[RP] For techniclybrill

[superiorspectre]

[[Backdated to shortly after Sark went missing.]]Suzie's got her laptop, a handful of carefully-selected CCTV images, and a Plan. Well, sort of a Plan. It's really more like desperation, which she doesn't much care for in principle

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[techniclybrill]

Tosh is, unsurprisingly, in her room, working on something on her laptop. But the door's open, and she's positioned where she can see right away if anyone stops by, so chances are she wouldn't mind interruptions too much...

Though this particular interruption might need a bit of justification.

[superiorspectre]

"Toshiko?" Suzie pokes her head around the edge of the door. The seeming formality isn't, really -- Suzie's always been fond of Tosh's name, and maintains the habit of using the short form largely because 'Tosh' is easier to yell in an emergency.

She moves into the doorway, and there's a moment when her shoulders start to slump slightly, where she comes close to betraying her uncertainty, but then she reminds herself why she's here and straightens up again. Tosh isn't in danger of death or grievous bodily harm right now. Julian, on the other hand...

"Can you stand to be interrupted?"

[techniclybrill]

Tosh looks up sharply, already starting to smile a little, and swivels away from her laptop. "Of course. What do you need?" Not that Suzie needs a reason to come to her, but she recognizes the signs of Suzie with a problem she needs Tosh to help with.

[superiorspectre]

Suzie smiles back when Tosh does, but the expression quickly fades. This isn't going to be terribly fun for either of them.

"Some help with the CCTV systems," she says, "and possibly a look at those wrist-straps. But before you say anything, here's where I've got to be honest," Suzie tells her. "The person I'm hoping to track down might just rank near the top of the list of your least favourite human beings. I can't make you help me on this, but can I at least ask you to hear me out?"

[techniclybrill]

Her smile slips, and she raises her eyebrows a little. There are... only a few people who would warrant a comment like that, and Tosh's hackles are already starting to rise knowing that. But she nods a little, lips pressed tight together. "Go ahead."

[superiorspectre]

Suzie nods in return. "I need to explain this, first, because..." She sighs. "I need you to understand just why I'm asking this, when I know you have some very good reasons to hate him. I was introduced to Julian Sark on Christmas Eve of last year. The ball. We had a bit in common. We're... we're damaged in similar ways, I suppose you could say. And we've both done things we can't forgive ourselves for. You've said that I never did the things you remember, but I've spent my entire life being the sort of person who could. I'm a ruthless, manipulative bitch, Tosh. I've had to learn to be. And it's only relatively recently that I worked out that maybe that wasn't a good thing. You had something to do with that, in fact. For him, it was April. And we both knew that, under the right circumstances, each of us could betray the first people to actually give us a reason to go against type. For him, it happened. For me... It would have, if I hadn't come here. I've remembered it, even if I never did it

[techniclybrill]

Tosh stays quiet as she speaks, jaw clenched, arms folded tightly across her chest with her fingernails digging into her palms. Her first instinct is to refuse, flat out. He offered up Dmitri to be sacrificed, would have done the same to her given the chance, and if he's being tortured now, she can't say he probably doesn't deserve it.

If they killed him, she couldn't be convinced he didn't deserve it.

But Suzie does have a point about the fact that someone out there torturing people isn't something they can exactly let alone, and... She takes a breath, but rather than relaxing, she only tenses up more. "And what's the plan once you locate him? Walk in there, get yourself tortured and then offer him up to save yourself? Isn't that how these things go?"

...that wasn't exactly what she'd planned to say, but she's not about to take it back now that she has.

[superiorspectre]

Suzie says nothing for a minute, just watching Tosh. When she speaks again, her voice is quiet, serious, with a distinct businesslike tone that indicates she's passed the bitchy sort of anger and has moved directly into rigid self-control.

In many ways, this is a far worse sign.

"The last time I walked into a situation and got myself tortured, I don't recall offering up anyone other than myself. Like I said, Tosh, you've got every reason to hate him, but if you're going to take that out on someone, I suggest you take it up with him, and not me."

There's a hint of annoyance in her expression, but her tone is calm and even. She might as well be discussing the weather.

"If you're actually curious about the plan, a lot of it depends on where they are and how heavily-guarded it is. If I can find a way to arrange a distraction, then I go in, get Julian free while that distraction does its work, and then shoot the one torturing him until they're well and truly dead. If that sounds somewhat vague at the moment, it's because I've got

[techniclybrill]

Tosh presses her lips tight together, biting back any response until she can take a breath and... Calming down isn't happening, but she can at least keep herself from snapping again. After a moment she sighs and stands up, moving to the table beside her bed to pull out the wristbands in the drawer. She's not quite looking at Suzie anymore, and when she speaks again, her tone's quiet and polite, little more than businesslike.

"If his biosigns aren't stored, there's not a lot I can do beyond trying to track him through CCTV, or-" She had been working on something with the journal network, but it's not quite functional yet. She doesn't want anyone counting on that. Tosh shakes her head a little and fidgets with the wristband as she walks back to her chair. "And I'm not certain of the range either..."

[superiorspectre]

Later, Suzie will want to have a serious talk with Tosh, assuming Tosh will let her. Later, she'll apologise and be sympathetic and try to keep the desperation out of her voice when she tries to make things right.

But that's later, and right now she's more worried about Julian and the possibility of imminent death or breaking past her ability to repair.

"It's worth a try, at least," she says, tone just as businesslike. "Thank you."

They're not looking at each other now. All right. She can deal with that, for the moment. It's a good enough reason to pull her laptop out, anyway. She can pull up the images she's been able to track down, at any rate.

[techniclybrill]

Tosh glances at her out of the corner of her eye, and then back to the wristband as she starts to search through it for the information Suzie needs.

There are a number of stored biosigns in the thing's memory, none of them exactly tagged with easy labels, but if she narrows it down to biosigns originating from that time, she can search through until she finds something that would fit Sark's size and age and...

It makes a good excuse not to look at Suzie, to sit there silently with her jaw still clenched, breaths purposely slow and measured. She can't even fool herself into believing she's not upset, but this is her job. She can do this.