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| Scene Title | An Address |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Lucille and Berlin ask a family friend for some help on a lead. Grotesque. |
| Date | October 2, 2018 |
Peyton's Home
The late afternoon sun bares down on the pair of Wolfhound operatives as they walked down the pedestrian filled street. Business as usual. The taller of the two stops as they come to the door that matches with the address they have for the person in interest. “I don't know her well but we were.. in Alaska together.” Lucille Ryans is wrapped in her usual black asymmetrical blazer, her clothes ranging from black to dark grey, boots sounding on the pavement before coming to a halt before the door and looking over at her best friend, “Well she was already in Alaska in that facility, came back with us. Kidnapped apparently?” The auburn haired woman didn't know specifics really. Just that, “She was pregnant at the time…” She has no idea who the father is but.. she had thoughts.
“Seemed really nice, that Academy basically sounds like Xavier's School for Gifted Kids.” Ruffling the back of her hair she waits to knock.
That explanation of Peyton's experience in Alaska has Berlin looking over at Luce with a wide-eyed expression. She also has thoughts, but by the way her expression dips, they're mostly centered on sympathy for the woman they're coming to see. "So there's plenty of good reason for her to not want to do this," she says, glancing to the door like she might not want them to knock at all. "Or maybe she'd like a chance to bring some of them down." Or maybe a mix a of both.
Only one way to find out, really.
Berlin reaches out to knock, but looks back over at Lucille. "Kids need that. Learning about their abilities alongside math and science and whatever. Makes it normal. Maybe they won't be so scared."
There’s a couple of moments before they can hear someone approaching the door, and another few seconds’ worth of hesitation where that someone is probably looking through the peephole to make sure it’s not someone unwanted on the stoop. But the door does open, and Peyton appears on the other side of it, dressed down for the Saturday at home in jeans and a t-shirt. Her feet are bare, her face unmade. She looks younger this way, than she does in the photographs promoting the school or the few times she’s been seen at social events in the city.
Her dark eyes slide across both of them, before falling on Lucille — she recognizes her, of course, both from that terrible day in Alaska, and also because she’s Bradley’s sister. “Hi,” she says, a little uncertain, the word lilting upward into a question, before she steps back to let them in. “Lucille, right? Come on in. Were you looking for Brad? It’s just me today, I’m afraid.”
“By the way.. she dates my brother.” Minor detail, nothing to see here. The auburn woman paints a soft smile on her face in greeting to her brother’s partner. “Peyton, yes Lucille it's been.. a while.” That's too say the least, “This is my friend Berlin,” gesturing to the younger woman with a hand before steps into the home and dips her head in thanks to the clairvoyant. “No no, though I should be seeing him soon. Just you.” There's nothing in her demeanor that says she's nervous to bring up this topic or that it is probably extremely awkward but the aftermath of shitty times usually were so there wasn't much to do about that.
“We’d like to ask you some questions? If you weren't opposed.” Pale blue eyes go to Berlin as Lucille speaks.
Berlin blinks at Lucille's last minute addition, which leaves her looking a little bewildered when Peyton opens the door. But she recovers after a beat and offers a hand out toward Peyton. "It's nice to meet you," she says, even though this is sort of an awkward way to meet someone.
"Wolfhound questions," she clarifies, in case that wasn't totally obvious. "We'd like to ask for your help." She looks over to Luce, to meet that glance her way. Whatever her internal thoughts, she leaves them there and turns back to Peyton. "Can we come in? We don't bite, that's just a rumor."
Peyton takes the offered hand, murmuring a polite “nice to meet you too,” that’s more rote than earnest. A brow lifts in curiosity at the word questions from Lucille, and Peyton’s dark eyes widen a little at the word Wolfhound from Berlin. imperceptible due to dark, nearly black irises, there’s a constriction of pupils.. She blinks, a hand reaching up to tuck a strand of dark hair behind her ear, and she steps back to let them in.
She doesn’t say if she’s opposed or not. It might depend on the questions.
“Come in. I was just having some coffee. Would you like some?” she asks, leading them through the entryway to the kitchen. A cup of coffee already waits for her at a table, and she moves to the coffee pot to pour a cup or two, depending on their answers.
All but ignoring both looks from her friend and brother’s girlfriend Lucille sweeps into the home, throwing the ends of her blazer out and over her shoulder in a show of being casual. It's a minor detail of course of course. “Water for me. How's Jonah?” With a faint smile her eyes peek out for him, he and Pippa should have a play date. The notion of that makes Lucille twitch in the corner of her mouth but luckily she's turned the other way, “We did have some work questions,” Tone casual for a heavy subject.
“Wanted to ask about your time in Alaska.”
That's a loaded statement with all three women in the room knowing exactly what went on there, “I know it's a hard topic.” Something everyone wanted to leave behind but there were leftovers that needed to be dealt with. Lucille didn't want to make things awkward but it was her relationship through her brother that made this such an important contact, potential source of help. Someone with Peyton’s ability held huge amounts of power in Lucille’s eyes.
"Nothing for me," Berlin says as she follows Lucille and Peyton in. But she does slip into a seat at the table, because this is a heavy subject and it'll be better for everyone if they do it sitting down. "We're on the hunt for a few people who slipped the net. We were hoping we could run a few names by you, see if you recognize anybody." Which is obviously just the beginning. But Berlin is trying to be reassuring.
They aren't here to hunt her.
"If you've met any of them… we were hoping you could give us some intel. Or… get some. We can't promise that it wouldn't be potentially disturbing to use your power on these people. So that's why it's up to you. But we're hitting some dead ends and they need to be found." There's a pause before she adds, "We can offer a consulting fee, of course."
“He’s good. Brad actually has him off on some adventure that involved dirt and mud and stuff, so I stayed home,” Peyton says with a smile in Lucille’s direction, before she goes to get a glass and then fill it from the refrigerator’s door. Bringing her own coffee and the water to the table, she looks a little less anxious, given the reassuring words from both of the women, though she still doesn’t look happy about it — knowing they know she was there, with those people, at that time.
It’s one thing to live with it — it’s another to address it directly. And here they are asking her to look for the elephants in the room, so to speak.
Peyton takes a seat across from Berlin, and shakes her head. “I don’t need a consulting fee. I want to help,” she murmurs, wrapping both hands around her mug of coffee. “I can try. It depends on if I’ve met them — or seen them, anyway. I may not know names, though. If you have photos that will help.” She takes a breath, releasing it a little shakily, before bringing her coffee up to her lips for a sip. “I think he didn’t always introduce people by name to me, you know, for this reason, maybe.”
“Good with the kids.” Lucille was happy for her brother, Peyton and Jonah. People needed a piece of happiness in this fucked up world and the people in their circle almost especially with how closely tied they all seemed to have been to the Institute and those years of fighting afterwards. Minutely nodding her head in thanks she takes a swallow of the water before placing the glass back. “This means a lot to us really. I know this is.. hard. Awkward.” To say the least.
Reaching into her pocket for small photos that she slides over across the table. “Dr. Adrienne Allen, she was the head of a project with the Institute, working with them against her will.”
The next of a older man with a scowl on his face, “David Cardinal, believed to be Richard Ray’s biological father and somehow connected to them.” That particular lead didn't totally surprise Lucille given who was running the Institute when she took that mission to Alaska. The how of David Cardinal would be surprising though she had no doubt.
The blonde, pale form of Kyla Renautas stares up at the trio of women, “This is.. Kyla Renautus, a psychic of some kind. Works with the leadership.. you might want to steer clear.” Lucille is not aware of how clairvoyants and other mental based abilities like telepathy work. “Or.. you'd hijack a conversation.” With a weak grin trying to lighten the mood in the room. Leaving Peyton a emotional wreck after this might lose her crucial sister points.
The last photo is the one of the most interest to Lucille anyway, “Caspar Abraham, he worked with my dad apparently in the Company. Takes memories and places them into objects he probably has a wealth of knowledge, the motherload.” Tapping his face with her finger Lucille looks over to Berlin. “Again, anything you remember, anything at all or anything you can see if you decide too, means the world.” Trying her best to show her gratitude, pale blue eyes lift up as she looks at Peyton, her brother has good taste.
While Lucille explains the photos, Berlin watches Peyton for a reaction to any of what's being thrown at her. Not out of distrust, but curiosity. "If we could find Abraham or his stash, that might blow the whole thing wide open." Seeing as he probably has knowledge of the others. Or their memories tucked away. "But we will take anything we can get," she says with a hint of a self-deprecating smile.
It would be better for everyone involved if they didn't have to tap Peyton for this, but seeing as they are, Berlin doesn't have a problem admitting that they are a little desperate.
"He was cautious," she says, as far as him keeping Peyton a little in the dark, "which was probably smart, but kinda super inconvenient for us now, huh?"
Taking the photos, Peyton peers at each one as Lucille speaks. She frowns when the name Cardinal is spoken and stares at the photograph of Richard’s father for a long moment, before looking at the image of Caspar. She looks up again at the mention of that ability, brows lifting with surprise. It’s one she’s never heard of before.
Berlin’s quip draws Peyton’s dark gaze. “He was too cocky to be truly cautious, but maybe it was before that point,” she says quietly. “Or he didn’t trust me entirely, which is also possible.”
Her eyes go back to the photos. “I don’t remember their faces, but…” she says, retunring to the photo of Kyla Renauta and staring at it for a moment. The black pupils of her eyes swallow up the near-black-brown irises for just a second, before springing back to their normal size. She shakes her head, turning to the picture of Adrienne Allen.
Again, again, and again, her ability fails to lock onto the targets. She hasn’t met Renauta, Allen, or Richard’s father. It’s the last that takes hold — her black pupils swallow up the whole of her irises and holds. Peyton lets go of the photos, blindly reaching for her mug to wrap her hands around, taking a shaky breath.
Elsewhere
“No, no, because— no I already told you Teddy, this ain’t yours!” Narrow lines of golden hour sun stream through gaps in a wood shed’s walls. From Peyton’s perspective, she's carrying a metal bowl filled with chopped dog food. A white and black collie hustles at her ankles, barking loudly with tail wagging from side to side. “God damnit Teddy, get down!” Her voice is a man’s soft in tone but loud in volume. The shed is old, nails rusted, a dusty oil lamp hang inlit by the door next to rusted farming implements; pitchforks, wood saws, trawls and the like.
Through Caspar’s eyes, she sees him walk to the shed door and push it open, stepping out into the afternoon sun dipped down just below the treeline. Everything is cast a beautiful shade of gold, including the old trailer nearby, set up on cinderblocks with plywood planks over the windows. A few rusted shipping containers are parked behind the trailer in an overgrown field, and a few more dogs are barking in what sounds like a kennel.
Caspar walks tiredly from the shed with the bowl of food, toward the shipping containers as his dog Teddy bounds ahead of him, circles back, barks loudly, and just prances excitedly along the dirt footpath. In the tall grass Peyton can see an old post and beam fence strung with barbed wire, barely visible. Caspar cuts around the fence and weaves a circuitous path to the shipping container and juggles the metal bowl in one hand while leveling down on the latch on the container door. “Teddy, down!”
The Safe Zone
“That cockiness ended up getting him killed thankfully,” and saved the world but only before it almost ended it. Not something Lucille needs to tell either woman at all. Nodding her head along to Berlin, she agrees. With no current leads they were desperate and Lucille couldn't help but think with what they were learning of the Institute Remnants’ current projects and movements that they might be running out of time. Finding those pennies could save a lot of lives Lu figures.
As Peyton goes photo to photo Lucille watches curiously, Peyton’s ability was amazing in Lucille’s eyes. Peyton could travel anywhere, anytime though it would involve stomping all over someone's privacy but the fact that she could leave her body so to speak at will was badass.. and scary. The tall woman finding herself wondering on how you could protect against this sort of scrying, if it was even possible.
For now, Lucille watches a master watcher at work.
Berlin falls silent when Peyton goes through the pictures, watching the woman's eyes shift and eventually change. She lets out a sigh, relieved that they didn't make her deal with all this for no reason. She looks over at Luce, then back to the picture before she speaks up.
"How do you think those pennies work?" she asks, mostly Lucille, given that her voice is low, like she doesn't want to disturb Peyton. "If you find one, do you get the memories like they're your own? Do they go back to whoever they belonged to? Does Abraham have to unlock them? Does it have to be pennies or is that just his thing?" The questions, they are mounting. The more she thinks about it, the more she has.
Elsewhere
Pulling the trailer door open, Caspar steps inside and quickly shuts it behind himself. Bullet holes in the corrugated metal wall of the container let in thin shafts of golden light that Caspar navigates by. “Feeding time,” he says with an apologetic grimace.
Ahead of Caspar, there is a ratty armchair with patched up upholstery, beside a tall folding table with a few dog-rated magazines from before the war — issues of Pulse and other tabloids — and an ashtray littered with cigarette butts. Behind the chair, deeper in the shipping container there's a rattle of a chain and a gurgling sound. Caspar stands straight and tenses. “Now don't be like that,” he says with a faint quaver in his voice. Don't be like that.”
Something moves in the dark, a heavy chain dragging on the floor of the shipping container, as something lurches into the light. Sunlight shines off of glistening, bare skin pink and reddened like sunburnt flesh. Puffy eyes regard Caspar from the shadows, and he looks behind himself to briefly pull out a sun-bleached magazine from his back pocket. Popular Mechanic circa April 2009.
“I got you a book. Okay?” Caspar brandishes the magazine like a cross, slowly approaching the armchair. “Easy.” The chain rattled and scrapes across the bottom of the container again, and something that isn't human drags itself partly into view, hunched and blistered with patches of hair and a crooked, ever-drooling set of too-wide jaws. But it's eyes are — were — human.
Sterling himself before the sight, Caspar slowly sets the bowl down on the table by the chair with a rattling clatter, then starts to set the magazine down when whatever that is leaps out from the darkness like a jumping spider. The chain comes taut, but Caspar still scrambles backwards and lands with a resounding clang on his backside. All of the dogs begin to howl outside, while Caspar watches a six-armed molten mass of flesh scuttle up the chair like a spider, grabbing the bowl with its two overly long arms to haul up toward its drooling face.
Breathing in short, rapid breaths, Caspar watches the creature with marked horror as it shovels the food into its mouth, slapping globules landing on the floor. It doesn't take long for the creature to exhale a rattling gasp, paw at its face and stumble around a few paces and then collapse onto the floor, tipping the bowl and table over as it lands in a heap. Caspar takes in a deep breath, then reaches in his pocket and pulls out an empty syringe.
Exhaling a deep breath, he rises up and walks over to the bow inert beast, pricking it in the shoulder and drawing a syringe full of blood. The slowly breathing beast is a jumble of limbs, discolored skin that seems to be both rotting and splitting at the same time it is healing and stitching itself back together. Swallowing anxiously, Caspar quickly backs away as the creature begins to stir, gurgling and hissing and then awakening with a feral cry as it lunges forward to the extent of its chain.
Caspar ticks the syringe away in the front pocket of his overalls as he stands with his back to the door. “Enjoy your magazine.” Then, he wrenches the door open and quickly slips out, slamming it shut with a resounding clang.
The Safe Zone
—
Oblivious to the discussion at the table, Peyton bites her lower lip — even seeing a shipping container is frightening enough, pulling at long-buried traumas of her own. Suddenly she gasps, jumping slightly in her chair; her coffee swells over the brim of the mug to splash on the table in front of her. She has the sense to set the mug down with shaking hands, but doesn’t get up, doesn’t break her vision, to mop up the mess.
Another moment later, her hand comes up to cover her mouth, which contorts with a mixture of fear, pity, disgust. Her eyes, solid black, well up with tears that slide out of the corners and she shakes her head, as if to clear it from what she sees.
And yet she still holds on.
Quietly she speaks to the women with her. “He’s got something — someone maybe — a prisoner. In a shipping container. An experiment maybe… too many arms. The skin…” she shakes her head again, pressing her lips together. “Trying to see where he goes, what’s outside.”
“I… fuck.” Lucille has just as many questions as Berlin and her expression shows it, “Maybe we rub it and it projects onto the wall for us- oh wait. I've got a contact in SESA.” Rolling her eyes at herself as Peyton continues her scrying, “Only met her once but.. she can project past events through objects, memories.” Lucille nods to herself that the SESA agent Cassandra was almost like the inverse of Caspar’s ability.
Lucille is leaning forward to reach and steady Peyton but then flinches back afraid to do something that will ruin her connection the Caspar and her vision, blue eyes flick to Berlin’s and they widen a fraction at the clairvoyant’s words. Too many arms? An experiment. In that moment for the woman Caspar becomes not just a person of interest who would have very important knowledge but a target. Eyes narrow as she goes to pull out her little red book and pen, quickly jotting down the things that Peyton is saying she's seeing through Caspar’s eyes.
Her guts twist because being on the trail of someone with a Company past like Caspar makes her think of the unsavory things her father had to do.. did he ever do.. anything like this? Lucille clamps down on these doubts and thoughts. Focusing back on her job through it's starting to feel a bit more personal for her.
Berlin, in contrast, takes notes on her phone when Peyton starts relaying the information. Her expression doesn't much change even when the news is plenty horrific, she just notes it down as if it were any other interview. Her own thoughts about what Peyton is telling them are hard to read, but she seems mostly distant at the moment. It isn't personal for her, it's just her job.
It would not surprise her in the least if the Institute leftovers were continuing the same sort of work they were always doing.
People don't change.
"Could be helpful," Berlin says to Lucille, as far as her contact goes. "Even if she can't get the memories out, she might be able to see something of the coins themselves." If they get ahold of the pennies. If they get ahold of Abraham.
After a moment or two, Peyton shakes her head, her pupils shrinking back down to normal side, revealing the brown irises once again. She stares down at the table for a moment, before she makes sense of her present, getting up then to go grab a towel from the kitchen and beginning to mop up the mess.
“I don’t know where he was. Somewhere rural, or maybe just overgrown. There was a trailer and a few shipping containers. Dogs barking somewhere in the distance,” she says, her voice quiet, schooled into a neutral tone despite the horrors of what she’d just seen.
“He was keeping something — someone — like a dog. Worse. Chained up, fed dog food. Six arms, I think, its — his — skin was… I can’t describe it. Like it’d been split apart and melded together over and over again.” She keeps her eye on the towel, watching the liquid seep into the white cotton. “A lab experiment I think. I think he sedated him with the food and then drew blood.”
Peyton sits again, the rag still in her hands. “I don’t know if there were others in the other containers. I hope not,” she murmurs, finally looking up. “I’ll watch again to see if I can get a better location. I didn’t see anything that could narrow it down, but if I don’t see anything now, I’ll look again now and then and see if maybe eventually I can catch him going into a town for food or supplies.” She doesn’t look thrilled about it — she still has nightmares from watching Gregor and Danko. “Let me know when you no longer need me to, though.” There’s a beat. “Please.”
Once more, her pupils expand, turning the rest of her eyes pitch black as she’s plunged again into the world of Caspar Abraham.
Elsewhere
Shutting the shipping container door, Caspar exhales a ragged sigh and looks at the syringe. He glances around the grassy field, squinting against that warm afternoon sunlight, and then begins trudging back to the trailer. The dog comes bounding back, following along at Caspar’s side. When he reaches the other side of the field he passes a small post and beam fence and opens a gate in it.
Straight wire runs all the way around the perimeter of the fence — a double layer of security, but not for man or beast, but for a dog. There's a box by the gate, and when Caspar flips a switch a light on it turns green, and Caspar takes the dog by the collar to make sure there's a light on that too. An invisible fence, to keep the dog away from the shipping container. Caspar snorts softly, then lets go of the leash and ambles back to the trailer. Up on the front porch he passed by a stack of wooden palettes four feet high, then shoulders the trailer door open and sidles on in.
The trailer is dark, light coming through drawn blinds. Not far from the door is a small kitchenette, a round table set on a peeling linoleum floor, mail litters the table and the floor around it. Caspar walks over to the table and pulls out a chair next to it, then sits down and starts rolling up his sleeve. There, at the bend of his elbow, many injection scars from an unsteady hand greet the same needle he used on that abomination.
And Caspar injects himself. He breathes in sharply, eyes shut, and some color returns to his cheeks.
The Safe Zone
But Peyton saw something so much more important in that vision. An address, same across all of the mailing envelopes.
Carl Abrams
72 Deer Trail Road
Hope, AR 71801
Containers? Lucille’s eyes narrow further and she nods as she takes the handwritten notes, circling the words Prisoners? a few times before clicking her pen against the counter and looking over at Berlin. That didn't sound like a man under duress or a man who was being kept captive, he was a jailer himself. A thief of memories and personal freedom, the queasy feeling in Lucille's stomach tightens and twists, “Why the fuck did you work with these people dad…” asking aloud, she's among friends and family.
“Okay but be careful.” He's not a telepath but Lucille worries still. The weight of all of this weighing on her and she's sure the other two women. She waits as Peyton goes back under.
Hoping for an address, a landmark. Something.
"Could be he didn't know," Berlin says, putting a hand on Lucille's arm. "And he left, right? Joined the other side." She's heard a few things about Ben Ryans. Who hasn't?
She looks over at Peyton, concern keeping a frown on her face. The description of the prisoner gets a darker look. "We have to stop that. Whatever he's doing. Whoever he's doing it for. This wasn't supposed to still be happening." There's a lot going on that shouldn't be anymore, but Berlin's been particularly sensitive to it lately. For all that her tone is flat, it's equally clear that she's already set on doing something about this man. Maybe something a little more decisive than they usually do.
Peyton, in her trance of sorts, winces when she watches the man inject himself, a hand coming up to her mouth as she grimaces. “He just… he just injected himself with its blood,” she whispers, looking like she might lose her coffee, but somehow managing to hold herself steady.
After Gregor, most things are easier by comparison.
Suddenly her eyes widen and she snaps her fingers. “Pen and paper,” she demands — no time for pleasantries. Once they’re handed over, she scrawls the address she saw on the pad of paper, pupils constricting once more so she can look down at the words and numbers, to make sure she copied it down right.
“He’s in Arkansas,” she breathes out, pushing the pad back to Lucille.
She hoped he didn't know, she hoped.
Lucille's eyes widen as Peyton continues to view the man’s surroundings and asks for the pen and paper. As the address is written down, Lucille keeps her eyes on Peyton instead of peering early but when the woman comes out of her trance and shoves the pad her way the taller woman reaches over and stares down. There's no smile from the woman but it's a step in the right direction. Her eyes find Berlin and there's something in that stare.
“We have to stop that.” She agrees, and they will.
"Well, that's not safe," Berlin says, her tone incredulous, "unless they take their captives' blood types." And thinking about it… they probably do. She glances to the address once it's written, then to Lucille.
"We will."
Looking back to Peyton, Berlin rips out another paper to jot down her information and Lucille's. "If you need anything, you can contact us." She slides the paper across the table, not smiling either, but grateful all the same. "When this man is sitting in jail where he belongs— he wouldn't have got there without you." Which, to Berlin, means a lot. None of them should be able to roam free.