the_last_resort | Recruiting

Entry tags:

Recruiting

Who: Una and Niles
What: Una travelling to other universes, recruiting guests
When: Outside the space-time of the game universe (but nowish)
Where: The Dakota Reaches, North America, 2047
Notes & Warnings: Will add if any come up

Coming from New York, Defiance had seemed a small town, precariously perched on the edge of civilization. But compared the Dakota Reaches, Defiance had been the bloody cultural capital of the Americas and Niles rather desperately wished he could be back there. Or practically anywhere but here, really. The one bar in town (if it could even deserved the word "town") was more a shack, listing unnervingly to one side, ill-lit, wooden walls creaking as the winds swept over the Dakota plains.

Niles sat at the bar nursing a truly terrible whiskey, avoiding returning to the barracks and the drab rooms with empty walls and an uncomfortable bed. As far as punishments went, exile to this place was a very effective one. Two weeks here and Niles was wondering why E-Rep bothered to keep an outpost here. There were few resources, no trade...he couldn't imagine any reason someone would willingly want to come to the Dakota Reaches. There was nothing but raiders and bad weather.

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There was one good reason to willingly come to the Dakota Reaches: looking for people like Niles. Talented, energetic individuals with nowhere to go and nothing to lose, who would accept an invitation to start over in a very different sort of place.

Una had been there for a month, watching people come and go, getting the latest gossip on who everyone was and what they were doing there. She'd been observing Niles since he'd arrived, having heard interesting whispers about his background and how he'd ended up here, and decided now was as good a time as any to make an approach.

She slipped onto the bar seat beside him. There was nothing about her that immediately marked her as anything but another no-hoper stuck out in the Reaches—perhaps an unusually good-looking one, but that was about it.

She didn't say anything right away; she always liked to let the potential recruit act first, the better to get the measure of them.

Niles glanced at the person who sits by him. A new face, one he'd caught a glimpse of here and there lately, but only from a distance. Still, hers is a face one remembered.

"New to the area? Let me buy to a drink, welcome you to this great expanse of Satan's backside. May your stay here be a short one, for your sake."

"I've been here a few weeks, actually, but I'll take that drink. Thank you." He was well-spoken, at any rate, which she liked. "Indeed, I'm hoping not to have to extend my stay any longer than is absolutely necessary. It's dire out here."

He gestured to the bar tender to bring out another whiskey, nicknamed by locals "the house special" by virtue of being the only thing the bar offered.

"What brings you out here? Usually our visitors are simply passing through on their way to someplace far more interesting, and don't stay for long. You aren't E-Rep, or I would have heard. No caravans have passed through recently so you aren't a merchant trader. Tracker, then?"

The bartender brought out the whiskey and Una raised her glass to Niles, a faintly sardonic smile on her face. "À la tienne," she said, and took a sip.

It was a measure of how long she'd been around and the kinds of places she'd been that she only winced a little.

"A tracker, yes," she replied, amused. He was more right than he knew. An astute observer, then. "And you? You don't sound any more native than I do."

She'd intentionally flattened and coarsened her own accent, which was normally pure cut-glass, but there was still no mistaking her Englishness.

Edited 2015-02-19 03:37 (UTC)

"Cheers," he said in reply. "Sorry, my French is atrocious. I won't inflict it on you." He took a sip of the whiskey before answering her question.

"I? I am the glorious leader of all you survey." He spread out an arm in a gesture to encompass beyond the bar to the tiny, wretched town outside and the associated military outpost.

"I served on the European Front during the Pale Wars, went to New York after, and from there was posted out west, helping to secure the frontier. And before you ask, it was Viceroy Mercado whom I pissed off to get chosen for this lovely assignment."

It took no small amount of effort to not respond to "all you survey" with "what, the curtains?"

"You beat me to my next question," she said. "What did—no, that's not really my business, is it?" She'd heard rumours; something about the aliens and a lot of people ending up dead or a weapons deal gone wrong—but it was all fifth– and sixth-hand chatter and no one really seemed to know for certain, or was willing to tell.

He wiped a hand over his jaw, sniffed, and decided, what the hell it wasn't classified.

"It hardly matters. I failed in a mission. The intel I was given was wrong, and the mission was actually impossible, chance of survival much less success slim, but no one ever said life was fair."

"So you've been dealt one rotten hand after another," she said, sympathetic. "And no, life's not fair...but it can take some odd twists and turns here and there." She took another sip of whiskey. It wasn't so bad after you got over the initial shock.

"What would you say to getting out of this rubbish tip?" she asked. She meant the Reaches—well, really, the entire time-stream and world—but he could be forgiven for thinking she just meant the bar. Indeed, the ambiguity was intentional on her part—another sort of test.

His eyes widen and he set down his glass carefully. That sounded rather like a proposition to him. With most of society's sexual hang-ups destroyed along with the rest of the old world, it was a common enough occurrence.

"Oh...uh...I don't want to offend you, and you really are very lovely...but...uh...I don't do casual sex. Weird, I know." He spread his gloved hands, "but there is it."

Edited (wrong icon) 2015-02-19 05:19 (UTC)

Her eyebrows went up, as if she was surprised he took her words that way (even if she wasn't, not really), and she shook her head.

"I don't either." A beat, and then she smiled. "No, I have a rather different proposition for you, which is nothing like that at all—and by 'rubbish tip' I mean something bigger than just this...charming little dive." She glanced around the bar. "Best not discussed here." She took a scrap of paper out of her pocket and a pencil, jotted down her address, and offered it to him. "Meet me here in an hour," she said in a low voice. She let her accent slip subtly back towards her usual crispness. "And I promise, no funny business. Of any kind."

Niles took the paper offered him and glanced down at the address, committing it to memory before slipping it in his coat.

"Curiouser and curiouser."

It might be a trap. That change in accent...there was clearly more to her than meets the eye. But it would be a bold bounty hunter indeed who walked into an E-Rep town, even one so small and wretched as this, and kidnapped the ranking officer in charge. So, he would go to the address at the appointed time, and he'd bring a gun. If it was a trap he'd deal with it, and if it wasn't, he'd hear this proposition of hers.

"I'll be there."

"Good." She grinned and finished off her drink all in one go—with only a bit of a shudder—and got to her feet. "Be seeing you, Pottinger," she said, giving him a casual salute and leaving him to work out how she knew his name (not that it was hard to find out, ranking E-Rep officer and all) and to wonder what hers was.

An hour later, she waited in the drab little room she was renting, the component parts of her various small firearms neatly out on the table as she cleaned them. She didn't really need to, but it was something to do with her hands. She wasn't that worried about things turning violent—and even if they did, she didn't need a gun to protect herself.

He watched her leave, interest piqued. Whatever this was about, it was probably either illegal or immoral, otherwise she'd have gone through proper channels and not approached him while he was off duty in the bar. But some of his most promising opportunities had sometimes come through decidedly unofficial means.

He sipped his drink slowly, waiting for the better part of an hour to pass, then made his way to the address specified and rapped on the door.

"Glad you could make it." She opened the door to let him in. "Please, have a seat."

The rented room had no sofa—just a bed, a dresser, two chairs, and the table on which the pieces of her guns were laid out. She sat back down and began unhurriedly tidying up the pieces, starting to reassemble the needlegun first as she talked.

"How badly do you want to get out of the Reaches, Pottinger?" she asked.

Edited 2015-02-20 02:56 (UTC)

He sat on one of the chairs, oddly reassured by the disassembled guns on the table. Yes, it meant that the women was well armed and knew well how to use those weapons, but it also meant that none of them would be pointed at him any time soon. A bounty hunter wouldn't take apart most of their gear right before the big catch.

Resting his hands on the edge of the table, he spoke.

"I wouldn't say no to a pathway out. As you can see, this isn't the sort of place where careers are made. But I would want to know where I was going, and with whom, and why."

"Very sensible."

Her manner was noticeably different to what he'd seen in the bar: more poised and businesslike. Her movements as her fingers moved over the parts of her weapons were deft and efficient.

"My name is Una Persson. I represent an agency looking for talented individuals with a goodly amount of resiliency and intelligence, and who might be interested in a fresh start. A new career in a new town, you might say." She finished assembling the needlegun, leaving the magazine lying on the table, and set to work on her .45 S&W. "And you, Niles Pottinger, are the most interesting person I've seen in these parts, and so I'd like to make you an offer."

He watched her work on her weapons and wondered if she fought in the Pale Wars. Her age was difficult to judge; her face had a timeless quality to it.

"I appreciate the compliment, Ms. Persson. But any town this side of the Storm Divide is going to be an E-Rep town within the year, I can almost guarantee it."

"I have no doubt that you're right," she said. "But the town I have in mind is a very long way from the Storm Divide—indeed, a very long way from any E-Rep officers, and from this very planet."

She set the safety on her S&W and put it down, so that she could give him her full attention. "What I'm about to tell you will be very difficult to believe, and I can certainly forgive you for thinking me mad, or a fabulist. But I ask that you hear me out all the same, and listen with as open a mind as you can."

It did sound half-mad. It wasn't the idea of other planets, even inhabited planets, that was beyond belief--the arrival of the Votans all those years ago proved that there were other civilizations out there, and if one star system could support life and complex societies it followed there might be others. But for a human to travel to and fro between Earth and this hypothetical other planet, that stretched credulity.

But then, he's seen a lot of things in his life he'd previously thought unbelievable.

"I'm listening."

She folded her hands, resting them on the table before her, and watched his face carefully as she spoke.

"A very long way from here—spatially, temporally, and dimensionally—there is a planet called Quadratus, which contains a settlement called Blackway. Located there is a resort called Blackstaff—and that is the agency of which I am a representative. I've been charged to locate interesting people who would welcome the chance for paying work in a new place, and to invite them to Blackstaff."

She paused to let him absorb that information, then went on.

"You might reasonably ask why they go through all this trouble. For various reasons—not related to disease, let me hasten to assure you–Quadratus is under quarantine to the rest of its galaxy, and this is really the only way they have to get new people in. It's hoped that the newcomers might offer fresh perspectives and ideas for addressing the challenges of life on Quadratus and in exploring the place." A pause, and a quick, wry smile. "And much of the time, it's actually a rather nice place." She tilted her head slightly, still watching him. "Are you with me so far?" Unspoken: or have you already written me off as a lunatic?

Niles kept his best poker face on as Una gave her explanation, but both interest and suspicion lurked in his eyes. He paused to consider his words before he answered her question.

"I'm trying to decide if you're for real, or if this ends with the gullible mark who follows you getting jabbed with a narcotic and waking up three days later and two hundred miles away naked in a shack and devoid of all valuable possessions and possible an organ or two.

"In your favour is that a predatory con artist would probably come up with a slightly less insane story. But do you have any proof that this place exists, something you can show me, like an object, or a picture even?"

She had to laugh at that. "Believe me, if I were conning you, I would have found an infinitely more plausible way to do so. And since you asked—"

She took a small handheld tablet—slightly bigger than a large smartphone—from her pocket and swiped and tapped a few times across its surface. She laid it down in front of him as a series of images of Quadratus—the town, the surrounding countryside, even a bit of the ruins—began to play in a slideshow. At the end, a short advertisement for the resort began to play, with Jeffers's plummy voice narrating the attractions and pleasures to be found in his...inimitable fashion.

"The advert's slightly out of date," she added with a slight eye roll. "It leaves off the skeleton archers and the exploding creatures."

Well, never let it be said that she didn't warn people.

He leaned forward to see the proof she was presenting. The technology alone was strange. Similar to devices he remembered from his childhood, not seen on this planet for decades. And not like Votan tech either.

The advertisement could be faked, but it would have been difficult, and would require the sort of resources that petty criminals usually didn't have. This was looking more and more like the real deal by the minute.

"So, assuming I agree to go, how does it work? Do you take me to a spaceship shaped like blue box, we get in and fly away, or what?"

He must really want to get out of here if the bit about the skeletons and creepers didn't really faze him, she thought.

"Blue—? No, no, nothing so crude." She smirked. "No, what happens is that I trigger a matter transporter, we vanish from here, and reappear there. Like an old science fiction movie. A certain amount of luggage is permitted; anything really large requires special arrangements. Once you're there, you're free to do as you wish, but you won't be able to come back here for a few months. Not because you aren't free to go, but because the transporters have power limitations and can't do multiple trips to the same temporal-spatial zone in quick succession. But once they've cycled around, you don't have to stay if you decide you've had enough. On the other hand, if you like it there—" she shrugged, "you may stay as long as you wish."

Niles leaned back in his chair, considering the proposition. It wasn't a perfect solution to his problems, but it was a way out of this dead end position, and more than that a way out of this fractured world that didn't involve swallowing the wrong end of a pistol. There was nothing for him in the Dakota Reaches, no reason to stay.

And skeleton archers and exploding wildlife didn't sound very much worse than raiders and hellbugs.

"I don't want to go down in the records as a deserter. Can you give me twenty-four hours for me to arrange a plausible explanation for my absence?" An explanation that might involve preemptively planting fake evidence for a kidnapping that wasn't happening. People vanish out in the frontier; it happened and typically no one wasted too much time investigating such disappearances.

"Of course. For what it's worth, should you decide to return, you will be returned to a point in time shortly after your point of departure, thus appearing to have been only briefly unavailable. That being said, I appreciate the desire for further contingency planning." She took the tablet back and put it away and then set about holstering her guns. "I'm happy to help in that regard, of course."

Edited 2015-02-22 06:55 (UTC)

"I like to keep my bases covered."

He was starting to put together a plan.

"If you aren't planning to come back here again, I might want to frame you for my tragic kidnapping and possible murder. But if, for some unfathomable reason you might want to come back to this place, I'll think of something less likely to get you arrested."

She gave him a look. "At least you're honest," she said, deadpan, and then grinned. "Very well. I doubt I'll be back in these parts for long later, if at all. But I also like to keep my bases covered, and would prefer at least to have murder off my ledger."

Not that she hadn't killed people in cold blood before. But there was no need to make things excessively complicated or dangerous.

"I have always said that honesty is the best policy." A pause. "Actually, I can honestly say that I've never said honesty is the best policy before, but it does sounds good, doesn't it."

He scratched lightly at his jaw. It was getting late and his stubble was starting to itch.

"You have a deal. No murder, and I'll make sure all the evidence of kidnapping is ambiguous enough that a half-decent lawyer could shred it if you found yourself in court."

"Honesty is the best policy except when it's not," Una said with a laugh. "Very well; I'm in agreement on this plan of yours." She checked her watch—it might look to him like a particularly elaborate men's chronograph watch, being as it was a rather complex temporal instrument in addition to simply telling the local time. "I'll meet you at your residence in twenty-four hours, then? Or is there somewhere else you'd rather meet?"

He pushed his chair back but didn't stand up just yet. As soon as they finished up here, he would need to get to work implementing his departure.

"No, my quarters are fine. Should I even ask if you know where they are or just assume that you already do?"

"I'm hardly omniscient. You'd better give me directions." She stood and offered her hand. "I look forward to bringing you to Blackstaff."

"Not omniscient, perhaps, but I wouldn't want to underestimate your ability to gather intel."

He rose and clasped his gloved hand in hers, giving a firm and businesslike handshake as he rattled off directions to his quarters. It wasn't a very large outpost so the directions were fairly simple and didn't take long to run through.

Easy enough. (She noted the gloves, that he hadn't removed them; perhaps a quirk or affectation—or something more ominous. Not that now was them time to ask.) She nodded. "All right. See you in twenty-four hours, Pottinger."

All in all, she thought, this had been a very successful trip.

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