ic contact;

[originallutece]

action | voice | video | text

Comments

[originallutece]

Oh? I should hope you won't say that without elaborating.

private & encrypted

[etiquette]

I'll share if I can hope that we keep this between us, for now.

[well, and eggsy seeing as that's who he's heard it from at all, but that's irrelevant at the moment.]

[originallutece]

[A little pause, and then:]

You have my word.

[etiquette]

There was talk that all of this may have been an inside job--that someone at the Institute and perhaps even beyond that wanted this to happen.

[he's not going to outright declare that the empress may have been responsible--he's not going to get himself arrested for treason or some such by saying it on a network he can't entirely trust. he'd much rather be doing this in person, but needs must.]

What do you make of that?

[originallutece]

[Well, she laughs, first and foremost; a short, humorless thing that wouldn't have escaped her if she hadn't been alone.]

I think that I proposed something like that theory a few days ago. Though I personally blamed our dear Empress, but certainly someone at the Institute must have been involved. Someone very clever, frankly; they'd have to be for me not to be able to solve this entire mystery yet.

What I couldn't understand was why she'd flee.

[etiquette]

[well, that lends even more suspicion to...all of this. what harry can't place is motive. he's briefly considered it as a way to test all the new additions to this world--to see where their loyalties lie up front rather than waiting for it to manifest somehow. but why go to the trouble of saving them all from certain death at the end of the world only to infect them? it has to be something more political; something to gain between olympia and wyver--or at least that's what he thinks.]

I don't doubt it--pulling one over you and all the exceptional minds that have flocked to help is no easy feat.

There were a few mutterings of bribery--donations to a secret fund. Whether they meant the Institute itself or the Empress' pocket I can't tell, and neither could my contact's source.

Her absence in the face of a crisis doesn't bode well as a leader. There's too many moving parts here to get a pinpoint on it, but I fear we've yet to see the worst of whatever's coming.

[a grim prospect in the face of many others falling sick.]

[originallutece]

[My contact's source, she notes, and wonders why a tailor would have such a thing.]

What do you imagine might occur?

[etiquette]

I can only speculate--far less informed than anyone else--but where I come from in 2014 London there have been some dreadful terror attacks. And the pattern is often to just...keep them coming. No predictability, just the largest amount of casualties possible while innocent people are just doing their day to day activities. Throw in a biochemical weapon, and I don't think they'll have wanted to manufacture it without not having a back up, do you?

I just don't think we've seen the last of them, confession or no.

As for the Empress, I can't imagine she wouldn't have something to hide given the circumstances at this point.