primary_asset | (no subject)

Entry tags:

karen page

(no subject)

Though he and Finch had agreed it would be best to tell Karen the truth about who they are and what they do, though they had agreed having her on their team with her tenacity and her ability to dig up information would be an asset to everyone involved, though they'd agreed John would be the one to tell her, he's been putting it off.

As things are right now, when he's with Karen, it's easy to just be himself as much as is possible. There's no need to lie about his identity, not to the extent he has to with others. He isn't Detective Riley to Karen, he's allowed to simply be John Reese and while that may not be the name he'd been born with either, it's as close to a real identity as he's had in a very long time.

The moment he tells her the rest, that all changes. The moment she finds out about the Machine, he's afraid he'll become something else to her. A killer, most obviously. A special operative, which itself has plenty of negative connotations.

He's afraid, truthfully, to ruin that.

He's just as afraid of not telling the truth, however, and running the risk of her being hurt because of it. Finch has made it clear he knows John is habouring some feelings toward her, has even gone so far as suggesting he pursue her, but John is reluctant there, too. History has shown him what happens to the people he cares about. It's shown him what happens to assets who find themselves falling for one another. He'd lost Carter, he'd watched Root lose Shaw, he's seen first hand what losing Grace had done to Finch, and John just doesn't think he's prepared for that sort of loss. Not again.

He owes her the truth, though. That's what they've decided. So he calls her one afternoon, asks if she'll meet him, and finds himself nervously waiting for her outside the same diner he'd told her about Jessica and how he would have ended up dead if not for Finch. On the outside he looks as calm as ever, but inside he can't seem to find a moment of peace.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Finch knows how to get information through computers, but there's only so much digital espionage can really provide," he says, taking care to keep his voice low. "You, though, we've seen you dig up information from... god only knows where. Dusty books, the backs of drawers people haven't opened in years. Harold is very good at finding information, but his skills tend not to extend all that far beyond the computer."

That's simplifying it too much and not giving Finch nearly enough credit, but for the purpose of this conversation, it'll have to do. It doesn't make Finch out to be the real hero John knows him to be and that's unfair, but he'll make sure Karen understands just how necessary Finch is to all of this. How there wouldn't even be a team without him and his brilliance.

"My skills..." He shrugs and smiles slightly. "I'm the loaded gun. Finch points me in the right direction and I do the hard work. I'm not a real detective, even if it does work for a decent cover, and I don't know how to do the things you can do. Finch thinks... we both think you'd be an asset."

Modest though she's inclined to be, Karen also knows he's not entirely wrong. It's how she fell into journalism in the first place, this knack she's developed for getting to the bottom of truths, finding out information that others might not want her to, driven forward by curiosity when all else fails. It's still instinctive to want to downplay any sense of that, when what John is talking about seems to be on a much bigger, more important scale than anything she's done thus far, but then, she's not sure that's true, either. There have always been lives at stake: those Fisk was willing to roll over in his attempts to gain more power, Frank Castle, even her own. She's only ever been that much more driven for it.

It's still strange to consider that she might somehow be useful to them in that regard, but she doesn't think he would be saying all of this if it weren't true. The whole idea is too important for that. It's people's lives that they're talking about, that they're planning to entrust her with, to some extent. The thought is as daunting as it is thrilling, and, in a lot of ways, what she's chosen to devote herself to doing anyway.

"Well, whatever I can do to help," she says, choosing her words carefully, though there's just a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth, "I'd be glad to. You can count me in."

Since deciding to include Karen, he's been working on the assumption she would want to be involved. Given what he's learned about her, John doesn't expect her to be the sort of person to shy away from hard, potentially frightening work, he had known almost from the start that she would want to help. So it isn't a surprise when she says they can count on her, but it does cause something to twist in him, some little part that had been hoping she would say no.

It isn't that he doesn't trust her or that he doesn't think she can handle herself, but it's exactly what he had been thinking before. This changes everything. It changes who he gets to be with her, it changes the person she'll see him as, it changes which parts of him he can hide and which he can't. He can't just be John Reese, former CIA any longer. Now he's John Reese, primary asset.

Maybe she doesn't see it that way yet, but he's sure she will. Especially once she sees him working.

"You'll have to come see our secret base now," he says with a small smile. "Harold's taken over an abandoned warehouse and I have a feeling he's been draining money from the Seo family."

"A secret base? Now I'm definitely sold," Karen says, her smile making clear that she's teasing. The truth of the matter is, this wouldn't have been a hard sell for her under any circumstances, and she knows it. Between being asked by John — whom she both cares about and trusts probably more than anyone else in this city — and the idea of what they'll be doing in the first place, even if she only has the vaguest of ideas of how she'll be contributing, it just makes sense. It's who she is and what she does. It's just, now, in a different context and on a different scale than she ever imagined it would be. Just the idea of that, though, of making a real difference in a way that won't prove to be totally futile, is deeply appealing.

And he must know that about her, she thinks, or he wouldn't be telling her what seems to be such a closely guarded secret. After all, she did insist on helping him when he was a stranger injured on the beach, staying with him in the hospital when she had no obligation to, wanting to make sure he was safe. God, he's probably had her pegged since day one. She's not sure if that's a good thing, but at least it can work out for the best now.

"Just tell me where and when, and I'll be there."

"We had to keep out of sight," he says with a small smile, trying not to dwell on how much he likes the sight of her smile. "Harold's not only a genius, but he was probably a billionaire. I never actually managed to find out his net worth, but given what he was capable of and the things he had at his disposal, I'm thinking billionaire. We had a library first. He had purchased it and left it perpetually under renovation so no one ever bothered us. There was a safe house, too, with state of the art security and rather impressive decorating. Harold has good taste, though I'm sure you can tell that between his clothing and the way he dresses me."

John pauses for a moment, trying to decide if it's worth attempting to recover from that, then shakes his head.

"That is exactly as it sounds," he says. "When he found me, I was homeless, as I told you, and Harold supplied me with everything. A beautiful apartment, all the weapons I needed to work, and a new wardrobe. I guess it sort of stuck."

"Well, in that case, he really does have good taste," Karen says with a laugh. It's probably not really something to make light of, when, like John has said, she knows why that would have had to be the case, the state he was in before Harold found him, but it doesn't seem like the time to make a big deal out of it, either. That's not what they're here for, and she doubts he really needs that anyway. He is, after all, the one who lived it, and just because she knows doesn't mean she has to harp on it or make too much of it. She doubts he had that in mind when he opened up to her about his past. "It, uh, it suits you. Pun intended."

It seems easier to write it off as a joke than to let it seem like something serious, not least because she doesn't know what she would do if he took it otherwise. She's not blind, he's a good-looking guy, but chances are, it would only make things awkward, and that's the last thing either of them need, especially if they're about to be working together.

"I think Harold would prefer if I wore a tie," John admits with a grin, using the words to cover that it makes him feel rather nice to think Karen has an opinion one way or the other about how he dresses, how he looks. He's long since stopped trying to deny to himself that he thinks she's absolutely beautiful and Finch had been able to see through him easily enough, had been the one to not only suggest they bring her into the team, but also to suggest maybe there's something worth pursuing between them.

John wishes he could be right. Finch, for all his pragmatism, really is a romantic at heart, he thinks. He will love Grace forever and no one else, holding himself apart from the rest of the world just so he'll always be for her. John had hopes -- still does in a small way -- that they won't always be apart.

He's not sure the same can ever be said for him. Were he anyone else, he would have asked Karen out already, but he's not in any state of self-denial. He knows who and what he is, what she'll see if they work together.

"Half the time I'm surprised he doesn't put Bear in a suit," he teases with a soft laugh, forcing his thoughts away from the darker path they want to take.

"Oh, my God, does it make me a bad person that I would love to see that?" Karen asks, leaning forward a little, unable to help letting out a laugh at the thought of it. Something like dressing a dog in a suit would probably grow ridiculous quickly, but just the once, she thinks it would have to be pretty adorable. "I mean, not all the time, obviously, just, you know. Long enough to take a picture of it, save it forever, look at it whenever I'm having a bad day."

She's more joking than not, of course, but that doesn't mean that she wouldn't enjoy it. It was Bear that had first caught her attention when she met Harold — something that she's had to wonder about in retrospect, if it was deliberate or not, how long they've been thinking about inviting her to be a part of whatever this is — and with good reason.

“I think maybe it makes Harold a bad person for not allowing us that enjoyment sooner,” he says with a laugh, smiling when Karen leans toward and doing the same without even thinking. Mirroring her body language he realizes, just a moment after he’s done so. Bear, being the dog he is, would probably suffer the indignity of wearing a suit fairly well, being the type of animal to do whatever he’s told, especially if it’s John or Finch telling him, but he knows neither of them would ever do something like that.

“The man who had Bear previously had no idea what to do with him or how to control him,” he tells her. “He thought he was vicious and therefore made him somehow seem more masculine, but the poor dog was just bored. It helped that he was trained in Swedish, which this man didn’t know and I did.” That had been so utterly satisfying in a way so few other things were. He enjoyed helping people, but there had just been something about being able to gain the upper hand in that situation with Bear’s help that had been on another level entirely. “Which worked out well for me, given that, until I was commanded Bear to attack, I really wasn’t in the best position.”

"Are you trying to tell me that Bear saved you?" Karen asks, smiling at the thought in spite of herself, her nose wrinkling with it. There's not really anything funny about the idea of John being in danger, but obviously it worked out alright, and based on what she knows about him, especially what he's told her today, John is obviously more than capable of handling himself. Even without what sounds like Bear's intervening, chances are, he would have been able to figure something out.

The thought is a bizarrely reassuring one. However much he may have kept from her until now, there's no denying that he's a good man to have in her corner, someone she's glad to say that she'd be able to count on.

"Because, I mean, I liked that dog already, but if that's the case, I think I like him even more now."

"Bear has probably saved me more times than I would care to count," he admits with another smile. It's so easy around Karen, smiling like this, feeling a long dormant part of himself light up. What's significantly harder is telling that part of himself to stay quiet. To not get its hopes up. To keep its head down. John learned a long time ago what happened to the people he loves and if the lesson hadn't stuck, Carter's death had certainly been a timely reminder.

But it seems he can't help himself.

"I think he saved Harold, too, albeit in a quieter way," he says. "It's good for him to have company and when things have been difficult, it's always Bear who gets him out and gets him moving."

They might technically share the dog, John might take him on missions or something as simple as a walk in the park, but at the end of it all, Bear is Harold's. That dog gives him some sort of comfort most people are unable to.

"Then I guess it really is a good thing you guys found him," Karen says, her voice just a little softer, though her smile doesn't fade. She might not know Harold well, but everything she's heard about him makes her certain that he's a good man. Besides, she does know John, enough to trust his judgment. Knowing what Harold means to him is enough for her. If Bear saved both of them, even in such different ways, then that definitely seems like something that's worked out for the best.

It's strange, really. She had spent a considerable amount of time here before the day she found John on the beach, and she knows she would have been fine if he'd never shown up here, but it's difficult now to imagine where she would be if that hadn't happened. Certainly not where she is now, with an offer like this on the table, so to speak.

"So I take it Bear is really part of the team, too?"

"He really is," he agrees. "And so are you, if it's something you want."

He hopes it's clear she doesn't need to do anything for them. If this isn't something she wants to do, neither of them are going to hold it against her and John certainly has no intention of no longer spending time with her if she's not part of the team. While he would very much like to deny it, Carter had opened up a part of him he'd kept closed off, and now John can no longer successfully lie to himself about what others mean to him. Karen is important, no matter what either of them do.

"Oh," he adds as an afterthought. "We unfortunately won't be able to pay you much. At least to start."

Karen can't help the laugh that bubbles out of her at that, one hand lifting in front of her to try to fend off any response, not wanting to give the wrong idea. After the way she was living in New York, that's been the least of her concerns here, especially with the money she gets every month. She might not understand or trust that, but it's been enough to find her footing while she figures out what she's going to do here, and she imagines that she'll still be able to take at least the occasional freelance job, which will help. Besides, if this is all going to be as covert as she's gotten the impression that it is, it will probably help for appearance's sake if she has another job she can cite when anyone asks.

"Trust me, that won't be a problem," she tells him, still smiling. "My last job — the one with the law firm — they were paying me next to nothing." They were making next to nothing, but she hadn't minded that, either. Somehow it meant more to be paid in baked goods and other food and promises of help from people in specific trades than if they were some high-earning firm, getting checks with multiple zeroes on the end from every client, probably selling their goddamn souls in the process. "It is. Something I want."

John smiles, somehow not terribly surprised to learn she hadn't been making much money in New York either. It isn't because he doesn't think she's capable or that he feels she's not deserving, not at all, but it's because what he's learned of Karen so far speaks to one thing: helping people is the most important part of anything she does.

For a moment he's reminded so fiercely of Carter that his chest aches and he has to look down under the guise of stirring coffee, certain his eyes might be a bit wet. All she had ever wanted was to do the right thing and it had gone so wrong for her so many times. She had been so smart, so good and now she was gone.

When he looks up again, though, he's still smiling and he says, "This is where the covers come in handy in more ways than one. It's nice being able to pay rent even when you're acting as a vigilante team trying to help people in need."

"So I guess that answers the question of whether or not I can still take freelancing projects when I've got time for it," Karen says, pleased — and maybe a little relieved — to hear that. She hadn't expected otherwise, but she's only got the first idea of what they're doing here, too, and she doesn't want to make too many assumptions. Given the kind of secrecy that's followed John since the day he got here, she wouldn't have been all that surprised if they had wanted her to drop off the radar instead. She thinks she would have done it, too. God knows it wouldn't be the first time she'd disappeared and started over. "It does tend to be pretty helpful, paying rent and bills and all that."

There's still the money from the city, too, which thus far has been more than enough for her to live off. Maybe it's because she'd gotten used to not having much, but the idea of getting paid little to nothing for something she really cares about doing doesn't bother her at all.

John nods and says, "Of course. You do what you need, we understand that. Having a regular job, too, it sometimes makes it easier to hide in plain sight. When we were on the run from Samaritan, just having the cover of Detective John Riley meant I could move through New York without being targeted as the Machine's primary asset."

And while things still hadn't been easy, they had been significantly safer than they might have otherwise been. He knows how lucky they all were that the Machine was able to create those covers for them. Being John Riley hadn't been easy -- it still isn't -- and he has no idea how Root skillfully shifted with such regularity.

"I don't think we're up against anything like that here," he adds suddenly. "No artificial super intelligent computers, not as far as I can tell, and I've looked."

"How do you even start to look for something like that?" Karen asks, somewhere between amused and in awe. For as strange as things were back in her world, and no matter how much she started to accept as normal, this is something else entirely, that she hasn't yet had a chance to get used to. She barely knows the first thing about it, this only the tip of the iceberg as far as questions she could ask go. For the moment, that only hasn't been a pressing concern because it's coming from John, someone she trusts so much. That's true no matter how much he hasn't told her.

She'd like to hope her being here now means the same goes for him.

"Sorry, I just — I can't say I have a lot of experience with artificial super intelligent computers."

"Cameras, bugs, any sort of surveillance equipment that doesn't seem like it serves a purpose beyond tracking ordinary citizens," he says. "Most cities have traffic cameras now, so I checked those out first, but they all appeared to be legitimate and didn't seem to be feeding into any organization that I can find beyond the Darrow government. Security cameras can be another source, but they also seem to be legitimate."

He pauses, wondering if she's actually interested in this, then decides she must be and carries on. Karen wouldn't have asked just to placate him. That doesn't seem like her at all.

"They tend to have agents working for them," he says. "I know it should be the other way around, the computer working for the people, and I suppose in a way they are, because it has to start with the people, but with Samaritan, the agents were doing that system's bidding. Following its orders. I think we would have seen them by now."

"I mean, you were pretty paranoid when you got here," Karen points out, her head tipping to the side, smile warm, teasing. "No offense. So, yeah, I think you probably would have found it by now." She still only just barely understands it, but it’s fascinating even so to listen to him talk about it, to imagine what having to worry about that on a regular basis must be like. Harrowing, sure — Hell’s Kitchen had its own share of dangers, but nothing quite like that — but interesting to hear about even so.

For so long, he told her so little about himself and where he came from. Now that that’s changing, it’s hard not to savor it.

"But that’s, you know. Good to know, with what we’re gonna be doing."

"It's a relief," he agrees and it's nice to be able to admit that. Finch feels the same, he's sure of that, but they don't discuss it much beyond agreeing Samaritan would have made itself known by now if it were here. There's no reason for a system like that to keep itself quiet, not in a place like Darrow. It could take over far easier here in a closed system and John doesn't know if he and Finch would be able to stop it. There's every chance Samaritan would win here and not having to worry about that, not having to wait until the moment their lives are threatened to that extent has been strange, but very welcome.

"We had to be so careful in New York," he continues. "There were days... periods when we had to stay completely off the grid. The Machine would give us alternate routes of travel, places where the streets had no cameras or where she knew the cameras would be turned in another direction at the right time for us to pass unnoticed."

Calling the Machine she is something he'd picked up from Root without even realizing it. John doesn't understand all the details, he doesn't know the science behind the Machine, but he knows Root and the Machine have a connection that's undeniable. It's difficult not to think of them as being the same.

It's really not funny, but Karen lets out a faint laugh anyway, smile still fixed in place. "You know, you're lucky I like you so much," she says, not stopping to give any thought to the words before they've left her mouth. "Because that seriously sounds like the plot of a science fiction movie." From anyone else, she'd probably hesitate to believe something so elaborate, that a computer system that intelligent could actually exist. Technology is capable of a hell of a lot these days, but that's another story. She trusts John, though, and knows he wouldn't be making up something like this. There would be no reason to.

Besides, while the machine in question may not have come here with him and Harold, she supposes the idea of it is something she should get used to if she's going to be working with them. She's seen far too much to hold on to that sort of skepticism, anyway.

"It's lucky you had that kind of help, though."

"You like me that much, do you?" he asks, thinking he probably shouldn't and entirely unable to help himself. Having a relationship isn't on the top of John's list of things to do and he's sure Karen has her own complications that mean she likely wouldn't want to be involved with him anyway, but he can't help but flirt. Especially with her. No matter what he tells himself, he does like her and it isn't strictly friendly, but he has to be careful. Getting her involved with what he and Finch are doing is one thing, but complicating matters with a potential relationship is something else entirely and that's where he has to draw the line.

He knows what happens to the people he cares for too much.

"When Harold told me, I didn't believe him," he says. "And for a long time I didn't trust the Machine either. All we were ever given were these numbers and nothing else, which was so frustrating at times, but the Machine was threatened at one point and we entered what another associate referred to as God Mode. The Machine spoke to me for the first time through my ear piece and I might have thought I was crazy if not for the fact that she told me where every last enemy agent was that night."

"I mean, you're okay," Karen says with a shrug, her smile suggesting something a little more than that. If not for his question, she'd wonder about how it sounds, if it gives the wrong impression or crosses some sort of line — they're friends, after all, and she doesn't want him to think that she's got any other ideas about what this is — but with his response, she doesn't think twice about it. She cares about him; of course she does. If anything, they way they met all but guaranteed that, and everything that's happened since has only added to it.

She listens carefully, her head propped up in one hand, her fascination apparent in her expression. It still sounds crazy, but crazy is normal now in the world she came from, and anyway, it sounds incredible, too, that something could have that kind of capability, that someone she knows could have made it. She's liked Harold when she's spoken to him, but there's obviously a lot that she hasn't been made aware of before now. "That's... amazing."

"It was an incredible experience. To have something like that speaking directly to you is unbelievable. I had an iPhone at the time and I thought that was the smartest computer I would ever see, but nothing compares to the Machine Finch created."

He's quiet for a moment and then he says, "For me it was only an hour, but we had another associate named Root and she found herself connected to the Machine long term. Willingly, of course, she wanted to have that connection and she... well, she always seemed a little nutty, but I don't think having the Machine in her head all the time helped."

It had been an incredible experience, he means that sincerely, and he knows how hearing the Machine in such a way would make someone a consistently better agent. But eventually it would be too much. Or it would have been for him.

"No, I can't imagine it would," Karen says, brow raising along with a corner of her mouth. All of this is more than a little strange, but that in particular — hearing the voice of something with that kind of knowledge all the time — is impossible to try to envision. She's heard about plenty of weird shit, but that's something else entirely, maybe especially for the fact that it was voluntary. "So... again, just to be clear, there are no god mode talking computers this time, right? We're doing things the old fashioned way?"

It's not like it would change her mind if Harold rebuilt the Machine; from what she can gather, it was nothing short of incredible. Still, it's nice to have the details of what she's getting herself into here.

"No Machine," he confirms with a nod. "I've no doubt Harold will find some other method of getting the information he needs, but there's no Machine." Whether or not Finch will be able to build one is another thing entirely. He's brilliant and John knows if he had the resources, he'd be able to build another Machine, but he doesn't have the funding he had in New York.

More than that, they simply don't have the numbers. The population of Darrow just isn't as big as what they're used to. In terms of pulling numbers, they just won't see as many. That doesn't mean there won't be people who need their help, but they'll have to find them by other means.

"If the old fashioned way means helping Harold hack things illegally, then yes," he says with a smile. "The old fashioned way."

Karen can't help but smile a little at that, just barely biting back a laugh. Part of her can't help but wonder what Matt and Foggy would have to say about that — nothing good, probably, when it involves the word illegally — but she's never been as hung up on things like that as they are. If it accomplishes something good, and, obviously, that's the intention here, then it's worth it, sometimes even necessary. Following the rules doesn't always get a person anywhere. She knows that as well as anyone else.

"Then the old fashioned way it is," she says, maybe a little more cheerfully than the subject should call for. He makes it hard to help, though.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only