Faction Masked Intentions | SIA

[Isobel Nakano]

never make a promise or plans, take a little love where you can
nobody's on nobody's side​

"Maiden name," Isobel confirmed. "Although in my neck-a-the-woods, you gotta be careful. God knows if you're not careful you could end up marrying a cousin. Plenty of annulments when the genetic testing comes through, ya know? Lots of awkward breakfasts. Lindqvists and Lundegaards and Lindahls, you'd be surprised who's related to who. Err, whom I guess."

She paused a moment, lifting her glass before seeming remember that it was empty. "Never married -- and you?"

Cordé Sabo made a comment about the basic training for the people in this room. This was training that Isobel had never taken part of, thanks to the unusual way in which she and Val Pellian had found their way into the SIA. "Of course," she lied smoothly. "Didn't recognize him, but I guess that's the idea, ha."

At the bar Isobel leaned easily against it, setting her empty glass down. "Oh sure," she said breezily. "Red, whatever ya got open, ya know. Get you something?"

As she waited for the bartender to do his thing, Isobel turned her attention back to Cordé's question. "I could easily see me putting it on a wall as a piece of art," she said genially. "But I see... lots of potential for that, if I'm being honest." And she was; Isobel was quite enthusiastic about the technology. "The possibilities for anti-surveillance, for media, for entertainment... Well, you probably know."

"So, do you make it to the capital often?" Isobel asked casually.

Desric Terassi | IVI | Seku Bondara | Noah Corek | Cordé Sabo | Anja Rydder | Jaqu'n Boiv​

 

[Cordé Sabo]

______________________________________________________________
D U L C E T
CORUSCANT | CORUSCANT CROWN CASINO
______________________________________________________________

Cordé made a face when Lotte said she’d never been married. Part of her expression was obfuscated.

“You have many walls to decorate?” Beneath the mask, Cordé grinned. She’d gestured for two of the same to the bartender, unthinkingly mirroring the easy-looking drink, and now two glasses of wine were slid to the pair.

“Endless.” The agent agreed, and gave a mock toast to the infinite potential that existed with technology and sentient perception. Weaponized manipulation.

“And an unsurprising theme for an Intelligence event — oh, look,” she craned her neck and pointed out to the crowd. Another person’s face was exposed, but they laughed heartily. They’d made the mistake of crossing paths with an old friend who recognized their ticks.

“Another one bites the dust.”

"So, do you make it to the capital often?"

“Home base.” Cordé smiled thinly, and tapped her teeth to the rim of her bulb. That was partly true, especially since so much of the SIA operated from the core of The Alliance.

She didn’t recycle the question back to Lotte. Instead, she spoke quietly and took a sip at the end of her sentence to punctuate her pause and give an opening for her newfound friend to respond.

“So your maiden name, because you never married — does that mean the term ex-mother-in-law is just affectionate for you?”

______________________________________________________________
IMMEDIATE INTERACTION: Isobel Nakano | OPEN TO INTERROGATION
NEARBY: Seku Bondara | Anja Rydder | Desric Terassi | Jaqu'n Boiv
MYSTERIOUS GUESTS: Noah Corek
______________________________________________________________​

 

[Isobel Nakano]

never stay too long in your bed, never lose your heart: use your head
nobody's on nobody's side​

"I like to keep things fresh in my f -- in my apartment," Isobel said, catching herself before slipping into her usual posh colloquialisms. Flat, indeed. "I change out my art pieces every so often.

Isobel sturned at Cordé Sabo 's urging to see what was happening behind them. "Well, isn't that special? If there's a way to get found out, that's the way to do it, don'tcha think?" she asked Cordé, but her joviality was short-lived, and faded completely when the other woman made her observations about the massive, gaping holes in Isobel's story.

Isobel blanched beneath her mask, but its effect was apparent as even her neck and decolletage, until now flushed from the heat and wine, went pale. How much wine had she drank? Normally she didn't have any problems maintaining a cover story, but here she had dropped breadcrumb after breadcrumb -- if not to her true identity, then at least easily disproving her pseudonym. She tried to cover her sudden nervousness with a gregarious smile, leaning forward confidentially. "Have you ever dated someone whose parents ended up liking you better than them? She always joked about keeping me if we ever broke up."

She cleared her throat anxiously and watched the barman refill her glass warily. "Perhaps -- on second thought -- a glass of water, please?" Isobel asked, putting a credit chit down on the bar.

Isobel turned back to her companion. "You don't believe any of that, do you?" She barked a laugh and gratefully accepted the water from the bartender. "You're good at this, by the way. Do you do this sort of thing often?"

 

[Cordé Sabo]

______________________________________________________________
D U L C E T
CORUSCANT | CORUSCANT CROWN CASINO
______________________________________________________________

​

Once one lie was exposed, it was just a matter of unravelling the rest. Lotte was starting to stammer, and readily raised the metaphorical white flag.

Triumph was the toothsomeness of her chit eating grin. Even if the mask concealed most of her expression, that was plain to see.

“I am.” She confirmed, and the bombasticness of her smile deteriorated. “Too much for my taste these days. Undercover missions are lonesome.”

She took a sip of her drink, and shrugged. The wine was smooth, with a bite of chalk that pulled her cheeks at the end. “I’ve been thinking about ending this charade about as soon as we started.” She tilted her head. “But the mask is just so pretty.”

With a motion to move from the bar, and out of the earshot of other agents who might be keen to undo Lotte’s faux identity, Cordé continued.

“You seem more the techy-type.” If her eyes were visible in the spaces between the mask’s movement, they would have looked somewhat apologetic. “For lack of a better term.

Is that the case? Are you the inventor normally or the user?”

______________________________________________________________
IMMEDIATE INTERACTION: Isobel Nakano | OPEN TO INTERROGATION
NEARBY: Seku Bondara | Anja Rydder | Desric Terassi | Jaqu'n Boiv
MYSTERIOUS GUESTS: Noah Corek
______________________________________________________________​

 

[Isobel Nakano]

never take a stranger's advice. never let a friend fool you twice.
nobody's on nobody's side​

Isobel allowed her head to give a sympathetic tilt and smiled sadly in commiseration, though she doubted whether the facsimile of the face on the mask was able to capture it. "I know," she said softly, her mind straying briefly to Val Pellian . Where was he, anyway? Not here, getting grilled, that was for sure.

Isobel followed Cordé's lead away from the bar, double-fisting her wine and water, one in each hand.

The jig was up, so she didn't bother to speak in that ridiculous accent anymore, returning to her natural, upper-crust Atrisian lilt. "Techy-type?" Isobel echoed incredulously before lowering her voice to mutter: "Are you calling me a geek, lady?" Affecting exaggerated -- and thus comical -- offense. "You think I'm some kind of nerd, is that it? Yes. Yes, I am techy -- whatever that means. I play games on my datapad sometimes, too."

She paused a moment, took another drink of water before setting it on a nearby cocktail-height table.

"Yes, I am the inventor. But," Isobel said, holding up a slender finger, "I am also an end user. It never sat right with me, the idea of sending someone out with something that could blow them apart without having tested it myself. Better than any quality control you can imagine, really." She wasn't hiding behind the edifice of a pseudonym, now.

Isobel set the wine down and folded her arms over her trim midsection. "You must know by now," she said, canting her head to one side. "And I'm starting to sweat under here. Ready to claim your scalp?"

Cordé Sabo​

 

[Cordé Sabo]

______________________________________________________________
D U L C E T
CORUSCANT | CORUSCANT CROWN CASINO
______________________________________________________________
​

For a moment of mutual appreciation, Cordé was silent, and let the heaviness of knowing how isolating undercover work could be settle betwixt them.

When the accent faded, it felt like her ears perked. Like a dog. It wasn't subtle at all. Not the accent shift, nor Cordé's reaction. It was a good thing they'd moved from the bar, from prying ears.

Cordé laughed, she couldn't help it, at Isobel's grim quality-assurance testing.

"I like that." She said casually, and took a sip of her wine. "I come from a long line of innovators and experimenters that would share your modus operandi." That was half true. It was just a line of one: her mother. "A chance to try something you've created sounds fun."

Then came the fated question — the big reveal. The whole purpose of the evening.

With a name, Cordé could mitigate the likelihood of Isobel's eligibility for missions into Sith Space. It would only take a second.

"People's fate is too often in my hands." She admitted, and bore her palm to Isobel as if she might see nano-sized citizens living in the lines. Those hands stitched, mended, gauzed, soothed, and did whatever they could to keep people alive and well on the field.

"Do you want me to, or would you like put a favour in the IOU box and skip over to..." she pointed to a cluster of people by the bar. Unknown to Cordé, onesuch person was another she knew. "...someone else and keep playing the game?"

______________________________________________________________
IMMEDIATE INTERACTION: Isobel Nakano | OPEN TO INTERROGATION
NEARBY: Seku Bondara | Anja Rydder | Desric Terassi | Jaqu'n Boiv
MYSTERIOUS GUESTS: Noah Corek
______________________________________________________________​

 

[Isobel Nakano]

never be the first to believe, never be the last to deceive
nobody's on nobody's side​

"When this is all over, come by my workshop and we can see what I have that might suit you," Isobel said. "Don't worry, I won't put you in anything that might hurt you. Can't say the same for those around you, though. Not in our line of work." She took another sip of water. Was it the adrenaline of being caught out, or was she starting to sober up at last?

It came too late, obviously, as Isobel had already all but blown it. She knew it, too, as the Damoclean silence stretched between the two women. She waited, though she doubted she would hear the horse hair snap over the din of the club. It was all she could do not to cringe against the coming blow, but Isobel was a firm believer in taking lumps when they were well deserved.

And then --

Isobel regarded the woman opposite, her preternaturally green eyes studying the effervescence of her mask as if she might find traces of the features behind it. Not to win the game -- she doubted she would recognize 90% of the SIA operatives here given her recent joining and the special assignment that had only isolated her from her colleagues -- but so that she might see the person who would show her grace in this situation. The IOU was nothing, freely given to comrades in arms, but the favor Isobel was getting in return was much, much more: opportunity, expanding horizons.

But nothing. Only the inscrutability of that incredible mask.

"My dear," Isobel began slowly, "I have a feeling I'm going to owe you rather a lot of IOUs over the years, but -- yes, I would be grateful. Anything you need."

Avoiding embarrassment was good, but Isobel thought there might have been something else here.

When it was all said and done and Isobel, rather more subdued and less cocky, duly chastised by her hubris, said: "Good luck with that lot." Nodding her unnaturally golden locks towards the group Cordé Sabo had indicated a moment ago. "I'm going to take some air, clear my head before going at them. Don't forget -- whatever you need."

​