After his usual two hours of sleep V spent a good portion of the night searching through various databases to find as much as he could about Carly and her brother. Thus far had discovered that she came from a humble background. Her and her brother were raised by parents who ran a local asian grocery store in the area of London that historically served as a hub for newly immigrated families. The business collapsed as food supplies became more scarce and imports became increasingly restricted under Chancellor Sutler's rule. Shortly after both of her parents passed.
Tony appeared to be five years older and served in the war. Due to his specialized training in the army, he found his way onto security detail for Gordon Deidrich. According to the censor's files he was suspected of being part of an anti-government group who were plotting acts of treason. He was one of the few of the group that had indeed been captured, but V lost the trail of facility transfers in his file. According to what V was reading, he was moved to various facilities after each location failed to break him. It seems that conviction and stubbornness ran in the family. Her file read ongoing investigations continue into subject Park, motivations for her exposure attempts and if they are linked to Anthony Park's collusion attempts are unclear.
V's eyes flicked up from the computer when he noticed a slight movement by the door and jumped ever so slightly when he saw Carly in the doorway. She was stealthier than he had thought, he would have to watch out for that.
"Oh, pardon me. I wasn't expecting you to be up yet. How are you feeling?" V gave a small chuckle to mask his surprise.
"I slept well, I woke up and tried to go back to sleep but I couldn't." Carly gave him a small smile and shrugged before continuing, "I wanted to apologize for my reaction earlier. I think I panicked and got a little tunnel visioned on helping Tony, I just...I thought he had been dead all of this time. I'm even more worried about him now that I know he's in the same hands of those who had taken me. He's strong and full of fire but that makes him brash and prone to getting hurt more easily." she shook her head as she recalled many of the fights that he had gotten into when they were in secondary school. V simply nodded, accepting her apology.
"I understand, thank you for saying so. Join me in the kitchen, I'll make you a spot of breakfast." V gestured behind her to the kitchen area. Carly picked up a blanket that was on the couch and wrapped it around her before settling into a chair and gently asked, "Is blowing up buildings something you do frequently?" V couldn't help but chuckle at her question as he put on a rather pretty pink flowery apron.
"Only to make a point or when the occasion calls for it, I suppose." V turned his head to look at her with a hidden amused expression, "I suppose that isn't the most pressing question that you have for me."
"You're right. I'm curious as to who you are." Carly watched carefully, noticing the precision of all of his movements. Another chuckle came from V, "The who proceeds the what, as I assume your vision is not damaged badly I will express concern for your observation. For you just asked a masked man who he is."
V began mixing the batter and continued talking "But, in light of your recent events, and the inevitable recursive nature of the question, I shall grant you a moment of insight. The same insidious imbeciles who ingeniously indicted you on incredibly insignificant information have been incorporated into my increasingly intriguing inventory of villains. Incredibly, your incarceration was as vile and being as my own. Violating as yours was, mine left me no choice but to accept this vaudevillian visage, without vanity or votive, but a vestige of vanished "vox populi" but this visage is vivified to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin. The verdict is vengeance, a vendetta not in vain to vindicate the vigilant and virtuous." He paused his movements and placed the bowl down on the counter. "Verily this verbiage veers most verbose. So let me simply say that you may call me V".
"Are you some sort of vigilante..perhaps an unwell one?" Carly asked, only closing her agape mouth to speak.
"I'm quite sure they'll say so." V's replied rather contently and turned the stove on to begin cooking. "My stage presence is simply a personification I chose to have, as the honest one is rather different from my former, and rather diminutive existence. I wanted to take my own turn in asking a question if you will permit me. We know that you were interrogated because of your dissent but do you have any idea why your brother would have been taken in?" He asked, flipping the first pancake.
"I'm not sure, but something was going on that he wasn't telling me. My brother worked for a security company, he's about five years older than me and we shared a flat. He started not coming home and disappearing every night after work, and I thought it was a woman. He is a quiet guy with lots of secrets, but he would come home covered in paint and other things. Things that didn't really hint toward dates or courtship." Carly recalled. She was very worried about him but he would always brush her off whenever she brought it up.
"Security, that makes more sense now. With how you speak of him I believe he didn't follow the police state rhetoric. More than likely he saw some things he didn't agree with and, perhaps, took some information he shouldn't have." V nodded and placed the finished pancakes on a plate and brought them over to the table with butter and syrup.
"He was. He wasn't the biggest fan of chancellor Sutler." Carly shook her head, thinking back to how he would come back to their apartment late at night agitated, and during nights of civil unrest. He was tasked with protecting either the BTN buildings or Gordon if he was in the building. The first couple of times he came home bothered but unhurt but as things escalated it resulted in him coming home injured. Carly would stay up until he returned home. "He'd always come home and say that he was fighting a battle he didn't believe in. But since he had such a high profile job, it would have been very suspicious if he had quit. I'm not entirely sure he would have won either way." Carly recalled, shaking her head.
"I imagine that your assessment is correct, he was certainly doing other activities. That makes him valuable to people like myself who would like the access and information, and dangerous for his employers." V muttered, omitting his acknowledgement that the "people" he mentioned was him. In the event that Carly was able to get Tony out alive, he may be a useful asset to V regarding information. Now however was not the time to bring his future request up.
"When our parents started to decline, he came back to help care for them a little more frequently. We sold the business, which kept the vibrant Korean community alive. But once they passed, he disappeared most nights and I was lucky if I saw him twice a week. Two months later I was taken in." Carly felt tears begin to well into her eyes, as she recalled how difficult it had been since then.
"I'm sorry. It sounds like you did what you could under the circumstances." V assured her softly, trying to ignore the unsettling feeling of sympathy that caused his chest to uncomfortably tighten.
"I suppose, I just wish that it could have shaken out better than it did... you know?" Carly asked, with a twinge of regret in her voice. She quickly caught herself, realizing how much information she had shared. Yet she had very little information about V.
"I do. However I find it's more useful to focus on what we can do now, lamenting on what we did not do only serves as torment." V shook his head and leaned a little closer, "What would you like to see happen?"
"I want to find my brother and get him out of whatever facility that he is in." Carly sighed, before turning her own questioning to him.
"How is it that you found me at Stone Hill anyway?" Carly turned her line of questioning to him as casually as she could.
