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xp_logs2015-05-18 03:42 pm
xp_daytripper) wrote in xp_logs2015-05-18 03:42 pm
Big Trouble In Little Lowtown: Madripoor
Based on the information they've gathered, half of the team goes out and makes connections - who is the Mandarin and why does he want the stolen artefacts?
Scene 1: Kevin and Domino talk to an old "friend"
The Princess Bar. You will never find a more wretched hive of sum and villainy. At least, that's what the owners liked to tell people. It's location in Lowtown near the docks and the accessways to Hightown had made it a popular location for clandestine meetings, secret liaisons, and one percenter slumming. It was one of the few places that a tech CEO, a pirate, and an Asian Elvis could sit at a table together and not draw more than a glance. Kevin had a long history with the bar. He'd first been introduced to it on leave around Christmas 1950, and even then it was an old relic.
"Did I ever tell you this was the first place I got stabbed?"
"Wait, this is the place?" Dom paused and gave the place another look, trying to piece together what she remembered of the story with the landscape around them. There were certainly enough seedy-looking characters that a stabbing or two wouldn't have seemed out of place. "So this is kinda like when couples go back to where they had their first date, right? 'Where it all started'. It's so sweet. Do you need a moment to process the emotions?"
"You know, I could actually sell you in less than five minutes here. You know that, right?" He said sourly as they pushed through the doors. It was midday, although the front windows had been covered in a layer of cheap posters, cigarette smoke and grime to the point that it could have been midnight for all the patrons could tell. A thick haze of smoke emanating from both legal and illegal sources greeted them as they walked into the main bar, and Kevin waved them both to a side booth.
Dom slipped into the booth, grimacing as she felt the slightly tacky plastic fabric against her hands. "You always say such nice things. Just for that, you're buying the first round. I'll have a Jack and Coke."
"Name me one thing you drink that isn't mixed with Coke." Kevin walked over to the bar and waved for drinks. After a few moments some money changed hands - more than some drinks should cost - and he headed back to the booth, putting her drink down in front of her. "OK, so remember Charlie Chu? Bald, scarred asshole that you knifed in the leg that one time in Java? He's coming over in a minute."
"Charlie." Anybody else would've seen the smirk, the lift of the glass, and thought that she was cool as a cucumber - even amused. "Yeah, I remember him. Great guy, when he's not trying to kick your head in." Only Kevin could read the slight shift in her posture, the way her hand tightened around her glass, the tensing of her lips and know that she was on edge. "Can't wait to catch up on old times with him."
Kevin took a sip from his own glass of whiskey, eyes flicking back and forth, indexing the people at the bar. "He's not my first choice either, but he's available."
After a few minutes, a stocky Chinese man limped over to the table. As Kevin had mentioned, a scar curled from just below his right eye, across through half an ear and ended in the back of his shaved head. He scowled as he saw Domino.
"You didn't say anything about her being here. My price just went up."
"No it didn't, unless you want a matching limp for the other leg." Kevin said mildly.
"Charlie, hey, so good to see you too," Dom said with an overly-manufactured smile. She patted the booth beside her. "C'mon, grab a seat, let's chat. I'm just dying to hear what you've been up to lately."
Chu made a face like he was being asked to cozy up to a live cockroach, but apparently thought better of blowing them off and gingerly slid into the booth across from Kevin. "What do you want?"
"The Mandarin. I know he's got his hooks into the mainland Tongs and the HK Triads. He's also got skin in the game here on Madripoor. Thing is that I thought I knew all the powerbrokers here and he's not on that list." Kevin lit a cigarette. "So who is the man behind the name?"
"Shit. How should I know that?"
"Because I know you helped funnel some heavy weapons and highly illegal artifacts to Madripoor for him and you're too smart to take that kind of risk without being sure that the other side was powerful enough to ensure they couldn't roll over on you."
Chu made another annoyed face, knowing that he was trapped. Dom tried not to look too pleased with his predicament. "C'mon, Charlie," she said, gesturing at him with the straw from her drink, "otherwise we're just going to have to go to the man himself. And tell him you sent us."
That certainly loosened his tongue. "I don't know, okay? All I know is he's got a plan, some sort of plan after he's got the items he needs. You may not know about him now, but you will soon enough."
"You know more than that, Chu. Give me a name."
"Whoever it is has pull with Hong Industrial and Manufacturing. When I delivered the stuff, they repacked it into crates with their logo and customs stamps and loaded them into company trucks. That's all I know. It's all I wanted to know."
Kevin regarded him flatly for a moment and then nodded. He dug out a wad of bills and tossed them to Charlie before the man made a hasty retreat.
"I'm inclined to believe him."
"Well sure, he's such a stand-up guy," Dom quipped, draining what remained of her drink in one gulp. "You sure you don't want me to hack his accounts, see if he tips anyone off about our little chat?"
"Pays to be safe and do it anyway. But I doubt he's going to say anything. If Hong is involved, the last thing he wants is them knowing who he potentially sent their way." Kevin polished off his drink. "So, the question is does the Mandarin have been in Hong's to manipulate it when he wants it, or is the weird billionaire who runs the whole thing in on it?"
"Dunno," was Dom's helpful answer, "but I guess that's what we look into next. C'mon, the drinks here are terrible and that hairy biker guy is giving me the evils. Let's get out of here."
Scene 2: Marie-Ange and Felicia play "good cop, incompetent cop" with one of Madripoor's "finest".
"Thanks again for meeting with us Detective..."
"Liepins."
Felicia smiled sharply. "Detective Liepins. I don't know how much you were told, so let's start with the basics and then you can let us in on what you know already. I'm Agent Christian, this is Agent Cayce, and we're looking for information on a man calling himself The Mandarin."
Doug was going to pay for those ID's. Marie-Ange had gotten all her exasperated faces out in the car, and had settled herself into blandly professional. "If you do not already have a file on him.. " She spread her hands, all young-agent-helpful. "I hope you already have a file on him, it would be embarrassing for us to fill you in, yes?"
The detective's expression didn't change, but there was a flicker of alarm in his eyes. "The Mandarin, you say?" he replied. "I wasn't aware Interpol was interested in him. He's mostly a local problem."
"Well, that's no longer true," Felicia replied in a conspiratorial tone, leaning forward slightly. "So anything you have... we'd really appreciate it."
"Oh yes. He has been causing problems all over." Marie-Ange said, nodding. "Here, I have... oh bother. Paperwork, for file sharing. I never remember the form number." She dug in her bag, pulling out a crisp wrapper, some hair ties, lip balm, and finally a sheaf of slightly crumpled papers. "If you could just fill this out? Oh. Oh, do you have a pen? I forgot mine. Agent Christian, do you have a pen? Maybe Detective Liepins can just tell us?"
Felicia reached for her own attache, pulling out a neat gold pen, which she put on the table. It all seemed to have been all muscle memory, however, as when she got an actual look at the papers in front of her she drew it back a little, as if reconsidering. "I think that may be best. I'll just make some notes as we go."
"Notes?" For some reason the idea of someone - even someone as inept as Agent Cayce seemed to be - taking notes was alarming to Liepins. Possibly because of the regular payments into a certain bank account from a corporation owned by one Zhang Tong. If Interpol was poking their noses into the Mandarin's business... "No, no need for notes. I can provide you with the files you need," he said in a hurry. Perhaps it was time to relocate like his wife was always asking him to and leave these two airheads to the Mandarin...
"Oh that would be so helpful!" Marie-Ange said, relaxing into her seat "Plus this sort of thing, it always goes better if it is.. you know, just interdepartmental, from your department to ours, instead of having to.." She pressed her lips together. "Oh, you know, getting reprimanded for the wrong paperwork, or signing the wrong thing, or not remembering which form has to be done in triplicate." She started stuffing the seemingly random items back into the bag.
The little tube of lip balm slipped from her fingers, and she huffed. "Bother. That was seventeen pounds. Oh, you wouldn't mind if I grabbed it, right?" It took no time at all for her to sweep her foot under the desk, kick out the lip balm and then bend to pick it up - and slip a tiny dime-sized recorder on the bottom edge of the desk.
Felicia gave Liepins a half shrug and eye roll that very clearly said, this is what I deal with every day, then smiled. "That would be greatly appreciated. We'll just wait here."
Scene 3: Doug and Jubilee join Wanda in the musty book part of the job, and discover the Mandarin's true plan.
Reading Mandarin, or, really, staring at the characters until her eyes watered, gave Wanda a headache. "Douglas, this is why we pay you the big bucks," she groaned, pushing it aside in favor of digging the heels of her hands into her eyes. "Unlike you, my brain stops at however many languages I actually know. I will, I think, go through the translated pieces, thank you very much."
"You pay me the big bucks, huh?" Doug murmured wryly. "That's news to me. And to my bank account." He stuck his tongue out at Wanda. "And it's not like my power doesn't give -me- headaches, too." He pinched at the bridge of his nose. "Especially when there's this much crap to sort through.
"Says the two that don't end up looking like a famine victim when they decide to get creative with their powers," Jubilee replied, but there was a teasing glint in her eye that softened her statement to the teasing it was. "Lucky for you two I might have found a connection between our mystery man and the Tong, come look at this."
Wanda didn't bother getting up, she was too tired for it. Instead she maneuvered her chair over to where Jubilee sat, managing to not knock anything over in the process. "Talk to me," she directed the other two, having taken a stack of translated pieces with her. There were far too many puzzle pieces that needed to be glued together and Wanda needed to go through the papers in her hands while Doug and Jubilee talked about what they had found so far.
Doug blinked as he leafed through the pieces Jubilee had pointed out. One word in particular jumped out and he drew a breath through his teeth. "Apotheosis? That is not a word that fills me with a lot of happy warm feelings." When the two women looked curiously at him, he elaborated. "It means elevation to a divine level."
"We talking Chinese, Greek or Roman mythology?" Jubilee replied, pulling out a variety of papers in different dialects and pushing them toward Doug and Wanda. "Looks like this guy really, really wants to be a God."
"I would lean more towards Chinese mythology," Wanda said, shaking her head at the other two. "I highly doubt someone so interested in these particular items would be interested in Greek or Roman mythos. Besides ..." She waved the stack of papers she'd been holding. "According to these, the Triads are involved. There have been significant movement within the group, outside of their normal patterns. Someone has been very active and if the Triads are going along, then those at the top are interested and have given their approval."
Doug's eyes narrowed. "Wait, one of the words in that bit about the Tong and Triads reminds me of something." He flipped through a book until he found what he was looking for. "Tianzi. It means 'son of Heaven'. It was used to refer to the divine mandate of emperors in both China and Japan. But there's a piece that..." He squinted, then translated. "And the Son of Heaven shall ascend, and he shall rule tianxia - all under heaven, from the land where the sun rises to the land where the sun sets."
"Tianxia? Where have I heard that before?" Jubilee asked, looking at Wanda. "It's like, tip of my tongue here. Something to do with a specific ritual."
Jubilee pulled more of the papers toward her, shifting through them quickly till she found the set she was looking for.
"Bingo. Take a look at this one."
Doug whistled low and softly. "So that's why he wants these particular items - it's to fuel his ascension to godhood." That was not good. In fact, that was aggressively not good. "Okay, so we know why he wants them, and what he intends to do with them. Now we just need to know where and when so we can spoke his wheel." Which hopefully the rest of the team had a lead on.
Scene 1: Kevin and Domino talk to an old "friend"
The Princess Bar. You will never find a more wretched hive of sum and villainy. At least, that's what the owners liked to tell people. It's location in Lowtown near the docks and the accessways to Hightown had made it a popular location for clandestine meetings, secret liaisons, and one percenter slumming. It was one of the few places that a tech CEO, a pirate, and an Asian Elvis could sit at a table together and not draw more than a glance. Kevin had a long history with the bar. He'd first been introduced to it on leave around Christmas 1950, and even then it was an old relic.
"Did I ever tell you this was the first place I got stabbed?"
"Wait, this is the place?" Dom paused and gave the place another look, trying to piece together what she remembered of the story with the landscape around them. There were certainly enough seedy-looking characters that a stabbing or two wouldn't have seemed out of place. "So this is kinda like when couples go back to where they had their first date, right? 'Where it all started'. It's so sweet. Do you need a moment to process the emotions?"
"You know, I could actually sell you in less than five minutes here. You know that, right?" He said sourly as they pushed through the doors. It was midday, although the front windows had been covered in a layer of cheap posters, cigarette smoke and grime to the point that it could have been midnight for all the patrons could tell. A thick haze of smoke emanating from both legal and illegal sources greeted them as they walked into the main bar, and Kevin waved them both to a side booth.
Dom slipped into the booth, grimacing as she felt the slightly tacky plastic fabric against her hands. "You always say such nice things. Just for that, you're buying the first round. I'll have a Jack and Coke."
"Name me one thing you drink that isn't mixed with Coke." Kevin walked over to the bar and waved for drinks. After a few moments some money changed hands - more than some drinks should cost - and he headed back to the booth, putting her drink down in front of her. "OK, so remember Charlie Chu? Bald, scarred asshole that you knifed in the leg that one time in Java? He's coming over in a minute."
"Charlie." Anybody else would've seen the smirk, the lift of the glass, and thought that she was cool as a cucumber - even amused. "Yeah, I remember him. Great guy, when he's not trying to kick your head in." Only Kevin could read the slight shift in her posture, the way her hand tightened around her glass, the tensing of her lips and know that she was on edge. "Can't wait to catch up on old times with him."
Kevin took a sip from his own glass of whiskey, eyes flicking back and forth, indexing the people at the bar. "He's not my first choice either, but he's available."
After a few minutes, a stocky Chinese man limped over to the table. As Kevin had mentioned, a scar curled from just below his right eye, across through half an ear and ended in the back of his shaved head. He scowled as he saw Domino.
"You didn't say anything about her being here. My price just went up."
"No it didn't, unless you want a matching limp for the other leg." Kevin said mildly.
"Charlie, hey, so good to see you too," Dom said with an overly-manufactured smile. She patted the booth beside her. "C'mon, grab a seat, let's chat. I'm just dying to hear what you've been up to lately."
Chu made a face like he was being asked to cozy up to a live cockroach, but apparently thought better of blowing them off and gingerly slid into the booth across from Kevin. "What do you want?"
"The Mandarin. I know he's got his hooks into the mainland Tongs and the HK Triads. He's also got skin in the game here on Madripoor. Thing is that I thought I knew all the powerbrokers here and he's not on that list." Kevin lit a cigarette. "So who is the man behind the name?"
"Shit. How should I know that?"
"Because I know you helped funnel some heavy weapons and highly illegal artifacts to Madripoor for him and you're too smart to take that kind of risk without being sure that the other side was powerful enough to ensure they couldn't roll over on you."
Chu made another annoyed face, knowing that he was trapped. Dom tried not to look too pleased with his predicament. "C'mon, Charlie," she said, gesturing at him with the straw from her drink, "otherwise we're just going to have to go to the man himself. And tell him you sent us."
That certainly loosened his tongue. "I don't know, okay? All I know is he's got a plan, some sort of plan after he's got the items he needs. You may not know about him now, but you will soon enough."
"You know more than that, Chu. Give me a name."
"Whoever it is has pull with Hong Industrial and Manufacturing. When I delivered the stuff, they repacked it into crates with their logo and customs stamps and loaded them into company trucks. That's all I know. It's all I wanted to know."
Kevin regarded him flatly for a moment and then nodded. He dug out a wad of bills and tossed them to Charlie before the man made a hasty retreat.
"I'm inclined to believe him."
"Well sure, he's such a stand-up guy," Dom quipped, draining what remained of her drink in one gulp. "You sure you don't want me to hack his accounts, see if he tips anyone off about our little chat?"
"Pays to be safe and do it anyway. But I doubt he's going to say anything. If Hong is involved, the last thing he wants is them knowing who he potentially sent their way." Kevin polished off his drink. "So, the question is does the Mandarin have been in Hong's to manipulate it when he wants it, or is the weird billionaire who runs the whole thing in on it?"
"Dunno," was Dom's helpful answer, "but I guess that's what we look into next. C'mon, the drinks here are terrible and that hairy biker guy is giving me the evils. Let's get out of here."
Scene 2: Marie-Ange and Felicia play "good cop, incompetent cop" with one of Madripoor's "finest".
"Thanks again for meeting with us Detective..."
"Liepins."
Felicia smiled sharply. "Detective Liepins. I don't know how much you were told, so let's start with the basics and then you can let us in on what you know already. I'm Agent Christian, this is Agent Cayce, and we're looking for information on a man calling himself The Mandarin."
Doug was going to pay for those ID's. Marie-Ange had gotten all her exasperated faces out in the car, and had settled herself into blandly professional. "If you do not already have a file on him.. " She spread her hands, all young-agent-helpful. "I hope you already have a file on him, it would be embarrassing for us to fill you in, yes?"
The detective's expression didn't change, but there was a flicker of alarm in his eyes. "The Mandarin, you say?" he replied. "I wasn't aware Interpol was interested in him. He's mostly a local problem."
"Well, that's no longer true," Felicia replied in a conspiratorial tone, leaning forward slightly. "So anything you have... we'd really appreciate it."
"Oh yes. He has been causing problems all over." Marie-Ange said, nodding. "Here, I have... oh bother. Paperwork, for file sharing. I never remember the form number." She dug in her bag, pulling out a crisp wrapper, some hair ties, lip balm, and finally a sheaf of slightly crumpled papers. "If you could just fill this out? Oh. Oh, do you have a pen? I forgot mine. Agent Christian, do you have a pen? Maybe Detective Liepins can just tell us?"
Felicia reached for her own attache, pulling out a neat gold pen, which she put on the table. It all seemed to have been all muscle memory, however, as when she got an actual look at the papers in front of her she drew it back a little, as if reconsidering. "I think that may be best. I'll just make some notes as we go."
"Notes?" For some reason the idea of someone - even someone as inept as Agent Cayce seemed to be - taking notes was alarming to Liepins. Possibly because of the regular payments into a certain bank account from a corporation owned by one Zhang Tong. If Interpol was poking their noses into the Mandarin's business... "No, no need for notes. I can provide you with the files you need," he said in a hurry. Perhaps it was time to relocate like his wife was always asking him to and leave these two airheads to the Mandarin...
"Oh that would be so helpful!" Marie-Ange said, relaxing into her seat "Plus this sort of thing, it always goes better if it is.. you know, just interdepartmental, from your department to ours, instead of having to.." She pressed her lips together. "Oh, you know, getting reprimanded for the wrong paperwork, or signing the wrong thing, or not remembering which form has to be done in triplicate." She started stuffing the seemingly random items back into the bag.
The little tube of lip balm slipped from her fingers, and she huffed. "Bother. That was seventeen pounds. Oh, you wouldn't mind if I grabbed it, right?" It took no time at all for her to sweep her foot under the desk, kick out the lip balm and then bend to pick it up - and slip a tiny dime-sized recorder on the bottom edge of the desk.
Felicia gave Liepins a half shrug and eye roll that very clearly said, this is what I deal with every day, then smiled. "That would be greatly appreciated. We'll just wait here."
Scene 3: Doug and Jubilee join Wanda in the musty book part of the job, and discover the Mandarin's true plan.
Reading Mandarin, or, really, staring at the characters until her eyes watered, gave Wanda a headache. "Douglas, this is why we pay you the big bucks," she groaned, pushing it aside in favor of digging the heels of her hands into her eyes. "Unlike you, my brain stops at however many languages I actually know. I will, I think, go through the translated pieces, thank you very much."
"You pay me the big bucks, huh?" Doug murmured wryly. "That's news to me. And to my bank account." He stuck his tongue out at Wanda. "And it's not like my power doesn't give -me- headaches, too." He pinched at the bridge of his nose. "Especially when there's this much crap to sort through.
"Says the two that don't end up looking like a famine victim when they decide to get creative with their powers," Jubilee replied, but there was a teasing glint in her eye that softened her statement to the teasing it was. "Lucky for you two I might have found a connection between our mystery man and the Tong, come look at this."
Wanda didn't bother getting up, she was too tired for it. Instead she maneuvered her chair over to where Jubilee sat, managing to not knock anything over in the process. "Talk to me," she directed the other two, having taken a stack of translated pieces with her. There were far too many puzzle pieces that needed to be glued together and Wanda needed to go through the papers in her hands while Doug and Jubilee talked about what they had found so far.
Doug blinked as he leafed through the pieces Jubilee had pointed out. One word in particular jumped out and he drew a breath through his teeth. "Apotheosis? That is not a word that fills me with a lot of happy warm feelings." When the two women looked curiously at him, he elaborated. "It means elevation to a divine level."
"We talking Chinese, Greek or Roman mythology?" Jubilee replied, pulling out a variety of papers in different dialects and pushing them toward Doug and Wanda. "Looks like this guy really, really wants to be a God."
"I would lean more towards Chinese mythology," Wanda said, shaking her head at the other two. "I highly doubt someone so interested in these particular items would be interested in Greek or Roman mythos. Besides ..." She waved the stack of papers she'd been holding. "According to these, the Triads are involved. There have been significant movement within the group, outside of their normal patterns. Someone has been very active and if the Triads are going along, then those at the top are interested and have given their approval."
Doug's eyes narrowed. "Wait, one of the words in that bit about the Tong and Triads reminds me of something." He flipped through a book until he found what he was looking for. "Tianzi. It means 'son of Heaven'. It was used to refer to the divine mandate of emperors in both China and Japan. But there's a piece that..." He squinted, then translated. "And the Son of Heaven shall ascend, and he shall rule tianxia - all under heaven, from the land where the sun rises to the land where the sun sets."
"Tianxia? Where have I heard that before?" Jubilee asked, looking at Wanda. "It's like, tip of my tongue here. Something to do with a specific ritual."
Jubilee pulled more of the papers toward her, shifting through them quickly till she found the set she was looking for.
"Bingo. Take a look at this one."
Doug whistled low and softly. "So that's why he wants these particular items - it's to fuel his ascension to godhood." That was not good. In fact, that was aggressively not good. "Okay, so we know why he wants them, and what he intends to do with them. Now we just need to know where and when so we can spoke his wheel." Which hopefully the rest of the team had a lead on.