Malaise

Participants:

delilah_icon.gif montag_icon.gif

Scene Title Malaise
Synopsis Interview time! Montag has a few questions. Delilah has some too, but if she wanted hers answered she should've thought to kidnap him first.
Date January 9, 2008

Primatech Research


The interview room in Primatech is as austere as most of the others. The floor is tile, the walls are pale, and the single table and its chairs are simple and bare. A pair of Dasani water bottles rest idle on the table, a camera peers down from one of the ceiling's corners, and a long mirror adorns the far wall — all the decoration to be found here.

Montag is not much more ornate. There are purple circles around his eyes and blue green blotches around the arc of his left cheekbone, but his suit is precisely the same make and model as the one he was wearing the night he bagged Delilah. Stiff-starched, long-limbed, and very black. The white of his collar rises high from the shoulders, buttoned neatly to accomodate the double windsor of his tie. Also black. He has thoughtfully brought his own file folder and pen along with him, and takes his time in closing and locking the door behind himself.

Stuck in a cell, sleeping on and off- that has been most of Delilah's impromptu visit. Almost constantly she has slept, and when awake she has seemed disoriented and weak- and seemingly warm, judging by the bizarre slicks of sweat that had turned her more becoming form haggard.

Before coming here, however, they have basically hosed her down and put her into a long-sleeved set of scrub-like clothing, putting rubber gloves over her hands and a paper mask over her face. Her wet red hair has been pulled back into a bun, strings and bangs the only things surrounding her face. The teenage girl stares longingly at the water bottles on the table, big brown eyes downturned and shadowed by rings. Delilah is fatigued, and what visible skin she has is still flushed.

As the door opens, Delilah does not look up until the sound of it closing comes back to her ears. For a moment, her eyebrows crease over bleary eyes, but she does not seem to have the willpower to keep making that face at the man that brought her in.

Considering her situation and his own, Montag could be in a worse mood than he is. As things are, there is a certain stiff-leggedness to his walk over to the table, and there's a slight delay before he pulls out the chair opposite her for himself. Some experiences do not need repeating.

But there are cameras and people and agents watching, so he folds himself down into the chair, click-clicks his pen once, and flips open the folder without actually looking at her. "Delilah Trafford, born in Manchester, November eleventh, nineteen ninety-one. Brought into the United States at age twelve. Parents deceased. You live with…" he takes a moment to squint at blurred type or unfortunate handwriting, "your Aunt Marien, and work at the Nite Owl. You ride a scooter to and from work every day. Your manners leave something to be desired."

Montag got spit on. That would probably be hilarious to Dee at any other moment. But right now, she can only stare at him out from under stray pieces of red hair. Her hands are balled in her lap, and under the mask her mouth is pulled into a tired frown. Overall, Dee remains dejected.

As he goes about her basic life story, her eyebrows again manage to crease and keep that way, her shoulders squaring and going stiff to either side.

"Your bodily fluids contain a psychoactive toxin that we have yet to identify. Were I capable of remembering yesterday, I would provide you with greater detail, but I'm afraid that task has been passed on into the capable hands of another branch. Unless, of course, you have anything you wish to add on the subject." Still talking down at the file, Montag finally does look up at that, brows lifted with genuine interest for anything she might have to say for herself.

She isn't that eloquent today. A girl of few words, which sound almost like an apt croak from her dry mouth. "…what?" Delilah is nothing but confused, and that is clear.

"Your bodily fluids contain…a psychoactive toxin." Montag eyes her a little sideways, put out as repeats as much, as if he suspects she might be hard of hearing. Surely someone would not fail to notice that they occasionally send people on acid trips via handshake and whatever else seventeen year olds get up to in New York. "You're Evolved."

Delilah opens her eyes wider for that final surprise, where he confirms what she had not worried about for weeks upon weeks. Her shoulders quiver nervously, and she makes a pained noise behind the paper mask. If she were not on those suppressors, said ability would be manifesting once again. "Evolved. My …body fluids?" Okay, ew, first of all. "That can't be right." She's shook hands, she's kissed cheeks- this makes no sense. At least she isn't denying her state of evolution- but there is more to that than meets the ear. Dee did once have that run-in, which might have popped up somewhere along the research line, but after that she browsed Activating Evolution and gave up trying to figure out if it was her. Now? She's increasingly convinced.

"No?" Montag's face pulls long. It's an oddly parental look. One that strongly insinuates he suspects or knows otherwise. "It is not uncommon for evolved individuals in your age demographic to fail to consider the potential danger associated with their newfound abilities." Blah blah blah. He reaches the end of the page he was on and flips it neatly over. "Anyway. Your spit is in the lab now, so persistent denial will do you no good. Cooperation is in your best interest if you would like to return to your regularly scheduled life in a timely manner."

"I didn't- there was one time- I was there when a man had a seizure- I didn't know if it was me-" Nope. She didn't know, 100. Dee pauses, rocking slightly in her seat.

"…Psychoactive toxin? Spi-" Ohno! Her head does tilt a little bit. "I spit on you- did I poison you?" She'd possibly have just kept kicking if she knew her spit was Evil Spit. "Sorry." Her eyes go back to the water bottles.

"Apology accepted. In return, I am sorry for sitting on you." It is a little hard to tell whether or not he's actually sorry. There is a persistent air of irritation about him. The worst of it is, at least, forced out into a sigh when he turns the page again, this time to do some writing of his own. "Do you recall the date of the seizure incident?"

"I think I would be more sorry, though, if you hadn't tackled me in the first place in order to kidnap me." Delilah manages a moment of bitterness past her tired features. Grrgrrokaynomoretootiring. Though she has defiant words, Dee is also making a move to grab the water bottle closest to her. Even without her power dehydrating her, the stress has made her thirsty. "Not really. A couple of months ago, maybe." She returns to muttering.

"What about the location? Anything unusual you noticed at the time? Any unfamiliar feelings, sensations…?" Her accusation of kidnapping finds nowhere to catch along the way of rolling off his back. Montag simply writes, scrawling along at a moderate clip while she collects and makes use of the water. "Furthermore, I don't suppose you happen to know whether or not he survived the ordeal."

"Canal street. It was election day, so I suppose everyone was riled up? Nothing else I can remember." Delilah watches Montag write, tentatively pushing down the mask to drink from the bottle. Her lips and mouth even look dry. She pauses at the second question, lowering the bottle she was then practically chugging from.

"Yeah. Some girl was there, and helped him…maybe she was a nurse." The teenager looks down at the edge of the table again, remembering vaguely how she did try to get in touch with those people, back then. It fell apart, and perhaps that is why Dee has since ignored and forgotten what might have happened.

"Election day. That narrows it…down." Distracted by his own note taking, Montag does not seem too bothered by her pulling the mask down. He does glance up, and does, perhaps, let his eyes linger on her long enough to make certain she isn't about to spit it back in his face, but he doesn't lurch away from the table or anything else so dramatic. "And that is the only incident you recall, despite having regular contact with your family and co-workers." If, apparently, no one else, according to the first sheet, which he checks again with brow knit.

"I don't have time to go'round bein' a teenager and making trouble and getting myself to have awesome supershit powers, Mister Bond. I have to take care of my cousins, I have to work so we can get out of that shithole, and I couldn't even keep going to school, so now I have to take GED tests instead. Forget college." Delilah snorts a little, occupying herself with the water. "Maybe I'm just bad at this too. Or just slow."

"I admire your tenacity, but there is no need to justify yourself to me. I did not become aware of my abilities until I was thirty-two. Years. Old." Montag pecks a period onto whatever it is that he's writing, having long ago perfected the art of writing annoyingly about people where they cannot see. "Nothing to be ashamed of, love. You're hardly in trouble."

"Yeah? Yeah?" Dee glowers, gathering her wits as much as she can. "Then why was I taken?"

"Knowledge is power, and you are an unknown quantity. There are other reasons, of course, but discussing them will not get either of us out of here any quicker. So." So what? Hm. Montag gives the file another once-over, including his own notes this time. When he flicks the file shut, it's with a sense of finality. "While you are here, you and your capabilities will be tested to better our scientific understanding of whatever it is that you do. Then you will be released. As I said before, cooperation is in your best interest. Do you have any questions?"

Delilah has resigned to the fact that even if she makes a fuss, he is right- and she'll get out of this mess faster if she just takes it. "You going to hook me up to machines or some bollocks like that? For how long am I going to be here? I already told you, and as you doubtlessly realize, I have a life. What's my Aunt going to be thinking when I haven't come home? I promised my five year old cousin that I would go tobogganing with him. What about my job? If I don't show up I'll be fired." Lots of questions. Bad question to be asking, Monty.

"…We've been doing this for a very long time, Ms. Trafford. Arrangements will be made. You will not lose your job unless you…piss in a milkshake or something upon your return. And you won't be here for long. Probably." That necessary qualifier is tacked on with a glance over at the mirror, and Montag pauses a beat before pushing up out of his chair. The file goes with him.

She has seen the cop shows. That mirror isn't Really a mirror, is it? Dee follows his glance with her own, making a frown at the glass from her seat, then looking back up to Montag. "Who's in there? What do you mean, probably? That's bull, and I don't care how long you spooks have been at this."

"Us and them," says Montag mildly, which does not actually explain much of anything. His pen is tucked into a pocket at his chest. "If you would like to file a complaint, I'm afraid you will have to speak with someone else. I have little experience in public relations. In the meanwhile I suggest you come to terms with the fact that we have control of every aspect of your life while you are here."

If there is anything that Delilah can't stand, it is something like this. Helplessness even though you know you are capable. In what seems like a burst of adrenaline and a snarl on her features, the redhead stands up and whips the half full bottle at the mirror, where it clatters and splashes its contents onto the glass. Rather than continue flailing or yelling, et cetera, she then balls her hands into fists at her sides and gives Montag a defiant glower. "Then put me back in my cage already. I'm fuckin' tired."

Montag watches the flinging of water against window with amusement that is made all the more infuriating by its understated expression in the form of a small smile. "Security will be along to escort you back to your temporary accommodations shortly. Our janitorial staff would appreciate it if you refrained from making more of a mess of this room in the interim." A gesture of his file encompasses the room around them, just in case she wasn't sure which one, and he turns to cross the distance to the door.


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January 9th: Leper Tackling
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January 9th: In Darkness
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