athymia: and 90% you not even looking near the camera (Default)
Λᴛʜᴏs. ([personal profile] athymia) wrote2034-06-08 08:37 pm
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000. ic inbox



"Please leave a message, I'll get back to you in a timely manner, barring freak circumstance."
ravani: (Default)

desperation, man

[personal profile] ravani 2014-10-27 12:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Hob listens intently; terminally shitty attitude or not, there's no mistaking that she is taking Alpha's words to heart. Because this is Alpha, and dammit he does seem like a good kid wasted on a bad job and it pisses her off to no end.

"Army travels on its paperwork as much as it travels on its stomach," she says, after mulling things over a minute. "But it ain't supposed to be like this, son. Part of the reason I retired when I did was because they wanted to give me the job you got now."

She rolls her cigarette between her lips. "I was regular army before they put a stake through that beast's heart. I remember what it was like, taking our missions from the civvies. Wasn't perfect, but we were knitted in to society. Cut them and we bled, and we damn well slapped a bandage on it. It wasn't anything like that any more by the time I got out.

"It's called goal mismatch. The boss you're trying to work for and the one you actually got ain't the same."

She gathers her thoughts another moment, flicks the cigarette butt away and burns it up. Lights off a new one. Offers Alpha one as well, because why the hell not. It's that kind of talk.

"We owe Bifrons a hell of a lot, just like everyone else. I know that, which is why I gave the militia thing a try even when I was bitter as fuck that the army was disbanded, and far as I could tell it was to get rid of the crusty old farts running it that didn't want to toe the line. I gave it everything like I gave the army everything I had because you don't do less than 100% if you want to call yourself a soldier.

"But I never reckoned I owed em my soul. I ain't putting a bullet in someone for a mission I don't believe in, and I ain't letting anyone diddle my brain. That ain't how discipline works. You know about that part by now, right?"

She'd been serious when she said she didn't think he was stupid.
ravani: (Default)

Re: yeahhhh nahh

[personal profile] ravani 2014-10-28 02:40 pm (UTC)(link)
"Gentle is for people who got more time than me." Which is nicer than her normal classification of 'pussies' see she can totally do this diplomacy thing.

"Army's the only family I ever had." She says after a contemplative moment. She's always been a straight shooter, and of anyone, Alpha deserves to hear it straight. Fuck knows, everyone else lies to the kid probably. "They deserve better than this. Proles deserves better than this. And hell, Bifrons deserves to be better than this too. All men are devil horses, deep down. You give 'em too much power and don't keep the rein on 'em, they run wild and trample everything in their path. We used to be the rein.

"I mean for us to be that again. I ain't gonna be Victor for Bifrons. Fuck them. They killed too damn many of my friends by eatin' their hearts. But I'll be Victor for the militia."

She's there to draw the line. Shit was screwy before the militia basically became a private army. But it got a million times more screwy after from what she saw. She looks at Alpha.

"Time we took back our own, son. We go independent, we go back to the people, and we do what we always done. We serve."

Because it always comes back to that. You might put on the uniform because you want to play soldier and impress the girls, or in her case because she wanted steady pay and the squares a day. But you make it into your skin for over 40 years because it actually means something.
ravani: (That would be the plan)

[personal profile] ravani 2014-10-28 03:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh good. Well, that's one hurdle crossed because he's listening, not turning her over to corporate security or laughing. At least not yet.

"We got to move pretty fast. This thing is going to take a lot of personnel to get organized, and the more people are involved, the harder it is to keep anything secret. So we work the angles and get it organized and get it done before anyone has a chance to say the wrong fucking thing over a beer."

She has been working on the framework for this for a long time. She lays it out, point by point. No shit and no holding back; she wants Alpha to buy in on this, and she hopes he knows she's trusting him. And that she needs him.

"Focus on the competent and loyal men on the lead up. Turf the ones that ain't in it for the right reasons or can't be trained. I already got Whiskey and Specialist Engelsen working on that even if they don't realize it.

"Get the financials in order. We don't move until we can pay our men. I got a lot of revenue streams getting ready to ramp up, working on more. Got an independent contractor that's trustworthy modeling it for me, I'll have projections and scenarios in your desk within the week.

"Got Echo and Foxtrot working to get a network and combat equipment array together that don't have all the Bifrons backdoors in it. That needed to happen anyway, so don't be thinking I went over your head with the kids.

"Find new base space. Land is cheap as shit in D4 but we want to straddle at least two districts so we don't let anyone make this into class warfare.

"When we move, we move all at once, and we make it peaceful. I don't want any dumbshit kids with an itchy trigger finger thinking this is the moment for glorious revolution. We call general quarters, we give every soldier the option of signing on or not. Anyone who doesn't, that's fine. The rest signs their resignation paperwork and contract for a new company. We won't get everyone. We don't have to. We're gonna have plenty enough new recruits knockin' once we are no longer the private army of Bifrons.

"We re-form as a publicly held corporation with a not-for-profit charter. All personnel as stakeholders and the general public able to buy in at a yearly fee that will be part of what keeps the lights on."

Long exhalation. "That's the broad plan. It's sure to mutate, cause that's what battle plans do in the real world. But the bones are sound."
Edited (last one, I promise) 2014-10-28 16:03 (UTC)
ravani: (That would be the plan)

[personal profile] ravani 2014-10-29 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
She takes a long drag off her cigarette. "The fact that you're agreein' with me, that we need our own network, is damnin' to all of us, Alpha. Means we don't trust our chain of command. And that ain't right." It means he already believes everything she's said is a problem. It just depends on if he's got the gumption to do something about it, or if he's going to let himself get paralyzed by the enormity of it.

Well, appealing is definitely a start.

"We got to play it smart, when it goes down. That's why we need to make it fast and absolute. Then we do it in the public eye. Make it so if there's blood to be spilled, it's their decision to do it. Make it so there's enough evidence off the network that they can't just hit the delete key and roll us back. It's gonna take plannin', and figurin', and no small amount of strategy, cause strategy ain't just guns versus guns, son. It's the whole deal. Now, I think we got this. I think with you on board, chances of victory go up by a lot." She looks at him. "Somethin's gotta give. Sooner or later. Sooner, and we can make it a controlled burn. Later, and..."

And the riots again, but beyond the scope of imagining.

"I'm just an old war horse, Alpha. You had your head, you had a free army, what would ya do with it?"
ravani: (That would be the plan)

[personal profile] ravani 2014-10-29 03:17 am (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, son. Yeah. Used to have that. Be nice if we could bring it back." And it's fucked up, beyond fucked up that they're afraid to fucking talk without an elaborate ruse.

"I don't want bloodshed," Hob says flatly. "Problems I got with the corporation are mine alone, and I'm not here to grind my ax. These kids are good kids. All of 'em, down to the littlest mouth-breather. They deserve better than this, and they don't need to die for these sins."

She nods. "Two and four. I'll get a guy on scouting the terrain. Forward it to you so you can take a look at the logistics."

She snorts. That is the question. "I was waitin' for them to get desperate enough to call me back up so I could do it on my own terms. I could smell it comin'. I'm here cause they're thinkin' to suck my reputation dry. So yeah. More'n half of strategy is in the timin'. Hurt me to my fuckin' bones, watchin' what they been doin'. But that wasn't the time to spend my reputation. I had to wait for the moment of maximum effectiveness an' just pray it didn't take too long."
Edited 2014-10-29 03:17 (UTC)
ravani: (Old bitter and full of hate)

[personal profile] ravani 2014-10-29 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
Long silence as she thinks about the best way to put this. Finally, she says, "I was born in D4. Lived there til I joined the militia. It was rough, but it was always home. I watch Bifrons shit all over my district and my people cause we wasn't useful to them any more. D4 used to be the heart of Proles, and then we weren't even worth a shit and got told it was our own fuckin' fault somehow. I seen good people starve, and good people get killed because they're looked at like fuckin' vermin and no one can afford a fuckin' private security company. I seen people in D4 dyin' because the militia's tied up to a company that don't give a fuck about it." She always sounds angry and contemptuous. But that's nothing to the hot, abiding rage that fills her gravelly litany now.

"I joined the army when I was 14. Found a dumbass recruiter that didn't ask questions. When Bifrons disbanded the army, they took the only family I ever had away and did the same fuckin' thing they did to D4. They said fuck off, we don't need you no more." She shrugs one shoulder. "I hung in. I joined the militia. And then they made it into something that weren't right. They turned on a lot of good people and killed their hearts with their brain fuckery, and I watched more'n a few of my family wither away and dry up or just flat out disappear."

She finally flicks her cigarette butt away, burns it out in a shower of sparks. "Three things I care about, Alpha. Only three principles I have. Loyalty, integrity, and family." And they're all interwoven. In many ways, they all come down to the same thing. "So when I say that Proles, that the army don't deserve what's been done to 'em, I fuckin' mean it."

Takes out another cigarette. Lights it up. Sucks on it like it's the one thing between her and committing murder. Continues in her more normal tone. "We're gonna, son. Just not in the way you imagined."
ravani: (That would be the plan)

[personal profile] ravani 2014-10-29 05:09 am (UTC)(link)
"You'll figure it out eventually," she says. That, she has faith in. If the boy's there for the militia, he'll figure it out.

"After? Two missions I got in mind is getting a path cleared to get D4 back out to the mines. Break the stasis. And provide a regular police force for the districts that buy in. One that don't got an agenda and don't care how rich your daddy is. I think you got more ideas than that. Sure, I can take it back to roots. I know what all we used to do. But I think you got better ideas than me, cause that's your job, ain't it?"
ravani: (Default)

[personal profile] ravani 2014-10-29 05:59 am (UTC)(link)
Hob grins. "Get used to it." Because this is coming quick. She told everyone two weeks. She's figuring it'll end up closer to a month, but that's still damn, damn fast.

She nods. "Fair enough. Ain't the sort o' thing I came up with overnight either. You do your thinkin', and you let me know what you decide. You want progress reports before then, or should I hold 'em?"
ravani: (That would be the plan)

way to contribute to the worldwide comma shortage

[personal profile] ravani 2014-10-29 06:42 am (UTC)(link)
Hob nods. "Will do."

And then snorts. "Old war stories. Tellin' each other opinions in conversation. Give 'em a vague that change is comin' and see if they're in. No details. Everyone knows it's safer with no details, and that's why I think they're wantin' to listen."

"Only one who knows the full plan is you." Of the rest, Allison Moran knows the most. "Whiskey's got a good idea I wager, cause he's a canny old bastard but he ain't askin' and I ain't tellin'. Echo and Foxtrot know I'm up to somethin', but nothin' more than the vague shape. Most of the Immune gettin' in are in about the same state."
Edited 2014-10-29 06:44 (UTC)
ravani: (That would be the plan)

[personal profile] ravani 2014-11-01 04:07 pm (UTC)(link)
"That's the idea. We got good people. In spite of all this fuckery, there's still people who trust enough to take the leap without knowin' where they'll land." Including non-callsigns. "I dunno if you talkin' to him would make him nervous or not, but I think Specialist Engelsen's might could earn himself a commendation by the time all's said and done. Keep an eye on him. All likelihood he's gonna end up commandin' one of the platoons."

Man had looked her in the eye, and not knowing even a corner of the battle plan had said he wanted in. A lot of that was probably desperation to see something change, but it spoke well of his instincts.

"Does my black little heart a world o' good that at least a couple people out of the fuckin' special snowflake brigade actually do give a shit about our people and ain't just sayin' it to score points."

But they need to talk a bit about the other callsigns, since there's actually a lot of danger in talking to each other. Which shows how sick the organization has become. "I'ma talk to Juliet later today." She knew the first Juliet. But she doesn't know this one. "Any insight you got would be welcome. And what d'ya think about Charlie? I don't fuckin' trust scientists."
ravani: (Default)

[personal profile] ravani 2014-11-03 12:16 am (UTC)(link)
Or he could just, you know. Ask. Hob just assumes he knows who she is talking about.

"Scientists." She might say tapeworms with more affection in her tone. "Sounds like Charlie is the one who would lose out in a move. Wouldn't be surprised if we don't get her, don't think we should talk about it to her until it's go time." She considers Juliet. "Yeah, Juliet always gets the shit end of the stick. Okay. We'll see what she has to say."
ravani: (Default)

[personal profile] ravani 2014-11-04 03:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"I'll tell ya, either way."

Walk a bit more, turning back toward his office. "You got anything else for me?" Because that's all she has, business wise.