revivalproject | Front Page News

WHO: Cobb Vanth & Others
WHERE: The newspaper offices
WHAT: General work day activities and banter.
WHEN: One day.
WARNINGS: Possible swears.

Every day, almost without fail, Cobb made it to the office at 8:30 am.

"Morning Charlie," he said to the security guard as he walked through the lobby, the sound of his cane echoing off the marble floors and slate ceilings. There were a few others around, judging by the echoing footsteps. The building was never quiet but it wasn't a madhouse just yet.

He could smell some fresh flowers and a vanilla chia latte with two shots of expresso as he passed the reception desk which told him who was manning the phones this early. "Morning Jo."

"Morning Mr. Vanth," answered the young African-American woman. He couldn't see her. He couldn't see anything but she had told him once when he commented on how it sounded like she had beads in her hair. She wore her hair in dreadlocks with beads. Cobb 'saw' the world through sound and sense most of the time.

"You're gonna call me Cobb one of these days," he teased playfully on his way to the elevators.

"Of course I will, Mr. Vanth," she replied dryly without looking his way.

He chuckled, cane still leading the way. When it bumped the wall for the elevator bank he reached his hand forward, running his fingers along it until it went from wood paneling to metal. A little swipe of his fingers and he found the buttons to call the elevator. Luckily, those buttons never changed. And this early there was no one offering to get the buttons for him either.

They meant well but he was perfectly capable of handling elevator buttons by himself.

The elevator pinged and he stepped in. Another search with his fingers reading the braille off to the side of the buttons he found the right floor, pushed, and then waited for the familiar sensation of the elevator moving. He went over a few story ideas in his head while the elevator went up. When it stopped and the door opened he stepped off.

He walked into the office, enveloped in familiar scents and sensations. He could walk around the desks here without needing his cane. The layout was imprinted into his mind. It blazed in his senses as well but he didn't rely on that when he was in a familiar place. He could go to his desk but he went to the little breakroom and made coffee first.

With his heightened sense of smell he could brew it without burning the grounds. Unlike some of the people in this newsroom who always, always burned it without fail whenever they made a pot.

With fresh coffee he made his way to his desk and settled in. Time to start the work day.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You're a government agency. There's no transparency." Maybe some other folks would've found her intimidating but Cobb hadn't yet. She was one tough woman but so far, she hadn't abused her power. Not around him, at least. "You tell the public the story you want them to know. Folks like me, we make sure you're still being honest."

Because there was no way any government agency was completely honest with the public. He would make sure they're being honest and not off starting coups or whatever bullshit governments do.

"Ooo, scary. I'm sure our lawyers have heard it before. If you've got evidence anything I wrote up was a lie, I'd be happy to hear about it." Cobb scratched his chin. "But that'd mean you'd have put your cards on the table. Don't think you wanna do that Director."

She set her jaw and her resolve. He used a lot of the slippery footwork most journalists did, wanting to play on her and push her buttons until she lost her temper on him and let something slip. That wasn't going to happen. She could play poker just as well as anyone, and the information he'd gotten had been a plan in its earliest prototype stages.

"Look, Mr. Vanth, that information you gathered - however you did - was in its infancy. If I can get you to swear - written affidavit, mind - that you won't mention me by name, I can give you a little more context, but you're going to have to reach across the table and trust me."

"What? You want to become my confidential source?" Cobb was skeptical. She sounded honest. He didn't detect a sudden increase of heartbeat or the nervous sweat of someone trying to lie.

Her poker face could be the best in the world. Cobb couldn't see it anyway. He listened. Still, people tried to lie to him all the time. It would be frustrating if it wasn't so amusing.

"Because I'm willin' to hear you out. Always willin' to give folks a fair shake." He smiled a little. "You folks, though, so paranoid about reporters."

"Considering how many hair-trigger issues and people we deal with, can you blame us?" She spread her hands, even though he couldn't see the gesture. "As for being a source, I'm not promisin' anything constant, mind you. Just on this one thing. I do want that in writing before I say another word about it, though."

"I'm not writing to make people afraid. I'm writing so people aren't. They should know the truth." He felt the air pressure change as she moved her hands and in his "vision" the gesture blurred the colors of the world.

"I can't write up anything with you sitting at my desk." He paused for a moment while he thought. "I mean, I could write something on paper but I've been told my handwriting is terrible."

She probably wouldn't appreciate the joke like he did.

"Of course." Starling got out of his seat and moved to one of the chairs actually meant for guests. She hesitated just a moment, then felt shame for even that moment's pause: the promotion threatened to make her a little too much of a hardass, and walking that line could be difficult. She didn't want to lose her humanity to it. "I'm sorry, Mr. Vanth. Would it be even a little consolation if I said sometimes I forget?"

Even with the cane in hand, the way he moved so certainly around his space and dealt with the people in it could be absolutely uncanny.

He chuckled as he sat down and folded his cane up. "Director, if I got upset every time someone forgot I was blind I'd be angry all the time. I don't take it personally."

Cobb, if she bothered to look into his history, had been blinded when he was ten in a tragic chemical accident. It had left him blind and with a scar along his left temple. Every medical record said he was completely blind. Cobb made sure no one knew about the way he actually 'saw' the world.

He made a bit of a show turning on his computer as he tended to play up his blindness when people paid attention. "The world's a sighted place. You know they make cameras now that'll read things out loud for blind folks? My daughter read about it. People now are trying to help instead of ignoring us so I'll take it."

"That's great," she said genuinely. She'd done a brief dive into his history when he'd first come on the staff, before she was director and when she was still one of the ones in the field likely to be hounded by press more often on the scene.

"It's about damn time people started caring about folks no matter what they've got goin' on in their lives. Might mean some kid goin' through what you did has a bit of an easier time."

Sure, it was talk to fill the time until he could type up a statement for her, but she still meant every word. She didn't do 'small' talk.

"They also cost about four thousand dollars." Cobb shook his head a little. The technology was great but at that price point it was out of reach of so many people. Himself included, actually. He had to save money for Merrin's college fund.

He ran his fingers over his braille keyboard before he settled his hands and typed the shortcut for his writing program.

"Alright, let's see here... I'm not a lawyer so I'm going to do the best I can." Cobb started typing. "I, Cobb Vanth, promise to keep the identity of my confidential informant completely confidential and private as long as said confidential informant continues to give me truthful information. Any failure to do so will result in a breach of contract and I will be petty about it."

He paused. "How's that?"

"Holy--" She caught herself before she could swear, swallowing the expletive. "Guess there's still a ways to go, then. Ugh." If he did right by this, she might see about a grant miraculously finding its way to his mailbox. She believed that doing good didn't end when one left the office or the battlefield. Hard not to when you grew up helping your mama fill Tupperware for the soup kitchen.

She nodded along with most of what he'd written, until he got to that last remark, and her professional facade cracked. The crack sounded awfully like a snerk, which she covered with her hand to pass off as a sneeze.

"Pardon me," she said, following it with a sniffle just in case, not knowing he could read her like a book anyway. "... I have a feeling the lawyers would definitely leave out that last bit, but knowing you? At least it's honest. Alright, then."

Cobb did fine without being able to read by sight. His touch was so sensitive he could actually read printed papers fine but that was one of those facts he didn't share with people.

"Mmhmm, we'll I do believe in honesty and lawyers can be very good or very bad with it." Cobb brushed his fingers along the keyboard for a second before he glanced at her again. "We normally pay our CIs a little bit. I'm guessing you don't want that?"

The paper could never pay her more than SHIELD and the pay would leave a pretty obvious trail someone could follow.

"I'd appreciate if you didn't have any of those at all, but ... if you have to, you have to. And I'm not gonna make anyone work for free." Whether or not the paper wanted to leave a trail was their call, after all, not hers.

"I'll just make sure there's always fresh coffee. A little trade with no paper trail. And I promise you, I make damn fine coffee." He tapped his nose with a finger. "It's all about the smell."

He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. "And I guess we shouldn't meet at the paper here. Gonna look suspicious."

They'd need a neutral place or somewhere she felt safe. Somewhere private too so folks wouldn't know.

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