Session 40.1 - There's A What In The Sewers Now?

Between all of the conversations, and no small amount of shopping detours, it is getting dark by the time the party gets back to the Starfall. Bast stretches slightly after stepping back on what is getting to be a familiar deck, clearly itching to get out of the costume, but pauses.
"So - we at least know that they develop new ship weapons, and have buyers already, so that's not a new line for them. And either we have Mechon's own timing, or they have something running loose in the same damn building (or close enough to make no difference) that terrifies them too much to go back and rescue their other expensive projects, and we're the first fools willing to stick our head in that noose.
What is this company? And what's with that name?"
That last is delivered in a slightly plaintive tone, with a glance at a rather miserable-looking Yves.
"They seem like the kind of company that would rather subcontract out the difficult work than get their own hands dirty." Orrey says, contemplating the contract he looked over earlier and Yves' distress.
"That's part of the point of having money," Isa notes. "You give it to people and problems go away and if you don't look too closely, you pretend everyone's happy with the arrangement."
Orrey eyes Isa. "Personal experience?"
"Lifelong," she replies.
"Interesting. My family either invested money back into the various businesses or used it to help out the community. Might be a cultural thing." Orrey says as he shrugs.
"Oh we did that as well, but that's just business, and mostly ran itself. I was thinking more of...let's call it a contingency fund." Isa looks at Bast. "Seems to me that from the sums offered, that rogue sample is almost as important as containing their mess."
Linnet is present at the meeting but is spending most of it doodling. Academic and child of academics, she's never been around enough money to have anything to contribute.
"Which was the part that made me wonder why they haven't already dealt with it, if it's so sensitive and important. And what sort of 'sample' we might be talking about if they have things that break out and start roaming around."
"Oh it's definitely monsters."
"Another mask?" Orrey asks.
"Th'hell for?" Bast says. "Seems like a lot of trouble for cannon practice."
“Maybe cannon aren’t the only weapons they develop?” Isa theorizes.
(Linnet perked up immediately at the suggestion of another mask involved.)
"I can't imagine what monsters would do to help with weapons research." Orrey says, confused.
"Target practice. Custom target practice," Linnet offers.
Orrey's head comes up and he asks "Unless...are you thinking the monsters ARE the weapons?!"
"Like if you're treating a disease, you need some of the disease around to test your treatments...and then you pivot to bioweapons and make this suggestion horrifying. Either way."
Isa nods to Orrey. “There is a clear battlefield application.”
"Bioweapons?" Bast turns to Linnet, sounding puzzled.
"Like the opposite of Medica spells - throwing living things such as disease at your enemies, basically. Historically this was things like corpses over the walls of cities under siege," Linnet says. "I think 'have a live monster in your face' counts too."
Isa looks disgusted. "Ew, no. I was talking about creating monsters as indiscriminate weapons of war."
“There’s some Black Magic applications of Bio spells, aren’t there?” Orrey asks helpfully.
"It's alive, it still counts." To Orrey, Linnet wonders, "...and, probably? I never really went there, I stuck to the basic elemental and defense stuff." Linnet wrinkles her nose in distaste.
To Isa, Orrey adds, “Imagine if someone could harness the power of Diabolos...”
"Isn't that what Yves is working on?"
“I think he’s approaching it more as diplomacy, building alliances, maybe even friendly relations,” Orrey says.
Isa waves a hand. "Exactly."
“A corporation might see them less as sentient beings and more as, well, slaves. No better than the Seventh Dawn seeing them as harmful pests to be gotten rid of,” Orrey says with disgust.
"So, possibilities include: monster on the loose, something much more sentient and dangerous, or something much less sentient but still dangerous. Sounds like fun!"
Bast looks perturbed at Linnet's clarification. "...so what do you figure are the chances of us coming out of there with some sort of disease that your healing can't handle? It seemed like whatever went walkies was the main concern for everyone."
"Oh, very small, I'm just speculating."
“We can find out more by talking to the workers, I bet. Why aren’t they willing to go in there?” Orrey asks.
"Mm. Still, gotta wonder why they'd keep something like this in with other projects. How much trouble do you suppose they would be in if it left the building and started mauling people?" Bast asks.
"They feel they're not being paid enough," Isa says.
"Is it safe to assume the people who would normally handle the shite jobs while the academics protest - janitors, security, that sort of thing - are also on strike? Or did they get eaten?" Linnet asks.
"Increased risk in the last three months, was it?" Bast asks.
Isa folds her arms. "It's the workers who are on strike. Tarkan's people."
"I expect someone would have mentioned if people were getting eaten already. Or...just what sort of penalties are on that NDA?" Bast asks.
"If the weapon is expensive enough, 'I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill you' is no longer a throwaway line," Linnet says.
"I mean, they didn't kill me," Yves says, finally volunteering a comment, "and... I mean, what I saw was... It's..." He visibly attempts to gather scattered words back into some sort of order. "I was never working on giant monsters that I /knew/ of, but it's a big company. They... compartmentalize. At some levels, it's just a good job where you don't ask questions about some of the, the /implications/ of things you're making, because it's still just a piece of something larger, and you haven't seen the... larger. So it could be anything. In theory."
Isa nods and silently mouths “Monsters”
"Maybe monsters? Maybe magitech. Maybe chemical weapons." Yves waves a hand in frustration, a faint smell of burning ozone trailing behind his fingertips. "Maybe it's a magitech-biotech cyborg monster that breathes chemical weapons. Maybe it's next season's hot toy. I wasn't in management. I didn't even supervise /other techs/. I didn't even--like, they said, you don't need to deal with this stuff at your college, you don't need a degree, we'll hire you right now with a really solid salary, and the vacation rates were good, and there were in-facility coffee machines and... ...god of nothingness, I was /such/ an idiot."
"There's nothing idiotic about taking what's available. We're sure as south winds not blaming you for the company's mistakes," Linnet says.
"I just didn't want to farm mushrooms," Yves says wretchedly. "But they were making... parts. Of. I don't know. Maybe people? Maybe just looking like people? I only saw a bit of it after the explosion, and that was everything having just exploded, and I haven't been back since. I'm probably violating NDA /right now/."
"...parts of people? Like, growing them, or building replacement limbs, or...yech. There's some stuff I don't want to go into in that sentence. And don't worry, if AZYS tries to kill you for violating NDA, you have backup." Linnet attempts an intimidating "don't mess with me" pose. It doesn't work.
Yves gestures vaguely. And moodily. And anxiously. There are a lot of adverbs involved in that gesture, and it ends with him brooding over a coffee cup.
"So..." Bast tries to think of how to draw Yves out further, and goes with "...did she say that they're continuing to pay you while you're away? Is that a - common arrangement?" He tries to imagine Yves charming a company executive into his bed. It does not go well.
"I don't know!" One of Yves' ears trembles against his cheek. "I thought I was on... indefinite furlough. My supervisor is dead. So are most of the people who were in my lab. My, my friend's still in a coma, last I heard. I hadn't gotten any.... any 'you're fired' or 'come back' from them until /she/ showed up and asked me to return the, the lantern. I figured it was one of those 'indefinite furlough' things where they avoid making their firing stats look bad by never officially firing you."
Linnet walks over to Yves and hugs him around the shoulders from behind, giving Bast a fairly mild "stop picking on Thunderbun" glare.
Yves appears completely unaware of any innuendo there.
"So they fucked something up badly enough that it killed a lot of people, and they're paying you to keep you quiet." Bast nods slowly. "Charming. We'll want to take a real close look at that cannon before we fire it." He takes in Yves' overall state, and slows down. "...do you want to sit this job out?"
"If they wanted to keep me quiet, it would've been easier to kill me before I left the city," Yves says, far more calm about this than some other things he's just said. "Paying me now is more like... a threat. Keeping me on payroll suggests they can keep me to other... contract stuff." His shoulders go up, but he says, "I don't want to sit it out. I'm trying to be..." There is a rather long pause while he tries to find a word to finish this. "...better," Yves says, at last.
Linnet just hugs him tighter, not quite to strangulation point but definitely to "I promise I'll protect you from your scary employers."
Bast listens, narrow-eyed and with a smile that has nothing to do with mirth, as Yves struggles to find the right words. His fingers tap out a short sequence on his thigh, one-two-three-two, before he nods slowly in response. "That's good. Hold on to that. Still leaves the question of what to do, though. Would you rather lay low and take their money? Make as clean a break as you can and walk away? Make them pay for what they did?" He opens his hands in front of him, as if releasing the decision Yves-ward. "Not something that has to be decided tonight. Probably can't do much about it one way or another before we go in, assuming everyone's still on board and we can find a lawyer we can depend on. But I think...it would be good to find whatever clarity we can, before we do this. To know what sort of opportunities to look out for, if nothing else. For my part, I might not tell that pompous prick Dyne to go jump off the arch, but I have no intention of letting him take credit for our work either."
"I think... that what I do about them is less important than what we do about the masks," Yves says, accepting the protective vice around him. "I don't want to be beholden to them. And... and it's not like I'm stuck in this city, we have an /airship/, I can /go/ places. Out of reach of their lawyers! Maybe! I mean. Maybe. Their lawyers are very reachy. Oh gods and god-derived events, we really need a lawyer."
"Maritime," Isa offers as a suggestion. "We're not flagged, which is awkward. I think technically that makes us pirates."
"Or that... what do you call pirates when you're being polite? It came up in a history class." Yves tugs anxiously at an ear. "Privateers! I think if you have a lawyer, you're a privateer."
“Privateers generally have a contract with a government. Can we get one of those? I don’t think we’re pirates yet. We haven’t stolen anything or attacked anyone. Well, when we did we were bounty hunters. Right?” Orrey helpfully adds.
"Bounties are safe. But we're a ship without registry which means outside of them we don't have a lot of legal protection. By which I mean we have none. We could try flying the flag of Alterna and see what happens. I'm sure no one will mind."
Bast looks skeptical. "You know any experts in Alternan law?"
Isa looks apologetic. "Alas."
"Let's add that to our list, then."
Yves says, a little distracted, "I know that I know /some/ lawyers, though which ones are still around... I can see who's still in the area. Someone who knows contract law. And, uh, avitime law? Something like that." Abruptly, Linnet straightens up and heads for the galley. "If we're going in search of who-knows-what terrible peril and there might even be lawyers involved, clearly, we're going to need snacks. You're welcome to pop in with requests, but I'm starting with brownies."
"I don't think we're charging in anywhere until we're sure it's in our interest to sign this thing-" Bast calls out to Linnet's retreating back, then turns back to Yves. "Do you want to check on your house or your friend, while we're shopping for lawyers?"
"Maybe after we know if we're going to need to leave really hastily," Yves decides. "No point in showing up and starting things if it turns out I can't finish them."
"Makes sense." Bast stifles a yawn. "Get some rest, everyone. Tomorrow's looking busy." Half the buttons on his coat are undone by the time he reaches his cabin.