Closed In

[Ϛ Cylo]

^closed

Early January...

"...just cancelled it. Kinda shady really."

"Why the hell'd they do that!? Watching Demon-boy's smokin' hot lady friend smash guys up was better than Christmas!"

"I dunno. They said something about a gas leak while setting up Stage III but it sounds kinda fishy to me."

Cylo was haggard. Cylo was tired. Cylo was nearing starvation. He hadn't run in at least a month, trying to conserve energy. He hadn't spoken in longer. But this still got Cylo's attention.

If the competition is cancelled...

Cylo had received updates on Kirien's progress by overhearing the highlights from the guards, and as far as he could tell she was doing as well as he had expected. However, the competition had been taking far more time than he, or anyone, had expected, due probably to bad planning by the organizers.

Kirien will be crushed when she finds out she can't get me out of here...

He hadn't seen Kirien since the summer, mostly because of the competition. The Academy was also punishing his stubbornness by cutting off his visitors; his whole family had come to visit him at Christmas only to be turned away. In the end, they'd let his mother see him for five minutes, but she couldn't even give him his gift.

And I don't know how much more of this I can take.

Back when he'd had more energy, he'd passed the time by training; running, manipulating his legion, hitting the walls to build strength, endurance, and physical resistance. But he had consumed so little energy in the past month or so he'd had to stop those activities for the sake of his survival.

...I'm going to have to take their out.

Cylo stewed in his own thoughts until the guards came by again, whereupon he finally stood up and walked haltingly to the bars.

"Hey," he croaked. "Tell the management I want to talk."

[Karmine de Arcadia]

It wasn't long then. Within the hour, a man with mid length brown hair walked into the detention center. His long coat sweeping behind him as he walked up to the entrance scanners. The guard stepped forward to challenge him.

"You identification sir?" To which the man plainly handed over an agent badge. After a moment of inspection, the guard returned it, seemingly satisfied.

"Very well Mr. Acheron, what is your business today?"

The man spoke clearly and evenly. "I'm here to visit the prisoner in cell C-207." To which the guard gestured to the small metal-detector like object. "Of course you have to be scanned, it's protocol you know."

'Edgar' looked up at the device, he knew about these. They were designed to detect for signs of glamors, shape shifting and any other form of alteration or concealment. Luckily for him, even if humanity thought they could beat glamors, he had a trick or two up his sleeve. And so he passed through.

*Beep! Beep! Beep!*. The small siren wailed. But he kept walking, got to the other side, and looked to the guard on this side.

"Very good sir, come with me." He said, turning and grabbing a ring of keys.

The agent laughed inwardly. All their technology made pointless if the glamor was to block out the sounds and signs of the machine. Sure it detected, but the humans couldn't perceive that.

And so with a hearty smile he came to the barred door, no plastic windows here. The guard rapped on the bars.

"Hey, you have a visitor." He said annoyed, this inmate was usually just trouble.

'Edgar', for his point, stopped the man. "No need to be rude. Open the cell."

The guard looked back and started to open his mouth when Edgar held his finger up. "I can handle one wayward Demon, but I don't intend to talk to him across bars. Open the door and leave us be."

The guard looked ready to protest, but didn't feel like going toe-to-toe with an agent. Instead he opened the door and walked away, looking over his shoulder occasionally.

Edgar pulled a chair from the hallway he was in and sat down in it, looking at the weakened demon in front of him.

I told you so.

"So." He spoke clearly. "You look like hell, sorry to hear they've been giving you a hard time here. I heard you wanted to talk?"

[Ϛ Cylo]

Cylo was too exhausted to bother chewing out the guard for stating the obvious; he had asked the the visitor, had he not? They had stopped right in front of his cell, hadn't they? Instead, he merely glared weakly at the man, not moving an inch as the cell door opened.

He would have appreciated the stranger telling the guard off if not for two things: firstly, the man was, as mentioned, a stranger, and secondly, he suspected the gesture was another empty one, an attempt by the Academy to get on his good side. Which, of course, had nothing but the opposite effect; it left him feeling cheap and even more vindictive — they locked him up with little to no sustenance and no visitors for committing a 'crime' their own Agents should have been doing themselves, and expected false friendliness to make him simply turn the other cheek?

His eyes had shifted to his visitor by this point, but there was surprisingly little fire in them, especially given his thoughts at the moment. "Save your apologies for when you mean them. This is just how my kind is treated around here," he said, closer to spouting facts than spitting venom. He left it unsaid whether 'his kind' meant those who embarrassed the Academy, or demons, but perhaps either could have worked, given the situation.

"It was a figure of speech," Cylo said, in reply to the talking comment. "I'd rather I never have to see an Agent these days, let alone talk to one of them. I just want out. I was told I could switch over to my alternate punishment."

The irony of switching over to a sentence that would place him in the company of Agents indefinitely was not lost on him, but he wasn't doing it for his own sake. There were more important things than his morals to think about.

[Karmine de Arcadia]

Edgar looked over the bitter demon and half smiled. "You're quite irritable, that is understandable. Hold on a second." He moved to a far wall and pressed on an intercom button. "Agent Acheron here at cell C-207, send over some real food that this guy can use before word gets out you get your jollies starving political prisoners." Before the response came he released the button and turned back to Cylo.

"They may not have told you, but these prisons actually keep living animals stocked to feed their demon inmates. The fact that they haven't extended that to you...well I can't say I know why, but rest assured it wasn't our doing. Maybe you'll feel a bit more trusting with a little food, though I can't prove it isn't some kind of Academy trick anyway."

He leaned back in his chair, and met the demons gaze. "And yeah, the deal was that you could stew in here for fifty years, or work for us. I'm not the biggest fan of that kind of coercion, but I guess they thought it was ok since you were immortal. The reason they sent me here, as opposed to some big wig, is because if you accept you'll be working under me. Allow me to introduce myself, Agent Edgar Acheron." He stayed still, his lips curving.

"I'd offer to shake your hand, but let's wait till you get some food in you for my own safety. Anyway, I could just take your agreement and let you out, holding jail over your head to enforce your compliance, but I really don't want to feel that dirty. So I'd rather have a little chat and get to know my subordinate a little better."

He pulled a file from the inside of his coat, flipping it open. "I'm not gonna bother reading off all the crap, we both know the reality of what happened. Nia refused to act, so people with a conscience did. Bad things happened because of it." He threw down the file. "I'm not going to condemn you intentions, I'm not even going to condemn what you did, because all four of those kids are alive thanks to you, but what caused the few deaths that did happen was Nia's fault. Because she wouldn't send the trained, the untrained had to go. That made the work sloppy and not as clean as we usually work. Yeah the Academy is trying to coerce you, but I'm trying to convince you. The Agents aren't just a bunch of goons for the Academy, most of us have consciences too. The only thing we have that you don't is the training, the formality, and the strategy."

He met Cylo's gaze with a stone face. "I know you intend to join just to get out of here, and if you don't believe words, that is fine. But don't set your mind dead set against us. Keep an open mind and you might like what you see." The sound of movement down the hall made him look up, in time to crack a wide grin.

Mooooo.

A very annoyed looking guard was now guiding a rather meaty bovine to the edge of Cylo's cell, and tied it to one of the bars. Edgar stepped back a bit.

"Eat up. If you have any questions for me I can field them, or try to."

[Ϛ Cylo]

Cylo kept quiet while 'Edgar' recited a full-length speech at him. Partially because he didn't feel like talking, sure, but also because it was a lot to take in, and he was making mental notes the whole time.

He knew the whole thing could be a trick, a facade, an elaborate attempt to pull the wool over his eyes. But it was also exactly what he wanted to hear, and even if that made him a little suspicious, he couldn't afford to close his mind completely to the idea that they had reformed, that they weren't all bad. Otherwise, he would either be stuck in prison literally or figuratively for the next fifty years.

Cylo was definitely glad for the chance to feed. Even thinking was an effort when he was this exhausted. He struggled to his feet and crossed over to the animal, careful to lay hands on it only from a distance. The animal was much larger than him, most likely nearing a thousand pounds, but it still wasn't a human — he had to almost kill it to get back to optimum shape, which meant the huge beast pretty much fell right over and went to sleep.

He decided not warning the Agent or guard in advance was fair game, given the treatment he'd been receiving.

"Right," he said, feeling much better. There was even a grim sort of smile playing across his features.

"First of all, they were feeding me, but not very often, and mostly from little chickens and stuff. Good to know this isn't policy after all, I guess."

He held his hand out to 'Edgar'. "Secondly, you wouldn't be here if you didn't already know it, but I'm Cylo." He could stand to top off his energy levels, and the Agent would probably do it. The gesture was as much about if the man trusted him as it was about being polite. He could think of no better way to gauge whether the man thought he was a killer than to put his well-being in Cylo's hands.

"No questions, not yet, but I'd sure as hell like to get out of this place."

[Karmine de Arcadia]

At the gesture of faith, Edgar allows a grin to tug at his face again. With no fear he grasps Cylo's hand, shaking it firmly.

"If that's all then, come on. I've got your release paperwork with me, it'll be a flash and we'll have you off to basic training."

He grinned. "I've arranged to have a junior agent be your instructor in basic agent protocol and such. I do believe you have met. At any event, let's get you out of here, we've got a couple of errands before we go back to work. Namely I think it might be wise for you to keep your family informed of your decisions, though I leave that choice to you."

Edgar reached down and picked up Cylo's file, pulling a small badge from it. "They had this ready for you before I left, so take it." It was only a small pictureless badge, a few odd markings on it.

"You can go on home for a bit while I deal with the paperwork here. I figure you've got about two hours or so before I'm out of the 'error' time they built into my timetable. That's the best I can do for you kid." He turned around and began walking down the hallway.

"Welcome to the Agency, Cylo. Hope you have a fun time."

[Ϛ Cylo]

Cylo's listened with vague interest as 'Edgar' went over what they'd be doing. He nodded along with it, and accepted the badge easily, but did a double-take when the man mentioned him going to see his family. He hadn't seen them since the move to New York, but he knew how to get in touch with them.

"Thanks," he said, and he meant it. "I'll be back in an hour forty-five."

And with that, he took off, stopping only to bury his badge in a secluded location. He fully intended on coming back for it later, but had no desire to bring something so unknown to his family. Breaking the news to them would be hard enough without him somehow bringing the Agents they now loathed to their doorstep.

Oh, this is going to be fun to explain.

But for the time being, Cylo could only enjoy the feeling of the wind in his hair as he ran.