Issue 1 Downtime

Lora and Gideon were out brazenly walking the streets again that evening, though it wasn't so late that there was a lack of daylight.

"Sorry for making you go to one of these meetings. They are not usually all that thrilling, but I would like to make it known that I am not afraid."

Gideon shrugged.

"I'm sure it will be interesting," Gideon said, "Just not all that exciting."

"I suppose. Regardless, I think we stand to learn something to learn from this, hopefully even a clue about what happened the other day."

"Hopefully," Gideon said, "Since right now it feels like we're chasing ghosts."

"Except I do not know of any ghosts who can shoot at you. I am hoping, though, that whatever 'ghost' was behind that episode the other night was involved in that death my father's men were blamed for. At least it is something."

"It's something," Gideon said, "I'm going to assume using my powers during the meeting might be considered a faux pas."

"You could give it a try, but a lot of people there have some experience with trying to block out telepathic intrusion. Nothing perfect, of course, as most of them are not telepaths themselves, but they are supposed to be good at guarding their thoughts. I have even had some training with that, though certainly not as much as some. My Dad has Ilarion there to help block out intrusion, too. The others in the Troika also probably have such safety measures."

Gideon smiled in an unsettling manner.

"None of those things have stopped me before," Gideon said, "But I'd like to try the route that doesn't end in a large amount of violence."

She smirked. "Yes, you are the one who had mentioned not starting an international incident here. That would be ideal."

"It does tend to look bad when the X-Men are causing the incident rather than fixing them," Gideon smiled.

"Well, this is it."

The building didn't look like much from the outside; it was single-story, brick, and old. There were a few people loitering around the entrance, though, and on closer inspection, a couple of them didn't look very human.

<"Miss Zalesky, good to see you!,"> one of them spoke up.

<"Whatever."> Lora drew the door open for herself and let in.

Not one of my Dad's men. And he's kind of a douche.

It's kind of nice to be ignored. Who does he work for?

Gideon followed Lora into the building looking at the other people in attendance.

"Fedorov, the sell-out. He has quite a few mafia connections."

There weren't all that many people inside -- again, most of them seemed to be guarding the place. No one got in her way as she opened another door down to a stairwell.

Is that common?

Gideon thought as he followed Lora down to a stairwell.

No one likes Moskvin besides his own men, and both my father and Fedorov detest that he is willing to work so closely with flatscans.

They came out at the bottom of the stairs into a surprisingly large subterranean room, which looked like it could hold quite a few people. For the most part, the room sloped down toward the center with rows of seating on all sides. It looked like an old arena, where one might watch a boxing match on some other day of the week.

Instead of boxers in the center of the room, however, three men sat at an elevated table, with several others standing around them. They were deep in some kind of discussion or other, and no one seemed to notice Gideon and Lora walking in at the moment

"I take it that those are the three important people."

Gideon stared at the men in the boxing ring as they walked into the room.