Birds Of A Feather [Alastair, Natsumi]

There was rarely a time these days when Alastair was not working. Even when he was off duty there was still more work that needed to be done, not to mention the constant travel back and forth from Africa. He was not a man easily broken by doing his job, though, so he persevered with his typical brand of dour stoicism. But something had caught his attention, so today he was out to find it.

As the former liaison to the Duvalier Group, and still a close ally of Arlette Ovide and her efforts to bring Lady Duvalier to justice, it was only natural that he kept informed of Duvalier related goings on within the City of Lights. He had a team of Todgestalten agents working on precisely that, thanks to the support of Reida, not to mention his own division. It had been rather quiet of late, a failed attempt to recover Antonetta perhaps serving to drive them away, but that did not mean that no news came through at all. Word had reached his ear of another with apparently quite vocal anti-Duvalier sentiments. That was a rare thing to find out in the wild, as Claudia had been rather careful in her efforts to cultivate a solid public image - or as solid an image as an international business of the Duvalier Group's size could have.

Alastair was obligated to investigate, to learn what had happened to them, and stop them from doing something that would likely get them arrested or worse. Assassinations suddenly seemed like an easy thing for the Duvalier Group to arrange to quietly make such a problem go away. It was not an easy task, even with a rough estimate of where in the city they likely were, but maybe if he stuck around long enough then a clue would find it's way into his lap. That was the kind of detective work he could manage.

"Hello! I used a computer to make this flyer!"

Natsumi had been handing out flyers all morning and into the afternoon. With Natasha at work, she was going to try a new strategy for learning about the Duvalier Group. The flyer she was handing out had "The Demons of the Duvalier." She was proud of that one. At the bottom it said, "The girl who handed you this flyer escaped from a Duvalier compound when Vastime came under attack. They held her there since she was very young for experiments. Tell everyone!"

Many people immediately threw them away, but others looked horrified. A few just stuffed them in their pockets without looking, and Natsumi assumed they would read it later. She had five hundred of these and went to different busy parts of the city to hand them out. She started at a mall, then a large shopping center, a college of some sort, and was now in the park she met Edelo in. This park was good luck!

Then she spotted it... Red hair! Natsumi ran over to a man with red hair, thinking it might be her library friend, but quickly realized the hair was different when she got closer. She blinked and then smiled, holding up one of the flyers to him. "Here, can you read this and tell everyone, please?" Once he took it, Natsumi was ready to run off to the next person, a new backpack clearly stuffed with many more of these.

Now that was a stroke of luck if ever there was one. Alastair glanced over the cover of the leaflet he was handed, eyes catching upon a few key words and realising that he had found what he had been searching for. Were he a more superstitious man, he might have called the whole situation a rather fateful encounter, but he was a little too practical for that. If she was handing out flyers to anyone that came her way then this was probably inevitable.

“Excuse me, Miss. Did you really escape from a Duvalier Group facility?”

Rust-coloured eyes locked on her now, judging her every little action to see if she gave him any kind of tell. He was quite a trusting man, he preferred things that way, but this was all quite a serious claim for a young woman to be making and he did not have the time to waste on chasing ghosts.

After handing off the next flyer, Natsumi turned back to answer with wide eyes and an even wider smile. "Tha-..." Natsumi stopped and saw the suspicious expression on his face. Her eyes narrowed and she began taking a few steps back. She glanced him up and down. HIs demeanor reminded her of a certain someone; that stupid mercenary that tried killing her. He was super serious too, so Natsumi's guard shot right up. She was going to have to be careful around this man...

"That's what the paper says, yeah," Natsumi's entire demeanor mirrored a cornered cat. "And I put that on the paper, so I'm thinkin' it's the truth. You the second person that asked me today, but the other guy was all excited and weird about it all, like I was some confirmation for his box of conspiracy theories... Why you askin'?"

Her sudden caution certainly made her claims seem more genuine, Alastair did assume that such a person would be more secretive about their imprisonment but there were always a few that had some amount of courage left. Such good people were few and far between of late. He did not break out into a smile or anything jovial but, with straightening out of his posture and a slight lean backwards, he tried to appear a little less threatening. It was an attempt at least.

"Forgive my sudden inquiry. I am Administrator Eisfluch, with the Vandenreich."

From his pocket came identification, an ID badge with a photo and everything. It was hardly the first time he had used official documentation, and he carried it everywhere in case of situations just like this.

"If you have the time, I wouldn't mind taking a statement from you regarding what happened and where. Something official to go on the record, perhaps even something that we can investigate if resources are authorised by my superiors."

Nope, nope, nope. That attempt didn't help. Natsumi's demeanor did not change. Still a cornered cat, she narrowed her eyes at the red haired man as he introduced himself. His name was weird, at least to her. The temptation to say "bless you" was high, but she wasn't in a joking mood with him staring down at her.

"Well, I'm Natsumi, but you c'n call me Tsumi; others call my friend, Natasha, Nat and I don't want no-one to get confused." Natsumi said. She raised her index finger to the height of his nose. "Oh, so you an administrator for the Van's? I met a few of you, I think. Met Nero and Edelo; they didn't believe me when I told 'em. So, are you gonna believe me or do I gotta keep handin' these silly things o-..."

Natsumi looked at the badge. She couldn't tell whether one of these were real if she was super knowledgeable of how the Vans worked, but at least he showed one. That was another first she was getting from this guy. "Wait, so... you believe me? But why? With the stuff I get from everyone else, this a lil' surprisin', ya know? Cause, like, I'll go. You just a different response than I get normally."

"A pleasure, Miss Sumi. And you will find plenty of members of the Vandenreich around the City of Lights. I am also familiar with Mr Arant, though only through the connection of his grandfather."

His surname did indeed sound like it could be an exclamation that one might make when they sneezed, but that was par for the course as far as German family names went. Looking down at her, though, Alastair could understand her caution. The Duvalier Group were still highly regarded by the wider population, even within the Vandenreich it was considered a matter that required a certain level of security clearance or proximity to Alastair's division.

"Whether I believe you or not does not come into it. You are committed to spreading this message and I am interested in collecting information regarding your experiences. I won't force you to come with me, but I promise to hear you out if you do."

"It only doesn't come into it if y'er not lookin' from my eyes on all this," Natsumi said, raising an eyebrow at him. "If you ain't believing what I'm sayin', then how can I believe what y'er sayin'? We could walk aroun' some corner and you stab me while I'm not lookin' because you're a member of the Duvalier Group. You already said the Vandamrakes look at them as good, and you're a member of them."

"I was told to be more careful, not being so loud with my message no more because of it," Natsumi said, crossing her arms to give off an air of determination, and maybe a bit of pride for her flyer idea. "Ain't got me yelling in the streets, but that also means being careful about people I go with. So, if you don't care about the truth, then why should I tell it to you? I only wanna tell people who care."

"I have provided you with evidence of my rank and status, if that is not satisfactory then there is little more I can offer you in regard to my character but my own word. I mean you no harm, all I wish is to take a factual recollection of these events as best as you can remember them."

Alastair had not mentioned the Vandenreich's relationship with the Duvalier Group, but perhaps his colleagues had and that was why she had slipped under his radar until now. Whatever Claudia had been working on behind closed doors, these research projects that pushed on the boundaries of humanity, he would get to the bottom of it eventually. Perhaps it was too much for him to think that this was a solid start.

"If you were advised to be cautious, though, do you think it was wise to be handing out all these flyers personally? That still seems rather loud to me."

It was an innocent thought, one that struck him as she spoke and he found himself replying even as he considered whether to just leave her in peace. The pamphlet alone might provide him with enough information to begin an investigation of his own anyway, or perhaps give him an avenue to ply some form of a response out of Eliane on the matter.

Natsumi was silent, but clearly thinking. Her eyes darted around, thoughts roaming through her head as she calculated what little she could calculate about this situation. Before she came to any sort of conclusion, he brought up an interesting point. She looked down at her flyers, a little confused. How were flyers loud?

"I don't get it..." Natsumi said honestly. Paper doesn't yell! Hidden meanings, turn of phrases, all that kind of stuff was lost on someone like Natsumi.

"So, I think I am going to choose to trust you on this," Natsumi said, going back to her previous line of thinking. "I've met enough Van's to at least kinda get y'all. Ain't nothing bad about the lot of ya, so what exactly you hankerin' to kn-... You wanted to go somewhere, right? Well, let's get on. I'll be followin' you."