Friends In Interesting Places (IC)

[TheAbsurdist]

October 12th, 11:45PM

Finding his target was proving tricky. But then, the word on the street was she was a ninja. Or a ghost. Or both. Not that he put much stock in those rumors. Fortunately she tended to leave something of a trail. The police scanner helped, and he had his driver follow along the trail of criminals tied to lampposts, making sure to do his duty. He folded his arms and stared at the Fens, growing slightly angry, his expression pensive. "There, up two blocks, stop the car." His driver glanced at him and then nodded, clearly no happy with the idea. But he pulled over after those two blocks, and Asad stepped out. Already dressed in his 'uniform,' such as it was, he pulled his gloves on, closing the velcro clasp and then leaned back on the car, his arms once more folded across his chest, waiting. He didn't expect himself to be able to just readily find her as she skulked about the fens, but he hoped that if he made himself visible in a spot, near where he expected her to be that she might bite on the bait, it also helped that he half-expected someone to show up and pick a fight with him, to help pique her interest more. As he, and his car was definitely at odds with the neighborhood.

[Aoiroo]

GM

To say Asad attracted attention was an understatement. Though no lights turned on in the windows, many eyes followed the very shiny car looking to see where it stopped. The fact that someone got out of it and appeared to just stand there didn't go unnoticed either, but there were still people desperate enough or simply high enough to not care in the least. One such individual tried to treck quickly from across the street, keeping to the darkness, though you could hear him coming regardless as subtly wasn't his thing. Either way he got close enough and pulled a knife from his pocket, his muscles bulged as he tried to shank into the owner to claim the very nice looking prize that awaited a somewhat slim sucess.

[TheAbsurdist]

Asad looked down, at the knife that met with his stomach, and stopped right there. He blinked a little bit, and then lifted his gaze back to the face of the mugger. "Oh, hello. Is this how you greet people in these parts? Please, go ahead, give a few more tries. On second thought, I have this itch I just can't reach." Slowly turning, he looked over his shoulder at the would-be mugger, and then pointed towards his back, and nodded. "Right there, between the shoulder blades, and really, try hard, alright? I mean, you might as well get the most out of this. No sense in half-measures!" Smirking a little bit, unable to just really rub it in to the guy, if he didn't have the driver he might have let him steal the car. But frankly, he had hoped for at least a gun.

[Aoiroo]

GM

The mugger looked at the knife stupidly, then at the person for a few seconds who took it without a care. He backed up a step but another look of the car encouraged him otherwise, he tried to side step and grab the person to put him in a headlock but was sidestepped in return and grabbed nothing but hair fubbling to the ground and absolutely fuming at this point in his frustration. Pulling himself up he glared at Asad and made a tight fist ready to take another crack at him to wipe the smug look off his face.

[TheAbsurdist]

Had actually been working on his fighting abilities, especially after his extended 'vacation' in Europe. He immediately tucked his head towards the mugger's body, and using his hand as a guide, he spun the man around by the arm. Even without his powers running, Asad was fairly strong. And right now the mugger got to feel that strength as he took a wild swing at the man's face, and connected solidly with a right cross to his face. "Come on sunshine! You are the one that wanted to dance! What!? Now that I actually offer a fight you are going to be upset!?" He was actually kind of mad. It was hard to really be howling mad at supervillains. Well to a point. Honestly he just had a lot of anger recently that he hadn't worked through, and fortunately this guy couldn't trigger his powers.

[Aoiroo]

Not that it mattered if he could work through them at all, the guy was out like a light when the punch hit him. He didn't expect the swing and crumpled to the ground. He was unconcious before he hit the floor, though there was a slight spasm through his body as he did, and his breathing became irregular. From the shadows a soft curse errupted, and one of said shadows emerged and kneeled next to the man immediately putting two fingers on his neck.

Silhouette had seen the car from a mile away, she knew who Asad was immediately, she watched the mugger go towards him and disappeared from sight knowing there was no real harm, until of course she found that the lasted dealer she had just taken down was packing Max. Given the direction the mugger came from she had to go check. It took her half a second to pull up the sleeve on his blazer and see the needle marks, and the other half to immediately start pounding on his chest with two hands. She did this a couple of times putting her ear to his chest and ignoring Asad completely, well almost completely, she stopped on her third try real quick to throw out a quick,

"Well don't just stand there, call an ambulence, his heart's stopped."

[TheAbsurdist]

Asad, to his credit, didn't question this at all. Instead he pulled his phone out and dialed 911. "Hello? I need an ambulance, now..." And then he proceeded to rattle off the location, and that someone had fallen down after being punched. He watched her giving chest compressions to the guy who tried to stab him, and his anger started to ramp up. "Listen, send someone here now! I do not have time for twenty questions! I am Amir al Misri, and I just punched an attempted carthief. He is convulsing on the ground and someone is giving him CPR. He needs medical attention. Get someone here five minutes ago!" Almost growling the last few words, it was rare he used his clout, but when he heard the beleaguered operator said that someone was dispatched he relented, and hung up, after saying, "Thank you."

[Aoiroo]

"Ohh, now they know you're someone important, that'll make them bend time and space to your will."

Sil was muttering it under her breath, but she was really just frustrated. She gave the chest pounds a couple more tries, she held her ear to his chest and heard a heartbeat, though weak work it's way through and sighed before she sat down and got the man upright and started to search his pockets. She found what she was looking for almost immediately and pulled a bag out of her pocket to put the syringe in. She held it up to Mr. Amir al Misri also known as Asad in his current outfit and said,

"Here, this is what he took, give it to the medics when they get here. Hopefully the batch wasn't contaminated with some other pathegeons, but it's a good chance there's something else in the mix, dealers aren't really too choosy about where they store they're supplies or what they use to fill out the minimum effective doses to try and make it look like a larger hit, not that most users really care to check anyway."

[TheAbsurdist]

He did throw around his influence and resources, a lot. They were a tool, and he would not abandon any useful tool. He took the needle and looked at her. "I had hoped to speak with you Silhouette. I have an offer that might be appealing to you." HE moved to take the needle from her, and stood there, looking at her. While she might be a cynic, especially when it came to human nature, Asad was so... earnest. He spoke emphasis, he spoke with conviction. As he had told others, he was an unreasonable man. "There would a paycheck for it, and I do not ever need see your face. And what is more, you would have an ally in me, and access to all of my resources, that could be a big help for your efforts here." He held a cellphone out to her, not the one he had used earlier. "My number is already programmed into it. I understand you are... discrete."

[Aoiroo]

She looked at him for a second, then at the cell phone and sighed,

"Can't take that, and not only because cell phones can be tracked,"

A beat later she looked got up from the dealer then looked Asad in the face, it was a familiar sort of look, someone wasn't gonna take no for an answer, at least he was willing to work with privacy, or at least tried to work with it,

"If you want to talk, wait until the ambulence pick him up then we can talk."

She disappeared on the spot then, before he could say anything more.

The ambulence came and went, and it was twenty minutes later before Sil reappeared, well less reappeared more tapped Asad on the shoulder,

"Okay, what do want and where do you want to talk, not here, streets have ears."

[TheAbsurdist]

He turned to the driver and told him to drive off, he waited for her, arms crossed. Turning to her, he wasn't surprised. "I want a lot of things, Silhouette. But keeping it to the pertinents here... Here, it will be easier if we do this small part of it my way." And he held out to her, it was known he could fly, so she could assume that is what he meant. "Not really having an appreciable amount of it myself, I can understand the desire and want for privacy." He flashed a winning smile to her, but it wasn't the big showboaty one a person might imagine he would have done, it was smaller and genuine, even as he took some of the piss out of his situation, complaining so much as sympathizing that there with her on the issue, though admittedly from a different perspective. Despite all the rancor a rich guy like him could earn, he came off as a genuinely nice man. Who just happened to have exceedingly deep pockets.

[Aoiroo]

"If you drop me, no deal."

She said it rather dryly but she didn't object and took his hand. It was not the craziest thing she'd ever done, honestly she wasn't too unfamiliar riding along with another hero, since she couldn't fly or do anything really impressive in a timely enough manner, especially since roof hopping was incredibly impractical for spotting things on the streets. It wasn't like she had a real reason not to trust him, she didn't know him, she knew of him, but it wasn't the same thing in the least, but he was a hero, at least that was the general impression him going out and fighting crime gave, and she trusted heroes even if she tended to showed it rather sparsely.

[TheAbsurdist]

"Fair enough." And with that he pulled her closer, as dragging her along by her arm would just be bad. And he rose up into the air, as the car drove off. He landed a few blocks down on top of a roof, letting her down, and allowing her to step away from him, and he also took a step from her, for the sake of professionalism. "I have a job offer. My company was attacked recently, and they managed to exploit security weaknesses. I hear you are quite the shadow yourself, and I would like you to find other weaknesses for me. Like I stated, the pay is very good, and beyond that, if you are amenable to it, this could lead to us working together again in the future." Spreading his hands and looking off the roof. "I may not be of this particular stretch of town, but it doesn't mean I have to accept what is happening, and I can give you resources and more direct aid as needed."

[Aoiroo]

She was kept close and landed quietly and smoothly, which was good, nothing looked less badass then getting dizzy and nauseas and apparently there was some expectation here. It was somewhat close to expected that he wanted something specific, and it was not like it was something she hadn't done before, however,

"Like the shadows, well yeah that's how I try to portray it. What sort of attack was it? No offense, some sort of things just don't have any security protocol, like say dimensional travelers."

She looked around, at this stretch of town,

"And honestly, funding me won't do much here, I treat the symptoms, not the disease. What goes on here happens because it can, because the housing is cheap, and really not up to code in the least, and because the local mafia keeps it that way, because slums are nessicary for the type of transactions they do."

She shrugged,

"So, if you want to hire me, show me something to help fix this instead. Donate to local shelters, get some rebuilding done on these shawdy buildings. Or do a combination of the two, I'm sure the shelters could convert some of these empty buildings if they're ever brought up to code, there's certainly the room, also make sure to get them some protections against magical creatures, especially vampires, those guys leave there fair share of homeless corpses. Also, if you do that, don't drop my name on any of this, as you said, I like my privacy and I don't need my name on a building, it'll just encourage them,"

She stuck a thumb to the streets,

"To burn it down."

[TheAbsurdist]

His arms crossed over his chest as he listened to her. "They infiltrated before using powers, and accounting for trans-dimensional invaders is tricky, start with the mundane. A strong foundation is better adapted to different scenarios." Following her gaze, he frowned and shook his head. "I understand. However, my prerogative will be to do both. I will have a press release out tomorrow, and by the end of the well the money and a plan for it will be progressing." Looking back to her, "I understand the conceit against me, Ms. Silhouette, but I am an unreasonable man, and I will do everything in my power to burn out the disease." As much of a playboy as he was, Asad had that way of speaking, of a knowing how to turn a phrase just such a way to let someone believe in him. He was earnest, he had conviction, he faith in himself, and what's more the financial empire he had build spoke volumes to saying that he had the drive.

[Aoiroo]

"There is no mundane in this city, even if there was if that's what you wanted, you'd of hired a top dollar security consulting firm, not a shadow from the Fens. Anyway, I'll help, it's not like I'm expecting you to pay before I perform."

Looking back at him, she stretched and sat down on the building ledge crossing her legs,

"Anyway, someone like you probably has some really expensive precautions set up against this sort of thing, but the most unsecure element of any high tech security system is the human one. I'm sure you pay well, but different jobs have different salaries, and nobody pays their cleaning staff well enough for them to not take bribes. Work your way up from there, see about possible blackmail victums, or anybody who might hold a grudge. Every good business man steps on someones toes along the way."

[TheAbsurdist]

"That was considered, and we are looking into that. And I do have a top dollar security, what I have is a perspective different from that, and for potential gaps they wont think of, or I have not considered." A frown on his face as he leaned against the ledge, his hands pressed to it. "But, we will double check and look for things we might have missed." Nodding at her words and smiling softly. "And I had not considered blackmail. I will have to hire a cynical consultant. As an aside, I am sort of forming a team, mostly I am hiring public identity heroes. It is more a confederation, either way it would be a group you can call on, and I will need your continued support to help guide me in the money I spent in this neighborhood, you know this place better, and I would rather defer to your judgement then blunder along and make things worse."

[Aoiroo]

"Cynics make the world go round, we're the back up plans when idealism fails."

She scratched her ear idly as she looked at him,

"And if your still thinking about the cell phone thing, I didn't take it cause I literately cannot carry that thing with me. The way I do things just doesn't work with me carrying a lot of things, or wearing kevlar, which kind of sucks cause that'd be really useful in this neighborhood."

Reaching down she slipped her fingers into her pocket and produced an index card with a phone number written in pen,

"Here, I don't have a cell, but I have a landline. If you want to contact, you do it during daylight and you'll probably have a chance of reaching me."

Standing up she handed him the card directly before saying,

"Now, is there anything specific you want me to do or look at tonight, or are you gonna drop me off and do your other changes first?"

[TheAbsurdist]

"One way of looking. But I do not believe in the existence of failure, just setbacks." A small smile, and his gaze was far off for a moment, and then a shake of his head as he dismissed whatever thoughts had intruded. "I can make that happen Silhouette, given a long enough timetable." Taking the card from her he tucked it into his pocket then. "No, I think I shall look into some things first before I have you come look around, and poke holes into the changes made. Rather break something before it becomes a fixture, and to see if someone tries to subvert those changes to their ends." He held out his hand back to her for take. "I will drop you off where you need to go, I think I am going have to introduce myself properly to the Fens."

[Aoiroo]

"Spoken like a true top two. Anyway, I can be pretty much anywhere if you give me a time and place, please keep in mind though, I don't do public appearances, I don't talk to receptionists, and cameras security or not do not last long in my presense."

She walked over to the edge and spied they were about six stories up, with several window ledges on the way down,

"This isn't too high, I can get down on my own, besides, I don't need to be around when the bullets fly during your introduction."

She turned her back on the edge and looked at him saying with a wave,

"Be mindful not to cause to many ricochets."

And then she jumped disappearing off the edge into the darkness below.

[TheAbsurdist]

"Ms. Silhouette, before you go... Nevermind, I am not inclined to argue against the prejudices of others. And not to worry, after this, I do intend to swan dive into my huge pool of money, and cuddle up with my lucky nickel." It was rare that it happened but she had gotten under his skin, and rather completely with that offhand comment, he shoved himself into the air and quickly accelerated away. This was not going to be a good working relationship, he knew that, she had all but spit into his outstretched hand. It was a rebuff he was used to, 'Give us your money for our needs, now go away you colossal twit.' It irked more than stung, but it couldn't be helped, his reputation was what it was, and people were more inclined to gloss over his successes as a hero and play it off that he had no hand in it, as that would go against the zeitgeist's view of him.