Xaviers!

Somewhere out in the English countryside, two very unlikely traveling partners seem to be driving to no place in particular. Since driver picks the music, the passenger was being 'treated' to a mixture of vaporware and new wave hits.

You had something to hide
Should have hidden it, shouldn't you?
Now you're not satisfied
With what you're being put through
It's just time to pay the price
For not listening to advice
And deciding in your youth
On the policy of truth

The driver pulled into a seemingly empty field and parked, leaving the car running, and reaching out to turn down the radio slightly so they could talk.

The young man in the passenger seat had been quiet for most of the ride, only commenting on occasion on something interesting they had passed but otherwise not making any attempts to start a conversation. When the car parked, he actually spoke.

"Should I be asking if you have a shovel in the trunk?" He questioned, though from his tone of voice the inquiry wasn't a serious one.

Behind mirrored glasses, Basil stared out into the landscape in front of him.

"Please. Men as rich as me don't do murder.

We hire that out to people from Manchester." It seemed like a joke, the dryness of delivery staunchly British.

"I've a proposition for you. It involves doing something not throughly legal. Before I start the monologue I need to know how you'd feel about it. And I don't want your sister knowing about this."

Victor kept staring straight ahead, as though he were watching something through the car's windshield.

"I try not to be a braggard, especially not to my sister." He didn't feel a need to even address the issue of legality - dressing up in a costume to save people or break into a secret mutant testing lab and prison weren't exactly considered legal after all. He'd been doing illegal stuff since his mutation manifested - in some places that alone was illegal.

"What is it that you've got in mind?"

"A simple breaking and entering, not unlike the work you did at the asylum.

Except this time, it's a bank, and you'll need to get myself and an associate in as well."

Victor let out a low whistle.

"Well, that's a bit different. I didn't pick you as the type to rob a bank."

He hadn't said no, at least not yet.

"We're not robbing anyone." Basil replied, sounding vaguely insulted.

"I need to get past security to see George Benson, and I can't without assistance."

Victor opened his mouth to say something, and then paused.

"... cameras, right?"

"Of course. And well trained security. George spares no expense."

"Mm, so medium-plus security. That makes the "coveralls and ladder" entry method unfeasible. You'd be surprised how many places you can walk right into so long as you're carrying a ladder."

Odd for Victor to be thinking of ways to get in that didn't involve using his mutant abilities, but he must have had his reasons.

"Sorry, you'll have to jog my memory a bit, I've been a little muddled ever since the whole astral submarine voyage. This George, he's the one who put you in the asylum, isn't he? The one that shipped you off to be brainwashed with my sister?"

"Yes, though he had nothing to do with what happened to your sister directly. She was already there when I arrived and had been for at least a few months.

I'll turn my attention to that problem once I've dealt with George, but I need to do that first
Once I have, I can gain access to further information on how he fell in with that lot and follow breadcrumbs backwards."

"Well, that's appreciated." Victor replied, taking a moment before he spoke again. "But not strictly necessary to get me in on this." Which probably seemed like an odd thing to say, surely what his sister had been put through was his primary reason for even considering doing this.

Basil didn't question it. It wasn't that he wasn't catching it, he just didn't think he cared what the boys motives were.

He probably should but twenty year olds rarely question things the way they probably should.

"Sooooo... you *are* in... correct?"

"Yeah, I'm in. Someone messes with one of us, they mess with all of us. That this also means getting to ruin the life of a one-percenter just makes it that much better. No offense."

Victor put his hand over his mouth as he thought out loud. "I'll need to get blueprints of the building. Any information you can get on how his offices work, his schedule, that sort of stuff will definitely be of help."

"None taken." He replied, digging around in the center console absently.

"Way ahead of you." He smirked as his hands searched about for something. He frowned when he clearly handn't found it, but the expression was fleeting.

"Anything else I could do to assist?"

"A general idea of what it is you want to accomplish. This..." Victor's expression changed. "This isn't a wet operation, is it?"

"If I wanted to do a murder I wouldn't include potential witnesses to my crime." He sighed, sounding a bit exasperated. "Give me some credit. I was a trained covert operative for all of five minutes. "

"Hey, I'm just making sure I know exactly what I'm agreeing to.

"How much time do we have to formulate a plan and execute it? Is the clock ticking or what?"

"Only thing that puts pressure on this is my own anxiousness to see it done."

"Right, well I'll try not to keep you waiting. Get me whatever information you can, but I think it goes without saying that you need to get it discretely."

Victor leaned forward and opened the car's glove box and looked around. "Do you have a pen and paper?"

Basil leant behind Victor's seat to grab his bag and pull out a small spiral notebook and pen. He began flipping through and pulling out pages, which he then stuffed into his breast pocket before handing the note taking materials to Vic.

Victor took the book and pen, opening it to a blank page.

"You could have just torn out a single blank page for me..." He commented as he jotted something down, and passed it back to the older man. On it was a phone number.

"Get yourself a burner phone. Prepaid. No names or locations written in texts. If you want to send me something digital, put it on a thumb drive and physically hand it to me. I do not want any paper trails leading back to me if at all possible."

"Just trying to be accommodating." Basil replied, commenting on the notepad.

"Of course.

Anything else?"

"... is this an 'insult to injury' job, or purely business?"

"I mean. I'm not entirely against embarrassment but I'm mostly focused on getting what I need."

"I'll keep that in mind, might have an idea or two for a little icing on the cake but the cake itself is the priority."

"Whatever suits." He replies, and stops looking about for whatever he was looking for with a sigh, staring out the windshield.

"Well... this is sufficiently awkward now."

"That's probably why, in most cases, these sorts of meetings are done in alleyways and parking garages where both parties can go their separate ways.

"Which, I mean, you could still do. But it'd be a dick move to just leave me here."

"Oh well then. Guess this is the part where I politely ask you to leave."

Basil kept a straight face for several pregnant moments before starting up the vehicle again and putting it into drive.