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rainbowfic2014-02-19 08:39 pm
greenling) wrote in rainbowfic2014-02-19 08:39 pm
Entry tags:
Canary Yellow #7
Name: Greenling
Story: Asking for Roses
Colors: Canary Yellow #7 (Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.)
Supplies and Styles: None
Word Count: 707
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: Finishing the conversation in Patience/Wrap Up Well, Alex asks Diana for advice on how to handle the monster.
Comments, criticism, and questions are all appreciated.
"So," Alex continued with a sigh, "what do I need to do?"
"I'm going to text you contact information for one of our people in the media. You get an appointment for at least an hour from now, talk to her in person, flash your FBI cred and ask her to keep a lid on this break-in and, y'know, related issues as part of an ongoing investigation," Diana explained. "I'll have patched things up with the LAPD by then, so nobody's gonna find anything new. No big."
The wheels in Alex's head started turning. "And she'll just listen to me? You're asking me to talk to a real journalist, I don't even have a badge."
"You have an ID card! And yeah. You'll be fine."
Diana sounded chipper in the way she did when she knew something Alex didn't, so he decided to drop that particular line of conversation. He sighed again and added it to his mental data cache regarding the structure of their organization. "All right... so you have media contacts here, and contacts in the LAPD. Will that get everything?"
"Probably. If you can find that thing and banish it soon- or kill it, whatever works."
"I thought you said we didn't have contacts here, and that's why I was needed."
"No, I said we didn't have contacts among the supernaturals. I didn't say anything about the LAPD. Shit, I'm not even going to call one of our contacts, I just know who to pretend to be." He could hear the grin in her voice, but then, for some reason, it dropped. "You're ah, not having second thoughts, are you?"
"Second thoughts about what? I don't recall being given a choice in this assignment to have first thoughts about." He frowned and laid back on his hotel room bed, hoping his pancakes would arrive soon.
"Believe it or not, I don't want you to get hurt. Or burnt out," she failed to answer. "Do you know what to do when you find it?"
"Not... well. No." He sighed. "As you said... I'm not sure how I saw it. It was invisible at first, and the..." He decided to leave the blond man out of it for now, and restarted the sentence. "It looked like a cross between a lizard and a human being, and the air sort of shimmered around it. That's all I know."
His phone dinged with the contact information Diana had sent. He turned up the volume on the phone and flicked through it: phone number, email, photo, links to social media profiles. "Elizabeth Hancock, food and wine critic?"
"That's correct." So not an actual journalist? Alex thought with confusion. "As far as the Outsider goes, you're going to have to figure out what it wants and how it got here. Sometimes it's something straightforward like an attempt at a magic ritual or something, but sometimes they're tied to a person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or a place, object, event... it's insane troll logic. Destroy it, or fulfill its conditions, or look up what's worked for other people. We have whole databases for that. You said the person it attacked was touched?"
"He was something supernatural, yes. His name's mentioned briefly in some of the files."
"Isaiah Nieve. Yeah. What happened to him?"
"I'm not sure." Alex sent the information over to his laptop. "I'm going to try to see if he got home all right, and if not, I can find friends of his."
"Hmm... good luck. Especially with those people. Don't do anything stupid."
"'Especially with those people'?"
"Ah... let's just say we thought this was their fault at first. We didn't actually expect an Outsider."
"Their fault?" Alex thought back. "Whose fault specifically? You thought there'd been a murder? Covered up by supernatural means?"
"It's a little more complicated than that. Let's see where you need to go from here first."
There was a knock at the door; Alex's pancakes were here. He stood up. "All right. Should I email you again?"
"We'll talk again this time tomorrow. If you're in mortal danger before then, send me a line."
Alex smiled ruefully, checking the peephole and unlocking the door. "I'll try. Goodbye."
Story: Asking for Roses
Colors: Canary Yellow #7 (Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.)
Supplies and Styles: None
Word Count: 707
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: Finishing the conversation in Patience/Wrap Up Well, Alex asks Diana for advice on how to handle the monster.
Comments, criticism, and questions are all appreciated.
"So," Alex continued with a sigh, "what do I need to do?"
"I'm going to text you contact information for one of our people in the media. You get an appointment for at least an hour from now, talk to her in person, flash your FBI cred and ask her to keep a lid on this break-in and, y'know, related issues as part of an ongoing investigation," Diana explained. "I'll have patched things up with the LAPD by then, so nobody's gonna find anything new. No big."
The wheels in Alex's head started turning. "And she'll just listen to me? You're asking me to talk to a real journalist, I don't even have a badge."
"You have an ID card! And yeah. You'll be fine."
Diana sounded chipper in the way she did when she knew something Alex didn't, so he decided to drop that particular line of conversation. He sighed again and added it to his mental data cache regarding the structure of their organization. "All right... so you have media contacts here, and contacts in the LAPD. Will that get everything?"
"Probably. If you can find that thing and banish it soon- or kill it, whatever works."
"I thought you said we didn't have contacts here, and that's why I was needed."
"No, I said we didn't have contacts among the supernaturals. I didn't say anything about the LAPD. Shit, I'm not even going to call one of our contacts, I just know who to pretend to be." He could hear the grin in her voice, but then, for some reason, it dropped. "You're ah, not having second thoughts, are you?"
"Second thoughts about what? I don't recall being given a choice in this assignment to have first thoughts about." He frowned and laid back on his hotel room bed, hoping his pancakes would arrive soon.
"Believe it or not, I don't want you to get hurt. Or burnt out," she failed to answer. "Do you know what to do when you find it?"
"Not... well. No." He sighed. "As you said... I'm not sure how I saw it. It was invisible at first, and the..." He decided to leave the blond man out of it for now, and restarted the sentence. "It looked like a cross between a lizard and a human being, and the air sort of shimmered around it. That's all I know."
His phone dinged with the contact information Diana had sent. He turned up the volume on the phone and flicked through it: phone number, email, photo, links to social media profiles. "Elizabeth Hancock, food and wine critic?"
"That's correct." So not an actual journalist? Alex thought with confusion. "As far as the Outsider goes, you're going to have to figure out what it wants and how it got here. Sometimes it's something straightforward like an attempt at a magic ritual or something, but sometimes they're tied to a person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or a place, object, event... it's insane troll logic. Destroy it, or fulfill its conditions, or look up what's worked for other people. We have whole databases for that. You said the person it attacked was touched?"
"He was something supernatural, yes. His name's mentioned briefly in some of the files."
"Isaiah Nieve. Yeah. What happened to him?"
"I'm not sure." Alex sent the information over to his laptop. "I'm going to try to see if he got home all right, and if not, I can find friends of his."
"Hmm... good luck. Especially with those people. Don't do anything stupid."
"'Especially with those people'?"
"Ah... let's just say we thought this was their fault at first. We didn't actually expect an Outsider."
"Their fault?" Alex thought back. "Whose fault specifically? You thought there'd been a murder? Covered up by supernatural means?"
"It's a little more complicated than that. Let's see where you need to go from here first."
There was a knock at the door; Alex's pancakes were here. He stood up. "All right. Should I email you again?"
"We'll talk again this time tomorrow. If you're in mortal danger before then, send me a line."
Alex smiled ruefully, checking the peephole and unlocking the door. "I'll try. Goodbye."