An Unlikely Assignment

[Phoebe Webster]

Phoebe padded through her small apartment, bare feet almost inaudible as a feline tread on the floor. The wood was cold underfoot; January brought some chill winds that crept under the doors and through the poorly insulated windows of the old building. Despite the advertised ‘upgrades’ that had been done to the place, it apparently didn’t mitigate the frigid truth that structure hadn’t received the same attention. The travertine tiles in the kitchen were all well and good until winter turned them into a skating rink. Still, even the freezing stone wasn’t enough to shake her dislike for socks and shoes. If frostbite wasn’t a real possibility she might have gone barefoot in the snow.

 

Heavy sweatpants bundled around her legs and an oversized hoodie kept her upper body warm as she paced through the Spartan landscape of minimal decorating, gathering up odds and ends from various drawers to dump into the duffle bag gracing the middle of her bed. She’d received a short phone call ten minutes prior from Alistair, not very informative, but the gist had been that she was to be meeting with him shortly. It seemed he had an assignment for her, and it would involve leaving the country. She hadn’t bothered him asking for more details than that, he would likely relay what she needed to know in person. A methodical woman, she had taken no time to pull a worn bag from the closet and begin assembling the minimal needs.

 

It helped that she didn’t have much in the way of requirements. A childhood in LA’s tougher neighborhoods and then five years in lock up knocked any penchant for life’s finer things right out. Even among those who populated ARMA she was withdrawn, kept to herself, and never quite fit in with the other women. That was saying something too, because there were some tough-as-nails female mages. Phoebe just mostly kept herself to herself. Her entrance into the group was still fairly fresh, and as a new and untried member she hadn’t wanted to force the friendships. At least, she told herself that. Truth was, she had always been a bit of a loner, though fiercely protective of those she did form bonds with.

 

Heavy woolen socks folded up to cushion the bottom of the bag. The ARMA leader had told her to pack warm, so over those she layered heavier jeans, a few thermal shirts, and then tucked the custom-packed medical kit she never traveled without. Getting banged up was inevitable in their line of work, and you never knew when it might be dangerous to find yourself leaving a trail of blood somewhere. She stuffed the crevices with protein bars, chocolate peanut-butter flavor…because, why not? The zip slid up easily over the sparse packing.

 

Sweats hit the floor as she shivered out of the warm cotton and slid into another pair of jeans, these worn and soft with age. Into the back of the waist she shoved the cold metal barrel of her only weapon, the scuffed steel a parting gift from her old life. Long-sleeved shirt hugged the bulge at her back, but the omni-heat vest and then heavy leather jacket she tossed on made that disappear.

 

Outside the window a dusting of snow began to fall, sprinkling over the New York scenery like a dampening mist. It made the disgruntled woman rethink her decision and swap out sneakers for a pair of solid boots. 

 

She really hated boots.There was no quick way to remove them.

 

With a grimace she yanked the laces tighter before standing up to snatch the duffel and swing it over her shoulder. Keys, phone, she stepped out the door and locked up. Ready in ten minutes flat.

 

No family to call, no cat to have someone watch or plants to water, her life was streamlined for the rapid departure. Which was a nice way of saying it was one big, empty crater. She shunned social gatherings, and even after joining ARMA had made no personal connections with anyone. In fact she had only met Alistair once, on the day she joined. He’d made sure that things went smoothly, but all of it had happened from a distance as she set them up with ways to contact her that didn’t necessitate a sit down face-to-face. It made this summons all the stranger, though she was willing enough to come when called. They must be low on available manpower to pull her into this, an untried newbie.

 

She eschewed the use of a taxi, and made the slow trek on foot. It was on days like this she missed her old car, but New York City just wasn’t a practical place to own a vehicle. Walking was also a better way to learn the lay of the land. Since her first day joining the faction she had spent a great deal of time walking the streets, alleys, and thoroughfares that made up the landscape. There would be nothing left to chance if she had her way. Knowing the city was essential, and though it was an enormous task, she’d taken to exploring a new route every day.

 

The Federal Reserve building rose in sight ahead of her, and she stalked briskly up the steps, checking her watch as she stepped through the main entrance. Quarter to eight. She was easily an hour ahead of when Alistair had asked her to meet him. Fingers rubbed the bridge of her nose as she ghosted a sigh. Her need to be on time often swung to extremes, leading her to be far ahead of schedule. Oh well, at least that left her time for coffee.

 

She turned at the desk and headed towards the cafeteria. They didn’t have the greatest coffee, but it beat anything she might scrounge up in the offices. Cubicle coffee was notoriously bad. She realized as she stepped into the warm, bustling atmosphere that she hadn’t eaten anything yet either. Probably a bad start to a mission if she made it on an empty stomach. Meals were difficult to pin down when one lived alone; it was too easy to forget when you ate last.

 

A few bills unfolded from her pocket. Cash, she hated plastic. Paid for she took her banana and paper cup of java to a table at the far end of the room. The steaming brew helped thaw out her nose as she sipped and watched employees and visitors come and go.

 

Half an hour later and she had stretched the occupation as long as possible. She was still early, but made her way through security and up the elevator to one of the top floors. It was quiet up this high. Alistair’s office door was closed. Her knock was a firm wrap of the knuckles on wood.

 

Here went nothing…

[Alistair Greene]

Alistair's apartment had... Well it had been through a few changes. It had been more or less entirely destroyed twice now, and that wasn't counting the time that crazy OFL bitch had warped the whole thing into something he didn't even want to think about anymore. That whole thing had been... Well something of an ordeal. At least he'd managed to break the damn curse on himself, but he'd had to completely refurnish his aparmtent when it turned out his disruption spell had set roughly half the place on fire.

Suffice that he had some issues with the domicile thing. It was a problem in his life. The place was big enough - actually in terms of New York square footage it was downright huge, since he'd saved the building from demonic invasion back around the time of Resonance and the owner had given him the ravaged upper level more or less to himself. Back when he'd just been a footsoldier with the OFL, he'd had a lot more time for working on the renovations personally. Now though... well he wasn't running all of ARMA on his own anymore, but he still hadn't had time to put together more than his bedroom, the TV room, and a pretty damn well stocked kitchen, assembled largely from salvaged restaurant equipment.

He was thinking about that a bit on the way back into the office, sipping coffee from a battered steel mug and trying to figure out where he was going to get the parts to rebuild some of his fabricating gear. Most of it he could get from the office, sure, but it had always been a point of pride for him that he'd put it all together himself, and if he started getting other people to do things like that for him, where would he be?

By the time he made it to the office, he'd finished his first cup of coffee, which meant a stop in the break room to replenish (and make his correct sugar-cream-coffee ratio work) before he went up to the office. Thank god there was less on his desk these days than there had been - with Aura adding her people to the group's strength, she brought some organizational experience from her ex-military types that he just hadn't had. Which left other people to do the sort of paperwork bullshit that he was sure was going to kill him before any of the monsters or mages from the OFL.

There were still field reports, though. Intel to review, upcoming missions to go over and or approve, and that was all after - knock on the door. Man, some people had the kind of timing that was usually reserved for sitcoms. [alistair]Yeah? Come in.[/alistair]

[Phoebe Webster]

Her knees were beginning to cramp. Phoebe tucked one foot beneath the opposite thigh as she shifted her weight, free hand sliding under the table to massage the offending joint. The seatbelt sign dinged off and with a sigh she unclipped the buckle. Air turbulence over the Atlantic had ensured that the last five hours were ones spent locked into the tiny window seat she occupied as they flew over seeming limitless miles of open water. Another bead of sweat dripped down the back of her neck, and her stomach fluttered nauseatingly.

 

She’d never been a particularly comfortable flier, her earth-attuned alterations only made a bad thing worse. She felt upside down and inside out, floating along without any kind of grounding…no earth, only a metal coffin.

 

Knuckles blanched as her hand ached in its perpetual clutch of the armrest separating her from one very relaxed looking mage. Phoebe ground her teeth, resenting Alistair’s nonchalance. Her eyes turned back down to the packet of papers scattered across the lowered tray table in front of her.

 

“Let me see if I’m following this report correctly. Bodies are turning up in hospitals all over Moscow, vitals all normal, no injuries, no metabolic imbalances, and no brain activity. The local physicians are coming up empty-handed with reasons for this seeming illness or injury, and it’s rapidly spreading. There are now twelve different cases with the same symptoms. Not of interest to ARMA, except that now we have rumors that this could be the work of an individual with an artifact that allows him to…what? Eat their souls? Suck the life out of them?”

 

Her forehead wrinkled as she mentally went back through the sparse information from the report.

 

“Why are we even sure this is an artifact? Couldn’t it just be an empowered human? Or even a mutation of one of the viral infections? Russia has been a literal nuclear meltdown of that shit.”

 

She fingered the second, stapled pamphlet that had accompanied the intel report. “This is all just legend and mysticism.” It hadn’t escaped her that the irony was their world was now one steeped in both.

 

The seatbelt sign chimed as another burst of turbulence rocked the plane. Anxiety wiped skepticism from her mind as she fumbled for her belt again, trying to make stiff fingers refasten the safety restraint. How could people fly on a regular basis? This was worse than rollercoasters.

 

Her stomach heaved threateningly, and Phoebe dug the airsickness bag from the seat pocket. Radiation, zombies, werewolves, soul-sucking artifacts…those she could handle, this was the real nightmare.

 

[npc] “Can I get you a drink, ma’am?” [/npc]

 

“Two vodka-tonics, heavy on the vodka.”

 

She received a disapproving look from the flight attendant, which was staunchly ignored.

 

“Here we go back a hundred years,” she tapped a finger on the papers in front of her, turning back to Alistair once the drinks were poured, “with a legend about the Romanovs. That Alexandra and Grigori Rasputin were having an affair—the source of his royal patronage—and birthed a widespread fear that he was the true power behind an inept Tsar. She gives him a gift for his role in supposedly curing her son who had a bleeding disorder. The Romanov dynasty being rumored to have possession of many relics, the gift is a gold cross and chain, and it becomes believed that this cross was the origin for many of his later ‘powers’. Only there was never any evidence that he had any powers, and you can’t cure bleeding disorders, modern medicine can only treat them.”

 

Phoebe frowned again. Of course modern medicine also couldn’t shed light on many of the Nevus events. The Resonance had turned the world on its head. Who knew what was possible. Maybe it was just enough that people believed it could have happened…

 

She held up the two enclosed photographs side by side. The left was a black and white photograph of a dark-haired and heavily bearded man with unsettling eyes. Around his neck hung a chain with a heavy Faberge cross. The right appeared to be a crime scene photo, but it was off center and slightly blurry as if the photographer had been rushed. The corner of the image captured an onlooker from the crowd—young and blond—who wore a chain and cross about his neck.

 

“I have to admit, that is kind of eerie.”

[Alistair Greene]

Though he was more than a little loathe to bring it up, while he'd loved flying before the Event, Alistair was no longer the most comfortable flier himself. Of course, his issue came not from any physical discomfort or conflict with the nature of his attunement - he was a particular sort of sky mage, and the charge up this high was actually fairly comforting. But his particular brand of magic meant that he was a walking cloud of electrical malfunctions, so he had to spend the majority of the flight keeping his powers in extremely careful check, so as not to completely torpedo the journey. Not to mention, he'd been in one plane crash already in his life, and he had no desire to repeat the experience.

That crash had NOT, as it turned out, been his fault.

Still, he projected an air of disaffection about the whole thing, partly because he refused to give any credence to the usual human fear that the plane would drop out of the sky. The engineering behind the whole enterprise was highly sound, he could do the math at request. So he wasn't about to go encouraging anyone who did have a problem with it on a more mundane basis. Besides which, the more relaxed he was, the less active his powers got, and that was part of the goal. Act on the outside how you actually want to feel, was the idea. He wasn't sure where he'd gotten that one, but it was probably horseshit. It was his only play at the moment, though.

[alistair]No idea. I mean, yeah it would have sounded crazy before, but the soul is a real thing, at least in some sense. It's not like I'm going around saying that any particular religion is right, but there's definitely an energy to a human being that can be stolen away, and they don't live long in its absence. So it's not outside the realm of possibility. And when something like this is killing people, you're damn right I'm interested.[/alistair] He'd read the paperwork earlier before passing it off to her, and he leaned against the wall, propping his elbow up against the window and leaning his chin against his hand.

[alistair]Normally I wouldn't have any interest in operating in Russia, considering it's mostly OFL territory, but bless their Russian hearts, the people here aren't much interested in letting them take over. So it's... A little bit of a DMZ, you might say. At least, where we're headed. Besides, the guy who sent us this is an acquaintence of mine... he was stuck in NYC for a while after the first Event. So he likes me better than he likes the silver spoon crowd in the Vatican. Doesn't hurt us to have allies outside North America.[/alistair] Not that they had many... ARMA was, at this point, a decidedly American phenomenon. OFL had too much of a hold on things in many other places.

[alistair]Quake, nine tenths of what makes an artifact is legend and mysticism. The collective superstitions of humanity, as it were. It takes a little more than that to act as the catalyst for one, but... shit, the first print of Action Comics Issue #1 was a freaking artifact, did you know that? It doesn't even have to be superstition, just the energy of so much focus and importance. So I don't doubt anyone when they say something might be an artifact anymore. Besides, you said it yourself, there's nothing on any of the victims' medical charts. All the other viruses that have popped up have distinct physical symptoms, if you can get a subject into a lab. Sure though, it could be some asshole with powers. But that falls within our specialties, too.[/alistair]

He shrugged. [alistair]Collect and seal someTHING dangerous or someONE dangerous, it doesn't make that much a difference. Just that people, we can punch. I'd really rather it NOT be an artifact, those are tricky.[/alistair] he lifted a brow then when she ordered the drinks. [alistair]Why do I think both of those are for you?[/alistair] he deadpanned, closing his eyes for a few moments.

[alistair]Yep. Rasputin was a shitbag, but a popular one in stories. Anything that belonged to him is plenty likely to have ended up an artifact in my book. Personally I doubt he had shit for powers and the people killing him just exaggerated, he'd have had to be a vampire or something for all that to have been true, and they were pretty much all dead well before 1910. But, like I said... poor form to rule anything out. We'll meet up with Ivan once we land, hopefully he's picked up something new. Mail not being what it used to be and all that... most of the info we've got there is a week or so old.[/alistair]