undergrounds | [catch-all] For when then and there, there will be enough.

"Where's your map?" Eames says with a gesture for Arthur to get it, and maybe a couple drywipe markers while he's at it. It's time for some diagrams. "I'll draw it out for you."

Arthur gets up, putting his beer down on the coffee table so he can open up one of the drawers and pull out the rolled-up map of London. He spreads it out and takes some of the objects on the table to keep it flat, then takes out the bag of markers he uses to delineate the faction borders. It's up to date, seeing as the borders have remained static for the past few months, but the ghosts of old lines in the sand are still visible.

God bless Arthur's fastidiousness. Eames takes out a marker and gives the map a once over before he leans over it to start drawing things out, explaining as he goes.

"There's eighteen boroughs with a vote for Witches Rep," he says, drawing hasty circles on them, "I can't rig the vote everywhere, for numerous reasons, so I've picked out areas most likely to vote for Norrell—" and so all the others get crossed out, being on the 'probably not a threat' list. Lambeth and Croydon are still on the list of potential places to rig, unsurprisingly, "and I've picked out weak links, people easy to bribe or blackmail in each polling station."

He pauses there, looking at Arthur to make sure he's following and see if there's any questions or comments thusfar.

Arthur tilts his head at the map thoughtfully, partly thinking about how he's going to have to clean off all these marks, but mostly considering the plan so far. It's pretty straightforward, but that doesn't mean there are a lot of rooms for error.

"The vote will still have to be close," he says, thoughtful and not trying to be patronizing, "and you'll have to let him win a couple. It'll raise alarm bells if he goes from favourable to losing miserably."

"Of course, that's why I'm specifically targeting boroughs where he's a shoe-in," he wags the pen as he speaks, and swaps it out for another colour, scribbling some lines — routes, from the remaining stations back to the Night Council building — but he doesn't move on to them just yet, "I simply don't have the resources to hand to guarantee his loss, so I can't afford to leave those areas to chance."

Arthur has some words to say about allocation of resources and where Eames probably should focus, but he leaves that aside for now, gesturing to the lines Eames has drawn.

"Is that how the ballot boxes are getting back?"

"It is," Eames nods and points to a couple of points along one route, "two hand-offs along each one — hilariously, it's supposed to prevent fraud, but that doesn't account for the second courier being in someone else's pocket. Swapping the ballots should be a relatively simple affair."

Nothing's ever simple. Arthur's expression continues to be frustratingly neutral as he considers every angle.

"Who are they?"

Relatively simple, please.

"The couriers? Council employees who have a lot more to lose by disclosing their part in things than I do."

Arthur raises his eyebrow at Eames. "So why are they doing it?"

Eames shrugs a shoulder, entirely nonchalant, "because I have centuries worth of experience when it comes to capitalising on peoples' inability to consider things in the long term."

To Arthur's credit, he does pause to curb the potentially impatient tone about to come from his mouth. He respects Eames' ability to see the big picture, and he is certainly better at the human element, so to speak, but Arthur sees things a different way. He gestures at the map and raises his eyebrows at Eames, speaking calmly and evenly in the hopes that Eames doesn't mistake this as patronizing.

"If you want me to give you any advice on the logistics, I need the details. Are you paying them off, or is it just intimidation? I'm sure you know the best way to motivate them, but if there's a paper trail to cover up..."

"A couple bribes, a little blackmail. Depends on the person." It does come off a little patronising, but Eames swallows his annoyance in favour of getting through this — as good as he is at this sort of thing, Arthur is better with the technical aspect than he is, and this is too sensitive for them to get into a fight over nothing. "I shouldn't imagine there's much to cover up there, but I can explain that more fully once we've covered this."

Arthur takes a deep breath and nods. He'd really like to see some itemized lists right about now, but he surrenders and gestures for Eames to keep going.

"Okay," he says, "go on."

"There'll be a rendezvous along each route," Eames continues on like there was never any pause, and he marks each one off as accurately as he can — each one being on Council territory, "obviously I can't attend to each one personally, but there'll be more trustworthy sorts there. One person to handle the swap and a few others to make sure there's no funny business."

Arthur nods, looking down at the map. He wants to know who these people are and why they're helping but he's keeping his questions to himself for now. If Eames gets annoyed he'll just leave, and then Arthur will feel guilty (if not a little smug) if it all goes south. He'd really like to see Norrell crash and burn, though, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Okay, no comments. That's... good, right? He's not missing anything startlingly obvious. Arthur is frustratingly difficult to read when he's thinking, but there's little to be done about that. So Eames just continues on.

"After that they deliver the boxes as planned, and hopefully it's 'goodbye Norrell, see you next week to twist the knife.'"

Arthur nods again, still looking down at the map. He has a lot of questions and he wants to make sure he asks them in a way that doesn't piss Eames off. This is why he came to Arthur, though, so he can't get too mad. After a moment he looks up at Eames.

"Where are you getting the fake ballots?"

"It'll have to be on the day; I can't be sure the version that exists now will be the one they send to the polling stations." Eames sighs deeply, already dreading how much work it's going to be, but forging documents is one of the things he's best at.

"I'll be getting a copy of the sheet when they set up in the morning, and then it's a 10 hour day of printing and filling ballots."

Arthur nods, glancing down at the map again. "Wonder where they're getting them printed. It would be best to pay someone off to print extras there, since then the paper and ink quality would match exactly, but it's probably too secure, can't count on them not to cover their tracks or even keep it to themselves..."

Also, probably no one cares about slight variations in paper and ink quality.

"What about the couriers? What happens if they get caught?"

"They don't know it, but they'll be followed the whole way." Best way to have them act natural and also make sure they're not about to turn on anyone of their own volition, "we can haul them off if they get caught out, and accusations of vote tampering are enough of an issue to reschedule the election," he gestures vaguely at the map, "and in the intervening time, one might fancy theorising that Norrell tried to rig the election to keep his seat of power."

This plan is going to be messy anyway, but Arthur frowns as he tries to come up with ways for it to be less messy. Not an easy task. "If that happens, how are you going to keep it from getting linked back to you?"

"I could kill them." He shrugs, thinking on the question. All he really has is the fact that they have a lot more to lose in their short little lives if they give him up then he does.

Arthur sighs - he is clearly not in favour of that as the first option, but he digresses.

"Listen," he says patiently, "without specifics I just see a lot of holes in this plan. You can't be at all these locations at once to make sure it doesn't go south, and if even one of those couriers gets caught you are going to be vulnerable whether they lie for you or not. Plus you're going to need someone who can sense magic at every stage to make sure there aren't witches watching, and you can't be guaranteed that those Night Council employees can do that. You also can't send fae in there just in case someone's there who can sense magic. On top of all of that, they need a good story. One that makes sense, and one they all know by heart, in case more than one of them gets caught."

Ugh.

He's right, of course, but that doesn't make it any less annoying to hear. Eames frowns and crosses his arms as he looks at the map and thinks that over.

"The actual changeover will have to be handled by fae, but I can source some adept witches to deal with everything outside that," he says, voice a little halting as he's saying all this as he thinks it through, "convince the couriers I'm doing this on behalf of Midnight... Prep a memory potion while I'm at it so they don't remember the specifics of who's paying them."

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