Post by Franciska on Sept 24, 2012 19:51:07 GMT -6
The mid-afternoon sun shined though the recently-repaired common windows, giving the space a nice, comforting glow. With all the other RED off in their rooms doing who knows what, this was the perfect time for relaxing. Too bad she didn’t have any time for that now. Fran slung a purse over her shoulder as she walked through the room towards the main entrance. She paused as she passed by the room’s sole occupant. “Hey there. I’m going into town for groceries. You want anything?” Normally this was something Gordon would do, but he’d been working so hard lately. Fran just wanted to give the poor guy a break for once.
Zacharie’d spent the day relaxing for most of the day in the common room, reading his book and listening to the radio. He rarely took this much leisurely time in any given day, but he was waiting for the right moment to put a certain plan into action. And the time to act was nearly at hand. He looked up from his book, then pulled his case out of his jacket to see how many cigarettes he had left. “Ah.” He showed Fran the empty case. “A carton, s'il vous plait. If you would be so kind.”
“Why not.” She wasn’t very enthusiastic about enabling his rather annoying habit, but she also didn’t want to start an argument right here. Better to just get him his cigarettes to keep him quiet. “Well, I’m off then. I’ll probably be back in an hour or two so can you please make sure someone’s down here by then to help carry things in?”
“Certainly. Have a pleasant trip.” He waved idly as he returned to his book. An hour is all he needed, hopefully. Zacharie began planning his first move in his mind, but his face was cool and nonchalant as usual. Oh and he would likely get Gordon to help with the groceries after he was done. Probably.
Raising an eyebrow, she stared at him for a moment longer. Fran could have sworn she saw a hint of…something on Zacharie’s face before he buried it in his book again. Was he planning something? Then again, he’s a conniving, backstabbing scoundrel. He’s always planning something. She decided that whatever it was, she’d rather not be around to see it. “Thanks. See you soon.” With that, she turned and left the common room as casually as she had entered.
Zacharie waited about five or so minutes after she left before getting up from his seat. He carefully placed his book down on a near-by table and turned off the radio. He was grateful that no one else was really around either, the less people seeing him snoop about for no obvious reason, the better. The spy walked quietly out of the common room and towards where the bed rooms where.
-Silently creeping down the hallway to the med ward, you locate the medic’s office and slip inside. Directly behind you are many large bookshelves. To your left is some shelves and cabinets on the floor. To your right is a wall with two small windows and two filing cabinets. The wall in front of you is full of posters with a potted fern sitting in the corner next to a record player. Fran’s desk sits in the center of the room. What will you do?-
Examine cabinets on left wall
-You take a closer look at the cabinets. It’s a long cabinet, about seven feet wide. There are two sliding wooden doors, a left and a right, each with a simple lock on them.-
Examine shelves on left wall
-A few picture frames sit on the shelves. Two of them are photos of wedding parties with Fran in the background, most likely as a bridesmaid. One is of her a few years younger. She’s standing next to an older couple who you can safely assume to be her parents and two girls noticeably tall than her who must be her sisters. They’re all standing outdoors somewhere and seem to be enjoying themselves. –
Examine bookshelves on back wall
-There are two large bookshelves that nearly take up the whole wall. They’re crammed full of medical textbooks mostly, but a few others on seemingly random topics are scattered about. You notice that some of the medical books are quite well-used and warn. One or two of them have suspicious dark stains on the spines. She didn’t actually stop to reference these in the middle of a procedure or anything, did she…?-
Examine cabinets on right wall
-You go to examine the cabinets on the right wall and are greeted by folder after of folder of medical charts and records as well as what appear to be equipment records. You thumb through a few of them, but they don’t yield anything particularly interesting.-
Examine desk
-Fran’s recent research has left her desk a bit of a mess. He research notes are sitting about in piles. You’ve already looked though most of them and she explained her plans to you herself. A few books are sitting around, all on the fields of parapsychology or regular psychology. Some one’s been a busy bee. Moving aside the chair, you see three drawers to the left.-
Examine top drawer
-Just typical office stuff. Tape, pens, pencils, erasers, a stapler, ect.-
Examine middle drawer
-It’s filled with…candy? Nope! Just wrappers. You might have grabbed a couple for yourself but it looks like you’re fresh outta luck.-
Examine bottom drawer
-It looks like it’s been cleaned out recently. The only thing inside is an empty wine bottle. Hold on…that’s THE empty wine bottle. She must have been quite proud to catch you off guard like that. She’s keeping it as a trophy now.-
Examine posters and record player on other back wall
-You take a look at the posters. They’re anatomical charts, just like you’d expect to find in a doctor’s office. There’s one of the muscular system, a heart, lungs, and…oh wait. One of them’s just a kitten. You guess she must like kittens or something? It reminds you a little too much of the one she has hanging in the operating room though. You turn your attention to the record player instead, or more specifically, to the kinds of albums she has laying around. Most of them are Jazz records. Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Art Tatum…not too shabby is you do say so yourself.-
Attempt to pick locks on cabinets on left wall
-You go to pick the lock on the right door…only to find that it’s already unlocked! Should have checked for that sooner. There are three little shelves inside, each stocked with things like empty jars, boxes of bandages, gauze, and bottles of peroxide and other disinfectants. There’s a little wall in there so you have to get through the left door to access the left side.-
Attempt to open left door
-The left door IS actually locked. That shouldn’t be a problem for Zacharie Volkov, master spy, however. You make short work of it. Its contents are the same as the other side though. Just a few more extra jars on the bottom most shelf. Some might actually contain something.-
Examine jars on bottom shelf
-You push some of the jars aside and take a closer look. One shoved into the very back corner catches your eye. You grab it and pull it closer. A weird, slightly greenish liquid sloshes around inside. You catch sight of the thing resting at the bottom of the jar and nearly drop it in surprise, fearing for just a moment that it might actually be alive. It looked at first like a slug or something but closer inspection reveals…a tongue. And human by the looks of it. There are no markings or labels anywhere on the jar to explain what this is or why the hell it’s here. -
-Now that you think about it, you're kind of surprised you haven't run into something like this yet.-
Zacharie carefully closed the jar back up and put it back where he found it. He'd seen worse, but he definitely felt just a tad off still. He looks to see if there are any other noteworthy items in the cabinet.
-Nope, the disembodied tongue in a jar is the only standout in this cabinet.-
Zacharie made sure to close and lock the cabinets back up to cover his tracks. He moved to the bookshelves to take a closer to check any books that stuck out, any papers hidden in them maybe?
-Everything seemed to be in order. Just scanning along the spines, you don’t notice anything out of the ordinary…one second. A few of the titles on the bottom shelf look…different. “How To Mend a Broken Heart”, “The Nurse He Shouldn't Notice”, “Unlocking the Surgeon's Heart”, “How to Disgrace a Lady”…You are pretty darn sure those are not medical textbooks.-
It took a bit of willpower to keep himself from laughing out loud. No, no they were not. Although he wasn't surprised, those novels were popular with all women, he supposed. Zacharie decided to examine the filing cabinets on the left wall again for anything besides the medical charts. Something wedged in behind the files, maybe?
-You find nothing out of place in the filing cabinet. Say what you will about how she keeps her office but at least she keeps her files in perfect order.-
Zacharie was very doubtful that anything would come of it, but he decided to take a moment to better examine where the potted plant was.
-You take a closer look at the fern. It’s in good shape. Could use some water though. Fran probably forgot to do that this morning.-
Zacharie decided it was best to try and move on to the bedroom, if only just to see if there was anything that stuck out as unusual.
-You open the door on the back wall and make your way into her bedroom. It’s just big enough to not feel completely cramped. This might have been some sort of larger storage closet before it was converted into a bedroom. Pretty practical, just enough space for storage and sleeping. The right wall holds another bookshelf. She sure loves to read. A wardrobe and dresser sit against the left wall. Her bed’s against the wall directly in front with a small nightstand next to it. What will you do?-
Moving carefully still, Zacharie decided to immediately go and check the bookshelf on the right. If she kept those er, novels in her office, what on Earth would she keep here?
-More of exactly what you’d expect. The shelves are crammed full so those others must be on the shelf in her office because they wouldn’t fit here. Your curiosity gets the better of you and you look at some of the titles. “Man Behind the Façade”, “Critical Condition”, “Codename: Romeo”, “The Temptation”. Wow, she sure likes this kind of stuff… A few appear to be completely in Swedish. You probably couldn’t get through them if you tried. Or wanted to.-
/Okay. Never mind then./ Zacharie decided it would be best to check the nightstand next.
-The only things sitting on the nightstand are a simple reading lamp and a half-empty glass of water. There’s a drawer though. You open it to find various things like tissues, a spare pair of glasses, and a small notebook. The notebook is full of hastily scribbled to do lists and some random thoughts and ideas. None of them are particularly interesting. You also spot a book full of half-completed crossword puzzles. She’s clearly not very good at them.-
Next would likely be the wardrobe, it's possible it may have drawers or compartments to check.
-It’s nothing fancy, just something to hold her clothes since the room lacks a closet. It’s all one open space on the inside. There are some labcoats inside, but the rest are dresses. Now that you take a closer look, you see some you’ve never seen her wearing before. Some are surprisingly elegant given her usual, more practical style. –
The man did have an eye for style, and those were some very nice dresses. Zacharie wondered if she ever got a chance to wear them. It was unlikely due to the nature of mercenary work. /Pity./ The spy moved on to check the dresser, but just the top and maybe underneath.
-The top of the dresser was shockingly clean considering the way she kept the rest of her things. There are only a few bottles of nail polish sitting in a row. Most of them are red. She paints her nails red a lot for some mysterious reason. Slightly dirty pair of boots are stuffed under the dresser. Nice as she usually likes to dress, around here she sometimes has little choice but to sacrifice style for practicality. –
He didn't think twice of the color of her nail polish, it was to match her team color, naturally. Or so he assumed. Nothing of note however, so for now Zacharie decided to go ahead and look under her bed while he was at it.
-You find mostly shoes. Nicer ones, like the kind she usually wears around the base. There’s a little box shoved against the wall.-
Carefully kneeling down on the floor, Zacharie reached out with his thankfully very long arms and attempted to grab the box.
-You take a closer look. It’s an old shoebox. Looks very /very/ personal. Open it anyway?-
Personal is what he was looking for, although he hoped not /too/ personal. He'd found nothing yet, chances needed to be taken. He opened the box.
-The box is filled with bits and pieces of paper. You shuffle though them a bit. There’s an old picture of a man holding a young girl on his lap. She’s wearing a stethoscope that a little too big for her head, and pressing the other end against the man’s chest. Both of them are laughing. You recognize the man from the picture of Fran’s father back in her office. -
Zacharie looked at the photo with a feeling of detachment, maybe even a little jealousy. Maybe he was a doctor as well. It must have been nice to have a role model like that in her life. He set it aside in the box’s lid and moved on.
-Continuing to sift through the box’s contents, you find a worn photograph of Judy Garland as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. You also find a note written on three folded pieces of paper. You unfold it, only to find it’s all written in Swedish. No big surprise there.-
He also remembered seeing that film when he was younger. It must have had some sort of importance to her growing up, or maybe she admired Garland. Zacharie was also assumed the letters may have been from family members. It wasn’t what he was looking for. He moved on.
-The rest of the things are various movie ticket stubs, and another crumpled up piece of paper that had been shoved to the bottom of the box.
You unfold the piece of paper. It’s in a pretty sorry state. Actually, it looks like someone might have stepped on it a few times. The message inside is written in very precise and elegant handwriting. You can practically feel the smugness radiating from each word.
“My dear Franciszka, My apologies for leaving you so abruptly. I had business to attend to attend to in your file room. Hope you don’t mind too terribly.
–Cecil
P.S. You look so lovely in photographs. Perhaps you should have considered a career in modeling instead?”
Well isn’t that interesting.-
Although Zacharie considered himself a heartless man, a killer and a crook, his stomach turned and tied itself into a knot upon reading the note. The paper felt heavier in his gloved hand than it should have. He could only assume this was it, a name to go with that mysterious thief. The irony of the situation hit him pretty quick, he was treading on very thin ice now. He took a deep breath to calm himself down, he put the contents back in the box as he found them and the box where he found it. He was done with the bedroom.
Checking to see if didn’t leave anything obviously disturbed; Zacharie then moved his way out of the office and shut the door behind him carefully. The next stop was the personnel files, he moved softly down the hallway, making sure his steps didn’t make too much of a sound on the wood flooring.
-The file room sits unguarded. No one’s downstairs but you after all. You make your way in surprisingly easily. Then of course, this room is now apparently notoriously easy to break into. Every wall is lined with filing cabinets with another row sitting in the center of the room. Too bad Fran isn’t in charge of these because they look a mess. Most drawers have pages sticking out and there are even some scattered across the floor. Well this is going to be fun.-
He audibly sighed, now for the busy work. At least he was in a place where he could freely smoke! He took out his case and- oh. /Oh./ Another sigh. Zacharie put his case away and told himself silently to deal with it. It was time to start looking. Were the cabinets sorted by year, perhaps?
-None of the cabinets have any outward labeling. Seriously, who just shoves all this stuff in here? By looking at the papers sticking from the drawers, you’re able to find one drawer that seems to contain a lot of people’s names. It’s as good of a place to start anyway.-
Wasting no time at all, Zacharie began flipping through the drawer’s contents. He was careful not to let any more papers spill out, he even put some back neatly as he went through them. Best not to add to the mess.
-You painstakingly sift through page after page, scanning each for the name in the letter. Folders are emptied and returned with no results. There seems to be some sort of organization in here, but it’s by last name. Since you assume you’re dealing with a first name here, you have no choice but to check every last one. As you make it through the first drawer and move on to the second, it occurs to you that nearly an hour must have passed by now. –
He’d checked his pocket watch, it certainly had been. Before deciding to dive into another drawer of files, Zacharie decided to stop for a moment to listen for any movement coming from the first floor.
-You don’t hear anything. Then again, she did say she’d be back in an “hour or two”. Which basically means she could walk in the door at any moment. Perfect. You dive back into the sea of papers. Before you know it, you’re staring at a folder labeled “Z”. It doesn’t hold the information you seek. You can now say with a degree of certainty that no man by the name of Cecil had ever served at the RED base. Which could really only mean one thing at this point.-
He placed the file back into the cabinet and rubbed the bridge of his nose. /Fantastic./ While Zacharie would usually find no problem in snooping through enemy files, he just had a feeling that this was going to be quite the endeavor. He only hoped that BLU’s file room wasn’t as messed up as theirs, or worse. A headache was coming on, he felt a tad jittery. The spy decided to return to his seat, but not before pulling his notebook out of his coat pocket and taking a note of that man’s name. He surely wouldn’t forget it, but he wanted it down just in case.
Fran stood in the middle of the common room, arms crossed and foot tapping impatiently. /Where is that no-good-// She stared Zach down as he walked through the doorway. “So what exactly do you think you’re doing?” She asked, her tone hushed and irritable; almost like a mother scolding a child.
Oh. She was back already. “Ah.” He adjusted his tie. “Sorry, did you just get here?” Zacharie tried to add a bit of pleasantness to his voice, but it was clear that he was slightly startled.
Yeah, most definitely up to something. Fran just barely caught sight of the corner of a notebook before the spy hastily hid it away. She reached into one of the bags hanging from her arm and tossed him a cigarette carton. “I hope those were the kind you wanted. All I remembered was the words on it were yellow.” Her voice softened a bit as she set the rest of the bags down in the middle of the floor. She glanced back up at him. “So are you going to come help or not?”
He caught the cigarettes and examined them, they weren’t his exact favorite brand, but they would work. “At least you didn’t get me menthols this time.” He said as he put the carton aside on a table, he’d refill his case later. “Yes, I’m helping, I’m helping.” He walked over and picked up most of the bags, he gave her a quick smile before he started taking them back towards the common’s kitchen. “Thank you, by the way."
“Huh?” It took her a moment to realize what he meant. “Thanks for- oh for these. Right, no problem.” There he was smiling again. It was weird. She watched as he left the room. /The groceries aren’t going to carry themselves in./ Shaking her head and taking a deep breath to rip herself from her preoccupation, she returned for the rest of the bags. Maybe if some of the lazybutts in this base would get up and help, this would go a little bit faster.
Zacharie’d spent the day relaxing for most of the day in the common room, reading his book and listening to the radio. He rarely took this much leisurely time in any given day, but he was waiting for the right moment to put a certain plan into action. And the time to act was nearly at hand. He looked up from his book, then pulled his case out of his jacket to see how many cigarettes he had left. “Ah.” He showed Fran the empty case. “A carton, s'il vous plait. If you would be so kind.”
“Why not.” She wasn’t very enthusiastic about enabling his rather annoying habit, but she also didn’t want to start an argument right here. Better to just get him his cigarettes to keep him quiet. “Well, I’m off then. I’ll probably be back in an hour or two so can you please make sure someone’s down here by then to help carry things in?”
“Certainly. Have a pleasant trip.” He waved idly as he returned to his book. An hour is all he needed, hopefully. Zacharie began planning his first move in his mind, but his face was cool and nonchalant as usual. Oh and he would likely get Gordon to help with the groceries after he was done. Probably.
Raising an eyebrow, she stared at him for a moment longer. Fran could have sworn she saw a hint of…something on Zacharie’s face before he buried it in his book again. Was he planning something? Then again, he’s a conniving, backstabbing scoundrel. He’s always planning something. She decided that whatever it was, she’d rather not be around to see it. “Thanks. See you soon.” With that, she turned and left the common room as casually as she had entered.
Zacharie waited about five or so minutes after she left before getting up from his seat. He carefully placed his book down on a near-by table and turned off the radio. He was grateful that no one else was really around either, the less people seeing him snoop about for no obvious reason, the better. The spy walked quietly out of the common room and towards where the bed rooms where.
-Silently creeping down the hallway to the med ward, you locate the medic’s office and slip inside. Directly behind you are many large bookshelves. To your left is some shelves and cabinets on the floor. To your right is a wall with two small windows and two filing cabinets. The wall in front of you is full of posters with a potted fern sitting in the corner next to a record player. Fran’s desk sits in the center of the room. What will you do?-
Examine cabinets on left wall
-You take a closer look at the cabinets. It’s a long cabinet, about seven feet wide. There are two sliding wooden doors, a left and a right, each with a simple lock on them.-
Examine shelves on left wall
-A few picture frames sit on the shelves. Two of them are photos of wedding parties with Fran in the background, most likely as a bridesmaid. One is of her a few years younger. She’s standing next to an older couple who you can safely assume to be her parents and two girls noticeably tall than her who must be her sisters. They’re all standing outdoors somewhere and seem to be enjoying themselves. –
Examine bookshelves on back wall
-There are two large bookshelves that nearly take up the whole wall. They’re crammed full of medical textbooks mostly, but a few others on seemingly random topics are scattered about. You notice that some of the medical books are quite well-used and warn. One or two of them have suspicious dark stains on the spines. She didn’t actually stop to reference these in the middle of a procedure or anything, did she…?-
Examine cabinets on right wall
-You go to examine the cabinets on the right wall and are greeted by folder after of folder of medical charts and records as well as what appear to be equipment records. You thumb through a few of them, but they don’t yield anything particularly interesting.-
Examine desk
-Fran’s recent research has left her desk a bit of a mess. He research notes are sitting about in piles. You’ve already looked though most of them and she explained her plans to you herself. A few books are sitting around, all on the fields of parapsychology or regular psychology. Some one’s been a busy bee. Moving aside the chair, you see three drawers to the left.-
Examine top drawer
-Just typical office stuff. Tape, pens, pencils, erasers, a stapler, ect.-
Examine middle drawer
-It’s filled with…candy? Nope! Just wrappers. You might have grabbed a couple for yourself but it looks like you’re fresh outta luck.-
Examine bottom drawer
-It looks like it’s been cleaned out recently. The only thing inside is an empty wine bottle. Hold on…that’s THE empty wine bottle. She must have been quite proud to catch you off guard like that. She’s keeping it as a trophy now.-
Examine posters and record player on other back wall
-You take a look at the posters. They’re anatomical charts, just like you’d expect to find in a doctor’s office. There’s one of the muscular system, a heart, lungs, and…oh wait. One of them’s just a kitten. You guess she must like kittens or something? It reminds you a little too much of the one she has hanging in the operating room though. You turn your attention to the record player instead, or more specifically, to the kinds of albums she has laying around. Most of them are Jazz records. Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Art Tatum…not too shabby is you do say so yourself.-
Attempt to pick locks on cabinets on left wall
-You go to pick the lock on the right door…only to find that it’s already unlocked! Should have checked for that sooner. There are three little shelves inside, each stocked with things like empty jars, boxes of bandages, gauze, and bottles of peroxide and other disinfectants. There’s a little wall in there so you have to get through the left door to access the left side.-
Attempt to open left door
-The left door IS actually locked. That shouldn’t be a problem for Zacharie Volkov, master spy, however. You make short work of it. Its contents are the same as the other side though. Just a few more extra jars on the bottom most shelf. Some might actually contain something.-
Examine jars on bottom shelf
-You push some of the jars aside and take a closer look. One shoved into the very back corner catches your eye. You grab it and pull it closer. A weird, slightly greenish liquid sloshes around inside. You catch sight of the thing resting at the bottom of the jar and nearly drop it in surprise, fearing for just a moment that it might actually be alive. It looked at first like a slug or something but closer inspection reveals…a tongue. And human by the looks of it. There are no markings or labels anywhere on the jar to explain what this is or why the hell it’s here. -
-Now that you think about it, you're kind of surprised you haven't run into something like this yet.-
Zacharie carefully closed the jar back up and put it back where he found it. He'd seen worse, but he definitely felt just a tad off still. He looks to see if there are any other noteworthy items in the cabinet.
-Nope, the disembodied tongue in a jar is the only standout in this cabinet.-
Zacharie made sure to close and lock the cabinets back up to cover his tracks. He moved to the bookshelves to take a closer to check any books that stuck out, any papers hidden in them maybe?
-Everything seemed to be in order. Just scanning along the spines, you don’t notice anything out of the ordinary…one second. A few of the titles on the bottom shelf look…different. “How To Mend a Broken Heart”, “The Nurse He Shouldn't Notice”, “Unlocking the Surgeon's Heart”, “How to Disgrace a Lady”…You are pretty darn sure those are not medical textbooks.-
It took a bit of willpower to keep himself from laughing out loud. No, no they were not. Although he wasn't surprised, those novels were popular with all women, he supposed. Zacharie decided to examine the filing cabinets on the left wall again for anything besides the medical charts. Something wedged in behind the files, maybe?
-You find nothing out of place in the filing cabinet. Say what you will about how she keeps her office but at least she keeps her files in perfect order.-
Zacharie was very doubtful that anything would come of it, but he decided to take a moment to better examine where the potted plant was.
-You take a closer look at the fern. It’s in good shape. Could use some water though. Fran probably forgot to do that this morning.-
Zacharie decided it was best to try and move on to the bedroom, if only just to see if there was anything that stuck out as unusual.
-You open the door on the back wall and make your way into her bedroom. It’s just big enough to not feel completely cramped. This might have been some sort of larger storage closet before it was converted into a bedroom. Pretty practical, just enough space for storage and sleeping. The right wall holds another bookshelf. She sure loves to read. A wardrobe and dresser sit against the left wall. Her bed’s against the wall directly in front with a small nightstand next to it. What will you do?-
Moving carefully still, Zacharie decided to immediately go and check the bookshelf on the right. If she kept those er, novels in her office, what on Earth would she keep here?
-More of exactly what you’d expect. The shelves are crammed full so those others must be on the shelf in her office because they wouldn’t fit here. Your curiosity gets the better of you and you look at some of the titles. “Man Behind the Façade”, “Critical Condition”, “Codename: Romeo”, “The Temptation”. Wow, she sure likes this kind of stuff… A few appear to be completely in Swedish. You probably couldn’t get through them if you tried. Or wanted to.-
/Okay. Never mind then./ Zacharie decided it would be best to check the nightstand next.
-The only things sitting on the nightstand are a simple reading lamp and a half-empty glass of water. There’s a drawer though. You open it to find various things like tissues, a spare pair of glasses, and a small notebook. The notebook is full of hastily scribbled to do lists and some random thoughts and ideas. None of them are particularly interesting. You also spot a book full of half-completed crossword puzzles. She’s clearly not very good at them.-
Next would likely be the wardrobe, it's possible it may have drawers or compartments to check.
-It’s nothing fancy, just something to hold her clothes since the room lacks a closet. It’s all one open space on the inside. There are some labcoats inside, but the rest are dresses. Now that you take a closer look, you see some you’ve never seen her wearing before. Some are surprisingly elegant given her usual, more practical style. –
The man did have an eye for style, and those were some very nice dresses. Zacharie wondered if she ever got a chance to wear them. It was unlikely due to the nature of mercenary work. /Pity./ The spy moved on to check the dresser, but just the top and maybe underneath.
-The top of the dresser was shockingly clean considering the way she kept the rest of her things. There are only a few bottles of nail polish sitting in a row. Most of them are red. She paints her nails red a lot for some mysterious reason. Slightly dirty pair of boots are stuffed under the dresser. Nice as she usually likes to dress, around here she sometimes has little choice but to sacrifice style for practicality. –
He didn't think twice of the color of her nail polish, it was to match her team color, naturally. Or so he assumed. Nothing of note however, so for now Zacharie decided to go ahead and look under her bed while he was at it.
-You find mostly shoes. Nicer ones, like the kind she usually wears around the base. There’s a little box shoved against the wall.-
Carefully kneeling down on the floor, Zacharie reached out with his thankfully very long arms and attempted to grab the box.
-You take a closer look. It’s an old shoebox. Looks very /very/ personal. Open it anyway?-
Personal is what he was looking for, although he hoped not /too/ personal. He'd found nothing yet, chances needed to be taken. He opened the box.
-The box is filled with bits and pieces of paper. You shuffle though them a bit. There’s an old picture of a man holding a young girl on his lap. She’s wearing a stethoscope that a little too big for her head, and pressing the other end against the man’s chest. Both of them are laughing. You recognize the man from the picture of Fran’s father back in her office. -
Zacharie looked at the photo with a feeling of detachment, maybe even a little jealousy. Maybe he was a doctor as well. It must have been nice to have a role model like that in her life. He set it aside in the box’s lid and moved on.
-Continuing to sift through the box’s contents, you find a worn photograph of Judy Garland as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. You also find a note written on three folded pieces of paper. You unfold it, only to find it’s all written in Swedish. No big surprise there.-
He also remembered seeing that film when he was younger. It must have had some sort of importance to her growing up, or maybe she admired Garland. Zacharie was also assumed the letters may have been from family members. It wasn’t what he was looking for. He moved on.
-The rest of the things are various movie ticket stubs, and another crumpled up piece of paper that had been shoved to the bottom of the box.
You unfold the piece of paper. It’s in a pretty sorry state. Actually, it looks like someone might have stepped on it a few times. The message inside is written in very precise and elegant handwriting. You can practically feel the smugness radiating from each word.
“My dear Franciszka, My apologies for leaving you so abruptly. I had business to attend to attend to in your file room. Hope you don’t mind too terribly.
–Cecil
P.S. You look so lovely in photographs. Perhaps you should have considered a career in modeling instead?”
Well isn’t that interesting.-
Although Zacharie considered himself a heartless man, a killer and a crook, his stomach turned and tied itself into a knot upon reading the note. The paper felt heavier in his gloved hand than it should have. He could only assume this was it, a name to go with that mysterious thief. The irony of the situation hit him pretty quick, he was treading on very thin ice now. He took a deep breath to calm himself down, he put the contents back in the box as he found them and the box where he found it. He was done with the bedroom.
Checking to see if didn’t leave anything obviously disturbed; Zacharie then moved his way out of the office and shut the door behind him carefully. The next stop was the personnel files, he moved softly down the hallway, making sure his steps didn’t make too much of a sound on the wood flooring.
-The file room sits unguarded. No one’s downstairs but you after all. You make your way in surprisingly easily. Then of course, this room is now apparently notoriously easy to break into. Every wall is lined with filing cabinets with another row sitting in the center of the room. Too bad Fran isn’t in charge of these because they look a mess. Most drawers have pages sticking out and there are even some scattered across the floor. Well this is going to be fun.-
He audibly sighed, now for the busy work. At least he was in a place where he could freely smoke! He took out his case and- oh. /Oh./ Another sigh. Zacharie put his case away and told himself silently to deal with it. It was time to start looking. Were the cabinets sorted by year, perhaps?
-None of the cabinets have any outward labeling. Seriously, who just shoves all this stuff in here? By looking at the papers sticking from the drawers, you’re able to find one drawer that seems to contain a lot of people’s names. It’s as good of a place to start anyway.-
Wasting no time at all, Zacharie began flipping through the drawer’s contents. He was careful not to let any more papers spill out, he even put some back neatly as he went through them. Best not to add to the mess.
-You painstakingly sift through page after page, scanning each for the name in the letter. Folders are emptied and returned with no results. There seems to be some sort of organization in here, but it’s by last name. Since you assume you’re dealing with a first name here, you have no choice but to check every last one. As you make it through the first drawer and move on to the second, it occurs to you that nearly an hour must have passed by now. –
He’d checked his pocket watch, it certainly had been. Before deciding to dive into another drawer of files, Zacharie decided to stop for a moment to listen for any movement coming from the first floor.
-You don’t hear anything. Then again, she did say she’d be back in an “hour or two”. Which basically means she could walk in the door at any moment. Perfect. You dive back into the sea of papers. Before you know it, you’re staring at a folder labeled “Z”. It doesn’t hold the information you seek. You can now say with a degree of certainty that no man by the name of Cecil had ever served at the RED base. Which could really only mean one thing at this point.-
He placed the file back into the cabinet and rubbed the bridge of his nose. /Fantastic./ While Zacharie would usually find no problem in snooping through enemy files, he just had a feeling that this was going to be quite the endeavor. He only hoped that BLU’s file room wasn’t as messed up as theirs, or worse. A headache was coming on, he felt a tad jittery. The spy decided to return to his seat, but not before pulling his notebook out of his coat pocket and taking a note of that man’s name. He surely wouldn’t forget it, but he wanted it down just in case.
Fran stood in the middle of the common room, arms crossed and foot tapping impatiently. /Where is that no-good-// She stared Zach down as he walked through the doorway. “So what exactly do you think you’re doing?” She asked, her tone hushed and irritable; almost like a mother scolding a child.
Oh. She was back already. “Ah.” He adjusted his tie. “Sorry, did you just get here?” Zacharie tried to add a bit of pleasantness to his voice, but it was clear that he was slightly startled.
Yeah, most definitely up to something. Fran just barely caught sight of the corner of a notebook before the spy hastily hid it away. She reached into one of the bags hanging from her arm and tossed him a cigarette carton. “I hope those were the kind you wanted. All I remembered was the words on it were yellow.” Her voice softened a bit as she set the rest of the bags down in the middle of the floor. She glanced back up at him. “So are you going to come help or not?”
He caught the cigarettes and examined them, they weren’t his exact favorite brand, but they would work. “At least you didn’t get me menthols this time.” He said as he put the carton aside on a table, he’d refill his case later. “Yes, I’m helping, I’m helping.” He walked over and picked up most of the bags, he gave her a quick smile before he started taking them back towards the common’s kitchen. “Thank you, by the way."
“Huh?” It took her a moment to realize what he meant. “Thanks for- oh for these. Right, no problem.” There he was smiling again. It was weird. She watched as he left the room. /The groceries aren’t going to carry themselves in./ Shaking her head and taking a deep breath to rip herself from her preoccupation, she returned for the rest of the bags. Maybe if some of the lazybutts in this base would get up and help, this would go a little bit faster.