Apr 25 13:13:53 108 PA - Evil Things Still Exist

From Chronicles

Apr 25 13:13:53 108 PA.

THE ALIBI

Erica walks into the club dressed in her little red clubbing dress. Her very well muscled form moves with dangerous lithe grace through the crowd on this evening. She offers friendly smiles to those that she knows as she runs into them. Gracefully she moves to the bar and climbs up into a barstool there. Quickly enough a bartender comes over to where she is sitting and she orders herself a mixed drink.

It's been a while since Gabriel was at the Alibi, and it was a little longer as he had to return to his distant home to change into something appropriate. As dusk approaches, he is momentarily silhouetted by the open door, his own frame sturdy enough, but nothing special to look at. Perhaps unnecessary. Moving toward the bar, he seems to possibly know a handful of people on a casual level, chatting with them as he moves. Erica is spotted at the counter, and he moves towards her with a wave.

Erica stirs her drink briefly with the straw before she takes a long sip from it. Her hand starts tapping on the bar in time to the music. She sets her purse near her drink before turning about to look around the club. Quickly enough she spots Gabriel and returns his wave with a wave of her own and a friendly smile. "Hi Gabriel." She says loud enough to be heard over the noise of the club.

Gabriel scoots over to his friend, and with a little friendly bartering, pushes a man off of the stool next to her so that he can take up his typical one-on, one-off position on the prize. "Hi, Erica, you're looking great as always. Hiding your danger in plain sight and making all the young men drool." He grins, then twists his head slightly to the side. "Guess what I'm going to order."

Erica laughs softly to herself at Gabriel's compliments. "Oh well you are as always too kind. Though none of the young men or women seem interested in me." She says with a little chuckle before taking a long drink from her cocktail. "You are going to order the same thing you always order that soda drink you like so much."

"Yes my friend, you know me well. In polite society, I'm a creature of habit," Gabriel confirms, ordering his usual non-alcoholic beverage. Kingsdale's own 'Donovan's Fizz.' "You know, I just kind of feel like I'm attaining a new level of consciousness or something. Like I'm just... going to be better pretty soon. You ever feel like that?" As per Erica's request, he opens his bottle with a proper utility rather than smacking it on the counter. "Only because you asked," he says with a wink and a nod toward his soda.

Erica shakes her head slowly despite grinning. "You know you could try having a real drink with me. What is a girl to think?" She says with a little laugh in her voice. "I guess so. Are you sure that isn't psi-cola you are drinking?" She asks in a teasing manner before taking a sip from her own drink. "I have been getting better at a few things myself though."

With a shrug, Gabriel pulls on his bottle then smirks a little. "Oh please, you're being overly dramatic. You ever been sitting next to your wife while she engages in a vodka-based drinking contest with a KGB agent who thinks you're his friend and doesn't know that he has no chance of winning?" He sticks his tongue out and in very quickly. "What's psi-cola?"

"Well I have never been married so that sort of answers the rest of your question." Erica says with a laugh and a shake of her head. "But I have had vodka drinking contests before. I used to shame a lot of the male members of my squad, being the young little girl." She says chuckling and remembering. "Oh psi-cola is this cola that gives you psionic powers. It is mildly addictive to non-psionics. Much more so to psionics."

"Neat," Gabriel says, holding his bottle of soda out for inspection. "What does it give me? Can I walk around with a six-pack available and use it to fight crime? My cola to Popeye's spinach?" He clearly doesn't expect it by the look on his face... but it would be pretty cool if it worked that way. "So. How would you summarize your concept of what Bart's looking for and its likelihood of working, in two sentences or less?" Clearly an impossible challenge.

"Well I don't know. I never liked the taste of it myself. Tastes nasty." Erica says with a shrug of her shoulders before she takes a long sip of her drink. After that she listens to Gabriel's question and then taps her painted lips with her fingertip. "Uh he wants to organize a lot of the mercs into a company, but he doesn't know enough about the personalities of the people he is trying to organize. I don't think Celaeno would make a good leader."

Gabriel holds up finger, sits up straight, and puts on his university lecturer voice. "The principle is sound. Get a group together of a common good, survival and money. But it is fundamentally and severely flawed in such quantity and various ways to the point that its possibility of success is an impossibility." He then relaxes again and grins widely at Erica. "I've been working on that. What do you think?"

"Not bad. I don't have a problem with it in general. I just am not wanting to follow Celaeno. And I think that some of the magic users will get big in the britches like they usually get." Erica says with a laugh and a shrug of her shoulders. She picks up her mixed drink and drinks a long sip from it. She waves down a bartender to order a new drink. "I am tempted to join. I just don't know."

Gabriel shakes his head. "I'm not implying that I'm without ego, or that I don't often think that my own ideas are better than others. But I would put good money down that I'm more willing to listen to the other options than most of the people there. All Val did at the meeting was bitch that I was only broaching problems, not solutions. What the hell does she expect? Just sit around planning an operation, someone says 'Hey, I know. A bayonet charge uphill is one solution.' Then everyone agrees because it's a solution and then goes out to die?" He settles himself down, as he'd gotten a little riled up as he spoke. "Identify the problem, list what you have on the plus side, then look for every *problem* there is, then solve it by identifying what you need. How the hell do you plan if you're wearing rose colored glasses and only offering solutions." He drinks from his bottle and finishes, "I'm sick of her taking over planning through intimidation through threats of violence, then showing up and deviating from the plan so that she can do what she wants to anyway, and everyone else just has to try to keep up."

"Well the two of the people that had issues. I.e. you and me are likely not going to join. The support crew also had issues, and he'll just keep his job unless it looks like this might actually pay him." Erica says before pausing to take a sip of her drink. "But all the rest agreed right off the bat. I think it will be very problematic, because no one will discuss what happens or is happening. Yah Bart assumed everyone trusts one another. I don't trust Valeriya at all."

The older man suddenly laughs loudly before drinking quickly, then lowering his voice to speak. "Maybe I should be questioning our own sanity. I mean, I *agreed* with Johnson! Never saw that coming!" Gabriel finishes his self-amused statement by drinking his remaining soda in a long pull, then ordering another with a quick exchange of credits.

"I have never met that Johnson guy before. I don't trust him either cause I have never met him." Erica says with a chuckle before shaking her head and finishing off her drink. She reaches out to pick up her next drink. "I would rather start our company and I can be put in charge." She grins again and gives Gabriel a quick wink.

Gabriel returns the smile, but also offers, "Well, like we were talking about up at the Gardens, when you have a small group who trusts each other, you really *can* have the nearly-equal organization. One that's quite functional, too." He takes a small sip. Then does something odd. His hands and bottle drop to his lap, and he mumbles to himself, his eyes clearly indicating that he's thinking, "Johnson. Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson...." The repeated name accelerates until it becomes too fast to say individually, at which point be falls silent and turns an eye on his friend.

Erica nods her head as Gabriel talks about the equal group working together. As soon as Gabriel starts saying 'Johnson' over and over again she raises an eyebrow. "Uh are you alright?" She asks and takes a little sip from her drink.

There's a pregnant pause. Like delivering triplets. He moves closer to Erica and lowers his voice so that the overall din of the club effectively muffles it. "Johnson is... not just Johnson. He's a man in a mask. He's a man whom most people wished were dead, but in reality simply fled the city." Pause to allow Erica time to process that information, his face obviously hoping that she'll put things together herself.

"Uh how do you know all this?" Erica asks while she raises an eyebrow. "What do you know about him that makes you think he is this fugitive?" She purses her lips together in a slight frown. "What is behind the mask?"

"I've been informed by someone in a better position to find out," Gabriel says rather vaguely. "You remember me complaining about someone I had to kill who may have some kind of device that sucks in energy? That's him, and I'm not going after him alone." He shrugs, then leans closer. Not ridiculously close, but right to the edge of friendly conversation in a club without hitting on someone. "Like Whykin, this is very sensitive information. I'm told that Ahriman is the man behind the mask. The man that a lot of people wanted to see dead, for the deaths of at least two high-profile citizens, and probably more."

Erica frowns deeply as Gabriel talks. "Well I would think that is information you would want to get out. Ahriman needs to be caught and punished if not just killed where he stands." She says as she leans in close to Gabriel so as not to be overheard. "Why haven't you told Sage this? Who told you all this?"

Gabriel leans just a tad back from his closeness, his countenance remaining nonchalant. "We haven't told Sage because we don't know how she'd react. If Johnson - Ahriman - got any word that his cover was blown, we're assuming that he'd either kill that person too, or he'd just disappear and come back again wearing some other mask. That's why she can't know. Even if she stayed silent, she'd probably be too emotionally invested to work properly. Strong emotions can be blinding, as I'm sure you're well aware," he says, tipping his bottle toward her in acknowledgment. "I didn't do the recruiting on this job, it was Leonard. Vixen, probably not a surprise is included, as is Celaeno, who for once seems to be doing a magnificent job of keeping her trap shut." A glance is shot. "Like I said, I'm not in charge of recruiting. But if you'd be interested in helping out with the liquidation.. I could bat your name around, see what people think."

"What are you talking about? Sage has to know!" Erica says with a lot of feeling as she whispers to Gabriel. "Her wife was killed by him. Why the hell are you letting her associate with him? Are you mad?" She shakes her head as she picks up her drink from the bar and takes a long drink from it. "What job are you talking about is this the Whykin thing? Is Celaeno on that as well? Oh well kill him already. Jeez don't wait!"

"No, no, Celaeno has nothing to do with Whykin, and neither does he. Totally separate things. I already told you who's in on Whykin. Me, Vixen, Leo and Sage, that's it. But for the hit, Leo recruited me, Vixen and Cel. Don't look at me, I don't know why she's important. Maybe because of that magic or psi negation or whatever the hell it is that she does." Gabriel shrugs elaborately. "If it were up to me, I'd have killed him about three months ago. But I can't do it myself. If he was strong enough to kill Tirzah, I probably wouldn't stand a chance alone, and I can't rush the others any more than I already am. I think it'll happen soon, I hope it will, but Leo hasn't called us together again yet. Sage can't know, because if he gets the smallest hint that he's been blown, he'll kill or leave. Are you saying that if you lost your partner, you'd be able to be absolutely normal in *every way* around him until something could be properly and finally done about it?'

"You are talking to a woman who more then once has sniped someone in cold blood. Mind you they have been more often then not Splugorth operatives or Coalition black ops specialists. Either way though I would be cold." Erica says while she shakes her head. "Sage deserves to know. She is working with this guy. You think she'll forgive herself for not seeing?"

Gabriel shrugs again. "Who said anything about not being cold? I'm damn cold when it comes to my job. You have to be, or else you can't keep your composure, you question yourself, and you fail. I wasn't questioning your abilities. What I would question is the likelihood that after discovering the murderer, you wouldn't be so emotional that even attempting to snipe someone would fail because you hadn't thought it through and couldn't maintain your composure. God, I wouldn't be able to keep it, at least not without some time to contemplate. Hiding those emotions would be damn near impossible." He points his bottle at Erica. "So you go up on a building and snipe Johnson all by yourself. You get off one shot that ablates some of his armor. Then he turns invisible to everything including optics, and disappears at best, or chases you down and kills you at worst. I just think it's best. Still, it's not even my call. I'm taking instructions this time rather than debating them."

"No I wouldn't snipe him. I would lure him into a trap of a few fusion blocks all linked together. See how he enjoys that." Erica says with a slight chuckle in her voice. "Listen Sage has some pretty serious mental powers of her own. Why not use her. She could make him think he is a toad or something perhaps. Trust me Sage is a powerful person in her own right."

Gabriel sighs. "It's my understanding - and that's simply what I've been told - that he killed Tirzah through his own mental powers, making her believe that she was safe, that there was no reason to put up a defense. It's better to stack the odds with Cel's magic negation shit, Leo's magic throwing shit, and my military shit, than for anyone including Sage herself to confront him alone. You may or may not know this, but he was indirectly responsible for Daeni's death as well." His eyes then go large in sincerity. "Besides, telling Sage would simply prolong sorrow. Being able to return to her doorstep with his head on a platter will bring those emotions too, but they'll be accompanied by relief as well. Probably other emotions that I'll leave to the individual."

"I thought that he had only magic powers, but I don't know for sure." Erica says with another shrug of her shoulders. "Well then get on it. Get rid of him already. Bart is going to freak out that he employed such a guy." She shakes her head back and forth before taking a long drink from her cocktail. "How was he responsible for Daeni's death? You'll have to tell her the truth sooner or later."

"I think I've told you that I was there when Daeni died. So was Celaeno. It was after the rally at Laramy." Gabiel shakes his head. "Daeni went a little nuts at the Coalition's standpoint and single-handedly attacked the officer in charge and his commando unit as they were leaving, in an armored car. Cel was giving me a ride, I saw it, I jumped off to help. She was doing well, but Ahriman, he did something. Something that screwed her over. Like she was suddenly a fumbling idiot, totally plastered on alcohol or something. She might have had a chance before, with me helping as a I could. But not after that. She couldn't get out of her own way, and ended up in a pile of debris that looked pretty much like Taz." He then gives Erica a sad smile. "If you mean telling Sage the truth, I assume that she already knows. If she didn't, it wouldn't be a problem telling her that someone needed to be liquidated, a recruiting her to help." Gabriel quickly adds, "Cel didn't do one goddamn thing to help Daeni or fight the Coalition until Daeni was already dead, I was fighting for my own life and they were distracted. *Then* she swooped in and killed four commandos, an officer and an armored car - by herself. I hold her responsible for Daeni's death too."

Erica frowns slightly as she shakes her head. "Well you didn't really tell me all of what happened up at Laramy. Yah I don't imagine Celaeno did much to help anything she wasn't involved in. Why I don't think she is a good leader. I guess coming in after the fact is like her. Heck I saved fourteen people at the fire but I didn't get any acclaim for that." She chuckles to herself and take a long drink from her cocktail.

The older man chuckles grimly. "I'm happily doing this for free, but it would be nice if someone had pinned up 'Wanted: Dead or Alive' posters all over the city. Even if it was just so that someone would come up to me on the street, shake my hand and say, 'good job.'" Gabriel chuckles again, not quite so grimly.

"Well usually in my experience a bounty needs someone to put up the money for such a reward. No one put up such a bounty. I should have." Erica says as she finishes off her drink and gestures to the bartender for a refill.

"Hard to put up a bounty if you don't know who to kill," Gabriel ads with a pleasant smirk. He then changes subject. "You know, up in Minnesota, I made you proud. Actually pulled off a few tricks in my Falcon while Sebastien was busy throwing himself around the sky and ramming himself into the ground." His eyelids flutter slightly. "A good teacher can be better than years of random experience."

Erica grins happily as she nods her head slowly. "Well glad I taught you well. I have seen Sebastien do some very dangerous things with his jet pack before. I would wish you to stay alive and be careful with your jet pack. Can be very difficult to control. I am glad that teaching you taught me a few things as well."

"Oh?" Gabriel asks the monosyllable with a wide smirk. "Like how to take a blow to the head but immediately stand up again?"

Erica chuckles and shakes her head while taking a sip from her cocktail. "Sure I guess like that. I have to keep up with the head blows and what not." She grins while she sips on her drink. "Anyways now that I have taught you a good skill you can start teaching me a good skill."

Gabriel smiles at Erica and says in a clearly ironic tone, "I keep offering to teach you how to fire *my* types of handguns and rifles, but you're just never interested." He shakes his head and makes an amused 'tsk-tsk' with his tongue. "Let me see. You know how to put on stage makeup?" An odd question, perhaps. The Alibi is full of odd questions right now though, as it is definitely the hour that the club is filling up with revelers. Gabriel and Erica are seated on stools up at the counter, Gabriel with a bottle in hand, both of them dressed unusually in casual wear instead of Erica's fatigues, or his own pseudo-military gear.

"And I keep asking you what would be the point of using such weapons? I mean there are much better things to concentrate on. Perhaps you can teach me some of these sports you keep talking about." Erica says with an amused laugh in her voice. "I know how to put on basic makeup, but I don't know everything about makeup. I wish I knew how to make myself up." She mentions before sipping on her drink. She is dressed in a red club dress that shows off her powerful muscles and athletic build.

Revelin's s'posed ta be casual ain't it? Even Bella's getting into that looks like. Her coat's way smaller 'n normal. It stops at her waist. The other clothes don't go lots farther neither. Maybe that's why the guys checkin' her fer guns 'n stuff get smirked at. Then she's done with that and walkin more in.

As the club is fairly well packed, tiny people at a busy door are easy to overlook, particularly when you aren't anticipating the arrival of such a person. "Sure, I could teach you some *real* sports. These games you guys have today are just stupid. Plenty of people got hurt enough in my time, no need to do it intentionally." Gabriel states that with some finality. "One-on-one football might be a little difficult, but I can at least show you how to play each position. Honestly though, my childhood didn't exactly have a lot of opportunity for organized sports. Still, I think that 'pick-up' games were quite sufficient. Tell me, would you consider kicking a ball to another person who stands there for five minutes before kicking it to someone else who does exactly the same thing to be a sport?"

"Well did plenty of people in your time do a bunch of crazy drugs to bulk themselves up?" Erica says with a sly grin. "I am sure if they did they would do some violent sports themselves." She looks around the club in between drinks and spots Bella. She makes no move of recognition though. "I know how to use my feet pretty well, so perhaps I can do this football. I don't know what your question means though? I guess it would depend on the sport."

Bella gets ignored lots. Used to that. Most times it's even on purpose. Just not now. She hits up the bar and finds a stool to slide up on. Ain' easy in a little skirt. Maybe it's the normal people clothes but she don't see good guy Gabe and Erica the red right away neither.

"Actually, no, in my time no one used those kinds of drugs - because they weren't available. Sure, the regular infantry got amphetamines to keep them awake, but not body building drugs. Couldn't get 'em. I suppose we were far behind today's pharmaceutical technology," Gabriel says with a wink. "We did have the Olympic games, though. I don't suppose that you guys have an peaceful international system of games at some predetermined cycle to vie for national honor without killing each other?"

"There are a few different games leagues. Most of them are local though. I hear NGR has some bigger leagues but that is way out in Germany." Erica says with a shrug of her shoulders. "Well good that there are some good drugs about. Helps keep people healthy, well if they can afford it."

Gabriel nods. "Some, yes. Salk and Sabin developed a polio vaccine in '52 and then an oral delivery system in '55. Saved thousands of lives and kept thousands more from suffering from paralysis. I don't know which was more important. Their vaccine, or Fleming's discovery of penicillin that was more beneficial to mankind." He smiles at his evening's companion. "Not to say that there weren't bad drugs around. Morphine was the worst. Opiates in general, but most of the time, the poor bastards got hooked after being wounded in battle and sent back to a field hospital."

Erica chuckles and shakes her head. "Well try the synthetic endorphins and their you will see some serious addictive drugs. Plenty of nasty stuff to take if you want too." She takes a sip from her drink while smiling. "Plenty of other vaccines to take. The HIV vaccine was a life saver or so the legends say."

"Never heard of it, and no idea what the disease is that it treats," Gabriel says with obvious sincerity and innocence. "I think that there's a lot to say for just letting kids play. Sure, vaccinate them against the dangerous childhood diseases like tetanus and the mumps, but otherwise it's probably best to watch them, but otherwise let their own immune systems develop their own strength. Just like being better to do your own workouts and exercise than shooting yourself up with these Juicer drugs to develop a physique."

Erica says, "Well it is all about risk taking. If you are sure you are going to die of poverty why not take drugs to give yourself and your family a few years of the good life." Erica says with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "Well drugs are useful no matter what you do with them. Like anything they have good purposes and bad purposes.""

"Very true, very true," Gabriel nods before taking a long pull on his bottle, which is now only a quarter full. "When did they start up this robot stuff? In my time, this bionic stuff didn't even have the name bionics. It was just science fiction. Even then most people just built whole robot characters, not machine-men. You know 'Gort?' He was my personal favorite. Hey, why don't they make good movies anymore?"

"Beats me I am not a history expert. You'll have to ask some of those rogue scholars." Erica says with a little laugh in her voice. "I do know the robot stuff has been around for a while before the coming of the rifts. I heard it was right at the end of a century though. Not sure when. Timelines are kind of fuzzy."

Gabriel chuckles. "Hehe, that's an understatement. Kind of fuzzy? From my meager understanding, try 'non-existent.' No one knows when it ended, how much time passed before someone decided to keep a calendar again. If this dimensional stuff is right - not that I understand it, mind you - maybe there was *no* time in between. The Universe just hiccuped and skipped that part." He eyes his rapidly depleting bottle.

"Who knows? That might be right. Or it might have been another dark ages like happened after the the fall of the Roman empire. I have read about that." Erica says as she finishes off her drink and orders a refill. "I guess neither of us will ever know since we are both soldiers and not scholars."

"Fair enough. Curious though. It was the monks who kept civilization alive, even through the Dark Ages. If it hadn't been for their writings and passed-on knowledge... it's likely that everything would have been reset to zero. But like you said, neither of us are scholars." He drains his bottle then, and glances at his watch. "Well, thanks Erica, it's been real. Hope you're in on the Whykin thing, and I'm sure that we'll swap abilities. Just remember, football has almost nothing to do with your feet. That's soccer, which isn't real sport." Gabriel hops off his stool and offers Erica a brief bow. "Enjoy the rest of your evening, I need to go home and rest up for some more heavy lifting tomorrow."