The Orchid: Thieves

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Scott and Jean arrive in Madripoor for a full explanation of just how Chris managed to run into Robert Haverford. They check out Haverford's hotel - where something goes very wrong. Fortunately, Jean is able to find a clue in Chris's memories.


Apparently the pirate business paid quite well. Chris's house was not as giant or as opulent as those in the really good parts of town, but it was bigger than Scott had expected, and furnished with the sort of casual elegance that was generally nearly as expensive as opulence when you actually got right down to it. Intended to impress, Scott thought. Undoubtedly part of whatever status game Chris had to play with his business rivals.

"It fits the pattern," he said, realizing that his father had paused expectantly in his explanation, as if waiting for some sort of reply from him or Jean. "Haverford's got a real interest in history - although what draws his attention is pretty, uh, particular." Chris had actually laughed when they'd explained to him that Haverford really did roam the world looking for ancient artifacts and other methods of giving himself superhuman powers. Then he'd stopped laughing and asked if they were being serious - at which point he'd looked a little bewildered. "You really didn't see anything odd in those papers?"

Chris shrugged helplessly. "I didn't have time to do more than skim them," he said, "and my Japanese is good, but not that good. I bought the papers on a whim, basically. Feeding my hobby." He pushed himself up out of his chair and wandered over to the glassed-in cabinets that held various bits and pieces of World War II memorabilia. "This part of the world had some interesting history during the war. I thought these papers might be worth reading, that's all. I don't know much about the Japanese occupation of Borneo, and this officer was fairly high-ranking."

It had surprised Scott to find out that his father was a history buff. But he supposed that even pirates had hobbies. And really, if you'd spent years as a slave, you'd probably want to try and enjoy your leisure time. Hobbies were humanizing. Scott half-turned away, making a face where his father couldn't see it. He didn't want to start empathizing.

"If we really need to," Jean put in, "I could take you into the memory - there are often details that we retain subconsciously. But I'm a little less concerned with what's on the papers and a little more concerned with keeping them away from Haverford. He's... more than a little deranged, and anything he wants I don't want him to have on general principle."

"Do you have any idea how he got in here yet?" Scott asked; Chris had mentioned that there was no sign of forced entry, nothing on the security cameras. The papers had simply been there, early in the evening two days ago - and then, in the morning, they'd been gone. If Haverford's found some sort of ancient invisibility gadget, I think I might quit right now.

His father proceeded to look both bothered and somewhat angry. "Nothing obvious. But... this is going to sound really odd. Raza was here that night, and... he's having trouble remembering a good chunk of the evening. He got really vague when I tried to press him on it. But frustrated, too, and I know damned well he's not either involved or lying to me." Chris looked at Jean. "I don't know if there's any way you could see if a telepath's been screwing with him? It was the first thing that popped into mind."

Jean frowned, looking worried. "Yes, that I can definitely do. That sort of memory theft leaves some pretty obvious scarring if you know how and where to look."

"Thank you," Chris said, sounding quite sincerely grateful. "I was worried about him - I didn't get a chance to talk to him until after I spoke to you, Scott, and then he was so confused about things..." He shook his head. "Are either of you particularly against throwing this bastard in the harbor when we get ahold of him? Preferably with something heavy attached to his ankles?"

"Don't tempt us," Scott muttered, without really thinking. Because it was a really, really tempting mental image.

"Yes, between the drugged interrogation and the world spanning theft, the idea of drowning the man is just a little too nice."

"Well, I do have some good news," Chris said, leaning forward with a very shark-like smile. "I wasn't idle while I was waiting for the two of you to get here. I have all kinds of contacts in town, of course. Took me a while, but I found out exactly where he is."

Jean's eyes widened. "Yes," she said, as a smile slowly spread across her face. "Yes, I like that very much indeed. See, I told you you could punch someone, Scott..."

---

"I see the bastard still has good taste," Scott murmured under his breath as he and Jean entered the lobby of the Rakul Hilton. It was quiet in the middle of the day, moreso than Scott had expected. Not that quiet was a bad thing. They didn't particularly want to be drawing attention. "Sensing him anywhere?"

Jean pushed her awareness more deeply through the building, just to be sure, before shaking her head. "No, he's not here now." She frowned, considering. "But we've no idea when he'll be getting back. Maybe I should go search his room - keep watch down here, but if there's another entrance to the hotel, or if he's in the pool or something, I'll still be able to tell he's coming."

Despite the situation, Scott's lips twitched, and there was a spark of mischief in his real eye as he met hers. "You mean, I get to watch your, uh, rear? I can do that. All the way to the elevator, if you like. Really, I will gladly take on this onerous task."

Jean gave him a Look, although there was more than a hint of smile peeking through. "That's it exactly," she said, turning and heading towards the elevators, and if there was a bit more sway to her hips than was really necessary, well, it was actually necessary when he said things like that. "Give a shout if he shows," she called back over her shoulder.

I'll even leave a little of him for you if he does, Scott sent back down their link, and managed not to grin as he found a seat in the lobby where he could see both the front doors and the elevators.

And he did watch her, of course.

---

Psionic mutations, Jean had long ago decided, were really not all they were cracked up to be, and telepathy was not the easiest of them by a long shot. People were just too contradictory and crazy inside their own heads. But right now she was very, very glad that the genetic crapshoot had gifted her with that rather than, say, Adrienne's psychometry. As useful as it might have been while hunting through Haverford's things, she really, really didn't want to know anything more about some of the things she had found.

Like the handcuffs she'd found buried in his shirt drawer.

There was a story there - possibly several - and she wanted nothing to do with it.

But, other than potentially disturbing fetishes, she wasn't learning much up here. There was a distinct lack of historical papers sitting on the bedside table, for instance, and for all that he was crazy he'd failed to convieniently leave mad scribblings on the mirrors outlining his devious (read: stupid) plans.

Anything? Scott murmured along the link. Also, there's a blonde with obvious breast implants making eyes at me from across the lobby...

#I'm not worried,# Jean sent back. #You have much better taste than that. And no, nothing useful. Although, on the plus side, the handcuffs were not fuzzy, so I can pretend they're being used solely for nefarious purposes and not for kinky sex.#

Ah, the little self-delusions that keep our minds from going there. There was silence from Scott as Jean searched the last of the room, then a trickle of curiosity up the link. ...okay, what's this?

#Hmm?# Jean's attention was mostly focused on the papers she had just found. Plane tickets, what might be his itinerary. Could be useful. #Is it Haverford?#

No. But he's definitely making eye contact. Hold on. The silence lasted a few seconds before the link sharpened with puzzlement. Where the hell did he-

And the link twisted - there was no other way to describe it. There was a sensation of immense pressure, as if something had strained it almost to snapping, and then a sudden, echoing vacancy. As if Scott's thoughts had winked out like a streetlight at dawn.

Jean SCREAMED, dropping the papers to clutch her head at the sudden pain and silence, and she was reaching out frantically along the link which was still there, dear God, still there, he wasn't dead, he couldn't be dead, the link remained... but silent. The dreadful knowledge that this was what had been for Scott for so many years, the link silent as a tomb, had her lashing out. The window burst outwards, shattering into tiny shards of glass which were caught up into a spinning shield of death as Jean launched herself out into what was little better than a controlled free-fall, and the scream had mutated into a call, his name, both vocal and telepathic which had strangers blocks away looking up in confusion.

She didn't hit the ground, pulling up at the last second to hover, staring into the lobby, and he wasn't there. No body, thank God, but no him, and only decades of telepathic ethics training kept her from shoving her way into every mind in the room to find out what they had seen - there had been no commotion, no one was worried or upset. Or, at least, they hadn't been until they'd seen the flame-haired madwoman drop out of the sky, surrounded by madly whirling shards of death and looking quite ready to eviscerate anyone who got in her way.

But a flash of blonde caught Jean's eyes and she refocused on the woman at the bar, eyes wide and, indeed, implants obvious. She'd been watching. This time not even the decades of training would stop her as Jean reached out, finding the memory she needed. Scott, idly glancing about, looking slightly bored but with a set to his shoulders that Jean knew was attentiveness. His eyes seemed to catch on something or someone and then he stiffened, spine going ramrod straight for a moment. The blonde registered an odd... flicker in her peripheral vision. Looked that way - only to see nothing? - and when she looked back at Scott, he was suddenly relaxing. A shrug, weirdly reminiscent of someone trying to get a suit jacket to fit a little better, and then Scott turned and simply strolled out of the loby, and there was something deeply wrong about the way he moved as he disappeared down the street.

It didn't make any sense, but Jean didn't have the time to try and figure it out. She needed to find Scott, and whoever was cutting his mind off from her. Save the first, destroy the second. No other options existed as she once again lifted herself up into the air, turning and racing back towards Chris' home.

---

Chris met her in the front hall of the house, having seen her from the window, flying up the street. "Jean!" he called sharply. "What in God's name happened? Where's Scott?"

"Gone," Jean said short, dropping to the ground in front of him. The glass shield was gone, the shards launched violently (but harmlessly) to bury themselves in a billboard several blocks back. "He's vanished from my mind, somehow, but he's alive. I saw the scene through someone else's mind, but I don't understand it. Something happened, but he wasn't hurt. Walked straight out of the hotel and by the time I got there he was gone into the crowd. I know Haveford's behind it. Somehow."

Chris Summers had a mind that was remarkably disciplined for a non-psi, but in that instant, thoughts full of fear and a killing rage almost - if not quite - equal to Jean's own blared at her before he got himself back under control. "You didn't find him, then," he said, his voice cold and clipped as he took her arm, leading her into the house. "Haverford, I mean."

The flight had cooled some of Jean's burning fury; she'd managed to be almost rational by the time she touched down, the thought that Scott wasn't hurt, per se, a big help. But the flash of anger from Chris touched it off again and there was more than a bit of growl as she said, "No, he wasn't there. He's not left for long, though. All of his things were still there."

"All right." Chris was wearing an expression of deep concentration now. "I found out where he was staying. If he's made other travel arrangements, I should be able to find out about those, too. Should we call Westchester?"

"We don't have time to wait for them," Jean said, frowning. Just because Scott had not been physically hurt when he'd left the hotel didn't mean he'd stay that way, and with the link gone silent she wouldn't know, and the silent link was making her more than a little bit unstable. "Finding his travel arrangements is all well and good, but it would help if we knew where he was going. I think we need to see if I can find out more about those papers from your memory."

Chris was giving her a wary look that was almost overwhelmingly familiar. It was Scott's 'Are you sure you've thought through all the angles here?' look. Unlike Scott, though, he didn't argue with her - right now, at least. "I remember you doing this on the ship," he said, taking a deep breath.

"Yes, well, this time we're going a little deeper. You might want to sit down." Back then it hadn't taken a lot of digging to find memories of him and Scott and Alex to confirm what Chris had been thinking. Now, though, she needed to find the specific memories and go through them, searching out every bit of 'forgotten' information. All the things which just weren't important enough to remark upon, but were still there. Somewhere.

Chris was sitting down as soon as the words were out of her mouth. "Scanning my memories of something I read briefly in a language I'm only half-fluent in," he said, with a tight smile that didn't do anything to disguise the anger and worry seething beneath the surface. "I have a very talented daughter-in-law."

Jean settled into a chair opposite him, taking his hand to make things a little smoother. #Think about that day. Reading it. Pull that memory up.# As soon as he had, Jean slipped inside his mind, stepping into the memory.

When she first reached it the memory was hazy, indistinct. Inconsequential things had real depth and brightness - the chair he was sitting in, his desk, things he used and saw often, which had solidity to them. But there was a fuzzy shape on the corner of the desk. He remembered something had been there, a glass, perhaps, but there's no certainty.

The papers he's flipping through are like that in parts. The last few pages are little more than brownish, page-shaped things, and they fade in and out, as though he's not sure how many there were exactly. The first few pages, though, are clear and crisp; he might not have consciously read all of them, but the visual memory is there, shapes of letters and words clear and crisp, even if there's no meaning attached to them for Jean to pick up on.

She froze the memory, holding it in place as Chris began to turn over one of the pages, then gripped his shoulder and tugged, pulling his conscious 'now' mind out of the reflexive memory, and now there were two of him. The frozen Chris of 'then' sitting in the chair, and the one she was holding on to, who blinked at her in confusion. #I can sharpen the memory,# Jean told him, waving towards the page, #but that doesn't mean I can read the page.#

The Chris of now looked briefly confused, but then leaned forward and gazed down at the papers, shaking his head slowly. It seems like just discussion of day-to-day stuff. Logistics. Relations with the locals... what's this? He craned his neck to look more closely at the page to which the other him had just turned. Interesting...something about the local resistance. Apparently they thought they were going to be able to get rid of the Japanese... they had a... what's that word, damn it. Champion! He looked up at Jean, then back down at the page. They had a champion, who'd eaten... an orchid? Huh.

#Eaten an orchid? Do you think that's a metaphor?# Jean ran the memory forward slightly, as the memory of Chris turned the page. It was almost as clear as the previous, although there was some fuzziness.

It's hard to tell. Wait... Chris peered at the page, frowning. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but this officer sent out a group of men to look into it. In case of... military applications? Chris's frown deepened. My Japanese really isn't that good. Was he looking for the champion, or the orchid... wait, no. The orchid, definitely. He indicated a line of script. He sent a soldier who'd studied botany, with an escort.

Jean frowned. #Well, that definitely sounds like Haverford; any chance of something that will give him superpowers and he's all over it. Does it say where?#

Mount Kinbalu. The north slope. Well, Chris said wryly, looking back at her. At least that narrows it down?

#Get me in the vicinity and I'll find him.# Jean's eyes were dark, her expression cold. #He can't hide from me.#