circle7 | how about some baddie screen time

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how about some baddie screen time

The Seventh Circle was a mess when Joel and Quelorie arrived. (Just the way the Commander liked it, really. All the easier to scoop it up into their palms, and drink from it what they needed.) Information was being leaked and tossed like chicken feed; intel soaked up from the double agents by the ones who shouldn't be hearing it; incorrect information sent back to them. And the puny Circle members not at the center of the Seventh were none the wiser.

What pleasant chaos, Joel thought. Though it was a shame that they had to wear the Circle uniform while present. (Teal wasn't his color.) He couldn't help but wonder if this was how the double agents of Circle Seven felt, hiding in plain sight.

The waiting room was circular (fittingly) and quiet while the Commander and Quelorie waited for the agent they were to meet with. They were to receive intel on the weak points of the other Circles, as well as the ones who would help with further infiltration. A large file, Joel was sure.

"So," he spoke up, sipping the coffee they were served. "What do you think of the Circle?"

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Quelorie, too, was uncomfortable in the Circle uniforms, though it didn’t show on her face (nothing ever did). Luckily, it seemed that the dress code wasn’t particularly strict as long as the jumpsuit was present, so she’d rolled up the sleeves and pant legs to accommodate for her fins and unzipped the front to mid-torso to keep from overheating. Really, the uniform design only seemed to be adequate for humans, but she couldn’t imagine that there weren’t any other races in the circle.

When Joel spoke, she turned to look at him and watched as he sipped his coffee. Quelorie left hers untouched, having learned rather quickly after coming to Gladsheim that Aquilos weren’t built to handle caffeine. It’d had a rather intoxicating effect on her, so she steered clear of the substance after that.

“It’s round,” she stated simply, and it was hard to tell whether she thought Joel had meant the shape or the organization. Her answer could have sufficed for either question considering that the Circle did love to use motifs in their decorating.

Joel looked around them. They were in a round room, on a rounded couch, at a round, glass coffee table.

"So it is."

"And tense," she added. Everyone they'd passed on the way to the waiting room had seemed very on edge. Whether this was the effect of their infiltration or the natural result of working in an area where one's movements were watched at every moment by everyone, Quelorie wasn't sure. Or perhaps she was just getting too used to Joel's playful demeanor to remember what a serious atmosphere was like.

The commander smiled. It was funny, that even without knowing their situation, the members of the Circle were tense. The smallest thing could shatter the tension into pure panic.

"It is, hm?" Setting his coffee on the table, Joel leaned back. "Well, I don't need to tell you to be careful, but nonetheless. Be cautious around the Circle members."

"I'm always careful," she said. The tentacle-like appendages on her head curled inward slightly, a sign she was amused. "But you said it anyways."

He smiled over. Quelorie's bluntness was always entertaining.

"Telling people what to do is my job. You understand."

"But not everyone will listen to you." Her mind immediately wandered to Tootsie, who always had something to say about Joel's orders. Quelorie, on the other hand, always obeyed without question.

"Oh, don't remind me." Joel knew instantly who she meant, too. Vercelli was indeed one of the people he had difficulty controlling, and that was troublesome. His head lulled onto the back of the couch, allowing him to catch the door in his vision. "They sure like to take their time here."

"Would you like me to go find someone?" Quelorie offered. She, too, was beginning to get impatient. They'd been waiting for almost 20 minutes, although the person who'd escorted them had assured it would be 'just a moment.'

"Yes," he said, and held his gun out to her. "Make a point, would you?"

As soon as Joel affirmed her request Quelorie had already begun reaching into her jumpsuit to grab her own weapon, a slightly smaller beam gun that emitted blasts of energy instead of bullets. “I prefer this one.”

She stood and made her way across the room to the large circular door (again with the circles) where their escort had disappeared. There was a small panel on the wall to the right where a code could be entered to open the door. Of course, Quelorie had no idea what that code might be, so she decided to result to alternative methods. One short blast from her gun and the panel exploded, effectively shorting out the locking mechanism on the door. It slid open with a hiss and Quelorie walked through.

As soon as she entered the corridor she locked eyes with a petite woman who looked rather alarmed by Quelorie’s presence. “Hey! You can’t be back he—"

But before she could finish her sentence Quelorie had taken aim and shot two quick blasts at each of the woman’s legs. She crumpled to the ground with an agonized scream, blood seeping into the grey material of her jumpsuit. Quelorie pulled the woman up by her neck. She struggled, but Quelorie easily locked her in a chokehold and placed the gun to her temple. “If you don’t want me to kill you, you should stop resisting.”

This stopped the woman’s squirming (mostly), but didn’t do anything to diminish her panicked screams of pain. That was fine, though. It would draw attention to them, and attention was exactly what Quelorie wanted. Quelorie pulled her hostage down the corridor; the woman was unable to walk now so her legs dragged uselessly along the hallway and created a trail of blood in their wake.

“Excuse me!” Quelorie called out over the woman’s screams to anyone who was nearby. “My superior and I have been waiting for quite a while and we don’t appreciate it.”

Despite the quieter nature of the Seventh Circle, the mafia members generally were not a quiet bunch. It was fortunate that the injured woman was one of the few unarmed members - a secretary, actually, who had served the coffee - and could hardly fight back against Quelorie. The man who turned the corner into the hallway, however, was a little more prepared for such situations.

"I advise you lower the weapon," he said, pointing a gun back at Quelorie, looking rather unfazed, but not pleased either. In his other hand was a tablet - the one they had been waiting on.

"Thank you, Quelorie. Point made. Do as he says," Joel said from behind her, hands in his pockets. He kicked the woman from Quelorie's grasp, and she scrambled to edge away. Some other employees hurried to her side, carrying her off.

Quelorie released the woman as Joel kicked her and replaced her gun to the pocket inside her jumpsuit in accordance with Joel's order. She was glad to see her methods had been effective. They should have just done this in the first place.

Once her weapon had been stowed away, the agent holstered his own. He didn't bother to point out how unnecessary the gesture had been - the military prided itself on its ridiculous methods. Nonetheless, he was not entirely against them.

"Coffee is supposed to wake you up, isn't it?" Joel asked the agent, approaching him. He smiled innocently. "I was falling asleep back there. I hope your secretary learned a valuable lesson about quality service."

"Apologies," the agent answered, clearly sarcastic. He turned his back, motioning them through a door. "This way, please."

Quelorie fell in line a few paces behind Joel, eyeing their surroundings as she followed the man through another round door. Inside the circle-shaped room was another circular table with circle-backed chairs. She was really beginning to dislike how round everything was.

Joel helped himself to a seat, folding one leg over the other, slouching. The agent had stepped around a large desk - the only non-circular furnishing in the room - and set the tablet down in the center.

"May I remind you that we are working together, Commander?" he said as he sat. Joel just smiled, and waved a hand for him to get on with it. The agent looked between Quelorie and Joel with a look of defeated annoyance. "Very well. On here you'll find some very valuable information. Included are blueprints, security checkpoints, and the espionage employee database. The only circle there's no information on is the First. But I'm sure you expected that."

The commander was pleased. This would help their advancement considerably, regardless of the missing information.

"Though it's disappointing to not have anything on the First, that is impressive nonetheless," he praised. "Quelorie, please give him his payment."

Quelorie remained standing behind Joel's chair, glancing towards the tablet as it was placed on the center of the desk. As long as Joel was satisfied with the explanation, she wasn't interested in the tablet's contents. The information didn't concern her unless she was required to become familar with it for an assignment. (The chances of that were incredibly high, however...)

She reached a webbed hand into her jumpsuit and pulled out two clear plastic cards each with a small silver chip in the middle. Quelorie placed the first one on the table. "500,000, as promised. Plus," she set the second card on top of the first, "a bonus of 200,000 for gathering the information quicker than expected."

She slid the cards across the table before straightening again and locked eyes with their informant. "If you can get the information on the First Circle, we'll pay you double "

Even as he picked up the cards, the informant didn't look away from Quelorie. He stood and tucked them securely into a zippered pocket, his hands falling back to his sides. It was plain on his face that the promise intrigued him.

"A very generous offer. We'll continue doing our best to meet it."

Joel stood and picked up the tablet.

"Wonderful!" he said, tucking it under his arm. "Well, it seems we all got what we came for. I hope we'll see you in the near future, Mister..." he looked at the digital display on the desk. "Tradit."

After parting with Tradit, the two of them headed out of the room and back the way they had entered, this time without an escort. After Quelorie's stunt, it seemed that most of the Seventh Circle members were steering clear of them. When they had cleared the area and were no longer in danger of being overheard, Quelorie turned to Joel. "Please confirm that you have all the information you were promised. I had a virus installed on those cards in case the other party didn't follow through. If he's mislead us I'll make sure they're rendered unusable."

Quelorie got a pat on the shoulder for that.

"Have I mentioned lately how great you are?" said Joel flippantly as he veered her into an unoccupied hall. He pulled the tablet from under his arm, and stuck his hand on the surface. A beam of teal light (ugh, always teal with these guys) scanned his hand, then it flickered on, displaying a single search box and a keyboard. "Why don't we test it out for ourselves?"

In the box, Joel typed, 'Seventh Circle security checkpoints.'

A map popped up, glowing blue against a gray background. One by one, in accordance with the tablet's vicinity, the checkpoints lit up, framed in red. A number hovered above each of them, varying from one through five. One was the lowest level of security, and five was the highest. The center circle's security point, however, was marked with a triangle with a circle in the middle.

"Ah, here's the one we came through. Clearance Level 1, though." He pointed to the dock doors where they had come in. "We're allowed up to Level 2. How about we try one? Just for fun."

“You haven’t mentioned it lately.” Quelorie noted as they rounded the corner. She watched as the information displaying the security checkpoints appeared on the display. At Joel’s suggestion, the fins on the side of her face ruffled slightly (the equivalent of a small smile). “That does sound like fun.”

She found their location on the map and searched for the nearest Level 2 checkpoint. “If we continue down this hallway and take a right here-“ she pointed towards a corridor on the map, “we should reach one.”

Joel had been around Quelorie long enough now to understand the meaning behind the small movements of her fins and tentacles. Upon seeing her 'smile', a smirk grew on his own face.

"Excellent," he said, turning the tablet off. He slid it into a pouch on the side of his leg. Even by Gladsheim's standards, Joel was rather chaotic, but they couldn't afford to lose him. He enjoyed pushing his limits far too much, and considered himself very lucky indeed that his partner never questioned it. She had certainly been in the military long enough to know it wasn't the norm. The poor bastards probably thought they were assigning him a balance, only to give him a catalyst. "Also, you're great. I think I'll call you Quelorie Magic from here on."

With that, he started down the hallway.

To the average person, Quelorie probably seemed dull and uninterested—or, rather, creepily robotic—with her lack of human expressions and her monotone speech. Yet in reality the opposite was true. She was curious and mischievous and had a very deadpan sense of humor that most people mistook for ignorance of human customs. (Well, that wasn’t to say she wasn’t ignorant of human customs. She absolutely was. She tried so hard to understand them but she still wasn’t quite there yet.) Somehow Joel understood all this and perhaps that was why she was so willing to go along with his plans. They were, she thought, in fact quite fun.

“Quelorie.. Magic?” She questioned, following down the hall behind him. “What is ‘magic’? Is this something that should be a compliment?”

"Oh, yes, definitely," he assured. "Only wizards use magic, after all."

Sometimes it was fun to take advantage of Quelorie's ignorance of things, Joel had to admit.

"What is a 'wizard'?" Quelorie asked. She was well aware when Joel was stringing her along, but it never bothered her. It just gave her all the more opportunity to learn about human things. "How does someone 'use' magic?"

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