Date: 1st March 2011
From: Sanders, Zoe; Paranormal Div.
To: Allen E; Internal Affairs.
Subject: Interview with Landsteiner Jeffrey.
With the Unit Head’s consent, I performed the first interview with Unit member Landsteiner Jeffrey. Though he was not available at the beginning of the Esoterics' involvement with the Pine Street apparition, I believe his open, seemingly unbiased and somewhat talkative nature has proved more valuable to my information gathering than any of the previous interviews. I have also requested the release of the first of recorded documents regarding Mr. Jeffrey’s work with the Esoteric Division, in order to gain proper insight into the kind of agent he might be, both personally and professionally. This document is currently being re-written, and would be available for processing tomorrow.
I have attached the transcribed interview to this message, and I do hope you support my decision to carry out subsequent interviews with him.
Thank you.
Zoe Sanders.
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Date: Tuesday, March 1st 2011
Start Time: 11:58AM
Zoe Sanders: Good day.
Landsteiner Jeffrey: Hey. I guess it’s finally my turn huh?
Sanders: It is. You seem excited. Is there something going on outside?
Jeffrey: No. I mean, I don’t know. They could be planning something for later.
Sanders: What are you talking about?
Jeffrey: The guys, I think they’re…wait, why am I telling you this? You’re clueless.
Sanders: Clueless about what?
Jeffrey: It’s my birthday today.
Sanders: Oh really? Happy birthday.
Jeffrey: Thanks. Even though you’re kind of ruining it with this whole interview shtick.
Sanders: …
Jeffrey: Just saying.
Sanders: Could you state your name for the record please?
Jeffrey: Hi, record. I’m Landsteiner.
Sanders: Your full name, if you don’t mind.
Jeffrey: Landsteiner Albert Dorian Jeffrey.
Sanders: (huffs) I’ve seen your file and I know about your parentage, so I wonder how you have such an extensive surname. Are you just mocking this investigation?
Jeffrey: No I’m not! Don’t blame me, blame me ma’s family. They just kept slapping names on there like it was a competition.
Sanders: What do you mean?
Jeffrey: Landsteiner, Albert and Dorian are all for me. Grandma called me Albert, Grandpa picked Dorian and Ma named me Landsteiner. Like what did they expect me to do, walk around saying “Hey, I’m Landsteiner Albert Dorian”? And all the names sound like something you’d call an old Labrador. Except Landsteiner. So I use that one.
Sanders: Well that’s…interesting. I find it odd that your mother gave you such an unusual first name. What is it…German?
Jeffrey: (laughs) Pretty close. It’s Austrian. Weird, you’re like the first person to ask me about it. Everyone else just makes jokes about it, you know. Kids are so mean these days.
Sanders: So what’s the reason behind it? Or is there any reason at all?
Jeffrey: Yeah. You see, after my mum gave birth to me, she lost so much blood that she almost died. Luckily, because she the hospital knew her blood group, they managed to give her a bunch of blood transfusions…I think about seven pints or so. Saved her life. So she asked the doctors to tell her the name of the guy who discovered blood groups and blood transfusions, and just like that, I got named after Karl Landsteiner. Wonder why she didn’t just pick ‘Karl’. Guess it didn’t sound dramatic enough... You're one to talk though. I mean, what's your excuse?
Sanders: What's my excuse for what?
Jeffrey: Your name. Zoe, right? How does a middle-eastern person end up with an English name?
Sanders: I'm not middle-eastern.
Jeffrey: Well, you sure as hell look it. I mean, not entirely. There's a hint of caucasian in there but the rest of you looks kind of...I don't know...Arab, maybe? What's your story? White dad, brown mum?
Sanders: I wouldn't know. My parents died when I was young.
Jeffrey: Oh.
Sanders: (clears throat) Alright then, Landsteiner. When did you start working for the Esoteric Division?
Jeffrey: Like…five months ago?
Sanders: And before this, you were with a group called…Les Evangelius? Records show that you were transferred along with fellow agent Emma Hodge. You two also seem to be well attuned to each other. Have you been working together for long?
Jeffrey: Yeah, you could say that.
Sanders: Could you tell me more about your relationship with Emma?
Jeffrey: No.
Sanders: Why not?
Jeffrey: Because it has nothing to do with what you’re investigating.
Sanders: I’m investigating both the incident and the operatives involved. Which, from the same records I’m quoting, include you and Emma Hodge. So yes, your working relationship is important to this…
Jeffrey: Oh! You meant working relationship. Got it.
Sanders: Did you think I was referring to…do you have a personal relationship with Emma?
Jeffrey: Yeah. Used to.
Sanders: Is she your..?
Jeffrey: No, she’s not my ex-girlfriend, or ex-fuck buddy, or ex-whatever else you were thinking. But we were really close. Kinda like best friends.
Sanders: How did you meet?
Jeffrey: Online.
Sanders: …
Jeffrey: Don’t look at me like that; you can meet cool people online.
Sanders: I thought it’s usually just trolls, sexual predators and FBI agents trying to catch sexual predators.
Jeffrey: (laughs) Yeah, first time we met, I thought she was a troll account too. We were on an MMORPG forum – Warcraft. Why didn’t I just say Warcraft? – and she got into this fight with some other guy, then said something about being able to kill the person with her own powers if they met in real life. Got into some pretty gory description too, but everyone just made ‘your mum’ jokes and she logged off. I logged in the next day and saw her online and brought it up as a joke and then she said she was serious about the powers, that she could even show me videos. I was interested, of course. Then she gave me links to Youtube where she had some clips showing how she blows up a bunch of electrical stuff with her mind and that’s when I told her I had powers too. She thought I was kidding at first but we chatted a lot more and next thing I knew she was flying to meet me in Manchester.
Sanders: When was this?
Jeffrey: Like three, maybe four years ago? Hold on…it’s five years. Wow, it’s been five years since then; time really flies.
Sanders: And how did you both end up working for Evangelius?
Jeffrey: Emma wasn’t really shy about her powers, and she must have done something that caught their eye. They probably watched us for a while, and then one day they stormed into my university hall and I swore they were going to kill us. So I used my powers to slow down their powers and Emma helped out by making my powers stronger and they were shocked that most of their magic-type stuff wasn’t working. Someone shot me with a tranquilizer and then I woke up in some dungeon somewhere in France and talked to their boss and that’s when he offered us a job.
Sanders: Really, that’s it?
Jeffrey: Yeah, that’s it. Worst job interview ever, though.
Sanders: For how long did you work there?
Jeffrey: A couple of months. Maybe four or five. I know, I’m still pretty new to the whole using powers for good thing.
Sanders: What did you initially use your powers for? Before you worked for Evangelius, I mean.
Jeffrey: Oh, this and that. ‘Petty crime’, that’s what they called it. Like this one time, I got almost all the kids in school to give me their lunch money and forget about it afterwards, which was fun. Made everyone in an entire mall pass out and just walked around taking pictures of them in funny poses. Made my Grandpa keep forgetting why he came back to the house for like two hours. He thought it was Alzheimer’s. Good times.
Sanders: You can make control people’s minds?
Jeffrey: My power blocks energy. That’s it, basically. And last time I checked, the brain runs on electricity. So…in a way, yeah.
Sanders: This ability is not reflected in your personnel file.
Jeffrey: Because it doesn’t really work on Anomalies, so it’s kinda useless to mention it. Everyone here has more powers than what’s written on their files. You’ve been around for a while, I thought that’ll be pretty obvious. The people running organizations like these only care about what you can do that will help in the field. Even if you have a billion powers and they think none of them will help any in a real fight, they’ll drop you like dead weight. I mean, you should have seen how those stuck-up nephilim bastards at Evangelius were happy to transfer us when Emma became an Angler.
Sanders: What are you talking about? And what’s an Angler?
Jeffrey: It’s a kind of anomaly, like a spiritual predator. What am I saying, most Anomalies are predators. Anglers are named after that fish that lives at the bottom of the sea, you know, the ones that have the stalk on their heads with the light at the ends to lure smaller fish in and eat them? Yeah, that’s how Anglers are, except that they use other spiritual beings as lures, usually the form of some little ghost or something else they’ve eaten, to pull in other Anomalies before they entrap and consume them. They’re pretty mindless, most of them anyway. The older ones tend to have more of a personality because after the thousands of other anomalies they’ve eaten, they pick up some of the thoughts and experiences by diffusion and slowly start to become aware of themselves. The younger ones are just hungry and dumb.
Sanders: So how did Emma become an Angler?
Jeffrey: …
Sanders: You volunteered the information. I’m just trying to understand it. You spoke about Emma as a person when you both met five years ago. Then less than a year ago, she is became an Angler. What was the process like? Was it a transformation?
Jeffrey: She got eaten by one.
Sanders: I…I don’t understand.
Jeffrey: Nobody really does, that’s the crazy thing. She got consumed during one of our missions, and then instead of just being dissolved into raw energy or whatever – I’m sure I read that in a book somewhere because I can’t really remember what happens after the Anglers eat you – she sort of took over the Angler’s body. The lure stalk became reshaped into a replica of her body and bits of her memories and personality must have meshed in with the Angler’s blank mind because it started to respond to her name and acted a lot more in control than any Angler anyone has ever seen. It even had her powers. It’s like she was too powerful to just become food. The guys at Evangelius wanted to keep the Angler for studying but something must have happened in the labs because they brought her back the next day and told me to never let her out of my sight. That was only a few weeks before they transferred us here, to Eso.
Sanders: Was that why they transferred you? Because Emma became an Angler?
Jeffrey: No, not really. It wasn’t why they transferred us, but why we were the ones who got transferred. From what I was briefed before we were moved here, Raphael needed extra hands to handle the whole Pine Street thing, so he reached out to his old buddies at Evangelius and they responded by sending us.
Sanders: ‘Old buddies’? Raphael worked with Evangelius in the past?
Jeffrey: I think he practically co-founded the club. They’re like college frat boys, except that they’re practically all Nephilim and a major pain in the ass. Seriously, Nephs are some of the most sanctimonious colostomy bags you could ever hope to meet. Like ‘Ooh, look at me, I’m a son of an Angel and endorsed by the Vatican and you’re all filthy heathen bla bla bla…’ They used to be a lot bigger in the past, but now they've downsized to blend in. Still, they're annoying as fuck.
Sanders: Did they make you feel ostracized?
Jeffrey: Practically every day. Like we were second class citizens because we didn’t have blue eyes and gold flecks in our hair and a sparkly halo. The ones here in the U.S are cool though. A lot more open minded, I guess. Probably because there are too many of us to act like the world revolves around the Church or the pope or righteousness or whatever. Even though they still have the same insider politics. I think it’s in their blood or something.
Sanders: ‘Insider politics’?
Jeffrey: Yeah, it’s bloody obvious, isn’t it? You’re a pretty shit detective if you haven’t noticed that much.
Sanders: Taking a guess here, but I’ll assume this has something to do with the unusual dispatch for the containment operations? I still cannot fathom why Raphael sent the same team twice, within the span of barely a week. There are five containment units, aren’t there?
Jeffrey: Yes…
Sanders: So how come the others were never dispatched?
Jeffrey: Because…insider politics.
Sanders: Could you be a bit clearer?
Jeffrey: No, I think I’ve said enough. Wait, why am I the one answering all the questions? Why don’t I get to ask you stuff?
Sanders: Because, believe it or not, this is an official interview. As much as I am a huge fan of conversations with potential suspects in what has all the appearances of a sabotage or conspiracy plot, I am not the one being investigated here.
Jeffrey: Wow…that was just... Are you free on Friday night?
Sanders: No.
Jeffrey: Saturday?
Sanders: Stop stalling and answer my question. Why do you say the Esoteric Division is run by insider politics?
Jeffrey: Not the whole Division. Okay, maybe the whole Division.
Sanders: So you were referring specifically to the containment units?
Jeffrey: Bingo! But that’s just a part of it.
Sanders: How do you mean?
Jeffrey: You’ve seen the employee records, haven’t you? Other than Emma and me, all the other people in Containment unit D are Nephilim. So even when he came here, Raphael made sure he was still surrounded by his kind.
Sanders: Oh. I never really noticed that. But I do not see why that matters. Besides, your allegation is incorrect; Crystal’s parentage is unknown, as far as all records show.
Jeffrey: Everyone knows she’s a Neph. No point blowing that “unknown parentage” B.S around; she didn’t just materialize from thin air, like some of the others around here. But something about her is off though. There’s a bit of something else in there. I’m so close to figuring out what it is.
Sanders: Really. How much do you know about Crystal?
Jeffrey: Not much. Seriously, I only knew her for about three weeks before she disappeared. And she wasn’t the friendliest person, I might add. If you want to talk about Crystal, I’m sure you know who you need to meet.
Sanders: Henry Delaney.
Jeffrey: Once again, Bingo! You’re on a roll here.
Sanders: Is there any other way I can set up a meeting with him? Because according to Raphael, Delaney is unavailable.
Jeffrey: Whoops. Then that’s a dead end.
Sanders: Why do you say so?
Jeffrey: Once anything is “according to Raphael” in these parts, it might as well be according to God himself. I mean the Christian God. Not the thousands in our other pantheons.
Sanders: Are you saying that Raphael has the ultimate say in the operations of this Division?
Jeffrey: I never said that. Why would I say that? It’s disrespectful to Dr. Moses, seeing as he is the Chief of Operations. I’m just saying, Raphael…has pretty heavy feet to put down in this establishment, that’s all. Everyone knows this. I mean everyone. Without exception.
Sanders: I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.
Jeffrey: Then take as long as you need to figure it out. Oh, look at the time. It’s almost lunch break. I was supposed to go meet Emma for sandwiches. I think she’s having baby mermaid souls or something, since she’s on a diet. You’re welcome to join us.
Sanders: I’ll pass, thanks.
Jeffrey: Suit yourself. (stands up)
Sanders: Thank you, for agreeing to this interview.
Jeffrey: No problem. You’re pretty easy to talk to. Not to mention cute.
Sanders: …
Jeffrey: Too bad you didn’t try the mind-reading thing this time. I had my hopes up and everything. You really know how to be a party pooper.
Sanders: What?
Jeffrey: Would you like a sandwich? I could get you one on the way back.
Sanders: No…thank you. And thank you for your time.
Jeffrey: Anytime.
Sanders: …
Jeffrey: I mean it.
Stop time: 12:24PM.