybe he's now finally done talking about dangerous things (that she's been mulling over in her mind for a while, now).

Sticking her own headphones back in, she finds that the music has moved on to an eerily melancholy synth track. She grimaces in discomfort because it reminds her far too much of her father's coldwave music and the spiral she went through after his death.

Now's really not the time, Jean-Michel Jarre. Did I hit shuffle or something?

She switches playlists to Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I-IV album. It might be another band she listened to at that age, but thanks to their versatile music style this album is largely ambient electronica (and the ones that feel too close to that dark time can easily be skipped).

Satisfied, Jen glances at her PC (finds that the server transfer progress is at 12%) and then gets up to go back to sorting through the various cabinets. On one of them, she finds a post-it note with Sangria's handwriting, saying 'locked – key?'

Jen clicks her tongue faintly as she examines the lock more closely, already removing a pair of bobby pins from her hair. It's very small, but she doesn't think to looks too complicated. The keys for these cabinets weren't particularly memorable either.

She pulls out her work phone. The bulky impact-proof casing hides another secret: inside a hidden compartment is a miniature lockpicking kit and a tiny knife no larger than the short end of a credit card.

Jen tucks the pins between her lips and takes one of her earrings out to slot into the tiny hole-shaped trigger mechanism and open up the compartment.

"Um, Marnie?" San says suddenly, and Jen nearly drops her equipment in disappointment because she really was hoping that their conversation was over.

She raises a finger to indicate for him to wait, finishes getting her tools ready, and then makes sure to hit pause on her MP3 player before removing her headphones and saying, "What's up, doc?"

"Heh," San chuckles weakly. It's been an in-joke for a while, that his initially studying medicine before switching majors to bioinformatics makes him the 'doctor' of the group. "It's, um, about what you were saying before – about the flock thing."

"Crows are part of a flock, yeah," Jen repeats the point, mostly to remind herself. She takes one pin from her mouth and a thin copper-tipped tool for checking if there is any electric current in the lock and inserts it.

"They're called a murder," San corrects her, and his voice seems a bit strained. "I just looked it up. B-but that's beside the point anyway – because what you said is total bullshit."

"How so?" Jen asks absently.

There is a charge on the lock, which makes this a bit more problematic. An interrupted current could have unforeseen consequences (or, if she remembers correctly, some pretty violently explosive ones... and the headlines about those explosions in Tokyo resurface.) She'll need to ground the current somehow...

"Well – if we are part of this flock (or murder, ugh), why are we being treated like pawns or tools for them to use?"

Jen hesitates, looking down at her own tools.

Honestly, in her extremely well-paying, satisfyingly challenging, pleasantly criminal, uniquely fulfilling job, that is perhaps the only element that Jen has taken issue with. She doesn't like just taking orders, she doesn't like being a cog in a machine. It is something she has increasingly resented about working in this office, even as it is safe and reliable and important.

A nasty thought crosses her mind: It wasn't like that while you worked abroad. You were valuable. Your pride wasn't being insulted by being stuck behind a desk-

Jen grinds her teeth around the pins remaining in her mouth.

Shut up. That's not worth it.

Working abroad was fucking terrifying. Warzones were fucking terrifying, the people she met and worked with and worked against were fucking terrifying, and what it did to her thought patterns-

(in a way
almost exhilarating
how short and sharp
how focused and fierce
how violent)

            -fucking terrifying.

(Her tongue itches for a cigarette.)

There's no way she'd rather be out there than in here. Especially after Beirut and what happened to Shiraz – there was no way she was ever again going to let the possibility of her failure endanger her comrades. Better Janvier goes down like in 1995, than Marnier repeats another 2006.

"GM?" Sangria prompts her.

"Ah, um, well," Jen remembers rather awkwardly that she was partway through a conversation with her friend and colleague. She very deliberately takes the pins out her mouth and glances back at him cautiously, "What do you suggest, Sangria?"

San looks briefly taken aback. She sees that he's still sitting on the ground with his laptop next him – but now, it seems to be open on a Wikipedia page of some sort. She can't quite see what it's about from her angle.

Then San clears his throat and says, "Well – we should at least try to investigate his death."

Try?

She forces her attention back to her work, but the notion still itches in her mind. There were plenty of explosions on the news last night, several of which were in Tokyo – the only one of Tequila's offices which didn't volunteer its servers for transfer in those emails. It can't be a coincidence, can it?

"How do you suppose we do that?" she asks, with forced nonchalance.

Among her own tools she has a little coil of wire, and she's usually got insulation tape in the pocket of her bomber jacket. With the nearby box of miscellaneous electrical hardware and the empty plug socket on the wall, she knows she can fashion a grounding for the current. She reaches for the box.

"I mean – hey, wasn't there that explosion in Japan yesterday?" she can hear San gesture by how his metal bracelet clacks against his wristwatch, "Remember? I asked about Kir and you showed me that video! Maybe she's in on it too!"

"Oh, that Shinkansen thing?" Jen smirks faintly to herself as she unscrews a plug and starts cleaning up and replacing the frayed wires within. "Nah, that was a news item from weeks ago. According to the email, Tequila died two nights ago."

"According to the email," San repeats dubiously, "After what you uncovered about Claret being in charge of those."

An unpleasant mixture of discomfort and relief roils in Jen's stomach. Sangria is thinking along the same lines she was, back when she'd finally cracked that email security system and found all the evidence she'd been looking for. It helps her realise that her paranoia isn't just crazy – but some tiny complicated part of her doesn't appreciate that he is on the same wavelength as her about this.

Is it worry? ...resentment?

"Why would they lie about that?" Jen tries to rationalise – partly to dissuade him, partly hoping for a real answer, partly trying to convince herself that this really is just nonsense.

"Another false flag," Sangria says instantly. "Like what probably happened with Scotch and Rye, you know? The more confused and panicked we are, the less likely we are to actually try and find out what happened."

Jen shakes her head as she finishes up the plug and screws it shut again. "That doesn't make sense, dude. It's too much risk, for too low a reward. If we kept working like nothing changed, while he's already been killed and compromised – an oversight like that is just asking to be exploited."

Huh, weird, Jen realises after she says all that, That actually almost makes sense.

"I guess," Sangria hums. "Yeah – yeah. You're right."

Unless they're hiding something bigger... like maybe the higher-ups were involved, and maybe-

"Anyway," Jen adds quickly, mostly to stop her own thoughts from spiralling, "We really can't do much investigation into something that's so far from us."

"Well – one of the postings is Japan, right? We can investigate on-location."

"Lou's the one who's set to go to Japan," she reminds him, now hand-measuring about 60 centimetres of cable from the plug, and scoring around the white cable jacket with her knife to mark it. "There's no way he'll agr- Ow! Fuck!"

She yelps in pain and sticks her bleeding knuckle in her mouth.

"You're right, there's no way Kahlua will agree," San finishes her sentence. Then, a little more concerned, he asks her, "You okay? What happened?"

"Mm, I'm fine," she grunts, removing her left index finger from her mouth to examine it. She'd been cutting at an angle and her knife is very sharp, so the slice across her second knuckle is neither deep nor complicated. "Just a little cut."

"If you're sure..." he says dubiously, while Jen puts her knuckle back in her mouth and the knife back into its compartment. "Where was... oh yeah. When're we gonna talk about who takes which posting?"

Jen sucks at the open wound for a moment to make sure it's as clean as she can get it, and then removes her finger again. She says, "When Lou's back."

As she's reaching into her jacket pocket and pulling out the insulation tape, San half-yells: "No!"

"What!" she looks back at him, alarmed. He is staring at her with an utterly aghast expression, kneeling up with his hand in the drawers beside his desk. Jen asks, "San? Are you alright?"

"Of course," he hisses, grabbing something from the drawers and scrambling over to her on all fours, "But I really hope you weren't about to fucking plaster yourself up with tape!"

Jen looks between the blue tape and her finger. The shallow open wound is gently weeping blood again. "Well," she says, "I haven't died from it yet."

"Yet?! Don't you dare," he snaps, lightly thwapping her on the shoulder with a small first aid kit. "Here you go, freak."

Jen somewhat shamefully takes the red-and-white pouch from him and opens it up. The plasters, disinfectant, and iodine are on the non-emergency side of the kit, but with the awkward position of the cut she figures she'll probably have to cut up a piece of gauze to go over the knuckle. It's all fairly standard, and she takes the sharp scissors from their pocket.

Could definitely use some of this to refill my own kit. But first...

"You don't need to be breathing down my neck for this," Jen glances over her shoulder. Sangria's face is maybe twenty centimetres from hers, glaring intensely at what she's doing with her hands.

"Hrrrm," he grumbles, in a surprisingly good Marge Simpson impression.

"San..." she implores, "Please. I know we're all anxious because of the move, but I promise I've taken care of my own injuries before."

"Fine," he mutters, and retreats back to his desk. "Anxious is right, though. I wish Lou hadn't just run off like that!"

"He's probably anxious too," she reminds him, as she gets to work snipping the gauze and plaster tape to size. "He's got Alex to worry about, after all."

"You're right, poor bastard," San agrees. Then, after a moment he continues, much more cheerfully, "But hey! Aren't we, like, super-hackers? Surely location and distance shouldn't be too much of a problem?"

It takes Jen a moment to recognise that San is talking about investigating Tequila's death again.

She hides this by muttering, "Don't call me Shirley," as she fastens her quick-fashioned knuckle plaster to the freshly disinfected and iodine'd injury.

"Huh...?" San quickly pulls out of his confusion, "No – you're not getting away with distracting me this time! You're especially perfect for this, Miss Super-Hacker!"

Coming right for my ego, huh?

Jen finishes wiping her knife clean and grins, "I guess I do alright."

"And – oh, oh!" San perks up even more, "If you're going to Accra, that'll likely be Gin's jurisdiction, right? Maybe you can meet him and-"

"And what?" she drawls, tugging the nearby electrical hardware box closer to look for tools, "Ask the Vampire if he killed Tequila? Didn't realise you wanted me dead that bad."

Sangria immediately crumples again. "...w-what? No! Of course not!"

Jen pauses with a set of pliers in her hands. She realises, rather belatedly once more, that she might have been a little harsh in her tone.

She glances over her shoulder, an apology ready on her lips – just in time to see San's expression go from hurt and confused, to stubborn and deliberate.

"And what if he did?!" San gestures so emphatically he accidentally unplugs his headphones from his laptop, but he's so focused that he doesn't even seem to notice. "What if – i-if you end up working for Tequila's murderer?"

The chill returns to the back of Jen's neck, even with her jacket on.

Tequila was gruff and not exactly friendly, but he was a comforting presence too. At the end of the day, he wasn't just her boss, he was her mentor. He was reliable, he was supportive, he put a younger and more lost Jen in touch with every type of resource she could possibly need – whether personal or professional. And even that aside – you don't work for someone for so long – learn so much – change so much – without growing inherently fond of the person who helped make it all possible.

She shivers and looks back at her work. She's nearly done with the grounding, and then she can unlock this cabinet, and then...

"Gin's an Executive," Jen says heavily. "If he called the shot, then it's the law."

San goes silent, and Jen snips the cable.

In the minute or so that follows, Jen knows that Sangria isn't done. She also knows that she isn't done.

While waiting for San's sad silence to end, Jen uses both the pliers' cable strippers and her knife to remove more of the plastic sleeve from the cable. She cuts her own copper wiring to size and slots one end into her currented lock-picking tool, and tapes it there to make sure it'll all stay in place. Then, she finds a little transistor among the abandoned electrical hardware and uses it to facilitate the connection between her copper wiring and the cable.

Finally, she snaps the plug into the nearby socket, and carefully inserts her own tool back into the lock. The small reader immediately starts to indicate that the current is flowing, that any dangerous circuit has not been interrupted so much as disarmed.

"You said..." San starts softly – then he clears his throat and says: "...you're the one who said that the truth is important."

Something about his tone immediately reminds her of Deniz. Her younger brother was always simultaneously challenging and reproachful, using her words to judge her because he was so damn clever-

Jen whirls to glare at him, "Of course it's important!"

But San doesn't have that haughty victimising gaze. Of course not – it's just Sangria, just her colleague and friend Matthew Yumehara – he's just hurt and confused, and now maybe a little frightened by her outburst.

"I-I mean," Jen deflates, and awkwardly looks at her hands, "Yeah, the truth's important. But Lou's right too, because the wrong kind of truth at the wrong time and place can do more harm than good."

San doesn't say anything for a moment, so she looks up to weakly apologise – but to make matters worse, he now says, "I'm sorry."

"Y-you're sorry?" she echoes, baffled, "Why?"

"I just – you two obviously know so much more and I'm just here with these stupid platitudes and conspiracies..."

"You're not stupid, Sanji," Jen says quickly. "You're just-"

"-so fucking naïve," he finishes, raising his gaze to look at her again.

It's a gut-wrenching moment, because his eyes are big and glassy, like he's about to cry – but he's finally saying aloud about himself what Jen had been mentally skirting around for most of the day.

"Matty..." she starts, but doesn't know how to finish. She knows better than to agree with him out loud. But looking at his desolate expression, she realises that she doesn't need to.

He laughs weakly and rubs at his face. "Don't."

Jen grimaces and turns to face her work again. Picking locks is something she used to do so regularly that even now it's still as natural to her as breathing.

"I just!" San starts, and then gasps for breath, "I thought... even basic training, I thought it was all basically to prepare us against the US police force or whatever."

Not an unfair assumption, Jen thinks, as she fiddles between the bobby pins and the finer more intricate lockpicking tools, all around the copper grounding that is still in there.

"Like, one time, hah," San nearly laughs, but it's tragically humourless, "One time, Irish talked about how he and his partner worked with the Black Panthers (which sounded amazing, by the way!) – a-and how they had these schemes that could get kids who'd been arrested during the War On Drugs off the hook."

Jen knows that San doesn't example mean children-kids in the latter example, but something about it still strikes her as far too similar to how she was recruited. Though at least she got arrested for something that was entirely her fault, and not as part of a vile government policy to fill privatised prisons with poor persons of colour.

"And with all that in mind – and how I was recruited, too – I... I guess I thought we were doing the right thing, somehow."

Doing the right thing? And what is that, exactly? Jen thinks as the lock finally clicks open.

Inside the cabinet are several boxes with packages inside, but her priority is unscrewing the lock from inside, first. Once that's done, she can remove her tools and equipment and pack herself up again.

And what does our Organisation do? What's this all for? It can't just be crime for money, we wouldn't be working the way we do...

Jen's heavy thoughts eventually translate into her mouth opening and her saying: "...what did you think I was doing on all those jobs in the Middle East, Sangria?"

"Installing... hardware...?" it's like it's only just ticking into his mind, the deliberately uninformative ways she was instructed to speak about her assignments, as he now talks with growing realisation: "Y-you mentioned, like, Qatar and Lebanon...?"

Jen glances over her shoulder to find that San is staring at her with complete and utter horror.

"You – y-you weren't actually in warzones, were you? Were you in Iraq? In Afghanistan?"

"No..." Jen tries to force her gaze back to the work she's been doing, but it sticks on Sangria's box of hard drives. "Not Afghanistan. I don't have the languages for that."

"Oh my god! Marnie! You were in a war and I didn't even know! Were you shot at? You – th-they gave you like hazard pay and PTSD care, right? If they just up and abandoned you like a Vietnam vet I'm gonna-!"

"-No-no!" Jen interrupts quickly, and even manages to force a light-hearted laugh, "Ha, don't worry. They took care of me, and I didn't see much frontline anything."

Technically true. Neither Baghdad nor Beirut were the frontlines of their conflicts.

It's like Sangria can sense the half-truths in her vague statements, with the hurt desperation twisting his expression. "Marina..."

"I'm fine, I told you I was fine, right?" she gestures towards herself, "And the Organisation got me all the therapy too, you know how they take care of their Crows' healthcare."

"But – b-but..." he wrings his hands, "I-I'm supposed to be your friend. And I... I didn't even..."

Oh, that's it. He's still feeling guilty.

"Jesus, I could kick my own ass!" he huffs, and though he's obviously trying to joke, he really obviously doesn't feel it. "This is why Lou is how he is too, right? He did some bad jobs in South America and was relocated here?"

"I... don't know," Jen says quietly. "Probably. You've seen his..."

And she raises her left hand and wiggles her thumb and index fingers, and San moans with distress.

"Oh no..." he buries his face in his hands, "I just... I don't know, assumed he lost them in an accident, or..."

Jen doesn't mention that she suspects Kahlua lost his fingernails before he became a Crow – that she suspects he learned his paranoia through his interactions with his home country's secret police. After all, why else would a man only a few years older than her look so old if he hadn't physically experienced some harrowing torture? And after all, the Organisation clearly has a track record of recruiting jailbirds.

"...it's none of our business," she murmurs. "If he doesn't want to share that with us, it's not for us to pry."

"I know, I know," San says, now looking at his own hands like he barely recognises them, "And what happened with you is also in the past and you're fine, and I... I just need a moment."

Jen watches as San gets up.

He wanders back to his old chair, picks up the back pillow he usually uses for his period pains, and screams into it. It's muffled of course, but the grief and desperation and regret is painfully audible.

Might need to do some of that when I get home. Whenever that will be.

Jen chuckles faintly at the notion, less from her chest and more from her throat.

What a fine fucking mess we've found ourselves in.

"Okay," San says after finishing his scream and pulling the pillow from his face. He seems remarkably better, and Jen decides she definitely has to try that herself. "...I think I'm gonna ask Les if we can order some food."

Jen coughs in surprise, very thrown by the change in subject. "...Les?"

"Ah, you're right," he nods and drops into his chair, dropping the pillow onto his lap, "It might be Nick by now. Urgh, it's so hard to keep them apart..."

"What?" Jen blinks, completely flummoxed.

"I guess it's easy for you, Miss Genius," San rolls his eyes playfully and gestures towards the door, "Which one is he? The guy who's been coming in every half-hour or so to give us more moving boxes and trolleys and ask if we need anything?"

"The... security guy...?" she wheezes weakly, remembering her growing suspicions that maybe this man helped arrest and interrogate her two years ago, "Blonde, sunburn...?"

"Sunburn?" San echoes, "Yeah, I guess Les might've gotten one after his week's break on Long Island. Hey, you really are observant!"

The chill down the back of Jen's neck is presently going unpleasantly warm and damp.

So this isn't a stranger? This isn't a menacing figure? This is someone we-

"Wait a fucking minute!" San gasps, "Marnie! Don't tell me you actually didn't know his name?"

Jen says, "Uh."

"You? Who always pays attention to the small stuff?"

Jen stares at her fingers as she starts fiddling with her braid.

"Alastair Maker has been our security officer for like, as long as I've worked here. His brother Nick works the weekend door, I know you've..." San trails off, eyes widening in disbelieving delight, "-oh my God, wait, he was even at that first club we went to!"

"Are you serious?" Jen half-whispers, humiliated.

"Yeah! He's who made sure those cocaine-yuppies didn't give Yuri any trouble!" San bursts out laughing, "Marnie! Th-this man was invited to your birthday and you didn't know his name oh my god-"

"Alright, alright," Jen mutters, turning back to look at the cabinet she's supposed to be emptying. Should've done better. Can't believe I overlooked something so basic.

Behind her, San's laughter is starting to be interrupted by snorts, "Charisma really is your dump stat!"

Jen has the mild wherewithal to remember the character sheets she used to spend the weekends with. But neither in Cyberpunk nor in Call of Cthulhu was there a stat with that name, so she tries to deflect: "Charisma is a thing in Pathfinder?"

"Not with you, lmao," San cackles, "No Oathbreakers or Warlocks for you!"

"So, uh, what about pizza?" Jen tries again.

"Whaddaya- Oh! For the food!" San finally manages to catch his breath again. "I was – hrm, I guess I was thinking more a Teriyaki or Szechuan kind of thing?"

Jen shudders with relief that he's stopped laughing at her. So much for whatever those 'weaving webs of words' were from this morning. I guess it's a good thing, that I'm not some manipulative supervillain after all.

She tilts her head to grin back at him, "Kahlua always says that Asian Fusion is his fatal flaw."

"You're right!" San nods eagerly, "If we make him happy, maybe we can talk about the tougher stuff sooner too. I'll ask whoever of the Makers is at the door."

He gets up and heads out, still looking like he's about to laugh all over again – and Jen puts her headphones back in and turns to face her cabinet.

Jesus fucking Christ, Jenny. Look where your catastrophising gets you. Everything is fine.

The present is fine. The future is fine.

No-one is out to get you.

Jen identifies that the contents of the cabinet boxes are enough hardware components to build up to five PCs from scratch (and wonders if that might be a good goodbye present to her soon-to-be former co-workers). So she gets up and heads to her desk, fully intending on grabbing a pen and some post-it notes so she can write up the contents.

But passing by her desk, she finds that the server transfer is already at 56%. With progress going much faster than anticipated, she figures it's time to start properly devising a plan of action for the server room.

She already put together a spreadsheet for visualising and understanding how her server stacks are organised a few hours ago. But she figures that actually writing up instructions for each individual rack and sticking them onto the hardware in question would be more helpful to everyone (especially given that San is basically allergic to spreadsheets).

So she quickly writes a note for the boxes from the cabinet she lockpicked, packs up the remainder of her lockpicking equipment (and supplements her own pocket-pharmacy with a roll of plaster tape in addition to more insulation tape), and heads back to the server room.

Inside, it's warm and muggy despite the air conditioning.

She sits down on the carpeted floor, finds the appropriate playlist on her MP3 player, and starts writing up post-its.

-x-

Shuichi Akai's notes
(dated: 29 Jul  2010, afternoon)

-x-

30 July, 2010
Airspace above eastern Japan

             Darekaga-

Red absently presses her (or his...? no, right now it is her) black thumbnail into the cover of the little paperback book.

           Jemand musste Josef K. verl-

By now she knows the contents off by heart. Like scripture, she could probably recite it all at this point.

            Somebody must have slandered Joseph K., for without having done anything he was arrested one fine morning.

Every page is well-worn, corners bent despite the reprimands. Every passage has several underlined moments, side comments, references to other books and how this translation is different. Every word is utterly ingrained in her mind, even as she knows that there's a deeper meaning that she still struggles to grapple with.

She knows that Joseph K. was the arbitrary victim of an arbitrary system. She knows that probably in reality, no-one slandered him. She knows that the tone of the book is supposed to be darkly humorous, perhaps satirical. The words are not supposed to convey the meaning that they are literally saying.

But this knowledge feels so distant from Red's... self.

Self?

Red glances out of the window. Presently, their airplane starting to pass through a layer of clouds as part of their descent towards Japan, but she can still see the night above. And she can see her reflection too – female, this one – a self, of sorts – face like the moon (round and flat and white-pale and spotted with freckles), eyes like Mars (a jarring off-red colour, declaring war but orbited by fear and panic).

Those... are the moons of Mars, right? It's been so long since [Miss Elena] taught me...

Much like her reflection, her memories are also distorted and malleable. A simple phrase can warp them, erase them, change and reinvent them. Her self is distorted and malleable. Sometimes Red is He, sometimes Red is She, sometimes Red is Many, sometimes Red is None.

(Red likes being small and round and soft though. It makes Red feel more like [Mr Atsushi] did. It's comforting.)

She looks back at the book in her lap, absently ruffling a hand through her short white hair. Maybe it is something about how it's written. It's so matter-of-fact, so simple and natural. She knows this Japanese edition isn't unique in this either, it's definitely in the original German too.

It is hard for Red not to take the words very literally sometimes.

           Die Lüge wird zur Weltordnung gemacht.

She knows this is a problem: 'The lie made into the world order.'

But she also knows that this mantra constitutes her own lived reality. The world system she lives in is governed by lies. She is one of them. This airplane is one of them. The people aboard this secret flight, the people left behind in those jagged windy mountains and empty hot deserts, the people awaiting their imminent arrival – all lies, secrets, a separate reality to the rest.

Franz Kafka likely wrote The Trial sometime between 1914 and 1915, the first years of the First World War. It is about an arbitrary rule of law, impossible to understand points of authority, feeling trapped in a gigantic insurmountable system that is made to be inscrutable.

Red wonders how many people have read this book in that century since.

She wonders about Joseph K.'s helplessness, dragged from set piece to set piece by an uncaring System.

   wonders: how many readers felt sympathy for Joseph K.?

          wonders: how many readers felt hatred and disgust for Joseph K.?

                 wonders: how many readers have sent Joseph K. to his doom?

                       wonders: how many readers were the System?

                              wonders: how many readers were Joseph K.?

...could it be that any of them felt like Red Label?

It is comforting to think like this. To think hers are just some of many hands and minds that these words have passed through. To think her feelings aren't impossible and insurmountable. To think that, despite everything, she isn't alone and unique, because she is reading this very popular nearly-hundred-year-old book.

            It is often better to be in chains than to be free.

What a strange thought: that chains and freedom are mutually exclusive. Here is an airplane at night, rattling about in the sky like a tin can on the open seas. It's both ultimate freedom, and the ultimate prison.

So if I smash the window and the plane crashes... would I be free, then? Or would I survive?

It's as the book states itself (and here, Red murmurs out loud):

"Richtiges Auffassen einer Sache und Missverstehen der gleichen Sache schließen einander nicht vollständig aus."

               The right understanding of a matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter are not mutually exclusive.

"Red Label. You're conscious again."

Red Label flinches and turns in surprise. She'd assumed she was the only one awake – it's four in morning after all, and she and everyone onboard the plane had just spent weeks in a high-pressure urban warfare environment. She tries to rationalise to herself, but her heart is still racing with an emotion she cannot parse when her handler, a middle-aged German woman called Jägermeister, peers at her with those moon-bright eyes.

new person entered the room with my cell in it :
young woman, tall and broad shoulders, unfamiliar uniform, dark blonde hair.
[with her were men, some in soviet uniform and some in her uniform.]
[she spoke to me with sunburned lips and i didn't understand her.]
[i copied her voice and face and said back what she said to me.]
[her face went pale and she ordered something and] the men with her started shooting at me
they were shouting : "ein monster! eto monstr!"

Red Label quickly looks out of the window again. "Sorry," she mutters into the collar of her oversize black denim jacket.

Jägermeister continues, in her faintly Saxony-accented German: "Has it been six hours already?"

"Apologies, ma'am," Red says a little louder, "But about the t-"

"Codon Orange, ATG-0," Jägermeister interrupts, yawning, "What did I say about being rude? Look at me when you're talking to me. Ochre."

"I'm-..." Red starts, and immediately her head snaps over to face her handler, "S-sorry."

"Of course you are," the German woman is starting to sit up properly in her seat, still cutting as impressive a figure now as she did when Red first saw her decades ago. "What were you going to say? Go on."

"R-right," Red desperately wants to look away in shame, but she can't as she carries on: "About the time. Your Order specified five hours, not six hours."

"Did it?" Jägermeister sighs, briefly doffing her baseball cap to run a hand through her sightly greying hair. "Good grief. That damn desert must've cooked my brain."

Red finally manages to tear her gaze away and look outside. They've now passed through the clouds in their descent. She spots lights: a familiar pattern of coastlines and cities, and further up ahead on the horizon the dim glow of a sunrise. She estimates that they're an hour behind schedule.

"What were you muttering about anyway?" Jägermeister asks, "Auffassen, Missverstehen? Are there still flaws in your cognition?"

"No, ma'am," Red says, looking back at her, "All f-"

"Holy shit!" Jägermeister hisses, aghast, "What's happened to your damn face?"

i was [scared].
despite everyone's efforts they couldn't kill me, and their bullets still [hurt].
i couldn't run or hide, i was trapped with the [pain].
"hilfe! hilfe! ein monster!"
i tried to copy their voices and their faces too, but they just shot me more.
i didn't understand why this was happening. i was growing [angry].
[the scientists were bad to me but they at least told me what i did wrong.]

Red winces and her fingers dig into the fabric of her jeans. "My face, ma'am?"

"It's that disgusting black on the sclerae again," she scowls and gesticulates, "Codon Black: mod-TA2:6250, #FBFCF8. Ochre."

Red, who had already subconsciously turned her face back towards the window, gets to watch in real time as the dark grey colour of her sclerae drains into a white more normal for humans. It itches and aches, and Red knows that this adjustment of her biomass will just make the black tint last longer further down the line.

This knowledge fills Red's mind with a familiar hollowness, like so often when her body has an innate response to an emotion she is forbidden from feeling. She feels the denim tear under her grip. She quickly lets go and wraps her fingers around each other instead.

"Apologies," Red murmurs, again finding her gaze forced back towards Jägermeister, "All my functions are normal. I was merely reading out loud."

Jägermeister's scowl lessens a little when she sees the book in her lap. "Ah, Kafka again?"

"Yes," Red fiddles with a hangnail. It's rare that she uses so many mutagens and biomass alterations that the nails go black too, but it's certainly how it is now.

"Codon Orange, ATG-0: stop fidgeting right now, Ochre," Jägermeister says absently, and Red's fingers seize up. "It's all you've been reading these past weeks."

This and a pack of gum were all you'd let me buy at the airport before we had to catch our flight.

"I like his writing," Red decides to say, and she's allowed to, because it's not a lie. And then, to add insult to injury, her mouth adds: "Ma'am."

            The Lie made into the World System.

"I suppose letting you have some money to spend is not all bad," Jägermeister sighs. "Though I do know you didn't spend it on those clothes. Where did you get those?"

"Cognac gave me the jackets so I wouldn't get sunburnt," Red explains, slightly tugging the denim sleeve over the hooded jacket she's wearing underneath. While this is true, the real reason Red is wearing all this anyway is to cover this comfortingly small and chubby body. If the woman beside her sees it, she will criticise and modify and optimise it out of existence.

"Cognac knows about your albinism?" Jägermeister mutters suspiciously. "I guess it couldn't be helped, seeing how we met... But aren't you warm?"

"I am not," Red says, and with her gaze forced back to her handler she can see the bulky warm aviator jacket that she is wearing. She chooses not to comment on that, and explains: "I have altered my sensory perception."

"Hach," Jägermeister sighs in disappointment. "Always wasting that potential."

But she doesn't say any more on the matter. She must be in a good mood after all those Codon Orders.

And Red doesn't say any more on the matter, her gaze drifting back outside. Red knows that any good mood can vanish pretty quickly with that woman.

The military transport jet lands at Yokota airbase about half an hour later.

As the mix of unnamed Crows and corrupt soldiers get off the plane ahead of the two of them, Red supposes that she should be glad that the flight didn't crash. It would've been a shame to lose her backpack of contraband.

Soon I'll be home. I can give the tapes to Shiho for safekeeping... and maybe Akemi can cook something good with the spices I brought.

(Red tries not to think about how she often feels like the protagonist of Kafka's other major book around those two. There are, again, all these emotions that have been rendered inscrutable for her – but somehow, that book feels them for her. And Red sees a mirror in that ungeheueres Ungeziefer.)

The air is warm despite being so late at night, and it smells of damp asphalt and petrichor and kerosene. Red spots clear puddles on the runway, and guesses that it might have rained in the past few hours.

Red also spots the familiar black Porsche parked only about 100 meters south from their position, parallel to the runaway.

Red also spots the heavyset man in a black suit and hat, wearing sunglasses at night because he shares her sensitivity to bright light.

Red especially spots the tall man in a black coat with long silver-white hair, idly smoking a cigarette as he watches them disembark.

new person arrived : man, taller than anyone, sharp face,
soviet officer's coat of a rank older than his features indicate,
but long silver hair far outside of regulation.
he ordered in a familiar language : "prekrati!"
(i copied him because this time i had devoured this language before)
[and then he shot all the men that were still shooting me.]

This man is Gin, one of three commanding officers in this Organisation that has now taken control of Red Label and given her that designation. Gin in particular has always treated her fairly. He was never kind like Mr Atsushi Madeira and Miss Elena Absinthe were, but he was very powerful, and as long as you were honest with him then he was fair, too.

But also, Jägermeister seems to faintly resent this man. She often says terrible things about him and the government he used to work for, and Red has seen the devastation this government wreaked upon her home. Sometimes Jägermeister also talks specifically about his bizarrely violent sex life, which she then Orders Red to never think about, leaving her with hours' worth of very uncomfortable memories that she cannot examine further. All this, even though he is (in different ways) the man who recruited both of them into this Organisation.

[the woman shouted angrily at the new man but he said something in her language :]
["bevor sie völlig den verstand verlieren: jenige kreatur ist der grund wieso wir hier sind. lesen sie."]
(i copied him even though i didn't understand him this time)
and shoved a manila folder to her chest, and she fell silent and started reading the papers within.
[she was still holding her gun very tight.]

So, seeing Gin obviously waiting for the two of them makes Red both a little relieved and a little worried. Trepidation, maybe, is the word. Apprehension.

"Oh, how interesting," Jägermeister mutters in front of her.

Red starts to open her mouth to ask about this, hoping that Jägermeister hasn't spotted him, but her handler is always quicker.

"Codon Yellow, C-WB. 3600 sec. Ochre."

Immediately Red's vocal cords seize up. She wheezes briefly and then coughs as the heavy taste of her own biomass clogs her throat.

Jägermeister continues to rattle off Orders: "Codon Orange, ATG-0. Take our bags from the freight tracks and then join me: no further than five meters, no closer than one. Treat our Comrades with respect but stay cautious. Don't try anything stupid or you'll bear the consequences. Ochre."

Red is used to the way her brain ceases to properly work while her body moves off on its own. Her body pushes aside the attendants currently trying to empty the plane's cargo hold (Red tries to be as gentle as possible and also communicate an apology through eye contact alone, but judging by the way the pair of Japanese men stare at her it doesn't really work) and tugs down Jägermeister's duffel bag and the suitcase of chemicals needed to alter and improve Red's mutagens.

Soon, Red falls in line two meters behind Jägermeister as they march towards the Porsche. The lights at the small military airport are bright and their reflections in the puddles worse, so Red's eyes sting no matter where she tries to squint.

"Remember," Jägermeister says out of the corner of her mouth even as she plasters on a fake grin and waves towards her superior officer, "Gin's a rat bastard who will do anything to get what he wants; and Vodka's little more than his apparatchik lackey. I want you to really pay attention."

Red isn't sure how this is in any way unique. After all, all three commanding officers have their own methods to 'do anything', and all three of them have any number of loyal soldiers. But Jägermeister doesn't like to be told when she is wrong or mistaken, and besides, Red cannot speak at the moment anyway.

Now within hearing distance of Gin and Vodka, Jägermeister says cheerfully: "Guten Abend, tovarishi!"

"It's a good night," Gin responds in English. Even in this language his voice sounds deep and gravelly, like dredging the bottom of an ancient ocean. "But you're late, Jäger. That's unusual for you."

the man approached my position.
i still couldn't move from my containment and my mass was dripping where the bullets hit me.
[i was scared and angry and hurt and if he got any closer i wanted to lash out and devour him.]
he didn't get too close.
he started speaking in different languages to me, and i copied him, until...

"Ach, you know there's no accounting for weather," Jägermeister adapts to the language of choice with apparent ease, though her German accent is rather strong.

She stops about a meter and a half from where Gin is leaning against the back side window of the car, which is in turn another meter from where from where Vodka is leaning his elbows on the roof on the other side and mildly waving at them.

"So, gentlemen," Jägermeister says, as Red pulls up the rear with their luggage. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

Vodka grins faintly, reaching into an inner pocket of his jacket, "Why can't a couple of friendly Comrades pick up some weary travellers?"

Red finds Vodka admirable. Like her, he's also fairly short and with a stocky build. But he has great people skills. He sometimes has this inoffensive way of seeming perfectly pleasant and polite without it feeling personal or indeed friendly at all. Red asked him about it once, and he grinned and said it comes from dealing with people who are a lot more powerful than you.

"Ja, why can't they indeed," Jägermeister says cautiously. "Don't take that, Red Label."

Red hadn't even noticed that Vodka was sliding a pair of sunglasses across the bonnet until Jägermeister points it out. She looks helplessly between two of them, and then the sunglasses start sliding off the bonnet, and Red stares at the ground in shame as they clatter onto the asphalt.

It wasn't even an Order. I could've done it and she wouldn't be able to stop me...

"Oh, come on," Vodka chuckles, stepping around the car to scoop his spare sunglasses up and join them on that side of the car, "In these damn lights the poor girl's gotta be half-blind."

"That thing isn't a girl," Jägermeister scoffs. "It's a weapon. And let me just turn it off while we're at it. Codon Re-"

A hollow surge floods Red's guts – no emotion but instinct – no, please, not again-!

"No," Gin says sharply. "In fact, this is a matter that concerns Red Label, too. It would be more practical for her to be present."

"salaam, haywula-i be cheshman..."
until i heard my mother tongue.
[(mother? did i ever have a mother? there are memories but they don't make sense...)]
i didn't copy him, because his accent was quite bad.

For a horrible moment, Red thinks maybe Jägermeister will 'turn it off' anyway.

But then the German sighs, "If you say so," and Red finds her tense muscles loosening. "Do you want it responsive too?"

"Tak," Gin shrugs and seems to briefly glance down towards Red. "If she wishes."

Jägermeister gives him a faintly baffled smile. Then she turns to Red and puts a firm hand on the back of her neck. "Codon Violet, C-WB, Ochre. And be polite, these are commanding officers."

It doesn't feel like anything initially. But Red opens her mouth, and this time her vocal cords don't tighten when she says: "Good evening, Comrades."

then he paused and i blinked at him.
it was obvious to me that persian wasn't his first language, (let alone dari),
and he must have forgotten how to say the next word.
i felt sorry for him. so i changed a little to help...

"Good evening," Vodka responds instinctively, before looking up towards the eastern horizon, where the barest glimmers of dawn have begun to crest. He grimaces, "Er, I mean..."

Gin makes an amused noise at his partner's faint embarrassment. He lifts his cigarette as if in a toast and says, "Good morning, Krasnaya."

his eyes went wide. he looked so young and so old at the same time.
he said in a language not quite like his first : "...kalyna."

Red blinks slowly. She finds the fact that he calls her by this... 'name'(?) very perplexing indeed. After all, it is not just the Russian word for 'red': it is specifically the feminine diminutive of the adjective. For example, Little Red Riding Hood is called Krasnaya Shapochka in Russian. But Gin is not Russian...

"Are we done exchanging pleasantries?" Jägermeister rolls her eyes. At the same time, Red feels a slight pinch of pain in her earlobe, "This isn't a circus. Red, if you're going to be sticking around, you might as well put the bags in the car."

Red nods and starts dragging their luggage towards the back of the car. Better than having to stand around with her hand on my neck while they have this strange meeting... though what was that pain?

"Red, catch!" Vodka calls, and her hand shoots up instinctively to snatch up the car keys whistling through the air.

He grins at her, and she meekly smiles back before returning to the trunk and unlocking it. The interior smells of leather, gunpowder, and liquor – all with an overwhelming note of old blood.

"She called us Comrades," Gin says meanwhile, "Is that because you told her to be polite?"

Red's throat feels thick with shame. Another mistake she'll be punished for, no doubt... but there's no point worrying about that. She takes the bulkiest of the bags and loads it into the trunk, careful not to block access to the weapons and munitions compartments that Gin's installed within the Porsche. This shouldn't take long, but she wishes it did.

"Who knows," Jägermeister says vaguely.

"It's the twenty-first century, Jägermeister," Vodka comments, "Outside of party cadres in a miniscule handful countries, no-one calls each other 'comrade' anymore."

Red remembers (vaguely, through the memory conditioning) the far-too-many near misses that her programmed speech patterns have caused. She also realises, maybe very belatedly: the way these Crows have showed up here, the way Vodka keeps giving her these strangely comradely grins, the way Gin specified her being able to be 'present' for discussing this matter that 'concerns Red Label too'-

They're planning something? Red's head shoots up to stare across the car to the three Crows. Do they know about what we did? Will Jägermeister be punished? What will happen to me?

i didn't know what he wanted from me,
but i looked at what was left of the men he shot,
and i looked at how he was looking at me,
and for the first time since they entered i didn't just imitate their sounds and faces.
i responded to him in his first language :
["privyet, zilinaglaz- ...nyet. monstr s zelenymi glazami"]

But Jägermeister just raises a challenging eyebrow, either unaware or unafraid. "So?"

Vodka says, "So, this type of programming of our organic resources is counterintuitive to our continued aim of flying below the radar."

"Who's going to hear it?" Jägermeister scoffs – a sound so sharp that Red quickly looks back at what she's supposed to be doing. Her gaze pins on the dangling keychain... a bottle opener, by the looks of it. "Unless you're planning on requisitioning the Asset for another one of your adventures-"

Vodka snorts.

"-in which case I'll remind you once more that the Asset is a dangerous weapon that must be kept both secure and secret." Jägermeister finishes firmly. Then she calls, "Red Label – Codon Orange, ATG-0. Come back if you're done, Ochre."

Red feels her muscles twitch. She's still got her backpack on, but she doesn't want to put it in the car and risk its contents being discovered. I'm done, I guess. Her hand reaches up to slam the trunk shut (it's louder than expected and she flinches), and starts to wander back, keys in hand.

"Secrets, hm?" Gin takes the cigarette from his mouth for a moment to exhale heavily. "We know plenty of parties who are very fond of those."

Red suspects that he might be trying to insinuate something, but she can't put her finger on what. But speaking of fingers – she finds that her fingers have started fidgeting again, absently running the serrated edge of the keys against her black nails. The sensation is both unpleasant and soothing.

That's a relief, she thinks as she puts her hands in her pockets to hide them, I guess 'right now' is over now.

"Of course we do," Jägermeister seems nonplussed, "We both come from secret police states. So what are you trying to get at?"

"Ah... maybe it's nothing," Gin sighs out another stream of smoke, and this one in particular catches in a breeze towards Red's direction. Familiar smells fog her mind. He didn't always smoke this brand, but someone else wore a perfume with a faint smoky-citric note...

[her face was so kind]
[she smelled so nice]
[her skin was so soft]
[she was covered in blood]
[i didn't understand why my eyes hurt and why my mouth started making a sound]

Gin says, "But a weapon is worth nothing if it is monopolized and unused."

"Come on, Gin," Jägermeister nearly smiles for a moment. Closer to them, she can smell the sharp cool peppermint of her chewing gum, and Red wonders why she didn't notice it before. "We're both from the Cold War. There is such a thing as a deterrent."

"The point of a deterrent is that it's known, Jäger," Gin says sharply. Before she can say anything, he continues: "Incidentally, perhaps I should remind you that Red Label is an Organisation asset, not your personal sidearm."

Jägermeister grinds her teeth around her next words, and a very one-sided tense silence emerges.

Wait, I could hear her grinding her teeth. And the gum, and the smells of the car – did she...? Red reaches up towards the plain steel earrings cuffing the cartilage of her ears. They're hollow, she knows, and filled with different kinds of chemicals that can be administered into her bloodstream through a complex little mechanism. That pinching feeling after she put her hand on my neck – did she reach over and inject the sensory enhancers? Will I have to wait it out?

Meanwhile Vodka pulls out a phone, some very impressive side-sliding thing with a full keyboard, and while barely looking at it starts tapping away with impossible speed. Gin casually finishes his current cigarette and flicks the smouldering end away. Red resists the urge to catch it in her hand, and luckily no errant embers fly off before he steps on it.

Finally Jägermeister clicks her tongue. "Ok. It's not like you to beat around the bush like this, Gin. What exactly is the matter? Or is this just empty threats?"

"My threats are never empty," Gin idly reaches into his coat, and Jägermeister tenses. It's just a pack of cigarettes that he withdraws, but he grins at Jägermeister and adds, "As you very clearly know."

She scowls.

While Gin plucks out a cigarette and lights it (and Red can feel the heat of his lighter from here), he explains the situation: "Tak. Currently, there are no operations that require Red Label's specialisations. What there is plenty of, is a demand for properly trained and feathered Crows-"

"-...no..." Jägermeister growls quietly, but Gin continues-

"-after all, our headquarters in various capital cities have been left in disarray since we lost Tequila."

Lost...? Shouldn't we go find him...?

"Wait – Tequila?" Jägermeister echoes, surprised by the change in topic. Red remembers now that 'lost' in English is a euphemism for 'dead'.

"Good grief," Vodka smirks sarcastically, "You must have been very busy overseas, to have been on such complete radio silence to miss a Croaking order."

Croaking? How the hell did the Organisation's chief of IT get compromised?

Red glances up at Jägermeister for guidance but finds that her handler has gone rather pale. "Ach du Scheiße, fuck. I... I didn't realise."

"Evidently," Gin comments. There's a strange mixture of deadly seriousness and dark amusement in his voice.

"What happened?" Jägermeister asks, "Did he turn?"

"That's on a need-to-know basis," Gin says. "Suffice to say that he's dead, and trouble never comes alone."

"Fuck," Jägermeister says again. From what Red can see, she seems genuinely affected by this news: not distraught by any means, but at least concerned.

"So," Gin carries on, business-like, "Having once more reviewed the latest lab results, I've proposed that Red Label be given the opportunity to take part in regular operations with a fixed partner."

Red's neck clicks with how quickly she turns her head to face Gin. "What?"

"Absolutely not," Jägermeister snaps.

Gin regards her coolly over his cigarette. "Why not?"

Jägermeister bristles. Back during their mission in Afghanistan, she'd been the highest-ranking Crow. Red supposes that she just didn't expect to be questioned for her decisions. Still, she recovers quickly and straightens her shoulders.

"Because the Red Label Asset is volatile and extremely dangerous. Without the right degree of control, it could become malfunctional and begin destroying the vicinity, endangering nearby Crows and threatening to compromise not only its existence but also our operations."

Red exhales shakily, looking at the ground. She doesn't remember this ever happening, but the way Jägermeister talks about it makes her wonder if that just might be because her memory was altered after the fact. It really wouldn't be the first time she's been completely reconditioned.

Gin hums. "That control would be entailed within those access phrases you keep repeating?"

"That's right," Jägermeister nods, gaining confidence at the seeming acceptance of her claim, "In addition, the Label Projects are extremely classified – and for good reason, mind. Of the Crows who are aware of its existence, half are in present company. I don't need to remind you of the events that led to the Black Label Purge – and indeed, the whole reason why the Boss asked you to find dirt on Scotch is because he'd found out about the Project Direct-"

"Oh, dear comrade," Vodka interrupts with a faux-scandalised grin, "Am I going to have to report you for spouting apologetics on a foreign agent?"

Jägermeister's breath catches angrily. In Russian, she spits: "I'm not playing this game with you, bureaucrat. You know exactly what I mean."

"Sure I do," Vodka says pleasantly, also in Russian, "Though you'd do well to remember that field agents wouldn't know what to shoot if they didn't have bureaucrats to direct them."

Jägermeister's jaw tenses with rage. While she is relatively easygoing (at least, in matters that don't concern Red Label), she's always been prone to violence when pushed too far. Vodka, for his part, is frankly not a particularly physically active man. Jägermeister could probably tackle the poor Tajik man and beat him within an inch of his life before Gin could put a bullet in her skull.

"Vodka, behave," Gin grunts. He has also settled for Russian, the same language he spoke when Red first encountered him. "We're all on the same side."

Vodka fails to look particularly chastised by this. In fact, he grins at Red Label like they're in on the same joke, which makes her tighten her grip on the keychain in her pockets and look away. If Jäger thinks that, I'll be in so much trouble...

"Jägermeister," Gin continues, "Do you have anything more to add?"

Jägermeister's glare softens somewhat as she looks back at him. "Yes. The final point is that we cannot risk the Asset experiencing chaotic public settings. With so many unknown variables, the likelihood of it reacting unpredictably increases exponentially."

Gin clears his throat and glances down at Red.

Surprised, she blinks back. What does he want? What's going on?

"What?" Jägermeister looks between the two of them irritably, "What're you two looking at each other like that for?"

Vodka briefly snorts, like he's got another pointed thing to say. Before she can question him, Gin speaks up, "I was trying to gauge Red's opinion on sharing this information with you."

"Opinion," Jägermeister echoes flatly, a darkly amused grin starting to curl her lips.

Red is suddenly very aware that all eyes are on her. I should say something.

"I... I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about," Red says quietly. "I am sorry, Gin."

Gin tilts his head slightly to one side. He obviously does not accept this as an answer.

Red tries to think about what he might be planning on saying to... probably refute whatever it is that Jägermeister is saying, right? But which part? The Codons? The thing about how classified her existence is?

She fidgets with the pack of gum in her pocket, "I-I'm sure any information concerning myself should be shared with the scientist in charge of the Label Projects Directive?"

"I agree," says Jägermeister.

"You must be pleased," Gin sighs, glancing back at her. "The truth is, Red Label has already experienced such settings, including as recently as this year."

"Hardly," Jägermeister scoffs. "If you're talking about its use on the 18th of July in dispatching those Russian and Chinese secret services at Kasumigaura Bay, then you're very mistaken. Aside from that situation being extremely choreographed – there were an innumerable amount of Order Codons active at the time, and I have had to clear the Asset's cognitive records of the event as well."

Oh. That explains why I woke up on the 19th with a new language in my brain. Georgian was such a nice one, too...

"You... wiped her memory?" Vodka realises. "I didn't know that was possible."

And why Jägermeister took me on that Afghanistan trip shortly after...

Jägermeister proudly puffs her chest out and claps Red on the shoulder. "You'd be shocked how much is possible with this thing."

Is she going to take my memories of that, too? Might better, maybe it'll let me forget how those children screamed...

"I was not talking about that incident," Gin says rather dismissively, "Rather, there was an arms deal in Tokyo towards the end of June. We took Red along for security, but it was in fact her own quick thinking that was crucial to us catching and eliminating a rat that was following us."

Red remembers that occasion very well. The idea of masquerading as Gin in order to draw out his enemies had been his idea of course; a trick they'd done before, featuring him as a sniper and her as both the bait and the evidence removal. But she did spot that teenager in the green jacket filming them... (and she did really enjoy the chance to go on that rollercoaster, too.)

Presently though, Jägermeister doesn't look pleased at all. Face gaunt with disbelieving wrath, she growls, "Wie bitte?"

"It was a very chaotic occasion, exactly the unpredictable public situation you were warning us about," Gin continues, still in Russian, "There was even a surprise murder at the theme park – Vodka, what was it again?"

"Tropical Land, Tokyo," Vodka recites the name, "25th of June, I believe. The rat was that Highschool Detective, clever little shit."

"The... kid who's now showed up on the Japanese news?" Jägermeister keeps her voice remarkably calm, though her ice-like eyes keep darting to Red Label, "You hid this from me?"

"Yes. There's no excuse. I am sorry," Red says, again forced to look at her handler's wrath. Her jaw is so tight again, and Red knows there's no escaping whatever punishment will follow.

Please don't make me forget the rollercoaster. Please-please don't make me forget blue slushies and popcorn and fireworks and cigarettes...

Gin says, "So you see, Red Label is perfectly capable of dealing with unpredictable situations, staying utterly clandestine even in a well-surveilled public location, and cooperating with Crows without revealing her true nature."

Jägermeister is silent for a moment. Then she smiles forcefully and says, "I wish I had been informed of this, Gin."

Red feels her face go hot with shame and her chest go cold with a hollow sensation she cannot put a word to. A gut instinct wants her to run and hide, and being unable to do so is making her head rush terribly. She does manage to lower her gaze back to the tips of her combat boots again.

"There was no harm in not informing you," Gin speaks casually, but Red thinks she identifies a threatening edge to his tone. "After all, while we gave you access to the Asset all those years ago, we can still revoke this any time."

in the first language he spoke in, he said to me:
"we can let you go but you'll have to answer some questions first. do you understand?"
in my mother tongue i said to him:
"yes."

Red remembers, almost like it's through a foggy haze, the fact that all three Executive Crow officers have access to her Order Codons. After the Black Label situation, it was decided to be the best solution. Now, Red stares up at Gin, wondering, Could you stop me? Could you shut me down for good? Would you, if I could ask you?

"Understood," Jägermeister says, though the tightness in her jaw borders on mutinous. "Though maintenance of the Asset remains my Directive's responsibility, my personal oversight is not always necessary."

"Correct. Red Label," Gin glances at her, green eyes so sharp and direct it feels like he's staring into her rotten inhuman soul. "Do you have any further opinion on this?"

he asked me what i was.
i said "ein monster" in the voice of one of the people who were shooting me.

Red gulps. She glances to Jägermeister.

Jägermeister just sighs and looks away. "You can speak."

Red inhales shakily. "I do have an opinion on this."

he asked me who i was.
i said ["cheshman kalyna"] in his voice.

Red thinks very carefully about how to articulate everything she is thinking right now, everything that has been so exhilarating about the mundane little jobs, everything she has actually enjoyed since being acquired by this Organisation. It hasn't been much.

Red says, "I appreciated the work we did together in June. While I cannot remember what we did in July, it is clear you are pleased with my work, too. Furthermore, my ability to understand and interpret orders has already made me far superior than the Black Labels ever were. As such, I firmly believe that granting me a degree of autonomy would be overall beneficial to the Organisation."

he asked me what i wanted.
i said "azadi" in my own voice.
he looked at me and he saw me.

"Well," Gin says bluntly. "There you hear it."

"I've heard nothing, but well-rehearsed propaganda," Jägermeister rolls her eyes. "Did you really use those coveted Executive access Codons to instil these phrases in it?"

"Really?" Vodka chuckles, surprised. "That's what you resort to?"

Gin slowly exhales, and without that lucky breeze, the fragrant smoke this time just settles as a heavy cloud. "What makes you think I would do such a thing, Jägermeister?"

"It's the only possibility," Jägermeister nearly laughs, herself. "After all, while the Asset is capable of higher cognitive functions, it does not have any genuine personal feelings or opinions. Absinthe's research demonstrated this."

The statement hits Red like a mortar shell to the gut. And she knows very well what those feel like.

"Actually," Vodka speaks up, "Further inquiry has found that the study you are citing was actually specifically conducted during an experiment to suppress the Asset's emotions. As such, the results are inadmissible as evidence that Red Label is always incapable of creative or emotive cognition."

The anguish wobbles and flickers and subsides. Red stares at Vodka, stunned.

outside i met others:
a man in sunglasses and an ill-fitting soviet uniform, so young his face was still a little soft,
and [the pretty dark-skinned woman, who had lost so much blood she was barely conscious.]
both were friendly to me, if overwhelmed by the situation they found themselves in,
but us two monsters took care of that for them.

He grins briefly at her.

"Further inquiry?" Jäger echoes suspiciously. "Under whose authority was this inquiry conducted? Who did this?"

"It was conducted under my authority," Gin announces, "And the translator was an individual who is most familiar with Absinthe and Madeira's transcription patterns."

"Most familiar-!" Jägermeister almost shouts, horrified, "You made little Sherry translate that evil bile-?!"

"-this individual in question is presently far removed from the Organisation," Gin continues, and Jägermeister stops, confused. "And above all, they were not directly responsible for the study's authors' removal."

Red does not remember this time at all, but she can guess why that is. Another hollow feeling sticks cloyingly in her chest as she thinks about [Miss Elena] Absinthe and [Mr Atsushi] Madeira and how she can't even remember their faces. Akemi has pictures, I'll have to ask her to let me take a look again.

"What...?" Jägermeister says slowly, narrowing her eyes. "What are you insinuating? The Miyano scientists were swept up during the Black Label Purge because they seemed to be preparing to use the Project Directive against the rest of us. A-and besides, it was Pisco who commanded that particular order, not myself."

"Indeed," Gin says. "And yet, here you are, chief research scientist of the-"

"Genosse!" Jägermeister gasps, outraged, "I would never purposefully orphan two sweet little girls for power or polit-!"

"-don't fucking interrupt me," he cuts her off coldly.

Jägermeister startles for a moment, staring at Gin as if he's already holding a gun to her head. But she recovers quickly: squares her shoulders, glances at Red in expectation. And Red has been aware of how her own muscles have been flickering and tensing with pre-programmed violence.

Don't do it, she mentally begs Gin, I think she might've undone the precautions against me killing Executives. You can't shut me down quicker than I can tear your throat out.

"Don't act like you've suddenly become a saint." Gin speaks again after several eternal seconds, "But to be clear, I was not making any insinuations to the matter of their demise. I was simply reminding you of your station."

"My... station," Jägermeister almost looks like she's about to laugh. Red shivers.

"You are a chief research scientist. Your role is research. Your role is not taking the Red Label Asset on unsanctioned trips to Afghanistan."

Red's head shoots back to face Gin. He knows what we've been doing?

"That was a research excursion," Jägermeister shrugs, as if she isn't lying through her teeth. "After all, the Asset was first acquired in a laboratory there. We were hoping to find more leftover research on its origin and creation."

"Vodka?" Gin tilts his head towards his partner.

"Yeah," Vodka grins, flicking his wrist a few times to casually slide his phone open and closed, "So GPS does indicate that you were present at the known laboratories in the north of the country over the last week. However comparing this data with satellite imaging shows instead that these facilities have been left utterly devastated. Furthermore, GRU intelligence indicates a mysterious biochemical 'explosion' in Nimruz Province which affected primarily civilians and US forces, which also matches GPS coordinates from two days ago."

Red feels her face flush hot. She remembers how pretty the person she had changed into felt, and she remembers how the bus utterly disintegrated under her the ordered Blackout.

"Lying might get you favours from the other Executives, but not with me," Gin says. "So Comrade Jägermeister, do you wish to revise your story?"

Red is reminded of the book she'd been reading these past weeks. Was Kafka wrong? Can his story be changed? Can justice really be achieved? Is the lie really separable from how the world is ordered?

"Comrade Gin," Jägermeister says carefully, looking remarkably composed. "I thought you did not think highly of inner-party surveillance."

"I don't," Gin says. "But my grandmother used to say: Trust in God, yet lock your doors. And she was rarely wrong."

"I... apologise," Jägermeister says after another moment. "What you say is correct. I took the Asset with me to Afghanistan in an attempt to clean up some loose ends that had been flying around. I also wished to provide support for Arrack's mission in the area."

What? That's barely even a half-truth. Come on Gin, figure it out!

"Is that so...?" Gin raises an eyebrow, though it's barely visible in the shade of his hat. "Well. I advise that you leave the stealing to the thieves and the throat-cutting to the murderers."

No!

"You are one of the most important scientists of our Organisation. I recommend you act like it, Frau Doktor."

"I understand completely," Jägermeister says deferentially, "I shall return to my work imminently."

"And Red Label," Gin turns to look at Red, and she instinctively shrinks back a little.

"I am also sorry, sir," she says quickly, even though she wants to say so much else. Don't try anything stupid indeed. Fuck. Fuck!

"Don't call me sir," he says, not kindly but not exactly harshly. "And we have yet to see if there anything to apologise for. Were you under direct Orders to act?"

Red blinks, confused. "Of course I was, si- Comrade."

His expression flickers with some emotion she can't place because it's too quick and strange – though she does catch how his eyes shoot to Jägermeister again.

"You are aware that you can act of your own accord, are you not?"

Jägermeister scoffs, "Don't be preposterous, Gin, I-

"I am talking to Red Label, not you, Jägermeister," Gin snaps, "In fact: why don't you wait in the car?"

He steps aside from the door, and Vodka reaches for it and jiggles the handle. "Ah – Red? Keys?"

"O-oh," Red pulls them out of her pocket and finds that the bottle opener keychain has been totally bent out of shape.

"Vaa! Chegunah...?" Vodka marvels in his Tajik-accented Persian.

Red ducks her head in and puts her hands back in her pockets. She can't respond in Persian, so she settles for Arabic: "Asefeh..."

"Pfah, don't be sorry," Vodka smirks and shakes his head and sticks the key in the lock. "It's funny as hell."

"Gin, I know you understand, " Jägermeister is saying meanwhile, "You really don't have to-"

"Maybe I should've been clearer," Gin gazes down at Jägermeister like she's a jammed bullet in the chamber of his Beretta. "You're dismissed from this conversation, Jäger."

"I-!" she grinds down any desperate response and nods sternly instead. "Of course."

In this time, Vodka has managed to flip forward the passenger seat so that Jägermeister can get into the back of the Porsche. Once she's inside, he slides the seat back again, gets in himself, and slams the door shut with a cheerful sound like he's about to start making small talk.

Red immediately feels her body relax.

Then a hand drops onto her shoulder and she's so caught off-guard by the sensation that Gin can casually steer her around, so her back is pressed against the car.

"W-what are you-!" she splutters, before Gin removes his hand and puts it inside his coat to pull something out. "Wait, wait – please. I-I know I can act on my own. But when she – when the programmed orders – a-and my memories, they don't-"

"Calm down," Gin says in Mandarin, "Look at me."

She gulps down her words and follows his order. Gin is a very tall man, towering over her small natural height of one and a half meters with ease. That is the least of her worries, though – because he is also offering her from his almost-empty pack of cigarettes, and behind her, separated by a thin wall of glass, she can almost sense Jägermeister's bitter rage.

"Do you see how we are standing, Krasnaya?" he asks, and that makes Red refocus. "Your back is to the car, so she can't see you. She also doesn't speak Mandarin, so she can neither overhear us nor read my lips. She will not know what we are talking about here."

"Do..." she forces herself not to glance behind her. "...you promise?"

"I don't put much faith in promises," he says, a little derisively. "But sure. I promise. So take a cigarette to buy us some time, and tell me what happened."

"But..."

"Let's be honest, tak?" he tips his head back a little to point towards his car with his chin, "That woman talks to the left and looks to the right. I wouldn't trust her with a stray dog."

Red finds his way of occasionally throwing in a Ukrainian phrase strange, the same way she finds his figures of speech strange, the same way she finds his nicknames strange. It's all in a way that doesn't make her feel hollow. It's all in a way that doesn't make her feel like Gregor Samsa-

Red takes a cigarette and says coldly: "Woof."

"Hah!" A nasty snarl of a laugh bursts from Gin's mouth. "You're clever, Red."

Red remembers now very suddenly: how Gin looked at her in that laboratory after she said she wanted freedom. Red knew in that moment that this person was much more than a trigger-happy agent who'd happily murder his allies. No, this person, this creature looked at her like he understood her on a fundamental level.

Simply put: he was a monster too. So she called him that.

"...thank you," she says, pleased that she can communicate her real thoughts and intentions in a way that circumvents Jägermeister's strict commands.

She finds a matchbook in her jacket pocket (probably left over from when Cognac owned his jacket, though she's pretty sure he doesn't smoke) and after a few attempts, she manages to light a match and from there her fresh cigarette. It has a strong sharp taste, smoky and citric and nostalgic.

After a brief while Gin speaks again. "So tell me, Krasnaya: what was the real purpose of that Afghanistan trip?"

Red is immediately relieved that he saw through Jägermeister's lies after all. But at the same time, she has no idea how to tell him what really happened. She isn't even allowed to explain that she's forbidden from speaking about the exact plans, so what the hell can she-

Oh. Maybe...? He said I was clever, so this isn't 'trying something stupid', it's just being clever-

"We didn't assassinate Rye," Red says carefully, and her heart soars when it works.

Gin's back straightens, and something about his eyes gets even more intense. "You... didn't?"

"We failed," she says, and realises that she is grinning, and her words become a waterfall, "I think he recognised me somehow. It should be impossible; my character was fabricated from the ground up. But I can't explain it any other way. He stared me like I was a ghost and stepped off the bus at T-minus twenty seconds, and I wanted to go after him but I already had my Ord-urgh!"

She croaks and gasps as her vocal cords close up again and the waterfall runs dry.

But Gin obviously understands anyway. He hisses: "You were Ordered to execute a Blackout Event in public?"

Red coughs and hacks around the taste of her biomass trying to melt in her throat. She desperately sucks at the cigarette to soothe it, and while the smoke tastes better, the heat hurts the exposed flesh.

"Fuck," he irritably spits out his nearly finished cigarette and crushes it under his shoe. "And that woman complains about 'the asset not being exposed'."

"S-sorry," Red wheezes.

"And you're saying Rye survived after having possibly witnessed you? Of all fucking people..."

Red remembers how that man's peculiar olive eyes pierced into her, how the ends of his long black hair danced in the dusty wind, how every movement was deliberate violence contained in human form. Rye was never a real monster in the brief times she encountered him in the Organisation, but Shuichi Akai certainly has the features and makings of one. Maybe that's why Gin tried to take him under his wing... maybe that's why his betrayal never made sense to me.

"I don't know if he actually saw the Blackout," Red forces herself to remember the important parts, beyond the ephemera. "He escaped pretty quickly before it hit. But he saw the aftermath... I'm sorry."

"You cannot move faster than your shadow," Gin growls. "But she will be sorry."

"Will she? What will happen?"

"We'll make sure Jäger actually does her real job and not these selfish jaunts; and we'll make sure to hunt Rye down properly. But..." and he gives her a knowing smirk. "You're not really worried about her, are you."

he laughed when i called him a monster,
not like i said something stupid or silly,
and not like he thought it was very funny either.
he just laughed, and it was a harsh sound.

"I cannot say that," Red says carefully.

"We will fix that eventually," as he speaks, he reaches into that inner coat pocket to retrieve his cigarettes again. "As I've indicated before, you will be temporarily reassigned. It's already been cleared with the Man In Charge; he's also curious to see what you can achieve with greater autonomy."

Wild feelings catapult from Red's mind and chest. She struggles to understand the lightness and confused elation, not because they've been forcibly excised from her realm of understanding, but because it's been so long since she's really felt them.

Too good to be true. Impossible.

"What..." she exhales a mouthful of smoke and clears her throat, "May I ask-"

"Of course you can," he snaps, "Don't waste my time with fluff."

"A-ah, sor-" she cuts herself off when his glare hardens. "Um. What will my role be? I... I'm not good at a lot except for, um, the obvious."

"We haven't really had a chance to see that, have we?"

Red doesn't know if this was a real question or a rhetorical one.

"As mentioned before, Tequila's been killed while you were gone. I won't tell you more right now because that woman will likely Order you to regurgitate this – but suffice to say that most of his international offices are getting redistributed."

Red nods slowly to indicate she understands.

"In this re-organisation, we've managed to snag one Crow: an individual from the Wall Street office who will be relocated to my jurisdiction. Your job will be to make sure nothing happens to them."

"So I... I am a bodyguard?" Red realises it's a stupid thing to ask, so she adds hastily, "W-why would they need one? S-sorry, I don't mean to question you, but don't all Crows go through basic training?"

"No, it's a fair question," Gin shrugs as he lights his cigarette, though this time his lighter sputters a little before the flame ignites. "This Crow is someone who I need to be able to work properly. They've already been vetted (several of my Crows have vouched for them) – but Tequila died in Rum's kingdom and New York is Vermouth's palace. You know how dramatic those two get, and I don't want our new comrade getting caught up in any of that.

"Ok," Red nods, "Then, where do you need me for this job?"

His eyes return to her, that same ageless forest green she remembers stepping out of the darkness twenty-five years ago. "To be decided, once they decide which office to relocate too."

Does that mean they get a choice? Red wonders, Why bother, if the Executives already know who gets which Crow? Is this all a charade? Or is Gin keeping these details secret from me so I can't tell Jäger?

"Understood," she nods. "I... will be on call, then."

"One more thing," Gin says, "I couldn't help but notice that you brought your bag back after putting everything else in the trunk."

Red's stomach flips with a hollow emotion and her hand twitches up to the strap over her shoulder. "I-I'm sorry, please, I-"

"Stop that," he snaps. "You keep apologising for no reason. It's extremely irritating."

Red bites her lips so she won't speak and stares up at him, confused.

"Good grief, that woman's done a fucking number on you," he grumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then he indicates with his cigarette, "In that bag are your personal effects, correct? Things you don't want Jägermeister snooping around in?"

"Y-yes," Red nods meekly, returning her cigarette to her mouth. It's mostly finished, now, but she likes the idiosyncratic taste too much to let it go to waste. "It was also presents. I was going to bring them to a safe place."

"Safe place... one of the Miyano girls, probably?"

"A-are they going to be in trouble?" for lack of keys to fidget with, Red now fiddles with the pack of gum in her pocket. Jäger hates it when I smoke...

"For what?" he scoffs, but when he sees her expression (whatever it might be) he sighs. "Of course not. Sherry's a Crow, and the older one is a valued asset in other ways."

Of course – Gin isn't like Jägermeister. He's fair. With him, an asset is anyone who's useful. With him, the world order isn't governed by lies...

Red says, a bit absently, "Her name is Akemi."

"Akemi," Gin repeats the name like it's the first time he's hearing it, though Red knows that really isn't the case. "Yes, her. Do you have her address on hand? I can drop your things off there and you can pick them up once you're free."

Red stares at him.

"Come to think of it, I could ask Vodka. He's always got these kinds of records on hand..."

"No-no!" Red splutters, "He's busy enough without having to do favours for your favour. Do you have a notepad? She still lives near the university she graduated from..."

"Here," he hands her his mostly empty packet of cigarettes and a pen. "Write it on the inside, where no-one will see."

Red pinches her cigarette between her lips and carefully writes down the address of the person she considers her adoptive sister.

Red knows that [Mr Atsushi] Madeira had been under the impression that it was just one of the Black Label subjects, whom the Miyano couple were 'raising' as an experiment in developmental psychology. But [Miss Elena] Absinthe, as the freshly-minted chief of the Labels Project Directive, had knowingly taken the volatile shapeshifter with the rapid metabolism into her home – and she did not get rid of this creature after her own daughter was born, either.

Red still does not fully understand why. But she suspects maybe that this has been excised from her memories too.

"Gin," Red says has she hands him the box back, tilting her head up and to the side to try and catch his eyes properly, "Why are you doing this for me?"

He stares back down her. Red cannot tell what he's thinking or what he wants her to know, but that's maybe because he's got a very particular and complex expression on his face and those are often difficult for her to parse. But Red thinks about monsters with green eyes and monsters with red eyes, and she wonders if this means he can kill her after all.

After a moment, Gin says, "Tell me, [Kalyna]."

           (she sees his lips move but she doesn't hear the word, it looks like 'krasnaya' but shorter, Ka[something]nya and why! Why am I not allowed to hear this? )

"If I am not  for me, who will be? And if I am for  myself alone, what am I? And if not now, when?" 

His words all register in Red's mind, but they don't make sense. After the shock of not hearing one word, she wonders now if it's because she's being prevented from thinking about what he's saying - but then surely she would've just not heard it right? No, sometimes it's the act of cognition that's blocked, not the reception, And I am thinking about it now so- Is it a riddle? Is it a code? Is it a genuine answer, unusually veiled? Am I just plain fucking stupid?

Instead of helplessly asking more stupid questions (or worse, trying to hazard guesses to answer this 'riddle'), Red lowers her head and silently gives Gin her backpack. He hefts it with a surprised grunt, like he didn't expect it to be so heavy, then slings it over one shoulder. The dusty beige-green pattern contrasts with his black coat, but he always looked strange in camouflage colours.

"On that note, I will endeavour to get the whole," he gestures with his cigarette at her general body, "Codon situation sorted."

"You don't have to," she mutters. The tips of her boots are pretty scuffed, and she remembers they weren't always hers. Who did they belong before?

"No, Krasnaya," Gin says gravely, "I do."

Then he steps around the car and opens the door to the driver's side.

"Aha!" Jägermeister says jovially, "It seems we have to cut our conversation short, Vodka. Our various charges are done."

"Oh, no," Vodka grins, "But we were just getting to the good part of small talk."

"There is no good part of small talk," Jäger says. Immediately dropping all attempts at appearing happy about this situation.

Gin snorts. "Where she's right, she's right."

Red watches these interactions with a distance. This is where she differs, even from fellow monsters like Gin. She doesn't get to partake in this kind of... banter, she supposes it would be called. She flicks away her cigarette and hopes it catches an errant whiff of kerosene so it might destroy her, however briefly.

"Anyway," Jägermeister speaks up louder. "I prefer to turn it off for transit. And frankly after the indignity that you have already put us through, it's the least I could ask for."

Gin sighs. "Fine. But not the complete Codon-Red shutdown."

Red doesn't know how to tell him that this individualised way of shutting down her senses is honestly worse.

"Fine, fine. Codon Orange, ATG-0. Enter and sit."

          Wie ein Hund.

Red Label remembers the quote at the end of the story, while her body begins the awkward clamber into the car and squeeze into the back seat next to Jägermeister. At least she still gets to be her natural size, so it's not too cramped.

"Codon Yellow, VX-M-Th2. 5400 sec. Ochre." Immediately, Red looses all feeling in her limbs. She slumps a little more in the seat.

That's right. Like a dog.

"Codon Yellow, C-WB. 5400 sec. Ochre." Red's throat briefly closes up again, before the order to remain mute anchors in that broken and rewired brain.

"Codon Yellow, C-Occip-VC. 5400 sec. Ochre." Red's vision vanishes into a murky maroon and then a numb black.

"Codon Yellow, C-Audit-AR. 5400 sec. Ochre." Red's hearing dulls and fades: first the soft pitter-patter of the rain of the roof goes, and then the croaky growl of the Porsche's engine revving up.

Red is left in a mute and blind and deaf void, with nothing but the taste of a bergamot cigarette on her tongue.

At the end of the day I'm nothing more than a dog.

-x-