Participants:
| Scene Title | Better Plans |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Some people in this scene need to get some. |
| Date | December 8, 2011 |
Fog makes its way across the island lightly though the naturally occurring mist does strange things when interacting with the dome that surrounds the island. The area near the water, this late at night, is generally completely vacant. Especially at this time of night. Especially with those that watch from the other side.
Like rats in a cage.
There's a thump as a rock hits the air and then collides with a splash into the water. A small table is laid out on the shore near the docks. A small lamp set atop the dull wood. Set at a chair that he must have brought out himself, Brian Winters sits looking on at the dome, the water, the water beyond the dome.
Not too far from him, another copy of himself, wearing the same clothes is going through the motions of throwing rocks powerfully trying to reach the wall of the dome.
"Are you trying to put a hole in it?" Lynette asks as she walks up on these dual Brians. She glances to the one wielding rocks first, "Hoping to swim to freedom?" But she continues on to the table and comes to a stop in the lamplight. She has a pack of cigarettes in hand, like maybe she was looking for some empty space so she wouldn't bother anyone. Instead, she found Brian. But that seems to be good enough for her, in the end.
"I'm not sure a rock will be enough." Her head tilts and she looks out at the dome. "I wonder if he's looking at us right now. Should we wave?" It's a bit of humor, that is, and she looks to Brian with a crooked smile. "Maybe a ruder gesture would be called for."
"Who?" asks Nick, who's walking by — anyone hoping for a quiet bit of solitude on this dock seems to be looking in the wrong place. He glances from one Brian to the next and then back to Lynette with a slight shake of his head, as if to question both Brians' sanity.
"Fuck, this thing makes me feel claustrophobic," he adds, glancing to where his boat is moored, a bit longingly. Like coming to the island was a mistake — and staying on the island a bigger one.
"I was thinking about it."
Comes the answer to swimming to freedom. Brian Winters leans forward on the table, setting his elbows down on it, looking over at the other body of his, throwing rocks at the dome. He looks back to Lynette, his features becoming a little softer as she steps into the light.
"You haven't seen how hard I can throw."
"How are you?" He smiles up at Lynette. His hands go up to cover his mouth as he speaks. Who knows how closely they're watching. And at the very least they deserve to keep their small talk.
As Nick approaches, Brian's gaze follows his to his boat.
"Well, if you manage it, send someone for me, because I want to see that." Lynette smirks before she slides her cigarettes into her back pocket. Lighter, too.
"Oh, you know," she says, to his question to her, "terribly." It's an honest answer. She gives him a smile in return, companionable and everything. "No time to recover from one disaster before the next one hit. How about you? How's the dad life?"
She turns to Nick, though, who also gets a smile, if a more mischevious one. "Our best friend, Heller, of course." Her smile fades, though, and she nods to his opinion of their situation. "Me, too." And it occurs to her, after a moment, that he really is stuck. "I'm sorry," she says, more sincerely, "this timing could have been better, couldn't it?"
Nick lifts a shoulder. "I didn't have to stay," he says, simply enough. He's long since abandoned the American accent he once used, at least not when he's at the island. The words are colored with that East End accent that pins him as heralding from the same place as Eileen — if one didn't know he was her brother, they might guess, despite the fact the two are rarely seen in the same place.
He nods to Brian. "Congratulations. Sorry it's such a tough time for a little un' to start off in this world." He glances back out to the water on the other side of the dome, watching for any dangers, as he slips his hands into his peacoat's pockets to keep them warm.
"Ah. Normal dad stuff. Just trying to make sure she doesn't get sick.." His eyes wander off to where the sick are quarantined. "Or fall in with the wrong people." His gaze goes across the desk through the dome to the people across the river. He gives a light nod to Nick. "Thank you Nick." Winters seems cheery enough, given the situation with the Ruskin spawn. Though he may be at odds with his sister, if any of his frustration bleeds throu the blood line he doesn't show it.
"It's not the greatest time for an old fashioned castle siege. No. I wouldn't have picked it myself." He grins. Looking up at Lynette. "It's not a big deal that I'm here. I have other bodies. But Sam. The baby." He gives a light sigh. "I could do without them being here."
Winters looks out across the river again. "I've been cooking half baked ideas all day for a solution to our sick friends."
"I suppose. But the rest of us live here." His is a different situation. The difference between choosing to stay and not being able to leave. Lynette nods, though, to his comments about the kid. "There have been more peaceful times. Places. We'll do everything we can to protect them." Flu or fire. Or mortar.
Brian's words, though, they get her attention. She looks over at him, then back toward the castle. "It is sort of a powder keg in there. And if it is the strain that can make the jump to non-evolved? It'll do Heller's work for him." Close quarters aren't good for this sort of thing. "What sort of ideas?"
Nick's expression softens a little at the mention of the flu, having nearly died of the non-evo strain not so many months ago. That may not be a well-known fact among the Ferry, given that Nick's not all that well known among the Ferry outside the inner circles, aside from being the guy who runs in supplies and visitors now and then. For those who paid closer attention, he had been absent for several weeks, only to return frail and thin, with those telltale reddened eyes at some point after.
"Asshole," he says, bluntly, of Heller.
His eyes narrow just a little on Brian, though. "What sort of solution," is uttered in a low, warning sort of voice.
"Like I said." A light sigh. "Nothing good." He raps his knuckles on the table, going to stand up finally. "I'm being rude, you can sit." He offers to Lynette, the other Brian, the one that had been throwing rocks has sat down on the bank at this point, just watching the forcefield.
"I thought a lot about scuba tanks." He grins at that. "But how many are we at? Forty five? That's a lot of scuba tanks."
"Not to mention their abilities to pick up Evos. Maybe you know this. Do you know if the sensors work on us if we're negated?"
He takes a few steps rounding the table, putting his back to the river as he speaks. "I could manage some pretty big distractions. Get them off." His eyes go back to Nick's boat. "A fake escape witha boatload of escapees that turn out just to be me." He gives a shrug. "Like I said. Half baked."
Lynette blinks when Brian offers her the chair. There's a moment that would normally be filled with protestations, but it passes in silence instead and she moves to take the chair. Her feet come to rest on the table, too. Her thank you comes silently, in a warmer smile.
It's shortlived, though, as the subject at hand is a dark one. "No, we're not doing that," she says to his last idea. "I think we've thrown enough of you at the enemy for the time being. But, I do like the idea of slipping out under his nose. I'm not sure about the sensors. Maybe Raith or one of them would know. But. If we pool our resources, maybe we can sneak down river."
"I think they would. It's not like it's the ability itself it can sense, but probably the genetic marker, which'd be there regardless, yeah?" Nick says, glancing from Lynette to Brian. He does seem to relax when it's clear Brian's not talking about some other kind of solution for getting rid of the sick — given that he was one of those flu victims not so long ago.
"So you do the great fake escape, while others go a different direction?" he asks, for clarification. "Could possibly work, but then they might take you for interrogation, and you don't want to go through that, trust me. Even if it's just one of you. You might want to take a kill pill with you in that case." Sorry, Lynette, he's giving it some thought.
A grin curls up as Lynette puts her feet up. He gives a nod to Nick. "Yeah. That makes sense." At Lynette's denial of his plan he shakes his head. "Desperate times. At the end of the day. I'm still around. No matter how many times I die. The rest of this island can't say the same."
He nods to Nick. "Yeah. Thought about that. Would have one with an automatic, spray down the rest of me when it looks like we're getting caught. Then plug the last one of me." The words are cold, though, glancing over to Lynette he does seem a tad apologetic.
"Just because you can survive it doesn't mean there's no harm done," Lynette says. Toward the water. Perhaps because the other two are already charging ahead. She glances back to Nick and to Brian and lets out a sigh. "Let's keep working at it, maybe find a plan where we don't purposefully hurt any of our people." Asking too much? Probably. But she asks it anyway.
"But a diversion isn't a bad plan," she concedes. Even if she doesn't like this particular diversion.
Nick nods at the plan, then adds, "You really wanna buy time, you wait on the last one. Let them grab you. Question you. Maybe give some misdirection. Bite it before they get too deep in their extraction techniques. Before you spill anything for real."
He gives Lynette an apologetic look. Brian's the one offering, though, and it's not the worst plan he's ever heard of. "Keep working at it," he says with a nod, before tipping his head in the direction of the castle. "I need to get moving."
To Brian he nods. "You know what they say about glass houses," he quips, given the stone-throwing the other man had been doing. Literally rather than metaphorically. "Have a good night, you two." He pulls a tuque from his peacoat to pull over his head as he begins the walk up to the castle.
