strictdiscipline | FUTURO

[Some time after the S.S.Minnow comes back into port, Hawkeye gets a ping from an unfamiliar address. Considering he still hasn't actually given her a name during their brief and eventful interactions, even the directory won't be immediately enlightening as to the source.]

Busy, Sheriff?

[That just might give him away, though.]

[Stop being such a creeper, Jason. But thanks for the tip-off, it sure does help a lot.]

I'm not a sheriff. [Then—] Depends. What do you need?

Deputy? Officer? Figured you'd be acting ALASTAIR liaison by now at least.

[He's not creeping he's investigating. Detecting? Anyway, he knows you're not actually a sheriff, Hawkeye. It's a term of...endearment. If a running joke can be called that. A term of something. Anyway, he cuts to the chase surprisingly easily.]

Know if we've got a headcount on the missing locals? Before and after the bust from the other night wouldn't hurt.

[Can't assume that all the previous missing persons are innocents, since some of that number could have fucked off to the woods early to scoop out eyeballs. But it's a place to start if they're going to cross reference corpses and ferret out accomplices. The louder part of the crew is busy arguing over deicide and dead wars and zombie cats, but there's still a very recent string of murders and kidnappings that hasn't been entirely wrapped up.]

[Gee thanks. She never would've guessed it as a term of endearment. Not that it really matters, this whole death thing is more up her alley.]

Hard to tell. At least two dozen were missing originally, though not all of their bodies were found at the campsite.

[Dead or alive or otherwise. Eyeballs, on the other hand....but moving right along.]

Not sure how many were missing afterwards - there was too much going on at the time to get any sort of count in.

Why do you ask?

[val and ambi jumping right to depressing topics again, no one is surprised anymore.]

Catching up on the local gossip. They didn't have cable back on Gilligan's island.

[Because, you know, they're definitely on idle curiosity speaking terms. This lasts only a few seconds before she gets an answer that's a little more illuminating.]

Heard some of the culprits might have given you the slip.

[Ramir wasn't positive, but given the general reported chaos, it's certainly a possibility. But if so—who? Where are they now?]

[gives "Most Depressing Award" 2 the both of us]

I wouldn't be surprised. There were a lot of them and not very many of us. [Comparatively speaking.] Are you planning on searching for them?

Are you surprised?

[Seems like the most obvious course of action, to him.]

[That would imply she knows him well enough to predict any sort of action on his part.]

There might still be a lot of them out there. I don't recommend going alone.

[Aw look, she cares. (Sort of.)]

[There are crazy murderers running around, looking for them seems like a pretty clear cut decision. But your dubiously sincere concern is heartwarming, Riza.]

Is that an offer, officer? I'm touched.

[Before she can say "no," he brushes past it. He can handle a few nutty deer, if it comes to it. (Don't worry, Ramir's coming, too. What could possibly go wrong.)]

Keep an eye out for anything fishy on the homestead, instead. This isn't the quiet kind of crazy.

[He's seen a lot of crazy. You don't drown your neighbors in their own eyeballs as a first and last offense. Anyone hiding in plain sight will be lying low. But he doesn't expect it to last, from experience.]

You mean outside of the fact that the local deities are guilty of committing genocide and one of the Nalawi's enemies is trying to bring back her dead countrymen?

[It's that last part's that really giving her the heebie jeebies - resurrection isn't exactly something that goes well, from personal experience.]

[Tell him about it. Always a good time when your violent death only manages to be the second worst experience of your life.]

Makes you wonder if anyone would even notice a few more missing persons right about now, huh.

[But who cares about a few more nameless casualties, right? It's a big island. Lots of deer to go around.

The rest of the crew an argue about the morals of godslaying all they want, right now. Until there's anything they can actually do about that, he's going to make sure the thing that was actually actively killing people a few days ago is down for the count. He very much doubts they'll miss him on the sidelines of the shouting match.]

[But she'll miss him. :( (No she won't.)]

I doubt it.

What do you plan to do once you find them?

[Not 'if'; he's sketchy as fuck but at the very least he seems competent. Don't let her down now.]

[No one ever does. >:( He just expects it, now.

Anyway, they're not that friendly, Hawkeye. He'll bite, if mostly to fish for a reaction.]

What do you think? Take them out to dinner? Teach them to tie better knots?

[What do you usually do with murderers?]

[Well, put them in jail usually but—]

I hear rehabilitation occasionally works for criminals.

[Not usually, but hey if he wants to give it shot, who is she to stop him?]

[That's a funny joke.]

Oh, yeah. [Occasionally. There is a fine line between "criminal" and "murdering psycho," and the Nalawi in question probably tipped over into the latter right around the time they started scooping out eyeballs.] I'm sure the programs here are real state of the art.

[After all, it works so well in Arkham.]

[They probably were once upon a time, before everything went to hell in a handbasket. Regardless, her own burst of dark humor only lasts so long - which is to say, not very long at all - before she settles back down to business.]

Are you going to torture them?

[Out of nowhere, maybe, but she'd seen some less than stellar behavior that night.]

[Wow, cutting right to the chase, huh.]

That's a pretty specific question.

[She's a woman of business, what can she say.]

It's a pretty specific scenario. [But maybe she ought to elaborate.] I'd prefer not to have a repeat of it.

[To be honest, he's not above persuasion as a method of extracting information when it's justified. And there is no love lost, on his end, for those who've got that coming to them. But he's also not one to waste his time.]

Sounds like you guys have been busy.

[A collective "you." Hawkeye's definitely the rigidly upright type. But sounds like not everyone on the crew is so principled.]

[Even the magic of the jewelry can't pick up and convert her sigh, curt and forceful.]

I wouldn't mind being busy so much if any of it ever resulted in anything worthwhile.

[Don't worry, he'll just imagine it instead.]

Such as?

[More fishing. What counts as worthwhile? In her opinion. Time for a philosophical network conversation, it's like they're building real serious rp game cr.]

I was under the impression you've been around for a while.

[And in all that time, how much worthwhile has there been?]

[wow, drops this thread immediately so they can never build real game cr

But the short answer is: not enough.]

Longer than I'd like.

[He can play a numbers guessing game if he really wants. As for his actual question...She pauses, despite the rush of answers that spring immediately to mind.]

Preventing more deaths instead of standing around twiddling our thumbs. Not bringing about the natural end of a world due to insufficient and unclear mission parameters. Repairing the growing rifts between the Nalawi instead of watching our team tear itself apart.

[You name it.]

[Assuming they can skim the network backlog, he's got a decent idea. Either way, it's longer than him.

He waits out her answer to get a feel for her priorities, and the slight pause between them is pretty obviously him deciding if he finds them wanting or not.]

What's stopping you?

[Maybe the second example up there would be a littler harder to keep tabs on. But this is more a general statement, anyway.]

Nothing.

[Even she can admit to that much.]

It's less of what's stopping me and more the lack of results I've seen due to everyone's combined efforts.

[Due to circumstances mostly outside of her control.]

[Combined efforts is a generous term for the crew's general level of teamwork. Especially with everyone arguing over the airwaves, recently. Not that Jason's not contributing to the general lack of unity—he's not much of a team player these days.]

Not everyone's got the same kind of priorities. Funny how shanghaiing a bunch of crossdimensional saps into working for you doesn't turn up the best results. Not the smartest of business models.

[Quelle surprise.]

FUTURO | IC INBOX

text | @red. okay, here

yeah!!!!

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makes up shit for numbers

tells on you to the mods

rude!!

:*

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groans

look I offered you an out

no!! i'll weakly struggle along

gpoy, really.

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