Cathouse: Setting up dominos

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

Laura finds Jubilee sporting the typical accessory for a girl inside the brothel - a bruise - and Jubilee deflects Lars' attention when he happens upon the girls.

Jubilee held the door for her client, wincing at the ache in her knee , this one had thought overly aggressive bondage was a good idea, not that she hadn't given him a few burns . The fact that he'd enjoyed being burnt had made her want to throw up, but it wouldn't have been professional.

She waited for him to move around the corner at the end of the hallway before she closed the door behind her and moved off in the opposite direction. She needed to find Laura, now was the best time to get into Barry's office, and she didn't want to pass up the opportunity.

A few doors down, a door opened, and a particularly tired girl exited and closed the door behind her, still panting as she looked at her stomach, which was obviously irritated. At least he didn't ask her to user her claws on herself...but getting a hard on over blood was so far the oddest and most disturbing thing she had seen so far. The guy she had been with walked out a moment later, looking like a completely new person, and walked away without even noticing her; all the best, she thought.

Noticing Jubilee, Laura walked towards the woman, eyeing her suspiciously. "You are going to need some ice for that", pointed in a faint voice as she rubbed her stomach.

"Yeah, arsehole was a bit rougher then I expected," Jubilee noted, thinking they could use it to get closer to Barry's office, the kitchen with the first aid kit wasn't far from it. She tried to stretch out her leg a bit and winced, she'd wrenched it and it still ached like a son of a bitch, and was difficult to walk on. "Come on, you can play nursemaid, maybe Lars will give the next jerk who likes blood to someone else in the meantime."

Laura winced in empathy, and felt the strange guilt that invaded her when she saw others suffering like she couldn't anymore. People were so fragile, and she was no exception. "Just...don't ask me to get the nurse outfit. And that piece of filth has had enough of a show to keep him calm for a while anyway." She didn't want any of the other girls with him anyway. Too dangerous. "Come on, let's patch you up and see what we can do while we are at it." For all means and purposes, she preferred to wrap Jubilee's knee on its place somewhere she could at least get off her feet if it was too painful.

Jubilee snorted softly, the sound somewhere between amusement and tiredness. "Nobody needs to be wearing that nurse outfit when they don't have to. I swear to God I think Barry went shopping for the most uncomfortable getup he could find just to be a bastard."

They passed a few of the other girls as they walked down the hallways toward the kitchen, stopping every so often to check on a few that looked particularly shell-shocked. She and Laura did what they could, but it wasn't good to show too much concern, it put you on Lars radar, and he wasn't someone you wanted the attention of.

"Ladies," Lars said in a voice that was much higher than one would suspect from such a large man. He towered over the two women, his arms crossed and his crouch thrust forward. He was an overtly sexual man, always thinking about how he would pleasure himself next - if only at Barry's discretion. "You have enough time on your hands to babysit you have enough time for another client. I'll make sure you're put back into rotation." His voice was filled with an odd joy, as though he had just thought of something particularly humorous. "Unless you want to spend that time practicing?"

Laura cursed mentally, and made an effort not to cut Lars to bits. "Just...", started, trying to sound as soft and pleading as she could. "Just let me take care of her, alright? We'll get right back to work." She didn't like the tone he had used then; it couldn't mean anything good coming from him. Looking at Jubilee, she pulled a little, trying to get the girl to walk past him with her. If he allowed them. She kind of wished he did.

Jubilee pulled away from Laura, knowing that Lars wasn't likely to let them both go, and she'd promised Vanessa she'd watch out for the other girl, something she'd come to feel that she would do anyway in the past few days. As competent as Laura was, and she was, Jubilee never could let anybody else take the fall. She gestured for Laura to go on, hoping the other girl would get the message.

"Alright tough guy, give me your worst," she said, chin going up in defiance.

Lars could feel his veins pulsing with excitement. "Feeling frisky today, are you?" He watched both girls equally, hoping the other one would try to slip away while the first tried to hold his attention. "I think that you both need to come with me. If you have that much energy then you can help me teach your little friend here just how you should be using it." Lars' smile was sick and twisted, he enjoyed his job so much that he couldn't imagine ever wanting to do anything else. It was his pleasure to use, and often to abuse, the women whom his boss put before him. His favorite part was testing them to see if they would make the cut, the thought almost made him shiver with pleasure.

"Oh look, this room is unoccupied."

If Jubilee hadn't been a professional, she would have killed the bastard where he stood, as it was she knew she'd made a mistake trying to blazon it out. Mistakes could get you killed in this business, or seriously screwed up. She was going to have to roll with it, and hope the guy backed off. "I don't do shows for free, dude. You got a problem with that, you can take it up with Barry. I'm sure he'll be quite happy to find out you're samplin' the wares for free when we could be doin' paying customers. Now, you want to have a little one on one time with me, I'm all cool with that. But it's gonna have to be in off hours, dude."

She let her natural accent get thicker, people always assumed a Californian accent of the type she had meant you were a complete air head, which made you less of a threat. It might seem counter-intuitive right now but she wanted him to be more afraid of Barry's reaction, not more afraid of her.

Lars grunted, and inhaled deeply. "Fine, you go about your business and I'll find you another client." He was not happy at all, he wanted to have some pleasure with two girls for free but the one had a point. Barry had caught him once before and he had lost the tip of his left ring finger for the trouble he'd caused. At first he'd been angry, now he kept himself in line out of respect for the man... that and the fact that he now got to test out all of the new wares.

Laura told herself she had to learn how to stand her ground to Lars, or else she was going to have to deal with him besides all the other customers. But the situation had been adverted for now, apparently. Looking at Jubilee and then at Lars, she sighed. "I'll take her to the kitchen, and we will be back and ready to work in no time, alright?

* * * * *

Later, they find time to get into Barry's off.

Much later, knee wrapped up well to keep it from moving too much, Jubilee and Laura stood outside Barry's office, watching girl's and clients moving past. Jubilee knew there was no way she was going to be able to go in the back window like she'd planned with her knee the way it was, which meant she was going to have to get Laura to do the job for her while she stood guard.

"Okay, you sure you're okay with this?" Jubilee asked, running through what she'd told Laura in her head, trying to figure out if she'd forgotten anything. "We can come back if you aren't ready for it."

Laura nodded. "I can do it, just let me know if we have company." That said, she quickly climbed up and through the window, falling without a sound as she looked around. Deserted, which was a good thing for her. A quick look over his desk revealed that he didn't keep anything useful at hand. She would need to check the computer. Looking up, Laura bit her lip as she made a quick search as she plugged in a flash drive and started to copy files as fast as she could. Whatever it all was, she hoped there were useful bits there.

Jubilee leant back against the fire escape and lit up another cigerette, she'd smoked more these past few days then she had in years but it was useful as an excuse if anyone came along and saw her. Laura would be able to smell anyone coming near her from inside, Jubilee just had to make sure the girl had an escape route along the outside. If it had been less crowded with traffic inside, they might have gone in the front door but there were just too many wanderers to do things the usual way.

Her fingers tapped against her leg as she took another puff, blowing the smoke outwards, she hated waiting more then almost anything else but she kept her eyes and ears alert just as she'd been taught.

Minutes later, the files were copied. Laura wanted to make a more thorough search on the computer, but noises outside made her wary. It wasn't anyone coming in, but still, it was a remainder that she couldn't just sit there and hope for the best. They would need to work with what they had. Leaving Barry's desk the same way she found them, Laura made her way out with the same grace than she entered it, landing soundlessly next to Jubilee. "Done", said under her breath as she stood, holding up the flash drive. "We should get out of here."

* * * * *

That night everyone involved in the investigation gets together to put together their pieces and form a plan of attack once they realize they've got what they need.

"We know Barry's got a history of human trafficking and then went into a specialty in mutant trafficking. We know he's got a seemingly perfect pool of girls to sell off who wouldn't suspect a thing in terms of that. He's a bastard, but we're out on anything that ties him to trafficking right now, which means we don't know what the fuck he's up to. An associate of his claims he can get us mutant girls and that we can 'test drive' them but we don't have any confirmation that Barry's his hook into the girls he's selling." She quirked an eyebrow at Sarah. "Unless there's been communication between the two since I talked to you last?"

Sarah shook her head. "My contact was supposed to call to inquire about a possible sale, but I haven't heard how that went yet. I don't know if that means Barry's really hard to contact, or if my 'friend' is just playing hard to get so his cut as the middle-man will be higher. Either way, I have nothing yet."

Laura was leaning against a wall, pointedly avoiding eye contact with everyone else on the room. She didn't look downright hostile...but there was a glint in her eyes that made it clear she wasn't really in a talkative mood. "We managed to sneak into Barry's office and get a lot of information he kept in his computer, so there is most likely something we can use there."

"I've also got a bunch of video footage of movements and the inside of the place," Jubilee noted from her perch on one of Vanessa's chairs. Her entire body seemed relaxed, as if nothing could ever bother her. You only had to look at her eyes to see the difference, tired, but detached. "We'll need to be careful but they don't seem beyond our abilities to deal with."

Jean-Paul remained quiet for the moment, eyes slightly narrowed and trained on Laura for the most part. He'd been against changing her role in this investigation - very against it. But she was old enough to make her own decisions about things and so here they were. Flicking his eyes toward Vanessa, he shifted in his seat and said,

"Barry, he left the window to his office cracked this afternoon, though. I heard him speaking to a man on the phone, someone called Simon. He spoke of prices, test drives... asked if the man only needed one, still. He also told him that the girl could be wherever this Simon wanted her to be as early as next week, once she was chosen."

Riley stood near Vanessa, her head moving only slightly as she looked at each person as he or she spoke. Finally, they had information and were all together. It was a bit strange to be standing here with so many people she knew either personally or through the journal system, but not looking like true self. It was possible that someone else might have been able to see through her disguise, but she hadn't really interacted with the people here from X Force.

"You're sure it was Simon he was talking to?" Vanessa's gaze went from her friend to Sarah. "That's the bloke Olive met with today that Riley and I followed. Simon Culridge, fancies himself a real classy sort." He used a terrible, fake Liverpool accent and Vanessa wasn't sure if he was trying to be a Beatle for cool points or not. "Hey, kittens, did you bring that footage and the files you stole from Thistledown's office with you?" She was hoping maybe the information they'd gotten would hold the last few threads they needed to tie everything up.

Jubilee raised an eyebrow, and threw two usb sticks to Vanessa with a grin, "Dude, if I hadn't, Remy would like, totally disown me as a lost cause. I always bring the info with me, yeah? I've heard the name Simon mentioned too, Barry and Lars talkin', didn't even know I was there."

Catching the flash drives, Vanessa moved off her perch and went to settle on the floor by her coffee table where her laptop sat. "LeBeau's taking in strays these days, I hear. I think he's gone soft enough to not disown you just yet." She plugged the flash drive into her USB port and waited for it to load. She hated sorting through miscellaneous data. People were never nice to label folders with things like big evil plans or illegal trade financials.

"Remy's always been soft," Sarah snorted, moving closer so she could look over Vanessa's shoulder. "Let's keep our eyes open for some correspondence to or from somebody named Olive." She paused for a moment, adding, "I figured it was best if I didn't tell my contact that he had the worst code name ever, but now I can't help myself."

"He might as well have gone ahead and used the last name 'Garden'," Jubilee noted, as she stood and moved to Sarah's other side, glancing over Vanessa's other shoulder. She placed a hand on Vee's shoulder after a second. "Wait, go back a few...There, that's him, that Simon guy you and Speedy were talking about."

Vanessa scrolled up and clicked on the e-mail Barry had gotten from Simon. "So Olive's not the connect, he's the middle man for the middle man. Sarah, I think you're going to need to have a chat with your little mate about the evils of misleading folks," she said in a singsong tone and made a tsking sound. Simon's email to Barry outlined the parameters that Sarah had outlined for Olive and inquired about Barry's stock and whether or not a viewing or test drive could be arranged. Barry's return email described a girl as having pointed ears and a tiger tail as well as another girl who was deep red and had what appeared to be moving tattoos of continually growing red and white roses all over her as the two choices he'd be willing to part with. Vanessa pointed to that part of the exchange. "You guys know which girls he's talking about?"

Laura didn't move from her spot against the wall; she could see perfectly from where she was. "Those would be Amanita and Yasmin, yes." It was hard to miss the moving tattoos. "Amanita is the one with the tattoos, and Yasmin is the tiger-like girl. Amanita is a bit...of an obnoxious person." Which she didn't mind, because hey, if she coped with it that way...

Jubilee listened to Laura's response, nodding her head as the younger girl imparted what she knew. "That'd be them, fucker's have been gettin' them ready for it too. Yasmin, the tiger girl, she's been little more then a ghost since yesterday, like she knows something we don't. Here, I put up a few cameras too, no sound, but I managed to get them in all the rooms."

Jean-Paul's brows rose. "Mon Dieu. That is... many rooms." It was obvious he was impressed with her skill - and less obvious that he had no desire whatsoever to know what she'd done to get into all those rooms. He also didn't particularly want to view the footage those little cameras were feeding into their recording system. The Quebecois had enough trouble suppressing the urge to break through a window and dispense with the various clients and security guards in the building, already.

Riley nodded in agreement. She remained in her spot but shifted slightly, not making a move to watch the recording. Hearing what was going to lead into abuse without being able to do something to stop in right away was hard enough. She was not into viewing pain, and when she was the cause of pain she either did it quickly or set things in motion but removed herself from the vicinity of the person being harmed. Even if she would be permitted to actually do anything to any of the men involved in injuring the women, she'd still fight with the intention of being effective and stopping them, not with the desire of causing unnecessary pain.

Vanessa's eyes wandered over the footage as it ran, but her focus was on the e-mail exchange between Barry and Simon. "We know Barry's still our guy and that he plans on using the girls at the 'spa,'" she made finger quotes around the word, "for this supply base. Sarah, have you gotten any hits on any connections back to him that mean taking him out would blow back on us or Libertine? If we can pull the bastard out tomorrow without repercussions then I say we go for it." Vanessa knew what Sarah planned to do to the guy once she had her hands on him. It would have been a lie to say Vanessa didn't want to throw Barry into her grasp sooner rather than later.

"Well, I could be wrong... crazy people are kind of unpredictable sometimes," Sarah quickly replayed all the information she'd come across in the last 24 hours, hoping she hadn't missed anything obvious. "I don't think you've got anyone who's overly endeared to our dear Barry. He's got clients, but it's like closing down the local McDonalds. There might be wailing and gnashing of teeth, but in the end, they're just going to go find a Burger King to go to instead." Not a terribly cheerful outlook, but it was true. There was always another asshole to swoop in and fill the void.

"Besides the fact that if we do this well, they're not really going to have an idea of who took the bastard out, just suspicions," Jubilee noted, fingers tapping a silent tune against her thigh. "Coupled with the fact they can get basically the same elsewhere, we should be fine."

Jubilee liked the realities of the world no more then Sarah did, but like her colleague she was also realistic about just how much difference this sort of thing would make. Locally, it would give these girls back at least some protection, but it was a drop in the ocean otherwise.

"Suspicions are all some people need," Vanessa pointed out. She was still going through his files, searching for anything else that could be useful. Maybe if she found a list of buyers she could hand it off to Angelo and Nathan and see if they could do anything with it. "Alright guys, let's get our game plan down and take the bastard out tomorrow then."

Laura just stood there in silence, paying attention. There wasn't really much else to add, and truth to be told, she wasn't all that interested in the details. She wanted it to happen and be done with it. But still, it wasn't as if she could ruin everything on the last moment, so she parted ways with the wall and got closer to help with the setup. "Let's get to it, then."