Wonderland Is Full Of Horrors

Participants:

aric_icon.gif elisabeth_icon.gif jane2_icon.gif

Scene Title Wonderland Is Full Of Horrors
Synopsis Liz helps iron out the Gibbs-Pak interactions, as well as filling Jane in to some facts she can't put anywhere near a report.
Date March 09, 2011

Central Park


The meeting. He can't beleive he is going to do this with Liz. The fact she liked the idea and suggested he meet her in the park for it gives him some comfort however, he looks a bit nervous none the less. As he sits on the bench waiting for Liz to arrive, Aric is fiddling with his finger nail. He begins to bit just the edge slowly nippling it across the free edge as he looks down the path for Liz. "God I hope she gets here before Pak's does!"

Elisabeth is early — she's no fool. She knows he's nervous as hell. She's been in meetings all morning and she's wearing a pair of sleek navy blue slacks with an open slate gray blazer and a white button up beneath it. Her blonde hair is pinned into a chignon. She's learning to play the power politics, clearly 'dressed for success' as it were. She clips along the path to meet Aric in high heels, and when she gets within some 50 feet, she murmurs in a whisper meant to soothe as it teases his ears, "Settle down, handsome. I'm right here."

As he turns to look at her he almost instantly relaxes, "Thank god you go here before she did. I know you said that I should come yet…I guess we will see. Any advice on how to handle her? I just don't trust her yet." He runs a hand through his hair as he adjusts his t-shirt pulling at it down over his jeans.

Elisabeth rolls her eyes and joins him, offering a quick hug. "Then trust me," the blonde says quietly. "I don't know that I trust her fully, but the woman's putting her career — and possibly her life — on the line to try to help. She wants the truth. And she's going to get more truth today than she probably ever bargained for. You said it went badly on the phone, and in all honesty? I feel like I ought to slap you on the back of the head for it — getting what you want takes more finesse than that and you know it. Give a little to get a little." And then she pauses, grimacing. "Christ, I'm starting to sound like a fucking bureaucrat. Now you need to hit me."

Aric smirks softly, "Or a Den Mother. She was so cold and business like. Yeah she is putting it on the line yet so am I. How do you know she wont try and take me back to the center Liz? I will not be taken again…I will not let Tyler take me again." His voice is cold and soft yet the seriousness of it is quite there."

Elisabeth's blue eyes on him are solemn, and she means every single syllable as she promises. "Then I'll vibrate her brains into tapioca and put her fucking corpse where no one will ever find it." She has become, she's beginning to realize, far more deadly following Humanis First and the advent of a horrible-future Cardinal into her life. She's done letting her people be hurt if she can stop it. "But I don't believe that will be necessary. Not when she hears what I have to say."

And on that jolly cue, Jane Pak comes strolling into view. She seems relaxed, although dressed for business, as she likely just came from the office. Her badge isn't in view, nor is a gun, although both are probably on her person somewhere. Liz can guess that much, at least. But she doesn't look upset like she sounded on the phone just yesterday, but maybe a little… tired.

When she sees Liz there with Aric, a crooked smile comes to her expression and she makes her way over toward them. "Harrison, I might have guessed it was gonna be you. Gibbs, good to see you."

"Agent Pak," Elisabeth greets mildly. "Of course it would be — who else do you think he knows who would be loud and annoying enough to make waves if he vanished again?" she asks, amused. She studies the woman, and then gestures toward a bench. "I figure it's about time we talked again anyway. The Mad Hatter's Tea Party's going to rock your world."

Aric 's body slightly tightens at the appearance of Agent Pak. He takes a soothing breath as he leans back and says with a certain degree of tightness in his voice, "Agent Pak." He nods to her as he looks at Liz and lets her take lead.

"That's a good point. Although, I sort of hope I never have to hear just how loud you can get," Jane says with a smirk. There's a glance over at Aric, and she shifts her stance a little to try to be as unthreatening as possible. "I didn't even bring cuffs today, I swear. And I usually do, because you never know when they'll be useful," she says, a bit of playful slyness in her tone.

But she turns her attention back to Liz, her head tilting a little. "I love tea. And I love rocks."

Elisabeth can't help the chuckle though her blue eyes are shadowed. "Ah well…. it's always to my detriment when people with the right clearances realize that Pinehearst's lack of windows was my fault," she admits easily. Because she has a pardon for that kind of stuff — not a thing Pak could do about it even if she wanted to.

"Then you're going to love the way the teacup ride shifts now." Elisabeth leads Aric over, nudging him lightly into a seat. "We'll take a couple of baby steps first. We're just going to assume you do know that the Institute in conjunction with the DoEA are developing Evo-hunting robots and using Midtown as their testing ground." Considering that hacking one of those bastards is what got Alia nabbed in the first place. "Presumably, of course, to make sure that the criminal element of Evos can't hurt the populace, yeah?"

As he follows Liz, he turns his eyes on her and raises and eyebrow. He has been hiding in her apartment too long. His thoughts going to Terminator instantly he does his best to keep his face calm and not show the fact he did not know about the robots much less the fact they are hunting Evos. He runs a hand through his hair and says, "If we start wearing uniforms can I be Gambit? Because sounds like we are dealing with "Sentinals"."

Jane stands, her focus on Liz at the moment as she starts on her baby steps. There's a little nod there. "That's the pitch, yeah." She looks over at Aric, that smirk there again. "If people are gonna start putting on spandex, I want to opt out of that."

Elisabeth nods slightly to Jane, nudging Aric to sit. "And shall I assume that you know that the person programming those drones is out at Miller Airfield under the auspices of Colonel Heller…. and Georgia Mayes herself?" she asks mildly.

The mention of Heller gets a bit of a grimace from Jane. But she just folds her arms and lets out a sigh. "Let's just start from the beginning, huh? I mean, the things that I know I know with the PR spin on them anyway." She's less than thrilled with the PR spin these days, as much as the lawyer side of her knows things like that have their very definite uses.

All right, she wants to get down to brass tacks. "You'll have to bear with me because the path by which I know what I know is…. let's call it a jigsaw puzzle," Elisabeth says. "What would you say if I told you I know for a fact that Heller's squad was — and is — out there killing civilians. Not just Evos who've done something wrong, but … as an example… killing the sister of an Evo they're hunting just to try to flush him out?" She watches Pak closely. "Would you believe it?"

Aric leans back as he listens, his eyes going wider slightly at the story as he has clearly been out of the loop. He tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear.

"For a fact like… you've got proof?" Jane may not want to belief it, but at the same time, she wants to know what's going on. And that leaves this wiggle room for doubt. "I know Heller's… gung ho," she says, which doesn't really answer the question, but then she's digesting.

"I have witnesses," Elisabeth says quietly. "Unfortuantely because they're all being targeted, they wouldn't testify in court," she adds with a grimace. "But these are people who have nothing to gain by lying — no one will listen to them anyway, so why bother? And one of the eyewitnesses was a child, who watched a woman being gunned down." She pauses for a moment and then says quietly, "Now…. leaving aside for a moment that these people are supposed to be working for the same people I work for…. let me redirect your thought processes for a moment and ask you what you know about Georgia Mayes and her opinions of her own division and position?"

"Harrison, you and I both know how much of a chance something like this even has getting to court. He's a high ranking officer. And we're talking about witnesses who are wanted at the moment? I wouldn't worry too much about court unless you've got something up your sleeve like video tapes or something." Jane worked in the military courts, after all, she knows what they'll cover up and what they won't. "Mayes and I aren't exactly gal pals. Her personal opinions are just that," she says with a spread of her hands.

"Mmmm," Elisabeth says quietly. "Bear with me for one last question on this front. Would it shock you to find out that Georgia Mayes and some very influential people in the highest ranks of government also head up the New York cell of Humanis First?" She watches Pak closely. "And that I have a witness to that too. Who is, once again, scared for their life — for obvious reasons on two fronts."

As his eyes shimmer a moment with electricity at the mention of Humanis First, Aric lets out a deep breath and looks at Liz. He knows she wouldn't sell him out. However, his mind goes back to that day he came upon a small group of them beating a boy because he was an Evolved. Thanks god she isn't telepathic. His thoughts going to image of unnatural power flowing through him engulfing the tunnel as the four men are fried with thousands of watts of electricity from Aric to near ash.

Jane pauses there, looking at Liz for a long moment. And it's probably wonderful there isn't a telepath in the group because the agent's expression isn't doing very good at hiding her displeasure. Maybe 'displeasure' is an understatement.

There's a particular level of violence to the gesture as her hands get shoved into her pockets. "Things don't shock me so much these days," is what she says eventually. Grumpily.

Elisabeth sees the fury. And the acceptance. "Yeah… that's pretty much my reaction too," she admits. And then she slowly lowers herself to sit next to Aric on the bench. "Remember when I told you that originally the Institute was created with the best of intentions? And that the man running the thing was walking a fine line between trying to keep the timeline intact and still change the things he thought needed changing…. or saving the people he thought could be saved?"

Crossing her arms, Elisabeth says quietly, "He's trying to build a machine that will allow him to …. so far as we understand it… send messages back to the past. Which, frankly, is a bit mindboggling, but well…. having dealt with Hiro Nakamura personally and gotten the migraines to prove that I've attempted to follow his logic, I'm going to simply leave that statement as bald and simple as it is. That's what they're doing. And I think they're working with the DoEA in spite of knowing that the entirety of the DoEA, Homeland Security, and New York City are being run by Humanis First honchos because the American government is the group who went in, blasted the Vanguard's bases to hell and back, and took the technology and the man who could build the machine."

As he final chimes in, "The same machine I was taken for and used to power. However, I was able to damage it and that bought us some time." He looks at Liz and he begins to tremble slightly, "The machine killed me Agent Pak. The Institute brought me back to life for whatever purpose yet the damage has been done." Aric has no idea that he is living on barrowed time however, he looks back at the woman and says, "So now you can understand why I was a bit…unreasonable on the phone as you say."

Jane closes her eyes for a moment, letting out a sigh. "I need a flow chart," she mutters, mostly to herself before she opens her eyes again. "Okay, so. The Institute wants to control the timeline and wants to send messages into the past, presumably to help that goal along. And while it had good intentions at the beginning, somewhere along the lines it turned into what it is today, which is an organization with little to no qualms about kidnapping, killing, reviving or otherwise engaging in fuckery." It's a technical term. "So why did they give Gibbs electricity? Surely they could have plucked any electro from the Registry or otherwise found one ready made, so to speak. What's their beef with him?"

That Elisabeth can answer. "Because the person whose electricity he got was someone that the guy at the top actually gives a damn about — he didn't want to kill her if he could kill someone who'd pissed him off in his own timeline. Or become the enemy," she says quietly. "And yes… a flow chart would be nice. We usually use string maps, but they're terribly complicated and if you want the truth? They confuse the shit out of me anyway. It's a clusterfuck of epic proportions," she finishes drily. "But the short answer to your question is Yes. That's what they do. Engage in fuckery."

"It seems I pissed him off in the future. I pissed him off bad." His mind goes to the word "monster and traitor" however Aric leaves that out as he says, "When he gave me this power it was so he could see me suffer for whatever it was I did to him in his timeline." Aric snorts like canvas ripping, "It seems I paided the price for my unknown actions in this timeline." His body trembling slightly once again.

"Well, what the hell crawled up his ass and died," Jane says, frowning at the combined explanation. "This is like… mad scientist, super villain type stuff going on. That's not supposed to happen in real life, goddamnit," she says, kicking a foot a little against the ground in protest. But after a moment, she looks over at Aric, "You should be proud of yourself. In the future. Not everyone's got the guts to be a total and complete nuisance when they should be."

Elisabeth laughs softly. She can't help it. She likes Jane Pak. Moving to stand just because she's restless, the blonde studies the agent. "And it's true that Wonderland is often full of horrors," she comments mildly.

Aric looks at Liz with a knowing look before he turns back to Agent Pak, "If I had my way. I would be happy to repay the debt in this time line Agent Pak. However, with the paperwork and the eyes now on me for when I was kinapped. The fact I was made into this 9 volt battery makes it very hard for me to return back to my life. With that I will need help getting Re-Register"

"I really do need to read that book one of these days," Jane says, eyeing Liz a little, but with good humor. But her attention turns to Aric there and she nods a little. "Well, I'm glad you want to stay legal after all this, I can say that much. I'll get my report on you filed, something to the tune of you being an unfortunate victim of circumstance and not a blot on Nash's record," that last part she says with a nod toward Liz. "And that should clear the way. Like I said before, you pick a place that does registration and I'll come along to make sure there's no hiccups. The badge does have some uses beside being a fairly decent coster."

Elisabeth tilts her head and glances at Aric. "You can trust her not to snatch you and run off," she murmurs quietly. "I'm going to step over there and make a call, you two can go over your official statement or what have you." There's a glance at Jane, if only because she wants to convey her own trust. "I won't be listening, Agent Pak. Just here as moral support. If you need me, wave." She smiles a little. "And you know how to get to me if you want to talk." She walks down the path in her black low-heeled boots, far enough away to be very clear that she's away but close enough to see the two talking. Aric's PTSD is pretty significant, after all, and she can't discount it or leave him to deal alone with it all the time.


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