i need the fire.

to prove that i'm awake. radha mondesir. 36. the answer to new york city's finest.

[rmondesir]

spxlledinks​:

TAKING A LICORICE STICK, Silje offered a one-shouldered shrug. ❛ Shouldn’t be a problem. ❜ It would be just like a trashy 80s romcom except instead of a sappy boombox serenade, it would end with all six-foot-whatever of her brother bearing down on her over her reckless behavior.  ❛ Thanks. ❜

Up close, Silje was able to get a better look at the woman’s face. Recognition prodded at the depths of her memory, though she couldn’t place where they’d crossed paths. And, at present, the thunderous throbbing of her head discouraged any deep thought. 

❛ That good, huh? Lucky me. ❜ The blonde already figured she painted quite the picture, gracing the dingy corner store with her busted face and sweater coated in blood that was only partially hers. She would be grateful for a bath, and at least a week’s worth of downtime to unpack the events of the last five hours.

Because, in truth, battered as she was, Silje couldn’t say that she held any regrets.

She had all but resigned herself to straightforward jobs, meticulously preparing to the point where she could nearly anticipate her target’s last words. The adrenaline of contending for her life, suffering the consequences when she didn’t move fast enough or adapt to her environment was familiar. In providing the lethal unpredictability her everyday life lacked, it sated an urge Silje had grown surfeited with suppressing.

❛ Something like that. Believe it or not, it’s possible to be at the right place at the right time and still get fucked. ❜ Not as badly as the other guy, she reminded herself, but enough. ❛ Like that one Big Sean song, except ‘last night’ and 'tonight’ are the same night. ❜

---

From within her pocket, she withdrew a handful of shiny quarters. They clicked and slid over one another, toyed with as she began to flick them through the space between her fingers; a little trick of dexterity, something she'd entertained stupid kids with until those stupid kids got big and mean and old and wanted something more tangible than parlor tricks. With a flick of her wrist, she stacked them atop one another - balanced on the back of her hand. And offered them.

It wasn’t hard to get more quarters. Knock over a laundromat, filch a few from a parking meter - easy as sinning. She’d survived for longer with less.

“What happened?” She wondered, careless and inconsiderate of boundaries. Her body snaked forward, dark eyes studious and sharp as she went over the woman’s injuries; could be worse ( I could make them worse -- , some part of her thought ). A few dollars went onto the counter to pay for her snack, her drink, a pack of cigarettes and one of those Ed Hardy plastic lighters. “Come on, this way.”

“I’m Radha, by the way.” Somewhere in the back of her throat, her accent still lingered - Carribean in some shape or form, hinting at her origins. Some place she wouldn’t mind being associated with, not when she could keep the rest to herself. Without warning, her other hand did snap out - to rub a finger across some dried blood on Silje’s cheek. Resiting the urge to push in and freshen her battered look up some. To hurt her more.

[cinephil-ia]

Tessa Thompson’s earrings in Sorry to Bother You (2018), dir. Boots Riley.

[rmondesir]

marquisebishop​:

—

“Don’t wow me, Rags,” he said, hands on his hips and one finger-wag away from being their grandmother. He had decorated a little in the living area of the warehouse, but mostly he liked the space. Too many walls made him feel claustrophobic. She’d get that, he felt. The need to not have walls pressing in. The ability to get out of a tight spot. The desire to breathe deeply. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she had gotten used to the tightness in the chest, and the pressure of the walls.

Had she always been so small? Between then and now - had he grown so much or had she shrunk?

He walked down the stairs quickly, his boots striking against the steel in rapid staccato. He didn’t take the robot from her. “She’s not a –” then he realized that he personified the robot just like Radha had. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “It’s a nightmare. You’re a god-damned nightmare.” Why was he so angry? He had grown up with her. They’d gone on adventures. Slunk through the town in matching t-shirts proclaiming their belief in Mothman – just like the rest of the town. They haunted the one screen movie theater, watching the reels over and over, paying for their tickets from recycled cans they picked up along the road.

She was before. That was the problem. She was Rags and he was Rosie, and any minute now their grandmother would be calling them for dinner, her voice echoing down the road and blending in with the other mommas and grandmamas who were calling their children home. “Funny, I hadn’t heard you were around - just knew you were ‘cause you keep boosting the cars I mark,” he shot back. “Where’s the professionalism, Rags? The goddamn sense to not steal from Kin.”

Except they weren’t Kin. Not really. Not even Kith anymore.

Thanks a lot, Mothman.

“You know good and well the military ain’t taught me shit save to cover my ass and aim a gun.” He wasn’t going to give the military the credit for his skill with building robots or explosives. Sure, they gave him the tools, but he had the mind, drive and grit to learn. “They’re useless, nothing to tell about them.”

Then because he knew better than to completely ignore the history between them, he walked to the fridge and came back with cola in glass bottles. “Here. Never say I didn’t give you nothing.” Handing off the cola, he leaned against the worktable – “Why you here? Not because you missed me.”

---

To see him begin to grow angry, to look upon her with eyes like their grandmother’s when that woman had forgotten to mask her opinion of Radha. It made her hot under the collar; she didn’t ask him to look at her like that, just like she hadn’t asked anyone to look at her. There were certain thing she wanted out of the world, and few of them were within her reach; that was something she wanted to change. Something that she could change, in the end. So, when he looked at her - an angry stranger - she let her mouth curl into a smile, eyes brightening.

“I wanted to see what you were up to,” she told him, “it’s been years and years since we’ve been under the same roof, let alone the in the same city.”

She took the cola, holding the neck between her fingers without taking a sip immediately; rather than entertain his anger, she entertained his little robot, rocking it from side to side as if debating on hurling it across the room. Or seeing what made it tick. She liked mechanisms, little things and old things, like motors and clocks. Marquise had always had a way with mechanisms, one she didn’t envy. It made them close to kin, even though they no longer were.

“You mad I keep messing up your cars, Rosie? Stop making your marks so obvious,” as if it were a game, something for them to play out in the streets. Hide-and-find-the-bomb. “Why are you mixed up with this group anyways? What made you want to come all the way out here after joining the military? Thought you’d make a glorious career out of it. She wanted to make sure one of us did, and it never was gonna’ be me.”

[rmondesir]

spxlledinks​:

𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐑: open​

𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍:_ a bodega somewhere in the city_

AT FIRST, SILJE AVOIDED CONTRACT WORK, intent on starting fresh — as if that wasn’t a far-flung fantasy. Her understanding of the real world was hazy at best; however, she had a clear idea of how it viewed murder. So she abstained, tried her hand at pottery only to throw a plate at her instructor’s head when she mistook him for Mihael. Rock climbing was nearly a fit until they dismissed her for being ‘overly competitive.’ It took a year of playing the ‘good guy’ before she managed to pinpoint the source of her dilemma. Hopping from hobby to hobby wasn’t enough to quell the beast that had carved its way into her chest, that begged for more. An opportunity to do the one thing at which she excelled.

So, like every respectable job seeker, she explored the market. She wasn’t for want of money, ten years in organized crime having a way of being lucrative, but the clientele paid well. And, at one job per year, it wasn’t overly demanding. Yet therein lay the problem: she wanted demanding. She craved sore muscles and eyes burning from too many hours perched on a roof, which is how she found herself bloodied in a dimly lit bodega wearing a poor excuse for an ugly Christmas sweater. Unfortunately, the successful completion of two jobs came at the cost of at least two fractured ribs. 

Perhaps this was what her ex-therapist meant when she said she noticed a pattern of Silje ‘overextending’ herself. 

Spotting a figure down the aisle, Silje gave up deliberating on what kind of chip to get —cheese puffs were a better choice anyway— and approached them. ❛ Do you have — stop staring — a phone I could use? Mine’s dead. ❜ Shattered at the bottom of the Hudson. ❛  I need to call my brother. ❜ She prodded at the gash on her temple, only to hiss at the sting. Shit, that was going to need stitches.

---

Radha remembered; hauling the boards off of the window of the old, abandoned railway station in Montego Bay. The sun shining down overhead, humidity leeching into the cotton of her dress until it stuck to her belly and hips. She remembered clawing her way into the station on a dare, the smallest of the kids and the boldest. Go on, the scrawny-but-tallest of the boys had jeered at her, betcha’ you’re too scared to do it. Unfortunately for him, he’d selected the only child who wasn’t truly scared of anything. 

It was how a section of the Montego Bay railway station had collapsed that day, killing two and injuring seven of the transient souls who had found themselves a quiet, private place to reside.

Until her.

Radha was the manner of woman who brought destruction in her wake.

Even in the bodega, she had the atmosphere of someone who ought to be spinning a revolver in an old Western; the carelessness of a punk at the skate park, chewing wads of gum before sneaking them into the axels of her rivals’ skateboards so that they’d wipe out the moment they started moving. A woman who liked a laugh, but one who found humor in the schadenfreude she’d feel.

She tugged a headphone -- blasting some sort of ska punk -- out of her ear and chewed on the Twizzler she hadn’t paid for (yet?), dark eyes looking up and down the length of the damaged woman who had come into the bodega and asked for a phone. “I don’t have mine on me,” she said, and held out the sleeve of red candies. Behind her, the bodega owner at the counter hollered: you better pay for it, without looking up from her magazine. “I got quarters though, if you can work a payphone. Damn, you go nine rounds with a weedwhacker? I’m sorry, you look like that girl outta’ Suspiria.”

[rmondesir]

jacknln·:

— “Oh, wow! You’re that guy! That guy, the one I take upstate.” He was not an intimidating presence, nor was he the sort to blend completely into the background. He existed as liminal space existed - to be the passageway from one to the next. Either from life into death or – in the case of the young Radha, from her current position to a different position, should she want it - provided she didn’t get arrested or killed between now and then. ”Moriah Shock,” he said, closing the door behind him as he gave the location of the place they were going. Four and a half hours north to speak directly to Hector LeGuis, a man who would be moved from the facility to a facility yet unknown, but he had a list of names that Jack had asked for, and it was always best if they obtained the information directly instead of through monitored phone calls. He had no business being involved in her craft. She did what she was supposed to and did it well. Still, he had heard through the vine that she wanted more. So, Jack stepped forward. Why? Curiosity more than anything else. “And you will have plenty of time on the drive to tell me why you’re interested in anything about me.” As he was not, by some effort, a man that people were interested in. He rarely saw the Syndicate boss despite being a region manager. His conversations with Sam came through the phone. He went to Audra for business. “Why do you think that I could help you within the Syndicate. Nikolai would be better.”

---

Perhaps because he was a figure so obscene, her eye was naturally drawn to him; Radha had always enjoyed the macabre, the grotesque, the empty spaces like yawning mouths waiting for some fool to stumble into them. She tossed aside her pens, hearing them clatter across the metal table she had salvaged long ago to serve as a workbench, and turned towards the toolkit she had in her possession, drawing out a worn, paper map to unfold it and lay it over the top of her blueprints and other plans. She immediately walked her fingers from the city, tracking northwards in search of Moriah Shock.

Why was Jack No-Last-Name the man she wanted to talk to?

“I don’t want better,” she said, and pinned the location with her forefinger before reaching back for some transparent film. Setting it over the top of the route, she sketched the path from city to destination in marker, and labeled all of the stops she’d have to make - the fewer the better, and the less tolls the better, avoid traffic cameras that could capture either of their faces, pitstop to switch license plates for good measure. Simple pick-up or not, she liked to maintain privacy.

“I’m interested in what you aren’t,” she pointed the marker at him, and smiled wide, bright white teeth and dimpled cheeks. “And that’s everything else most people are. You’re like, a walking stiff. Nothing angry about you, nothing to connect you - nobody pays you any mind, but you get shit done.” Check, check.

“Rates are the same,” for gas, for mileage. “I want you to mentor me. We can talk deets in the car, c’mon.” And with a spring in her step, she seized the transparent with all her notes and reached for her coat, flouncing across the warehouse floor to the nondescript Subaru she’d selected for today’s trip.

[atticuspoems]

[rmondesir]

marquisebishop​:

Title: The Blood of the Covenant For: Radha | @rmondesir​ ​ Setting: Marquise’s Warehouse Time: After 11pm —- He never slept well. His grandmother had hacked and snuffled and coughed throughout the night growing up. She’d fall asleep with her cigarette hanging from her lips and her oxygen tube set around her nose. Marquise had grown used to sleeping lightly, checking her oxygen sats, extinguishing her cigarette in such a way that she could relight it later, and tuck a blanket around her while she slept in the recliner. It helped him when he went into the Navy and later in SpecOps. It didn’t help him now. Every strange creak of the warehouse had him jolting awake, worried that he had made a mistake and something he made could be traced back to him. His doctor had prescribed him sleeping pills but one day of grogginess had him dump the pills down the sink. Whoo! screeched one of the robots that had been left on the table. It was a stupid machine that he had been playing with, looking through plans and plots from his different forums. He jolted awake, feet on the floor in a flash, half-crouched, he walked to the railing that overlooked the warehouse. There she stood. It took him all of five seconds to recognize who she was. “Radha!” he shouted, leaning on the railing to look further over. He wasn’t the only one his grandmother had fostered. He had grown up with a family friend, thick as thieves until the day they weren’t. “Get your hands off the damn row-bit,” he demanded, as the robot kept screeching in defense. He had known that she was in the area - she had the habit of knicking the cars that he had marked from the mechanic shop. He hadn’t gone out of his way to find her - even though he knew her calling-card. “What are you doing? It’s not my birthday. Sure as fuck isn’t your birthday, and it’s not the anniversary of the first sighting of Moth-Man so –” not any of the three dates he thought he’d see her again, “What you doing, Rags?”

-----

“Wowww,” she drawled, the thmp of her booted tread echoing in the warehouse; like sister, like brother. Warehouses were a dime a dozen, cheap to rent and easy to lose paperwork on, half of them abandoned or never checked over by their owners who thought to flip an old parking lot to make a quick buck now and then. They were cold unless scattered heaters were used to keep the concrete floor at a lukewarm temperature, and the metal struts creaked and groaned on the best of days. She loved big, stupid spaces like that - they made for great, amorphous locations for all sorts of criminal activities.

Like creating adorable, useless little robots that she immediately took a shine to.

“Heya’ rosie-posie,” her voice a trill dedicated to him, even as she lifted the half-completed machine on the table into her arms, cradling it like a baby. “Is this my widdle niece, how many of ‘em do I got? Grandma know you’re popping out mechanical kids left and right?” A distinct sarcasm in her words, she rocked the robot back and forth to hear it coo and woo, even as she was told to put it down. With a faint roll of her eyes, she set it back down on the table and turned towards the sound of his voice.

Looked up, with a whistle: “Damn, you finally ate your veggies and grew up so big! I think I’ll have to strain to bench you now, rosie.” Something about that irritated her, going away when her little sibling was small and coming back to find him all grown up, a broad-shouldered man making clever things with clever hands. “Heard you were around, what’s the problem with coming to catch up with you, huh? You too old for your best big sister? How about you catch me up on these little cuties you got all over, Marquise. The military teach you to do this?”

[blair1789blog]

[tinktoks]

[marquisebishoparchive]

@rmondesir

[tulipfarm]

TESSA THOMPSON as DETROIT — Sorry to Bother You (2018) dir. Boots Riley

[rmondesir]

WHERE? | An undisclosed warehouse in Lower Brooklyn. WHEN? | December WHO? | @jacknln​ WHAT? | A new apprentice meets her Sith Lord.

Her fingers crept over the edge of the counter, one digit at a time, to press the sheets of paper aside and create a little blank spot for herself. Dark eyes popped up over the edge, her nose squashed to the angle of the table as she perused what was strewn before her; likely nothing of import, but all sorts of entertainment would abound from disturbing it. From inviting a little bit of disorder into an otherwise orderly arrangement. It had been the name of “Jack” that had been the sole instruction that she’d been left; “Jack, with the Syndicate”, practically a command without all the extra words. Go, find, learn.

The table was laden with blueprints, schematics and plans; mechanical arrays and hand-penned notes to let her know what had gone where and when. By the end of the week, she’d have confirmation of the fate of the latest batch of automobiles and she’d burn the pages and start over again. For now, she was sitting on them, playing the waiting game; moving pieces inch by inch, while awaiting the man she’d been told to seek and find. Behind her, the heavy shadow of her favorite vehicle -- Sunday Driver -- loomed large. A wine-red Dodge Demon with a broad face and dual-vent exhaust, tricked out and freshly waxed. It was not the car she drove around town, nor long distance.

And that was what she was waiting for. News on the next long distance drive.

With her hands in the fall of her toned braids, she ruffled her scalp a little, and paced the floor like some sort of caged thing. Impatient and wild with unbridled energy, until the sound of her door being unlocked caught her attention; only one person would have the key, and that would be her mysterious “Jack”, whom was sent the letter and the key from “R. Mondesir”. but of course. Courtesy of the Syndicate’s clever little mail system and runners.

"Oh, wow.” She laughed, rich and deep, and pointed both of her fingers at him upon seeing that face, that face that was familiar even if the name wasn’t. “Oh, wow! You’re that guy! That guy, the one I take upstate.”

[rmondesir]

— BASICS

Name: Radha Mondesir ( pronounced: Mon-de-sear) Age / D.O.B.: 36 //  Gender, Pronouns & Sexuality: Female (She/her), Homosexual (Lesbian) Hometown: Montego Bay, Jamaica Affiliation: The Syndicate Job position: Automobile Thief & Driver Education: N/A Relationship status: Single. Children: None. Positive traits: Attentive, clever, devoted, gregarious & patient. Negative traits: Destructive, envious, impulsive, macabre & irresponsible.

— BIOGRAPHY

Hailing from Montego Bay, the girl who would become known as “Radha” was brought up in Point Pleasant, West Virginia alongside her adoptive brother Marquise. She was always a strange child - overeager and rambunctious, with wild fantasies and a penchant for trouble and a gravity that would often catch him up in her wake. Radha always wanted to be number one. Not in sports, not in academics, but in all the other ways that mattered -- in the eyes of her family, in the eyes of her peers. Her desire to be irreplaceable and unavoidable lead her to make poor choices, hungry for attention and adoration. She’d lived with her grandmother first, but the blood shared between their grandmother and Marquise seemed, to her, to trump her bond in time. Because Marquise had been sent to live with their grandmother to ensure he didn’t get into trouble, Radha was ultimately sent back home. Mid-journey, she vanished and never completed the trip back to Montego Bay. For years, she lived off the grid -- unknown and unseen, as if she’d simple vanished into mid-air. During that time, a woman named Bas was one of the few individuals to ever know of Radha -- they lived in Louisiana for a while, until Bas left. A few years later, Radha turned up in NYC under the banner waved by the syndicate, serving them to unknown ends and means as a driver and booster of automobiles. She knows her stuff.

— WANTED CONNECTIONS / PLOTS

N/A at this time!