Description: Judas Priest (1992). After the disasterous assault on the Black Noah, Momo steals away, hiding from the confusion caused by Marise's apparently traitorous actions. Momo calls Elle, who tells her to get off the Black Noah and leaves her with more questions than answers.
Somewhere aboard the Black Noah, Momo has secluded herself in a corner while the battle rages on throughout the decks. "She couldn't just have gotten kicked out," the tennis player mumbles to herself as she fiddles with her cell phone, scrolling through an exceptionally long contacts list. "She's smart! Smart enough to know how valuable information is, she wouldn't let somebody seak up on her like that."
Who, exactly, is the Momo soeaking of so highly? Why, her contact in Blackjack, it's very leader: Elle. The woman owes the girl some serious monies for recon work, and she's not about to let that go down the drain, not after being viciously assaulted by M0M0s to get the information she did! Although, Rugal might pay decently for it as well... maybe she'll sell it to both of them.
"Here it is," Momo declares as she finds the contact in question, hitting the Call button and hoping that Elle isn't tied up or dead or stuck under an EMP net or something.
The response is swift. "Elle. Talk to me."
The woman minces no words as she sits in the 'command center' established on the promenade deck of the Suiryuu. Ever since the net was brought down, all electronic devices and communications have been reactivated. She's seen fit to set up shop here, instead of the actual communications center.
The reason why is simple: she may the the Ryouhara's ally, but they're still not going to givher access to all it's secrets. Elle wouldn't let anyone do that, either. Secondly, she's grown accustomed to her station here. Fingers glide across displays as she gathers up the intelligence pouring in like a man dying of thirst at a fountain. Things aren't going as planned.
"It's Momo!" the tennis player says as her temp-boss picks up. "Things turned bad on the evil boat! Some chick named Marise said she was replacing you as leader of your secret group and that everyone should turn on the Jinchuu people, and then a bunch of people did!" Momo neglects to mention that she turned on the Suiryuu's representatives before the announcement went out. "Did something happen?" the Taiyo student continues. "I don't think just saying that she's the new boss would mean people would listen to her, but they did, so something must have happened."
A pause.
There's no immediate response. "Let me guess," comes a voice, even colder than her usual unemotional tones. "Marise?" The underlying subtext of 'I knew this would happen eventually' isn't said, but it could be read in. It's very hard to tell with Elle. Her voice doesn't carry a lot of tone or inflection. Instead, most of the meaning has to be found in her pacing.
"Explain to me exactly what happened in chronological order, starting from the time you hit deck until the time ou managed to break ranks and hide," is the stern voice. Information now. Complaining later. Now isn't the time to be going crazy. There are problems to fix.
"Well," Momo says, looking thoughtfully at the ceiling as she recounts her memories. "I got up on an airplane and started writing naughty things on the windshield with soap. Some big guy in armor with bad handwriting started trying to cut airplanes in half, and other guys were doing other things to break stuff. Then some soldiers came out, and a guy with a funny accent threw a chunk of airplane at me and I zoomed around with it on fire extinguishers."
This is where things start to get interesting. Once again ignoring the fact that she chose that moment to turn on Katana, Momo continues, "Then the loudspeaker got all loud, and that Marise girl went, 'I am Marise von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard', and am replacing Elle Whatsherface as leader of Spades. Attack the people from the Suiryuu!' Or something like that, anyway. Then stupid armor man and weird accent man turned on the others, and I ran away to call you and see if you were alright!" The 'because you owe me money' part is also left unsaid. "Oh, and I drew up those maps of the vents that you wanted, I'll send you a picture after we're done on the phone."
The information is absorbed. Elle doesn't react visibly, but then again she rarely does. Her capacity for extreme reaction was burned away by Vega a while ago. All she can do is make a small grimace. "I see," she murmurs. Katana and Birdie. At least, she's fairly sure. That means she'll have to check up on Aislinn and Naerose. The other operatives she sent to that ill fated floating monstrocity had yet to report in.
"Good job," is the eventual response. "I'll see you're compensated, and that you get hazard pay. Did you see anything else unusual in your movements through the ship?"
The discussion from 'betrayal' to the ductwork is rapid. Unusual for most, yes, but this is Elle. She rarely lets anything get to her. After all, every problem faced is yet another to handle. As long as the world isn't blowing up. That's where she keeps all her stuff.
It's only unusual because Elle can't see into her contact's head: Momo wants to make sure that Elle knows she owes her duct-climber some cash.
"Robomomos! Millions of them!" The Taiyo student gets excited (or maybe agitated is the proper word?) on this topic. "Momo got a picture of them, too, there was a whole Robomomo production line! It wasn't just one robot that got Momoized, they were making lots and lots and lots of them. And they all came after me at once!" With a hint of satisfaction in her voice, the tennis player adds, "But they all got blown up 'cause of one of the evil soldier's bag of bombs."
Elle closes her eyes and steeples her fingers. Does it make sense to her? Hard to say. Time will tell. Even if she's wrong, she may be able to leverage something. "Did you kill all of them? Are you sure?" She pauses for a second, and then spits out another question, "And do you have any physical evidence of your mechanical duplicates?"
The wheels, paralyzed by too many problems, start up again, and Elle's mind starts to move once more, finding answers to questions not yet asked. "I want you off that boat. I know what my people are capable of. Unless they know exactly whose side you're on, they're going to want to stomp you. Even if they're implicitly under Marise's command, some training doesn't go away automatically. You need to get back on the Suiryuu immediately. I'm going to need your support this evening."
"I don't think so," Momo says, "but if you check out the place in the hold where an entire chunk of the floor has been blown up and fallen down to the floor below, you might find something."
And then, new orders. "What!? No way! Weird stuff is happening here, and Momo needs to see what it is!" Not to mention that Kurow's on this boat somewhere, if that "R" gumby was to be believed, and she requires additional orders from her REAL boss. "What do you need Momo for, anyway?"
"Trust me," is the response. Elle's reputation tends to precede her. Most people know that she doesn't lie when she sends out a warning. Oddly enough, she tends to act in the best interest of her operatives. The favor is usually returned in kind.
Then again, thet doesn't seem to be the case in this particular situation, now does it?
"I'm going to need reinforcements," she explains further. "The more people, feet on deck, at the Suiryuu, the better. You do want to get paid, don't you?" The weirdness onboard the Black Noah notwithstanding, Elle brings it down to brass tacks. "Rugal's forces just doubled. If they turn around and take this ship, they're going to dispose of everyone on board that isn't compliant with them."
"Rugal... wait, Rugal Bernoulli, the really rich guy? That's who's doing all this?" The ignorance is feigned, Momo had read the reports, but it wouldn't do to break character. "That's kind of weird. He's got this weird thing for being the best, right? Do you think he's fighting ninjas just to show how awesome he is?"
In her mind, meanwhile, Momo wonders if she was the one who called down the wrath of Rugal. After all, he and Kurow are currently in cahoots, or so it appears, and she's been feeding the Student Congress information about the strange going-ons within the tournament. Kurow's remarkably good at pulling strings, so it's not completely out of the question...
"If you really really absolutely need Momo, I guess I can come back," the tennis player eventually acquieses. "Unless someone stole the boat I took! It's way too far to swim."
The response is flat, mechanical. "I really really absolutely need Momo," Elle replies. "There's more compensation in it for you. I promise that the risk that you're taking is substantially less than the risk that staying on the Black Noah will carry."
Is the DSC/R alliance known to Elle? Who knows? Elle doesn't talk about her sources very much. Doing so would be questionable and probably suicidal. Rest assured though that she's always certain she's making the right choices. "And as for what Rugal wants... well." The pause again, and Elle drums her fingernails on the metal console before her. "He wants the same thing all of us wants." And with that, Elle signs off... unless Momo can catch her before she hangs up.
Unfortunately, the first word out of Momo's mouth upon Elle's strange explanation is, "Huh?" Which is hardly a ear-catching statement. The tennis player is hung up on, though it takes her a moment to realize it. Once she does, though, she huffs. "That dumb Elle! Thinking she can be mysterious and secret!" She puffs her cheeks indignantly, despite nobody being around to see it. "If she didn't owe me stuff, oooh, I'd ball her in the head so fast!" the Taiyo student continues as she goes to her photos section, forwarding the pictures of her arms with maps and keys drawn on them in sharpie. With that done, she looks around conspiratorally, then makes a hasty retreat. She's got to get to the Suiryuu now, it seems... hopefully Kurow won't mind her abandoning ship too much.
Log created on 18:43:52 10/19/2007 by Elle, and last modified on 08:29:35 10/21/2007.