Capital Turpitude: Adrienne and (NPC) Jason Wyngarde

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

 ((ooc: Wyngarde socked by Dex))

Jason Wyngarde accuses Adrienne of ignoring the conditions of their arrangement and describes her punishment.

Once upon a time, Adrienne would have sauntered regally through the throngs of people in the lavish Hellfire Club mansion in New York, sipping champagne as she discussed market trends, mergers, and acquisitions. Now, she slunk along the edges of the crowd, hoping not to be noticed, not daring to even look to see if Doug, Emma, or Julian were here lest Wyngarde somehow consider it 'contact' and hurt them in some way. Her raw nerves were making her skittish as she made her way out of the crowd of partygoers to Jason Wyngarde's office. As usual, she wasn't entirely sure why she was here or what Wyngarde was playing at- she knew that Shaw Industries had purchased Eulud Pharm at a steal of a price, but since she hadn't been able to get any indication from her powers that the drug samples would ever be used, she could only assume that Shaw wanted to reformulate the drug and start over with new samples from scratch.

"Jason," she greeted with a smile when she was shown into his office, "and what can I do for you this evening?"

"Adrienne. Sebastian was very pleased with the information you provided." Jason said, sitting behind his desk as usual. It wasn't surprising that Wyngarde was always looked at as a minor functionary. "There is one last job to do and we can consider our business concluded."

"Fantastic," Adrienne replied in a monotone, not wanting to betray the excitement she was feeling at the possibility of getting her company back. "What's the job?"

Jason reached into his pocket and produced a key, which he snapped down on the other side of the desk with a metallic ring. "In Shaw's office, there's is a old fashioned black rotary phone. I simply need you to touch it and write down what you hear Shaw say. It won't make any sense to you, but you must be accurate with the words. It is part of our code."

"How far back should I read? Just the latest conversation? Everything within the last day?"

"The latest will do." Jason looked at his watch. "I've arranged for the usual guard to be elsewhere now, so you had better get going."

"Aye, aye, sir," Adrienne muttered as she took the key, hurrying out of the room. She made her way quickly to Shaw's office, quickly reading the door to make sure no one else was inside. She stared at the rotary phone quizzically- who still had a rotary phone? You couldn't use it for automated menus, or voice mail, or anything like that. Could they even be hooked up to answering machines?- before touching it.

The image of Sebastian Shaw elicited no reaction from Adrienne when she saw him in her reading- she was much more afraid of his lackey than of the boss himself, strangely enough. She watched him [wait did he call someone to tell them these words or did he answer the phone with them?] and say some words that made little sense to her: Green, Bradshaw, Blount, and Swan. Were they all names? It didn't matter- Wyngarde wasn't paying her to figure out what Shaw meant, just report what he'd said. Actually, Wyngarde wasn't paying her at all...

She locked the office behind her and returned to Wyngarde, handing over the key. "He just said Green, Bradshaw, Blount, and Swan," she informed him. "I don't suppose I could ask why you want me to spy on your own boss, huh? Actually, never mind. I don't really care all that much." She took a step towards the door. "If that's all, I'll be having the investigation dropped on my company now, thanks ever so much."
Jason made a few notes on the file, carefully copying down the names that meant nothing to her. With her final comment, he looked up and gave her a pleased smile. "I seem to recall the conditions of our deal was that you would only give the information regarding the Eulud samples to me alone. Your sister pulled out of the bidding cycle not long after you connected me with the information." He set down his pen. "You told her, didn't you, Adrienne?"

"Of course not, Jason," Adrienne answered in an incredulous tone, "have I ever indicated to you that I have a death wish?" She kept her face calm and masked. "Besides, I've been doing your bidding for over a year now and I've never contacted my sister- why would I start now? Although," she added suddenly, eyes widening, "my sister is acquainted with a very powerful mutant telepath... Shit! Maybe they were able to find out the information by reading my mind? But she didn't hear about it from me, Jason."

"You're lying to me, Adrienne. Emma Frost backed away from the deal because she learned that the drug would not reach the market. She wouldn't send a telepath to pry into your mind because if Shaw believed that for a second, his own telepaths would currently be searching through your mind for indictions of tampering. She wouldn't because if we found tampering, it is an escalation of war between the courts." Wyngarde said, his voice growing cold. "Since you decided to ignore my conditions, in my opinion, I no longer am bound to my end of our agreement. The investigation will continue."

"No, it won't," Adrienne stated through gritted teeth. "I didn't tell her, Jason. I don't know how she found out, but it wasn't from me. I have done everything you've asked me to do. To the letter. We had a deal. I do this for you, you drop the investigation. If the investigation continues, then I don't. I'm finished." He'd taken the mansion away from her, her friends, her students, her sister, her freedom. He'd taken control of her company, and now he was going to ruin it, ruin her name and reputation. She would have nothing left. So what she was still fighting for?

"Lying to me is the same as lying to the Inner Court." Wyngarde smiled thinly. "I'm afraid that this job was also something of a test, Adrienne. We knew that if there was a problem with Eulud, you couldn't help yourself by telling your sister to keep her money out of a financial time bomb. Which means that your entire attempt to join the Black Court is probably some kind of deal between you and Emma in the first place."


"You're delusional, Jason," Adrienne replied coldly. "There's no deal between Emma and I, and I'm not lying to you. I couldn't care less about my sister losing her money- she cheated me out of Frost Enterprises, so its downfall would make me an exceedingly happy woman." Plus, her attempt to join the Black Court had merely been to spy on them, and that had backfired so horribly that Adrienne would rather rip out her own eyeballs with sporks and eat them with fava beans and Chanti than join the Black Court now.

"I don't believe you. I think you betrayed us, Adrienne. And for that, I'm going to punish you." Wyngarde steepled his fingers, staring at her over them. "Frost Enterprises backing out of the bid allowed us to force their board to accept a much lower bid for their valueless current patent. Fortunately, only their board and Shaw are aware of that fact. However, Eulud's president is under investigation for the sale of illegal drugs to Pacific markets. A joint DEA-FBI investigation is raiding the building as we speak. While they are there, Jackson Day, the former Prsident, is going to burn the whole place to the ground. The fire will cover all the evidence, and the insurance alone is going to be worth three times what we just paid for Eulud, plus having their research, development team and client list to build on."

Wyngarde leaned forward, elbows on his desk. "Not only am I going to keep the investigation on-going, but I think you need to be punished. Twenty-five minutes ago, the DEA made a special request to have Special Agent Garrison Kane assigned to the team that is currently headed into Eulud. There, they will be incapacitated by some... friends of ours, and Jackson Day will go to jail for arson of his factory and for the immolation of six federal law enforcement officers. I warned you, Adrienne, and now, I have only just started to take things away from you."


Adrienne's hand was on the Saint Barbara's medallion Kane had given her long ago as the old image of the attack on him in the car where his arm had been ripped off flashed to the forefront of her thoughts. It was joined by vivid images conjured up by her imagination of this new horror Wyngarde was outlining for her. It paralyzed her with fear, and yet at the same time she found herself strangely calm, because she didn't have to worry anymore. The thing she'd feared the most was finally here. No more waiting, no more worrying. She'd been compromising the integrity Kane had helped her find for over a year now to keep him safe, and it had all been for nothing. And it was always going to be for nothing, she realized. Wyngarde was never going to stand by his word or the deals he made with her. He would always double-cross her and use her to get what he wanted. They were always headed for this, she knew that now, and now that the moment was finally here she could stop worrying about it.



And best of all, she could stop trying to prevent it. She could stop compromising herself to try and appease the monster that would never be satisfied. "Well, the joke's on you, Jason," she stated with a shrug, leaving the Saint Barbara medallion outside of her blouse. "You can't take anything else away from me. My company, my money, my job, my students, my friends, the man I love. Everyone in my life has been dead to me for a year- so what's the difference to me if they're actually dead anymore? Go ahead. But we're finished." She huffed out a relieved breath. "I'm done playing your games and I'm done with you using me. Kill me too if that's what you want. It makes no difference to me anymore. I'm just done. I can't beat you when you keep throwing all rules in the shitter, so I'm done. You've ruined me. I lose. You win. But you can't own me anymore. I'd rather die, thanks." She didn't want to live to keep being used like this, not after Garrison died. "I'd rather you just kill me."



And then suddenly the realization hit her that he might do exactly that. And she didn't want to die before she warned Garrison about the impending fire. And then even more suddenly the thought of being able to hear Garrison's voice again swamped her with such happiness she thought she'd actually lost her mind. With a grin spreading across her face she dashed out of Wyngarde's office and screamed a mental call to Emma to tell her what was happening, to beg her to warn Garrison if she still could, to tell the X-Men to get to the Eulud Plant to save him before the building was set ablaze.