#aptor sie

[agent-kentauris]

d185

okay i swore id make a note about the canon bending in this but im sleepy so tomorrow

“Almost done,” I said. “But I want to know who they were torturing. Let me ID him, and then I’m out of here.”  

“All right…” she said doubtfully. “But hurry.”

No kidding. The shots were dying down outside. I got halfway back across the room when I heard…I don’t know. Something metallic. I stopped before I realized I’d done it. Three Russian were firing wildly at Marburg’s men towards the back of the room. No one was looking at me. No one else seemed concerned. I squeezed the knife.

A barrage of bullets came through the open roll door. The outstretched arm on a statue imploded. I dropped, several bullets clipping the air above me.

The shooting stopped. Russian swearing started.

“Michael, Michael,” a familiar voice said.

The fuck was she doing here?

“Why are you always hiding behind boxes?” she asked.

“Sie?” Mina exclaimed over the earpiece. “Mike, tell me it’s not.”

I stuck my hands up first, then stood. “Don’t suppose Grigori told you where to find me this time.”

Sie chuckled, keeping, I could hardly fail to notice, her massive minigun centered on me.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re here for Marburg.”

“I am as surprised as you, dahling.”

The Russians at her side didn’t look to eager to stop pointed their guns at me, either.

The distant sounds of sirens filtered in through the open back gate.

“Mike, you’ve got less than a minute,” Mina reported.

“There’s a split in the VCI,” I said. “You’re fighting Marburg. That’s why you’re here; I can help, if you tell me what’s going on.”

She gestured at one of the Russians. He sauntered over to the man Marburg’s guys had been questioning.

“I’m afraid,” she said, “that as much as I enjoy our time together, I will have to leave you.”

The man hoisted the body over a shoulder. I took a step towards him. Every finger not on a trigger shifted.

“Mike, get out of there,” Mina warned.

“Just tell me who he is, what’s going on, anything. Sie-”

Her Russians kept their weapons trained on me as she walked out without another word. Then they followed, not so much as a hey, maybe we’re on the same side here, maybe we can help each other.

“Thorton,” Mina said tensely.

“I know, I know,” I said.

The side door was blocked by an enormous, ornate antique vase. Too heavy to move, but to unbalance it? By the time the cops blew past me on the road, lights challenging the early morning sunlight, there’d be nothing in the warehouse but vase shards, bullet casings and dead Deus Vult to deal with. I kept my hands in my pockets and my head down as they passed.

“There’s good news,” Mina offered. “Can you talk, or do you want me to wait?”

“Go ahead,” I said, trying not to move my lips too much. Few people were out on the sidewalks. Those who were out confined themselves to other industrial buildings, other warehouses, a couple of smaller, closed businesses. I looked out of place. It didn’t help that the scabbed, aching wound on my thigh was complaining. Hard to keep an even pace once I’d noticed it.

“We’ve got evidence of a transaction between Russian weapons dealers and Marburg.”

“Wait,” I said, talking despite myself. “Actual hard evidence?”

“It’s not going to stand up in court, but…”

She laughed, with disbelief, suspicion, doubt, but none of those stopping her from confirming it again.

“Yeah, I think so, Mike.”

“I’m guessing the deal went south, then. Marburg tried to double cross the Russians, and they caught wind of it.”

“Maybe. I’m not sure how Sie plays into it.”

“Who cares?” I exclaimed, the pain from my leg gone now. “We’ve got something solid this time. We can-”

“Who cares? Mike-”

“I care, I care,” I reassured her. “Just…this is a big deal.”

“Believe me. I know. We aren’t that much better off, though – we still have to figure out what he’s doing here in Rome, and stop him before he does it.”

“Maybe we don’t. Maybe…”

The thinnest beginnings of an alternate plan. Something different.

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe we send this to Scarlet, she gets the story out, Italy takes care of its Marburg problem itself.”

Madison goes home. I go-

To Taiwan. Forgot about that for a second.

“I…” Mina said. “That…might not be the worst idea we’ve come up with. Look, this…”

She sighed.

“This is your call,” she said. “What do you want to do?”

It sounded suspiciously like a peace offering. I took lead on the Madison thing, you take this.

“We call Scarlet. And if you want, all three of us can figure out what to do next.”

I disagree, but I’ll back your plays anyway.

“Alright, Mike,” she said, a smile in the back of her voice.

The world swam, one hazy wave passing through everything visible and distorting the lines of buildings and the road. I stumbled on a crack in the sidewalk.

“Mike?” Mina asked.

“Sorry,” I said. “Headache. I-”

-could feel myself losing my balance again. I fell flat on the pavement, tried to push myself back up but the palms of my hands belonged to someone else and they only sort of looked like my hands.

“Mike,” Mina said, all command now. “Talk to me.”

Sleepy, I said.

It came out as a slurred slllllllllshhhhhh noise.

A hand grabbed at my hair, light pain radiating from the sniper wound on my head. The hand pulled my head off the pavement. The man tugged his sunglasses off, exchanging them for a small penlight in his pocket. He ran the light back and forth, brightly. Stinging my eyes. Too tired to blink the blue spots out.

“Mm?” I said.

“Resistant fucker,” he said. “Damn.”

He replaced the light. He tapped a bulky pistol gently against my side.

“Okay, Thorton. You can come quiet, or I can tranq you again. Up to you.”

mmmmmmmmmmmmm

I couldn’t feel my legs. Or much of me. The sunshine was pleasant on my forehead. Small patch of warm in the cold air.

He shook a hand in front of my face, my vision blurred out, and he became a round person-shaped blob.

“Goddamn it,” he swore. “Fine.”

The ground shifted underneath me, and then it wasn’t ground, but air. Standing? Who cared. Didn’t. Much at least.

“Let’s go,” his voice said. The world was a big blur of sunlight and brownish building colors.

Footsteps. Idle rumbling car engine.

“Fuck,” he shouted, and it felt like falling.

Someone else shouted something odd, ringing words, and loud. Even louder the shots. And siren. Didn’t matter. Ground cold with night and air warm with dawn. Nice. Good, then.

Okay.

My arm was handcuffed to a plastic bed rail.

[agent-kentauris]

okay so here’s the sitch with the Massae safehouse:

you can send surkov money to help you out here. so, canonically (well, as canonically as possible, when it comes to this game), surkov has Reasons for fighting Marburg. all this to say im not really messing with anything, i think, to include Surkov as the originator of the Russians in this chapter

point number 2: we already know Sie and Marburg do Not like one another, and that Sie will help you with anti-Marburg missions, like infiltrating his villa. I haven’t played many missions with Sie, so if people have more concrete insight on this, hmu. Anyway. Sie is also described as a highest bidder kind of person. Also, at the train station? She really doesn’t go for the train. I know they say the russians during the train mission work for Surkov. I prefer to think they work for Brayko, because why in the HECK is Surkov trying to steal weapons from her - sorry, i forget sometimes surkov is canonically a guy, own damn train. Given, of course, he’s split with Halbech, but-

Sorry, getting off track.

Here is what I am going with:

I think it’s plausible to say that Surkov is opposed to Halbech, as well as Marburg. And Sie, as somehow who depending on how you play, can also be opposed to the aforementioned, would have plenty of reasons to both come into contact with and be hired by Surkov.

Reason #3, and this one is slightly more meta, but there really is no other way to get Sie in the story except to bend canon. aptor mikey is allied with G22, which doesn’t make it impossible to work with Sie, but it does make it difficult. And I don’t want to leave Sie out of this, so I wanted to find a place to put her. This seems like the best way.