Catch 22

Participants:

allison_icon.gif billy_icon.gif brandon_icon.gif bryan_icon.gif corbin2_icon.gif elle_icon.gif ryans2_icon.gif veronica3_icon.gif

Also Featuring

unknown3_icon.gif

Scene Title Catch 22
Synopsis The Company's Investigative Team is forced to make a difficult decision when the truth about the bank robberies is revealed.
Date April 7, 2010

Red Hook


A hydraulic press hisses.

The chill breeze of sub-zero temperatures howling through walls of rusted vehicles piled some twenty feet high.

It's horrible haunting beyond the corrugated metal sign that reads, Shipper's Salvage Yard. The chain-link and razorwire fence surrounding the junk yard rattles with the blow of the wind, and that howling whistle passes through the chinks between layered cars crushed flat and stacked up like walls of a castle. Tall metal scaffolding reaches towards the sky around an unfinished concrete building, the bottom floor being little more than a gray stone ramp that rises up out of the snow, headed towards a slowly lowering metal wall sinking down towards a recessed chamber.

Trudging through the snow, following tracks made by a car through the mostly plowed lot, agents Ayers and Sawyer know something is terribly amiss. The salvage yard should be closed, probably was from the way it looks like Timm forced his way in through the closed gate with the Civic. But there's no sign of telekinetic damage to the fence, just simple brute force of a car smashing the gate open, black paint scraped off of aluminum piping.

Up ahead, that unfinished building's ground floor is active and moving. The car crusher is a simple piece of machinery, a hydraulic press operated by a diesel generator— independent of Brooklyn's dead power grid— that lowers a massive steel plate down atop a car on in the recessed platform, crushing it flat with a single depression. Tire tracks go all the way up to where the car was lowered into the pit for crushing, and footprints leading away from the car move towards a metal staircase that goes up to the second floor, where a control booth overlooking the scrapyard operates the crusher.

A silhouette behind frosted glass moves around in the booth, probably Timm, but why is he destroying the Civic?

"Can't he crush the car by himself?" Corbin asks the question quietly that he's sure his cohort is thinking. "Unless he's weakened himself, maybe he used all his power to do what he had to to escape," he says, trying to carefully catch a sight of something around acorner, without making himself a easy target. "I think I see footprints," he motions toward the metal staircase, going up. How many sets of footprints?

"He might be holding the kid hostage. But if they're going upstairs, they're not trying to make it across the river." Right? So he hopes.

He may be the older of the two agents, but all his knowledge of field— except for a few small attempts— are all based on readings. What would Bennet do? only works so often. So instead he looks over at Sawyer. "Should we go upstairs?"

"I don't get it — why not abandon the car and just take off — there's no reason to destroy it— evidence would still exist. I'm wondering if it's the kid who's the TK. It'd be hard to drive like he did and also throw things around at the same time, I think, and that's a disturbing idea," Sawyer murmurs, pulling her tranq gun from its holster in order to take out Timm without killing him, if possible.

"We need to figure out what's the deal with the car. Maybe split up — one of us take the car and the other go up?" She glances at him, knowing he isn't going to like that idea. "You want the car or the stairs, Ayers?"

The steel press lowers further while Veronica and Corbin talk in the snow a fair distance away from the structure. The hiss and squeal of the hydraulic press gradually lowering isn't quite the perfect rhythm of a ticking clock to alert them that they're under pressure, but whatever the case may be with the car, Timm doesn't seem to be moving from his perch up on the second floor in the exterior control booth, his dark silhouette is standing motionlessly behind that frosted glass.

Hopefully Elle and the others are on their way…

"What, you think it might be the kid?" Corbin says quietly, frowning as he looks at the stairs. A little kid with that much of an ability? It never was even considered in the meeting… "Yeah, let's split up. I'll take the car press. I've worked with generators before, brought one to the— I bought one once." For the Bookstore.

His blue eyes blink as he shakes his head, trying to clear the cobwebs of his near death experience not too long ago. "Be careful, Sawyer," he adds, before he leaves her to start toward the car press, trying to avoid the sight of the sillouette. Though he's hardly a ninja.

"Kid mighta been the TK… maybe the guy's trying to get rid of him…" Veronica says in a dark murmur, eyes on that silhouette as she considers shooting the man from here. Theoretically, the bullet should make it through the glass, and she would aim for a non-lethal spot, but if it didn't make it through, it would alert him to their presence — and he has the better view. "Go see if you see anything in the car," she adds, withdrawing her gun and running for the building to begin her ascent to the upper floor.

With Veronica breaking away and headed up the metal staircase that ascends the front of the building, Corbin slips through the snow and up that concrete ramp towards the vehicle press. The noise back here is deafeningly loud, the roar of the hydraulic coming down and the rumbling of the generator beyond it; cables and wires all spaghetti-strung together in coils across the ground, and the black Honda Civic parked down in the pit where it was lowered automatically when the press turned on.

Something catches Corbin's attention though as he's ducking around the lowering metallic plate of the press. There's a crowbar on the concrete underfoot, nearby to it a small puddle of blood that hasn't frozen yet, and given the sub-zero temperatures that would have had to be very recent. From the crowbar and looking across to the pit, Corbin can see through the windshield of the Honda, a young blonde boy slouched over across the center console and the front seats, a bleeding split on his forehead.

He's going to be crushed to death if Corbin doesn't do something and fast, given how quickly that crushing plate is coming down towards the car.

Rattling metal steps take Veronica up and away from the scene of Corbin's discovery, unknowing of the horrible sight that Corbin has just discovered. As she makes her way up towards the perch where the car crusher controls are, she can see the silhouette move behind the frosted glass, but then the angle of the diffuse gray light coming through the clouds isn't backlighting him any longer, making it impossible to see thorugh the frozen windows.

A moment later, the door to the perch is opening and Timm's lanky frame wrapped in a puffy blue winter jacket comes staggering out, raking his fingers back through his hair. He's looking out past the stairs, seeing the tracks of footsteps, eyes wide and panic only just then beginning to set in.

"Oh son of a— " Well, son of something. Corbin actually knows exactly who he was the son of, cause he read as much of the paper work as he could get his hands on. Smart money tells him to go toward the generator, cause the alternative is too potentially dangerous. He's almost died enough times by crushing and metal this week.

Reaching down to grab the crowbar, he moves over to the generator and looks it over. It's not that much like the one that he bought the bookstore, but hopefully he can find the button or lever that reads Off easy enough.

If not, he has a crowbar.

Her soft footfalls are apparently unheard, and Sawyer gives a quick thanks to the noise of the machinery for that. She's about ready to open the door when it opens of its own accord — or Timm's, at any rate. Silently, Veronica has a moment to consider bullets or tranquilizer darts when Timm looks not at her but out at the snow. She raises the tranq gun in one hand, aiming at the man, firing off once and then twice, not wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt if he is the telekinetic, and is just doing things the old fashioned way for the kicks of it — though part of her is fairly sure she's right — the kid is down in the car. Probably best Corbin went that way, let him save a life instead of potentially taking one.

The unfortunate fact of high winds and tranquilizer darts is that the fanned tails of these rounds are subject to wind. While it's not enough to cause the projectiles to veer too far, the distance and the angle of the shot Veronica makes causes both darts to go too far wide from Timm, impacting against the glass harmlessly with noisy clattering sounds. The pressurized snap of the dart gun firing has Brandon looking down over the railing, spotting Veronica below him on the stairs. "God damnit!" Timm shouts, reaching into the back of his pants and pulling out a handgun.

He blindly reaches over the railing and opens fire in Veronica's direction, causing the brunette agent to duck out of the line of fire as rounds ricochet and impact against the metal stairs. Timm's moving, running around the balcony that surrounds the control room, cheeks flushed red from the freezing wind.

With gunshots sounding off nearby, Corbin's search for the power button on the massive diesel generator powering the car compactor is heightened in stress but still a task simple enough for a trained monkey to do. With one flip of a large breaker switch the whole machine goes dead and the shrieking metal of the hydraulic press stops just as it presses down and pops the windshield from the pressure, sending tine shards of safety glass from the passenger and driver's side windows scattering into the car.

Stirring inside the Honda, Billy Timm makes a weak and pained sound, bringing up a hand to his bloody forehead, lips parting and eyes wrenching shut. "H— Help…" he murmurs weakly from the seat, "Dad?" Slowly sitting up, he's reaching for the door, dazed.

Meanwhile, outside of the salvage yard a black Lincoln town car rolls up to the entrance with a sharp whistle coming from the blone in the passenger seat. "Whew does Agent Sawyer know how to smash up a pretty car or what?" The black Mercedes parked outside the scrap yard is practically demolished, with the rear end smashed apart, trunk popped open, tail lights broken. It's missing a mirror, one window shattered in the back and scraped all along the driver's side.

Pop

Elle arches a brow, rolling down her window at the sound. "Did you hear— "

Pop pop pop pop

"— gunfire!" Pushing the passenger's side door open, Elle bursts out of the car, and while she can't see where the gunfire is coming from or the unfinished complex that the agents are at, she's making her way for the scrap yard entrance, electricity snao-crackling down one arm as she moves.

"Bishop." Agent Buckley calls out upon getting out of the back seat, chambering a round in his 9mm pistol before tucking it down the back of his pants. "Hold on you got a death wish or somethin'?" There's a look towards the driver's side; Buckley's waiting for Ryans to get out and give orders.

Allison pauses as she hears the gunshot, and she grimaces faintly, sliding out of the car, but using it as a shield. Yay for shields! Her pistol is pulled out though as she scans the area, looking for the other agents along with Timm and the kid. "I don't see anyone here," she says to the agents remaining in the car. "But we should probably get in there." She looks to Ryans though, still letting him play leader.

"Elle." Comes the barked snap of Ryans' voice, he doesn't have to shout to be heard. The door is slammed and the senior agent is pulling his own weapon. "You will wait for the rest of us." A flick of his hand has everyone moving. "Watch out for cross fire." He motions to the tire tracks. "They were even kind enough to leave a trail.

A sidelong glance goes to the car that Sawyer totaled the old man can't help but crack a bit of a smirk. "When we get in there. "Buckley, Elle.. I want you two to move along that side." His gaze goes particularly to Elle. "Try not to kill anyone. And no going static happy, am I clear Elle?" Eyes narrow dangerously. "Stun… or knock out the kid. I still think he is the kinetic. That means he's dangerous, but he's still a kid."

"Richards…" He eyes the doctor, before picking up his step. "Your with me." As he strides quickly into the warehouse. "And more importantly, no one get killed."

Not everyone is upstairs. They may not notice, as the sounds of pfftpffting is upstairs. Where the biggest footprints lead, too. There's a car compactor that's just, graciously, stopped before going so far as to crush a kid— who if Sawyer is right may have deserved the crushing, from some people's points of view.

Corbin's point of view, as he moves toward the compactor, crowbar still in hand, and slipping down into the pit with the car. Where that tiny little voice is calling to him. "I'm here to help you, kid, just stay calm. I'm not your dad, but— you'll be okay."

What he wouldn't give for super strength. But he has a crowbar, and he can try to pry a door open to get to him, which is what he does, using his foot to get it in deeper, so he can push on it and try to wedge the door open. "What's your name?"

He knows the kid's name, but— getting the kid talking seems like a good idea to him.

Shit. Next time shoot — that will teach her to be humane in the future! As she dodges bullets, she harnesses her Tranq gun. No need for that. One thing Veronica is sure of is that Timm is not the telekinetic. "Ayers, careful of the kid, he's the TK!" she shouts, not sure if her voice will carry over the various sounds of machinery and gunfire. She sneaks up a few more steps, keeping close to the wall, to give chase to Timm as he scurries around on the platform.

The machinery quieted, Sawyer yells up, "Give yourself up! You're under arrest! DHS. I'd show you a badge but my hands are fucking full at the moment."

"No! No don't— " Brandon ducks around the corner of the frosted glass windows at the front of the perch, breathing out heavy puffs of steaming breath, pistol clutched tightly in both shaking hands. "You have to kill him! Please! I— I can't do this anymore! He's dangerous, you don't— you don't understand!" Swallowing dryly, Brandon tries to keep his cover as Veronica creeps up the stairs, back flush to the frozen concrete wall.

Trudging thorugh the snow, agent Buckley and agent Bishop split off from the group, following one wall of mangled and crushed cars that run paralell to the tire tracks and footprints leading in to the wrecking yard. Keeping his gun out, Buckley ducks behind the crushed nose of a car, then peeks up and over, looking up at the second floor of the unfinished building and the control perch. "I got eyes on Wawyer," he says over his shoulder to Elle, "no clear shot on her attacker. What— the fuck is Ayers doing in that press?"

"No idea, Corbie's a bleeding heart, he's probably— " Elle's words are cut off as the metal press that was looming above the car bends and then snaps off at its hinges, the thousand ppund piece of steel wrenching free from the hydraulics and smashing end over end thorugh the snow, kicking up dirt before crashing into wall of vehicles Bryan and Elle were ducked behind. There's a groaning creak and splintering of metal, and Bryan wraps his arms around Elle and dives towards the snow as cars topple over.

Nearly crushed by the falling vehicles, Bryan and Elle are prone in the foot deep snow of the wrecking yard as Ryans and Allison make their way around another wall of crushed vehicles, out of sight of whatever catastrophe just happened. But they can see Corbin lifting up through the air, limbs flailing before he's slowly pushed up against the ceiling of the car crusher chamber, and then hurled bodily out of the building and into the snow with a puff of flakes.

Climbing up and out of the pit where the Honda had almost been crushed, Billy Timm is red-faced, eyes puffy and tears streaming down his cheeks. "Go away!" The young boy shouts, blonde hair blowing in the freezing wind, snow lifting up around him and swirling from the telekinetic disturbance he's creating.

Corbin's ears are ringing, spots in his vision and wind knocked out of his chest, but otherwise he seems okay. It seems his gentle heroic nature isn't exactly what the Timm boy was looking for. Catching his breath, Corbin can see the teary-eyed child coming down the concrete ramp, just as Allison and Ryans are moving in to sight of the absolute chaos.

"Give me back my money!" Billy screams, the ground rumbling around him and the crushed cars groaning and creaking, "I need it to pay the doctor!" The young boy's fitful and sobbing screams are clear to Veronica as she creeps up the last few steps, now on the same level as Brandon. She can't see him, but she can see his silhouette through the glass. It's a muted, blurry shadow through the frozen windows he's on the opposite site of, but if she wanted to she could take the shot.

"J— Jesus Christ lady! COme on shoot the kid!" Brandon blurts out from where he's hiding around the corner of the perch on the balcony. "Just— Just shoot him before he fucking kills us all!"

Allison nods to Ryans and quickly moves to follow him, eyes scanning her immediate vicinity, trying to keep from being surprised by anyone. She pauses though when she sees Corbin flung out, and her eyes widen. "Ryans. Got problems over there," she tells him.

"Wonderful…" Allison hears Ryans saying, as cars go tumbling, as well as Ayers. He starts running now as Corbin is dangling in the air. "Sawyer. No." Ryans calls, hurrying towards the kid. "Richards!" The senior agent, grabs her shoulder to propel her forward, before he moves past her, shoving his gun into it's holster. "Do your thing now. This is your time, doctor. Get him to stop." Until then, the older agent comes into full view of the kid.

"Billy." The agent hands his hands up to the kid, his voice is that typical calm rumbling. "Hey, kiddo, talk to me, tell me why you need the money. What doctor, Billy?" The senior agent puts himself out there so that the doctor can do her thing, why the kid is focused elsewhere. "If I know what is going on, maybe me and I people can help." Lies, more then likely, but if it'll buy time…

Okay. Corbin has decided. He likes knowing only about the paper-versions of field assignments. He really does. Hands feel along his chest, in the cold packed snow that he got thrown in, sticking to his hair. Everything seems intact, even if the cold could be numbing a lot of things right now. Pushing himself up, he starts to get to his feet again, rubbing cold hands over his face. Yeah, everything's still attached.

"Where the fuck is the Haitian?" He now sees why Bennet was so successful with him on his side.

"The agents on the ground will disable him. Give me your gun. You don't want this on your head," Veronica says quietly to Brandon Timm, gun held as she moves around the balcony. "Please. Give me your gun and let us handle him. We'll take him off your hands, and you don't have to do this anymore, all right? If everything you're wanted for is because of him, you'll be cleared and you can go on your way. We'll … we'll train him to use his power and not harm people. It's possible." Is that what they did with Paulson? He still killed her father, as a Company agent. "It's not up to you to take him out of this world, Timm." She makes her way around to where he is pressed, keeping her eyes on him, hand reaching for his gun. "Please. There are four people down there. They can handle it. We're trained to do this."

"He's out of his fucking mind! You want to train him? Like what some kind of fucking rabid attack dog? Who the fuck are you people!?" Brandon shouts from behind the cover of the glass. "The kid's lost his goddamned marbles! You people don't have a fucking clue!" Down on the ground, when Ryans moves into Billy's field of vision, the young telekinetic furrows his brows and a rippling line of snow displaces all the way towards the senior agent, like a snake of force was slithering its way over. It rushes right over Corbin harmlessly before blossoming out into a rainbow burst around Ryans, wrenching him up off of his feet and gripping like a vice around his throat.

"I need it, so's I can bring momma back." Sniffling, Billy's blue eyes level up on Ryans, it's clear from his expression and his temperament that he's just a scared, grieving child with a remarkable power that is using it to throw temper tantrums. A child this young manifesting a power this advanced, imagine what he could do as an adult.

"The doctor will make it all better. He'll make momma better like all those other people he healed." Billy takes a step forward into the snow, sinking up to his knees, blue eyes divert down to the snow as he scowls, then looks back up to Ryans, lips pursed in an angry pout as that telekinetic chokehold tightens. "You're mean people. I want momma back."

"Lady, this kid— he killed his goddamned mother. Three fucking years ago when he was eight. She wasn't in a fucking hit and run accident, he told me he got angry at her and she just fucking snapped in half out front of their house. My idiot fucking brother knew, he didn't believe it! The kid thinks that fucking miracle healer at St.Luke's can bring his dead mom back, she's been buried for three fucking years!" Brandon's voice cracks as he screams out that warning.

"I'm not giving you by gun, no way. He— you can't let that kid live. You don't know what it's been like! He killed my best goddamned friend because he found out he was getting a cut of the money! He killed my fucking bird!" Brandon smals the butt of his gun against the wall below the window in a fit of rage. "Shoot him!"

Allison nods, even as she's getting shoved forward. She begins to concentrate, even before she begins speaking to the boy, her eyes do that funky thing where they go silver, with only a ring of black to add any contrast to them. It's kind of freaky looking, really. "Billy, you don't want to do this. You don't want to hurt anyone. We're here to help. You need to stop, and come with us, and stop hurting people," she says in a soothing tone, but one just loud enough to carry to him.

She glances briefly to Ryans, then back to the kid. "We're not mean. We'll help. You just need to stop hurting people. Stop it now."

Well… it could have gone much worse.

Yes, Ryans actually thinks this as he is lifted off the ground the chill of snow sprayed on him, as an invisible telekinetic hand squeezes his windpipe, pulling him up into the air. Feet dangle as he's lifted, fingers clawing at the empty air around his neck.

It really could be worse, he could be twisted up like that bird, or police car. The older agent, gasps for air, vision going gray at the edges. With Allison not too far away, he can hear her, so one hand drops to his back. Fingers fumble at the tranq gun at his back, trying to tug it out.

Tranq guns all around, cause that's what Corbin's reaching to find his tranq gun, which he'd put away in his attempt to shut down the generator and save the kid's life— he's starting to wonder if all his attempts to help people are going to slap him in the face! Though the incident at the butcher store hasn't yet.

Hoping that the kid is distracted between hypno-speech and strangling of the not-so-old old man, he aims and shoots, aiming for the chest and not the neck, like a professional might. Small kid. Smaller target. Better to go for the bigger one. And hope for no rainbows.

Veronica keeps the gun trained on Timm, her hand out for the gun, debating trying to disarm him before he shoots first. But as he grows more and more distraught and insistent, she can't help but spare a glance out the window, seeing that snake of snow force itself on Ryans, choking the senior agent in an icy grip. Allison seems to be talking to the boy, but she has no idea how long the doctor's power takes to work, or if the child has to be looking at her and paying attention to her words to actually be affected — she doesn't have the time to find out, either, with one two three four agents at his mercy below, let alone herself and Brandon Timm up here.

At the same time that Corbin reaches for his tranq gun, Veronica swaps her aim from father to adopted son, taking a second to adjust her aim — she'll shoot to cause pain and not death — she aims for the boy's lower leg, biting her lip — she's been on this job for many years, but she's never had to shoot at an eleven-year-old child before. Her finger squeezes the trigger.

Allison's words immediately catch Billy's attention, though he's slow to react to them, maybe from comprehension ability— or lack thereof. There's a tilt of his head to the side, green eyes staying focused on the hypnotist for a moment before the rumbling around his body quells and Ryans is dropped down into the snow with a puff of the powder. There's a confused look for a moment on Billy's face, and he moves to take a step forward, transfixed on Allison's voice.

Thwip— bang

Billy staggers, brows furrowed, looking down to the center of his chest where a single tranquilizer dart has punched through the soft tissue between his ribs. The boy lurches in synch with Veronica's gunshot, and her long-range firing at Billy's leg misses by just a hair and peppers the ground with a tiny plume of white powder. The boy's lips part as if to speak, but narcotic sleep is already tugging at his eyes as he reaches down to thumb across the bristled fins of the dart, then collapses forward on numbed legs into the snow.

The crackling snap of electricity behind Corbin, Ryans and Allison comes from the disgruntled Elle Bishop whom had just pulled herself out from the snow that slid off of the toppling cars and buried both her and agent Buckley. From the look of things, she was going to just fry the kid, but Corbin's single and well-trained dart's quelled her homocidal rage, and with hair caked with snow and ice frosting her bangs, Elle lets a few bolts of electricity jump between her fingers before she lowers her palm and looks down to Bryan.

"You already call for the sweep team?" The blonde asks in a muttering tone of voice, to which Bryan responds with a frustrated grunt and a nod of his head, brushing snow off of his shaved scalp, tongue rolling across his sharpened incisors behind his lips.

Up on the catwalk, Brandon Timm hears the gunshots and then the silence, peeking his head out from around the corner to see Billy face down in the snow. He swallows, tightly, throat working up and down before he reaches out, fingers away from his gun except two fingers to hold it up and very carefully, very slowly steps out and bends forward, laying down his gun before lifting both hands up behind his head.

Allison works at not looking visibly relieved when Billy lets go of Ryans. Though she is. Very relieved. Her mouth opens to continue the hypnotic spiel. But all that ends when there's a tranq then a missed shot from a real pistol. And then the polished rich girl doctor mutters, "Shit."

Sighing Allison moves towards Ryans to check on him, keeping an eye on the boy as well. Juuuuuust in case.

With an oof, the senior agent hits the ground, tranq gun in his hand, and stares up at the ceiling for a moment, breathing the sharp cold air deeply. Again he finds a reason to be thankful for what Winslow did, surly that would have broken a hip. The crackle of electricity has his head coming up as well as the tranq gun, pointed at Elle. Wouldn't be the first time, but she backs down and he drops back to lay there.

"Everyone good?" He barks out the question, waving off Allison, He don't need no stinking shrink. Ryans rolls to the side and to his feet.

He turns to look at the kid, moving to gently move him so to get his face out of the ice cold snow, though his tranq is still held ready, just in case, a frown on his lips. "Make sure they bring something to neutralize him." His words crack rough from the choking. A hand lifts to rub at his neck with a frown. "It is too bad we don't have level 5 anymore, he is a perfect candidate."A glance goes sideways to Elle, a product of the company herself, but she started out a normal kid.

"First person I shoot is a kid…" Corbin quietly mutters as he looks down at the tranq gun, before adding on, "Least it was just a dart." It could have been a lot worse, like— what impacted the snow next to the kid's face. And the metal of the gun is freezing. On top of everything he's handled, his hands ache and are red, perhaps even frost nipped by the cold. Putting the tranq gun away again, he glances back at Elle.

"Glad to see you didn't get squished, Sparky. Your dad would probably fire the lot of us." Sparky? Yup, that is her nickname, and she seems to be proud of it with how she's sparking everywhere.

"What are we going to do about Timm? He was attempting to kill him," he asks, looking around for where Sawyer and the older Timm.

The agent up on the catwalk breathes a sigh of relief when Corbin's shot connects and her own misses. She blinks slowly, then opens not-quite dry eyes before turning to the man who holds out the gun in surrender. Agent Sawyer takes the weapon from Brandon Timm, clicking its safety on and tucking it in the waistband of her pants. She pulls from her belt a pair of handcuffs as she indicates with a gesture for him to turn around and offer his hands for binding.

"He's not your worry anymore," she says, not unkindly, before she recites the Miranda rights she rarely ever gives — this man is not Evolved and is not going into a Company cell, but to a local jail. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?"

Sawyer clicks the handcuffs closed, and begins to walk the man down and out of the building, her eyes somber as she takes in her fellow agents. "Someone else is going to have to drive him… I think the Mercedes needs a tow truck," she says a bit dryly.

"Yeah, we don't do captivity anymore…" Elle states with a snarky tone of voice, boots crunching in the snow as she rakes fingers through her hair to try and get the ice out. "The government has a system for containment now that— " as Elle is about to start rambling, Bryan lays a hand on her shoulder and squeezes tightly, offering the blonde a sharp look before shaking his head.

Looking over his shoulder, agent Buckley's eyes focus on the headlights emerging into the snowy road into the scrapyard as the last vestiges of daylight are bleeding away from the sky. A large and armor-plated white van rumbles through the snow. "That's them…" Bryan intones in a deep voice, looking up towards the perch where Brandon and Veronica are. "C'mon Elle, let's go. We're done here…" Turning around, Bryan reaches up to smooth hands over his bald and cold scalp again, scowling as he watches the truck approach. Elle turns around, brows lifted before she hisses out a breath and follows hot on Buckley's heels.

"Wait— Bryan!" Crunching footfalls carry the electrokinetic through the snow as the white and unmarked van rolls past the two agents and comes to a stop nearby. The tinted windshield reveals nothing of the driver of the vehicle, but the passenger side doors open to allow four men in white plastic biohazard suits out into the snow, black visored faceplates of their helmets reflecting the glow of the headlights. Their breathing comes in mechanical hisses and clicks from the three-port respirators covering their mouths and the front of the suits' helmet.

«We'll take it from here, Agents.» One of the leak men says with a crackling pop of his voice over a speaker in the respirator while the others move to the back of the van where its doors split open on mechanical hinges and a pneumatic tray slides out, carrying an enormous black metal and plastic coffin-looking container.

It takes two of them men to grab it, one taking a handle on each end and then them amble out like carrying a stretcher, moving over to where Billy lays on the ground. The casket is laid down beside him in the snow, and a number sequence punched into a keypad on the front. The lid then splits open with a pressurized hiss, revealing a leather padded interior.

The masked men pick up Billy's motionless form, carrying him arm in arm before laying him down inside the casket. One of the men plucks the dart out of his chest, then grabs a plastic breathing mask from inside the lid of the coffin-like container, strapping it down over his face and attaching an IV plug into the back of his hand. A button is pressed on the lid of the sarcophagus, and the entire mechanical container hisses noisily and slides closed.

«Team 22 clear, kinetic projection subject detained.» One of the masked men states, punching a code into the lid of the coffin once it's closed, turning a red light on the front green. «He's good for shipment.» The two men stand up, each grabbing an end of the coffin again and begin walking Billy's container towards the rear of the van where it's loaded onto the hydraulic tray and then fed back into the rear of the truck, meeting up with gas couplings and conductor plates to power it.

«Good work, Agents.» One of the men in the masked suit states, nodding once before turning towards the front of the van. All Brandon's done the whole time the boy is cartedoff is watch, brows frrowed and mouth open, looking completely aghast and confused at the situation.

The first thing he says sums up any outsider's reaction to the Company and its work. "Who— Who are you people?"

Allison shrugs as she's waved off. Fine! She won't worry about him then! Then she's looking over at the vehicle and masked men, arching a brow. But hey, if no one else is gonna stop him, she's not! It's too cold to argue.

Shoving his tranq gun home, Ryans watches it all in stony silence, this all sits wrong with him. Blue eyes narrow as he watches, but he says nothing, his head turning with the group. When they are complimented there is nothing on the agents face, that ever present neutral mask is there.

The older agent glances over at the other three trying to see what their own reactions are, though with the boy's father there he doesn't say anything.

However, as Bryan and Elle leave, Ryans glances at Veronica brows lifting, "Good work on that car, Sawyer. Going to need transportation, so we can get this guy to the PD." It's hard to tell if he's joking or not. "He isn't our problem anymore."

Slowly the senior agent looks back to the van. So much had changed in a few years time.

"Hey, you should have seen the way she drove despite that kid trying to hit us with an SUV. If I'd have been behind the wheel, we both would have been dead," Corbin speaks up in his would-be partner's defense, even as he frowns at the sight of the containment team. It makes his face more serious, even if he was cracked smiles and jokes before. Why did Sparky and Snakeface flees so fast, anyway? And why the biohazard suits?

And who are they?

Some things, he doesn't like, and this would be one of them, but— His hands go deep into his pockets, to try and warm up again. "What happened to the car you rode here in?"

"Wait… what the fuck, he's just a kid! What's with the fucking ET suits?" She's not as stoic or professional as the others for once — maybe because she just shot a bullet at a fucking kid for the first time in her career.

"Where the hell are you taking him?" she demands, pulling Brandon Timm along with her as she strides through the snow barking questions at the crew from the van. "Where the hell did Buckley and Bishop go, and why do they know about this shit when we don't?" she says, eyes fierce as she looks from Ryans to Ayers — both of them have been around longer than she, are closer to "the brass" than she is.

She turns to look at Timm, shaking her head. She doesn't know how to answer his question. They aren't who she thought they were, that's for sure.

One of the men in the containment suits turns, eyeless visor staring back at Veronica and only showing her reflection muted in the plastic. «To a detention center,» is the crackling response agent Sawyer gets, and aeven that feels like a backhanded answer as the last recovery squad member goes marching through the snow towards the van, climbing up into the passenger's side of the vehicle before slamming the door shut. As the wind picks up and blows coldly across the salvage yard, the armored van begins to spring to movement again, backing up through the snow, bright headlights blindingly streaking across the agents as it begins to retreat to take the child away.

Handcuffed, shoulders slouched and eyes wide, Brandon Timm looks up to Veronica, then over to the other agents and runs a tongue over his lips, letting his head hang as he mumbles out the most sensible thing he's said all day; mostly out of fear.

"I'd like to just go to prison now."

That much, he'll get.


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