[ closed ] it is a bad time to be poor

[gramarye]

Who: Sirideáin and Wolfgang
What: Passing on a warning.
Where: Badside, a bar by the river
When: Givdi/Thursday the 27th
Warnings: To be added as needed.

Lot of arrests in Badside. No one knows why. Of course, they never need a reason, and half the time it's just to scare everyone into shutting up and giving up. It tends to work for a while — the meeting this week is cancelled, everyone knows the Militia knows they're there and everyone is certain if they were to meet, something would happen, so... everyone stays home. But that doesn't mean shit stops happening, and more and more people disappear, leaving families without breadwinners or with half the income they rely on or with no childcare. The community pitches in as much as they can, people take care of each other out here, but it's not easy for anyone.

Wolfgang gets a lot of texts and calls from people over the week. It disturbs him. In line at the grocer, the pharmacist, he hears people talking in quiet, furtive voices, looking over their shoulders in fear — they say they know someone who remembers something like this happening before and it was bad. Someone's parents or grandparents remember, but no one will say it out loud, like in doing so they'll make it real and it will be their fault.

After work on Givdi, he stops by the Convict Affairs office in Dryside — which is actually quite a bit out of his way, and he hates coming out here because of how people look at him in the street, like he's violent scum — to handle more of the paperwork associated with moving him from one job to the other. He overhears what he does because he's tired and not thinking about how he affects the world around him — and then has a moment of stabbing fear, is it real? He hallucinates things. Fairly often. But if it's real...

He's not proud of how he brushes the minds around him for confirmation, but he needs to know he didn't imagine that.

Then, stony-faced, looking like a tired young man with nothing on his mind but going home, he sits perfectly still in the office of his caseworker. Thoughts racing. It's real, and someone has to know, but... Considering who all has vanished over the past week — arrested or maybe worse — he's not sure who to tell, not sure if they're tapping his CiD. He makes a decision ultimately and on the train home, he sends Siri the most innocuous text he can: Wiped out from work. Drink?

He knows two people who spend a lot of time in the river, but only one of them is usually this far southeast. The bar — there are more bars per capita in Badside than anything else, it feels like — sits right on the bank and it's the one he spends most of his time at since it's like three blocks from his house. He's standing outside, close enough to it that it's like he's just out here having a smoke before he goes back in. Still dressed in his work clothes, an ugly yellow jumpsuit with his hair tied back, and despite the two showers he took right after his shift, he probably doesn't smell super awesome right now. But there's nothing he can do about that, so tough.

Comments

[rhineblooded]

When Siri meets Wolfgang outside the bar, her hair is still slightly damp from her swim. She's dressed casually in a grey tunic and long pants, with sandals on her feet. She should be chilly, but she doesn't show any sign of it.

"My grandmother used to tell me stories," she says by way of greeting, as she comes close enough to speak without raising her voice. It's a little bit like confirming what's already been whispered in their circles. "All right?" Siri smiles when she asks, concern genuine, if she's not interested strictly in his well-being.

[gramarye]

"Yeah," he says, and manages to smile, close-mouthed. He doesn't know her very well, but enough. "Good to see you."

He's fine, anyway. Concerned — that's written plainly on his face, he's not some super spy master of subterfuge who can hide how worried he is, and it's not entirely self-motivated, although... there is a bit of that, yes. It has not escaped Wolfgang's notice how many of the people who have been arrested or disappeared had a criminal record already.

He flicks some ash from the end of his cigarette, turns around to face her. "I'm hearing a lot of stories lately."

[rhineblooded]

"And you."

Siri nods knowingly and watches the end of Wolfgang's cigarette as if for lack of a better focal point. (His eyes are up there, Sirideáin.) "We all are." Hearing stories. "Is your house in order?"

It sounds something like subterfuge, if you don't know the Nix. She doesn't always speak in the way others expect her to, which is by and large intentional.

[gramarye]

Well Wolfgang is certainly not going to be the one to throw a stone at this glass house of... eye contact making... considering he generally speaks somewhere slightly to the left of everyone. Or to their noses, or hands. "Ah... yeah, things are fine."

Are they going to talk in code? Oh no. Because he's terrible at that, his mind is too disjointed for it and he's just going to sound like an asshole, and then she's going to look at him like he's crazy. Crazier. He goes straight to the point instead: "Have you heard from Tasia lately?"

[rhineblooded]

Fear not, unicorn. Siri's not particularly good at code either. Confusion she's got down, but that's not a skill many people should actually brag about. "Good, good."

Then her brows come together with worry and her gaze flicks up to find Wolfgang's. "I spoke with Tasia a couple days ago. Why?"

[gramarye]

Wolfgang doesn't think they're being listened to, but he keeps his voice low anyway. "I heard a rumour at work. A few of them, actually. Whatever's going on isn't random, and I'm worried about her. Her name came up, they said they were going to 'take care of a problem.'"

He frowns deeply and brushes his hair out of his face.

"I'd tell her, but it's better that I don't..." He glances at his left hand, the scarred one.

[rhineblooded]

"That's not good." Siri glances around not so much out of nervousness or caution, but more out of habit. She's a chronic people watcher. "It confirms the whispers I've been hearing, too. But I haven't heard her name dropped before." She flashes a smile too brief to be properly reassuring.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?"

[gramarye]

Wolfgang's expression is... mixed. Tired. Regretful. A little angry, although not, obviously, at Siri. Maybe at himself. "I'm sorry. That's all I know." That Tasia is a target, and therefore that CAMB is a target, but — not when they might be gunning for her, not how, not for how long. Reading minds and looking for specific thoughts rather than emotional undercurrents or impressions is a very new skill for him and without time to set up a focus, it is very difficult to do it deliberately. He's been doing it by accident for months, of course. Stupid magic.

But some warning is better than no warning, and everything else he knows about what's going on — well, it's what everyone knows. Something's going on, and he's afraid.