VINCIT OMNIA VERITAS

gabriel deacon / spectrum / xxxi / augmented / investigative journalist at the daily cypher

[gabrieldeacon-blog]

elliotcnderson‌:

It never got old. Tonight Elliot was being unusually antisocial he’d ditched the entourage to plug in and listen to an audio copy of the script for next week. They were going to start filming at a lot across town and Elliot needed to actually prepare for it. He was walking the thin line between exuberance and getting fired for gluttony. The script was on loop, his food had gone cold and Elliot leant with his head in his hands. In the bag he’d brought with him was a handy little zip-bloc of tasty treats. He was supposed to be detoxing. Elliot had rebuked the juice cleanse and opted for a low-carb diet but the bowl of garlic spinach and poached chicken was just, unappetising. Elliot stirred the spinach around for a third time but let go of the spoon in favour of his little pocket mirror. He pushed it open and removed his earpieces. Tonight wasn’t the night for learning.

He could still feel the creep of his thick and heady headache even after a day of doing nothing, and a heavy dose of painkillers. Elliot flicked through the channels on his vintage mirror. New technology coerced into old pieces. Ridiculously expensive. For most it was an expense that was ludicrous but Elliot loved it. He loathed the idea of having implants beyond what was necessary to maintain good health. Besides it was a cute accessory. Elliot sat up to flag down a synth to order a freshly pressed juice, his stomach lurched up into his throat and stole his appetite away from him. Sat at the bar with his back to him, just, was an old familiar face. Another ghost.

What the hell was Gabriel doing here. He wasn’t an upper city dweller. That was one of the great benefits of having an ex from down below, you never saw them. Elliot pressed his back tight into the booth and hoped it would swallow him up whole, that Gabriel was just here to get a drink and would leave soon. Didn’t want to deal with the awkwardness of running into each other after he’d cussed him out. Just his luck. If he hoped that Gabriel was going to just disappear and leave him in peace then his old friend had other ideas. Elliot pretended to be occupied with his mirror as Gabriel approached. Did a soft oh as he introduced himself. “Hello…”

A while seemed liked an understatement. He smiled all the same. “Yeah it’s been a hot minute.” He couldn’t help but feel like Gabriel just lingering there with his drink in hand meant he wanted to sit. “Good, good, just going over scripts. You know what it’s like.” He flicked one of the little earpieces so it spun on the spot. “How about you? Still digging up the dirt on everyone?” Elliot quirked a brow but against his better nature scooted over all the same to make room. “You eaten? Got an untouched chicken here if you fancy it.” Or they could just order a greasy bowl of onion rings, but that was too familiar. It was easier to deflect than it was to confront this head on. Earnestly, Elliot asked. “Better question, how come you’re up here?”

‘Still digging up dirt on everyone.’ Well that was one way to describe what Gabriel did. Some similarly biting remark about pretending to be other people for a living briefly flashed through Gabe’s thoughts, but went quickly dismissed. He didn’t come over here to fight. He wasn’t exactly sure what he had come over here to do, but it wasn’t to get into some kind of public spat. Besides, Elliot looked... Elliot looked more or less how the rumors had suggested he would. Like he didn’t need any extra stress. “Yeah, more or less,” he answered, after what was probably too long a pause.

Sitting down seemed like a bad idea. But so did continuing to just hover over him. Somewhat hesitantly, he sat down. He was suddenly entirely too aware of how close they were. Physically, anyway. “I’m good, thanks,” he answered. The chicken looked good, but sharing a dinner - taking Elliot’s food - didn’t seem like the thing to do. It implied too much familiarity. Sitting side by side was already enough of a boundary pushed. Elliot didn’t need to know that he hadn’t eaten.

“I had an interview with someone at Cardinal,” he explained, frowning slightly at the memory. “It was a bit of a slog. Typical corporate stuff. No real interesting... dirt, so to say.” Okay, maybe the comment about his job had stung a bit. He took a swig of his drink.

“How’s the script?” Gabe asked, quickly changing the subject. He didn’t watch a lot of movies (especially not Elliot’s, that would be... too much) but he’d rather talk about Elliot’s life than his own. “Is it an interesting part?”

[gabrieldeacon-blog]

drnorthrop‌:

As Aden watched the guy he could tell there was something familiar to him. He just couldn’t say why. Until he turned around. A small grin came on his lips although the spot where he was standing at wasn’t exactly the spot with most light so it could be Gabriel didn’t even see that grin. “Yeah, it’s me”, he said and walked down the stairs, stopping next to the shorter man. “More likely, what are you doing here”, he commented looking around them a bit. “After some case again, huh?”

The brown eyes turned to look at Gabriel again. “I just left from work and decided to go for a walk, hoping to find some new place where to eat at. The same old spots starts to get a bit boring, so..” He shrugged a bit. “A man needs his adventure, you know.” Aden glanced at his watch to check the time. It certainly was far away from office hours so technically Gabriel shouldn’t be on the clock at this time. “If you got the time, tag along.”

“Aren’t I always?” Gabriel answered with a nod. “Turned out to be a dead end, clearly,” he added, giving the surroundings once last glance. The source might have just been wasting his time. He had more than one who liked to do that occasionally, give a false lead to keep him occupied for a while.

“Yeah, I’m free,” he replied, taking up the offer. His hours on the clock would’ve ended a little while ago anyway, and he definitely wasn’t getting anywhere here. Catching up with Aden was shaping up to be one of the better ways the evening could have gone. It had been a little while since they’d done that, and the doctor always made for good company. “Doesn’t look like there’s much adventure around here, but I’d be up for finding some. Or a bite to eat. What were you looking for?”

[gabrieldeacon-blog]

zxnith-txch‌:

She’d heard through the several webs that she had spun that someone was taking a particular interest in her and the Tech Heads. It had caused her to launch into an investigation of her own, learn who and why and put an end to the lunacy before any real damage could be done. Reclining in one of the old couches in the corner of the den, she’d been perusing through the latest lists of targets and marks, they needed another job and people here were starting to get twitchy, aching for another rush, it was their very own high.

It was whilst thinking about this next high that she was disturbed by a rather unknown member of the Tech Heads, informing her that there was someone snooping around outside, awkwardly hanging around was the phrase they’d used. Her only response was to grab the closest screen and watch through the rather well-hidden security feed, tapping into the eyes and ears of the building was second nature to her, she could do it in her sleep. It didn’t take long to pick out the man that stood apart from the rest, watching him wander and watch she decided to have a little fun whilst trying to determine who he was and what he wanted.

Slipping out the back of Netfix, she found her way to the bar, her target perched at the bar but his eyes fixed upon her building. Subtle she thought to herself. Grabbing a drink she slowly came up behind him, watching the way he moved and held himself when he thought no one was paying attention to him. “Something exciting going on over there?” Offering her most charming smile she beamed at him, brushing the hair off her shoulder as she sat down next to the gentleman.

Gabriel’s attention was snapped from the Netfix building to the unusually friendly stranger approaching from behind. I should leave the stake-outs to the cops, he thought as she called him out on his staring out the window with a bright smile. Sure, she could just be here to flirt but... Gabe doubted it. There were far better places for that sort of thing, and for more interesting people, especially for a woman like her, and the opening line read much more like an investigation than a pick-up.

Whoever this woman was, she evidently took issue with him staring the down the shop. Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing.  He usually preferred a more direct approach anyway. “Doesn’t really look like it,” he answered, not dishonestly. The place looked essentially like your standard repair shop, but that didn’t necessarily mean much of anything. “But you never really know around here, do you?” he asked with a slight shrug and a half-smile. Maybe he could get her talking.

[gabrieldeacon-blog]

@elliotcnderson

Gabriel never really liked the uppermost level of Bay City, all its bright, shining opulence trying to catch your attention everywhere you turned, all that wealth thrown around so casually. He never really felt at ease here. But there was a job to be done, and often enough that job involved venturing upwards to try and hound corporate suits into saying something more interesting than whatever the company line happened to be this month. A job that, today, hadn’t been terribly successful. He’d managed to get one or two revealing remarks out of the representative, but after a long interview comprised largely of dry corporate talking points, it hardly felt rewarding.

What he really needed, Gabe decided as he left the building, was a drink and maybe something to eat. Something he would usually make his way back to one of his usual haunts in the middle city for. But he wasn’t really in the mood for small talk (not that he ever was, really), and something appealed to him about being where no one knew him, even if it meant tolerating the upper city and its overpriced fare a little longer.

He picked the place more or less at random, it had been a while since he’d been to this part of town for anything other than business, and got a seat at the bar. It was a little trendy for his tastes - most of them were - but it seemed as good a place as he was going to find to unwind a little. He ordered a manhattan from the synthetic bartender, and began to settle in, considered listening over some of the audio while details were still fresh in his mind, when he saw a flash familiar face from across the bar.

For a moment, he thought he must have imagined it. What were the chances, right? But then he flicked his image enhancement on, just to be sure, and there he was, without a doubt. Elliot Anderson. Gabe looked to the door, Elliot probably hadn’t seen him yet. He could just abandon the drink and find some other place to be and save them both the trouble but... he didn’t. The bartender brought him his drink, he thanked her, and tried to just think about work but his eyes keep wandering across the bar.

‘Damn it‘, Gabe thought, and stood, drink in hand. What he and Elliot had was a mess, something he really should have known better than to get involved in the first place, and yet... he cares. He worries. And the rumors he hears the entertainment columnists chattering about in the elevator really haven’t been helping. ‘We’re adults. We can handle a simple hello.’

“Elliot,” he said by way of greeting, sounding stiffer than he meant to. “It’s... it’s been a while. How have you been?”

[gabrieldeacon-blog]

drnorthrop‌:

It was rather late and Aden’s day at work had been extremely long. But for some odd reason he didn’t even feel tired. But he was hungry, that was for sure. The food at the medical center was just as good as stuff like that got, so real food was definitely the next goal of the day.

He could’ve taken a taxi or something, but instead he decided to just walk. Maybe he’d end up finding a place to eat where he hadn’t been before and therefore find out something new. Which was always a good thing in his books. Probably just walking around on the streets and taking the shadiest shortcuts weren’t the best idea, but Aden wasn’t worried. He was a big sized guy and he could look angry enough that no one would come to bother him. Or even try to rob him. But if someone would try to rob him Aden certainly wouldn’t be nice to that person.

As he kept walking this aimless road of his he came to a set of stairs and as he was going down he saw someone just standing on the bottom of them. He stopped in his steps and just looked at the person. He wasn’t sure were they messaging someone or was something wrong. But they certainly were just standing still. “You need a hand?” he ended up asking, since to him it was a bit shady to just stand there seemingly doing nothing. But then again, he only saw the person’s back so it could be they were doing something.

There was little Gabriel disliked more than a total dead-end, but they were inevitably part of the job. A source would have faulty info, plans would change,  rumors turned out to have nothing of substance behind them. This alley and its staircase - where a source had insisted something was meant to happen, though they’d been frustratingly vague on exactly what - appeared to be one of them. He’d been quietly hanging around for the better part of an hour, with nothing of note occurring.

A quiet sigh escaped his lips. Whatever his source had thought was happening here, it clearly wasn’t. Just to cover his bases, Gabe moved to the bottom of the staircase to snap a few pictures of the place. He kept still, just moving his eyes and squinting, when he heard a voice from the top of the staircase.

“No, sorry,” he replied, turning around. “I was just about to be on...” Gabe trailed off, realizing he recognized the figure. “Aden?” he asked, a smile spreading across his face. Even if he hadn’t got much done tonight, the familiar face was a welcome sight. “What are you doing in a place like this?”

[gabrieldeacon-blog]

@zxnith-txch

Gabriel was onto something. He was certain of it. He hadn’t sought out to go sniffing around the Tech Heads (well, not this time anyway) but that’s where the investigation seemed to be leading him. They were one of the more difficult boostergangs to track, operating mostly in tech on a level that left Gabe had to begrudgingly admit left him somewhat out of his element. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t found the occasional breadcrumb, heard the odd rumor. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but it was a start, and sometimes, that was all you needed before things began falling into place.

What little he had to go on had brought him to Netfix, a tech repair shop in the upper level. He wasn’t feeling quite bold enough to head inside, at least not without something in need of repair to explain his presence. So instead he found himself in the corner of a bar across the street, dressed just nicely enough not to call attention to himself in the more fashionable upper city, quietly drinking a beer and pretending to be paying attention to something on his tablet. To the rest of the patrons, Gabe looked more or less like any other low level corporate executive, catching a drink after work.

Meanwhile, Gabriel’s attention was focused out the window, on the comings and goings of the repair shop, image enhancement and microcamera discreetly at the ready should he catch anything interesting. He knew they weren’t likely to let anything too revealing pass through the front door, but he wanted to get a sense of the place and it’s clientele, preparation for digging deeper into it’s operations.

[richardmaddendaily]

RICHARD MADDEN @ Mariano Vivanco | British GQ

[immersionhq]

[gabrieldeacon-blog]

TRANSMISSION RECEIVED…

Name: Gabriel Deacon

Gender & Pronouns: Cisgender Male | He/him

Age: 31

Species: Augmented

Stance On Synthetics: Pro

Occupation: Investigative Reporter at the Daily Cypher

Affiliation: Citizen

Social Class: Middle

RETRIEVING HISTORY

The only son of a Nova Corps homicide detective and a waitress just barely making their way in the Middle City, Gabriel Deacon grew up all too aware of the darker side of the sprawling city he called home. He remembers his parents as overworked and exhausted, but loving, unfailing in their devotion to their little home in the big city. At least, that’s how he likes to remember them, in the beginning, before things began to come apart. He thinks he was a happy child, back then. He was a bit odd, sure - more interested in puzzles than in people, always sneaking into his father’s office to peak at the case files he brought home no matter how bloody they turned out to be - but happy. His father, himself the son of a Nova Corps officer, was Gabe’s hero. Quiet, stoic, rarely around, but made the moments he was there count. Instead of chewing him out for peaking at the case files, he’d let Gabe look, explain the map on his wall with all the pins and pictures. To Gabe, he seemed brilliant, untouchable, and for almost as far back into his childhood as he can remember, there was nothing he wanted more than to follow in father’s footsteps. 

He was thirteen, the first time that began to change, the first time he began to see the cracks in his father’s façade. He was around less and less often, and when he was he spoke less and less. One evening he caught Gabe in his office for what must’ve been the thousandth time, but instead of calmly shooing him off with a bemused smile, he shoved his son out the door and slammed it behind him. A week later, he was shot in the left knee. Not the worst place for it to happen, as far as these things go, easy enough to replace with a cyber limb, but anyone could see the damage ran deeper than flesh, that this was only one in a long line of hidden wounds. There was an anger in his eyes Gabriel had never seen before, a strange new coldness to him.  At first, his mother assured him that it was just recovery taking its toll, he’d be his old self soon enough, but even then he could hear something hollow in her voice, unable to fake any real conviction. He saw the way she spoke to her husband, something about it careful, practiced, even familiar, and began to wonder if to her, this had all happened before. How much, he wondered, had he failed to see? 

His father would never tell Gabe the full story of what happened that night. But once, after a few too many whiskeys, he let it slip that his investigation had taken him places certain people didn’t want him, and that whoever pulled the trigger had someone with enough money and power on their side to make it all go away. The official story was of a stray bullet, an accident, but anyone could see it wasn’t true, even if no one would say it. Desperately, he wanted to be able to do something, anything, to make it right. But he was helpless to watch as time went on, and his father only got angrier, more bitter. 

Gabriel was seventeen when his father was killed in an altercation with a perp, only a few months from Gabe’s high school graduation. The story was that he’d been reckless, pursued when he should have fell back, and paid the ultimate price for it. The worst part, Gabriel thought, even among all the pain and heartbreak and worry about the future, was not even knowing if it was true. The day after the funeral he threw out his application to the Nova Corps Training Academy. He knew where his father’s footsteps would lead him, and he knew he couldn’t follow. Instead, he dusted off the brochures for BCU he’d been ignoring despite his English teacher’s insistence, and he began an application for the journalism department. This city was hiding so much, and not even the Corps cared much about the truth, but someone should.

Gabriel took well to university, his inquisitive nature and dogged, determined approach allowing him to rise to the top of his class and gained him a reputation on the school paper. Graduation led to an internship at The Daily Cypher - a paper he deeply admired - and the internship became a job. One of his first big stories was a piece on corruption at the Nova Corps that he practically had to beg the editors to publish and got shoved to the back pages anyway, but it was a start. Since then, he’s devoted himself to the job, chasing down stories, telling the truth no one wants out. It’s earned him his fair share of enemies, both outside the Cypher and within, but it’s been worth it. The Cypher might have begun to lose its way, but he’s done everything in his power to keep it on track, and he has no intention of stopping, especially not when the story he’s chasing about divergent synths could be the biggest - and most dangerous - of his career. 

PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT

Positive Traits: Tenacious, Principled, Independent Negative Traits: Obstinate, Blunt, Reckless

Gabriel Deacon is nothing if not devoted to his job, often at the cost of everything else. Once he catches wind of a story, it’s almost impossible for him to let it go, no matter what it takes. The result is a very good reporter, but not always an easy person to get along with. Gabriel is blunt, direct, with little time for niceties and small talk. He’s quiet by nature, typically only speaking when he’s got something to say, and doesn’t mince words. He’s stubborn as hell, a quality that’s gotten him some of his biggest stories as well as some of his biggest binds. Though it isn’t always obvious, Gabe cares deeply about people, and though he often finds it difficult to get close to people, he greatly values the friendships he has been able to cultivate. Still, the job always comes first, and he’s definitely got some workaholic tendencies. Though he’d never admit it, Gabe is very much his father’s son, overly dedicated, and sometimes prone to recklessness, especially when he’s frustrated.

Gabriel Deacon ( Richard Madden ) is written by Mal ( They | Them - EST )

[richardmaddendaily]

RICHARD MADDEN @ Julian Hargreaves | Grazia Italia