Participants:
| Scene Title | Both Sides Of The Track |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | JJ and Ryans come face to face over concern about a mutual acquaintance. |
| Date | February 16, 2011 |
The waterfront has become a desolate reminder of the city ravaged by so many storms — the bomb of 2006, given the broken skyline of Manhattan; the riots that destroyed this part of Queens in 2010. And now the Dome encapsulates the latter, separating it from the former in some morbid and depressing version of a snowglobe — only no snow falls within the dome, nor without, given the warmer weather that hints of spring. For those outside of the "Dome" — or at least those who haven't lose any loved ones to it — the winter seems less cruel than the last, with the relative warmth of the 50 degree day.
JJ Jones was not here last winter in the arctic cold, and he is caught within the Dome, with loved ones outside of it. There is no bright side to this winter for him. Pale green eyes stare through the blueish barrier at the skyline beyond, before he glances down at his watch. A couple of minutes early yet, but knowing Ryans was a Company agent, he expects the man will be on time.
Ryans remembers a similar situation last winter. Except last time….
Cha-chak
The ex-Company agent was on the other side of the gun — though in this case it's a shot gun — and the man holding it was now his partner.
The brown duster with it's faint blood stains, shifts loosely around his denim clad legs as he steps out from where he was laying in wait. The tell-tale fedora perched on his head, shadowing blue eyes that study the young man suspiciously. "Jones?" His tone is flat and emotionless. It's nothing about the kid, but even within the Dome, one must be careful.
The sound of the shotgun being readied has JJ's heart pounding in his throat, but he manages to give a short nod. His hand in his pocket curls around a gun more subtly, though the odds aren't in his favor — with his back injury, every movement is slower and painful, and he knows he won't be able to aim and shoot fast enough since Ryans is already aiming.
"Yeah," he says quietly, green eyes moving to the older man in the duster. "I'm a friend of Kincaid August's. I know I'm FRONTLINE, but I swear I'm … I'm a friend," he says, voice quiet but loud enough to carry the distance between them.
"You'll have to excuse my precautions." The barrel dips down a little, but doesn't get fully lowered yet. "I am after all a 'traitor' to the very country I spent years protecting and serving, since I was a teenager." Bitter much, Ryans? Maybe a little.
The distance slowly closes between them, booted feet carrying the former agent closer. "Thank you for meeting me here. Supposedly, a… man in my custody met with Humanis members here. I keep hoping to get an idea where they are holing up."
The younger man nods. "I was in the Suresh Center when they attacked," he says quietly, his eyes narrowing with clear anger at what was done that night — at what was done to him. "Lucky to get out alive, honestly. I was hoping to get a read on where they came from, but nothing gave me much that was useful. If I can get a hold of something of Valentin's, it might help. I have the feeling he could lead us to wherever Kincaid is."
His hands come out of his pocket, turning palms up. His palms and fingers are still marked by tiny cuts from the glass that covered the floor after the bomb. "Pyschometry, but unfortunately, a pretty picky kind of it. I need finger prints. None of the stuff I got off the Humanis First guys yielded much. If you come across anything from Valentin? Let me know."
His eyes narrow as he looks out the dome. "Bad enough to be in here like caged animals. Worse to be stuck in here with the wolves."
"Nothing of that Valentin's." Ryans sounds almost regretful about it, but he does shift the shotgun to one hand. Fingers reach into a pocket and fishes out a cellphone, holding it up. "All I have is the kids phone and his gun." A finger catches the edge of his jacket and plucks the coat to the side enough to show the gun in question. "I don't know what it would tell you, plus…" He's holding it, he twists his wrist a bit. "Had I known I would come across your type I would have been a bit more careful."
He studies JJ as he lets the shotgun hang at his side completely. "As for the wolves, I am not overly worried. I'm hoping to thin out the pack when going for your friend."
"My type?" JJ says with a little bit of a smirk dimpling his face. "Don't worry. Your fingerprints on top of others won't screw it up. Just one more set of memories I have to get through — I can still get beneath it as long as it hasn't been cleaned."
He holds out his hand for the cell phone, fingers curling around it when Ryans tosses it to him. Already the information is starting to flood through him — the last number called, the last buttons pressed — and it takes some effort to ignore it to talk to Ryans. Brows furrow as he tips his head to the older man, green eyes darting to take inventory of their surroundings. "You gotta watch my back for a bit. I can't hear or see you when I'm in the vision. Don't shake me out of it until I come up, unless there's danger, or I gotta start over from the top again, and I don't know how long it'll take. I haven't figured out how to DVR the visions yet. That's my next goal, man. It'd make my life so much easier."
He gives a nervous smile to the former agent he's just met, asking the stranger to cover him. "It might be a while, depending how much there is. You down with that?"
"Yes, your type." Ryans sounds a touch amused as well. "Useful and able to do something I can't." The old man is just a plain human, nothing up his sleeves. Not that the agent would have it any other way really. He has proven many times that he doesn't need an ability. "But, I've got your back."
The shotgun is moved to rest, cradled in the crook of his other arm. Mainly, he goes silent as he watches young man work.
In truth, these two men are on opposite sides of the track and shouldn't be meeting as such. It should be a cat and mouse chase, good against the bad(?), FRONTLINE and Ferry. But Ryans will stand there and watch, protect him if need be.
"Glad to hear I'm useful," JJ says with a grin, and moves to gingerly lower himself down onto a seated position on the broken remains of a low cement wall. There is a wince as the motion tugs at the sutures in his injured back, but he nods toward Ryans. "You might wanna make yourself comfortable. I donno how long this'll be."
The younger man's brows crease, and for the briefest second there is a flicker of movement in the pale green, white and black canvas of his eyes before his lids close over them like curtains, and he sinks into the vision, the story (or lack of one) that the fingerprints on the cell phone have to tell unfolding in his mind.
For Ryans, it will be a long and boring wait.