Into the fire (Episode 17)

PerilousPennyPine: I had it all worked out in my head, you know?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: That Ishmael is a bad SOB?

PerilousPennyPine: No, I mean, my own future, you know? Work for Wyrd for fifteen years, raise enough money to...do...stuff...

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Travel, buy a house...

PerilousPennyPine: No, leave money for my family, send some nieces and nephews to college, pay for my own "burial..."

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Ah. Promotion. Yeah, doesn't sound so appealing now, does it?

PerilousPennyPine: It still is appealing. It was the one thing that got me out of bed every day. And Ishmael telling me everything I needed to know about transitioning, how to stay private, how to know when you're about to change and how *not* to, at least until you've run off to some place safe...

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I guess.

PerilousPennyPine: Spent the last fifteen years literally hoping I would grow up to become just like him.

PerilousPennyPine: If you get bit by Jay, your wolf form looks like Jay's wolf form, right? Get bitten by Bridget Carnegie, you turn into a fricking hyena-woman every month. But Ishmael? God, have you ever seen him in his other form? You'll be up to your wrist in velvety fur before you poke him.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: That would be a bad idea. I mean, for one thing, think of the shedding. For another, black fur in summer? Not fun. Besides all that, then you've got to deal with biases in Wyrd.

PerilousPennyPine: Didn't seem like a bad idea at the time. He didn't seem so insane until this week. Jeez, what is it with lycanthropes losing their minds this month? Him, Jay, now Angie Burley?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Even if he was sane, it's still a bad idea to go like Ishmael.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Assuming his virus *is* catching, I mean.

PerilousPennyPine: It was a long shot, I know. But I couldn't think of anyone else I liked enough.

PerilousPennyPine: Everyone else is so...vanilla. With the exception of Bridget and Jay, you've got your choice of black wolf, brown wolf, or grey wolf.

PerilousPennyPine: Well, that, and your choice of tail versus no-tail.

PerilousPennyPine: And is it just me, or do tail-less werewolves just look funny?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Yes.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: It is just you.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I have yet to meet a lycanthrope that hasn't made me crap my pants, tail or no tail.

PerilousPennyPine: Good point.

PerilousPennyPine: Anyhow, Ishmael doesn't have a tail, and he says he always feels a little off balance, unless he's running uphill on all fours.

PerilousPennyPine: Between that and all this nonsense about his criminal activities, I've had to go back to the drawing board and rethink my options.

PerilousPennyPine: Six months, and I've got my seniority enough for promotion.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Still think it's a bad idea.

PerilousPennyPine: I don't. I've had my DNA scanned and I'm a suitable candidate. I've got my experience. And I hear the training up at Varco Lake is great. Smooth transition from human to lycanthrope with practically no memory loss of your life prior to infection.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Another one of Ishmael's inventions.

PerilousPennyPine: Oh yeah?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: He came up with the process after Bridget's whole ordeal.

PerilousPennyPine: What do you mean?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: You don't know about Bridget?

PerilousPennyPine: I know she once bent an Allen key with her teeth.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: He came up with the program after helping Bridget through her first changes.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Back in the late 90s, someone started tearing through women at a park in some suburban town. Five women dead in as many months.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: There's this one woman. She goes out walking her dog at night. Lycanthrope picks her next. Dog attacks, but the werewolf kills it. But, werewolf is injured. Bridget gets scared, but instead of running, she starts fighting too.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: But pretty soon it's clear, she's going to lose. So she turns to run.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: He chases her down. Tears her to pieces. Leaves her for dead.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Next day or so, Jay and Ishmael are in town, still trying to track this rogue down so they can kill him. Both Jay and Ishmael for one guy - that's how sneaky and dangerous this rogue is.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: They go into the hospital to check on her, see if she's going to be a risk to Wyrd and werewolves everywhere.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Jay says, "We should kill her. She's a witness."

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Ishmael says, "We should fake her death, because she's our only witness. Take her back to Varco Lake, let the infection take hold, get a look at the lycanthrope-type she becomes."

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Jay says, "We have to kill her. She's going to turn out like her own attacker. Even her human face is going to change, because of him. How fair is that for her?"

PerilousPennyPine: OMG. Jay actually said something nice? About a woman?!

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Ishmael says, "We should let her decide."

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Jay says, "Ha ha, she's on a respirator and totally drugged up. We have to make the decision for her."

A_Boy_Named_Sue: And legend has it, that's when she reached through the bed railings and grabbed Jay by the junk. Ishmael says, "We let nature take its course, and we train her to be the baddest ass of them all. Give her the power to go after her own attacker and take him down."

PerilousPennyPine: And then they discovered she wasn't a werewolf, but a were-hyena.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: And *that* was the one and only time Jay ever said that Ishmael had the better idea. Because in nature, it's the female hyena who trumps over the males. Bigger, stronger.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Nature's ultimate straight-butch.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Hyena versus wolf? Probably a tough battle. Hyena versus cat? Probably the hyena's gonna win, just on bite power alone.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: But male-hyena against female-hyena? He's gonna be dragging his own ass away, if he can move at all.

PerilousPennyPine: And what's that got to do with the transition program?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: That was part of the agreement. Ishmael would find a way to help Bridget keep her memories during the change, so that she would remember why she agreed to become what she is.

PerilousPennyPine: So she'd still feel a need to get revenge.

PerilousPennyPine: Stay motivated and sharp. I get it.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Hell, why not ask her to be your forebear?

PerilousPennyPine: Ha. No.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: No tail?

PerilousPennyPine: Among other things.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Yeah, your better off as an actual werewolf.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: The more classic the shape, the better.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Take it from me. Being one-of-a-kind is not all it's cracked up to be.

PerilousPennyPine: Well, not so one-of-a-kind now, huh? Not with those eight other kitties out there somewhere.

PerilousPennyPine: What about you? I know you're still a couple of years away, but have you thought about what you want to be when you grow up?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I'm on the DNP list.

PerilousPennyPine: Do Not Promote?

PerilousPennyPine: Why, because you've got a pre-existing condition?

PerilousPennyPine: Ah, like those people in quarantine. If you're genetically prone to Cystic Fibrosis, even if you've never had a single symptom before, you die of CF before your first change.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: No. There's "technically" nothing wrong with my DNA.

PerilousPennyPine: Oh...is it because of your religion?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: What, atheism? No.

PerilousPennyPine: I don't get it then.

PerilousPennyPine: Never mind, I'm prying.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Let's put it this way.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: If you're a werewolf and you get shot, what happens to the bullet hole when you change back to human form?

PerilousPennyPine: You heal.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: If you get a tattoo when you're a human and then you get promoted, what happens to the tattoo?

PerilousPennyPine: It goes away and it heals over.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: And scars?

PerilousPennyPine: They go away.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Amputations?

PerilousPennyPine: Uh...I've never heard about it happening, but I guess the limb grows back?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Basically, your body is going to default back to its genetic blueprint, right?

PerilousPennyPine: Right.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: So, what happens if your genetic blueprint says "You have lousy eyesight", but you've had laser eye surgery?

PerilousPennyPine: Ooh...you go back to having lousy eyesight.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: And you go back in for more surgery, and a month later, you wolf-out again.

PerilousPennyPine: Back to being blind as a bat.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Exactly.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Take it a step further.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Does that mean a Jewish werewolf has to be circumcized every twenty-eight days?

PerilousPennyPine: OMG...

PerilousPennyPine: I'm so going to hell. I can't stop laughing right now.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: You get the idea?

PerilousPennyPine: And you said you were Muslim by heritage.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I am.

PerilousPennyPine: So you don't want to be promoted because you don't want to get your wiener nipped every month.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Take a look at my screen name, Pine.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Figure it out.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Take your time.

PerilousPennyPine: ...

PerilousPennyPine: Wait, so...all this time I thought...

PerilousPennyPine: OMG.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Yeah.

PerilousPennyPine: Really?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Yeah.

PerilousPennyPine: Like...cross-dressing or post-op?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Post-op.

PerilousPennyPine: See, this is one more reason why I like chatting virtually.

PerilousPennyPine: I probably would have had a completely different opinion of you, if I had known you weren't born male. Now that I know...<shrug> It totally doesn't seem to matter. Guess I've still got my own hangups too.

PerilousPennyPine: Thank you.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: For what?

PerilousPennyPine: Trusting me enough to tell me.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Yeah, my secret-agent instincts are cursing me right now for having divulged personal info, but I dunno. Didn't see any reason why I should keep it quiet from you anymore.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: So yeah, when I say being unique isn't all its cracked up to be?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I mean it.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: It's no fun being the only Arabic, lapsed Muslim, transgender accordion player in town.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I mean, you don't even have to be a different kind of shapeshifter to get the snot kicked out of you. All you have to do is show up wearing comfortable shoes and a plaid shirt. Undergo HRT and start growing facial hair, and you qualify for a free ride to the emergency room. If they go easy on you.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: And when they're not in animal form, Wyrd agents are still the same human beings you run into on the street. Most of them don't care. But some of them...?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Whatever. At any rate, on the books, I've already been "promoted".

A_Boy_Named_Sue: On the books, it says I died of my injuries.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: On the books, it says I died when my family dumped gasoline on me and set me on fire. The second time.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: That old me, the one who was a dishonour to her in-laws? That person is officially in her grave and finally at peace. I have a picture of the gravemarker on my desk, as a reminder.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: A promotion would exhume her. Over, and over, and over.

PerilousPennyPine: So you're saying...even if a promotion was the only way to save your life after an attack...then you would rather die?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I guess yeah, that's what I'm saying.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I would rather die as the person I *am* than go back to being the person everyone says I'm supposed to be.

PerilousPennyPine: You work with lycanthropes all the time. There's always a risk that someone could snap and attack you.

PerilousPennyPine: So why would you take that risk, day after day?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Simple.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: So I can do whatever it takes to prevent any involuntary infection.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Even if that means destroying the carrier through forensic accounting.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Even if that means taking down Ishmael, himself.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: And after everything he's done for Bridget, for Wyrd...

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I never told you, did I...About the fire, about my faked death?

PerilousPennyPine: I never bothered to ask, either.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Three guesses who literally pulled me out of the fire.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: And who faked my death.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: And later set fire to the entire village?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Hint: no one died in that fire, even though every building and crop was destroyed.

PerilousPennyPine: Ishmael.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Right in one.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: And that's why this investigation is killing me.

PerilousPennyPine: Sumac...

PerilousPennyPine: What if he's innocent?

PerilousPennyPine: If he is as good a Wyrd agent as we thought he was?

PerilousPennyPine: If maybe he did like Jay claimed, and kept all those Moldovans alive, if he's been embezzling money to keep them safe...?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I don't know.

PerilousPennyPine: What if we combined our powers to try and prove him innocent?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: The two of us, against the entire Wyrd Council?

PerilousPennyPine: Yeah.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: You and me, against the likes of people like Jay, and Bridget, and Haberman, and all the other werewolves who disagree with us?

PerilousPennyPine: Yes.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Okay.

PerilousPennyPine: We should do it?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: It's better than feeling like I've shot the man who saved my life. So yeah. Why not. I've already been dead once. You get used to it after a while.

PerilousPennyPine: Okay, then. Let's do it.

PerilousPennyPine: Hang on a sec. Phone.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Okay that was weird.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: My phone rang at the exact same time.

A_Boy_Named_Sue is typing...

The right question (Episode 16)

From: Sumac’s Other Email Addy

Sent: Monday, September 14, 2014 10:00 a.m.

To: Pine’s backup addy

Subject: re: So many of them

You know, if it wasn’t for the fact that we stopped feeding these people before they died, I would say quarantine was a good idea. Sounds like this version of the virus is a real bastard.

                So why *didn’t* they get Ishmael on board?

                If he’s as good as you say he is, it wouldn’t have taken three years to capture all the infected. He would have captured the original infectees before they spread the disease.

-----

From: Pine

Sent: Monday, September 14, 2014 10:00 a.m.

To: Sumac2

Subject: re: So many of them…

I know, right? He may be a sneaky jerk, but he should have been involved with the kill/capture/quarantines. There’s no one better suited to it.

                Unless he was already under investigation for something.

                But even that doesn’t make sense.

                From 2004 to 2007, he was my senior field ops, and I was acting as – and employed as – a webhost design consultant at BangIronMonkey. (And yes, that was his company name. He’s since changed it to BDA Design, or something boring like that.) We would go all over the world. He’d book meetings for us while we were abroad. Sometimes he’d time the meetings with a kill/capture mission. He’d hunt the target by night, then show up four minutes late to a meeting without a hair out of place. There were some meetings when I was sitting at the back of the conference room during a presentation, multi-tasking like hell to erase a surveillance video that had captured either him or the mark. Then we’d go out to a Japanese bar or something, he’d slip out, check on his prisoner (he had to kill one, once), then come back before anyone even noticed he was gone.

                Best years of my life, I swear.

                Then, Moldova. I didn’t follow him there. But he was still my day job boss, and he still acted like it, teaching me more hacking and network engineering tricks he’d learned around the world. He acted like nothing ever happened overseas, that's why I never knew he'd been there, until now. But then I was reassigned to Jay, and life went downhill after that.

                And then after Moldova, he gets promoted to chief field ops. He keeps going as if it’s still 2004, going from city to city around the world, sometimes on missions, sometimes for business. Sometimes he'd do both at the same time, if he could schedule it right. God, the man’s inexhaustible, even for a lycanthrope.

                And then, in 2009, this new local outbreak, while he was still Chief Field Ops. K/c/q’s across four years, almost forty agents involved, right here on home turf. And he wasn't involved?

                I mean, shouldn’t he have left some kind of paper trail about the quarantine? Not one memo, not one new process document? Not one sign of his digital smoke-and-mirrors to disguise their disappearances? Why doesn’t his name appear anywhere?

                Did he just ignore the whole thing?

                No, I can’t see that happening. If he was a raging, bloodthirsty animal like he supposably was in Moldova, he would have handled most of those k/c/qs himself, probably between conference calls. ("Need to put you on mute a sec, okay?" Slash, stab, murder-murder. "Okay, sorry about that. Where were we?")
                If he hated the idea of the quarantine, if he wanted those victims to escape, I’m pretty sure he would find a way to relocate them and cover up their digital tracks, like he’s done with soooo many other lycanthropes before. Like I have!

                So,,,maybe he doesn’t know about quarantine.

                But how could he not have known? Was he so busy the whole time that he never realized people were keeping secrets from him?

                And for God’s sake…why were they keeping secrets from him? If no one trusted him after Moldova, they wouldn’t have promoted him to Chief Field Ops and given him even more power.

                Listen, if he doesn’t know about quarantine, that means they haven’t trusted him since at least 2009. Whether that means they suspected him of embezzlement or of turning those girls, it doesn’t matter. The question is, why would they wait five years before confronting him?

                I would sacrifice my right arm for a single straight answer.

                I don’t know what to believe anymore.

~Pine~

-----

From: Sumac’s Other Email Addy

Sent: Monday, September 14, 2014 10:00 a.m.

To: Pine’s backup addy

Subject: re: So many of them

And I’ve been thinking, too.

They must have suspected the disease was dangerous to other lycanthropes. Otherwise, the quarantine would have been up at Varco Lake. After all, V.L. is fully stocked with food, it takes four days to walk from one end of the property to the other, and there’s a fully tricked out laboratory right there.

So, they had to find a different quarantine and keep it stocked with food and other supplies, and pay substantial cash-money for transportation just to get them there. And that should have hit the official budget.

As Chief Field Ops, Ishmael was a board member with signing authority. But when I went looking through his own expense claims back to 2004, he was an exec member-at-large.

He would have seen the annual budget!!!

And where are his signed expense forms? Where are the budget approvals? Where are the meeting makers to discuss the budget cuts?

Conspicuous by his absence, like you said.

-----

 

From: Pine

Sent: Monday, September 14, 2014 10:00 a.m.

To: Sumac2

Subject: re: So many of them…

Paranoia’s hitting hard, bro. I am deep into conspiracy theory world.

If Ishmael didn’t know about the quarantine…If Ishmael didn’t know about his own demotion…Then that means people have been holding information back from one of their own board members.

And now he’s in exile.

So who benefits?

Conspicuous by his absence (Episode 15)

From: Pine

Sent: Monday, September 14, 2014 10:00 a.m.

To: Sumac2

Subject: So many of them…

So, I finally went through all of the reports. (Flight was delayed, then cancelled, then the rebooked flight was delayed...Eighteen hours trapped in the Edmonton Airport is a preview of hell, I swear.)

Remember how you said there were 270 people at quarantine at one point?

Turns out they were looking for over a thousand people. Most of them were already dead.

-----

Cancellation of Kill/Capture/Quarantine

Case file: AdM

Name: Adam du Montdevache

AKA: n/a

Added to kill/capture list: June 6, 2009

Removed from kill/capture list: August 21, 2009

Reason for cancellation: target already dead

If incarcerated, next steps: n/a

If deceased, reason: rapid onset of Parkinson’s

Relocation required: no

SitCon required: no

Other comments: none

Signed: B. Carnegie

-----

Cancellation of Kill/Capture/Quarantine

Case file: YS-1

Name: Yudianto Sureshi

AKA: n/a

Added to kill/capture list: June 6, 2009

Removed from kill/capture list: August 15, 2009

Reason for cancellation: target already dead

If incarcerated, next steps: n/a

If deceased, reason: heart failure

Relocation required: no

SitCon required: no

Other comments: none

Signed: B. Carnegie

-----

Cancellation of Kill/Capture/Quarantine

Case file: YA

Name: Yuri Abasov

AKA: n/a

Added to kill/capture list: June 6, 2009

Removed from kill/capture list: August 15, 2009

Reason for cancellation: target already dead

If incarcerated, next steps: n/a

If deceased, reason: complications from false start, massive internal derangement during downcycle

Relocation required: no

SitCon required: yes

Other comments: he turned inside out

Signed: Gil Burton

-----

Cancellation of Kill/Capture/Quarantine

Case file: AO-1

Name: Annie Ono

AKA: n/a

Added to kill/capture list: June 6, 2009

Removed from kill/capture list: September 1, 2009

Reason for cancellation: target already dead

If incarcerated, next steps: n/a

If deceased, reason: hydrocephalus (water on the brain)

Relocation required: no

SitCon required: yes

Other comments: patient died in-cycle.

Signed: Agent Maple

-----

Cancellation of Kill/Capture/Quarantine

Case file: CPLdC

Name: Cassandra Paciencia Lopez dela Cruz

AKA: n/a

Added to kill/capture list: June 6, 2009

Removed from kill/capture list: July 30, 2009

Reason for cancellation: target already dead

If incarcerated, next steps: n/a

If deceased, reason: rapid onset ALS (Lou Gherig’s), multiple organ failure

Relocation required: no

SitCon required: no

Other comments: none

Signed: B. Carnegie

-----

Cancellation of Kill/Capture/Quarantine

Case file: XSWT

Name: Xue Shen Wesley Tiong

AKA: n/a

Added to kill/capture list: June 6, 2009

Removed from kill/capture list: August 21, 2009

Reason for cancellation: target already dead

If incarcerated, next steps: n/a

If deceased, reason: multiple gunshot wound, shot by wife (survivor, currently in hospital for treatment of wounds)

Relocation required: yes

SitCon required: yes; reference kill/capture/quarantine casefile CZT)

Other comments: rapid response required. Patient died in-cycle. Wife in hospital under police investigation, is traumatized and already beginning to show signs of superhuman regeneration.

Signed: Agent Maple

-----

So many people died before they even made it to quarantine. Almost three thousand records that I see in here, and most of them either died violently or by “natural” causes, all within about six months of each other.

Some of the reports reference an initial patient list, but I can’t find it anywhere. All I know is that some Dr. E. Foster was the one who found the list and turned it over to Wyrd. No idea who he or she is. But I do know there were hundreds of patients he treated all over Canada, from one end of the country to the other. And every one of them became infectious before they died, and passed it on to others.

No wonder they wanted to keep it secret from the world.

But why keep it secret from the rest of us?

~Pine~

-----

From: Pine

Sent: Monday, September 14, 2014 10:00 a.m.

To: Sumac2

Subject: P.S.

You know, there's one name that's missing.

I've seen k/c/q's from Bridget, Jay, Agent Maple, Larch...maybe three dozen different agents, even one from Dr. Gil Burton.

One name is conspicuous by its absence.

There is not one k/c/q from Ishmael.

So not only was our favourite chief field ops demoted without his knowing it...but he might not even know about the quarantine any more than we did.

I don't know what to make of that.

~Pine~

Math Problems (Episode 14)

PerilousPennyPine: You there?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: No, this is an automated rage drone. Please leave your name and number at the tone and I probably won’t get back to you.

PerilousPennyPine: Funny.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Did you find a k/c/q order for yourself yet?

PerilousPennyPine: No, why?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Because you’d been babysitting the kid of OMG!OMG!OMG! werewolf.

PerilousPennyPine: Oh, no. Didn’t find anything, Thank God.

PerilousPennyPine: So. Infection, eh? I mean, Ishmael infecting those other girls? Damn, every time I think he’s the scum of the earth, he proves how much I’ve been underestimating him.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Thought he was “sterile.” That’s why he’s the only one of his kind.

PerilousPennyPine: Everybody over here thought so too. But Larch says he’s tried before, back in the nineties, but it didn’t work.

PerilousPennyPine: Nobody knows who for sure, but she says it was somebody in Wyrd. A human agent.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: A promotion?

PerilousPennyPine: If yes, pretty sure it was unauthorized.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: What, and then he stopped trying for twenty years? Only to start up again now?

PerilousPennyPine: Dunno.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: So what happened?

PerilousPennyPine: No one knows. Probably died, since no one’s heard of her since. The agent he infected, I mean.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: No, he’s probably tried with others over the years.

PerilousPennyPine: Maybe.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Not that I can blame him.

PerilousPennyPine: …

PerilousPennyPine: You’re kidding me, right?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: No.

PerilousPennyPine: …

PerilousPennyPine: All right, I’ll bite.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: No thanks. That’s what got Ishmael into so much trouble.

PerilousPennyPine: Why the hell do you think he’s above blame?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I didn’t say that.

PerilousPennyPine: We spend our whole lives taking down people just like him, Sumac! What the hell!

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I didn’t say he was above blame!!!

A_Boy_Named_Sue: I said I can’t blame him, meaning I can empathize, even if I don’t agree with him! What would you do if you were the last one of your kind????

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Or the only one of your kind????

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Especially when you get ass kicked every time you turn around, just because you’re different from everyone else?!?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Especially when you know there’s a way you can change that?! Make more of you??! Put an end to the loneliness?

PerilousPennyPine: Right, so it’s okay to grab somebody off the street and turn them into another you, just so you can be a little less lonely.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Who says that he would have taken an unwilling victim????

A_Boy_Named_Sue: You said he tried to turn a Wyrd agent. She would have known what the risks were. And hell, it could have been an authorized promotion, for all you now.

PerilousPennyPine: Haberman said that Ishmael had turned eight or nine girls! What if this isn’t his first time then? He’s one of the sneakiest bastards in all of Wyrd.

PerilousPennyPine: You hear about the time he walked up to that hacker at the subway stop in New York in the middle of rush hour and slit his throat?

PerilousPennyPine: Crowd was so thick it wasn’t until the next train came in that the body even began to slump.

PerilousPennyPine: Guy like that can get away with a lot before anyone catches on.

PerilousPennyPine: A guy who embezzles millions of dollars could probably buy dungeons on every fricking continent and hide hundreds of victims away. Just visit whenever he’s in town and do whatever he wants with them.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Then why did he get caught now???

PerilousPennyPine: Maybe he got sloppy?

PerilousPennyPine: Maybe something in him broke after that thing in Moldova, and that’s when he lost his edge.

PerilousPennyPine: Maybe that’s why he suddenly started turning victims again.

PerilousPennyPine: Hell, for that matter, what if he’s the one who caused the outbreak in Moldova, and Wyrd sent him over there to clean up his own mistake, and sent Jay along to make sure he did it?

PerilousPennyPine: Dayum…

A_Boy_Named_Sue: It doesn’t add up.

PerilousPennyPine: He’s been with Wyrd for almost forty years. He’s been alone since he was first brought in. We already know he tried with someone else. If he’s tried once, maybe he’ll keep trying over and over again, like you said.

PerilousPennyPine: He’s seen others successfully infect victims. He’s seen Wyrd agents successfully promoted to lycanthrope, and they always turn out just like the person who turned them.

PerilousPennyPine: What if he’s got a case of jealousy on top of loneliness?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: What happened to the Wyrd agent back in the ‘90s?

PerilousPennyPine: Dunno.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: Is Ishmael still the only one of his kind?

A_Boy_Named_Sue: The email from Haberman says he is.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: “As is well known among Wyrd Agents, Mr. Chase is unique among our kind.” His own words.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: You can’t be the only one of your kind if there are eight others just like you.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: No, something doesn’t add up.

A_Boy_Named_Sue: And as an accountant, that drives me batshit crazy.

PerilousPennyPine is typing…

The Official Announcement (Episode 13)

From: Abram Haberman, Chair

Sent: Saturday, September 12, 2014 10:00 a.m.

To: dl Wyrd Council Executive, dl Wyrd SitCon, dl Wyrd FieldOps General, dl Wyrd Agents General

Subject: Council Reorganization Announcement

Good afternoon all;

It is with a heavy heart that I must announce the termination of Wyrd’s relationship with Director-At-Large Owen Ishmael Chase, effective immediately.

Due to the sensitivity of the situation, we had decided to deem the specific details of this termination as Confidential and would not be shared with any member outside the executive board.

However, we recognize that our agents are among the world’s finest investigators in their respective fields, be it in surveillance, forensic accounting, technology, or otherwise, and that speculation and idle curiosity have already generated unauthorized inquiries into restricted Wyrd documents. We shall now address these rumours, while reminding each of you of that you have signed and sworn to uphold our Wyrd General Confidentiality and Ethics Policies, and in so doing, you have agreed to accept the consequences of any breech thereof.

Some of you believe that this is in response to Mr. Chase’s actions in 2007 in Moldova, wherein he and Mr. Brandywine were tasked with putting an immediate and aggressive end to an outbreak in Eastern Europe. Contrary to popular rumour, both Mr. Chase and Mr. Brandywine acted in accordance with orders from the Board with extreme speed, effectiveness, and discretion. For this, both men have been commended.

Others believe that there is a political motivation behind his termination, that I have somehow been intimidated by Mr. Chase's financial acumen and leadership style, and that I feel my own position as Chairman is somehow at risk unless he is removed from Wyrd. I can assure you this is nothing more than a malicious rumour. Until now, Mr. Chase has demonstrated nothing but obedience to this board and to Wyrd at large, even when issued orders are in direct conflict with his personal values, as in the case of the 2007 Eastern European operation. Had it not been for his recent actions, and had it been the will of the Inner Council, I would have ceded the Chairman's seat to Mr. Chase without complaint or sense of rivalry.

Yet others believe that this termination is motivated by a Wyrd Council desire for “lycanthropic ethnic cleansing”. As is well known among Wyrd Agents, Mr. Chase is unique among our kind, being so unlike other lycanthropes in his particularly feline alter-ego. He has long been thought of as the only, or last, of his kind.

I cannot state firmly enough that all lycanthropic kind is welcome at Wyrd, whether they be wolf-like, cat-like, or something else. To say otherwise is to call into question everything you have sworn in your oath to Wyrd.

Still others claim that it is a purely racial motivation, as Mr. Chase is the only non-Caucasian on the board of directors. This is also false, as Wyrd does not tolerate prejudice among its members, be they lycanthropic or human. Should we, who know “difference” better than any racial or ethnic group, be intolerant of a human-aspect with darker hair or skin tone? Should we, a multinational organization, accept all lycanthropics from all nations except for one or two on the basis of their pigmentation? This charge of racism is both laughable and aggravating, and should not be tolerated by any member of Wyrd.

Should you hear any of these rumours among your peers, it falls to you to put them to rest. Wyrd has a long and proud history of overcoming superstition with logic and science, and it is no place for idle gossip based on speculation or spite.

The actual reasons for Mr. Chase’s termination are three-fold.

1) A recent audit has shown that Mr. Chase has falsified travel and expense records, thereby embezzling a large sum of money over the last seven years and transferring it to an account or accounts as yet unknown.

2) Furthermore, as learned during our audit, he has undocumented sources of income which he has withheld from Wyrd’s knowledge, in direct violation of our Lycanthropic-Member Policies (see attached). As a result, he has cost Wyrd several million dollars of lost revenue, which has yet to be recovered.

3) In direct violation of our Lycanthropic-Member Policies, and in violation of all that Wyrd holds sacrosanct, Mr. Chase has deliberately infected no less than eight unwilling female victims. In light of our recent outbreaks in Canada and abroad, this behaviour cannot be tolerated, and those inviolable laws that this Council holds dear must also be upheld by its leading members.

It has been ruled by this Council that even its own directors must suffer the same consequences as any other member, if not more so. For his crime of forced infection of these eight innocent women, it was originally ruled that Mr. Chase should be summarily executed by drowning, as per precedents set in 1846 and confirmed again in 1912.

However, in light of his invaluable and incalculable contributions prior to and while he was a Director-At-Large, we have agreed that mitigating factors should lighten his sentence. Mr. Chase has, after all, contributed nearly one quarter of Wyrd’s revenue each year since 1994, owing to his multiple, sensible investments in technology and pharmaceutical research. And, as mentioned earlier, he has been commended on several occasions for his swift and extremely thorough work abroad in containing outbreaks and panic. Many of you have also learned your field ops craft from him, for which Wyrd is exceptionally grateful.

These commendations, however, do not excuse his behaviour nor do they render him immune to Wyrd justice. We have taken measures to freeze his assets, find and relocate his victims, and we have moved him to an undisclosed location for incarceration.

As a result of his termination, there will be some obvious impacts to our income. We ask for your patience at this time as we reorganize our board and our assets. Until then, all non-essential travel and other expenses have been suspended until further notice.

For any clarification of any Wyrd policy or the consequences of violation of these policies, we ask that you speak with your direct support person at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Abram Haberman, Chair, on behalf the Wyrd Executive Council

Agents of Chaos (Episode 12)

Dupin: Why weren't we invited to this emergency meeting?

Jewell: You know how much I hate rhetorical questions.

Dupin: It's not rhetorical, dear. I'm on the high council. Why was I "forgotten"?

Jewell: Then it's a disingenuous question with an obvious answer.

Dupin: We were deliberately left off the contact list.

Jewell: Naturally.

Dupin: Why?

Jewell: Also obvious.

Dupin: No, it's obvious why they're cutting *you* out of the emergency meetings. This kaffeeklatch has everything to do with Ishmael, and you're responsible for his being in Wyrd in the first place.

Jewell: You would have done the same in my place.

Dupin: No, dearest. I would have found some far foreign jungle where he could live out his days in secrecy and plenty, far from the reach of Wyrd. The island of Sumatra, for an example.

Jewell: For shame, my heart.

Dupin: I wouldn't have tried to foist him on Chairman Haberman, especially not in direct violation of Wyrd orders. You should have realized Wyrd would never accept him.

Jewell: A cat in the pack?

Dupin: Cat, bear, hyena - whatever. He's an anomaly. A deviant from our so-called noble birthright as pure-blooded werewolves, if you take a page from Ahab's tome.

Jewell: And that's precisely why I did it. I am an agent of chaos.

Jewell: An unapologetic one at that, especially in light of the lives that he's saved in return.

Jewell: Well, except for the Moldova Incident, of course.

Dupin: ...

Dupin: Wait, you don't think he would actually do something like that, would you?

Dupin: Kill every one of those poor bastards?

Jewell: Surely he killed one or two of them. I know, because I saw with my own eyes the vital organs he brought back with him. I was the one supervising the chain of evidence until Burton had concluded his DNA analysis. And I don't care much damage from which you or I can recover, one must still have a brain to initiate a lycanthropic cycle.

Dupin: But he didn't kill all of them.

Jewell: Far from it. It's not in his nature.

Jewell: That's why he's the perfect Wyrd agent.

Jewell: He's more animal than man.

Dupin: Meaning?

Dupin: What, because of his six-day cycle?

Jewell: He never kills out of sport or pleasure. For that matter, he never kills what he can use later.

Dupin: And here I was thinking he did it out of the kindness of his heart.

Jewell: He was doing it out of the kindness of his pocketbook. Why kill, when you can civilize, train, and employ for your own purposes?

Dupin: You think this is what this is about? Do you think they've figured out how he's fleeced the entire council for his own profit?

Jewell: A precipitating factor, yes.

Dupin: But not the only factor.

Jewell: Doubtful.

Jewell: Scenario one: Chairman Haberman explains to the Council that my boy has saved a small village of lycanthropes and turned them into a local economic powerhouse. Outcome: the Wyrd Council laughs in Ahab's face, claps their greedy hands together and says to Ishmael, "How wonderful! Return to Moldova and send us a substantial cut of your profits, as you do here in North America. And remain there in exile, you stinking, ugly kitty cat, and take the rest of the anomalies with you. We love you, send money. Sincerely, Wyrd."

Jewell: Honestly, darling, why kill the golden goose when you can lock him in the barn?

Jewell: Scenario two: Haberman explains to the council that my boy has saved a small village of lycanthropes and has let them gallivant abroad unsupervised. Outcome: I present financial records to prove Ishmael's good works. And yes, dear, I'm quite aware of all that's passed at Moldova. He told me before he told you.

Dupin: So you tell them you've known all along what Ishmael's been up to, and they hang you alongside him.

Jewell: Oh never hang, sweetheart. You know Wyrd prefers to drown its convicts.

Dupin: I stand corrected. But even if they let him live in exile abroad, they won't take kindly to you withholding so much information.

Dupin: It's bad enough that I've been withholding the same...

Jewell: Fear not for me, my love. The last time they left me out of a Council meeting, I disappeared for the better part of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. I have no fear for my own safety.

Dupin: And if I recall, you returned only two weeks after Ezra Grantham and Chairman Potter were discovered dead, decapitated, and displayed in a most compromising position.

Jewell: I proudly plead the fifth.

Jewell: The point is, Ahab is just as much a capitalist as my boy is.

Jewell: Ishmael the Cat offends Ahab's obsession with blood purity, yes.

Jewell: Ishmael the Man is an affront to Ahab's stubborn belief in his own racial superiority, yes.

Jewell: But that man-cat is also the single biggest income generator that Wyrd has ever seen, and Ahab will not let millions of dollars of income slip away so easily.

Dupin: So what are they doing? It's the not-knowing that's putting me in an early grave.

Jewell: Oh, you young chick. Embrace the futility of all things, and you might survive to my ripe old age.

Dupin: I don't want to live to your ripe old age.

Dupin: This is all coming completely out of the blue.

Jewell: Hardly. There has been quite a bit of planning and coordination involved.

Dupin: Otherwise we would have known about it before now.

Jewell: *Ishmael* would have known about it before now.

Dupin: Let me ask a less obvious question then.

Jewell: Ask away.

Dupin: After Ishmael, who? Ishmael commits the sin of saving lives, and now look at the state he's in. After him, kitten-hearted boy that he is, who's next?

Jewell: We should ask all those who were not summoned to this emergency meeting.

Dupin: So, you, definitely.

Jewell: I may have been left out simply because I'm Ishmael's foster-father, and if it were in my power to help him escape Wyrd "justice", I would. But if I am implicated in whatever has gotten my boy into trouble, then I am guilty by association, and must be punished.

Dupin: And after you, then it's my turn?

Jewell: You have been Ishmael's outspoken supporter from time to time as well.

Jewell: More to the point: you were the only one at the Council table who had been horrified by Ishmael's supposed actions in Moldova. Your "weakness" did not go unremarked. Terribly human of you, little wolf-child.

Jewell: My sweet, I must train you in the art of the poker face. Your pallor will be the death of you yet.

Dupin: And after me? The Moldovan enclave?

Jewell: Perhaps, perhaps not. If Ishmael had not intervened - if he had left them behind as an unprofitable rabble - yes, they would send Jay to finish the job he had begun. But now? It's hard to say.

Dupin: And then Bridget.

Jewell: That remains to be seen.

Dupin: She's another anomaly. She's a hyena-type.

Jewell: She's also at the Council table right now.

Jewell: Furthermore, she's a good soldier at heart. Give her an order, and she simply obeys it. She is loyal to a fault. She will kill on blind faith, if that's what the Council decreed.

Jewell: Kill her? No. Manipulate her? Use her? Absolutely yes.

Dupin: Yes, because if anyone has the skills, speed, and strength to subdue someone like your boy, it's Jay and it's Bridget.

Jewell: Jay is also at the table.

Dupin: So aside from you and I, is there anyone else missing from this emergency session?

Jewell: Time will tell. The smart ones will smell smoke and run from fire. I won't ask why they're running. A response will give away their position.

Dupin: All right, oh wise one, tell me this...

Dupin: Did *you* see this coming?

Jewell: I'm a doddering old man, not a fortune teller.

Dupin: Did you?

Jewell: Not like this.

Jewell: Not so after so many years.

Jewell: There is something very perplexing at play here.

Dupin: Ahab's always been unapologetic about his policies about purity of the bloodline, and all that. Every three years he comes up with some new scheme to cleanse Wyrd of the unusuals so that the purebloods can romp among their own kind.

Jewell: And every three years, I remind him how much money Ishmael has made for us in the last previous six months.

Jewell: And besides, why wait thirty years before expunging my boy from our ranks?

Jewell: For that matter, why promote a Deep South Black woman in Ishmael's role, when milk-skinned Jay Brandywine would better suit Ahab's fancy? No, Ahab never lets his racist inclinations influence his Machiavellian leadership style.

Jewell: Ahab believes that for every race - and every therianthropic subspecies - there is an exception that proves the rule, and when he finds that exceptional individual, he wrings the very talent from them for as long as it profits his own personal aims. And Ishmael has many decades of profitability ahead, if they simply let him be.

Dupin: So why is Ahab going after Ishmael?!

Jewell: That's the wrong question, my dear.

Jewell: The real question should be: Is Ahab going after Ishmael?

Dupin: ...

Dupin: Well, regardless, we have to find out what's going on.

Jewell: Not necessarily.

Dupin: We need to know if we're at risk.

Jewell: We were not invited to an emergency meeting of the Wyrd Council, though members from as far as South Africa and Australia flew in to attend. If they thought the flight was too much for us old fogeys, surely they could have invited us to a conference call.

Dupin: So we are in danger.

Jewell: They don't want us to know what's happening with Ishmael, which means they don't trust us, not where Ishmael is concerned. Are we in danger? I'm not sure. It depends on what trouble Ishmael is in.

Dupin: So we need to know what kind of risks we face, and why.

Jewell: Not really. Lying low, playing innocent, waiting for this to blow over, that's what we need to do.

Dupin: And Ishmael?

Jewell: He's all right on his own.

Dupin: So you don't care.

Jewell: No. I have an unshakeable faith in his ability to survive, especially when he's alone.

Dupin: Listen. Ishmael is the first to fall. If they can suddenly, and secretly, demote their best field operations manager, who else can they dethrone without trial? And now the Wyrd Council is shutting out two of its longest-lived members, one of whom is on the executive board. Who knows who follows. Something is happening to Wyrd, my friend.

Dupin: Shouldn't that worry you?

Dupin: Wyrd was once a tight-knit clan of thrifty, stealthy, kindred spirits. Now look at us. Sprawling. Bureaucratic. Back-biting. It's falling apart at the seams.

Dupin: And once there is no Wyrd, after centuries of secrecy and relatively peaceful coexistence, who will stand between us and the rest of human kind?

Dupin: Who will stand between people like the victims of Dr. Grey and say...I don't know...American military science?

Dupin: There was a time even you believed in what Wyrd was doing.

Dupin: There was a time when Wyrd changed its own constitution to do what you believed was right.

Jewell: ...

Jewell: We are not without our resources.

Dupin: Yes I know. Money, space, fake identities, the mines, I know.

Jewell: I'm referring to our other agents of chaos.

Dupin: ...Those two humans you've been spying on.

Jewell: Precisely.

Dupin: ...You think we can trust them?

Dupin: Or rather, do you think they'll trust us?

Jewell: I'm certain we can argue an effective case, proving that cooperation is in our mutual best interest.

Dupin: So what do we do?

Jewell is typing...