Matsuki Magumi Introduction

Matsuki blows a bubble of contraband bubblegum, smiling at Jerry in defiance. She stands up, and eyeing the woman with prison born humour, her mouth twists from smile to wry grin. "No baby for your fat grandpa," she says, standing against the wall, and places her hands behind her back loosely, not quite confirming to the rules, to make it more of an effort to Jerry. It's the little things that fill the hours of mindless drudgery.

Ever since she was popped, she had been reviewing the details. She still didn't know how she was caught. It had to be another spy, a double agent. Or a quadruple agent. That was her latest theory. A double agent know to be so, and working to double cross the second group, but then the second group also knows that they're a doubled double and that's the real play. A turned turned double agent had turned her in without the courtesy of trying to double her. The future sucked. Her face lit up in another smile, as she watched the suit.

"I won't ask what you want me to do, but if your fat grandpa tries anything, I'll be back in here fast, wakiri maku sa?"

She is attempting to be frustrating.

Matsuki walks politely which is with small steps but keeps up. She has many questions but fears that the corp will change their mind if she is too much trouble.escaping will be easier when she's not in the prison.

She smiles pleasantly at the man and sits politely, her back straight with her hands cuffed behind her back seeming almost like a proper pose. "Oh, very big mistake. I very much in the wrong. Terrible. I have learned much about being a good woman now. I am ready for parole."

She thinks about that night, and decides to leave out only the sniper rifle she had destroyed before she was popped and hadn't come up at trial. "My employers had given me a project, and I knew that the time was sensitive, hai? Only I could do it, my handler had insisted, so I had to go. There is no leniency for disobeying, loyalty is everything. Only now, they have betrayed me. My loyalty is to them no more."

She has wondered off the narrative, and bows an apology. "The qbit research initiative, a computer chip a hundred times more compact than prior model. Advanced computation in a portable device was possible with the right development. I snuck into the lab, with a cloned multipass, and set it up. Mr. Harmond was the chief engineer, very very suspicious, no one else knew how he made advancement. I had to hope that if I copy files, erase originals, and take prototype, he set back too far to catch up again." This wasn't true, but she very carefully had trained herself not to think about the secondary objective, killing the scientist himself. She doesn't think of that now.

It had all gone wrong then. The files had been secretly backed up, the prototype replaced by a clever but defective prior device, and the files corrupted with a worm. Harmond was furious, it was told, but when Matsuki was popped at her hiding place, she was holding all of the useless research.

"I was caught. They thought of everything that I did not, because they knew I was coming. Impossible, unless there was a traitor, a double agent for your side." She leaves out the quadruple agent angle, it wasn't the right time.

She grins at him, but her smile hides her thoughts. He wants more information about what occurred. Maybe they're just hunting a mole in their operation. Not that I can provide that. Maybe then they're looking for the source, the leak that lead my handlers to get me to my mission.

"My future seems arranged, -sama. Your negotiation is not for me to say yes or no too. If you can get me out of here, then that would change of course. I would agree to much for that opportunity."

"I have a thousand questions, Mr M. But I only have one before I will agree. To get out of those place and possible freedom I would risk much. What are the odds that I will survive without permanent injury?"

They know about the guns. Was that a threat?

"I look forward to this mission and proving my loyalty to you. Providing you this valuable intel is a worthy goal." She bows her head. "I trust that we will find that your operation is secure, and that my skills with computers and guns, such that they are, will be brought to bear to rectify any threats to that operation."

She wonders about her words. She would do anything to get out of here, but was she really ready to pledge her loyalty to these people? She wasn't sure, except that she wanted it to be true.

Matsuki gives Jerry a smile when her cell is locked. "Who are those people Jerry, that they could offer me early release? Is that permissible, or did they offer you a finders fee to let it happen?"

That didn't bode well. This wasn't official at all, but some off the book operation. No records meant no accountability.

Or Jerry was just out of the loop, and the deal was going on at the justice department level. That seemed even more scary, that the government with all its resources would choose to send prisoners -- to dangerous to risk highly trained soldiers.

She leans back on her bunk and thinks the encounter all through again.

She been on edge. As time passes, she becomes more and more convinced that the agents were trying to gain additional information about her former organization.

When in the yard, she feels eyes upon her and tries to look around, smiling in her disarming way. She feels a dread like there is a red dot between her shoulder blades from a sniper. She tries her best to brush it off.