albinomilksnake | OPEN RP PART II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

[ U g h.

Her lips purse, features flattening out in irritation at being read so easily, but there's no further argument when she brushes her fingers across the paneling to shut it down entirely.]

Ahorita, mijo.

[Said as the door snaps shut behind him, dulling the noise of Dorado proper. Soft whirring of spent fans, desk lowering in to compress over itself. By the time he comes back, he'll be happy to know her console's stayed off: far corner still wholly dim.

Less happy to find her sorting through the hard drives he'd retrieved, but a compromise is a compromise all the same. She lifts one to the light, squinting at a few rows of barely legible lettering near the edge.]

[Its not necessarily the break he wanted for her, but at least the work is more productive for all of them. Reyes comes back, rhythmically tearing the paper that had held his meal, and then balling up the pieces into a larger conglomerate -- something to keep his hands busy.

He stops a few feet from her.]

There were a lot more people there than you'd said there would be.

[Not that he wouldn't have agreed to do it -- its a reminder that he doesn't necessarily appreciate the games she likes to play.]

You're gonna need more than a burrito if you want me to pull another stunt like that.

I'll take care of it. [There's so little to the lie it hardly seems like her: paper-thin and hardly there, she could do him more courtesy if she wanted to. And to be honest, she usually does.

For a moment Sombra stoops over, mechanical spine arching long when she drops the drive down onto the floor and brackets it with her hands— devoid of ceremony or reverence.] None of this hardware was built here. Did you know that?

[Of course he doesn't. She didn't until at least half a minute ago.]

For a company that promises security de México, they sure are getting their resources from somewhere else.

[Now that is interesting -- interesting enough that he doesn't bother to chastise her for her thoughtless remark. Instead, Reyes moves closer, towering over her to observe what she's looking at. He can't make heads or tails of any of it without her, but he understands what she's getting at.]

Not all that surprising. Not like anyone else cares to check on them.

[Its a backhanded compliment of sorts. Not many others would have figured that out so quickly, after all, without even plugging in.]

Can't be that much money left to drain out of this country. Not after the Crisis.

I don't see any industrial markers. [Borrowed favors she'd expect; everyone likes to think bartering is a dead system outside the impoverished and unsettled, but the truth of the matter is it thrives in politics — entire nations bought and sold over nothing more than promises.

For a moment her brow creases, lips thinned out as her stare seems to want to burn through that little piece of constructed technology laid out on the floor in front of her— and then she turns her attention to him, expression wholly painted with sincerity:]

Gabe, I don't recognize any of it.

[There are less than fifty manufacturers in the world capable of mass-producing similar hardware to a country like hers. All of them familiar, all of them easily identified. Something like this? It shouldn't be possible, let alone happening right on their doorstep.]

Edited (words are too hard) 2016-12-18 09:09 (UTC)

None of it.

[Reyes sounds skeptical, perhaps unsurprisingly. His arms fold across his chest, eyelids drawing as he waits for her to change her tune.]

So, all of this work I did-- [He spreads his arm over the pile and slowly closes his fist at the end of it.] --you can't use any of it.

Please.

[It's scoffed out, tip of her tongue hitting the back of her teeth as she scoots back on her heels, away from his outstretched hand to reach for a cable hook up housed at the side port of her desk.] Of course I can use it.

I can use everything, mijo.

[Still, while her back is turned— bony veridian patterning most visible in the shadows that hit between her shoulderblades— while his isn't, there's something to be recognized there, if he's paid attention to the wreckage left behind in the war's wake: most of the arrangement distinctly mimics omnic patterning. Not as outdated, but undeniably present all the same. For all the hardware she's picked apart, screwing around inside the heads of any wayward omnics isn't exactly her MO.

After all, she's a hacker, not an engineer.

When Sombra comes around again, plug in hand, there's a helpful little flick of clawed fingers to shoo him away from her workspace.]

[Mijo, every time she says it, he wants to roll his eyes. Somehow, he manages to avoid it this time.]

Be quick about it. They're ready to eat each other down there.

[Better he thinks, taking just a half a step back when he's waved away, and purposefully swatting back at her hand to remind her not to ever think about doing that again. He'll stand where he wants to stand, thank you very much.

He moves only enough to allow her to get started, and then sets to pacing impatiently, casting his eyes around her flat for something else to do. Almost instantly, he wishes he hadn't finished that burrito so fast.]

And you can't handle it?

[Los Muertos is the closest thing to family she's ever known— ever cared for; someone else might take that significance to heart, recognize it for the value it holds. Sombra, on the other hand, deals in more tangible terms, measuring their strides in comparison with her own and never coming so close to bleeding affection as to be compromised by their fluctuating turmoil.

Her criticism is palpable, timed to his pacing and punctuated by the jack as she shoves it into place, terminal flickering to life and casting the room a brilliant blue. She rushes to her desk like a parent to their child's side, tapping at keys without waiting for a cue, lines of code scrolling eagerly across the screens.

For all the favors she's done him, in this moment— breath twisted, held high in her throat— Gabriel might as well not exist.]

Yeah. I could.

[There's a distinct threat in how he replies. Los Muertos isn't the family to him that it was to Sombra -- it was an alliance of convenience, a force that he could bend and flex to his will as he pleased, with hardly enough manpower to fight back if they ever really got tired of his rule. One didn't simple cross el jefe and come back without something to show for it.

And it certainly wasn't a badge of honor. Sometimes, they didn't come back at all.

He watches the terminals with an obviously bored expression -- the code means nothing to him, after all. But when it turns to images, he pays more attention. The security feed he didn't erase, delivery manifests, among other things.]

Some operation they're trying to hide.

[ More than that. So much more than that.

No mames...

It's thought instead of spoken, fingertips gone still against her holographic keyboard in absolute awe of her own findings. She'd suspected corruption, enough to climb beyond highrises and paychecks in the millions, an ace up her sleeve that couldn't be flipped by any other hacker out there. What she got instead? Vishkar— Volskaya— she recognizes the names instantly, alongside blueprints that point toward omnic coding, composition. It's like asking for a bullet and being handed napalm.

It's like trouble. And power.

Maybe too much. She can't be sure.

The silence between his estimation and her lack of response is broken belatedly by a low, low exhale as she leans back in her seat, stare unfixed, shoulders sagging in a way that masks the calculations running in her head. She'd told him to erase the files.] These are the only copies - estás seguro?

No.

[Rather than reply to her, he unfolds his arms and moves to the pile, sifting through the various SSDs and HDs until he finds one in particular, shaped differently than the others. It was the only way he'd known what it was for, and he offers it to her when he manages to find it.

The security tape would show exactly what he did: rip everything out, and dispatch the virus she had given him.]

Not my job to figure out.

[She takes it without commentary, scrolling back through the feed and feeling out what security it seems to provide, however thin. The virus would at least stall for time, that much she's sure of.

Still, even without visual confirmation, there's certainty in the idea that someone— somewhere in that tightly knit circle of names that's invested both time and money into Guillermo's greedy hands— is going to want to push back.

And there aren't that many rocks to overturn in Dorado.

What if they buy out Los Muertos? What if they secure an association with some of her people? Revolution and a steady flow of excitement are all most of them need to get by, but there's no denying how easy it would be to make an argument that sticks with one or two of them at least.

Gabe, too, maybe.

He needed security. Something to stand between himself and whatever it was he'd been running from. For the moment, they're enough— in a month? Ten? LumériCo's friends could do better.

She doubts he realizes it yet. He always was slower on the uptake.]

Traigame una chela, La Muerte. If you're not drinking it, I will. [Whether he agrees to or not, the moment she's finished pulling data from the card is when she snaps it in half without reverence or concern, spattering the edge of her desk in bits of broken plastic. It's a process repeated a second later with the first drive itself: secure, save, destroy.]

[Reyes makes a noncommittal noise and retreats to the kitchen as asked -- not because she'd asked him to, but because it was easier than standing around watching her work on something he had mostly no concept of. The cap is popped off using her counter and his superior strength with a well placed strike.

He returns to the other room and offers it back to her.]

The back up is probably in here somewhere. They'd have to start over.

[So what's got her so uptight?]

Mmhm. [The beer's lifted from his fingertips gently enough, eyes still trained on the monitors for a moment longer. It's only then that she can feel her own transparency— the focus of his stare and what he might be thinking— like some soft warning against forgetting that he isn't so dense as the average vato.

The files keep downloading; she turns her chair to swing around and face him. Finally.]

You said they're unhappy. [Los Muertos, she means - expecting him to catch the segue.]

I did.

[Ah--that's worth being concerned over. He shifts again to fold his arms, leaning against the wall near her desk. She'd know more about them, if she took her eyes off the computer for ten seconds -- but that was why he was around, wasn't he? To be the messenger, to keep them in line, to give them someone to look to for guidance.

It'd been what he wanted from the start, but--well, Los Muertos needed him a lot more than he needed them.]

The raids aren't going well. And there's not enough of them to keep everyone busy.

[Some of them are going rogue to get their fill; means they get caught. Getting caught leaves a trail back to them.

They needed to do some pruning before it got worse.]

Maybe I should have sent some of them with you.

[She isn't serious: sure, some of them have skill, but they all live for the fight - for being seen and heard and noticed in ways neither Sombra nor Gabriel would have wanted.

There's only a slight pause as she stops to pull from her drink.]

Any of them giving you trouble directly?

[Better to know now if anyone is working up the cojones to challenge him directly— or indirectly for that matter. The kind of things she can kill at the root before they start.]

They wouldn't dare. Not after what happened to Lopez.

[His gun was still hung in the cantina he'd killed him in, snapped in half and displayed like a trophy as a reminder to everyone who thought they owned the streets. They were La Muerte's streets, and anyone who challenged it would meet death itself.]

They're not living through it. But that's not the problem.

You'd be surprised, Los Angeles. [She's known them a lot longer than he has; sometimes all the rationality in the world won't undo a bout of stupidity and a need to flex it. Doubly so if they're restless— and he's still, for all her work to keep him firmly established, not born here, not raised here— no matter who he breaks or how he breaks them, there will always be a divide.

But that's the thing about cheating: you get to break the rules. ]

I'll set up a couple more raids. LumériCo needs the distraction anyway. It'll keep them from focusing on this. [She taps a nail against one of the broken drives.]

And if I can sell some of this information for a good price, take a cut of the funds and buy them a few rounds at Carlita's— on you.

[In short: be a leader, Gabe, not a leashed hound.]

[Gabriel grunts, obviously an acknowledgement of the point that she's trying to get at. It'd been ages since he had to work for someone's loyalty. He'd always been the veteran, the elephant in the room that nobody dared challenge.

Besides, Los Muertos was a bunch of leashed dogs anyway. La Muerte was just the rabid one of the bunch. He turns to leave the room with a somewhat disgruntled noise.]

Fine.

[Too rabid for his own good at times.

It takes the better part of a week for her to organize her collected data, to take time out for thoroughly disposing of the broken remains of what he'd brought her. True to her word, she scheduled in a few aggressive attacks on LumériCo's incoming shipments and divided a cut of the collected haul out to Los Muertos themselves. A band-aid that should have stoppered the bleeding.

But manita doesn't bother to join in, fingers buried too deeply in the nest of information she'd uncovered. Precautions, safeguards. With Gabriel directly responsible for tearing out data, here's no distinct trail leading back to her— but there is one to him. With Los Muertos on their doorstep and one man to blame for it, it hardly takes much of a logical leap (no matter how thorough she is) for the assumption to be made.

He doesn't check in for a while, and in trying to keep their activities concealed, neither does she. It's a mistake.

Maybe her solution didn't do enough to nullify the tension, maybe Guillermo and his supporters were too quick on the draw— maybe both— but when her only constant contact goes so silent that he doesn't so much as respond to a cursory message, Sombra realizes something is wrong. Her footsteps are quick as she slips along sloping streets, emerald markings peeking out from beneath the edges of her coat where the street lights don't catch, falling away into shadow.

His apartment isn't far. She raps her knuckles against the door, impatient.] ¿Oye, estás en casa, mijo? Abre la puerta - hace frío afuera.

Edited 2016-12-19 13:15 (UTC)

[There's no answer at the door. When she tries the door handle, it opens without preamble, unlocked. The air inside is humid, and smells of iron and stale smoke, and his flat is largely empty aside from stockpiles of rations, cases upon cases of both shotgun ammo and smoke bombs, all closed to hide their contents. His shotguns are nowhere in sight, and neither is Reyes.

The apartment is in a bit of disarray, aside from the boxes still so neatly stacked around the perimeter. His trenchcoat still on the ground from when he had come in the night before, a bag of take away from aforementioned Carlita's still present on the coffee table. The sound of water running vibrates through the pipes of the apartment.]

Shit...

[It's the sound of running water that concerns her, that distinct scent in the air and how his door had been left unlocked all coming together to knit into a sickening tangle in the low pit of her stomach. Someone else might think of it as normal: he came home from a night out with his crew, kicked off his gear and went to take a bath.

But Gabriel isn't hard of hearing, or so careless that he'd abandon his own basic security with crates of ammunition stacked high to the ceiling. They were alike in that at least.

Sombra slips past them, edging silently around the hem of his coat, the table, the light that seeps in from outside, following the sound of those steadily snarling pipes. As far as she can tell, she's alone— they're alone— but it takes a few beats longer before she presses a hand to the wall at her side in passing, calling out:] —Gabe?

[Nearer to the bathroom, there's a better chance of him actually hearing her over the noise, she imagines.]

[The bathtub has begun to overflow recently, judging by the damp spot near the door. The iron smell gets worse the closer she gets to the room, and its clear that there had been some sort of scuffle, however clean the area appears to be. The window to the bedroom has been broken, glass scattered inside -- a break-in, rather than an exit.

The dresser has been cleared of its contents, empty casings and trinkets scattering the floor alongside a few boxes of take out and glass bottles of assorted drinks. Blood decorates the walls in some areas, even soaks down into the ground, and smears across the bathroom door. The mirror in the bathroom is broken, but reflects a body of some sort in the tub, motionless and floating under a still-running stream of water.

In the mirror, she might catch a flash of fuchsia in the dark over her shoulder before the cold metal of a shotgun finds the back of her head.]

Are you alone?

Edited 2016-12-20 10:43 (UTC)

[For a second, she thinks it's Gabe— that body in the tub. The water's thick with muddied pink, slackened muscle, lifeless fingers gone wholly still. It strikes a nerve somewhere in her chest, sharp and pinching, breath held until cold metal bites into her skin and she registers the low, all too familiar snarl of his voice.]

Shit, vato. [Sombra echoes again, exhaling harder this time, head rolling away from the muzzle of his gun and stepping forward— turning on her heel to face him— as always, without fear. If he wants to point a gun at her, he can point it at her face.] You think I'm stupid? Of course I came alone.

[From there, her attention flicks away: back towards the tub over her shoulder, shattered glass and bloodied streaks, overturned furniture. It's easy to picture what might have happened - whether or not there's another body laid out nearby, or maybe that she'd already passed one. Robberies were common, but as for him? He wouldn't be so shaken if that's all this was.

Wouldn't smell half as much smoke in the air, either.

She lifts a hand to her jawline, scrubbing it in deep, obvious thought, painted knuckles illuminating the markings streaked across her face.] What the fuck happened?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject