Judith
Oliver shook his head. "Nations aren't machines. The people who make the decisions are still people, and their feelings still influence them. I should know, I used to be one of 'em. I was pretty bad at proportional response back then, too." That wasn't funny. He should probably shut up about that. He'd hurt innocent people then, too.

What an awful apology this had been. The lack of light from the bulb Oliver had unscrewed was starting to bother him like a fly hovering next to his ear, consistently drawing his attention away from Uriel, from the apology, from everything, really. Just the persistent annoyance of a missing lightbulb. At least it wasn't flashing - that would have been worse.

Uriel, for their part, seemed tense too. Differently so, but... Tense. There was more to this than what Oliver was being told, he knew, but he didn't quite know *What,* Or, for that matter, why Uriel was so secretive about it.

"I remember the dreams you gave me, you know. Mostly because they were bad ones. It's been a long time since a nightmare managed to wake me up, but yours did."

*Angels.* It was angels. He thought he was over that. He thought he'd secured everything, he thought he'd done enough to keep people from wandering the industrial quarter at night, he thought he'd done everything he needed to do, but here was some kid he'd barely had contact with rooting through his head to find angels.

"I don't really love that you've been poking through my thoughts to find this stuff, and don't get me wrong, I'm not letting you do it again, but... Judging by the stuff you were looking through, I'm guessing you had your reasons."

Was he really about to *Volunteer* The kind of information Uriel might have been looking for? Yeah. It was the least he could do, and it wasn't like any of it was big and secretive, it was just... Awful. It was awful.

"I think you still want to know this stuff. Go on, ask. I'll tell you what I know, as long as you don't make a big deal out of it on the intranet or something. And don't give me that shit about 'you can't elaborate', because you can. I'm not going to do anything if you don't want me to. So spill it."
Mary
Uriel remembers the dream they gave Oliver, wincing as he mentions the nightmarish nature of the memories. They justified it as necessary to help Annika at the time, but it didn't help the disgusting feeling they had when finally waking up. 

Memories of that night came back to them— memories of leaning against the walls of the in-dorm showers, the warm water barely helping them pick apart the feelings that belonged to them vs. The remnants that had clung onto Uriel when they left. 

No, that night was not fun, for neither Oliver nor Uriel. 

"Things happened, things similar to what you dreamed. What happened last time?"

A glowing knife, a mangled corpse— if it happened then, it might happen again. 

"...Did someone... Die?" 

Hushed, tentative words. Uriel was no stranger to death, and they didn't fear such a concept— but it didn't make it any more pleasant to talk about. Especially in the... Grizzly manner seen in Oliver's dreams.
Judith
*Things happened, things similar to what you dreamed.*

What he dreamed. People being stabbed. People being killed. So many people. Again and again. He didn't like thinking about it in that moment. In that moment, he was letting himself be emotionally vulnerable, and with that came a vulnerability to emotions which would otherwise not concern him. Fear. Doubt. Anger. Grief.

He nodded. "Yeah. Lots of people have died. It's..." He swallowed the lump in his throat. "I think something like three people from Newton's Cradle have ever been attacked. One of them died. But a lot more people are attacked than just us."

Oliver knew the Angels like the back of his hand. He'd dealt with them one too many times not to. He didn't say anything about it. He never said anything about it. People weren't supposed to know this much, and yet here he was, talking about it like his life depended on it.

"Usually, it's... Well. It's politicians, oil execs, corporate lawyers, those kinds of people. Sometimes, a person, usually from out of town, will just... Disappear out in *Industrin,* And no one ever finds them again. That place is like the Bermuda triangle, only we actually know why people disappear in there."

And that was that. That was what the angels do. They disappear people they don't like. They kill people. They'd tried to kill Oliver, too, the first time. Back then, they almost lost one of their own, but Oliver made sure she got help, and it had been a truce since then. Sort of. Only sort of.

"They don't go for you at random. They have some kind of aura thing going on, I think. They attack people they judge as evil. Vigilantes, basically. They're just... Wrong, a lot of the time, is the problem. And you don't get a trial. They just kill you."
Mary
"You— you don't have to talk about this if it hurts you. It seems... Painful." 

Seeing Oliver— an older, more clinical person than Uriel was— become visibly choked up upon recounting whatever happened gave way to a preemptive pause. 

What were they doing? Was this really their place to ask about? If the angels were involved in a so-called manic sense of justice, then that would mean *All* Of the angels, including Annika, participated in this vigilante justice. 

*They were all dangerous, even Annika*. And considering how protective Val was over her... It's safe to say Valio was in danger, too. 

Uriel would have to meet Valio sooner than they'd expected, if not to warn her of the danger. Although the chance the stoic woman would ignore what they had to say was significant, they had to at least *Try*. 

"But, if you must go on... Have they ever killed one of their own?" Another question. If they were a banded group of vigilantes, then it would be out of character to attack one of their fellow 'angels', unless their aura changed. 

Upon the mention of auras, Uriel perked up a bit. The language used was a bit reminiscent of their abilities, even if Uriel didn't possess those capabilities. Was it the same mechanism, a different way to navigate whatever strings connected people? Not that it was relevant to what was being discussed, but it was intriguing to think about.