xp_logs | Log: The New Hires

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Kevin and Domino make their first appearance at Snow Valley

"Have you ever noticed that all of these offices have a hatrack in the front but barely anyone wears hats any longer." The elevator opened with a ping and the two figures stepped out. The taller of the two took off his hat and placed it on the hatrack. Kevin Sydney looked around for a moment.

"Looks like their Kelly Girl stepped out for cigarette. Not the most promising security."

"Jesus, Syd, I told you - talk like a normal human being." Domino considered suppressing the eye roll that his words inspired but decided not to, treating him to a full-on version complete with scoffing noise. "These people are going to think you're some dinosaur throwback and not give us the job if you keep on like that. What the hell even is a Kelly Girl? No wait, don't tell me, I don't care. Just try not to call anybody 'pal' or 'buddy', okay?"

"You're worried about getting the job? From what Kane said, these people need us a lot more than we need them." He looked around for a moment and shrugged. "I think the real question is going to be do we want to work with these people. After all, right now I only need to worry about you getting me killed mouthing off to Triad bosses. I don't know if I need a bunch of amateurs helping you out with that."

"Kane wouldn't've put us in touch if this was a bad idea." The dark-haired woman paused for a moment as if considering whether this statement was unimpeachably true. She didn't seem to draw any particular conclusions, but she'd almost certainly return to the pondering later. "Besides, it's way better to be the dumper than the dumpee. If we don't end up working with them I'd rather it's because we said 'no thanks' than the other way around."

"Relax Dom. I'm the one person that doesn't get said no to very often."

"Uh huh, sure big guy. You keep telling yourself that."

At that point a short blonde woman in a battered leather jacket came out of the elevator behind them, pulling up short as she realised they had visitors. "Oh, hey. Um, can I help you?"

Domino gave the woman a quick up-and-down, obviously sizing her up and smirking just a little at what she saw. Not that she was dressed any more formally herself - in fact, they could've gotten their boots at the same grungy shop. "Yeah, we're here to talk to whoever's in charge. About a..." Now how had Kane put it? "A potential partnership."

"Oh." The girl's face cleared. "Right, you're the two Kane Senior sent over." She stuck out her hand. "Amanda Sefton. Sorry about the confusion - Cammie must have got called out in a hurry."

Shooting a glance at Sydney as if to say don't even think about it Dom took Amanda's hand and gave it a firm shake. "Nina Thurman. But you can call me Dom. And this's Syd - Sydney. Kevin. Whatever. So what's the deal here? This doesn't look like most operations I've seen." It was decidedly too... normal. Although maybe that was the point...

Amanda grinned. "Well, yeah, but that's kind of necessary, especially now." If the name "Dom" had pinged any particular sore point, the witch was covering well. "I'll take you into the office proper. Things are a bit topsy turvy still, what with the whole kablooey, but you'll get the picture."

"Kablooey. The biggest mass murder in the history of the world and it's on file here as 'the Kablooey'. We're at Spy Kids," Sydney muttered under his breath. It didn't help that the girl looked like she was barely old enough to be caging pink drinks in chain bars off of sad middle managers. He quieted as Dom nudged him.

"That's cool, that's cool. So you're all mutants, huh?" Nothing like the direct approach to get people's unguarded reactions.

"Yeah, we are. 'S not public knowledge, obviously, since we wouldn't be able to do our jobs very well with the FoH protesting outside 24-7," was Amanda's wry reply as she led them through the cubicle farm behind the reception area. "I'm... well, it's complicated, so we'll go with "energy transformer" for now. One type of energy in, one type out." She raised an eyebrow at Dom. "You?"

"Yeah, you know, I'm a... probability manipulator." It still felt weird to say, and Dom scrunched her face up a bit as she got the words out. "But like, unconsciously, so don't ask me to fleece any casinos like he did when he found out," she said, jerking a thumb at Sydney.

"I only suggested that once to try out the limits of your powers. It was for science." They walked into the boardroom and Kevin made a beeline for the tray of glasses. He pulled one out and added a healthy measure from the flask in his pocket. "No ice." He scowled just as Marie-Ange walked in. "Thank god, a secretary. We're going to need more ice in here, love. And coffee. Light for me, about seventy-five cubes of sugar for the dark-haired unimpressed looking one."

"Oh, no, our secretary is a twenty-two year old art student named Artie." Marie-Ange said, with the most amused and bright-eyed smile that Amanda had seen on her all month. "But he makes really terrible coffee. We just get it from the shop down the block." She swung out a chair close to the head of the table, and sat down. "Marie-Ange Colbert." She said, and then turned - not waiting for the pair of new faces to introduce themselves "Amanda, you didn't tell me Christian had sent us funny people. The coffee requests will be the perfect note on the Mondayround-ups after the horrid tabloid reports."

"You know the Kane sense of humour," was Amanda's wry reply, revealing she'd heard and taken in everything Kevin had said, even while apparently distracted by Dom. "This here's Neena Thurman, who prefers to use "Dom", and Kevin Sydney, who, if I had to guess, is either a big fan of the fifties, or a lot older than he looks."

"Trust me, he's a real live Neanderthal," Dom said, plopping down into a seat not far from Marie-Ange. "But, y'know, a useful one. Show 'em what you can do, Syd."

Kevin reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lit one and leaned back in his chair. "And for the rest of my talents, I'm going to need a volunteer, a bed and about three more of these." He said, holding up his glass.

"Pyrokinesis is exceptionally useful." Marie-Ange said. "And I imagine that some sort of alcohol fueled seduction power would be as well." She tapped her fingers on the table, looking thoughtful. "Amanda, who is in the office today? Cammie's on her mission to figure out if her biker friends are angry at us. Artie's in class." She pulled out her phone and tapped the screen. "Mister Sydney, I am afraid you are stuck with David North if you need to demonstrate your seduction power."

"It's North or Doug," Amanda suggested. "I dunno, Doug's all adventurous these days with that other 'job' of his? He might be up for a bit of powers testing?" The twinkle in her eyes betrayed her huge amusement at the whole situation.

Sydney actually chuckled, taking another sip. "So, you have David North, an operator from Europe. Ex-Stazi, if I remember correctly. With the other job tag, that would have to be Douglas Ramsey, who serves on the White Court of the New York Hellfire Club under, as literally or not, Emma Frost, the current Queen. However, past that and judging by the empty desks and lack of a front receptionist, it means you lost most of your more senior and experienced people during M-Day, as the press likes to call it. Otherwise, you wouldn't be relying on an intern still taking classes and sending out two people to represent yourselves who can't have much more than ten-twelve years experience between them." He took a drag from his cigarette. "In ten more minutes, I'll have enough information to start tracking, infiltrating and manipulating your own network against you, and all you know about me is that I'm a Neanderthal. That's what I do."

"Oh good, we are getting somewhere, I thought we were going all to be coy at each other until one of us snapped." Marie-Ange settled back in her chair. "Yes, we are sorely lacking people and we lost a very experienced operative during M-Day, and if my team is going to return back to anything like our previous operating standard, we need to replace that, quickly."

She swiped her hand across the tablet on the conference table in front of her and tapped at it. "Christian did send a brief summary of both of your careers. He communicated enough to not leave us completely in the dark. I simply want to know what you do, how skilled you are, and if you can work well with the team. Other than that, no one here cares if you smoke, do pills or want to use your office to showcase your archaeological dig pieces. "

Dom had been wincing as Syd had... well, been Syd, but the two women had handled him deftly enough - or at least they hadn't thrown a drink in his face or told him to get out. At the redhead's brisk 'moving on' tone she sat forward a little in her chair, reaching up to play with her hair a bit. "I, y'know, do all the standard stuff for field operatives - I'm firearm trained and I've had some experience with tech surveillance, uh," she paused, scratching the back of her neck and nodding to the tablet, "you can probably see. And as for teams, I mean, I work with him, so..."

"...she's slowly learning not to let her mouth get in the way of being a good operative. Seriously though, Domino has natural instincts, is a crack shot and in the places where her skills get stretched, her powers fill in. You won't find a more reliable field operative."

"We need you - that much Angie made obvious," Amanda said, leaning back in her chair. "And you've got skills and knowledge we're short on. So I guess the question is, considering everything that's been said, why do you need us? There's plenty of work out there."

"Things're better with a team." She hated saying it, but there it was. If Dom had learned anything in the Agency it was that more people brought more resources, more intel, more everything. Including trouble, but she tried not to think about that bit too much. "You get more shit done. And we like getting shit done."

"That's something we definitely like doing, getting shit done," Amanda agreed with a grin.

"I'm here because Chris and I agree that mutants are entering a war, whether they realize it or not. A war that we are sadly, laughably unprepared for." He put the glass down for a moment. "I don't need you. But I'm willing to work with you because you're going to be on the front lines whether you like it or not. And if that's the case, I'm going to be doing a hell of a lot more good here than I can bouncing around the Pacific. Besides, if Domino is left to her own devices, Manhattan will be a smoking ruin in a week and I have several bars here that I call friends."

"I think Ms. Thurman is not quite that capable of destruction, no? Mr. Kane would not have been so trusting to send you to us if she was." Marie-Ange said, with a nod at Domino. "You think we are headed to war, and I do not disagree. I think the M-Day situation has launched us into a crisis that there is no good historical comparison to. Oppressed minorities in the past have not had laser eye beams, or lost so many of their people in a single day." Her face flickered into grief for a moment before she caught it and settled herself. "I am curious why you want to work with people you assumed were here to make the coffee though. You have quite called it, except for David, we have each less than a decade of experience. Why bother with us?"

"Because you're facing a war, and you need someone who's been through a few. By the way, I would have asked any guy your age for a coffee." He took a drink. "I might be a Neanderthal, but Chris wouldn't recommend you for no reason. My Spy Kids comments aside, I can make you better, but I'm not going to wait for a decision. Dom is good. I'm better. So, you show me to an office, you get her a computer, and before today ends, I'll prove what we can do. You can fire us after if you want."

Kevin grinned. "If there's a bottle of Canadian Club, I'm much better."

Marie-Ange's hands twitched down towards her pocket, but she settled them firmly on the table. "Right now, the entire team would have to fire you. But Amanda and I are here, and available to sign off on office space, and send Domino over to meet Doug to get one of those sorts of computers." And the second they left the room Marie-Ange was going to warn Doug about who she was sending over. "I am afraid I do not know the exact contents of our drinks cabinet, but I am sure you can find something, yes?"

"Give Dom a computer. In twenty minutes, you'll learn how good she is."

"So... is that it? Are we hired?" Dom swung a leg back and forth, unsure what exactly the procedure was from here. Intel work either seemed to involve a ton of paperwork, or none at all. She was hoping this was the latter.

Exchanging a look with Marie-Ange, Amanda nodded. "For all intents and purposes, yeah, you're hired. Of course," and here she grinned, perhaps a little evilly. "There's the paperwork to sign. But that's North's job."

"And some little details. We have a favourite pub, you should meet everyone, all the usual new office social requirements." Marie-Ange added. "Reassuring everyone's paranoid fears that you are really allowed to be here, that sort of thing. But Amanda and I can handle all the texting and emails so no one bothers you asking who you are."

"Alright, send them to the pub to meet us. I can't think of a more appropriate beginning." Kevin said, finishing off his drink and heading for the door.