Logs:Making the News

Making the News
Dramatis Personae Daiki, Mirror
In Absentia	2022-02-09 "I don't know what else we can spin without more things actually happening."
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 exquisite artwork from all around the world, paintings and sculptures and pottery and masks. There's the remnants of a no doubt Extremely Fancy lunch prepared by the Club's Extremely Fancy chef occupying part of the large central table, laid out alongside the Millennial Special triple-screen laptop-tablet-cellphone combo. Joshua(?) does not look nearly fancy enough to be occupying this space, in cargo pants and a worn old tee advertising a production of Into the Woods from the Cambridge School of Weston in Massachusetts, the sharpie-marker signatures on it fading but still legibly made out to an "Adam" with their frenetic and cheerful exhortations to enshrine the production in memory 4ever. He's sprawled longways on one of the plush benches, frowning deeply at a second tablet held in his hands. "Mngh," is his eloquent proclamation, now. On the other side of table, Daiki is actually sitting at his computer, though he has left off typing for the moment to study a set of charts on the screen of the tablet propped up beside it. He at least is dressed for their environs, if in a somewhat somewhat understated way, his fine black suit closely tailored in sleek, modern lines. The charts before him in various ways show decrease over time, although whether that bodes good or ill thing is perhaps hard to discern from his placid expression. He looks past them at his colleague, one eyebrow ticking up a fraction. "Indeed? Social media engagement is down to almost nothing, too." He takes off his glasses and cleans them with a microfiber lens cloth produced via legerdemain. "Thinkpieces and sock puppet fights aren't cutting it. At this rate, we won't have enough momentum to take advantage of next week." UnJoshua slumps down, one leg planted on the ground and the other hooked over the arm of the seat. He lets the tablet rest facedown on his chest, fingers drumming at its back. "We did," he finally declares, "too well. Near everybody loves Jax." He's rolling up onto one side, casting a hand toward his computer; it flickers a holographic display back into wakefulness from which he pulls up a cascade of windows -- numerous tweets, facebook posts, medium articles, op-eds -- notably, none at all by them. The overall bent of the tone: Prometheus is horrible, but Thank God someone so decent has things in hand. In contrast, Joshua sounds almost grim: "He's very reassuring." "Very photogenic, too." Daiki replaces his glasses and looks back at his social media analytics as if expecting they might show him something different. "But it's not all our fault, or his." He wrinkles his nose here and resettles the glasses. "Most people who care -- or pretend to care -- what happens in the labs don't want to do anything about it at all. More comfortable to reassure themselves they don't have to." His eyes skip back to his laptop screen. "I doubt highlighting the raid team's struggles will help, not without human interest, and we'd need to expose other team members for that." His sigh is very soft, his voice only mildly dismayed. "We've played out Jax's part of this story." "Mnnh." Joshua's head rolls back against the seat, his eyes fixing up on the ceiling. "Still got the Ryan bomb. Risky, though." His fingers drum against the tablet again. His foot kicks lightly at a leg of the bench. "Have we?" Daiki cants his head to one side, eyes raising to search the ceiling, too, but the empty chessboard above them isn't offering any answers. "Too risky right now, I think." He swallows and lets out a slow, unsteady breath. "Dawson would have been perfect." The ripple of his powers is hardly noticeable at all, and he quickly recollects himself, dropping his gaze back to Mirror. "From his harrowing ordeal at a tender age, he took his pain and transformed it into stunningly successful resistance, then adopted not one, not two, but three orphans, in case the hard-working heroic man of faith angle wasn't wholesome enough." He shakes his head slowly. "I don't know what else we can spin without more things actually happening." Joshua's lips press into a harder line at Dawson's name, his eyes slipping closed. One cracks back open once Daiki has finished. "Still learning the ropes here, hm?" His brows lift, hand waving expansively at the space around them. "We make things actually happen." He rolls up slowly, leaning over to first snag a bite of one long-gone-cold dumpling from their abandoned lunch and second, to pick up his phone. "Luci's got contacts at several arms of federal law enforcement." Daiki raises both eyebrows this time, though still not high, and his expression does not otherwise change. The lapse of his control this time is a palpable wave of intensity that makes him briefly impossible to ignore. For a moment he just breathes, and the inexorable draw eases off again. "They'll want to do it quietly," he says at last, soft and level. "They'll try to make him disappear." There's a slight flush in Mirror!Joshua's cheeks, eyes fixed on Daiki until he determinedly pulls them away, shifting uncomfortably and reaching toward the hem of his shirt before dropping his hand with an agitated flex of fingers. "So little faith." He leans forward, elbow on knee and chin in hand, his eyes lifting back to Daiki. "You worried, could go with him. Make them want something else." His free hand turns up. "Thinking at school would be ideal." "Faith is not my forte." Daiki meets Joshua's eyes steadily. "But I don't doubt your competence, or Luci's. Or my own. If I know when they're coming for him, I'll be there." He glances back at his tablet. "That will buy a lot of attention, and if the timing is right, we can frame it as an attempt to silence him before the official registration lauch." The settling of Joshua's mouth just serves to make his jowly face look still more mournful. He nods once, firm. "Best move fast, then." His hand drops, skimming back toward his hip again before simply joining with his other, fingers clasping tight together beneath his chin. "Thank God Luci's schedule's always wide open, huh?"