In The Rough

[Omi]

Siobhan rolled her shoulders, one after the other. It felt strange to have inadvertently taken the upper hand from Morreti in his own office, but 'strange' was still a far cry from 'unpleasant'. It was as if he'd come to meet her rather than the other way around.

"You're gonna have to tell 'em eventually, Damian," she said, aware she was steering the man towards something he'd long since conditioned himself to avoid. "Nobody with any sense at all's gonna hold your past against you. Fuck's sake, you don't gotta be born int' rags on Ouray to be a Xeno. It ain't about who you were, it's about who you are now -- an' what you do ta back that up."

Idly, the brunette rubbed at her chin with metal fingers, looking briefly pensive. Something seemed to have occurred to her; a light note of concern that furrowed her brow just a little.

"Unless you'd rather some enterprisin' Hacker or canny Ageira exec goes public wi' it down the line," she mused, eyeing Morreti's reaction with care. "How thoroughly you reckon you covered your tracks, anyway?"

Before he could interject, she gave a quick shake of her head, making it clear the question was rhetorical.

"Doesn't even matter if'n you think it's bulletproof -- there's always someone better. That's somethin' I've had ta learn the hard way." A sharp bark of laughter. "Got sent scurryin' back to Ouray wi' a ship leakin' coolant more'n enough times before that sunk in. No, Damian -- you gotta tell 'em, before someone else goes an' tells 'em for you. You want people to put faith in you, you gotta put your faith in them. Otherwise--"

Siobhan broke away from him then, taking a single step backwards and turning to indicate the cityscape below once more. The hive of activity there hadn't died down even a decibel, the constant roar and hum of the Fort's beating heart ensuring there was never a moment of silence within the cavernous planetoid.

"--everythin' you've built, it's all propped up on one fragile little secret -- an' let me tell you, Damian, ain't neither of us wants it to collapse. Not in a million fuckin' years."

Her jaw worked up and down briefly, setting itself as she apparently came to some sort of internal decision. She turned to face him again, the grey in her eyes more alive than ever.

"I'll give you my backin', of course. You were level with me, an I'll be level with you. Tell Stracke an' the other luminaries as well -- they'll probably be pissed off you didn't tell 'em sooner, but nobody kin fault honesty where it's deserved. Secure their support as well, then you kin clear th' air with th' rank an' file. That's what I'd do."

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