Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2015 17:00:17 GMT -6
Valora stood in her apartment, staring at the spot on the rug. She had cleaned up the blood, broken glass and alcohol, of course. That had been the easy part. Also a necessary part given that she had an image to maintain and a it wouldn’t do for anything to be out of order. That was another key. Each of her carefully crafted personalities and cover identities had human eccentricities, little quirks that made them seem more real, made them more acceptable to society…
After all, this is what people trained in covert ops, and sociopaths do… we blend in, and make people think we’re normal.. just like them.. better they don’t know that monsters are real and are among them.
Standing there watching the spot, she could almost see the conversation she and Riot had had. Watched it replay back to her moment by moment. She was ready for the reaction, though she really couldn’t understand it. That was bullshit. She understood it perfectly. Valora was trained by the CIA and had worked for them after they rescued her in Mexico after the Cartels left her for dead. She was, when one got right down to it, not simply a professional killer, she was a professional liar. To Rob Riot, she could be around Riot for the same reason Annabelle had been. Another means of control, to push Riot towards some unknown goal. It was paranoid to be sure, but just because one was paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t all out to get you.
The sound of Valora’s phone ringing jolted her back to reality with a start and without even thinking, she grabbed the phone, this cell phone assigned to Valora’s FBI agent persona and answered it. “Special Agent Navarro.”
“You got a problem ‘Agent’ I got some papers here that say you’re not with the FBI. Now, it might be true, it might not, but I got problems, you got problems and one man is causing both… we need to meet. If you care about that Rob Riot guy, you’ll meet with me.”
Valora narrowed her eyes. “I just counted two or three threats against a Federal agent in there. Not the brightest move to make, but you wanna meet, fine. 8:30 pm,., Harry Carey’s. Nice and public, but noisy enough we’ll be able to talk in private.”
“Fine… don’t be late.”
The other end hung up. Valora recognized the voice of course, the security guard from the mental ward. It was time to take things to the next level. Someone was getting involved in her business, there was no way a simple security guard had potentially found a hole in her identity. It was time to fight fire with fire. dialing another number, she tapped her foot irritably on the ground before she spoke. “Sam. Yeah.. we have a problem. Seems we have a new player in the game, I’m on my way to see you.” She said before hanging up and walking out the door.
15 minutes later saw Valora standing in Samantha’s apartment. “Security guard from the institution gave me a call, says he has papers from the government proving I’m no FBI agent, however, he also claims he has problems. He sounded confident that I wasn’t an FBI agent, but he didn’t contact that authorities, means he has something to hide himself. I need to know what. Give me a full jacket on him and the institution. If something hinky is going on, I wanna know what.”
Samantha raises an eyebrow. “okay, I’ve never heard you use the word ‘hinky’ before. As for the cover, you know only the government could see through this right?”
Valora nods, “Or someone who has government resources. We both worked for the CIA, fix it. If someone poked the government channels, they’re going to be investigating, when I’m run again, I need my ID to hold up.”
Samantha thinks for a second. “Won’t be easy… fortunately I have a friend in the Chicago office. But to really fix it requires two things. First, I need those papers. I need to know where the breach was… you have a complete profile. When you attended Quantico, your grades passing, when you were assigned to the Chicago field office, a complete service record.. To see through the smoke and mirrors I put up would require a very extensive background check..”
Valora nods. “Which Homeland Security and the NSA are likely already running. That’s why I need you to be better than they are. Other than the papers, what else do you need?”
Samantha shrugs. “You to spend some spare time working there. I can put everything on paper, but people need to see and interact with you. There IS another option… I could list you as an undercover agent assigned to infiltrate and keep an eye on New Edge Wrestling. That would give you some more freedom of movement, but it’s VERY risky, especially if and when people start noticing how much you and well, Valora look alike.”
Valora thought about that for a second. Samantha was right, it was a huge risk. But Valora was willing to take a calculated risk and this could buy some much needed time. “Do it, prepare as a plan B in case we can’t cover things up another way. After we get the information on the guard and the institution. I want to know what the hell is going on.”
While Samantha went to work, Valora walked and looked out the window at the city of Chicago, taking out the phone tied to Valora’s name, she pulled up twitter. She had to keep up the appearance of Valora being active the same time as Veronica Navarro was, to help keep some separation between the personas. Fortunately, Sasha Foote running her mouth on twitter provided a great chance for Valora to do that.. even if in the process she firmly aligned herself with Jesse Styles, Al Envy, Seth Iser and Vince Moretti in veterans of NEW ticked off by the girl’s rather arrogant, naive and disrespectful attitude.
Her exercise on twitter done, Valora turned and tucked her phone away and turned her attention to Nathan. He and her had exchanged some words on twitter and she had, by now, heard and seen that he had had a new World Title belt made. Good, there was, after all, no way to wipe the stink of Blair Buchanan off the last belt, something Valora knew as she had spent hours in the shower washing herself at times turning the water so hot it nearly scalded her skin in an attempt to remove the skank juice of Blair off her. Then had come burning the clothes she had been wearing that night. It was, if Valora had anything to say about it, the last she’d have to do with Blair because if those two stepped foot in a ring again, Valora would not stop until Blair was, quite literally, dead at her feet.
But on to Nathan. The man who had roused her anger by pointing out a perceived weakness to everyone in New Edge. Everyone wanted to know why he hadn’t hit Valora. It wasn’t the fact that questions would be asked. The information was impossible to find. Valora had, after all, quite literally spent her entire life hiding the information and had ensured it couldn’t be found, if for no other reason than only a small handful of people knew her real name which would be required to even have a chance of getting the information.
And if that information got out, everyone who knew her real name would soon find themselves victims of very lethal and very unfortunate ‘accidents’.
No, what bothered Valora was the fact that Nathan had taken pity on her. He had denied her the treatment and respect she deserved and had earned as a fellow warrior and for one who preached about sins all the time, that was a cardinal sin for which there could be no forgiveness, only blood.
Her thoughts wandered back to Rob Riot and the disturbing thought of what had nearly happened in her room… and how badly part of her had wanted it to happen. Closing her eyes she sighed and shook her head. It was impossible, she wouldn’t- no couldn’t - betray her lover like that.
“But is it really a betrayal, love? I’m dead. You’re not. I want to be happy. We’ll have our time together again. How long will you punish yourself for something you had no control over?”
Valora clenched her jaw. Her first instinct was to ignore what was, most likely, nothing more than evidence of her schizophrenia manifesting itself, but she needed answers. On the hope that she wasn’t insane and that maybe.. She turned and faced her lover and sighed. “Why’d you do it? You gave me this big speech about how we were going clean up Mexico.. make it safe, make it so that the uniform meant something and people didn’t have to live in fear… then you pissed all over that… why? To save me?”
“It was more complicated than that… y..you don’t have all the information.. Watch that video again, watch me closely and ask yourself what’s wrong with that picture. You’ll see.”
Then she was gone again. Valora frowned. Typical, once more the answer to the question was more evidence of Schizophrenia than talking to the spirit of her dead lover. So, back to her thoughts before she was interrupted. Rob Riot. Like most people, he didn’t fully understand the capabilities of Valora’s training. The ability to change everything about yourself and adopt a new personality at the drop of a hat. But he understood better than most people and, much as she hated to admit it, he was right about one thing in particular. She could become Veronica again, but at the same time she couldn’t. Veronica would be an act. Just another cover persona.. it was no longer who she was. But it had a use. That use was to drive home to Rob that she could be trusted. Yes, her next visit promised to be interesting indeed.
Samantha walked into the room and handed Valora a folder, Valora opened and looked over the information on the man in charge of security and access to the institution. Looking over the information, she had to smirk. This would almost be too easy. Glancing up at Samantha, she nodded. “It will take a bit, but everything is set, the cover identity is much stronger and should even fool the government, at least long enough for these government sources looking in on you to be ‘proven’ wrong and ease up. But we should try to be careful. Another instance like this and we might be forced to abandon the alias.”
Valora nodded, having already thought the same thing. Her plans had been changed but there was still some use to be gotten out of them. Taking what she’d need, she headed out of the room, she had a meeting to get to, after all.
Driving over there, Valora’s thoughts went once more to Nathan. It was an interesting situation. On one hand, Valora never was one to deny Nathan had talent. He was a skilled and passionate fighter. Like her, he knew what it was to have the world take everything from you. Like her, he had fought back and taken back when he had to. Like her, he now stood atop the world as the best fighter. But what he failed to realize was that her road was not half as easy as his was in the world of professional wrestling.
Naive children like Sasha Foote could come in now and make outrageous demands and challenges to people like Al Envy because of the shit people like Valora and Apathy and other women of their generation had had to go through to clear a path for women to be judged on talent. The deck had been stacked against Valora her whole career. It was easy for someone to look at the numerous title shots that she earned and claim special treatment, or shortcuts or something of that sort, but it was her ability to fight, and to win when it counted. Put Valora in a big match and she delivered. She delivered whether by winning the match or putting on a hell of a match, or by bringing in money, fans, ratings, filling seats or all of the above. Valora got it done. Period.
Sasha Foote couldn’t claim that. Nathan could to an extent. He had a fan base, but not as big as Valora’s.
That also brought up the other side of the coin. It was obvious Jesse Styles was protecting the title. No one in that Battle for Chicago match was a serious threat to win the World Title. Hunter, Valora, Blair, Nathan, no matter which of them had won the Fatal Four way, that person would be the undeniable favorite to win against whoever won out of a group of rookies or lower tier talent. Devin Stone? Dravaka Drimstone? Really? How sad was it when the top three people in that match were Jeremiah Vastrix, Kaupena Yoon, a fake luchadore (Something that Valora would address soon enough.) from a third rate indy fed in Hawaii, and Austen Impact, who was talented, but no real threat to win the World Title.
Jesse’s desire to protect the title became more obvious when he gave Nathan a show off. Then a non-title match with Valora. Valora knew what her job was. The match was designed to help rebuild the title without actually risking continuing the trend of no one being able to successfully defend the damn thing. Was Valora 100% happy? No, but she knew the business, and being a veteran and a Hall of Famer, she had the respect for this business to do what was asked of her and trust Jesse to keep to his word of giving Valora a chance to get back into the title race should she do the job and help Nathan push the World Title forward a bit.
To that end, Valora had hit twitter again throughout the week and made it clear how much the World Title meant to her. She and Nathan had traded barbed words the two of them had basically done the job of New Edge’s marketing department for them. She saw the plan behind the actions, she just didn’t agree that the actions would have the desired effect.. There was an equal or greater chance that said actions would serve only to weaken the title further. Time would tell, Valora supposed.
Meanwhile, at Harry Caray's, The man sat at a booth in the corner, and was just about to leave. It was 8:45, after all. Just as he was about to stand up, Valora sat down and adjusted her glasses dressed in keeping with her FBI persona and set the folder down. “So. Seems you have dirty secrets too. So let’s try this. I’ll take you to the FBI Offices here in Chicago and show them that packet. You can show them the papers you have on me, and we’ll see which one of us gets arrested. I’m betting it will be you. See, given that impersonating a Federal officer is a crime in the ‘lock you up, throw away the key and forget you exist’ type as far as sentencing goes, you should know how confident I am in the fact that I’m really FBI..”
The man looks over the papers and blinks. “Y..you know about the fighting? So then why aren’t you arresting me? Never known a fed to overlook shit.”
Valora leans forward. “Because I want something bigger. That is like us right? We let the small shit go to get the big fish. In this case, the big fish is a mysterious man that showed classified government documents to a man without proper security clearance to see them. So you tell me what you know about this man, and we’ll go from there.”
“I don’t know shit girl.”
Valora sighs. “Well, that’s… that’s not good.. if you don’t hand me something else to look into, I guess I’m going to have to let the doctor’s know about the injuries I found on Mr. Riot when I took him into my custody, and about the underground fighting ring you’re running, and about the conjugal visits you’re allowing Hunter Valentyne to receive, and the fact that you allowed a clock into Rob Riot’s room, knowing full well you had just given a dangerous sociopath a weapon with which to hurt himself or others, or maybe you don’t know just how much damage a nice, sharp shard of glass can do?”
The man sighed. “Look, it’s not like he introduced himself and we had a fuckin’ beer together. He was good though, took my gun from the glove department, seemed to disappear like a fuckin’ ghost… knew everything about me and you it seemed. Was very interested in me having Rob Riot fight four times more than he is right now, and wanted me to bet on him.”
Valora ran the thoughts through her head. She was dealing with someone much like herself. “Describe him.”
The guy thought for a second and shook his head. “White, maybe bald, maybe just really short military style hair cut. Nice suit, gave me the creeps he was calm, confident. Like he knew how shit was gonna play out. He said it took him 2 minutes of work to find out you weren’t an FBI agent.”
Valora highly doubted it took only two minutes, but she had a thought now. The description of the man, the interest in Rob Riot, Valora reached into her pocket and pulled out her smart phone, pulling up the New Edge Website and the card for the next fight, showing Ryan Elias vs. Rob Riot and turned it to him. His face lit up and he pointed to Elias. “Yes! That’s him! I mean, it was dark so I’m not totally sure, but the build looks right, I’m about 85-90% sure..”
That was good enough for Valora. Ryan Elias. Valora would deal with him later. For now, she had the leverage. “So, now you see you were played. A wrestler, wanting to gain an edge over his opponent, played you like a two bit fiddle.”
“But the papers he had!”
Valora nods. “Indeed and the FBI will be speaking to him about that. Might be me, might be another agent. What’s important for you is to ensure he doesn’t get anywhere near the institution again and you will not push Riot to fight more than he really is.”
The man blinked. “You...you don’t want me to stop the fighting?”
Valora leaned in. “Oh, I want you to stop. You will quit torturing those poor bastards.. just because they have mental issues doesn’t mean they’re there for your sick, fuckin’ amusement. and think about this.. if Mr. Elias is right and I’m not a real Fed… there won’t be anything stopping me from making you disappear if I hear you haven’t stopped. Bring people in from outside to fight Valentyne and Riot if you must. They’re both trained fighters and enjoy fighting. But no more with the other patients.”
The man leans back in his seat. “You’re no Fed.” Valora smirks. “But you can’t prove that. Meanwhile, I can back up either threat I made. I can arrest you or I can make you disappear and make sure your body is never found. Chew that around in your brain. Tomorrow morning I’ll be by to see Mr. Riot. I expect no trouble from you.”
The man nods. “Alright but look, you can’t leave with him. The docs were pissed about that cut on his foot They’re not going to approve anymore day trips.”
Valora nods. “They didn’t want to know how the cut got there? And they miss the signs of fighting? They’re in on it aren’t they?” The man nods. “I… cut them in on a bit of the profits.. they like to use as research, I heard a couple of them mention something about the Stanford Experiment and the milgram experiment… those mean anything to you?”
Valora sighed. “Experiments that basically degenerated into an exercise in psychological torture. The Stanford Prison Experiment initially sought to examine psychological stresses on prison guards and prisoners. Volunteers were taken from the student body of Stanford and put in a makeshift prison in the basement of Stanford’s psychology department. They were separated into two groups, guards and prisoners. The Psychologist overseeing the experiment took the role of administrator of the prison. The guards were dressed in uniforms, given sunglasses, batons and the like, they worked 8 hour shifts and were allowed to go about their normals lives outside of their ‘work’. The prisoners got no such break. They were assigned numbers, referred to only by numbers, made to repeat their numbers as their names and, in time, both prisoners and guards saw the prisoners as only numbers.. Once that happened, once the prisoners were dehumanized, it was inevitable that things would go wrong. Even the psychologist running the experiment got pulled in and let certain abuses happen. He showed it off to 50 people at least, most of them fellow psychologists, showing how easily he had gotten people to adopt new roles and do things they most likely would never do normally. Only one person objected to the experiment, which was shut down after about 2 weeks.
When word of the experiment got out, it caused a couple of bloody prison riots at San Quentin and Attica prisons. The Milgram experiment was much more direct in its inhumanity. I won’t bore you with details because you’re exactly the type of person that would continue on and complete the experiment with no moral issues.” Valora says as she stands up and nods. “I’ll see you tomorrow when I go to visit Mr. Riot. Remember, I expect no problems.”
Valora then stood up, taking the evidence that had been collected on her and smiled. “I’ll be keeping this. You have your own paperwork to look at. Especially since I made copies of those before my meeting with you, so remember what I said. Because if I hear that you’re still carrying on, you and anyone else over there that knows about this is going to jail for a long, long time in the deepest, darkest hole I can find. Have a good evening.” She said as she turned and left the restaurant, walking out to the cool springtime air in Chicago’s Wrigelyville neighborhood. Taking out her phone, she walked towards her SUV that was attached to this ID and got inside, making a call. “Yeah Sam, it’s me. Got the paperwork. I need you to work your magic, carefully, and dig up everything you can on Ryan Elias. He seems to be the guy trying to mess up things here and he obviously has some kind of government connections. Thanks. No, I got in tomorrow so I’ll handle things on that end then.”
The next morning saw Valora sitting in the interview room at the institution drumming her fingers. She wasn’t sure if things on the illegal fighting side were going the way she wanted yet, and, truth be told, if they didn’t it would be harder than she suggested it would be for her to push and make arrests. Of course, that didn’t mean she couldn’t make lives miserable around here. That was a hobby of Valora’s just ask Jesse Styles.
A short time later, Rob Riot was brought in. Some bruises visible on his face which brought out the inevitable response from Valora who had to act like a Fed. “What the hell is this? Why’s he all beat up?” She knew she’d be lied to, of course, but it would interesting to hear what lie they had prepared.
“Seems this one didn’t want his day trip to end. He gave the orderlies a hard time and tried to go after Mr. Valentyne.”
Valora looked at the orderly and carefully removed her sunglasses and calmly put on the glasses she wore as part of her cover and nodded. “Really? That’s about a half inch above ‘She fell down the stairs.’ in terms of stupid and unoriginal lies. I’ve evaluated Mr. Riot several times in multiple locations. He is well aware his freedom depends on his good behavior. He wants his freedom. I really don’t see him being stupid enough to piss it away by picking a fight with someone he considers beneath him, namely you and the staff here.”
The Orderly shrugged. “Believe it or not, that’s what happened. The doctors were satisfied with it.” Valora nods. “Alright then. They won’t be happy with this, when I leave, I’m reporting this ‘accident’ to HQ. I’ll have a full detail assigned here if I need to. At least 2 FBI agents, here 24/7 watching everything that goes on, none of whom are happy they have to babysit instead of doing their jobs. Tell your bosses that and see how happy they are with the explanation.”
The orderly heads off and Rob Riot sits down, once the door is closed he raises an eyebrow. “How do you intend to back up that threat?”
Valora shrugs. “Wonderful thing about the FBI, you don’t have to back it up. The threat alone is enough to motivate most people into doing what you wanted. Hoover was good for something. For the longest period of time, the FBI had a reputation for being thugs with badges, the fear they inspire still exists… even if their...efficiency has dropped.”
Rob nodded. “I had a thought. Hunter’s medicine.. you’re a doctor right? Or were trained as one? Could you mess with it?”
Valora turned and looked Rob Riot over. “Define mess with it. Obviously some things are out of the question.” Rob smirked. “Adjust the dosage, maybe some psychotropics.” Valora shook her head. “Not a chance. As soon as Hunter begins hallucinating, as a matter of procedure, he’ll be tested for drugs, when the test comes back positive, then the search to find out how he got them comes into play. My cover’s almost been compromised once I have to be real careful about where and how I push. Besides.. Hunter might have health problems that could be exacerbated by psychotropics.”
“How did you cover nearly get blown?” Valoira shrugged. “Your opponent this week, Ryan Elias. I’ve got it covered for now, but the bottom line is I have to step lightly for a bit.”
Rob leaned back in his chair and nodded. “So about our talk. I was thinking.. I’m right, aren’t I? You could be her again, couldn’t you? From memory?”
Valora closed her eyes for a second and nodded. “Yes and no. Yes, I could act like her, move like her, talk like her. But it would be an act. Just like the person before you. It would be a mask, nothing more.”
Rob shrugged. “Are you sure? Have you tried?”” Valora sighed. “No. Never had a need to.” Rob nods. “What did she want out of life? What were her hopes, her dreams?” Valora turned and looked at Rob about ready to tell him where to stick it but he stared right through her. “You told me there’s a better than even chance that one of my big enemies may have trained you. You’ve told me you killed your own twin sister. I’ll wager to bet you lied to me about having the sample of Strychnine I gave you analyzed, I’m sure you recognized it right off the bat. I need to know I can trust you.”
Valora thinks about this for a second and finally sighs. “Fine, but not here. I need to go soon and I can’t risk breaking cover here anyways.. when you get out of here, I’ll.. figure something out. For right now, like it or not, you’ll have to trust me. Or don’t no one else does.”
With that, Valora stood up and turned to leave, making the slightest of gestures towards the double mirror, indicating that, quite possibly, she was aware of the visitor that had just arrived. Something made clear when she knocked on the window. “I said my interviews were to be private! Lucky for you, I’m done with Mr. Riot for right now.” Valora wanted to offer Rob some type of reassurance, but in his current state, it wouldn’t be accepted. Besides, this would give him motivation. If he wanted what he claimed he wanted, all he had to do was find a way out to claim it. It was psychology 101. Valora walked out of the room, her own thoughts running through her head.
A few minutes later, she had left the institution and was in her SUV, checking the phone linked to Valora’s account, catching up on the social media noise of the day. For awhile, she had some fun with it, Kronin’s return seemed in the books and he and Jesse were plotting something. Interesting to say the least.
But her good mood, as always, was short lived. Al Envy made a comment about how New Edge was him and Styles, everyone else was beneath them. This coming after Valora had sided with them against the young upstarts and disrespectful punks breaking into NEW now. She noticed Nathan was silent, no response from him was needed, her allies had stabbed her in the back. He was probably laughing his ass off somewhere. What surprised Valora the most… was her complete and utter lack of anger. She left a short, simple reply stating exactly what she was thinking at the moment, tucked the phone away and didn’t check it again for the rest of the day.
Maybe it was time. Time to call it quits.. Maybe the immortal Valora would finally get her wish…
After all, this is what people trained in covert ops, and sociopaths do… we blend in, and make people think we’re normal.. just like them.. better they don’t know that monsters are real and are among them.
Standing there watching the spot, she could almost see the conversation she and Riot had had. Watched it replay back to her moment by moment. She was ready for the reaction, though she really couldn’t understand it. That was bullshit. She understood it perfectly. Valora was trained by the CIA and had worked for them after they rescued her in Mexico after the Cartels left her for dead. She was, when one got right down to it, not simply a professional killer, she was a professional liar. To Rob Riot, she could be around Riot for the same reason Annabelle had been. Another means of control, to push Riot towards some unknown goal. It was paranoid to be sure, but just because one was paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t all out to get you.
The sound of Valora’s phone ringing jolted her back to reality with a start and without even thinking, she grabbed the phone, this cell phone assigned to Valora’s FBI agent persona and answered it. “Special Agent Navarro.”
“You got a problem ‘Agent’ I got some papers here that say you’re not with the FBI. Now, it might be true, it might not, but I got problems, you got problems and one man is causing both… we need to meet. If you care about that Rob Riot guy, you’ll meet with me.”
Valora narrowed her eyes. “I just counted two or three threats against a Federal agent in there. Not the brightest move to make, but you wanna meet, fine. 8:30 pm,., Harry Carey’s. Nice and public, but noisy enough we’ll be able to talk in private.”
“Fine… don’t be late.”
The other end hung up. Valora recognized the voice of course, the security guard from the mental ward. It was time to take things to the next level. Someone was getting involved in her business, there was no way a simple security guard had potentially found a hole in her identity. It was time to fight fire with fire. dialing another number, she tapped her foot irritably on the ground before she spoke. “Sam. Yeah.. we have a problem. Seems we have a new player in the game, I’m on my way to see you.” She said before hanging up and walking out the door.
15 minutes later saw Valora standing in Samantha’s apartment. “Security guard from the institution gave me a call, says he has papers from the government proving I’m no FBI agent, however, he also claims he has problems. He sounded confident that I wasn’t an FBI agent, but he didn’t contact that authorities, means he has something to hide himself. I need to know what. Give me a full jacket on him and the institution. If something hinky is going on, I wanna know what.”
Samantha raises an eyebrow. “okay, I’ve never heard you use the word ‘hinky’ before. As for the cover, you know only the government could see through this right?”
Valora nods, “Or someone who has government resources. We both worked for the CIA, fix it. If someone poked the government channels, they’re going to be investigating, when I’m run again, I need my ID to hold up.”
Samantha thinks for a second. “Won’t be easy… fortunately I have a friend in the Chicago office. But to really fix it requires two things. First, I need those papers. I need to know where the breach was… you have a complete profile. When you attended Quantico, your grades passing, when you were assigned to the Chicago field office, a complete service record.. To see through the smoke and mirrors I put up would require a very extensive background check..”
Valora nods. “Which Homeland Security and the NSA are likely already running. That’s why I need you to be better than they are. Other than the papers, what else do you need?”
Samantha shrugs. “You to spend some spare time working there. I can put everything on paper, but people need to see and interact with you. There IS another option… I could list you as an undercover agent assigned to infiltrate and keep an eye on New Edge Wrestling. That would give you some more freedom of movement, but it’s VERY risky, especially if and when people start noticing how much you and well, Valora look alike.”
Valora thought about that for a second. Samantha was right, it was a huge risk. But Valora was willing to take a calculated risk and this could buy some much needed time. “Do it, prepare as a plan B in case we can’t cover things up another way. After we get the information on the guard and the institution. I want to know what the hell is going on.”
While Samantha went to work, Valora walked and looked out the window at the city of Chicago, taking out the phone tied to Valora’s name, she pulled up twitter. She had to keep up the appearance of Valora being active the same time as Veronica Navarro was, to help keep some separation between the personas. Fortunately, Sasha Foote running her mouth on twitter provided a great chance for Valora to do that.. even if in the process she firmly aligned herself with Jesse Styles, Al Envy, Seth Iser and Vince Moretti in veterans of NEW ticked off by the girl’s rather arrogant, naive and disrespectful attitude.
Her exercise on twitter done, Valora turned and tucked her phone away and turned her attention to Nathan. He and her had exchanged some words on twitter and she had, by now, heard and seen that he had had a new World Title belt made. Good, there was, after all, no way to wipe the stink of Blair Buchanan off the last belt, something Valora knew as she had spent hours in the shower washing herself at times turning the water so hot it nearly scalded her skin in an attempt to remove the skank juice of Blair off her. Then had come burning the clothes she had been wearing that night. It was, if Valora had anything to say about it, the last she’d have to do with Blair because if those two stepped foot in a ring again, Valora would not stop until Blair was, quite literally, dead at her feet.
But on to Nathan. The man who had roused her anger by pointing out a perceived weakness to everyone in New Edge. Everyone wanted to know why he hadn’t hit Valora. It wasn’t the fact that questions would be asked. The information was impossible to find. Valora had, after all, quite literally spent her entire life hiding the information and had ensured it couldn’t be found, if for no other reason than only a small handful of people knew her real name which would be required to even have a chance of getting the information.
And if that information got out, everyone who knew her real name would soon find themselves victims of very lethal and very unfortunate ‘accidents’.
No, what bothered Valora was the fact that Nathan had taken pity on her. He had denied her the treatment and respect she deserved and had earned as a fellow warrior and for one who preached about sins all the time, that was a cardinal sin for which there could be no forgiveness, only blood.
Her thoughts wandered back to Rob Riot and the disturbing thought of what had nearly happened in her room… and how badly part of her had wanted it to happen. Closing her eyes she sighed and shook her head. It was impossible, she wouldn’t- no couldn’t - betray her lover like that.
“But is it really a betrayal, love? I’m dead. You’re not. I want to be happy. We’ll have our time together again. How long will you punish yourself for something you had no control over?”
Valora clenched her jaw. Her first instinct was to ignore what was, most likely, nothing more than evidence of her schizophrenia manifesting itself, but she needed answers. On the hope that she wasn’t insane and that maybe.. She turned and faced her lover and sighed. “Why’d you do it? You gave me this big speech about how we were going clean up Mexico.. make it safe, make it so that the uniform meant something and people didn’t have to live in fear… then you pissed all over that… why? To save me?”
“It was more complicated than that… y..you don’t have all the information.. Watch that video again, watch me closely and ask yourself what’s wrong with that picture. You’ll see.”
Then she was gone again. Valora frowned. Typical, once more the answer to the question was more evidence of Schizophrenia than talking to the spirit of her dead lover. So, back to her thoughts before she was interrupted. Rob Riot. Like most people, he didn’t fully understand the capabilities of Valora’s training. The ability to change everything about yourself and adopt a new personality at the drop of a hat. But he understood better than most people and, much as she hated to admit it, he was right about one thing in particular. She could become Veronica again, but at the same time she couldn’t. Veronica would be an act. Just another cover persona.. it was no longer who she was. But it had a use. That use was to drive home to Rob that she could be trusted. Yes, her next visit promised to be interesting indeed.
Samantha walked into the room and handed Valora a folder, Valora opened and looked over the information on the man in charge of security and access to the institution. Looking over the information, she had to smirk. This would almost be too easy. Glancing up at Samantha, she nodded. “It will take a bit, but everything is set, the cover identity is much stronger and should even fool the government, at least long enough for these government sources looking in on you to be ‘proven’ wrong and ease up. But we should try to be careful. Another instance like this and we might be forced to abandon the alias.”
Valora nodded, having already thought the same thing. Her plans had been changed but there was still some use to be gotten out of them. Taking what she’d need, she headed out of the room, she had a meeting to get to, after all.
Driving over there, Valora’s thoughts went once more to Nathan. It was an interesting situation. On one hand, Valora never was one to deny Nathan had talent. He was a skilled and passionate fighter. Like her, he knew what it was to have the world take everything from you. Like her, he had fought back and taken back when he had to. Like her, he now stood atop the world as the best fighter. But what he failed to realize was that her road was not half as easy as his was in the world of professional wrestling.
Naive children like Sasha Foote could come in now and make outrageous demands and challenges to people like Al Envy because of the shit people like Valora and Apathy and other women of their generation had had to go through to clear a path for women to be judged on talent. The deck had been stacked against Valora her whole career. It was easy for someone to look at the numerous title shots that she earned and claim special treatment, or shortcuts or something of that sort, but it was her ability to fight, and to win when it counted. Put Valora in a big match and she delivered. She delivered whether by winning the match or putting on a hell of a match, or by bringing in money, fans, ratings, filling seats or all of the above. Valora got it done. Period.
Sasha Foote couldn’t claim that. Nathan could to an extent. He had a fan base, but not as big as Valora’s.
That also brought up the other side of the coin. It was obvious Jesse Styles was protecting the title. No one in that Battle for Chicago match was a serious threat to win the World Title. Hunter, Valora, Blair, Nathan, no matter which of them had won the Fatal Four way, that person would be the undeniable favorite to win against whoever won out of a group of rookies or lower tier talent. Devin Stone? Dravaka Drimstone? Really? How sad was it when the top three people in that match were Jeremiah Vastrix, Kaupena Yoon, a fake luchadore (Something that Valora would address soon enough.) from a third rate indy fed in Hawaii, and Austen Impact, who was talented, but no real threat to win the World Title.
Jesse’s desire to protect the title became more obvious when he gave Nathan a show off. Then a non-title match with Valora. Valora knew what her job was. The match was designed to help rebuild the title without actually risking continuing the trend of no one being able to successfully defend the damn thing. Was Valora 100% happy? No, but she knew the business, and being a veteran and a Hall of Famer, she had the respect for this business to do what was asked of her and trust Jesse to keep to his word of giving Valora a chance to get back into the title race should she do the job and help Nathan push the World Title forward a bit.
To that end, Valora had hit twitter again throughout the week and made it clear how much the World Title meant to her. She and Nathan had traded barbed words the two of them had basically done the job of New Edge’s marketing department for them. She saw the plan behind the actions, she just didn’t agree that the actions would have the desired effect.. There was an equal or greater chance that said actions would serve only to weaken the title further. Time would tell, Valora supposed.
Meanwhile, at Harry Caray's, The man sat at a booth in the corner, and was just about to leave. It was 8:45, after all. Just as he was about to stand up, Valora sat down and adjusted her glasses dressed in keeping with her FBI persona and set the folder down. “So. Seems you have dirty secrets too. So let’s try this. I’ll take you to the FBI Offices here in Chicago and show them that packet. You can show them the papers you have on me, and we’ll see which one of us gets arrested. I’m betting it will be you. See, given that impersonating a Federal officer is a crime in the ‘lock you up, throw away the key and forget you exist’ type as far as sentencing goes, you should know how confident I am in the fact that I’m really FBI..”
The man looks over the papers and blinks. “Y..you know about the fighting? So then why aren’t you arresting me? Never known a fed to overlook shit.”
Valora leans forward. “Because I want something bigger. That is like us right? We let the small shit go to get the big fish. In this case, the big fish is a mysterious man that showed classified government documents to a man without proper security clearance to see them. So you tell me what you know about this man, and we’ll go from there.”
“I don’t know shit girl.”
Valora sighs. “Well, that’s… that’s not good.. if you don’t hand me something else to look into, I guess I’m going to have to let the doctor’s know about the injuries I found on Mr. Riot when I took him into my custody, and about the underground fighting ring you’re running, and about the conjugal visits you’re allowing Hunter Valentyne to receive, and the fact that you allowed a clock into Rob Riot’s room, knowing full well you had just given a dangerous sociopath a weapon with which to hurt himself or others, or maybe you don’t know just how much damage a nice, sharp shard of glass can do?”
The man sighed. “Look, it’s not like he introduced himself and we had a fuckin’ beer together. He was good though, took my gun from the glove department, seemed to disappear like a fuckin’ ghost… knew everything about me and you it seemed. Was very interested in me having Rob Riot fight four times more than he is right now, and wanted me to bet on him.”
Valora ran the thoughts through her head. She was dealing with someone much like herself. “Describe him.”
The guy thought for a second and shook his head. “White, maybe bald, maybe just really short military style hair cut. Nice suit, gave me the creeps he was calm, confident. Like he knew how shit was gonna play out. He said it took him 2 minutes of work to find out you weren’t an FBI agent.”
Valora highly doubted it took only two minutes, but she had a thought now. The description of the man, the interest in Rob Riot, Valora reached into her pocket and pulled out her smart phone, pulling up the New Edge Website and the card for the next fight, showing Ryan Elias vs. Rob Riot and turned it to him. His face lit up and he pointed to Elias. “Yes! That’s him! I mean, it was dark so I’m not totally sure, but the build looks right, I’m about 85-90% sure..”
That was good enough for Valora. Ryan Elias. Valora would deal with him later. For now, she had the leverage. “So, now you see you were played. A wrestler, wanting to gain an edge over his opponent, played you like a two bit fiddle.”
“But the papers he had!”
Valora nods. “Indeed and the FBI will be speaking to him about that. Might be me, might be another agent. What’s important for you is to ensure he doesn’t get anywhere near the institution again and you will not push Riot to fight more than he really is.”
The man blinked. “You...you don’t want me to stop the fighting?”
Valora leaned in. “Oh, I want you to stop. You will quit torturing those poor bastards.. just because they have mental issues doesn’t mean they’re there for your sick, fuckin’ amusement. and think about this.. if Mr. Elias is right and I’m not a real Fed… there won’t be anything stopping me from making you disappear if I hear you haven’t stopped. Bring people in from outside to fight Valentyne and Riot if you must. They’re both trained fighters and enjoy fighting. But no more with the other patients.”
The man leans back in his seat. “You’re no Fed.” Valora smirks. “But you can’t prove that. Meanwhile, I can back up either threat I made. I can arrest you or I can make you disappear and make sure your body is never found. Chew that around in your brain. Tomorrow morning I’ll be by to see Mr. Riot. I expect no trouble from you.”
The man nods. “Alright but look, you can’t leave with him. The docs were pissed about that cut on his foot They’re not going to approve anymore day trips.”
Valora nods. “They didn’t want to know how the cut got there? And they miss the signs of fighting? They’re in on it aren’t they?” The man nods. “I… cut them in on a bit of the profits.. they like to use as research, I heard a couple of them mention something about the Stanford Experiment and the milgram experiment… those mean anything to you?”
Valora sighed. “Experiments that basically degenerated into an exercise in psychological torture. The Stanford Prison Experiment initially sought to examine psychological stresses on prison guards and prisoners. Volunteers were taken from the student body of Stanford and put in a makeshift prison in the basement of Stanford’s psychology department. They were separated into two groups, guards and prisoners. The Psychologist overseeing the experiment took the role of administrator of the prison. The guards were dressed in uniforms, given sunglasses, batons and the like, they worked 8 hour shifts and were allowed to go about their normals lives outside of their ‘work’. The prisoners got no such break. They were assigned numbers, referred to only by numbers, made to repeat their numbers as their names and, in time, both prisoners and guards saw the prisoners as only numbers.. Once that happened, once the prisoners were dehumanized, it was inevitable that things would go wrong. Even the psychologist running the experiment got pulled in and let certain abuses happen. He showed it off to 50 people at least, most of them fellow psychologists, showing how easily he had gotten people to adopt new roles and do things they most likely would never do normally. Only one person objected to the experiment, which was shut down after about 2 weeks.
When word of the experiment got out, it caused a couple of bloody prison riots at San Quentin and Attica prisons. The Milgram experiment was much more direct in its inhumanity. I won’t bore you with details because you’re exactly the type of person that would continue on and complete the experiment with no moral issues.” Valora says as she stands up and nods. “I’ll see you tomorrow when I go to visit Mr. Riot. Remember, I expect no problems.”
Valora then stood up, taking the evidence that had been collected on her and smiled. “I’ll be keeping this. You have your own paperwork to look at. Especially since I made copies of those before my meeting with you, so remember what I said. Because if I hear that you’re still carrying on, you and anyone else over there that knows about this is going to jail for a long, long time in the deepest, darkest hole I can find. Have a good evening.” She said as she turned and left the restaurant, walking out to the cool springtime air in Chicago’s Wrigelyville neighborhood. Taking out her phone, she walked towards her SUV that was attached to this ID and got inside, making a call. “Yeah Sam, it’s me. Got the paperwork. I need you to work your magic, carefully, and dig up everything you can on Ryan Elias. He seems to be the guy trying to mess up things here and he obviously has some kind of government connections. Thanks. No, I got in tomorrow so I’ll handle things on that end then.”
The next morning saw Valora sitting in the interview room at the institution drumming her fingers. She wasn’t sure if things on the illegal fighting side were going the way she wanted yet, and, truth be told, if they didn’t it would be harder than she suggested it would be for her to push and make arrests. Of course, that didn’t mean she couldn’t make lives miserable around here. That was a hobby of Valora’s just ask Jesse Styles.
A short time later, Rob Riot was brought in. Some bruises visible on his face which brought out the inevitable response from Valora who had to act like a Fed. “What the hell is this? Why’s he all beat up?” She knew she’d be lied to, of course, but it would interesting to hear what lie they had prepared.
“Seems this one didn’t want his day trip to end. He gave the orderlies a hard time and tried to go after Mr. Valentyne.”
Valora looked at the orderly and carefully removed her sunglasses and calmly put on the glasses she wore as part of her cover and nodded. “Really? That’s about a half inch above ‘She fell down the stairs.’ in terms of stupid and unoriginal lies. I’ve evaluated Mr. Riot several times in multiple locations. He is well aware his freedom depends on his good behavior. He wants his freedom. I really don’t see him being stupid enough to piss it away by picking a fight with someone he considers beneath him, namely you and the staff here.”
The Orderly shrugged. “Believe it or not, that’s what happened. The doctors were satisfied with it.” Valora nods. “Alright then. They won’t be happy with this, when I leave, I’m reporting this ‘accident’ to HQ. I’ll have a full detail assigned here if I need to. At least 2 FBI agents, here 24/7 watching everything that goes on, none of whom are happy they have to babysit instead of doing their jobs. Tell your bosses that and see how happy they are with the explanation.”
The orderly heads off and Rob Riot sits down, once the door is closed he raises an eyebrow. “How do you intend to back up that threat?”
Valora shrugs. “Wonderful thing about the FBI, you don’t have to back it up. The threat alone is enough to motivate most people into doing what you wanted. Hoover was good for something. For the longest period of time, the FBI had a reputation for being thugs with badges, the fear they inspire still exists… even if their...efficiency has dropped.”
Rob nodded. “I had a thought. Hunter’s medicine.. you’re a doctor right? Or were trained as one? Could you mess with it?”
Valora turned and looked Rob Riot over. “Define mess with it. Obviously some things are out of the question.” Rob smirked. “Adjust the dosage, maybe some psychotropics.” Valora shook her head. “Not a chance. As soon as Hunter begins hallucinating, as a matter of procedure, he’ll be tested for drugs, when the test comes back positive, then the search to find out how he got them comes into play. My cover’s almost been compromised once I have to be real careful about where and how I push. Besides.. Hunter might have health problems that could be exacerbated by psychotropics.”
“How did you cover nearly get blown?” Valoira shrugged. “Your opponent this week, Ryan Elias. I’ve got it covered for now, but the bottom line is I have to step lightly for a bit.”
Rob leaned back in his chair and nodded. “So about our talk. I was thinking.. I’m right, aren’t I? You could be her again, couldn’t you? From memory?”
Valora closed her eyes for a second and nodded. “Yes and no. Yes, I could act like her, move like her, talk like her. But it would be an act. Just like the person before you. It would be a mask, nothing more.”
Rob shrugged. “Are you sure? Have you tried?”” Valora sighed. “No. Never had a need to.” Rob nods. “What did she want out of life? What were her hopes, her dreams?” Valora turned and looked at Rob about ready to tell him where to stick it but he stared right through her. “You told me there’s a better than even chance that one of my big enemies may have trained you. You’ve told me you killed your own twin sister. I’ll wager to bet you lied to me about having the sample of Strychnine I gave you analyzed, I’m sure you recognized it right off the bat. I need to know I can trust you.”
Valora thinks about this for a second and finally sighs. “Fine, but not here. I need to go soon and I can’t risk breaking cover here anyways.. when you get out of here, I’ll.. figure something out. For right now, like it or not, you’ll have to trust me. Or don’t no one else does.”
With that, Valora stood up and turned to leave, making the slightest of gestures towards the double mirror, indicating that, quite possibly, she was aware of the visitor that had just arrived. Something made clear when she knocked on the window. “I said my interviews were to be private! Lucky for you, I’m done with Mr. Riot for right now.” Valora wanted to offer Rob some type of reassurance, but in his current state, it wouldn’t be accepted. Besides, this would give him motivation. If he wanted what he claimed he wanted, all he had to do was find a way out to claim it. It was psychology 101. Valora walked out of the room, her own thoughts running through her head.
A few minutes later, she had left the institution and was in her SUV, checking the phone linked to Valora’s account, catching up on the social media noise of the day. For awhile, she had some fun with it, Kronin’s return seemed in the books and he and Jesse were plotting something. Interesting to say the least.
But her good mood, as always, was short lived. Al Envy made a comment about how New Edge was him and Styles, everyone else was beneath them. This coming after Valora had sided with them against the young upstarts and disrespectful punks breaking into NEW now. She noticed Nathan was silent, no response from him was needed, her allies had stabbed her in the back. He was probably laughing his ass off somewhere. What surprised Valora the most… was her complete and utter lack of anger. She left a short, simple reply stating exactly what she was thinking at the moment, tucked the phone away and didn’t check it again for the rest of the day.
Maybe it was time. Time to call it quits.. Maybe the immortal Valora would finally get her wish…