Waking Up To Bad News

Participants:

cardinal_icon.gif claire2_icon.gif peyton_icon.gif robin_icon.gif

Scene Title Waking Up To Bad News
Synopsis Claire is there when Cardinal wakes up with a splitting headache. Peyton shows up to share some worrisome news.
Date October 16, 2009

Abandoned Best Western Motel

The entrance to the Best Western has seen better days. Abandoned for several years, an extremely thick layer of dust lays on the welcome counter like a thick grey blanket. It also seems like several local bums have used this place as various beds, mostly ratty and full of holes as well as stains litter the room among the piles of garbage that are almost waist-high. The entire room stinks of stale air and urine. To the left is a steel door leading to the stairs and in front is the elevator doors.

A set of stairs made of concrete with a metal railing painted to keep the rust away, though many parts are now rusted as neglect has allowd the paint to chip and crack, leads upstairs. It seems as though the stairs only go up to the second floor; the stairs leading to the third floor are missing some, and piles of garbage prevent one from jumping up.

Inside the elevator shaft, it seems that the elevator car has fallen all the way to the basement from what could have been the top since it's been smashed to pieces. Judging from the holes in the sides of the shaft, it's clear the car didn't go down easily as well it seems to have ripped off the ladders that normally are on the sides of the elevator shaft for maintenance the cables that also hang down have been cut at around the fourth floor. The entire shaft smells of moisture and rust.


An eye opens. There's light, so it's uncomfortable, but at least there's not so much light that it hurts. So it's either night near a window, he figures, or someone was nice enough to turn the damn light off before he woke up. A breath is drawn in, and Cardinal stirs, trying to push himself up with a grimace and finding himself in a hospital bed. Clothed, fortunately, which means it's probably not an actual hospital - not that a quick glance around wouldn't determine that he's in the bustling confines of the refugee hospital sponsored by Shard. One hand comes up to rub against the back of his head, finding bandages there, and he grimaces. That explains the pounding in his head like little men with jackhammers inside his skull.

"Welcome back to the land of the living." Comes from Claire, who is seated carefully near him, hands still holding onto the coat she's reduced to wearing to keep her modesty, her hair however is still a mess. She's been there since they got there, waiting for him to come too, so that there is at least someone familiar there. "You took a pretty hard hit." She pushes to her feet and steps over to his bedside. "Missed a lot of fun." The words are a touch flat, but there is a small smile on her smudged face.

Aaron's asleep somewhere, Stef's in a bed somewhere. Having seen to them and a few other injured souls, doing what she can to help out the doctors and other volunteers, Peyton happens to be walking by Cardinal's room when she hears the voices. She pauses and peeks in. "Oh, God, you're okay," she says, looking relieved, her voice distraught. "You need something? I'll go get some meds for you, or a doctor to come look at you," she says, one foot in the door and the other foot in the hallway, ready to run for whatever Cardinal asks for.

"Something hit me in the fuckin' head, of course I'm not okay," Cardinal grumbles, squinting over at Claire and Peyton, "Just get me a fuckin' demerol or codeine or something, assuming there's nothing broken up there. And I presume there'd be a lot more doctors here if there was."

"Well, I'd say your attitude hasn't improved any." Claire shoots back, brows lifting a bit. "And no, nothing is broken, boss. Just a really nasty bump on the back of the head." She combs fingers through her hair trying to put some order to it, though she has to duck her head down or flash the room. "You'll be fine in a day or two.. just slow getting up, you might get a bit dizzy you move too fast."

Peyton doesn't look great either; she has a bandaid on her cheekbone, and looks pale and dirty from the riot. "I'll go get it. Then I have information for you, if you're up to it." There's an apologetic tone in her voice; he shouldn't have to worry about other people tonight. She heads down the hall to find some pain killer, heading to the front desk where such things are doled out. "Cardinal's up, wants a demerol or codeine or something for his pain," she tells the volunteer in charge of triage.

Robin only needs a few stitches to close the wound on his shoulder, so he isn't in a room, but sitting in the hallway, his shirt off while a nurse sews away.

He'd rather be helping with the unloading, but the nurse has already smacked him twice for trying to get away from the needle, so he sighs and sits still, looking around for anyone familiar, and hoping there aren't too many casualties.

"Yeah, yeah, it's not a concussion, I've had those before… Cardinal grips the head of the bed, swinging his legs off the edge and sitting there; grimacing, fingers rubbing between his eyes, "Shit. I probably lost my shades out there too, didn't I? Okay, recap, what'd I miss after the Burning Man tried to turn us into toast, Red?"

"They probably melted along with my shotgun." Claire's lip pouts out for a moment at the mention of loosing another shotgun. Then she sighs and takes a few steps back to give him some room. "Not quite sure on everything, but I almost got sucked into this small hole thing some guy pulled open. It sucked in parts of the destroyed vans.. and some guy went flying past." She gives one of his knees a soft bap with the back of her hand, "Then I was too busy dragging your heavy butt around."

Finally the nurse is done with the stitches, and Robin pulls his torn shirt back on, standing to try and find out what exactly is going on now. When he hears the name Cardinal one of the names Shard had mentioned to him he catches up with Peyton and taps her shoulder, "Hey there. You said Cardinal is up? Is he doing alright?"

Peyton is handed a dosage of Demerol and a bottle of water to give to the shadow man. She turns to look at Robin and smiles. "Hey. Yeah, his head hurts but he seems to be okay. You can come with me and see him if you want," she offers, moving the bottle of cold water to the crook of her arm so she can offer him her hand. "I'm Peyton. Haven't met you properly yet." She nods her head down the hall to indicate he should follow, and begins walking toward Cardinal's room.

"Sorry," Cardinal rolls his eyes good-naturedly, "Didn't mean to inconvenience you with my unconscious ass. Did Shard ever show up and make a dramatic entrance or something? And what happened to the truck? Those rioters were lookin' pretty unhappy."

Claire smiles at the eye rolling and backs up til she can settle down on the chair again, "No., Shard never showed up, no idea why not. Doesn't exactly seem like him." The ex-cheerleader looks rather concerned. "I mean.. that night on the shore he seemed a bit… out of it. But I don't know." Mention of the truck, she jerks her head towards the window. "And the truck is outside, probably the only one to survive that maddness."

"I'm Robin, it's good to meet you." He grips her hand briefly then follows her down the hallway. He can hear the voices coming from the room before they get there and it clicks. Cardinal. Guy with the truck. That Robin sort of borrowed to get the supplies to the hospital.

He heads in to the room right after Peyton and waves to the two in the room. "Glad to see you both got out of that mess okay. Truck's fine too, though it sticks a little in third."

"Nice to meet you back," Peyton murmurs to Robin with a smile. She moves to Cardinal and hands him the little Dixie cup with the pills in it, then the bottle of water. "Shard's … all I got was dirt, darkness, a glimpse of White. I think White has him," she says quietly so her voice won't carry outside of the room. "Earlier, though, I got a locale on White and Doc and the woman — was it Risa? I think they're in a factory here on Staten Island — um, maybe a meat factory or something like that, I can't tell. It's not being used for that obviously. He's been looking at maps of Liberty Island and taking pills, pain killers I think. So I don't know if that's where Shard is too - I got that earlier, then I had the Shard vision when he didn't show last night, and then I saw where Helena and Wendy are being held while everything was going to shit, and passed out." She frowns a little. "I haven't been able to use my power since then, I think I fritzed it out for the time being." It's a lot of information, spoken rapidly in quiet tones, as if she's trying to get it all out before she forgets it. "The kidnap victims, the entrance to where they are is a parking structure across from Chase headquarters," she adds. "Lots of weapons."

"It's a miracle it drives at all. Who the hell're you?" Cardinal reaches over slowly and carefully for the little paper cup, setting it on the table beside the bed and unscrewing the bottle of his water as he listens to Peyton. "Great," he mutters at the revelation about White, tossing the pills back and bringing the water bottle up to his lips—

— and then he spits a spray of water across the room, staring at Peyton with an expression of something resembling horror, "Liberty Island?"

The mention of Liberty Island gets a wide eyed look of shock from the blonde, but something clicks. "Factory?" Claire murmurs thoughtfully, her eyes unfocusing a bit, ass something about factory tickles her memory. "Hey, Richard?" She leans forward to touch his leg and get his attention. "Think they are still at the same factory as that night Shard and White went head to head the first time? It was some sort of meat place wasn't it? If so….." The words trail off as she looks up at him from her spot, brows lifting high. "You can get in and check it out, so we know what needs to be done and what we're facing."

Robin ducks the spray of water, "I'm Robin Milburn, we sort of met yesterday, as much as anyone could meet in that clusterfuck." He isn't sure what factory they're talking about but doesn't like the implications about Liberty Island at all. He finds a piece of wall to lean against and listens.

The brunette looks worried at the reaction from Cardinal, and wipes the water off her face with only a little bit of disgust apparent on her face. "Say it, don't spray it, Shadow," she teases, though the joke is marred by the severity of the situation. "I'm going to take a break from the power for a bit, maybe it will work again tomorrow, and I will see what I can see then, I guess." She sounds apologetic. "Maybe I'll get something more useful. Right now — or at least a couple hours ago — wherever Shard was, it was dirty ground, so I think outside. I might be wrong."

"Jesus mother of— Liberty fucking— he's insane, he's fucking insane, and if Doc is going along with this he's… mother of fucking God…" Cardinal pushes himself out of bed to his feet, and promptly falls back down to it again with a groan, hand lifting to his head, "Fuck. Probably, Claire. Have you told the firebirds about the Chase building yet, Pey?"

Hoping to her feet, Claire presses a hand against Cardinal's chest, when he falls back down again, trying to keep his there. "What did I just tell you?" She tone slightly scolding. "You need to take it a bit easier." There is a slight frown as she watches him. "Give the medicine time to kick in before you go barreling off to save the world."

"I called Brian once we were all safe from the riot shit outside to tell him what I saw," Peyton says quietly. "But I think they already know. They have someone infiltrating, pretending to be Humanis First but working for them, I guess." She stifles a yawn. "Doc looks worried, unhappy. I don't know if he's really agreeing with whatever plans White has, or what. I don't really know either of them to know what any of it means," she points out. "Anyway, I'm going to go sleep a few hours, and then go home in the morning. You have my number if you need me. I'll call you if I see anything useful on Shard or White."

At the push from Claire's hand, Cardinal drops back to re-settle, grimacing at her. "Yeah, yeah," he mutters, "Nice tits, Red." He lifts his head, one hand still pressing to its side as he looks to Peyton, and makes an affirmative sound, "She's still in? Good— good, that's good fuckin' news. I forgot about her. No, that's… enough. I'll go rally the troops, then talk to Doc, see if I can turn him around…"

"Good luck," Peyton murmurs. "I can't… I need to sleep…" She looks like she might pass out again. She gives a wave of her hand to Cardinal, Claire and Robin before stepping out of the room to go find an empty bed somewhere to catch at least a few hours of sleep. "'Night. Get some more rest yourselves."

Cheeks flare red and she glances down quickly to make sure the coat is still closed. "You know.. not a good way to get me to feel sorry for you." Claire growls, tucking the trench coat tighter around her, arms wrapping around her, resisting the urge to smack him. "See if I stand between you and a rather painful blast of fire again." She gives him a small glare and turns on her heels intent on getting out of there, "I'm going to find Magnes and get out of here. You don't need me, obviously. And I want some damn clothes."

"Sorry," Cardinal replies in quiet tones, fingers lifting to rub against his forehead, "I'll talk to you later, Red. Thanks for the save back there, I do appreciate it. Fuck. Liberty Island…"

Stopping at the door, Claire turns back and points a finger at him. "You stay in that bed till the medication has time to set in." The hand moves to to clutch at the coat and she gives him a small half smile. "And your welcome." She starts to step out and pauses again. "Shard's way isn't going to work for this. We need force for White. Starting to think I should have taken the shot at Coney Island. See you back at the library." With that said, she's out the door calling for Magnes.


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