Participants:
| Scene Title | Bachelorette Bonfire |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A breaker gives off sparks and an accidental fire takes out 40,000 units of Refrain. That's our story and we're sticking to it. Happy hen party, Tamsine! |
| Date | February 12, 2010 |
New Jersey: McCartney's Storage
A hazy damn morning has fallen on New Jersey, and this is a particularly shitty corner of it. The docks make up a backdrop, but this end of town is all but abandoned — no one goes here, except for the people who cash in on the fact that no one goes here. The sky is bleakly overcast, making grey the already very grey warehouse that sits huddled with ones of its kind, a stretch of asphalt laying out before it. There's a car out front, empty save for its driver perched against it, a defiant position in front of the huge— locked— doors of the building. He doesn't look happy to be here, stamping his feet to get some warmth back in, a burning cigarette poking from the corner of his mouth.
McCartney's Storage writes in faded letters on the concrete walls, and there are no lights inside, no life at all. Tightly sealed up, however, and the man out front is not the only one, a couple roaming around and casting an eye about this urban little place of abandonment and waste, too close to sharing waters with Staten Island, industrial and empty of rundown businesses who have taken their prospects somewhere else.
The guards themselves are the only things that indicate that this building has importance, and they don't feel it necessary to hide it. No cops are coming down here. Chances are, some of them even know not to.
Inside the building, her head covered with a balaclava, Cat scans the building's interior to get bearings and establish where she is in relation to the glowing blue substance they've come to destroy. She doesn't speak, not wishing to draw attention from anyone who might be inside, and listens as well to verify solitude. Only when she has comfort with that does she activate the flashlight brought with her and take a few steps.
In addition to the covering of her face, she's in a thick winter coat with gloves. Cold weather normally, and the plan suggests it'll become colder still as the action is carried out. A gesture of her hand indicates the direction of the Refrain. It's showtime.
Four women, one of them a bride soon to be married out to deny fuel to the entity which murdered her daughter. Dark humor says this is quite the unusual bachelorette party, and it will be enjoyable.
The bride in question is very out of her element, never having done anything like this in her life. If her power allowed her to open the portal and send them through without her, she would have done that, but her power is such that the portal opens to her and anyone who follows for a short period of time. Her masked form, one of the three petite women, stays close to the tallest form which is Cat's. Tamsine knows none of her three cohorts, really — they are all strangers to her, but Cat she has seen at least twice now in her dreams, and seems to have the confidence the teleporter herself lacks.
Helena is wearing a rather surprising minimum as far as coat would be called for, just a heavy sweater, woolen cap with her hair tucked in it, and and a big, thick scarf that covers much of her face, not unlike her old friend Norton. "I was thinking. If Em here," she indicates Meredith, not wanting to use her full name, "Starts at one end, I can help push the fire in whatever direction and fan it so it spreads quicker. What do you think?"
They arrive within the large space, almost empty of anything else, with grease and oil stains on the concrete ground. Broken green glass glitters under where high windows shines low light into the space, and there's no sound other than their own breathing and heart beats, and the winter wind skimming off the rooftop. Everything is as the pictures say, discreet angles from some paid off mobster with just enough trust placed in him by Logan — the crates are gathered upon rolling platforms, collecting dust, but less so than everything else in this place. There are two hundred of them, unmarked, relatively small — just big enough to contain two hundred vials each.
While the people she is with she would consider herself barely on first name basis with, Meredith is hard pressed to think of a reason she shouldn't help out burning down a whole building full or refrain. They have a plan and she has the firepower, so here she is in the midsts of three people she barely knows - except for the recent reacquaintance with Cat - ready to commit arson. Have fire, will travel. Wearing a ski mask, she looks like a strange parody of a bank robber, being the eldest of all of them. She feels a little like some strange sort of criminal den mother.
"Sounds like a plan. The sooner we're in and out, the better." Meredith's already been inside enough burning buildings for the year and she'd like to keep this as easy and painless as possible.
"By all means," Cat comments with a nod of her covered head toward the crates, "let's get the job done and get out." Her head turns toward Tamsine, and voice is given to her earlier thought. "Consider this adventure your bachelorette party." The words are followed by a quiet snicker as she examines crates nearby to see if any of them seem easy to open. Perhaps to obtain samples for analysis of chemical structure.
"While it's probably better than going to Chippendales, let's still keep it a secret from the bridegroom, shall we?" Tamsine says with a soft chuckle, watching Helena and Meredith move to begin the destruction of the drug. She will simply wait until it's time to open the portal, and keep an eye out for anyone coming who shouldn't be. "I never did any of this and I still had nightmares," she adds softly, frowning a touch. "I'm pretty sure those kids didn't do it either… I don't know if it will be enough to stop him, but if it helps at all…"
"Wait, you're marrying him?" Pause. "Congratulations?" Helena can at least be polite, as she turns to Meredith and notes, "You're the expert. I'm thinking you show me where you want to start, tell me how you want me to fan the flames, we keep the other two behind us and when we're ready to go, Tee can just open a portal and off we go."
Meredith isn't so much worried about samples or research, she just wants to burn the stuff down and get back home. Or, well, to the Lighthouse that she's been calling home for the past week or so. Good enough. "Marrying who?" Is this really the conversation to be having while they're about to commit a crime? Who knows, but when else would be a good time for it? Taking a look around, Meredith frowns. Concrete doesn't really burn well. And she's not sure how combustible those crates are. However, they seem like their best contact point to start a blaze.
Frowning in concentration while she scopes out the scene, the blonde notices a breaker not too far away from the group. Best to make it look even somewhat like an accident, even if it may not pass muster on closer examination. "I'll blow out the breaker over there, then flame up the sparks from that on the crates. Then you can fan the flames, we'll make sure it catches and then get the hell outta dodge. All ya gotta do is start slow, aim at the embers and keep feedin' it oxygen. If that stuff's got any sorta alcohol in it, it'll catch like nobody's business."
After studying one of the crates, Cat opts not to try opening it for samples. She can get those elsewhere for study purposes, and being near the target of fire soon to come isn't a desirable place to be once flames start up anyway. Her part of this, then, is much like Tamsine's. Observe and listen/watch for unwanted company, being ready to escape with the other three.
Tamsine's dark eyes look amused at Helena's civil congratulations. "By the way, since it seems you know who he is, he's retired, if that makes any difference to you," she says quietly. As far as she knows, he's part of a special unit of the Department of Homeland Security that works specifically with and against Evolved — and she can understand why the women she's with might not like him for such a position. "And he knows what I can do and has no problem with it." The words are softly spoken, as she watches the two women begin to work.
A waft of a breeze seems to stir around Helena, ruffling the edges of her scarf. She lifts her hands, the action helping her to focs. "I'm ready when you are." she tells Meredith.
This conversation is something to pin down for later. Retired? Knows what she can do and is okay with it? That sounds suspiciously like she's engaged to HomeSec. Or Company. Or who knows what else. Maybe Humanis First, if she really likes the rebels. Not that Meredith is really one to judge - but she does it anyway. There's a job to do first, though, and she focuses her eyes on the breaker in sight. Slowly, she raises the temperature around it until soon enough, it's boiling hot. A fuse breaks, sparks showering down. Those sparks, Meredith quickly concentrates on, goading them on, willing them to glow brighter, hotter, and turn into not just sparks, but actual flames. It takes a minute or two, but soon there's a small crackling fire on top of one of the boxes.
Meredith's eyes are narrowed and the temperature around the group has risen significantly along with her attempt to get the sparks to jump to life. "Now," she hisses at Helena.
The fire makes the danger of the situation all the more real for Tamsine, the flame reflected in her dark eyes as she watches it. She steps back out of instinct, then turns to focus on a spot nearby, waiting for the word to open the portal, ready to spring into action and back into the safety of her cozy living room in Greenwich Village as soon as she can.
Helena's brows wrinkle in concentration as she directs the gathering of air as instructed. No, she can't manage fine manipulation, but general direction? Yeah, that's not outside her purview. As the sparks start flying, Helena starts directing gusts, sending them out toward the other samples.
The modestly started fire rolls across the wooden surfaces, instantly scorching them black as flames bite into the receptive material, embering and cracking. It's going to get warm in here rather quickly, but so far, daylight allows for the firelight within to go diguised — though that won't keep for too long by the time the fire is roaring. It fans along wooden sheaths, encouraged by the artificial wind that guides them—
There's a soft sound, wind-chime like, if wind-chimes could be made to sound like a wee explosion. Glass within the first crate engulfed in flame shatters under the heat, and almost instantly, a thick kind of black smoke begins to seep out from the edges of the crate. It isn't the hazy run off that comes from burning wood, but gives an acidic kind of smell, more smoke than it seems like the fire is generating.
The wind-chime like sound and then the smell gives Meredith pause. …What could make that noise? And what is that smell? With a frown and quickly turned away face, Meredith stops concentrating on the fire. She doesn't need to any more as it's burning merrily along without her. "…That doesn't sound good…"
"We don't know the chemical composition of the drug," Cat advises, "and the sound could be tied to whatever variety of glass the doses are in. If the fire is large enough already to be sustainable without help, we should bail. I don't relish the idea of breathing any of that." Her eyes move from one to another of the three, resting on each in turn.
The teleporter nods, and focuses on the area in front of her. Invisible to the rest, she looks into her living room in front of her. "Window is about eight feet across," Tamsine says, pointing to one spot on the floor and then sweeping her hand to another spot about eight feet away. "I have to go first, but get through within the next few seconds," she says, glancing back to make sure each of them are ready to go through her rip in the fabric of space. Once she sees they are all ready, she steps through, seeming to disappear into nothingness.
Helena starts stepping back, nodding her agreement. "We should get going. Even if we only get part of the shipment, it's going to severely effect their ability to spread, and the heat alone is probably enough to compromise the drug." She'll keep fanning the flames, helping them spread through the warehouse, but she's also heading for the portal as indicated. "Em?" Making sure Claire's birth-momma is in accord with the retreat.
The fire and the smell worries Meredith, but she sure as hell doesn't want to stick around in a place where she could get contact high, or burn to death. So, she nods once affirmatively at Helena and moves to step through the portal as well.
Another tinkling crackle of broken glass, more belching smoke, quick to disperse under Helena's gusts of wind. With Tamsine and Meredith clear of the space, only Cat and Helena get the experience of their eyes beginning to water, but the fire is quick to travel, another sound of breaking glass in the air. An oozing, boiling liquid is beginning to pool out from beneath the platform, bubbling vicious blue.
The 'porter and Meredith are gone, and Helena's got the idea. "Tamsine said people can follow through the portal, that means smoke might follow us too. Keep the wind going behind us, maybe, so none of this vapor comes along for the ride?" Suggestion given, and with smoke starting to affect her eyes, Cat steps through the portal to safety.
Once in her own home, Tamsine is already moving to open the door and the windows, to make sure none of the smoke and vapors settle into the small brownstone apartment, decorated in something of a shabby-chic manner; one wall dedicated to photographs of a dark-eyed little girl from infancy through early teen years. After everyone steps through, Tamsine watches to make sure the portal closes with no unexpected guests passing into her home, then pulls off the mask, shaking her red hair free. "Coffee?" she asks, a smirk curving her lips unexpectedly. It feels good to use her power to help others.
Helena steps back and back and back, all the while making sure the gusty air is pushing /forward/ from her, to keep the residue in the air and the smoke and anything else from compromising them. So long as there are no more impediments, she backs into the teleport vortex and into safety - all the while still keeping up her efforts for as long as she can, or the portal closes.
Whoosh and Meredith finds herself in Tamsine's apartment. The whole portal/teleporting thing is not something she's going to get used too any time soon. It makes her a bit dizzy to go from one place to some place drastically different in a step. Taking a deep breath of clean air, she glances about her, waiting until the portal is closed before she yanks off the stifling ski mask. Messy blonde hair in desperate need of combing falls down to her back. "I'd love some, thanks," she replies casually. As if the four of them didn't just burn down a warehouse of illegal drugs.
Not a wisp of choking smoke manages to get through, as much as Cat and Helena will both be looking at the world through blurry vision for the next day — whatever evil comes from the burning of Refrain, it happens fast. By the time all four women are clear of the warehouse, thick smoke in massive quantities pulls like a lake in the rafters, boiling against the windows until someone finally notices the acrid stench. Helena will hear it just as the portal closes behind her — a skreee of the metal doors groaning open.
"What— oh holy fuck!" He might have said more, suddenly choking on the hazy residue of toxic air, staggering back and against his car. He waits until he's safe before even phoning any of his friends, and by then, it's too late.
No one remains at the warehouse by the time smoke pours on out through the open doors, adding a black stain to the grey sky above.