Linden: Behind The Back
To: "S. Shaw"
From: "William T. Linden"
Subject: Situation Normal
Everything's in place, boss. We should be fine.
Oh -- I ran into a woman we once knew. Nothing happened. We're better off without her.
< NYC > McClintock Center - Gradient Genetech
It's a polo shirt, casual blazer and a pair of slacks for Bill Linden, who has his hands in his pockets and is just sort of /leaning/ against the wall right next to Gradient Genetech on a Saturday morning. How does he know Jean took a car into the city to go to the lab this morning? That's a great question - it's a Saturday, there's no real good reason for her to be here, but then... there Bill is.
The human mind likes its order and its habits -- why should Jean Grey's be any different? Patterns form, history repeats, and a whirl of tangled possibilities exist for Sebastian Shaw's personal Mentat to examine. So perhaps it's not as surprising as Jean clearly thinks it is, as she turns the corner from the elevators and spots Bill Linden come to darken her door. She pauses, twelve paces off and with a carefully watchful expression on her face, one hand finding the back pocket of her jeans. "Bill," she greets frankly, a test balloon in vocal form. "Last I'd heard from your boss, we weren't allowed to play together any more."
"I don't think," Linden says carefully, "that he's changed his mind." A short pause, and the man straightens off the wall. "Hello, Jean," he offers with a tentative tone, and his mind reflects uncertainty, hesitancy - concern about betraying orders and trusts and whether or not this is at all the right thing to do.
"Well," says Jean, with a smile quickly flashed, and a line of dark humour. "I promise not to eat your brain for breakfast... or tell him you stopped by." Silence after this, more absent than awkward, as Jean studies the older man before her, standing hip-shot and considering. Eventually, she picks up her key card and moves past him to let herself into her lab. "Come on in," she invites over a shoulder, decision reached. "You look like you could use coffee."
Linden smiles. "I could." There's a measure of relief and commitment in his mind, and he moves with some unfelt confidence towards the door. "And - thanks." A brief chuckle. "I don't know why I'm here," he says. "Things are... a little messed up, right now, in the Circle, and I can't very well go talk to someone outside, and I can't very well talk to someone inside..." He's rambling, and he knows it, a mild embarassment flushing red in his mind. "...but I figured - Jean Grey doesn't exist."
"Very carefully scrubbed from the record," Jean agrees, hitting a light switch and bathing the little reception area in harsh fluorescent light. From inside the lab, a sudden flurry of squeaking and scrabbling can be heard, as the latest generation of mutant mice show off operant conditioning of the form lights = people = food. A lab tech due in later to tend to them, Jean focuses instead on trying to get her coffee maker to cooperate with her. "And unlike most people in that situation, I'm still alive, well, and with my memories. But what's happened, Bill?" she encourages. "Conversation might make my weak attempts at coffee go down easier."
"This is the part," Bill says slowly, "that may get me killed." A beat. << Emma Frost was shot. >> The knight smiles weakly. "See?" he says. "I didn't tell you a thing. Shaw's... not taking it well. No one is, really, but -" a dismissive flick of his fingers "- the rest of them aren't my concern so much."
Jean's first reaction is not particularly a kind one. Flickers of 'Did it work?' are still lurking around her mind even as the second reaction sets in, and her eyes widen. "I'd imagine," she offers mildly, as she steps over to fill the coffee maker's reservoir from a water cooler, "That the pawns and the Rook are too busy running around chasing other leads to have a tail on you. But I didn't -hear- anything. If anyone asks, you had some concerns about your health, and doctor/patient privilege says I can't share." Assurances offered, the coffee maker now with one third of the coffee/water/heat equation in place, she continues to move around the reception area, restless movements bleeding off restless nerves. "How bad is it?"
The black knight is more or less standing still, but nervousness floats off him in waves. "He's violent," he says. "That's not a surprise, but it's broadening. And he's having people killed." Linden's mind echoes with a phone call from Shaw, the Black King's voice audible with maddened fervor: << She's going to make him /know/ what his sister was, and why this is happening to him. He's going to know it when she burns him alive. >> Bill draws a breath. "The killing's maybe neccessary, but the way - the why..."
"Jesus." The word is hissed on a slow-exhalation, Jean freezing with her back to Linden as the echoed memory plays out, recorded with the eidetic's usual perfect fidelity. "-Jesus-, Bill. I know he's violent as well as you do, but this is something special. This is right into sadism or lunacy, and God knows what. Has he gone insane?"
"Great question." Bill rolls those words around his tongue and inside his mind for several moments, and then there's a paused moment of consideration - and then there are details, rising to his mind: a dossier on Dylan Melcross, Sal Harper's schedule in Berkeley, information being fed deliberately into Jean Grey's mind in an act of quiet defiance of the Black King's will.
Slowly, Jean turns around, green eyes intent on Linden's face as the information comes through, watching both mind and body in the hopes of finding some clue as to why, or how to proceed. << South California boys, >> she offers, silently and with a terrible false flippancy. << So hard to actually pin down in one place, sometimes. >> Aloud, as she clutches a paper bag of fresh-ground Kenyan in one hand, she wonders "What are you going to do if he is, Bill?"
Bill Linden is doing everything he can to still himself - mind, body - in an effort to somehow absolve his psyche of the betrayal he has just completed. "It will get better." << Won't it? >> "It was worse than this, after Emma tried to have him killed." << Did he ever get better then? >> Linden's mind spools then towards something colored accusatory, flipping over the mercurial moods of the Black King since he was thrown through a wall. "I should probably go," he says finally.
"Probably." Jean agrees once again, although reluctance is writ large in her tone, and she makes no move to go to the door and see him out. "I've got a lab tech coming in about half an hour, probably best if you're not seen. Just in case. But... you remember the shielding techniques I taught you, Bill?" she asks, easily decoded to mean 'Be careful'.
Carefully, Bill nods, turning towards the door. "Take care of yourself, Jean," he says. He pauses, door half open, and a brief wry smile crosses his face. "Isn't a little ironic - given what I do - that I'm envying you, because you get to be the good guy?"
"You're a good man, Bill," Jean offers, some brief attempt at benediction delivered with sad and serious eyes. "You're stuck in a bad game. Don't..." She pauses, but shakes her head instead of finishing. Now is not a time to offer hopeful ways out. Instead, while she's still got him in earshot, there's the quick, low question of "Is Sabby dead, then?" The familiar form of the first name might be surprising. But then again, to Bill Linden, it might not.
A short nod. "There was a notice in the papers about a fire," Bill says. "That was her." A small, sad smile. "As for the game... well. We're all just pieces in the end, Jean. It's the king that moves." That's it - the last word - and the black knight is gone, closing the door behind him.
To the closed door, Jean delivers an ironic "God save the King," before she shakes her head, and lets herself into her office to sit and reflect, shoulders forward and her arms wrapped across her chest. The coffee waits in vain.
From: "William T. Linden"
Subject: Situation Normal
Everything's in place, boss. We should be fine.
Oh -- I ran into a woman we once knew. Nothing happened. We're better off without her.
< NYC > McClintock Center - Gradient Genetech
It's a polo shirt, casual blazer and a pair of slacks for Bill Linden, who has his hands in his pockets and is just sort of /leaning/ against the wall right next to Gradient Genetech on a Saturday morning. How does he know Jean took a car into the city to go to the lab this morning? That's a great question - it's a Saturday, there's no real good reason for her to be here, but then... there Bill is.
The human mind likes its order and its habits -- why should Jean Grey's be any different? Patterns form, history repeats, and a whirl of tangled possibilities exist for Sebastian Shaw's personal Mentat to examine. So perhaps it's not as surprising as Jean clearly thinks it is, as she turns the corner from the elevators and spots Bill Linden come to darken her door. She pauses, twelve paces off and with a carefully watchful expression on her face, one hand finding the back pocket of her jeans. "Bill," she greets frankly, a test balloon in vocal form. "Last I'd heard from your boss, we weren't allowed to play together any more."
"I don't think," Linden says carefully, "that he's changed his mind." A short pause, and the man straightens off the wall. "Hello, Jean," he offers with a tentative tone, and his mind reflects uncertainty, hesitancy - concern about betraying orders and trusts and whether or not this is at all the right thing to do.
"Well," says Jean, with a smile quickly flashed, and a line of dark humour. "I promise not to eat your brain for breakfast... or tell him you stopped by." Silence after this, more absent than awkward, as Jean studies the older man before her, standing hip-shot and considering. Eventually, she picks up her key card and moves past him to let herself into her lab. "Come on in," she invites over a shoulder, decision reached. "You look like you could use coffee."
Linden smiles. "I could." There's a measure of relief and commitment in his mind, and he moves with some unfelt confidence towards the door. "And - thanks." A brief chuckle. "I don't know why I'm here," he says. "Things are... a little messed up, right now, in the Circle, and I can't very well go talk to someone outside, and I can't very well talk to someone inside..." He's rambling, and he knows it, a mild embarassment flushing red in his mind. "...but I figured - Jean Grey doesn't exist."
"Very carefully scrubbed from the record," Jean agrees, hitting a light switch and bathing the little reception area in harsh fluorescent light. From inside the lab, a sudden flurry of squeaking and scrabbling can be heard, as the latest generation of mutant mice show off operant conditioning of the form lights = people = food. A lab tech due in later to tend to them, Jean focuses instead on trying to get her coffee maker to cooperate with her. "And unlike most people in that situation, I'm still alive, well, and with my memories. But what's happened, Bill?" she encourages. "Conversation might make my weak attempts at coffee go down easier."
"This is the part," Bill says slowly, "that may get me killed." A beat. << Emma Frost was shot. >> The knight smiles weakly. "See?" he says. "I didn't tell you a thing. Shaw's... not taking it well. No one is, really, but -" a dismissive flick of his fingers "- the rest of them aren't my concern so much."
Jean's first reaction is not particularly a kind one. Flickers of 'Did it work?' are still lurking around her mind even as the second reaction sets in, and her eyes widen. "I'd imagine," she offers mildly, as she steps over to fill the coffee maker's reservoir from a water cooler, "That the pawns and the Rook are too busy running around chasing other leads to have a tail on you. But I didn't -hear- anything. If anyone asks, you had some concerns about your health, and doctor/patient privilege says I can't share." Assurances offered, the coffee maker now with one third of the coffee/water/heat equation in place, she continues to move around the reception area, restless movements bleeding off restless nerves. "How bad is it?"
The black knight is more or less standing still, but nervousness floats off him in waves. "He's violent," he says. "That's not a surprise, but it's broadening. And he's having people killed." Linden's mind echoes with a phone call from Shaw, the Black King's voice audible with maddened fervor: << She's going to make him /know/ what his sister was, and why this is happening to him. He's going to know it when she burns him alive. >> Bill draws a breath. "The killing's maybe neccessary, but the way - the why..."
"Jesus." The word is hissed on a slow-exhalation, Jean freezing with her back to Linden as the echoed memory plays out, recorded with the eidetic's usual perfect fidelity. "-Jesus-, Bill. I know he's violent as well as you do, but this is something special. This is right into sadism or lunacy, and God knows what. Has he gone insane?"
"Great question." Bill rolls those words around his tongue and inside his mind for several moments, and then there's a paused moment of consideration - and then there are details, rising to his mind: a dossier on Dylan Melcross, Sal Harper's schedule in Berkeley, information being fed deliberately into Jean Grey's mind in an act of quiet defiance of the Black King's will.
Slowly, Jean turns around, green eyes intent on Linden's face as the information comes through, watching both mind and body in the hopes of finding some clue as to why, or how to proceed. << South California boys, >> she offers, silently and with a terrible false flippancy. << So hard to actually pin down in one place, sometimes. >> Aloud, as she clutches a paper bag of fresh-ground Kenyan in one hand, she wonders "What are you going to do if he is, Bill?"
Bill Linden is doing everything he can to still himself - mind, body - in an effort to somehow absolve his psyche of the betrayal he has just completed. "It will get better." << Won't it? >> "It was worse than this, after Emma tried to have him killed." << Did he ever get better then? >> Linden's mind spools then towards something colored accusatory, flipping over the mercurial moods of the Black King since he was thrown through a wall. "I should probably go," he says finally.
"Probably." Jean agrees once again, although reluctance is writ large in her tone, and she makes no move to go to the door and see him out. "I've got a lab tech coming in about half an hour, probably best if you're not seen. Just in case. But... you remember the shielding techniques I taught you, Bill?" she asks, easily decoded to mean 'Be careful'.
Carefully, Bill nods, turning towards the door. "Take care of yourself, Jean," he says. He pauses, door half open, and a brief wry smile crosses his face. "Isn't a little ironic - given what I do - that I'm envying you, because you get to be the good guy?"
"You're a good man, Bill," Jean offers, some brief attempt at benediction delivered with sad and serious eyes. "You're stuck in a bad game. Don't..." She pauses, but shakes her head instead of finishing. Now is not a time to offer hopeful ways out. Instead, while she's still got him in earshot, there's the quick, low question of "Is Sabby dead, then?" The familiar form of the first name might be surprising. But then again, to Bill Linden, it might not.
A short nod. "There was a notice in the papers about a fire," Bill says. "That was her." A small, sad smile. "As for the game... well. We're all just pieces in the end, Jean. It's the king that moves." That's it - the last word - and the black knight is gone, closing the door behind him.
To the closed door, Jean delivers an ironic "God save the King," before she shakes her head, and lets herself into her office to sit and reflect, shoulders forward and her arms wrapped across her chest. The coffee waits in vain.