The Calm; Elegant

[charade]

Sebastian Rothul

At least thirty percent of the peacekeeper reserves had been mobilized if the latest reports were correct.

Thirty percent? It was unheard of; if the numbers were accurate. Sebastian had to take everything with a grain of salt as any and all information that came across his way was second hand at best and unsubstantiated rumors at worst. Something big had happened, that much was certain. Good money was on the middle districts, but he’d everything from district eleven setting their fields afire to a power plant exploding in district five. There was a signal one of his boys had managed to pick up that said there’d been a textile factory collapse in district eight, but he wasn’t sure how trustworthy Pirate Radio was.

In any case, he aimed to change that.

The kid in front of him was younger than he had anticipated, but then, specialists were getting younger all the time. He supposed the constant threat of death and suffering had a way of making people grow up fast. Still, he mused, when he had been seventeen he’d been one of the street rats. No skills beyond a mind for leadership and muscles to spare. But that was fine. You were never too young to play in the big leagues.

As long as you were prepared to lose like you were in the big leagues too.

They were in one of the backrooms of the brothel. The one Sebastian used for actual business. Two members of his gang standing to either side of his desk. There was another outside the door. It wasn’t furnished the fanciest, but everything was solid. Normally, he’d offer a prospective freelancer a discount on the services in the front of house, but he looked a bit young for that. Sebastian studied him carefully.

There’d been enough silence.

“Word on the grapevine is that you can crack any code, pick any lock. Electronic and otherwise. If that’s true, I’ve got a job for you.” Sebastian motioned with his head and one of his foot soldiers stepped forward, depositing a small sack on the table between them. “You get half now, and half when the job is done. I trust that will be enough.” Alright, Sebastian thought. That was the carrot. Now for the stick. “Try to screw me over in any way, or fail to deliver and there won’t be enough of you left to fill a matchbox. Just so we’re clear.”

Sebastian leaned back in his chair and folded his hands together on the table.

“Now that that’s out of the way, do you have any questions? Or are you ready for the job?”

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"It's not the same anymore
I lost the joy in my face
My life was simple before
I should be happy, of course"

Been a moment since he got his parents killed but Avriel hasn't forgotten about it mostly because he can't. Can't even look at a slice of cherry pie without gagging.

He runs a hand through his hair and lets out a heavy sigh. He's skipping class again but it doesn't really matter because there's no one but him for his teachers to report to about it. As the eldest Baptiste, he's in charge. He goes to school every morning, hands in his pockets and all broody as he walks with Duke and Bills. He heads in the old brick building like he's supposed to and then walks right by his classroom and out of a side exit.

"He's Greiving," his teachers say and they let him walk.

Because to the rest of the world, their parents are only missing but Avriel knows that they're dead because he's the one who found their dead bodies laid out all pretty on their marriage bed as a cherry pie burned in the oven.

He's barely keeping it together, he can feel Bill's eyes on him across the dinner table every night over the nice dinner that Duke's made them and he knows that she suspects something. Neither voice it, afraid to crush Duke's innocence and that's what he's living with daily, a fucking mess.

The gun shoved into the back of his pants every day is a quiet acceptance of his situation. His parents had gotten killed because of his refusal to run jobs for a certain gang and he wouldn't be responsible for his siblings too. So when he'd gotten the summons to appear before another gang he hadn't been stupid enough to refuse them and he's been working for the whole district since, head down.

Gotta pay the electricity bill somehow.

Today puts him in the backroom of a brothel. He should be in math right now, but whatever right? Math had never been a problem anyway and as long as he showed up for tests his teacher couldn't give less of a shit. Getting any kid to come to school in Nine was enough of a challenge, gang culture had only picked up in recent years and if you didn't pick up with it, you were just gonna get trampled.

Avriel has been in a staring contest with a big-looking guy behind a desk now for at least ten minutes. It's always intimidation first, then words. He could feel the knowledge that this guy could probably break his face with one punch being drilled into his skull from every pair of eyes in the room.

He gets the formalities, but in the end, Avriel will do the job. He and his siblings need the money and he isn't interested in getting on anyone's bad side again.

He listens to the big guy speak, eyes on the small sack of coin between them. Avriel knows a lot of people look at him and saw some green kid fresh from a sweet little house on the good side of the tracks and he can't blame them but he's anything but. "There's nothing that I can't take apart," he says, eyes not leaving the little sack, "There's no need for the threats, Mister, I'm a master of my trade and I don't talk." They're big words for a kid his age but he's earned them.

Carefully, he leans forward and pulls up an edge of the money sack with one finger to look at the coin within. Generous. It's probably more than what he would normally charge for his services but he isn't going to complain about it. With this payment, he won't have to buy tesserae this year.

"I'll do whatever, I just don't mess with Peacekeepers," he says, "So shoot I guess."

[charade]

Sebastian Rothul

That he didn’t mess with peacekeepers was potentially a problem, but it wasn’t like he was asking the kid to rob one of them; or break into one of their installations. No, in fact the job wouldn’t even require the kid to leave the building. Other than that though, the kid was confident and professional. That was good. You were never too young to have standards. It was something that Sebastian could respect.

Sebastian watched impassively as the kid inspected the money. It was more than he’d usually offer a freelancer up front, but then, most freelancers were just extra guns. Sebastian nodded his approval and began to talk. “You may or may not be aware of this, but something has happened. Something that’s got the Capitol on high alert. Something that’s got them reinforcing Peacekeeper units across the district. The rumor mill says there was an explosion in another district. Rebels? Terrorists? Gang activity? Experiment gone wrong? Nobody knows, but I aim to change that.”

He motioned to the man on the left side of his desk and he stepped forward with a box, placing it on the desk. Sebastian opened it carefully and laid out the contents in a row. One Capitol military grade communicator, still stained with the blood of its former holder, three short-wave transceivers, and half a dozen off-market walkie-talkies.

“This,” he said, holding up the Capitol comm, “will not transmit or receive unless the code is input first. Unfortunately, the person who would have known the code is beyond our reach. Our last tech guy managed to get past the first layer of encryption, but as I understand it, was unable to deal with the— “

He paused, searching for the words. It was terminology he was unfamiliar with.

“Symmetric block cipher, whatever that is.” Sebastian put it down. “We just need a way inside; we’re not trying to broadcast, we just need to tune in; once that’s done, we’ll need these radios and these walkies modified so that they can pick up Capitol internal communications the same way. Not everything; just the band transmissions for the peacekeepers. If all goes well, I may have more work for you in the future.”

Always negotiate from a position of power. He couldn’t let the kid know just how badly they needed someone with his skillset. But if things went well, he was considering offering—

Avriel, was it? A retainer.

The last tech guy had retired in the form of getting shot to hell in a drive by and they needed new blood. “We have a workstation set up in the room next door. It should contain all the tools you require.” Sebastian stood and offered a handshake to seal the deal. “I’ve heard good things about you, so I hope this works out for the both of us.” The smile was friendly, but the look in his eyes said do not disappoint me.

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"It's not the same anymore
I lost the joy in my face
My life was simple before
I should be happy, of course"

The guy's a talker, Avriel can at least say that from the get-go. Good thing for him that he's always been a pretty good listener. A steady, cold gaze never really seemed to put anyone off of him and a smile is exhausting to maintain anyway so he rarely does those. People look for the signs he's listening, that's all they want.

So he leans forward in his chair a little, body slightly bent forward to give the impression that he's really hanging off of every single word and for a moment, he truly does. It's important to listen to a job description after all, but then his eyes fall on the communicators and he's immediately intrigued.

It never gets old for him, the minute a new piece of tech is placed into his hands, that's the minute you lose Avriel Baptiste's attention. "Been lots of rumours," he comments off-hand, eyes on the walkies, "Not a lot would make the Capitol clench their asshole this tight except the fear of a revolt, so I'm gonna go with bombs."

He's seen the walkie talkies plenty of times, of course, those are easier to get your hands on than the higher grade transceivers. Even more difficult though is a Peacekeeper's communicator, you'd literally have to kill to get one. Judging by the blood on the metal, these guys did. It occurs to him again how dangerous these people how and how badly he doesn't want to work for them.

He wants to ask him if he knows anything about who did in his parents but as it turns out, it's not easy to casually accuse someone of murder. He needs more evidence. That can come through trust and trust comes from getting a job done quickly and well.

Avriel reaches out and picks up the communicator. It's dead in his hands but when he turns it over, it feels solid, complete. He's certain that he can hack it, not because he's up himself but simply because he can. Some people are born athletes, Avriel is a born tinkerer.

Still, it's not going to be an easy job. The Capitol put safeguards on these things to make them harder to break into. "This is going to take me a bit," he says, "I'd say four days if I didn't have to sleep, but I have to go pick up my brother from school, I can come back after he and my sister go to bed and I'm not flexible on that. Good?"

Avriel's gaze flicks down to the man's big hand, offered in a shake, and up again. He's seen before how quickly a handshake can become a punch to the gut. His hand tightens around the communicator.

[charade]

Sebastian Rothul

It was true, he mused. There was in fact, little that would make the Capitol clench up like this. Oh to be a fly on the wall in President Snow’s inner sanctum. The boy in front of him was concerned for his family, and for himself, if the look of uncertainty on his face was any indication. Still, bad form not to shake on a deal. That sort of slight would not be forgotten, and would be held against him should the winds start to blow the other way.

Sebastian curled his fingers back in amusement. The lad had nothing to fear right now. If he failed to deliver on the other hand…

“If you could do it in four days without sleep or attending to your family, then with those distractions I think seven is a reasonable amount of time. This is important. I don’t intend on waiting longer than a week.”

Smart kid, laying out his own terms like that. If Sebastian were younger, before he’d learned to temper his hotheadedness, he might even have been insulted. But this? This he could work with. He clapped a friendly hand to the youth’s shoulder and grinned at him dangerously. “Family is important. We, the Pride that is, are a family of sorts too. We look out for each other.” He let go of Avriel’s shoulder and stood, resting his hands on the desk in front of him.

“I‘ll have one of my people shadow them. If anyone tries to mess with them, we’ll get them to back off. We look out for our own.” Ah to be young again, running through the streets with Zanita and Kovu. The Labbinacs. Where did the time go?

He mulled over his words after a few seconds. It was possible that that came off as a threat. But he’d always found that sort of leverage distasteful. Sure it was easy to lean on people by threatening the ones they cared about, but it lacked honor. If you had a problem with someone you needed to stab them straight in the face, let them know just how royally they fucked up. Trying to get through them through someone else? He was above that sort of thing. Then that young cleaner from the Seraphims that he’d scared the shit out of came to mind.

Well. He was above it most of the time.

Nobody’s perfect.

“I’m not a complete monster, you know,” he said, tilting his head to one side. “Should you fail to deliver, it will be you and you alone that suffers the consequence of breaking our deal. You needn’t worry about them.”

There was not much else to say about it at that point. The deal was made.

“And I’m not flexible on that. Good?”