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Okay.

[And he'll set about fixing the sandwich, and it's gonna be fancy because let's be honest, this is Neal.]

Does it look like Lilith's protections are going to hold?

I think so? [he doesn't know much about demonic magic and he really hasn't tried to look closely at these wards, for fear of breaking them, but] Nothing weird's gotten too close to the edges of the fog, and it doesn't seem to be spreading, so ...

[so far, so good?]

[Neal nods, before placing the fresh sandwich in front of him.]

Let's hope it stays that way. Otherwise we're all in trouble.

Yeah, that was kind of the impression I got, too.

[between Lilith's transmission beforehand and everything that's happened, since]

[sighing, he reaches for his sandwich, muttering a thanks before he takes a bite. he looks immediately impressed, whatever else he was going to say forgotten for a moment. mostly because:] This is actually really good.

[not that he had any doubts, but -- well, it's just a sandwich. he wasn't expecting it to be like this]

[Neal looks mock offended at the insinuation that there was a chance it wouldn't have been good.]

Did you think it wouldn't be?

[mocking or not, Nathan immediately holds up a hand]

No offense, man. I just never thought of a sandwich as being something to write home about.

Then you should take more pride in your food.

[Granted, Neal's brand is indulgence in all things. If it's not at a ten, he doesn't want it.]

I've eaten some good stuff. [it's not like he's a complete culinary moron! he's been all over the world!] I just -- don't always get the chance, you know? I mean, kinda hard to eat five-star sandwiches or whatever, when you're running from the warlord du jour.

[Neal considers, before nodding.]

Okay, that's fair. Warlords tend not to wait for their targets to enjoy fine dining.

Yeah, not so much.

[he pauses long enough to take another bite of his sandwich and swallow]

You have any experience with that kinda thing? Crazy warlords? I know we have Nazi with weird art fetishes in common. [never mind the fact that that's not really a surprising point of commonality, for all that Hitler had an interest in the arcane and for all that his officers like stealing nice things from the people they killed]

I tended to spend more time with more white collar criminals than warlords.

[That's what happens when you're dealing with art in museums and private estates, rather than trying to recover things that history has long forgotten.]

I came across the Nazi sub because I was being targeted by someone who desperately wanted to find it. And after what he did to me in the process, I decided to screw him over by finding it first.

One of these days, I'm gonna make you tell me that whole story, from start to finish.

[instead of all the little pieces he's been giving Nate, so far. he's really kind of curious how all that went down. now may not be the time for it, however]

Tell you what. When the fog lifts, you, me and a bottle of whiskey.

[Maybe two. They're definitely going to need it.]

[considering he, at least, is going to end up in the fog? he's absolutely going to need it]

Sounds good, man.

[And Nate will run off to get lost in the fog and Neal will keep doing his thing, and when the smoke clears, Neal makes good on his promise. He grabs a bottle of whiskey and a back table at Hella Shorty's, and he smirks as he pours too glasses.]

So. I'm nineteen years-old. I get off the bus from Detroit in New York City, and I come across a guy playing Find the Lady on a street corner near Central Park.

[Because yes, that's how this story starts.]

[Nate can't help but laugh, at that]

Seriously?

[it sounds like the opening to a movie or something. it sounds like a recipe for disaster. he absolutely wants to hear more, either way]

Yep.

[And he'll continue to gesture as he speaks.]

This guy with a terrible hair piece was acting as the hook by purposefully losing, and tried to get me to play. So I saunter up, play the game, and walk away a winner, and as I disappear into the crowd, they figure out I cheated.

Next thing I know, Hair Piece is showing up at my front door, looking to hire me. Turns out, his name was Mozzie and he was planning a long con against a guy named Vincent Adler.

And I'm gonna guess you went along with it?

[it would be a pretty short story, if Neal turned him down, after all. well, probably. there's the chance that he turned him down and ended up involved in things anyway, he supposes]

I was young and stupid so yeah, definitely.

[Neal shakes his head.]

Adler was a big hedge fund guy. The job was a long con to get at his funds and clear him out. What we didn't know was that it was all Ponzi scheme and Adler was a bigger con artist than we were.

[Probably because he was busy falling in love with Kate, but that's not important.]

Somehow, that doesn't surprise me.

[for all he knows about hedge funds, they've always struck him as a little shady. you have to be a shark to get involved in that crap -- you have to have one foot in crooked, anyway. at least the warlords he deals with are honest about wanting to kill you. most of the time]

[anyway]

So, what happened?

Well, just before we were able to seal the deal on robbing him blind, he gets exposed for his scheme and flees with the money. It didn't really bother me one way or another and my partners and I started getting big and flashy, pulling jobs all over the world. Eventually the FBI caught notice, and I wound up in jail, but in the interim, a rumor started floating around that I had stolen a very specific music box.

[And he'll describe the box.]

It originally belonged to the Russians, but the stories go that the Nazis stole it in World War II. Eventually it wound up in Copenhagen, where a friend and I tried to steal it, but didn't actually manage to get ahold of it.

Why the interest?

[his and his friend's. the FBIs. whoever else. Nathan feels like there has to be something special about it, beyond just having an apparently sordid provenance, but maybe that's just because, in his world, there probably would be]

My partner planned the job. I didn't know it at the time, but it had ties to her family. But the more relevant part of this story is why Adler wanted it: There was a code hidden in the music that held the equation to a fractal antenna.

[okay, there's definitely a puzzle here, definitely something special about the box and the fractal antenna, he's just not sure -- wait. wait]

He wanted a way to find the U-Boat!

[that's it! that's gotta be why he'd need a fractal antenna, right?]

[Neal grins, pleased that Nate has caught on.]

He did. Things got messier from there, though. He was blackmailing FBI agents, killing my allies - trying to figure out how to get me to give him a music box that I didn't have. Little did I know, however, that the FBI had managed to obtain it.

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