16:12 <VoxPVoxD> Richard graciously buzzes Willie in. It's her lunch hour, and she's come to work through it so she can get a nap before Sergio wakes up. The body finds sleep where it can, when it can; the real victim of Willie's night life has been exercise. Even just... spending time outside is hard. She's hoping to catch Bob, actually — is he in? 16:16 <tom> The workshop's dark. A tarp has been placed over some kind of large, metal, tubular object pinched in the vicegrips to steady it. But there is a sound- regular, rising and falling, from behind the stack of boxes where the cots are. 16:17 <VoxPVoxD> Sleeping in the workshop at midday? Willie's voice is gentle to start. "...Bob?" 16:18 <tom> The droning ceases. There's a pause, then a grunt. 16:19 <tom> "Uhhhnn." 16:19 <tom> "I'm- I'm awake!" 16:19 <tom> "Fuck, what time is it-" 16:19 <VoxPVoxD> "It's half one." 16:19 <VoxPVoxD> "In the afternoon." 16:20 <tom> He's fully clothed, eyes bloodshot. He goes for the bottle of water. "Ffffuuuck." 16:20 <tom> It takes him a moment to stumble out from behind the pile of boxes and sheepishly appraise the situation. "What's- whatcha need?" 16:21 <VoxPVoxD> Willie sets her laptop case down, but doesn't sit. "I just came to work and eat. You were- it's not important. Are you feeling well? Late night working on the rifle?" 16:23 <tom> "Oh, you know, ups and downs..." 16:23 <tom> "Got Badawi's new gun sighted in, it's a real monster." 16:23 <VoxPVoxD> "Better not be, or we'll have to kill it." Or date it. 16:24 <tom> "Ha. I'll have to sit this one out. Can't kill my own baby boy." 16:24 <VoxPVoxD> "He have a name?" 16:24 <tom> "Luisa. I guess she is a girl after all. Am I that obvious?" 16:25 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Mine is called 'Willie', which is a boy's name." 16:25 <tom> "Well, who knows. Maybe you're a trendsetter. Heard Courtney used to be a dude's name too.." 16:29 <VoxPVoxD> Willie eyes Bob in silence for a moment. "Tell you what. You haven't eaten yet, have you?" 16:30 <tom> Bob runs his hand through his hair and attempts a smile, still squinting so she can't see the whites of his eyes very well. "I can just grab some leftovers outta the fridge, get a shower, you know, it's all cool." 16:30 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Yeah, you can. Come do this instead." 16:32 <tom> He puts a thumb up to his nostril, blows to clear the other. Repeats this. "...Do what?" 16:33 <VoxPVoxD> "Come let me make you lunch. It'll help you relax." 16:33 <VoxPVoxD> She holds out a tissue wordlessly. 16:33 <tom> He takes it, wincing. 16:34 <tom> "Beautiful women are doing a lot of nice things for me recently and it's fucking me up." 16:34 <tom> "Am I that much of a lost cause?" 16:34 <VoxPVoxD> "Fear not, my motives are entirely selfish - it'll help me relax, too. I haven't been cooking lately." 16:35 <VoxPVoxD> "Come! Come come." 16:35 <VoxPVoxD> "...are you good to walk? It's not far, but I can come back with the car." 16:36 <tom> He kinda shrinks away from her until he's had a chance to surreptitiously check his B.O. situation, finds it mercifully muted by the heavy scent of cordite on his jacket, follows. "No, I- fresh air would be good." 16:36 <tom> "It'd be real good." 16:36 <tom> He'll drag his hand along the outside wall of the greybox to pick up some rain to wet his hand, slicks it through his hair to try and salvage the bedhead. 16:40 <VoxPVoxD> It is nice to get some fresh air. The rain is steady but not intense, and Willie graciously lets Bob hold the umbrella for them both. Surprisingly dark for midafternoon; there are headlamps reflected in the wet, slick streets and the rivulets of drainage that hug the road. 16:41 <tom> This is nice. Normal. 16:42 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's apartment is how Bob remembers, except there's a short, neat stack of takeout cartons on the kitchen counter, and the air smells faintly of smoke and roses. The latter is explained when Willie lights fresh incense in the entry hall and the living room/office. There are the gentle, irregular beeps of messages from some app or client from that huge red hellbrick of a PC tower. 16:45 <VoxPVoxD> "Coffee? Tea?" 16:45 <tom> "Oh man, coffee would be great." 16:47 <tom> He'll seat himself on something wooden, that won't pick up odors so easily. "A gift from the Alpha Strike?" He's squinting jealously over at the desktop. 16:50 <VoxPVoxD> She doesn't ask Bob how he takes it. He gets an Americano in a chipped mug. He can help himself to sugar or cream or whatever. "Good guess. The boys love their hardware." 16:50 <VoxPVoxD> The mug looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/W2gKsjR.jpg 16:50 <tom> That's so adorable. He's climbing out of his funk. 16:51 <tom> He sits up a little straighter in the chair. "I bet I could still smoke 'em in 1.6." 16:52 <VoxPVoxD> She's moved on to scowling at her fridge, coming up with leftover vegetables that were fresh several days ago and now fit only for compost. "I don't know what that means, but I'm sure they will. Shall I convey the challenge?" 16:52 <tom> "I think it's okay to let it ride for now. It's a little late to go for another steak with one lodged in my throat." 16:53 <tom> He takes the offered mug and sips. "It's clearing up, though." 16:53 <VoxPVoxD> Willie, deadpan: "The hound rubbed off on you." 16:53 <tom> "Hey uh, stupid question..." 16:54 <VoxPVoxD> "Try me." 16:54 <tom> "He's not here, is he? I mean that's cool, I just don't wanna throw open a door and, you know, he's just like-" He crosses his arms over his chest and falls back in the chair. 16:55 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's smile is only a little strained. "Not today, no. We usually spend nights at his place." 16:55 <tom> "I'm gettin' spooked a lot these days so I get to ask in advance- that's cool." 16:56 <VoxPVoxD> "All alone in here today. That's why I went to the offsite for lunch. As you so cannily intuited, I don't take to isolation well." 16:56 <VoxPVoxD> "Do you eat eggs?" 16:59 <tom> His eyebrows do a little dance while he tries to figure out what he's feeling. "I fancy a egg." 16:59 <VoxPVoxD> "'A egg'." 16:59 <tom> "...Did you always have like, servants or whatever, growing up?" 17:01 <VoxPVoxD> Willie takes out the last half-dozen eggs and the only two other unspoiled perishable goods in the fridge: the spindly remnants of a bundle of chives and a half-eaten tin of smoked salmon. "Yeah." 17:01 <VoxPVoxD> "Why do you ask?" 17:02 <tom> "This might not mean much, coming, you know, from me. But I'm amazed you aren't totally nuts." 17:02 <tom> "I'd be popping off with fireballs at age fifteen, at the latest." 17:03 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "You account for, let's be generous, half of the people in the world who think that." 17:03 <VoxPVoxD> "At best." 17:03 <VoxPVoxD> That's a lot of butter melting in that pan. 17:04 <VoxPVoxD> Even the way she cracks eggs is fussy and precise. A delicate tap on a flat surface, then a quarter-turn and another tap along the same meridian. Once a full circuit of four tap-and-cracks is completed, each eggshell comes apart cleanly and spits its contents into a bowl without protest or shrapnel. 17:05 <tom> Put the cholesterol directly into my arterial walls. "I'm just saying, you gotta feel like your whole life is just... the Devil danging the keys in front of you.." 17:05 <tom> "The nicest English person I've met is literally the spawn of the Adversary." 17:08 <VoxPVoxD> Two separate bowls, actually, and a steady whff-whff-whff with a fork generates two bowls of uniform liquid gold. "Keys to what? Where? If you don't know — and I assure you I don't — then Lucifer might as well be taunting the family dog." 17:08 <VoxPVoxD> "And Mari and Sumi are English too!" 17:09 <tom> He angles his head to watch. "I guess they are, huh. I never really thought of them like that, because I like them. I think Agostina is rubbing off on me." 17:09 <VoxPVoxD> Once the eggs are in she never stops moving. One hand shakes the pan over the flame, the other stirs rapidly with a spatula. "There, you see? I am at best the third-nicest." 17:11 <tom> "...Does anyone ever choose to side with the family Patriarch?" 17:11 <tom> "From your club, I mean." 17:13 <VoxPVoxD> She tucks delicate ribbons of salmon into the curd before she starts gently folding it over off the heat. A few taps, one last rinse of butter, and it's ready for the chives. If Bob's never had a French omelette before, the pale, smooth, tubular butter-coloured thing on the plate in front of him might look a bit, well, foreign. "Yes." 17:14 <tom> It does, but he's not about to ask. He takes up a fork and starts sectioning off a piece. "I think I get it a bit better now." 17:14 <VoxPVoxD> "They're awfully nice, in Milan. We're trained to fight, obviously, but we're not... it's not Plan A. We try peace. Coexistence. Remorse. Redemption, even. Every thinking and speaking thing gets a chance." 17:14 <VoxPVoxD> "Except one." 17:15 <VoxPVoxD> "If the Lucifuge thinks someone has given in to the temptations of the Blood, if they think that you have thrown your lot in with Hell, on the side of demonkind against humanity..." 17:15 <tom> "Loyalists." 17:15 <VoxPVoxD> "That they do not forgive." 17:15 <tom> "...Tories." 17:17 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Maybe. I've never met one. But a loyalist is loyal to something. A Tory, for all his faults, has some picture in his mind of the way Britain ought to be, and he has some obligation to the people that put him where he is, who also have an idea of what they want." 17:18 <VoxPVoxD> "The commandment of the Blood is that you are accountable to no one." 17:18 <VoxPVoxD> "That's the key that gets shaken in front of your face. That's what keeps you up at night." 17:18 <tom> "This is extremely good, of course." Bob is neatly dividing the omelette into square-ish chunks and spearing them on his fork. 17:18 <VoxPVoxD> The eggs are incredibly delicate, creamy, buttery... she hardly used any salmon but the whole thing is suffused with the flavour of it. 17:19 <tom> "So you've like, talked to actual demons, from Hell." 17:19 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "If we take them at their word, yes." 17:19 <VoxPVoxD> She grins. "But who would trust a hellspawn?" 17:20 <VoxPVoxD> Willie doesn't bother to make a second omelette. She just scrambles herself some eggs. 17:21 <tom> He'll chuckle, glancing down at the coffee mug, turn it in his hands. "Oh man, please, if you summon a demon, make it big n' mean and ugly or she'll have my soul in seconds." 17:22 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I only ever get animals. Things that look like animals." 17:22 <VoxPVoxD> "Or someone's idea of an animal." 17:22 <tom> "Anything cool? Or are we talking, what, black cats that hiss blood or that one fox from the movie." 17:26 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I have sketches." 17:27 <tom> He chews his food for a bit. "Hey look, it's cool if you don't wanna dig all that up. I've seen some gnarly shit." 17:27 <tom> "So I get a little dull to it after a while, yeah." 17:28 <VoxPVoxD> She gets up from her half-eaten food to duck into one of the rooms Bob hasn't been in and comes out with a little black leatherbound book. "I'm not a great artist, but... this was Kagemenauch." https://i.imgur.com/V7oQleE.jpg 17:29 <VoxPVoxD> "That kind of animal. The skin was always sloughing off." 17:29 <tom> He squints, tilts his head, tries to get a grip on the shape of it. "Looks like a pretty cool dude." 17:29 <VoxPVoxD> "Lively conversationalist!" 17:30 <tom> He chews the last bit of the omelette. "...Anything interesting, or what you'd expect from uh, a flesh skull dude." 17:31 <VoxPVoxD> She snatches the book back almost immediately. Bob can spot dates (2016, it looked like) and a tight, loopy handwriting around the sketches, before it's gone. "He liked poetry. We would talk about poetry for hours sometimes. I had to keep him under my control for a month, from moon to moon." 17:32 <tom> "Oh God damn it, I'm being lapped by dudes who don't even have lips. Infuriating." 17:33 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Every night as I went to sleep I would hear him whisper to me about the things he would do when the binding was done. He had such a deep voice, like the way a big cat's growl with crackle." 17:35 <tom> Bob flinches, just a bit, blinks. "...You were like, doing a test right? You had supervision, yeah?" 17:35 <tom> "Ohkay I'm just gonna say it, that's kinda a fucked up thing to make a teenage girl do." 17:37 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Oh yes. Milan was full of tests like that. They had a big industrial furnace, like the kind you make pig iron in. Stand in it for five seconds, then thirty. Then a minute. Then ten. Then one hour. Then two. See how far you could get before you realised you were just on the cusp of feeling pain. Because the second you actually did..." 17:38 <tom> "...Kentucky fried." 17:39 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Hell's army has its Colonels." 17:39 <VoxPVoxD> "But! I'm here now, and Kagemenauch is lapping you in circles around the Pit while you enjoy a lovely omelette." 17:41 <tom> He scoops up the bits of egg and filling that've eluded the fork so far. He frowns. "The Pandoran talked, too." 17:41 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Pandoran?" 17:42 <tom> He's rapidly tapping his thumb on the tabletop. "It looked a bit like your demon friend, the sketch." 17:42 <tom> "Maybe that's just cus' it hoovered up a stable of horses and had skulls to spare." 17:42 <VoxPVoxD> "Oh dear." 17:43 <VoxPVoxD> "How'd you bring it down?" 17:44 <tom> "I dropped two tons of white phosphorus on it and then the Navy double-tapped it with a Tomahawk." 17:44 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "That day, Willie Pete was at least your ally." 17:45 <tom> "No ma'am," he grins, but there's nothing but cold, white, gleaming ivory. "No she was not." 17:45 <tom> "Thanks for the omelette, Willie, really. I'll get my shit together, I promise. Samhain's right around the corner and I don't wanna worry Mari." 17:46 <tom> "...I think I'm gonna give her the necklace early. By her Birthday I should have a second Soyjak check and I can come up with something." 17:47 <VoxPVoxD> "That sounds lovely. I'm sure she'll love it." Willie's voice gets more serious. "You're doing alright?" 17:48 <tom> "OPFORT expects its tactical guys to get a little messy off-duty. I think I got it outta my system, though. I'm good at least until the next Kagemena... Kamehamen.. you know." 17:51 <tom> He balances his elbow on the armrest of the chair, making a fist with his hand. "Shit, though, if it doesn't piss me off. Why can't demons learn to respect boundaries?" 17:53 <VoxPVoxD> "Okay. I just..." She makes a small noise that doesn't quite rise to the level of a sigh. "You're not in OPFORT anymore. You're one of us now. You're my friend. I'm not saying, you know, don't... get messy. Christ knows I've done. But however messy you get, you're not alone." 17:53 <VoxPVoxD> Is this another episode of demons not respecting boundaries? 17:54 <VoxPVoxD> Maybe. That's not up to her. All she can do is stand at the gates and see if they open. 17:55 <VoxPVoxD> Inchcape yielded. Heaven won't. Where stands the House of Goreman? 17:58 <tom> "Oh," he drawls, "I don't feel alone." He chuckles, hesitates, the telltale sign he's gonna try some new material. "I imagine I won't be lonely on the elevator down to visit grandpa. I'll kick Kagemenauch right in the nads for you." 17:59 <tom> "...Can you talk to people? Like dead People? In Hell?" 17:59 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I don't think people go to Hell." 18:00 <tom> "Oh noooooooo." 18:00 <VoxPVoxD> "That's not me being religious. I don't think it's for humans." 18:00 <VoxPVoxD> "But who knows. Maybe Kagemenauch was a man once." 18:01 <tom> "Well there goes my Telework plan." 18:02 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Anyway, don't worry. Every time you successfully make Jalebi you get one step closer to Heaven. So just... keep at it." 18:02 <tom> "I'm really worried about Sumi." 18:02 <VoxPVoxD> "Really? Why?" 18:06 <tom> Bob gets up, takes his plate and mug over to the sink, sprays the dishes clean. "You ever meet someone who is just, like, I'm fine, I'm doin' fine, I'm doin' fine..." 18:06 <VoxPVoxD> "And then they're one stiff breeze from falling to pieces?" 18:06 <VoxPVoxD> "Or going nuclear?" 18:06 <tom> "Let's just say I know one when I see one." 18:07 <VoxPVoxD> "What did you see from Sumi?" 18:07 <tom> "She killed her copy, like, on the street. I'm already gonna have to chase down Badawi so she doesn't spill it. But, it's notable enough that you should know." 18:07 <tom> "Sumi don't play." 18:08 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Is that uncommon?" 18:08 <tom> "I... don't know." 18:08 <tom> "Mari wouldn't. Didn't." 18:08 <tom> "But it's been really fucking eatin' me up inside." 18:08 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Mari loves her parents. Even if they love Mariam more." 18:09 <VoxPVoxD> She tilts her head. "You know... I think you would have done very well in Milan." 18:10 <tom> "Oh yeah? You don't think I wouldn't have just immediately got my whole torso pulled off by a demon?" 18:11 <tom> "It's just.. she doesn't get it." 18:11 <tom> "She's just doing the same thing Cheiron does." 18:11 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "How so?" 18:12 <VoxPVoxD> It sounds more like an invitation than a challenge. 18:12 <tom> He draws in his face like a purse, which anyone can tell by now is the Tell. It makes him look like he's thinking. He isn't, really. "It's not a person, you know the whole thing." 18:13 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Mmm. Did she tell you why? Or how?" 18:13 <VoxPVoxD> "Quite bold to kill a woman on the street." 18:13 <VoxPVoxD> "Even the vampires aren't so brazen. Mostly." 18:13 <tom> "Not if they're someone no one cares about." 18:14 <tom> He doesn't cry, of course. That well ran dry before Badawi showed up. 18:15 <tom> He wrings his hands. "So yeah, I'm once again the only person in the room who thinks it's bad to kill hobos. That came up a lot in OPFORT." 18:15 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Sumi's doppleganger was homeless? Sleeping rough?" 18:15 <tom> "Yeah. All she had was her old identity cards and shit. She coulda just taken it." 18:16 <tom> "I guess nobody plays it that way in practice." 18:16 <VoxPVoxD> "What would you have done?" 18:16 <tom> "Can I tell you something monumentally stupid." 18:16 <VoxPVoxD> "Please." 18:17 <tom> "I was a kid when I saw- I don't know, it was some fucking movie about time travel. Twelve Monkeys? Back to the Future? Fucking, who cares." 18:17 <tom> "And I'm like, okay, I'm a five-hundred IQ ten-year-old, let's math this out." 18:17 <tom> "The older version of you has all your memories right?" 18:18 <tom> "So what if you make a deal with yourself to always just, be friendly to your time-travelling self." 18:18 <tom> "Then they'd remember that." 18:18 <tom> He brings his hands together, weaving the fingers together. "Boom, now we've got an alliance." 18:19 <VoxPVoxD> "Sure. Yeah. That makes sense." She takes a breath. She watches Bob. How's he holding up? 18:19 <tom> He's on a roll. "I mean, you could at least try." 18:20 <tom> "I don't know how much of an evil twin parallel universe thing it is? Mariam doesn't sound like a sicko, just boring." 18:20 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Second Sumi was an innocent." 18:20 <VoxPVoxD> "A civilian, if you like." 18:21 <tom> "I don't really know how you can slice it any other way." 18:21 <tom> "You know what happened to the last guy in my command to murder a civvie?" 18:21 <VoxPVoxD> "Promoted?" 18:22 <tom> "He would've been, I bet, if his limbs hadn't been blown off by a ricochet from a Mjolnir cannon." 18:22 <tom> "I was aiming for the center mass." 18:22 <VoxPVoxD> Willie... smiles a bit. 18:22 <tom> He's smiling too, but there's nothing in it. Entirely plastic. 18:24 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's is totally genuine. "You're a good man, Bob Goreman. A brave one. You have moral backbone." 18:24 <VoxPVoxD> "Would you... permit me to play devil's advocate?" 18:24 <tom> He's giving her a look, but he doesn't stop her. 18:28 <VoxPVoxD> She stands up. "Now, you're Sumi-2. You identify with Sumi-2. So do that. Put yourself there. You're sitting under a bridge or whatever, huddled against the rain. You're in ratty clothes, you haven't had a wash or a haircut or a hot meal in too long. Whatever life you can remember has fallen to pieces - except! You have your papers. You have your little waterproof bag with your NHS number, 18:28 <VoxPVoxD> your driving license, your birth certificate, your passport, whatever." 18:28 <VoxPVoxD> "These are now the only concrete proof that you exist in all this world." 18:29 <tom> Bob's eyes fall to his boots and don't come up for a long while. 18:30 <VoxPVoxD> "And then you look up, and you see you, but not you. You see yourself reflected, twisted, mocked. Hurt. And they're coming for you." 18:31 <tom> "That's what I'm saying!" 18:31 <VoxPVoxD> "An unforgiveable crime. A pointless murder. A failure, ultimately, of imagination. A problem a ten-year-old can think of a better solution to." 18:32 <tom> He wipes his eyes- which he won't show her- with his arm. "If Bill Fucking Goreman can come up with a better plan, you have fucked up." 18:33 <tom> "Supremely and totally." 18:33 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Yeah. Yeah." 18:33 <VoxPVoxD> "Now: I'm Sumi-1." 18:35 <VoxPVoxD> "I was taken, however long ago, by something that had no right to me. I suffer in strange, untouchable ways for a time that can't be counted. But eventually the moment comes when I win my freedom. By strength, by guile, by sheer will— it doesn't matter. A tale for the angels. Point is, I'm out. I'm free. I'm home." 18:37 <VoxPVoxD> "So what do you do first? Who's your first call? Maybe your parents. Oh, they're not speaking to you, because of something you did while you weren't there. What about friends? Same thing. Boyfriend? Calls the police. Work is easier. At work so much time has passed that no one working there even remembers what you did." 18:39 <tom> "...That fucking sucks, I get it." 18:39 <VoxPVoxD> "You start following the breadcrumbs of the complete nervous breakdown that whoever your slaver left behind had when faced with the life she didn't earn, wasn't given, and couldn't understand." 18:39 <VoxPVoxD> "Social services. Hospitals. Shelters. Whatever. There's a paper trail. We're Her Majesty's Government; there is always a paper trail." 18:41 <VoxPVoxD> "Eventually you have to start asking around. Carers, police officers. Tramps, eventually. But you start seeing people who know you. Who think they do. They see your face and there are memories attached to it that you have no part in." 18:42 <VoxPVoxD> "But you find her eventually. What remains of her. And with her - you see it behind her knees, hidden from the wind - what remains of you. The scraps of your old life, in a waterproof bag." 18:43 <VoxPVoxD> "And only one thing between you and a fresh start." 18:43 <VoxPVoxD> "I'm editorialising. Wildly. My point is this: Sumi-1 is just as innocent as Sumi-2." 18:43 <VoxPVoxD> "You are a soldier. Trained, talented, skilled - you are a good soldier. And a soldier sees the world a certain way." 18:44 <tom> He finds tears he didn't think he had left. It's not much, just a little reflective streak down each cheek. "I'm so fucking mad I can barely breathe." 18:44 <VoxPVoxD> "They see an Area of Operations. They see enemy combatants. They see civilians. They see rules of engagement." 18:44 <VoxPVoxD> "An innocent sees none of that." 18:46 <VoxPVoxD> "To be innocent is not a source of purity, or clarity, or wisdom. To be innocent is to be tossed about by things you don't understand. To cower from predators. To suffer loss upon loss that you cannot redeem. To grieve. To wonder." 18:46 <VoxPVoxD> "To rage." 18:47 <VoxPVoxD> "And innocents must be protected. Because when they aren't... things like this happen." 18:47 <tom> He exhales for as long as he can squeeze the last ounce of Oxygen from his lungs. It comes out ragged by the end, almost a wheeze. He's been smoking a lot recently. 18:48 <tom> "They really need our help." 18:48 <VoxPVoxD> "They really do." 18:48 <VoxPVoxD> "What a blessing, then, that we have you." 18:49 <tom> This time he does fight the tears, and wins. 18:49 <tom> "I've killed so many people who didn't need to die." 18:49 <tom> "I just can't take any more." 18:50 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Do you want to know a secret?" 18:50 <tom> "No. Yes." 18:50 <VoxPVoxD> "You aren't in OPFORT anymore." 18:50 <VoxPVoxD> "You don't have commanders. You don't have orders." 18:50 <VoxPVoxD> "You are answerable only to your own conscience, your regard for your colleagues, and the people who love you." 18:51 <VoxPVoxD> "You can't give innocence back to the people who've lost it." 18:51 <VoxPVoxD> "But you can befriend every bloody clone you see." 18:52 <tom> That draws out a laugh. "No ma'am, but I think you at least gotta check for the goatee first before you open fire." 18:52 <tom> "That's always the tell, yeah." 18:54 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "If you grow it out on purpose, it doesn't count. You're the good one, sorry." 18:55 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's gotten quite close to him while playing devil's advocate. She's close enough to take his shoulders in her hands, and she does. She's close enough to pull herself toward him for a hug, and she does that too. 18:56 <tom> "Shit, you don't ever wanna run into the evil one." He lets her hold him, for a second, then pulls back. "Hey, haha, don't want to make Mari worry..." 18:56 <tom> He rubs the back of his neck. 18:57 <VoxPVoxD> Willie clears her throat and looks away. "Don't be ridiculous." 18:57 <tom> He recovers as fast as it takes the neurons to make the round trip: "For real, though, thanks." 18:58 <tom> "It's been real bleak out there." 18:58 <VoxPVoxD> "Anyway. I said that to say that 'befriend the clone' is what the Lucifuge would want you to try. Which is why I think you'd have taken very well to Milan." 19:00 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Anyway, er, I need to get back to work. I've got-- let me drop you off at home." 19:00 <tom> He gets up, shakes himself off. "...I need to let Mari know I haven't died. Do some laundry. Take a long shower." 19:01 <tom> "Thanks, Willie." His smile is sad, but it's real. 19:01 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's smile is happy, but she feels very uncomfortable.