[ The smell of the cigar is awful, frankly. She's spent her fair share of time around such things but it's been months since she's been in close quarters with the stench, and while Mel shows no outward sign of discomfort, she can already feel the smoke raking along the inside of her throat.
Awful, really. ]
Oh, but no champagne?
[ The quip is accompanied by an eyeroll, utterly unserious in nature. She finds herself a seat, feigning relaxation without meaning it, too focused for such things. ]
We have terms to discuss, don't we. But I did wish to speak to you on another matter, one involving the citizens of Karteria and the Augmented at large. We can start with the former or the latter.
[ A half-shrug accompanies her words. ]
As you are kindly hosting my presence, you can choose which we start with.
[ He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes locked on hers. His smile that flickers to life isn't a kind one, but instead is a bit of a sharp one. Knowing, teasing, all in one. The look of a man who knew exactly what she was doing, but instead of calling it out, he only watches her. Stares. 'I know what you are doing,' it says, 'And you know I know, and that's all I need'.
Another long inhale, his next words come with smoke.
Try breathing in the Gray, Mel. ]
Oh, how generous of you. Very well, I suspect that one will feed to another, so why don't you begin with your observations of this world.
[ A smile. It's no more kind, though wider, than the last. ]
I'm interested to hear what you have been able to gather.
good lord this tag became chunky despite my best efforts, sorry
[ If it rankles her, there's no evidence of it. Mel's gaze is an unwavering thing, more so now than before, like her Natural Soul has just made one more thing about her unbearable. That near-unblinking gaze of a predator, not unlike him: waiting, watching. But she rolls her shoulders back, dislodging the moment like an acknowledgment. ]
Very well.
[ She recounts information about LupĆŖ, both the information she's garnered from the library and from speaking with the people: twenty-five years since what is essentially a fallout of arcane radiation poisoning, weapons at the ready to use Katalyth to harm Karteria. No details on the why, and she is still investigating. Mel recounts information from the citizens, that everyone knows someone who is ill, and the numbers continue to grow. Silco obviously knows first-hand the difficulties they are facing: the demoralization, the loss of employment infrastructure as ecosystems collapse. She mentions these in passing, wanting to be thorough.
She comes around to the present: she informs him of the suits in East Sophia, the reports of people missing. And, at last, informs him of the bones and bodies she's found in the marshes. The rot, the desiccation. The likelihood there are more, still, in the water...and unreachable due to the Katalyth. There will be minimal closure for those families. And what reports she's heard firsthand - and secondhand - all describe people leaving in groups, led away, and some people outside of the barrier speaking briefly of seeing some of these people kill each other.
He even gets to look at pictures she gathered on her device for his troubles. Of the marshlands where she found some of the bodies, as well as pictures of them, the various sizes of bones. How there are just too many for just a handful of bodies. What she leaves out, at least for now, is what she's sensed among it all, because that will require a bit more trust to put on the table...and in part because it's difficult for her to explain it all without having to admit so many other things.
Through it all, her tone doesn't change. It's calm but never borders into clinical, but rather direct and to the point. He's not an outwardly emotional creature and Mel will not allow a single hook into her if she can help it. But she still allows herself to sound troubled by the complications, the situation at large. ]
It's not enough that we're working against impossible odds, if the goal is to fix the Katalyth issue or the arcane radiation on a whole. This city, the infrastructure on both a physical and emotional level, is collapsing. I need not tell you that.
[ Silco likely knows most of this. This is just confirmation. ]
And we're running out of time to affect anything [ positively or not ] without having some kind of impairment as we change.
[ He listens. Some of this he already knows ā most of what is happening in East Sophia he's been listening on the ground. He is not a hero, he is not a kind man, he has not lifted a finger with regards to the disappearances, because that is not his area. He's no intrepid investigator, he's a bigger presence than that. It's the type of thing he would delegate to others, not do himself, if he even bothered.
People should take care of their own problems, and he would only invest in the ones that would reap large dividends. So that was different. The bodies in the marshes were different too. He had a feeling, of course, after talking to the people outside of the city. They had been rather...
Well.
Silco had struggled to think they were logical.
So he actually listens. He doesn't interject, except for clarifying questions. This is an exchange of information. She brings photographic evidence. Silco is not a stupid man. He's sharp, and mean, but he's also logical and quick. They are both administrators, both the type that have been administering cities like Zaun and Piltover for years. It takes a type of mind that can put a great deal of information together, to parse it and come up with solutions.
It would almost be called respectful, if it weren't for the cigar smoke, and the relaxed way he sits in his chair. Naturlaly belligerant. ]
The people outside of the city have less hope than even those here in East Sophia, did you know that? They believe this world is doomed.
[ he says it with confidence. He's spoken to them, it's clear. ] They are worse off even than those here, and I don't need to tell you that it is dangerous that there is a pipeline from one, to the other. The middle and upper classes are fools. They continue to strive towards their own comfort above all.
Why, they've already replaced them. Is it so surprising that they see the people here as disposable?
[ A considering beat. ] I wonder if we will be considered just as disposable, in the end.
[ It is simultaneously refreshing and infuriating to speak with Silco like this. To have him listen so attentively, to reflect back what he hears, to know he is paying attention. It's been such a long time since she's had the opportunity to sharpen her teeth on something important - Hubert notwithstanding, as he can tolerate her belligerent questions - and yet, they are still themselves, and this will never be more than a tenuous alliance at best. In another life, if she'd been better as a councilor--
Ah, but there's no point in lingering on that.
Of course he knows how the people outside the city feel. Of course he does. It's invaluable information...and also not unexpected. Two of her knuckles are pressed absently against her mouth as he listens; her gaze is on Silco and on the middle distance in between, as her thoughts fold over and over into some semblance of order. ]
I imagine we will be, [ quiet, contemplative. ] I do not like...speculation and conjecture. But Patho-Gen likely does not know the full extent these souls will change us. I imagine, in the end, we will be discarded as beasts.
[ To live like those people outside the city. So in that way, they are likely correct; more and more will be discarded as resources dwindle, as the rising cost of habitability becomes unbearable. They both know it. Patho-Gen sees them as tools. The people of Karteria... Well, that's something they can change. ]
We aren't even fit to be considered one of the lower class here. Not at the moment. We are, at best, a novelty; at worst, a nuisance. They don't have any reason to see us as worth their consideration.
[ Maybe there's a version out there, where everyone was better. Where disaster had been averted, people were happier and ā
Well. That's not reality, is it? Silco had never wanted to work with the council, had found their derision of Zaun detestable even while he burned the city at both ends out of his supposed necessity. He'd always thought he had to do what he did. He'd seen what the other ways did. Protest and organization got them killed. Cooperation and working together left them middling and mired in the same old patterns as before. No, working with Mel was a requirement, but he didn't have to like it. She was a Topsider, however. She could do what he refused to do. (Because it was refusal, wasn't it? He could schmooze and hoodwink as he wanted, but why would he? He didn't have to here. He wouldn't do it if he didn't have to.)
She was as useful as he was. She provided her observations, so he provided his. Shared with her the little tidbits that he'd gathered from outside.
He doesn't share everything. No, he leaves out the things he is figuring out pertaining to his industry. The hunting, looking, and investigating he is doing. ]
How does that make you feel, I wonder?
[ He asks. It's goading. It's unproductive. Perhaps, however, he wants to see it. Hear her say it. Hear someone from topside understand what it was to be put into this position. To finally realize what it was that had been done to them.
He was a monster, yes. He knew he was. He had burned his people as surely as topside had, but he'd understood that there was only one thing they would listen to. He'd learned that when they'd tried otherwise. When they'd made the effort to change their fate, and they had all been beaten down, some of them killed, for daring to step up, and say that they deserved better.
Does she think that she does? Does she understand that this is no different than what he'd grown up with his entire life? This life had been what had gotten him killed. ]
Knowing that they look down on you. That you're nothing more than the stone under their feet, the dirt in their roads. That they will use you for your intended purpose until you wither away, and then they will discard you, to try to eke out what little you can with what little they left you with.
I can imagine it must be a truly terrifying realization.
[ It's exceedingly unproductive. She's starting to learn the shape of Silco, as murky as that may be. It's in every needled word, tiny knife points to see where her armor may be weak. It's in the mire that he wants to paint with. She isn't certain if he just wants her to feel guilty or if he simply refuses to suffer alone, and would rather draw blood than let anyone else take the first stab.
It reminds her of certain fighters in the Noxian fight pits: rogues and poisoners, those who would take ample advantage of openings. It's death by a thousand cuts rather than the single, brutal impact of a club. Let the opponent bleed out, grow weaker, and take your victory.
Silco is treated to a glimmer of anger in her gaze, more gold than hazel. It's tempered, allowed to fall to a simmer. ]
More terrifying than the loss of our humanity? Our bodies? No, I don't think so.
[ As Mel has never known - until now - what it means to be in the dust like so many others has passed by in her lifetime, Silco will never know how it feels to be a passenger in his own body - until now. How fitting, for us to walk in the lives of those we've never thought to touch. ]
You want me to tell you how it upsets me to be without money and influence. To wake up worrying about injuries, where I'll get food and proper work, how I'll keep a roof over my head in the months to come. What I'll do when people don't respect me, when they look down on me...and to have this for months and years with no end in sight.
[ He doesn't want apologies and Mel doesn't offer them. She is in a unique position where Zaun and Piltover's problems are not hers, but nor is absolved of them as a perpetuator of the status quo. As the benefactor of those who lengthened the divide unintentionally. He's free to hate her for it, for all of it, because he can't feel vindication from the dead who have come before. He'll also get no satisfaction from her self-flagellation, so there's no point in entertaining it.
Instead, she acknowledges, because he's right. ]
You want me to suffer as you have suffered, but we both know I'll never know what you had to live with. What you had to survive. [ Her gaze rests on his own, unflinching. ] I don't think that life terrified you. Perhaps it did once, long ago. But I think it angered you. And rage is a tangible weapon, a tool, when fear is not.
You see, Silco knows how this goes. He almost expects it, the apologies. The self-flaggelation, because that is what people do when they are made to feel the weight of their sins, ones that they have no other way to correct. There is nothing else they can do. They don't know how to remedy it, so they apologize. They prostrate. They acknowledge it, and make that sympathetic little look on their faces, the one that looks uncomfortable, but that they know they need to acknowledge it.
Mel doesn't do that, it's the first surprise.
She looks angry, and that, at least, he welcomes. That's right, confront it. Look it in the eye, and understand that every word is true, and that there is no resolution to it.
Silco was the monster that Zaun needed. There was no other option. Vander's way? Quiet, barely restrained peace while people still starved outside of the Lanes? Vander had one place to protect, the one they'd built together, but there was more than the Lanes to the Undercity. That was just what he protected, carefully, using a deal with them to do so.
Silco hated it. Oh, he'd used Marcus, but they both knew who pulled the strings there. If Marcus faltered, he would find another. There was no capitulation to the council, no playing their games. Zaun was nearly independent in all but name. They just needed the council to recognize it.
When he got back, he would make certain of that. ]
It's the only weapon left, in fact. [ He responds, his fingers drag against the table. ] What we live with is something you could not even dream about.
However, what it has taught me, is how one must garner attention. How we adapt. How we become unignorable.
You need me, councilor. You need what I can provide. Oh, you can hate me all you want, but you have not been fighting upward a day in your life, have you? You need that experience.
[ His tone in not sympathetic, but knowing. He has always been death by a thousand cuts. That's all he has. He is not a strong man. He is only who he is. ]
I do not bring this up to upset you. [ it can be two things, actually ] I bring it up to remind you of who I am. What my experience is.
That if you wish to deal with me, it will be as equals.
She doesn't look away, doesn't close her eyes, because in the dark she knows she'll see just what unignorable means: councilors dead in ash and fire, broken bodies, blood splattered all over the bridge. And something in her countenance hardens, the anger smoothing into something cold. ]
I did not agree to work with you with the thought that you would be beneath me, Silco. But nor did I come to you looking for a bludgeon. Or a rocket.
[ Naivety doesn't suit her. It didn't suit her when she was fifteen, either. She is not foolish enough to think Silco's methods - for Karteria or for home - will end without some kind of bloodshed. To come to him at all feels like a betrayal: a betrayal towards Jayce, towards Kino, towards herself. Her choices are limited, and better that she know the shape of the knife than to leave herself guessing. And better the blade she knows than to wait for fire to destroy everything she holds dear, and to be left with a monster she can no longer recognize in her own mother. ]
I want to think of this as...an opportunity. [ The word feels wrong; it tastes like acid on her tongue. She frowns. ] No, not an opportunity. A tempering. Because you, at least, will hold me to the fire.
[ To adapt. To be unignorable. Maybe that is what she needs. Maybe his experience is what will help her, for all that she'd initially detested the words.
Even if all of her plans fall through, at least she will understand better, and she will have been honed enough, sharpened enough (with any hope) to be brought to bear against the might that is Ambessa Medarda. Silco is death by a thousand cuts. Mel must be more than that if she has any hope of succeeding and sparing Piltover from Noxian blades. ]
You see the world in ways I do not. [ And cannot, not in this moment. ] You see this world in ways I cannot hope to. And I refuse to be blind to any of it. Not again.
[ He asks. It's level. Silco is so good at playing at level, but there's always two sides to the man, whose eyes are mismatched, one level and half-mast, blue and normal. It looks bored, as if all of this is just a normal dealing with a counselor. It's routine. The other, it is pitch, and orange, and angry. It's always so, so angry. Like a window into that part of him that he smooths over with veneer, this is the picture to the rot underneath. The scar doesn't help, fetid and festering, stringy flesh.
Silco lives in rot. He's mired in it. He's like the undercity itself. Festering, dark, cold and cruel. A reflection of where he came from. ]
Perhaps you weren't looking for it. [ He says, his fingers on the table, winding a path along the edge. ]
However, you may have to accept that it may be a possibility. You may not be blind, but others will, as they haven't seen what happens when inattentiveness and dismissiveness lead one to such things.
[ She'd killed him. He was so proud of her. Did she know? How they felt about it? How they were now haunted by her? His perfect, brilliant child. Yes, she had killed him, but in doing so, was she unrestrained? Free? Was she leveling destruction? Gleeful and wild and so free?
He is no longer dead. He may be able to return. Would she be happy? Would it stay her hand? He wanted to see her wage the war she was always meant to wage. ]
You will have to convince them. To see it from your perspective. [ A soft laugh, more a bark of bitterness than anything else. ] I wonder what will happen, when they put up the same sorts of blocks I saw? When no matter how many times you try to parlay, they respond with violence? Can you persist, even then?
[ What's the point in lying to him? Apologies are useless and self-deprecation is as helpful as a strongly worded letter. It changes nothing. What reasons she had are equally unnecessary; they don't wash away the past, nor would she want him to have such a foothold into her psyche. Better to focus on the now - and to prepare for the inevitable work that will await her at home.
If she is even allowed to stay in Piltover when all of this is over. ]
We aren't in a position to convince the upper class or the government here of anything. Not just yet. [ If ever. ] I don't think it's worth our time for now. We have more important pieces to take care of.
[ Jobs, housing, money. And above all of those things: protection. The Augmented are unified in small pockets but not enough to present a full and cohesive front - if they ever will be - and it leaves them open to danger. Anyone with much mind could fracture them. ]
How do we keep what's happening in East Sophia from happening to us? We don't need suits or knives in the dark to do it; Patho-Gen has the means and capability of disappearing us in plain sight, or worse.
[ They have no evidence that Patho-Gen can't, or won't, let them succumb to beasthood as an excuse to be put down. They have no real allies, no real protection, no defense against the people who have brought them here. And while she doesn't want to paint Patho-Gen with the same brush as anyone else, she also doesn't know if they can be trusted. Considering all of the comments at the park about taxes, too, she can surmise Patho-Gen is getting funding from up above as well.
If they decide the Augmented are better off cut from the budget, what then? ]
We have the opportunity to help people here. [ It's not just about cleaning the slate for herself. It's about doing better. ] We can make ourselves invaluable to the community here - the lower class, the people on the outskirts, perhaps eventually into the middle class with enough effort - by showing them that we aren't the enemy. We can help each other.
[ The lower class stands at the precipice of collapse. They can't handle any further loss. Something has to be done, and quickly. ]
[ And this was why she wanted to deal with him. She knew, as well as he did, that the way to understanding the people here was to wind in with people like them. Mel would never understand them. She'd never wanted for food until now, for safety, for shelter. Silco had grown up on the streets of the undercity, he'd worked in the mines as a boy; he and Vander had worked their way up and out of them, and into the Lanes, and into revolution ā and then inevitably toward betrayal, and despair.
That was not here. That was not now.
She wants to deal with them. She speaks about community. About becoming invaluable.
That is Piltover's way. To bring funding, and education and ventilation and say that it is good enough.
So he is honest. He will show her the path. Have her understand who Silco is, what his goals are at the same time. If he returns, he wants Zaun free, finally. If that means that Medarda finally understands that he is not just some ignorable industrialist under their feet, then so be it. This would serve more than one purpose. ]
You have to dissuade yourself of the idea of bringing things to them, first of all. If you want them to believe in you, then you need to help them believe in something that will motivate them beyond their day to day.
[ He tapped his cigar on the edge of an ashtray. Considered his words. ]
You bring them food, they will still need healthcare. You bring them that, there is still housing. Education. Real Jobs. Walkable streets. Then you need to find them after they have finally let the years of exhaustion had running at both ends settle them down, and then another issue will crop up. Transportation. Bad crops.
There is always something. [ Ask him how he knows. ]
People, even those with nothing, seek the status quo. They want it. It is far easier to indulge in that than it is to work after a 12-hour labor shift on something bigger than themselves. You will get some who are passionate. You need more than that.
You need to give them something to believe in first. A reason.
If we want them to work with us, they have to be intertwined with us. They have to believe in what we can do for them. Or they have to have an independent purpose fully in line with ours, and motivation to do so. Right now they are merely surviving. You need to give them something more than simply survival. You need to give them something to live for. To believe in.
I don't see it as giving. I see it as a reminder that collaboration can make this city better - unfortunately, as you well know, not everyone is willing to do so.
[ Irony of ironies, for Mel Medarda to know without a doubt that this problem is partially the responsibility of people in power who have no intention of improvement. She's been to the upper districts to walk around; they may be lacking in the ways everyone else is as well, but they are not suffering. They are uncomfortable in the way an old mattress is still serviceable but not always the best, which means they are far from wanting to change it.
The middle class is likely caught in the middle. It's easy to blame those beneath them, easy to aspire for greater heights. To rock the boat in either direction gives them no advantage, and they also are just trying to survive. Silco may not agree, but it's been her observation so far.
She leans back in her seat, more to consider than anything else. Her gaze is lost for a moment, looking through Silco, thoughts clustering. ]
...Back in Zaun, what would you have wanted first? After independence.
[ It's a genuine question. Each of these pieces are intertwined, a system that is affected by each and every cascade. But they also don't have the funds or the manpower to take on every single project immediately. ]
If anyone were to help your efforts to rebuild, Piltover or not, what would you want to see happen first? I'm aware I could ask the Karterians - and we will - but you have the better perspective. Medicine and food are necessary, but so many people are without suitable housing too. Now we have the added issues of kidnapping and disappearances, new people who are a drain on resources.
If this were Zaun, and you its arbiter, what do you do first?
[ He wanted cooperation, after all. Her intention isn't to make him work for it; but this is her chance to actually learn something, to follow the winding trail that is his thought process. ]
[ It had always been the plan, that. For him to be the arbiter. The plan. He'd had them, stashed away in books and collections, each one refined over and over again. Silco has been planning this since his twenties. He's been desperately scrambling for it for so long that it feels ludicrous to be asked this question, because Medarda should know what statecraft requires. ]
I would be remiss to allow anyone outside Zaun to help.
[ He says it bluntly, firmly. ]
Help comes with strings attached. They can say there is nothing, but we all know the truth. A new nation like Zaun would need to stand on its own. Nobody will get their hooks into it. Not while I am the arbiter.
[ It sounds like he is being obstinate, but he's not. He leaned forward. ]
What they need is stability. Structure. Opportunity. These are all easy paths inward, weaknesses that will allow foreign and domestic powers inside, to do what they did before.
[ No country is an island. No man is an island. But Silco is careful, and he understands something about this sort of pathway. ]
They need to have the path to the necessities. They need that stability. They need enforcement and structure.
These are things that would allow us to link our cause with them. What I would want for Zaun, they could have. They are rudderless, and without leadership.
These are the places where we can supplement their failings with our abilities.
[ Yes, yes, sheās aware he wouldnāt likely have asked for any kind of help. ]
And no one will let a debt go unpaid.
[ Mel leans her chin on the back of her hand, watching him, listening. The gears are already turning. Opportunityā¦ Ace spoke of getting more jobs at the post back into the hands of individuals. But jobs wonāt happen without proper funding for the service. They could work on opening a clinic, train people in the work so they can persist once the Augmented are gone. They need to feel they have a say in their city, and they are not being ignored, as the hopelessness will only mount if the wedge that is the Augmented disappears one day - or is forcibly removed.
Supplement is more in line with what feels safest, at least at first. Demonstrate that pathways can be made and grown, and turned over to the right people to steer the ship. It does, however, require that the Augmented do not have ulterior motives of their own, and that no one makes attempts to sabotage such efforts. ]
They need to have control over their own lives and outcomes.
[ Finding pathways and showing them is first. Heās right about needing to provide these people something to believe in. It simply threads the fine line of codependency that she worries about.
ā¦That, or the potential deification of the Augmented, and the loss of them will surely spell more trouble in the long run. ]
Iāll work on getting the Augmented to be seen as reliable and trustworthy. Put them in places where they can have a pulse on the districts they frequent and build rapport with those who require it. We can then assess what they want first, and move from there. I know several Augmented are already making moves to build lasting supports here. But this isā¦helpful. Thank you.
[ Her gaze rests on his. ]
If there are others who may work as public āfacesā of what we can do, would you mention me to them? Or you can give me their information, if the thought crosses your mind.
[ Does it mean sheāll trust his recommendation? No. But someone capable of catching Silcoās attention will be someone of skill, and thatās equally as important as keeping tabs on him. He has every reason to return home, she knows, but he has every reason to rage against the cage heās in as well. ]
[ She wants to work at making them seen, does she? It makes sense. Medarda is a politician, whip quick, and honestly it was probably due to Zaun's own reclusive nature that she had not made overtures toward them. (I try to make excuses for this eternally.) No, she was best with those who wanted a face, whereas Silco would always be more focused on the practical hands.
That's where he's best, after all. In the muck and mire, directing it where nobody can see. ]
I'll let you know whom I find. If you manage to keep the attention of the powers that be away from my focus. You want them to feel empowered? You want the people here to have ownership?
Then allow me the freedom of movement.
[ Medarda knew too much now, but more than that, there was another element that knew too much, and would get in his way if he wasn't careful. More dangerous than Mel, or Talis, or even Viktor. He could machinate around all of them and Patho-Gen, but he knew there was someone who could anticipate him if he wasn't careful. ]
Without resources, friction can only come from so many directions.
[ Come now, Silco, she's not a fool. She's not making agreements without reading the terms and details, not to mention the fine print. Mel would rather forego referrals altogether if it means he gets free rein to be as secretive as he wants. If he wants a proper partnership, then she needs to know what she's running interference for. ]
I agree that some of us should be operating in the light and others in the dark, make no mistake. We all have our strengths and advantages.
[ Silco needn't be in the grime and dust. Shadows need not come with dredge and ichor. ]
But I also will not walk into this eyes closed. You have made it known that was always part of the problem. [ She is trying to do right by him. And while he has no reason to trust her, she wants to prove it's possible. ] We can do this a better way. We are both willing to hear each other. If you do not want to, you do not need to choose the same path you have before.
[ And before he insinuates what she assumes he will: ]
I am not asking you to cede control or to allow a boot anywhere near your neck. I am asking that we find a way to reach the ground you've wanted through safer means.
[ If there are ways for her to course-correct, to do better by the people of Zaun and by him, then surely he doesn't need to resort to chembaron levels of extortion. ]
[ Now here is where it becomes dangerous. He can lie, of course, but that will be found out soon enough. It serves only to tear this alliance down before it can properly be started. It's not the way he can do this. No, he is coming from a place of little trust. She knows who she is dealing with. She knows this will not be with the easy way.
She thinks it doesn't need to have grime and dredge, but that is what Silco knows. It is how he operates, because that is what is what he has always had.
It's the way of things. It is the only way he knows. ]
There are few industries that thrive here. In these lower reaches. Most people have been replaced by robots, and those industries that are left are dwindling. The only thing that seems to thrive is the avenues of the desperate. It's something I know all too well, how quickly those spread. How they can spiral out of control, if one is not careful.
[ An inhale, and with a gesture, he says: ]
Not only that, there is a thriving underground pharmaceutical industry. It is disjointed, disorganized. Medications that are needed for most here are exploitable, and expensive.
I intend to build a better operation. To fully wrest this out from disorganized pockets and into something more stable. They smuggle it from somewhere, and my instinct is it comes from Patho-Gen, but none of them have been able to organize, which means it can be difficult to get the proper doses, regulated prices, and most of all: unstable supply.
I'm sure how you can see having control of that would make life better for the individuals here. Along with an industry that pays well and employs a good number of individuals.
[ It's what he knows. It's smuggling, but it isn't manufacturing. Then again, how can he? He was never the genius behind shimmer, just the visionary to move it. ]
[ Silco doesn't take the proverbial offered hand. It's...not unexpected, not with the history of Piltover and Zaun, not with how fragile any kind of collaboration can be here. Not when they do not know each other (and likely never will). And yet she almost finds herself disappointed in it, that Silco is instead hatching schemes that sound almost too similar to what he was doing back home, just sweetened to be palatable.
She feels it's not the truth. Not the whole truth, at any rate. But to call it out so vehemently will set fire to their alliance before it has chance to even find purchase in the ground, and she wants to at least keep to her word - to give him the chance Piltover never did, and to seek a better way. If they are even able to return home, they will need to lay the groundwork. (Although, with each passing day, she thinks even this is manipulation on a grander scale: if she returns with Silco alive just to force an alliance and then to leave for Noxus... It truly would paint her the villain of the Council all along.)
Mel opts for a secondary line of dialogue of true, earnest concern. ]
You believe the pharmaceuticals are coming from Patho-Gen...?
[ It's not said with doubt or incredulity. More that it makes terrible sense, and it's troubling to consider further. Her gaze seems faraway for a moment, assessing, before she looks back his way. ]
Do you have methods to test these medications and actually know what they do? [ It's a question driven purely by curiosity. Because: ] I would wonder if some of it is baited, to see how we react to it. Our bodies are likely already changing.
[ So she simply wonders how Silco would be sure of any of it, and who he's going to pull to make those determinations. Surely, he could survey people or watch their progression, but the Augmented may react differently to what's available, if that's even his aim. ]
It's not what they're offering to us. It's what they're offering to them.
[ He says it simply. The lower class. It's an illegal trade, pharmaceuticals. It's all too expensive, for them to obtain otherwise.
But she is right, it's a scheme. Silco doesn't know how to operate without them. He doesn't understand how. He doesn't have a method. A way. That isn't what Silco knows. That's the thing that Mel will come to understand by working with, interacting with Silco. He has spent so long in the shadows, underneath those who would look down their nose at him, that it can hardly be surprising, can it? That he would opt for what he knows.
Silco is an old man.
Who teaches an old dog new tricks? Or if they do, he'll have to be coerced, and tricked into it.
Will you, Mel? Try to learn the method to tricking Silco into doing things a different way? ]
They may start doing so now, to see how we react. But no, I don't have a way to test it. Unless you do. I'm not interested in pushing poor product onto the streets, or putting out what will make people sicker.
What I do know is that nobody has been able to consolidate this yet. I suspect that if they do, Patho-Gen will see them as a threat. It's why I don't intend to do so until I know things are in place.
[ He knows better, than to jump without looking. Silco had not gotten where he was by being sloppy. ]
[ It's telling that she immediately thinks of Jayce and Viktor. It's equally likely Silco knew she'd consider them, as she'd been the benefactor of their projects. If anyone could uncover what these drugs do and what they're made of, it's them, and the limited equipment they have from Patho-Gen. She'd just been discussing how they should find better equipment for their projects.
Patho-Gen likely has a supplier for the tools they use. It wouldn't take too much effort to find the distributor, though the cost would likely be high, and doing so would put a target on her back.
Under most other circumstances, she wouldn't want to volunteer that sort of service. But knowing what the medications are before Silco has his hands on them will at least allow her to know what he's working with, and devise strategy from there. ]
I don't, personally. But I can ask around and see what is accessible.
[ A little money can help, and she has some in reserve. She can also ask some of her acquaintances who have been in the poorer districts to see if anyone can simply tell them what medications work and how. It won't be as precise, and it won't allow them to break down the ingredients, but it's a start. And she'll consider approaching Jayce and Viktor between their other projects. ]
And what measures are you taking in terms of Patho-Gen? You said it yourself: once you do this, they will come looking for you. Someone will come looking for you. [ Maybe an outside hire. ] And considering we all have these augmenters, I don't imagine it would be difficult to look for us.
Hm. That would be useful. It would also prevent us from handing out anything that makes them worse off. They're already giving what little coin they have, after all.
[ It's true. Normally, that wouldn't be a concern for Silco, but a chembaron's reputation was built on their product. Poor product? Poor reputation, and that was a stain that would never truly wash out. He knew it as well as Mel did, that the sort of flippant actions would lead to their demise. ]
You're correct that they will. From what I've gathered, nobody has been able to link them, and that's a curious question. I'm sure people have tried. This is an avenue for greed, after all. So what would be the reason...
[ his fingers tap on the table. ]
It is not mere weakness. This is not a novel idea. It is something deeper. Such as the fact that they haven't been able to truly control the product. Either Patho-Gen pulls it, or they introduce a new one, or they take them down from the inside.
But they can't remove it entirely. If the people become too sick, they will start dying, and that will gather as much attention as anything else. If the lower-class are gone, the middle class are next.
[ All that is to say... ]
For how I will prevent it, well. I have a few areas of exploration. Safe houses, places they won't go. Places I can protect. I'm not going after the pharmaceuticals immediately, either. That would be foolish. No, I'm waiting.
I won't act until I have the right pieces in place.
[ He's careful, after all. Think about all those years of shimmer bubbling from below. How long had Silco kept it all in check.
He does not intend to let this lie, but he also won't act quickly. There's no need. ]
[ What is the purpose of distributing pharmaceuticals randomly into a population? Control, yes, but if you don't have ways to track who is receiving which drug or how they're reacting, how precisely will you be able to know what's happening? Unless they all do the same thing or have similar targeted reactions... Now she's curious, and as much as she doesn't want her hands involved in any of this, she recognizes this has a thread she wants to keep hold of.
Her mind flits again to the missing people, the suits. She'd wondered if they worked for Patho-Gen ā or if they're contractors ā but now she's beginning to consider if the pharmaceuticals are at play for what's been happening with the disappearances.
Too much speculation. She doesn't allow herself down the rabbit hole. She focuses on the information he gives her: he has safe houses ā or will soon ā and has the means to protect them. Guards, perhaps, or ways to prevent entry. Not for the first time, she wishes she'd visited the Undercity even once during her time in Piltover, so she could at least have a frame of reference for what he is capable of...and what kind of playground he's used to using and the kinds of methods he employed.
People always return to what's familiar. He's showing her that right now. For seven years, she'd heard of Shimmer. Does Silco think he has that much time? ]
I would not discount that Patho-Gen is the only player in the city. I spoke of those people in suits. I don't know that they aren't Patho-Gen, but I would be prepared for the possibility that they are working with or in parallel to them. People who can make others disappear off the streets are not to be underestimated.
[ He may not care. And she isn't going to act like this is out of recognition for his safety, per se. But his work might encounter snags if the people he's dealing with start going missing. ]
I can be in touch if I receive any other information on them if it's pertinent to your work.
[ This is where Silco is best. Strategizing. Thinking. Mel is smart, and it's better to have her focused on the future, on what they can do, rather than the high-minded principles that Piltover indulges in. They think they are the superior ones, but he knows better. He thinks Mel is starting to put that together as well.
Otherwise, she wouldn't be here. ]
If we can investigate it, and discover who they are, then that is something we can use. I doubt that Patho-Gen would be all that interested in allowing them to stay on, if given the opportunity. And they would likely jump at the chance to leave their mark on Patho-Gen.
[ Oppositional. Keep them focused on one another, all the meanwhile...
Well.
That's what Silco was best at. ]
Please do. I will, of course, continue to provide information from the whispers I hear close to the ground. You would be surprised what secrets drunkards know, councilor.
Unless they are contracted by Patho-Gen in an effort to subvert a technicality.
[ To claim these people are technically not Patho-Gen. But the fact that they have a presence that is disputed while the consequences of their actions ripple through the lower districts... They must have some kind of power, whether it's monetary or influence, or even magical in nature.
Regardless, they'll cross that bridge when more information is uncovered and better assess at that time. Mel can be the gold that catches people's attention; let Silco remain the knife in the dark for when it is necessary. (So long as it continues to be necessary, and never more than that.)
Although, something he says piques her interest enough, and she tilts her head. ]
Perhaps I need to wander into those areas more often. [ The problem, of course, being that she can't hide all of her markings. ] Do you have any recommendations on where to visit?
[ And no, she isn't fishing for his haunts. They shouldn't be seen together anyway. But if he wants her to see the truth, if he wants her to understand the extent of suffering and need, then she wants to hear it from the source as well, drunkards and otherwise. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Awful, really. ]
Oh, but no champagne?
[ The quip is accompanied by an eyeroll, utterly unserious in nature. She finds herself a seat, feigning relaxation without meaning it, too focused for such things. ]
We have terms to discuss, don't we. But I did wish to speak to you on another matter, one involving the citizens of Karteria and the Augmented at large. We can start with the former or the latter.
[ A half-shrug accompanies her words. ]
As you are kindly hosting my presence, you can choose which we start with.
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Another long inhale, his next words come with smoke.
Try breathing in the Gray, Mel. ]
Oh, how generous of you. Very well, I suspect that one will feed to another, so why don't you begin with your observations of this world.
[ A smile. It's no more kind, though wider, than the last. ]
I'm interested to hear what you have been able to gather.
good lord this tag became chunky despite my best efforts, sorry
Very well.
[ She recounts information about LupĆŖ, both the information she's garnered from the library and from speaking with the people: twenty-five years since what is essentially a fallout of arcane radiation poisoning, weapons at the ready to use Katalyth to harm Karteria. No details on the why, and she is still investigating. Mel recounts information from the citizens, that everyone knows someone who is ill, and the numbers continue to grow. Silco obviously knows first-hand the difficulties they are facing: the demoralization, the loss of employment infrastructure as ecosystems collapse. She mentions these in passing, wanting to be thorough.
She comes around to the present: she informs him of the suits in East Sophia, the reports of people missing. And, at last, informs him of the bones and bodies she's found in the marshes. The rot, the desiccation. The likelihood there are more, still, in the water...and unreachable due to the Katalyth. There will be minimal closure for those families. And what reports she's heard firsthand - and secondhand - all describe people leaving in groups, led away, and some people outside of the barrier speaking briefly of seeing some of these people kill each other.
He even gets to look at pictures she gathered on her device for his troubles. Of the marshlands where she found some of the bodies, as well as pictures of them, the various sizes of bones. How there are just too many for just a handful of bodies. What she leaves out, at least for now, is what she's sensed among it all, because that will require a bit more trust to put on the table...and in part because it's difficult for her to explain it all without having to admit so many other things.
Through it all, her tone doesn't change. It's calm but never borders into clinical, but rather direct and to the point. He's not an outwardly emotional creature and Mel will not allow a single hook into her if she can help it. But she still allows herself to sound troubled by the complications, the situation at large. ]
It's not enough that we're working against impossible odds, if the goal is to fix the Katalyth issue or the arcane radiation on a whole. This city, the infrastructure on both a physical and emotional level, is collapsing. I need not tell you that.
[ Silco likely knows most of this. This is just confirmation. ]
And we're running out of time to affect anything [ positively or not ] without having some kind of impairment as we change.
i love it
People should take care of their own problems, and he would only invest in the ones that would reap large dividends. So that was different. The bodies in the marshes were different too. He had a feeling, of course, after talking to the people outside of the city. They had been rather...
Well.
Silco had struggled to think they were logical.
So he actually listens. He doesn't interject, except for clarifying questions. This is an exchange of information. She brings photographic evidence. Silco is not a stupid man. He's sharp, and mean, but he's also logical and quick. They are both administrators, both the type that have been administering cities like Zaun and Piltover for years. It takes a type of mind that can put a great deal of information together, to parse it and come up with solutions.
It would almost be called respectful, if it weren't for the cigar smoke, and the relaxed way he sits in his chair. Naturlaly belligerant. ]
The people outside of the city have less hope than even those here in East Sophia, did you know that? They believe this world is doomed.
[ he says it with confidence. He's spoken to them, it's clear. ] They are worse off even than those here, and I don't need to tell you that it is dangerous that there is a pipeline from one, to the other. The middle and upper classes are fools. They continue to strive towards their own comfort above all.
Why, they've already replaced them. Is it so surprising that they see the people here as disposable?
[ A considering beat. ] I wonder if we will be considered just as disposable, in the end.
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Ah, but there's no point in lingering on that.
Of course he knows how the people outside the city feel. Of course he does. It's invaluable information...and also not unexpected. Two of her knuckles are pressed absently against her mouth as he listens; her gaze is on Silco and on the middle distance in between, as her thoughts fold over and over into some semblance of order. ]
I imagine we will be, [ quiet, contemplative. ] I do not like...speculation and conjecture. But Patho-Gen likely does not know the full extent these souls will change us. I imagine, in the end, we will be discarded as beasts.
[ To live like those people outside the city. So in that way, they are likely correct; more and more will be discarded as resources dwindle, as the rising cost of habitability becomes unbearable. They both know it. Patho-Gen sees them as tools. The people of Karteria... Well, that's something they can change. ]
We aren't even fit to be considered one of the lower class here. Not at the moment. We are, at best, a novelty; at worst, a nuisance. They don't have any reason to see us as worth their consideration.
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Well. That's not reality, is it? Silco had never wanted to work with the council, had found their derision of Zaun detestable even while he burned the city at both ends out of his supposed necessity. He'd always thought he had to do what he did. He'd seen what the other ways did. Protest and organization got them killed. Cooperation and working together left them middling and mired in the same old patterns as before. No, working with Mel was a requirement, but he didn't have to like it. She was a Topsider, however. She could do what he refused to do. (Because it was refusal, wasn't it? He could schmooze and hoodwink as he wanted, but why would he? He didn't have to here. He wouldn't do it if he didn't have to.)
She was as useful as he was. She provided her observations, so he provided his. Shared with her the little tidbits that he'd gathered from outside.
He doesn't share everything. No, he leaves out the things he is figuring out pertaining to his industry. The hunting, looking, and investigating he is doing. ]
How does that make you feel, I wonder?
[ He asks. It's goading. It's unproductive. Perhaps, however, he wants to see it. Hear her say it. Hear someone from topside understand what it was to be put into this position. To finally realize what it was that had been done to them.
He was a monster, yes. He knew he was. He had burned his people as surely as topside had, but he'd understood that there was only one thing they would listen to. He'd learned that when they'd tried otherwise. When they'd made the effort to change their fate, and they had all been beaten down, some of them killed, for daring to step up, and say that they deserved better.
Does she think that she does? Does she understand that this is no different than what he'd grown up with his entire life? This life had been what had gotten him killed. ]
Knowing that they look down on you. That you're nothing more than the stone under their feet, the dirt in their roads. That they will use you for your intended purpose until you wither away, and then they will discard you, to try to eke out what little you can with what little they left you with.
I can imagine it must be a truly terrifying realization.
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It reminds her of certain fighters in the Noxian fight pits: rogues and poisoners, those who would take ample advantage of openings. It's death by a thousand cuts rather than the single, brutal impact of a club. Let the opponent bleed out, grow weaker, and take your victory.
Silco is treated to a glimmer of anger in her gaze, more gold than hazel. It's tempered, allowed to fall to a simmer. ]
More terrifying than the loss of our humanity? Our bodies? No, I don't think so.
[ As Mel has never known - until now - what it means to be in the dust like so many others has passed by in her lifetime, Silco will never know how it feels to be a passenger in his own body - until now. How fitting, for us to walk in the lives of those we've never thought to touch. ]
You want me to tell you how it upsets me to be without money and influence. To wake up worrying about injuries, where I'll get food and proper work, how I'll keep a roof over my head in the months to come. What I'll do when people don't respect me, when they look down on me...and to have this for months and years with no end in sight.
[ He doesn't want apologies and Mel doesn't offer them. She is in a unique position where Zaun and Piltover's problems are not hers, but nor is absolved of them as a perpetuator of the status quo. As the benefactor of those who lengthened the divide unintentionally. He's free to hate her for it, for all of it, because he can't feel vindication from the dead who have come before. He'll also get no satisfaction from her self-flagellation, so there's no point in entertaining it.
Instead, she acknowledges, because he's right. ]
You want me to suffer as you have suffered, but we both know I'll never know what you had to live with. What you had to survive. [ Her gaze rests on his own, unflinching. ] I don't think that life terrified you. Perhaps it did once, long ago. But I think it angered you. And rage is a tangible weapon, a tool, when fear is not.
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You see, Silco knows how this goes. He almost expects it, the apologies. The self-flaggelation, because that is what people do when they are made to feel the weight of their sins, ones that they have no other way to correct. There is nothing else they can do. They don't know how to remedy it, so they apologize. They prostrate. They acknowledge it, and make that sympathetic little look on their faces, the one that looks uncomfortable, but that they know they need to acknowledge it.
Mel doesn't do that, it's the first surprise.
She looks angry, and that, at least, he welcomes. That's right, confront it. Look it in the eye, and understand that every word is true, and that there is no resolution to it.
Silco was the monster that Zaun needed. There was no other option. Vander's way? Quiet, barely restrained peace while people still starved outside of the Lanes? Vander had one place to protect, the one they'd built together, but there was more than the Lanes to the Undercity. That was just what he protected, carefully, using a deal with them to do so.
Silco hated it. Oh, he'd used Marcus, but they both knew who pulled the strings there. If Marcus faltered, he would find another. There was no capitulation to the council, no playing their games. Zaun was nearly independent in all but name. They just needed the council to recognize it.
When he got back, he would make certain of that. ]
It's the only weapon left, in fact. [ He responds, his fingers drag against the table. ] What we live with is something you could not even dream about.
However, what it has taught me, is how one must garner attention. How we adapt. How we become unignorable.
You need me, councilor. You need what I can provide. Oh, you can hate me all you want, but you have not been fighting upward a day in your life, have you? You need that experience.
[ His tone in not sympathetic, but knowing. He has always been death by a thousand cuts. That's all he has. He is not a strong man. He is only who he is. ]
I do not bring this up to upset you. [ it can be two things, actually ] I bring it up to remind you of who I am. What my experience is.
That if you wish to deal with me, it will be as equals.
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She doesn't look away, doesn't close her eyes, because in the dark she knows she'll see just what unignorable means: councilors dead in ash and fire, broken bodies, blood splattered all over the bridge. And something in her countenance hardens, the anger smoothing into something cold. ]
I did not agree to work with you with the thought that you would be beneath me, Silco. But nor did I come to you looking for a bludgeon. Or a rocket.
[ Naivety doesn't suit her. It didn't suit her when she was fifteen, either. She is not foolish enough to think Silco's methods - for Karteria or for home - will end without some kind of bloodshed. To come to him at all feels like a betrayal: a betrayal towards Jayce, towards Kino, towards herself. Her choices are limited, and better that she know the shape of the knife than to leave herself guessing. And better the blade she knows than to wait for fire to destroy everything she holds dear, and to be left with a monster she can no longer recognize in her own mother. ]
I want to think of this as...an opportunity. [ The word feels wrong; it tastes like acid on her tongue. She frowns. ] No, not an opportunity. A tempering. Because you, at least, will hold me to the fire.
[ To adapt. To be unignorable. Maybe that is what she needs. Maybe his experience is what will help her, for all that she'd initially detested the words.
Even if all of her plans fall through, at least she will understand better, and she will have been honed enough, sharpened enough (with any hope) to be brought to bear against the might that is Ambessa Medarda. Silco is death by a thousand cuts. Mel must be more than that if she has any hope of succeeding and sparing Piltover from Noxian blades. ]
You see the world in ways I do not. [ And cannot, not in this moment. ] You see this world in ways I cannot hope to. And I refuse to be blind to any of it. Not again.
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[ He asks. It's level. Silco is so good at playing at level, but there's always two sides to the man, whose eyes are mismatched, one level and half-mast, blue and normal. It looks bored, as if all of this is just a normal dealing with a counselor. It's routine. The other, it is pitch, and orange, and angry. It's always so, so angry. Like a window into that part of him that he smooths over with veneer, this is the picture to the rot underneath. The scar doesn't help, fetid and festering, stringy flesh.
Silco lives in rot. He's mired in it. He's like the undercity itself. Festering, dark, cold and cruel. A reflection of where he came from. ]
Perhaps you weren't looking for it. [ He says, his fingers on the table, winding a path along the edge. ]
However, you may have to accept that it may be a possibility. You may not be blind, but others will, as they haven't seen what happens when inattentiveness and dismissiveness lead one to such things.
[ She'd killed him. He was so proud of her. Did she know? How they felt about it? How they were now haunted by her? His perfect, brilliant child. Yes, she had killed him, but in doing so, was she unrestrained? Free? Was she leveling destruction? Gleeful and wild and so free?
He is no longer dead. He may be able to return. Would she be happy? Would it stay her hand? He wanted to see her wage the war she was always meant to wage. ]
You will have to convince them. To see it from your perspective. [ A soft laugh, more a bark of bitterness than anything else. ] I wonder what will happen, when they put up the same sorts of blocks I saw? When no matter how many times you try to parlay, they respond with violence? Can you persist, even then?
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[ What's the point in lying to him? Apologies are useless and self-deprecation is as helpful as a strongly worded letter. It changes nothing. What reasons she had are equally unnecessary; they don't wash away the past, nor would she want him to have such a foothold into her psyche. Better to focus on the now - and to prepare for the inevitable work that will await her at home.
If she is even allowed to stay in Piltover when all of this is over. ]
We aren't in a position to convince the upper class or the government here of anything. Not just yet. [ If ever. ] I don't think it's worth our time for now. We have more important pieces to take care of.
[ Jobs, housing, money. And above all of those things: protection. The Augmented are unified in small pockets but not enough to present a full and cohesive front - if they ever will be - and it leaves them open to danger. Anyone with much mind could fracture them. ]
How do we keep what's happening in East Sophia from happening to us? We don't need suits or knives in the dark to do it; Patho-Gen has the means and capability of disappearing us in plain sight, or worse.
[ They have no evidence that Patho-Gen can't, or won't, let them succumb to beasthood as an excuse to be put down. They have no real allies, no real protection, no defense against the people who have brought them here. And while she doesn't want to paint Patho-Gen with the same brush as anyone else, she also doesn't know if they can be trusted. Considering all of the comments at the park about taxes, too, she can surmise Patho-Gen is getting funding from up above as well.
If they decide the Augmented are better off cut from the budget, what then? ]
We have the opportunity to help people here. [ It's not just about cleaning the slate for herself. It's about doing better. ] We can make ourselves invaluable to the community here - the lower class, the people on the outskirts, perhaps eventually into the middle class with enough effort - by showing them that we aren't the enemy. We can help each other.
[ The lower class stands at the precipice of collapse. They can't handle any further loss. Something has to be done, and quickly. ]
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That was not here. That was not now.
She wants to deal with them. She speaks about community. About becoming invaluable.
That is Piltover's way. To bring funding, and education and ventilation and say that it is good enough.
So he is honest. He will show her the path. Have her understand who Silco is, what his goals are at the same time. If he returns, he wants Zaun free, finally. If that means that Medarda finally understands that he is not just some ignorable industrialist under their feet, then so be it. This would serve more than one purpose. ]
You have to dissuade yourself of the idea of bringing things to them, first of all. If you want them to believe in you, then you need to help them believe in something that will motivate them beyond their day to day.
[ He tapped his cigar on the edge of an ashtray. Considered his words. ]
You bring them food, they will still need healthcare. You bring them that, there is still housing. Education. Real Jobs. Walkable streets. Then you need to find them after they have finally let the years of exhaustion had running at both ends settle them down, and then another issue will crop up. Transportation. Bad crops.
There is always something. [ Ask him how he knows. ]
People, even those with nothing, seek the status quo. They want it. It is far easier to indulge in that than it is to work after a 12-hour labor shift on something bigger than themselves. You will get some who are passionate. You need more than that.
You need to give them something to believe in first. A reason.
If we want them to work with us, they have to be intertwined with us. They have to believe in what we can do for them. Or they have to have an independent purpose fully in line with ours, and motivation to do so. Right now they are merely surviving. You need to give them something more than simply survival. You need to give them something to live for. To believe in.
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[ Irony of ironies, for Mel Medarda to know without a doubt that this problem is partially the responsibility of people in power who have no intention of improvement. She's been to the upper districts to walk around; they may be lacking in the ways everyone else is as well, but they are not suffering. They are uncomfortable in the way an old mattress is still serviceable but not always the best, which means they are far from wanting to change it.
The middle class is likely caught in the middle. It's easy to blame those beneath them, easy to aspire for greater heights. To rock the boat in either direction gives them no advantage, and they also are just trying to survive. Silco may not agree, but it's been her observation so far.
She leans back in her seat, more to consider than anything else. Her gaze is lost for a moment, looking through Silco, thoughts clustering. ]
...Back in Zaun, what would you have wanted first? After independence.
[ It's a genuine question. Each of these pieces are intertwined, a system that is affected by each and every cascade. But they also don't have the funds or the manpower to take on every single project immediately. ]
If anyone were to help your efforts to rebuild, Piltover or not, what would you want to see happen first? I'm aware I could ask the Karterians - and we will - but you have the better perspective. Medicine and food are necessary, but so many people are without suitable housing too. Now we have the added issues of kidnapping and disappearances, new people who are a drain on resources.
If this were Zaun, and you its arbiter, what do you do first?
[ He wanted cooperation, after all. Her intention isn't to make him work for it; but this is her chance to actually learn something, to follow the winding trail that is his thought process. ]
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I would be remiss to allow anyone outside Zaun to help.
[ He says it bluntly, firmly. ]
Help comes with strings attached. They can say there is nothing, but we all know the truth. A new nation like Zaun would need to stand on its own. Nobody will get their hooks into it. Not while I am the arbiter.
[ It sounds like he is being obstinate, but he's not. He leaned forward. ]
What they need is stability. Structure. Opportunity. These are all easy paths inward, weaknesses that will allow foreign and domestic powers inside, to do what they did before.
[ No country is an island. No man is an island. But Silco is careful, and he understands something about this sort of pathway. ]
They need to have the path to the necessities. They need that stability. They need enforcement and structure.
These are things that would allow us to link our cause with them. What I would want for Zaun, they could have. They are rudderless, and without leadership.
These are the places where we can supplement their failings with our abilities.
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And no one will let a debt go unpaid.
[ Mel leans her chin on the back of her hand, watching him, listening. The gears are already turning. Opportunityā¦ Ace spoke of getting more jobs at the post back into the hands of individuals. But jobs wonāt happen without proper funding for the service. They could work on opening a clinic, train people in the work so they can persist once the Augmented are gone. They need to feel they have a say in their city, and they are not being ignored, as the hopelessness will only mount if the wedge that is the Augmented disappears one day - or is forcibly removed.
Supplement is more in line with what feels safest, at least at first. Demonstrate that pathways can be made and grown, and turned over to the right people to steer the ship. It does, however, require that the Augmented do not have ulterior motives of their own, and that no one makes attempts to sabotage such efforts. ]
They need to have control over their own lives and outcomes.
[ Finding pathways and showing them is first. Heās right about needing to provide these people something to believe in. It simply threads the fine line of codependency that she worries about.
ā¦That, or the potential deification of the Augmented, and the loss of them will surely spell more trouble in the long run. ]
Iāll work on getting the Augmented to be seen as reliable and trustworthy. Put them in places where they can have a pulse on the districts they frequent and build rapport with those who require it. We can then assess what they want first, and move from there. I know several Augmented are already making moves to build lasting supports here. But this isā¦helpful. Thank you.
[ Her gaze rests on his. ]
If there are others who may work as public āfacesā of what we can do, would you mention me to them? Or you can give me their information, if the thought crosses your mind.
[ Does it mean sheāll trust his recommendation? No. But someone capable of catching Silcoās attention will be someone of skill, and thatās equally as important as keeping tabs on him. He has every reason to return home, she knows, but he has every reason to rage against the cage heās in as well. ]
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I try to make excuses for this eternally.) No, she was best with those who wanted a face, whereas Silco would always be more focused on the practical hands.That's where he's best, after all. In the muck and mire, directing it where nobody can see. ]
I'll let you know whom I find. If you manage to keep the attention of the powers that be away from my focus. You want them to feel empowered? You want the people here to have ownership?
Then allow me the freedom of movement.
[ Medarda knew too much now, but more than that, there was another element that knew too much, and would get in his way if he wasn't careful. More dangerous than Mel, or Talis, or even Viktor. He could machinate around all of them and Patho-Gen, but he knew there was someone who could anticipate him if he wasn't careful. ]
Without resources, friction can only come from so many directions.
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[ Come now, Silco, she's not a fool. She's not making agreements without reading the terms and details, not to mention the fine print. Mel would rather forego referrals altogether if it means he gets free rein to be as secretive as he wants. If he wants a proper partnership, then she needs to know what she's running interference for. ]
I agree that some of us should be operating in the light and others in the dark, make no mistake. We all have our strengths and advantages.
[ Silco needn't be in the grime and dust. Shadows need not come with dredge and ichor. ]
But I also will not walk into this eyes closed. You have made it known that was always part of the problem. [ She is trying to do right by him. And while he has no reason to trust her, she wants to prove it's possible. ] We can do this a better way. We are both willing to hear each other. If you do not want to, you do not need to choose the same path you have before.
[ And before he insinuates what she assumes he will: ]
I am not asking you to cede control or to allow a boot anywhere near your neck. I am asking that we find a way to reach the ground you've wanted through safer means.
[ If there are ways for her to course-correct, to do better by the people of Zaun and by him, then surely he doesn't need to resort to chembaron levels of extortion. ]
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She thinks it doesn't need to have grime and dredge, but that is what Silco knows. It is how he operates, because that is what is what he has always had.
It's the way of things. It is the only way he knows. ]
There are few industries that thrive here. In these lower reaches. Most people have been replaced by robots, and those industries that are left are dwindling. The only thing that seems to thrive is the avenues of the desperate. It's something I know all too well, how quickly those spread. How they can spiral out of control, if one is not careful.
[ An inhale, and with a gesture, he says: ]
Not only that, there is a thriving underground pharmaceutical industry. It is disjointed, disorganized. Medications that are needed for most here are exploitable, and expensive.
I intend to build a better operation. To fully wrest this out from disorganized pockets and into something more stable. They smuggle it from somewhere, and my instinct is it comes from Patho-Gen, but none of them have been able to organize, which means it can be difficult to get the proper doses, regulated prices, and most of all: unstable supply.
I'm sure how you can see having control of that would make life better for the individuals here. Along with an industry that pays well and employs a good number of individuals.
[ It's what he knows. It's smuggling, but it isn't manufacturing. Then again, how can he? He was never the genius behind shimmer, just the visionary to move it. ]
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She feels it's not the truth. Not the whole truth, at any rate. But to call it out so vehemently will set fire to their alliance before it has chance to even find purchase in the ground, and she wants to at least keep to her word - to give him the chance Piltover never did, and to seek a better way. If they are even able to return home, they will need to lay the groundwork. (Although, with each passing day, she thinks even this is manipulation on a grander scale: if she returns with Silco alive just to force an alliance and then to leave for Noxus... It truly would paint her the villain of the Council all along.)
Mel opts for a secondary line of dialogue of true, earnest concern. ]
You believe the pharmaceuticals are coming from Patho-Gen...?
[ It's not said with doubt or incredulity. More that it makes terrible sense, and it's troubling to consider further. Her gaze seems faraway for a moment, assessing, before she looks back his way. ]
Do you have methods to test these medications and actually know what they do? [ It's a question driven purely by curiosity. Because: ] I would wonder if some of it is baited, to see how we react to it. Our bodies are likely already changing.
[ So she simply wonders how Silco would be sure of any of it, and who he's going to pull to make those determinations. Surely, he could survey people or watch their progression, but the Augmented may react differently to what's available, if that's even his aim. ]
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[ He says it simply. The lower class. It's an illegal trade, pharmaceuticals. It's all too expensive, for them to obtain otherwise.
But she is right, it's a scheme. Silco doesn't know how to operate without them. He doesn't understand how. He doesn't have a method. A way. That isn't what Silco knows. That's the thing that Mel will come to understand by working with, interacting with Silco. He has spent so long in the shadows, underneath those who would look down their nose at him, that it can hardly be surprising, can it? That he would opt for what he knows.
Silco is an old man.
Who teaches an old dog new tricks? Or if they do, he'll have to be coerced, and tricked into it.
Will you, Mel? Try to learn the method to tricking Silco into doing things a different way? ]
They may start doing so now, to see how we react. But no, I don't have a way to test it. Unless you do. I'm not interested in pushing poor product onto the streets, or putting out what will make people sicker.
What I do know is that nobody has been able to consolidate this yet. I suspect that if they do, Patho-Gen will see them as a threat. It's why I don't intend to do so until I know things are in place.
[ He knows better, than to jump without looking. Silco had not gotten where he was by being sloppy. ]
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Patho-Gen likely has a supplier for the tools they use. It wouldn't take too much effort to find the distributor, though the cost would likely be high, and doing so would put a target on her back.
Under most other circumstances, she wouldn't want to volunteer that sort of service. But knowing what the medications are before Silco has his hands on them will at least allow her to know what he's working with, and devise strategy from there. ]
I don't, personally. But I can ask around and see what is accessible.
[ A little money can help, and she has some in reserve. She can also ask some of her acquaintances who have been in the poorer districts to see if anyone can simply tell them what medications work and how. It won't be as precise, and it won't allow them to break down the ingredients, but it's a start. And she'll consider approaching Jayce and Viktor between their other projects. ]
And what measures are you taking in terms of Patho-Gen? You said it yourself: once you do this, they will come looking for you. Someone will come looking for you. [ Maybe an outside hire. ] And considering we all have these augmenters, I don't imagine it would be difficult to look for us.
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[ It's true. Normally, that wouldn't be a concern for Silco, but a chembaron's reputation was built on their product. Poor product? Poor reputation, and that was a stain that would never truly wash out. He knew it as well as Mel did, that the sort of flippant actions would lead to their demise. ]
You're correct that they will. From what I've gathered, nobody has been able to link them, and that's a curious question. I'm sure people have tried. This is an avenue for greed, after all. So what would be the reason...
[ his fingers tap on the table. ]
It is not mere weakness. This is not a novel idea. It is something deeper. Such as the fact that they haven't been able to truly control the product. Either Patho-Gen pulls it, or they introduce a new one, or they take them down from the inside.
But they can't remove it entirely. If the people become too sick, they will start dying, and that will gather as much attention as anything else. If the lower-class are gone, the middle class are next.
[ All that is to say... ]
For how I will prevent it, well. I have a few areas of exploration. Safe houses, places they won't go. Places I can protect. I'm not going after the pharmaceuticals immediately, either. That would be foolish. No, I'm waiting.
I won't act until I have the right pieces in place.
[ He's careful, after all. Think about all those years of shimmer bubbling from below. How long had Silco kept it all in check.
He does not intend to let this lie, but he also won't act quickly. There's no need. ]
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Her mind flits again to the missing people, the suits. She'd wondered if they worked for Patho-Gen ā or if they're contractors ā but now she's beginning to consider if the pharmaceuticals are at play for what's been happening with the disappearances.
Too much speculation. She doesn't allow herself down the rabbit hole. She focuses on the information he gives her: he has safe houses ā or will soon ā and has the means to protect them. Guards, perhaps, or ways to prevent entry. Not for the first time, she wishes she'd visited the Undercity even once during her time in Piltover, so she could at least have a frame of reference for what he is capable of...and what kind of playground he's used to using and the kinds of methods he employed.
People always return to what's familiar. He's showing her that right now. For seven years, she'd heard of Shimmer. Does Silco think he has that much time? ]
I would not discount that Patho-Gen is the only player in the city. I spoke of those people in suits. I don't know that they aren't Patho-Gen, but I would be prepared for the possibility that they are working with or in parallel to them. People who can make others disappear off the streets are not to be underestimated.
[ He may not care. And she isn't going to act like this is out of recognition for his safety, per se. But his work might encounter snags if the people he's dealing with start going missing. ]
I can be in touch if I receive any other information on them if it's pertinent to your work.
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[ This is where Silco is best. Strategizing. Thinking. Mel is smart, and it's better to have her focused on the future, on what they can do, rather than the high-minded principles that Piltover indulges in. They think they are the superior ones, but he knows better. He thinks Mel is starting to put that together as well.
Otherwise, she wouldn't be here. ]
If we can investigate it, and discover who they are, then that is something we can use. I doubt that Patho-Gen would be all that interested in allowing them to stay on, if given the opportunity. And they would likely jump at the chance to leave their mark on Patho-Gen.
[ Oppositional. Keep them focused on one another, all the meanwhile...
Well.
That's what Silco was best at. ]
Please do. I will, of course, continue to provide information from the whispers I hear close to the ground. You would be surprised what secrets drunkards know, councilor.
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[ To claim these people are technically not Patho-Gen. But the fact that they have a presence that is disputed while the consequences of their actions ripple through the lower districts... They must have some kind of power, whether it's monetary or influence, or even magical in nature.
Regardless, they'll cross that bridge when more information is uncovered and better assess at that time. Mel can be the gold that catches people's attention; let Silco remain the knife in the dark for when it is necessary. (So long as it continues to be necessary, and never more than that.)
Although, something he says piques her interest enough, and she tilts her head. ]
Perhaps I need to wander into those areas more often. [ The problem, of course, being that she can't hide all of her markings. ] Do you have any recommendations on where to visit?
[ And no, she isn't fishing for his haunts. They shouldn't be seen together anyway. But if he wants her to see the truth, if he wants her to understand the extent of suffering and need, then she wants to hear it from the source as well, drunkards and otherwise. ]
hangs my damn head in shame at how long this took
shhh it's fine