Plotting

Nils wasn't exactly the sort of person who would normally try to get with someone if he was involved with someone else, but dammit this was Indigo. He'd had a crush on Indigo since he'd first seen a picture of him. The more he read about the man, the more interested he'd been. Everyone had an exception, right?
And he'd been so close last night, he'd been sitting on his lap, when Bea had decided to ruin the whole thing. He'd since gone through and read the email, and he knew it was worrisome, but there was no reason to assume that it was Indigo himself doing it, and even if it were, it seemed unlikely that such a public figure was some sort of supernatural being. They would just have to be on their guard, and everything would turn out just fine.
On that note, he'd dropped a text to Esperanza, after he knew that Bea would be long gone, asking her to meet up with him for a late lunch. He arrived early and settled down with the final touches on sewing Chad's hat band while he waited.

Esperanza walked into the diner trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, although she was slightly hindered by the fact that her idea of inconspicuous consisted of her normal trench coat and hat, complete with overly large sunglasses, black boots, and a briefcase. An outside observer might have commented on her eerie resemblance to Carmen SanDiego.

She looked around sharply before spotting Nils and heading to his table with a purposeful stride. When she reached it, she set the briefcase down and Nils could see it was handcuffed to her wrist. The handcuffs looked suspiciously like the pair she used in several of her strip/dance routines.

“We have got to get him alone tonight.” She said by way of a greeting, without bothering to remove her sunglasses, “My entire future may depend on this.”

Nils blinked at her over the top ensemble. He was reminded very strongly of Carmen SanDiego, as well as a film noir detective. And for heaven's sake, she'd handcuffed a briefcase to her arm. She didn't seem to understand the term discreet. He set his sewing down with a sigh. "Hello to you too. What's in the briefcase and why is is it handcuffed to your arm?"

Esperanza laid the briefcase flat and unlatched it, pulling up the lid. She pulled out a case of CDs, a large binder-clipped stack of papers, and a small stuffed penguin with a missing eye that looked like it had seen better days.

"Research." she said, then grinned slightly "I guess maybe I got a little carried away with the spy thing."

She pushed the stack across the table.

"Wikipedia, interviews, mtv.com... anything and everything I could dig up on Indigo. Plus copies of all his CD's. Even some of his rarer demo stuff. I was up most of the night on Bea's laptop compiling it. It sucks not having Simon around for this stuff. I figure we should know everything about him that we can for two reasons. Firstly it'll help us talk to him. Second... as much as I hate to admit it, the others have a point. We need to see if there's anything pointing to him being some sort of serial killer titanspawn demon thing. Not that I think there is, but... you know, just in case."

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(Heather, if you want me to roll an investigation check for Ronnie, let me know...)

Nils blinked. Esperanza had been very thorough, and it shamed him a little. He should have been putting some work in, but he'd been too busy pouting about Bea's interference. Confusion still prevailed when he looked over the contents of the briefcase. "Esperanza, this is wonderful, but why is there a stuffed penguin?"
He flipped through the pages a bit distractedly. "Before I dive into this huge pile, IS there anything that actually points to him? Considering the size of his entourage, the simple proximity doesn't really point particularly conclusively at him. For that matter, deaths and disappearances, while tragic, don't really point to anything supernatural. Just because OUR lives revolve around that sort of thing doesn't mean that murder can't just be murder."
The sentence earned him an odd look from the waitress who'd just come up behind them to take Esperanza's drink order.

(Please! Or at least gimme a general idea of what skill level you've got. I'll send you some stuff tomorrow - i'd do it tonight but I am too stupid tired -_-)

(Investigation 2, Intelligence 3. I rolled four succcesses if you trust me that much. )

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Ronnie blushed slightly when Nils mentioned the stuffed penguin.

"Oh... that's uh... ahem... that's Senor Frivolo. He's uh... he's my good luck penguin."

The waitress' approach surprised Esperanza, who jumped slightly and took off her sunglasses, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Oh! Ummm... just coffee, please. No cream."

She turned back to Nils after the waitress left.

"Well, no, obviously not everything is going to be supernatural, but from what I understand about this 'Fate' stuff, I think we can expect that something odd is going on. And no, of course there's not gonna be anything tying anyone directly to the murders or else they'd be in jail. I just thought maybe we should start looking for clues... contradictions, inconsistencies, anything that looks suspicious. If everything looks on the up and up, then full speed ahead."

Nils smiled, amused, at the explanation for the penguin, but didn't press the matter.
He did laugh at Esperanza's sheepish look, once the waitress left. "You know, discretion works better when you don't jump and look guilty when someone shows up unexpectedly." He said it with a smile, obviously teasing.
He turned his attention back to the discussion at hand when she did. "I guess you have a point. I guess I just really WANTED him to be seperate from all of this. I guess all we can do is our research, and then at least we'll have a way to keep the others from bitching at us for not thinking this through."
He sighed and reached for the stack of papers, taking about half for himself. "Lets see what we can find."

Three hours later...

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Ronnie slumped in her seat and dropped her head onto the table face-down with a thud. Her fifth cup of coffee (which by this point was more sugar than anything else) jingled as she did so.

"Ay dios mio..." she said in a muffled voice. "He's one of us, isn't he? A scion. He doesn't know his dad... he's uncannily lucky and inhumanly beautiful to the camera... the grapevine tattoo... he even has a stupid lucky headset. I'll bet dollars to pesos that thing is a relic of some kind."

She groaned and looked up at Nils with a look of real disappointment in her eyes.

"Why does everything we do always have to come back to this? Why can't anything good just happen to us without our parents getting involved?"

Nils nodded slowly. "That's what it looks like. Although I'm not so sure he doesn't know who his dad is. The grapevine tatoo, his album is called Baccanal, his lifestyle, hell, even his love of wine. There's kind of a theme there." He sighed. "I don't bloody know. I wish I did. On the bright side, he's one of us. That means that there's a valid alternative to the 'he's killing people' theory. It could be titanspawn. Maybe he's being chased? It would explain the constant travel, the everpresent entourage, his refusal to ever be alone, and maybe even the hypervigilance of his managers."

Ronnie sighed.

"I don't know, Nils. I guess it's possible. I really wish Simon were here to help us put the pieces together."

She stirred what was left of her lukewarm coffee and finished it off.

"We need to tell the others." she said reluctantly, "We both want him to be legit, but there's too much evidence that points to something strange going on."

Nils nodded sadly. "Yes, I suppose we should. The others deserve to know. This is pretty big news." He sighed. "I never realized before how much work Simon puts into all the information he picks up. He makes it look so easy."
He turned his attention towards finishing up the last of his lemonade, then turned to Esperanza with a shy smile. "We are still going to Halo tonight, though, right?"

Ronnie raised her eyebrows.

"Oh god, yes. One way or the other we're gonna have to get close to this guy. Him being here is no coincidence. I'm starting to not believe in coincidence anymore. The question is, are we getting close to him because of who he is, or because of *what* he is? And we're gonna need the team's help if we end up finding out things he doesn't want us to know."

Nils breathed an audible sigh of relief. "Between the two of us, if we're actually paying attention, we can charm him and see what kind of vibe we can get off of him. And if we make sure to go in with our toys, I'm sure this will turn out just fine. Speaking of, I finished with the snakeskin. All of your things are ready to go."

Before Ronnie had a chance to reply, the chiming of her phone unexpectedly interrupted their conversation. It was an unlisted number.

Ronnie pulled the phone out of her coat pocket and bit her lip for a moment, as if deciding how best to proceed. She hesitantly hit the talk button.

"Hello?" she said.

"Hey," the voice on the other answered cheerily. It only took her a moment to realize who it was... "This is Esperanza, right?"

Ronnie quickly covered the mouthpiece of her phone with her hand and whispered across the table at Nils.

"It's him!"

She took her hand away and smiled as spoke to Indigo.

"It sure is. Is this who I think it is? I wasn't expecting to hear from you so soon."

Indigo chuckled on the other end of the line. "Yes well.... I have a mission, if you chose to accept it: Convince me not to go to Austin tonight."

There were a few other voices in the background - Ronnie couldn't quite make them out, but one of them made Indigo laugh again.

"And also," he added, "not strangle Geoff."

"Austin?" Ronnie said, puttin gon her best dissapointed voice, "I thought you were going to come to Halo with me tonight. I was looking forward to giving you a show. I'm told my dancing abilities are epic. And what exactly has Geoff done that's so asphyxiation-worthy?"

"Well.... I hope you'll let me do more than just watch." (More background laughing) "As for Geoff, he is making disparaging remarks about my character, sadly not an uncommon occurrence. It may as yet result in his untimely demise, ut you are putting me in a good mood, and so I will magnanimously allow him to live."

Ronnie wanted to laugh, but in the back of her head she couldn't help wondering if there might be the slightest hint of truth in Indigo's threat. She forced a small chuckle and smiled.

"Why that brute. I'm sure your character is absolutely unimpeachable! It's very charitable of you to be so forgiving of your subject's transgressions." she said, teasingly. "As for what I will and won't let you do, you're going to have to show up to find out, I'm afraid. Besides, what does Austin have that we don't? Drag queens? Bad music? Fizzy wine coolers? I can promise you your fill of all three. And I guarantee you won't find one of me in Austin."

"How kind. And convincing. Though you might have to hold me if the bad music becomes too traumatic. I'll see you there, then?"

Ronnie smiled genuinely.

"You certainly will. And if you bring Geoff with you I'll be sure to give him a good scolding for you."

Indigo laughed again. "Oh, definitely. I gotta go, but I am looking forward to seeing you later."