Scene #7368: Long Con Silver

Owner	Pose
Captain Flint	The Grand Dorado has a visitor today. Where Concord business is concerned, this man is seldom seen alone--but he is hardly unaccustomed to working by himself. In this case, a Christmas present of potentially great import, working alone is necessary--because the recipient is none other than his captain. John Silver strides confidently into the lobby of the Apex, filing into the stream of visitors. He wears a woven dull green longcloak with simple patterns stitched using thicker thread of the same color, over a loose-fitting brown shirt and dark pants. His 18th-century prosthesis likely gives him away, though today, as recently, he is without the crutch. "John Silver, of the Walrus, here to see Yuuki Kuran," he says. He didn't call ahead.
Yuuki Kuran	It may be passing-strange for a man like John Silver to stride into the Elysium Apex reception-area, all gold and black marble fingered through with silver. The very air smells deluxe, and yet, the concierge at the front desk smiles when he approaches. "Mister Silver, yes. Welcome home to the Apex. The Director is in her office - please take the elevator up." Behind the desk, one of the elevator doors parts, clearly indicated to Silver as his personal vertical chariot. When he arrives, the suite opens more to an office than any sort of vampiric lounge, a man in an impeccable suit and slick-cut and clean trimmed fair-blond hair tapping away at a virtual keyboard. "Mister Silver? Concierge informed me of your arrival." John Silver either has no idea about this guy, or, having done three seconds of research, knows Thomas Zellerbach as Yuuki's Concord secretary. He oozes the air of service and premium-quality deference that most executive assistants aspire to, but has no powers or supernatural abilities of note. "I'll let the director know you're here, Mister Silver." From the inside area, soft upbeat music plays through the largely-soundproofed area. Thomas presses a call button, lowering himself slightly to smoulder. "Director? A mister Silver, to see you." The 'someone's here?!' crash inside is caught transmitted back to Thomas' serene professional mask, which he favors John with as he raises his index finger away from the call button. "The Director will be ready presently." About two minutes later, Yuuki, hair looking freshly combed though collar still half-popped and top button askew on a dress shirt, appears leaning in the open doorway. "John! Hello, you caught me..." A second Yuuki sweeps a broken stereo into the corner, notices she's in frame, and dodge-rolls away hurriedly. "... while I was doing some exercise. How can I help you?"
Captain Flint	Silver nods at the concierge. The elevator ride up is weathered without any of the anxiety such a visit might have instilled two years prior. He belongs here. This is his family. He is, as Yuuki will likely soon discover, the type of man to do his research. "Mister Zellerbach," he intones respectfully with a slight inclination of his head. He makes an amused sort of frown upon catching notice of the second Yuuki, but feels no need to remark. Compared to Nassau, and the dalliances of the powers there, this is highly professional and ordered. "Ms. Kuran--or Yuuki, if you prefer," says Silver with a slight smile, both hands briefly raised palms-out in that 'you're the boss' kind of gesture. "Sorry about the lack of notice, but I couldn't otherwise contact you without Flint knowing. There's a... Christmas present I'd like to get him. He reaches into his coat and procures a stack of hand-written notes in an elegant and flowing script too pretty to have been his own hand. "I got the idea not long after he shared his story with all of us. If you have the time, I'd like to discuss the particulars of this... present with you. It'll take some doing. Some... Concord doing."
Yuuki Kuran	"Yuuki, please. Otherwise I'm going to have to call you 'hey you'--" Yuuki's eyes grow weary and lightly-lidded. "-- because otherwise I'd have to use your full title every time, and you'd have to use mine. Easier to not, mmm?" Second Yuuki bustles about at the fringe of the screen, finishing by adjusting First Yuuki's collar with the gentle slide of a finger like a prep chef adjusting the glaze of a cake. "John, please, you don't have to worry about all of that. Just tell me which heavens and earths require moving, and I'll see them moved. That's all there is to do, hmm?" She laughs, and invites John into her 'office' with a sweep of a hand. Set up more like a penthouse suit of a deluxe hotel than any actual office, Yuuki's room is covered in a soft, springy carpet and breaks off into tastefully hidden or subtle living-room accomidations in a halo around the central area. There's an adjar door that leads into a bathroom, and another door that doesn't appear to have a handle at all. A black 'fallen monolith' of a desk is forward and central, and First Yuuki reclines against the edge of it. "John, I have nothing but time and the will to spend it."
Captain Flint	Silver nods. Yuuki it shall be, for he has no titles. Not yet, anyway, he muses with a stroke of his finger across that dark and wiry beard. The remark about heavens and earths transmutes his idle smile into a smirk of amusement. "Well," he says, striding into her office, his prosthesis clicking quietly against the polished floor, "if that's your outlook, it's no wonder he likes you." The clicking stops once he's on the carpet, and he pauses in spite of himself to admire her accomodations. "Right, then! Straight to it." He drops the notes on the desk, more out of a desire to get them out of his hands, than to draw Yuuki's attention to them. If she needs them, they're right there--but his confident air seems to imply that he can get the point across without all of that, now that she's made this a matter of 'simply' moving heaven and earth. "So," he says, briefly walking back to the door of her office to shut it behind them--just a little pirate paranoia--"You'll recall that this Thomas Hamilton fellow was disappeared by his family. Flint seems to think that he's dead, or at least gone, and so does Mrs. Barlow." He pauses, shaking his head. "Sorry, Miranda." She did say to get right to the point... but he can't help but show off a little. "I have an... arrangement with Miss Guthrie, the unofficial overseer of all... business which transpires in Nassau. Every so often, she passes particularly profitable leads to myself and Flint, on account of our propensity for... well, earning." The quartermaster smiles. "And through her father--technically the governor of the entire island, on paper--she learned of a place where troublesome members of rich families are sent to be cared for in secret." He approaches the stack of papers, flipping through them until he comes to a map of one of the colonies in the New World. It's Georgia, with the town of Savannah marked with a circle. "I imagine you take my angle, here?"
Yuuki Kuran	A sheaf of papers? Why, that sounds like SOMEONE ELSE'S PROBLE-- Oh. They're her papers, now. Drawing them up, Yuuki leafs through them - lingering on pictures or diagrams, largely, and skipping over text. She has Zero for planning heists! - while listening to John Silver explain things. "I thought James had control of Nassau?" She muses conversationally, until she hits the map, labelling Savannah Georgia as their target. "Of course, John." She smiles sweetly. "Would you like your man back and a crater, or shall it be a real jail-break of grander proportions?"
Captain Flint	"In a strategic and infrastructural sense," says Silver with a nod. "I could count better strategists on one hand, and he's coordinated most of the recent improvements. But he's got no interest in dealing with the complaints of the business owners. Besides, he and Eleanor are a lot alike, in that 'don't fuck with my baby' kind of way." Yuuki by now will know exactly what Silver means. "This independent Nassau thing is as much her baby as his," he adds. Flint doesn't have complete control, in other words, but the other parts of the picture are on his side, at least. "You know," Silver says, taking the nearest available seat. Might as well make himself comfortable, right? "Whatever you said to him in the Anne, I think you really got through to him. This present could be an opportunity to get his mind off this revenge business once and for all, but only if Thomas is actually there. I don't want to get his hopes up, and," he adds, laughingly, crossing his legs and hooking an arm over the back of his seat, "I'd be lying if I said a surprise wouldn't be fun." "So," he says, gesturing vaguely 'away,' "I brought it up with Miranda, and she'll keep him busy while we go Christmas shopping. And... so will Ms. Guthrie and her retainer Mr. Scott, if need be. As for how we'll do it, I doubt anyone there would argue with the chance for a fresh start, and I've never had the chance to do a jailbreak before." "Could be fun!"
Yuuki Kuran	Silver's answer draws out a knowing nod. "Ah." Yuuki places the papers back down on her desk, pressing her fingers together and beaming. "Partners! I understand. Zero is my partner in many ways, as well. He has a head for numbers that I never quite could master." She explains lightly, all smiles and laughter and brightness. Zero, meanwhile, is saddled with the actual execution and logistics of whatever grand schemes Yuuki gets up to. Then again, between the pair, Yuuki is far better with people and making connections. Silver drops into a rather cushiony high-limbed chair that naturally reclines back just a bit to encourage someone to 'properly' sit by relaxing. It's also hard to power stance up in because it's plush and slightly back-down inclined. A chair easy to collapse into, and hard to jump out of. Yuuki mantles her desk by rolling her legs over the top of it, dropping her feet between desk and chair, and then rotating into her seat. "I told him to love himself. I think his dreams of revenge are embers of passion now, but I would never dream of declining to revenge myself upon those that wronged me. Not now. That sort of unresolved matter... It makes you anxious. It's easier to live in a world of settled debts and family, isn't it? Counting favors is too difficult between friends." Spreading her hands as takes back up the papers while seated behind her desk, she goes over a few, scanning the details more closely. "I'll have Zero handle this personally. You'll need a ship and crew as well, and money to pay for their silence -- as a gift expense, there's no way I'll let you walk out of here without enough to handle any necessary transactions for our little surprise." She withdraws a vantablack card with a single pinky-width gold strip that cuts across the card at an off-center band, and places it atop the documents, pushing them back across the desk to John Silver. "So you can use the family card, okay? Spending James' money for his present would be simply irresponsible."
Zero Kiryu	One moment they're relatively alone in the office, and the next a silver-haired man is standing to the side of Yuuki's desk within arm's reach of the stack of papers. Unlike Yuuki, Zero Kiryu does not give one single fuck about how he presents himself and is wearing an unbuttoned button-down white shirt that is rumpled enough to definitively inform an observer that it's the shirt he was wearing a previous day and just grabbed off of the back of whatever chair he left it on. He's wearing black slacks, but hasn't bothered with shoes. "These sorts of facilities come in three varieties: Gilded cages, asylums, and ordinary jails. Usually one of the former two. Which one is it in this case?" he asks Silver, picking at the papers on Yuuki's desk without actually taking any of them off of it.
Captain Flint	The chair's comfyness is surprising, at first, but John Silver has never been one to remain uncomfortable for long. He adapts to chairs just as well as people and places. "It does," agrees Silver. Musing thoughtfully, he adds, "It seems like forever ago, but do you know, when I stole that page and memorized it to save my own skin, he asked me what was to stop him from killing me once the Urca had been found." With a faint smile, he adds, "I told him by that time, I imagined we'd be friends. It took a little longer than that, of course... but from thief and cook to quartermaster and confidant is quite a transformation. I think that Flint could change, in a--" He blinks. "Oh, Mr. Kiryu. Hello!" He rises to take the card with a grunt, stowing it away in his pocket and offering Zero a firm handshake. He flips through the papers, revealing a rough sketch of the premises. "The first, in a way. It's gilded in the sense that it's not an asylum or explicitly a jail--a rather picturesque plantation, as you can see. The 'inmates' are made to labor there during the day. Work the fields, tend to the animals."
Yuuki Kuran	"Life is change." Yuuki replies warmly, to the slightly aborted musings of John Silver. "I wish for people to be happy. Especially James, but all of our big family. Still --" Her finger strokes her bangs besides her ear, a sort of helpless gesture of 'heh heh...' as Zero appears. "--It sounds like a plan I'd use in school, John. Very nostalgic." With Zero here, and the explanation he asks for (the sort he'd be trusted to ask! see? what a good partner), Yuuki reclines and smiles cheshire, fingertips steepled. "If it's a place like that, then Zero is the perfect one to handle it. After I dragged you out of the stables in school, you must be used to trips there and back with someone in hand!"
Zero Kiryu	Zero shakes Silver's hand, though it's a rather absent-minded thing. Such greetings really aren't particularly ordinary for him to begin with, and he's probably only doing it at all because it's in service to business of the Concord. "Silver," he says in greeting. Immediately after an elaboration of the confinement area is offered, he takes up the sketch of the plantation. "What sort of scale is this at? That is to say, how many square meters are the overall grounds?" He glances from the sketch towards Yuuki, and back again. "Yeah. It was awfully brave of you to go in there at all, after getting kicked in the ass by a horse. I suppose I shouldn't have expected such a thing to keep you away."
Captain Flint	All he'll need to do now is find the right ship and crew for the job. Charles Vane might grant the Ranger and its crew, for the right price. Ben Hornigold and the Royal Lion also come to mind, in the event Vane's usual response of 'fuck you' is levied. "I'm a bit surprised," says Silver. "You two seem a bit... contemporary, to have gone to a school with a stable." The quartermaster blinks. "Jesus. I hope that didn't come across as a 'back in my day.' I'm not even forty." He chuckles. "If I had to guess, I'd say..." Metric system, John. His eyes briefly flit upwards as he does a bit of math. "Two square kilometers? It's small, for a plantation, owing to the requisite secrecy, but it is a plantation."
Yuuki Kuran	"No horse could defeat me." Yuuki pouts, her Evil Villainess Throne Posture With Steepled Fingers being dashed to shattered pieces of strung-together knuckles and eyes that avert towards the floor. "We went to an academy in the mountains. Really, beyond the underground train and cell phones, I'd say you'd find it pretty normal, John. A private academy for well to do talented people and royalty." She lifts her expression to wink at John. "Both daytime and nocturnal royalty. We were the school prefects!"
Zero Kiryu	"Probably... too large for me to cover it entirely, then," Zero says, nodding. He steals a pen from one of Yuuki's drawers and notes the dimensions in a relatively undisruptive spot on the sketch. Regarding being too contemporary, he shakes his head. "Well... what Yuuki said is part of it. We're not from a conventionally modern world. There was a large-scale disaster the precipitated the emergence of vampires as a species, and deteriorated back into scavenger feudalism around ten thousand years ago. There's a belt of cities across some of the more messed up areas that got flattened by something that either fell or was dropped from the sky." "... The point being, things are a bit eclectic. A lot of homes use gas lighting and heating, for instance. But we went to a high-end boarding school run by our adoptive father," he finishes. "Not much of anything can 'beat' you once you get an idea in your head. Lily still got you good, though," he adds, towards Yuuki.
Yuuki Kuran	"Maybe I should hire the horse too..." Yuuki grumbles, hiding a smile behind faux-hurt words. "Lily would break out James' friend, no problem."
Captain Flint	"Maybe we should," says Silver with only a little bit of facetiousness, when Yuuki suggests hiring the horse. "We might need a quick way to get back to the ship." Entirely facetiously, "A full crew plus myself, Thomas, Mr. Kiryu and our family might be a bit much for one horse, but I've been wrong before." This is all coming together nicely. He's got one or two captains in mind, more than enough money to quiet any grumblings about unprofitable hauls for poking a hornet's nest, and assistance from the Concord. He can't help but feel satisfied. "I know what you mean," he says to Zero. "Since unification, technology from more modern Earths has begun creeping into our hands, not to mention from other worlds entirely. Thanks to George, Nassau even has electricity, though it's not used for much besides lights at present." Speaking of... "There are still some preparations I need to make, but when we're ready for this, that's where I'd like to meet. That way, there are no special measures the captain--whichever of the two I'm thinking of--needs to make. It should be easy enough to keep Flint away." "While I'm here... was there anything I could do for either of you?"
Zero Kiryu	"We won't need that sort of escape approach. Anyway, Cross Academy is a better place for her," Zero says to Yuuki. His attention turns back to Silver. "Yeah... it's a bit of a mess, but when infrastructure deteriorates or new things turn up, people adopt irregularly. It makes for an interesting tumbleweed of parallel developments, anyway." From the palm of his hand, he produces a twist of flowering vine and passes it to Silver. "When you have your hires and rescue vessel figured out, place this someplace it will be easy to access and left alone. Ah... I guess I should say, this is a part of me, so don't carry it anywhere you wouldn't want me observing, or wouldn't want to be observing if you were the one receiving the feedback." "And no, not right now. I've been holding off on a project for a little while-- I'll let you know when I reach the next stage of development. Someone keeps meddling, and I imagine they'll keep doing so," he says.
Yuuki Kuran	Everything is going truly wonderfully, and the two men confirming the scope and scale of their plans. In fact, in the last week, things have been much more interesting! Leaning back contentedly, a question is laid in her lap that demands answering. "John, I know how hard it is to get gifts for Priscilla and I. Being at the center of things, sometimes, we're even insulated from want. But that's okay. Counting favors among friends isn't the way I expect anyone to live. I don't want to threaten you with 'remember all that I've helped you with', either. Our Concord is... A big family, and some of us are in a better place to give than others." "Help me win James Flint's smile, John Silver. Smile for yourself. And live. If you can smile, and live, then I'm happy. Everything else is just details, and we can figure out details together."
Captain Flint	Not right now, says Zero. Silver nods with understanding, himself an accomplished meddler, evidenced in part by his presence here, meddling (albeit for a good cause) in the captain's affairs. Yuuki, likewise, has no interest in being paid back. It's a bit surprising, being handed essentially a blank check and being told 'get what you need.' It's certainly not the way things are done in Nassau. It's nice, though. Can he smile? As long as he's alive, yes. Though he's warmed up to others, become more of a team player, his instinct for survival is still strong--it's just that now, there's a protective instinct there, as well. This will take some of the edge off of Flint's anger, protect him from himself and hopefully curb his tendency to involve the crew in his personal vendettas. "Well, Yuuki I can't make any promises," says the quartermaster in his characteristically dry-polite tone. "But I'll do my best, sense you asked so nicely. I should get going--see if I can get Hornigold or Vane to rent out their ships. Thanks for having me," he says to Yuuki. "And thank you both for your help." The little flower is tucked away safely into the pocket of his coat, nestled against Yuuki's charge card. "Yuuki, Mr. Kiryu," he says, giving each a cordial nod as he departs. When he reaches the hard floor of the outer portion of this level, the metal plate of his prosthesis clicks against the polished surface. Her secretary is given a casual wave as he heads for the elevator.
Zero Kiryu	Zero collects the pile of intel that was left for Yuuki and takes them to a small couch on the opposite side of the room, seating himself and beginning to flip through them again. "If you're wondering... what we get out of it," he interjects, when Silver starts to leave. "... Well, as for that, I think it's that we 'don't get what failed before'. We've been here a long time. The old monolithic governments came, and rose, and fell. They didn't have a unifying ideology of any sort, just... strength, and a vague sense of right or wrong." "... The Concord is a selfish venture," he carries on. "The idea that 'the excellent should be uplifted, and family'... that's something that people can believe in, and which can be acted on consistently. Not so, good or evil." "'What we get out of it' is the Concord." "Bye," he says.