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[agent-34-blog]

nadiatehrani:

Caught off-guard by the sudden stream of information, stuck somewhere between being impressed and being irritated, she schooled her features into something less sour and something more indifferent. “—-So you are good for something, after all,” she said after a moment, eyebrows raised in the surprise she couldn’t quite hide. Credit was given where credit was due. It was the closest he’d ever get to a compliment, and even then, there was the ghost of contempt. He just got lucky, he just found the right pieces to put together, to complete the puzzle but just not quite. 

“Laurel wouldn’t be the first. Most politicians are two-faced like that, saying one thing and doing something completely different. But it’s a lead, and she’s someone worth keeping an eye if she might be working against him. She wouldn’t be the only one lying to McGee about something, though, so don’t count your luck just yet. But better to be doing something than sitting around, waiting to get shot.” She’d never admit he was right out loud, but he was just that—the sooner they got out of here, the better. 

With that, she picked up the gun he’d left on the table, the sudden weight in her hand feeling a little like victory. What kind of agent would lose his gun, anyway? That was a lie she saw through the instant he said it. “You? Okay with what I’m doing? Miracles do exist!” she exclaimed facetiously. The more he tried to scratch underneath her carefully crafted facade, the more she’d resist. “And here I thought you finally got used to it.”  

Connecting the dots had been the duty of all agents stationed at the event, and now, it was a point of pride. Sandro clung onto this tiny victory as though it were a weapon and a shield in equal measure, ready to strike or defend on a moment’s notice; it was something accomplished alone, and he delighted in the surprise written into her features, a new mask for a countenance that normally boasted little more than vapid disdain. He was almost tempted to compliment her on it, but even that was too much risk for far too little reward, her satisfaction be damned. 

Her spoken rationalization of his plan was confirmation enough that she knew he’d been some kind of right, even despite shirking certain responsibilities in favor of eating the forbidden fruit of the criminally rich and embarrassingly famous. There was a ‘yes’ buried somewhere in the rubble of her words, and Sandro flocked to it like an architect dying to dig into uncharted territory, finally free of the continuous barrage of ‘no’.

Although her sarcasm wasn’t lost on him, his ears heard past it and deeper into a perceived truth he’d never thought he’d hear. His eyebrows quirked upward in surprise -- a thoroughly unexpected emotion among the usual sea of condescension and disdain. Was that an...omission of sorts? The man couldn’t help the barking laugh that escaped him as they turned the corner into the nearby stairwell, pleased with himself even without any form of confirmation. “You gettin’ soft on me, Tehrani? That sounded an awful lot like you admittin’ to being Public Pretender No. 1.” He spoke as though it were a casual detail, and not something that corroborated the opinion he’d held right from the start, though the sense of calm was interrupted at the slight trail of blood dripping from the top of the stairs. He motioned silently to her -- you first -- as his fists raised, searching the stairwell for any sign of a threat. He mentally bemoaned the growing semblance of guilt in the pit of his stomach, willing it to return to the more comfortable place of self-satisfaction, though he knew that, like all good things placed in the hands of misguided men, it was bound to abandon ship at the first sign of a threat.

[agent-34-blog]

nadiatehrani:

“Silver? It’s platinum,” she countered without faltering, striding into the coatroom with the same grace she showed in the ballroom, a feat only accomplished by years of carrying herself in such a way. “And I can get as far as I’d like with or without it.” She spoke again without sparing him a glance, granting him the same dismissal as she’d given those before who had said the same remark as him—only in different forms. Jealousy was an ugly creature she’d fended off in the past; insults and snide comments were not one-size-fits-all, and she’d steeled herself against almost all of them.  

While she was sure Sandro was not jealous of her in the slightest, he scorned her, and she was prepared for that, too—after all, he would not have been the first.

“Speaking of fighting, I was thinking of borrowing your gun.” She glanced over him, flashing a sweet smile. “I doubt you could aim right now, anyway,” because I can tell you’ve had more than a couple shots at the open bar, “and they didn’t give any of the guests weapons other than the ones we could hide. Since everything’s going to shit, that was daft of them, wasn’t it?” Her job might have only been collecting intel and watching McGee, but how was she supposed to be prepared for anything that might come with a field mission if she wasn’t given anything else?

( Okay, yes, she had her fists, and she’d fight if it came down to it, but that was Sandro’s specialty, not hers. Everyone was allowed their preferences. )

“Sounds like a brilliant idea.” She shrugged, as if his suggestion to drug a potential informant didn’t faze her. What a stupid, stupid idea. A stupid idea that she doubted he’d actually go through with, unless she vastly underestimated his capacity for bad decisions. “I’ll watch you get some ‘big oil guy’ high—Jon Colby has a preference for cocaine—and listen to him talk shit about his associates and be so proud of the twenty-something he’s sleeping with this time while she’s really just in it for the money, and then he’ll go on about some new business investment-slash-project he’ll come up with when he’s high that’s doomed to fail, but he has so much money it won’t even cause a dent in his bank account.” Instead of blatantly telling him no, of giving him the satisfaction that he’d irritated that part of her that told her to focus on the mission, business at all times, she gave him all the reasons why it such a foolish decision wrapped up in a pretty bow of her own brand of superiority. Push and pull. The game they played was never going to end.

Besides, she already knew what Jonathan Colby, Texan oil tycoon, was like high—she had enough eyewitness accounts to prove it.

“And then I’ll pretend I had nothing to do with it.”

His hand instinctively went to the gun tucked into the small of his back before mumbling something about not having his gun anymore, not wanting her to be able to strip him of anything this time around -- gun and pride alike, even if his moral compass hadn’t exactly pointed due north during the mission. Her words came with the usual side of indirect hostility that Sandro was more than well-acquainted with, and when she smiled, he couldn’t help but wonder which one was more permanently transfixed – her countenance or her tone, each one with its special brand of poison and corresponding honey. At one point or another, she’d teased him about her being on his mind so often. The truth, one that he’d only ever admit in the quietest voice at the back of his mind, was that he’d grown comfortable with despising her and all that she was. In his short time at UMBRA, she’d become a presence as increasing as she was unwelcome, and there were only ever two things he managed to accomplish with Nadia – arguing with her and wondering about her, each one fighting for dominance in his head and, at times, spilling out in the form of harsh glances and heated words. 

She was too sophisticated to be savage, too refined to be rough, too much to be nothing at all --  and he hated her more and more for it. He hated that she was committed to perfection, even in the face of disaster; if everyone else had succumbed to jumping ship, Nadia Tehrani would be the one to keeping to whatever idiotic oath she took to serve and protect, and he’d be the unlucky bastard who got dragged into a slow and painful death along with her.

If he didn’t die by her indirect hand, he’d surely die instead from the blatant guilt trip she was laying out for him to walk into. As though I couldn’t guilt myself enough. So, he sidestepped it as callously as he could, ignoring everything she’d said to offer instead, “It was found in Laurel Wiest’s pocket. You know, the governor with the anti-drug initiative funded by the old boy himself. One of his oldest friends. Or, sorry -- one of his ‘old school chums.’” Sandro crossed his arms smugly over his chest, thankful for the opportunity to use the tidbit of crash course information to wipe away that self-satisfied smile from her face. “Figure if she’s lyin’ to such a good pal and jeopardizing his multi-million bankroll, she’d be lyin’ about other things too. Maybe even working against him. I’m thinkin’ we turn it into the Nerve Center, they monitor her and eventually arrest her and then we get the hell outta here.” As though spurred on by his own words, he reached for the gun tucked into his waistband, forgetting entirely that he’d lied to her about it not too long ago as it nearly slipped from his fingers upon retrieval. He set it on the small marble table behind him, not willing to hand it to her directly, before heading for the exit. 

The past few minutes were the longest he’d gone without insulting her in one way or another, without retorting as a means of natural defense, without drawing claws upon being freshly scratched himself. He disliked how alien the notion felt, and quickly reached for the only known remedy for such an affliction. “Come to think of it, Tehrani... I wouldn’t mind if you had nothin’ to do with it at all. For once, all your pretendin' is fine by me,” he concluded pointedly, the statement undercut by the sudden hiccup that escaped him.

[agent-34-blog]

emiliamariamartinez:

Things weren’t supposed to be like this, it was supposed to be a normal mission. No high difficulty level but an unusual amount of agents needed to make sure everything runs smoothly. That plan clearly went out of the window hours ago. She had no idea how their mission got compromised, but the only thing that made sense to her was that it was someone working on destroying them from the inside. So she was wary. Emilia was still extremely shaken up about 84′s death, but her survival instincts kicked in as soon as she noticed something was wrong, which was before Harry brought her the bad news. 

Recognising Sandro’s voice wasn’t hard and they worked together a lot before, she trusted him so when he barked at her she made no comment about his tone, relieved that she wasn’t fighting this fight by herself anymore. Of course she had a gun with her. Even if she hadn’t been assigned as security she would’ve snuck one in to protect herself. “I’ve got three. And a few knives. What do you want?” 

For such a slight little thing, she sure knew how to hide an arsenal on her person, and Sandro couldn’t resisting looking her up and down to try and figure out just where exactly those weapons were positioned.  “Uh...none for me. Better with my hands, anyway.” In a twisted way, he was thankful for the botched mission; with the comms down, neither Eighty-seven or Seventy-three could report him for drinking on the job, which meant that Emilia more thanlikely didn’t know the truth behind his reluctance to wield a gun. “Two guns up at all times, yeah?” It was a question wrapped in an order, no longer caring that his authority on the matter was little and diminishing by the second. "Quick and easy or nothin' at all."  

He led them down the hallway and into the shadows of the stairwell, one set of stairs pointing upwards towards the nerve center and the other leading to the lower floors. “We’re gonna have to take the basement exit; upstairs is, uh, compromised. If things start to look rough, you cover, I’ll disarm. Got it?” The need to stay alive sobered him up far quicker than any coffee ever could, clouds in his head clearing as he sprinted down the stairs -- and yet not quick enough to catch the sight of a hulking figure in the shadows, lunging towards him, pummeling him to the ground. Sandro felt both of his hands clasped together in the larger man’s single hand, nails breaking the barrier of his skin, drawing blood. It took a single knee to the groin to turn the tides, and even as Sandro regained partial control of the situation, he knew it wouldn't remain that way for long, but at least she'd have a clean shot now. “Don’t you fucking miss!”

[agent-34-blog]

@emiliamariamartinez

Sandro couldn’t remember when his vision turned red, or when his focus switched from making the best of a shitty situation to simply staying alive, but maybe that didn’t matter anymore. The mission was compromised, Tehrani took his gun, and his brain had just turned foggy from too much alcohol with too little food. His fists, the one source of reliability no matter the scene, were formed long before now, eager to collide with a jaw, a gut, an eye -- anything nearby that just barely asked for it -- and as his steps echoed in the once-bustling corridor, the curled fingers of both fists raised to his chin in anticipation of throwing the first punch, senses heightening as he turned the corner.

There was no real threat here, only her, and when he saw the living, breathing face of the only agent he’d been properly assigned to assist and protect, he couldn’t help but exhale in relief. There was too much blood on his hands already.

“You,” Sandro barked, not caring who heard him when everything around them had turned to chaos. “With me.” He gestured for her to follow him as he turned back the other way. “Destination might be safe, but the path sure as shit won’t be. Got a gun on you?”

[agent-34-blog]

“I was beginning to wonder if this hotel had any security.” Nadia almost didn’t recognize the polished cadence of hotel staff forced to remain polite to entitled guests if not for the rougher tone at the edges—and the fact she’d given him a crash course on how to act at a five star hotel. While this world of opulence was one she’d felt comfortable in, a world that had been second to breathing, it clearly wasn’t the same for him, and for as much as Sandro was the bane of her existence, the success of a mission depended on the success of everyone involved. There was no way in hell she’d let him botch his first one. Not on her watch. A smug smile slid onto her face at his attempt to keep his composure; she was sure if he had his way, he’d be cursing her presence.

“Much more than you, I’m sure.” The drugs in his hand must have only been a distraction for wandering eyes rather than his mind; he wouldn’t be so stupid to get high on the job, would he? “Depends on who you’re asking,” she replied serenely, smile still intact, though it lost some of its smugness and her voice carried an undercurrent of irritation. “By the way, I left something in my coat back there.” She gestured towards the coatroom with a slender hand, already walking the short distance towards the door. Although the corridor was mostly empty save for lovers surreptitiously escaping the ballroom, passing guests, and the VP of some motors company on the phone, it wasn’t enough to talk freely about the chilling shift in mission direction.

“Mind if I take a look?” Though she posed her question as a request, she spoke with the air of someone used to getting her way—a trait both she and her cover identity shared. It was partially to remain in character for the sake of any eavesdroppers, but more so to get on his nerves.

“Good thing I wasn’t askin’,” he retorted under his breath as he shrugged and followed her through the door, hating the action for all it was and all it represented. In this place and time, in this moment, in this falsified life of glamour and goners, he was forced to follow her, not only in his footsteps but conversation, too – in motion and mannerism alike. The gleam in her eye as she waltzed in the room, enjoying every moment of her elegance, told him one thing: that shedelighted in this world of masks, that she lived to spin and twirl and dance all along this stage made entirely of spotlight, champagne, and glass.

If her every movement was as precise and deadly as lightning, he wanted nothing more than to be the senseless thunder that scared her, and everyone else, away, left with nothing but shadow and rain.

He allowed a few seconds to pass after the door shut to speak, the nonchalance to his voice masking any trace of worry he held in the face of a compromised mission. “Hope whatever you left in here is somethin’ good enough to fight with. Your silver spoon’s only gonna take you so far.” The casual smirk at the double entendre only grew as he took a few uncommitted steps around the glorified closet. “I was thinkin’ I’d get one of the big oil guys high off their ass and see if they spill any secrets,” Sandro remarked with his trademark insouciance, retrieving the baggie and holding it up to her at eye-level. It almost amazed him, how confidently he could bluff and boast just to ensure some degree of annoyance from her, but she didn’t need to know the legitimate origin of the drug and he’d never deny the chance to irk her in some way or another. Besides, if the mission was compromised, he’d might as well go out knowing the last thing he accomplished was pissing off Nadia Tehrani. “Wanna join?”

[agent-34-blog]

agent--87:

Wincing her gear all at once whined a mechanical little screech into her ear, causing her to yip dropping a glass onto the ground. All she heard was static and a few garbled words. Compromised. Passing off a drink to another person on the waitstaff she winced again after giving a small smile and some sweet words. Ducking down to check her phone it was dead, all the electronics fried. Waving her hand over it to catch the signal on her ring - nothing. If she took too long checking over dead tech they’d get suspicious but this was bad, this was extremely bad. She’d had to go low tech, pen and paper in shorthand and coded at that, things for Agent Thirteen to hack later. Picking the glass up she tossed it and the pieces in the bin to offer a smile at the person who next approached the bar immediately launching into a very well rehearsed smile,  Samantha spoke “How can I help you? We do have a menu with a few signature cocktails featured on it if you need any help deciding”

The bright whine of feedback rang in his ears and caught him off-guard, and if it hadn’t been for the drunk businessman harping on about some recent tech acquisition, Sandro might have been able to hear the agent at the other end of the audio transmission. Another man approached him, this one throwing him a coat and a fiver -- a veritable insult no matter who you were, where you were, and how drunk you are -- and Sandro ducked into the coatroom for a brief moment to hang it up and remove the earpiece, thankful to no longer be accosted by the intermittent ringing in a sea of static. And, when a third person (this time, hotel staff) came up to him to hand him a tray of drinks in need of refreshing, he felt that familiar, pulsating, brazen vibe of anger that curled around him, and prompted him to sling back three of the half-filled shots before heading to the bar. In the perpetual debate of whether an action was either brave or stupid, Sandro had a definitive tendency to belong to the latter, and this particularly circumstance was no exception, no matter how decidedly not north his twisted moral compass was currently pointing. 

“What, you ain't already got a round up and ready for me?” He asked jokingly as he set the tray on the bar top, the burn of tequila down his throat making the question sound more menacing than he’d intended. “Guess you’re in luck that it’s all down, considering you’d have to respond to the big bad upstairs. So what’d you do? Spill some juice?” 

[agent-34-blog]

nadiatehrani:

Nadia knew former friends and flames would be on the invite list, and she had more than enough practice being nice to their faces only to mutter very choice words they couldn’t understand as soon as they were out of earshot. She knew this, and she still wished she hadn’t run into her ex from Oxford. The arse had gone and cheated her, which, in hindsight, wasn’t too surprising; her pride had been more wounded than her heart. Still, it took all her control not to throw her drink in his face for her younger self’s sake. Apparently he was recently engaged to an absolute gem, but still wouldn’t mind if Helena joined him for a private dinner to discuss future investments. She told him maybe with a smile and a tinkling laugh, took his business card, and disappeared into the crowd of designer garb. As she took a left out of the ballroom and retreated into an empty corridor, her expression darkened and the smile fell. “Khange kodah,” she muttered, ripping the card in half and tossing it in the trash.

There were two worlds at play here: the haves and the have-nots, the envied and the envious, one half with the fingers wrapped around the trigger and the other with their palm pinned to the barrel. It was only a matter of time before a man like Peter McGee found himself on the other side of the very same gun he’d wielded for so long.

After the comms shut down, he’d shuffled into the coat room under the pretense of relieving the previous attendant, hoping to find secrets or cigarettes, or both, intermittently scratching at his freshly-shaven jawline with one hand while the other rifled through the pockets. After a few moments, the sudden awareness of another's presence walking down the corridor of the room alerted him, the invisible string of fate that connected everyone vibrating like a plucked string and throwing him off his game. The footsteps neared, typing out a faint click-clack of Morse code -- heels, he gathered -- and rifled through one last pocket, finding a baggie of white powder and a scrap of paper. He took both before slipping  out the room to offer the best impression of an overeager attendant looking to make a quick buck. Annoy them just a bit, and they won't pay you no mind. 

“Good evening, madam,” Sandro started, the polish to his voice as unfamiliar as it was short-lived upon recognizing the woman and, perhaps more importantly, hearing her and a curse he’d heard one or two times earlier. Were it not for the wandering eyes and curious ears near them, he was certain he would have cursed his luck at the sight of her, and so in spite of words, he let out a noise in between a hum and a laugh, without enough body to stop it from sounding cynical. “Enjoyin’ the evening?” The agent asked, swinging the door open with a gentle tap from his heel. With a nod to her hand, he snarked, “I hear congrats are in order.”

[agent-34-blog]

Your cover ID, complete with functional barcodes. These will give you access to wherever you need to be, according to your post. 

Good luck.

[agent-34-blog]

[agent-34-blog]

emiliamariamartinez:

“And yet we have no solution to it yet.” Not knowing who did it clearly annoyed her, the sound of her voice betraying that. Emilia hated the feeling of not knowing what happened or who did it. “Either way, it’ll be cleared up soon.” There were over one hundred agents, most of them smarter than the general population. They would figure this out. “I am used to training alone. I don’t think it’s selfish to want some peace and quiet.” It wasn’t anything against him or any of the other agents. She just preferred training by herself. “Wait..you don’t think I can beat you?” Emilia raised an eyebrow at his challenge.

His eyebrow quirked upwards in surprise at the sheer aggravation she derived from not knowing the answer. Guess that explains the riddles. “Hand-to-hand? No chance. But I ain’t gonna put it past you to have some trick up your sleeve. Or a knife, for that matter.” Sandro knew that his head often confused jealousy with respect and vice versa, and upon seeing just how determined she was to get to the bottom of the one riddle that affected each and all of them, he knew he now felt both. “Besides, wouldn’t want to ruin either of our pretty faces before the mission...partner.”

[agent-34-blog]

event 001: dinner gala.

CODENAME: AGENT THIRTY-FOUR UNDERCOVER NAME: XAVIER ONASSIS UNDERCOVER ROLE: SECURITY GUARD

[agent-34-blog]

nadiatehrani:

She’d expected him to retaliate, but perhaps not with this much force—then again, he was a gun waiting to go off, easily triggered by her presence. If she was ice, then he was fire. She was water, he was oil. 

Despite telling herself she didn’t give a damn about what Sandro thought ( really, she didn’t! ), Nadia felt the need to defend herself. Oh, she knew her worth and she knew exactly what she was capable of, but her pride often got in the way of taking the higher ground. One and only specialty? He was the one who only knew how to fight, and he’d need a lot more skills than that here. She met his menacing, hardened glare with a calm gaze, the smile on her lips looking less serene, and turning sharper, colder.

“Stick to what I know? You don’t even know what that is. I’ve been here longer than you, I know over a dozen languages, I can talk circles around any politician or CEO, I deal with international negotiations every day, and I’m a good shot. You can’t even hold a proper conversation.” Without looking like you’d rather use your fists, she almost added, but with the way his eyes held pure fury, she’d rather not suggest a fight. She could do without being punched today. 

( But he should take his own advice and stick to what he knew because clearly he knew jack shit. )

As he made a mockery of her accent with his grating one, it took of her self-control not to blurt out “fuck off.” Rather than respond, she simply ignored the blatant jab. “Count you out? Too late, you’re already here, darling.” As she gathered the files back into a folder, her eyes flicked from the papers before back up to him as if she’d just remembered he was there. “It’s not my fault if you won’t make this any easier for yourself, I’m only sorry I’m the one who got stuck looking after you.” If he’d been expecting his barrage of venomous retorts to get her to snap, thinly veiled comments paired with a cloyingly sweet tone were as good as he was going to get. Each of them had their weapons; theirs just appeared to clash ( like everything else about them ).

“Oh, I thought you’d never ask. I didn’t think you cared, really.” She shrugged, her airy tone laced with vexation. “But since you’re so curious, I’m here because I’m actually on the run and UMBRA liked what I had to offer; you can’t get all that money without hiding skeletons in the closet. Or maybe you’re right! Perfect life, perfect family, perfect everything, but I threw it all away for this. Maybe I am just a bored rich girl with nothing to lose and too much time. I wanted a fresh start, and this agency was my best bet. Or maybe it’s all of the above.” He’d hit the mark yet completely missed it all at once, but she’d still offer none of the truth. Even if she confessed a fake death, a penchant for dramatics, a distaste for the emptiness threatening to swallow her whole, and her father’s old business deals had led her to UMBRA, he wouldn’t have believed her. “Take your pick.”  

Sandro’s assaulted, almost physically, by just how goddamn unfeeling her words are. He didn’t care about the shape of them, or how pretty they sounded coming out of an equally pretty mouth, and he won’t deny that he’s only ever been everything under the sun next to heartless. Still, there’s a direct offense in how little she cares about offending him, how bitingly casual it is, how calmly she can be cruel, with her voice level and eyes only ever raised to look past him and never at him.

Being fed your own poison in the form of a spoonful of sugar is a terror unlike any other, and it makes him want to clench the mug in his palm until it crushes under the weight of his rage. His anger had always existed at the intersection of determined excess and acrid hostility, but now, it lives along the plane of an incendiary hunger, eating itself to stay alive. 

It’s in this singular moment that he realizes that he’s met his equal and his enemy in Nadia Tehrani.

They’re playing a game with no end, and he doesn’t know what winning looks like, but sure as hell knows what losing feels like -- it’s swallowing the poison he’s got lodged in the back of his throat, feeling it burn all the way down. And that’s why he keeps choking on more, as though the more that the poison threatens to burn its way down, the more his pride stays intact, the more he feels like himself. It doesn’t matter that he wants to spit it out; he knows that she won’t get close enough to give him the satisfaction.   

So, he conceded, for what feels like the first time in his goddamned life, and says, “Alright, 73. You’ve got me there.” Sandro took a last swig of his hot chocolate before setting it down, and scooted off the table he’d made an informal seat. Standing properly on his feet, he leaned toward the other agent and spoke, voice low and flat, and ten shades darker than anything she's heard before, “Shame on me for thinkin' that you didn’t come from a fucked-up background, when that’s clearly the only prerequisite for every livin’ fucker in this prison.”

Of course, no concession of his would ever exist so simply, and his feet take him away from the woman -- leaving without being fully committed to the act, halting at the exit because that’s the only ending he could ever truly tolerate. Not a period, just another goddamned comma. 

As Sandro fiddled in his pockets for a lighter, his anger bore one last hungry, devilish grin as it prompted him to say, “Congratulations, Tehrani. You sure do one heck of an impression of a human being."

[agent-34-blog]

agent--87:

While there were more senior agents that had inhabited these hallways, who had lived and died here long before Agent 87’s presence had graced them she had been here quite a long time. Not quite a decade yet longer then most that were now here and still it could be said no one knew very much of anything about her. She preferred it that way to keep the world at arms length just as it held her at arms length but could anyone hold a mystery in their hand? Could someone grasp at the shadows and hold something real? The woman was a puzzling enigma and not many people liked to solve a mystery they couldn’t figure out at first glance or in day or two. Hephzibah embraced the obscurity, the ambiguity that surrounded her personage. Years had past and Agent 87 inhabited the shadows but had hands that could create masterful weapons, gadgets and gizmos and if you were smart you’d trust her to do her job and do it.

The figure of Agent 87 made the route it always made in the middle of the night to train when she could not sleep, to push herself to exhaustion when even gears and wires and shiny sharp pieces of metal couldn’t sate her. So she trained. She took time when the rest of them would be away so that she could work in relative peace and yet that would not be this point in time. Not today. Pausing in her gate she saw another agent - a newer agent who had yet to learn he would be here for quite a while and still know very little about her and she would not reveal a thing to him beyond her agent identification. Proceeding forward she moved flawlessly, revealing nothing other then the fact she wished to be where he had been previously to train in privacy. To train alone. “Never too early to train and I could say the same to you Agent but it seems you’ve already had your fill, darling” She responded side eyeing the gentleman. 

“I must’ve missed the memo,” Sandro started, lowering his head for a moment as though only the thinnest string held him upright by the apex of his nape, barely there and insincere. “Seems like agents ‘round here keep expectin’ this place to themselves...” The drawl of his voice trailed off, exasperation written into the silence that followed his words once he raised his head, gaze pointed like a pen. In truth, it wasn’t the perceived selfishness of other agents that bothered him, as he had complained multiple times prior to this encounter. It was the realization that he was no better than them, that his selfishness bore the same hungry grin as theirs, that his self-indulgence was about as common as a coping mechanism in this prison that they all shared. 

If selfishness was his, he’d run it so far into his system that it became his ruination, as all coping mechanisms were destined to become. 

So, it was no surprise when he spoke again, furthering his fall down a rabbit hole that had become some twisted blend of self-indulgence and a hunger for uncovering mysteries. “Never understood the benefit in practicin’ with yourself. Doesn’t give you a chance to anticipate...” His voice trailed once more as a swift fist came centimeters from her temples, just close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin. “...and react.”

[agent-34-blog]

[agent-34-blog]

emiliamariamartinez:

“Whoever killed the Vice director wasn’t found yet, so no. I don’t think so.” Emilia crossed her arms, refusing to let his tone bother her as she stood her ground. Clearly he hadn’t been taught manners or if he did he disregarded them. The fact that he didn’t answer the riddle wasn’t lost on her but she decided not to comment on it right now. “I wanted to work out alone.” Her patience was slim right now due to the tone he used.

“That’s a hell of a stronger riddle than the one you just asked,” he retorted calmly, setting down his gym bag once he saw her cross her arms in a stance of defiance. “And, better yet, the answer ain’t something so simple as ‘an arrow’.” Sandro began stretching, an ironic sight when paired with her next statement, and he offered simply, “You don’t think that’s a bit selfish, agent? Got a big ol’ gym with a hundred agents runnin’ around, and you want it all to yourself? You’d have better luck besting me in a fight.” 

[agent-34-blog]

claralivng:

( ‘UMBRA’: ‘AGENT 34′ >> :// ACCESS GRANTED )

Some nights, she slept like a baby. Other nights, ever time she closed her eyes, it was like an old time film was playing in her eyelids. Bits and pieces of the hell that she felt the moment she felt her sister slip through her fingers, watching as she hit back first onto an old building, roof collapsing and her disappearing among the debris. God, Clara had wanted to go back and go rescue her sister — but at the same time, doing so would be going against what Amanda had asked of her. Everything seemed tuned out at that moment and Clara could vividly remember how her senses came back to her the moment she heard a gunshot scrape her ear. Then, she ran. She abandoned her sister. Sleep was something that perhaps she didn’t deserve; maybe she deserved the madness that came with the lack of sleep. 

Concentration at full speed and focus that was almost impossible to break, Clara let out her anger, frustration and hurt into a punching bag and even with the proper equipment, her knuckles were bruised and bloody. The Agent, however, hadn’t felt a thing. 

Not until she heard someone’s voice. Immediately stopping, Clara looked back and came face to face with Agent Thirty-Four. A scoff escaped her lips as a smirk made an appearance, the girl still trying to catch her breath. “Why? Are you scared I’ll replace you?” The Agent spoke, playfully so, a joking half-smile on her lips. It was impossible to beat Agent Thirty-Four in a fight, she had gathered, so her words had obviously been a joke. “Are you talking ‘bout the burnt cupcakes? ‘Cause that might’ve been me.”

He wondered if there was purpose to her savagery, or if it was all just a directionless beating of body and soul. He wondered how many times he’d existed in the latter’s space before, and if it showed each time he walked into a room. He wondered when -- not if -- everyone around him would turn into naught but scars and horror stories, bags of bones and rust.

“Keep bloodying your bones like that and I’m not the one who’s gonna need replacin’ around here.” Sandro remarked, allowing a short, breathy chuckle to escape before tossing her a towel from his gym bag. Shooting another look to her knuckles, he explained, “For the blood, sweat, and tears.”

There wasn’t an ounce of refinement in the way he snorted at her admission, his mind harking back to walking into the kitchen after hours on the day in question, only to find it still smelled of burned baking.and all things inedible. “That was you?” Sandro asked incredulously, this time accompanied by a laugh. “Well, shit. You seem to have a bit of a pattern formin’, 34 -- you do know that your hands can do something other than cause pain, right?” He let out another laugh, this one less from his belly and more from his throat, guttural and rough; he was laughing at himself, this time, at the irony of his words and what he saw every time he looked in the mirror. 

"Alright, you’re done for the night,” Sandro spoke, as though he had the authority to give such an affirmation. “Why don’t you patch yourself up in the kitchen while I make us something edible?” The agent hoisted up his own gym bag and, eyeing hers, made his way over to it and picked it up as well. Heading for the exit, he asked, “I’ll take a request as long as it’s nothin’ sugary. Don’t wanna wake 66 up and all. Nose for sweets like a bloodhound, that one.” His reasoning extended far beyond the other agent, and into a simpler territory; Sandro doubted his pride would survive burning any sweets in the presence of the notorious burner of cupcakes herself, and if the girl was as vicious with her words as she was with her fists, he doubted he’d survive that either. "You like eggs?"

[agent-34-blog]

What is the base of this rage? It never ends, it eclipses

Legacy Russell, from “post-truth / new year’s song” published in Berfrois (via lifeinpoetry)