Foul World (AU Rhiannon & AU Connor)
"This world is foul."

Connor muttered the words as he stalked into the building he and the other Inquisitors were using as their headquarters, closing the door behind him with an overly-controlled motion. He took a long deep breath, the mask of the air purifier tucked out of sight, then crossed to where he'd set up his maps, pinned to the wall with tacks. He picked up a pen, circled the name of the park where the succubus had escaped, started marking likely spots where she could go to hide. If she used her abilities, she could possibly use some unfortunate human as her accomplice. He wished he hadn't missed.

As far as he could tell, he was alone in the building, which suited him as his mood was rather dark. He disliked failure, especially in himself. There could be no more mistakes, not if the heathens had gotten so desperate as to carelessly assault someone in public. They must all do better from here on out.

In a quiet corner, Rhiannon sat calibrating her instruments. On a walk through the Lincoln Park area, the levels on the handheld gear went haywire, and afterwards nothing carried on her person at the time seemed to work properly. She took a few of the wrist-mounted gadgets apart to see if moisture had gotten in, but the gears were dry as a bone. Working with a light and magnifier, which could be fastened over the eyes like a pair of glasses, she painstakingly reassembled the gear.

Connor's entrance made her look up. She noticed his tension, a physical thing that filled that part of the room. Nobody she knew had mastered silent scorn quite like Connor. Rhiannon tucked her glasses into a pocket and got up. "You're not alone in thinking so," she said, keeping her voice down. She took the gear with her and continued to tighten a few screws.

At his side, Rhiannon took the pen. "Mind?" She clicked it and drew a star at the corner of Diversey and Clark.

"Please." Connor relinquished the writing implement, watched Rhiannon complete the design on the map. He could feel the beginnings of a headache threatening, a combination of the day's heat and the botched encounter serving to deepen his aggravation. "Has there been anything new since Squad Leader Maragos' transmission?"

He pushed his fingers through his hair, quietly troubled by his earlier blunder. If he hadn't shouted, he'd have had the succubus unconscious and ready to be taken into custody. Had he risked the mission for the sake of some off-worlder who'd been unlucky enough to attract her attention first? It was unlike Connor to question himself, but certain things bore asking sometimes. As one of the purged, the burden on him was heavier than on his fully-human companions. If he failed, wasn't he just proving himself to be unworthy?

"Have any of the others reported in?"

Rhiannon turned a crank on the side of the gadget. A viewing screen flickered and illuminated her face. She wiggled a dial back and forth and watched a line spike and flatten. "I only know what I received before my equipment malfunctioned." She gave the side of it a smack with her palm and winced. "Victoria learned there's a copy of our squad leader. He's human. Her copy is not." The brunette's eyebrows arched in a dry look. "Mine's an artist. Thank god she's not a vampire."

Thinking about how harsh that may've sounded, Rhiannon frowned and looked up with apologetic eyes. "I'm sorry, Connor. There was no offense intended, I just wouldn't... I'm not sure how I'd handle it. I'm sorry." She knew that he wasn't fond of sentimentality or pity, at least where his genetics were concerned. She quickly turned away and focused on the maps, then the equipment in her hand. "Tobias and Kathleen are on patrol," she mentioned.

He twitched away from the apology, and he would not think about the nature of the man he'd seen in the park. This world was enough of a cesspit, he didn't want to consider what a clone of himself might be. "Be glad you don't have to," was all he said. "I don't think I could go through that twice."

After a contemplative moment, he continued, "I still think it's an error not to involve outside sources. The law, whatever else can be said for it, does seem to be on the right side. We don't have enough materials here to subdue a threat if the fugitives gain support. If they turn the tables on us while our supply lines are mostly cut off..."

He allowed the sentence to remain unfinished, but the look he gave Rhiannon was significant. Far be it from him to question his orders, but they'd lost the element of surprise, and if any of these 'copies' of theirs were to come together and pool their own resources, it would only make things more difficult. From where he stood, the odds in their favor were slimming down alarmingly.

"And you're so sure the authorities wouldn't lock us up for lunacy? Or worse?" Rhiannon asked, swinging around to face him. Her thumb lightly tapped the device she held. She only felt at liberty to express her opinions so freely in his presence, and didn't hesitate to do so now. Being around him was a relief, in this regard. It felt like having all the laces of a corset suddenly undone and being able to breathe. "We're a small militia invading their world. We don't speak as they do. We don't dress as they do. Our technology is decades beyond theirs. I've a feeling authorities would sidetrack our progress, rather than helping us."

Rhiannon took a deep breath and looked at her shoes. Then, "In a best case scenario... they'd halt our searches and question us for days. In the worst case, they'd strip us of our resources, lock us up, and throw away the key. The media tells us that authorities in this country are in a habit of overreaction to terrorism. So we're working on that." Angling her torso towards the corner, she pointed at the gathered supplies. There were salvaged pieces of this world's technology mingled with dismantled bits of their own. At the moment, it was merely a pile of disconnected parts. "The signal."

"The media." Connor was already making a face. He'd seen some of this plane's media outlets, and much of it seemed to boil down to sensationalism and what would 'sell' as opposed to anything related to the relaying of information. To say that he was not impressed would have been putting it mildly. He folded his arms as he regarded the map on the wall, then turned his attention to the machinery Rhiannon had indicated.

"Will it work?" he asked, studying the components. "There's so much interference in the air here we can barely count on our existing machines to function properly. Will they be able to pinpoint our location back home and come to our aid?"

Rhiannon's mouth twisted in a smirk. "Connor, would I work on it if I didn't think so? Oh ye of little faith." She smiled and pivoted, so that her back was to the wall of maps. "It'd be so much easier if we already knew exactly where we are. We could send an Inquisitor for reinforcements and have then come back here. But..." Breathing deeply to clear away that thought, she added, "It's easier to work backwards. We already know where we were. We just... send a signal to the home frequency, and when they get it, they'll be able to read its origin. They'll know where we are before we do. They'll come."

She looked up beneath her eyebrows. "And it they don't, well, let's just say I'll have a serious urge to tell them where they can stick their next Inquisition mission." She smiled, not fully sure if she meant it.

He flushed, found something on the floor that was worth looking at. "That wasn't what I intended to imply," he said a little stiffly. "You know that I...respect your intelligence, and that I value your work. I'd not have suggested you be included on this mission otherwise. But I trust nothing about this place, or the people in it. It's a poor environment for instilling confidence in anything."

He knew he was inarticulate, but men did not speak of their feelings in the world they came from. Connor cleared his throat, looked at the timepiece on his wrist. "When are you scheduled to go on recon again?"

The question about recon flew past her.

Rhiannon's expression shifted. "Wow. That was a slip, wasn't it?" She looked at the gadget she held, thinking of the hours it took to take all the pieces apart and put them back together again. She swallowed past a tight spot in her throat. "So you suggested I be on this mission?" She rolled her shoulders away from the wall. "I suppose I should thank you for allowing me to come along." She walked back to her table in the corner and carefully placed the items down, to avoid the urge to unceremoniously drop them. Flare-ups of temper only exacerbated the sexism present in the Inquisition.

It was true that she followed him into the Inquisition, and true also that she admired his dedication, bravery, and persistence. However, Rhiannon did not like to hear it implied that she was there on his coattails. She had done the rigorous training, she had passed the grueling tests of intelligence and loyalty that seemed endless. She had taken worse blows than the gash wound on her temple. When would she be there on her merit, rather than his word?

She popped a cog into its proper place and tried not to grind her teeth.

He'd said too much, and he jammed his hands into the pockets of his trousers as he continued to look everywhere but at Rhiannon. "I merely made the suggestion," he muttered, embarrassed and feeling asinine for reasons he couldn't pinpoint. "Inquisitor Carruthers made the final decision. He must have decided he agreed with my assessment of your abilities."

Connor looked at the brunette's back from where he stood, knowing that he'd blathered when he shouldn't have. Yes, Rhiannon was a woman, but she was the most competent woman he'd ever worked with, and that included their squad leader's wife. He no more held her gender against her than she held his status as one of the purged against him. Blast his mouth. It would have been easy enough to tell her he had meant no insult, but the words were locked just beyond his voicebox, refusing to be uttered.

"We all have our drawbacks," he said instead, averting his eyes from her defensive posture. "Even now, Mrs. Maragos awaits treason on my part, or perhaps that of Inquisitors Richards and Haig. But we do our best, all of us. For the right of things."

"If I die," Rhiannon picked up a small screwdriver and fastened on a brass faceplate. "Do you think they'll put my name on a memorial next to..." She drifted off and scanned the blank wall, as if it held the names of their peers. "Inquisitor O'Rourke's?" She tightened all four screws and dropped the screwdriver. It rolled away from her.

"They won't. It'll be on the," she shook her head, "The far end of the wall, at the bottom, next to yours. Even when we're equal, we're not. Not even when we give our lives for this." She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. Quite whether it was an itch, an irritated gesture, or other was a mystery. "Anyway, I think I've fixed my equipment. Let's turn on the radio, shall we?"

Fool. Imbecile. Connor berated himself silently even as he turned his attention to the radio again. Thoughtlessness wasn't like him, especially when it came to his colleagues. He removed one hand from his pocket, rubbed his brow.

"Let's test it out," he said aloud, looking the contraption over. So much work for one small machine. But if this would keep them in touch with their fellow Inquisitors, it would be worth it. "If you'll do the honors?"

Rhiannon adjusted a knob. The line-and-spikes display gave way to an electronic menu. "Thank God." She wet her lip and tapped through the options until reaching a recording of all incoming messages from earlier. All radio transmissions were automatically saved to memory, in case they needed to be replayed for clarification. The first transmission was too warbled to hear. Rhiannon adjusted for background noise and cued the device to search for common syllables and words in the message and piece together the gaps that were missing. An electronic voice overlapped Kathleen and Toby's to patch their words into recognizable form.

"Tobias, I'm coming down stairs.This place is a demon-haven, and it's now on fire. I dispatched four already."

"Inquisitor Guevera, report."

"Anyone that can hear me, Inquisitor Guevera has been seriously injured in an attack. A vampire. She... I don't believe I can move her easily... Whoever's nearest, please hurry, I am in need of assistance."

"This is Inquisitor Bryson, a message to all. We have our first casualty, I repeat, our first casualty. Inquisitor Kathleen Guevera is down. I- I'm sorry, Logan, I did everything I could."

It felt like the air was kicked from Rhiannon's lungs. "What?" She immediately backed up the message and made it repeat itself. Her eyes stayed glued to the screen, as if it could fill in the blanks in comprehension of what had happened. "Shit... shit!" The curse words flew from her mouth without any consideration. "Oh my god. This was over twenty minutes ago." Her hands shook as she sent the patched message out to the other Inquisitors and configured it to send a message of her own. "Tobias, do you read? It's Rhiannon."'

"My God." His chagrin about Rhiannon forgotten, Connor rubbed a hand over his mouth as he listened to Bryson's panicked voice. There was a greasy taste in the back of his throat, and he swallowed to try and get rid of it. It didn't work. "Where are they?" he asked the brunette, then raised his voice as if that would make the man on the other end of the radio signal respond faster.

"What is your location, Inquisitor Bryson? I can possibly get there in time to..." Oh, but this was a disaster. He knew the sort of damage a vampire could do up close. Had there been time for the creature to force Kathleen to drink? Connor's hands were turning into fists as he turned towards his colleague. "Can you locate them? Somebody has to assist them. It might not be too late."

Rhiannon, who turned whiter by the moment, shook her head. "No! The monitors on our uniforms aren't calibrated for this... goddamn, backwards world!" Attempting to keep her hands steady, she gripped the communication device tighter. It was a good thing that it was made of sturdy materials. She ran the message again. "Listen, did you hear that bit? He's given a street, but I can't make out the number or a cross-street."

Looking up, she searched Connor's face. "I'm on watch here, I can't leave. Will you look for them? I'll try to contact the others. You could take a medical bag." Her voice shook when she said it. She knew from the defeat in Bryson's voice, his apology to Kathleen's husband, and the time lapse that it was far too late. She had known Kathleen for years.

"I'm on my way." Connor had already picked up some of their medical supplies, the bag clutched in one hand, and he paused only long enough to touch Rhiannon on the shoulder before setting off at a dead run. The soles of his old-fashioned shoes made loud noises on the floor of the warehouse, and then he was out of the door and gone.

He could still get there if he hurried. Time had never seemed in such short supply.


[OOC: All inquisitors should receive Rhiannon's patched copy of the transmission, contained within this scene.]