2018-01-21: Beyond Perception

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  • Log: Beyond Perception
  • Cast: Kahm Yugh, Kent Hauch
  • Where: El Pazzo, Fire Quarter
  • Date: 1/21/2018
  • Summary: When word of the failed of reclamation of the Dinoginos Statue reaches Kahm, he heads for El Pazzo with all due haste, gunning for Kent and a long overdue confrontation.


<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

There had been no immediate contact from Gebler to the Black Ties following the loss of the Dinoginos statue, or specifically, following submission of a report detailing the nature of the incident, including an alleged security breach by Second Lieutenant Van Houten. The silence stretched into several days, and might've been deafening were it not for the fact that a communications delay between the gang and their generally unseen supporters was not terribly unusual. When messages did arrive, they were often delivered with the subtlety and craft that become a standard operating procedure for this branch of Gebler.

Today's message was not subtle.

An eruption of sound and air disturbed the daily live of old and new El Pazzo the like as a white gear flew unusually low over the skyline. Such technological sights were rare enough in the Badlands, but the more seasoned of the Ties would recognized the reverse-horned gear readily enough as Hauteclaire, Major Yugh's personal unit. The gear proceeded to brazenly land itself at the end of town where the man himself disembarked.

There was no wide-brimmed hat and black vest today; the trappings of Marcus Rider had been discarded. Kahm marched through town in full uniform with an averted eye and an ear tuned for conversation. Whatever the inclination of the townsfolks might be, he'd be sure to corner a few them with very pointed questions of the activities from last week, a frown deepening on his face as testimony lent a disturbing set of contrasts to the events that had been reported.

He continued all the way into the center of Kent's domain, looking nothing like a man prepared to be stopped and questioned until he saw the gang leader himself.

<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.

The reactions of El Pazzo as a whole as Hauteclaire comes steaming in are of two distinct sides - in Old El Pazzo, citizens empty the streets, shuttering themselves in their homes. In New El Pazzo, people cluster around balconies and roofs to get a look.

In the Fire Quarter itself, Ribaldy and Fargo are using the Glassman to help clean up the twisted metal plants that caused so much grief. The Gear waves, somehow carrying through the beastman's trademark enthusiasm and inability to ever read the atmosphere.

Kahm doesn't get much from the "citizenry" of New El Pazzo. The standard inhabitant has an instinctive problem with any authority other than Kent's and the Night Mayor's, but asking eventually gets him to a Jacket with the unfortunate combination of zealotry and a lack of discretion.

As an aside, the club he finds the Jacket in also contains Samuelh the Molotov, who fires himself out the window as though he were spring-loaded, saying, "Yikes! Gotta warn the boss!"

Kahm discovers that Samuelh gets two blocks down before falling onto his face, asleep.

He is unharassed. El Pazzo only has an encounter table after dark, and his uniform is known to the people within the Fire Quarter who would have the authority to go harassing people anyway. The Black Wardrobe is unlocked, though as Kahm barges in, a mildly wolf-aspected beastwoman - Lash - rises up to follow him with a, "Easy, ossifer," trying to stalk after him.

Kent is audible laughing within, behind a door with a bronze plaque on it that reads 'Night Mayor'. His jacket is over his chair on one side of a desk in this small but richly-appointed office, feet propped up on Red River.

The Night Mayor is an old man of above average height in a very good dark blue suit, clean-shaven, with grey hair that constantly looks stuck in a strong wind. While Kent is laughing uproariously with a cigar in his hand, he is simply sitting, smiling, with a glass of something brown in one hand and smoke curling up from his pipe.

His smile drops off when Kahm barges in. "Oh, dear. We're a regular little Mr. No-Knocks, aren't we? I don't believe I had a sign up front that said 'please, rabble, come crash along in as you please', so I really must ask that you-"

He finally notices Kent's raised hand and has to visibly bite his lower lip to stop from talking.

"Major." Kent says, the humor slowly leaching out of his face. "Figured y'were comin' eventually-like."

Kahm may not notice Lash finally catching up to him, one sharp-nailed hand reaching for his shoulder. Kent catches her eye over Kahm's shoulder and winks, slightly shaking his head.

<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

On an ordinary day, Samuelh might get a sigh and shake of the head from Kahm after such a series of events, but as it is the man simply marches right past him without so much as a disdainful acknowledgement. A pint-sized, bespoke-suited figures darts along in the shadows of the Fire Quarter-Dan, intrigued enough to come see but daring no closer.

Dan could see what Lash would soon discover-that Kahm had that single-minded tenacity and focus of a man on a mission, not being particularly mindful of the beastwoman hounding his footsteps except in the vaguest sense knowing that when one barged into a gang leader's headquarters one could probably expect an escort of some degree or another. Lash is fortunate in that (for now) she keeps her distance from the operative.

There is a moment of tightwired tension when Kahm has entered the office, the 'Night Mayor' is talking, and the Major's eye's are affixed on unknown (to him) official with a look so withering it might've bored a hole before the other finally took a hint. Kahm's head finally turned to Kent, but spoke with a tone as abrupt as knife for their unexpected third party, "Leave."

Whether he does or not, Kahm's next words are for the seated firebug. "Kent." He said, his face about five degrees south of where the other man's was headed. "I'm going to have to ask you to stand up."

<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.

The Night Mayor doesn't look impressive, but he single-handedly brokers all arrangements between the standard criminals, the super criminals, the black marketeers, and the Black Ties that do business within New El Pazzo. The only thing that has prevented him from becoming the next Suit after Parbody is his noodly arms and the fact that he performs a Nilesian faint the instant he sees his own blood.

When Kahm fires his laserbeam of a glare, he can get the gratification of a bead of sweat forming on the gang leader's temple, but the Night Mayor simply looks across his desk to Kent, swiping a hand habitually through his hair, unconcerned.

Kent gestures. The older man finishes his drink in a single pull and stands, straightening his jacket with a pull. "Do avoid the Guild Galad 30 Year if you fix yourself something," he says, transferring his glass to his liquor service tray. "I'm saving it for a very important poisoning." As he leaves: "Do stop crowding the door, Lash, you're going to fog up the fittings. Along now, come come, you have important glowering to do at the front. I'm sure I saw that little wretch pricking along the edges without finishing the starching..."

His dessicatingly dry voice drifts away until the door closes, cutting it off completely. He asks Kent to stand - which is an important distinction. The gang leader only takes his time a little bit, stretching his neck left and right. He seems to have an idea what the officer intends as his feet swing off his weapon's tank...

...and hit the ground with a fixed, inevitable impact.

He's using a minor manifestation of the ability of the stone tablet worn over his heart instinctively now in his personal quest for a measure of dominion. He seems more present than the last time he and Kahm were near each other, shortly after he'd claimed the Medium. More connected to the earth, more solid and implacable. Like a mountain. He pushes to his feet with no threatening body language, no significant attempt to tower over Kahm, but the step away from simple human he's taken is undeniable.

Slowly and deliberately, he withdraws the cigar from his mouth, trying his best to arrange his face into professionalism, though he still glances off the bare edge of insouciant.

<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

There's a twinge in the back of Kahm's neck when the Night Mayor refers to Lash, and the man realizes the wolf-like woman had gotten far closer to him than he'd thought. Too close. Unacceptably close. Had he been more aware, that wouldn't have happened, but the fact of the mistake stared Kahm in the face all the same, and fury in him burned the hotter for it.

Kent did as asked, but in a typically Kent-like way. There wasn't an inch of the man's motion that wasn't sharply watched and appraised by the Solarian, including the way he managed to hit the ground as if he'd just leapt down one of the balconies Kahm had passed beneath on the way here. The operative's blue eyes narrowed slightly with scrutiny, a thin-lipped acknowledgment that the man before him had changed. It wasn't as simple as saying he was faster, stronger, or merely better than the brute of an enforcer Kahm had met nearly year ago. It was as if there simply....more of him, and all that he brought to the table.

More Kent Hauch. Just what he needed right now.

Kahm made no attempt to posture or exceed Kent with his own version of rank and status. One liked to think they were beyond such low methods of showmanship ('Pissing contests', as the some of the Ties might parlance it) at this point. There was only that even, measured stare that-even when roiled with apparent anger-seemed to consciously weigh and measure a binary choice. He too, seemed a different man than before. Leaner in his ways, less rigid in demeanor, but still possessed of sharply defined limits.

The man took one breath, and the tension in his shoulders would broadcast what came next to Kent as honestly as Kahm had ever treated with him, his right fist squared and aimed solidly at the taller man's right jaw. The Major's eyes were alight with anger, his voice a barely restrained tenor as the last syllable coincided with an anticipated impact.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.

This could have gone very badly. There are reasons the other night went as it did - reasons Kahm managed, possibly intentionally, to completely avoid. Here in this closed, windowless office, behind a door, with no witnesses, Kent takes the blow to his chin. The gang leader is a brute, but the man before him is a warrior, whose body has been forged by science and mathematics.

The fist hits his heavy jaw with a sharp crack. The intense supernatural presence of Kent wavers as he is forced to lift his foot and shift his weight to keep from falling over, head snapping to the side, a few specks of blood flying out of his mouth from the inside of his cheek.

His spine cracks as he tilts his head back into place, setting his jaw. A light burns in his eyes, but nothing like the white-hot inferno he had staring down Elhaym van Houten. Kent's arms rise and, blessedly, fold around his thick chest.

"Proved a couple points, I figger. N'spotted that Red's gettin' too bloody close to that little ponytailed punk. She's looking right comfortable, don't know if you've given her an eyeball lately."

He grins through blooded teeth. "Good 'ook. Fargo's tried to show me how to punch like that. Never 'ad the knack of it."

<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

This could've gone fantastically badly. Kahm is dimly aware of the difference between having this confrontation behind closed doors and what it would mean in the very demesne of Kent's pilfered throne, with all his attendants watching. More disconcerting is the cold certainty in his gut that it wouldn't have mattered to him where he'd found the other man.

His fist connects, makes impact, and withdraws with all the ferocity of it's arrival. Residual shocks of pain rode along Kahm's knuckles, but he hid that away. It had been like punching a slab of granite.

"That's because she's undercover, you fool! She's been embedded with the Yggdrasil for months! The whole point is to get close to him." Kahm said, the words still smoldering out his mouth. "And you attacked her, one of the elect! As if that wasn't bad enough, you lost the statue! And for what, pride'?!"

He spat the word, his face twisted in a rictus of outrage until some part of the Major grew conscious that he was doing precisely what he'd been asked not to do, and Kahm found himself pinching the bridge of his nose in disbelief at how the state of the general universe had gotten this miserable, this fast. He had a smattering of what it felt like to be Lieutenant Voss on most days.

"Between this and other, lesser failures of late, it hasn't been a good look." Kahm sighed, crossing his arms beneath him. "But somehow, we're still operating. I think we both know who we have to thank for that."

<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.

Kent lets Kahm go. He doesn't try to interrupt, but as he starts talking about the point, he starts showing his teeth. Those tell-tale veins poke out on his right temple.

He hisses, "You think I can't tell the difference?" Kent reaches over, prodding the desk hard with one finger. "Down 'ere, you live an' die by how well you read people. While I was fightin' her - and we'll bloody well get to THAT, innit - my man Fargo was fightin' that guy, an' I watched her. Iss all about the way she looks at 'im when he ain't lookin' at her, you get me?"

That finger comes up. He doesn't thrust it under Kahm's nose, but he gives it one good shake, rolling forward, a stormcloud building on his forehead. "An' she didn't give me much bloody choice." His voice gets low. "She should've come t' me alone. She fookin' owed me that much. She should've come t' me alone an' made a bloody arrangement instead of comin' all steam and apples at the head of an army of riotous, irritatin' little Drifters."

"That, my friend, is outright betrayal of the trust of me an' mine, an' if I had answered any other way, I might's well've jumped onto the damn fire myself, because that'd've been... IT... for me. Come about a month from now, I'd be dead."

Kahm knows the name that Kent hisses. He likely won't forget it. "Jes' like Jack. Weak an' unworthy of bein' trusted. Pride is more'n feeling good about yourself down here. Pride is armor, issa weapon, iss meat and drink. When all eyes are on me, mate, the last thing I can do is bloody well flinch."

Of course, the more he goes on about this, the less he has to address the matter of the statue, which is convenient for him.

<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

There's a curious ebb and flow to these things. Just as Kahm was settling himself down, Kent's anger began to solicit another rise out of him. He bites his tongue back as the gang leader lays his grievances out, and he knows he can't wholly dismiss them. Not the situation, and not the reality of what he was saying about his subordinate.

Sometimes he forgot that the Lieutenant, while talented, was still young. And what he had just dismissed as a Solarian was incontrovertibly the thing that kept Kent alive and in control, which kept the Black Ties useful. It was a bitter fact to swallow, but swallow it the Major did.

"That." Kahm finally says with a shot of grudging acknowledgment, "Is one point in your favor. And it'd be weighted much more heavily if you had a fucking statue to show for it!!!"

Far from defusing, the Major hurls a chair the Night Mayor had occupied at the crescendo of this statement. Not at Kent this time, even owing to the fact the office is small, but at the adjoining wall. "You expect me to believe that you were just being industrious and proactive, snatching that thing on your own without so much as a word to any of us?! This situation could have been avoided entirely if we'd been informed first. But that's not what you wanted, is it?"

He'll only let that accusation hang in the air for a few seconds before he tempers it. "I will counsel the Lieutenant personally about her actions. But you and yours are going to have to make up for this."

<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.

The Night Mayor, in recognition of his service, is granted first right of refusal on any furniture seized by the Black Ties in their various capers. As such, the chair Kahm throws is of excellent craftsmanship, a solid dark wood with understated padding.

The wall is less so. The chair crunches through the wall and crashes into the next room, a wide common area with the familiar chaotic sort of appointment from Kent's sanctum in Adlehyde. The Night Mayor is eating a sparse salad. He leans back, eyebrows up, examines the chair, examines the hole, and then critically for his bottle of Guild Galad 30 Year, which is unharmed.

With a single nod, he collects his salad and wisely moves out of sight range.

Kent sticks his head out the window, waves someone too near to his liking away, and whistles at a Jacket to keep people not on the short list away from the hole. If anything, the violence has relaxed him. It's familiar to him. It's always good when Gebler reminds him that they're not so different... they and he.

When he rounds back onto Kahm, he has an odd smile on his face, eyes a little narrow, a little avid. He has that Presence again. He's not even going to act like Kahm didn't gather a little information... didn't hear about his speech.

"Don't it interest you even a little? The idea that there's some room up at the very top?"

<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

@emit Kahm stared at the hole, then his hand, knuckles bruising slightly where they'd struck Kent in the face. He remained fixated on it as the other man, in a fix of irony, did damage control.

It's not the first time the Major has had the realization how close his impetus to violence brought him in line with Kent and his folk. The curse of blood that he'd been forced to yield to months ago by Azazel's hand....bit by bit, it was creeping back into him.

Silently gritting his teeth, Kahm clenched the hand into a fist, let the shape and aspect of discipline settle back into his mind. You don't need to use violence on them. You're supposed to better than this. You're not supposed to be....like them.

Kent voiced his curiosity as the Solarian went about this ritual, and Kahm side-eyed him with a far less amused sense of suspicion.

"You have been privileged to know more about the shape of this world than most surface dwellers can ever hope." Kahm spoke, taking several steps to place him fully and personally in the taller man's field of view. He was calm now, collected. "So trust me when I tell you this: that place is occupied, but not by the Guardians. Both of us should be mindful of our limits."

He's a half step from showing Kent his back then, but remembers to follow up on what he'd said earlier. "There's concern about the situation in Krosse. The King has been acting on his own for too long, and even we aren't sure what they're doing the people his guard are taking. There are signs though....similar to what we observed in Timney and Wehaca. It's not impossible another statue could be involved in this, and if there is, I want it in our hands before another calamity happens. Help me in this, and we'll forget about this little misadventure."

<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.

Kahm delivers unto Kent a well-wrapped truffle of chocolately lore, and the look that crosses through his eyes is... difficult to translate. Animal cunning, faint surprise, and all-too-human planning.

What Kahm said was: There is a very real force beyond your perception that can annihilate you like a bug.

What Hauch heard is: There is a hierarchy, and at some point, something climbed it.

But Kahm brings the conversation elsewhere before the Black Tie can chew on it for long enough to make a bad decision. The mood has shifted. Kent lets himself drop back into his chair, effectively announcing that the standoff portion of their discussion is over, and they have moved onto business, and therefore why not be comfortable?

"Krosse," he mutters. "I lose Ties there too bloody often an' don't learn much for it. Don't like not havin' a foothold - spreadin' into Adlehyde's been good for us, innit." He finally puts his cigar back in his mouth, smoke curling around the bruise on his cheekbone.

He exhales a fragrant plume. Fortunately, the office already stinks of tobacco - it can't really get any worse. The ventilation is helping. "Sure, sure. Am I kidnappin' this one? Heh! Get the feeling he'll be a harder nut to crack than th' last'n, yeah?"

<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

Kahm would take a seat, but he kind of threw it through the wall. Instead, he'll just lean aside the door frame with his arms crossed to show that the transition of their tete-a-tete is honored on both sides. "Many of the locals we've been paying to spy to have failed to check in as well." He said, nodding in principle with Kent's thoughts on losing men, "That seldom bodes well."

The thought of kidnapping the King gets some earnest consideration from the Major, but he'll ultimately shrug. "We'll see. I doubt King Krono will be as compliant as King Justin was, so a change of government may well be in order when all is said and
 done. Speaking of Adlehyde, we can't dismiss that the Guard may take the opportunity to investigate this as well. There'll be no shortage of scores to settle."

With that, Kahm starts to feel he should beat it before Hauteclaire attracts too many gawkers. "Get your crews in place, and we'll schedule a rendezvous accordingly from there. I'll notify Lieutenant Voss as well."

<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.

Kent shows his teeth. "Lovely. Lot of fire to go around for that lot. So far I'm one fer one on makin' 'em look bad. Rye always beats piety."

OUTSIDE

Ribaldy is creeping forward slowly on all fours, looking left and right, low to the ground. He flattens, extending an arm slowly... slowly... tapping one fingertip on Hauteclaire's boot. He immediately runs away at top speed, muttering to himself, "i touched it i touched iiiiit"

MEANWHILE

"The Todds'll let 'im know," Kent says obscurely.