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Event - Dogged

Dogged

The message goes out to everyone on ADI's network. It seems to be something captured live. It's Pam Ruan, head of HR who holds a prosthetic finger up to her lips before whispering, "Everyone's pushing for transparency right now, right? Figuring out where threats are coming from and sharing. I think that should come at all levels. Let's see what Nia's talking about with Mr. Zyrian Steel, hmm?"

The camera flips around as Pam clearly creeps closer to an office door. There are muffled voices, and Pam sets the phone face up before using one hand to shove the thing under the door. The video shows a sliding picture of the office's bland ceiling for a moment before coming to a stop. The voices become much clearer.

"-down in Wolf Trap," a masculine voice is saying. Presumably, Zyrian Steel. "There's just no need for that."

"Zyrian, this ain't a negotiation." Nia Lehrer's voice is familiar to most people working at ADI at this point. They've likely heard her speak in some pre-recorded training videos at the bare minimum. Nia's tone is no nonsense and clearly on the edge of snapping in frustration. "You're not hiring us. I'm sending my people down to Wolf Trap next month. We've got evidence of those signalhead things being on the march, one down that way, your kick off for New Horizons in the park, and evidence out of there about the Lullaby Girl from some of my people."

There is silence.

"You remember her? Ava? Or Amber, it seems like. She's the one you gave us those Lucidio masks to help train our people against. Frankly, I'd be surprised if you don't remember her, Mr. S." Another drawn out pause. "You ain't been straight with me for a long time. You ain't been straight with ADI since Tawnya was Warden. You tell me you need us in Buffalo, payback for helping in Wolf Pen and Cortana and the mobile med units, and not only do half the staff come back with crab claws and whiskers, but I find out you're using us for business politics." There's venom in her tone. "Or were you just going to stay quiet about Etcher's enterprises competing with your own software companies? ADI is not your personal attack dog. You are our client. And I thought my friend. But I'm about 30 seconds away from firing you from both."

Further silence, then a heavy sigh. "And I was going to offer to send you and your staff on such a nice retreat." There's the sound of a chair being pushed back. "Warden, I think you misunderstand the nature of our relationship. You are the dogs. I am the master. I hold your leash. Or have you forgotten just how much technology I've donated to ADI over the years, how many of your systems run on things I built? We've had a mutually beneficial relationship up until now- Well… you and I have. Tawnya got to be a problem before the end, too. But I made sure that was taken care of."

"You self-aggrandizing son of a-"

"You're a much more practical woman than she ever was, even with those shiny ideals you hold so dear. You'll compromise for the greater good, to protect what's yours. Such a good Warden, looking out for her charges."

"What are you talking about? And get your hands the hell off my desk."

"Haven't you ever wondered about the title? Warden. Odd name for a leader of any organization, even one like yours. But maybe not so odd when you consider your more eldritch masters." A scoff. "The Hunt always does pick out the most oblivious avatars, doesn't it? What does a Warden do?" A beat. "She controls the monsters, Nia. Sniffs them out and contains them. And she goes after the poachers coming after her prey. Tell me, have you ever noticed how you're always picking up on threats far afield with uncanny precision. It's been getting stronger, hasn't it? Tawnya was the same way. As was her predecessor, I imagine."

"That's not- I wouldn't ever…"

"Wouldn't you, though? Every time you sent your own dogs after a threat, reveled in it, you were being such a good Warden, instilling terror in the hearts of your enemies, ADI's enemies. So many cults know who and what you are and they fear it. Fear the Warden of ADI, famed avatar of the Hunt. Even now, I know you've compromised yourself. Have you considered what that's done to you? You let that Visionary kid stay alive. I rather think that might have been the start of your slide, hmm? Making exceptions, just this once.

"Now," he continues, voice growing louder and footsteps starting toward the phone, "I realize this is a lot to take in, to think about. Why don't you do that self-reflection while I attend to other matters? You are doing good work, puppy. I need a dependable pet to take care of all those nasty pests who keep trying rituals. But no need to worry about the New Horizons launch, really. I'll just-" Zyrian pauses and everyone will have a view of a middle-aged caucasian man with dark, slightly graying hair and a beard. He's wearing khakis and a Hawaiian shirt, and he's looking down at Pam's phone.

"Well… fuck." He stomps a heeled shoe on it and the transmission ends abruptly.

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Winter shakes his head. "It's different, to show up here tied to one. We can't help that, we can only do our best not to make it worse." If that's what they want, anyway. It's what Winter wants, with everything he is, to not cause more fear in the world. "But to be born here and take on a connection like that. It's different."

"Is it? I mean... do we really know that?" This is a genuine question, not just an argument. This is something she's thought about, especially recently.

“If the fears are really from this world you'd think the locals would have a bigger connection.” And if that's not true that's interesting, too. They need to figure out why.

“The people who show up here—the ones with powers it's easy enough to tell if we're feeding ‘em. But I dunno if the offworlders who don't have powers are already chosen by one. And at that point… there's no way to know everyone else hasn't been, too.”

It's not that she thinks there's no choice involved, but if the entities do pick people who align closer to one than another, and then feed off things they’d do anyway, build off it… she's not sure where she's headed with this, exactly, except that it feels like they take advantage of people. Which she supposed isn't news.

"The locals don't automatically have powers or non-human traits," Winter shrugs. "They would have to seek out power. Have to guess it exists. Have to realize that scaring someone in a certain way gives them power. But some of us come in with that shit, and it translates. To being connected." It makes sense to him, anyway, why there's so many more people from other worlds who have entities than the locals do.

Well, comparatively, anyway. There's a whole lot more locals, but as a proportion of off-worlders, the entity connection is a whole lot more prevalent.

"Or, you know, find out these things exist and get involved. Like... the locals who work here."

From what she knows, a lot of them had their own run-ins with monsters before deciding to try to do something about it. And she doesn't think they should be blamed for that.

"Besides, what's bad about just wanting power? Power's how you keep people safe. I mean—I'm not saying it's worth feeding these things if you can help it. But it's not bad to want to be strong. Seems to me it's about why you want it."

And if turning the tables on things that want to hurt people makes you strong enough to keep doing that? That shouldn't be wrong. She hates that there's even a context that can make that wrong.

Winter shakes his head at that. "The proportion is much, much smaller. Compared to all the people in Gloucester, only a small portion work here. And that's for here. Other towns, nobody works for an apocalypse-stopping organization at all."

He eyes her a moment. "I have never seen the want for power end in a good way. And I am. Older than I look." He hesitates, reluctant and stiff because he has no idea how to do this thing he's about to say, and then adds, "Maybe non-violent methods would be better. We can't use power against the thing that grants it, anyway."

"Then we've seen different things," Eda says, with a shrug. She's not about to argue that that hasn't been his experience, but she's also not about to agree with the idea that just wanting to be strong makes someone a bad person.

"And you might be right here," she admits. "But we still can use it against the things trying to hurt people. It's not fair if that also feeds the jerks behind the curtain... but I'm pretty sure it's also not fair to act like standing up to them makes us the same as the guys who want to burn the whole world."

She seems tired, more than angry. This isn't how anything should work.

"Yeah, maybe there's a better way. I hope there is. I'm all ears if you've actually got one. But doing nothing so we don't maybe feed anything just lets the people who genuinely get off on fear keep doing whatever they want."

And for what? Knowing in their hearts they can claim the moral high-ground while people die?

Wanting to be strong and wanting power are two vastly different things, to Winter's mind.

"I don't," Winter says helplessly. "I'm a weapon. Violent methods are what I'm for." He shakes his head. "George did. He used goats on a magic island full of evil plants, instead of flamethrowers. Bad-smelling fish to keep people out of a cave instead of blowing it up. I would never have thought of those things."

"Yeah," Eda agrees, trying not to dwell on how many people... aren't here any more.

"George was damn clever. Saved everyone a lot of trouble. But at the end of the day goats and fish weren't what stopped Katie." That was her, and Manji, and the bard, and others. It was a small fight, but it was a fight all the same.

"I don't know about the rest, though. You seem more like a person to me." Maybe not one she always sees eye to eye with, but she doubts that anything that was just a weapon would have such strong opinions on all of this.

Winter knows what stopped Katie Dunn. It was also him and Steve, with Mjolnir and a gun and a metal fist. And a grenade killed the avatar in the circus. But maybe it didn't have to be that way. Winter just doesn't know those other ways. He doesn't think Steve does, either. Maybe Yelena will. Or Kate.

He shakes his head a little again, not in negation, but a kind of acknowledgement. "I'm a lot better than I was. I had to work to get better at seeming like a person. To. To feel a little like a person." He's not all the way there, but he's better. "Otherwise I'd have kept feeding the Stranger."

And this gives her a little pause, because Eda has to admit she's curious.

"I guess... I've never asked much about what you are." Not so much because she wasn't interested as because she was pretty sure it was none of her business; an attitude she hoped most people would respect in turn, when it came to being a large bird.

As far as she knows he's some flavour of human, but she supposes she's not a hundred percent sure about anything beyond that.

"Supersoldier," Winter explains. He thinks Eda would probably not be too squeamish about the story, like some people. "Science experiment, then weapon. Now person. ... mostly, anyway," he feels he has to clarify. Because he only feels like a person most of the time. "Steve says I started out human. Then we got the serum that made me stronger and faster. Then I got captured." Again? Again, he thinks. "And got turned into the weapon for a long time."

While it's true Eda's not especially squeamish about it, she's also not really sure what to say. She does grimace briefly, because it certainly doesn't sound like a good time.

"That's... a lot," she says after a moment. "And I hope something terrible happened to them." Even if she won't strictly suggest violence. Technically. She'll just heavily imply it.

"But I'm not sure what you mean mostly." There probably is a way that could be literal, but she's also not sure if person and weapon are necessarily mutually exclusive.

Well, there's the obvious, that his arm and a bunch of the bones on his left side are metal now, but that's not really what he means. Winter has to frown a bit and think on how to put it into words. "I don't always. Feel. Like a person. For a long, long time I was just a thing. I didn't think or question or. Feel." That's a lie. He felt. He felt fear. But it's not the same as feeling everything else. "I'm getting better but. I'm not all the way there yet."

She's noticed that long since, but she's pretty sure a metal arm doesn't say anything about relative personhood.

As for the rest, if she knew him better, she might have more to say to that. As it is, she's a bit uncertain how much to comment.

"That really doesn't sound like a good time. Someone was just... doing that to people?" Not a stretch given the sort of thing happening back home, or even here, but still fairly awful sounding.

"Not people," Winter says, shaking his head once. "Just me. I don't think actual people could have survived the Chair." He pauses, corrects: "Normal people. I'm enhanced, strength and endurance and healing. Or I would be if I wanted to feed the Stranger." Which he doesn't. "I was, I think, kind of singular. Only one other in the world like me, and HYDRA didn't have him."

"And.. that part was done by someone else?" If she's following right, at least. He mentioned a serum that came before getting captured, though he didn't exactly get into detail.

She has to admit she's curious, though. And at least a little reminded of certain things back home. Perhaps not many similarities, but she is familiar with people wanting control via questionable means.

"I don't know. I don't remember most of it," Winter admits. "A few things. Some faces. Some-- flashes. I don't know how much of what I do remember is real." And how much is nightmare created by an entity, or created by his own brain, for that matter. "They had me kill people for them, and only kill for them. I'm still learning how to do other things."

"Well, it... seems like you're off to a good start," Eda says, a little uncertain what else to say to all this, even if she's the one who's been asking questions.

"I know a few ways to get memories back, but they're a little dangerous and a lot illegal." Not that Boiling Isles laws actually matter here, but the ADI's rules against using their powers do. And she's pretty sure Winter wouldn't like that anyway.

Winter shakes his head. "It's okay. It's not that important. I'm me now, now him. And. I don't want anyone messing with my head anymore," he says. Even getting new memories back gets trumped by fear of losing what he has now. And he's already made the decision to be a new person, himself, not the person once known as Bucky Barnes.

Still, it was nice of her to think about. So: "Thanks, though."

"Yeah, that's... probably just as well," she admits, even if she would probably have tried to help, if he'd actually wanted it.

"But no problem." There's a little pause, because while she interested, they've gotten awfully far from what they were originally talking about.

"Look, I just... we've all got our stuff around here. All of us, the natives too. It doesn't mean I'm about to trust Nia, but it doesn't mean I'm not either."

Winter shakes his head a little. "I don't think she's a bad person. I think she's compromised. And." He looks away. Well, further away. "I won't work for an avatar. I just can't do it. Think I'm going to try to tie things up. And then give notice. I'll find some other way to fight the entities that doesn't feed one of them."

"If you find one that doesn't feed any of them, I'm all ears."

It isn't sarcasm, not quite at least. But she's not convinced there's many options that don't feed one thing or another, as much as she'd like to avoid it.

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Event - Dogged

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sorry for the delay! month-end close kicked my butt

no worries! sorry for being slow in general lately

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