Comments | beyondtherift: This city's ripped right to the core...

torchwoodsheart in beyondtherift

This city's ripped right to the core...

Feb 21, 2009 01:52

The Doctor is just about through with people hurting his friends. True, it's not targeted attacks this time, just random wanderers, whoever they can find, but... he's actually not sure if that's better or worse. So he's made his way to a hospital where there are, in theory, three men who aren't entirely in touch with the world or, in fact, their ( Read more... )

andy mackenzie, the doctor (ten), bambi dalton, plot: game-wide, sam tyler, gwen cooper, gabe seagram, plot: election, ruvin, npc, aniki forfrysning

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theshameofcain February 21 2009, 10:06:49 UTC

In that infamous little bookshop in Wicker Park, Bambi Dalton is sitting on her desk, smoking a cigarette down to the filter and looking tense and twitchy, because she has no fucking clue what's going on anymore and it's driving her batshit. The bosses were keeping her out of the loop before this all went to hell and now it's like they've just completely decided to shut her out.

It's enough to make a girl consider alternate means of employment if seeking alternate means of employment didn't mean forfeiting her life.

torchwoodsheart February 21 2009, 10:36:33 UTC

Gwen pushes open the door slowly, and steps inside, trying to look official and as non-threatening as possible at the same time. She manages fairly well, actually - Gwen's good at putting people at ease while retaining at least some air of authority.

No one in the store but her and the woman at the desk. That makes this easy. "Hello, I'm Gwen Cooper. Is your name Bambi Dalton?"

theshameofcain February 21 2009, 20:28:01 UTC

Bambi looks up in surprise and puts the cigarette out in the ashtray on the desk in one quick move. Not that she really cares if customers don't want her smoking around them- it was just a kneejerk response of some kind. Twitchy Bambi is twitchy.

"That'd be me. If you're lookin' for the usual stuff, I can't help you there. Last thing I want are these CLF fuckers finding out what I'm doing here and blowing me up."

Besides a fake ID is not really going to stop these guys from attacking wanderers.

torchwoodsheart February 22 2009, 03:26:41 UTC

"I'm not," she says, stepping forward to meet the woman at the desk. If Torchwood needs false ID, they go to Tosh and Marshall. It may take them a while, but together they can usually manage whatever's necessary. "I just wanted to ask a few questions. I work for Torchwood - have you heard of us?"

theshameofcain February 22 2009, 04:30:55 UTC

Bambi shrugs. "Name sounds familiar." Which is enough of a truth to slip past the angelic Lie-dar and vague enough not to indicate how much she might know, which is not that much, really. The Org just knows enough about them to know they're People To Keep An Eye On.

"What kind of questions?" She asks, sliding off the desk. Hopefully not the kind that get people like her killed.

torchwoodsheart February 22 2009, 05:08:04 UTC

"Would you happen to know anything about a man named Randall Flagg? Did he come here for identification, papers, anything...? He's... not from around here, I'm almost certain of that. He didn't exist until a few months ago." Which is somewhat familiar in Gwen's universe, even if she never picked up on it there...

theshameofcain February 22 2009, 05:27:21 UTC

Bambi's not an idiot and she wasn't born yesterday, she knows not to register the recognition on her face. It's not that she knows who Flagg is- far from it. All she knows is that he's some guy that Monroe picked up somewhere to use as a pawn. Hell, she's never been close enough to him to know whether he was a mundane or a wanderer or what.

At least that's what she's been told and you can't tell a lie about something you never knew wasn't true.

"He didn't come in here," she replies. "Never saw him until his thing on the TV."

torchwoodsheart February 22 2009, 05:35:05 UTC

The thing about living and working with a human lie detector is that you learn, very quickly, the ways people get around outright lying. Being too vague... or too specific, for that matter... Gwen considered bringing Sam here, but she gets the feeling she didn't exactly need to.

"Do you know anything about him, then? Even if you haven't met him, I would imagine you hear a lot about wanderers in this city, doing what you do..."

theshameofcain February 22 2009, 07:05:23 UTC

Torchwood lady's smart. Torchwood lady might be a problem if Bambi cared more about her bosses right now.

"Look, I didn't even know he was a wanderer," she points out and it's surprisingly not a lie. "I don't pay attention to city politics, so all this business about him being nonexistent is news to me."

As long as she doesn't ask about his fucking campaign manager, she can keep telling the truth and not get herself into a mess. Sometimes it helps to be so far on the totem pole that no one tells you anything.

torchwoodsheart February 23 2009, 05:49:46 UTC

Gwen arches her eyebrows, but she's not giving up on this. She has a feeling she's getting somewhere here, and she's not letting it out of her teeth just yet.

"Someone connected to him, then? Someone in his campaign? I swear to you, if you're afraid to tell me... I never got it from you. I won't ever speak of this meeting again, just... It may be that he's perfectly well-intentioned and just going about it in the only way he knows how, but I - we - can't trust that without knowing. Please."

She's riding on sincerity and trusting that this Bambi is the sort of person who might be swayed by the idea of the common good, or just dislikes the idea of being psychically manipulated as much as Gwen does... Maybe something will get through.

theshameofcain February 23 2009, 06:44:48 UTC

Angel or not, Bambi's hardly in it for the common good. She's just some cog in a huge machine and she knows full well that whether Gwen's going to rat her out or not is of no consequence. These people have ways of finding out things.

"You're asking the wrong girl. I don't know any-" Her knees buckle and she swears under her breath as she clutches her chest. She was going to word that differently, find some way to get around it, but she spazzed and it didn't work the way she wanted it to. Well, now she's stuck.

"His campaign manager- blond guy, British accent. I know him. His name's Adam Monroe. He's a wanderer. Comes in here sometimes," she forces out through gritted teeth. She doesn't have to tell the whole thing and if she can just vague it up... No, that's not going to work. The fact that she was willing to lie about it gives too much away.

Fuck.

torchwoodsheart February 23 2009, 06:53:14 UTC

Now she's getting somewhere. Gwen reaches out, instinctively, to grab Bambi's elbow as she starts to go down, help keep her upright - it's just an automatic reaction from working with Sam - and she doesn't quite let go even once Bambi's steady again. "Good. Thank you. What does he come in here for?"

theshameofcain February 23 2009, 07:12:34 UTC

Bambi just instinctively jerks away when she's sure she's not going to topple over. It's nothing personal- she's just not a people person. And she's more than a little tetchy about this entire situation.

When she speaks again, her tone's mildly panicked. You'd like Gwen threatened her or something with the way she's talking. Truth be told, she's scared. "He... Has friends- wanderers. Guys he works with. He's been here awhile, kinda established, and he gets wanderers jobs sometimes. He comes in for the paperwork. He's really selective, so that's why you probably haven't heard about him."

There's a small twinge in her chest, reminding her how close that is to a lie, but it's wrapped up in too much red tape for it to fully register.

"I don't know for certain what his deal with Flagg is or why he's working to get him elected." Not for certain. Just what she's been told and while she assumes it's true, she's never been presented with viable proof.

torchwoodsheart February 23 2009, 10:33:11 UTC

"And what does he do, then, this Adam Monroe? Even if you don't know, you must have a guess..." she presses gently, persistent as a terrier. She can tell she's scared, and she's dropped into the soft, calming tones she used to as a PC, gentle and friendly, just authoritative enough to convince people to answer her questions. She's got a lead now. She's sure as hell not giving it up.

theshameofcain February 23 2009, 10:42:50 UTC

"What? Other than help displaced wanderers and help a guy who looks like he might be wanderer-sympathetic get into office?" She swallows, knees quivering and she's not sure how to take Gwen's tone of voice. Really, right now, all she wants to do is bolt and move to Guam for awhile.

"He runs some company, I gue-" Ow. Ow. Ow. She sinks down into a chair and grimaces. "I know he runs some company. I don't know where." One of the benefits of low-level clearance. All her work is done either at the shop or in private rooms at the Estates. She's never been high-ranking enough to see where they do most of the business

torchwoodsheart February 28 2009, 02:48:38 UTC

Angels make things easy for Gwen. No need to have Sam along at all, and she doesn't have to find an incentive for them to tell her the truth. She takes a breath and nods, stepping back from the desk a little.

"Thank you," she says, with only a hint of now was that so hard? to her tone. Some company. But maybe she can get Tosh to find something, one way or another... "I'll leave you be, then." She takes another step back, toward the door, and smiles. She may be back, but that's enough information for now to get them looking in the right place.

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