[NPC] public

[forgediron]

Characters: [NPC] Zanru, OPEN
Date: December 8-15 2015
Location: Stark Industries
Situation: Studying the returning Foreigners.
Warnings/Rating: N/A

It was impossible to miss that the Foreigners had returned. Thus far it seemed they had only given Yunxu trouble--of course, Yunxu was troubled by anything he couldn't control--but Zanru was aware of her current position. She was aware that most of what the Foreigners had once owned was hers. Though too many of the Foreigners had left over the years for Zanru to know any of the current ones personally, it was nevertheless the bulk of her family who staffed their offices. Soon after they'd disappeared no one had wanted to touch the Foreigners' technology. No one had dared, except Zanru.

For all they had been her allies in the past, Zanru had no intention of simply handing over everything for which her family had worked. If the Foreigners couldn't even be obliged to stay after building such large companies, then Zanru was damned if she'd let them have them back after a year's disappearance. It would be the height of irresponsibility to let some of Keeliai's largest industries be run by people who couldn't even guarantee they'd be there to run them.

That being said, the returning Foreigners provided an ... opportunity. That was why Zanru had asked her assistants at Stark Industries to tell her if any of them came to the building to ask for information. Sometimes, she wasn't there and the Foreigners were turned away. She wasn't going to make things easy for them.

But, when they were fortunate or had managed to arrange an actual appointment, there were times when Zanru was in Stark Industries office, diligently overseeing the paperwork and the research under her care.

Comments

[forgediron]

Well, that was better than the alternative. Zanru considered. Flying skeletons weren't exactly common even in a place like Keeliai--although Zanru did recall a few of her younger and more impatient family-members trying to emulate the shape in the truly hot weather--as if it would stop them from feeling hot.

After a moment she unlatched the window and pushed it open, and stepped back again, her cup still in one hand but the other falling back to the pistol on the desk. Just in case. From all she'd heard, the skeleton-man was tricky. "We do have doors."

[skeletonenigma]

It was a gun, Skulduggery noticed, from an earlier era than his own revolver. It didn't look like it had a rotating chamber. One shot before reload. He'd handled weapons like that before, of course, and they weren't any less deadly for their lack of modern sophistication - but it was something to note in case he ever found himself attacking or being attacked by Zanru.

"I noticed that," he agreed, stepping in over the window-sill. "But then I thought using the front door might take too long. It always takes at least an hour to explain that I'm not an evil living skeleton, and by the time anyone believes me, the people I want to talk to have disappeared without a trace. I wanted to skip all of that. My name is Skulduggery Pleasant. I gather you're Zanru?"

[forgediron]

"People here know you're a Foreigner," Zanru said flatly, putting down the cup. "Don't treat us like we're stupid by stepping around the process." She stepped forward and put her hand on the window, the pistol in her other hand but lowered at the floor and her chin high.

"I am," she said. "And I'd have seen you, if you'd asked properly. Goodbye." Pointedly she started to close the window on him, half inside the room or not. She'd have been more willing to talk if he'd just been curious, but to come seeking her out because he was too condescending to accept due course? That was just insulting.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery wasn't sure whether or not to believe Zanru would have seen him, but any potential damage was already done. All he could do was prevent the window from closing with one hand, and gesture towards Zanru's pistol with the other.

"I'll upgrade that for you," he said, "if you hear me out."

By Zanru's reputation, the pistol was already the best of its kind Keeliai currently had to offer. Skulduggery could scarcely imagine giving his Smith and Wesson away, but losing his Bentley was something he couldn't even contemplate. All in all, he would certainly be willing to make the trade.

[forgediron]

Zanru paused to consider that offer, though without following the skeleton's gesture toward her own weapon. Most of the Foreigners looked something like kedan to begin with, but the skeleton had always stood out. People remembered what he did, what he owned, and Zanru remembered him having some sort of revolver that was more advanced than what they currently had.

If she could get one of those revolvers to turn over to the re-development team, they might be able to edge out Yunxu in terms of firepower. Still ... Zanru couldn't afford to give into blind trust or greed without making sure of the details.

"What kind of upgrade?" she asked.

[skeletonenigma]

Ah-ha. Hook, line, and sinker. He'd left the revolver behind in the interests of inter-racial cooperation and appearing nonthreatening - or as nonthreatening as was possible - so Skulduggery dropped his hand and remained crouched, balanced, on the inside sill of the window. "A revolving chamber, for one," he answered. "Six shots without needing to reload. A better propulsion system. I don't have it on me, but I can provide you with a gun that does exactly that."

On one condition, he added silently.

[forgediron]

It was an alluring description, and for all that Zanru wasn't a businesswoman she wasn't an idiot, either. Trustworthy deals weren't made on the basis of someone's word and a description. "Bring it back and let me see it, and prove to me that it works, and then I'll hear you out," she said bluntly. "It'll stay in your hands until then."

It wouldn't take much for him, if he could fly, to go and get the gun from wherever he'd put it.

[skeletonenigma]

"Of course." Skulduggery started to turn away, then stopped and tilted his head, making him look something like a horrifying acrobat or trapeze artist. "Do I have your permission to come back to this window, instead of making appointments through the proper channels downstairs?"

He was teasing, yes, but at least the question itself was genuine enough.

[forgediron]

Zanru was struck by the sudden intense urge to push him out of the window and see how quickly he could catch himself on the wall. She didn't. Instead she lifted her eyebrow at him. "Since you neglected to do so beforehand, you can go ahead and do it on your way back. I'll be here."

It was slightly petty. It was also making a point, a point he seemed smart enough to realise.

Timeskip?

[skeletonenigma]

Zanru was right - flying to the Hotel and back took less than five minutes. It also let Skulduggery avoid the Snake patrols he knew would be in the area, so he could touch down at the building's front door in one piece with the gun still hidden on his person.

The disguise sigils on his collarbone hadn't worked since losing Asti's boon, so Skulduggery had to hope that when he walked up to the receptionist with only a hat and sunglasses on, it would be enough to ensure things went smoothly. Not likely, he knew, but perhaps his reputation preceded him. Enough of the kedan were civil with him these days.

Well, before the Foreigners became social pariahs.

"Hello," he said with a tilt of that same hat. "I'm here to see Zanru. As soon as possible, please. I have something she wants."

yep

[forgediron]

Zanru had already called down to warn Ayin that there would be a Foreigner coming in to retroactively demand an appointment. She hadn't mentioned the fact that the Foreigner would be a skeleton. Ayin stared at him with wide eyes, and it took a few moments for her to register the fact that he had, indeed, spoken.

His jaw had even moved. But he had no throat. How did that work?

"Um--" Abruptly Ayin remembered she had a job to do and managed to look down at her diary, and afterward didn't really want to look up again. "Yes. She's--available now. Do you know where her office is?"

[skeletonenigma]

Ah, the old avoid-eye-contact-at-all-costs gimmick. Not an uncommon reaction. Skulduggery certainly didn't hold it against the receptionist.

"I do," he answered, turning to find the stairs. "If going through official channels is always this smooth, then I agree with your employer. I should take advantage more often."

As a matter of fact, finding the office from inside the building was a little harder than finding the correct window from the outside. It took Skulduggery a good few minutes longer than before, but he persevered nevertheless and ended up asking directions from a nice young man who had also adopted the avoid-eye-contact approach. When Skulduggery finally reached the office, he even did Zanru the courtesy of knocking before entering.

[forgediron]

It was a much better way of approaching her than just appearing at the window and expecting to be heard. Zanru had the vague impression the strict adherence to policy might have been a mockery, but she didn't care as long as he did it. And if he thought it was silly, then he was an oaf only worth her time because of what he had to offer.

"Come in," she said, and she was still nursing her drink, but this time it was at the desk while perusing the paperwork in the 'in' box. She knew who it was, of course. That had been even faster than she'd expected, even taking into account his going through the motions.

[skeletonenigma]

"Thank you." Skulduggery stepped inside the office and didn't bother with any of the pleasantries, seeing as they'd already met. He barely bothered with the pleasantries even when they were relevant, but that was completely beside the point. He drew the curtains over the window, more for show than because he actually thought a Snake might climb all the way up to the third floor just to spy on them, and produced the revolver.

"Tell me where my Bentley is," he said, "and I'll demonstrate how it works."

[forgediron]

Really. Really. He offered her the gun, sure, but he comes in waving it and assumes she'd let him be the one to fire it? Did he have any idea exactly how threatening that was? Zanru gave Pleasant a flat stare, keeping her hand near her own weapon. "Disarm it and put it on the table, and then we'll talk," she said. "I'm not having you waving an armed weapon around my office."

[skeletonenigma]

Fair enough. Skulduggery unloaded the revolver using slow, precise movements, as much a demonstration as an assurance, and placed both the gun and the leftover rounds on the desk.

"There," he said. "Now let's talk. Where's the car?"

[forgediron]

Zanru glanced over the revolver and the rounds, but didn't touch them yet, though from the way her fingers twitched she would have liked to. It would've been rude. Instead she said, with a sigh: "It's with Yunxu. Damned ground-crawling money-grubbing opportunist got me in a tight corner and the car was his price. She was in good condition when she left Stark Industries three months ago, but I can't speak for now, given he doesn't know a thing about machines."

[skeletonenigma]

It was both very clever and deviously tricky of Zanru not to tell Skulduggery that she didn't have the car until she had what she wanted. Objectively, Skulduggery could respect that devious trickery. A practiced objective viewpoint was working wonders in keeping him calm, as a matter of fact.

"I see," he said eventually. "Alright. Thank you." He glanced down at the revolver. "How long are you going to need?"

[forgediron]

It was pure pragmatism. He'd said 'the gun for information', but from what Zanru had heard the skeleton was wily and a little quixotic. How was she to know what he'd do when she told him about the Bentley, if he still had the gun in his hands? Retract his payment, at best--use the gun, at worst?

Either way, better to have it out of his hands before she said anything at all.

Zanru followed his gaze down to the gun and shrugged. "We need time to blueprint its parts, and take a look at one of the rounds. A week at minimum."

He was controlled, though. The fact that he didn't say anything told Zanru that he needed that control, for whatever reason, and made her glad she'd told him to put the bloody thing down first.

[skeletonenigma]

A week. With an industrious organisation devoted entirely to work with kedanese technology, Skulduggery highly doubted blueprinting a single revolver would take an entire week. But he held his tongue - so to speak - for a variety of reasons, up to and including Zanru's insistence on going through the proper channels, and because Stark Industries probably had far better things to do than arm their members with guns.

That was a good thing, in retrospect.

"I'll be back in a week, then," Skulduggery said with a nod. "Would you prefer I leave through the window, or the door?"

[forgediron]

Contrary to what most of the Foreigners seemed to believe, SI did indeed have more to do than look into one revolver. Could they do it in less than a week? Sure. Easy. If they had absolutely nothing else to do. But they had a lot of other projects to work on and the skeleton hadn't scheduled beforehand, so yes, his revolver was going to have to be fitted in-between a bunch of other projects that were scheduled. He was lucky it was only going to take a week.

Zanru sighed and pointed at the door. "Door. What the hell do you people learn in your own universes, anyway?"

[skeletonenigma]

"Creativity," Skulduggery answered, a tad more upbeat than before. "Imagination. We learn to regard doors as options, not necessities, and that both doors and windows can be used for many things beyond what they were designed for." He tilted his hat. "Thank you."

Then he turned and left, very considerately, by the door.