Participants:
| Scene Title | Bisection |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Roosevelt Island finds itself at the heart of destruction when something terrible creates new and uncompromising divisions. |
| Date | January 31, 2011 |
The snow is coming down on Roosevelt Island too light to be of consequence, painting grey in the winter afternoon light and blowing cold wind off the river. Manhattan and Queens stretch out like lazy giants on either side of the sliver of island, and the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge is a disinterested presence as traffic motors along above it. Apartments such as Westview are grey brick that block off the sight of the Suresh Centre in the north and further still, facilities like the hospital, the Octagon, even the north bridge that veins access into the island.
Roosevelt Island doesn't have much of a heart. Too long and skinny a piece of geography to have a nexus of activity and life. It's more the north that has some of that crowd, in the thriving, slightly utopic facilities of the Octagon, mirrored similar in the Suresh Centre hunching on the south tip. In the middle, though, it is a residential kind of place, with the tall faces of apartment buildings and the squat shapes of rental houses. A chapel, known as the Good Shepherd and owned by a community rather than a congregation, sits brown brick and impassive.
A little girl is crouched on the pavement as those feather light ice flakes shake down from from the bruisey coloured sky, the pavement not yet wet enough to ruin the chalk shapes she's making on the sidewalk, gloves cast aside, rosy red wool. Her mom sits on the stoop of her home, smoking a cigarette and watching with maternal interest, the wind tugging at her dark hair, bundled into her windbreaker. Two boys, vaguely preteen and bored in the wake of schoolday's finish, toss a baseball to one another down the length of street.
There's the rumble of an engine — one of the security trucks coming up from the south, shadowed by the bridge.
Since the snow is light, and with Melissa not having to go into work for another two hours, she's bundled herself up again, along with Junie, though the latter is in a small stroller rather than playing in the snow. Exercise is good, getting out of the house is good, but even small babies get heavy after you carry them for a while.
She's only just exited the apartments, and is strolling down the sidewalk, the earbuds from her iPhone in place, her head moving slightly to the beat of the music pumping out of them. It's a nice, leisurely walk she's taking, one meant to relax her and the baby both. And as she walks she glances around, noting people here and there, smiling at the kids, nodding to the adults, and generally looking more relaxed and content than she has been the last few months.
Luke is a wanderer, going from place to place. Today, that place is Roosevelt Island, but since he's a whole rebel against authority and stuff, he's not at the Octagon where he should be. Eh, whatever. Eying the preteens, he debates making trouble just for the heck of it, but decides he's not really in the mood. Besides, kids like that, no challenge. Melissa, though… she looks familiar. Also, she's got an iPhone, he could use one of those. But then again, he's not really feeling up to mugging someone today either.
The things that people order to have delivered…. The aftermath of the Bomb still presents a barrier that many do not wish to pass, and for some urbanites that is an on-going tragedy - threatening to cut them off from the luxuries that make life worthwhile. Fortunately, a handful of the courier companies are willing to arrange delivery between almost any points within the city, and as a result a lightly snow-caked figure in black leathers and an anonymous all-black helmet is just now gunning her bike's powerful engine back into life - the life-or-death delivery of imported noodles and rice paper safely passed on to its grateful recipient. For Ygraine, the immediate future seems to hold the promise of little but another long trip in the cold as she heads back through the checkpoints towards her next pick-up.
Taking the afternoon for himself, Devon's left work early and arrived in the neighborhood with the idea of enjoying a some quality video game time before his aunt returns home. On foot as always, he keeps to the sidewalks as he makes his way toward Westview, stepping off only long enough to not interrupt the little girl and her drawings. The mother is offered a smile and nod as the teenager steps back onto the sidewalk, hands pressing further into the pockets of his coat.
A jogger is a normal enough sight, though the truly observant "neighborhood watchers" might peer a little suspiciously, never having seen this particular jogger on this particular street. Face obscured by the bill of a baseball cap coupled with a pair of sunglasses, it's hard to be sure if it's a stranger, but the lean and fit frame of the young man is a stranger to this end of the city.
Stranger, however, is that the man seems to touch everything in his path — light post, newspaper stand, the stoop of the apartment complex, a parked car's handle, a bicycle chained to a tree. Finally, JJ's feet slow and he pulls out a telephone, fingers deftly moving on the keypad. He looks up and around, face turning in the direction of the children, then turning to follow the movements of some of the others on the street. He murmurs something to himself, then begins to move once more.
It is a small world on Roosevelt Island; maybe there is something poetic in Delilah heading away from a visit to the Suresh Center, trundling along with Walter under her coat and a bag on her shoulder. His face is barely able to peek out over her buttons, and his hair is lumped down under a hat and hood that covers his scalp up. Delilah is less worried about cold ears, wearing her hair loose around her shoulders and a sweater to block the cold underneath. It is not terribly strange for Delilah to spot someone familiar down this way- but she wasn't quite expecting to be on a collision course with Melissa. Collision course in the most gentle sense, in that she comes down the sidewalk in the opposite direction and spots her and Junko ahead.
"Hey! Melissa!" Delilah lifts her hand up to wave, momentarily blocking the view of the baby, though hopefully he doesn't care much. "Small neighborhood… how's it going?" Quinn probably did tell her about the playdates- at least Dee can hope so. She hasn't seen too much of Melissa in the flesh as of late, hopefully this isn't awkward.
An explosion happens.
It doesn't happen here, but they can all hear it. It echoes from the Queens side of things, and over the shape of two of the state homes, they can see the rise of smoke and fire coming somewhere mostly east but vaguely north as well. It has enough distance that the little girl making her artwork doesn't even stop save for a glance upwards, before going back to chalking in the wing of the birdie in her tree that looks a little like a green cloud on a stalk of red.
Her mother, though, having only just cast a white toothed smile to Devon— it's like a small town, on the good days— gets to her feet, sending a worried glance towards where the military truck further south has stopped to consult, before they pick up their pace. A whine of horn is all the warning that Ygraine gets before it overtakes her, forcing the gravitokinetic to swerve aside and on this road, and in this weather, brake before she takes a spill.
It will be what might save her life, in a matter of a few moments.
Hearing her name has Melissa pausing and looking up, and she sighs. "It's going alright," she says, shrugging, moving the stroller lightly and back and forth, to continue the movement to keep Junie calm and quiet. "What are you doing here? I didn't think anyone I knew lived in Summer Meadows anymore." It's almost accusing, the question. Almost.
She's distracted by the boom, face going serious, drawing the stroller back towards her. "The fuck is going on?" And mentally she's adding And I swear I had nothing to do with it this time. She pulls out her phone, quickly dialing the Suresh Center, knowing that they're further north, and hoping that they weren't the ones hit. And if they have information…well, all the better.
The boom, naturally, gets Luke's attention, and he stares warily in that direction. Huh, something's going on? Man, he doesn't feel like it. Can't it wait for another day before going to shit? Tsk. Laaaaame. He shoves off from the wall he was loitering against, shoving his hands in his pockets with an annoyed expression.
Fortunately, whenever she climbs onto a bike nowadays, Ygraine tends to instinctively root herself to it. When stationary, it does precious little of note… but when in motion, it gives her a huge advantage whenever forced to corner or swerve sharply: her weight simply increases the pressure of the bike upon the road (and therefore the grip of the tires), while simultaneously doing nothing at all to raise its centre of gravity. As a result, her swerve is dramatic and her braking unusually swift… yet in each case, remarkably steady. Not that anyone is too likely to notice - Ygraine's own attention is already moving from firing a curse (in rapid-fire French) after the truck, to focusing upon the direction of that distant explosion.
Delilah's a familiar face to the stranger running through the street, and JJ stops again, mouthing the word shit as he seems to consider his course — keep up with whatever mission he seems to be on, or veering off the path toward the two young mothers and their charges. The boom in the distance makes up his mind for him before he can think too hard on the matter, and he suddenly changes direction to cross the street, pulling sunglasses off his face as he jerks his head to the north.
"This way!" he shouts, shoving his cell phone back in his pocket and reaching to touch Delilah lightly on the shoulder, to help steer her in the correct direction. The young man gives a nod to Melissa and anyone else watching him. "I'm FRONTLINE, Jameson Jones — I'm going to have to ask all of you to head northward, immediately." His tone is take charge and authoritative — but the fact he looks like he just might pee his pants undermines the credibility just a little. "Hurry! This way. Straight north — Toward the hospital. It'll be safer there."
He puts a hand on the stroller Dee pushes. "Do you need help?" His green eyes move to Melissa and her stroller, then to the small children playing. "Stay calm, but hurry — as fast as you can."
"I was just visiting. Roosevelt isn't that big. Walter likes to go on walks, and I had a couple things to do." Delilah maybe has more answer than Melissa was probably wanting, and when the two finally come closer together, anything that she had to add to the conversation is cut abruptly off by the distant and painfully familiar noise. The redhead falls into a similar position to Melissa, though instead of a phone she puts up her hand to block the sunlight in order to better get a look at the horizon.
"Wasn't me. I got outta that game…" Dee mutters, half to herself as she squints at the sky, other hand curling protectively around the front of her coat. Walter hasn't picked up on any vibes yet, even when JJ comes to touch Dee on the shoulder, causing her to turn her head around and get a good look at him. "Oh, hey, transvestite guy. Hello again…" She casts a look back to the horizon again. Walter just peeks out at the snowflakes from his spot in his carrier at her chest, unknowing of anything going on. As always. "Do you know what that was? Yeah, yeah, I'm coming." Dee can walk! She has legs! Don't need no help.
Heedless of those in the street beginning to realise something is wrong, if only from JJ's tone, the military truck rushes for north with a growl of engine and plumes of steamy exhaust. Its large black tires kick off ice, but there's a sudden scream of machinery when something buckles the truck. It's backside simply stops with a slam, hitting something, and a skreeeee of dragging metal across asphalt as the front portion momentums on forward, kicking up sparks where it drags and stopping with a judder. Surprised yells from the vehicle, a private military contractor stumbling out the door to see what the fuck.
He sees that his truck is neatly divided into two.
A vague blue line writes across the street, in the same angle as the truck's divide, vaguely angled as opposed to completely defying the line of the street, and it appears a mere second after Delilah might have been stepping over it. A rush of air fans her red hair. When it happens, it's without a sound. There's a dull pressure within the skull, like the altitude changed, before disappearing as easily as it came. The wind falls with a contrary abruptness that is characteristic of wind.
It also stops snowing. Unless you're Delilah.
The edge of Melissa's stroller bumps into something unseen just where that gentle blue glow dances its thin line across the asphalt. Including over a piece of chalk, which snaps with enough noise for the little girl to stop and glance where a piece of blue is rolling away, but when she reaches, her knuckles go plink against something glass-like, warm, and electric enough for the hairs on the back of her tiny hand to tingle.
On her feet, the child's mother moves suddenly at that sight, eyes widening, and realising that where that blue line cuts across, it divides her from the back end of the truck, from Melissa, and Devon, and Ygraine, and JJ, and Luke. It also divides her from her daughter, watching with mute incomprehension as the girl presses her hand against something invisible in the air, like a completely clean pane of glass.
Head north? Melissa gives JJ an are you fucking crazy look, even as she holds the phone against her ear. "Head north? Towards the explosion? Are you serious? And you don't look like FRONTLINE. They're hardasses. You look like I should be stepping back and watching for yellow snow," she says, glancing to the ground beneath the man's feet.
When she starts looking back up she catches sight of Devon and looks pained. Innocent kid. Dammit. "Devon! You okay?" she calls out to him, motioning him over, just before noting the blue line and all the oddness going on.
"Oh good, you guys are there," she murmurs absently into her phone before disconnecting and stepping slowly around the stroller. Frowning, she reaches out, pressing her hand against the invisible barrier, tentative at first, then more firmly, then she punches at it. "Oh shit."
She looks towards the others, starting to bark out orders, despite FRONTLINE's apparent presence. "Guys, there's some sort of forcefield. Help me figure out how big it is. And be careful. It doesn't seem dangerous itself, just touching it, but appearances, deceiving…" She glances at the truck, eyes narrowing, then she looks the other direction. "I'm gonna be pissed if it holds all of this island." Then in a lower voice, "Where's Homer when you need him?"
Luke isn't quite sure what's going on, until Melissa comes out and says what she's found. Then he's frowning, and coming forward toward the blue line. He pushes against the barrier, then punches it. Naturally, this makes his hand hurt, which just plain annoys him, so he swings at it again, with a lot more force. This continues a few more times, until he gets fed up. "GODDAMNIT." so he punches the ground, or rather, THROUGH the ground. Hi, destroying the road here, don't mind the mini-crater.
About to swing her bike back into motion once more, Ygraine instead finds herself gawping at the truck for a few long moments. Then she kicks the stand down, dismounts and runs closer - calling out to the soldiers on the far side, while pointing at the crumpled rear portion of it. "Is there anyone inside?"
Then Luke's display of aggression rather grabs her attention, and she finds herself gawping at him… albeit behind a closed visor, leaving herself the only one aware of her foolish expression. Shaking her head, she scans her surroundings - noting a familiar form or two, before forcing herself to refocus upon the shoulders and the possible need to rescue people from inside the wrecked remnants of the truck.
Devon directs a look at JJ as the Frontliner begins giving directions, a brow raised in obvious doubt of whoever the man claims to be. But he heads north anyway, with a shrug to say he was planning on doing that anyway. He falls in somewhere with the rest of those trailing after JJ, nodding to Melissa's question. "Guess I should've stayed at work. You two alr.."
And then a truck is summarily cut in half.
Rather than approach the barrier, if that is what it is, in such a direct manner, Devon reaches forward to touch it with his finger tips. Keeping one hand stretched out, he looks toward Ygraine and then Luke, then turns back to Melissa and JJ. "Hey, Frontline guy. The hell's your people doing now?"
"Yes, hurr-" JJ says with irritation, when his words are second guessed and his courage maligned by Melissa. Eyes widen as that blue line just misses Delilah and Walter, and he swallows as he looks up. One hand moves to touch the barrier, and he gives a shake of his head, brows furrowing with frustration. "Shit."
He throws a glance at Melissa as she starts barking orders. "Big enough," he says irritably. "Some of us can break into teams, maybe, follow it in either direction, see how far it goes, if there's any openings."
A cell phone gets pulled out of his pockets, and he squints down at the bars — is there service? Can you hear me now? — even as he begins to jog toward the truck to help with anyone inside — if there's anyone still alive on this side of the "glass." Fingers punch in to the phone, regardless, and he holds it to his ears, glancing up again. "I'm not a telepath, I donno," he throws to Devon. "I'll try and find out."
Things happen to swiftly and too quietly for Delilah to realize what happens at all, until the time comes where she is staring across an invisible divide to a little girl miming up against a pane of nothing. Her brows knit together, and she peers down, arm still around Walter, to look at the line drawn in silence over the ground.
It will do no good to freak out before she can try and figure out what just happened- Delilah remains silent for a few more moments, observing the scene just inches away where she had been before JJ came over. It is at this point that Walter realizes that something is off about all of this- his mother's heartbeat is speeding up, people yelling, things crashing- and he starts to cry, a singular, lusty little wail that snaps Dee out of her pause.
To test it herself, Delilah reaches out to brush a tentative set of fingertips at where she surmises the field to be. Her arm around Walter rocks him slightly, which doesn't seem to help much. "Hey! Jones, what the hell just happened? Fuck me…" Delilah takes a step away from the border, whether or not JJ can hear her, to start digging down into her bag for her own phone. When she finds it, she fully expected it to not have full service like it does, still. That too makes her pause before pressing down the first speed dial. Go figure that she has 9-1-1 on speed dial, right?
Plunk.
That's the sound of a baseball bouncing off the barrier, one of the teenager's on the north-side with Delilah throwing the ball and staring as it bounces off whatever it is they can't see, a minor flash of blue flaring on impact. Tentative touches, punches, these things are received with a soft single, a warmth, and solidity.
The sounds of effect begin to define the city's very bad day. Traffic accidents and sudden jams begin to come up from Queens, gunshot-like slams of metal and screaming brakes making a distant kind of cacophony. More immediately, Queensboro Bridge, a route that carries vehicles over Roosevelt Island but permissing no vehicular access to it, sounds like the worst of peak hour, a crunch of cars hitting one another, the complaint of horns. Destruction happens in immediate sequence, even if none of them can immediately see it.
There's a shudder, like an earthquake, something immense underground making the earth jolt a fraction in percussive energy of something very large either exploding or— stopping.
Then, a creak. Calling it a creak is probably an understatement for what this is — a giant's groan of concrete of steel, because something critical has given in the way the Queensboro Bridge has built, unable to really support itself nor the cars clogging its street. Friction and force, for now, has done its part, but now the people standing on the street will be able to see it. It begins to slip, detached from the cantilever arms on the Manhattan side, dragging itself down with a snap of cables that sing out through the distance.
They are not in immediate danger. They can simply watch the bridge's collapse in distanced safety, and the way dust plumes up against an invisible wall in the sky, smearing it, showing where it stretches up and up and begins to curve.
With a cry, the woman on Delilah's side runs for the barrier, slamming her hands into the warm-glass feel of it, settling into a crouch as she strains to push through, a blue glow that heightens with the more force she gives, but there is no give from the barrier. Her daughter is standing, watching kind of curiously, before turning her back instead to witness the fall of the bridge, and the vehicles that don't back up in time enough to plummet into the river like discarded toys.
A groan reaches Ygraine's ears when she goes to investigate, a young man in casual clothes save for the kevlar vest of the Stillwater Security PMC variety. Blood has already pooled in the bottom of the truck, and his face is drained white. Less dramatic than the bisection of a bridge, he seems to be missing his toes. The smell of blood and vomit both is thick in the partially divided vehicle, the young man slumping forward.
The two soldiers on the other side don't answer Ygraine immediately, stepping back with one radioing into his walkie-talkie, while the other moves for the mother trying to claw her way into the barrier with sheer willpower alone. "Lady," he says shakily. "In fact— in fact everyone, get back from the— " He hesitates. "Everyone step back, right the fuck now." But it's getting difficult to hear him. So he points his rifle, and its potential impotence against anyone on the other side only registers for him a split second afterwards, expression tensing.
Since when has Luke been able to punch through concrete? It has Melissa blinking and staring for a moment, before she pulls Junie out of the stroller and holds her close, clearly protective of the baby. "Teams are good. And yeah, I think it's gonna be damn big, just judging on what we can see," she says, voice bitter. "But if you're calling to find out what's happening…I'll wait until that phone call's done, first. Though I doubt this is a FRONTLINE thing." And in a lower voice, and in Mandarin, she mutters, "Looks more like the Institute to me."
She looks up, watching the bridge for a moment before looking at the mother, then the little girl. "Goddammit." She moves over, speaking loudly, trying to make it easy to hear her, or at least easy to read lips. "I'll watch her." She's already got one, she may as well take on a second. Temporarily. So she moves over to the little girl, crouching down, still holding Junie, and she smiles warmly. "Hey, what's your name, honey? I'm Melissa, and this is Junie. I'm going to watch you for a little bit, okay? Until your mom can get back to you."
Luke sneers at the guy with the rifle. "Hah. I just punched the damn thing with enough force to do that to it, what the hell could a bullet do?" he asks, gesturing at the crater at his feet. He steps away, then frowns. "What, you mean it might not just be here?"
Well, that's going to make balancing a bitch. Not the most helpful of thoughts, and perhaps comparatively irrelevant in light of New York losing yet another bridge in its latest bloody disaster, but at least something that Ygraine can conceive of dealing with. Somehow.
The all-black biker snarls, "he's hurt!" at the overwhelmed fool with the rifle, before clambering in to set about trying to help the poor, maimed sod. A military-grade first aid kit would be a welcome start to getting a grip on little corner of this disaster, and Ygraine hastily catalogues available resources in this portion of the truck.
A look is spared for the rising cloud of dust and sounds of distruction, Devon's head tilting back to watch the cloud of debris go up and begin to block out the sky. Save for where the enclosing bubble has cut them off from the rest of the world. "Shit, that's not good. Government bastards've put us in a hamsterball.
"No, it's not a 'FRONTLINE thing,'" JJ says with irritation, turning to look toward the bridge, surveying the destruction and chaos that this corner of the world suddenly finds itself in. "But they're probably the first responders. And no, by the sound of it, it's not just here."
Glancing inside the Stillwater truck, JJ shares a glance with Ygraine, then gives a quick nod to the buildings nearby — the church and apartments. "Someone'll have some towels, bandages, maybe some pain meds. Elevate his feet to try to stop the bleeding, put pressure on it. Someone should get him inside where it's warm. I'm guessing this will take a while." he murmurs, then turns away, a little pale, to speak into his phone when someone answers.
His voice drops, and there are murmurs and nods and shakes of his head, before he hangs up and looks around to those no doubt watching him.
"Seems to be pretty big. Reports include Hunter's Point, Long Island City, and both sides of the bridge. Phone works out, so you can call people to tell them you're all right, but don't stay on the lines long, since it might overwhelm the system. We should get a safe distance away from it — we don't know what it can do, and I don't think anyone's seen this sort of thing in this sort of magnitude before," he says, his voice carrying for everyone in his vicinity to hear it. He nods toward the church. "That's probably a pretty safe place to go if you don't live near here, otherwise you should probably return to your homes. I'm going to start looking for injured people who can't move themselves, though, and able bodied volunteers are welcome."
Delilah and the small group that she now associates with are really no threat, they aren't the ones the soldiers need worry about. For lack of better people, perhaps. The stir of a voice on the phone at her head barely gets registered. She's watching the bridge now as she steps further from the dome wall, with a morbid curiosity befitting such a tremendous movement of metal on not-glass.
"Bloody hell. The Queensboro bridge is falling down, falling down…" Delilah's voice into the receiver cants just enough with that familiar children's tune, her words to the woman on the other end contrasting to the wail of Walter just below. "There's a force field on Roosevelt, it's huge… you gotta alert Coler, there's injuries." She isn't very good at this, because she is looking out into the distance as if Godzilla had just poked his head out of the river. Hnh. Her arm on Walter hugs him close, and Delilah huddles her shoulders and legs closer to one another. The wind that now whorls around picks up a burst and flicks her hair about her head.
"No, I haven't been drinking- no- aren't you guys getting more ca- now, see? Yeah- it- literally just missed me. It got a Stillwater truck like it was a fucking bread slicer."
The soldier eyes Luke through the barrier, before approaching close enough to nudge gun against the barrier. Plink. Fff. When he backs up some several feet, there is very obvious temptation to squeeze the trigger and see what happens, but some sense manages to grip him before that becomes a reality, and he lowers his rifle. The recognition that others may not be so restrained puts creases in his forehead. "We're getting confirmation from the Suresh Centre that they're in the— field of effect," he says, ignoring Ygraine and speaking directly to JJ. "Coler-Goldwater is out of your league unless you find— "
Creeeeak-whud. The soldier hesitates and glances towards where the blue line runs neatly towards the doors of the chapel, and finally, giving way to gravity, a neat portion of door no longer attached to its hinges falls forward, and clatters down the brick stoop. There is a hesitation, before the soldier takes out a crucifix hidden in his collar, and then—
Then he's turning his back on the people on the other side, taking up his radio and reporting orders down the radio. Block off the north bridge checkpoint. No one gets on this island. No one gets off this island, and they don't need a fucking forcefield to do that, do you hear me? Etc.
"Get back here!" bellows one of the teenagers stranded on the south-side, as his baseball throwing friend takes off.
"I'm gonna get mom! I'll be back!"
"Damnit! Mister, my home's on the other side," the kid complains, turning his attention to JJ, then to Devon, for some mutual support from a fellow young person. "I'll help, I guess. I went to church yesterday."
The soldier who hadn't had his temptations about the rifle is moving to physically pull the mother onto her feet. "Ma'am, we need to back up. I need you to get away so that the lady can get your daughter away, okay?" That last part seems to still physical struggle, anxious tears streaking down her face.
"Rosie, be good, okay? Look after her," she hisses to Melissa, as she directed away. She might have more trouble leaving if she hadn't seen Melissa in the same neighbourhood next to every day. "Be good to her! Stay away from the bridge! Be careful! I'll come back, okay honey?" She's moving north, still twisting to look back over her shoulder, the soldier's hand gripping hard her elbow. The snow comes down all the harder on the other side. The air remains dry inside, wind-less.
The collapse of the Queensboro Bridge halts before the supporting arm on Roosevelt island. Men and women driven out of their vehicles. Running. Some things are too big to try and stop, only allowed to be waited out.
The wounded PM contractor's bleeding is not, thankfully, Ygraine's reaching hands finding a very flash military first aid kit tucked away with other items that'd prefer civilians not get a hold of. Negation canisters, for one thing, all tidily stored away. "My foot," is whined out, as the soldier tries to pull himself for the backdoor, to escape the truck as if whatever was hurting him was still inside and chewing him from the toes up.
Melissa reaches to take Rosie's hand, nodding to the mother. "I will. Don't worry. I'll treat her as though she was my own," she says, tilting her head to rest it lightly against Junie's. Just another way of promising. She knows what it feels like to worry now, after all.
She turns back to the others. "I've got first aid supplies, including pain meds, though you don't really need those with me around. Pain manipulator." The church is eyed. "I don't think that'll be the best place anymore, but I heard some kids mention some sort of apartment type building, over there," she says, nodding towards the Den and fighting not to look at Luke as she mentions it. It was a safehouse, after all, so it should work for this, shouldn't it? "We might wanna check there, see if it is what they say it is?" she suggests, looking to JJ there. No reason to piss off the only guy here with authority.
Then she looks to Devon directly. "Your aunt at home, or did she get stuck on the other side? If that's the case, remember my offer. I've got a couch, and plenty of food." She glances around, drawing in a deep breath. "We should move the wounded though, now. Church works for now, unless and until we check out that site. I'm not a doctor, but I've got some experience in patching people up. Someone watch Junie and Rosie while I grab my stuff? And anyone else who can help me out? With the actual patching up?"
Luke snorts at Melissa. "Provided no one trashed it, this entire city is shit." he's still pissed off, and his fist still hurts. "So is it a dome, or a sphere?" he asks, eying the ground. He's tempted to try digging a hole through the asphalt to find out.
"Can you apply pressure to an amputation?", Ygraine somewhat dazedly asks - but JJ's already gone and she's making enquiries of thin air. Her own thoughts had been running rather more along the obvious problems of attempting to tourniquet a man's feet, her experiences of injuries wide-ranging but almost all derived from crashes: amputations, she's never had to cope with before. Still, getting him towards something approximating safety does indeed seem wise.
"Stay still for a moment - I'll get you out of here", she instructs her intended patient, putting a hand on him both to provide some reassurance and to try to gently end his movements, before snatching up the kit and examining its contents. Ah. Oh, my. Some of those things can definitely disappear into the biker jacket's many pockets, for uses immediate and otherwise. Then the kit is slung over one shoulder, and she darts over to crouch by the downed soldier once more… but this time, she's intent on getting him moving.
The hardest part of picking someone up from the ground is usually the first stage: getting all that awkwardly-shaped weight up into the air. Ygraine, however, simply crouches down, takes him by shoulders and knees, and then rises to her feet as she tweaks the orientation of his gravity from the ground to her, the man seemingly weightless as he smoothly rises with her, settling smoothly into her arms and against her body. Only once she's upright does his weight come to bear, making her stagger and grunt, her lip hard-bitten behind the concealment of her visor as she unsteadily moves out of the ruins of the van. Exceptionally strong for her size she may be, but a full-grown man is a bit more than she routinely works out with. Still, her carrying position at least has the unfortuante's feet higher than his torso.
"Somewhere close by would be good", the Briton grits out between her teeth as she sets a slightly erratic course away from the strange field.
"She's…" Devon looks toward the bridge. Or where the bridge should be. His face pales and there's a quick moment where panic threatens to take him. What if she'd been on her way home, too? "She's fine," he decides, glancing at the kids then to Melissa. A grin fixes itself on his face, lacking in humor but still hiding the pang of worry. "She's at work."
Using Ygraine's reappearance with a soldier in tow, Devon moves himself to help with the burden of the injured. His grin slips to something else, uncharacteristicly serious and thin as he relieves the woman of some of the burden, taking the soldier's legs. "Hey," is all the teenager says for an explanation.
The news that Suresh wasn't affected earns a raised brow from JJ, and he blinks at Ygraine suddenly lifting the man who probably doubles her weight, taking a step in that direction before Devon beats him to it. He gives the younger boy a nod of thanks, another to the teen who volunteers to assist in helping any injured, before turning to look at those on the street.
"How many people besides Stillwater there need some place to stay — if this thing isn't down tonight? The church'll work temporarily, but donno about heat. I think neighbors can probably help out neighbors, right?" He doesn't have any neighbors here, but he's not worried about himself.
He watches for any hands to go in the air, as well as anyone to volunteer room and board, hand slipping to his pocket to pull out his phone again.
The rest of Delilah's phone call doesn't take long, and once she hangs up the line out, she tucks it away and finds a nearby stoop to sit herself down on so that she can calm the baby still whining loudly. She won't be going anywhere right away, at least; right now she just has to see what she's either directed to do, or what she can do. The nearby Stillwater men get a tentatively loud question. "I live at the Octagon, can you tell me anything? Can you listen for me? Obviously I'm not the one with the radio."
She doesn't have time to see if he listens to her- Walter is demanding her attention, and she puts almost all of her attention to calming him now.
Others have since spilled onto the street, keeping their distance from the site of the damage with puzzled and wariness written into the expressions — most people are watching the partial breakdown of the bridge in horror, but others turn towards where the strange sight of the halved truck greets them, and the bleeding PMC man hauled out from the back, the contractor delirious and weakly gripping onto Ygraine and Devon as they manhandle him, head loose on his neck.
"I have a house with a spare room. I mean." This is from a young man who probably didn't come here for the safety, tranquil familt environment, confirmed when he adds, "My parole doesn't let me have many roommates, but they'd probably make an exception." His grin is wry. Toothy.
A couple of other murmurs join in, offers for temporary stays just for tonight and if they can't fix it—
The kind of sentences that get stalled before they finish. They have to be able to fix it.
One of the soldiers pause at Delilah's question, glancing back at the barrier, then to her. "What we're getting is there's nothing wrong with the north section. The bridge is standing," and he nods to where the Roosevelt Island bridge still casts its shadow. "But we're hearing that Queens is getting hit with this thing. Most of the hospitals over there are out of range, but they're investigating Mount Sinai." Out of range. The dichotomies of 'inside' and 'outside' are quick to form.
Only in New York. "You don't need a lift, do you?" is sarcastic, with a glance at their crippled vehicle.
Melissa glances over, spots Ygraine with a med kid, and alters her course, heading towards the church with the two children in tow. "Good. That's good. She'll probably be worried. Once we get settled, call her. For now though…Once we get that guy inside, can you keep the girls occupied? Just for a little bit?"
There's something she can do for now though. Suddenly those who are hurt the worst are feeling no pain as she mentally flips on her power, focusing mostly on the man Ygraine is carrying, but extending it to others like Luke. Immediately there's a faint crease in her brow, since she hasn't quite gotten the hang of turning her ability to feel pain off and on yet, and use of the one part of her ability triggered the other. Ouch!
"I have blankets, but I only have a one bedroom apartment, and it's pretty full at the moment," she says apologetically, and in a voice that's strained. "I'll bring what I can though, and there's floorspace. But I doubt this thing is temporary. Wanna bet it's this years blizzard?" she asks sarcastically.
She raises her voice as she follows after Ygraine and Devon. "Anyone who has any pain meds or first aid supplies should bring them to the church. Consider it triage until we get out of here. Or command central. Whatever the hell you wanna call it." And again she glances at JJ, shrugging a little.
The pain in Luke's hand disappears, and he regards Melissa suspiciously. Eh, well, can't be a bad thing. "Right then." without offering to help, Luke starts walking off, presumably towards this 'apartment building' Melissa offered.
Devon gets a swift nod of thanks when he moves to assist. Though he's now taking on a good bit of weight himself - and the Stillwater employee might be described as lean rather than burly - Ygraine is still carrying over a hundred pounds of bleeding burden… and it sounds like it when she talks. "Try to keep his feet up, if you can", she somewhat breathlessly instructs the teenager. "And thank you."
Turning her blank visor towards JJ, she guides Devon to within quiet conversational range of the self-proclaimed cop. For the sake of trying to avoid panic should anyone close by overhear her words, she endeavours to keep her voice calm as well as low-pitched. "I've got nowhere in here. But we might have bigger problems. If that field runs underground, it's just cut everything down there. If it doesn't, that's a way out… but if it does… we've just had all the utility lines severed on both sides of it, everywhere it runs. I'll help this poor guy, then I'll find a sewer manhole and go spelunking. See if it's cut or not. If it is, everything else will be. And the sooner we know the better."
Devon only nods to Melissa. He'll follow up on that idea when there's less to do. Right now there's too much else to do for survivability reasons. His aunt is safe, somewhere, beyond the destroyed bridge and probably pissed as hell that she can't get home. Likewise pissed at the teenager himself for making her worry, too.
Hands tightening onto the legs of the man, Devon hoists him just a little higher. Legs over head, and all that. Then he's moving along, carrying the guy toward the church with plans to return and help others get inside and find shelter for the night at least.
JJ grimaces at Ygraine's words and nods, glancing down at the space the "glass" seems to come out of the ground. "Looks like it does," he agrees. "We'll scout around, see what we can find. Maybe an electrokinetic if nothing else, right?" It's an attempt at humor before she slips away, and he turns to look around at the gathered people.
"All right. There's gotta be people on this island that got hurt — this street … we were lucky." JJ casts a glance at the man being carried away with a wince. "He'll be all right. It could have been worse, and we're really lucky. Others might not be. Let's split up into a couple of teams, see what lies in either direction. Meet back here at sundown. There'll be other groups maybe doing the same — maybe there's better locations for everyone to group up, that apartment complex, maybe, or a school would maybe be better."
He looks for the volunteers, then nods in one direction. "I'll go that way."
"I can get home. I can find a way." Even if she has to wander around until she either gets home or finds a ride, Delilah will get back some way. She gathers Walter close to her and turns a glance to the dome, reflecting guiltily on the fact she can't do anything right now. She has to go home, and hope that Sable wasn't inside of that thing- and that is what she does, bundling back up and setting off down the sidewalk. This is going to be an interesting day.