Mandelbrot Bound: Conference

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Garrison Kane drops by the Snow Valley Center with a case that has the FBI stumped, and that the unique knowledge of Wanda and Sofia might be perfectly suited to solve.



The Snow Valley Center was shy on one thing; proper security. Garrison considered this as he blew past Jubilee at the front desk with a wave and a strategically tossed crueller. Whistling a Stan Rogers song as he crossed the floor, he dropped a cup of coffee on Marie-Ange's desk, just as she liked it (NATO regular; one cream, one sugar, blech). Looking up, he made a beeline to the corner that held Amanda, Wanda and Illyana's desks.

"So, which witch is which, eh?" Kane said, waggling his finger between the two of them with a grin. "I need a ritual symbol specialist."

"Huh?" Amanda looked up, slightly bleary. "Oh, fuck, it's too...whatever for the cheerful." Or actual thinking - it had been a rather late night with the tequila for the witch.

"I'm not cheerful. I'm good with people. It said that on my review; Inspector Kane is very good with people." He plunked a donut down in front of her. "Eat. Sugar makes you strong. Let's you lift cars, climb mountains, randomly explode; all that good stuff. Seriously though, I've got a symbol that Fred wants to make sure isn't mystical and thus, completely fucks around with the mind of the FBI. Oh, and we need to talk to Sofia, assuming she doesn't kill me with her shoes. Which are very hot, but at the same point, terrifying."

"If you come bearing pastry, you might survive," Amanda said, mouth full - she'd pounced on the donut. She held up her hand. "Symbols are Wanda's gig this week - she's communing with the books right now." She waved vaguely towards the hallway leading to the server room. "Half way down the hall, there's a storeroom we took over and stuck books in. That's 'Records', now."

"I see you've learned the art of bureaucratic naming. Well done. Also, donuts aren't pastry. Pastry involves baking. Donuts involve deep frying. It's like Scottish fine cuisine." Kane said as he walked past and stuck his head into the room of books, only to be presented with a full display of Wanda's ass as she was bent over rummaging through volumes. There were times, the Canadian considered, that life was very, very good.

"So, you want your coffee sweet or black? Blue, euphemisms aside, isn't an option."

"Naked coffee...now there is an option," came the muffled response, along with some thumps and curses as she was unable to find exactly what she was looking for.

Wanda straightened with a smirk, tossing a useless copy of a book back into the space from where it had come from. "Sorry, I got distracted, Garrison. Shall I start over?"

"Does that involve bending over again? No?" Kane handed over a paper coffee cup with a grin. "I've got a weird case with the FBI that is right up yours and Sofia's alley. You got some time to look it over?"


Tilting her head slightly, Wanda pretended to think about it. "You brought me coffee," she responded, sighing with bliss as she took a mouthful. "For you, right now? If I had the president on the line I would completely put him on hold. With the hold music that Mark would pick out."

It had been an incredibly long morning, filled with teleconference meetings and chasing down facts that had proved to be difficult to find. There had been one cup of tea and a handful of antacids, the bagel that Amanda had brought still sitting on the plate on her desk completely untouched. Garrison's presence with the coffee with a godsend.

"Good, it's both weird and local, which is why I figured it would appeal." Kane fished the file out from under his arm and headed back into the office, Wanda in tow, to the door of Sofia's realm. "Do I knock or genuflect?"

The door swung open, Sofia posed at her desk with papers creating a constantly moving vortex around her. "Very funny. Come in and start bargaining, boy," she commented, sorting the articles into piles. "Since I'm assuming you want something. Hi, Wanda. We still on for lunch?"

Wanda clasped her hands above her heart. "If the president...wait, no, I used that line on him." She laughed and entered. "As if I would pass up the excellent lunch and drink with one of my prettiest co-workers?" She grinned at Garrison. "I have fantastic tastes. Let's talk."

"I have no lunch. I do have donuts." He dropped the sack on Sofia's desk, along with a double espresso, no foam, with the shot of infusion that she liked. Kane's memory was treacherously good at time.

"So, while you guys were out destabilizing China, there's been an ugly little spate of murders in your own backyard." Kane dropped a very thick file on the desk beside the bag. "At each of the murders is this symbol, which has everyone puzzled. Fred decided to take a stab that it might be connected to less conventional areas. The type you people dabble in."

"I enjoy your desire to live. You’re lucky I don’t count calories," Sofia commented idly, choosing a chocolate, creme filled and washing it down with a sip of small heaven. "So, Wanda figures out where it's from, I figure out who it's from, I figure."

"In a way." Kane extracted a sheaf of glossy photos from the file. "These symbols make no sense to any of our people. In the last ten months, three people have been rather brutally killed without any real connection we can find other than this symbol and the rough geographical area. The killings are highly ritualized in the sense that the are elaborate and pre-meditated; strange constructions of... well, death traps, I guess is the term. At each scene, this symbol was found, either etched into the death trap or in the area around it."

"Did you just say, twice I might add, death trap?" Wanda demanded, leaning forward to snatch up the folder. "As in a trap designed for..." She opened the folder and blanched slightly. "Never mind, that answered that particular question. It appears that anything, no mater how sordid, is a fetish for someone." Wanda made an interesting noise at the sight of the symbol and spread out the contents on Sofia's desk.

"Come, sweetie, time to show we have brilliance as well as incredible good looks."

Sofia smiled, and turned to the photos, briefly glancing at them with the tips of her fingers, one by the one. Her lips drew just slightly together, small and full, as her brows drew. “Without any discernable patterns, in the victims or otherwise, the killer will be impossible to stop. You’ll know the Zodiac Killer. Thirty years before they caught him, all because he continually changed his victim preference.” She looked up, meeting eyes, brown to blue, with Kane.

"The symbol is the key element we're looking at. Nothing in our database comes up, although the notations in the middle are obviously mathematical." Garrison tapped the photo. "there's nothing else other than geography to tie the people together. Even that is very thin. The first victim lived within a block from where the second victim worked, and three blocks from the boyfriend of the third victim. He might be targeting them from the street."

"That's not improbable. Circumstance versus convenience." Sofia blinked, almost surprised, and darted her eyes downward, staring forcefully at a rather gruesome photographed scene. "You're better at the whole database, computer, world wide web... thing, than I am, lovely. I might be able to make sense of some English, but this is still lines and maths to me."

Taking a deep breath, Wanda rapped her forehead a time or two before stopping, "Yes...yes...Sofia, there just might be kissing by the end of this." She turned back to Garrison, lighting up as she talked. "Have you considered the fact that the symbol is more than the part that you're looking at? Meaning, a combination of a few things? Chaos mathmatical equation, that is where I have seen part of this from."

"The thing is that it intersects the formula is the symbol behind it. It's a mishmash of symbols that we don't know why they exist in common with each other." Kane let out a breath. "I was hoping there was some kind of easy mystical root to it, because we've got the best behavioural specialists in the FBI absolutely clueless on this."

The Canadian grabbed the bag from the desk and pulled out a filled donut, biting down with gusto on it. "We have no witnesses, no suspects, and no reason to think the person responsible will stop. Anything you guys might have will help."

"They're just what's left," Sofia commented glibly, a smile spreading across her pointed features. "Go away, boy. Wanda and I have work to do."

Wanda held up one hand. "Raincheck, actually. Garrison, is it possible for you to take me to the crime scene? If it is what I think it is, seeing it just might jog something. And while we take a field trip, Sofia can scour the file and her brain to come up with a brilliant reason."

"I can do that." Kane stood up. "Most recent one has just been vacated by the police, but it's still clean. I'll take you down."