Call Me Evelyn

Participants:

cardinal_icon.gif cat_icon.gif helena_icon.gif

Scene Title Call Me Evelyn
Synopsis Cardinal meets with Cat and, for the first time, Helena.
Date May 25, 2009

Ruins Of Midtown


The text message heralding someone's return wasn't unexpected, and was quite actually a welcome thing. Things reported in the news, as well as what he had said to her at a prior meeting, have given Cat quite a few questions to ask. And perhaps things to share from her loads of recently garnered knowledge.

She has something else to accomplish as well: introducing someone else who had been out of town for a while to a person of interest and usefulness.

So, to kill two stones with one Mr. Redbird, Cat is at a neutral spot somewhere amid the ruins of Midtown as 13:35 shows on her iPhone display. It's a spot with plenty of shadows, and also swaths of bright light. She waits for both of them to arrive.

Helena knows Midtown's ruins pretty well. She ran around them like a street rat for the better part of a year, and when Phoenix was holing up in the library it was frequently scavenged. The weather is beautiful, unsurprisingly, as she makes her way over to Cat, jeans, a tank top, and a green trucker's cap pushed down on her head. "Hey." she says casually as she steps up alongside the brunette.

"I hope you appreciate me coming out here at this ungodly hour," Cardinal's voice comes from the ruins, his form leaning back against a sagging wall of bricks that was once a building, settled comfortably into the shadows from which he'd just emerged. A leather jacket, jeans, a grey t-shirt worn beneath. Arms folded across his chest, a wry smile twitches to his lips, "I try not to come out until well after sunset. All this light kills my eyes."

She glances casually at Helena as she steps up next to her, Cat's eyes hidden behind fashionably dark lenses. "Hey." The taller and much less blonde woman is in shorts and a tank featuring Janis Joplin's image today.

Cardinal's voice induces a slight turn of her head in the direction he spoke from, and a dry chuckle. "What can I say, Mr. Redbird? My friend needs to work on her tan, after all. And she needs sunlight around so she can be sure you won't try to bite and suck out all her blood."

"How was your… journey?"

Helena snorts lightly, and looks at her arms. She is a bit pale, and glares somewhat sidelong at Cat for the mention of it, but not with any real ill will. Her eyes go to Cardinal, and she gives him a quiet nod of greeting. She doesn't seem to have anything to say just yet, though.

"Hi." Cardinal's fingers lift from his bicep to wriggle a bit of a wave at Helena, "Who's your friend, kitty-cat?"

He hesitates a moment, then notes, "I'm sure you saw the news. Between Monroe and Magnes…"

"That wasn't Adam Monroe," Cat replies. "That was Jake, who also works for Fedor. It saddens me to see him also being in the mix with all this. But it isn't terribly surprising. Tell me, please, he isn't really on board with Adam and Ethan, that this doesn't go all the way to and include Fedor."

"I've seen other news. Kaito Nakamura is dead. Hiro's sister was kidnapped. This Mr. Varlane, who told a story that sounds a lot like Abby's with another name, appears to have allied with the Nakamuras."

She raises the sunglasses to show her eyes now, in them is pain and a controlled rage, fueled by vivid memory. "Ethan was in the mix. That says to me Kimiko is likely missing all of the fingers on one hand and worse, and will likely be found as burned bones in a field sometime next month. They'll have demanded a price the Nakamuras can't pay. Won't pay. If, that is, there are even any Nakamuras still alive."

She leaves it to Helena as to what she will and won't say about herself.

"Call me Evelyn if you like." Helena suggests, shoving her hands in her pockets. Call her Evelyn, which may not be exactly who she is. But it'll do, right? Her eyes widen faintly at this news, apparently new to her. She remains quiet otherwise, unsure of what other part Cat wants her to have in this exchange.

"No." Cardinal gives his head a brief, tight shake, "Monroe approached a number of people… Jake was just another one of them. Kimiko Nakamura's already been released, as far as I know, fairly uninjured. Kaito's dead, I don't know Hiro's status - I haven't heard one way or the other."

A pause, and he notes in brittle tones, "I was assured that Hiro recieved my warning."

"He was told what was coming his way, or should have been. I sent the message to his sister, as he hadn't yet established a contact method with me himself." Cat's face is stern, the subject of Ethan and people involved with Ethan are loaded for her. "Thank you, Mr. Cardinal, for that."

She moves forward. "So Adam, working for Arthur Petrelli, rounded up a group of freelancers. Most of them haven't your sense of decency, I presume. It's surprising to hear Kimiko's free and unharmed. Ethan is simply a sadist. The world would be a better place if he died slowly with all his bones smashed one by one."

"I believe there was something to be stolen from Kaito, also, for Arthur. Was it, to your knowledge?"

This provokes a reaction from Helena. "Wait. That wasn't supposed to happen…" she trails off. Yet. That's the word she doesn't say. She has a suspicion as to what Arthur was trying to get his hands on. "More to the point, did Adam succeed in getting whatever it was?"

"Ethan wasn't on the plane," Cardinal says with a tight shake of his head, "I didn't know about Kimiko Nakamura until afterwards, though. I'm guessing she was just a way to lure Hiro or Kaito out into the open."

He tilts his head a bit to one side, his brow furrowing a bit. "Your turn, before I answer that. Who's Arthur Petrelli, aside from someone with the Fascist's last name? I knew Adam was workin' for someone, I just didn't know who."

"He's a key figure in a large situation," Cat replies. "The head of a corporation about to make a power play. The Fascist is his son. He and several interesting people go back a long way. Many of them are among the founders of an entity called simply the Company. Linderman is one of them. Angela Petrelli is another. Arthur and the others, at least most of them, had a falling out so large he faked his death. It was in the papers a few years back. Prior to faking his own death, as part of what he says was a necessity because his wife tried to kill him, he was a lawyer for Linderman."

Her demeanor shifts slightly, the rage and pain become less evident, perhaps connected to being told Ethan might not be in Adam's camp.

Helena snorts a little bit. "The Fascist? You mean Nathan?" She tries to refrain from rolling her eyes. "Arthur Petrelli's an incredibly dangerous man." she says instead. "He's an ability thief. If he touches you, he can take it from you. He may or may not be able to give it back, though he claims he can." She rocks back and forth lightly on her heels. "He sort of gives off this air of benevolent dictator, but things could go very wrong with him."
Public> Hey There Delilah perches.

"You almost sound like a fan," Cardinal observes a bit dryly, regarding Helena for a moment before shrugging one shoulder and turning his attention back to Cat, "Makes sense. Apparently, Monroe had a falling out too, since he's on a 'kill all the leaders of the Company' kick right now… he doesn't seem to be in Petrelli's camp as much as a freelancer himself who hasn't decided where to stand just yet. Anyway. What he was after was, he claims, part've a formula to give people Evolved abilities."

She looks from one to the other, listening and thinking as they speak, processing things. "So…" Cat eventually muses, "Adam may eventually turn on Arthur and try to kill him too, since he's a founder. I'd like to learn as much as possible about him, the source of his beef with the others. I find it interesting, what you told me about him having been with the Vanguard, Mr. Cardinal. We'd not seen his name on any roster of that organization, though it's true the thing had hundrerds of people, maybe more, around the world. How'd you learn he was involved?"

But back to Arthur. "That's what it does, the formula. It works, from what I've learned, and has been hidden away for a quarter century. Arthur's been trying to recreate it, the efforts haven't worked, so he decided to steal back the one that did."

"The first formula, it was developed by the Company in the eighties. Failed versions caused test subjects to die by melting. The same thing happened to test subjects in recent efforts sponsored by Arthur."

Helena lets out a soft hiss at the news that Arthur has the formula. Her smile for Cardinal is wry. "Less than a fan, you might say. But who he is now may not be who he becomes." Whatever that means. "I suppose the question becomes how each given situation serves us. Arthur gaining the formula and manufacturing it versus letting Adam possibly remove him from the board, if he can."

"I don't know if he was… formally a member," admits Cardinal with a slight shake of his head, "Ethan mentioned their acquaintance with Volken— " A snort at the name, though they'd never met. He'd heard enough, apparently. "— and when I confronted him about it, he admitted to having been involved. He tried to downplay his involvement in the whole… viral business, though." A vague flicker of his hand through the air, dismissive, "Of course, he's a sociopath. Impossible to tell if he's lying."

He shrugs one shoulder, noting, "He'll probably save Arthur for last, if anything. Question is, what's this guy plan on doing with the formula?" Helena gets a glance, one brow arching, "You a precog?"

"A sociopath who regenerates," Cat's eyes close, "that would explain him turning against the founders. It seems eventually he proved darker than even they could tolerate, and the Company is a very dark operation by itself." She opts not to share that he'd been locked up by that Company and among the people Helena and others freed last fall. What Arthur plans is addressed instead.

"He wants to create an army of super-soldiers and secure himself a place of power, possibly under his own name, behind a puppet, or both in combo. The word dictator very much applies: Having the formula gives him power, and power corrupts, whether or not he already is. My bet is on already. He was with the Company and Linderman. The benevolent part depends on whether or not he feels threatened, as it does in most similar cases. And on what he maybe needs to do in order to get power in the first place. Which he's right now working toward."

"The Frontline program… If it passes under the current Administration, it's a potential Gestapo as it is. The possible goal of people who managed to install Nathan as President. If Arthur makes the formula, he gains power by having the means to produce plenty of people for Frontline. It probably doesn't matter now that Roger Goodman is dead," she comments, "because with the formula he can get the Government to attack and dismantle the Company anyway."

"Maybe, maybe not." Helena says. "The Company's been around for a long time, and they may have precautions from this scenario." She eyes Deckard a moment and shrugs. "Not so much." she says, of his question about her being a precog. "We still may or may not have the fugitives to deal with. And that one, Tyler Case? He needs to be stopped, made to fix all the people he's screwed up."

"I heard about that." Cardinal's lips purse in a brief frown. The fact that he was too slow to locate Case before everyone else did still rankles, obviously. It's a matter of profgessional pride." He shakes his head, then, a brief and tight motion before noting, "Monroe said this was only part of the formula. Which means there's another part of it somewhere. Does this Petrelli have it, or is it in someone else's hands?"

"That's unknown, Mr. Cardinal, and very important to find out," Cat replies. "There are three parts, one of which we know he has. The other two he may already have, there's no indication he's looking for them. That's troubling. But I know where to ask. I believe Father will tell me. Father, it turns out, isn't just an insurance man. He's also a former Company scientist and now working with Arthur. As is Mother."

"Yes," she also agrees with Helena. "That too. I think he may have done all the switching Edward asked him to, though. He's not struck in some time."

And while they speak of these matters with Cardinal, she runs snippets of earlier conversations with him over in her mind. He asked once about a Maury Parkman, no relation. There's a Maury at Pinehearst, she met him on her visit there, and the image is in her head. Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. But the way families are turning up tied into all of this, one never knows. "Mr. Cardinal… that person you asked about. Maury Parkman. Find your contact, the one asking about him, ask if the guy is older, clean shaven, overweight, and mostly bald."

"The future Edward, you mean?" asks Helena for clarification. "The Edward I saw seems to be the current one, and he's working for Arthur as well." She shakes her head. "I didn't see anyone matching that description while I was there."

As the two speak about various Edwards, Cardinal looks between the pair, his brow furrowing a little. "I get the feeling I'm missing something here," he murmurs audibly, before nodding a little to Cat's words, "If I can find him. Liz turned up documents suggesting that this is Matt Parkman's father, from HomeSec, at least."

He grunts, then, "Alright. If you get word of where the other parts are, let me know, I may be able to acquire them."

Her eyes roll. Matt's father. Not surprising. "Family connections keep turning up in this," Cat mutters. "Thank you, Mr. Cardinal. I'll ask Elisabeth for a photo, maybe she turned one up." Then she turns toward Helena. "Yes. The future Edward."

Back to Cardinal. "The Maury I met looked like he could be the heavy man in that painting you photographed, all shadowed in." She doesn't elaborate on the present and future versions thing, that's left for Helena to cover if she desires.

Helena shakes her head. "That's a guy named Doyle. The heavy one." she supplies. How does she know all this? She remains silent otherwise. As far as she knows, she's just hear to listen to the information being exchanged.

"Mm." Cardinal looks between the two once more, and then asks, "So. You ever recover everyone who disappeared during that lovely fuck-up at Moab?"

"Doyle," Cat repeats, eyes on the blonde. "What does Doyle do, is that all of his name?" Cardinal's question is heard, and answered cryptically. "We've had some news."

Helena shakes her head. "I don't know." she admits. "But there might be records somewhere." They can always ask Wireless to see if she can find anything. She then turns to look at Cat. She starts to open her mouth and offer her own assessment, but then shuts it when she hears Cat being vague.

The pair are regarded from behind those dark shades as they're vague, and Cardinal says quietly and just a bit tightly, "I had friends in Moab. I was assured they were going to be rescued from that hole." A pause, "I haven't heard a god-damn thing other than 'nobody knows what the fuck happened, but people were tossed around'. We supplied air support, and you can't say I haven't been a good damn source of information. I'd like some answers here, Cat."

"That was you?" Helena asks in reflexive surprise. She takes off her cap - not that it's anymore recognizable to Cardinal, but now he can see her face. The scar under her chin is a bit faded, he'd need closer inspection to see it. "Who are you looking for?" she asks quietly. "I can tell you if I saw them."

There's little for Cat to say here, the conversation is between Helena and Cardinal now unless she recognizes a name or description he gives.

As the hat's removed, Cardinal's attention shifts to the woman. "Not me personally," he admits with a shrug of one shoulder, a hint of an edge to his tone now, "That was the Chief in the air, but he's with me." A pause, then, "Isabelle. Firestarter. Brown hair, tattoos."

"Alive and well. Probably back at her old haunt." Helena says immediately. "Anybody else?"

"Good." Cardinal relaxes a bit, his head shaking as he leans back against the wall, "That's the only one that I really give a shit about. I don't particularly feel like playin' Twenty Questions here, so…" A faint smirk, "Guess I'll have to be happy with what crumbs you all're willing to toss me. Anything else you two need?"

It's not a pleasant thing for her, keeping all this back, but these are personal rather than operational matters, and Helena is present to speak for herself, so Cat follows that lead. There is nothing, however, about her which suggests distrust of Cardinal or appears to advise withholding.

Helena takes a deep breath. "As far as I know, Isabelle wasn't tortured or anything like that while she was there. She fought well during the breakout and I've seen her since." She doesn't go into the whole future thing. Isabelle might, though. "Best I can tell you is check in at Old Lucy's. Most of everyone got out. I know a few were killed, and as far as I know, the whole building was raized, but I might be wrong. I hope I'm right."

"As far as Fedor knows, it was," Cardinal nods, tightly, "I'll check in on her… if nothing else, I'm sure she's been in touch with Abigail." He shakes his head, then, hands lifting to adjust the set of his jacket, "Guess I'll see you two around, then."

"I'm hoping to see Isabelle myself and see to handing Old Lucy's back to her. The issue of being a fugitive could be a problem, though. But we've ways to give her a new face if she wants. Even then, it worries me of she goes there. It was known as owned by her, DHS could come looking and pay close attention to anyone new found there."

And Abby. "I need to see her sometime, and ask what her decision was about endorsing Frontline. Tracy Strauss asked her to, and Abby seems to think if there was Frontline, something might've been done about John Logan. I advised her to stay away from anything that makes Nathan Petrelli look good, or better yet, tell Tracy she'd do it only if Nathan comes out and takes the Evolved test right in front of her, and on camera."

Helena nods. "I need to catch up with Abby too, about that healing I asked her to do." Helena says, and then, "But if there's not much more? I should start heading back. Getting back to the island isn't always cake."

"Given that there was FBI there the last time I called, I'm pretty sure Abigail's already slipped into the government's hands," Cardinal observes, in rather disapproving tones, his head shaking tightly, "So be careful when you're dealing with her. She wouldn't hurt a fly, but she's naive enough to let someone close to her that might."

Then a glance to Helena, a brow arching over the edge of his shades. "Staten?"

"Has Magnes Varlane come back to the US? If so, I'd like to find him, or get him a message we can offer him shelter, maybe a new face. For all we know, whatever security forces Japan has might've locked him away," Cat states. "If he came back, he's in danger from both DHS and the Company. Face and name spread all over, using an ability… They'd not ask questions, just stick him in a deep dark hole. Then there's the issue of possible extradition for the whole thing in a foreign country."

From there, Cat goes back to the subject of Abby.

"FBI? Felix?" That would be less troublesome, but no name was mentioned. "I think she might be fixated on John Logan and the situation on Staten Island, not seeing the bigger picture. Not able to get that making Nathan look good, or endorsing a potential Gestapo, are Very Bad Ideas. And we are careful dealing with Abby," Cat asserts, "we don't tell her about most things, and we don't let her know where our operating locations are. As she herself said, she can't give away what she doesn't know."

Helena simply nods to Cardinal, granting him a faint Mona Lisa smile. Leaning against some rubble, she's content to listen as the pair continue.

"I haven't heard from him, we're not all that acquainted," admits Cardinal with a shake of his head, one hand tossing up, "Honestly, in my opinion, he's a danger to himself and everyone around him. He's got all the common sense of a lemming leaping off a cliff." A slightly disgruntled tone to the last, "Predictable, useful, but ultimately you can't trust him to do anything but be blatant. Anyway."

The other woman's considered a moment, and then he notes to Cat, "We're going to be working on setting up a heliport on Staten, maybe some other facilities, and start shipping in supplies. Once we have that up and running, we can move people back and forth easily enough too."

She nods, listening as Cardinal answers. His words on Magnes cause her to grimace, but Cat still opines "He was helping, or trying to help, friends. We should at least try to pull him out of the fire." Great, she thinks. Another one like Colette used to be. Still is? Candy too, potentially.

"We've got a few boats," Cat shares, she provided them. One is Helena's personal transport, if she'd have taken it. "Having Fedor's footprints on the island is good too. Ways to get around the absence of bridges and ferries with legitimate businesses. And perhaps eventually offering jobs, things that start to dislodge the worst of criminal factions having so much sway there."

"And I should tell you of another thing on our radar. We're working to infiltrate Humanis First. You might've seen footage of that demonstration where someone whipped up a crowd to challenge Tracy Strauss and got caught on camera? Stupid move, that. She's a Moab refugee, named Candy. Candace Mary Allard, a hydrokinetic. She spent a short time in my safehouse, but after she drew attention to herself we asked her to see if she could turn it around and work her way into that operation. Since she apparently has a rapport with them." Her eyes roll.

"That's the plan," Cardinal affirms with a tight, short nod at the observation to Cat's words, "I've got some other ideas towards that goal, too… hopefully they work out." He pauses, then, lips pursing in a frown, "Strauss. I saw that footage… ah, she looked just like another woman I've had contact with before, name've Jessica. You heard of her?"

Oh, yes. "Niki and Jessica Sanders, sometimes Gina," Cat replies. "She's got MPD. There's been a history of her assaulting some of our people for whatever cracked reason she'd claim. Niki is the rational personality, but a bit on the timid side. Jessica seems to exist for Niki's protection, emerges when things get dicey. Jessica's psycho and murderous. Gina, from what I saw, is a teenage persona. Party girl. We last saw her a week or so back, not sure if she's sane now or not. But Tracy Strauss isn't a persona, she's very real."

Huh. "Huh." Cardinal scratches the side of his jaw, bemused, "I suppose that explains why she's such a fucking psychotic lunatic. This 'Strauss' woman related to her, or something? Sister? Or just a huge fuckin' coincidence?"

"I need to confer with some people," Cat replies sincerely, "on how to proceed, but there may be a link between Tracy and Pinehearst." There's that, and the not so much wanting to share her own story of being a formula child yet. Yet.

"Hm." Cardinal's chin tips in a slight nod, pausing, "Pinehearst? What's that?" Hey, she mentioned Arthur, but not the name of his particular enterprise!

"It's Arthur Petrelli's company," Cat provides. "Arthur is still legally dead, and we have to be careful who knows he isn't, of course. It would be very bad if he thought we might work against him. Not a guy one wants to have see one coming, y'know?"

"Not with that power you mentioned," Cardinal admits with a tight shake of his head, "I'll keep it in mind. So, we've got a power-mad guy that wants to build himself an empire of super-soldiers, who's related to the president… we've got the Company lurking in the shadows… we've got Monroe with his insane vendetta… and then we've got Humanis First starting up shit." A pause, and he notes dryly, "And that's just the tip of the iceberg. We truly do live in interesting times."

"Yes," Cat answers. "The Chinese curse got us, indeed. Pay attention to the news, Mr. Cardinal. Make note of how much violence is happening around the world, not just here at home. See if you spot a global trend." At that point, she seems prepared to depart. "It'd not be a bad thing if you checked out Candy Allard and her Humanis First infiltration sometimes. With or without her around, they bear watching. It's always best to have multiple eyes on racist blowhards, at least some of whom want to kill us for existing."

"Oh, sooner or later there'll be a war," Cardinal says in the tones of someone who's long since accepted a fact, his head shaking a little, "I'll be ready when it comes. Me and mine. I might check her out, sometime, or send someone their way. I've got business of my own to take care of, though." A faint smile, and he turns, shadow darkening about him, and only him, "I'll be in touch. You've got my number if you need me."

Shadow to darkness, and then he spills across the wall like a stain of night, before gliding smoothly away into the surrounding shadows of the ruins.


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