Participants:
| Scene Title | Consulting The Catipedia |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Abby has questions. |
| Date | May 16, 2009 |
Old Lucy's, Back Room
It doesn't take her long to arrive, crossing Greenwich Village from her building to Old Lucy's after the call she got from Abby. Cat enters the place and heads for the back room. She's curious and concerned as to what this is about. Backpack over shoulder, guitar case across the other, iPhone at hip, clad in shorts and a vintage Clash concert t-shirt. Ahhh, spring in Nuked York City.
First she checks to make sure they're alone in the room, then, "You said the President's office contacted you?"
Abigail's in the back room, denim skirt that comes to her knee's, tank top, red hair back in a ponytail. She wasn't on shift yet but it seemed better to just get here and talk with Cat. So when the encyclopedic woman enters and asks, Abigail digs into her locker for a bottle of water, and sticks her head out to the door for a pint of Cat's usual. "Asked me to meet over coffee. A Tracy Strauss who's the … Special Director of Communications for the President. About forty-five minutes ago"
"Did you meet with her yet, Abby?" Cat asks, calling what she knows of the woman up in memory. There's a Tracy Strauss in the current administration, filling the job Abby mentioned, a former link to Governor Malden… And there's a Tracy Strauss seen on Arthur's list. But, like Gillian and Brian, the name could be fairly common. While many things prove not to be coincidence, it's still possible.
"Like, half an hour or so ago. At a Starbucks." The red head pipes down when Brenda brings in the drink for Cat and then back out before she takes a seat. "What do you know about FRONTLINE?"
"It's a program to create armed forces units of Evolved persons around the country," Cat answers, keeping it to the bits she's seen on the program in news reports, the most recent of which was on May fifth. The text of one is called into her mind and cited from word for word.
"From Washington, D. C.: For the second time since its inception, the FRONTLINE Act is once again hitting Congress. Having garnered favorable support late last year, the FRONTLINE Act would begin the creation of a specialized government task force of Evolved Individuals present in each of the continental United States."
"According to the revised wording of this new draft of the act, groups of anywhere from five to fifteen individuals would be chosen from a pool of talented military and law-enforcement candidates across the country and put through a rigorous training regimen to educate them on their ability and give them necessary real-world training on urban warfare and guerrilla fighting tactics."
"FRONTLINE is the brainchild of Vice President Andrew Mitchell, a part of his Evolved Initiative which, in tandem with the Linderman Act, could reimagine how the American people see the Evolved in their society."
"FRONTLINE has seen strong opposition from Anti-Evolved lobbyists in Congress for months now, that are nervous about the presence of a specialized Evolved military task force, and it is this very anxiety that has made the bill's passing so turbulent."
"Should the FRONTLINE Act pass, the states of New York, Massachusetts, California, Florida and Virginia will be the first five states to appoint FRONTLINE teams, with future expansions progressing at a rate of five states per year."
"The vote on the FRONTLINE Act comes up in Congress at the end of May, and citizens of the initial five states could see formation of FRONTLINE groups as soon as the beginning of July."
Everything that the woman had told her and was likely going to be in whatever she sent Abby. Abby's lower lip is sucked inwards, bit down on in thought. "So what she told me" Which does her no good. She thought Cat might know something that the woman wouldn't ordinarily divulge, Tracy that is, in the hopes that Abigail would say yes. "Nothing else?"
"I can look her up and see what's there," Cat replies. "There's a computer connected to the web here, right?" Or at least she hopes. "I've seen the name, but not taken much time to look deeper than that," she adds. What she doesn't say is having spotted the same name on Arthur's list, or anything about Arthur at all.
"I don't really need to know about her just… about Frontline. Dr. Bianco got me a publicist, and so I'll be meeting with Genevieve tomorrow after church, I just.. I hadn't really paid much attention to the news about FRONTLINE and they want me to endorse the.. bill? The bill being that I'm a.. likable person with a very benevolent ability and been in the public eye recently." She watches the brunette and shakes her head. "No. I mean Isabelle's laptop I think might be upstairs somewhere, but you can ask her where it is, she's living at your place right now. I just.. I don't want to walk in .. uneducated?"
That's a potentially difficult one," Cat replies. "Yes, there does need to be law enforcement, and a lot of honest people work in that field. There are dangerous Evolved also, and the only way to lessen fear is to have units that can handle them. But the other side of the coin is the current policy and behavior of DHS; to imprison people indefinitely without trial, and often for no crime at all. Like Helena and Alexander, others, were."
"So I'd recommend, if you speak about Frontline, you neither endorse nor condemn, simply saying it may be necessary but the public should be very, very wary. Today it's the Evolved, tomorrow it may be some other group the government chooses to single out."
Abigail studies Cat as she speaks, honestly listening to the woman. Her fingers tapping softly on the sides of the water bottle. "They're like SCOUT, from what I can see, only, they're… like Homeland as well. Come in when it's necessary. When there's an evolved involved." Musing quietly. Abigail sighs softly. "Maybe if they had a FRONTLINE, I wouldn't have been in Staten Island, long as I was. You all wouldn't have had to risk your lives to come and get me."
"It's a tricky thing," Cat replies as she sets down gear and takes a seat. "Yes, we need police. Yes, Staten Island needs to be cleaned up. But the current Administration is corrupt. Do you really think the cowardly President Nathan Petrelli, who outed our existence but didn't come clean about his own ability, can be trusted with a police force having so much potential to lock people up just for breathing? Nathan Petrelli is Evolved, and I'm against endorsing anything that makes him look good in any way whatsoever."
"He's… gifted?" Hello. What the hell. Abigail's blue eyes are a little wide. "I didn't know that, but then, I suppose.. a lot of people don't know that. "I wasn't asking if. no, I need to think before I Speak, get my words right. I Just.. wanted to know, what you knew about it. I know about the Company already. One of them comes into the bar now and then. I've met the… Haitian? The Haitian a few times now. I just.. I promised that I'd give it good thought." Abby reaches up, scratching at the side of her nose.
"Cat. She looks like Niki and Jessica"
"I'd like to prove it and expose him, Abby," Cat shares. "But I can't. It'd be a lot of fun to see him take the test on live television and come up positive." She grins, a bit coldly, to think of Nathan being tested like Allen Rickham was. Clearly the same rules don't apply, it was a coup d'etat that installed Petrelli.
Moments later, when Abby says Miss Strauss looks like Niki/Jessica, Cat's eyes widen. The possible coincidence angle of her name being on that list just turned to dust and blew away. Niki Sanders is on that list too. "Tracy Strauss is a real person, who does work for the President, that much is true. I'll be researching her, will find a photo."
Moments later, though, her features curve into something of a grin. "Don't contact her, let her come to you, and if she asks again tell her you'll gladly endorse Frontline if Nathan Petrelli, in the presence of a negator, takes the Evolved test right in front of you. Otherwise, tell her get lost."
"What can he do Cat?" It's a puzzle. Cat knew more, knows more obviously than Abigail. How can you not with everything you read getting stored away like some never ending computer drive.
"I haven't seen him do it," Cat tells her, "but it's either flying or manipulating time and space." It's actually both, with two of Nathan Petrelli being around and Tyler Case's activities, but this goes beyond what Abby needs to know. "I didn't tell you that, of course. I wouldn't, in fact, say that to very many people, since I can't prove it."
"Like Hiro Nakamura." Yes, she'd met him already. Abby gets around and not in the perverted sense. The red head leans forward, elbows on the table. "So glad none of this happened while my parents were up. Bad enough that my Dah met Deckard. I still have to get the stuff from her. She's sending it all by courier, the FRONTLINE stuff, to the apartment and I'm gonna bring it to the publicist and… decide by Monday what my answer will be."
"Like Hiro, yes," Cat confirms. But she still doesn't burden Abby with knowing about Hiro's current situation or the actions of Tyler Case. At least not until she talks with some returnees about who to tell what and they assess whether Abby might be a target of switching powers, for whatever reason.
"Did they have a good visit?" she asks, lifting her stout to drink some of it. Oh, parents, such interesting times when they're around. Two meetings with Father nearly blew Cat's mind.
"I think they did. They think the city is decadent, that I'm… losing touch with where I'm from, they don't like half my friends. They thought I was dating Teo and don't approve of me living with a guy that they haven't met yet. Dah … I told him about Staten Island, not all of it, but, you know, and he dragged me down to the precinct so he could interrogate Detective Doctor Shelby." Abigail wrinkles her nose. "We'll see, I argued with my father the night before. I think if I wasn't twenty, they would have demanded that I go back home with them right then and there." It's disappointing. She needs to please her parents.
"Cat, is it lying.. if you don't tell them? I didn't tell them where I worked, what happened on Staten Island. I didn't tell them that.. I didn't tell them a lot of stuff."
Oh, boy. Her mind flashes back to those meetings with Father, how she went there to lay things on the table and found Father had the same idea. And to her own issues with parents in younger days. "It's hard for parents to let go, sometimes," Cat offers quietly. "They'll always want to see their little girl in you. But the world is what it is, they can't protect you from everything. Father didn't like that I wanted to be a guitarist, and we argued. Mother wanted me to be a trophy wife, breeding stock to mate with a potential future CEO or highly successful politician. I resisted that too. So I started studying music and political science. Nearly sank and failed at first," she muses. "But I kept peace with them as best I could, doing what Father wanted and I wanted at the same time."
"But it isn't lying unless you directly say something you don't believe is true. Some things you have to hold back, as almost a kindness, things they won't be ready to hear."
"They're getting along," Cat replies. "There's some things to happen, like working out ways for them not to get caught, of course. I need to talk with a few, Isabelle among them, about handing this place back to her. And Alexander moving in with you. But we have ways," she adds. "Do your parents know you heal?"
"They know. They used to help me with it. Always tried to find people that I could help. THey found out about it cause my Dah nearly took his leg off one day chopping wood. I hadn't told them what I could do. What the Lord let me do, I think my Momma knew. She just ignored it. But, I fixed my Dah. We would go to where there were people who were hurt, like Hurricane Katrina, and other places near us. Or the people at church. Sometimes to the children's ward at the hospitals and they'd have me help. They didn't want me coming here after the Midtown but… God calls and moves the spirit to do what it must and who am I to turn away when there's a need? I think they wish I was back home and only healing those who are deserving. That believe that it's God who works through me, but… I'm not them."
She's realizing that now, more than ever. "I'm not them, and I won't ever be them, and it's me who has to live with this gift. If I only healed those who believed… well. I wouldn't be so tired now would I?"
"You're the Red Cross among us, Abby," Cat replies simply. "They don't turn anyone away, and neither do you. This is your life, also, and whatever you need to keep peace with your parents in that regard is your business."
"I personally wish you weren't opposed to public spotlights. You're a healer, and we Evolved need positive stories to help chase away fear of us. Can you be sure your gift wasn't given by God to not just heal individuals, but to be a beacon of light and help heal a nation in the process?"
"But that's your decision to make. I respect it." She gathers her gear and moves toward the door. "I'll be researching Frontline and Tracy Strauss soon. Take care, Abby."
"Cat," Abigail stands up when she moves to the door. "If I go into the public spotlight… I can't … stop and heal you. I can't help heal Phoenix or anyone else who can't afford the public scrutiny. I like my privacy, my small life, my quiet corner of the world. If I were to suddenly willingly thrust myself into the spotlight… I'd loose that. My life wouldn't be my own anymore."
She just nods. "All choices carry consequences. And it doesn't matter what I think on that score, it's just one opinion among many. Decisions are yours. Just be you, and let the chips fall where they may." Cat steps out of the back room, on her way to tend matters of business which just seem to expand constantly. Her life is the result of her choices for the most part, and has dangers, trials, heartaches. But it's still better than the absolute hell of practicing corporate law.