Miss Information

Posted on Sun Feb 27th, 2022 @ 10:15pm by Lieutenant Commander Mara Ricci & Stephen Spires
Edited on on Tue Mar 1st, 2022 @ 7:51pm

Mission: S0E0: What Came Before
Location: An empty corridor
Timeline: MD-1 14:12

Mara spent the short time between leaving the party and catching up with Spires by getting into character. She wasn't entirely sure her plan would work; after all, he was aware that she had knowingly given him false information before and he wasn't stupid enough to make the mistake of running with a story just on her word again, but it was definitely worth a shot. The thought of him getting sent back to the Alpha quadrant at the earliest possible convenience was too much to pass up. Of course, there was always the chance that they'd send someone worse than him.

No, impossible; there was nobody worse than Spires.

But now to get into character. Angry Mara. Irritated Mara. And, most importantly, careless and loose-tongued Mara.

She finally caught up with him only a few corridors away in a deserted area of the station. "Spires!" she snapped irritably as she charged towards him.

"Go fuck yourself, Mara. I'm sure you're good at it now since I ain't doing it for you." Spires was pulling off the damp wait staff attire that consisted his blown disguise. Looking at Mara, bare-chested and glistening from a liquid concoction that sparkled when poured from its bottle, Spires gave her a wolfish grin. "Whatever you think you're doing, I don't have time for it."

If Mara were completely honest, the sight of him so attired- or rather, unattired- tempted her. But she simply pictured him on the arms of some Orion floozy and the feeling was replaced by anger. “What exactly did you hear?” she demanded.

"I don't answer to you, principessa," Spires said flatly. "So, once again, I invite you to fuck off." He dropped his pants and began pulling each foot free. "And try not to look at my manly bulge too hard. Wouldn't want you to lose an eye."

That did it. She was done playing. “Grow up, Spires!” she replied irritably. “And stop snooping around. Ask questions like a normal reporter, why don’t you? And respect when we say classified information! We have enough to worry about with the myriad and the concordance and nanobots running amok and all those infected people secured on the station!”

Standing there in naught but his briefs, Spires stuck a finger in Mara's face. "You don't know shit!" He drilled her with a hard stare. The anger he displayed was genuine, as he was unable to hide the Louisiana Bayou drawl of his childhood that he normally kept hidden under his practiced nonregional diction. "I ain't stuffin' your ass anymore, so lemme' put it to you straight: you know nothin' 'bout my job, what I do, how I do it, or what course a' action I should take. Your blueblooded sumbitch uva' boss has his duty to keep secrets, and I got mine to expose them. Plain and simple. You can stay outta' my way or you can get crushed when his big, grand edifice comes a'tumblin' down."

“Yet again, you’re barking up the wrong tree,” she said, pretending not to think at all. “You should be investigating task force leadership. That’s where the real activity is-“ She quickly snapped her jaws shut and glared at him. Let him stew on that for a moment.

"Grissom? The man is a choir boy." Spires narrowed his eyes at Mara in suspicion. "Are you fucking with me again? Snow me once, shame on you, but snow me twice..."

She hesitated. "Yes," she said quickly. "Yes. I'm fucking with you." But, she was a little too tense when she said it. A little too guarded. "So, how about if we go down to my office and I'll... tell you all about the nanobots. Or... ya know. Something."

This was a watershed moment. Spires had Plan B should his first disguise go awry. But in the event Mara was telling the truth... "All right, Mara. I'm going to trust you, for old times' sake. But you'd better be on the level." He pulled on fresh clothes and nodded down the corridor. "Lead the way."

But she couldn't do it. She couldn't feed him false information again. Something about that made her feel guilty. "Forget it, Spires," she said, dropping the act. "I am fucking with you. None of it is true. Nobody is a criminal. Ingram might be slightly unethical, but even he wouldn't do anything actually illegal. Just... do me a favor and don't believe anything I try to tell you, okay?" And she turned to leave.

"You are one confusing broad, you know that?" Spires snorted out of said confusion. "You...you just butt yourself into things that don't involve you and run your mouth, and now you're just...just walking away like it was nothing?" He was still angry, but the hot fire of his temper had burned out into little, red embers of contempt. "I'd call you a cunt, but you have neither the depth nor the warmth."

She just rolled her eyes as she turned back to face him. "Spires..." she said, exasperated. "Look, I still want to get you fired, but it's going to be for something you actualy do, not because I slipped you fake news."

"And I still want you to go fuck yourself," Spires retorted. "Seriously. Leave me alone. I've got a job to do."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "Try to stay out of trouble." And then she actually did leave.

"I told you!" Spires called out to her back. "I said you would be sorry and not to come crying to me. I was right!" Spittle flew out of his mouth. "So HA!"

Mara resisted the urge to laugh. That was actually a pretty good observation. But, she didn’t want to piss him off any more today.

So instead, she simply walked away, grinning to herself, and headed back to the party.