Imerak said:
James
James senses that the waitress is familiar with the man, but has no particular fear of him. "Now I give you the 411. To make a long story short, we're based..." he digs around in his pocket for a moment, and produces a folded piece of paper and hands it to you. It has another adress on it. "That's just a couple blocks down and three over. Can't miss it. You'll be in...Gamma-11...so, go to room 201. Second floor, in the northwest stairwell. That's your office, so to speak. There are a few missions up for grabs now, but they're gonna be a bunch more once we get done with the reorg. Anything you want to know before you start?
James takes the paper, looks at it, memorizes it and slips it into his pocket.
"Oh yeah, I have questions. Let me just give you the list."
James takes the entire Scotch and soda down in one fell swoop. If there's one thing he can do, it's drink. He's found that people loosened up over alcohol and years of mingling with everyone from the upper crust to the dregs of society had given him a lot of experience with "the devil's juice," as his grandfather had called it.
"One, why the hell did I come here instead of going directly to the other location? Are you planning on following me there? Did you want to 'gauge' how I made it here or something like that?"
"Two, 'that's your office, so to speak.' What does that mean? Is it my office? Do I share it? Whom do I share it with?"
"Three, missions. What kind of missions? They are 'up for grabs?' Do people just sign up for them like they would to win a raffle?"
"Four, reorg. Your organization doesn't sound like the type that would reorganize unless something major was going down...or went down. Why are you reorg'ing? Did someone die? IS someone going to die?"
"Five, who do I see when I get to the other building? Do I just knock on the door and give the secret password to the guy who opens up the eyeslot on the door?"
"Six, are you actually going to tell me what kind of work I'll be doing?"
"And finally, who the hell do I have to kill around here to get another drink?!"
With that, James finally calms down. He raises his glass in the direction of the waitress and shakes it, clinking the ice on the side of the glass. He tries to make eye contact with her.
After that, James will place his glass on the table, near the edge, and looks back at the man across the table. When she comes to get his glass, he'll look at her and say, "Just Scotch this time; no soda."
James is nervous, that's for sure, but more than anything else, he's pissed. He's been given no information about what he's getting into and he's told to meet this "mysterious stranger" in a seedy looking bar in the middle of Rome only to be told "Oh, you need to go here." James has never felt so jerked around in his life and dealing with bureaucracy is almost second nature to him.
If the man starts to speak, James will hush him until his drink gets back. Not only is he trying to calm himself, he's also testing the waters to see how much this guy can take. If there's one thing James can't tolerate, it's being pushed around.
Once his drink gets back, James will tip the waitress 50 Euro, look her in the eye, smile very big and thank her geniunely. Once she leaves, the smile will disappear from this face and he will turn back to his "friend" sitting across from him. James looks him straight in the eye, takes a sip of Scotch, and starts to speak. "Ok, you can answer now. But know this; if I don't like your answers, I'm leaving. Enough of this
connerie."
