Two Different Paths

Participants:

bella_icon.gif jet_icon.gif joseph_icon.gif

Scene Title Two Different Paths
Synopsis Refrain recalls and precognitive visions clash in Bella's latest experiment, and Joseph makes a break for it when Dema is inside Jet's trance.
Date December 11, 2009

Refrain Testing Facility

A converted warehouse, secretly located, where Bella performs her experiments.


There's someone else here. This is the realization both subjects C-1 and J-2 make very quickly. Jet was the first to notice, since Dema's footfalls, audible if just barely through the fabricated walls, were accompanied for the first time by another pair. At first she might have assumed it was the veiled Madame, but they were too heavy… and then she heard an unfamiliar voice, a male voice, undistorted, a clear confirmation of the suspicion.
For Joseph it may not be as great a surprise, being a latecomer. Still, it is clear that he is not the only person Dema visits while making his rounds of the facility. Someone else gets taken to the chamber Joseph has recently become acquainted with, the large room with the MRI machine he was slid into, his brain thoroughly scanned. Their cells are not adjacent, which will make communication difficult… but the fact remains:
There is someone else here.
So both subjects hear the ever-more familiar approach of Dema, but it is Jet who hears the knock most clearly, since it is her door he is knocking on. Joseph hears only a muffled shadow of it.
Dema unlocks Jet's door and steps inside, slowly, giving her a chance to interrupt or call out if she's having a private moment. Barring that, however, he moves into her room. It's that time again.

Jet wasn't having a 'private moment' as she has yet to be naughty with this body. Holding hands with Dema doesn't count! And so when he knocks on the door, she's already ready, having heard his footfalls. She's perched on the edge of her bed, and when Dema opens the door she flashes a smile at him, a warm, and very pleased smile. "Dema," come her soft words, "Hello."

The gurgle of water down the porcelain bowl upon the lever being pushed is almost enough to drown out the sounds of knocking when they occur. But the rapraprap on a door that isn't Joseph is just late enough to be heard, the pastor glancing towards his own as he's making his way back for the cot. Pauses. Redirects to pad bare feet on the cement in an easy wander towards the hallway.

It's sheer boredom and curiosity than true paranoia or interest that has him try to catch anything more than the sounds of the mysterious other patient being visited. He toys with the hem of his plain shirt, staving off ever present anxiety with this one glimmer of activity.

Dema doesn't look particularly pleased, in contrast to Jet's tone and appearance. Ever since the amphetamine experiment and Jet's resultant seizure he's looked increasingly weary, though only when his guard is down. Her warm greeting produces just such a moment. One can see the fatigue, creasing his face, making him look years older. He extends his hand towards her, as always. "Today is different," he says, "Another subject is involved. You will recognize this man. I tell you so that you will not be shocked or surprised. Please, remain calm. You will want a level emotional state."

A soft chuckle from Jet as she stands from the bed, slipping her hand into his own like always, her fingers lacing. "I will not be shocked," come her soft words, "Nor surprised. It was only a matter of time." A faint smile to Dema at this as she begins to walk from her room, pulling him along.

Dema and Jet move past Joseph's room on their way to the main testing chamber. There's no sign, to Jet, of the other subject's presence. Things seem very routine, with Dema directing her to lie down on the MRI slab, attaching the restraints and fixing the headbrace that lets Jet know she's going to have her brains imaged via magnetic resonance - these machines cost millions of dollars, and this project is going to try and get its money's worth! Once Jet is secure, Dema touches her hand lightly. "I will return," he says, then leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. The camera that sits on one side of the room, the eye of the Madame, is presently Jet's only company. On surgical tray that sits nearby rests the usual fresh syringe of Refrain, but it's been joined by what looks like a fairly expensive walkie-talkie. The camera swivels slightly, focusing on Jet.
Now it's Joseph's turn. Dema's distinctive knock comes at the door, followed by the polite pause, then the 'snick' of the lock. The large men steps inside.

A soft smile when he touches her hand, her eyes trailing after him as he leaves her. Then she looks up at the camera, starring into it for a long time before she simply sticks her tongue out at it. There.

Upon the sound of foot steps walking away, the pastor had returned to his cot, and there he sits now upon Dema's arrival. Feet up on the thin if not entirely unpleasant mattress, arms around his knees and staring at the wall just beside him before the orderly steps inside. Black eyes turn to him and, working on automatic, Joseph uncurls himself, feet finding the ground to stand up with his hands bracing against the bedding as he goes.

He's been well-behaved. No one's questioned it, and he hasn't explained, as much as silent resentment takes up the space between answered questions and needling requests, passive aggressive conversation. "There ain't an inch of me that's gone without study," is a mild exaggeration, one hopes, but delivered pointedly.

"Today is different," Dema says, just as he said to Jet. His great bulk obscures the door, hands folded in front of him in a way that appears to be habitual, "You will be using your ability on another subject. You will recognize the subject. Please do not be alarmed. You only need to use your ability, twice. Are you ready to do this?"

He swallows, once, somewhat unshaven skin shifting with the movement where stubble has, quite slowly, begun to grow in patchy. A hand grips the opposite elbow, and Joseph takes a few compliant steps forward, a willingness to follow. There's no verbal response, not yet, head ducking as if trying to ward off being prompted.

Dema steps to one side, letting Joseph go first; he's not going to show is back to a prisoner. As soon as Joseph steps past him the assistant moves to follow him closing Joseph's cell door behind them as they go. It's a quick trip down the hallway to the MRI chamber, and for the first time since Ricky L.'s first meeting Joseph and Jet share a room. Dema closes the door behind them, and motions to the slab where Jet lies, bound. "Please, stand next to Christine. Christine, Joseph is now with us. He is, like you, having the linkage gene. Joseph, please explain your ability to Christine."
Dema waits just long enough for Joseph to start doing as he is told before he moves over to the surgical tray and switches adjusts a knob on the short range radio.
Jet looks to the man now, watching him move over to him before she gives him a faint smile. "I remember you," come her soft words, "You tried to help me keep the peace at the meeting. From that potty mouth female." Then back to Dema she looks, "Will you ever ask me on a date, Dema?"

And he does recognize her, a sort of grim confirmation rather than surprise or shock, though he manages to quirk a smile at that comment. Moving beside the strapped down woman, he roams his eyes over her then back up towards Dema, a long hesitation extending out before he talks past her question, voice coming out stilted. "I touch you, and you'll see your future. In symbols and ideas, rarely is it literal, but it'll mean somethin' to you. You'll go blind and deaf to all except the vision, but it won't hurt. It— "

His voice hitches, and he takes a breath, looking towards Dema. "I'm sorry — I can't. This— it ain't got nothin' to do with Refrain, and I haven't done this in a long time, a real long time. They're visions from God, not— some experiment."

Dema looks to Jet as she poses her question. He catches her eyes, but makes no motion or sign beyond the very basic sign of recognition. He heard her, but he can't answer. Not now.
As a matter of fact, he doesn't answer Joseph either. The camera whirs softly as it shifts and pans back to catch all three people in the room, and the radio crackles into life. The voice that comes over it is distorted in that sinister way unique to voice transformation software - it is only vaguely human sounding.
"Joseph, this is the project director speaking. I respect your reservations, but this is necessary. Your cooperation is strongly recommended, and will be greatly appreciated."
The radio goes quiet, waiting for Joseph's reply. Dema's very posture is of one of someone trying to fade into the background, as he tends to whenever the Madame takes the helm.

"Joseph," comes her soft voice, "Joseph just do it. I want to go home." A faint smile to the other man, and perhaps a faint misting of her eyes as well. "Just do it, then we can go back to our cells." Nothing more from the possessor, just laying there still.

The crackle of the voice over the radio has him— not quite startling, but his shoulders curl inwards, as if in aborted effort to duck and hide. Exasperation angles the lines of his expression, taking a breath as if maybe he was planning to argue, but Jet's voice cuts through easily enough, sealing his mouth shut into a line of contempt not for her but for this entire situation. He can understand the sentiment, enough that he silently puts a hand on her arm without any particular physical manifestation of whatever inner struggle occurred previously.

There's no trigger of power, not yet, looking to Dema for whatever signal is required.

The camera has caught Joseph's assent. The radio speaks again. Its tone, what little of it can be discerned, is businesslike. "Assistant, activate the MRI. Prepare for the control session." Dema nods and reaches over to the interface on the side of the great white machine. It begins to hum, pulling Jet into itself, the slab she lies upon like the tongue of some unfathomable maw. It's easily humdrum for Jet by now; this has happened so many times. The machine starts to make its loud series of clicks, a sure sign that it's begun imaging. The director's voice snarls through the air. "Joseph, please begin."

The hum of the machinery, the bright lights of the examination room and the machine itself, all of these vanish of Jet's eyes and ears. She can still feel Joseph's hand on her wrist, the restraints on her body, but everything she sees and hears is something else.

The hallway is long, mottled cement like their cell floors slapping cold against her feet as she runs. A young girl, edging out of her preteen years and one she's never seen before, sits crossed legged at the corner where she seems to be drawing with all the whimsical attention of a girl much younger than her. It's a marker over a map, however, rather than crayons and paper, but there's no time to study it. Just keep moving.

Jet watches her hands go out to beat back the double doors in front of her, staggering into a room rather than the freedom she'd been presumably aiming towards. Her own body lies upon a cot, in a deep sleep, and the shadowed figure that looms over her is nothing like Dema, nothing like anything one would expect to see down here. Nothing normal, either, with robes as thick as wool that flow like silk, stars dancing in its depth, and between fingers bathed in that same nighttime colour, the syringe of glowing blue lowers down to her waiting arm.

There's another one, in the meanwhile reality, as her vision extends on for the next minute or so, and Joseph's gaze finally tracks over towards the waiting syringe of Refrain. An alertly suspicious glance cuts to Dema.

Jet is oddly calm for this, no doubt having done this type of thing before. Joseph's touch is netural to her arm, though her flesh is slightly cold, perhaps she's getting a cold. And thus she's running in her mind, running and seeing the girl with the map who gets an odd look. And then running more. Everything plays out as it's shown to her, small twitches of her fingers as is feeling her pushing the doors open. Who is to say what is reality or not reality, these days, she's not even for sure.

Dema stands guard over the syringe and the radio, a solemn vigil as the machine picks up each little alteration in Jet's cranial activity, revealing the material nature of those visions and symbols, the firing synapses, the shifts in electromagnetic charge that somehow, somehow, allow Jet to gaze into her future. The machine lack all of Joseph's reverence. It's gaze, like the gaze of the camera behind him, is utterly without regard for the experiential content. Just more facts to be tallied, levels to be measured.
When the vision ends, the MRI picks up on it, catching the return to neural normality. The director's voice intrudes once more. "Thank you, Joseph. Assistant, prepare for the injection. Christine, would you tell us what it is you saw?" A series of quick addresses. Dema moves to comply, readying a cotton swab with sterilizing alcohol. The numerous needle marks are starting to take their toll; Dema must search for a suitable vein.

Jet is oddly calm for this, no doubt having done this type of thing before. Joseph's touch is netural to her arm, though her flesh is slightly cold, perhaps she's getting a cold. And thus she's running in her mind, running and seeing the girl with the map who gets an odd look. And then running more. Everything plays out as it's shown to her, small twitches of her fingers as is feeling her pushing the doors open. Who is to say what is reality or not reality, these days, she's not even for sure.
And then the voice on the radio is heard and she actually gives an eyeroll, "Nothing. A young female coloring with markers on a map. I was running through a hall, much like the one leading to my cell."

Jet is oddly calm for this, no doubt having done this type of thing before. Joseph's touch is netural to her arm, though her flesh is slightly cold, perhaps she's getting a cold. And thus she's running in her mind, running and seeing the girl with the map who gets an odd look. And then running more. Everything plays out as it's shown to her, small twitches of her fingers as is feeling her pushing the doors open. Who is to say what is reality or not reality, these days, she's not even for sure.
And then the voice on the radio is heard and she actually gives an eyeroll, "Nothing. A young female coloring with markers on a map. I was running through a hall, much like the one leading to my cell."

Joseph's hand retracts from Jet's arm, folding his own across his chest and watching Dema go through the motions. "Why us?" he asks, after Jet's finished her report, only half-listening to whatever it is he had her see. "Why addicts? You're gonna put that," a glance to the waiting Refrain, "in her, aren't you? Why couldn't— " Anger is welling up, crashing hard as if the hours of monotony were allowing for more than he usually has to deal with, more than he can contain at a singular point in time. He trips over his words as a result, rocking an instinct, disgusted step back.

"Thank you Christine," the director's voice crackles. Joseph's question, remarkably, gets a response, albeit a short one, in the form of a question rather than an answer. "Would you rather we use non-addicts?" and then right to the next task, no pause, "The experimental session is about to commence. Please be ready to apply your ability, Joseph. Christine, we are going to inject you with your usual dose. Assistant, reactivate the imager and then apply C-1's dose."
There's no perceivable hesitation in Dema's motions. He presses the activation button, then slips the needle into Jet and injects. The familiar warmth seeps through the young woman's body. Her system's relief is visceral as the trance hits her. A mere second after the camera sees Dema withdraw the needle, the director speaks, "Joseph. Now."

"I wasn't an addict though." This brings tears to Jet's eyes, a sign of emotion as she blinks which causes then to run down the side of her temple. Past tense of her addiction, perhaps having been getting shot up regularly with Refrain in her captivity. There is a small sniff from her, sucking down the fluids that clogs her senses. A closing of her eyes as she simply waits for the needle, and when the drug hit her system, her pupils dialate no doubt, though as her eyes are closed, no one can see.

Dema's motion is fluid, practiced. He sets a hand to his brow, steadying himself, and closes his eyes, as if he has a headache.

It's a familiar setting, what Jet nexts peers into. The mirror of her hallucinations goes concave and steers her attention back instead of forward, with sharp reality and familiarity than the surreal dimensions of symbols and detached future scenarios. Dema sits across from her, their Thanksgiving meal now eaten into debris of empty plates and unhanded cutlery. There's a game of cards going, the bright lights of her cell making glare off the plastic-paper of her hand. She can feel the smile on her face, and it might be repeated in reality too.

The memory breaks, distorts, when through the drug haze, she can feel Joseph's hand seeking out her other arm again. Coherency flounders like a dying fish in a shallow pool when restraints wrap taut around Jet's wrists, as a needle prick sinks into her flesh even as she sits before the game of poker. Badly tuned reception, and she feels and sees a blindfold wrap around her temples, a dream-shift where she can see it from an observer's point of view as someone binds her eyes as blue fluid is pumped into her veins. Dema only puts his hand back into the deck, and calmly shuffles as the cloaked man places a hand on her forehead, palm sinking in.

It's wrong. None of the vividness of the Refrain trip, none of the ease and confident flow of a future unfurling before her, the two ideas clash together, stumble, jerk.

The vision's interruption doesn't last as long as the trip, either, petering out and giving way to happy memory.

This is the strangest dream dive Dema has yet taken. As a subject of the memory that is being summoned up, he finds it incredibly easy to manifest directly - he is just himself. And because it is shared memory, it feels as if he himself were the one experiencing the recall. But the strange distortions, the blindfold, the cloaked man… he sees that all as well, and fear jolts through him, which does nothing to make the experience less nightmarish for both of them. As soon as the cloaked man sinks his hand into Jet's head, Dema makes to lunge forward, to do something, but while it was easy for him to manifest, Joseph's influence makes it impossible for him to /do/ anything. He is transfixed, watching… until the vision ends, and the Refrain trip kicks back in. The happiness of the memory restored, he lingers a little.
Dema speaks to Jet in the memory. He deals the cards, keeping the memory stable but speaking as he does. "Isabella," he says, "I saw what you saw. I do not know what it means. It troubles me. Do you know the cloaked man?" It's hard to bring up such dark topics during such a pleasant memory, but it feels pressing to him. The experience of being frozen while Jet was under threat… it has unsettled him.
Dema's lingering puts Joseph in an interesting situation. The mighty orderly's eyes are still closed, and he seems to be in some sort of revery. Joseph is the only conscious person in the room right now - though he's not alone. The camera peers at his back with its cold, dark eye.

Reliving the Thanksgiving meal, playing cards… then there was the staggering brief fear of the blindfold and the sense of being unsettled. But it's quick, and right now she's moving cards around her head as if nothing happened, just a hiccup in the dream. "Hmm?" Soft words from her as she rearranges a few more cards. Her eyes lift to his own, not the normal brown eyes her host body has, but a starling blue, probably her original color. "Gin!" A sudden call out as her cards are laid down on the table, a flashing of a smile to Dema. "You're the only man here with me Dema, and the only one I want."

Hand lifting off Jet's arm, both of them trembling just a little and his shoulders feeling heavy with whatever burden of guilt the pastor has put on them, Joseph tucks fingers against elbows as he folds his arms as he looks across at Dema. It doesn't take him long to recognise the signs - he's watched people undergo enough visions to see the reverie, the slackness of distributed concentration, and his heart starts to race with the instinctive knowledge of what he's going to do even before he's intellectually made up his mind.

The camera goes ignored as Joseph moves around the slab, approaching the burly man before he matter of factly places a hand above Dema's elbow. By rights, a vision should slam through the man's mind, but who knows how these things interact? Joseph is already moving, anyway, unthinking as he bolts for the door of the room.

All that Dema is seeing, interacting with, sharply keels over like an overturned platter. The images of Jet's cell, the card game and her glittering smile are scattered like debris in favour of oppressive darkness beaten back only with sputtering, guttering fire lanterns burning blue rather than gold. There's a length of chain hanging loose from a hook into splintered wood, curving off the into the darkness where it sways. He can see them, if he squints.

Christine is familiar, who only turns a glassy kind of adoration to him in her eyes when she lifts her head. The others are more like shadow, into the deeper darkness, lined up with their wrists connected. He can make out Sumter's defiant posture, ignoring his surroundings, further figures beyond him with their heads bowed or loose on their necks.

Dema watches himself return to the task of bringing around the mallet to bury the hook in deeper to the wood, seal off the chain and any chance of freedom. He watches himself swing once, twice, and on the third, momentum carries it hard enough for the sudden crack of metal and splintering wood.

Oh, hell no. Bella, sitting in what was once a warehouse's overhanging room and is not her control center, sees Joseph lunge towards Dema, sees that grip, and sees him bolt. The psychiatrist cum project director growls her irritation. This place /should/ be locked down tight, but God knows what could go wrong if she looses track of him. Luckily there are only so many places to go. She depresses the button on the radio, modified to distort her voice, though on her end she just sounds like her… though she sounds pretty peeved. "Dema! Snap out of it! /Christ/!" She abandons the radio and leans over to tug open the drawer of her desk, on which the various monitors sit, amidst a tangle of wire. Where the hell did she put it?
Meanwhile, Dema is about to impress upon Jet the vital importance of taking her vision seriously. He gets as far as: "He sees what will happen. You ha-" And then, distantly, he feels Joseph's touch, and his mind is wrenched in two directions. Everything changes.
All that Dema is seeing, interacting with, sharply keels over like an overturned platter. The images of Jet's cell, the card game and her glittering smile are scattered like debris in favour of oppressive darkness beaten back only with sputtering, guttering fire lanterns burning blue rather than gold. There's a length of chain hanging loose from a hook into splintered wood, curving off the into the darkness where it sways. He can see them, if he squints.
Christine is familiar, who only turns a glassy kind of adoration to him in her eyes when she lifts her head. The others are more like shadow, into the deeper darkness, lined up with their wrists connected. He can make out Sumter's defiant posture, ignoring his surroundings, further figures beyond him with their heads bowed or loose on their necks.
Dema watches himself return to the task of bringing around the mallet to bury the hook in deeper to the wood, seal off the chain and any chance of freedom. He watches himself swing once, twice, and on the third, momentum carries it hard enough for the sudden crack of metal and splintering wood.
When the vision ends, Dema doesn't precisely 'come to'. Instead he stumbles backwards, gripping his forehead, a massive pain like a spike driving into him, splitting his skull straight down the middle. He crashes into the surgical tray, sending it rolling across the floor, before his back hits the wall and he slides down, blind with agony, mind in total confusion.
Joseph dashes down the hallway, darting past his cell door, Jet's cell door… past more doors. Clearly this place was designed to hold many more subjects. The project director is clearly just getting started. At the end of one hallway is a fork, one heading right, the other left. Joseph must pick.

Joseph doesn't only effect Dema, but Jet as well. When Dema is wrenched from her dream, Juliet begins to scream, and scream and scream in her hallucination, it echoing in real life as they rip from her throat. While the screams pierce the room, in her hallucination she is destroying her room, breaking the plates, scattering the cards, "DEMA!" She screams for him before collapsing to her knees in the middle of her 'cell' floor, sobbing now, "Dema don't leave me!"

In linen pants and T-shirt, feet bare to cold cement, Joseph is in no position to make a great escape, but he moves like he might try for it anyway. There's regret already in the adrenaline in his bloodstream, from some saner place in his mind, but no time for it. Jet's scream echoes after him, as much as Joseph doesn't look back - he spares a glance down the left hallway before winging his way around the right without thought, without memory or cognition to the layout of the building, remember only where his cell is, and the direction is running. Black eyes opened wide, taking in all he can see.

Bella finds what she's looking for. The taser she keeps on hand just in case; it's basically Company procedure. She grips it, her hold on it awkward, unpracticed. Still, she knows to check the safety, and deactivates it. She levers herself to her feet, and grabs the black veil that rests next to the main keyboard, trying to yank it over her face and hair. She doesn't have time to don her gloves, but it hardly matters. So what if he knows her skin is white? She just has to protect her identity. She makes her way for the stairs, and then, out of the blue, pain flares up in her injured left. This is totally unexpected; her leg was /healed/. She shouts with pain and surprise, toppling to the ground, the taser making a firm 'smack' as it hits the floor, pressed under her hand. Her face is drawn as she looks around, through the screen of the black veil. The wolfshead cane leans in one corner, left there because she didn't want it around the house. She drags herself towards her, mouth a thin line of pain and sheer cold fury.
Jet's screams echo in Dema's ears, and help bring him gradually up towards coherence. He struggles to his feet, supporting himself against the wall; his balance is totally shot. It is with difficulty and much swaying that he moves over to the MRI, feeling the buttons until he finds the round 'disengage' button. He presses it, and Jet starts to slide back out of the maw.
Joseph chooses right, and in moments he sees a door, slightly ajar, ahead. Ajar! Maybe it's a way out. As it swings fully open under Joseph's weight, the captive pastor finds himself not in the outside world, but in a large storage room. Crates and cases lie about. One is still open, and Joseph sees a familiar, gentle blue glow emanating from it. Also worth nothing: the room has no fabricated ceiling. It just goes up into skeletal metal bones of a warehouse roof, from which hang the rows of lights that illuminate this place. Maybe he can use the crates to climb over the walls? And then, maybe make his way to an actual exit, to the outdoors!

The female's screams have turned into soft sobs now, the female crying in the hallucination as she is in real life. There is nothing more for her to do, simply living in her bad trip now.

The blue glow snags his attention for just a moment, disgust making his expression go stony and cold, overriding the initial reluctance he was met with when he took in his new surroundings. Better not to think, easier not to think, or the weakness he can already feel in his knees will cave in; the compulsion to simply stop and curl up so that when they do, inevitably, catch up to him, it won't mean any physical pain is almost more dizzying than his initial bid for freedom.

He forces himself to grip onto a crate— and he at least knows how to handle these— and lever it up onto another. It's slower work than it should be, and one tips, a corner catching on the cement. There's the tinkling sound of glass cracking within it, the lid popping off and dozens of vials going skittering out, some unbroken.

Ignores it, tries again, trying to become single-minded rather than scatterbrained with panic.

Dema's vision is pulsing, as if someone kept flashing a deep focus lens in front of his field of vision. His hands are clumsy as they fumble, trying to undo Jet's restraints, first her wrists, then headbrace. Here he pauses, leaning forward, eyes closing, taking deep breaths. He has to do this. He's not really even sure why. He has no idea what is really happening, and he can't even cast his mind back to what just happened, but right now he feels the urgent need to do /this/, to free Jet. One more deep inhale; his thumbs depress the brace's fixings, and it pops free. Dema takes Jet's head in his hands, cradling it as she sobs. Acting on instinct, this is what he is driven to do.
Bella, on the other hand, is operating not through instinct, but rather through determination. She has gripped the metal cane and drawn herself up into a stand. The pain in her leg is still there, darting along her nerves. She doesn't have time to wonder what happened, she has to take care of business. Taser in hand, cane in the other, she pushes through the door and starts to hobble down the stairs, making loud clangs as she goes.
Clangs Joseph hears as he works, much too close and of uncertain origin. The glowing narcotic forms strange pools on the floor, lighting his work from below. Finally it looks like it's enough. He could probably get close enough to the top of the wall to pull himself over; he just needs to be ready for the drop.

The touch from Dema seems to quiet the sobbing female, his hands holding her own hand, and she does know his hands. A few heavy breaths that shudder upon inhale, and then she calms. "Dema," she murmurs out, and him being there placates her, inwardly and outwardly, the hallucination shifting to where she's just laying in bed playing cards by herself, but she's no longer screaming, or crying, just waiting almost, as if between awake and drugged.
Crates shudder and rattle underfoot, not only from the weight of the man climbing them, but his own trembling. Not out of a fear of heights, he lost that back when he made his living as a roofer, but some anticipatory, adrenaline reaction that forces a flicker of an awful smile. He climbs up without grace, laborious and slow, heart jumping at rabbit-speed in the carven of his chest, and he can barely hear the clangs of his someone's approach down the stairs as he tries to get to his feet, peering up towards the edge of the wall.

…clang, clang, CLANG! Bella picks up the pace, bracing her taser under one arm and gripping the banister, hauling herself down with her suffering leg slipping from stair to stair, sending pain up and down it each time. Her cane smacks afterwards, making that ringing sound. Clang, clang, CLANG! And then she's at the bottom of the stairs, on the concrete of the floor. She takes a moment to adjust her jail, tucking her red hair into the full head veil, securing her cane and gripping the taser, hard. She turns towards the facility, which is really just a series of concrete walls rolled and dropped in. It gleams whitely in the center of the warehouse, under hanging lights.
The wall is within Joseph's grasp. A grip and a pull and he is able to haul himself over, bracing the top of the wall with one arm and dangling over the side before dropping to the ground. The fall hurts. And the sound of the impact echoes through the warehouse's interior.
Dema reluctantly leaves Jet's face, moving down to undo her ankle restraints, then lifting her into his arms. His brain is assembling itself again, and he is starting to suspect there is maybe something the Madame would rather he be doing… but this is what he's doing right now. And he's going to finish doing it. With Jet in his arms, he moves to the doorway and moves down the hallway, back towards the young woman's cell. Midway, dizziness hits and he is forced to turn and lean back against the wall, eyes closing. He holds Jet close, not risking letting her fall.

Aww. Too bad she's not fully conscious for this. For in her mind she's still hallucinating, and him walking with her, form bouncing has the cards dropping from her hands upon the bed as she grabs ahold of it. A pursing of her lips as her game is spoiled, and so she stands from her cot, walking to her door of her cell and opening it. What she sees is Dema's face, her eyes opening in real life, starring at him.

Pale and mottled red will turn into bruises later, and the pain that shoots up his ankle is enough to almost make him blaspheme. Almost. What actually does make him go, "goddamnit!" is a pain Bella would know well, from where the floor impacts his leg and spikes needling hot through the muscle of his thigh, scarred and healing flesh flashing back to life at a remembered wound. For a moment, Joseph only grips that area, seeing stars. His own racing heart beat is urge enough to get up, and he goes to grip onto the ground.

The warehouse stretches out in front of him, blinking his eyes towards boarded over windows and the far doors beyond the space. Nothing impressive, nothing that reads institution, world view sharply shifting and motivation enough to force him to keep moving. No time to ponder how ludicrous everything is - Joseph gets to his feet, and starts a limping, loping gait for the doors.

The doors stand, imposing and thick, rising into the dimly lit reaches of the warehouse, both a symbol of freedom and the last barrier to it. His bare feet smack one the concrete, loud in his ears, until he arrives at the doors. They are very large, designed to permit trucks to enter, but a smaller, human sized door is built into it. And it's locked. Dead bolted and padlocked. Of course. The sound of his footfalls have faded, but in its place comes another, a clacking of metal against concrete. Limping towards the doors, mostly unhurried, a woman in a black suit with a black veil covering her face and hair approaches, supported by a metal cane with a wolf's head.
Dema's eyes open to find Jet staring up at him. His vision is still intermittently blurry, but he sees her, and thinks she sees him. He tries to smile, but it comes instead as a grimace. He eases back off the wall and heads towards Jet's cell, which is unlocked. Without dropping her he carefully turns the knob and pushes his way inside, finally setting Jet down on the cot, then falling to his knees, cradling his head in his hands, elbows on the edge of the bed.

And thus Jet is deposited on her cot, and Dema is still trying to regain his composure. Two different paths in life at once. Joseph and Bella in one area of the building, Jet and Dema in another. As Dema cradles his head, Jet just stares at him for a moment before she touches him. Arms wrap around his upper body as her cheek comes to rest on his shoulder. That is what she does for now, just holding his form while he holds his hand. Her own pupils are still large with the drug, Jet <3's the testing.

Somehow, this encounter might be less entrancing than the one going on in another part of the building. Joseph's fingers catch and claw at the locks and padlocks, pulling in a breath that comes out with a shudder before letting his palm smack hard against the barrier, forehead resting gentler against it as he struggles to think in any kind of coherent direction of thought that isn't simply trying to will the door open.

The sound of someone's approach draws a shiver up his spine, but inevitably, Joseph turns to confront it. A veiled woman with a lilting step and the swing of a cane is the last thing he expected, back pressed against the door as he regards her, dark eyes less calculating than he'd like them to be. There's a cornered animal kind of twitchy energy in his frame as he flicks a glance past her, and ignores the fire up his pained leg as he goes to step, to move around.

Bella halts, watching with unseen eyes as Joseph makes his move. Her hand lifts slowly, holding the taser steady. In this light, it would be easy to mistake it for an actual firearm, especially from Joseph's point of view. It's held straight out, in one hand, the other gripping the wolf's head. She doesn't speak; she didn't have time to slip on her personal voice transformer. But the weapon is a threat that speaks loud and clear.
Dema feels Jet draw close. Slowly, one of his arms reaches around her and draws her closer. This is not what he ought to be doing, this is precisely what he /must/ not do, and if the Madame finds out… it means big trouble for both of them. But he can't be bothered right now.

Silence from Jet as Dema draws her closer to his form, a smile tugging at her lips in her drug induced haze. Her form shifts so that she can press her lips to Dema's ear, and with it soft words of French are spoken. They are not perfect, but well. The tone carries a promise in the foreign language. Promise and the future. A hand to the side of his face while the other side recieves a chaste kiss from her. No more from Jet, just holding the man now until he no longer needs to be held. Poor Joseph, he's getting the running and taser wielding female end of this.

Joseph stops just as quickly as he'd started, a placating hand up and fear flashing through his expression. At least the thrum of adrenaline can knock it off, and he can relax, as much as it's a bit like stopping the agonizing swim back to a too distance shore. "Okay," he says, roughly, impotent anger. "Okay." His other hand goes out, shoulders slack despite the gesture.

He stopped. Thank God. Bella is honestly not sure if she could hit a moving target; she's never fired any sort of weapon before. She doesn't answer him. First, because she will not speak without her vocal disguise. Second, because she is taking aim.
Joseph cannot see it, but Bella is smiling. She pulls the trigger. Twin wires strike out, lighting fast, and hit the pastor in the shoulder. For the second time this week, his central nervous system is assailed by a unbearable number of volts, disrupting all voluntary muscle control. Joseph crumples to the ground, incapacitated, but still fully conscious. Joseph can see the veiled woman limp closer, closer, clack, clack. She drops the discharged taser to the ground, letting it clatter there. It's served its purpose.. Joseph ca watch as she leans to one side, hikes the cane up into both hands, and for an instant sees the gleam of the wolf's red eyes as it snarling mouth bears down upon him. There is a sharp pain, and everything goes black.


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