Sir Saladvocate - Lokius

🥑 All extremes of feeling are allied with madness.

"Has he said anything new?"

Ravonna stares him down from her desk. Mobius, trying to make it seem like she's the most important person he has ever met while she attempts the same in return, gives a tight smile and opens a folder, although he isn't sure why he's done it at all.

"Uh, no," he confesses. "Well, yes, actually—he has a theory about where to find more variants—but no actual solid information. I'm hoping to pry some more out today."

Ravonna smiles. It is not genuine.

"You understand how important it is to us that he answers efficiently, I assume."

"I've got it under control," Mobius assures her, swinging his arms out as he approaches the door. "I promise I know what I'm doing."

"Nobody says that when it's true."

"Oh, come on," Mobius replies. "I'm an honest man." He pulls his suit jacket tighter around himself as he stands up, thinking about buttoning it up and then deciding against it. He's too loose of a person to perform such a sacrilege as appearing formal on the way to debating a god in vain.

As he opens the door, his coworker calls out behind him.

"Come back when you're ready to prove it."

Mobius takes a breath, contemplating whether or not he should respond, and he doesn't.

His second order of business is to do what he has just promised he would. His first is to teach Loki how to cut a goddamn tomato, so he grabs two from the lounge on his way back to the interrogation room, scrambling to somehow fit them into his too-small pockets while passing B-15 on the way. She doesn't notice much, luckily for him. Or she does, and would rather not get into it during office hours. Mobius understands, and is glad he lives his entire life in given office hours. He's untouchable now. He's practically a Loki variant himself.

"Did you ever get that tomato back from him?" he asks B-15 in passing, casually hiding two more of them behind his back as he walks past her. She nods quickly, her voice suddenly operating in an octave he hasn't heard it attempt before.

"Oh, yeah, everything went fine," she replies with a tight nod. "All going according to plan, for sure. Things are great. Just awesome. Pristine, actually."

Both of them, trying to successfully complete entirely separate ruses behind the back of the other (Mobius attempting to hide B-15's tomatoes from her because he thinks she would find it maddening—which she wouldn't—and B-15 herself hiding serrated knives behind her as she leaves the room backwards), fall short on noticing any strange behavior coming from the opposite end of the conversation and walk quickly in differing directions to try and hide their own involvements.

Mobius enters the room he knows he'll find his variant in and slams the tomatoes confidently down onto the table.

Loki purses his lips. "What the hell."

"I can't believe you never learned this," says Mobius, handing him an actual knife that only he knows the original location of while he takes another. "Oh, and try not to decide to stab me, or else you're losing tomato privileges."

Loki gives him a look. "What about knife privileges?"

"Well, you've already technically lost those, so don't tell them I let you use one," Mobius replies, sitting down across from him. "You don't want to lose even more precious privileges, do you? Plus, B-15 is gonna be after both of our asses if she finds out we're practicing on her food. Let's not draw attention to ourselves."

The truth is that B-15 is too aware of all this to be after their asses, although Loki leaves this out to assist his ploy. And he has been cutting tomatoes all morning, but he will not let this on, either.