Participants:
| Scene Title | All In |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Rebecca drops by Elisabeth's to drop off her buy in for the new company, and they talk a little shop. |
| Date | June 25, 2010 |
Elisabeth's Place
It's been a couple of days after she was hired by Homeland Security to look into the whereabout of Jacob Stack. It's been bothering her a little, since she's thrown her hat into the group with Cardinal, Liz and Peyton. Time to formally address this issue because until they get this going, she can't share any information on her cases with them, unless she officially hires them. It'd be a lot easier just to revamp her forms with.. whatever it is they're doing, and include them all in the confidentiality portion.
She approaches Liz' apartment and knocks on the door. She's going to the gym afterwards in hopes of catching this Monica that Cardinal has set up, so she's really dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt and carrying a duffle bag with some gym clothes.
Stepping in, as invited, Rebecca smiles at Elisabeth and sets her bag down near the door. "I may actually have to invest in a car at some point. I am so tired of public transportation." She huffs, blowing a bit of her bangs out of her eyes and nods to the coffee, "Yes, please." Rebecca's typically more of a tea drinker, but when with friends she's quite the conformist when it comes to coffee.
I took a case this week. It was rather important, but after I was done, I realized that I can't really share any of this information with you or the others. I was wondering if there were any news on the business end of things. I'd like to be able to include everyone, but I can't until everything's official." While what she has is a semblence of confidentiality, it's not totally so. But enough that she doesn't want to run off any of her clients for breaking that trust. Once the new company is formed, she'll convert her clients, the ones which fit the mission statement, to the business, while the others will be let go.
"I miss the days when we were a bunch of outlaws that illegally shared information all the time," Cardinal's voice drifts from where he's sitting cross-legged beside the coffee table, some notebooks spread out in front of him and a pen in hand; they're covered in lines and little notes, some sort of chart or graph set up before him. "We haven't been able to talk to Alia yet, but we can probably get the company formed on paper at least," he offers without looking up, "Which should suffice for legal ass-covering, I suppose." His voice sounds tense, and he seems generally on edge, the motions of his pen jagged and curt.
"I already put the corporation papers in motion with my lawyer," Elisabeth says to both of them. Which might be news to Richard, but … she did it. As she pours coffee for Rebecca and for Cardinal too, she listens to the information that Becca's offering. She doesn't comment until she walks back into the living room and hands each of them a cup. "We'll officially be in business in the next couple of days. I think we're pretty well covered on that front. We'll be operating under "Redbird Security," with Richard listed as the CEO, me listed as VP, and Peyton listed as CFO for the moment." She looks at Rebecca. "I didn't know if you officially wanted to merge the businesses, which we can do easily enough, or if you wanted to come on board as a partner, or what."
"I think if we're going to do this, it just needs to be all in. I don't want to have to juggle between this business and my own private practice. I've already started looking through my files to see which clients I have which might fit into what we're going to be trying to do here, and which will not." Rebecca had lunch with her father this weekend, as he was in the city on business. She talked him into a small loan, but the fact is once she gives up the lease on her business, she's out of a place to live.
"I'd like to go in completely. I don't know that I have enough for a full share, but I'd be willing to give what I have now and then reinvest a portion of my earnings back into the company until I've met the buy in amount." Her father offered that as a suggestion for her. She definitely does not want a hand out. "It's all I have to offer really."
"Now we just have to keep from all being murdered by an unstoppable army of super-powered clones," Cardinal mutters under his breath as he reaches up, takes the cup and sets it to one side before he goes back to writing, "Sounds like a plan, Rebecca. I don't have any objection." Scribble scribble. Pause. Scratch out. More writing.
Elisabeth nods to the proposal. "That seems eminently reasonable to me." She knows Rebecca's living at the office and she'll ask about that in a moment, but something in Cardinal's comment brings her blue eyes around to him. He's been… distracted since she got here. Not that it's that unusual, but generally he's not quite like this. "Super-powered clones?" she asks mildly. "Why don't you fill us in, handsome? And then Rebecca can tell us her news — since she wouldn't have come about this one particular case if she didn't think it was relevant." She's beginning to know Becca well enough to be sure of that.
The pen pauses, Cardinal's dark eyes lifting up from the paper to consider the pair for a moment. "You saw the news, I assume," he says, dropping the pen and reaching over for the cup with a grimace, "The Institute's little incursion into Canada, and Mitchell basically threatening to whole-hog invade the country?"
Accepting the coffee, Rebecca takes a seat. The news, she hasn't followed in the last few days, and she knows that she'll need to be more diligent as far as that goes. She drinks from her mug and rests back against the chair. "What more do you know about it?"
Tilting her head, Elisabeth perches on the couch cushion next to Cardinal's shoulder, skimming the papers he's writing on while he talks. "Yeah, I heard it," she comments drily. How could she not?
"Right." Cardinal takes a sip of his drink, setting it aside with a sigh of breath and leaning back as he looks between the two with a grave expression, "Two of the people that the Institute currently has in its hands are Doc Carpenter and Julien Dumont. Doc can — basically xerox someone's personality and memories and put it into someone else's brain. He could — erase Rebecca and make her into another Elisabeth, mentally. Julien can produce independent clones. Not like Brian's, these have their own self motivation."
"Wait, wait, wait." People have to realize Rebecca's practically a virgin when it comes to this sort of talk. She sets her coffee down before she spills it. "What? Clones? Are you serious? How can this stuff be going on?" The look on her face is that of complete bewilderment.
Elisabeth pauses, her expression both startled and uneasy. Her brows pull together in a frown and she asks quietly, "Do we have a picture of Julien?" Though the reasoning behind her request isn't clear at the moment. "So now the Institute has hold of those two…. along with, potentially, Tyler Case and Delphine." She hadn't shared that bit of intel yet, it only barely came through the Ferry network this morning. "The place they hit in Canada was one of the Ferry's safehouses, and from what I gather, they were both last known to be in that location. No one can get hold of anyone to verify; the place is completely off the grid deliberately."
There's a glance at Rebecca. "We're going to have to get you up to speed, I know, but … this is kind of bad. And it's happening. It's one of the reasons Pinehurst was Bad <tm>."
"There're plenty of duplicators out there, but the way that Julien's works…" Cardinal's hands spread slightly, "…think of it, Liz. They arrest or kidnap some Evolved, right? Julien produces a clone… and they over-write his personality with some loyal soldier, using Doc. Then they use Tyler to rip the kidnapee's power out and shove it into the clone. We have to stop them before they get this— this goddamn Evolved mass production line going."
Becca will definitely need to be brough up to speed on something. Whatever text books she was reading back in the day, they're going into the dumpster when she gets back home. Not really being in the loop on most of this stuff, she doesn't have much to stay, but looks from one to the other as they speak and talk as if this is dinner conversation. "How long as some of this stuff been going on? I mean, Richard sat down with me a couple weeks ago and explains a few things to me, but nothing about clones and mad scientist.."
For a long moment, Liz tries to sort out her words. "Okay…. so let me tell you…. no, that'll take too long. The short-short version is that there was originally a plan to create a formula that would turn normal people into Evos. It was being developed for military use, so that US soldiers could be turned into super soldiers. We — meaning a bunch of us including Richard, me, and a slew of others — managed to head off that plan by destroying the formula." She has no idea it's still tattoo'd in invisible ink on Cardinal's thigh… or maybe it's not anymore. "When we took down Pinehearst, we left the way open for other things to happen. Things that wouldn't have happened if the man in charge of Pinehearst had been left alone for a few more years." Damn… and this is the short-short version??? "Now the Institute has picked up where Pinehearst left off, but they don't have the formula… and it's beginning to look like they're attempting the same kind of army-building just from a different angle."
"They've been kidnapping Evolved for the past few months - maybe as much as a year - that they find useful to them," Cardinal says with a grimace, leaning forward to rest folded arms over the table's edge, "They're supported by that asshole Mitchell - you know, the VP - and headed up by a guy named Broome, who was the son of someone from the original Project Icarus. Which was, I've got to note, a Nazi operation."
Rebecca is listening to all of this and taking it in as best that she can. There's some conflicts going on inside her at all of this. The phrase "What have I gotten myself into," is repeated several times during this process to herself. When Cardinal finishes, she reaches for her coffee and takes a drink to give her more time to run this through her brain before she finally asks, "And our plan to stop them is…?"
Elisabeth gestures at the Mastermind. "That's his job. I'm just the hired gun," she quips mildly. And then helps herself to his cup of coffee since he's ignoring it. Not letting good caffeine go to waste. She does peer at his papers again. "I have a feeling that's what all the flow charts are for, though." She eyes her lover's head. "You're not going to turn the spare room into a string diagram, are you? You're starting to creep me out a little." She's not serious, but she's not entirely kidding, either.
Cardinal brings his hand up, pen waved vaguely. "…working on that," he mutters, dropping it down to take another note in the notebook, "I've got to talk to Jensen about picking up Sheridan - we might be able to turn her, if not, we'll get Thatcher to rip the answers out've her mind. And I'm waiting until we rent the building to start building a string map, these are just my notes for it."
Having finished her coffee, Rebecca stands and nods. "Just tell me what you need from me and when. I'll be there. I should get over to the gym, but I wanted to drop this off." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a folded check and sets it on the table next to her coffee mug. "It's all I have to buy in. But it should be enough for me to get a foothold in." The $50,000 check unfolds just a little on its own as she walks towards the door. "And let me know what we need to do to merge my company in." She turns and looks back at the two, she might even seem just a little more lost than when she walked into the door. It doesn't, however, make her any less determined to make it work.
"Jesus, Rebecca," Elisabeth stares at the check as she picks it up. Then she looks at the other woman. "That's sort of your official buy-in, I'd say. And since start-up costs aren't anywhere close to that, it'll put you on the board easily. You said you had a case…. why don't you tell us about that before you head out?"
Rebecca leans against the door for a moment, holding her bag. "I don't know everything, but apparently there's been some stolen blood and Homeland is looking for someone named Jacob Stack. He was last seen in Pleasantville last week. All I was able to get was vehicle identification and a partial plate. Once I flashed back, I really wasn't needed any further."
"Stolen blood? That doesn't sound like a Homeland case…" Cardinal reaches out for his coffee, both brows arching a little as he looks to Rebecca bemusedly, "…who hired you?"
Elisabeth frowns as well and comments quietly, "I saw that report in the news too." She's not sure of the connection.
"Agents Anderson, Dawson and Lipinetti from Homeland Security." Rebecca rattles off the top of her head. "Though I was originally approached by Agent Sawyer who I've worked with before on a case."
"Oh, well…" Cardinal's brows raise slowly, "…if Vee approached you about it, then this isn't Homeland at all. It's a Company case." A sip of the coffee, musing, "Wonder who they're after."
Elisabeth's brows shoot upward and she looks thoughtful at the fact that Veronica is the one who started it. "Jacob Stack isn't a name that I'm familiar with, but I could attempt to run it through some computers and such." She sighs. "I'm starting to feel like the maid… can't we save the world and just have it stay saved for a little while?"