Chapter 183: 180 Interlude: John Doe & Gabriella Vargas
San Francisco, California, January 9th, 19:10.
John can't say that he was surprised to find out that someone out there had a power so incredibly similar to his own, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't interested in meeting them.
Especially considering just who they are.
Gabriella Vargas, CEO of Estrella Co.. Except that's not the only name she's known by, as she is also a cape known as Entourage; a member of the elite under The Gentleman, who himself operates out of Las Vegas.
It truly is amazing the information that Fool can simply stumble upon. He's the laziest hacker in the world, since cyber defence has a habit of just not working against him, and that's only if he doesn't just guess login passwords.
John is pretty sure that Fool installed a back entrance into a few of his own servers, but he doesn't really mind. They're friends after all, not enemies.
That's not to say that John can't find out plenty of information on his own, he's got his net spread pretty wide after all, and is rather well educated.
Hell, even as he sits in the top floor of this high class restaurant waiting for his guest, he's still in the process of learning three languages and getting another medical degree and reading up on advanced mechanics with four more bodies, among other things.
But he isn't left waiting for long, as Gabriella soon arrives, entering the empty room alone.
Gabriella is a small brown skinned woman, petite and pretty, wearing a white dress with straps that circle her neck as a high collar. She walks with the confidence of someone who has worked hard to build themselves up into someone important and knows that they have succeeded despite only being twenty-five.
Which is fair enough, considering that she started her company all by herself when she was around twenty and has built it up into quite the successful tech company, mainly functioning as a small component manufacturer.
They serve as outsourcing for other companies that are looking for a supply of fiberglass, metal, glass, or technical components, but they do other stuff too, their most successful product being a line of cheap, durable notebook laptops marketed at kids and a similar line of phones, again, cheap and durable, but they are very much dipping their toes in all things, selling camping supplies and hobbyist tools among other things.
Contrary to her well put-together business attire, John is simply lounging in his seat, one arm over the backrest, wearing a closed black long coat with a zip that goes all the way up to the top of it's high collar with three horizontal buckles attached to his chest, and another three on each arm.
Also unlike Gabriella, who has come in civilian attire, John is wearing a simple blank white mask, clearly segmented into a three-by-four grid, with a small 'x' stitched where his eyes should be. The only thing that gives away his position as a Clown being the black gloves he wears that have a smiling and frowning clown face respectively drawn on them in a variety of bright colours.
Thanks to the restaurant being empty, something easily doable since John owns it, Gabriella notices John's reclined figure right away and soon moves over to join him in the booth, where a glass of her preferred wine already sits waiting for her, a small power play, she notes. Him telling her that he knows her well enough to know her favourite wine.
"Well, I am here, as requested," the small, Mexican-American woman starts, taking a sip of her drink, completely casual despite having been abruptly summoned by an unknown parahuman, "I presume you have some demands or the like, Mr...?"
John lets out a smile that she cannot see at her presumption, but simply raises a finger instead of responding, and as if on cue, the door to the kitchen opens, a pair of servers walking out with a pair of dishes each.
Once again, Gabriella sees the power play for what it is as she is served a dish of enchiladas with a side of red rice and chile relleno, which just so happens to be her favourite meal, unofficially at least.
The servers deposit their meals, John having ordered a tomato soup with a straw that fits under his mask, and Gabriella finds herself smiling as he gestures to her meal.
"Feel free to eat, there aren't any cameras so you don't have to worry about being seen as anything less than a proper upper-class woman who only eats steak all fancy-like with seven different forks or whatever."
Gabriella finds herself momentarily surprised by not only his words but also how he takes his own advice and slides his straw under his mask, sucking up some of his meal, and her smile only grows.
Oh how she loves surprises.
"I mist say," Gabriella starts after taking a bite of an enchilada, "this is not what I expected from this meeting, I'm pleasantly surprised."
"Oh? And what exactly did you expect?" John asks in return before taking his straw out of his soup and using it to drink from his wine, making Gabriella cringe slightly with mild amusement.
"Oh you know, threats and the like, blackmail maybe, with the end goal to rob me of my money. I wasn't expecting either the meal or your competence to be completely honest."
Her words draw a short chuckle from John.
"I'm flattered, but I must confess that this is not truly what I expected from this meeting either," he says, making her raise a brow at him.
"Oh? And what exactly did you expect?" She responds, parroting his own words back at him.
"Well, I was expecting to meet a parahuman called Entourage, not the CEO of Estrella."
"You sent a message asking for a meeting directly to my office, addressed to Entourage but sent to me," is Gabriella's dry response, a wry smile tugging at her lips, "you clearly know who I am, there's hardly any point pretending otherwise, yet I can't help but notice that I still do not know who you are, or why you're here?"
"Point," John nods, conceding the point before sitting up straight and doing a short bow of the head, "you can call me No Face if you'd like, and I'm only here because of the nature of your power, otherwise you'd probably be talking to Fool or Diversity or something."
The names he so casually drops immediately put Gabriella on edge, her hairs raising as she realises exactly who she is dealing with. The Clowns. If it was literally any other group in the country, then she wouldn't be phased, but the Clowns are both mysterious and rather quite scary. Not a group that she can afford to anger at the very least.
Nobody is really sure how many Clowns there are, the only true concrete information the public has on them even existing is the founder, Tear and her supposed right hand, Fool and their constant shitposting online.
Due to her position however, Gabriella naturally has more information available, such as how they probably have enough firepower to take on a small country and win.
Though, Gabriella never expected that she'd get the chance to meet with one of them herself, not since Uppercrust somehow managed to score some kind of exclusivity deal with them, making any business between The Elite and The Clowns have to go through him.
Which only makes this surprise all the more curious.
"A Clown hm? And what would the ever infamous Lusia Abel want with me? Isn't she busy causing natural disasters right about now?" Gabriella asks, making John lean back into his booth and scratch the back of his head.
"Ah, so you heard about that did you? But why does Lusia have to have anything to do with this anyway? I'm the one here, not her." His somewhat sheepish response only gets a dry look from Gabriella as she takes another bite of her food.
"I watch the news," is her dry retort after swallowing her mouthful, "I'd have to be living under a rock to have not heard about it. And what do you mean by that anyway, you're a Clown, and Lusia is your Leader no?"
"Ah," John exclaims with a small chuckle, "no, she is not. We Clowns don't really do the whole subordinate superior thing, though if we had to nominate a leader she would be the obvious pick, we do respect her quite a lot after all.~"
"I'm not surprised, she is quite the powerful parahuman. Have you heard how people are starting to compare her to the Faerie Queen? I can see why you would respect her."
Of all the responses she could have gotten, the last thing Gabriella expected was for him to laugh, hysterically.
"Power?" He asks through light breathes, controlling his laughter, "you think we respect her because she's strong? What a laugh. She's not the only powerhouse we have, hell, her dog is about equal in power, yet none of us respect him nearly as much as we do her."
His words make Gabriella contemplative, realising that there is clearly something that she does not understand about Lusia, something that might even explain her relation with Uppercrust.
"Then, if you don't mind my asking, what makes her such a respectable figure in your eyes?" She asks, genuinely curious, but he only shakes his head at her like she asked the stupidest question he'd ever heard.
"I suppose you wouldn't be able to understand it now that I think about it, most of the shit she gets up to isn't exactly public knowledge," John starts, only to get interrupted.
"No offence, but are you sure? She hardly seems very subtle."
"Hah! That's exactly the point isn't it? With all the crazy, explosive, visible shit that she gets up to, everyone thinks they know her, that she just runs around seeking thrills and nothing else. But that's the point isn't it? Because what's actually scary about Lusia isn't her power, not unless you're ignorant. What's scary about her is her mind."
With his words hanging in the air, John reaches over to her plate and rips a piece of her enchilada's tortilla and puts it in his bowl of soup, gesturing to it under Gabriella's curious eyes.
"Picture this. This bowl is America and this bit of tortilla is the PRT. See how it covers about a third of the bowl?" He asks before ripping off another piece, this one slightly smaller, "and this one is you, not you you, but The Elite. See how the two together fill most of the bowl?"
Reaching his gloved hand over the table, John grabs a handful of her red rice and sprinkles it all between the two slices of bread.
"And this, is everyone else. Small groups like Reach, New Wave, Toybox and the like. Now tell me, what do you notice about America now that you're looking at the bigger picture?"
Gabriella ignores the fact that he just used her meal as a demonstration, not truly bothered by it, and instead decides to treat his question seriously, eventually coming to her answer after a short moment.
"It's full, oversaturated. There isn't any space left for anything new." She feels pretty confident in her answer and is validated when No Face gives her a nod in response.
"Exactly. So when a new cape joins the scene," he leaves his sentence hanging as he grabs a small piece of chicken, hovering it over the bowl for a moment, "they have nowhere to land that doesn't result in them sinking into an already existing faction."
As if to prove his words, he drops the chicken on the bread he labelled as The Elite, and they both watch as the chicken sinks down the bowl, getting wrapped by the bread in the process.
"That's how it works, but what about Lusia? It's quite simple, she rejected the whole idea. When she was dropped in, she made the already established groups turn against each other," here, he takes his fork and puts a small hole in the middle of the bowl, swirling the rice to leave a gap, "and forced them to make room for her."
Finally, No Face takes out a knife and his straw, cutting down the straw's length four times down to the middle and planting it in the centre of the bowl, peeling it like a banana and bending the four lines until they each pierced into different 'factions' around it.
"Then, she decided that she didn't like the board, that she would make her own faction, one that stands above all of the others for the sole reason that nobody simply falls into it, instead, you have to climb. I understand your ignorance, as you have no idea the magnitude of what she has accomplished, so allow me to simplify everything even more for you down to a simple sentence."
Pushing his bowl to the side, No Face leans forward, crossing his arms on the table.
"Lusia has single-handedly created a group that can match you Elite, and she did it all in about a year now. That takes more than power, that takes brains. Crazy though she may be, Lusia is smarter than any Thinker I've ever met. She understands people better than anyone I've ever heard of. Lusia is the kind of person who you could give an impossible task, and she would have it done by the end of the week."
Leaning back into his seat, No Face picks up his drink and puts another straw in it, taking a slow sip under his mask.
"That, is why we respect her. Her power has nothing to d with it. If anything, she'd be even more scary without it."
After all, if she didn't have brute strength to use, then she would have to get creative, and a Lusia that is actually thinking and planning instead of recklessly charging in head first is far scarier than what she does now.
"I see. I had no idea, and I can tell just how genuine your respect for her is. I must say, it makes me slightly jealous. I don't think there's anyone who views me the same way you view her. It's admirable."
He only offers her a shrug, putting down his drink after downing the whole thing through his straw.
"Eh, I don't know about all of that, but yeah, she's impressive. Which I will use as a segue because we seem to have gotten off topic."
Gabriella almost startles at the realisation of just how off topic they had gotten, though she refrains from being embarrassed by being distracted by his passionate explanation. Hearing someone speak with such faith in another is a rare thing.
"Indeed, I believe you were saying why you asked for this meeting?" She says, bringing things back on topic.
"Right I was. See, it's about your power. You can duplicate yourself right?" He asks, to which she simply nods, not seeing a point in playing coy, "well, it just so happens that my own power is pretty similar, so I wanted to meet you, chat, see if we can relate, maybe have an exchange of information."
Gabriella find herself surprised once more at his reasoning being something so simple, and apparently she fails to hide said shock as No Face lets out a small chuckle.
"You mean to say that Miss Abel truly has nothing to do with you being here?"
"We are not beholden to her, not everything that we Clowns do has to have something to do with her. That being said, this is a bad example because there might happen to be a small business proposition that she would like me to pass on to you, but I swear that she isn't behind everything we do."
He lets out a small laugh with his words while Gabriella actually feels a lot more comfortable once the prospect of business comes up, finding such to be much more her element.
"Before we begin with that, you are aware that I am Elite correct? And that Lusia is supposedly only dealing with The Elite through Uppercrust?"
Once more, No Face lets out a laugh, turning his head this way and that as if looking for someone.
"Elite? We're not dealing with The Elite, we're dealing with you, with Estrella Co.. After all, you're not really Elite, are you? You're just being sponsored by The Gentleman. But who says a corporation can't have more than one sponsor? And I can promise you, us Clowns are far more generous with far less restrictions."
It's a flimsy excuse, but she supposes that no one would really have to know if she gained a new sponsor. Though, if they are truly as generous as he is saying, she might be willing to reconsider certain things.
"In that case, please, tell me this proposal of yours."
And tell her he did, and the more he spoke, the more she realised where that respect of his for Lusia Abel comes from.
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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
I got so fucking distracted writing this, then paused for an hour to watch a movie and came back even more confused.
Like, this was supposed to be a multi interlude with 4 different POVs. I can't eve really remember what John and Gabriella were originally supposed to be talking about, I just got distracted cuz I'm hungry and I started thinking about food and wrote that whole thing.
Did it even make any sense? Like, in my head that scene was pretty cool, but idk if my thoughts are translating well to words.
.....I probably forgot something
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