(Untitled)

[cutting_edgex23]

X slips in through the front door, laptop in hand. After a brief stop at Bar to check for messages and to place an order for dinner, she settles down at a corner table.

After eating, she cracks open the laptop and gets to work.

Blueprints are not confusing, except when they contain multiple contradictions within one document.

Hmm.

Comments

[shadowsusannah]

The door Susannah comes through doesn't lead to Maine this time. There are a couple of clues. The hotel room visible on the other side; her surprised (fading to pleased) expression at finding the bar in a new place; more than anything, though, it's how she looks and how's dressed.

She's somewhere hot, and she has to look professional. She's seriously considering shaving her head.

She spots X immediately, and plans to head that way once she has a drink. She could use it. She's not a people person, and she's shaken a lot of hands today.

[cutting_edgex23]

X catches Susannah's scent, turning toward her almost immediately.

Half a moment later she flicks the laptop closed and approaches, careful not to be too quiet.

That would be rude.

"Susannah. You have been working?"

She is okay?

[shadowsusannah]

"I have," she says. "I've taken on a consulting gig for the summer." She sounds... just faintly amused with herself. Maybe with her phrasing, or the image of herself as a consultant in the field of making trouble. "In Texas, Lord help me."

She takes the Dragonfly and steers the powered chair away from the bar; it's still not quite high enough to sit there comfortably, although she sits higher than in the manual chair.

[cutting_edgex23]

X follows along just to her side, head tilting very slightly.

"You have not been to Texas before?"

She'll ask about the consulting in a bit.

Probably.

[shadowsusannah]

"Not for a long time," she says. "I was there once or twice during the Movement."

And here she is again. "I'm only there for a couple weeks, and then the whole operation is picking up and moving to Washington for the summer."

[cutting_edgex23]

"Oh."

X absorbs that.

"What is the operation?"

Combat or corporate, is what X largely wants to know. One of them she will understand a little bit more than the other.

One day that might change.

[shadowsusannah]

The answer is neither. "They're a political action group called the Atticus Circle. A gay rights group aimed specifically at getting the families and friends of gay folks involved in fighting for the rights of their loved ones."

She sips the drink. "I've been corresponding with the general director. They've got a solid summer of protests in the capitol in mind, and I helped them plan it in the early stages. Later on they asked me to come work for them full-time for the summer, to help plan and organize. It's flattering."

[cutting_edgex23]

"Oh."

X considers that.

"It is something that will help Rose, too?"

If she sounds uncertain, it is only because she has never really been sure how the Keystone Rose and related worlds work.

[shadowsusannah]

Part of that may be because that's changed lately.

"Well," she says briskly. "We hope so. The truth is, probably not in the short-term, unless she decides to join the army, but it's a one-step-at-a-time kind of thing."

"The thing I like about Atticus Circle is that we're showing gay people--and the bigots--that they aren't alone in the fight. Justice is everyone's business, not just the ones being discriminated against. And I hope that helps Rose as well, to know that."

[cutting_edgex23]

X nods, just once.

"It is better not to be alone. For that."

Beat.

"The army is relevant?"

[shadowsusannah]

"Well, right now it's illegal to be gay and in the army," she says. Dry: "Or more realistically, it's illegal to be gay and in the army and let anybody know. They don't mind if you die for them as long as you keep your mouth shut."

"It looks like we've got a good chance of that ending soon, but we've got to keep up the pressure now that there's an opening. If nothing else, it lets the people in the government who made that opening have some cover going into the election, so they can come back and keep working."

"That's a little more cynical version of the truth than I'll be giving the volunteers," she adds.

[cutting_edgex23]

"People are like that about many things. It is stupid."

X has apparently been working on her scathing tone.

Well. Scathing for X, which leans more toward mildly frustrated.

Still.

"The volunteers are very -- "

X hesitates, searching for the right word.

"They are not very good at politics?"

[shadowsusannah]

"Oh, I haven't met them yet," she says. "But they won't all be good at politics. Most people aren't."

"Most people need a pretty simple story, and when you deal with crowds you have to aim at the lowest common denominator."

"The President hasn't done much for people who support gay rights yet," she says. "And I understand why. He's got to play a long game, and I know enough about the man to hope he has a plan. This recent business about Don't Ask Don't Tell is a good sign."

"But in two weeks I'm going to tell them that he's let us down and betrayed us because he's afraid of what the Republicans will say and do, and that if we want justice we've got to get angry and we've got to tell him we're angry. That he ought to be afraid of what his own people think first, and that we won't wait forever. And that's true, too. It's just... the simpler truth."

"Because unless people do get angry and do make noise, those plans won't work. It's part of the calculation. but telling people they're part of a political calculation isn't very

[cutting_edgex23]

"No," X says.

"It is sensible."

Beat.

"I think it is why Registration passed. Because people were angry. And afraid. And it is why Osborn is in charge now. Because people think he is a hero. And they made noise."

If those last few words sound as if she is carefully mimicking Susannah, that is because it is true.

"It is better if it is for good reasons."

Right?

[shadowsusannah]

"The way I think it works," Susannah says, "is that there's always going to be a majority that just wants to be left in peace. Which is fair enough, but they don't care. They just don't care if other people are suffering."

"They'll vote--they'll put the weight of their majority, anyway, whether by voting directly or through their representatives--behind whatever makes things calm down. And they aren't cruel, or anyway they don't like to see cruelty done."

"They're conservative, not in the political sense, but just in their bones. And a small group of motivated people can make them believe that the way to get peace and quiet back is to give in on something that ultimately just isn't that important to them. Whether it's giving rights or taking them away... because it's only going to affect, or they think it will, a small group of people who aren't them. You see?"

[cutting_edgex23]

X considers that for a few long moments, riffling through her mental file folders and laying out the information.

Then, carefully, she nods.

"They do not pay attention. I know."