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Post by demikara on Sept 6, 2019 15:01:57 GMT -6
"We should check on her as well then." Aerilyn wasn't sure who he was speaking of. "To make certain she hasn't got one of these...packages." Since it looked like people publicly associated with the director were getting this 'gifts.' The deaf veteran hugged her husband. "If we ever had kids, lets try for better relationships with them." If they ever had kids. They weren't particularly trying for any, so it would be a shock if one happened. Aerilyn wasn't even certain if she could have kids.
"What's her name?"
Any lead was a good lead at this point.
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Post by Ylanne on Sept 6, 2019 15:16:29 GMT -6
"Luljeta. I forget her last name, but Titon knows. I mean, normally, I'd just ask..." Ahmad trailed off, the rest of the sentence obvious and yet painfully unspeakable. "Damn it. It feels like we're already burying her, and we don't even know if she's dead yet. But I just ... I can't. Honestly, I ... I feel sick." He glanced toward their trash bin, but resisted the urge to run over to it. Someone needed to take it out soon anyway. "Look, I know it's not really the time, but... I'm not sure what we'll do if we have kids. The director has always been incredibly kind to me, and while I know things have been fucked up between her and the two kids, I just can't figure out how it all went so wrong. I can't."
A commotion outside, complete with shouting and slammed car doors, caught Ahmad's attention. He moved to the front of the house, peering through the windows, to see a tall white woman with flowing hair shoving past someone he vaguely recognized from Parliament's offices somewhere. The both of them were struggling to make their way past the small group of NPA agents that had clustered around the front of the house. Neighbors were staring, and Ahmad suddenly desired to hide in the nearest closet. But he didn't.
Ahmad opened the door, and both Jelisaveta and the legislative staffer entered, the tension settling in the living room like heavy smog.
Jelisaveta looked contemptuously down at Ahmad, who was significantly shorter than her, and tossed a small box that had been clearly cut open and then badly taped together again at his feet. "Here. This was probably meant for you."
Ahmad didn't bother looking. He ran straight back to the kitchen, opening the trash bin, and heaved into it.
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Post by demikara on Sept 6, 2019 15:26:59 GMT -6
"Hello Jelisaveta." Always fun. At least this one didn't call than hang up. "What body part is this one?" She picked up the box and set it on the counter. "Though you could have just given it to NPA. Given they are surrounding the building." That made three parts. She sighed and glanced to the kitchen. "Ahmad, when you're up to it, give Johannes a call. He'll have a new set of cameras to try and track." Something, some sort of clue, had to be somewhere. She just didn't know where it could be or where the director would be.
"Do you know whose it may be?" She needed to know if the director's other daughter had any clue. She hoped she wasn't going to be the one to break the news. She didn't want to see the other woman's reaction at all.
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Post by Ylanne on Sept 6, 2019 15:33:22 GMT -6
Jelisaveta shot Aerilyn an incredulous - and equally contemptuous - look. "It's Director Drulović's finger. One of them, anyway. Fuck if I know where the other ones are."
From the other side of the kitchen, still bent over the trash bin, Ahmad managed to notice that his boss and confidante's daughter actually described her own mother with a title rather than a term of familial endearment or affection. The effect was more chilling, in a way, than the macabre collection of the old woman's body parts that had begun to gather in his and Aerilyn's house.
"Whoever left it at my house, they got the wrong address. I don't have anything to do with the TIB, never have. And I never want to." Jelisaveta turned on her heel and made for the front door. "You can deal with it - and the director."
The small, beady-eyed man from Parliament gulped, moving aside quickly as Jelisaveta passed him, then once she'd slammed the front door behind her, approached Ahmad with trepidation. "Ah - sir? Mr. Fazari?"
Ahmad staggered away from the bin, his stomach completely devoid of any contents. He grabbed the nearest towel and wiped his chin and cheeks, then stared, bleary. "Yes?"
"Can we speak alone for a few minutes?"
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Post by demikara on Sept 6, 2019 15:38:19 GMT -6
Well, she recognized her mother's fingers, so there was that. Right now though, Aerilyn was significantly more concerned by the fact that this was one ear, several teeth, and a finger. That was....Why would they be sending this? There was no way the director was still alive. Hope drained out of her and she fumbled for her phone, dialing Johannes number to let him know of the update. He'd want to know, she was sure.
A finger. and ear. and a handful of teeth. God, she was going to be sick as well. She took a deep breath and wiped at her eyes, trying to stop the watering.
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Post by Ylanne on Sept 6, 2019 15:46:09 GMT -6
From outside, Leimgrüber answered. Ahmad could even see the top of his head poking from over a bush through one of the windows in the living room.
"Leimgrüber."
Ahmad motioned for the man from Parliament to follow him out the sliding door onto the porch. Once he had, Ahmad shut the door behind them. This way, it would be hard for almost anyone to overhear their conversation. He'd learned that the hard way with Aerilyn. "What is it?" Ahmad kept watch for Aerilyn and Leimgrüber out of the corner of his eye.
"My name is Jerome Hagopian," the parliamentary staffer said. He did not extend a hand in greeting. "I'm senior staff for the Intelligence Oversight Committee. I... Well, the Committee thought it would be prudent to warn you, and, ah, make an offering. Mrs. Drulović may not be in her position for much longer, and, ah, the committee members have decided that they will not support a bid from your office for the directorship if that happens. They intend to recommend a different nominee to Prime Minister Khayyam, though, if you are willing to accept that, and not place a bid for the nomination, then they are willing to recommend that you can keep your current position. If that is agreeable to you. Sir."
It occurred to Ahmad that this man very much resembled a toad. A nervous toad. But what ... "I'm. I'm sorry, I don't understand. Why are you telling me this? Do you know something?" What was afoot?
"Right, ah. It's not my place to tell you, sir. I'm sure you'll know soon. Good day." Jerome nodded and then hurried back through the sliding glass doors into the kitchen, without looking at Aerilyn, though he offered a hurried, "Hello," and then fled out the front door.
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Post by demikara on Sept 6, 2019 15:52:41 GMT -6
"You might as well come back in. The director's other daughter just gave us a box with a finger in it. Apparently the appropriate response to receiving that from that daughter is to throw the box at my husband's feet." She managed a polite smile for the staffer, having not heard a word of what her husband said. "Given how quickly each of us received this, almost at the exact same time, I'm curious as to what network is trying this shit." Because she wanted to kill them all now.
"You'll have to ask her where she received it from though. She couldn't leave fast enough." Under her breath, Aerilyn murmured 'the bitch' thoroughly unimpressed with the other woman's actions. Maybe it would be best to just never have kids. If this is how they reacted to their mom in mortal peril or possibly dead, Aerilyn didn't want to see what kids she'd have ended up with.
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Post by Ylanne on Sept 6, 2019 15:57:13 GMT -6
"... Did you open it to confirm or do you need someone else to do it?" Leimgrüber spoke as he came back in through the front door, then hung up the phone, striding back to the kitchen. He was a tall man and the house was not particularly large, so it took him probably all of five seconds to cover the distance. He looked down at the box, still on the floor where Jelisaveta had thrown it. "I take it not." He sighed, stooped to pick it up, then called over his shoulder for the NPA agent outside to please retrieve it. Quickly.
"Please take that very far away from me, and preferably leave it at the bottom of a cave where no one would ever dare think of trying to go spelunking," Ahmad muttered. He looked over at Aerilyn. "Something else is going on too. I don't know what. Something with Parliament, I think. It can't be related. Right?"
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Post by demikara on Sept 6, 2019 16:02:40 GMT -6
"We live on Terra. So it's possibly related." She said simply. It involved politicians, so it was probably related. "What happened, Ahmad? What did the staffer say to you?" She hadn't been eavesdropping for once. For a deaf person she sure heard a lot of things she wasn't supposed to. Then again, it was ridiculously easy to eavesdrop with magic, so it wasn't that surprising at all.
"Thanks for dealing with that for us Johannes. This is...is getting rough." A finger. An ear. Some teeth.
Was Arianne even alive?
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Post by Ylanne on Sept 6, 2019 16:10:12 GMT -6
"I don't know," Ahmad said, and he looked helpless. He stared now at his feet, at the well-worn sneakers he'd chosen for comfort over appearance, that earned more than a fair share of snickers at government meetings. "Something about the Director not being in her position for long. I have no idea if they meant that, like, in a political way, and they have no idea what the hell is happening that we all know about, or if they meant that in a... in a more sinister way. Like this is all connected. Like they kidnapped her or murdered her or... or both. Maybe both. I'm going to be sick."
Ahmad threw himself into one of the kitchen chairs he'd had to upright from when Aerilyn had sent them flying. "Maybe find Luljeta. See if she has a ... a part. I don't really want to think about this any more than I have to."
Leimgrüber nodded. "We'll be in touch, sir." He nodded again, this time to Aerilyn. "I'll share what I can. It probably won't be much. As I said, you're not cleared."
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Post by demikara on Sept 6, 2019 16:24:31 GMT -6
"I know." She'd still like to be kept abreast if at all possible. she swallowed and put a hand on Ahmad's shoulder. "This day has been a special kind of hell." she sighed and squeezed his shoulder. It was going to be okay. It had to be. "They'll tell us as soon as they locate her. We just have to wait, and pay attention for any possible clues." She hoped Arianne would be found soon. The director had to be.
This was terrifying. She let go of him and locked the door behind Johannes. It could be worse, she reminded herself. It could be a head.
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Post by Ylanne on Sept 6, 2019 16:40:02 GMT -6
Drulović watched in silence as this man, this monster of her own creation, damned though it be, had dragged out the two women's bodies from the basement one after the other, deliberately stuffed inside garbage bags, the messaging not lost on the old woman. They were trash, to be discarded as refuse. He'd laughed when she had tried to stop him from desecrating their bodies, when she'd offered herself instead, when she'd reminded him of the punishments promised by the old gods of ancient faiths still very much living today. "I'll do you one better," he'd told her, sneering.
The hole on the side of her face had stopped bleeding probably some hours ago. She could really only gauge the time by the subtle shifts in light from a small hole in the ceiling, where unfinished rafters separated the basement from whatever was above. Earlier, she thought she'd seen a bit of natural sunlight peep through. Now, it was dim and artificial only. The old woman felt light-headed, bone weary, the pain coming in waves. Some moments it was white hot and stabbing at the center of her conscious thoughts, threatening to force them all to dissipate, and others it faded into dull throbbing, aching that radiated through her entire body. Her entire jaw was swollen, but it would have been hard to tell, from the deep purple bruising giving way to more of her dried blood there. He hadn't taken all of her teeth. Just the ones that were already dentures, placed there decades ago to replace the original ones she'd lost in a hellhole in Yugoslavia between interrogation sessions.
There were no interrogations here. He had no questions for her, and the few he might have asked, he already knew the answers to well enough to provide them himself.
She turned her hand over and squinted, but could barely make out any of the distinguishing features in the dark. Only the fuzzy outline of it, now missing her index finger. He'd remembered which of her hands was already disabled and atrophied, and which she used now, and he'd made sure to inflict the pain where she could feel it most. She'd let him. What choice did she have?
She found she did not feel fear so much as exhaustion. "Such a messy kill, Mr. Andrade," she'd told him with a sigh. He'd been furious, then delighted, in turn, that she'd remembered his name. "I thought I'd taught you better. And so rude, too. There are simply certain things in life, like visits with one's in-laws or assassinations of one's enemies, that one ought to do as quickly and efficiently as one can. I'm mightily disappointed."
She had taught him something though. When he'd been younger, he might have lashed out immediately at such provocation. Now, he'd taken it, and smiled grimly, tilting his chin back a bit. "You won't be, once I'm finished. Well, you wouldn't be, if you were here for it."
She'd shrugged. She didn't care for his plans. They tired her and bored her.
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Post by demikara on Sept 6, 2019 17:04:52 GMT -6
Ahmad had mentioned that Arianne was still close to her ex. Aerilyn had decided to check there first, to make certain the ex-husband hadn't received any body parts as well. Hopefully not, but...it was a lead at least. Finding the address hadn't been too hard. Now she just had to hope he was home. Aerilyn knocked on the door and waited patiently.
Nenad and Arianne were still close, despite the divorce. He was one of the other woman's few friends. Hopefully he would have some idea of what to do, of how to track down his ex.
Aerilyn was running out of ideas. TIB wasn't going to tell her much 'read in' on the event or not. They couldn't, she didn't have a clearance any more and it took time to reactivate one.
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Post by Ylanne on Sept 6, 2019 17:12:46 GMT -6
Nenad Drulović lived miles away, far outside Wing City, in another city altogether. He'd always been the one who wanted to live in the city. Drulović had wanted to return to the countryside she'd remembered from the few more pleasant years of her childhood. They'd both ended up in urban landscapes. His home was larger, built with an old-style Victorian architecture that featured elegant rafters, vintage storm shutters, and decorative motifs, and vivid blue paint with white accents on the exterior. Once, the two had lived there together, but Nenad had taken the house in the divorce. There were few signs now that the old woman had ever spent time there.
In the front room, Nenad found himself suddenly re-living a very specific nightmare he'd had for years, since a visit from ex-Parliamentarian Rubano Malijin and his secretary Elizabeth Yeats. Sitting in an opened box in front of him was one half of a severed finger, a finger he had recognized within moments. Once it had belonged to the hand that gently caressed his face, closed in around his own fingers, offered him tea.
The last time, it had been his own. This time, he thought it much worse, owing in large part to the fact that it was someone else's. Had been. Nenad tried to remind himself of that. This bit of a body was not a whole person. It did not represent the fate of an entire life. It suggested, rather, that Nenad was meant to receive a very specific kind of message, much like the one his now ex-wife had been meant to receive when her enemies had come for him. Now, he supposed they'd simply decided to cut to the chase.
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Post by demikara on Sept 6, 2019 17:28:42 GMT -6
It had been a trip here, but it would be worth it if she got some answers. Aerilyn knocked again, waiting to come in. "Hello? Mr. Drulović?" No response. Maybe he wasn't here. "My name is Aerilyn. I'm here about Arianne?" Maybe he'd open up with more information? She didn't know, hadn't met him. She liked the look of his house though. It was a beautiful home and clearly well taken care of.
At least Arianne hadn't been friends with someone totally terrible. She hesitated a moment and stealed herself for the worst. Everyone else connected to the director had received a body part. She was expecting to find another one here. The question would be what part was it.
she didn't want an answer.
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