Late Week 57 - Unexpected Fame

Silvia breathed a huge sigh of relief as she closed the door to her apartment and sagged against it. That had been...unexpected. And not entirely pleasant.

"Tansai? Fenris?" she called. "Are...are either of you in? I have some...news." She took a few cautious steps into the apartment, glancing from side to side as though checking for anything that might be hunting her.

Fenris had been checking over her equipment for the coming mission when she heard Silvia's cry. This sounded bad. She rushed through into the hall "What!? What is it!? Is something wrong?" She looked very concerned.

"No, nothing's...nothing's wrong, exactly," Silvia replied, waving a hand rather distractedly. "Well, not much that...I mean...I think...I think it might not be a good idea for me to go near the Savoy again. There...there are too many people who might recognise me now." Her voice was...slightly stunned, as though she hadn't quite wrapped her head around something yet.

Tansai wandered out of another room, casually juggling some grenades. "What's up?" she asked, scanning the area, missing Silvia's response to Fenris due to the time needed to get to the entrance from her room.

Silvia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. "I...I may have just become a very minor celebrity. By accident." Her eyes were still closed, and her hand was resting on a wall, trying to keep herself steady. "And now every EI socialite in London knows who I am. It's...um...kind of inconvenient. And...uh...slightly embarrassing." Her cheeks coloured and she shuffled her feet.

Tansai raised an eyebrow. "What did you? Get drunk and end up making out with a supermodel?"

Silvia's eyes jerked open and she stared at Tansai for a moment before managing a reply. "Uh...no, no...nothing like that. No, nothing like that at all. I just..." She tailed off and sighed, then reached for her PDA with a slightly guilty expression and brought up a series of picture files.

"I'd just been...making a few sketches. While we were here. And I thought I'd try and...sell a couple on. So I had an excuse for being here. There was really...really nothing good." She passed the PDA over. "You can...have a look if you want. And then the man at the gallery, he...he really liked them. Especially...especially that last one. The really terrible one of Big Ben." She looked down in embarrassment as she mentioned it, out of a certain sense of professional pride. "And suddenly...apparently I'm the next big thing. In art. And...and everybody knows who I am. Because of one drawing. And it's not even any good!"

The pictures were all sketches of London landscapes. Most of them were hasty outlines, obviously work that Silvia had spent very little time on. A couple were more developed, although none of them were particularly good. Passable, certainly not terrible, but not really any kind of professional standard. The sketch of Big Ben, though...if it was intended to be an accurate portrayal, it had obviously gone wrong somewhere. It was distorted, twisted, and looked as though it could collapse at any moment. The art itself wasn't of bad quality at all, but it definitely looked as though Silvia had got something a bit wrong.

"Wait.. you're complaining because people liked your art?" Fenris had a big grin on her face at this point. "I mean, I know you can't go on the mission now, but it's not that bad... if nothing else you could let "Silvia" fade away, and have a pseudonym to sell your art as. You could be all mysterious, the arty types should like that."

Tansai blinked as she scanned through the files. "Art people are crazy." She scanned through it a bit more, before looking up. "Try doing something good and see if they forget about you? Or we could do a big art showing and see if we can find somewhere to break into by asking drunk EI art folk?"

"I...I don't think I can really...reproduce the same kind of thing," Silvia said, looking downwards. "I mean, the reason he liked it so much was that he thought it was this big political statement on the failure of democracy...I can't make drawings about big political statements! I wouldn't know where to start. I mean, I can draw...normal stuff fine. But...political statements?" A note of panic was beginning to creep into her voice. "Everyone thinks I'm this incredibly deep thinker with all these pro-corporate views - I bumped into a couple of really rich EI guys and they were trying to talk to me about the breakdown of democracy and I had no idea what they were saying...except one of them was trying to get me to have sex with him." By now she was clearly out of her depth.

"Well, if you don't want to, don't worry!" said Tansai, slapping her on the back gently. "You can just disappear off and they'll forget all about you! I would suggest making a load of drawings of stuff like Eden Spire looking like that and pissing them off, but that might get you in deeper so...run away!" Her voice was cheery.

The PDA made a pinging sound, indicating the arrival of a new message, and Silvia quickly opened it, glad of the distraction. Until she started reading the contents, that is. Then her face fell and she groaned. "No, no, that's not what I...Coraline..."

She sighed, and held out the PDA for the others to read, her face mournful. "You see? This is the problem."

Tansai looked at the e-mail, then up at Silvia. Then back to the email. "Wow, that was fast." She turned away from the slightly younger woman and waved over her shoulder. "Come on. I got some real food, I'll make you something and we can work out what to do."

"Right, right." Silvia put her PDA away and made her way towards the kitchen, moving carefully and deliberately, and continually looking around. Once in the kitchen, she sat down and placed the PDA on the table, looking at it as though she was expecting it to attack her.

Tansai began pulling things out of the lower cupboards she had claimed in the kitchen throwing together a basic salad using real vegetables. Carrying the chopping board and bowl over to the main table, she sat across from Silvia and continued chopping tomatoes. "Don't worry. They'll find something new to focus on soon enough." she said, reassuringly, a tomato piece disappearing under the mask.

Silvia looked around at Tansai's words, startled. "I...I hope so. I mean, don't get me wrong, having people appreciate my work is...is kind of nice...but it's not really...my work. Not what I...wanted. And it's all quite...sudden. They're too...too enthusiastic."

Tansai shrugged. "I don't really get it, to be honest, but it's not good to get yourself worked up like this. Just don't produce any work for a bit, maybe take some time off for yourself.! She passed the fairly basic salad over to the other agent. "Here. Eat up, and if you're still feeling nervous we can go find something to calm you down, kay?

Silvia nodded and took the salad. "Right, right. Thanks...thanks for this." She started eating - chewing and swallowing with the speed that was one of the hallmarks of a hungry Agent. "I think...I think it might be a good idea not to do any more for a while. I'm...I'm not even entirely certain I could. But everyone seems so certain that I will...and so excited about it..."

"Weeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll..." said Tansai, drawing out the word. "They'll just have to be disappointed, won't they? Like I said. Don't want to do it, don't do it. It's not like we need the money."

She reached into a pocket and pulled out her own PDA. "Anyway, what do you do for fun, other than drawing? There's got to be something around here that's fun to do."

"Well, I...I..." Silvia paused, her mouth half-full of salad and her expression confused. Then she swallowed, audibly and looked at Tansai with a slightly embarrassed expression. "I...don't think there's really anything else. I mean...out in the wilds I...I kind of had to stay alert. All the time. And there wasn't really...much to do. And since coming back, everything's been so hectic, and I've been catching up on everything, and I just haven't really had a chance...I really can't think of anything. Um." She looked at Tansai, hesitant. "...Have you got any ideas?"

Tansai smiled visibly under her mask. "Lots of ideas. We're two millionaires in an EI city, after all. Though I'm guessing you'd prefer to keep it fairly secretive?" She tapped her PDA a bit, before plugging it into a X-pin socket on the table. A standard light projection shone up, allowing everyone to see the chosen websites. "Ever been to a spa?" asked Tansai, flicking a couple up. "They're pretty good if you just want to relax, and we can probably organise private sessions." She frowned, and closed one of the screens. "Though unless you want to go have sex with a prostitute, I don't think that one's any good."

She looked up and down the hall. "You want to come, Fenris?"

As the two other agents continued talking, seemingly ignoring Fenris, her mind began to wander, revisiting the events of the last few weeks, whilst she half listened to what they were saying. Then she was snapped out of it when Tansai asked her a question. "What? Oh.. yeah we could do. Though I'm not sure if there will be much time before the mission. How about going to Eden Spire? ..I know it quite well, so I should be able to find a decent place, and... I.. have some business I need to take care of there..."

Silvia looked between the two other Agents and smiled in relief. "Thank you. That...that does sound good. Erm...the spa, not the prostitutes. Especially if it can be private. And I guess it makes sense if you've got business to take care of. I don't want to endanger the mission at all, though - I mean, I'm sure I could...I could manage."

Tansai shrugged. "Well, Eden Spire is a bit far away, considering I was thinking of going now...I'm all ready for the mission already." she stretched, palms towards the ceiling, internal servos clicking and whirring. "I was planning to take some time off anyway. Get a bit of relaxation in before everything goes crazy." She gestured at the screen. "If you still want to go, have a look at those, find one you like, then we can head off. I'll pay."