propulsion | fade rift. inbox.

fade rift. inbox.

"You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark."

sending crystal
written correspondence
private scenes

You know why I’m asking, right?

[ Byerly suspects so. Stark would probably answer as extensively with or without context, but he likely wouldn’t sound so off-kilter. ]

Artemaeus is amongst them. And I do not believe he would lie.

Yeah. I had 'em on the horn a minute ago. They—made their case.

[ Everything is achievable. Rude of future-him to be that manipulative. ]

And if as many people get taken out as they're implying, then yeah, we'd do something crazy like that. I think it's real.

Yes. I do too.

I’ll work with Yseult - We’ll turn around. Though it may be difficult to convince them to abandon the people of Granitefell.

[ He doesn’t sound thrilled himself. ]

Yeah. We don't jerk the reins too much but now's the time.

[ Strangely reminded of that time in the temple, of making a call that nearly got Ellis killed. Feels similar.

And because he knows Yseult well enough to get ahead of it, he says; ]

We asked them to give us passcodes. Or me, at least, [ because now that he thinks about it, maybe Byerly and Yseult aren't around to arrange that, and who knows if he got Flint on board, ] and it was something personal, nothing those three chuckleheads would know without me giving it.

I know we could poke holes in that but it's one more thing.

Mm. And Artemaeus is doubled - the one giving the message is a separate being from the one I left behind a few days ago. So there is some magic involved here. Or some Venatori agent has mastered vocal imitation but hasn’t figured out that you need to also kill someone to effectively replace them.