Logs:Leverage

Leverage
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Wendy, Winona
In Absentia Rasheed, Hive, Dawson, Ryan, Lily, Matt, Spencer	2023-07-06 "If that information is too much damage to bear, then what?"
Location <HFC> Sanctum - Hfc Basement
This luxurious basement lounge is circular, largely taken up by a conversation pit lined with plush bench seating all upholstered in gold velvet. An octagonal table occupies the center, its surface crafted from gleaming black glass. There are four gaps in the circle of couches, two admitting stairs that descend into the pit. The other two postmodern gas fireplaces, each in a shallow brass bowl, one sitting on a black marble plinth, the other white, one topped with a white organically curved flue, the other black. Ringing the conversation pit is a raised gallery containing two recessed, U-shaped booths that can be screened off for a modicum of privacy, two exquisite tropical fish tanks--one salt water, one fresh--two restrooms, neither marked for any particular gender, and a bar opposite the entrance. Between these, the walls are decorated with artwork from all around the world, paintings and sculptures and pottery and masks. Winona is leaned forward in her seat on the couch, toward a lit screen that she had set up for the very special purpose of a private showing. The lights are low, with the glow of the fireplace and the soft light of the fish tanks providing a pleasant ambiance, even if the subject matter is anything but. The bar has a couple of glasses on it, but one remains in Winona's hands. During the documentary, she had occasionally been trying to glean the reactions of the other viewers by stealing glances, but now that the credits are rolling her eyes stare forward. The footage from Prometheus, the interviews with those involved in it (both staff and inmate), along with snippets of documents that the documentarian had managed to gather breaks down the subject in detail with enough narrative throughline to keep an audience engaged. She bites her lip lightly. "Obviously, still some refinements and cuts to be made, but... what did you think? We got a lot of good stuff, solid stuff, I want to do it justice." Though she is quiet, Wendy has been supplying plentiful reactions: wide-eyed horror here, a more somber stilling at times, a hard fist-clenched anger at others. She takes off her glasses, rubbing slim fingers hard against her eyes. "I don't know if there's a way to lean a little harder on --" She hesitates, lips compressing briefly before forging ahead: "That guard with the children who..." She trails off, leaving this unspoken. She's tapping the edge of her glasses light and jittery against the tabletop. "But it's powerful. It's powerful, and it will work." Lucien has contrastingly had not much outward reaction at all. He's watched this film in a thoughtful silence, punctuated largely only by the -- too-frequent -- refilling of his glass, which is currently half-filled with a golden whisky. As the video comes to a close his eyes stay on the screen, watching the credits with a fixed gaze. "Unfortunately, you did it better justice than I could have imagined. How fast will you be able to have it ready for public viewing? If you set a date, Mirror can ensure it gets the airtime. With news of -- the children," his voice is carefully controlled, here, "well. It would be good to get it in front of the nation's eyes before the team embarks on that venture." He's swirling, slow, at the liquid in his cup, finger tapping against its side -- more restless motion than he's displayed through the entire run of the film. "-- I suspect the scene with Dr. Toure will be a gut punch, and not, perhaps, to the people we want to be hitting." "You're my test audience. I will have the editing done in a few days. There's been so much footage," says Winona, the repetition with an exhausted emphasis, "So much footage. But this is what covers the scope." She furrows her eyebrows and takes a drink, "I could have it completed and then still go out with the team after, and-- Dr. Toure? I don't really know him, but he's wealthy and connected. I put together a hell of dossier, even though we didn't get more than a few glimpses. His profile in the doc-- Who would it be a gut punch to?" Wendy's eyes fix sharp on Lucien, perhaps already aware of at least one of these punches. She lowers her eyes, wiping lightly at her glasses lenses with the hem of her blouse. "He's been very active in the community, hasn't he?" Her mouth compresses, eyes darting back to the computer and then down once more. "I mean. Outside of -- that." A little bit lighter: "There have been a lot of wealthy and connected people -- connected to this. I think it will be good to shine a light on just how deep the complicity went." "In your community, specifically." Lucien's affirmation is quiet. "He saved quite a few lives -- both of those coming out of the labs and of the team themselves, after particularly grueling raids. And even in between -- Hive's tumor would have killed him if not for the man's assistance. He helped design Dawson a functional arm. The brain damage Ryan sustained after the Met Gala. Even my own brother --" His mouth compresses, now, and he takes a large swallow of his whisky. "-- that team, I expect, is preparing to suffer quite a lot. Perhaps one more twist of the knife will just be lost in the noise, but for some, I expect it may be too cruel a damage to bear." His finger runs slow against the rim of his glass, and the furrow of his brow is very slight. "-- Regrettably most of those wealthy and connected people have avoided Lily's camera, but -- you have dossiers all the same, no?" It's phrased as a question, but the light weight of expectation in the glance he gives to Winona suggests he has already guessed at an answer. Winona's eyes widen slightly when Lucien explains the specific help that Rasheed has given, and with a few moments for it to set in, she clenches her jaw and tenses her free hand into a fist, staring down at her drink with a heat that might see it boil if she were a different sort of mutant. "Two-faced son of a bitch. Healing with one hand and destroying with the other. A hypocrite's oath," she scoffs and now looks towards Lucien. "I do," confirms Winona, with an intense evenness, like a dam under siege by a flood of anger, "take extensive notes about all relevant parties." Another pause, with her jaw working as she considers her next words. "If that information is too much damage to bear, then what?" "Dawson --" It comes out on a soft rushed breath. Wendy's eyes have grown narrower in counterpoint to Winona's, her face a little paler and her fingers tight around her glasses. She grimaces, looking down to wipe them again before replacing them on her face. "-- you could do a lot," she offers up, and though her voice is soft still it has now gone very cold, "with this kind of information, on wealthy and connected people. Some of those interviews," and now she's nodding toward the computer, "we may not have gotten in the first place without the right pressure. What could you do with this kind of leverage?" "What can't we do with this kind of leverage. I very much suspect that no small effort will be made, as Prometheus burns, to raise some new horror out of its ashes. We could lop the heads off of everyone involved and the Pentagon will doubtless still find new avenues for this evil. The right assortment of billionaires and politicians -- however individually loathsome they may be -- could well mean the difference between thousands more in cages and -- well." For a moment, Lucien sags back into the couch, his eyes squeezing shut and his fingers clenched tighter at his glass. "The battle over what exactly this government plans to do with the Registry information is only just beginning. We might do well to think ahead to whose heads should roll now and who might be far more useful if they had a drastic incentive to support our efforts." Winona drains the remainder of her drink, and puts the glass down aside. "It is a lot of leverage. But with enough money, I'm sure that they're used to being able to get problems erased." She looks towards Wendy for a few moments, reading her expression, then says, "But if we can be confident that we can keep that pressure, or at least that we have the initiative if they try and wriggle out--" Her thumb digs at the armrest of the couch, her lips pressed in a fine line. "You're right, for sure. They'll try and re-allocate everything they built to projects that are as similar as possible. Cut off the head, but also cauterize the stump." She lifts her hands back up to rub them across her face. "So where goes the sword and where goes the fire? You can come by the editing lab, we can all go over all my notes, find our pressure points." "You're really good at finding leverage," Wendy notes with a small and humourless huff, "-- put it in the right place and their enough money is our enough money. How many more Senators can we buy with --" She's idly swiping at her cell phone, and her eyes have gone wider when Google returns her the net worth of one Doctor Rasheed Toure -- she turns this towards the others with a blink, a lift of eyebrows: "Sorry, but we didn't know he was evil?" She folds her hands in front of her, fingertips pressing white-hard against the dips in her knuckles. The faint wry note that has slipped into her tone bleeds out of it again when she adds, softly: "Lily's still in that fire." Lucien's head inclines at Wendy's assessment, though his eyes are squeezing shut once more at the quip. He moves past it with only a small and displeased hum. "We need get her out well before we pour this gasoline. Gods only know what --" He does not finish this thought, though he's gone just a little more tense. He starts to pick up his glass, remembers it is empty, sets it back down with a glance towards his bottle but does not actually refill it. "We will need talking points, as well. Once the final edits are made. The documentary speaks for itself, but not everyone will watch it. They will for sure hear of it, though, and you," he's tipping the glass towards Winona, now, "may will be the only Promethean voice much of this country hears." He turns his empty glass between his fingers, its heavy bottom softly scraping against the smooth glass tabletop. "Where will you be positioned, with the team? It would be highly inconvenient if you got killed at this juncture." Though as he looks at Winona now, it's with a thoughtful assessment. "Some degree of highly visible injury, though..." Winona nods emphatically when Wendy mentions Lily, "We need to make sure that we can get her out of there safely. She did so much, we owe her that and more." A nod to Lucien, "Normally, I'm a driver for the team. I'm a really good driver, and relatively speaking, I'm less likely to be killed." She bites her lip lightly and admits, "I have given thought to how a visible injury might look, if we have just released the doc and I am talking about it to the press... I never hope to get injured during these things, but just. What a story that'd be." She rubs her arm with her fingertips contemplatively. "The documentary, together with the news about the kids -- are you going to say where the kids are? -- and Prometheus trying to hurt the bold filmmaker who exposed it all..." Wendy sounds thoughtful more than anything else, but there's an intensity to her eyes when she looks back at Winona. "You're not just going to put a nail in their coffin, you're going to cement that box closed." Sternly, after this: "You'd better not die, though. I'll drag you back out of the grave and kill you again myself. You have to be here celebrating with us." Her brows scrunch, and she's less certain when she turns to Lucien. "Is Lily going to join her? In front of the cameras? A brave spy -- Dawson's sister -- it would be..." Her jaw tightens, fingers moving lightly to touch at the metal bracelet sitting around her thin wrist. "-- but I wouldn't blame her if she wants to just drink and sleep for a year." "She is their employee, not their prisoner, and by rights ought to be able to walk out -- which she should do posthaste. But if things go sideways, Mirror is more than capable of extracting one person from -- even their fortress. What Lily does afterwards is her own business, powerful though it would be to have her alongside. If what she wants is drinking for a year," Lucien says, wryly, "I will buy her her own bar." The question of the children silences him, for a moment, and now he does pour himself another drink, offering the same with a lift of his brows to Winona and her emptied glass. "Being associated forever with the mutant torture labs may be a reputation these children do not want and can never escape. But keeping them in the public eye may, too, go a long way toward ensuring their safety -- evil or no, I doubt Prometheus fool enough to further harm children the entire country is watching for and knows are in their custody. Besides which, once the parents are informed that decision may be beyond us and it would be better to get out in front of that news." His fingers tighten on his glass before he takes a swallow. "The ideal angle, I think, is that Spencer Holland's friends have simply been caught in the crossfire in the unjust persecution campaign being waged against his family. There is a deniability there, and on top, keeping the focus on the family who is already in the national spotlight may let the others simply fade into obscurity again, if that is what they want when they are freed." Winona nods to Lucien at the gesture offering to get her a refill. She meets Wendy's eyes, a slight but significant change in her posture, as if drawing energy from the other woman's assertion about Prometheus' future. A slight twitch of her lips as some amount good humor cuts through the anxiety and exhaustion, Winona bows her head slightly, "How could I die with so much unfinished business? That's not the sort of ghost I'd want to be." She leans back against the couch, "If Lily is up to join me in the coverage, I think that'd look good. But that girl needs a vacation for sure, or she's gonna melt." She tenses and untenses her jaw a couple of times. "I don't want those kids to have to carry that weight, so like you say. The spotlight can't help but to find the Hollands, may as well keep it there for now. May even be good for Jax's situation, it's a pretty sympathetic story." Wendy stifles her own small laugh behind a press of fingertips to her lips. "So what you're saying is, as long as we have bigots to destroy you're going to be right here with us? Unfortunately, I think you're slated for a vampire-length life." She hasn't much touched her own drink previously, but she lifts it now as Winona and Luci refill their cups. "But at least you'll be in good company."