The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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IamLEAM1983
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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Clanks had a few useful tricks.

As soon as Mary's appearance dipped in what he considered to be inconvenient territory, and as he wasn't disposed to give her the esteemed honour of being flustered at the sight of her nubile self, he simply shunted part of his essence out of his head and further downwards, into his chest and limbs. His facial features held the pose, but the nearly-silent and delicate clatter of his internal mechanisms dropped an octave. He'd effectively rendered himself blind. Not that she'd see it, as the noises she made allowed him to keep his head and eyes tilted in the right direction.

Restoring his own eyesight at the sound of her turning around, he wedged his cane underneath an armpit. "Of course," he replied, in reference to her request, in a tone he calculated to be just a tad obsequious. To further drive home the fact that he didn't care for her libertine displays, he purposefully ignored her warnings about lacing the corset too tightly and gave it a few more expert pulls than were absolutely needed...

Not that he'd divulge this information to her, but his experience in the domain of bodices and other feminine constraints came not only from his work, for also from his earlier courting of a woman who'd begun their relationship as a human and ended it as a Carmilla. Iphigenia Grey was now called Sasha, and Holden hadn't needed much more than a cursory glance at her fashion line's Web page to see she still hadn't forgiven him...

"Oops," he said, his voice on a deadpan, once she noticed his deliberate ignorance of her requirements.
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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May couldn't say she hadn't expected that, and could only sigh in annoyance when the clank yanked the strings. "I said it's not a corset, you bloody cad," she grumbled, reaching back and contorting her limbs to redo the thing herself. "Let me make one thing clear, Holden; this is not an open invitation to simply waltz in whenever you please, understood?" she went on, turning to face the clank directly, arms crossed beneath her chest. "Next time you can wait for an invitation, or call ahead, or do like anyone else does and meet me somewhere else."

She stepped forward and poked him in the chest, her expression hard. "If I catch you in here uninvited again, or if I see any sign you were here, I'll deal with you like I deal with any armed intruders: with the business ends of my shotgun. I don't care if you're my boss now; I don't care if you're Queen Lizzy her own fucking self, no one comes into my house without permission. I trust you haven't been public property so long that you've lost all respect for private property, hm?"
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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Archie replied with a faint smile. "I'm afraid I've never had much respect for property which is not my own. Vagaries of the trade."

Still, he gave her a slight bow. "If it please you, however, you have my guarantee that I shan't overstep my boundaries. A thief and a snoop I may be, but I was not raised a common ruffian."

All told, he seemed disposed to accept her terms even if they amused him to a degree. For now, however, he settled with heading for her kitchen, as it wouldn't do to leave her used china out in the open like this. Carefully cleaning up the used cups, he proceeded as if he knew her kitchen by heart.

"Before we proceed, how would you feel if I offered to give you a tour of my Oriental resources?" he asked. "I've a sturdy katana of my own name as well as a few leftovers from my initial scrapes with the man who first wore mister Wallace's body."

He then paused, aware that she might not remember all of the former museum's details. "Er, my Oklahoman partner in crime, that is. Shamus Wallace. We may have to rouse and conscript him; I suspect the sight of the Kitaiteki would give the newly arrived Nippon-Americans some amount of pause. Failing this, the Sons of the White Dragon may be of some use."

Mary had been here a while, but as her current indirect involvement with the Commission proved, she didn't have a fully developed network of contacts yet. To call the Sons a Triad would have been inadequate, as they weren't exactly Triad-like. Their gatherings and fiercely Protectionist attitude, however, both were. The seldom-seen leading figure, Shen Long, could be counted on as being one of the most sedate influences on the Commission - as he provided a nicely sedate counterpoint to Biggs' occasional ebullience and Winters' own rarer cases of forgetting caution for the sake of bolder actions.
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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"Oh, I adore tours," Mary replied with a grin, a bit of humor restored at Archie's acquiescence, it seemed. "And I remember that room. Interesting music; hell of a sword that boy had." She helped put the china away, then gave him a glance. "You'd call yourself a kendoka, then, would you? I have a fair bit of skill there, though you probably know that already." It went without saying that anyone who openly carried a Paradise-style blade was either incredibly good, or incredibly stupid. And if they were that stupid, they wouldn't be standing there with all four limbs still attached. "If we have time later I should enjoy a spar or two with you. Bokutó, of course; no sense risking loss of limbs when loss of consciousness would do just as well, eh?"
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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"Consider it noted," he said, nodding. "Or, as our esteemed senseis would put it, hai."

Basic cleanup done, he turned to leave. "One last stop, however. There is one master of mine - and I use the term rather loosely - who could be instrumental in our attempts at infiltrating the Yakuza without having our covers blown."

The Clank stopped at one of her closets and opened it, pulling out a pair of rubber galoshes. He'd quite obviously had time to inventory her place before she'd come back home, apparently.

"Wading boots," he said. "Not quite fashionable, despite what the postmodern Neo-Romanticists calling themselves Goths would have me believe; but we'll both need some decent shoe covers... What say you to a quick trip through our sewers? I believe I haven't paid respects to brother at all since being awakened... While I've been out of the loop for a few decades, Arthur has most assuredly not missed a single beat. If there is a missed weave in the great tapestry of the islands' organized criminal forces; a weakness for us to slip through, he will know of it."

He then rolled his eyes, largely for his own benefit. "Not that he has a reputation for being pleasant; Arthur may have taught me the tricks of the trade of vanishing, but he never fails to mention he's had a few hundred years to work at it, unlike me. Quite the braggart, he is. And a cad - fair warning..."
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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"The... sewer sewers?" Mary asked hesitantly, deciding for now to overlook yet another invasion of her privacy. "Not those gentrified old subway tunnels and storm drains?" She'd need a damn rain slicker, if that was the case.
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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"Yes, the sewer sewers," confirmed Arthur. "Chalk it up to quite a few of my brother's charges refusing to put much stock in the Accords. Some have moved, like himself, but others still camp out in those storm drains we haven't quite gentrified yet."

He shrugged. "Couldn't blame them, poor sods - spend a few centuries getting shrieked at or otherwise hunted by God-fearing bigots, and the next thing you know, some Frenchman tells you this is all for nought and that he's gone and bartered for peace."

The Clank briefly raised his eyebrows. "Imagine how some dragons feel, then. Most of the reactionaries are bloody well convinced this is all an elaborate ploy from your lot to try and exterminate them. The moment Old Wats lowers his guard - snap - the trap springs shut. Toodleoo to a few thousand years' worth of financial holdings and to eternal life."

They headed outside. "You're probably already aware of the fairly astonishing leaps of logic certain criminals will accomplish, in order to convince themselves they are in the right. As the Yanks put it, no-one wants to be the bad guy."
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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"Don't talk to me about logic," Mary replied, somewhat more sharply than she had intended. "I could go on for days about logic. And we don't have that kind of time!" She had a rain slicker and a pair of galoshes in hand and was turning to lock the door, when she paused. "Ah, silly me. Hold this," and she gave Archie her blade, put the other stuff down, and whisked back inside; when she came out a minute later she had a pair of heavy plastic cases, one large and one small. "This won't all fit on my bike, so I can send for a car if you haven't got a ride of your own," she offered, locking up behind her (a tedious and rather involved process, which she planned on complicating further thanks to Archie).

Domicile thus secure she took her blade back and slid it into its place at her back, made the clank carry the water gear and held the black cases herself. "Public transit is for the brainwashed and unwashed, by the way," she added as an afterthought.
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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Archie gave her a look. It wasn't exactly puzzlement or disapproval or vague approval; but it held elements of all three. He settled with shaking his head and reaching in one of his morning coat's pockets for one of the few slivers of modern living he'd been forced to do with: a smartphone. Odds were he'd try and have his inner telegraph transmission array replaced with some sort of short-wave radio someday, but getting a three-year plan had really been the fastest alternative.

After a few moments, he reached what apparently was the Hall's loci. "Yes, hello Bagley. Would you be a dear and have the old girl brought up to Miss Jameson's residence? We've a few items to carry back and I must fetch my waders. Today is Arthur's usual round of visits in the depths, so I intend to stop by, shall we say..."

There was a bit of silence. "Oh, really? Well, how unfortunate. I'd known she was in need of an oil change, but I hadn't expected the need to be quite so pressing. Oh, well. The pedway's streetcars will do nicely in any case."

He hung up. "Well, now. You're concerned with the weight of your equipment, we are short one convenient ride but within a few street corners of the nearest Pedway access point. What say we take our chances with the brainwashed and unwashed?"

Not that he'd voice it or show it, but he was glad of this little turn of events. If Jameson saw public transportation as a societal ill, Archie saw it as one of the first pinwheels of Industry. Having been around when the city's status as a metropolis was just being confirmed, he was rather fond of the refurbished streetcars they'd pulled out of scrapyards and museums and back into service along the Pedway. Being decidedly urbane, there was something about subways and buses that always intrigued him.

As for being unwashed, well - It would've been hard for him to maintain any pretenses of superiority. After all, he'd been undercover in fairly indigent conditions before. Cloak-and-daggers was an occupation that tended to destroy your preconceived notions about a few things, or so he thought. He could've retorted with stories about homeless men hiding Ph. Ds behind their scraggly beards and mismatched clothes; but he thought of himself as a better man.
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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"As lax as American gun laws are, I doubt walking onto a public tram packing heat would be appreciated," Mary replied archly. "But if you insist, by all means lead the way."

Dressed as she was, subways just invited perverts in her estimation. But she had ways of dealing with the likes of them, as well as pickpockets.
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