Participants:
| Scene Title | A Good Position to Play Coy |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Dina ambushes Felix outside of Exotica, hoping to extract Deckard's whereabouts from him in the shadows of a nearby alley. Sylar and Munin assist, though the fed — as usual — isn't exactly cooperative. |
| Date | December 2, 2008 |
Brooklyn is located on the westernmost point of Long Island and shares its only land boundary with Queens. The East river borders and defines the borough's northern coast, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Manhattan beach are to the south, and the Narrows separate it from Staten Island to the southwest.
Downtown Brooklyn is one of the NYC's largest business districts. Between the Bridge and Prospect Park, brownstones, townhouses, and high-end restaurants are dominant. The culturally diverse communities of Williamsburg and Greenpoint are snugged against the East River to the far north. Close by are far more criminally active neighborhoods such as Brownsville, Crown Heights, and Bushwick. Regardless of the social situation, the so-called Borough of Neighborhoods is packed to the gills in post-bomb NYC.
He should know better than to walk the streets of New York alone, yammering on his cellphone like every other yuppy idiot. And without his overcoat, no less. But Fel forgets - there's the iron discipline of caution that keeps spies and spooks alive, and then there's the unthinking arrogance that a badge is a magic talisman that drives away evil and obviates the need for care. The Fed comes stalking out of the club, having a heated conversation with someone on the other end of the phone. It's cut short by what can only be an insult and curt farewell in Russian, leaving Fel realizing he's been walking in directly the wrong way to actually get to a subway station. So he starts off, still the way he was heading, now after the cabstand of a larger hotel in the distance, phone jammed in to the pocket of his suitcoat.
Dina is the front-woman for the night. The brunette is moving down the streets, jacket on, hands in pockets, and huddled against the winter chill. In short, looking no different than a hundred other pedestrians in New York. Her course, at the moment, is bringing her on a course to bisect Felix's path, though that wouldn't be obvious as anything more than coincidence.
Now he's just in a hurry to get the hell home, and out of this cold. Fel's shoulders are hunched against the wind - the suit may look nice, but it's not all that much good against the winter chill. He's utterly oblivious to Dina's approach. It's a big city, and busy even at this hour.
Dina moves past…and then in one fluid motion, moves to hook an arm around Felix, while the other comes out of her pocket with a handgun that she moves to bury in his back. "Not a word, not a sound, or you'll be leakin' out important bits there." she says, in a soft and quiet voice.
He's fast. Very fast. But not as fast as a bullet, especially when the mouth of the pistol is already up close and personal with his kidney. It looks like the embrace of lovers suddenly met, save for Fel slowly lifting his hands in that gesture of peaceable intent. There's just a nod. Apparently her demand is being taken seriously.
Dina smiles. "Very good. Put y'r arms down, I don't want this lookin' like a bank robbery. This way." She nods her head towards a nearby alley.
"What do you want?" Felix wonders, looking decidedly reluctant to follow her. "You can have my wallet, I don't have much…." He takes a few shuffling steps towards the alley, letting his hands fall, still in that half-embrace.
Dina smiles. "Just a wee bit of conversation, that's all." One hand still holds the gun, the other is doing a quick pat for weapons. Never hurts to be careful.
There's a Walther riding in the shoulder holster, under that suit so carefully tailored to hide the gun. And a folding knife at the small of his back. "You could just ask," he points out, tone dry, face still puzzled. No sign of real fear, not yet.
Dina reaches around to take the gun, then the knife. "Sure'n I could. But I find people are a lot more talkative when they're worried about gettin' blown the hell away."
"Then ask. You definitely have my attention," Felix says, quietly, eyeing her warily.
A slim figure dressed in black steps out from the shadows of the alley, bright green eyes standing out against the dark. Felix will undoubtedly recognize Munin's figure even before she steps out into the glow provided by the nearest street lamp, gloved hands tucked into the pockets of her heavy woolen pea coat. Unlike Dina, she doesn't appear armed, but the expression on her pale face is uncharacteristically grave. "I think you oughta do what she says, Mr. Ivanov," she says, voice clear as a bell in contrast to the distant rumble of traffic coursing elsewhere through the borough. "Else she's likely to just stick you in the liver and run."
"I am," Felix says, still mildly, but there's real strain in his face, now. "Where's your master?" he wonders, bluntly. Dina gets a glance. "This another of his harem?"
Dina looks down the alley to Munin, and smiles. "You want t' do the talkin' here, wee bit? Or do we—" Oh, that was not the right thing to say. Dina draws back a hand, and she'll drive a hard punch towards Felix's kidney. Just to let him know her thoughts on that assessment.
Another figure emerges from the shadows, tall and lanky, with a thinness that speaks of his age. A teenage boy, blonde hair in loose, boyish waves, skin pale and features sharp. Dressed in black, his hands stay tucked in the pockets of his coat, and doesn't react when Dina gives the fed a piece of her mind. "Save some for later," Sylar says, voice thin, entirely different. "Or it's going to be over too soon." Despite his casual stance, he's very, very alert, watching Felix like a cat watches a mouse.
"How you get anyone to cooperate with you is a real mystery to me, I'll be honest. You're so fuckin' abrasive." Munin's tone isn't hurt, but it isn't necessarily angry either. Rather, it's something that fits somewhere in between — light and lilting, with a solemn undercurrent. Felix's choice of words was very poor indeed. "We're not gonna hurt you," she adds, almost as an afterthought. "No more than we already have, anyway." She glances over at the lanky teen, though she continues to address her words to the man standing in front of them. "It probably don't mean much, but you have my word."
It doesn't mean much, apparently. Fel grunts in pain, half-twisting at the kidney shot but managing not to crumple and drop. It hurts, though. Despite the wind, he's visibly sweating when he straightens up. "It's a talent I have," he says, through gritted teeth. His gaze darts towards the newcomer. "What is it you want, then?"
Dina looks back. "Despite what the wee bit says, if y' get lippy again, I'll knock out y'r fockin' teeth with the pistol butt. I'm not as nice as she is. So behave an' be a good boy." She glares at him, words vicious.
Sylar's intent gaze flickers from Felix to Dina, an eyebrow raising, before it's back to the agent, blue eyes shadowed in this particular half-light of the nighttime street. Like on most Vanguard missions that are not his own, he allows someone else to do the talking - this time, Munin - and instead, waits. Ready for a twitch of indication that someone will use their own ability to make a hasty get away.
Although Munin might prefer Dina or even Sylar to do the talking for her, neither of her companions have as much experience with Ivanov as she does. Whether she likes it or not, she's the person most suited to the job. "Flint Deckard." Straight to the point. "He's missing." As she speaks, she reaches into her pea coat and retrieves a dog-eared photograph which she now holds up in front of the fed's face. It isn't the most flattering picture of Deckard in the world, but there's no mistaking his mug or the sunglasses he's wearing up on the bridge of his nose. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
"Missing?" Felix's voice is genuinely incredulous. And there's a betraying flicker of his eyes to the club he emerged from, before he fixes a pale gaze on Munin's face. "I don't actually know. We don't have him," he says, simply. "You don't have him?"
Dina's quiet at the moment, just holding her weapon ready. She's behind the agent, and so she misses the flicker of the eyes. Hopefully her companions don't.
"Stupid question," Sylar comments, hands withdrawing from his pockets. If he's noticing the betraying eye flicker, he's not acknowledging it. "You're not in a good position to play coy, Agent Ivanov." He can't quite achieve the same growl in this voice as he does in his own, and so his words come out sharper, somewhat petulant.
If Munin notes the subtle change in Felix's expression, she doesn't comment on it. Instead, she lifts her chin, craning her neck to get a better look in the direction from which he came. Seeing nothing that immediately catches her eye, she directs her attention back to the situation at hand and lowers the photograph. There's not much to see over there except for a few patrons jostling to get past security, their bodies illuminated by the club's flashing neon lights. Meanwhile, Sylar has articulated her thoughts better than she ever could have — and so she remains silent, lips pursed into a thin, unimpressed line. Waiting.
"We don't have him," Felix reiterates, patiently, expression gone wide-eyed and guileless. "Beyond that, I don't know. He doesn't report his location or check in with me, so it's anybody's guess."
Sylar doesn't use names, not in the presence of someone who would invariably try to remember them - simply looks towards Dina and says, "Maybe hit him again." Meanwhile, his hearing does it's best to get a sense of Felix's heart rate, of nervousness. Of course, Felix's heart rate is one that can be somewhat tricky to discern.
"You can hit him all you want, but that isn't gonna get him to talk." In a way, it's something of a relief — at least to Munin. If Felix had given them any real inclination about Deckard's whereabouts, she might've had to break her earlier promise and squeeze the information out of him by force. As it is, she's willing to accept his story at face value. "They probably put you through some pretty strict regimen over at fed school, huh? They teach you how to bite off your tongue to keep you from parting with sensitive information?" She takes one step forward and then another, boots crunching through the thin layer of ice and snow that sits on the surface of the gravelly sidewalk. "Just how far are you willing to go to protect somebody like him? What's his life worth to you really? I'm not a vindictive person, Mr. Ivanov. But the person I work for is. What do you think is gonna happen to little Colette Nichols if he finds out you're holding out on us?"
His heart is drumming, but it's not that preternatural machinegun patter. Not yet. "I don't have a cyanide tooth, if that's what you're asking," Fel says, voice still mild. "But you're right. You can hit me all night long if that's what gets your rocks off, but it won't make me know what I don't already. Ditto for dragging in some girl," There's a faltering in that cadence at the mention of Colette, though. Not a literal skipping of a beat, but a definite shock, for all that his face doesn't show any more strain. "There's a reason we don't use torture," he says, in a tone gone conspiratorial. "Not just that it's wrong, but that it doesn't work. The tortured will say anything to make the pain stop. You can't rely on info you get that way."
Dina can't help but smirk. "Oh, but it's so much -fun-. Besides, when people see what's left, then they get a wee more talkative." She slides the gun up his back again. "Like this Colette."
"Sometimes they will say anything," Sylar says. "But not if they have the truth." That's really all he has to say on Felix's little lesson, head tilting to the side at the mention of 'Colette'. Not a name that rings a bell, out of the vast list of names he knows.
Munin isn't sure she could ever bring herself to hurt Colette. Just thinking about it leaves her stomach in knots. Hurting Felix, on the other hand, is a little more palatable — though not by very much. She's imitating Ethan's methods of interrogation as best she can, but it's hard knowing there are lines in the sand that he'll cross and she won't. This is one of them. Still, she sees no serious harm in letting Dina continue to hang the threat over the fed's head. For good measure. "You don't know where Deckard is," she murmurs lowly. "Fine. I'll buy that. Here's what I'm telling you: he'd better turn up, and soon. One way or another."
"I'm not the lever you can use to get Deckard, if he's gone to ground," Felix says, earnestly. "He doesn't give a damn for me or mine. I deliberately don't have that information - I can't contact him, he contacts me, if and when he chooses." He spreads his hands. "You're going to do what you please with me, clearly, but I can tell you before all the real fun begins this is a dead end." His heart is still pounding, the speed scaling up, close to what should have a normal human on the border of cardiac arrest.
Dina scoffs, and puts her gun to the base of his skull. "Oh, enough of this bloody nonsense. If he's not goin' to cooperate, I say we put a bullet in 'is brainpan, and find some other lead on this."
Upon the sound of Felix's heart starting to race, coupled only with Dina's threat, Felix will feel his legs shift. From the waist down, he mimics Sylar's casual stance, although it feels anything but casual, as if his legs were trapped in cement. "His brain has better uses," Sylar says, addressing Dina without looking at her. His smile turns wolfish, allowing for a tense pause, but he follows this up with, "He contacts you and you contact us. It's not a perfect arrangement but you're smart enough to know the world of hell you and your friends would be in if you cross us."
"He doesn't contact me," Felix says, voice gone low. "For all I know, he's dead, having pissed off someone else by selling them toy guns. You're not hearing me. He's not even an informant - I've never gotten any real info from him. And I've never paid him. He was either too ignorant or too scared to pass on anything of use." He's still sweating, for all that he's shivering at the same time.
Dina looks back to Sylar, then to Felix. "You're a fockin' fed, and yer tellin' me y' can't find a man when y' put yer mind to it? Maybe y' need some incentive." And with that, she buries the muzzle of the gun in the back of his thigh (to muffle the noise, of course) and pulls the trigger.
It's still noise enough, and Sylar flinches just a little when the gun goes off. Of course, who wouldn't flinch at a gunshot? Perhaps not that noticeable. All the same, he lifts a hand to gently touch one ringing ear with a look of complaint. But notably, as soon as the gun goes off, the spell on Felix's legs collapses for the moment.
Adrenaline wins out over good sense, for a few crucial instants. Which translates to Fel trying to bolt, just as he's shot, and succeeding only in not just collapsing, but more or less flinging himself bodily forward to try and get away, invoking that unnatural speed. However, it also translates to a crucial spike in blood pressure in an open (but at least not arterial) wound, and a demonstration of the flaw in that particular power. There's a crablike scramble, for a second or so, like some sort of sped up zombie movie, but it ends up with Felix only a couple of body-lengths away, already pale in shock, and a completely disproportionate blood trail in the little space between him and his captors. He's curled on the sidewalk, trying to find a way to put pressure on the wound with trembling hands.
"That's incentive enough, Di'." It's taking all of Munin's willpower to keep her voice from shaking. The blood has drained from her face, leaving her even more gaunt and pale than she normally is, her expression forlorn — haunted. She promised they wouldn't hurt him, didn't she? And now here he is, a writhing mess on the sidewalk, dark liquid pooling out from his wound and gathering, coagulating in the cracks in the cement.
She's had enough.
"Let's go."
Dina has remarkably little respect for police, the military…basically "the establishment". She looks back to Munin, though, and nods. "All right, wee bit." She'll take her lead. "Are we leavin' him there to think over his misdeeds?"
One day. One day. Sylar keeps his eyes trained on Felix, mostly the same look in his eye he got when he had a girl who could dictate the movements of others under his brand of control. But some things are more important. "Maybe he'll have a change of heart," he sneers. "You're using up your nine lives, Agent. And fast." He takes a step to move away, before people can really investigate the muffled gunshot.
Munin melts into the shadows of the alley, silent, as much of a ghost as when she first appeared. That must be a yes. To Dina's question — not to Felix's assessment.
 December 2nd: T&A |
 December 2nd: Inconvenient Introductions |