During all this, Gustav Graves had sat silently with his legs crossed, listening to the others talk with crossed arms. It was all rather quaint how the other Interruptors treated all this, though he had to admit that it almost sounded like a kindergarten group having a get-together with their new pedagogue. He couldn't help but sneer inwardly at his new name. Gustav Graves. They said it was for their own safety to assume these aliases in order to not not wake up anymore some day — the pawns of Liberty's shadow government knew no limits — but he found it to be highly ridiculous. It irked him to no end that he couldn't use his real name at all anymore as well.
To be fair, this meeting wasn't all that bad, all things considered. It was the first time Graves got to see the Senior Professor, and there simply was something authoritative about him that had an ephemeral, almost eerie character, he felt. Moriarty radiation an air of ownership that was as natural as breathing to him. This man owned every last one of them, and he seemed to relish it. Graves wasn't used to not being the one in charge. Before he joined the Lane Hackers, drug pushing had been his specialty, and he had been exceptionally good at getting cold hard numbers onto paychecks.
With Professor Hunter's sudden silence, Graves blinked, having lost himself in thoughts and thus hadn't listened to what was said before him. Recalling the initial request of the Senior Professor, Graves cleared his throat while shifting his position to a more upright one. It was simply the proper thing to do while addressing an audience such as this. "While this was all rather quaint," he began, doing his best to not let his disdain for the words of the other Interruptors show, "it does seem like we are in some sort of support group if we all start with lauding ourselves, thus I'll skip it." He nodded towards the Senior Professor in a respectful manner. "We all know there couldn't have been a better choice made, thus it is redundant anyways."
There had been a moment of deliberation whether he should attend digitally like Professor Hunter did, though Graves had ultimately decided against it, given that the Senior Professor was supposed to attend as well. "Besides the training, which hardly warrants more mentioning here, as it is a prerequisite, I intend to use those skills that made me quite a lot of credits during my, well, 'old' life." He did airquotes with his index and middle finger. "Gotta admit, I'm not one of those societal higher-ups. Never was. I did my thing in distributing substances that Liberty'd rather not see. Cardamine, Nox, the occasional weapons, both chemical and conventional." Shrugging, he let the sentence hang in the air, not remembering everything that he'd deal with. "Those things work according to a certain scheme. Don't ask questions, respect the business partners and pacta sunt servanda, else they slit your throat. Not that I necessarily worry about that anymore."
Lifting his hands to signify he was through with his piece, he folded them in his lap. "Guess there isn't much more to say, really. I'm not one to give promises, since it'll make me seem like it's the only thing I stick to. This is for me as well. Everybody wins." It wasn't like he could tell them that he had cheated and intended to cheat with several of the promotion criteria. Nobody said some slyness couldn't be used to get ahead, and Graves was a man who honored a contract according to its word. This just so happened to have none prohibiting him from using his brain.
