7428/Changeling: After the Shadow

Changeling: After the Shadow
Date of Scene:	07 May 2019
Location:	Nwe York City
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Melinda May, Quake
Tinyplot:	Changeling

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Melinda May has posed:
After leaving the buddhist temple where they sat and spoke with the Shadow, May drives Skye back to her place. The car is parked a reasonable distance away and once they're inside, she makes a beeline for the kettle kept in the kitchen. She suspects it's there solely so she can make tea, but she wouldn't be surprised if Skye realised it boils water rather quickly thus making ramen happen faster.

"Let me guess," she starts off while getting her tea ready. "You heard the entire conversation."

Quake has posed:
Skye nods, face crinkled up into wryness. "Yeah. Kinda hard not to." She taps a finger to an ear. "Since the change, super hearing. I can blunt it, but.." Well, okay, maybe she could have tried to blunt it more there, too. She wasn't purposefully trying to hear the conversation - it just sort of happened.

"I'm sorry?" She is sorry. Even as she isn't. Part of her wonders if maybe she didn't need to hear that all in some weird way. Certainly it had her thinking all the way back here, and not only about May, or SHIELD. A lot of things.

Melinda May has posed:
May shrugs lightly, claiming a place to sit with her tea in hand, knowing Skye will likely follow. The only real uncertainty is whether she'll grab a beer before she sits as well. "Do you have any questions before I ask you what I have in mind?"

She waits patiently, knowing that the conversation with the Shadow had a LOT of heavily veiled subjects and it might take the younger agent a bit to figure out what to ask.

Quake has posed:
Skye debates making coffee, but beer is faster, and besides, it's her house and she's off duty. Maybe. Skye grabs a beer, following May and taking up a nearby seat.

"I'm not sure. I was wondering at first why you'd declined, but you're right. It makes more sense if you're just aware of us. I guess maybe I'm wondering why you'd leave me with them." Adding, "Fury knows. I mean, he's not aware of the specifics. But he was aware I was working with someone."

Fury, as it happens, knows a lot about Skye's spy life that nobody else knows. Not even Clint. People might be slightly surprised to know the depths to which the young woman has taken to her job.

Melinda May has posed:
"I was just aware of this group," May replies. "For good reason, you've been playing both sides to the benefit of both. That's not an easy line to walk. And, if I had declined and stuck with that decision, you would be our liaison to that group which would make you more valuable to both. But," She sips at her tea as if to emphasize the 'but', "the amount of intel you carry around in your head would make you a very high value target." And that she wouldn't abide.

"And now I wonder, how long have you been working with the Birds?"

Quake has posed:
"I'm still the liason, aren't I?" Because Skye doesn't see a reason she shouldn't be. And until Oracle cleared May (which was going to be another of /those/ conversations, Skye had no doubt) it still made the most sense. "You need plausible deniability. With your current position, you aren't what I proposed to them in the start. If you're aware of it all, you can't turn your back when you need to. You need someone like me who you can say you didn't know." Skye shrugs. "Plus, I've a history of being a maverick. The story writes itself."

Which doesn't answer May's question.

Skye sips her beer, quiet for some time.

"Well over a year now. I was in on the formative stages. I don't know all the members. None of us do but one. They facilitate the meetings and the intel. Whoever is the best fit for the job."

"The intel in my head," Skye says quietly, "Fury knew enough. But not all. There are secrets that aren't mine. I hold them, but I can't give them away." She exhales slowly, but heavily. "It would have been bad if Hydra broke me."

Melinda May has posed:
May listens as Skye relates, nodding as if to herself. "Of course you're still liaison." Yes, Skye pegged the why precisely, so she doesn't bother say anything more about that. She does raise her eyebrows at how long Skye's been working with the Birds without telling anyone -- other than Fury, anyway.

"It makes sense to compartmentalize a group of that sort, but it's also a risk. The one person who pulls all the strings is at risk every time they tap anyone to do a job. " Knowing nothing about this person, she can't help but wonder if that's really such a good idea.

"I'm not going to ask you about any of those secrets, Skye. They're not yours to share. But knowing you have them means I have to factor that in every time I send you on a mission. And there WILL be times I'll pass you up to avoid that risk."

Quake has posed:
"Hey! That's not fair!" Skye's protest is a sudden rush of near panic in her gut. She'd worked hard to get where she was. "You don't do that to Clint, or Nat. So why me?"

Other than the possible obvious she'd overheard. And.. okay, she did have a few secrets they didn't, but surely to gods in their service they'd accumulated their own?

"Dammit, May. I'm a good agent. I'm a damned good Agent. I worked my ass off for SHIELD. I worked with these things in my head since Hammerfall." Before, really. She had hacked into Fury's personal account before then. She'd seen the plans for the Trisk that weren't on the official books. "I've done my job and better this entire time, knowing all these things. That's not fair. Why am I being punished for doing my job well?"

Melinda May has posed:
May holds up a hand to stall any further ranting. "Did I say I was punishing you, Skye? I said I will pass you up for missions I think are too much of a risk. You can ask both Barton and Romanova. I've done the same to them both in the past." And she has. And she'll do it again, even though both of the older agents have done their fair share of 'Go in solo, no extraction. You get yourself out' kinds of tasks. And those are the ones she is going to refust to task Skye with.

"Do you want to keep arguing about that?"

Quake has posed:
Skye's lips purse into a tight line of defiance. She can't argue it. She hasn't the facts. And if she knew about May's fine line with her there, she might have an added protest to throw into this conversation, but as it is she's stuck on there is nothing she can say to prove otherwise, leaving May's words nothing but a truth.

"It feels like being punished for doing my job better than anyone guessed. Even you." Because she'd read that in May's meeting with Shadow. "So, fine. You keep me from - what? Is this you saying I don't go in with Samantha? Because we both know I'm the target. Without me he doesn't take the bait."

Which makes no sense, so, no. That's not what May is saying.

"I'm listening. You tell me what it means. What I can expect now that you know. I'm guessing that's not all you have to say?"

Melinda May has posed:
"This means if there's a mission where someone goes in alone, no backup, no extraction plan, they're expected to complete the objective and get out entirely without assistance, you won't get that mission. That's what it means." To be fair, May has yet to task Skye with anything like that, so if she hadn't told the younger agent it likely would have been completely transparent to her.

"Also, If you learn intel working with this other group that could seriously affect SHIELD or any missions we currently have in play, you need to let me know. I'll decide if SHIELD needs to act on that intel or let things play out as they will. You're not to make that call, that's my call to make. Understood?"

Or Fury's, but he's been rather uncharacteristically absent of late.

Quake has posed:
Skye mulls the matter of mission exclusion over in her mind. "Okay, but can I ask, is that because of what I know, or is that because of what The Shadow said? Because the one is a valid reason. The other isn't fair to me or the other Agents you'd send in my stead."

Skye is quite calm in her asking that.

"I think, before we go on, though, you need to be aware of something else Fury is aware of." And this story may be a true test of what May is able to put together all on her own, though Skye tries to be careful not to give any untoward details away.

"I made contact with a hacker in the fall of 2025 - around the time of Hydra's attack on the Trisk, when they tried to steal the Apokolips tech. We cut a deal. In exchange for open access to certain back doors, they'd cover those doors and we'd enter into a mutually benefical agreement of information exchange. Their word given on not poking into certain things. Sealed with access to the Civilian satellite network we now use."

"They helped me rebuild the systems with some of the unbreakable code we use."

May is given a direct look. "We can't keep them out. So the answer was to let them in. Fury knew after I'd already agreed to that." As in she'd made the call. "That's not the only call I've made, but you should know Zola isn't the only ghost in our machines, and that I've never done anything to hurt SHIELD."

"I hear you, though." Because whether or not May was aware, for all the times Skye had stepped outside the box and made her own, it had always been done with a keen awareness of that very fine line and whether she could make the call or not.

Melinda May has posed:
"It's because of what you know. You have enough intel to seriously compromise SHIELD and these Birds both, and that's not a risk I'm willing to take with either side." She'd equally refuse to send Simmons or Fitz out on particularly dangerous tasks for similar reasons.

That bit of information about SHIELD's comptuer systems is clearly something May did NOT know about, if her raised eyebrows are any indication. "How thoughtful of Fury to think about sharing that with me." But, if nothing else, it helps further prove to her that these Birds are acting in SHIELD's best interest alongside their own. She's going to let Skye stew for a moment longer, though. Because.

"What else have you been keeping to yourself? Now's your chance to lay it all out."

Quake has posed:
May gets a long look, "I know a lot of things, are you sure you want to know them all?"

Skye rungs through the list of stuff May might not know and maybe should, putting them straight in her head.

"There are hidden passageways from Fury's office out of the Triskelion. I used my knowledge of this to bypass security when I escaped during Tidepool."

"I'm aware of numerous Black Ops within the organization as well a secret branch that used androids programmed to destroy anything that went against our principles - the mission was a fail, in part because they turned on their makers. For a time I was incontact with one of the remaining members of tht group."

She runs down a list, that given her time in the Agency, and the likelihood that there are things she's still not saying (given she's not yet given up her hacker) is pretty impressive.

"I essentially have Fury level clearance in anything that has to do with computer access. I can't change personel files, or break into his private data" ...anymore... "But I've had that since I did the system rebuild. As long as I've not abused it, it's been mine. I use it to kep tabs on who is and isn't looking at things. To feed them anything we want known, and to track what things are most interesting to our visitors. It's why I'm looking at adding the spider program that follows them back out to the source."

Which would be an amalgamation of code she's used before, only more highly tailored and refined with the help of the others on this project.

"And my mother isn't dead."

Melinda May has posed:
"I'm sure." May listens as Skye starts to lay out the pieces of intel she knows, nodding at the mention of the passageways, the black ops, and the failed android program, but the computer clearance and mention of her mother still being alive are clearly things she had not known previously.

"And that is another reason for me to pull you from missions I think are too risky," she says about the computer clearance. She doesn't pester Skye about her mother, knowing the younger woman will elaborate if she chooses to.