[chemocorp pharmeceuticals, northern chicago]
(eva illeshazy)
The sun is still out, but long shadows have fallen over the sprawling Chemcorp campus in northern Chicago. Her own shadow is a spindly, elongated thing that seems to rival the fledgling trees that line the newly poured sidewalk for height. She watches the bobbing illusion and follows the path until it splits again, and then she pauses at the junction, lifting a hand to shade her eyes against the smear of still-wintry sunset to puzzle out the sign. Chemcorp has named each sidewalk after one of its major products, bland, deceptive names that sound like they could be brands of margerine or particularly non-descript mid-level sedans.
Eventually, she finds the appropriate door in the appropriate building and pushes it open, striding into the sterile corridor. The door is left to bang closed behind her, a wet metallic whoomp followed by a more decisive snap, a sound she barely notices. Her nose curls unconsciously against the faint, chemical undernote that sits just there in the air (she thinks) just where she cannot smell it, but can taste it, something antiseptic and harsh, like cleaning fluid. (Which could, as she considers it, have something to do with the janitor at the end of the hall, pushing a dirty mop across the doubtlessly dirty floor.)
The man does not give her a second glace as she smartly turns the corner. She does have a security pass hanging from her neck, a particularly unflattering portrait taken quickly by the surly security guard at the gate. ("Regulations, ma'am." He said, bored, when she made a half-hearted attempt at conversation.)
But it is not merely the security pass that helps her blend in: the briefcase, the cinched, pinched, professional twist of her heavy dark hair behind her head, the fine dark gray suit, the uniform of many professional women. With a different degree on her wall, she could belong here. As it is, she could belong here: some saleswoman, some administrator, one of those ever-present functionaries, perhaps a little more striking (her bearing - straight backed, sure) than some, a little less striking than others.
Her footsteps echo up, and then back down the hall as she passes and then redoubles to find the appropriate office. Three raps of her knuckles against the doorframe, crisp and sure, followed by a polite query in a polished if unremarkable voice. "Mr. Tretiak?"
(danya)
At the deliberate rap of knuckles against the door, solid oak swings inward allowances to the miniature cavern of officespace afforded to a junior member of the pharmecuetical research team. Within, the blue-green glow of a 19-inch monitor provides the only light save that leaking from a small halogen lamp set precariously tidily at the far edge of a standar, company issue desk. Behind the collection of bolts and pressboard and lacquered finish sits a man now studiously looking at her with a pair of dark eyes.
They are not black, like the spikes of hair crowning his scalp, but instead a miasmic liquid swirl of deep greens formerly located at the base depths of a far-away tropical lagoon.
Intense eyes.
Fresh from the study of endless collumns of data spread on the sheets before him.
One hand remains poised above the keyboard numerical pad, where fingers diligently entered row after row of statistical data. The other is in the process of flattening the resources sheets on the neatly kept desk. Weight shifts in the armchair, shoulders of the loosely fitted labshirt wrinkling so that crisp collar rises against the bare skin of his neck.
A dark brow lifts. "Yes?" Murmured a bare key louder than the nameless classical tides rolling from a small stereo on a nearby bookshelf.
(eva)
The door swings open and the young woman steps in, just far enough to enter, just far enough to slide in front of the door already slipping closed behind her. It's a careful line: to enter without invasion, to inhabit space without claiming it too thoroughly, but it is also a line she is accomplished at navigating. "Éva Illésházy, with Bell, Bandling & Whittington." Her right hand is held out diffidently: the usual offer to shake in such circumstances. Likely, she has a business card ready her in left hand, ready to offer it in Pavlovian response.
Except, she does not. She shakes his hand (or not, as he choses), and - still smiling her cool, professional smile (the smile is useful: it works on ill children and rapists, judges and embezzling drug addicts alike) - clarifies, "We work with Mr. Ambrose Cavanaugh on a variety of issues for Devlin, Inc. Did they call from the gate?"
(danya)
He rises from the seat, six feet four inches easily circumnavigating the offending structure between them so that he may retain some semblance of cordial business in the greeting. Hands soft from a lifetime of academic occupation offers a firm grip around polite brevity. The motion completes itself in an offhand gesture towards the only other chair in the room: placed a comfortable distance from the front of his desk and oddly (for most conventional offices) already (perpetually) naked of any rague stacks of files and other necessary papers.
"Steve alerted me." That must be the name of the bored guard. For not even a moment, the intensity of his gaze seems to falter in its division towards the door left deliberately open in preparation for her arrival, before bestowing the entire weight of his attention on the lawyer. Long arms fold to cross at the edge of the desk. "How may I assist you and Mr. Cavanaugh."
It is a statement, not a question.
He does not regulate the volume of music to allow uninterrupted conversation.
(eva)
"I have - " her mouth curls upward at the right-most corner as she drifts to the chair in the corner. The expression is a mild - perhaps calculated - break in her smooth demeanor. After a moment's consideration, she does sit: at the edge of the chair, just so, nothing sprawling, invasive, incomplete. " - an offer from Mr. Cavanaugh for your consideration."
She lifts the heavy leather briefcase and settles it across her knees, quickly clicking through the combination lock securing the contents. It's open in a moment, some impression of file folders, papers, etcetera ad nauseum, swimming in the darkness. The papers she seeks for him, however, are precisely placed in one of the front pockets, and she finds them unerringly (having, of course, paused to put them in place before ever approaching the building. Three-quarters of competence is mere appearance of the same. All it takes is a moment extra to keep things straight.) and snaps them out for his attention. "For your consideration. Everything is, of course, negotiable, and Mr. Cavanaugh is certainly interesting in meeting with you to discuss the details."
There's a sour little corner of her mind that wonders what it would like to be head-hunted as such, but it's a stray thought, swallowed easily, easily concealed behind her dark, level gaze.
(danya)
The expression that crosses his features defines itself in something that is not, in and of itself, surprise at the possibility of being head hunted by the highly reputable Cavanaugh or Devlin, Inc. Instead, the lines about his mouth deepen as a knowledgeable light glimmers in veridian depths very much akin to the ideal picture of a predator settling back to await the advance of soon-to-be-ambushed prey.
Intent.
Expectation.
Never did a phrase describe Danya V. Tretiak that did not include aggressively ambitious. The music on the stereo clicks to another song, mellow swell of strings and woodwinds which begets an element of serenity within the small office. It mirrors within his eyes. His expression. The casual shift of weight which collects the papers and draws them back into his comfortable throne. Chair shifts on the balljoint and pivots the balance of his frame into a smooth exploration of relaxation. Nimble fingers flip through the pages in casual advance.
"We have a meeting scheduled for next week, however...." The corner of his lips curl into a faintly amused digression "... an offer in writing is quite unexpected."
(eva)
"There are issues to be considered, of course," she murmurs in fair response, with a bland smile. She would prefer to purse her lips, let loose with some inelegant expression of - what, exactly? the surreality of the situation, the intensity of the whole, the struggle she didn't precisely expect, what it means. Blandly, smiling now, a smile that sparks just so in her eyes (the juries must respond well to that smile) that she could be any member of the professional soothers and soothsayers: astrologer, nurse, psychotherapist, talk show host. "Intellectual property, patent law, non-compete agreements, confidentiality clauses and the like. Mr. Cavanaugh prefers to have the details covered before your meeting, so that the two of you may focus on the larger picture."
Translation: don't even look at me. I'm just a pencil pusher.
"Here and - " she lifts her chin and glances down at the agreements and schedules from a distance, as if she were gazing through bifocals, attempting to focus on the words, then points to a particular phrase as he pages through the document, with a smooth, just-clear-polished nail. "here, in particular. If you are interested in the position, you may wish advice from counsel, particularly concerning whatever proprietal processes, etcetera, with which you are involved here."
She has no idea, precisely, what she's talking about, but at least she is capable of thinking on her feet. Her smile rises again: the sly one, the one that feels like collusion, a wry little secret, shared, and she waves her hand, continuing. "All of this is speculative, of course. We simply wish to be prepared."
(danya)
"But of course." Something lingers behind the faint, business-only (cut throat, at that), smile. It announces itself only within the dark, murky depths of his eyes... though if she looks to the objective paperwork island between them and he at the papers in hand, it is something she will never see. "Preparation is essential in developments such as this."
With the name, the physical presentation - expectations abound in hearing an accented color to his words that speaks of lineage homeland. Some evidencial inclusion in discovery which begets a slightly deeper understanding of the man with whom she's figuratively dealing. But Danya offers no such vernacuarly clause. Instead, his voice is as controlled and flat as any other non-descript accent born from the West Coast.
Beneath the casual exterior lurks a beast the young kinfolk is forfeit the ability to outwardly display.
It is hunger.
"As is organization...." Offhand musings from thought-pursed lips, drifting elemental as the vague impression of symphonic composure wafting from small, expensive speakers. Perhaps he is keying in to a common thread in their choices of presentation. Some vague acknowledgement or mystic apprecation of her efforts. His own reports and variant chemical analyses as crisply displayed as any professor worthy termpaper. "I do believe everything has been explained in clear abridge or subsequent necessary detail....."
(eva)
Éva should have a sixth sense for such things: five years defending the worst dregs of society (or, at least, those unwise enough to get caught) should have sharpened her appreciation of the darker, sharper expressions of human meaning more than any other experience. Perhaps, though, one overestimates the criminals with such assumptions. Largely, they were a sad-sack lot already gone grey from incarceration (one night, a thousand, it doesn't take long) obsessing over the smallest imagined slights and micromanaging their cases with an old lady's eye for dubious detail and an equally flawed understanding of the process, their lives, their place in the scheme of things.
Something captures her attention - a flicker of her gaze, upward from the contracts and clauses and agreements just long enough to meet his eyes - which is soon dismissed. Her smile never falters, perhaps it even grows warmer when she obtains his acknowledgment or her work, or at least the results.
"Excellent," there is a certain bright crispness to her manner that would seem forced if he knew her better. Few enough people do that there is little danger of being derailed for it, but it's a flaw she sees in herself when she takes the time to analyze such things. The briefcase snaps closed, the lock clicks home, and she rises as neatly as a perfectly pressed piece of paper might be unfolded. Now, the business card appears in her hand - to be exchanged the way dogs exchange scents - and she holds it out to him with a milder dose of her earlier diffidence. "If you have any questions or concerns before your meeting with Mr. Cavanaugh, please feel free to give me a call."
(danya)
He watches her, with those eyes, rising as precisely as what would make a drill sergeant proud. Aimless, is the wandering thought, of curiosity's drive to find what, exactly, inspires such rigid performance. Scientist's detatched and objective necessity to divulge the base information related to any chemical or bodily reaction. The thought is dismissed. Quickly. Finitely.
As if she were nothing more than a scent on the air.
His attentions are yet mildly distracted by the intrigue of Cavanaugh's pristinely laid out offer. However, he is not rude enough to immediately dismiss her presence as a whole. Dark, murky, intense eyes snap from their latest adventure across legalese text and momentarily delay on the proffered business card.
"Absolutely." It, too, is gathered back into the pits of his proverbial coils. From within the treasure chest of a (neatly. rigidly.) organized desk drawer, he, too, produces a calling card for exchange. While he is more than assured Cavanaugh has provided her with the extensive means of contact, it is the Pavlovian motion of meeting routine. A personal touch amongst the corporate fodder.
"I look forward to future developments." How he says that with a devastating hunger in those eyes. "I trust you remember the way out....?"
Impersonal dismissal in the guise of workload necessity, perhaps?
He does not seem to truly be that cold.