The Informant

[Trillian]

HIS LIME GREEN SNEAKERS MADE little sound on the flagstone path, leading him from the parking area to the perfectly manicured front gardens where he had options of which direction to go next.  On impulse (and a little assumption), he guessed that the main doors would be in the centre of the building and followed the path to where a grand sight greeted him once he'd stepped in.  Ben hadn't visited this building, but was reminded a little of the main foyer of the Oligarchy Chambers - not because of how it looked (for it looked vastly different), but because of how it felt walking in.  A little surreal, very overwhelming and largely intimidating.  The ceiling - as beautiful as it was - made him feel somewhat detached from his physical self, as though he were caught in a place between sinking and flying.  Was he underwater or up in the air?  It was apt, really, considering what he'd just learned earlier tonight.

Ben had left Vincent's house and come here immediately upon learning the news from Owen about what was going on at the Chambers.  It was still pretty early in the night - not yet midnight - so he suspected he had a good chance of catching Conner here.  Of course the leader of the Ward might be too busy to see him, or perhaps not even here, but he had to at least try.  He wondered if Conner had put Ben in the same 'difficult' basket as Ichabod might be sitting in, given their last meeting.  He had to know they were grieving, since Kerr's connection with them had been freshly severed.  He hoped Conner could forgive him, because he wanted help.  He was pretty sure that the other vampire would want to help, too, given the kind of information Ben would be giving him.

He approached the counter ahead of him, which had someone at it.  He'd worried that his shoes might make squeaky, embarrassing noises as he walked across the tiled floor but other than the soft fall of his padded footsteps, there was nothing else.  He'd learned to stop breathing many years ago now, but found he mostly kept the habit just because it made talking easier.  He never liked the way the older vampires would stare through him and then pull in that heavy-sounding breath before speaking.  He wondered why most of them didn't just use telepathy all the time.  Mind, if he used telepathy all the time, he'd have to drink a hell of a lot more than he was.  Would it affect Ancients in such a way too?

"May I help you, sir?"

The voice was polite yet not quite friendly.  It was the voice of a wary police officer who comes across a suspicious character lurking about in a park.  Suspicious characters could be a range of things, from someone searching for their lost dog to serial killers.  Ben had been spoken to in such a manner when he'd been lurking about in a park himself, hoping to find someone to lure to him and drink from.  He'd been smarter than to try his young powers on a police officer, but there was one benefit to looking as young as he was and dressing as smartly as he did; people in authority tended to give him the benefit of the doubt, or dismiss him as mostly harmless.  Ben had spun a tale of having just broken up with his girlfriend and needing to walk and think.  It had explained his aimless style of strolling, and after being looked over by the cop, he'd been asked if he had a friend's house to go to.  Ben had answered in the affirmative, and pretended to be grateful for such advice, and then the police officer had left him to it.  Ben had gone back to his car after that, feeling a bit wary of being stopped.

He was aware that the person at the front counter was giving him an increasingly inquisitive look, and Ben couldn't see either hand because the counter was covering them.  Fuck, was an alarm being sounded right now because of the crazy guy who'd just walked in?  He looked from left to right for security before realising that probably made him look worse.

"Um, I haven't been here before," he said by way of explanation, though he was sure this person that he was talking to didn't care.  They had a very professional smile glued onto their face though it didn't quite reach their eyes, which were twinkling with intelligent appraisal.  "I'm Ben Samson.  Is Conner here?  I... don't have an appointment," he added.  He wondered if his name would carry any stock or not.

[realworldweirdo]

The young woman at the counter, the sort of blond that dances on the line between being sharply clerical and simply looking like she's trying to be sharply clerical, gave him a quick glance from head to toe, evaluating him. After a brief evaluation, unseen fingers dialed a phone underneath the front counter and her headset suddenly appeared to take on extra weight, in the manner of those who pay close attention to what they hear.

"Yes, this is Theresa in Reception. I'm calling to confirm a Ben Samson to see Director Iessan." A pause; a flick of not-quite-hazel eyes to Ben's face again, then back down to the indeterminate point where the phone probably was. "I see. No, it doesn't seem to be." A pause, another quick evaluation. "I'll send him up. Thank you." A slight motion of her arm was the only indication she'd disconnected the call.

Her attention shifted from the headset back to Ben, and a polite, practiced smile manifested on her face. It came nowhere near her eyes. "You are on the Director's walk-in list, and he is in his office. He'll see you now."

Without waiting for him to offer a response, she gave him well-rehearsed directions to the elevator and then to the proper office on the third floor. Her manner shifted to a more genuine sort of friendly, and her voice dropped slightly as she leaned forward, as though sharing a secret.

"Don't mind the guards, they're like that to everyone."

[Trillian]

Ben was glad that he could go right up, but it was an interesting statement that Ben had been put on a 'walk-in' list.  He supposed that his sire had earned Ben that right, even in his death (likely especially so).  Conner - or Director Iessan, as Ben should be calling him now - had obviously respected Kerr, and he was giving service to that respect still.  In hindsight, Ben realised he should've been more grateful of Kerr's political position, instead of merely tolerant, because it was affording him benefits now.  He had somewhere to go to when he needed help.  When she leaned forward to share her secret, Ben also shifted forward slightly in a conspiratorial manner, wondering what he was going to hear.

Don't mind the guards?  What guards?

He nodded and thanked her, twice, because once hadn't seemed enough, and then he was following her directions.  He didn't deviate from them but ran them over in his head as he followed them through, step by step.  Here were the elevators.  Somewhere, there were guards.  Maybe she thought he'd seen one.  Maybe she thought he could see them all - were they some kind of invisible creature?  Was he being monitored by guards or by cameras?  He didn't want to look around in case it made him look suspicious.  No, now he was just being paranoid.  Fuck, this place was playing with his head.  Speaking of which, did they monitor thoughts?  He hoped not, because most of the garbage that floated around in his head was shit like this.

The elevator doors opened swiftly once the carriage arrived.  He stepped in, turned around and jabbed the number three button.  It lit up to indicate that it had received the message, and then Ben stared through the open doors for too long before they shut again - much less swiftly.

Should this place be so empty?  He'd seen a great number of cars in the parking lot, but it felt like he was the only person here.  He wanted to lower his mental block to see if he could sense any other minds, but was too frightened to.  This building was too big for him, too grand, too professional, too efficient.  Quite suddenly and powerfully, he missed the penthouse at the Chambers.  Most of the workers hadn't really liked him because they considered him to be 'elevated' (oh, and hadn't Vincent chosen the worst possible word to accuse Ben with?), and Ben hadn't bothered to correct them.  Even though it had been like that, the penthouse had felt like home.  The aquarium had arrived at his new address on the beach cliffs, and that was the one thing he'd not stuck in the ballroom with all the rest of it.  The fish were swimming in the tank in front of a huge plate glass window.  Maybe Ben's experience in the foyer was what those fish were feeling like.  Poor things.

The elevator stopped so quickly that his stomach didn't seem to keep up and lurched.  Pulling a face of discontent, he stepped out of the lift and onto a floor that transported him back to normalcy.  Now this floor looked and felt like a regular kind of office floor.  His mind returned to the directions, and he suspected that Conner (Director Iessan) would have a personal assistant or someone sitting outside of his door before he went in.  As soon as he stepped outside, he was aware of a few different things.  There was a directory he could use instead of the simple directions the receptionist downstairs had given him (though hers were no doubt infallible so he wouldn't bother double-checking them).  There was a stern-looking male... something or other... that looked like a human in his forties but didn't smell it.  Not human.  Not vampire.  Not Mimic (Ben thought guiltily).  Demonic, maybe, but not elemental because Ben had become pretty good at identifying the smell of them, too.  This one smelled like smoke, but not like cigarette smoke - like wood-burning fireplace smoke.  When he stopped and stared, he was gruffly made demands of to identify himself, and after doing so, and feeling a refined itch in his mind (which made him turn to the left, looking away from the smoky-guard and to another guard, this one easily identified as an elder vampire), he was then bid on his way.

Even the police officer at the park hadn't made him feel so accused as those two.  Walking at a slightly faster pace than normal, the warning downstairs finally made sense to him.  What guards?  Why, these guards of course!  He followed the rest of the directions and arrived at the door Conner was supposed to be behind.  He knocked.

[realworldweirdo]

Conner happened to be standing in the space at the front of the office suite, talking to a severely underqualified applicant to the Surveillance Director position. It wasn't that the aspect shifter was a poor talent; in fact, he was sending him on to one of the surveillance teams. It was that he'd learned himself that directing a branch of an organization took a very different skill set than being an effective operative at the ground level. The knock on the door catalyzed the process of sending him on his way.

"Yes, your resume is very impressive," he lied blandly, still not good at deception. "However, your skill set is better suited to one of the operative positions. If you'll excuse me," and he opened the door to reveal Ben, who he'd identified with a cursory psychic glance "I really must see to another matter." The shifter seemed to have realized that no amount of impressive salesmanship would land him the job at Conner's obvious impatience, and brushed out of the office past Ben.

The office suite, arranged to handle four Directors and their receptionist, was rather stark at first glance and at every glance after. Upon entering, Ben would find himself in a rectangular space with a chest-high counter at the back of it, made of an anonymous but dark and shiny material, much like one that might be encountered at a bank. No receptionist was immediately visible, but several sets of rapid typing and the occasional shuffle of paper could be heard. A wide gap in the counter allowed access to four wooden doors, only one of which was marked at the moment with Conner's name and title. The reception area looked similarly unfinished, coffee tables that might have been brought out of a standard office supply store holding magazines and periodicals of seemingly random supernatural and mortal publication. The chairs matched the coffee tables, low and colorlessly blue-gray synthetic cloth on metal to match the gray-brown of the tables. They were set in rough groupings, one on each side of the door halfway between the front wall and the counter. The walls were bare, looking shamelessly freshly painted, their nakedness establishing the solid black counter as the outer wall of a fortress rather than anyplace that anyone would go, except to lay siege perhaps. Behind the counter, a bulwark of filing cabinets stacked to nearly head level created an awkwardly inelegant corridor to the Directors offices themselves.

"Ben," Conner greeted him simply, still holding the door open and looking incredibly out of place in a black graphic tee emblazoned with a rampant griffon over the word Valor and a pair of bluejeans. His old leather jacket was dangling from his left hand, apparently forgotten. A phone rang briefly in the background, and was answered by a tenor male voice.

[Trillian]

Ben was surprised at the kind of office (offices?) that could be found behind this door.  It lacked personality, and other than the counter, didn't possess any of the intimidation earned from the foyer, losing that edge of discomfort Ben had obtained from the moment he'd walked in.  He supposed he should be grateful that he didn't feel quite as inferior here (especially with Conner dressed as he was, and for this he really was grateful).  Ben himself was layered up to hilt, though thinly.  A light black jacket over a mostly zipped up unfleeced hoodie over a thin red horizontal striped T-shirt (the hoodie didn't quite zip up all the way up to the neck, revealing the layer closest to Ben's flesh).  He wore this over light blue jeans and finished it with the lime green chucks which had been a product giveaway from a New York fashion design house.  It had taken him some years to getting around to opening the box, and they were pretty comfy shoes - even not broken in, as they were.

"Hi," Ben said, not sure if he was supposed to be calling Conner by his first name or by his full title.  "Do I call you Director?" he asked, feeling foolish and waiting for a gesture for Conner to allowhim to enter (and giving Ben space to move through the doorway would be enough).

[realworldweirdo]

"Just Conner is fine," he replied, as though distracted. Too many things were on his mind these days; he pushed the mental noise back and stepped clear of the door to admit Ben. "It would be odd for you to call me Director after.... the alterations that our positions have gone through."

What he meant was that once, very recently, Ben had basically been one of the few people outside of his reach and just before that brief interval, had been in a position of inestimable influence over him. Conner doubted that Ben knew what kind of sway he'd held in the Oligarchy as Kerr's progeny, but he himself had been very much aware of it. Now Conner occupied a position nearly as powerful as Kerr's had once been, although only by necessity. Kerr accepted becoming the Luminary out of necessity, he'd told himself often enough lately. I founded the Ward because of necessity, too. I hope I can live up to his example.

"Come, let's talk privately in my office. I find that even in my own organization, the walls seem to have ears," he tried to joke, but the stress around his mouth and eyes put lie to any levity. The City Ward was not as friendly, even to its own, as the Oligarchy had been. It was something he'd been working on, but hadn't managed to find the cause of yet. That stress, among many others, was the reason that the office was so mismatched and roughly decorated. He turned and gestured for Ben to follow him down the passage made of filing cabinets to the door marked with his name.

Conner's office looked less like the seat of the City Ward's power and more like a flock of secretaries had made a nest in a spare room. Another pair of three drawer tall black metal filing cabinets stood behind the plain oak desk, which was covered in mostly-organized stacks of reports, everything from surveillance schedules to budgets for various branches of the Ward. Shelves, which at least matched the desk, stood on the left side of the room, filled with books ranging from obviously newly-bound to cracked, ancient-looking tomes with titles in archaic forms of six different languages. Interspersed were three ring binders and spiral bound notebooks, usually labeled in a tidy scrawl. The floor was the same as the front office, the rough, durable commercial carpeting. Even the chair was rather anonymous and clerical, a mesh-backed, although high quality, office chair.

The only truly personal touch in the office was a statuette of Themis sitting front and center of the desk. It wasn't the same one that Kerr had had in his office, but it was obviously a token of respect, almost an invocation of his presence.

Conner grabbed a chair, very much like the ones in the front office, from the wall beside the door and placed it in front of the desk for Ben to sit in while he went around the desk and settled himself in his own chair. "I'm glad you came," he opened, trying to make his tone friendly but the undercurrent in his voice was almost palpable.

Have you decided to help me try to find Kerr?

[Trillian]

Ben entered, followed and then obediantly sat.  He gave Conner a stiff smile at the pleasantry before launching right into his topic.

"Yeh, I found out something tonight that I thought you should know right away," he began, wondering if Conner's expression was going to sharpen or change from the speculative one.  It was unnerving, to be looked at in such a manner, without a clue as to what was going on in the other's mind.  Ben's blocks were firmly in place, though he had a good idea that Conner's abilities would bat that aside without too much trouble, if he wanted to.  Ben knew he was a different kind of vampire, because of all the research he'd done in the library and all the rumours about what Conner really was, but he didn't know what was truth and what was gossip, and he didn't understand the bloodline vampires because it hadn't been properly explained to him.  What he'd looked up had made sense, but for a long time now he'd been itching to question Conner about his heritage and powers, and now it looked like he wouldn't get the chance anytime soon.  "It's about the Chambers."

Perhaps Conner would reply with: 'You mean that group that's taken over? Yes, we know about them.  Was there something specific you had to tell me or did you just race over here to tell me something I already know?'

No, he hadn't raced over here just for that.  It was a good excuse to see Conner though.  He doubted he needed an excuse, but he felt oddly guilty, like he was cheating on Ichabod, somehow.  That was so fucking laughable that it entered a parallel dimension of hilarity.  Perhaps in an alternate Universe, he and Ichabod had something going on.  Why, then, did he feel like he was sneaking around behind Ichabod's back just by being here, then?

[realworldweirdo]

Conner's face fell slightly, speculation turning to disapproval. It was obviously not targeted at Ben, but at something more abstract.

"Yes, with the Malkavian. I would remove them, but unfortunately I don't have the resources to remove a harmless group from a building that large, and it can be.... risky to move against a Malkavian without the right resources. You can probably tell," his hand swept around to indicate the barely controlled chaos of his personal office, the front office, and an almost ridiculously irritable flap of his hand seemed to include the as-yet unseen neighboring office suites. "We're a bit overwhelmed. Understaffed and over budget." He bit the word budget off as though he hadn't fully intended to say it aloud at first, but it had been too late to stop by the time he realized what he was saying.

"Have they done something I'm not aware of?" Now his gaze rested on Ben's, the concern for a building that had been, in his eyes, the symbol of the first just supernatural government he'd served. He knew it had been Ben's home, as well, and was not unsympathetic.

[Trillian]

Ben held back on blurting out all of the thoughts he'd had on the drive over.

Digital's a firebug
Kerr used to give him buildings to burn down
It sated his pyromaniacal desires, I'd say
He has a flamethrower now
He had a flamethrower back then too
But it'll all be in his file, right?

He shook his head, but there was something to what Conner had said that had confused him.

"I thought the Oligarchy was filthy rich," he said.  "There should've been enough to go around, surely?"

It was a leading question, because he wanted to know who'd received most of the money.  By what he could see, Vomas had injected a great deal into his headquarters, and that was just by driving past the outside.  Ben hadn't even gone in yet.

And your foyer looked fucking fancy, he thought but did not say.

[realworldweirdo]

Unaware of what Ben was thinking, as well as having incomplete access to the Oligarchy's records, which he still needed to talk to Vomas about, Conner was unaware that Digital was currently a walking fire hazard. He was aware of the circumstances surrounding the death of Kerr's sires, but not of the ongoing threat.

"There was," he said, obviously irritated. "The Districts formed before the Ward did, though. Most of the resources were taken by those who were Oligarchs and chose to become District Leaders. I didn't have their skill or access, and was late to claim a share. The City Ward has what was left by the others," oh, and the bitterness of his voice at that, because it wounded him to live off the scraps left by others"and the owner of Haven Crest is giving us a hugely discounted rate on our lease for the first term." The shortness of that term, a mere six months, was not mentioned, but the additional stress of thinking about it narrowed Conner's eyes and put a downward tilt on one side of his mouth.

"Several of the Districts are now quite comfortable," he added, almost resentfully.

[Trillian]

Ben couldn't help himself, he laughed, though not unkindly.  "Politicians and the cops," he said by way of explanation, then his laughter and smile both faded quickly when he realised his over-simplifiation of the situation could be extremely insulting.  "I'm not really interested in working here or anything, but I figure Kerr would've invested in keeping the Ward operating.  Sounds like his thing.  I've... uh... gotta sort out some stuff first, but I'm pretty sure I can help."

[realworldweirdo]

Conner wasn't entirely sure what he was hearing, but it sounded to him like Ben was offering financial help. Blinking in surprise, he fidgeted in his chair as though his leg had fallen asleep.

"Help? What kind of help?"

It hadn't occurred to him to have young vampires working in the Ward before Ben had mentioned that he didn't want to.... but as the idea tossed around in his mind, a kernel of a plan began to form. Slowly, a light sparked to life in his eyes. He might be able to pull this out yet.

[Trillian]

Ben was more forthright, not wishing to dance around the subject.  "Money."  He thought over the repurcussions of any donations he might be making in Kerr's name, and figured this would be a better way of marking Kerr's loss than some shitty headstone in an anonymous graveyard ever would.  "You can name a section of the Ward after him, if you like.  No," he frowned, stopping himself and correcting.  "I want you to name a division or something like that after him."

Ben's gaze fell on the statuette that he knew was in Kerr's office, though he'd seldom visited Kerr there.  He was observant enough to have noticed and remembered it, and aware enough that Conner was paying homage to Kerr with his use of it.  "I'm sure you'll choose something appropriate in his memory."  He gave a soft single laugh of disbelief.  "You know, I came here to tell you about that firebug, and ended up promising you funding.  It's a strange world."

[realworldweirdo]

Conner smiled, and his relief was almost palpable. His expression was so genuine, so relieved that it was nearly comical. "Thank you," he sighed. Then he thought, and his pensiveness masked his gratitude slightly. "I'm not sure what I would name after him. He never seemed to relish any type of governing, which I can at least say I share with him," he admitted, flicking his hand at the papers covering his desk.

At the mention of Digital, he fell somber, his mercurial focus staying on the problem for a moment. "I don't have the resources to oust him safely, without losing people I can't afford to replace or risking damage to the Chambers," he said. "The Chambers are in Jake's District at any rate. I'll let him know that the situation needs to be addressed and see if we can deal with it cooperatively." That it would be up to Jake's discretion entirely, since the Ward didn't take unilateral action within claimed Districts, he didn't mention. Jake would certainly cooperate with this, at Ben's request, he thought.

"It's a strange world," he tacked on suddenly at the end, as though it had just occurred to him to mention it. "You promised me funding, and we do need it, but it gave me an idea to help our budget too. I think we'll start an apprenticeship program; it worked well for the clans in older times, and the premise is basically the same." He was obviously excited at the prospect, leaning forward slightly. "Think of how much young people could learn, working with the experience of the City Ward's agents spread between them!" What he was thinking was of how versatile and useful they would be as agents after a few decades.

[Trillian]

"How would that help your budget?" Ben asked, thinking that apprenticeships programs meant the apprentices were technically low-paid workers while they were learning.  "It'd help more if you charged for training.  There's lots of young vampires without sires, like me, who have nowhere to go now for help or training.  I got lucky, I found someone who was willing to teach me."

Well, there was a possibility now that Vincent would cast him away, since Ben hadn't told him he was 'elevated'.  It was enough of a recent memory to sour Ben's expression, but he continued.  He was pushing back in his chair now, his right ankle atop his knee, his hands fiddling with the cords that tightened the hoodie which wasn't up, and he frowned darkly while he spoke, though his words essentially were light.

"Apprenticeships will give you cheap labour, I guess.  I'm not really into that, but there are lots who would be."  He was thinking of his fledge brother Ichabod, in fact.  "You should have classes for those who have the money to pay for training.  Like me."  He flashed Conner a winning smile before it disappeared and was replaced by a serious expression.  "Is it possible to learn the shit you know without being... your subset?"

He really wished he knew the appropriate language to refer to variety of vampires who had bloodlines and clans.