Scene #9760: The Hand Dealt

Owner	Pose
Angela	As usual, Angela can summon people directly to the Library if they accept the invitation to do so. And as usual, Angela is there to meet Flamel at the entrance, but she is quick to say, "Let's talk upstairs." and leads him to the elevator, swiping her library card and takes the elevator up to the top floor with him. It's only partly up the tower that Angela finally exhales and her stoicism fades some as she tilts her gaze downward to her feet. "I understand my authority in the Concord is limited." Angela says. "But if the Manus are still deemed as Concord allies and Forget Me Not as a fellow Partner, then the decision is made. I'm not allowed to burn down Sarracenia's kingdom, we can't foil their efforts. And besides... even after what happened with Miss Schneider, ... There is still the matter of how the Foundation conducts its own business. I've heard some of what The Dame Commander had to say but I feel we still do not know much about the Lady Arcana. What did you think of her?" The Elevator dings and opens up to the top level, one floor below where Flamel saw a glimpse of The River. Angela seems intent on moving up, but her walking slows as if the heaviness therein takes her some effort to move through. "...I know I did not express much anger at what happened to Schneider, but ... I could not in that position, any more than I had. I can elucidate as to my reasons, if you'd like."
Flamel Parsons	Flamel paces to the elevator, smile either soft or weak depending on the moment, and hands clasped behind his back. "I don't plan on messing up what the Manus are doing." He says. "I was pretty clear with them, really, from day one, that my objective was always a cure for Storm Syndrome, and that was never something they thought was objectionable. But..." He looks down a bit, clasping the bridge of his nose. "Well, I never really thought committing to Schneider would put me at odds with them anyway." He looks up, swapping the smile for something more serious. "The Foundation isn't doing things right either." He says. "But with the Manus acting like that, I can't trust them and operate from a position there. I'm trying to secure a spot where I can force through some changes in the Foundation. And they're the best shot I have, right now, for my other..." He trails off. "I couldn't express myself either." He says. "I don't blame you. I'd love to know why! Mine was, well, probably a lot of yours. Our position, our obligation, or work that we can't go burning down just for the sake of smoke signals. They also don't let me transmit raw telepathy over the radio, ever since the whole backwards subliminals incident." His beaming smile makes it a bit unclear if that was a joke. It falters just as easily. "I have to do something about what happened. I have to, I don't know. Change something. Break some part of the machine that caused it and replace it. I can put my anger there." His fist clenches briefly, showing how much there is to put there.
Angela	"Storm Syndrome does affect Arcanists as well." Angela mulls, wondering if that might be why they are totally fine with Flamel researching this cure. She would suspect that once one has a cure for Storm Syndrome they might be a little bit closer to a cure for The Storm itself but that's sort of the issue, isn't it? "We still can't really say we have a proper and complete understanding of the Manus." Angela points out. "If we were to judge them based on Forget Me Not, well, we might as well judge Matilda over the actions of the Foundation." She doesn't particularly care about the ethics of the organizations, honestly, she hasn't met an organization that was all that capable of ethics except, maybe, Sapient Heuristics and maybe Dimo's government though she knows little of it but even discounting Schneider, which she isn't, she feels like the Concord ''lost'' and she doesn't care for that. Counting Schneider, she gets angry and has to focus her mind and remember the time where she could readily abandon the dead so that she can pretend that she still can. "I agree. Besides, Schneider is unlikely to be the only person within their organization who need a helping hand. Even if they aren't 'a traitor'." She sighs. "Though of course, if the Manus deems them so, so long as they are Partners, we aren't in a position to help them. We need to figure out how Manus--or the Foundation for that matter--maintains their immunity zones or any ally cannot truly rely on us for help. The Manus saw me as one of theirs in their own way. One day I will be able to leave this tower. One way or another." And then maybe she can reach down with her own considerably more helpful hand than she can really expect out of Roland or even her Abnormalities. "We still cannot trust the Foundation to protect the arcanists either. We have to learn the rituals. We have to study. We have to treat this world like it is an Abnormality and uncover every lever of functionality that we can uncover. We'll use whatever access we can still reach, and that means not--as you say--burning down the whole operation simply because we saw some smoke." Her fists are clenching.
Flamel Parsons	"I don't really know Matilda. And I was already withholding judgment about Forget-Me-Not after I found one of his colleagues dismembering people for paint, which, I know this is a bit 'inside baseball', but blood painting is considered passe as far as insanities go." Flamel mutters, almost rolling his eyes at the last part. "I can't help much about immunity zones. I know mind stuff," He taps the side of his head. "But not much more. I'll be following up on leads about the larger Storm, sure, but immunity..." He scratches his cheek. "Once I can find a safe zone I can study. Sure. Then, hopefully you'll have some extra safety when you can get out and visit." "But you're right." He scowls, oddly. "I saw. In memories about Schneider. She was turned away by the Foundation. They aren't reliable help. Not without major overhauls. I'm starting to think I need to push them for more change than just this Timekeeper stuff they're doing." He sighs a bit. "Assuming they'll even let me hang around after all this. They're prone to leaving people out in the cold."
Angela	Angela doesn't exactly like Vertin all that much, but if she can get over Forget Me Not abandoning Schneider, she'll have to get over Vertin being a bit pissy at her. But before she can even dwell with that she says, "What? Blood painting?" Angela was homeschooled so she doesn't really know much about The Ring but she seems more bewildered than angry about the blood paintings. "Why would they use people for paint, if it had to be blood wouldn't an animal's work just as well and be easier to manage?" She moves up to the top floor and looks back to Flamel, "And if the Manus stopped existing, I have no doubt they would have no reason to protect the arcanists at all, and if the Storm ended with the Manus they might even decide to just get rid of arcanum altogether." She hears about Schneider being turned away. That explains, Angela realizes, why Schneider was so hesitant to rely on the more reliable path of safety for someone who lived with a family of humans. She had already tried. "If you are openly assisting the Foundation through your methods, I don't believe I would be able to assist you--even if I provided a Librarian the Manus does not know about, some idiot would just spill the beans immediately. I'll see what I can do." She looks out towards the golden motes of light floating up. "When you woke me up, you visited this place, didn't you?" Angela asks. "When you spoke of your Psychoportals, it reminded me of this place, within this harvested light." She frowns. "I do not consider this, Flamel, to be all that different from dismembering people and making blood paintings out of them. But the blood sacrifices have their purposes."
Flamel Parsons	"That blood painting, it's Arcanist stuff." Flamel says, at 10 milli-bigotries. "It does explain Schneider though. Before she turned to the Manus, she turned to the Foundation, and she was turned away. If the Manus wouldn't take her, and I can't change the Manus, then I'll change the Foundation. And right now, given the circumstances, they're at least willing to listen to me." His smile turns to a sour little polite thing. "Or at least they're willing to let me work on my research project." He shakes his head. "They haven't asked for much help from me, we have an arrangement that I'm willing to give them aid in exchange for their help on a project of mine." He turns away from her, to the golden motes... "I don't want sacrifice to ever be necessary." He says. "Not like those. Worst guy to be saying that, I'm sure. But still. I should be shooting for less sacrifice." He lets out a long sigh. "If you want to help, there's better ways. Everything you have in your library about the disease 'Situs Inversus,' the reversing of organs in the body into a mirrored configuration." He doesn't elaborate more on that. What an odd, arbitrary request.
Angela	''It's Arcanist stuff.'' "I figured when you said Arcanists were the ones doing the blood painting." Angela says patiently, now wondering if she's made some ridiculous big mistake here. "I'm wondering what the point of it was. ... We can't exactly shrug at what they're doing and say 'Arcanist Stuff'." She rubs at the bridge of her nose before adding, "Well, I'm genuinely surprised they are willing to, considering how open you were about assisting the Manus before then, but I suppose they can be practical in some ways." ''I don't want sacrifice to ever be necessary'' "I will not turn from my goal, Flamel, but I have never been one to demand the blood sacrifice if there are other options. Right now, my understanding of the River and how my EGO works is dependent on these methods, I know it down to my bones, I hear the voice that has always been with me saying so. That this is the option at my disposal. I am not asking for your help with blood sacrifice. What I want is a better understanding of The Light and The River. If there's other options, I would like to explore them. So I suppose I am the one asking for help instead. You are the only expert I know of in this field. And this is the one field I cannot draw pages from. It is both too vast and deep a well for me to draw from with a mere EGO. In the meantime I will follow the path I have." ''Situs Inversus.'' "The Hongyuan Bioengineering Group of DIstrict 8 and K Corp of District 11 would have the most information on these topics, though we do have some documents that we have saved from various associated Fixers and from the time we were allied with the former. Binah personally devastated District 8 due to them violating some taboo or another, but her memory is damaged. I cannot say if she would know anything that could help." She quirks her head. "Why do you ask about Situs Inversus?"
Flamel Parsons	Flamel brushes his hair back. "Well," He smiles. "I'm always eager to try to help! Didn't turn out great last time, but, hey, no sense in giving up. I've been hoping the Psychoportals could have been something that could help you out... somehow. I'd always hoped it could be something that could help affect things on a larger scale without having to do so much... messy crap with the 'real' side." He gestures to the motes. "You're doing something astral, but you have to deal with so much physicality in it... That just doesn't seem right. Does it? I really do hope the Psychogates will help with that." He looks away, back at the elevator, for a while. "It'll sound crazy." He says. "But, 'Don't forget my heartbeat on the right.' That's what she said before she died. She looked into the future with her death-avoidance clairvoyance, and that's what she said. I don't know. Maybe it's just filling time. Maybe I'm just doing this as a little grief gesture. Probably, even! But, I'm not forgetting. So maybe something will happen that she foresaw. If I look into her condition, explore everything I could know about it, maybe I'll... find something, incidentally. Trip some coincidence she saw in the future. I don't know." He smiles. "That's research! A lot of 'I don't know'. Haha..."
Angela	"It is strange, isn't it?" Angela admits to Flamel. "That so much of this requires blood at all. Is it saying that I cannot imagine freedom without some sort of sacrifice? It cannot be, if the Manus need their blood paintings as well." She frowns, frustrated. The idea that the Manus might just be doing blood sacrifices for the fun of it doesn't really occur to her, she has to assume there's some reason for it all. "If you'd like to study this phenomena here, to see how I may improve the process to something ... gentler. I would appreciate it, but I would not ask you to employ the present working methodology." She looks back to the elevator when Flamel does, half expecting a crazed Fixer with a sword to charge her from it. But there isn't. That doesn't happen. Nobody's ever made it up this high before. "...That sounds like a bit of romance more than a method of resisting the Storm but..." She frowns, having spent too much time with Petra to not consider at least one angle here. "But it is strange, isn't it? Her Heart's position is 'reversed', in a world where one must avoid being reversed. I feel like there must be ''something'' to that, even if the meaning eludes us." Then ultimately she shrugs. "I wouldn't know the answer. But the Wings investigate all sorts of strange things in the Outskirts and Ruins outside the City. I can give you what I have--I have no knowledge of H Corp, Binah would know more and you could ask her if they might have anything. Or you can reach out to K Corp. If you say you had dealings with L Corp, they might accept a meeting--after all, L Corp and K Corp were allies at one point."
Flamel Parsons	Flamel heaves a big sigh. "Yeah, I'm a no-kill guy, just how I'm built. I can't blame you for feeling, deep down, like some kind of sacrifice is needed, though. I mean, it's how you were made from day one. Not to say you haven't grown way past what you were meant to be, but even that was supposed to be impossible, so going further... It would be wild to expect something like that, right? Most people don't get two impossibilities in their life. Heck, most don't get one." He shifts his arms, trying to find a way of crossing them that feels the correct amount of unguarded. "Yeah." He says. "It could have been a romantic gesture. I know it wasn't some way of resisting the Storm, because..." He looks away for a moment. "Well, clairvoyants have our ways. Sometimes we get to see something, and all we know is, there's one thing we can do to make a better future, and we have to do it. She used her clairvoyance, the one that detected how to get herself and her loved ones through danger, and said that immediately; I have to at least try to see if there's something she intended. It won't bring her back, but..." He squeezes his own arms a little harder. "The thing about conspiracies is that they help the world make sense." He says. "When things seem arbitrary, and random, and pointless, they give a structure to things, a structure you only saw one fragment of but still one that's built with consistency, solidness." He's staring at the floor. "Knowing that there's a force big enough to control the weather, or censor a sky full of aliens, or tow away the real moon and put a fake one in the sky, that means that everything has a reason and nothing is just pointless, contextless cruelty and loss." The smile is especially weak when he looks at her. "Can't prove a negative, you know? I'll follow any lead you have. Just to see if something's there."
Angela	''That means everything has a reason and nothing is just pointless, contextless cruelty and loss.'' "When you put it like that, I can understand the appeal." Angela admits. "Unfortunately, I am not seeking merely to satisfy myself. The target I have in mind has a name: The Head. It is real." Or so she believes anyway, she has not seen any extra evidence of The Head than anybody else has. "Petra or Sougo can get you in contact with T Corp, they are the ones that specialize in temporal manipulation. The Concord ought to be able to get you in touch with K Corp, naerly every Wing--I imagine--yearns for the attention of the Partners and would pay handsomely for the Concord's favor. So long as you dangle a carrot I'm sure you might be able to gain access to some of their research though they'll avoid giving you anything that might lead to you discovering their Singularities. I imagine you're all clever enough to make use of them." She nods slowly. "If there's anything else I can do, please let me know, Flamel. In the meantime, I will endeavour to soothe over relations with the Manus. Maybe if we can earn back some trust, they may be more malleable than they seemed."