"You don't believe me, do you?"

Jade smiled slightly.

"I suppose I could show you some proof."

She fiddled with her cell phone for a few seconds, then tossed it to Jonathan. The screen showed an empty email to a contact with the name "Vance".

"Send two emails to the contact I have pulled up on my phone. Don't send the first email until you've already thought of the second one, word-for-word. No revisions. Maybe even make it something personal, that no one else but you would know. He'll respond with the body of the second email before you send the first one. "

She furrowed her eyebrows.

"Just humor me for two emails. No sass. No lies. You might be surprised."

If witnessing the pruned grin of the vixen was a test of temperance, Jonathan would probably agree that he scored an E at most, as he sarcastically mumbled to himself while looking at the phone.

"Believe what, that this is real? Maybe I should ask Mister Invisible, I'm sure he could present all this in a transparent manner." Having almost chuckled at his own joke made Jonathan feel like slightly less of a human being as he had started swiping his thumbs across the phone screen under the premise of 'sure, why not?', wondering why he needed two different messages. By the time he had stringed together the words "thanks for the email addresses", a notification dinged in the upper left corner of the screen with the words "Good night." He wondered momentarily on whether he felt offended that this Vance person(?) had applied proper capitalization and punctuation to his message, before composing it himself and sending it off as a as a gesture of courtesy. Unsure of whether he was still nervously hoping to escape this mess or just being too invested in quarreling with this woman, but clearly not out of any disbelief, he handed back the phone with the remark "Can I start enumerating sheep now?"

Jade pocketed the phone.

"You'll have plenty of time to count sheep in your cell. Or—if you're capable of doing anything other than make snarky comments and pretentious art—"

They had investigated Jonathan and his artwork thoroughly. Self-satisfying garbage. Artistic masturbation.

"—maybe we'll be able to set you up with an actual living space and a job that'll keep you from being killed."

She smiled with a hint of almost-friendly contempt.

'Pretentious', huh. Well, he wouldn't have expected a positive and honest opinion at this point in the discussion, even if she were to have one. Still, it was pretty trite as far as criticism was concerned. The notion that he would be bothered by it was on some level rather insulting. Jonathan had just picked up art as a means of reflecting on his own thoughts, and didn't concern himself much with others opinion on it, not that he had much of an audience in the first place. Given that she instigated the conversation, it felt rather hypocritical. He let out a long sigh.
"I see. Pretentious. So even the lunatics can't see anything in my drawings. Maybe I am overqualified to work at this place. Well, you might just need more hands to hold the mops for all I know, although this place looks clean enough."

"If I accept, do I get to escape from the creep in glasses? Anything you people throw at me can impossibly be worse than meeting him again."

Wilson felt a little bit taken aback. Working with a top field agent as an equal was tough enough for any security agent, but Wilson had always looked up to them. A part of him was envious, he knew, but he also became easily captivated by the idea of running around taking out cults, dictators, vampires, and other threats to humanity. It was childish, but it was a part of who he was and he accepted that. Except it would make this all the more difficult.

Best keep it as professional as possible he warned himself as the director exited the room. He supposed he was in charge for now. There were some advantages to home field and knowing where you were headed was one of them. Marc might know where to go as well, but he'd probably let Wilson take the lead. He wasn't Vance after all.

However, introductions were in order, even if practically everyone knew everyone. He moved to Marc and extended his hand saying, "Agent James Wilson. Pleasure to work with you."

Jade tried her hardest to stifle a laugh.

"Unless he finds something in your blood work, William shouldn't have any reason to bother you again. I envy you, really."

She pulled out her phone and made a few gestures across the screen. A couple seconds later, most of Jonathan's restraints dropped to the floor with a satisfying "clank". All that remained was a single metallic ring around his dominant wrist.

"If you try to remove that, you'll probably die; no pressure, though."

Jade appended the joke and smiled in an attempt to make her warning seem a little less threatening. She looked through her clipboard, then pulled out a few pages. She handed them and a black ballpoint pen to Jonathan.

"A job application. Janitor, cook, busboy, whatever. Just put down a job you can do without raising too many eyebrows and fill out as much of the paperwork as you can."

"Oh? Can't say that was the impression I got from him."
A certain inexplicable unease still resided within him despite his sarcastic bravado.

"Now, let's see. It doesn't seem like you think much of my artistic merit..."
"What about a library, do you have one in need of any assistance? I should at least have some competence in that department. And for now I'd rather talk to books than you guys."

Marc took the offered hand and shook it. He looked the guard up and down and spoke gently My name's Marc Atkinson,but you can call me Marc. I'm guessing you haven't been in the field very much,have you?

Director Claymoor quietly shut the door behind her, leaving the four of them on their own. He didn't fully understand the reasoning behind this lack of oversight, but Wilson trusted the director. Still, this could go all kinds of wrong. While Marc might have some persuasion techniques in his repertoire, Wilson had next to know experience in the matter. As Marc noted as they shook hands, his field experience in general was very limited.

"Almost none.", he replied politely. Aside from that situation in Southeast Asia, but he somehow doubted Marc had the clearance for that. And if he did, well, he already knew. Wilson continued, "Feel free to call me James. I've worked Security and Surveillance for a decade. Some training for the field, but my Talent was deemed effective, but unreliable for that line of work."

That was the official line anyway. In truth, he could have been a field agent, but Claymoor had put in special request. She'd never given a straight answer as to why, surprisingly, but Wilson could read between enough of the lines to know she was grooming him for a position. It was part of the reason he was given joint-command here and working with one of the top known field agents.

"Your own reputation is well known, so if you'd follow me, I can take us down to the holding cells and we can discuss how to handle this."

Wilson headed toward the door.

It was the first day of Michael's internship, and he knew almost nothing about what his job was to be. All he had been told was that he was to work with one doctor Nimbus, it would require his biomedical engineering degree, and the pay was about double what he would expect to receive anywhere else. As he walked into the Phoenix office building, he had to double check the address. This didn't look like a clinic or a laboratory. He approached the receptionist, and politely asked where he could find Dr. Nimbus. To his surprise, this was the correct building, and she gave him directions. After a series of long hallways and elevator rides, he found himself in a laboratory filled wall to wall with glassware, samples, and instruments, half of which he didn't even recognize. Somewhere in the middle of all this clutter sat a young man staring intently at a monitor and muttering what sounded to Michael like incomprehensible gibberish. Michael figured this was as good of a time as any to make introductions. "Excuse me, sir, are you Dr. Nimbus?

"Hmmmmm~?"
William was lost in thought for a second, staring off into his screen. His smirk was barely reflected amidst the black text scattered across the white surface of the text editor, fading away as the chair turned around to face the intruder.

"Yes, that would be correct."
"Who are you, and where did you go wrong in life, to end up at this here place?"

Marc clearly didn't want to engage in idle chitchat, so Wilson quickly led him through the hallways and down the elevator to the low sec holding zone. Not that everyone they were holding would even classify as low sec, but they were safe enough as long as they could be swiftly incapacitated, which the spheres enabled. On the way down, he asked for Mr. Invisible's cell number. As they stepped into the holding zones, he marched purposefully towards E1 and took the proffered tablet from a nearby agent. He scanned through it quickly and passed it to Marc.

"Shall we see to Mr. Brolin first?", he asked with a hint of a smile. There was no question he needed to be dealt with first, but he couldn't help but try to establish a bit of banter with this man of few words.

"Fine with me, you clearly know more about what goes on here at HQ than I do." Marc answered looking over the information about Mr. Brolin

Michael laughed nervously, and forced a smile. "I'm the new intern, Michael. I guess nobody told you I was coming." He considered offering the doctor a handshake, but thought better of it. "So what are you working on right now?"

Wilson nodded towards the Agent who swiped unlocked the cell's door. It was an electronic lock, but the door itself looked quite flimsy. He knew better, but found it a strange pretense. Someone higher up had decided that appearing plain and ordinary made it more likely to thwart any would be intruders or escapees. It made sense, but it was also rather terrible to imagine someone trying to kick in this piece of metal thinking it was as cheap and wooden as it appeared. It was quite audible as the numerous deadbolts released, though. The agent swung the door outwards and they entered the room.

In addition to the other restraints, Wilson noted through the camera in front of him, the prisoner now sported some lovely mittens. Wouldn't want him teleporting a weapon into his hands and getting a lucky shot off he noted, glad someone else had thought of it. Four armed security stood in a semi circle behind Mr. Invisible wearing full field helmets. Theylooked oddly out of place, but it was the easiest way to give them visuals.

"Wake him up", he said to the tech monitoring the equipment. With deft motions, the sphere was retracted and the tech swiftly exited the room. All for the best if this did turn violent as their friend began to shake off the sphere's effects.