Jungle Drums IC
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Jungle Drums IC
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[Caroline Chapelle – 20:21, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles] #30
Caroline nodded to the assembled men, as she let Rhea take her away. She didn’t particularly show much emotion when Rhea praised her “It seemed pretty obvious. Plus, whatever question they would have asked would have told me more about them, than any answer I would have given would have told them about me.”
She answered with a slight smile to Marco “Hello. I’m sure we’ll all have plenty of time for that. And probably to have plenty of curses thrown at each others along the way.” She would have continued a bit along those lines, but turned to Sevetlana. She lightly smiled herself, but it seemed more formal and less genuine “I have just gotten here, and am just getting up to speed myself. I’ll see what I can find out, and I’ll let you know what’s possible.” And hopefully, it wouldn’t be any time soon “Does that work for you?” By asking the question, she was forcing Sevetlana to agree to the proposed plan: she would now be involved in it, which would prevent her from saying much on that issue from now on.
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Caroline Chapelle – 20:21, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles
Svetlana looks puzzled then nods. “Da, yes, that will work. I am just nervous about all these new things added to the plane. Something might happen to the medical supplies.”
Rhea tugs on your arm and nods off to the right, where you see a young woman approaching. She is carrying several large mugs on a tray. “And this is perhaps the most important person on the crew. Caroline, meet Yvette, one of the best crew cooks in the business. Yvette, this is Caroline Chapelle, our Second.”
Yvette gives you a large smile as she offers you one of the mugs on the tray. You notice that it does not take long for the other mugs to disappear into the hands of those standing around you. The aroma of the hot soup is…………………well, amazing would be too small a word. Only Svetlana frowns a bit, but even she takes the mug offered her. The girl, for she couldn’t be older than twenty, smiles at you. “Welcome, Second, I hope you like my cooking.” One of the guys gives a snork that she ignores. “Let me know if you have any preferences and I will try to make it happen. We have lots of supplies for now, and I think Marco can work to keep it that way.”
She turns to Rhea, adding, “I have one more tray of soup to take out to some of your guys.” Turning back to you, she says, “After that I close shop and get everything packed up. Any problems with that, Second?”
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[Caroline Chapelle – 20:21, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles] #30
Caroline declined taking one of the mugs “I’ve just coming back from dinner, I’m alright thank you. As for preferences… She smiled “Well, I’m French, that should tell you enough?” She frowned, with a mock shudder “Just try to avoid the slop the English call cuisine, and we’ll be fine.”
At the question, she shook her head “None with the closing of the shop. Though I’m Caroline, and while I’m that Second you speak of, I’d rather be called by my name. You don’t need my permission to do things though. If there’s a problem, I’ll let you know, otherwise, proceed as you feel best.”
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Caroline Chapelle – 20:22, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles
Mario, at least you think it is him, calls out. “Dibs on the soup.”[/color= He smiles at you as his hand snakes out and grabs up the mug, Others about him frown and one, Rory, mutters something about a lucky bloke. Mario shows no sorrow. “Thank you sec….Caroline. I will take very good care of this.”
Yvette just chuckles and nods to you as she goes off. Rhea nudges you. “So, I would offer a tour of the plane, but the aircrew has forbidden us to get back on while they are refueling. If you think you have time, I would like to introduce you to the rest of the security team?”
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[Caroline Chapelle – 20:22, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles] #31
Caroline didn’t let Marco leave just like that, and instead called after him “Sure, take it. As long as you remember that you owe me one.” She smiled then. She didn’t appear angry or anything: she wasn’t hungry anymore after all. But she couldn’t let others believe they could take things from her for nothing.
She nodded at Rhea “Fine by me.” She smiled crookedly “After all, the longer I have to stay out of the plane, the longer I have before have to say anything to Sevetlana.”
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With little else to do, I settle into my own patch of straw and try once again to fight against the collar. Given how much I’d already expended myself in the hopeless attempt at ‘healing’ a corpse earlier, it’s not long before I fall asleep exhausted.
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Caroline Chapelle – 20:22, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles
Rhea laughs and nods her head. “Svetlana is a handful, but she is one of the top children’s doctors in the world and she is one of the few that has dedicated their life to helping kids in disadvantaged areas. We are really lucky to have her. She received the invite for this crew at the same time as another to go to Borneo. She picked this one because of Alyce.”
Rhea leads you towards where people were standing about. Dressed in body armor and carrying SMGs on shoulder straps, they appeared alert. They are introduced as Kasimir, Olena, Dnitri, and Ivan. All four greet you politely and as you shake hands with them you notice that each has tattoos on the back of hie or her hands. Last, Rhea takes you over towards the building Alyce had disappeared into, where you see a man and two women standing just outside the light cast from the small light over the door. Rhea introduces them as Elena, her second in command, Pyotr, and Boris. “These are the guards that I have assigned to be Alyce’s personal guard for the dig.”
The three guards nod at you and offer to shake hands. Like the others, their hands have the same tattoos on the backs.
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You are rudely awakened by someone banging on the bars of your cage. Opening your eyes, you see a poorly dressed man standing near the open food slot. He is pushing a cart with a pot of gruel and a large pitcher of water on it. His apparent glee at waking you up is reflected in his cruel smile and the way he slops the gruel into a small bowl and pushes it through the slot. He motions for the used bowls and pours water into the water dish before pushing it back to you. He blissfully wishes you to have a nice day and moves on to the next cage. Shortly afterwards, Manuel comes over. “Hey, get up. The boss wants to see you.”
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I woke up unsure of how long I’d been asleep. My hunger suggested it had been a while, but I didn’t feel rested. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to sleeping on a bit of straw over hard ground. I’d learned a while ago that it was best to just gulp down the stuff they feed us down here and then wash it quickly with the water. The less opportunity there was to theorize on the contents, the better.
No sooner had I gulped down the stale water than my least favorite person manifested himself at the door of the cage and ushered me out with a leer I did my best to ignore. At least I knew he wouldn’t dawdle if the master truly was requesting me. And if he wasn’t? We’ll, no sense borrowing trouble when I owned enough already.
“I look forward to doing my Master’s bidding, sir,” I said with practiced if perhaps flat enthusiasm as I passed the much larger man. No point giving Manuel an excuse to “punish” me for lacking respect.
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[Caroline Chapelle – 20:22, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles] #32
Caroline greeted everyone with a nod and a small word. She didn’t have much in common with these people, but considering that she may have to depend on them for her protection, especially considering the place they were going, it would be idiocy to piss them off. There were so many ways they could retaliate without appearing too…
While she noticed but didn’t say anything about the tattoos on the hands of the first team she met, she couldn’t help but ask when she noticed the same thing on the three guards “Those tattoos are a company thing?”
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Manuel snickers as you pass him, but he does not touch you., though as you walk ahead of him to the car, you can feel his eyes undress you. He motions to the open passenger door and shuts it after you slide in before getting in the front passenger seat for the ride out of the slave pens. The door lock clicks as you shut the door.
Exiting the tunnel into fresh air and sunlight is as much a miracle this time as every other time. The driver, a man by the name of Paco, quietly opens the rear windows enough to allow some air in for you. Manuel notices and jumps his ass for it. “Hey, what are you doing? She does not deserve special treatment.”
Paco snorts. “Special treatment for her? Fuck off, Manuel. It is for me. You don’t have to get the smell out of the seats every time she rides in the back.”
Manuel twists to look around at you and takes an exaggerated sniff before nodding and turning back to face the front. When Manuel is occupied elsewhere, Paco looks at you through the rear view mirror and gives you a small smile and a wink. Of all of Senor Carlos’ men, Paco is the only one to have treated you even partially decently. The car leaves the hacienda and heads into the city. You have been to his high rise in the past a couple of times and know that it means a special client, but the route the car is taking is wrong for that. The most likely alternative is one of Carlos’ brothels. He has used you in the past to heal one or more of the girls and boys he pimps out from there. Before you, it was easy to just let a sick or injured whore die and replace her with another girl or boy from the streets, but since you came along, he can just have you heal then and get them back to work. Sure enough, the car eventually pulls into the parking lot of the Pink Pussy Cat, a low class brothel. Manuel gets out and your door unlocks. He motions for you to accompany him inside.
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Caroline Chapelle – 20:22, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles
Rhea chuckles and nods as she walks with you back towards the plane. “Sort of, Caroline, sort of. The ink on the security team indicates they are Vory soldiers. I do not have it because I am an EVO asset, and the Gaxins don’t because they are independent contractors. It is not just the security people, either, and some people owe allegiances to both the AAA and the Vory. Alyce is very important to both EVO and the Vory for things done in the past and when she called, they provided. The only real independents here, besides you and the Gaxins are Svetlana and Yvette. Are you familiar with the Vory? Or EVO?”
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[Caroline Chapelle – 20:22, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles] #33
“Of course I know EVO.” She frowned “But I can’t say I ever heard of the Vory. What kind of corporation is that?”
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Caroline Chapelle – 20:22, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles
Rhea looks at you then nods and her voice is quiet as she explains. “The Vory are the Russian Mob, Caroline. More powerful in many respects than any AAA, but less in others. They are organized crime on a scale that dwarfs the Mafia, the Yakuza, and perhaps even the Triads, certainly the Korean Seoulpa Rings. Now here, you have nothing to worry about. Evo and the Vory go back a very long way, with a lot of back scratching involved, sort of like a symbiotic relationship in some ways. Although the leadership of both will privately acknowledge that the relationship exists, you do not often see this sort of cooperation at this level. Again, it is due to some sort of special………….thing, for want of any better word…………that Alyce has with both organizations. I know the story, but it is not mine to tell, so you will have to ask her about it at some point, if you are interested.”
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[Caroline Chapelle – 20:22, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles] #34
Caroline blinked a few times, then laughed “Criminals handling security?” She shook her head “You went too far to be credible, but you almost had me for a moment. Ah.” She frowned, then her face started to show consternation as she realised it may not have been a joke at all “Please tell me it is a joke…”
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Caroline Chapelle – 20:23, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles
Rhea shakes her head and chuckles a bit. “Yeah, it can be a bit disturbing at first, I agree. But these men and women are very good at their job. They were hand picked to be part of this dig crew. All are intensely loyal to their various masters, which in this case means that they are loyal to me, because I have been placed in charge of them. I have no qualms about putting my life in their hands and neither should you. As a bonus, all of them have prior experience in the jungles of the world. I have worked with all of them at one time or another, although never all of them at once. It will be an interesting trip, but you will not have to sleep with one eye open, waiting for a murderous criminal to steal into your tent and rape or kill you. Can you get your head around that?”
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[An hour before departure, Sunday March 21, 2077; Alyce’s Private Room, Airport, Marseilles]
“My new nature means that I perceive the astral at all times, I should be able to provide warning before we encounter the fovae. As to my friends, I’m not sure that those have what we would understand as friends in the traditional sense…the weight of such a long past must be heavy to bear. They aren’t particularly forthcoming with explanations, to you, to me, to anyone. I suspect it is a matter of perspective rather than any desire to be secretive. They simply cannot see us as equals no matter how open minded they are. And that is as it should be, we were not meant to grasp their view of the world…it is our weakness and our strength.
But I am not one of them, at least not yet, I will try and answer your questions as I can
The mirror is many things, if it calls to you then it is possible that it will do so for anyone that perceives it, I will be more careful to keep it under wraps. It should not be a problem for anyone that has not seen it before. Of Al I can make no guarantees, you know that…but I believe that he will return, he is far too canny to fall so soon and his path, though I cannot see it clearly, warps the future for a few more years to come. As to the Ordo, they no doubt know the astral signature of the mirror and whilst I can hide that to a certain extent it is highly unlikely that they are not trying to see its return. It will only truly be safe once it is inside the fovae.”
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Thirty minutes before departure, Sunday March 21, 2077; Alyce’s Private Room, Airport, Marseilles
Alyce looks again at the shrouded mirror and shivers. “I think it is more from my exposure to it in that horrible place. I do appreciate very much the bit of information that you have shared with me, which is far more than the Old One thought to share. OK, so we need to get the mirror to a place of safety. Unless you have an objection of some kind, we are wheels up for Bogota in about thirty minutes. I am taking a crew with me and will set up a children’s clinic there while we conduct some research on the location of these special places, these fovea. Once we get enough information, we can set out as if on an archaeological expedition to the area and then get rid of that thing. If you have no issues with that plan, we should get out to the plane and I can have you introduced round.”
“Oh, by the way, I have been told that my requests for licenses to operate an orphanage at my home in Cornwall have been green-lighted by the Home Office. That means those children and their mothers will have an official home with me, so at least some good can come of what we found in that mansion.”
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[Caroline Chapelle – 20:23, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles] #35
Caroline didn’t seem convinced. For a moment, she considered answering that while she wouldn’t have to worry about the criminals outside of the camp, she would have to worry about those already inside of it. She didn’t know anything about the Vory themselves, but being described as similar to the Mafia, the Yakuza or the Triads wasn’t exactly a good point. Those guys she knew, and there was probably no words harsh enough to describe them. Wasn’t there nothing they wouldn’t do?
Finally, she answered tightly “I always have a spirit keeping watch anyway. Had I known that earlier though…” She shook her head.
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Caroline Chapelle – 20:23, Sunday March 21st, 2077 – Aéroport Marseilles-Provence, Marseilles
Rhea laughs. “I see that you have now been acquainted with what I call the Alyce factor. She was born with a mutated brain that lets her remember everything. Everything she ever did or saw or read or heard……….you get the picture. Everything. The problem is that with all that stuff stuck inside her head, she sometimes has troubles deciding what needs to come back out as information. Don’t get me wrong, she is a firm believer in letting people know what is going on, but she sometimes just does not get that information out of her head to the end user. And if you had known in advance that Vory soldiers were involved in the security and decided to stay away, you would have missed out on a great opportunity. These people will die before they let any harm come to you. Their honor demands it. These are not common street thugs, Caroline, these are several levels above that. To them, their entire life is about honor and family.”
“You should take a look at the ink Alyce has on her upper arms some time. Besides a couple of really creepy hydras hiding in foliage, she has a Vory tat on each arm that is an oath to themselves and to the family that is the Vory. She is accepted as one of them and they would never betray her. And because their various bratva bosses have put me in charge of them, they will never betray me, either. You are not Vory, but you are part of Alyce’s temporary family and so you get the same protection she does.” She chuckles. “OK, well, maybe not quite the same, but close enough. You do not have anything to worry about from inside the crew. Feel any better?”
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