apostatised | [log] worth noting that i also have a lot of pictures of people who haven't been murdered

The first time the notion came up in any sort of seriousness was months ago, when Master Snape went missing (and later turned up, hale and hearty as ever - which is to say, not very). He'd had to go to Grif in order to find someone who could manage with this technological bullshit, and while ultimately it had still been pointless, the fact remained that it would be to Martel's benefit to have someone around who knew what in God's name they were doing around these things.

And has remained.

And remained.

And continued to be ignored.

And so on, and so forth - until the purchase of the house in Savannah was finalized, and then it became somewhat more necessary as well as practical. Martel found himself an enterprising young gentleman to keep track of whatever he needed keeping track of, paid him well and- has largely ignored him and his work. If we're honest. Ewar keeps better track of the dutiful weekly reports than Martel does, but Ewar enjoys responsibility (not to mention opportunities to learn) and Martel enjoys delegation (not to mention time for his priorities), so it works out neatly for all involved.

Speaking of those dutiful reports, though, this one is slightly more interesting.

He adds it to the assorted orders that become 'Ewar's problem' (tell him to find out who it was, will you?) and is not expecting much of interest to come of it when he gets back, a few days later, a name.

'Tom'.

"Oh, for God's sake," he mutters, faintly amused. It's a good thing he was on his way into the nexus already.

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It's easier to hack and meddle and play with the Nexus interface via computer if you have an established link, versus forcing repeated anonymous renewals. Setting up a dummy account is simple and, what's more, helpful: he looks more like a real person when his alter-ego, Tom, has an actual PINpoint number (which, he's come to realize, is a bit like having an IP address for a living person).

Initially he was tracking Lourdes. Digging up her new name lead him to Martel - which he inspected and then promptly moved on from, having the initial reaction of God, this asshole before canning the session. He wasn't doing anything sinister, it's just something of an unavoidable compulsion to look up everyone he interacts with.

Bruce is 'hiding' in plain sight this time, sitting on a small semi-circle sofa with a laptop in a bustling but otherwise mellow corner of the Nexus, mug of tea nearby. He's still experimenting with the interface, and it's possible this will go in indefinitely; the possibilities seem endless and branch out into functions he only thought possible in bad alien movies. He is, in short, almost completely engrossed in what he's doing.

With the workload that Valdis generates, dropping everything to keep himself closer to home is not as easy as just dropping everything, and there's still work he can do. Can and must, for the sake of the people who rely on him - so his visits to the nexus lately have been primarily work-related and necessarily brief.

He doesn't come across Bruce until the tail end of one of these, leaving a meeting that he'd brought forward a day, and he very nearly keeps on walking. Not because he doesn't notice him - he does - but because a long day doesn't necessarily need to get any longer. Curiosity, though, will always get its cat (and he wonders what was being looked for, in the first place).

"Hello, again."

People stare at him all the time - either casual glances, typical of passersby, up to the extreme, horrified mistaken identity gazes (he doesn't acknowledge those - he's met enough Robins, thanks), and so he doesn't look up until Martel speaks. When he does, it's a little slow, like if he just gives him a minute he'll go head and leave on his own.

No such luck.

Bruce doesn't say anything, and just looks at him.

The opportunity to be more of a bastard than is strictly necessary is noted and ignored; Martel's not an idiot, and moreover he's been required on many an occasion to learn how to deal with people. Just because he knows how to push the right buttons doesn't mean he has to do it every time, unprovoked.

"Were you looking for something in particular?" he inquires, instead, neatly sidestepping the issue of making accusations - at most he seems mildly curious, blandly friendly.

Bruce would certainly appreciate Martel's generosity if he knew. (Or he might go on being as icy as he is now. Whichever.)

He wonders briefly how technologically capable this man is - half the time he looks like he walked out of a RenFaire - but figures he must have connections, especially since the same related data pinged when he found the correct world. It's too much of a coincidence for him to think nothing of. He picks up his tea and takes a sip.

"Should I have been?"

Sharing a world with one's own alternate is a strange thing, and something that Martel only does part time; the alternative would be maddening. They've both helped and hindered one another in the past, but in all honesty while he can't quite imagine what Tom might have wanted with him, he has even less reason to consider who he might actually have been looking for.

"You'd have been looking in the wrong place if it had anything to do with me," he says, mildly. "As it is I should thank you for giving an underworked young man something to do with his afternoon."

"You're welcome, in that case," he deadpans, apparently stuck on being ornery. But if Martel is surprised he's being difficult, pigs are also now winged.

... Outside the Nexus.

('I should, but I won't' crosses his mind and Martel stifles it because he's above that sort of juvenile behaviour. -he's not, really, but he can convincingly pretend that he is.)

"Of course. And will you be occupying his hours again, do you think? For my reference."

Their conversations wouldn't make any sense outside of the nexus.

"No."

There is something permanently standoffish about 'Tom', and it's clear he thinks Martel has done something deliberate to bait him from the way he watches him with very specific suspicion.

Edited 2009-10-09 12:01 (UTC)

To Martel's eye, there's something more to this reaction to him than he thinks is entirely easy to explain. Maybe it's some mirror to the familiarity that interested him enough to bait him the first time; maybe 'Tom' is just overly suspicious. (He thinks not.)

"Mmmn, it was strange," he says, not quite musing, "considering your pronounced lack of interest."

"I wasn't looking for you," he says, and he's not defensive (because it's the truth), just somewhat annoyed. "You popped up in a search for something else."

... And yet he's still eying Martel like it's his fault. His story makes sense - Bruce only inspected Martel's data long enough to confirm who he was, and then discarded the trail immediately.

It does indeed match up to what Daniel passed on about it, but this suspicion is sort of interesting. He can't quite think of what in god's name Bruce might want to do with his alternate, either, but this isn't the first instance of mistake identity - so he tosses it up as a possibility.

"It wouldn't be the first time," he notes, with that in mind.

Bruce continues to sip his tea and gives Martel a look that says Okay, and? because apparently he's just going to carry on being an asshole about this, to nobody's surprise. He doesn't move, though, and whether this is because he has a subconscious desire to be antagonized or because he was here first and he's not going to be chased off again is anybody's guess.

As interesting as Bruce is, Martel only has so much time in a day and only so much inclination to expend effort on someone so stubborn when there's no true purpose or gain to it - so with a mildly amused air, he says, "Try 'Aloysius Martel'," as he moves on.

(He doesn't say he does intend to pass the same thing onto the other man in question, but it's only a reasonable precaution.)

He's completely fine with Martel leaving - and as he's already found the people he's looking for, he makes no move to write down a name or even look intrigued, though he does note mentally with a sort of wry familiarity that Martel is aware of his own alternate.

It must be par for the course, here.

Bruce finishes his tea, and goes back to work.

[log] worth noting that i also have a lot of pictures of people who haven't been murdered

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