gunsforhire | LOG: You're like an old perfume

Entry tags:

LOG: You're like an old perfume

Who: Agent Florida (native) and Agent Texas (native)
What: After breaking some of the Ai boys the day before, Tex is updating her informant on the new details learned.
Where: Tex's room in the For Hire base
When: Late 4/26
Warnings: Family drama, possible suggestive language/cursing

She's not sure yet how much of the recordings she's going to show Florida or how much to tell him, but he's her best way of finding out any other information and hell. Part of her trusts him. They have an agreement to keep anything said in their rooms and that house of his between the two of them and she knows his word is as good as a written contract.

Even with a day to process, the whole thing is a damn mess. Even more so after she got the signing translations from Maine. How could they have a namesign for someone they didn't know existed? And why were they repeating the same phrases over and over? She hates to admit it, but she could use a sounding board right now. Somehow Florida is stepping into that roll, if he's even that invested in this trail of searches.

She's sitting on the edge of her bed, tablet in hand, as she presses the button on that box he gave her. Now all there is to do is wait.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The fore warning means Florida has a tray already loaded with coffee for her, tea for him and treats (cookies for him, vegetables for her) when the alert comes in his helmet. He dismisses it and leaves the thing behind, balancing the tray on one hand as he slips from his room and moves to her door. He knocks twice then pushes the door open. He frowns when he sees where she's waiting.

Something is seriously up with this whole thing, and as he closes the door behind him with a foot he clears his throat.

"Tell me what's freaking you out, Reina."

As he speaks he moves to sit in front of her on the floor, putting the tray down with him.

Always the floor and he's already figured out how serious this is. That'll make this slightly easier. She hopes, anyway.

She stays seated where she is, the coffee and vegetables can wait and she has a feeling she'll be up and pacing before long. Moments like these always cause pent-up energy to make her anxious to move.

"A few things. I talked to a some of the older Ai siblings and they all got upset when I tried talking to them about Beta," she says and her gaze is focused on her hands as they rest on her knees. "They were repeating the same phrases over and over, one almost had a panic attack over it, another acted like I had physically hurt him when I wouldn't let up on my questions."

Florida lifts his tea, already perfectly seasoned and still steaming, and hums thoughtfully as he processes this. He can understand upset. Telling them about a sister that they don't remember whose death, along with their older brother, had been faked would be traumatizing.

But repeating the same phrases? The very thought of it makes him shudder at how close it struck to home.

"What, exactly, did they say. As near as you can remember."

With that he lifts his tea and sips at it. He knows far too much about how the human mind breaks when pressure is applied in the right ways. It's why he prefers torture. At least the physical scars affirmed what had happened. If he let people survive.

She can remember with perfect clarity. The words have been replaying in her mind the last twenty-four hours and the more she looks at all the pieces of the puzzle, the more she has a sinking feeling she knows why it hurt every time they said it.

"'No, no, no. No sister,'" she repeats then sighs. "They all said it. Over and over whenever I tried to ask them. I found out from one of them that the Counselor had tried to make them forget Alpha. That's why I asked you about his expertise."

Florida can't help but snarl when she tells him. He sets his cup down carefully, spends a moment just breathing to calm himself. Except...

How could someone do that to a child? All these years and he still can't understand the things people visit upon the innocence of children.

"Those words exactly, and from multiple of them?" Florida shakes his head very slowly. "You're dealing with conditioning, Tex. Laymen may refer to it as brainwashing, but given described responses accompanying it, what you have is just a form of psychological conditioning. You've heard of Pavlov's dog, right? Man would ring a bell and then feed his dog. So because the dog saw food it would salivate. Over time the dog associated the bell with food, and when the bell was rung, it would salivate. At your base description, that sounds like what's happening. You say a name and they give you a pre-arranged response. Perhaps even remember negative stimuli that was used to ingrain that response."

That's not quite the response she expected from him. The explanation yes, but the vitriol that went with it? Maybe he is interested beyond her requests.

The longer he speaks, the more restless she gets and by the time he's done, she's up and starting to pace around her room. It's the easiest outlet for her energy right now.

"That explains why two of them panicked and another was about to throw a table at me," she replies with a shake of her head. "The asshole did something to them. A couple kept signing, even signing her name with a namesign and everything. There's no other reason why they'd have a namesign for someone they claim has no relation to their family."

Maine mentioned Florida having a namesign for the mayor so she assumes he knows full-well the importance of that.

"Muscle memory," Florida observes, moving to take himself and his tea up onto her bed to give her more room to pace. In fact, the entire tray is fished up to join him. "Things we do without thinking. Signing could fall under that category easily."

He shakes his head, calming himself. "Name signs are, from my understanding from Maine, something an individual who signs, a member of the deaf community, gives to people who are important or relevant to them. I would expect that, unless this Alpha was deaf and I have found no indication of that, Delta would have been the one to assign a name sign for this person. So clearly she existed and was of importance. I would posit that somehow, after the disappearance or kidnapping of the elder Ai twins, or whatever happened. this Counselor used his own knowledge to try and wipe Beta from the younger siblings' minds. Why one and not the other I don't know."

Perhaps the man was just sick and twisted.

The move is appreciated and she gladly uses the extra space to walk around.

"They used 'gold' for her." For any number of reasons. She'll have to ask next chance she gets. "He tried to make them forget Alpha too, but it didn't take. Sigma mentioned the Counselor wouldn't let them talk about Alpha and would... incentivize them to follow through. If you find him, I'm going to string up the asshole and see how loudly I can make him scream."

Whatever exactly the Counselor had done, it had been extreme to cause the reactions she saw. He isn't going to get away with it, not if she has any say.

"I'll find him for you," Florida swears, with a vehemence that almost surprises him. "Hell, I think I want a crack at him. I can't condone such actions against children."

He sighs and shakes his head. "You know, if I'm being honest? Despite the cause of it, it's nice to see you so invested in other people, Tex. Not your usual style, but... connections to other people, caring about them, it's what makes someone human."

Such connections are enviable. "I just wish I could make this whole thing move along faster. If only because you're going to wear a hole through your carpet."

She rolls her eyes, though there's no real annoyance behind it. She's come to care about that family more than she should and the possible reason behind it is the source of her pacing.

"What can I say, they caught my eye," she says dryly. "You find him and you're free to have a crack at him. You can help me make him talk to find out why he did this."

She reaches for her tablet to give her hands something to do and her eyes something to focus on. "Have you had time to look into my disappearance?"

Well that's a sudden change of topic. One that has him suspicious for all of half a moment before he remembers. He's the one that has linked her disappearance with his searching into the Ais. Plus how could she not link the disappearance of this boy and his twin, her literal erasing from the minds of her brothers to Tex's own situation.

"I've got good news, and I've got bad news," he sighs. "I've started to do a bit of looking. There are a lot of missing girls that are blonde with brown eyes in the time frame we're talking about. And that's on Adaptive alone. The good news is that apparently there are some isotopes, benign ones, on Adaptive that aren't commonly found on other planets where the general populous can get near. There are test that can be done through micro-sample collection to determine the buildup of this isotope in your body. They can then do some calculations to figure out roughly how long you've been on Adaptive."

He takes a sip of his tea before continuing, because he knows this isn't actually good news. "It won't tell us who you are, but it might tell us if you were born on Adaptive, or only came here just before your memory loss. That will help me narrow it some."

Goddamn him, why did he actually have to care? This would be easier if he hadn't taken his promise to look into her family so seriously. It almost makes her feel bad that he spent time searching for girls with the wrong air color. Almost. As he speaks, she comes to a stop in front of her desk.

"You can stop looking for brown eyes." She opens the top drawer to her desk and pulls out a contact case and a small, stand-alone cosmetic mirror that she places on the desktop. "I don't need to tell you what happens if this leaves the room," she says as she leans down to begin fishing the brown-colored contacts out of her eyes.

"The woman that found me had me wear these. Said my eyes were too identifying otherwise, especially for the trade she was training me in," she explains as she turns to face him and opens her eyes wide to reveal their natural shade of dark, piercing purple. "No one else knows and for now, I'm keeping it that way. Got it?"

Florida sits there for a long time, staring at that lovely shade of purple and squirming a little at the way her eyes made him just as uncomfortable as those he'd seen of any of the...

Oh.

OH.

"Non-traditional eye color in humans can speak to genetic quirks. There are ways for people to have purple eyes in the natural genome, but it's rare. No, chances are you're a descendant of someone with early genotype modifications, back when designer babies was so fashionable."

He licks his lips as he thinks. Clearly she's come to a relatively reasonable solution. A blonde girl, memories missing around the time that the Ai twins went missing, with abnormal eye color, and who was clearly severely agitated by what had happened tonight. Who had a strange attraction to the Ais...

"If you get me a DNA sample from any one of them..."

He doesn't need to finish. Of course there is always the chance that the Ais aren't related, but a DNA match would put a lot of questions to rest VERY quickly.

Well, at least he's not pissed she kept this piece of information to herself.

"Yeah, I'm realizing that." There's a shake of her head as she runs a hand through her hair. Yeah, she's come to her own conclusions about this bullshit and none of it is good. Omega had asked what the Counselor had done to warrant her chasing him down and it looks like she has an answer to that now.

"I'll get something from Omega. I help him train, it shouldn't be hard to get some hair or something."

He just wishes he knew how to make her feel a bit better. Ultimately he puts his tea aside and holds his hand out to her.

"Come here, Reina. Sit down and have something to munch on. Let's talk about what happens if a DNA test comes back with a confirmation."

Should he still look for the Counselor? It almost seems more important then. What about her parents? Alpha? Would she tell them, reach out to them?

She stares at his hand for a long moment before accepting it as she moves to sit beside him. Dealing with emotions are not her forte and her gaze fixes on her contact case to keep it from landing on him.

"I don't fucking know what would happen. They don't remember a sister, she might as well not exist for them."

And this is why she had stopped looking. This isn't a wound she wanted reopened and what's a good a family that doesn't even know she's a part of it?

"Well, you're wrong," Florida smiles. "This programmed reaction? It makes a sister very real in a tangible way. It's a literal mental block. There are ways to deal with that. Ways to break what is going on. They will less than happy with themselves for 'allowing' it to happen, but it could work."

He squeezes her hand in a manner he hopes is comforting. "Free that block, work past that grief, and you have a family happy to have something stolen from them returned. Tex, you don't force children to try and forget people they don't love."

She snorts. "Yeah, love her enough to forget her and remember Alpha. The Counselor tried to make them forget him, too." And for some reason that didn't take.

She's not sure how she feels about the hand squeezing and opts to distract herself by finally reaching for that cup of coffee he brought. It's one way to keep herself busy as her mind wanders to the other conclusion she's been avoiding.

"If I am this long lost sister or whatever of theirs, what the fuck did he do to me?" The question is said more quietly and she quickly sips at her coffee to hide the frown that's growing on her face.

Florida pulls his hand away from hers and picks back up his tea. "Perhaps he tried different techniques, or there are other reasons why it was easier to remove you than him. Of course, they also took memory of him from you. Memory of you entirely. It's possible this man is very talented at what he does."

He sighs and shakes his head. "I'll find him for you, Reina. And you'll get to make him talk yourself."

"He's going to sing while he's at it." That's a promise, one she looks very much towards fulfilling regardless of what DNA results turn up. He's done enough damage without adding her to the list.

She takes her first real look at the tray, only just now realizing he brought snacks along with drinks, and begins to pick at the vegetables. "Thanks."

"Think nothing of it," Florida smiles, taking one of his cookies and munching on it. "Should I still look into you? In case this doesn't pan out?"

He wants to keep looking, try and figure out all of this for her. "And... do I keep looking for this Alpha?"

"Yeah, don't drop any of the searches that you have going on right now in case something comes up." She's not putting all her hopes on one thing panning out. Hopes she shouldn't even have right now if she hadn't started poking around and asking questions.

"I'm going to have one helluva a bill from you for this after."

"I suppose you will," he laughs, finishing his cookie. "Shall I go now, Reina? Do you have any more need of me?"

He doesn't know. She seems so... fragile, and that isn't what he's used to dealing with.

That question gives her pause and eventually she shrugs. She doesn't want to be alone, but being this kind of vulnerable in front of another person isn't exactly her favorite feeling either. This isn't baggage Florida signed on for and she's not going to make him deal with it if he doesn't want to.

"Stay or go, your choice."

He hesitates, thinks back to his conversations with Lou. Then he reaches out, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "Do you need to destress?"

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