Ah.

Which is that she thinks this is a simulated timeline. Neither of them can pump information out of it to the other; their only possibility is to persuade Coil to keep it.

"Pleased to hear it." He smiles very slightly. "I expect you to find him." He thinks he can talk Coil into keeping the timeline. (Provided, of course, this is the first attempt in which they have actually spoken - in the event that Coil has talked to him before, that means that he failed to convince him the first time and this second try will fail disastrously.) Is Coil on the other side of the phone in her pocket, or is there a henchman between them?

"I'm sure I'll find him, even if he won't come back on his own." Coil may or may not be listening personally, but his number is the only contact in the phone regardless and she expect he'll pick up.

Right. He gestures very slightly towards his shoulder holster. His plan is that he holds her at gunpoint and she passes him whatever information is needed through dumb-show while he talks to Coil. Doing this purely by reading Coil's voice is hard, any information she can convey via other means would be appreciated.

(He assumes she can pick up on the fact that he will obviously not shoot her because she is useful and having murdered someone is not useful, and also it would tick off Skitter, who is has the potential to be one of the best assassins in the world, and he isn't dumb. And both of them are better at reading others than lying, at their level.)

She mimes writing things down, which she could totally do as long as she's not too loud about it.

(She rolls her eyes while continuing to not look at bugs at the 'mention' of Skitter, who continues to not be here.)

His opinion of her visibly (to her) just dropped; he assumed she'd thought of that and they were being watched by a henchman of Coil's with a sniper rifle, or some equivalent sight-as-well-as-sound problem. He gestures at his lips; he can read hers.

Well it's not her fault he can't read subtext!

'That'll work,' she doesn't say.

Right. If she could pass him Coil's real name as soon as he's on the phone, he'd appreciate it. Ready?

Shit, using real name sure is trampling over the Unwritten Rules. 

'That's a hell of a button to press.' she mouths, 'he has no idea I know it and I do not want to know what he'd do if he did. End this timeline real fast at least.' 

As far as the Tyrant is concerned, that line was crossed when Coil sent someone to his front door. And he is quite confident he could invent a plausible alternative way of knowing it. But he appreciates the strategic advice.

She will be pissed if Tyrant gets her killed.

'Ready.' she mouths, nonetheless. 

And he draws.

It is possible that, with teenage reflexes and natural grace and a shorter distance between hand and holster, she could outdraw him. It's also possible not, or that if she did she wouldn't hit anything. Aiming well enough to hit takes a lot of rounds downrange, and doing it after a fast draw is harder - 

- But this draw is very practiced, hand flicking under his arm for the gun and then out, flicking the safety as he moves, and then she's facing down a gun-barrel.

"And now, madam, the phone and the gun, please. By the barrel, if you would, and slowly."

'Madam?' she mouths, amused, as she hands over the phone, speeding up her breathing in case that's audible over the phone. Perhaps she could have beat him to the draw, she's not sure. Regardless, that would rather defeat the point.

He slides the screen up to open it, the move nowhere near as practiced as the draw, and dials the only number in the contact book.

(It costs nothing to be respectful.)

There's a brief pause as the call is routed to one of Coil's burners, followed by the phone beginning to ring.

Tattletale texts when she finishes missons instead of calling, this is an anomaly. Before answering Coil opens and scans through the transcript written by his subordinate assigned to listening in on her mission.

ASSET: "Hi! I've lost my dog, have you seen him?"

TARGET: "I'm sorry, I haven't. What does he look like?"

ASSET: "If you see him, would you let me know?"

TARGET: "Of course,"

ASSET: "If you find him there's a reward"

TARGET: "Thank you. But I don't think that's necessary." 

ASSET: "He tends to chase after interesting smells, and this time he got lost I guess. I just hope that he can come home and it will be like he never left."

TARGET: "With luck. I'll let you know if he turns up." 

ASSET: "Okay. I'll probably be back here again later to put more posters up so if you forget those will remind you."

TARGET: "Then I'll expect to see you around."

ASSET: "Oh, I might not come back. It's possible I'll just multitask and put some up now." 

TARGET: "With luck he'll show up at your doorstep tomorrow and it'll all have been for nothing. If you want to leave posters here, there and there look to me like good places to put them up; will you need more?"

ASSET: "Those places will do."

TARGET: "Do you need tape, or do you already have it?"

ASSET: "Already got some."

TARGET: "Pleased to hear it. I expect you to find him."

ASSET: "I'm sure I'll find him, even if he won't come back on his own." 

TARGET: "And now, madam, the phone and the gun, please.  By the barrel, if you would, and slowly."

Clearly there is subtext here, though it's unclear what. The sudden swerve at the end indicates that Mr. Morgan has figured out something, and decided to confront... whoever he thinks is on the other end of this call.

Normally Coil wouldn't bother to answer. He does not, as a rule, talk to anyone of importance without first knowing both what they want most in the world and how to kill them. Of Mr. Morgan, a suspiciously competent inventor and plausible mundane-tech Tinker, he knows neither. His initial attempt at a meeting broke down almost immediately, as Mr. Morgan deduced not only that the man posing as Thomas Calvert was a body double but also that the real Calvert was a supervillain - Coil had ended the timeline immediately, resigning himself to gathering information via other routes rather than take such a risk, even in a throwaway timeline. 

His next attempts had faired far worse, as his mercs failed to capture Mr. Morgan for interrogation, to break into his house to search for information, or to assassinate him with instructions not to consider collateral damage in the slightest. Prior to attempting Tattletale he had even sent Faultline's mercenary group to capture the man, only for the group to go dark and stop responding completely. This transcript, however vague, is the most detailed conversation he has any record of Mr. Morgan having. 

And so, faced with a week of frustration and failure, Coil decides to answer the phone.

"Coil," he says, calm but amused. "So, is this our first conversation?"

This is, approximately, the hardest thing he ever does. His heart is beating faster; he knows he'll start to sweat soon. Clock-fighting is impossible. Trying to steer someone he's never met into folding a winning hand with nothing but his voice... makes clock-fighting look - not easy, nothing makes it easy, but doable. His mind is absolutely intent on the phone, his eyes are on Tattletale for whatever information she can pass him -

Frustrating, and far more unnerving than anything on the transcript. Still, no harm in playing dumb.

"I don't know when we would have talked previously, Mr. Morgan."

 'Knows what you meant, being cautious.' Tattletale commentates silently, her lips moving so rapidly her words would be unintelligible if she were trying to say them aloud.

The man on the far end - Coil, almost certainly - is paranoid, is stressed, and is desperately curious. A desperation that he suspects a previous conversation would have lessened, for almost all previous conversations.

 "Oh, I see we haven't. Then this is the first time for both of us; good. I do dislike unnecessary conflict."

Seeming confirmation that he knows Coil's power, or at least some aspects of it, and the presumptive presence of Tattletale serves to complicate matters.

"As do I." Coil says, non-committal, "Is my employee safe and unharmed?"

'Suspects I might be feeding you information. He doesn't actually care about me.'

"Oh, at present. She's not bad, for a child. Give her a few decades and she might even be qualified for the job you gave her."

He sounds amused, not murderous.

Tattletale flips her new ally off with both hands.