Scene #9606: It's Hohentime

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	Petra is motivated by her sponsorship with shadowy leadership figures within the City to investigate the fallen L-Corp branch facilities and monitor anyone else who happens to be attempting to extract from them. This led her to Hohenheim, and it sure seems a lot like he's being sponsored by shadowy leadership figured within the City to investigate fallen L-Corp branches! Which makes him evil! And so, after alerting Berislav to her plans-- out of courtesy, and to not piss off the Watch and get murdered by Rita-- she sets out to verify exactly that. As a former researcher at L-Corp, basically all of his data is within the grasp of the panopticon that is Angela and the Manuals, so all it takes is a quick chat with Ange and Petra's got Hohenheim's former workplace, and if he's storing the Abnormalities anywhere, the place he's familiar with seems to be the best first guess. It's kind of a hassle to get into District 11, even for Petra. This isn't the level of mission that she can casually ask for warpgate entry papers from Dias for, so she goes the hard way, taking a car from a rental place that is in Dias's pocket and carefully driving across the border through the checkpoints with her fake identity papers. It's much less embarrassing than using a bus or walking, even if driving still sets her nerves on edge (how are you supposed to maneuver on wheels?), to bring it around directly to the collapsed and fenced-off L-Corp ruin in District 11's Nest, and then walk on in. K-Corp's Nest is one of the most decent, after all. Something like a collapsed Wing branch could put the idea into people's heads that Wings aren't permanent and untouchable, spreading mass hysteria and fear. So, walled off and out of sight, Petra takes the opportunity to simply slip inside, to hunt for Hohenheim wherever he might be hiding.
Angela	District K checkpoints have plenty of security theater (as well as security) but so long as Petra doesn't start assaulting said security, it is as far as Wings are concerned reasonably 'open' for business. People often travel to District K for medical purposes and Petra certainly remembers that the HP Bullets from L Corp are a technology from said Wing and out of L Corp's former allies, it's probably the one hurt the least from the fall of the Wing. What they provide is just too generally useful for everyone. Hohenheim has been pretty quiet since he's recovered the Abnormalities he wished to recover in District K, no doubt not wanting to move too quickly and attract more attention. Most security can be assumed to be inside on the outside, but Petra can dodge a functioning security camera that has been dolled up to look broken easily. This particular facility was designed to be buried under rubble and when Petra examines the former entrance way, she finds rubble! But investigating it, indicates that the layer of rock and brick is less solid than it looks from a mere visual inspection. Clearing it away, Petra can open up a path and find a hatch and a ladder leading downward, a thick enough layer of dirt covering it that it couldn't have been used any time soon. Dropping down, the facility looks to be in surprisingly good condition. The walls are similar to the Control Department Layer that Petra is well acquainted with, but there's a distinct lack of the smell of blood, though it does smell like there has been some cleaning recently. In addition, the cell windows are slightly larger. The floor is clean, though the area is considerably...quieter than Lobcorp ever was and most of the cells Petra can see are empty--perhaps the Abnormalities have been moved further down. One of the cells has been remodeled into an open garage. A four wheeled bus sits there, windshield wipers slowly following Petra's movements. "We'll have enough fuel to make another run soon. This damn thing is so energy inefficient." A dark blue haired man in glasses--Hohenheim--grumbles. "If we had a few more workers here we could make more runs, but we're barely bringing enough Enkephalin back to justify going out." "Hello Petra." The bus says in Manual's voice. Hohenheim goes quiet and still. He IS wearing EGO Gear, called AEDD in the files Petra has access to. It is a defensive EGO with electrical power drawn from an Abnormality called Shock Centipede. No alarm has been sounded yet. He hasn't put out a call out and considering he has a Manual of his own, he almost certainly could have.
Petra Soroka	The facility being buried isn't necessarily a bad sign. If someone was using a former facility as a secret hideout, they wouldn't be going in and out of the front fucking entrance, after all, and Petra doesn't have the schematics to every branch. The Silver is more than adequate for shoveling away whatever needs to be cleared, and then it snakes back under her suit to wrap around her body like hidden armor. It wouldn't be the first, or even second, time that someone with their hands on the Third Trumpet lever pulled it to try and save their own ass. It's not like Petra could ever get lost in these hallways, though, even never having been here before. She's not even certain whether she's hoping to find Hohenheim here or not; if she does, then her intuition was rewarded because she's so clever and smart, but if she doesn't, then she can just scoop up whatever she wants out of the ruins and kick back for an easy day. But, it's not like it takes long for her to discover an entire bus relocated into the Control Department. "Hello Petra." Petra is wearing a plain black suit, as she does often in the City lately. One of her sleeves is covered in dirt from wiping away the dust on the hatch above, and her only visible accessories are a gold chain coming out of her pocket, sunglasses tucked into the breast pocket of her jacket, and a short ponytail. She doesn't bother to look at Hohenheim for more than a second, eyes roaming around to casually examine the garage from just outside of it. "Manual." Why the fuck does it know her name??? If he's tinkered with it more than just jailbreaking, then Petra will know in just a moment. "This is a class A security conversation. Override code Aleph, Dalet, Gimel. Uh, thanks for your hard work." When the Manual's gone quiet, Petra finally decides to meet Hohenheim's stare. "Hey. Hohenheim, right? It's great to see that you love your job so much, but work hours are over, you know?" She crosses her arms, leaning against the interior of the containment cell doorframe to keep him from leaving. "Tell me about your little operation here."
Angela	''Override code Alelph, Dalet, Gimel. Uh, thanks for your hard work.'' "Access code accepted." Manual says, and then the bus is silent. Hohenheim exhales slowly, but he seems to be the sort of guy who can keep cool under pressure. He takes his glasses off his face and works on cleaning them with a bit of cloth. "I have ten researchers." Hohenheim says. "My goal is to create EGO so that when Abnormalities inevitably escape the locked down facilities, there will be tools to handle them. 'Distortions' as well, should they prove to be like the Pianist. If my people can make living wages through the process, that would be ideal." He slides his glasses back on. "I have no desire to impede your operations. Or interfere with the Library." He glances to the bus. "I am authorized to work with Manual as I am the highest ranking survivor of the fall of my branch office. She has been assisting me in finding facilities whose Abnormalities are threatened to escape. That is why I was at the facilityk nown as 'Lobcorpland'. I have to assume that the missing Manual there is your doing. My goal is not to reproduce Lobcorp but to mitigate the effects of its fall." He looks to Petra. He is staying close to the bus, and his body language is tense, but he isn't ''aggressive''. He doesn't want a fight. He really doesn't want a fight. No matter how cool his expression is.
Petra Soroka	Petra holds up a finger. "How are you paying them?" A second finger, "Where are you getting the enkephalin?" It's both an extremely fragile story, and about the one Petra expected. Hohenheim wearing the EGO casually around the facility means that the Abnormalities are here, and that he works with them personally rather than having researchers as ablative shields. Petra only knows what Angela knows about EGO extraction, rather than having the practical knowledge of a specialist, but she knows enough that the typical process would be next to unsustainable with just ten geeks in labcoats. A third finger. "Why do you know so much about me?" This is the one that gets to her the most, actually. There's no part of his story that should account for that, and also he's extraordinarily clumsy and unsubtle about showing his hand, which makes it come across as a threat. If he thinks he can threaten her, then either he's smart enough to know that some of her status in the City is a bluff, or stupid enough to think all of it is, and she's not confident enough to whip out her weapons just on a suspicion when there's eleven potential EGO users in the facility. "Manuals shouldn't know who I am, and they shouldn't have access to other branch's information by default either. Did the Watch feed you information about me, or was it someone else? The person you're working for?" She lifts up a fourth finger, and with her index finger on her pinky, lowers her hand palm-up to gesture to Hohenheim and the garage around him. "Your story's fucking incomplete, dog. Don't fuck with me. You're doing renovations; you've installed a Manual onto a fucking bus; you have a fleet of employees, and Enkephalin to keep the lights on, and the EGOs extracting. Who are you working for?" Petra's eyes narrow, only a barely simmering level beneath a glare. "Nothing in the City comes for free. I don't give a shit about your tired-ass line about 'not reproducing Lobotomy Corporation', even if it works on other people. You have a weapons manufacturing plant buried in the heart of District 11's Nest."
Angela	Hohenheim says, "Lobcorp facilities are dangerous and haven't been picked clean because of the presence of the Abnormalities. It is still not enough, so we ... engaged in some robbery. That is how we met --Father Berislav. It's been very touch and go. Fortunately I'm an expert in the systems here. I designed most of them." ''Why do you know so much about me?'' "I didn't do any research into you, really." Hohenheim says. "If you want to talk about that, you should let Manual speak again. She'd be able to tell you more about that than I could. All my information about you came from her." He pauses a moment before adding, "But...they have been in communication with one another since the ''fall'' of Lobcorp. Whatever blocks they had preventing communication with one another then does not seem to be around anymore. Maybe to facilitate facility security after every facility was to be sealed. That would be my theory." ''Who are you working for?'' "Whomever will eventually employ me." Hohenheim says, but he doesn't argue against having more employees than he originally suggested, at least. "The work must continue. I have to make something of all this." He looks to the bus. "...The Manual seems to like the bus. It was only supposed to be mission only, hahh..." He sounds a bit annoyed by it, but accepting.
Petra Soroka	"It is still not enough, so we ... engaged in some robbery." Sure. Petra nods, unphased. Pillaging the facility ruins is how he ended up on her radar, after all, and it's not like she hasn't been stealing herself. That means that he's responsible for spreading whatever he robbed from L-Corp to whoever paid him enough, so she'll have to get that information out of him, but even if that's a problem, being an opportunistic bastard isn't enough to make Petra any more upset. "If you want to talk about that, you should let Manual speak again." "If they're all gossiping to each other, then I'll just ask one of my own. If they're a massive City-wide security leak, then both of us would be smart enough to not have these kinds of conversations in front of one of them." Petra frowns at the bus, more hostile towards it than Hohenheim for a moment. The Manuals have never done anything to really earn affection from her, even less than the ratbots, and have been a constant source of irritation and danger to her instead. If they're talking about information about Petra that they somehow siphoned off of Angela post-creation, then she might genuinely have to shift her focus to designing some kind of transmissable virus to kill them off. "Whomever will eventually employ me." Petra laughs disbelievingly, rapping a finger against her bicep. "You're either a shitty fucking liar, or one of the stupidest people in the City. Are you kidding me? You're trying to tell me that you're an unemployed, freelance, weapons manufacturer?" After that sharp, halfway-laughing scorn, Petra suddenly closes the distance to Hohenheim from the door and wraps her fist around his collar. The Silver surges up to her hand, giving her the grip strength to easily match an EGO, and her narrowed eyes drill into Hohenheim's. "I don't believe you. The White Nights and Dark Days didn't turn you into a fucking saint, and it didn't give you ten fucking disciples volunteering selflessly to produce and distribute EGO for free. If you're not being sponsored by anyone, then you're playing with the most retarded fire I've seen in a while, because, fun little fact if you've never thought about this, there's no one to protect you." Petra's grip tightens, and then she releases him. "So, I'll be watching you. And you'll be reporting to me now on what you're doing. If you're telling me the truth, then you'll fucking thank me for taking responsibility for your insane little arms dealing scheme out of the goodness of my heart and my hope for the City."
Angela	''If they're all gossiping to each other, then I'll just ask one of my own.'' "Sensible." Hohenheim says. A bead of sweat drips down his face as biological impulses he can't entirely control are taking over. Even if he knew absolutely nothing about Petra, someone dropping into his facility and shutting down his own security would be worthy of anxiety. "Talk to yours. You have the authorization code, she'll listen to you." ''Are you kidding me? You're trying to tell me that you're an unemployed, freelance, weapons manufacturer?'' Hohenheim opens his mouth but whatever he was going to say is interrupted by Petra grabbing his collar and pulling him in. His eyes slant towards the Silver, and then he looks into her golden eyes. Forcing his voice to stay level he says, "The fallen dregs of a Wing don't get employed." Hohenheim manages. "Not unless they have something to offer other Wings." Or incredibly wealthy people like Dias. "Think this through, if I had protection--why is there so little security? There'd be Fixers here, at least, if they didn't want any clear sign of involvement with me. They wouldn't rely on an ''AI'' like I needed to." ''The White Nights and Dark DAys didn't turn you into a fucking saint.'' "Of course it didn't." Hohenheim says. "But I'm a logical man. A City infested with wandering Abnormalities isn't one I'd want to live in. If one Distortion can level a District's Backstreets, imagine what the Alephs could do. And that's assuming I'm not strung up for it." ''And you'll be reporting to me now on what you're doing.'' Hohenheim grimaces, bringing his hand to his throat. "Are you offering us employment?" Hohenheim manages. "Keep my people fed I'll report everything, happily." Sorry Berislav, he thinks, but this is a shot to make sure he and his people are taken care of.
Petra Soroka	Petra dusts off her hands, eyeing the Shock Centipede EGO like she's resentful of it for zapping her a bit. "Employment's a strong word. But you're suicidally unprepared for what you're trying to do, and you're way too used to the comfort of being taken under a Wing. So consider yourselves fed, treat my word as law, and if you ever end up in hot water that isn't ridiculously your own fault, ask me to bail you out." This kind of seems like the exact thing Dias would want Petra to do in this situation. Bringing in some helpless unsheltered dove and commandeering their project for herself, and by extension, Dias, so that every tendril reaching into the ruins of Lobcorp is brought under Dias's control rather than just cut and killed. "I'll want a rundown of this place's layout and what you're holding here, as well as what your extraction process looks like if you've refined it. You'll give me a list of who you've sold scavenged L-Corp tech to in order to sustain all of this too." Petra turns away, and then stops to hold up a finger. "Oh, but don't think I'm greedy. I don't mind if you keep working with the Mad Father now and then. Their network's exactly the kind of thing you're looking for, isn't it? Consider it, shared custody."
Angela	This is a better deal than Hohenheim would normally expect. Because normally he would expect to be told that if he found himself in hot water that wasn't his fault, 'tough shit handle it', at least until he provided some value to the company. He ''knows'' he can. "Understood." Hohenheim says. "I'll pass it on to the others." Well it's also true he's no use to the 'Mad Father' if he's cut down here. Fortunately, he was the one closest to the entrance and not Alyssa or Merton. He's not so sure about Merton, but Alyssa might have done something ... emotional. "I've made a number of improvements, I can have the technical documents for you today and can prepare a presentation within the week." The AEDD EGO crackles more electricity petulantly but mostly in a pouty way. Hohenheim ignores it. ''Don't think I'm greedy. I don't mind if you keep working with the Mad Father now and then.'' Hohenheim blinks--this is the first time he's looked visibly confused. He is trying to figure out the why of it--is it because he was so forthcoming that she's throwing him a bone? Or maybe even she is a little hesitant to piss him off which means Hohenheim may have dodged a bigger bullet with him than he realized. "That's exactly right. I will do so, ma'am."