VIII-So You're Banging My Daughter (Danny)

[Khalidah Rahal]

Behind me soldiers . . . Rugged soldiers. . . . the size of whales! Burning drugs . . . painstakingly!

Elysium
Las Vegas, Nevada

The last few weeks had been particularly eventful for IntelliTouch as well as the world. Ark Industries was well underway in its ministrations to rebuild its rather tarnished name after a number of debacles which had resulted in a significant loss of life. They had an unspoken partnership with IntelliTouch now and, by extension, the Jung Facility, though the two would never meet. Felicia had done her part in founding a suitable military faction with the aid of a man she'd hand-picked. How her daughter had become aware of Daniel Briggs was unknown to her, but as she'd stated on numerous occasions before, Felicia had impeccable taste in men.

While Felicia had been off gallivanting around the world with Danny, she'd been busy delving into his background, hiring various companies to run background checks on him just so that she could be certain that Mr. Briggs was indeed who he claimed to be. When the checks turned up nothing out of the ordinary, she elected to set up a time to meet him so that she could get to know him on a more or less individual basis. Slowly but surely, everything was falling into place.

Summer had a horrible tendency to linger in the Nevada desert, but she enjoyed the heat. It reminded her of Sumeria and Mesopotamia where she'd spent a large portion of her life. Now that she thought about it, she was a fairly recent transplant to non-desert environments, having decided to migrate out of what was now considered the Middle East sometime during the eleventh century. There were times when she wanted to return to the countries she'd called home for so many millennia, but until then, the high deserts of Nevada would have to suffice.

Knowing that Danny was a teleporter had made giving him instructions on how to locate her home quite simple. Though almost everyone in Las Vegas proper was familiar with the 10 million dollar mansion north of the city, and although she did leave it open for the public, it was still surprisingly a pain in the ass to locate. At least with Danny all she had to do was provide him with a few images. She started by taking an image of the front of the large estate, then of the living room, and ended with a picture of the portion of the home where he was most likely to find her: lounging out by the pool with a bottle of wine as she watched the sun set over Sin City.

With Asimov fully-charged (though she'd brought his power supply outside as well, she didn't like running wires outdoors), she set him up on the glass table overlooking the pool and set about watching stupid videos on youtube as she waited for Danny to arrive. Fail compilations and newscaster faux pas would never get old.

“Food's in the kitchen, if you want something to eat,” she remarked as she heard the sound of footsteps behind her. Just as her daughter was able to sense him by smell, she was able to identify his unique energy pattern as he appeared behind her. “So, you're banging my daughter. Congratulations.”

חלדה רהל חלדה רהל

∞ Word count: 587
∞ Mood: lulz
∞ Outfit: This
∞ Lyrics / Quote: A drunk newscaster. lol
∞ Illustrations: No.
∞ Comment / Informational links: In post.

[Deleted]

”Again, thank you for your business, Mr. Truman,” the teller at the bank said. Daniel gave her a nod, a smile, and walked away from the bank. A guard followed him for security reasons, seeing him to the rental car he had outside. He thanked the guard as well, and started to drive off. He drove right back to the rental company he got the car from and dropped it off, having already paid up for it in cash. When he got out of the car, he walked around the corner and disappeared from sight.

When his vision came back as he materialized, he saw the Paris apartment around him. He picked up his duffle bag and slid the stack of money inside it, then disappeared from sight. He ended up in front of the mansion in Nevada that Felicia’s mother had showed him through text messages. He didn’t know why she wanted him to come over, but he also didn’t want to ‘stand up’ the mother of the woman he… Well, more like the woman who rode him like she was a rodeo rider and technically passed as his boss now. He didn’t know if that meant she was going to stop sleeping with him or not, but he doubted it. It would have been a shame, actually. He liked her. Enjoyed her company. And that thing she did with her tongue was… Wow. It was a shame she was married. He would have gone out of his way to ask for her hand in marriage. But her being in an open marriage was good enough.

He took a look at the house and let out a low whistle. It was a hell of a lot bigger than the pictures would have suggested. The angle must have screwed with something, but looking at it right now and seeing how it spanned and bent and turned… Wow. He wondered idly why he didn’t have a house like this somewhere? For retirement purposes at the very least. He wouldn’t be doing this job much longer. If things worked out with Felicia and company, and he could find a calling, he’d stop being a hired gun for good. He certainly didn’t need the money anymore. It had just been a means to an end, so to speak. A way to find whatever it is he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He began walking around the side of the house to the pool, hoping that he had found it.

He saw the mop of dark hair connected to the statuesque body of Kahlidah, sitting in a chair and playing on a laptop. He knew she liked playing video games and apparently she liked web surfing as he saw a Youtube window open on her computer. He was about to say hellow when she spoke without turning around.

”Food’s in the kitchen, if you want something to eat,” she said. He felt the small smirk cross his face and continued walking toward her to take a seat in one of the chairs she had set up by the pool.

”No thank you, I already ate,” he declined politely. She looked him over for a moment before speaking again.

”So, you’re banging my daughter. Congratulations,” she said. He didn’t know why the frankness of her words struck him, but he did manage to kill the snicker in his throat. It sounded more like he was choking on a chicken bone than a laugh.

”Uh, yes, yes I am. To be fair, it was all her idea,” he said. He wasn’t lying, even if she didn’t exactly have to twist his arm to get him to go along with it. There was another moment of silence, and he reached for the duffle that he had stowed near his feet. He unzipped it halfway and reached inside for the bottle of wine he had gotten for her but never gotten the chance to pass on.

”I didn’t have the chance to give it to you when I picked up Felicia,” he said, setting it gently on the table.

[Khalidah Rahal]

You cant understand these words I say
Your small mind cant calculate it at this pace
And if you'd practice at least one thing that you preach
You might see the golden gates that you need to reach

Elysium
North Las Vegas, Nevada

“No thank you, I already ate.”

“Oh, so you made a stop by Felicia first?” She chuckled at him and closed Asimov's lid. There was little doubt as to where Felicia had inherited her raunchy sense of humour. “I do hope you're using protection.”

”Uh, yes, yes I am. To be fair, it was all her idea.” Uh huh. She was completely sure that was the untarnished truth.

She watched as he unzipped the duffel bag by his feet and pulled out an old bottle of wine. Khalidah took the bottle from him and examined it. “Good vintage. I'm assuming Felicia told you which one was my favourite.”

“I didn’t have the chance to give it to you when I picked up Felicia.” The first time she'd met him, their acquaintance had been rather brief before she'd sent them off with her blessing. In her haste to leave, Felicia had left her bag of travel necessities in the living room. As much as she knew her daughter hated it, she went through the bag to make sure that everything was there. Finding everything in order, she snatched a few un-opened boxes of condoms from Devon's medicine cabinet and tossed them in for good measure.

“No, I suppose you didn't. But thank you for the belated gesture, nonetheless.” Using the corkscrew she'd brought outside with her, she twisted it into the tightly-packed cork and withdrew it from the neck of the bottle, allowing the wine to breathe. Khalidah leaned back in her chair and stared at him, wondering just what was playing through his mind. There were people in the world who would have (and probably had) quite literally killed to be in her company for even a minute. The advancements and inventions in biometric technology IntelliTouch had designed were in use all over the world, and were highly-favoured by most of the world's governments to protect and store data. Most recently, she'd signed a contract with the NSA which would allow them to implement new, biometrically operated unmanned drones into their Homeland Security program. What she'd conveniently left out was the fact that each of the drones had a unique kill switch deeply embedded into its coding which bordered on artificial intelligence.

As influential and powerful as she was, she was wise enough to know that she needed to respect the opinions of the public. Her workforce was one of the most highly-paid workforces in the entire world; when employees were paid well enough to thrive and not simply survive from paycheque to paycheque, their outlook on their career and what they contributed to it changed drastically. Getting a foot in the door was relatively easy.

“What are your thoughts on the relations between humans and specials?” It was a loaded question, considering how much specials had been in the news in the past year for a number of incidents. Parts of the southeast were still recovering from the 'solar flare' which had all but destroyed the entire electrical grid in a six state radius. Central Arizona had essentially been turned into a dead zone after Phoenix had practically been erased from the map. There were other much smaller incidents which had only succeeded in making the local news, but were equally as devastating.

In all the years she'd been alive, the modern era was quite possibly the most dangerous era she'd endured. It was nearly impossible for both her and her family to hide what they were, when in the past it had been much easier to simply disappear. Now there were cameras on just about every street corner, and their movements could be tracked through bank and credit records. Forging new identities and Social Security Numbers had become an art in and of itself. Going to ground was no longer an option, and she felt as if they were being backed into a corner. That wasn't a place where she enjoyed being unless she knew she had a guaranteed way out.

The political climate had changed, and not in their favour. The decapitation strike had crippled the U.S. government for several months until they'd managed to pull together and attempt to deduce where they'd gone wrong. But even the death of the President and nearly all of his cabinet hadn't brought about the change which they so desperately sought.

“The world is a different world from the one that you were raised in, Mister Briggs.” Roughly five minutes had passed, nearly all of them spent in silence. She poured herself a glass of wine from the bottle Danny had presented her with and sipped it thoughtfully. “It's a dangerous place for anyone like us, myself included.” Khalidah shifted around in her seat and seemed to look through him with a penetrating gaze. She was well aware that everything about her commanded power, from the cadence of her words to the slightest twitch in her posture. It wasn't her intention to intimidate him; she was gauging his psychological boundaries. He'd already partially ingratiated himself to her by showing up as she'd requested. “You are being tasked with keeping us safe. Do you feel that it is within the scope of your abilities to do so?”

חלדה רהל חלדה רהל

∞ Word count: 946
∞ Mood: Noms.
∞ Outfit: Same as previous posts.
∞ Lyrics / Quote: Plural for Sheep, The Sunstreak
∞ Illustrations: None.
∞ Comment / Informational links: None.

[Deleted]

”Oh, so you made a stop by Felicia first?” she said. He fought the grin that started to cross his face. Well, at least Felicia came by it honestly. ”I do hope you’re using protection,” she said. Daniel smirked fully this time.

”Yes ma’am. I always have a knife nearby,” he joked. When she got bitey, sometimes he felt like he needed a crowbar to pry her jaw open. Luckily, she was nice enough to dull his sense of pain when she did it. Mostly.

”Good vintage. I’m assuming Felicia told you which one was my favorite?” she asked. He remembered their phone conversation and Felicia telling him what to bring quite vividly.

”She told me what brand. I just kind of guessed on the year,” he said. By the way she looked it over appreciatively, she seemed to like it. Guess the only thing to do now was to taste it, which she was in the middle of doing as she used a cork screw to open the bottle. He would have wondered if she was some kind of psychic in addition to everything else she was, except for the bottle that was already on the table in front of her. He still wasn’t ruling out psychic. Felicia spoke of Kahlidah as if she were some kind of god that walked the earth. At the least she was a very powerful special. He had no idea what she was capable of.

“No, I suppose you didn't. But thank you for the belated gesture, nonetheless,” she said. Kahlidah set the now open bottle to the side of the table and paid it no mind. If it had been Felicia, it would have been half gone by now, straight from the bottle. The similarities and the differences between the two women clashed quite plainly in front of him at the moment.

As she leaned back to a more comfortable position, silence overtook them. She seemed to be studying him. He was pretty good with situation like this. He was good at reading people, bluffing, general spy work. He’d been taught by some of the best in the world. He didn’t get any odd vibe off of the woman in front of him, but by that same token, he didn’t get much of anything. She looked at him, he looked at her, and there was quite literally a blank slate. He supposed his twenty or so years of figuring people out were nothing compared to her hundreds or more years of concealing her thoughts. They sat in a silence that was neither comfortable or awkward for a few minutes before she spoke again.

”What are your thoughts on the relations between humans and specials?” she asked. He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped short for a moment. On the surface, it was an easy question. But further down, not so much.

”They could be better,” he said neutrally. ”I can’t condone people’s treatment or fear of special’s, but I understand it. I’ve heard people compare the registration act and the general hate to the treatment the Jews got during the Holocaust. But the average Jew couldn’t kill someone with their mind, or teleport, or control fire. A bad human is easy to deal with. A bad special can do things that most people could never imagine. That’s why people fear us. And that’s why the come to hate us,” he said. He was no one to talk about ‘bad specials’. He was one. He used his abilities to kill people for money. But he had morals. He wasn’t a psychopath like some people might have thought.

“The world is a different world from the one that you were raised in, Mister Briggs,” she said after another long pause in conversation. He couldn’t disagree with that. He’d always disliked the world, somewhere in the back of his mind. It wasn’t the nice place a lot of people thought it was.

”I’ve noticed,” he answered. It had never been a great place, but it had never been this bad. America, land of the free, home of the brave, wanting to brand everyone with a scarlet S if they could do things other people couldn’t. Civil rights movements in the past had never dealt with things on this level.

“It's a dangerous place for anyone like us, myself included,” Khalidah said.

”It’s a dangerous world for anyone, if you go to the right places,” he said. He thrived in those places. Where some people needed to die, some needed to be saved, some needed to suffer. He’d seen it all. And the more he saw, the less it bothered him.

[color-9466ff]“You are being tasked with keeping us safe. Do you feel that it is within the scope of your abilities to do so?”[/color] she asked. He thought for a moment. ‘Yes’ seemed like too simple an answer. Too arrogant. It felt like she wanted something more…

”I won’t quote you my service and training records, I’m sure you already know all of that. On paper, you won’t find anyone more qualified. But paper only goes so far. I can tell you that, for better or worse, I’m connected to all of you through Felicia. And I can tell you that if anyone wants to harm any of you, they would have to step over my corpse. If you didn’t already know, I’m a lot like a drifter. I come to town, bad things happen, and then I leave. It gets old, when the people you know best are repeat customers that you’d love nothing more than to kill on general principle. You’re giving me a purpose, something I’ve looked for all my life. I’ll do everything I possibly can to fulfill that purpose,” he said. Death was an occupational hazard. He’d faced it down before, accepted it, and then cheated it. Sometimes all in the span of hours. When you had several near death experiences over the course of your life, it staled the idea of dying. It wasn’t something to be feared anymore. Just something to expect. It gave him the same level of concern a normal person would pay to the ‘check engine’ light in their car.

[Khalidah Rahal]

Well, here comes Johnny with his pecker in his hand,
He's a one ball man, and he's off to the rodeo!
It's allemande left, and allemande right,
Come on, you fuckin' dummy! Get your right step right!
Get off stage, you goddamn goog, you know!
Piss me off! Fuckin' jerk!
Get on my nerves!

Elysium
North Las Vegas, Nevada

He looked as though he was entirely prepared to answer her question with a simple answer—but there were no simple answers. Khalidah hoped that Danny would choose his words wisely, and she wasn't disappointed when his answer finally came. “They could be better.”

She gestured at him to go on as he considered his words.

“I can’t condone people’s treatment or fear of special’s, but I understand it. I’ve heard people compare the registration act and the general hate to the treatment the Jews got during the Holocaust.” All of that was true. The government had stopped just shy of putting them in concentration camps, though she was well aware of programs currently being run by a number of facilities to gauge precisely how specials worked. The Company, which had lately been touting itself as a haven for specials who wished to train and use their abilities to be of use to the general populace, had once housed a prison termed Level Five for specials who were less than predictable.

Danny continued with the analogy. “But the average Jew couldn’t kill someone with their mind, or teleport, or control fire.” At its core, as horrible as it sounded, his observation had been spot on: specials were the new Jews. While it was clear to her that there were some things that she would never be able to control (the ever-increasing levels of human stupidity being the foremost issue), there were many arenas in which specials had taken the reins. That, however, wasn't to be construed with ruling the world. If she'd learned any one thing in her lengthy life, it was that empires rose and fell, and the most powerful leaders often had the most powerful opposition endlessly seeking to bring them down. “A bad human is easy to deal with. A bad special can do things that most people could never imagine. That’s why people fear us. And that’s why the come to hate us.”

Khalidah made a non-committal noise, doing her best not to lead him down a particular line of answers based on her body language. Humans were much more capable of reading into the story being told by the body rather than the words coming out of someone's mouth.

Her complete lack of expression made her unreadable, even by the most highly trained behavioural therapist. When she was having an important discussion, all of her movements were carefully calculated from when to breathe to when to offer a consoling hand. It wasn't that she was trying to be manipulative, but unlike her brassy daughter who was still a pup in her eyes, she'd learned to remain extremely guarded. Even those closest to her were completely unaware of the thoughts which ran through her mind.

When she'd mentioned the world being a dangerous place in which to live, he nodded his agreement. His unique line of work had given an intimate knowledge of the levels of degradation humans were willing to subject others to for their own personal gain. Thankfully most of those wastes of humanity were far outnumbered by individuals who sought to make right in the world. “It’s a dangerous world for anyone, if you go to the right places.” Knowing that the woman sitting before him probably had all of his records from his birth to his present station in life completely memorised, he decided not to bore her with a list of his military accomplishments as doing so would have been a waste of time. “I won’t quote you my service and training records, I’m sure you already know all of that. On paper, you won’t find anyone more qualified.” Well, yes, that was true, but it also provided a fairly good blueprint. “But paper only goes so far. I can tell you that, for better or worse, I’m connected to all of you through Felicia.”

That was a little presumptuous of him to say. She wanted to tell him that he was about as connected to the rest of her family as an ant was to an anvil, but she bit back the retort. For now.

“And I can tell you that if anyone wants to harm any of you, they would have to step over my corpse.” From the hardened look on his face, she knew that he was being honest. Honesty was a trait she valued amongst all others. “If you didn’t already know, I’m a lot like a drifter. I come to town, bad things happen, and then I leave. It gets old, when the people you know best are repeat customers that you’d love nothing more than to kill on general principle. You’re giving me a purpose, something I’ve looked for all my life. I’ll do everything I possibly can to fulfill that purpose.”

The answer she'd received to her query wasn't precisely the answer that she'd been looking for, but it would suffice. Khalidah waited for him to finish speaking before she stood up and walked to the large outdoor bar on the opposite side of the porch which afforded them a stunning look of the Las Vegas city lights as they guttered to life. Pulling another wine glass from the rack above her head, she returned to the table and poured him a glass in silence. “My family isn't here so that you can cut your teeth on learning how to be a better man, Mister Briggs, and please don't be under the heavily misguided notion that sleeping with my daughter makes you any more connected to my family than a mouse in the mouth of a lioness.” Her words weren't being spoken out of malice or sarcasm. She was putting forth a truth that several other men had become entangled in over the centuries whenever the flesh between their legs was swayed by a pretty young man or woman. “And don't mistake my callousness for being rude or unwelcoming, although I'm sure you feel quite strongly that I'm being both.” Khalidah drank briefly from her goblet of wine, taking great care in choosing her reaction.

“What my daughter has entrusted you with is far more important than you becoming a martyr for our family. We've had more than enough of those over the past few centuries, and being a martyr is just such a waste.” It was obvious to her that Felicia hadn't laid out everything to the man sitting before her, and unfortunately it fell to her to make their boundaries resoundingly clear. There was a question that she needed to know the answer to before she would trust him with anything further. “With the world being as divisive as it is with us on one side and 'normal' humans on the other, would you be willing to sacrifice your own family to protect the families of others?”

חלדה רהל חלדה רהל

∞ Word count: 1254
∞ Mood: I love David Allan Coe sfm.
∞ Outfit: Same as previous posts.
∞ Lyrics / Quote: Piss Me Off, David Allan Coe
∞ Illustrations: None.
∞ Comment / Informational links: Ngl, this song is srsly my favourite song in the fucking world and I sing it every fucking day.

[Deleted]

“My family isn't here so that you can cut your teeth on learning how to be a better man, Mister Briggs, and please don't be under the heavily misguided notion that sleeping with my daughter makes you any more connected to my family than a mouse in the mouth of a lioness,” she said. He stopped himself from pointing out just how accurate that thought was, the lioness with a mouse in her mouth. Some days it seemed like that. The lioness just saw fit not to chew him up and swallow him whole.

”I don’t have any delusions to support that, ma’am. I’m not a good man. Never will be. I’m talking about loyalty. You probably know how I first met Felicia. Which means you know how big a debt I have to pay to her. The same can be said to you. What you’re doing for me can be compared to pulling someone out of a deep, dark pit that they’ve been in for decades. The gratitude they feel, and the loyalty they will have for you, will outlast them,” he explained.

“And don't mistake my callousness for being rude or unwelcoming, although I'm sure you feel quite strongly that I'm being both,” she said. He did, a bit, but it didn’t seem unwarranted. He may have sounded presumptuous, and she wanted to put him in his place. It wasn’t uncalled for, and god only knew how many times he’d heard the same thing in the past. Albeit in much more colorful language, spoken in a much louder tone.

”Actually, it’s refreshing. I get lied to a lot. It’s good to hear the truth every once in a while,” he said. He was pretty sure he was still on her good side, for the most part. If Felicia could be believed, which he was sure she could as she had never been one to bullshit him, he hadn’t reached the threshold of her temper yet.

“What my daughter has entrusted you with is far more important than you becoming a martyr for our family. We've had more than enough of those over the past few centuries, and being a martyr is just such a waste,” she told him.

”Martyr is too strong a word. I’m not giving my life up to your cause. Just being ready to. There is a very noticeable difference. Given the choice between your life and mine, I’d forfeit my life in a moment. But there are often methods to avoid that, and those methods are why you want me on your team,” he said. He’d cheated death a lot of times. He was good at it. People in his line of work would kill to learn his secrets.

“With the world being as divisive as it is with us on one side and 'normal' humans on the other, would you be willing to sacrifice your own family to protect the families of others?” she asked. Again, he opened his mouth to answer. But this time, he didn’t hesitate because he didn’t think she would like the answer. This time, he hesitated because he didn’t know the answer. He tried to think hypothetically, if he had a family, would he do such a thing? He didn’t know. But the truth seemed to be the right thing to say. Even if she didn’t like the answer, he couldn’t lie to her.

”I don’t know how to answer that. The truth is, I don’t have a family. My mother died during childbirth, and my father was gone before that. The people who adopted me did right by me, but I never felt a real connection to them. All I have is myself, and you already know I’ll sacrifice myself for whatever needs to be protected,” he said. He still didn’t know if it was the answer she wanted, but it was the one he had to offer.

[Khalidah Rahal]

I raise the dead
Revive the ensanguined past
No life will last
Under the banner of death

Elysium
North Las Vegas, Nevada

”I don’t have any delusions to support that, ma’am. I’m not a good man. Never will be.”

“You're actually a fine man, and I'm afraid our definitions of 'good' and 'bad' differ quite greatly. I wouldn't have bothered sending my daughter to you if I didn't believe that you had promise.” She wondered what he would have considered bad. All he was doing was his job; he was a hired gun. It wasn't his place to question the many men and women who supported his lifestyle and helped pay his bills.

Danny continued to explain himself after her rather pointed observation. “I’m talking about loyalty. You probably know how I first met Felicia. Which means you know how big a debt I have to pay to her. The same can be said to you. What you’re doing for me can be compared to pulling someone out of a deep, dark pit that they’ve been in for decades. The gratitude they feel, and the loyalty they will have for you, will outlast them.”

“On the contrary, you have no debt to pay either of us. Felicia went to you on my orders not only to heal you but to see if you'd be a good fit. She's had over seven hundred years of experience sizing up men and women of your mental stature, and while I can count my experience in terms of millennia, I trust in her intuition.” Which wasn't exactly the truth. Felicia's tuition was bar-none the best she'd seen in centuries and she had yet to be wrong about anyone—but this was a very delicate operation, and she wasn't about to let one individual slip through the cracks and break what she'd spent years building up.

“Martyr is too strong a word. I’m not giving my life up to your cause. Just being ready to.”

“I fail to see how that's--” She started to ask the question under her breath when he answered it for her.

“There is a very noticeable difference. Given the choice between your life and mine, I’d forfeit my life in a moment. But there are often methods to avoid that, and those methods are why you want me on your team.”

“This isn't a job interview, Mister Briggs. I can assure you that I'm quite aware of your history up to and including your most recent kill record, and while you may think that you're quite adept at cheating death, here you are sitting right before me.” Immortals knew how to cheat death. Humans were running on borrowed time, and most of them were doing so unwisely. “And why would you be so willing to throw your life away so easily?” As far as she knew, he was as yet unfamiliar with her ability, unless Felicia had told him. She tended to guard their secrets fairly well. “It just seems such a waste.” There was no such thing as 'self-sacrifice,' and anyone who believed in it was entirely deluded. “Jesus was a martyr and look where that's brought the world. Endless years of war and death for worshipping the wrong God. It's a foolish thing to believe that by sacrificing your own life, you'll be saving others.”

As he explained his brief family history, she nodded at him to show that, yes, she was paying attention. “All I have is myself, and you already know I’ll sacrifice myself for whatever needs to be protected.”

Khalidah sighed. It was obvious that she wasn't making her point effectively enough. “What we are attempting to do is restore a bit of balance to the world. Past experience has taught me that in order for balance to exist, there are certain bloody sacrifices which must be made. War is a most efficacious way of controlling a populace, whether to maintain control or free up resources, which is something no one wants to hear, because no one in their right mind wants to give up their life for someone they hardly know, and those who would do so willingly are completely deluded that the loss of their own life will bring about change.”

She leaned closer to him and rested her elbows on her knees, idly tilting the wine glass in her hand from left to right while being careful not to spill any of the ruby coloured liquid within. Khalidah lifted her eyes to his face and gave him a reproachful look, narrowing her eyes. “I'm not in the business of hiring martyrs, Mister Briggs. I'm in the business of bringing about change by any means necessary. And while your methods of cheating death are superb, it will inevitably catch up with you, and more than likely that will be on my watch.” She looked away from him and out towards the horizon, gazing out on the lights of Las Vegas. The poor souls prowling the streets for quick money really had no idea just what was to come in the following weeks. The death of the President and nearly his entire cabinet was only the beginning. Atlanta and Phoenix had been minor disasters and would most likely be footnotes in the history books compared to what would occur around the world. “So answer me honestly. Are you truly ready to face death?”

חלדה רהל חלדה רהל

∞ Word count: 937
∞ Mood: Sleeeeepeh.
∞ Outfit: Same as before.
∞ Lyrics / Quote: Under the Banner of Death, Fleshcrawl
∞ Illustrations: None.
∞ Comment / Informational links: None.

[Deleted]

“You're actually a fine man, and I'm afraid our definitions of 'good' and 'bad' differ quite greatly. I wouldn't have bothered sending my daughter to you if I didn't believe that you had promise,” she said. He stayed quiet because he didn’t think she would like his answer. That his definition of good and bad didn’t mean much when you operated in a world that had a fairly clean cut set of values and morals. The majority dictated how things were run in such matters, and people like him were best sticking to the shadows. She didn’t seem to like anything he had said so far. He couldn’t quite help that. He told her the truth, his truth anyway, to the best of his ability. That was all he could give her, and even someone as old as she was would understand that.

“On the contrary, you have no debt to pay either of us. Felicia went to you on my orders not only to heal you but to see if you'd be a good fit. She's had over seven hundred years of experience sizing up men and women of your mental stature, and while I can count my experience in terms of millennia, I trust in her intuition,” she said.

”I’ve heard that from her and you. I don’t know if it’s the perspective of a mortal or my own set of views; but I feel I do owe her, and by extension you, a debt. We don’t perceive death the same way, so I think it would be the former,” he said. The reasons were innumerous. He’d always been taught to pay his debts, to never forget a random act of kindness or even something that was convenient at the time for the Samaritan. Be it professionally or privately. There was also the vanity. A piece of shit mobster getting him? Nothing grand or glorious, not even the decency to die in the fight, but of blood loss and head trauma days later? He thought about dying often. It was a reality that he faced more so than the average person. He didn’t have a preference for dying, but he did know that some were worse than others. In both pain and shame.

“This isn't a job interview, Mister Briggs. I can assure you that I'm quite aware of your history up to and including your most recent kill record, and while you may think that you're quite adept at cheating death, here you are sitting right before me,” she said. He didn’t know if she was talking about him being here, despite his past experience with sticky situations, or if she was alluding something about herself. Felicia had told him, not in so many words, that her mother was an immortal. It had to be slightly found between the lines, but he knew.

“And why would you be so willing to throw your life away so easily? It just seems such a waste,” she said. He was going to insist that he was numb to the concept of death and that he would ‘throw his life away’ without much hesitation for the right cause, but that’s what got them on this topic in the first place. It seemed like beating a dead horse.

“Jesus was a martyr and look where that's brought the world. Endless years of war and death for worshipping the wrong God. It's a foolish thing to believe that by sacrificing your own life, you'll be saving others,” she said. He also disagreed with that, but again, he stayed silent. He saw flaws in her logic, but he didn’t want to say anything. It probably wouldn’t end well.

With a sigh that told him he hadn’t pleased her with his previous answer, she went on to elaborate further. “What we are attempting to do is restore a bit of balance to the world. Past experience has taught me that in order for balance to exist, there are certain bloody sacrifices which must be made. War is a most efficacious way of controlling a populace, whether to maintain control or free up resources, which is something no one wants to hear, because no one in their right mind wants to give up their life for someone they hardly know, and those who would do so willingly are completely deluded that the loss of their own life will bring about change,” she said.

”I can’t disagree with you on those points. War is very necessary, if only to cleanse the people that need to die from the Earth. People dying in that war without cause is foolish. But if their death does accomplish something, if they can hold the line for more important people or if they can strike a heavy blow to the enemy, I don’t know if I can call that a waste,” he said. He’d see if she thought he said something stupid or not in a moment, but if a life could be traded to do something to further the cost, it was a life well spent in his book.

She made a move to lean forward and play with the glass in her hand, and Daniel found himself leaning forward as well to match her body language. It was almost like she was going to let him in on the big secret, and he didn’t want to miss a word.

“I'm not in the business of hiring martyrs, Mister Briggs. I'm in the business of bringing about change by any means necessary. And while your methods of cheating death are superb, it will inevitably catch up with you, and more than likely that will be on my watch,” she said. Whether it was a threat or a declaration of truth, he wasn’t sure. Either way, it didn’t deter him.

“So answer me honestly. Are you truly ready to face death?” she asked. For him, the answer was easy. Even if she would scoff at his inferior life span and world experiences from her place on top of her own such things, he was still sure of his answer. This time, he did give her the simple answer that jumped to the forefront of his mind.

”Yes. I am.”

[Khalidah Rahal]

“The whole world's gone low-brow. Thing's ain't what they used to be.”

“They sure ain't, Mama. They sure ain't.”

Elysium
North Las Vegas, Nevada

“I’ve heard that from her and you. I don’t know if it’s the perspective of a mortal or my own set of views; but I feel I do owe her, and by extension you, a debt. We don’t perceive death the same way, so I think it would be the former.”

“Well, in that case, allow me to assure you a second time that you owe us nothing.” It wasn't her intention to be curt with him, but he needed to know where he stood in their hierarchy. “And it has nothing to do with our varying perceptions of death. It has more to do with the fact that my family has always believed that no one should ever be indebted to someone else, regardless of the circumstances.” Debts could be called in at any time and thus left the debtor incredibly vulnerable.

“I can’t disagree with you on those points. War is very necessary, if only to cleanse the people that need to die from the Earth.” The words sounded strange coming from him, but she allowed him to continue without interruption. Perhaps he'd clarify what he meant. She knew that he'd seen war and its endless after-effects, but the war which he'd experienced paled in comparison to the ones that she remembered. “People dying in that war without cause is foolish. But if their death does accomplish something, if they can hold the line for more important people or if they can strike a heavy blow to the enemy, I don’t know if I can call that a waste.”

“Death never accomplishes anything for anyone, and the only people death benefits are the living. Humans seem to have this strong belief that people are divided solely into two camps: good and evil, with each side believing that they have the right to choose life or death for the other.” She hadn't expected his answers to be rehearsed, but she also hadn't been expecting him to feed her lines he believed would placate her. Felicia must have spent a good amount of time attempting to groom him—or not, since she recalled that the man had a photographic memory. “I really fail to see why you're wasting both my time and yours rattling off semi-philosophical answers that you think I want to hear. I have no interest in the philosophy which governs life, death, or the time spent in between, so you can can the bullshit my daughter told you to say that would keep you on my right side.” The longer she spoke to him, the more apparent it became where Felicia had inherited her brash personality.

The fact that he was now mirroring her body language, whether consciously or otherwise, only served to irritate her further. Even though he freely admitted that he was ready to die, she doubted his honesty. No one was ever ready to die, and those who said that they were were fools. She finished her glass of wine and set it down on the table. Her temper was bubbling under the surface, but unlike her daughter, she'd had several more centuries to learn how to hold it in check and bring it to a more manageable level. Giving in to her temper would have satisfied her for the moment, but it would serve no ultimate purpose. The point of meeting with him in private and engaging him in a conversation was to foster a better understanding between them of precisely what would be expected.

After several minutes of silence which were only punctuated by the sound of Khalidah refilling her glass, she finally spoke again, her voice even but firm. “There may come a time when you'll be faced with particularly difficult decisions make. The war that is coming is unlike any war that has ever graced human history, and it won't be a war where people will be able to pick sides and hope that their side comes out the victor. Everyone will lose someone or something dear to them that is irreplaceable, and everyone will suffer.”

חלדה רהל חלדה רהל

∞ Word count: 737
∞ Mood: COLD.
∞ Outfit: Same as previous.
∞ Lyrics / Quote: Class, Chicago
∞ Illustrations: None.
∞ Comment / Informational links: I have to pee now.

[Deleted]

“Well, in that case, allow me to assure you a second time that you owe us nothing. And it has nothing to do with our varying perceptions of death. It has more to do with the fact that my family has always believed that no one should ever be indebted to someone else, regardless of the circumstances,” she said. That was odd. She seemed like the kind of person who would like to be owed debts. Having that little bit of power over someone, even if it was just enough to get a small favor out of them in the future seemed right up her alley. Books and covers… He certainly wasn’t going to say anything to her about his belief though. This meeting was already going badly enough.

“Death never accomplishes anything for anyone, and the only people death benefits are the living. Humans seem to have this strong belief that people are divided solely into two camps: good and evil, with each side believing that they have the right to choose life or death for the other,” she said. She was right about that. It summed up a lot of countries and their goals quite well. He would be more in the camp that there was obvious good and obvious evil a good percentage of the time, even if it was according to the popular vote on morality. Grey areas existed, true, but sometimes there were people who just had it coming and people who didn’t.

“I really fail to see why you're wasting both my time and yours rattling off semi-philosophical answers that you think I want to hear. I have no interest in the philosophy which governs life, death, or the time spent in between, so you can can the bullshit my daughter told you to say that would keep you on my right side,” she said. Well, that seemed like the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was no longer ambiguous as to how the meeting was going. She was less than pleased…

”She didn’t tell me to say anything, actually. She hasn’t talked about you a lot. Whenever I ask, her answer is usually ‘wait until you meet her’. If I’ve displeased you, I am sorry, but I haven’t been trying to appease you either. I’ve only been laying out my beliefs,” he said. She probably didn’t give two shits about his beliefs, but he wasn’t one to sit there and be blissful in silence. He’d done that too much in his life. Now, his policy was more akin to ‘seek forgiveness rather than ask permission’.

“There may come a time when you'll be faced with particularly difficult decisions make. The war that is coming is unlike any war that has ever graced human history, and it won't be a war where people will be able to pick sides and hope that their side comes out the victor. Everyone will lose someone or something dear to them that is irreplaceable, and everyone will suffer,” she said. He thought over her words for a moment. It sounded like any other war he knew of. People didn’t get to pick sides when their country was being torn apart by opposing armies. They were well and truly fucked, one way or another. Even if their home country won the war, the damage was done, the loss of life couldn’t be taken back, the country continued to bleed as a whole for years to come.

”There are always difficult decisions to make in war. I’ve made difficult decisions, and I can still sleep at night. Without more data, I can only give you an educated guess, and say I’m ready for those decisions. he said. He hoped that answer was up to her standards.