Kevin/Gabriel: The Inside Straight
Sep. 26th, 2024 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsKevin connects with Gabe in Monaco for a little intel assignment and to catch up in general.
Monaco was a beautiful jewel on the Mediterranean, a tiny country based on wealthy enclaves, tax evasion and gambling. It was like you had turned Kevin's soul into a country, or at least that was his bad joke as he escorted the younger man down the ancient steps towards their hotel.
"To be fair, you've had enough time to find a nation that's your perfect mate," Gabriel said, somewhat distractedly as he looked around. "Probably steered a few in the right direction." He had not before been to Monaco. Despite his frequent trips to the Mediterranean, the country hadn't been on his list; something about this much money in one place irked him. But the weather agreed with him — he liked any place where he could pay homage to Jude Law's wardrobe in Talented Mr. Ripley — and who was he to dissuade Kevin from showing him the finer life.
He turned toward Kevin. "How much money have you sheltered here?"
"You know the funny thing? Not a cent." Kevin said with a smile. "All of my investments with the Agency were all true blue American stocks. After... well, I don't worry about money. But they do." His smile turned wolfish. "And one of them is a Brotherhood sponsor. So, I need a partner to upset them."
Gabriel had wanted to make a joke about Kevin's investment strategy being a relic of USO tours and McCarthyism, but the vagueness and the pause threw him, and then it was just too late to double back. "Oh Kevin," he sighed. "You do know how I hate to cause a scene."
"Not like this. I need you to be a tech bro. A crypto guy." Kevin said with a smirk. "There's a mutant crypto that has been launched and I think the origins are not Magneto. We might be able to cause some issues in the Brotherhood rumbling it."
"Oh, fuck off," Gabriel groaned. He looked around to see if Monaco was the kind of place you could smoke on the sidewalk. "That's the meanest assignment you ever gave me. A crypto bro. As if I could even convincingly — I mean, honestly!"
"Look, if I could get away with smoking too much and being a woman when necessary, I would have done it. But you have stakes in this world that I don't." Kevin said with a smirk. "I hate to say it, but you're better at this than me. I need you to get a scope of what they're planning."
“Oh, I hate every sentence of this conversation.” Gabriel stopped to pull out a cigarette and a lighter, using his powers to have the thing lit in a split-second. “You flattering me this much is always a preface to something awful. And I want to make it very clear that I have no money in Bitcoin.”
"At my heart, I still have to acknowledge that I am still 90 years old. Give me some time and practice and I can slip into that world, but without that, I'm a liability on point, So instead, I'll be your erstwhile lackey you can order around while you hear the pitch about GenCoin." Kevin shrugged, pausing for a brief moment before looking back at Gabe with the face of the blandest young white man he'd ever seen. Even looking at him directly was to immediately forget about him.
Gabriel, not for the first time, considered directly blowing smoke into Kevin's face. "You know," he said after a second, "just because I'm young doesn't mean I understand crypto. Or care about it. Kind of a blanket assumption you made here."
"You don't need to understand crypto. You need to understand the culture of insufferable young men with money to pass as one of them." Kevin said. "That's what I think you can do better than I can right now."
"Again, kind of insulting, but I understand there's a compliment in there somewhere." He studied Kevin's new identity for a second. It was appropriately generic; the kind of guy who was a dime a dozen and not particularly remarkable in any way. Someone you'd sleep with and forget to add to your body count. "Good skin for 90," he finally said.
"It's all due to my moisturizing regime." He said dryly as they continued on towards the Hotel de Paris Monte-Carlo; chosen by Kevin to both add credibility to their cover and because it was close to the private casino room that GenCoin was making their pitch. "We can get changed before the meeting. I need a much worse fitting suit for this meeting."
"No tie. Open collar." Gabriel wasn't sure he had the wardrobe for this. "Are we San Francisco or New York? And how rich are we?" If he was the money guy, he figured he'd probably get away with looking casual either way.
"You're from San Francisco. VC facilitator with a good chunk of money on your own but connected with several of the Techbro ghouls; Thiel types with a lower profile. I'm from Indiana, law degree from Yale. My job is to do your bidding but occasionally step-in to keep you out of jail or accidentally commit to buying a social media platform at ten times its worth."
Gabriel instinctively made a face at the mention of Thiel, the product of a lesson of Quentin’s having sunk in. “So we’re doing role reversal? Ought to be fun for me.”
"The last thing we want is them thinking I'm worth even a thought about. You're one of the men that can turn their crypto-idea into reality." Kevin nodded. "While they do, I can slip a few helpful bugs on them and hopefully we can figure out who our secret Brotherhood supporter is. Or who knows, he might brag about it at the meeting. It's a weird little society."
"Wouldn't shock me." Gabriel shrugged. "I feel like these guys are, like, constantly trying to seem smarter than the next person. I think that's how you convince people to give you money in their world." Not that he knew all that much about it. But he suspected he'd get further by never seeming too eager or interested and instead letting them know he enjoyed the chase. A strategy he'd certainly used to some effect before.
"Crypto does seem perfect for the Brotherhood," he added.
"Anonymous, easy to transfer and use on the darkweb. I assume they have some financial connections that are able to turn it into actual funds secretly to move through a bunch of shell corporations and back into their hands. Rumour for this one is that the mutant involved is a pre-cog. Can see the future market so the first wave of investors will make an absolute killing." Kevin frowned for a second. "I haven't been able to root out whether or not a pre-cog is involved, but that's what brought the Brotherhood sniffing around."
"Sure there are ways we can root that out. They're gonna vaguely promise market advantages, right? We might have to push." Gabriel had often wondered what it might be like to see the world coming before you inevitably crashed into it. "You're not worried the pre-cog's gonna see us coming? I guess that's a mutation with a few different shades."
"If there's a pre-cog who could see us coming, we wouldn't have been invited to this, especially when the Brotherhood operative is the main whale they want to land. I could be wrong... if so, we're in a lot of trouble. But in general, I'm willing to bet if there is a pre-cog, they're limited to specific lanes."
"Sure." Gabriel wasn't entirely sure how to voice what he was thinking, because it would have been trite to suggest that the only thing to expect around any mutation was the unexpected. "So this is what you've been working on? Brotherhood funding?"
"My dance card is full and varied, Gabe." Kevin said with a shrug. "We have a lot of moving targets right now, which is why we're stretching you thin in the field."
"Sure." Gabriel liked that Kevin thought this was an imposition, and not a choice that he'd been deliberately making. As if he hadn't been willingly throwing himself at travel and expense accounts. "Helps that I can get twice as much done in a day, I'm sure."
"I'm not complaining. Nice to have someone who can do more than your average bear." Kevin said. "So, ready to take on some techbros in their environment?"
"I mean, no." Gabriel said somewhat flatly. "But I can put on overpriced athleisure and a fancy watch and pretend investing in one Silicon Valley company wasn't a lucky bet but in fact taught me some grand lesson about how the world works." He contemplated this. "And I guess be libertarian adjacent except when it comes to pro-business bailouts?"
"Modern America at its finest, my friend." Kevin said with a nod.
Monaco was a beautiful jewel on the Mediterranean, a tiny country based on wealthy enclaves, tax evasion and gambling. It was like you had turned Kevin's soul into a country, or at least that was his bad joke as he escorted the younger man down the ancient steps towards their hotel.
"To be fair, you've had enough time to find a nation that's your perfect mate," Gabriel said, somewhat distractedly as he looked around. "Probably steered a few in the right direction." He had not before been to Monaco. Despite his frequent trips to the Mediterranean, the country hadn't been on his list; something about this much money in one place irked him. But the weather agreed with him — he liked any place where he could pay homage to Jude Law's wardrobe in Talented Mr. Ripley — and who was he to dissuade Kevin from showing him the finer life.
He turned toward Kevin. "How much money have you sheltered here?"
"You know the funny thing? Not a cent." Kevin said with a smile. "All of my investments with the Agency were all true blue American stocks. After... well, I don't worry about money. But they do." His smile turned wolfish. "And one of them is a Brotherhood sponsor. So, I need a partner to upset them."
Gabriel had wanted to make a joke about Kevin's investment strategy being a relic of USO tours and McCarthyism, but the vagueness and the pause threw him, and then it was just too late to double back. "Oh Kevin," he sighed. "You do know how I hate to cause a scene."
"Not like this. I need you to be a tech bro. A crypto guy." Kevin said with a smirk. "There's a mutant crypto that has been launched and I think the origins are not Magneto. We might be able to cause some issues in the Brotherhood rumbling it."
"Oh, fuck off," Gabriel groaned. He looked around to see if Monaco was the kind of place you could smoke on the sidewalk. "That's the meanest assignment you ever gave me. A crypto bro. As if I could even convincingly — I mean, honestly!"
"Look, if I could get away with smoking too much and being a woman when necessary, I would have done it. But you have stakes in this world that I don't." Kevin said with a smirk. "I hate to say it, but you're better at this than me. I need you to get a scope of what they're planning."
“Oh, I hate every sentence of this conversation.” Gabriel stopped to pull out a cigarette and a lighter, using his powers to have the thing lit in a split-second. “You flattering me this much is always a preface to something awful. And I want to make it very clear that I have no money in Bitcoin.”
"At my heart, I still have to acknowledge that I am still 90 years old. Give me some time and practice and I can slip into that world, but without that, I'm a liability on point, So instead, I'll be your erstwhile lackey you can order around while you hear the pitch about GenCoin." Kevin shrugged, pausing for a brief moment before looking back at Gabe with the face of the blandest young white man he'd ever seen. Even looking at him directly was to immediately forget about him.
Gabriel, not for the first time, considered directly blowing smoke into Kevin's face. "You know," he said after a second, "just because I'm young doesn't mean I understand crypto. Or care about it. Kind of a blanket assumption you made here."
"You don't need to understand crypto. You need to understand the culture of insufferable young men with money to pass as one of them." Kevin said. "That's what I think you can do better than I can right now."
"Again, kind of insulting, but I understand there's a compliment in there somewhere." He studied Kevin's new identity for a second. It was appropriately generic; the kind of guy who was a dime a dozen and not particularly remarkable in any way. Someone you'd sleep with and forget to add to your body count. "Good skin for 90," he finally said.
"It's all due to my moisturizing regime." He said dryly as they continued on towards the Hotel de Paris Monte-Carlo; chosen by Kevin to both add credibility to their cover and because it was close to the private casino room that GenCoin was making their pitch. "We can get changed before the meeting. I need a much worse fitting suit for this meeting."
"No tie. Open collar." Gabriel wasn't sure he had the wardrobe for this. "Are we San Francisco or New York? And how rich are we?" If he was the money guy, he figured he'd probably get away with looking casual either way.
"You're from San Francisco. VC facilitator with a good chunk of money on your own but connected with several of the Techbro ghouls; Thiel types with a lower profile. I'm from Indiana, law degree from Yale. My job is to do your bidding but occasionally step-in to keep you out of jail or accidentally commit to buying a social media platform at ten times its worth."
Gabriel instinctively made a face at the mention of Thiel, the product of a lesson of Quentin’s having sunk in. “So we’re doing role reversal? Ought to be fun for me.”
"The last thing we want is them thinking I'm worth even a thought about. You're one of the men that can turn their crypto-idea into reality." Kevin nodded. "While they do, I can slip a few helpful bugs on them and hopefully we can figure out who our secret Brotherhood supporter is. Or who knows, he might brag about it at the meeting. It's a weird little society."
"Wouldn't shock me." Gabriel shrugged. "I feel like these guys are, like, constantly trying to seem smarter than the next person. I think that's how you convince people to give you money in their world." Not that he knew all that much about it. But he suspected he'd get further by never seeming too eager or interested and instead letting them know he enjoyed the chase. A strategy he'd certainly used to some effect before.
"Crypto does seem perfect for the Brotherhood," he added.
"Anonymous, easy to transfer and use on the darkweb. I assume they have some financial connections that are able to turn it into actual funds secretly to move through a bunch of shell corporations and back into their hands. Rumour for this one is that the mutant involved is a pre-cog. Can see the future market so the first wave of investors will make an absolute killing." Kevin frowned for a second. "I haven't been able to root out whether or not a pre-cog is involved, but that's what brought the Brotherhood sniffing around."
"Sure there are ways we can root that out. They're gonna vaguely promise market advantages, right? We might have to push." Gabriel had often wondered what it might be like to see the world coming before you inevitably crashed into it. "You're not worried the pre-cog's gonna see us coming? I guess that's a mutation with a few different shades."
"If there's a pre-cog who could see us coming, we wouldn't have been invited to this, especially when the Brotherhood operative is the main whale they want to land. I could be wrong... if so, we're in a lot of trouble. But in general, I'm willing to bet if there is a pre-cog, they're limited to specific lanes."
"Sure." Gabriel wasn't entirely sure how to voice what he was thinking, because it would have been trite to suggest that the only thing to expect around any mutation was the unexpected. "So this is what you've been working on? Brotherhood funding?"
"My dance card is full and varied, Gabe." Kevin said with a shrug. "We have a lot of moving targets right now, which is why we're stretching you thin in the field."
"Sure." Gabriel liked that Kevin thought this was an imposition, and not a choice that he'd been deliberately making. As if he hadn't been willingly throwing himself at travel and expense accounts. "Helps that I can get twice as much done in a day, I'm sure."
"I'm not complaining. Nice to have someone who can do more than your average bear." Kevin said. "So, ready to take on some techbros in their environment?"
"I mean, no." Gabriel said somewhat flatly. "But I can put on overpriced athleisure and a fancy watch and pretend investing in one Silicon Valley company wasn't a lucky bet but in fact taught me some grand lesson about how the world works." He contemplated this. "And I guess be libertarian adjacent except when it comes to pro-business bailouts?"
"Modern America at its finest, my friend." Kevin said with a nod.
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Date: 2024-09-27 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-30 12:27 am (UTC)