He shows up as he always does - no fanfare. No phone call. Not even a blip on every scanner we could think of. The bell on the door jingles. Time stops.
He's impeccably dressed as ever. Tailored suit, gun tucked into its holster under his arm, and that very subtle aura around him that only someone Awakened could pick up on: He's wrong. Paradox clings to him like a beehive. I can hear it humming, buzz buzz buzz - but it's not the hearing, that's the problem.
Had to explain how it processes, the sensation of reality humming against you, its constant stings just millimeters away from your skin. If he feels it, he doesn't say anything about it. Never has. I legitimately doubt he would, either way. He's just that kind of guy who has everything in place: Suit, tie, cufflinks, paradox. It's all right where it belongs, right where he wants it, never shall it ever be displaced.
If the Technocracy had a poster boy, this would be him - everything in its place, always, forever. Fine. Perfect. Strange, then, that he'd be coming here, to my shop. He's a beacon of order amongst disorder, bespoke suit among decrepit sleeper computers, cases yellowing, brought back to life by dint of love, care, and a concerning amount of solder. There's a machine, broken down to its component silicon viscera, laid out before me, RAM dislodged from its DIP sockets.
Pay no attention to Virtual Adepts chantry in the several floors below. It's fine.
After a moment looking about, he's in front of me, a quizzical glance at the hardware offered to me over his glasses, before he simply shakes his head, a hand dipping into his coat. Not the side with the gun. The other side. From his coat comes a folder, barcode on the front, Technocracy coding just below that.
"Marie." His voice is warm, almost fatherly. The kind of voice you could imagine chiding you for trying to lay hands on a hot cookstove. "As usual, two minutes." It's always two minutes. "Your request - and ours." He nods to the folder.
Inside is a dossier - Jordan Fredericks. Male, 33, brown hair, blue eyes. 5'11, 231 pounds. His photo, his family. His vampiric bloodline and suspected death date, too. My cabal and I have been looking for him for months, but we haven't had the resources to locate him. My Technocratic friend just handed him over, location, haven and all. It's good, actionable intelligence, just like it always is.
My eyes are back up on him, his offering acknowledged with a proper nod. I lean down, then, and produce an envelope of my own, handing it over in turn. Inside, three sets of coordinates. One is here in meatspace. Another on the Digital Web. The third is… elsewhere. The local Construct had asked us for information around a suspected group of Nephandi working to corrupt the Union from within. At those coordinates, he'll find a hideout that we, again, lack the resources to hit ourselves. It's funny how that works - they can't investigate themselves without getting Management involved. Thus, us.
Each place'll be firebombed within days, or worse. Say what you will, but HIT Marks are nice when they're pointed somewhere else.
On my document and his, both, is a post-it note. Our next requests for each other. These exchanges are tit-for-tat. Mutually beneficial. Part of the deal - neither of us gives up anything that might actually be damaging to each other, and the exchange will always be information only. I look at his, he looks at mine.
"I have no problems with this." He says. It's the name of a guy we suspect to be- well. Better not to say.
"No problems here, either." I reply. He's asking for shipment details from a local Pentex place. Easy.
He nods, and walks out. The buzzing fades. I tuck away the dossier just as time starts up again. The bell jingles as the door closes.
I go back to soldering. The folks downstairs get to work.
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