#through searching for the director's name found out it's Something In My Room's so ii got really happy!!

[takadasaiko]

Love Me Twice: Chapter Six

FFN II AO3

Summary: Liz and Ressler hunt a Blacklister, Cooper and Reddington have a heart to heart, and Tom lands himself in a lot of trouble.

Chapter Six

This wasn't their first Blacklister that exploited secrets, but he was one that Reddington found interesting while he was hunting down Liz's mother. A woman that Red himself had referred to as a secret keeper once. The question wasn't if this case had to do with Katarina Rostova, it was how. Would the Collector lead Reddington to her somehow? To the Sikorsky Archive that the people behind the Townsend Directive thought she'd stolen? Or perhaps he wanted to destroy any evidence that might clear Liz's mother in their eyes. Why, that was the big question. He'd loved her once, she thought. But that had been when she had thought he was her father and when she thought he was Ilya. Now she was back to square one not knowing who he was or what his connection was to her or her mother. Ressler had said that the only thing he knew for sure was that Reddington cared about her, but what if that wasn't true? He'd used her once to find the Fulcrum. Maybe she was just a convenient tool to get him to where he needed to go.

If there was one thing that Elizabeth Keen had learned as an absolute truth over the years it was that everyone had secrets. Everyone. And Bruno Krause was no exception.

Liz and Ressler had been left to sit for what felt like hours, waiting on the attache to make time in his schedule to meet with them. They'd only gotten the meeting in the first place because they'd let slip that he was being targeted, but it had been a calculated release of information meant to get them through the door more quickly. Well, they'd gotten through the door, but for all their hurry they had been left to wait.

"Are you sure she's telling you the truth?"

Liz blinked, Ressler's voice startling her out of her daze. "Who?"

"Your mother."

"She has no reason to lie to me."

"That you know of." Liz shot him a look and Ressler shrugged. "What? With all the back and forth you've been doing with Reddington over the years … I mean, you've done a DNA test, right?"

"You mean a DNA test like the one with Kirk that showed he was my father?"

That pulled a rough chuckle from him. "Okay, fair enough, but I just mean…" He took a deep breath, pushing it out through his nose. "I'm here, Keen. If you need me. I mean it."

A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "Be careful. I might take you up on that."

Any response he might have given was cut short by the door opening to reveal Bruno Krause. He was a tall man, broad, with striking blue eyes. He offered a curt nod and spoke with a thick accent. "Agent Ressler. Agent Keen. Sorry to keep you waiting. I'm not certain I understand why you are here?"

Liz and Ressler stood from their places. "We believe someone may be targeting you, Mr Krause," Ressler answered.

"Why would they be targeting me? I'm nobody."

"You have access," Liz pointed out. "Diplomatic immunity can take you a long way."

"I'm not corrupt."

"Really? Did Amanda Clemmons think you were squeaky clean too?" Ressler asked pointedly and Krause paled.

"I'm sorry… who?"

"Amanda Clemmons," Liz pressed. "Five years ago you two went for a drive and you crashed her car into a lake and left her for dead. That's not easy to forget."

"But when something like that comes out, it is easy for someone to use it against you," Ressler added.

"What is all of this?" Krause demanded. "Are you here to arrest me? You have no proof of this."

"No, we don't," Liz answered. "But a man known as The Collector either will or has reached out to you. All we know is what he's using against you, not what he wants from you." She watched as he shifted a little in his place, nerves on edge. "If you help us catch him, we can help you."

Liz watched as his icy blue eyes shifted from her to Ressler, almost as if he expected help there. Liz's partner shook his head. "Diplomatic immunity may keep us from arresting you today, but do you really think you're worth enough to the German government to risk their US relations?"

Krause glanced nervously at the closed door behind him and Liz's phone started buzzing in her jacket pocket. She didn't dare reach for it and risk breaking his moment of decision. Finally, he pulled in what was likely supposed to be a steadying breath. "This man - The Collector - he reached out to me. I will help you, but I want to make a deal first."

Ressler nodded. "Let's take a trip."

Krause nodded and they ushered him out of the room. Security didn't stop them as he walked out of the front door of the German embassy and onto US soil. Ressler showed him to the back seat of the SUV they had arrived in and Liz risked a glance at her phone. There was a single text from her mother's number:

They found me. I'll be in touch.

"Keen?"

Liz blinked hard and found Ressler staring at her. She'd stopped moving, her whole focus on the text and all the questions that accompanied it. "I think my mother's in trouble."

"You need to go?"

She sucked in a breath, hoping to use it to push the words out from her throat, but they stalled there. Regardless of what Reddington got from it, Krause was a terrible man that would help them reach a different type of terrible man with a broader reach. This was their job. She couldn't just run off at a single text with no context.

"No," she managed. "She won't be there anyway. I'll have to wait until she reaches out. Let's get this guy."

Ressler watched her for a long moment before he finally nodded, circling around to the driver's side and slipping into the vehicle. Liz followed, her phone heavy in her hand.

                                                      ------

There was something about the ease in which the United States government had been willing to throw out his first immunity agreement as if it had never existed at all that left Reddington more hesitant than he used to be to meet with Elizabeth or the Task Force at the Post Office. He preferred a venue of his own choosing. Preferably one with multiple exits. It wasn't that he distrusted the Task Force, per se, but he knew the types of people that they answered to.

When the call came through that day requesting his presence he had countered with his own location. He'd expected Elizabeth, though, not Cooper.

Reddington turned just as Dembe was escorting the assistant director into the kitchen that had become his new favourite haunt and, never one to broadcast that dome one had managed to catch him by surprise, Red flashed a charming smile. "Harold, you simply must try the Cassoulet. I typically prefer it with duck, but the chef uses a rare type of pork that is to die for."

"I'm not here for lunch."

"Of course not, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy one," Red countered, his smile refusing to falter. "Tell me, what brings you here?"

"I'll admit, when Elizabeth brought The Collector in as the next name on your Blacklist, I was hesitant. I thought you might be sending us on a wild goose chase."

"Why's that, exactly?"

"You know why. He was a myth in the intelligence community. A man with access to too many secrets, more intel than any country would ever allow to be centralized."

"One country, certainly," Reddington answered lightly. "But many? That's an entirely different story."

Harold stared at him and Red could see that clever mind piecing it together. "The Cabal."

"Tell me, what have your people found that has made you a believer?"

And just like that his expression closed off. It was like a visual reminder that Harold Cooper hadn't gotten his start in the Bureau. He was former Navy Intelligence. He knew when to show a hand and when to hide it. Reddington ducked down to search through a cabinet for a bourbon he knew was hidden away there while Cooper decided how much to share.

"Your story on Bruno Krause checked out," Harold said after a moment and Reddington reached for the bottle. It was tucked away like the cook thought it might stay hidden.

"And the young woman?"

"We may not have enough to put him away from it, but the fact we knew about it certainly got his attention. He's agreed to work with us."

Reddington straightened, bottle in hand. "Oh. Then The Collector has already reached out?"

"Seems to be that way."

"Splendid. Krause will lead you straight to him. Once you have him, I'll need ten minutes. Preferably before he's delivered to the Post Office." He reached around for two glasses and set them next to the bottle on the counter between them.

"No."

"Five then," Reddington countered the single, sharp word.

"No."

He tilted his head. "Harold, a meeting with The Collector is the entire reason I brought you this case. I must speak with him."

"About what?"

Ah, so that was his angle. "It's a private matter."

"Elizabeth's mother?"

Reddington didn't answer, but instead he poured a couple fingers' worth of bourbon into either glass and pushed one over to Cooper.

The other man didn't touch it, but instead held his gaze. "Let me be clear, Reddington. You receive leeway with our task force. We overlook and ignore more than perhaps we should, but one thing I will not overlook - not today, not tomorrow, or any day in the future - is your conscious choice to betray Elizabeth by targeting her mother."

A moment of silence stretched between them and Red raised his own glass to his lips to take a long sip. He closed his eyes and allowed the liquid to burn its way down his throat. Once it had, he set it down, the glass clinking sharply against the metal surface, and his eyes slid back open to lock gazes with Harold. When he spoke, it was with great care, as if tasting each word before letting it fall from his tongue. "I…. appreciate your care for Elizabeth. I do. It gives me… hope that she'll always have someone to watch over her, even in the darkest of moments. You, Donald, Aram… perhaps even Agent Park someday. The devotion, the love you've shown her, gives me peace." He paused, head tilted to the side. "But my word is my bond, Harold, and I gave you my word I would not harm Elizabeth's mother."

"Then what do you want with The Collector if not to use him to get to Katarina Rostova?"

"There's a storm coming, Harold. I've already experienced the first waves. Elizabeth has as well, even if she didn't understand it. It will be dangerous. I have…. protected her and equipped her as best as I know how, but I fear it won't be enough. You all have become her… family. I need - she needs - that to remain true, no matter what."

"Are you going somewhere?" Harold asked carefully and Reddington chuckled.

"Someday. Smile, Harrold. We're nearing the finish and you're about to prove the intelligence community wrong by bringing in The Collector. Won't that be fun?"

His movement was slow, hesitant, but Harold reached forward for the glass that had been offered before. He drew it up to his lips and sipped at it, never letting his gaze leave Reddington. He didn't argue the reaffirmed promise, nor did he push any further on the pieces that Red had revealed. It was for the better. Reddington wasn't ready to admit his own mortality openly yet. Perhaps he never would be.

                                                     ------

Tolliver was on the move. It had been a possibility he was prepared for, but she had played it smart. She hadn't disabled the bug. Instead she had moved around it. If Jacob hadn't had someone on the building he might not have known she was on her way out until it was too late to follow. As it was, Tolliver herself slipped her tail. Whoever this woman was, she was good.

Thankfully the tail had managed to stay on at least one of Tolliver's men - Simms - and he'd gotten the location over to Jacob. It was the best lead he could have gotten short of a direct sighting. As far as he could tell, Simms was trusted. He might not be with Tolliver then but he'd lead him to her.

Jacob kept his distance, but never too far as he watched. He followed the man across the metroplex to the point that he started to question if it was the best use of his time. Errand after errand, meeting and revealing nearly nothing. It was grunt work. He should have put one of Brigitte Tremblay's go-fors on it, but there was something pulling at Jacob's instincts that said that this was important. That he would lead him somewhere important.

He took a risk around five in the evening when Simms stopped for coffee. Jacob followed him into the crowded shop and bumped into him, tagging a small listening device to his clothes. He waited until Simms was gone and pulled it up to his phone, testing it. He'd seen his face, it was true, but he had ears on him in case he lost visual.

Simms several more stops before circling around in the most roundabout way to an apartment complex. Jacob knew where he was going before he ducked into the lobby. It would have taken effort not to, knowing Simms' connection to Tolliver and the fact that there was some sort of unexplained connection between Tolliver and Keen. It was her building. Tolliver's man was on his way to see Keen.

Jacob tucked himself back into an alcove outside the next building over and tapped his earbud, pulling up the audio feed in time to hear the elevator door ding. He could almost see Simms exit it onto the floor that Jacob had only seen briefly - early on when he had scouted out Keen's building - and to her door. Knuckles rapping against the solid wood door sounded over the feed and Jacob leaned back, eyes closed, and listened as the door opened.

"Simms." Keen. Tired. It'd been a long day. "Is she…?"

"She's safe. She wanted me to tell you."

"She could have told me herself."

"There wasn't time."

"What happened?"

"The room was bugged."

"Bugged?"

"One of Townsend's people. Possibly one of Reddington's." Interesting. Jacob only knew one name, but he logged both away.

Keen loosed a breath. "What can I do?"

"Exactly what you're doing. We'll reach out. She just… wanted you to know."

"Simms?" There was a pause and Jacob imagined the man turning back from his hasty retreat. "It was a risk coming here to tell me. Thank you."

"Wasn't my call."

"Still. Tell my mother… I'll do whatever she needs."

Jacob blinked hard. Her mother? Maddy Tolliver was Katarina Rostova? Well that was a twist he hadn't seen coming.

"Hey."

It took half a beat longer than it should have for Jacob to realize the voice had been from his right on the sidewalk rather than over the feed he was listening to. He turned to see a face he recognized as one of Tolliver's goons. Short and thick, he looked like he'd spent his life intimidating anyone that would cower away. "What's up, man?" Jacob asked casually.

"Step out."

Jacob tapped his earbud. "I'm on a call."

"I don't think so."

"I don't really care what you think, buddy, I -" Jacob's cover argument was cut off as the man reached out, fingers grabbing at the fabric of his shirt, and spun him around to throw him against the building wall hard. Jacob felt his head collide with it and the breath was pushed out of his lungs on impact. He would not have bet that the guy had that kind of strength tucked away in that build.

Live and learn.

Tolliver's thug came around for another blow and Jacob bobbed out of the way, his opponent's balled fist slamming into the brick wall and causing him to howl in pain. Jacob used the distraction and slammed his head forward into the building. The other man staggered and Jacob shoved him hard into the alley and out of any potentially prying eyes.

It was enough time for him to recover, apparently, and Jacob coughed hard as the opposite fist made contact just below his ribs. He gasped, finding it hard to hard to suck another lungful of air in and Tolliver's man came at him again, rushing him like a linebacker.

Jacob sidestepped and caught him from behind. He wrapped an arm around the shorter man's neck and lifted. He adjusted his angle and twisted hard before releasing him, sending the man crumbling to the ground with his head tilted in an unnatural way.

Instincts kicked in and Jacob turned, finding someone standing right behind him. He didn't have a chance to react before the newcomer shot a taser out, electric currents ripping through him and Jacob was swallowed up by darkness.

                                                     ------

There weren't many people that Liz could call at half past midnight and for a favour, and the list was even shorter of people that she'd trust with her daughter's life, but Ressler landed right up there at the top. Oh, he'd given her enough grief over it and asked her if she really wanted to call in a favour for a glorified babysitter, but she thought that layered under the gruff teasing that he knew how much trust she was putting in him for this. Where there was one threat, there were usually others just waiting for a chance to strike, and the last thing Liz thought she could handle was leaving to help her mother and coming back to find whatever babysitter she managed to snag at this hour dead and her daughter gone all over again. Ressler wouldn't let that happen. That she knew. That she trusted.

And she was sure he knew that too.

Simms hadn't wanted to bring her along, but Liz hadn't really given him much of a choice. If the man was after her or her mother, they didn't know yet, but either way she couldn't sit idly by.

The van pulled to the curb outside of an old, seemingly abandoned warehouse and Liz stepped out and waited until he circled on around to lead her inside. He paused at the door. "We walk in there, you're not a cop, you understand?"

"You think this is my first enhanced interrogation?" Liz snapped irritably. "He was at home. Near my daughter. No, I'm definitely not a cop in there."

Simms studied her for a long moment before finally accepting it and walked her in. Liz could hear the distant sounds of a beating coming from inside and they followed the noise to a large, dimly lit room. Katarina stood in the middle, eying a man that had his back to Liz so that she couldn't see his face. He was strung up by his wrists to a low-hanging beam, his bare feet barely touching the concrete floor, and a mountain of a man stood next to Katarina. He reared back, laying a hard blow to the bound man's middle that sent him swinging.

"That him?" Liz called out, moving towards the scene without hesitation. "What's he given you?"

"Nothing," Katarina answered., drawing the word out. "Yet." She motioned and the man to her side punched him again, swinging him around this time.

Liz turned to look at the face of her mother's enemy, but the bloodied face that greeted her was the last one she ever expected to see and she felt the floor shift dangerously beneath her, his name riding out on a breath. "Tom."

                                                     ------

TBC

Notes: I'm really excited to get to this chapter. The Red and Cooper scene took forever to write. While all the characters have unique voices, those two speak in layers fitting intelligence officers. It was a tough scene, but a lot of fun, and one of those that's going to set the path forward on the big bad of the story.

Oh, and Liz knows that Tom's alive. Who's excited? :D

Next Time: Jacob struggles to wrap his mind around what he learns about Elizabeth Keen and Ressler gets pulled into a glitter party by Agnes.

[canyousevmyheavydirtysoul]

Bodyguard II: Familial Ties (Part I - Chapter 11) (Brendon Urie x Reader)

“You run extensive background checks on all of your agents. You knew about this.”

“It was more suspicion than cemented knowledge, Agent,” The Director’s hologram answered with a tilt of the head and a raised eyebrow, “Your father was a genius. Covered his tracks exceptionally well. There’s virtually no record of your family history. For all I know, you probably don’t even exist.”

Brendon, who was pacing up and down the conference room, waved a dismissive hand. “But you knew.”

Fury straightened his posture and raised his head so that his eyes looked down on his currently disarrayed agent. “I assumed. And I made the choice to take you in because I saw great potential. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

Brendon only offered a nod in response, his mind still spinning as he tried to fully come to terms with the new information regarding his genealogy. Fury, noticing that Brendon was unusually anxious, decided to put his mind at ease.

“Brendon,” he started with a firm tone; the use of his first name and not ‘Urie’ or ‘Agent’ made Brendon turn every ounce of his attention to his boss, “the very best of you, the parts that everyone admires and most people fear – that has nothing to do with no mutant gene. That’s one hundred percent you. Don’t let this mess with your head. Things will only change if you allow them to – you’re the one who has full control over your life; don’t hand that control over to the gene. ‘Cause if you do, then your father wins, and you’re better than that. You’re better than him, and you’re better than your brother. Don’t, for even a second, stop believing in yourself. ‘Cause I sure as hell never will.”

Inhaling deeply and rubbing his hands over his tired face, Brendon nodded his head to show that he understood. In that moment, The Director had said exactly what he needed to hear, and he had never been more thankful for the man.

“Thank you, sir,” he breathed shakily.

“Don’t mention it, son,” Fury spoke softly, before once again firming his tone, “Now, get rid of that sentimentality – it’s unbelievably uncomfortable for me to see you so sensitive. Bring me my ominous agent back.”

“He never left, sir,” Brendon informed, and just like that, he switched back to his usual, ice-sculpture state, “So what should I do with the prisoner?”

Fury scoffed and shook his head lightly. “Don’t ask me. This ain’t even an official, S.H.I.E.L.D-sanctioned mission, Agent.”

“Right,” Brendon cleared his throat.

“Although, off the record,” Fury cocked one brow and smirked somewhat, “While I’d appreciate having The Phantom Warrior under S.H.I.E.L.D surveillance, locked away where he can’t hurt anyone… I do understand the abnormal circumstances. So,” he looked at Brendon and gave a curt nod, “you do whatever it is you need to do, Agent.”

~

“So he literally gave his blessing for you to murder the guy?” Dean scoffed, face showing his blatant disbelief.

“Pretty much,” Brendon replied with a bored voice as he rummaged through the cabinets in the kitchenette in search of the last of the protein bars.

“Are you gonna do it?” Dean pressed, leaning forward from his seat on the countertop; he was far too invested in the situation.

“No.”

“Can I do it?”

“No,” Brendon groaned, sighing happily when he found the snack and working his fingers along the packaging to open it. “No one is killing anyone today.”

“Aw, but I’d do such a good job,” Dean all but whined, angrily knocking his dangling leg against the door of the counter.

Brendon took a bite from the bar, chewed and swallowed it before answering. “I know you would. And believe me, I hate him. I want to kill him, and I probably will. But not yet.”

All three of The Hounds temporarily halted their respective movements – swinging their legs, chugging down a beer, tossing a baseball against the wall – and turned to exchange worried glances between them. The day that they had dreaded for the past four years had devastatingly arrived.

“You’ve gone fucking soft!”

Brendon’s jaw immediately stopped working to chew the protein bar, and his head snapped in the direction of Rollins to deliver an inexplicably evil glare.

“I have not,” he hissed venomously, “gone fucking soft.”

“Dude,” Dean chuckled giddily, readily nodding his head in a show of support of his friend’s bold exclamation, “You’ve gone soft.”

Brendon squinted his eyes and ran his tongue over his teeth. “Yeah?” he asked softly. “How about we head downstairs to the sparring room and then we’ll see just how soft I’ve gone?”

“Hey, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Rollins soothed, stepping forward as he arched his brows and held his hands up in defence, “Happens to the best of us at times.”

With his patience wearing thin, Brendon drew in a deep breath, looked up to the ceiling and skewed his mouth to the side. Once he was able to get his temper under control, he looked at each agent in turn.

“Please… do not come for me like that again. Else the only murders I’ll be committing will be yours.”

~

Mason was unequivocally dumbstruck, watching with the utmost attentiveness as Brendon loosened the restraints around the assassin’s limbs as The Hounds stood in battle formation behind their colleague, ready and willing to attack should the need to do so arise.

“What’s this?” he questioned with a frown, hesitant to make any movements for fear that he’d misinterpreted the situation.

“Alright, listen to me and listen well,” Brendon sighed, raking his fingers through his hair, “What I’m about to do goes against all of my better instincts and to be quite honest, I have no idea why the hell I’m about to do something so stupid.”

Mason perked up noticeably, chancing an upward curve of his lips. “You’re letting me go?”

Another sigh from the brooding agent.

“Much to the dismay of the three gentlemen standing behind me,” Brendon gently cocked his head in the direction of The Hounds, “yes. But not without conditions…”

Brendon stalked forward, radiating intimidation, and forcing his brother to lean back into the uncomfortable chair as he rested his hands on his shoulders.

“You run. You hide. You disappear. You don’t go back to working for Hydra and if you do, I will hunt you down and I will kill you,” Brendon threatened, his heavy stare looming over the older Urie. Mason could tell that his brother was as serious has he’d ever been and he dared not challenge him.

“And,” Brendon continued, “you do not – under any circumstances – ever try and insert yourself back into my life, in any way at all. If you do, I’ll kill you even worse. Nothing has changed between us, Mason. You helped me, yeah, but I still feel nothing for you. And I will never forgive you.”

Nodding slowly, Mason relayed that he understood. He had something to ask, though, and even though he knew that he was in an incredibly volatile situation at present and his upcoming inquiry could cause it to take a turn for the worst, his arrogance took over and he couldn’t stop himself from speaking.

“Then why are you letting me go?”

“Because I know you’re bound to fuck up at some point, and I take great pleasure in knowing that you’re out there sleeping with one eye open, knowing that when you do,” Brendon stood up straight and took a few steps backwards, giving the tiniest of smirks, “your little brother will show up to kick your ass even worse than our father did. Get rid of him.”

Brendon tossed a glance at The Hounds, and the three agents obediently started for the assassin.

“You can deny me all you want, Bren,” Mason called after his brother, who was already halfway out of the door, “but you’ll always be my little brother.”

  ✧ ✧ ✧

 The next day.

“Still think that you made the biggest mistake of your life,” Ambrose drawled, spinning around on an office chair.

“Still didn’t ask for your opinion,” Brendon replied, not lifting his gaze from his laptop, most likely engaged in some form of electronic correspondence with Dallon.

Roman and Seth entered the room then, with Seth taking a seat across from Dean and Roman walking over to the mini-fridge to grab a couple bottles of beer and distribute them to the rest of the guys.

“Alright, boss,” Seth clicked his tongue and took the beer that Roman held out to him, “We dumped your dickhead of a brother in the furthest, most remote corner of the planet. What happens now?”

Brendon pursed his lips and exhaled through his nose, scanning the screen to read over the last message he’d received from Dallon before averting his attention to The Hounds.

“I have no fucking idea.”

The room went silent after Brendon’s admission, with each agent being just as bewildered as the next. They’d spent the better part of a year on this mission, and now that it was over, the complications of it all finally sank in.

“Okay, I’m gonna go out on a limb here,” Ambrose broke the silence after a few minutes, throwing his arms out as a haughty look swept over his face. “How about we – just hear me out, here – how about we do the unthinkable…” he trailed off for dramatic effect, biting his lip and holding up one finger before delivering the punch line, “And go back to HQ.”

The Lunatic suddenly leapt up out of his seat, gasping loudly and mockingly covering his mouth as if he’d just said something unmentionable. Seth rolled his eyes at his friend’s teasing and hurriedly shoved him back into his seat.

Brendon readily shook his head to show his distaste over the suggestion. While it was the usual protocol to return to S.H.I.E.L.D HQ after every mission, the unconventional way this mission had come to be left Brendon with a great deal of problems surrounding his return home.

“No,” he said, “I’m not ready to go back yet.”

Each of his colleagues nodded in understanding, and Roman offered a solution to their current ‘in limbo’ predicament.

“I’ll make a call to The Director,” he spoke, already moving to the next room, “see if there’s any operations we can consult on.”

Brendon nodded to show that he was on board before looking at the laptop screen, sighing and slamming it shut.

✧ ✧ ✧

 Three months later. Moscow, Russia.

“…I mean, I think that he’s just nervous, ya know? And with good reason, too,” Seth scoffed, sitting in the passenger seat of the SUV, with Roman in the driver’s.

Unseen by both of the men, their fellow Hound had just rounded the corner into the alley they were parked at the end of, waving his hands and shouting in an attempt to get their attention, as a group of angry henchmen chased after him.

“START THE CAR!” he yelled, waving his hands wildly, “REIGNS! ROLLINS!”

Seth and Roman were far too engrossed in their conversation to hear the muffled shouts of their friend from outside.

“I don’t know, uce,” Roman thinned his lips and shook his head, casually leaning his arm against the inside of the car door, “I think the sooner he gets back, the better.”

“START THE CAR! START THE FUCKING CAR!”

“Yeah, but can you imagine the shit that’s gonna go down when he does?” Rollins arched his brows and leaned forward a bit, “Like-“

“START THE MOTHERFUCKING CAR!” Ambrose screamed as he threw himself forward, the top half of his body crashing through the backseat window, startling the other two and finally kick-starting their reactions.

Roman started the car immediately and tramped on the accelerator just as the henchmen opened fire. Fortunately, Seth had pointed his Glock out of the window and got some fatal shots in, himself, allowing them to get away.

Dean groaned in pain as he manoeuvred the rest of his body into the backseat and shifted himself up amidst the shards of glass.

“Nice to know I can always count on you assholes to act quickly,” he said sarcastically, groaning some more as he picked pieces of glass out of his reddened skin.

“Hey, you’re alive, aren’t you?” Seth quipped, briefly glancing back to make sure that his friend was, in fact, okay.

Dean snorted. “Barely.”

There was a resounding thud that echoed through the car – a sound effect to accompany the sudden dent on the roof of the vehicle. Seth and Dean immediately drew their weapons, aiming them at the windows and the roof, ready to attack.

Then, the other backseat window was smashed, as Brendon swung from the roof and into the car feet-first.  

Sighing in relief upon seeing that it was only the fourth agent, Rollins and Ambrose lowered their guns.

“You’re a bit too late for that to be awesome, dude,” Dean scoffed, holstering his weapon, before pointing to himself and nodding, “I did it first.”

“I did it better.”

Dean’s smug smile turned into a frown and Brendon shot him a wink before leaning forward and patting Roman on the shoulder.

“You might wanna floor it, Reigns. I wasn’t exactly a polite guest.”

Roman shook his head and mumbled under his breath. “The fact that we’re all still alive amazes me.”

Brendon was about to respond with a snarky remark, but the ringing of his cell cut him off. Checking the caller ID, he breathed out tiredly before answering.

“I know I’m miraculous, sir, but another mission already?”

“Brendon, this isn’t about a mission.”

The Director’s voice had an underlying tone of worry to it, and that coupled with – once again – the use of his first name, brought Brendon to full attentiveness.

“What’s wrong?” he asked firmly.

The response brought Brendon’s entire world to a standstill.

ᴇɴᴅ ᴏғ ᴘᴀʀᴛ ɪ

_______________________________

Thank you for reading x

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[bamby0304]

The Hart II: Highway

Summary: Off on her own, without the Winchesters, Bobby, Ellen or Jo, Lizzie tries to get back to what she does best… hunting. But time is running out, Dean’s soul is on the line, and now everyone knows Lizzie is psychic like Sam. Can the brothers and Lizzie work through their problems? Or will they lose everything? 

Bamby’s Masterlist

The Hart Masterlist

The Hart II: Highway Masterlist

Part Twenty-Three: Don’t Throw Away the Key

Warnings: Angst. Death. Violence.

Bamby

DPOV

With our guns raised and ready, Sam rushed into the room first, followed by myself and then Liz who shut the door behind her. We didn't hesitate before we started searching the seemingly empty room. I checked the drawers, Liz checked the wardrobe, while Sam checked the safe.

"Any sign of it?" I asked, going through the clothes in the drawers.

Liz shut the wardrobe with a sigh. "Nothing."

Sam turned away from the safe. "Are you sure this is Bela's room?"

Opening another drawer, I pulled out two wigs and showed them to him. "I'd say so."

As if on cue, the phone began to ring then. The three of us shared a look as I moved to answer the hotel phone, bringing it to my ear cautiously.

"Dean? Sweetie, are you there?" It was Bela.

My jaw tensed. "Where are you?"

"Two states away by now." I could practically see her smug grin.

"Where?"

"Where's our usual quippy banter? I miss it."

"I want it back, Bela. Now."

"Your little pistol, you mean? Sorry, I can't at the moment."

"You understand how many people are gonna die if you do this?"

"What exactly is it that you think I plan to do with it?"

"Take the only weapon we have against an army of demons and sell it to the highest bidder."

Her smile was gone as she spoke again. "You know nothing about me."

"I know I'm gonna stop you."

"Tough words for a guy who can't even find me."

"Oh, I'll find you, sweetheart. You know why? Because I have absolutely nothing better to do than to track you down."

"That's where you're wrong. You're about to be quite occupied." Her words had me look over to Sam and Liz, not liking the sound of her tone... "Did you really think I wouldn't take precautions? Tell Elizabeth I say hi."

Right as she hung up the door burst open as police officers came barging in, pointing their guns at the three of us.

"Hands in the air!"

"Down on your knees."

Sam, Liz and I acted quickly, putting our hands over our heads. There was nothing else we could do. We were out number, unprepared and stuck in this room with minimal exits and not a lot of time. Talk about a hard place and a rock.

"That bitch!" I snarled, getting to the ground.

One of the officers reached for Liz. "Turn around! Now!"

"Don't touch her," I warned.

Another cop grabbed me as one grabbed Sam, forcing us to the lie on the floor. All the while, Liz shrugged the other cop off her and got to the ground herself, glaring the whole time.

"Sam and Dean Winchester, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney and have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you at government expense."

I looked up as a pair of shoes came to stop by Sam and me. It was Henriksen. The FBI guy that had been after us for well over a year now. Great. Just great!

"Hi guys." He grinned. "It's been a while."

EPOV

I was in front of the brothers as we were led into the police station. Sam and Dean were chained together, wrists and ankles, guarded by two officers. I was cuffed as well, though only by my wrists, and was being led by a lone officer.

We stepped into the office area, seeing Henriksen and some other cops- plus a receptionist- watching us carefully.

Dean grinned as we were pulled to a stop. "Why all the sourpusses?"

I took in as much as I could, looking at exits, things I could use as weapons, possible weaknesses or weak people. Nancy- the receptionist- was definitely an opportunity. If we wanted out she might come in handy.

She stood there watching us, fiddling her with her rosary. I used to be like that...

"I'll show you to the cells." Henriksen's partner grabbed Dean's arm.

"Hey! Hey! Watch the merchandise!" Dean told him, clearly not taking this seriously. As we were lead out he looked to Nancy. "We're not the ones you should be scared of, Nancy."

Her response was to simple look down at her rosary and hold it closer.

...

I was put in the cell next to the brothers, alone. The moment the sheriff closed and locked our cells, leaving us alone, I watched as the brothers walked in opposite directions, almost falling because of their bound ankles.

Sam grabbed the bar to keep himself up. "Dean, come on!"

Dean nodded. "All right, all right. Sit?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed.

The two of them awkwardly moved around each other before they sat on the bed, Dean closest to the bars.

Shaking his head, Dean looked to Sam and I. "How we gonna Houdini out of this one?"

"Good question," Sam muttered.

"Telekinesis?" I suggested.

Dean gave me one look that told me he did not like that idea at all. Lately he felt like I was using it too much and over exerting myself. But when we had no other options, it was all we had to save our asses.

"You can unlock the chains and doors, but Henriksen will have this place guarded. Every exit will have at least one guard," Sam noted.

He was right. Unless we were willing to kill our way out of here- which we weren't, these were just clueless people after all- then we were stuck. For now, at least.

...

Henriksen walked up to the guys' cell, leaning on the bars as he looked at them smugly. Dean looked up at him while Sam just gave him a glance before looking away.

"You know what I'm trying to decide?"

Dean shrugged at Henriksen's question. "I don't know. What? Whether Cialis will help you with your little condition?"

"What to have for dinner tonight," Henriksen answered simply. "Steak or lobster, what the hell, surf and turf. I got a lot to celebrate. I mean, after all, seeing you two in chains…"

Dean shook his head, grinning cynically at him. "You kinky son of a bitch. We don't swing that way."

"Now, that's funny."

I moved to grab the bars as I looked Henriksen up and down, smirking. "If I were you, I wouldn't get too excited. You couldn't catch these boys before. Couldn't keep them locked up then."

Henriksen looked over at me. "I'm guessing you had something to do with that, Elizabeth Rose Hart."

"Ooh." I mocked a shiver. "He knows my name. I'm scared."

"When I got the tip on you three I just had to look you up," Henriksen started, still watching me. "Seemed to have a pretty normal upbringing. Religious family, straight A student. I had to ask myself, 'What made a sweet girl decided to tag along with two men like the Winchesters?'"

"What can I say?" I bit my lip and moved closer to the bars, pressing myself against them. "A girl has her needs," I purred the last word, my hands wrapping around the bars, running up and down them suggestively.

"Right." He nodded indifferently. "So, it's got nothing to do with your family? Father died when you were just a baby. When you were a teenager you found your mother's body. She'd been torn apart by wild animals. After that, your sister became your guardian. Guess she didn't do a very good job." He looked me up and down.

My smile fell at the mention of my family. "Don't you dare talk about my sister like that," I snarled, wanting nothing more than to rip him apart.

He scoffed at me. "Yeah, last time the boys got away. I didn't count on them being that smart or the fact that they had help. But now? Now I'm ready."

Dean looked to Henriksen, a little smug. "Yeah, ready to lose us again?"

"Ready like a court order to keep you in a Super maximum prison in Nevada 'til trial," Henriksen told him. "Ready like isolation in a soundproof, windowless cell, so small that between you and me... probably unconstitutional."

My heart sank as I realised he was being serious. By the looks on Sam and Dean's face, they knew it too. This is not good...

"How's that for ready?" When none of us said anything, Henriksen went on. "Take a good look at each other. You three will never see each other again." When we all looked at him with real fear in our eyes, he grinned. "Aw. Where's that smug smile, Dean? I want to see it."

Dean shook his head in disbelief. "You got the wrong guys."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot. You fight monsters." Henriksen scoffed. "Sorry, Dean. Truth is, your daddy brainwashed you with all that devil talk and no doubt touched you in a bad place. That's all. That's reality."

Sam sat up at Henriksen's words, tensing his jaw. I held onto the bar tighter, fighting the urge to knock Henriksen on his smug ass for saying that about their father.

"Why don't you shut your mouth?" Dean warned.

"Well, guess what. Life sucks. Get a helmet. 'Cause everybody's got a sob story. But not everybody becomes a killer."

The sound of a helicopter flying over the building made my stomach sink.

"And now I have two... no… three less to worry about." Henriksen looked down at his watch. "Mm. It's surf and turf time." Laughing, he moved to the door, leaving the three of us to stew in what he said.

SPOV

A man in a suit walked into the holding cell area, closing the door behind him. As he walked down the short walk way he looked Lizzie up and down with a grin I didn't really like. But the moment he was in front of Dean's and my cell, he turned his attention to us.

Dean stood, watching the guy carefully.

"Sam and Dean Winchester, Elizabeth Hart. I'm Deputy Director Steven Groves. This is a pleasure." The man smiled, hands on his hips.

"Well, glad one of us feels that way," Dean muttered.

"I've been waiting a long time for you two to come out of the woodwork."

Suddenly Groves pulled out a gun, before anyone could react he shot Dean in his left shoulder, making my brother fell as blood sprayed onto the wall behind him.

Lizzie and I were in action instantly.

She lifted her hand and grabbed Groves with her mind, pushing and holding him against our cells bars as her other hand flung his gun out of his hand. I caught the gun mid-air and reached to grab Groves, pressing the barrel to his throat.

But as I looked up I was met by black eyes.

Without missing a beat, I began an exorcism.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio, infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica."

Before I was even close to finishing, Groves cut me off, grinning, "Sorry, I've gotta cut this short. It's gonna be a long night, fellas."

With that he opened his mouth wide with a scream as the demon escaped the body in a black cloud of smoke that disappeared into the ceiling air vent.

The remaining body of the real Groves fell to the floor as Lizzie let it go.

Suddenly the door to the holding cell area opened at the sheriff and deputy came rushing in, guns raised. Henriksen was right behind them, with his partner following. All four of them aiming their guns at the three of us.

"All right, put the gun down!" the sheriff ordered.

"Wait. Okay. Wait." I slowly began to put the gun down.

"He shot him!"

"I didn't shoot him, okay. I didn't shoot anyone."

"He shot me!" Dean exclaimed.

"Get on your knees, now!" Henriksen ordered.

"Okay, okay, okay. Don't shoot. Please." I did as they said, getting to my knees as Lizzie and Dean did the same. "Look. Here. Here." I slid the gun through the bars to them. "Look. We didn't shoot him. Check the body. There's no blood. We did not kill him. Go ahead, check him."

Henriksen's partner moved to check Groves' body, confirming my claims. "Vic, there's no bullet wound."

"He's probably been dead for months," Dean told them.

Henriksen looked to my brother and I, then to Lizzie, going between the three of us. "What did you do to him?"

"Are you deaf, or stupid?" Lizzie glared from where she was kneeling on the floor, her hands on her head. "We didn't do anything."

Shaking his head, Henriksen turned to point his gun at Dean. "Talk or I shoot."

Dean sighed. "You won't believe us."

But seeing that Henriksen really wanted an answer, I decided to give it to him anyway. "He was possessed."

"Possessed? Right." Henriksen shook his head. "Fire up the chopper! We're taking them out of here now."

"Yeah! Do that!" Dean snapped.

Henriksen's partner pulled out a walkie. "Bill?" But all we got back was static. "Bill, are you there?" Still no answer.

The FBI partners shared a look, Henriksen giving a nod before his partner hurried to the door to go check outside. All the while three guns were still pointed at us, ready to shoot if necessary.

There was a moment before a voice spoke through Henriksen's walking. It was his partner. "They're dead. I think they're all dead," he told us, closely followed by something that sounded like a blast and then a yell in pain.

Henriksen brought his walkie to his lips. "What the hell was that? Reidy? Reidy?!" he asked, but got no answer. "What the hell was that? Come in? Reidy? Reidy?"

There was another pause before we heard the guy through the walkie again. Only this time he didn't speak. This time all we heard was a scream.

EPOV

The brothers stood by my cell as I focused on Dean's wound, pressing an invisible force against it so it would stop bleeding. We'd been alone for a short while now. After the scream everyone rushed out of here to go find out what was happening. But I didn't need to be out there to know whatever this was, it wasn't going to end well.

Suddenly the lights went out.

Dean looked around, saying what we were all thinking. "Oh, that can't be good."

...

I rolled my eyes at Dean as he grunted at me putting more pressure on his wound.

"All right, don't be such a wuss," Sam told him.

"What's the plan?" Henriksen asked as he walked in, stopping by my cell door. "Kill everyone in the station, bust you two out?"

Dean shook his head at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about your psycho friends. I'm talking about a blood bath."

"Okay, I promise you, whoever's out there is not here to help us," Dean insisted.

"Look, you got to believe us." Sam tried the gentler approach. "Everyone here is in terrible danger."

"You think?"

I sighed at Henriksen. "If you want these people to survive, get us the hell out of these chains and cells so we can save your asses."

"From what?" Henriksen asked. There was a pause as he read our expressions. "You gonna say 'demons'?" He raised his gun, waving it around in anger. "Don't you dare say 'demons'. Let me tell you something. You should be a lot more scared of me." He snapped and left again.

Once he was gone I turned my attention back to Dean. "How you feeling?"

"Could be worse," he mumbled. "I'll live. You know, if we get out of here alive. So, you got a plan?"

None of us said anything, having no plans what so ever. Really, the situation was getting worse and worse by the second. It was about now that I was wishing we'd let Dean kill Bela months ago.

"Hey." Dean got Sam's and my attention as he nodded over by the holding cell area's door.

We looked over to see Nancy peeking around the corner carefully.

I offered her a gentle smile. "Hi."

She quickly backed off a little, clearly terrified of us.

"No, no." I shook my head slowly. "It's okay. We just need your help. We need a towel for his wound. A clean towel. Do you think you could get one for us? Please?" When she still looked unsure, I let my smile grow a little. "I know people are probably saying a lot of things about us, but I promise you we're not the bad guys."

But instead of answering, she just turned and left.

"Nice try."

I turned to glare at Dean. "Like you could do better." Sighing, I turned to move to the door again and was surprised to see Nancy standing there holding a clean towel. My smile returned. "Thank you."

She inched closer to me, staying away from guys' cell.

"It's okay." I held my cuffed hands. "I won't hurt you."

Carefully and cautiously, she handed me the towel. I simply grabbed it from her and pulled away. I didn't hurt her, didn't do anything to scare her. I didn't need to.

As she turned to leave I looked to her pocket and flicked a finger. She didn't even feel or notice her rosary beads leave the pocket and fly over to my hand. She was completely unaware.

So not only did I get Dean a clean towel and earn the trust or the receptionist, but I also got us something we can actually use.

Turning to the brothers I grinned as I showed them the rosary. "Anyone up for making some holy water?"

Sam smiled at me, impressed, while Dean chuckled lightly.

...

I sat on the ground, leaning against the bars, my back facing the brothers. Now that Dean had the towel, he didn't want me helping him. Too much telekinesis tired me out quickly. We thought it would be best if I saved my energy.

They'd put Nancy's rosary in their toilet while I'd put my own cross in my toilet. It was for any just-in-case moments.

"Lizzie, you've never actually told us why you wear that cross all the time," Sam noted, moving around the statement carefully. "Or any of your necklaces…"

I sighed, looking down at the three necklaces still around my neck. "The two short silver chains with the two small hearts, ones my sister's. She bought them for my thirteenth birthday, so I'd know she'd always be there for me." My fingers ran over the chains. "The quartz pendant was my mum's. She left it to me." My voice was softer now, sadder. "The cross," which hung from an old leather cord, "had been my dad's. "

There was a heavy silence that pressed against us then.

The brothers knew a little about my past but not much. Sam probably knew a little more to be honest. They knew how my dad and mum died, but not my sister. They knew a little about my childhood, but not how I became a hunter. They knew about my mum's deal, how I was one of Yellow-Eyes' 'soldiers'. But they didn't know much more than that.

Groaning, I pulled myself up and moved to my cell door, kicking at it. "We're sitting ducks in here."

"Yeah, we know." Dean sighed, pressing the towel to his wound still. "Would it kill these cops to bring us some snacks?!" he yelled out in the hopes someone would listen and do exactly that.

"How many you figure are out there?" Sam asked.

I gave him a look, an eyebrow raised. "What, cops or demons?"

"Demons," he answered.

Dean shook his head. "I don't know."

"How ever many they are, they could be possessing anyone. Anyone could just walk right in," Sam noted.

"It's kind of wild, right? I mean it's like they're coming for us. They've never done that before." A slight smile formed on Dean's lips. "It's like we got a contract on us. Think it's because we're so awesome? I think it's 'cause we're so awesome." He continued to smile until he saw how unamused Sam looked.

Suddenly the door opened at the sheriff walked in. He stepped up to my cell and unlocked it, stepping in. Dean and Sam stood, watching carefully. We had no idea if this was in fact the sheriff, or a demon...

"Well, howdy, there, sheriff." Dean grinned trying to stay calm.

When the sheriff didn't say anything, only stepped closer to me, I stepped back and looked to the brothers with worried eyes.

"Uh, sheriff?" Sam spoke.

"It's time to go." The sheriff neared me again.

I shook my head, giving a light-hearted smile as I continued to back away. "You know, I think I like it in here. I think I'll stay right here. But thanks."

"What do you think you're doing?" Henriksen asked as he stepped into my cell doorway, behind the sheriff.

The sheriff turned to him slightly. "We're not just gonna sit around here and wait to die. We're gonna make a run for it."

"It's safer here," Henriksen insisted.

Great... I looked between the two of them. I had no idea if one, both or neither of them were possessed. This is what you call a messed-up situation.

"There's a SWAT facility in Boulder," the sheriff told him.

Henriksen stepped into the cell. "We're not going anywhere."

"The hell we're not," the sheriff snapped and moved to reach for me.

Before he could make contact, Henriksen pulled out a gun and shot the sheriff right in the head.

"Liz!"

"Lizzie!"

As the brothers rushed to the bars between our cells, I didn't even lift a hand as I flung Henriksen towards my toilet as quickly as I could. Stepping up to him, I used both my mental and physical strength to keep his face in the water.

He fought against me as the water began to burn him because of my cross in the bowl. But I didn't let him win. I couldn't let him win.

"Here!" Still focusing on Henriksen, I kicked the gun over to Dean.

Once he held it, I began to recite an exorcism.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii..."

The deputy came rushing in with a gun, but before he could do anything Dean aimed Henriksen's gun at him. "Stay back!"

Henriksen lifted his steaming face and yelled but I just pushed him back down and kept going.

Sam stood by the bars, watching me with worried and wide eyes. "Hurry up, Lizzie. Come on."

"Omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo, draco maledicte..."

Again, Henriksen lifted his head, showing me his black eyes as he cut me off. "It's too late. I already called them. They're already coming."

I shoved him back into the water and quickly finished the exorcism.

"Ecclesiam tuam securi tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos."

Henriksen screamed as black smoke shot out of his mouth, up in the air and into the air vent in the ceiling. He fell to the ground just I fell back as well, breathing heavily.

"Liz, you okay?" Dean asked, keeping his eyes on the deputy.

"Yeah," I panted, trying to catch my breath. "I think so."

"Is he... is he dead?" Nancy asked from where she was peeking around the corner again, scared for other reasons now.

Henriksen began to cough then as he regained consciousness.

I quickly got to my feet, ready just in case. "That you in there?"

Carefully, Henriksen pulled himself onto the bed as he looked around, confused and dazed. "I… I shot the sheriff."

After a pause, Dean lowered his gun and grinned. "But you didn't shoot the deputy."

Ignoring him, Henriksen shook his head. "Five minutes ago, I was fine, and then…"

"Black smoke shoved itself down your throat?" I asked. When he looked up at me I nodded. "That's called possession."

"You were possessed," Sam told him.

"Possessed, like..." Henriksen looked to the brothers and then back to me. "Possessed?"

"That's what it feels like. Now you know," Sam answered. He knew how Henriksen was feeling. He was the only one of us to have been possessed.

Dean put the gun down, shaking his head. "I owe you the biggest 'I told you so' ever."

"Officer Amici." Henriksen stood slowly, turning to the deputy. "Keys." Once he had the keys in his hand he unlocked my cuffs and then handed them over so Sam and Dean could get themselves free. As our chains fell to the floor, Henriksen nodded. "All right, so how do we survive?"

Bamby

[gdelgiproducer]

DOTV AU: An Exercise in Alternate History (Part VIII)

Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and VII offer more detailed context. (To briefly sum up why these posts are happening: alt history – as in sci fi, not “alternative facts” – buff, one day got the idea that DOTV could have turned out hella different if Jim Steinman looked for a star lead in other places, decided to reason out how that might work.) This is still getting a good response, so I’m gonna keep the train rolling.

Parts of the AU timeline established so far:

Instead of stopping at recording two songs from Whistle Down the Wind on a greatest hits compilation, Meat Loaf wound up taking more of an interest in Steinman’s new theater work than he did in our timeline, and through a series of circumstances found himself volunteering to play Krolock in the impending DOTV when Jim poured out his woes to him about needing to find some sort of star to attract investors. At a loss for any better ideas, Jim accepted Meat’s impulsive proposal, but not without resistance from his manager, David Sonenberg, who proposed Michael Crawford as an alternate candidate. Through quick thinking on Meat’s part, and inspiration on Jim’s, Crawford left the room accepting an entirely different role than he walked in hoping to get, leaving Krolock still open for Meat.

There was a brief speed bump, when Meat disliked Jim’s English script for the show, but after meeting with the original German author Michael Kunze and convincing Jim to compromise, things were on the road to being back on track… at least until 9/11 occurred.

Following a brief hiatus, everyone involved met to re-assess their options. The current game-plan was to put the new script on paper, schmooze with potential investors or producers, and put together a new creative team. Preferably not all at the same time, but with the crunch on, they’d do whatever needed to be done.

Schmoozing went well, but everybody that Meat, Jim, and the crew wanted to be involved was tentative. The conclusion reached was that they needed to show them there was a working show, which resulted in a concert of selections from the score paid for by none other than Courtney Love (!) that received some in-depth press coverage.

Now we join our heroes as new wrinkles emerge in the path to Broadway.

A week after the concert of selections from Dance of the Vampires (and after Michael Riedel noting that Meat Loaf has yet to sign on the dotted line for the show), a brief story appears in Rolling Stone’s Random Notes section: “Rocker Meat Loaf announced this week that he has terminated the management services of Allen Kovac and is currently seeking new representation. Kovac, who is in the process of leaving Left Bank Management to form his own firm, issued the following statement which is believed to be a comment on the heavyset singer’s departure, though he is not mentioned by name: ‘I don’t tell artists what they want to hear, I tell them what I know to be true. When I first sign an artist I let them know that I’m not their friend. Too many artists don’t measure their manager on their performance; they measure them on how many times they’ve been invited to their house. That’s not my style. If an artist is going to be successful, you need to tell them how to run their business -- not ask them how to run their business. Does it work? Look it up: no artist has ever done better after leaving my company.’” Requests from the Vampires team to speak to Meat about what’s up are met with total radio silence.

Meanwhile, the business side of Vampires continues to shore up. Jim Steinman receives delighted reports from his manager, David Sonenberg, that Jerry Weintraub and the Weisslers are ready to commit, bumping the total number of producers thus far up to nine. “How’s it looking now?” Jim queries. “Well, remember we’re trying to raise 15 million,” says David. “I don’t mean to be pessimistic, but it will be an uphill battle.” “What else is new in the theater?” Steinman grumbles in response. “On the bright side, we can now tighten the list of how many producers we need to seven.”

The representatives from Concerts West, based in L.A., get back to them within the week. Reports Sonenberg to all parties by e-mail: “They’re interested, but only if it tours. Live touring events are what they do, and the theatrical market is something they haven’t explored; they’d be more comfortable with a national tour than a Broadway run, it’s more similar to what they do at a nuts-and-bolts level.” A decision is ultimately reached by quorum to make Concerts West’s involvement in a national tour contingent on investing in the Broadway run first, and the counter-offer is duly sent their way.

As the business side shores up, the creative side is beginning to percolate as well. Meetings are had with John Rando, the Urinetown director who attended the concert and spoke very enthusiastically about the show in Riedel’s column. He’s very excited about the chance to work on the show, both to work with David Ives again (having done numerous shows at Encores! together, he feels working with David will be really special and help focus the play) and especially to work with Meat. “I’d get to hear him sing every day,” Rando enthuses. “That’s a blessing. Can you imagine that? Every single day of your life you get to hear that voice.” He also ticks the right boxes when it comes to the commercial appeal of the piece and how it meshes with his vision for the show: “It’s such a different reality. It’s silly and fun and kind of glamorous, too. These vampires sort of pull you in and you find you’re turned on by them, too! It’s a wonderful, Gothic playground.” When asked for suggestions for a choreographer, and more specifically if they should ask his choreographer on Urinetown, John Carrafa, to be a part of the show, Rando is mildly hesitant but mostly enthusiastic. Jim is admittedly happiest when it comes to Rando’s assessment of how much creative control he should be allowed to have: “Look, Jim, what are you worried about? It’s your baby! You’ve been working on it forever! The quality, the tone, the ideas, the music... this play is all you! You’d be very much a part of it.”

More progress is made when a new set designer is engaged: David Gallo. Jim immediately likes him instinctively, when, upon meeting him for the first time, Gallo stops the interview process dead. “I have two things to tell you before we continue. Number one: I’m probably the only set designer in America who still subscribes to Heavy Metal Magazine. Number two: I bought Bat Out of Hell because I saw the album cover artwork and decided I had to have it before I even heard the music.” This is no idle compliment, considering the album cover was conceived by Steinman and executed by Richard Corben... and a sequence very similar to the events depicted on the cover forms the shape of one of Vampires’ opening scenes. His sample sketches of the sets are surprisingly atmospheric as well.

The more things shape up on the creative end, however, the more everyone on the business side of the table nervously eyes the chair where Meat Loaf should be. Since his firing of Kovac, who was more a hindrance than a help so is not really missed, he hasn’t said word one to anybody. Irving Azoff, widely proclaimed the biggest agent in the world, who attended the concert and may be interested in the show, is sending them queries about who is managing Meat now, hinting that he has his eye on Meat as a client. But nobody knows what’s going on with him. When he is finally able to get him on the phone, Jim pleads with Meat to see him, one on one if need be. Meat agrees.

The scene: Le Bar Bat, in Hell’s Kitchen on West 57th. Only 9 years prior, Steinman had conducted an interview for Bat Out of Hell II at this very establishment, celebrating his and Meat Loaf’s long-awaited reunion. Plastic bats still hang from the ceiling, and the bar is still sparsely attended. A deafening fusion group still plays a seemingly endless set. Steinman greets them, as per tradition, with a cheery “fuck off!” as they finish a tune. Meat sits alone in a booth, awaiting Jim’s arrival. He rummages through his CBS Records holdall, his shoulder juddering as if it were a pneumatic drill. His graying hair could do with a shampoo. Finally, he finds what he is seeking: a couple of throat lozenges, which he pops. “Jimmy, I don’t think I can do the show.” Immediately Jim’s heart is in his throat: “WHAT?!?” “What we’re about to do is insane! Lunatic. Totally insane. We’re just gonna go out there in front of everybody with our pants down!” Jim, searching for a way to respond, can only come out with “Think of it as a character-building experience! It’ll be amazing!”

“Have you read what your fans are saying about this on the Internet? They’re saying you should be sticking aside all the old, fat guys named after a dinner dish! ‘Get rid of Meat Loaf.’ They don’t want to see me do this!” “Now, Meat, come on. You know better than to buy into their bullshit. If I believed what I read on the Internet about anything I should do, I’d never get anything done. You’re going to be glad that you stuck with it.” “Well... we need to go out of town first. New York is the hardest when it comes to people being critical. We’re gonna be judged. A lot.” “Meat, you know we can’t afford to do that. Besides, every musical that you’ve done on Broadway has opened cold in New York. I like having the preview audience be the New York audience. There’s no BS -- they’re right there telling you what you need to fix. It’s great.”

Meat heaves a sigh: “Jimmy, I’ll be honest with you; I’m more tired now than I was when Amanda was two months old!” “Meat, listen to me. We have a lot of time. We’re gonna work very hard and very slowly. I know you’re not good at dealing with change, but you really have to stay focused and believe in the project.” “But Jimmy, it’s huge! It’s got to be one of the biggest shows on Broadway right now without even opening yet. And there’s still so much to work out.”

“What happened to Allen?” “He never believed in the show. You saw what happened when he kept the door open for Night of the Proms. After the concert, I called him to ask why he wasn’t there, and he said to me, ‘Y’know, an album and a tour are still possibilities, so why not do that instead? At least you know that will sell.’ We got into it pretty hard, and he called our show garbage. He said I did better off away from you, and that if I did this album and the tour, I could retire, or I could come back afterwards if you wanted to talk Bat III, but he was adamant that I was not doing this show. It became pretty clear to me that it was going to come down to either you or him.” Jim, touched, perhaps even a little misty-eyed: “And you chose me?” “As if I had a choice! Jim, you’re my brother. I love you... more than you’ll ever know.” 

A beat of silence, awkward, emotional, and then... “Irving Azoff liked the concert.” “Yeah?” “He keeps calling us. I think he wants to sign you, and he wants to do the show too. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a manager who was on the same page?” “...will it get him to produce if I sign with him?” “I dunno. Maybe?” “I’ll give him a call. What else is going on?” Jim proceeds to update him on everything going on with the show, culminating in the reminder that they have a meeting with John Carrafa coming up to decide his suitability to the choreographic duties. “Can I count on you to be there?” “Jim, I’m signing the contract for a year, manager or no manager.  If we’re fortunate enough to run, that’s how long I’ll be here. And then I’ll be in a nursing home, no doubt!” For the first time all night, both men laugh. A rosy future may well be in sight.

TO BE CONTINUED!

[gmarytherese]

Seasons of Life (22.11)

Facebook reminded me this morning that it has been a year since I posted about my fairy tale love story, a year since I decided to openly share about discerning my vocation and figuring out the path that God has willed for me. There was a lot of apprehension then as I contemplated if I should really share something so private and personal, and yet I have noticed that perhaps there is a grace in being able to cross the barrier in sharing vulnerably and openly with others.

As Stephen Wise once said,

“An unshared life is not living. He who shares does not lessen, but greatens, his life.”

The greatest fear I had in sharing about the decision to discern a religious vocation, was that I end up not becoming a religious. I didn’t want to be one of those individuals that people in church talk about; I didn’t want to be one of “those people” who say that they are discerning, but very quickly end up in relationships. I also didn’t want to be one of those who others say “Oh she must have just said that she’s discerning as an excuse for her singlehood and to buy time while waiting for the right guy to appear.”

This fear of judgement by others, and the fear of being wrong has always been a huge stumbling block for me not only in my spiritual life, but in all areas of my life. Funnily enough, I had to face these fears head on as my life seemed to spiral out of my control as the year went on.

Anyway, as unsure as I was about what the future had in store for me when I wrote the post last year, I sure wasn’t expecting to go through what I have gone through. It was a year of a lot of struggles, hurts, darkness and confusion; and yet, it was also a year of tremendous growth and only recently, clarity. The silver lining.

Someone recently told me that when we ask God to grant us humility, he gives us moments of humiliations; when we ask for a bigger heart to love, He places someone difficult to love in our lives. Although this may not always be true, it resonated with me as I look back on this year. I had asked God for clarity about my path in life, and instead, found my vision increasingly blurred as time went on.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.”

Proverbs 3:5-6

So, despite proclaiming to the world (or whoever reads my post) that Jesus has invited me to discern a religious vocation last year, I found my conviction slowly dying over time. Within a few weeks of posting that blog post, a guy who I knew by face and name from my school days popped back into my life.

[[ SEASON I ]]

He wasn’t just “any guy”, he was the guy that I had always felt was an ideal guy to be with. He was intelligent, down to earth, family oriented and most of all, God fearing. We went out and hit it off instantly - there was attraction and on the surface, it seemed like we were a perfect match for each other.

“Now… wait, aren’t I supposed to be discerning religious vocation! Why did my ideal guy just enter my life NOW? Why couldn’t he have entered my life before I felt that God might be calling me to religious life?? But, God must have played a hand in bringing us together so randomly, and also in allowing us to be attracted to each other!”

To say that I was confused would really be an understatement.

I struggled with the idea of entering into a relationship with this guy, right after experiencing the conviction that Jesus was calling me to be exclusively His. Was this a test from Christ to see if I was faithful, as in the case of Abraham and Isaac?

I couldn’t bring myself to believe that Jesus was testing me and my faithfulness to Him in such a way - my Jesus was a God of love, He wouldn’t just throw this test at me and then toss me aside if I fail! Would he?

Finally I decided to just give the relationship a shot.  

I wouldn’t know for sure whether this relationship is for me or not if I don’t at least try.

I told myself.

And with the start of the relationship, I put aside the possibility of a religious vocation (even though I constantly claimed that it was still a real possibility). The relationship was honestly like a dream and I was head over heels in love. Yet just a few months down, the relationship came to its end abruptly.

[[ SEASON II ]]

I was devastated and my heart was broken. Yet again, I felt as if God has failed me as with the other failed relationships I had been through. As I desperately tried to cling onto whatever dreams I had formed in my mind of a future together with this guy, I found my mind overwhelmed with many questions with God. I was fuming, confused, hurt and most of all, I felt betrayed by God.

“Why did he have to enter my life God? When I came to a place of wanting to discern religious vocation, why did he have to enter? Why did YOU bring him into my life? I didn’t go searching for him God. It had to be YOU. But why?”

As much as I tried, I couldn’t help but come to the same conclusion that I never did anything to invite this guy back into my life and that it has to be God’s hand. Yet, if the end was ultimately a breakup, my mind could not comprehend why God would make us meet again. As I allowed time to begin healing these wounds, I had also begun to allow time to allow me to slowly come to terms with the fact that I might never get an answer to these questions.

Now, I found myself at a new crossroads. Do I now seriously look at the possibility of discerning religious life? Or is that door now forever closed because I had already chosen once, to put that behind me and enter a relationship? I felt unworthy to begin thinking about the possibility of religious life, and I also didn’t want to make it seem as though religious life was my backup option. Relationship failed so go back to discernment.

[[ SEASON III ]]

“Though the mountains fall away and the hills be shaken, My love shall never fall away from you nor my covenant of peace be shaken says the Lord, who has mercy on you.

O afflicted one, storm-battered and unconsoled, I lay your pavements in carnelians, Your foundations in sapphires; I will make your battlements of rubies your gates of jewels, and all your walls of precious stones.”

Isaiah 54:10-12

I found myself at Seven Fountains retreat in Chiangmai about two months after the break up. By then, I had fooled myself into thinking that I was over the break up and had healed. Yet, away from all the distractions of the world and thrown into silence in the presence of God, the truths began to unveil itself.

(Photo: Seven Fountains Retreat, Chiang Mai)

The first night at retreat I sat in a dark chapel room in front of the Blessed Sacrament crying my eyes out. I had just read a passage given to me by the Spiritual Director and was unable to accept the words that God was trying to speak to me through this scripture verse:

“Because you are precious in my eyes, and honoured, and I love you.”

Isaiah 43:4

After hearing again and again by the different guys in my life that they loved me, and this was followed by a heart break, I found myself unable to believe God as well. I didn’t dare to trust in those three simple yet powerful words – I love you.

In my mind I knew that God’s love was different from any human love, but in my own heart, the hurts became scales over the eyes of my heart. And so I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed – and with that, I allowed that little bit more of healing to take place within my soul. Before I left the chapel to retire for the night, I scribbled in my journal

“I wish things were simpler Lord, I desperately want to be healed so that I can move on. I’m sorry that I’m taking so long. I’m back to where I started since D****’s heartache (previous guy) and that is that You are the only man who will not hurt me – you are the only man. If you truly want and are calling me to be yours alone, please Lord pursue me and don’t ever give up on me till I say yes. I pray that you will continue to mould me into a woman after your own heart.”

After that I went to sleep.

And let’s just say that God decided to speak to me very powerfully in the following days of the silent retreat. He spoke so loudly that no matter how much I would like to deny that God is inviting me to yet again discern being set apart exclusively for Him alone, I just cannot deny it.

“For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God.

For a brief moment I deserted you, But with great compassion I will gather you, In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you Says the Lord, your Redeemer.”

Isaiah 54:6-8

(Photo: Mad and I after silent retreat!)

[[ SEASON IV ]]

I amaze myself again and again at how I never seem to learn from my past mistakes.

To think that I would have learnt to now really seriously and intentionally set out to discern a religious vocation after hearing from God so strongly of his pursuit of me at silent retreat, I again found myself retreating in the opposite direction.

Finding myself unable to deny the very real possibility that God is calling me, I found myself paralyzed with fear. This call was becoming too real, too quickly. At the same time, I had not fully come to accept that I may never get the answers as to why the relationship and breakup had to happen after I felt the call to discern. And so instead of trying to walk with Christ, I chose instead to run far away from Him.

I allowed myself to slip into a state of lukewarm-ness and indifference. I had even managed to convince myself that I can be happy living a superficial, materialistic and hedonistic life. I started to believe that I was happy just chasing after temporal pleasures. And as these little evils and moral-compromises started to creep into my life, my relationship with God grew further and further apart.

At that point in my life, I was frustrated and tired. I was frustrated that no matter how hard I tried to follow God’s will in my life especially in the last year, it somehow kept coming to dead-ends. In addition, it only seemed as though I was gaining more confusion and less clarity as time went on. I no longer knew what I wanted, and I could no longer tell if I was listening and discerning correctly. I was very frustrated, and exhausted.

Thankfully, a blessed friend spoke that truth into my life – that all that I was doing in this dark season, and my very conscious decision to regress into a state of indifference and lukewarm-ness about the faith, was merely a symptom and consequence to all that I had been through the entire year. The “cause” was my frustration of trying so hard to follow God’s will and finding myself failing again and again, the “symptom” was my slow decline into the dark abyss as my faith began to waste away.

A symptom merely serves to alert and to indicate that there is something going wrong beneath the surface, the symptom is not the problem itself.

“The Lord himself will lead you and be with you. He will not fail you or abandon you, so do not lose courage or be afraid.”

Deuteronomy 3:18

[[ SEASON V ]]

Then came October.

By then, I had been drifting through life, falling deeper and deeper into indifference as my relationship with God continued to weaken for at least 3 months and I wasn’t happy. Sure I had temporal pleasures afforded me in this season, yet I knew that I wasn’t at peace and joyful. Instead, I was filled with constant anger, jealousy and had to battle my insecurities incessantly. I became, ironically, even more lifeless as I found myself increasingly drained and exhausted.

Yet, it is true what they say. Once you have experience the love of Christ, no matter how far you try to run, you can never run beyond His reach.

“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.”

Psalm 139:7-12

It was in October that I attended my community retreat and was once again reminded of the love of God for me, of the many times that He has pursued me and also of the fact that He doesn’t reject me because of the countless times that I have failed Him. Instead, the truth of the matter is that He continues to love me and call me to Him. In short, he reminded me of the love that had began everything, and also of the new journey that I had started on at World Youth Day Poland in 2016.

It was humbling. Humbling to be reminded that His love and mercy is greater than my weaknesses. So funny how sometimes we make our weaknesses and shortcomings seem greater than the power of Christ’s mercy and love for us.

[[ SEASONS TO COME ]]

And so today as I reflect upon the past year since I made that public declaration that I was going to discern about a religious vocation, I am grateful. It was definitely a crazy year of ups and downs, of seeming dead-ends upon dead-ends and it was also an immensely painful year. Yet, through the year I see clearly how even in all my unfaithfulness and weaknesses, God has never once stopped being faithful. His love and mercy for me constantly amazes and overwhelms me as I continue this journey of seeking God’s will for my life.

I no longer want to kid myself that after this crazy year, it will be smooth-sailing. Instead, I am very much aware and ready for the roller coaster ride that I have got on, and which I will only get off when I pass from this earth to the next.

So meanwhile, stay tuned my friends, cause I don’t think it will be any less dramatic in the seasons to come. Meanwhile, I ask humbly for all of your prayers because I know that I am very in need of them and be assured that you are in mine too! :)

Also, can I just say that I am even more convinced after this year that a Christian can never think that it can just be “him/her and his/her sweet Jesus”? I have only made it and held on through the year because of the many treasures that God has blessed me with to walk this journey of faith with. I am immensely grateful for not only their presence, but their many many prayers and words of wisdom and advice, always reminding me of the true voices and to discount the false ones.

Praise God for the joys, the tears, the highs and the lows. <3

Amen!

[thepaperpanda]

The chronicles of the winter || Part IX

Part II  || Part III || Part IV || Part V || Part VI || Part VII || Parta VIII continuation of imagine

Summary: Steve’s mission went wrong… Very wrong.

Word Count: 2194

Warnings: Blood, injuries

Author: Beast

Since their common evening, Emily hasn’t spoken with Bucky at all.

He saw her few times. They passed each other like a ghosts at the corridors of the complex. Everytime when Bucky wanted to ask the woman, what exactly has changed between two of them that they couldn’t even talk for a while, Emily was simply passing him by, don’t even looking at him.

He easily could feel that everything has changed.

Deep inside he knew he shouldn’t have been doing that. He shouldn’t let her seduce him, it just couldn’t end well.

Bucky’s contact with Steve also has been restricted.

Their supervisors seemed to do everything to separate men from each other.

Bucky could also feel kind of a distance, which has built up between him and Steve.

Another week has passed and Bucky confirmed himself in a premonition that something was wrong.

While he was looking for Steve, he heard a conversation between two of the guards in canteen.

“… with her” one of them said simply, drinking coffee.

“I would give everything to be at his place at the moment” second man chuckled. “She’s pretty hot.” “Of course she’s” guard who was drinking the coffee stretched his back. “Rogers is a fucking lucky dude, isn’t he?”

“Don’t ya remember? He’s not Rogers anymore. They said he’s called Captain Hydra now” older guy shrugged.

Bucky frowned, listening to this little conversation. He realized that Steve has to be outside the complex. And… Was he with Emily? Have they had a mission? But Steve would tell him… Why he didn’t?

Bucky, however, felt a cold shrink in his heart.

EMILY. She also went away without farewell. Without single word. Why both of them were treating him like that?

He couldn’t find an answer.

One day, Bucky has been taken to the small room at one of the lowest levels of the complex.

There was three man awaiting at him. Two doctors and no one else but Aiden Black himself.

“Good morning, soldier” man in a suit smirked viciously.

Bucky didn’t say a word, he simply took a seat in front of the man.

“Why are you so silent, soldier?” Black pretended a concern.

“Where’s Steve?” Bucky simply asked.

Black raised his mouth corners in a haughty grin.

“He left. He has more important things to do instead sitting here with you” man said.

Bucky snapped his head to face Aiden Black again.

“Liar” Barnes gasped loudly. “Steve’s my friend. He wouldn’t…”

Black smirked again.

“Funny” Black mused with a sick smile, getting dangerously close to Bucky’s face, “wasn’t that exactly the same thing that you said the first time when Hydra found you?” he laughed harshly. “Face it, Barnes. Steve Rogers’ dead. Now he’s the Captain Hydra and he’s working for us and only for us” man in suit got up from his seat and walked slowly around the room. “Nothing can bring him back” Black finally stopped behind Bucky’s back and he put his large hands and Winter Soldier’s shoulders. Black also leaned down and whispered directly into Bucky’s ear. “And as I suppose he’s having a lot of fun with your Em.”

The last statement was like a sharp blade of a knife stabbed into Bucky’s chest.

Bucky responded with spitting in Black’s smirking face.

Of course, as always when he wasn’t behaving like they would wanted, he was greeted with violence, but that didn’t matter.

“Now, get some rest, soldier” Aiden growled slowly, wiping flecks of Bucky’ blood of off his hands. “We have work to do.”

When Black left the room, Bucky yelled aloud, hitting the table in front of him with his metal fist.

Evening had long since fallen, the chill of night picking at the edges of his meager jacket as he silently made his way through the quieting city. Captain Hydra was walking, passing closed shops and tracing streets he didn’t know.

He had a mission to do and he didn’t want to let his supervisors down. Steve had to kill a director of some organization named Robrax. It was kind of a pharmaceutical industry enterprise. Hydra was willing to do anything, just to overtake some researches results. Steve only knew they have wanted to make a new biological weapon.

He knew he should be careful, because, following the information he got, it seemed that other organization has wanted him for their own businesses.

Being in a deep thoughtfulness, he easily got at the terrain of the restricted area.

The building was oh so large. White walls and glazed doors were giving that real estate more dignity then he thought in a first moment. With a knife in his hand, he quietly slipped into a large building. He sneaked unheeded next to the guard’s place and he headed directly into the office number 10, located at the second floor.

Taking a staircase, he reached the floor and when he checked that no body’s there, he slowly stepped at the corridor. He went along it until he found a door with a gold numbers on them. Steve opened them and walked inside. Immediately he noticed the man he was looking for.

Dressed in a black suit, guy was sitting in the leather chair, making some notes. Fortunately for Steve, man was facing him with his back.

Captain Hydra walked over to his target and as quickly as he could, he put his palm at man’s mouth to cut over his throat in the next second. It didn’t take long for man to bleed out.

Steve, as soon as he made sure man’s dead, he left the room, putting his knife back into his pocket. He also easily managed to leave the building.

It was first time when he killed someone because of an order. Deep inside the last degraded ounce of his morality was trying to convince him that he was making a huge mistake. But he pushed those thoughts away.

He walked slowly along the street, heading to his apartment, which Hydra has rented for him. The barking of a dog jarred him from his thoughts, body suddenly tense and eyes, hard as steel and just as cold, scanning his surroundings for any threat as he stopped in his tracks. His knife was produced from his pocket, not as large but just as deadly in his capable hands. 

Another noise caught his attention. Footsteps, ten feet behind to the right. His mind was just methodical and calculating. Fingers tightened around the handle of the combat knife, although he showed no outward signs of realizing he was being approached; to any passersby it merely looked as if he was staring off into the jeweled skyline. The darkness would either be a great hindrance or a welcome advantage, but only time would tell..

Click. The sound of the safety switching off of a pistol was all the prompting Steve needed. Moving with a speed unexpected in his depleted state he spun around. A great blaze of light and concussive sound filled the street, the weapon discharging as Steve plunged his knife deep into the chest of his would-be assailant. In that quarter second of movement he had searched, located and struck, the metal blade deftly gliding between ribs and into a lung. The air filled with the sharp scent of copper and iron as blood poured from the wound.

Steve quickly realized it was one of the guards from Robrax.

The haphazard discharge of the weapon had blasted a round into the sidewalk, the sound of it no doubt alerting every person within a two block radius. I need to escape.

The man collapsing into a pool of his own blood, not dead but not quite alive.

If there was one there had to be more, he thought, and they had to be coming for him. He made it two steps before he heard the crack of a sniper rifle, echoing off some far-off building. The next few seconds blurred together, but he remembered being knocked off his feet, air forced from his lungs as he hit the brick wall of the building next to him, knife clamoring from his hand. Heat blossomed on his back, a burst of wet crimson that trickled down his spine as a bullet planted itself squarely into his right shoulder blade. The choking cry of surprise that escaped him startled him.

The pain hadn’t hit him yet, but his body felt like ice. His legs were sluggish underneath him as he struggled to his feet, bolting into an alleyway as he heard another bullet slam into the wall behind him. It’d been a low shot, as if for his leg. They want me alive. The thought filled him with a sick dread as he realized that they wanted to put him back on his leash, or worse, put him down so he couldn’t spill their secrets, although he had no secrets to tell. At least, not as he was now.

Shouts of men filled the street. “Down the alleyway!” and “He’s getting away!” among other things he couldn’t catch. The pain was starting to filter into his awareness, starting as an acidic heat that slowly built in on itself. His heart was pounding, lungs heaving, as he tried to lose the guard’s team in the maze of back alley streets. He needed to get to the apartment.

As he rounded a corner, two guardians spotted him, shouting loudly to others. A swear hissed under his breath, narrowly avoiding another bullet aimed for his legs. His reflexes were slowing, he could feel it, his strength draining from the wound the harder he pushed himself. A pistol was produced from his pocket, only two rounds fired with the same deadly precision he had used to change history numerous times. The first man dropped in a heap, not even getting the luxury to realize he had been hit. The other’s ribs popped wetly as the bullet tore open his side, letting out a ghastly cry as he tumbled to the ground and didn’t get back to his feet.

Without a moment’s hesitation the Steve was gone, vanishing into the darkness like the ghost he was before more of the guard’s team could arrive. Rain earlier in the day had slickened the streets, helping to hide his trail of blood as he snaked his way through the sleeping city. He had no idea how long he was running and barely had any recollection of where he was going, his body operating almost entirely on instinct by the time he reached that familiar building. His running had slowed to a staggering shamble, forcing his legs, which he lost feeling in about three minutes ago, to climb up the flight of stairs.

His breathing came with difficulty, his limbs heavy and blood like ice. The worn clothing he had been wearing was soaked through with his own blood, which still bubbled from the sniper’s bullet.

The door to the second floor apartment seemed like a nearly insurmountable obstacle. His glassed-over eyes darted from the knob to the floor, then to a small, out-of-place planter of tiny flowers. Barely a murmur of thought crossed his mind as he nudged it with his foot, exposing a key. He was too exhausted and in too much pain to question just why he believed there would have been a key there. The key was retrieved, clumsily inserted into the lock, and the door opened without protest; he could have kicked it open or picked the lock like last time, but he didn’t have the time or strength to attempt it.

With a soft clink of metal the key fell from his trembling fingers to the floor, shakily standing at the threshold taking great, heaving breaths. His vision was growing blurry and his hearing muffled, but after a moment of hesitation he stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind him, the click of the lock oddly comforting. Movement in front of him, down the narrow hall, and he knew he wasn’t alone. The pistol was still clutched in his left hand. He tried to take another step but his body had had enough; the pistol dropped to the floor, abandoned, as he tried to steady himself by pressing that palm to the wall.

Something was spoken to him but he didn’t catch it, gaze lifting to where he’d seen the movement earlier. Someone was standing a few yards away now. He didn’t need to hear to know who it was. Breath was inhaled sharply, words attempted but failed.

Emily Vandom. 

His whole body was shaking; it felt like the world was collapsing in on itself all around him. Underneath all the pain was a faint, lingering disappointment. Pain washed his thoughts away, a low whimper in his throat betraying the fact he was injured. He was going to go down, he felt it, and not a moment later did his right leg buckle, his whole body collapsing with it. He fell into something warm and yielding, not hard floor like he expected, but he had no time to ponder it as the darkness closed in on him.

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #156 - Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: Blu-ray

1) So there is this longstanding opinion that of the first nine Star Trek films, the odd numbered ones are weaker than the even numbered ones. And of the trilogy made up by Star Trek II, III, and IV, this is definitely the weakest. BUT it is also the strongest of the odd numbered ones with the original cast and not a bad movie at all.

2) Leonardo Nimoy made his theatrical directing debut with this film, making him the first Star Trek actor to direct anything Star Trek. This would be a pattern later seen in feature film directors William Shatner and Jonathan Frakes, while a number of other cast members would direct TV episode of their respective series. According to IMDb:

Paramount studio chief Michael Eisner resisted the idea of Leonard Nimoy directing, because he mistakenly thought that the reason for Spock's death stemmed from a hatred that Nimoy had about Star Trek. (He believed that it was written in Nimoy's contract that Spock had to die in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)). Nimoy told him that the contract is "in a file in the basement of the building you're sitting in" and suggested that he "get someone to pull it" for him.

Nimoy does a fine job as director and went on to do an even finer job in the sequel Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. But more on that later.

3) There is a gap in the opening credits of the cast where Leonardo Nimoy’s name would go. Although he is in this film, it is largely at the very end while other actors play younger versions of Spock until then. I like that they left that gap. It signifies the hole left in the crew by Spock’s death.

4) One thing I think this film does better than Wrath of Khan (and which The Voyage Home will do better than this film even) is flesh out the original crew members who are not Kirk, Bones, or Spock. An early example of this can be found in this exchange:

Kirk: “Mr. Scott, have you always multiplied your repair estimates by a factor of four?”

Scotty: “Certainly sir. How else would I maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?”

5) Christopher Lloyd as Kruge.

I love Christopher Lloyd, okay? Back to the Future is my favorite film of all time and Christopher Lloyd is freaking amazing in it. So the Back to the Future fanboy in me is more than happy to watch him in this film. And while he is no Khan, Kurge is a very admirable villain. Nimoy casted Lloyd because of his ability to be operatic, something which can be seen very well. Lloyd plays Kurge’s unhinged nature very well and even makes him a physically intimidating bad guy. Again, while he’s no Khan, that does not make him a bad villain. In fact I think he’s the best part of this film. He injects every scene he’s in with such life and energy that you can’t help but be drawn to him. Lloyd even said in an interview that this was one of his favorite roles to have played.

6) Bones’ having Spock’s mind in him is a perfect example of both this film’s greatest strength and flaw: great characters, not as great plot.

Bones having Spock’s mind in him creates for some great internal conflict and characterization. DeForrest Kelley gets to have a lot of fun in the part and it is a treat seeing Bones outside of his comfort zone and finding the middle ground between him and Spock. Unfortunately outside of one brief bar scene it doesn’t lead to much action in the plot. And by action I don’t mean blowing stuff up as much as doing something. What if Bones did something he thought was logical because he had Spock’s brain, but screwed up immensely because he’s not thinking like himself or like Spock but like the someone who wants to be one or the other. I’m a sucker for character development and studies, which this film provides in mass so I’m grateful for that. But unfortunately some of the fun and energy of other Star Trek films is lost in the process. It’s not a fatal flaw, the film is still good, but I do think it is its biggest weakness.

7) It bothers me so much that they just dropped Carol Marcus (Kirk’s ex and David’s mother, as well as lead scientist on the Genesis project) in this film and its sequels. Like seriously? There was no room in the script for even a namedrop? Why isn’t she studying the Genesis planet? Why are you dropping this awesome new female character? Why!?!?!?

8) Oh Bones...

Bones [after learning about the mind meld]: “It’s his revenge for all those arguments he lost!”

(GIF originally posted by @marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer)

9) Nichelle Nichols was originally upset at her minimal amount of screen time in the film, but was pleased when she saw what she got to do with that screen time.

10) The fact that this captain is so casual and relaxed when he’s dealing with the theft of a ship concerns me.

11) While this film does do great with it’s characters, I feel like David and Saavik sort of suffer in this film. I think Robin Curtis does a good job in the part, but (in part of the writing and direction I imagine) she loses some of the energy and rashness Kirstie Alley brought to the part. She is a bit more of a stereotypical Vulcan, which is a shame because Alley’s strong headed nature was in part what made the part so interesting in the first place. David meanwhile is seen mostly as a scientist who made brash decisions in the past but (except for one notable FINAL decision on his part) largely does what is expected of him in the situation he finds himself in during the film. I would’ve been interested in seeing them push these characters and challenge them a bit more, but maybe that’s just me.

12) Remember how I said Kurge was the best part of this film?

Kurge [after his Klingon crew member blows up a federation ship]: “I wanted prisoners!”

Klingon: “A lucky shot!”

[Kurge murders Klingon]

Kurge: “Animal.”

13) I will say that the potential relationship (platonic or otherwise) between David and Saavik is interesting, but I would have personally preferred a focus on the relationship between David and Kirk as father and son respectively. That’s not to say the film is bad because it doesn’t feature it (you should only ever judge a film based on what it is, not what it isn’t), it is just a personal preference I have.

14) So Spock - while regenerating from a boy into a man - has to go through pon farr. Pon farr is the process where every seven years Vulcans (male and female I believe) become aroused. They get blood fever, become violent, and eventually die I think (my knowledge of deeper Trek lore is defined largely by Wikipedia) unless they mate. So Saavik helps Spock but all we see is...well...

Was that sex? Did they have hand sex or something? Or did we just cut away before they had sex? I know there’s a deleted scene in Star Trek IV where Saavik is pregnant with Spock’s baby, but since it’s deleted I don’t know if it’s canon. I just don’t really know what happened.

15) Hey, that’s John Larroquette!

You probably wouldn’t see that if you weren’t looking for him, but still.

16) The death of David unfortunately doesn’t have much of an impact on me. I like the decision to kill him off in theory and I like that it is done in defense of Saavik and Spock (therefore making his character more active in the plot), but I am not invested in him enough as a character for it to effect me. The worst part of it is how it effects Kirk, which I will admit is greatly effective seeing the famous captain break down (even if only for a brief moment) because of the death of his son who he barely knew.

17) I think the decision to destroy the Enterprise is the best plot point in this film. It is the last thing you would expect and a great portrayal of just what the stakes are. This ship was as much a character in the 18 years since the original series as Kirk or Spock and we witness it’s destruction.

Kirk: “My god Bones, what have I done?”

Bones: “What you had to do What you’ve always done. Turned death into a fighting chance.”

18) Have I mentioned I really like Skurge as a villain?

Skurge [after being told the planet is killing itself]: “Yes. Exhilirating isn’t it?”

I don’t find his final fight with Kirk to be very effective though. Like David’s death, it just sort of happens and then is over for me. This might just be my own take on the scene though.

19) Yes. This. A developing relationship between Bones and Spock.

Bones [to a comatose Spock]: “But it seems I’ve missed you. I don’t know if I can stand to lose you again.”

More of this please.

20) I LOVE the entire ending scene on Vulcan.

It is interesting, compelling, and very well done. The entire Enterprise crew sacrificing their careers and futures to save their friend moves me. Bones literally risking his life for an ancient procedure all at the chance that Spock can live again is great and speak not only to his character but to their relationship. But the best part is the very final scene, where an absent minded and slightly amnesiac Spock speaks with Kirk and we see just how great their friendship is.

Spock: “Why would you do this?”

Kirk: “Because the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.”

[Beat.]

Spock: “I have been and always shall be your friend.”

While weaker than the film which precedes and follows it, Star Trek III is still a worthy inclusion to the Star Trek canon. Its plot may be a bit weaker, but the analysis of the characters and their loyalty to each other (specifically to Spock) is the beating heart. There is some nice humor, great acting, and solid directing from Nimoy. All in all if you’re a fan of Star Trek or you liked Wrath of Khan, you should definitely give The Search for Spock a watch.

[takadasaiko]

Found Part Three (Keen2 fic)

FFN II AO3

Summary: Set several months after Red's trial, the team is deep a dangerous struggle with the Cabal. Liz receives a strange call from law enforcement in Germany. They've picked a man up claiming to be her dead husband.

Part Three

She watched the scene play out on the cameras, the audio filtering through. The angles showed every inch of building frustration and all the signs she knew too well had once belonged to the man she loved. Reddington has always known how to get under Tom's skin and vice versa, the two men never quite trusting each other and ready for the other to slip. It had taken Tom as far as to dive headfirst into an investigation that he'd had no business going at alone. All the secrets that were kept over the years made everyone a little less trusting though. It had made her husband feel he needed all the answers before even bringing it to her, and it had ended with him bleeding out on their living room floor while Liz fought for consciousness.

It had been two years now, and they were facing another secret with an answer just out of their reach. As Liz watched the exchange over the cameras, Reddington's expression was what pushed that hope she had tried to keep in check back to the forefront. It the way he had said her husband's name. She was desperate to stop that hope from growing though. Not until she knew for sure.

"Looks like you got him back."

Liz looked up, startled by the unexpected voice. Aram lingered there, his expression a physical manifestation of his tone, and the sadness that had weighed on him the past few months seemed to have deepened somehow. She knew that feeling. She'd been there, and nothing anyone said could lift it. It dug in deep and burrowed its way inside a person until they felt hollow. Until they were left wondering exactly what they were fighting for. It was the feeling that she wasn't ready to find herself drowning in all over again.

"We don't know that."

"Have you seen him?" he asked, attempting a lighter tone.

"I can't risk it, Aram," Liz answered quietly. "Not until I know for sure."

"I know, but the rest of us can see it. I'm happy for you." She watched him cringe, the back half of his statement not sounding nearly as convincing as the first. Aram pulled in a deep breath. "I should be happy for you."

"I get it."

"I want to be," he pressed. "Really."

"I know." She tried for a smile. "Did you get anything from the aliases while Ress and I were gone?"

Aram shook his head. "No. I don't think I will at this point. Reddington probably got her fresh ones… She's gone." There was no more respect or adoration in his voice when he mentioned Reddington's name. So far he was living up to angry promise that he'd never forgive the other man for his part in Samar's leaving. He worked with him in as far as the Task Force needed him to, but he was colder than Liz had ever thought Aram could be.

"That doesn't mean you won't find her."

"She doesn't want me to find her."

Liz opened her mouth, searching for the right words for that one, but there weren't any. There hadn't been before she left for Bonn and there weren't any now. Samar was gone, and until the Mossad chose to call off the hit, she would stay that way. Hidden away just as much to keep the man she loved safe as to protect herself.

"Keen?"

Ressler rounded the corner behind Aram and Liz hoped that she didn't look as relieved as she felt with a distraction. Any distraction. "What's up?" Her partner paused there, his gaze locked with hers and a fear started to take hold. "Just say it."

He held out a thin packet. "The labs are in."

The fear didn't dissipate with the words, but curled in on itself, winding around with the stress that she'd tried her best to ignore and forming up a knot in her stomach tight enough to make her feel physically sick. It took a moment for Liz to force herself to her feet and take the packet. It felt heavier than it had any right to be for its size, and it took a long moment for her open it.

He'd been left alone again after Reddington had left. The older man hadn't bothered to add anything to his muttered name. Tom had expected something at least. Anger, denial… something, but instead Reddington had turned on his heel and left him alone in the box without another word.

Tom had waited and hoped that it would lead to something - at the very least a visit from Cooper or Ressler or Samar - but no one came, and eventually he slid down the side of the thick glass to the box's floor and sat heavily there until the sound of the doors opening finally drew his attention some time later.

Liz stride into the room and Tom was on his feet in an instant. Her gaze was fixed on him and there was a determination in her eyes that reminded him just how much he'd missed her. He pressed a hand against the glass, but he hadn't expected the box to open. Tom stepped back, the glass pulling away. He didn't dare move towards her.

He didn't have to though. As soon as the door was open enough Liz sprang forward and Tom felt a breath of relief rush out of him as her arms went around his neck. He pulled her in, holding on tight. He could feel her fingers tangled in the material of his shirt at his back and the way her dark hair tickled his nose as he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. She pulled back, but before he could say anything she was guiding him down into a kiss. Tom sank happily into it, a laugh escaping him as he shifted his hold on her and lifted her up, her feet off the floor.

Liz didn't break the kiss, only shifted a little so her fingers moved through his hair - shaggy and longer than he usually kept it after being held so long - and he felt her smile against his lips as one finger brushed against an old scar hidden there.

She finally pulled back, still smiling, and he set her down. Tom leaned in so that his forehead touched hers. Part of him wanted to ask if the results had come back that quickly or if it had something to do with what he'd said to Reddington. Neither question made it from his lips though. They didn't matter. Not right now. "I've missed you so much," he confessed softly.

"It's funny," she murmured, "I was so scared that they were trying to use you against me - that it was all a lie - that even when the test results came in I kept thinking about everything they could have done to fake them. How they could have…." she pulled in a struggling breath and a strained chuckle escaped on it as she reached back up to the scar just past his hairline. "They couldn't have known about this."

"Who would have thought you pegging me with a coffee cup a decade ago would be what convinced you?" He couldn't quite keep the amusement out of his voice. before he ducked down to steal another kiss.

"I'm sorry I didn't trust you," she whispered, only barely pulling away.

"Something tells me you have your reasons."

She nodded and Tom saw her expression tighten. Whatever she had been through in the past few years had been as hellish as his own and it weighed on her.

"Why don't we head home, grab Wing Yee's on the way, and I'll fill you in?"

The yes nearly rolled off his tongue before he stopped, his gaze snapping past her to where Reddington and Ressler stood speaking in the doorway. "Liz, there's something I need to-"

"I know."

He blinked hard. "What?"

"I know that Reddington isn't…. c'mon. It's a long story."

She took his hand and Tom let her lead him out of the box.

Getting back to the apartment had taken longer than either of them had expected. Reddington didn't bother saying anything further, but Cooper had stopped them on their way out. The man had looked at him like he'd seen a ghost, and Tom remembered that Liz had told him in Bonn that Cooper had been the one to identify him… or who he had thought was him. The assistant director shook his head, smiling, and clapped Tom on the shoulder, welcoming him home. Even Ressler had seemed almost relieved with the results of the DNA test that had been run. Aram had lingered back, and Tom couldn't help but notice the fact that Samar was conspicuously missing and added that to his growing list of questions.

He hadn't realized just how hungry he was until he and Liz grabbed the Chinese food to go to take back to the apartment, and it took more self control than he would have liked to admit to stay out of it until they got there.

"I'm kinda surprised you didn't move," he admitted as they walked in.

Liz made a small, noncommittal sound. "We paid it off when we bought it so it just… stayed here while I was in the hospital."

"How long?" he asked quietly.

"A while. After I got out, and after I was…. ready, it was my crime scene. It just didn't make sense to sell it."

"Yeah, because that's a totally normal reason to hold onto a place," he teased lightly and followed her to the table.

"I followed the trail to a US Marshal names Ian Garvey. He's dead." Tom watched her swallow hard and he reached over, his hand brushing hers as he started to unpack their food she had carried in. She pulled in a breath, continuing. "Found my sister."

"Jennifer?"

She nodded as he laid the food out and they both took a seat. "We turned the investigation towards Reddington. You left a nice trail to follow."

"Did my best."

"Would have preferred to have followed it with you," she said, her voice sharp.

He reached out. There were reasons he'd held onto the information he did know as long as he had, but those didn't matter now. Right or wrong, it couldn't be changed. "I know. I'm sorry."

Liz nodded and took his hand, holding on tight and she blinked tears back. "Found the answer, sort of, and nearly got him killed in the process. We…. have an understanding." She broke her chopsticks apart. "Samar's gone."

"Dead?"

"Almost. She's in hiding. The…. Mossad put out a hit on her through the Umbrella Company."

Tom cringed. "They're brutal."

"Yeah. Aram's taking it hard."

Tom shuffled a bite of food in and savoured it a moment. Definitely better than what he'd gotten used to for the last couple of years. He met Liz's gaze as he swallowed it down. "You said Agnes is safe, but you didn't say where she is."

"With your mother. I was going to bring her home, but the Cabal-"

"I thought they were gone."

"Not all of them. They're the ones we're fighting against."

"And that's how you found me?"

"Yeah…. They've been playing the long game with us."

"Maybe longer than you thought."

She met his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"They never called me Tom or even Keen. It was always Hargrave." He watched the understanding of what that could mean settle into her expression and he tried for a smile. "It's okay," he promised. "We'll get them."

She nodded and reached out for him again. "I know, I just…."

He pulled her hand up to his lips, pressing a kiss to it. "How long have you been up?"

"Uhh…"

"Yeah, me too," Tom chuckled. "What do you say we get this cleaned up, I'm going to hop through a much needed shower, and then we get some sleep? We'll tackle how to save the world from the shadow organization that may have been after both of us since we were kids tomorrow. What do you say?"

He watched Liz's strained expression slowly melt into something like a shadow of the smile he'd always loved and she nodded. He stood, pressing a kiss to her forehead before grabbing what he could of their leftovers to put in the fridge.

She kept expecting to wake up from the dream. First when the labs came in, then on the way home, and again when she slipped into the shower behind him, the water splashing down on them both. She hadn't, though, and Tom had turned those dark blue eyes and quirked little smile on her and Liz had pulled him into another kiss. Another way to prove to herself that it was him and he was there. Two years of thinking that he was dead, but now she had him back. If his reaction to her joining him in the shower was anything to go by, he'd missed her just as much as she had him.

Liz toweled off her wet hair and slipped into her sleeping shorts and one of his old t-shirts. He didn't comment on it, but she thought she saw him smile when he saw it. In the morning they'd regroup. It was dangerous to reach out to Scottie right now, and both of Agnes' parents wanted to make sure that they didn't endanger either their daughter or Tom's mother by reaching out too soon and leading the Cabal right to them. For that night, though, they were together and they were as safe as they could expect to be in the circumstances that they found themselves in.

The only time that she'd really slept in their bed since he'd been gone was when Jennifer had stayed the night. Liz had tried to offer her sister the bed so she could camp out on the couch, but the older woman had misread it and had turned her down every time. Liz hadn't been able to voice that she couldn't get a good night's sleep when every time she rolled over she expected to find her husband sleeping next to her. That night she would. That night and, hopefully, every night that would follow.

"What?" Tom chuckled, paused halfway to pulling the covers back.

"I've just missed you."

He nodded, accepting that, and crawled in. She slipped in just a moment later, meeting him in the middle of the bed, both tucked under the sheet and comforter. "I'm not going anywhere," he promised, close enough that she could feel his breath. "Ever again."

"Promise?"

He kissed her forehead. "Yeah."

Liz nodded and felt Tom's arm snake around as he rolled onto his back, pulling her with him so that she was comfortably tucked against his chest. For the first time in what felt like forever the tension slowly started to ease away and she let her eyes slip closed. She had found him, even without knowing that she should be looking. She'd found him and he'd found his way home to her. Theirs was a story that seemed to constantly defy the odds that they were put up against. Faced with the Cabal, she need that. She needed him.

Tom's long fingers worked their way through her hair in a soothing way and she felt herself relax against his chest, the sound of his steady heartbeat easing her towards sleep.

End.

Notes: Life has been absolutely crazy lately.... this chapter should never have taken this long. Here it is though, and I hope you enjoy the fluffy ending.

This afternoon I'm hoping to do some editing on my pilot script and who knows? Maybe even jump into working on my next multi chapter fic this weekend? We'll see how that goes. I don't have a title for it that I'm sold on yet, but the gist of it is that Tom loses around 10 years of his life after a procedure gone wrong while Liz sleeps in her coma. He goes back to his life with St Regis and Liz lives hers thinking he's dead. Stuff happens, and imagine that: the Keens get tossed back together.  I don't know when I'll start posting it. My first priority has to be to my scripts and the fellowship apps I have coming up, but hopefully soon-ish. At the very least, I think it'll be a summer project over the Blacklist hiatus.

[aion-rsa]

Skyman: Don Miggs Discusses Universal Sonics

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The mock-documentary Skyman doesn’t tell the usual UFO encounter story. Director Daniel Myrick, who broke on the scene with the groundbreaking horror thriller The Blair Witch Project, does not put this together using found footage. The film examines the aftermath of an alien visitation, and the story is told by a witness and survivor.

Carl Merryweather (Michael Selle) was seven years old when he saw the “skyman” in Barstow, a small town in California. The event changed him. He’s spent years obsessively collecting UFO magazines, as well as first-person accounts of other contactees. It made him the neighborhood “character.” Skyman takes place 33 years after the visitation, he is living with his sister, Gina (Nicolette Sweeney), and waiting on a promise the alien made to return on his 40th birthday.

The film was shot in Barstow, where there have been multiple real life reports of UFO sightings. Merryweather also takes the crew to a real UFO festival in McMinnville, Oregon, where the character is met with amused scorn by amateur enthusiasts armed with cellphone cameras.

The soundtrack for Skyman was written by Billy Corgan and Don Miggs. The Smashing Pumpkins frontman is a household name, and occasional appliance. Miggs is a studio veteran. He’s written with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty, and worked with such diverse artists as Boyz II Men, Paul Anka, Tyga, and the Plain White T’s. Miggs spoke with Den of Geek about the film, the universal language of music, and the OZ Paradigm.

DEN OF GEEK: Were you drawn to Skyman because of the subject matter?

DON MIGGS: You know, first and foremost, [I was] told I could do a film with the guy who wrote Blair Witch. Now I’m already interested, right? So you’ve already got me right there. Then a really strange chain of events happened when Dan Myrick approached me to do it. I had just had a crazy incident happen at my L.A. house that involves sort of like the supernatural. Right now, I can’t even believe I just said that because I’m going to tell the story. The person who built our home was Mickey Rooney, who was famous in the ’40s, but ’50s and ’60s, for sure. He was a child star and a long time he was with Judy Garland from The Wizard of Oz.

We bought that house. In between us, there was another artist, Rick James, from, “She’s a very kinky girl.” It’s the house that Rick did all that crazy stuff. He’d been arrested at one point because he and his girlfriend locked another girlfriend in a room and tortured her. They were doing things like meth or heroin or something. He was sort of crazy. We bought this house and maybe it was haunted. I don’t know. But when Dan called me about doing the movie, we had just had an incident where a book was off of a bookshelf that couldn’t have fallen where it fell. Someone would’ve had to take it down.

I walked by for a few days. Finally I said to my wife, “Is it down here for a reason.” She’s like, “I was going to ask you the same question.” I pick up the book, this is before I knew about Judy Garland, and it’s The Wizard of Oz. I’m like, “That’s kind of weird.” Someone told me the book was on the ground because Mickey Rooney was with Judy Garland in this house. This is where they stayed.” I’m like, “Wow,” and so I flipped through. I’m looking through Google and I go into a deep search and I see this photo of them in our house where the piano is and it kind of freaks me out.

So as that’s happening, I’m telling this to my friend and my friend says, “I didn’t want to tell you this. I was in the movie room and I heard clinking of glasses in the kitchen. Then they put them down on the counter, and I was like, “Hello? Hello? Hello?” and nobody was there. Then his girlfriend was in the kitchen and turned and looked to the right, and said, “What do you want?” Because she thought that my friend was standing there. The friend, by the way, is the third writer that wrote the music on this, Greg Hanson. Greg wasn’t there, he was in my studio.

So all this stuff happened, and Greg and I are having this conversation about the supernatural and what do we believe in, life on other planets, all this stuff and we’re coming to all these conclusions then Dan calls me and tells me about a movie about a UFO, about an alien. I’m like, “That’s the craziest thing.” A week later, Billy Corgan comes to stay at my house. We know that he’s had some history with UFOs and believes, and I tell him about it, and he’s like, “That’s crazy.” I said, “Does it make you nervous to stay in the house?” He goes, “No, not at all.”

So all that stuff is a long way to say it felt like it was supposed to happen when Dan called and said “Do I want to do the film?” Because it felt like I was sort of on the brink of changing my whole belief system.

You own vintage guitars. I was wondering if the guitars can be haunted, and if you ever caught someone else’s riffs?

Of course, the way I look at everything is energy is out there. We’re all the same age in the end. Right? Because we’re all just energy and it’s all floating. I own Hendrix’s guitar from when he played with the Isley Brothers. One day, his brother Leon came to the house, and wanted me to record him, but it’s not something I wanted to record. But as he was holding the guitar, he said something like, “This guitar is the guitar that Jimi dreamed in before he became … This is when he was James Hendrix, and he was basically playing guitar for the white man and dancing in the back and doing all this stuff, and then it’s the guitar that he emerged as Jimi Hendrix, which is the guy with the Afro and larger than life.”

Whenever I play the guitar, and I play it all the time, I feel that life in there, and I think it’s sort of in everything. People tend to be scared by it, but there’s this root beauty and the whole thing that we’re all connected. That’s kind of what the movie, ultimately, is about for me. When Dan explained it, I didn’t see one piece of it when I started writing music to it. The first thing I wrote was “Are you real Skyman?”

When he was describing to me what it was about, I said to him, “This is not really a story. This to me isn’t even a UFO story. It’s the story of a person trying to connect with his father and his father is no longer around. This is his connection. It’s really a story about how we’re all connected and it’s about family.” If you look at your main character, he’s on this journey and he’s very much alone, but he has his sister and his best friend still show up, they might think he’s a little crazy, but they show up because it’s important to show up. I think it makes the story a little bit more beautiful than “there’s a UFO, let’s go chase it.”

You’re one of the authors of Dad’s Know Best. What do you tell your kids about UFOs?

I tell them that I’ve never seen anything, but the likelihood that we are the only thing out there seems pretty slim to me. Maybe it’s not happening at the same time, maybe it’s because of time and space. The thing I always say to my kids, they’re 11 and nine, is I just say that anything and everything is possible. Your job is to be open enough for it to happen. I don’t believe in God, I feel like there’s something bigger than me out there, but I don’t know if it’s God. I’ve never said that really out loud like that. I don’t know if I can even say I don’t believe in God, but I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong, and I’m looking forward to being wrong. I tell my kids that the fact that we’re here sort of almost demands that there must be someone somewhere else.

What key best captures the abductee experience. Is it A minor? Is it mixolydian?

I love that you would ask that question. It certainly has to be a minor. This is so geeky of me. For me, it would probably be like a minor seven. I literally just wrote a song before I got on. I had a client and we’re doing a record and I just did a Skype with her, and I made sure the whole thing is sort of about, in the end is that it’s going to be alright. It all really stems off of this one minor. It’s a B flat minor seven that comes at the end and just playing that chord leads everything up to a question like, “Is it going to be alright?” But I would say, if you have to say what the best minor chord is, it’s probably E minor and that’s the key of tension for sure. E minor, I’ll say.

Close Encounters taught us music is the universal language. So are different modes more effective at communicating if we were to communicate with another species?

I would think that. I would think that we see things very much in, [hums major scale], right? If I play Indian music, there’s going to be more chromatic notes than there would be in Western music. So yes, for sure, everybody’s going to have a little bit of a dialect when it comes to what’s going to work for them.

I find it interesting actually, when I’m thinking of Close Encounters, “[sings theme], nu, nu, nu.” That resolve, which makes very much sense, it’s very nice for our American ears, but I don’t know that the  [sings last two notes of theme],” which is four/five, “Duh, nah, nah, nah, nah,” would be soothing to someone from another planet because I don’t think that “Duh, nah” would be soothing to someone from necessarily another country.

What do you think extraterrestrials would pick up from what’s going on in music right now?

The best thing about music today for me is sonically, it’s amazing. The sounds are really exciting. It’s thinner. It’s more shrill. It would be heard better, probably. If I were an alien, I’m going to say that I think they would pick up that it’s a little more vapid. If we’re talking about popular music and I just dated myself, that’s a dumb thing to say because the ’50s music was as vapid as vapid could be, same chords, same melodies.

You mix some pretty etheric sonics into the theme music. I was wondering what tells you how to capture that? There’s one part that sounds like you caught feedback off of a stick across a snare drum.

You’re right. I hit a drum and then I literally grabbed the feedback from it, and I might’ve supported that with some other instrument in there. Then yeah, and that wound up being a part of the sonic scape for a lot of different parts.

I equate music writing with you’re in a field and some days you’re pulling weeds, and other days you’re picking flowers and the job is to stay in the field and keep picking. That’s what I do all day, every day. With this soundtrack, we had a crazy thing happen where Dan Myrick came into the studio and was like, “Well, what are you going to do?” And this idea just hit me on the piano. I went and hit the three notes, came back to the patrol room, and I just said to my engineer, “I need everything on. I need the drums on. I need guitars, I need everything on.” And literally, I just kept going from thing to thing and adding, and it was like I had nothing to do with it.

No joke. I mean that for most of this record, what was so cool about doing Skyman, I didn’t do it to film, I did it to my idea of who these characters were, and what their stories were, and that’s a difference than with Billy. So Billy stays with me sometimes when I’m in LA, in my house there. So he was there and I said, “Hey, if you want to come out to the studio, I’m working on this thing for the film and I think it might be of interest to you.” He comes into the studio, probably at 10:00 a.m. and my studio is on the property, and I could see him walking up, I said, “Hey,” and I had started a thing. For the next three hours and I might be generous, it may have only been two and a half. We wrote five things. Like we were vomiting. Literally it was coming out of us and no discussion about it. I said, “Here’s one idea.” He goes, “Oh, it might be cool on piano.” So he goes down and starts playing the piano to it, and I’m playing the guitar.

Then there was another one where I’m like, “I have this idea [sings]. You could have that very cinematic. And he goes, “Oh, I think we’d do this.” That two and a half hours became four of the tracks, two of which made the record, then which made the movie, and two others that we have for something else. It all fell out, which is what the whole movie did. Every time I thought I was going to tell it what to do. So I had to listen back through it because I had to put the songs in an order. I could remember being there for all of it, but I couldn’t remember how I came up with some of those sounds because all the drums are real, all the guitars and all the instrumentation is me playing it. Unless it was Billy, he plays an acoustic on two, and piano on another, and I think Greg Hanson plays a guitar in one part of something, the rest is just me.

But I have no idea how it all came out and how the sounds came out like they do. But I’m so damn proud of it. I think it’s a freaking cool record and it takes all these twists and turns, which is why I kind of feel like someone else’s driving.

But you never jammed to visuals?

I think at one point I got a scene that was on my phone, and I think I showed Billy the scene. We were already playing. The visuals were in our head, man. I’m telling you like it was really crazy. First of all, Billy is one of the most gifted, incredible artists of our generation. There’s no doubt. I’m cocky enough to feel like I belong in any room, and I’ve written with some big people. But I knew that the most talented guy I was ever in a room with was Billy Corgan. He’s humble. But also, he’s an encyclopedia, knows exactly what he wants to do, and we had the visuals in our head. When I told him the story that it was really to me about a guy wanting to reconnect with his father, and then we talked about the abduction thing. I don’t think we needed to see anything to know where we were going with it. I don’t know that seeing the movie would have helped, but maybe would have hurt. It’s a weird thing to say.

You said everything was done with instruments. What about that bagpipe, was that sampled?

It’s not a bagpipe. That was me playing  a combination of a guitar and a keyboard, and then me altering the sound to turn it into what it sounds like. There’s a couple things like that on there that are really cool. I wrote to the feeling and the nice thing about that is I could stretch these things out. As you listen to some of these tracks, some of them take so many turns and twists that I don’t know that I could have done if the movie was playing in front of me. I might’ve been almost too sympathetic to the character as opposed to sympathetic to what he couldn’t see. I wanted to play it from the point of view sometimes of the alien looking in on the story. So it’s not always the story. It’s sometimes the music is supporting what you don’t see.

I couldn’t have done that if I was just using the visual because that’s not part of the visual. You don’t ever see the alien. So my job was to sort of make the alien come to light. Dan didn’t tell me to do that. It was something instinctually. I felt it had to be done because you don’t ever really get the payoff. This is one of those movies. It’s the last two minutes of it where you go, “Oh. There’s the Blair Witch thing happening.” So I needed to sort of create that for the rest of the movie and didn’t know that I needed to, and then there it is.

There seems to be a lot more piano on Skyman than guitar. What can you say on the piano that you can’t say with those strings?

I had a theme that started when I did, “Are you real?” There’s that little piano thing. I considered the piano a character. I wanted that character to make sure he resonated throughout the piece, meaning throughout the movie. So I couldn’t abandon him almost at any point. He was more vulnerable. So the piano became the real vulnerable side, I guess, of all the characters really, including the alien. Then the guitar was then allowed to be more of the Goliath to Davey, which was the piano.

If you were asked to play a concert for extraterrestrials, would you change up your set list?

I tell you what, I’d be damn proud. Billy actually said to me, “We should play live.” There are two songs that I really wish would have made the movie and kudos to Dan for not putting them in because one of them has Billy singing a little bit, he’s humming, and it’s eerie and beautiful and so great, but it wouldn’t have fit the movie. It would just serve the purpose of being sensational because there’s Billy Corgan singing. But the only change up I would do, is I would do “Time Will Melt Us,” which is the one where he was humming on, and then this other one that we didn’t put in that he and I did for the movie. But I’d play that soundtrack. I love it.

Would you host an alien on the “Miggs and Swig Show?”

Damn. He could live in my house for a while. I’ve had some alien-like people living in that house at different points. So yes.

What would you ask them?

Are they laughing at us? Do we seem comical to them? Do we seem intelligent? I mean, I wonder so many things about what we do as a human race. If there is a God, he’s laughing at us too. And then I’m always a sucker for what’s the secret of life. Are they happy? Does that even come in to it? If you are more enlightened than we are, is happiness even a factor? Do questions like we’re asking right now matter?

MIGGS recorded their first album in 50 hours. Would that be easier now because you’re a studio veteran or harder because you’ve learned so many tricks?

There’s such beauty in being naive. There’s this not knowing. I’m working with three different 16 year old artists and I was working with one today, a girl. Every single option is possible in her mind, and I’ve learned the rules. There’s a song called “Girl” by The Beatles. John Lennon goes from a C to an F to a D major. But you’d think the song is in C, and if it’s in C, it would have to be a D minor. There’s something that’s so beautiful about it because he was so early in his career. But once you know them, it becomes more difficult. So I could certainly make the record.

I said to Dan, doing this movie, “Could I get one more chance to remix it?” And he’s like, “It sounds perfect to me.” I had to let that be. It does, it sounds great. There’s always something you want to tweak, but that’s the beauty of stopping, of moving on, is that if you can let it go, then you can also have a real time stamp for where you were at that as opposed to making everything perfect so it all sounds the same, no matter where you’re at.

You were the last artist to work with Phil Ramone. I just want to know what that was like and what you learned from him?

You want to talk about someone who haunts me in the best way? Phil Ramone worked with Ray Charles. Phil Ramone recorded Marilyn Monroe singing happy birthday to JFK. Phil Ramone did Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney’s Ram record. He did Blood on the Tracks with Bob Dylan. He did Paul Simon. I grew up on Long Island. He was such an icon, and he stayed with me for three weeks to do the record. I didn’t know it was going to be the last thing he did. He sings on the last song. I did like a little tribute to him by saying it was a tribute to Billy Joel. I mean, I respected him, but on Long Island Billy Joel was a God.

Phil had 15 Grammy awards, and the hope was that maybe he gets 16. Then after we did the record, he died and then no one was interested in my record until he died. Then everybody wanted to interview me and I declined all of it. I didn’t want to make that sensation, it was a really personal thing. But he was such a wonderful man, and so incredibly otherworldly. He could be falling asleep, he would make his record wait, and he could be falling asleep and look like he’s out, and you would hit a wrong note. He’d go, “It’s a B flat,” under his breath, like he was still listening the whole time. The last five years have worked out incredibly well. I feel like I’m on a really good path, and things just keep getting bigger and better. I feel like Phil really started on that for me.

The post Skyman: Don Miggs Discusses Universal Sonics appeared first on Den of Geek.

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 Business Ethics

 Case Studies

CASE STUDY (20 Marks)

Why don't corporate boards include more women and minorities? At a recent meeting of the Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, panelists took on this question in a panel called "Board Diversity." The moderator was Katharine Martin, a partner and board director at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. The panelists were Barry Williams, board director for PG&E and president and former managing director of Williams Pacific Ventures; and Abby Adlerman, founder and CEO of Boardspan. Williams, who is African American, discussed his service on the boards of a dozen public companies during his career. He is now reaching "the age or time limit" for corporate boards, he said, and he wants to make sure younger minorities have the same opportunities he had. Williams conducted a "oneperson study" of Bay Area companies and found that only 24 percent had an African American director. The number is lower among tech companies. He added statistics for other minorities and women and showed the results to other directors and CEOs. He also compiled a list of black directors currently serving on boards, plus a list of black CEOs and chief financial officers, two common positions from which board members are drawn. "Most people I talked to were surprised at the extent of the underrepresentation," Williams said. "They couldn't understand why they weren't getting these names from the search firms." Since he completed this study, he has worked with others to broaden the effort to include other regions. "My overall impression is that a lot of people are doing a lot of work on this issue, but I'm not seeing as much success as I'd like," Williams said. He said leadership by CEOs is needed — "CEOs listen to fellow CEOs more than to someone like me" — as well as pressure from institutional investors. He also stressed the importance of all groups working together on board diversity, so that there isn't just one "diversity slot" on a board. "Somehow we're all fighting against each other for that one spot," Williams said. Adlerman said boards need to see the need for diversity: "One of the things I've learned is that you can't have a solution if you don't have a problem," she said. "I don't think we've really put our finger on the pulse of the problem." She cited common statistics used to build awareness: the huge influence women have in the economy as employees and consumers compared to their small presence on corporate boards. "We have lots of advocates and awareness, but no viable solutions," Adlerman said. "These are not really the board's problems." The real problem, Adlerman said, boils down to risk. "It is risky to bring another board member on unless you can get exceedingly comfortable with their ability to contribute and work style. Sitting directors want to minimize the chance of disharmony," Adlerman said. "We know it's not a supply problem: There are plenty of talented people," Adlerman said. "I don't think it's a demand problem – I believe intellectually plenty of white men sitting on boards would like to have more diverse boards." The problem, Adlerman said, is how to help boards manage the risk of bringing in someone they don't know. "I think that if we can really get to understand the risks that are perceived, we're going to make some really good progress." During the discussion, the panelists revisited the arguments for having a diverse board. "A significant amount of work now says that diverse groups make better decisions," Williams said. "Today's young people want to work in highly ethical, highly principled companies, and diversity is a big aspect of that." "We are bringing a broader perspective to the boardroom—that's the benefit of diversity," Adlerman said. Martin asked a follow up question about the supply issue: whether there really are enough women and minority candidates for boards with the specific experience boards are seeking in different industries. Tech companies, for example, may seek board members with engineering backgrounds. Williams said company management was the more appropriate place to be looking for specific technology expertise. "To me the worst boards are when you have 10 people who think alike and have the same experiences," Williams said.

  Answer the following question.

Q1. Give your views on the case.

Q2. Why diversity in board room is required? Discuss.

 CASE STUDY (20 Marks)

Stefano is a freshman at a small college called Hinchley University. Although Hinchley doesn’t recognize Greek life, there are plenty of nationally recognized fraternities and sororities off campus. Even before Stefano applied to college, he knew he wanted to rush a fraternity. His father was in a fraternity and always told Stefano that he gained valuable life lessons out of his experience that shaped who he became as an individual. When Stefano gets to Hinchley, however, he is disappointed that his father’s fraternity doesn’t have a chapter at his school. He forgets about rushing a fraternity until winter quarter comes around and fraternities host rush week. Stefano decides to attend rush week to see if he can find an organization that fits his mold. He’s looking for fraternity brothers who care about academics as much as socializing and who walk the talk supporting worthwhile philanthropies. At the end of rush, Stefano thinks he’s found just what he wants in a fraternity called “Alpha Iota.” Alpha Iota extends Stefano a bid and he accepts. Soon, however, Stefano finds some of his fraternity brothers are not the kind of guys he really wants to hang around with. While a lot of the members are great, several others both publically and privately show disrespect towards other fraternities and all women on and off campus. In addition, there is hostility between the brothers themselves that Stefano didn’t see during rush. He soon finds out it may be from hazing the pledges are forced to undertake. Only a couple days into his pledge period, on a Monday night, Stefano is locked in a dark basement with his pledge brothers. First, they are instructed to finish a keg of beer amongst the 25 pledges. After this, they are forced to stay awake all night, still locked in the basement, by blasting music and active brothers going around slapping pledges awake who fall asleep. Stefano finds himself torn. He’d like to belong to a fraternity so that he has a good social network on campus. But should he continue to go through the pledge period to join this exclusive club, even though he doesn’t respect some of the members and he doesn’t feel comfortable with the hazing?

 Answer the following question.

Q1. Do you believe the desire to be in a Greek organization—even one that hazes—should outweigh a college student’s moral conscience? Comment

Q2. If you were forced to do something you didn’t want to do to join an exclusive organization, would you do it? Discuss.

   CASE STUDY (20 Marks)

Last year, Google, Facebook, Apple, and Twitter released statistics on their workforce diversity. At these companies, women hold only 16% of tech jobs. The Ellen Pao discrimination case put Silicon Valley, particularly VC firms, under the microscope. Whether it will be a watershed moment for gender diversity is still up in the air. At a minimum, a record of more subtle forms of discrimination exists now in the form of the case's court record. Major challenges organizations face in achieving gender diversity include hidden bias, micro aggressions, and leave policies that make sustained employment difficult for parents. Providing training and workshops to employees is not enough. Organizations must complement employee support with proper processes and controls. Diversity and inclusion will soon become a necessity, as both engineering talent becomes scarcer and communication between teams becomes even more paramount. "The experience of women in her early career is quite different from one on the back end of her career, yet we tend to clump the female experience into one category." "As companies continue to shift to being solutions based, connecting and giving a voice to their entire workforce will become even more important." "No one person can solve gender discrimination, but everyone can do something."

 Answer the following question.

Q1. Give your views on the case.

Q2. Discuss the reasons of gender diversity and discrimination in silicon valley Policy of Prohibition (20 Marks)

 Prohibition is good and women would appreciate a policy of prohibition. However some state governments may scrap prohibition on the grounds that (i) the adjoining states do not observe prohibition, hence people visit those states to quench their desire for the beverage (ii) the existence of illicit distillation and the difficulty in stopping this (iii) the strain on government resources for implementing prohibition, including the loss of revenue from excise duty.

   Answer the following question.

Q1. Are these grounds ethically justifiable? Explain.

Q2. In your opinion what are the benefits of prohibition.

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   �T

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3/2/2017                                      Aeren Foundation

Assignment Solutions, Case study Answer sheets

Project Report and Thesis contact

aravind.banakar@gmail.com

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ARAVIND – 09901366442 – 09902787224

 Business Ethics

 Case Studies

CASE STUDY (20 Marks)

Why don't corporate boards include more women and minorities? At a recent meeting of the Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, panelists took on this question in a panel called "Board Diversity." The moderator was Katharine Martin, a partner and board director at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. The panelists were Barry Williams, board director for PG&E and president and former managing director of Williams Pacific Ventures; and Abby Adlerman, founder and CEO of Boardspan. Williams, who is African American, discussed his service on the boards of a dozen public companies during his career. He is now reaching "the age or time limit" for corporate boards, he said, and he wants to make sure younger minorities have the same opportunities he had. Williams conducted a "oneperson study" of Bay Area companies and found that only 24 percent had an African American director. The number is lower among tech companies. He added statistics for other minorities and women and showed the results to other directors and CEOs. He also compiled a list of black directors currently serving on boards, plus a list of black CEOs and chief financial officers, two common positions from which board members are drawn. "Most people I talked to were surprised at the extent of the underrepresentation," Williams said. "They couldn't understand why they weren't getting these names from the search firms." Since he completed this study, he has worked with others to broaden the effort to include other regions. "My overall impression is that a lot of people are doing a lot of work on this issue, but I'm not seeing as much success as I'd like," Williams said. He said leadership by CEOs is needed — "CEOs listen to fellow CEOs more than to someone like me" — as well as pressure from institutional investors. He also stressed the importance of all groups working together on board diversity, so that there isn't just one "diversity slot" on a board. "Somehow we're all fighting against each other for that one spot," Williams said. Adlerman said boards need to see the need for diversity: "One of the things I've learned is that you can't have a solution if you don't have a problem," she said. "I don't think we've really put our finger on the pulse of the problem." She cited common statistics used to build awareness: the huge influence women have in the economy as employees and consumers compared to their small presence on corporate boards. "We have lots of advocates and awareness, but no viable solutions," Adlerman said. "These are not really the board's problems." The real problem, Adlerman said, boils down to risk. "It is risky to bring another board member on unless you can get exceedingly comfortable with their ability to contribute and work style. Sitting directors want to minimize the chance of disharmony," Adlerman said. "We know it's not a supply problem: There are plenty of talented people," Adlerman said. "I don't think it's a demand problem – I believe intellectually plenty of white men sitting on boards would like to have more diverse boards." The problem, Adlerman said, is how to help boards manage the risk of bringing in someone they don't know. "I think that if we can really get to understand the risks that are perceived, we're going to make some really good progress." During the discussion, the panelists revisited the arguments for having a diverse board. "A significant amount of work now says that diverse groups make better decisions," Williams said. "Today's young people want to work in highly ethical, highly principled companies, and diversity is a big aspect of that." "We are bringing a broader perspective to the boardroom—that's the benefit of diversity," Adlerman said. Martin asked a follow up question about the supply issue: whether there really are enough women and minority candidates for boards with the specific experience boards are seeking in different industries. Tech companies, for example, may seek board members with engineering backgrounds. Williams said company management was the more appropriate place to be looking for specific technology expertise. "To me the worst boards are when you have 10 people who think alike and have the same experiences," Williams said.

 3/2/2017                                            Aeren Foundation

 Answer the following question.

Q1. Give your views on the case.

Q2. Why diversity in board room is required? Discuss.

 CASE STUDY (20 Marks)

Stefano is a freshman at a small college called Hinchley University. Although Hinchley doesn’t recognize Greek life, there are plenty of nationally recognized fraternities and sororities off campus. Even before Stefano applied to college, he knew he wanted to rush a fraternity. His father was in a fraternity and always told Stefano that he gained valuable life lessons out of his experience that shaped who he became as an individual. When Stefano gets to Hinchley, however, he is disappointed that his father’s fraternity doesn’t have a chapter at his school. He forgets about rushing a fraternity until winter quarter comes around and fraternities host rush week. Stefano decides to attend rush week to see if he can find an organization that fits his mold. He’s looking for fraternity brothers who care about academics as much as socializing and who walk the talk supporting worthwhile philanthropies. At the end of rush, Stefano thinks he’s found just what he wants in a fraternity called “Alpha Iota.” Alpha Iota extends Stefano a bid and he accepts. Soon, however, Stefano finds some of his fraternity brothers are not the kind of guys he really wants to hang around with. While a lot of the members are great, several others both publically and privately show disrespect towards other fraternities and all women on and off campus. In addition, there is hostility between the brothers themselves that Stefano didn’t see during rush. He soon finds out it may be from hazing the pledges are forced to undertake. Only a couple days into his pledge period, on a Monday night, Stefano is locked in a dark basement with his pledge brothers. First, they are instructed to finish a keg of beer amongst the 25 pledges. After this, they are forced to stay awake all night, still locked in the basement, by blasting music and active brothers going around slapping pledges awake who fall asleep. Stefano finds himself torn. He’d like to belong to a fraternity so that he has a good social network on campus. But should he continue to go through the pledge period to join this exclusive club, even though he doesn’t respect some of the members and he doesn’t feel comfortable with the hazing?

 Answer the following question.

Q1. Do you believe the desire to be in a Greek organization—even one that hazes—should outweigh a college student’s moral conscience? Comment

Q2. If you were forced to do something you didn’t want to do to join an exclusive organization, would you do it? Discuss.

   CASE STUDY (20 Marks)

Last year, Google, Facebook, Apple, and Twitter released statistics on their workforce diversity. At these companies, women hold only 16% of tech jobs. The Ellen Pao discrimination case put Silicon Valley, particularly VC firms, under the microscope. Whether it will be a watershed moment for gender diversity is still up in the air. At a minimum, a record of more subtle forms of discrimination exists now in the form of the case's court record. Major challenges organizations face in achieving gender diversity include hidden bias, micro aggressions, and leave policies that make sustained employment difficult for parents. Providing training and workshops to employees is not enough. Organizations must complement employee support with proper processes and controls. Diversity and inclusion will soon become a necessity, as both engineering talent becomes scarcer and communication between teams becomes even more paramount. "The experience of women in her early career is quite different from one on the back end of her career, yet we tend to clump the female experience into one category." "As companies continue to shift to being solutions based, connecting and giving a voice to their entire workforce will become even more important." "No one person can solve gender discrimination, but everyone can do something."

 Answer the following question.

Q1. Give your views on the case.

Q2. Discuss the reasons of gender diversity and discrimination in silicon valley Policy of Prohibition (20 Marks)

 Prohibition is good and women would appreciate a policy of prohibition. However some state governments may scrap prohibition on the grounds that (i) the adjoining states do not observe prohibition, hence people visit those states to quench their desire for the beverage (ii) the existence of illicit distillation and the difficulty in stopping this (iii) the strain on government resources for implementing prohibition, including the loss of revenue from excise duty.

   Answer the following question.

Q1. Are these grounds ethically justifiable? Explain.

Q2. In your opinion what are the benefits of prohibition.

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