The ping-pong table lies unused, a slight stain on the edge from where a drink was spilled nights ago. The place is much emptier during a normal day, Mari is mostly in her office, the Director is actually busy as it turns out, gruffly attending dozens of meetings.

One other person is in the day room, sipping at a bottle of mineral water as he lays back on a couch, putting his feet up on it and watching a picture-in-picture video on a tablet while drawing something quickly. He's short, maybe five seven if he stood up and has ruddy red hair, cut short and messy. Freckles dot his face and very green eyes shine at the screen.

He's been ignoring Katherine's presence for six minutes, continuing to draw while she's trying to find something to do. She pulls out her phone and switches it to mute as she logs her journal and triple checks her medications and spreadsheets. She unfolds the new company phone outwards twice into a tablet, pulling out her own stylus to doodle out a pair of fangs biting a neck.

The red head glances as she draws, but returns to his own tablet quickly, going back to some very careful detail work. Barring any interruptions, there's a buzz on Katherine's work phone, a text from Director Belltower.

DJB

Office, next twenty five, brief.

She long pressed the text and reacted to it with a thumbs up.

DJB 👍

Office, next twenty five, brief.

Before waiting the precise amount of time so that she would walk in at precisely twenty five minutes later. "Had fun drawing with you," She says to the red head, making his eyes widen as she leaves.

Director Belltowers office is analog. Filing cabinets full of manila folders tagged with inane, arcane sorting methodologies that likely only exist in his head. Not a computer, camera or electronic in sight to assuage his paranoia, merely pen, paper and outside the room, a fax machine to communicate written reports electronically. Drifting tendrils of smoke rise from a cigarette in his mouth while he finishes up the last bits of a report, pulling the paper off the table and refilling the fountain pen in a practiced motion while the sheet falls onto a pile. A giant flat screen box Televison with built in VHS sits in the corner, paused with a flashing symbol in the corner of what looked to be an office building splattered in paint.

"We've got a mission, this one's easier on the tin." Jacob speaks past the cigarette as the door closes, locking off all sound exiting the room.

"I still want to find a reason to use the anti materiel rifle." She admits openly, "Just to feel that thing kick like it's god's own foot."

He smirks, breathing smoke out of his nose, "Very likely you'll get a chance, expect to be out of the office most of these next few days." Belltower explains, lighting a second cigarette. "I'll be handling dayshift since your hours are tight." The paper is flipped around and shown to Katherine, detailed information on something called a "Therianthrope."

As she picks up the file she asks, "If you're Director, how come you don't have them make those into cigars or cigarillos, like my black and milds. At least they'd last longer." Very quickly flipping through it.

"'Cause." He dryly states, "If I change my prescription, they might realize I'm still getting it."

"So people who turn into animals? What's the problem with it?" She says looking back to him, "Sounds like something you could handle with a cat trap and a bit of cheese."

"Think ten foot tall, regenerator with extra-dimensional contacts." Belltower chuckles dryly, "It's a mess. These ones have been spotted turning corporate offices into charnel houses. Bounced between three before we caught a furball on camera and realized its our sort of problem." He taps the paper with a pen, "I have the video on tape."

Katherine opens her phone, but realizes that the signal in here is dead, no ingoing or outgoing messages, no service, not even the building wi-fi. "Ah, I never want to be in your office again." She said loudly, as she notes the complete stillness of technological life.

"Why's that?" The Director asks as video of furry monsters, looking like nightmarish fusions of animal and human at twice the height and five times the weight take a corporate office apart into bloody chunks, carving people to pieces with rough claws and teeth, laughing with a twisted growl throughout.

"Because you're playing tape on a CRT and I don't have wi-fi. It freaks me out. Also, I have issues with VHS Tapes in general." She says gesturing to a far-off time and place. Katherine's not looking at the Director however, watching the creatures carve through people laughing, "Is this motivated in some way? Connections between the companies?"

Jacob nods with a grimace, "Ecoterrorism. These are oil and lithium companies. Rough on the environment."

"I always forget Lithium isn't just a pill…" She says quietly as she goes to google lithium mines and then grits her teeth slightly annoyed, realizing she'd just have to put her phone away in the Director's office.

"It's a common problem with therianthropes, shapeshifters in general really. Got some sort of holistic…psychic maybe, thing with the environment. Fucking lose it on the regular." He describes as the on-screen monsters take a man apart like a wishbone. "Don't stick close to mirrors or reflective surfaces. Common trick is coming out of them."

"Are they at least getting like executives?" She says staring at the cubicles, "This just looks like… Paper pushers. Am I supposed to figure out a peaceful way to bring them in, or can I just…" She points gently at her side arm.

He shakes his head, "Humans first, innocent humans especially." Belltower lights a third cigarette. "This is gonna be in cooperation with the ATF, not that they know it. I've already switched all their rounds with silver nitrate. We just gotta cover for anything nasty."

"Nice." She says, with a smile, "Do I get a badge?"

Opening a drawer, he pulls two wallets out, each containing an ID, six hundred dollars in twenties, and a badge from the Department of Homeland Security.

Katherine pulls out her phone to text Eleanora that they should get a display case for all the badges she'll collect, and then scoffs again annoyed when she realizes it's still offline. She puts it back in her pocket, and then takes the wallet. There's a moment where she considers sitting on the Director's desk, before remembering the sensitivity training packet she had requested from… Candi? Mirandi. The HR rep, and chose to sit in the chair instead.

"This is probably gonna end with a lot of dead ATF. Just in case that's an issue." Belltower admits, "We're going to prioritize ourselves over them." Its a cold statement, but seems to slip out easily from the man as his multicolored eyes are dangerously perceptive in the dark, scanning over papers over and over again.

There's no reflection of concern on Katherine's face, as she takes that in, "So shoot through, not around got it." She says out loud with a nod. Checking her phone again then wincing internally.

"Alright, Investigator Doukas." He confirms her identity, "Be here an hour early for the flight, we've gotta go to Fresno so we aren't tracked."

With a scoff, looking at Belltower, "We're flying to Fresno?! It's like…" She thinks about it, "Well I guess it's a four hour drive, but still that's not that long. And mostly in traffic."

"They'll see us coming on the highways." Jacob smirks, "And I've got budget to burn before the fiscal years done. First class sounds good."

"I want one of those fancy gun ranges then now that they've started tearing down the surrounding homes around our estate." Katherine said immediately hearing there was free money out to grab. "And… I'll think of more stuff. Can the agency buy a Starbucks and put it like, down the street? In fact, a little strip mall with all my favorite shops."

"We aren't building you a neighborhood, no." Belltower shatters Katherine's dreams immediately, "I was thinking a helipad and one of those Mark Seven Assault Rotors. You saw one when we were going after Christos."

"Oh hell yeah," She said quietly, "We should totally buy out the next block and build me a strip mall with all my favorite stores though."

"Ask Mari. She's got her own money." He's picking up papers as he speaks, putting them in a duffel.

She takes out her phone quickly, to text Mari That's her name Mari, and then growls again as she remembers again that there's no wi-fi or cellular in this goddamn office.

"I have a landline." Jacob points at a red telephone with a rotary number selector.

"It's not that I want to make a phone call," She says with a deep breath, "It's that I want to like, text, check e-mail, make notes, double and triple check my spreadsheets. Make sure that my deliveries for food and groceries are all on time. Check the Cat cam. Check the house cams while they're asleep." Katherine stands up straightening her tie, continuing the excruciatingly long list. "I keep all my meds on little scales so I know exactly how many pills are in the bottle. I want to check those counts to make sure that the journal notes, and alarms match with the spreadsheets. Then I weight all my guns, count bullets, and keep them on scales, so I want to know if anyone's touched them since I left."

He offers a cigarette. "This is how I deal with that."

She takes it and lights it, the fog of worries and stresses dissipating almost immediately. "I guess." She says as she exhales, her voice now a bit more level, "It's a bit neurotic. There's no way in hell I'm getting a script for these though." Katherine admits looking at it, "They've got a whole psychological profile of 'This chick's crazy.' Shame." Another puff as her heart starts to unclench, and tiny whispers fade to silence.

Smoke fills the room as Belltower takes a break from the wall of noise, "Not to mention the consequences of abuse." He chuckles dryly as a drag of the cigarette enters him, held for a few seconds and then is released in a plume.

Her off-line notes are brought up quickly, "Emotional deadness, lack of social response, all sorts of mental dissociation, not to mention physical dependence." Reading the words off thinking. "They know a lot of people are just born like this right?"

"I wasn't." Belltower shrugs, taking another drag.

The words hit her head and she looks at him then back to the phone, then back to him. "Oh, I uh… Think I'd be fine." She admitted comparing the side effects with her own personal psychological records. "Eh, I probably don't want to seem too desperate for the super cigarette that makes you dead inside."

Belltower chuckles dryly at the joke, "You'd get pills. They're stingy with these ever since orders came to 'clean up our image'. "Another drag, "Black suits and cigarettes are too threatening."

"I'm not going to stop wearing a black suit and smoking," Katherine said setting an alarm in fifteen minutes to message the new company psych about the pills. "It makes you look badass. The pink tie though, that'd set the image straight."

"Alright Agent Doukas," Belltower shakes his head, smirking at the idea of a pink tie, "You're free to go for the da-well, it's one AM. Be rested when you get here." He waves his hand for Katherine to go, "You're salaried, so hours don't matter."

"Excellent, see you at the helipad." She says, as she leaves the office, messaging her doctor when she's out of the office and has cellular again. The appointment is set up in less than an hour, and the prescription is at her doorstep before she even gets home. Then she calls Sophia, wondering if it was a stupid idea to begin with, but the clinician seemed like she might be the type. She picks up the bag of pills and steps inside her own home, ripping the opaque plastic bag open, and pulling out an orange pill bottle with blue capsules, filled with powder of some kind.

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"Hello Katherine!" She's bright and engaged with something evidently entertaining.

"Hi Sophia!" A smile brightening her face, "I didn't hear back on the E-mails, but I can get the bone marrow thing done. I also sent extensive reports on the lovely ladies' taste profile of yours."

"Ooh!" Sophia makes an odd noise, "I hadn't been c-checking my emails these last few days! It's something I do Sundays usually."

That's not what I think it is, let it go brain. "I've got a prescription for uh… ExS4995, and wanted to know if I was having trouble keeping food down, if there was a way to make it easier to imbibe."

"Well-" She pauses suddenly, before continuing apace, "If you really need too, the exterior coating is just a case, it c-can-" She pauses again, "Dissolve in water!" Sophia finally gets the words out after nearly ten seconds of silence.

"Can I roll it into a cigarette?" She asks point blank, as she realizes that Sophia may be very distracted.

"It can be perfused, yes!" Sophia answers, still managing professionalism on the call. "Though as your doctor I'd prefer it if you swallowed it normally."

"Are you talking to me with that last part?" Katherine asked before realizing how wildly inappropriate that most likely was. "Never—"

"Don't worry, they've already swallowed me." Sophia chuckles.

Katherine suddenly feels guilty, "I forget other people are busy at three AM, tell Director Belltower I said hello." As she hangs up, suddenly wondering why she said that.

The only other person in the house is Eleanora, enjoying the last few hours of night as she relaxes into a loveseat. Estelle is nowhere to be found.

"Hey Eleanora, how are you?" Katherine asks as she moves to the first aid kit, grabbing a pack of her black and milds, pills, a piece of paper, and a syringe with a large gauge needle.

"Wonderful mon amour, now that I see you." Her eyes drift open, shifting to make space for Katherine to be near her. "What do you have a needle for?"

As she sat down Katherine said, "This new medication is as needed, but I don't want to be taking anymore pills because I take like seven at different times during the day, so I'm taking the medicine." She says, popping open capsules onto the piece of paper, "Putting it into this syringe," She uses the paper as a funnel to fill the syringe, affixing a sterile needle, "And adding it to my black and milds." With an even hand she pushes the syringe in the center, and carefully doles out an even stream of medicine along the entirety of the cigarillo.

"Doing three pills to a cigarillo, because that's the dosing apparently." She says looking at the instructions on the bottle.

"Hmm, you know your medicine, so I presume this is safe?" Eleanora looks at the powder, somewhat concerned.

She looks at Eleanora and smiles, "Yeah, I called Sophia, the lady getting railed on the phone? She told me that it can be perfused." Not quite answering the question Eleanora was most likely answering.

"I think you misunderstood exactly what was happening on that call, mon amour." Eleanora smirks, but refocuses, "I trust you, don't hurt yourself." She gives a meaningful look at that, trying to convey some amount of worry.

"I'll be careful, of course mon amour," Katherine replies, as she finished the first pack of black and milds, before moving onto the second. "What did you think was happening on the call?"

"Well, my love, I heard gagging." She smiles, an amused look on her face, "Very feminine gagging, while she was talking to you." Eleanora rests her hand on Katherine's leg as she speaks, cherishing the contact.

"Oh, that makes a lewd comment make more anatomical sense." Katherine said, as finally, her cigarillos had been — for lack of a better word — juiced. She took one, and lit it leaning back. It seemed this was largely how they made them already, the experience seeming almost one to one as she finally relaxes, her heart feeling a bit more normal and at peace. She wondered if Eleanora could feel the anxiety release. "What do you think I… Feel like right now? Can you tell my emotions because you're insightful, or is it like… Mind reading?"

"Insightful. Your heart is beating slower, you aren't shivering as much. Your eyes aren't darting to the corners of my home." Eleanora leans in putting her head on Katherine's shoulder, cold contact bringing even more relief, "This new medicine is very powerful. I wonder what it tastes like." She says idly.

"Oh… I should consider that, the effects might be worse for you." She says looking at the label, "Long term side effects are: emotional deadness, lack of social response, mental dissociation, and a physical dependence. Though I guess that could also be vampirism one oh one for some right? No, not really, you and Estelle are constantly feeling."

"It sounds familiar. May I?" Eleanora asks, shifting to bring Katherine's arm to her chin, watching as Katherine nods. Her teeth sink in as Katherine braces herself, supping on the sanguinous fluids. It strikes her in waves, making her lean into Katherine, smile broader as she separates, licking the wound shut.

"Ah, mon amour." Eleanora chuckles uncharacteristically. "Il met fin à tous les soucin." It stops all worries. She stares up at Katherine with a loving gaze, completely sunken into her emotions. "I feel sated. Not…hungry."

That's not a thing she'd… Ever heard a vampire say. Not even something she had thought was physically possible. That seemed extremely important but also meant that she could know Eleanora on a deeper level one where the hunger wasn't gnawing in the back of Eleanora's mind. One where whispers and shadows weren't gnawing in her own.

"That's… Insane right?" She says, as she continues her cigarillo, "That's abnormal for vampires generally?"

"The only time we feel sated like…this." Eleanora nearly knocks over a glass vase on a coffee table as she swings to sit on Katherine's lap, "Is when we take a life. It's incredible." Her eyes are bright with life, even the slightest creep of glossy black distant from them, she's smiling and almost…human in her actions.

"You're still willing to share right," Katherine asks a bit worried, especially as Estelle isn't anywhere to be seen. Still she leans in to hug her, "That's awesome. Maybe we just discovered something… Truly amazing. If not for everyone, at least for us."

"Hmm? Of course, with the right people." Eleanora holds Katherine, sinking into the hug with a smile, "Estelle is out completing a few of her boons. She'll be back in a few nights at most, mon amour." Her assurance is honey, further diminishing any sense of unease.

Katherine feels normal finally, very very normal. Now nearly crawling into Eleanora's lap. Checking her phone to see when she needed to be at the Helipad, the alarm reading 9PM. "It'll be nice to cuddle just us for a little bit, tomorrow night though I'm leaving for a few days, we're hunting eco-terrorist shape shifters."

"Oh, be careful mon soleil. They are dangerous." Eleanora warns with a frown, "But you have help, that…what's the man you like called again?" She tries to remember.

"I don't like men, but my boss is Director Belltower. Though I guess I do find him very friendly albeit in a masculine way." Katherine says and she feels Eleanora ensconce her like a blanket, "Do you know anything about them? Belltower said watch-out for mirrors."

"Their claws sting like fire, and kill just the same. As do their teeth. I have seen them leap up a building before, and heal faster than a mitrailleuse can hurt them." Eleanora explains, "But I do not roam in the woods far beyond civilization often."

"How do you know the difference between a major and minor boon? You and Estelle talk about them like their currency, but also jobs and favors." Katherine asks, puffing a bit slower on her black and mild.

"It is…informal, but agreed upon by both parties, and then judged by a Harpy, usually me." Eleanora smiles at that last part, "If I judge it fair, the boon is recorded by the Prince, Seneschal and myself, and is to be repaid at the recipient's leisure. Major boons are usually for things like saving a business or warning them of an enemy, minor boons are such things as getting the police to drop a case relating to you."

"There is also Life boons, when you save a Kindred's life, but those are rare. We do not get into dangerous encounters often." Eleanora finishes, obviously having much experience here.

"It's kind of sweet," Katherine says as she listens, "I like that. Networks of people looking out for each other, on the faith that the favor will be returned."

"It is often more treacherous than that. But more often enough, it is honest." She gestures upstairs, "I have my copy of the book of boons upstairs, though, perhaps you should read it in the daylight, where there won't be watchful eyes."

"Maybe, some day, right now I'm just happy to sit in your arms and watch stuff and read things. If I want to go snooping into vampire secrets, I'll know where to look." Katherine muses kind of outloud, "Time magic has these… Things, where if you interact with time, you end up stretching a band, and when that band snaps it whips back and cuts you open. Like when we fired into that cave and caused an avalanche."

"I think a lot of life works that way. If you keep pushing your luck, sticking your nose into things, trying to uncover secrets and delve into conspiracies, especially without good reason, it's going to snap. There'll be a rockslide, and you might just get swept up in it." The medicine worked and it worked well.

"Everything has consequence. The more you use the power of the blood, the more the hunger deepens." Eleanora is whispering, "Nothing is free in this world. You just pay the price knowingly or unknowingly."

"Whatever price I paid for this was very worth the cost of admission." Katherine says, as she looks at the remote. "I bet that remote will land in my hand if I throw a pillow at it just right." She tries to reach out with bands of time letting them wrap around, and she grabs a pillow and throws it at the remote. Which careens into the glass around the fireplace, shattering both together. "Shit."

Eleanora laughs, standing up with Katherine and having to angle to not turn over. "You forget that I am strong, my love." Carefully walking over, grabbing the remote and then sitting down with it, ignoring the broken glass. "Though, we will have to clean that before sunrise. Cela me rendra fou." It will drive me crazy.

"Yeah, fair. I was told I could practice time procedures, but I keep forgetting that the backlash is unpredictable." Katherine sighs as she stands to get the dustpan and broom. "At least it's safety glass, though I'm a little pissed because I just got that replaced."

Eleanora smiles as she turns the TV on, flicking through apps, "We need to catch up on more shows. I am decades behind." She tries to find something interesting, but mostly waits for Katherine's input.

"Here you seemed to love this one the last few loops I showed it to you," She said as she flicked over to American Horror Story.