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13: Spam: Man got to live what he know.
[Open spam]
[Omar is a roamer. As long as he's not forced to stay in his cabin -- in his cell, comfortable as it may be -- he spends very little time there. He's just as likely to sleep in an empty cabin, or even once or twice in the Enclosure. He keeps bizarre hours, and he keeps them largely to himself.
None of this is new. This is how he's been since he got here the first time. Since his last death toll, though, he's become even more erratic in his efforts to stay unpredictable, and the recent spate of unwarranted brutality has him feeling especially restless. He can be chanced upon at all kinds of odd times and places: at the library early in the morning, in the showers and the laundry room around noon, eating in the dining hall in the late afternoon. In the evening, smoking up on the deck with so many of his fellow passengers, because it's not actually that he's antisocial -- just very, very careful.
Careful enough that he takes data, and so some of the newer passengers may or may not be surprised to glimpse him out of the corner of their eyes every now and again. Maybe even writing something down.]
[Spam for Cold and Dark]
[But there's a predictability even in unpredictability, and he does from time to time spend the night in his cabin, if only to keep up the illusion that he does so much more often. It might take a more careful observer a while to figure out when he's likely to return, but the time comes around eventually.
It's late in the evening, but he's been up for the last 36 hours, and he's tired -- and therefore both baffled and a little annoyed to hear a knock on the door right when he's about to lay his head down.]
Man, who is it?
[Edit: Voice to Ricki, post-Tiffany spam]
You know what? I remember a time this place didn't feel like a cross between a day care and a circus.
[Edit: Spam for Luna, post-pairings announcement]
[Omar's been playing the warden shuffle for a while now. At best, it's been ineffective -- the closest thing he's gotten to a decent temporary warden, in Horatio, got ripped away from him halfway through the month. At worst, it's been disastrous. So he's not inclined to pay much mind to the announcement, not anymore. He goes about his day. Let Luna Lovegood come to him, if she likes.]
[Omar is a roamer. As long as he's not forced to stay in his cabin -- in his cell, comfortable as it may be -- he spends very little time there. He's just as likely to sleep in an empty cabin, or even once or twice in the Enclosure. He keeps bizarre hours, and he keeps them largely to himself.
None of this is new. This is how he's been since he got here the first time. Since his last death toll, though, he's become even more erratic in his efforts to stay unpredictable, and the recent spate of unwarranted brutality has him feeling especially restless. He can be chanced upon at all kinds of odd times and places: at the library early in the morning, in the showers and the laundry room around noon, eating in the dining hall in the late afternoon. In the evening, smoking up on the deck with so many of his fellow passengers, because it's not actually that he's antisocial -- just very, very careful.
Careful enough that he takes data, and so some of the newer passengers may or may not be surprised to glimpse him out of the corner of their eyes every now and again. Maybe even writing something down.]
[Spam for Cold and Dark]
[But there's a predictability even in unpredictability, and he does from time to time spend the night in his cabin, if only to keep up the illusion that he does so much more often. It might take a more careful observer a while to figure out when he's likely to return, but the time comes around eventually.
It's late in the evening, but he's been up for the last 36 hours, and he's tired -- and therefore both baffled and a little annoyed to hear a knock on the door right when he's about to lay his head down.]
Man, who is it?
[Edit: Voice to Ricki, post-Tiffany spam]
You know what? I remember a time this place didn't feel like a cross between a day care and a circus.
[Edit: Spam for Luna, post-pairings announcement]
[Omar's been playing the warden shuffle for a while now. At best, it's been ineffective -- the closest thing he's gotten to a decent temporary warden, in Horatio, got ripped away from him halfway through the month. At worst, it's been disastrous. So he's not inclined to pay much mind to the announcement, not anymore. He goes about his day. Let Luna Lovegood come to him, if she likes.]
spam
--circle around back to later, he thinks, as Ricki sits forward. He cocks his head slightly, curiosity duly piqued.]
...a'ight, man.
[He hasn't exactly been going around sharing Ricki's stories anyway, but he can respect when a secret really needs to be a secret.]
Think you gotta know by now I'm a man that keep his word.
spam
[A gesture, not important, and he leans over out of the bed to drag out the ashtray that lives underneath it.]
-but I'm not supposed to know this, so if by any chance any of the parties involved showed up...
[This one's different.]
It starts with a man named Leamas. A good man, a loyal man, a man with no reputation in particular except with those high enough up to know that he is very, very good. An old rhino who skulks around the edge of the Berlin Wall for years, doing the kind of work that destroys a man's soul. It's West Berlin, so all his men keep going down, and no one can tell why. No one can blame him, precisely, but you can't get a commendation for something like that, either, and I'm given to understand it eats away at a handler, watching the men who trust them go down in pools of blood, over and over.
Now, as I understand it, Leamas is transferred back and to a desk, which is never a promotion for a man like this. His flaming out is slow and predictable, and involves a fair amount of cheap whiskey and someone getting his pension cut on a technicality- a real nasty business, the kind that gets through the rumour mill, even in circles like ours where we all know better. After this little performance, he is now reasonably well known as an 'ex' spy. A humiliated, penniless alcoholic ex spy, at that, and one with a hell of a lot of possible gold to give any German smart enough to pick up on the fact.
[Watching him closely, wondering how quickly Omar will see the pieces come together. How long in advance these games can run. The kind of voluntary and personal mortification it takes for a man like Leamas to pretend to all his colleagues to go out like that. The kind of system that would ask such a sacrifice from one of their oldest, most dedicated, and best.]
Somewhere in all this, there's a girl. Either he loves her, or he doesn't, no one can really remember, but she's a member of some silly UK Socialist-Leninist organization in the little strip of nowhere where he's living, and she's pretty enough and half his age. We can figure, maybe she's the one who flagged someone back home to send legs after our man Leamas, or maybe her youth and her revolutionary zeal are a cover for him, something to let him make a call, make an offer to go over- doesn't matter. There's a girl, is all we know, and maybe he loves her.
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So there's just a broken man at the end of his rope and a girl and the bottom of a bottle. In Omar's world, he'd become an angry security guard or something equally demeaning. In this one, he'll become a turncoat. Omar nods -- go on.]
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So he builds himself up into this craven thing. No money, no dignity, no loyalty left, and by hook and crook, he gets himself picked up by the Abteilung.
[Ricki says, with a glint of admiration in his eyes that may not quite make sense.]
East German secret police. There are exactly three things you need to know about them, for the purposes of the adventure of our man Leamas. The first, is that they have this sadist in their ranks; a bastard named Mundt, who had a hand in putting a few of the bullets in the heads of the members of that leaky network. Second, that Mundt has a second in command, a bright young thing named Fiedler, who is sharp as a tack, but in a sort of pleasant 'enemy worthy of respect' sort of way. Third, partially because of the efforts of Mundt, they make the KGB interrogators look like a cakewalk.
No way in hell would I ever defect to them, and certainly not with an agenda, but Leamas does it. Walks right in and works it so he ends up in Fiedler's office, with that young man trying to get everything he knows out of him.
This is all- you're with me?
[Convoluted as hell, and about to get worse.]
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I'm with you.
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[He says, stopping for a breath from the cigarette.]
They'll see the lie. So if you're sitting down across from a man like Fielder, and he asks you about a man like Mundt, you talk about what a prick he is, and how he came to London that one time-
Well, before you get to any of that, there are four days of other names to go through. Everything from West Berlin, we can imagine, not that it made much of a difference by now. Some pre-screened ongoing ops that can be safely rattled by the Germans without anyone getting seriously hurt. Maybe, just maybe, Leamas gives over one or two bits of chump change- a Polish undersecretary who handed over the sugar distribution plans, who Fiedler doesn't know has been dragging his feet on us since, but is a pretty enticing traitor to nab, because think of how much worse that could have been, if we'd kept working him.
In the end, it's easy. Men are very simple. Fiedler is Jewish, Mundt is an ex-Nazi, they loathe one another already. Fiedler doesn't trust Leamas, but as long as Leamas doesn't lie to him, never says this man is a double agent, Fiedler will hunt for it. The Circus has given Leamas enough to make the shape of it almost clear- not perfectly incriminating evidence, because that wouldn't be any good either, but by the end of their days together, this bright young man is convinced that he has twisted this old warhorse of ours into giving up secrets that even Leamas didn't know that he knew. Because he's fought to win this truth, Fiedler will believe it down to his very marrow, and when he proves it, the Nazi bastard will be-
[A throat slitting gesture.]
Re: spam
[He lets out a low whistle and sits back, brows raised.]
Your boy Leamas got some real heart. Among other things.
spam
Leamas is testifying for Fiedler, who has a slough of other evidence against Mundt- really convincing stuff our boy Leamas couldn't really have brought him. Then there's the police report for the missing girl, filed back home. She's gone as of just a few days before the proceedings begin- and for some reason, Circus coffers have paid her rent off for the next year.
Here's what I think happened. Fiedler shows up at the trial, with Leamas as the nail in the coffin he's been building for Mundt for years. Leamas testifies, but Mundt arrives, with proof, handy, perfect proof that Leamas is one of ours, never flipped at all. Maybe a picture of that meeting with Peter and Control, all those years ago. Maybe the girl knows something. Maybe Leamas cracks and admits everything to save the poor waif. It looks real, because it is real. Leamas behind enemy lines, he's blown to all hell, he's caught red handed in this game, because his own people, my bosses, have given Mundt everything he needs and more.
[Ricki is not drinking any more. He is not. You can tell that, by the barely banked fire in his expression, the way he does not look at that waste paper basket. The story is sickening, to Ricki, because it is so fucking perfectly them.]
It ends with Mundt, in the eyes of the Germans, unassailably loyal. It ends with bright, lovely young Mister Fiedler being led out in handcuffs, the proof of his case against Mundt in tatters, probably going back into his own interrogation cells. Probably into Mundt's tender custody. It ends, with the best fucking placed mole the Circus has ever had, Mundt, indelibly protected and secure in his position, on track for promotion to the head of the Abteilung. The most dangerous threat to his placement, Fiedler, who is a good spy and a threat to us and ours, deftly and totally neutralized.
spam
That's cold, yo. I once--
[But no, he's not yet ready for the story of Bird and Brandon. What he would say if he were is that he'd thought he'd been pretty hard with that, smirking at Bird from the stand and watching him get put away for life, but this is hardness on a whole new level. He shakes his head.]
That's cold.
What happened to Leamus?
spam
[Ricki is looking at his hands now, two fingertips tapping a little against the edge of the ashtray. None of this is Ricki's story. It was nearly ten years ago, his name isn't a footnote anywhere near here. He has actually told Omar almost nothing, and yet a great deal, at the same time.]
To answer your question, I am an inmate because there are whole weeks at a time where I can't remember why anything that happened in that was wrong. But then, part of trusting your life to someone like Peter Guillam is remembering that if he deems it necessary, he's allowed to spend it. Part of taking orders from him and not asking any questions is knowing that this is the kind of plan I am obligingly making myself a part of.
I am routinely a very good boy. I have gotten to a point in my life where I am a more effective tool if I do not pause to ask questions. I think there's something a little sick about that, knowing what the Circus is capable of, and letting men like these use my deliberate ignorance as another kind of knife.
[He stretches his feet out, and crosses them at the ankle. Reaches for the pack of cigarettes; his has burnt down while they've been talking.]
But that's where we are, isn't it?
[That's what Ricki is, he means.]
spam
Some of it, Omar even wonders if he already knew a little bit already, if he had somehow picked it up beneath the skin. The surface version of Ricki Tarr isn't someone he'd normally have all that much to say to, but he can't deny that he's felt a pull to him. Some of that is the inevitable Barge mixing-pot-slash-pressure-cooker doing its work, but some of it...
Well, Ricki is a good boy, and Omar has always liked good boys. Ricki had wanted to put his loyalty in someone, it seems to him, and Omar has always been good at inspiring loyalty. Even now, here, him saying all of this tugs at something in Omar. It makes him want to steal from Peter Guillam, a little bit.
He bites it back and draws deep on his own cigarette, looking down at the ash as it falls into the cup.]
Y'all play some real twisted games out on your side of the pond, don't you?
spam
[He promises, trying to decide whether to light up another cigarette.]
I'm a reasonably hardened man, but some of that whole game is completely, completely fucked.
[Technical term, that.]
spam
Y'all got yourselves stoned, man. I told you -- that ain't how Omar play it.
[He glances back up at him, raising a brow.]
Never saw the point of all them dirty words, neither. Especially not in a man with such a... versatile vocabulary.
spam
I like to paint with every colour in the vocabulary box, and sometimes the situation just begs for a fuck.
spam
Oh, do it, now.
[He purses his lips and shakes his head, tsking softly.]
Such language, Mr. Tarr.
spam
[He decides no, on the cigarette, and sinks back against the headboard, looking ever so faintly self-satisfied. It's saved from being smug by the genuinely goodhearted air about him. He knows he almost made Omar laugh.]
If I can get my hands on a typewriter, maybe I'll go for it. There's nothing else to do around here, in between the bits of spates of gore and murder.
spam
Why not? My old warden had me working the library and running book club back in the day.
spam
[He just. This is important. It sounds hysterical.]
Good grief. What did you read? Who came? Were there fights? I need to know everything.
spam
Don't think you'd know any of the membership -- they all gone now. First book still be there in the library, though...
[With everything that's passed between them tonight, said and unsaid, can he really send Ricki off after this particular book?
...Yes. Yes, he can.]
Something I picked out from a few years in my future, name of Fifty Shades of Grey. Y'all should check it out sometime. Let me know what you think.
spam
I'll look it up. I'm in there all the time, anyways.
[Oh.]
You should absolutely reinstate this tradition. Please?
spam
[Or to troll her. Mostly that.]
spam
[He's chewing on his fingernail, while he imagines- this is the face Ricki probably gets right before the most gleefully diabolical foreign operations.]
It's practically an emergency morale situation. And imagine everyone's faces if you announce you're organizing it?
[The phrase 'trolling' has not been invented in Ricki's day and age. However;]
We can make all the wardens squirm reading Wanda June.
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[And that, obviously, is what is important about this.]
If I make Eggsy come, and we pick first, we can have them reading- what, three months of seventies incarceration literature? A Clockwork Orange. Ken Kesey's Cuckoo's Nest. [Absolutely taking for granted that his young friend will be bullied into this.] I've been flying through this library and one generalization I will make is that my generation's authors feel a lot more traumatized than yours.
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