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[color=crimson][b][h3]Φ PAYBACK Φ[/h3]Meeting Room, Claremont SDN[/b][/color][/center]
[quote][color=skyblue]"Hey, Payback. Thanks for coming in."[/color][/quote]
Yeah, a meeting. One-on-one. She walked in, finding James in there, took a seat. There was going to be something about her performance, she knew that much, probably something else about her attitude. Probably something about this and that, needing to pull together as a team, needing to be happy go lucky with everyone. Probably. She’d been in a few meetings like it before, though, and more often than not they tended to be a big waste of time. At least, that’s how Myla looked at things.

‘Payback’, though. Fucking marketing bullshit. Fucking marketing bullshit from fucking suits in a fucking office that had too much money and not enough brains. She hadn’t chosen it. She hadn’t chosen any stupid name to throw-on, because there’d never been any point. Anyone with a ‘secret identity’ was just someone who wanted to have a calling card, wanted to have a bit of fame or some stupid shit - people who wanted that didn’t include her. She hadn’t gotten pissed at the others, they didn’t know her name and she hadn’t ever really been inclined to tell them. Hell, last she remembered, none of them had [i]asked[/i] her for a name. But this guy, this James? He had files. He had access. He should know but he didn’t, and somehow that just pissed her off. Hands tightened into fists under the table as she stared, sitting down as she was.

[quote][color=skyblue]"Look. I know you don't like me. But I'm looking for some cooperation with the team if we're gonna make this work, because I'm here to make you the best hero you can be for SDN, but most importantly, you. Now, so I can help you do that, can you at least be honest with me because…"

"You chose this over prison, yeah? Because you don't want to reoffend. And because you're so bloody good at this, I'm just wondering why if you're gonna be this dour about it when the Phoenix Programme is that chance for you to leave it behind. Go past what happened to you. This is good work. I'm not some company man trying to tell you this is all there is. You decide where you go once your parole's up. So yeah. Tell me what's really pissing you off. Go on. And tell me why the others are different when they've come from poverty, drugs and the hood." 

"I mean I come from a place with way less sunshine than this, Payback and find all this too loud. But we have to play ball with what we're given. I'm not asking you to be like any of them, capes and all, just....this job involves helping people. Something you're clearly very, very good at, but you seem to think this is all a mess. More you believe it, more it'll happen. Because what's driving that mentality? A hope you'll prove me wrong that it is? Or all of them are needlessly dressed for some crap you're clearly as good as them at doing? Or......are you hoping you prove yourself wrong and you're more than a thief, wherever it is you're going?"[/color][/quote]
She swallowed. Yeah, that was a bunch. What made her pissed about all the rest? What made her pissed about those people, running around and doing what they did? Yeah, that was a bunch. She swallowed, and when she started talking the words were tight, taut over a spring-wire.

[color=crimson]”You make…a lot of fucking assumptions. I’m here because feeling the sun on my face is nice, because being able to get a…a fucking [i]coffee[/i] is [i]nice[/i], because I get a chance to feel…fucking normal for just a second. You can’t do that in prison. You don’t get a [i]name[/i] in prison, and that’s just all there is, day in day out, fucking…plastic and bars and expanding foam and [i]gas[/i] when someone fucks up or someone tries to fight, just day in, day out, that’s all there is, and every day they charge you and you forget how to be [i]you[/i] in the normal fucking world, and that’s…that’s why I’m here.”

“It’s fucking loud, in here. But hey, prison gives me a number and you fucking suits give me an ‘alter-ego’, a fucking…[i]clown name[/i] to dress up and sound cool and neat and interesting, to sound good to the kids and the public and the news, and neither of them feel like…me. Neither of them feel real. I look at all these other…people, people I work with, people who have…this problem or that problem, yeah, but they all get their names and they all act like fucking kids, fucking play-pretends, sure. I don’t fucking like them. So I’m here, I’m ‘playing ball’, and I’m doing my time here. Helping people.”[/color]

Yeah, she swallowed again. Felt like a lot. Felt like a dam bursting and throwing out all these stupid fucking emotions about all these stupid people and stupid things that never really got to be said in the normal world or thought-up directly by Myla because…those were all just the facts about everything. Those were all just the normal assumptions about the whole world. Yeah, felt like a lot. She deflated a little, voice a bit less taut. [color=crimson]”I don’t know what…what I want to do after this. Who gives a job to a ex-con, yeah? Who…hires on someone who got known for stealing shit? And yeah….stealing shit’s what I’ve been good at. Stealing shit’s…[i]fun[/i], to work against someone and find all their little screw-ups, find out a path they didn’t even know was there, and not even know you were there until after. Like a little game. Do I want to help people, though…”[/color] That little motion, that little shake of the head and hands briefly up like a shrug.