Alice
Alice stepped up to the teleporter and covered her mouth with her hand as she yawned. Silly Council. Silly uncle. But in order to keep good will flowing...
She was teleported to the space station and stepped out, looking around for the agent she was supposed to meet. Well, as long as it wasn't Tanya, she'd be able to keep a civil tongue in her head. But if it was...well, she wouldn't be terribly polite.
Alice covered another yawn with her hand and then slipped a lozenge into her mouth. Sucking on the sweetness and waiting for the high to hit, she looked for this agent she was supposed to meet. She really had to get back to her club. Max was good, but he didn't have her touch. Mentally, she thanked the foresight that saw she had a telepathic block in place. If it was Tanya, the agent wouldn't be able to read her.
Tanya
Tanya was waiting impatiently for Alice to show up. She paced a bit, which drove one of the operators nuts.
Finally, Alice arrived on the teleporter. She waited for all the other arrivals to clear before she made her way over.
"Good day," she said to Alice in greeting.
Alice
"Hello," Alice said coolly. Tanya. Hoorah. Oh, this was going to be perfectly delightful. Her diamond eyes sparked. And she couldn't even turn the woman into pretty glittering stones.
Tanya
"Would you like to join me in my office?" Tanya asked.
It hadn't taken Tanya long to realise that Alice had a shield. Big surprise there. Not that she was particularily interested in looking. The minds of drug addicts were rather disturbing, and she never went into them unless she thought they had vital information unobtainable from other sources.
Alice
"Whatever you say, Queen of Hearts." Alice curtseyed slightly in her gypsy skirts. "I have a business to get back to, so if we can move this along? I'm only doing this as a favour for Uncle Jacob. Silly man."
Tanya
Tanya led the way to the elevator and started down. As there were other people in it, Tanya didn't say anything until they reached their floor.
"As I understand it, you haven't been there for a few days," Tanya mused as she stepped out and started walked towards her office.
Alice
"And that's what I'm supposed to talk to you about." Alice skipped along behind Tanya, smiling slyly. "Besides the fact that the agents who came to my club were ever so rude. My friends were quite upset, but the Rabbit Hole is a freehold. No fighting on the grounds, leave your enmity outside. Agents tend to forget that."
Tanya
Tanya stopped at her office door, unlocked and opened it.
"Agents can be overzealous sometimes. But then, some people also overreact," Tanya shrugged, gesturing for Alice to enter first. "At the end of the day you can't please everyone."
Alice
"Oh, that's very true," Alice said as she skipped into the office. She jumped into the swivel chair behind Tanya's desk and spun. "For instance, you didn't kill Spooky dear because that would've made Chrissy darkling child all upset. But Spooky would've preferred a clean death." Alice bit the tip of her finger carefully as she watched Tanya's reaction.
Tanya
Tanya shrugged, closing the door.
"They always do at first. At first. It's taken time but people have come through before. Most of them had even a small resolve to stop in the first place. Christian's friendship with Spook was not the only factor in my decision."
Alice
"Well then. You did make a bit of a blow up there." Alice got a lollipop out of her pockets and unwrapped it before sticking it in her mouth. "Spooky never would have. Anyway. Christian. He's fine, by the way, in case you were even the slightest bit worried about his well being. Which knowing you, might not be true. He did do a very silly thihng with a knife and try to kill himself but Spooky's a very good seamstress."
Tanya
Tanya gave Alice a bland look, but inside she was smiling. So the little troll figured she could get under her skin, huh?
"No one's perfect," Tanya replied. "Everyone makes mistakes. Wasn't my first, won't be my last and I know you've made plenty."
Alice
"Mmmm..." Alice hummed around the lollipop, then took it out of her mouth. "You know, the YIRAAS really did create Spooky. So you've only got yourselves to blame for that one. And I'm not talking what she is now, though you had a great big whopping hand in that, but before." She studied the pink sweet for a moment, before sticking it back in her mouth. "Congrats, by the way. How's the miracle baby going?"
Tanya
Tanya shook her head.
"I didn't even know she existed until she became Spook. I was was still training in Ga'Revali when she was born. Don't paint us all with the same brush, Alice. I've never met all the YIRAAS agents in the world. And neither have you."
She paused and smiled.
"And thank you," she went on. "Baby's fine."
Alice
"You ever stopped and asked yourself exactly why she hates agents so much?" Alice asked. "Probably not. And you ever wonder why she killed her father first of al, of all her kills?" Alice sighed. "Only told me one night after she got paralytically drunk...my fault, I do have to admit. But she was *such* a sweet girl then."
Tanya
"Spook was not on my priority list," Tanya replied. "My list of primary hunters mainly consist of telepaths, if you must know, for obvious reasons. I'm not the one to discuss Spook's past with."
She sighed.
"I know very little about Spook. Only the odd report and the even rarer number of times I've been in her mind. Maybe if I had known her better I would have taken her life. And before you start accusing me of trying to play god, Alice, that's not what I do. There's this misconception out there that all telepaths pry into every single mind we come across and try to use your deepest darkest secrets against you and crap like that. I've put up with it my entire life, Alice, but I've reach a point where I've stopped feeling frustrated about it and started feeling sorry for them. Because those people will never understand. They don't even try. They would much rather fear what is unknown to them. And that is very much something to be pitied."
Alice
Alice waved her hand slightly. "You're not *listening*, mind walker. I know that telepaths don't. She knows that as well. But there are a lot of very unprincipled telepaths out there." She grinned. "Some of them are decorating my club at the moment. Very sparkly. I like diamonds, don't you? But anyway. Spooky, my darling beautiful girl that she is, was molested by her father, an agent, since she was oh, three, I think I pinned it down to. And no one believed her. Not her mother, not her father's superiors, not a person in all this wide wide world. So she killed him with his own shot gun when she was fifteen. Fitting, in its own way. And then she killed her mother. And then she went out and killed every single alien who had ever hurt her because she couldn't fight back. I had to pay a lot of money to fix her the first time, you know. She hates telepaths for a very very good reason. You think Taylor Hanson's mind was screwed up bad? That's absolutely nothing compared to the shambles Spook's was in. So I fixed her up and sent her out." Alice sucked on the lollipop. "And I think this conversation is really over, don't you?" Shs stood and made her way past Tanya to the door. "If I see you again, it will be ages too soon for me, Queenie. Self righteousness never ever sits well with me..."
Tanya
Tanya shook her head. There it was again. Getting accused of being too big for her boots. Will it never end?
"Well, have a good day Alice. I'll have a talk with the agents who came over and see if I can tone down their enthusiasim a bit."
Alice
"You too, Queenie, you too." Alice paused at the door, and grinned. "Mind you watch yourself and the baby. Just a bit of a heads up with that. Spooky was *really* pissed, as you could tell by what happened to that training facility." She disappeared out the door again and headed for the teleportation facility. "Have fun."
Tanya
"Bye," Tanya replied.
She closed the door behind her and took her seat.
"All I seem to do these days," she murmered. "Make enemies."
She refused to dwell on it though and got back to work.