Meeting Dmitri:
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Tuesday, March 23, 2010, 8:05 PM
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Warm Tahitian breezes swirl across a little slice of island Paradise, where a slice of white sand beach trims the edges of verdant volcanic uplands. The ceaseless roll and crash of surf mingles with the skirling cries of sea birds, and dug into the terminus between shore and sea are two beach chairs. A perfect slice of eternal summer, miles from the chill damp of Rus... and yet there is no salt tang to the air, which smells instead of indoor spaces and mechanical systems. The sand, so perfectly warm between the toes, feels more like the idea of sand. Welcome to your safehouse, Dmiti. A further break in the unreality comes in the form of a door sliding open out of the empty air, revealing a glimpse of a modern and sterile hallway, heavy on the brushed metal, and the tall and slimly auburn haired woman that partially eclipses it. She is, sadly, not wearing the X-Man leathers, but instead a dark sarong skirt and a cream coloured blouse that billows slightly in the breeze. "I thought we might as well let you warm up," says Jean Grey. "I've never been there myself, but your little shortcut always seems to be cold when I hear about it."
Though Dmitri has succumbed to sea and sand enough to take off his ruined shoes and walk barefoot upon the false floor, otherwise he is a lean, slight figure dressed in borrowed clothes and restlessness. Perhaps his suit has been taken by some thoughtful soul to be dry-cleaned, or burnt. In the meantime, he has been thinking -- though evidence of that is shielded by the precious silver gleam at his ear -- and pacing, long and restless strides taken back and forth across the shore. The apparition of Jean takes him aback, but only for a heartbeat, maybe two: he knew what he was walking into, after all, with his wide open, calculating eyes. These eyes smile a greeting to the telepath, softly brown and bright as the dark and slender Russian inclines his head. "I appreciate the thought," he says. His accent layers over his words, Russian roots hugging close to consonants. "I have taken far more pleasant sojourns, it is certain."
"It is, however, wonderfully efficient. And doesn't leave records with Customs," Smile is met with smile, and Jean shakes her head slightly at the little gleam of silver at his ear as she pads across the unsand with shoes slipped off and held neatly in one hand. One of the beach chairs is claimed in a graceful turn and settle, and she waves him over to the other with a reflection of "I'm sure a smart man like yourself can guess why I'm the one down here talking to you."
"I have a guess," Dmitri says. He watches her progress with narrowed eyes, his lips pressing thin momentarily. Then he walks in a wide circle over the sand, giving her a wide berth for all that he approaches the beach chair. He tips his head. "I expect you were not merely lonely, Doctor."
"Although my school is suddenly emptier..." Jean trails off, one hand waving before her eyes snap up and settle on him firmly. "No. Further, I'm sure that a smart man like yourself can remember that I'm telekinetic as well," she says, easing away from the sharp and into friendly and easy. The inhibitor's silver gleam gives just the smallest of little wiggles against his skin.
Dmitri snatches at his toy. He pulls it off his ear himself, and folds it tightly into the clasp of his hand to let it warm against the skin of his palm. "I can," he says. "But I am also here being cooperative, am I not? An asylum seeker, if ever there was one." His smile renews both sharp and bright, gleaming in his eyes as he looks at her. Of course, her senses make a lie of his ease: an experienced eye in reading people could spot the falsity of his drape, as he settles back in the beach chair, for the lie it is, even without the chatter in his mind. His mind moves with remarkable speed, leaping from connection to connection and fueled on the fuel of his nerves. This is a calculation, all of it, everything.
"At least until you can find a better asylum to inhabit," says Jean, interlacing her hands atop one knee and giving him a pleasant smile and a wink at odds with the words' content. "Thank you. Given our situation I'm a little more inclined to what you'd probably consider pragmatism than I normally would be, but the appearance of cooperation always makes things run more smoothly... so let's talk," she encourages, letting the same politely intent stare of earlier linger on him. "I hear that we'll be getting our students back without any pieces removed, for starters."
"Of course," Dmitri says, without batting an eyelash. There is a reservation behind his eyes, plainly detectable to Jean: waste is deplorable, but without his own tempering influence and notoriously bitchy temper reining in the roughnecks, merchandise could be inclined to damage in shipment and processing -- he does not really shy from thinking of them as people, not here, not now; children could be hurt, yes, even killed trying to escape, at a cost to the organization ranging from thousands to millions. Even without his own neck on the line, he would soundly disapprove. If the rescuers get their asses in gear, not a problem, surely, surely not. He thinks in an amalgam of his languages, but as he is speaking English conversationally, much of his thoughts carry on in English context; his facility is excellent, especially in this, the lingua franca of the business world. "It is bad business even for thieves to break what they take."
"So the motivation remains business, or at least not revenge wholly unmixed with it?" Jean queries, sliding a little thought-probe after the costs to the organization, in case tugging at that particular string might lead to thoughts of buyers. She settles a little more comfortably in her chair and reflects that "Dandan's little taunt had us wondering. But your former people move quickly regardless. Already waiting in Caracas, or are they in transit too?"
"Oh, it's not really revenge," Dmitri demurs, turning out a hand in a lazy gesture that isn't; all sham, all show. There is surely information about buyers in that neatly organized brain; old buyers, past buyers, past screwups. Current buyers, a much narrower list. Shanghai lost them custom, oh yes, moreso than just slimy Quon and his disgusting little social experiment. Word gets out when your supplier is crawling with this kind of law enforcement infection. "The idea is to remove you as a threat to the business. We cannot afford to keep picking up and moving whenever X-Men get close. It is very expensive. But no -- there are some in Caracas already, certainly." Everyone from the Mexico operation; Puerto Vallarta stands empty now, and the staff all relocated considerably further south, much to the dismay of some of them. The ones with ties, poor bastards. But to turn down this kind of money, it would be inhuman.
Jean's telepathy sniffs and pads about on little cat feet, toying with particularly tantalizing bits of names with precise care that's layered over the deep and seething core of her as she sits beside their erstwhile asylum-seeker and parts with a quiet hum of confirmation. "What's the setup in Caracas going to look like? Unless you're counting the asteroid, I haven't looked my own meticulously timed death in the face before... unless you were thinking you could trade us too?"
"/I/ made it quite plain that I thought the idea was ridiculous. I should have listened longer, I fear," Dmitri says, but the surge of old frustration wakes the tide of memory to the fore. The operation was safer going to ground, running quiet. They were a small fish compared to that client he was so helpfully pointing Jean-Paul towards. Nothing high profile for awhile, nothing big. It's not cowardice; it's /reason/. Overruled by hotter blood and hotter heads. Fine. "But I would not assume your deaths. Many of you, I imagine, would fetch quite a price for the right buyer. I have no idea who that would be, of course. I'm not entirely certain what the Caracas setup will be like -- but I do know that it will be a setup." His smile flashes hard in his soft brown eyes and he shakes his head. "I know there is a warehouse there, portside. That is really all I know of the matter."
Oooh, do tell Jean more about that client. A little touch, a little tickle, and the old frustration is encouraged to dwell on what exactly has been lost by hotter heads prevailing. But what Jean says aloud, the smile's flash earning a mild mirror of her own, is simply "Tell me more about the warehouse. Have you seen it? Do you know who owns it on paper?"
"Oh, we own it," Dmitri says with a dismissive flick of his fingers. The client mostly derails into a recollection of Dmitri's first total sellout to Jean-Paul: Lu Bohai, and whatever the hell Remaal al-Sahra or whatever their secret name supposedly is is going to do with a power enhancer. If there is a moment purely aesthetic appreciation of Jean-Paul's masculine charms and the general concept of black leather, well, he is after all only human. "Or we lease it, anyway. The legitimate arm of the business, that is. We do a healthy trade in perfectly ordinary international shipping." As to what has been lost? Oh, everything, as far as Dmitri is concerned: the entire business, flushed down the drain, all this work and all these contacts. Now there is the X-Men and the best chance Dmitri has of preserving his own skin. The idea of preserving the business after this debacle is laughable; his choice is already made.
What can we say? Jean-Paul is nicely decorative. Names and factoids squirrelled away, Jean lifts a dry eyebrow and intones that "I suppose no-one will be smart enough to keep out of trades less healthy in future... but if you own it, then tell me a little about the layout. Where would -you- put an ambush?"
"Not really my area," Dmitri returns. He rests his slender fingers against each other against one knee, and looks out over the ocean with dark eyebrows lifting. His hair, dried by time from the rain, looks less kempt than its usual vanity would require. He refrains from promising to go straight -- a waste of his breath and her time; though he is not feeling particularly excited about involving himself with another retrieval specialist so fast. "The warehouse is just a warehouse. Like any other. It will have cages and restraints installed. There is really little else I can say."
"How big," Jean presses. Politely. (Maybe she just really likes warehouses.) "How many exits--," In the interests of not making the GM draw a map, suffice it to say Jean all but busts out the crayons and paper herself. Around them, faux Tahiti continues in its notions of sun and sand.
Dmitri sketches a rough idea of the warehouse for her, in thought and word. He's not exactly a warehouse expert. Damned if he's entirely sure of the specifications. He's got a pretty good idea of how big, but not so much on specifics like how many exits there are, or windows, or anything else really. He hasn't inspected it personally, and he only very briefly glanced at the blueprint. Still, there is no argument to be made that he isn't at least trying to be helpful. If he gets mildly bitchier about it as the warehouse conversation continues past his ability to say.
Jean is unmoved by bitching. In fact, she smiles all the more politely, and asks clarifying questions... but at last the warehouse is behind them, and she can move forward with a more genuine smile and a "-Thank- you," as the chair creaks realistically in the sand at a shift of her weight as she leans forward just slightly and rests her chin on a hand. "Now, the Talon. Will it be landing under false papers?"
"Probably," Dmitri says, rubbing at the side of his nose with one thumb and rolling a look up into the false sky. He runs his tongue along his teeth, pondering forged papers and prior false registries, with a lift of one shoulder in a partial shrug. "Especially in American ports, we tend to be circumspect about these things."
"It's almost as though human trafficking is frowned on." For all the snarky cordiality in Jean's statement, it seems more a hissing of a release valve, bleeding off some of whatever's caught her and set her to a watchful hard-eyed focus. "The drugs. What do you have?"
Dmitri smiles. "What don't we have?" he says. Again it is not really his area: he is secure and confident in the plethora of available drugs, but as to form and kind, he doesn't know. "If you can think of it, Rotensen and Dandan have probably managed to secure it. We have been assembling a pharmaceutical cornucopia for the past several years."
This line of inquiry is abandoned with just a hint of mental annoyance from Jean at the whole thing where non-medical personnel somehow haven't memorized The Big Book Of Drugs. "Defrocked or unfrocked doctor, is he?" she reflects, a hand lifting to tuck a strand of bright hair behind her ear. "Who would you say is the priority to take out of the action?"
"Dandan," Dmitri replies promptly. "The rest of the team will -- perhaps not fall apart without her, but they will all be impacted. Also, she is definitely the most dangerous combatant." And the most likely to hunt Dmitri down and kill him no matter /where/ he is in custody, thanks -- but for all the self-interest inherent in his preference, he is honest as to her threat assessment. He just doesn't include the him-relevant part aloud.
A riffle of not-quite-amusement touches Jean's features at the difference between spoken and un-, but she avoids being so gauche as to point it out. Her hand lifts again, tugging her hair from its ponytail to float gently in the artificial seabreeze, and she wonders "And how are they likely to feel about using bystanders or other hostages?"
Dmitri shifts in his seat, pulling up one of his legs to curl his arm loosely about it, over his shin. He draws a long breath of the completely-not-sea-air, and frowns. "I would not be surprised if they did so," he says, "but do they not already have sufficient hostages already?"
"It's the difference between waiting until those hostages can be put in play versus sniping from behind nice little old ladies," is Jean's answer, hands spreading apart, palm out, in an expansionist gesture.
"As I said. I would not be shocked to see any tactic employed that pulls on the heartstrings." Dmitri lays his hand over his heart, and lowers his gaze, the barest hint of smile turning up his mouth at the corners as he looks to Jean through the dark veil of his eyelashes. "Zhou Dandan is ruthless."
"I may have gotten that impression," says Jean with a faint thinning of her lips. "Anything more you want to volunteer beyond what you told our mutual friends?"
Dmitri lifts his hand again, this time resting his thumbs against each other and turning both hands out in a spread of slim fingers. "I do not know what that would be, Doctor. Only that time is of the essence. I wish them the very best and speediest of luck retrieving your lost children." He has never been more sincere in his life. The more time spent, the more time for complications that could result in severe personal hazard for one Dmitri Alexeyev.
"Oh, believe me, we are not sitting on this," Jean assures, for a moment something deathly serious smouldering in her eyes and casting up a few sparks before she shakes it off visibly and rises to her feet. "We'll likely keep you below the radar until this is sorted out. Would you prefer something less tropical?"
"Really," Dmitri says, glancing around. His grin flashes whitely in his face as he cocks an eyebrow up at her. "The view is splendid. You could make a /fortune/ marketing this."
"Alas, it's not replicable," says Jean, with a small shake of her head. "So enjoy it while you can, Mr. Alexeyev." Behind her, the unseen door opens again, with the sam little glimpse of the hallway, and a "There will be someone listening if you need anything," that, given that it's Jean Grey speaking, may be even less reassuring than otherwise.
"Thank you." Dmitri considers this with a tip of his head one way, and then a tip of his head the other. Then he slips the telepathic inhibitor back onto his head. It is not much of a comfort, but at least he won't pollute the mental aether with his naughty, naughty thoughts this way.
A perfectly pleasant day at the beach.