Chaosbringer

Participants:

elisabeth2_icon.gif wright2_icon.gif

Scene Title Chaosbringer
Synopsis Elisabeth delivers the troubling news she's discovered.
Date July 2, 2021

Dropping into her seat behind her desk, Elisabeth drags both hands down her face and rests her elbows on the desktop for a long minute, her head hanging. This is not the phone call she wanted to make – nothing is going to be fast or simple about retrieving Ames.

Letting her breath out, she pulls out her cell and texts Marthe. SHE IS OKAY. I will call you in a few minutes and fill you in. First priority is alleviating Marthe's fears, but the rest… To Wright, she also texts, but a slightly different message. SHE IS OKAY. Get somewhere you can talk for a few minutes, and call me. I've got an update.

The call comes in seconds. "Lay it on me," Wright says, followed by a sigh that doesn’t seem to relieve any of the woman’s anxiety.

"Peyton Whitney can see through her eyes," is the first thing Elisabeth tells the worried mom. "She is physically fine and … well, she is being Ames." There is a hint of laughter even amid the seriousness of the situation. "Peyton's going to try to keep her from getting too outrageous if she can but… apparently the darling has already decided she's had enough of that shit."

Pulling in a breath and letting out slowly, though, that's about the last of the good news she can offer right now. "We can't pinpoint where she is yet, but I'm mobilizing everything I have and I'm going to see what I can do about getting Huruma and the Hounds on it too. Wright…" Elisabeth hesitates. "Best I can tell she's sitting in a fucking Pure Earth camp," she finally says.

The pause is, understandably, long. Eventually though, there’s a louder breath than the others as Wright prepares to not tell a police lieutenant that she’s going to commit fucking patricide. "Mother fucker," she says, impressed with her conversational tone if not the explicit content. "That absolute goddamned horsefucker. That self-righteous troglodyte shit-smear. I am going to…" she cuts off, aware of the legal landmine she’s sidestepping.

"Thank you for letting me know," she continues, trying desperately to sound professional and failing. "I’ll call Marthe if you haven’t yet, I think it would be better if she heard it from me."

If anyone understands what Wright is biting back, it's Liz herself. "If you think that's best, I'll defer to you … but I plan on keeping Marthe in the loop. I just… with it being your parents, I wanted to give you room to lose your shit in private before talking to her." Pausing, knowing there is little that's going to make this news any easier for Wright, Elisabeth adds softly, "I need you to hold your shit together, Wright, and not go off the reservation. I have your girls, I swear to you. I am pulling out all the stops." She is all-in on retrieving Ames, and that intensity is clear.

"We've got identities on several of the people in the camp, and I've got every officer I can get my hands on out there looking for information on any of them. They may be keeping a low profile but they've been in and out of the Zone – someone knows where they are. Ames saw a map, and we are working from that angle too. Now that you've had some time to think, did either of your parents mention friends' names or places they might be hanging around while they were here? Places they might have been with Ames that we can check out?"

"I trust you," Wright says confidently. "And I trust the Hounds, if you manage to rope them in, in which case god save my stupid fucking parents."

There’s a pause as she considers. "The only thing I know about my parent’s social lives is that my mother once donated a box of stuff to a charity drive in Phoenix Heights after the fires." Elliot stole it, along with the rest of the truck’s contents, but there’s no need to drag him and Merlyn and a delightful SESA agent into the mix.

"It was in a former department store, I’ll have to look it up to remind myself which one but I’ll get it to you," she says. "That’s the kind of shit she used to be into back when I was a kid. The sort of middle-class charity that doesn’t help the needy and gives affluent white women the opportunity to pretend to be good people in public."

Which gives her an idea. "You know what would fuck with them, really bad?" she asks with a laugh. "Change the BOLO to say my mother is also being held against her will. Give her a bolt hole. Even if she doesn’t take the opportunity, it’ll undermine my dad’s trust in her."

Both brows shoot up. "Sure, I'm game if you think that might flush them out a bit. I'm going to be keeping close tabs on Ames through Peyton's viewing. Last I saw she was shoving paper towels in a toilet, so…. gonna have to channel us some Ames energy." Elisabeth can't help the grin at the little one's grit. "I want to try to keep her from getting into too much trouble or anything." That is definitely a worry as far as Liz is concerned.

"As soon as I have anything to work with, the Hounds and my team will be moving," she promises. There is not one person in the Hounds or on her team who won't break all the rules when it comes to kids and Pure Earth fuckers.

There’s a sound like crying over the phone which eventually reveals itself to be laughter, if a touch stressed. "Jesus Christ, my perfect child," Wright says. "Thank you and everyone involved, you’re the only reason they’re not bodily preventing me from charging a runway and commandeering a jet."

Initially concerned, Elisabeth relaxes just a little when she realizes Wright is laughing. She can't help her own amusement. "The officers I've got are finding the little firecracker amazing," she assures the other woman. "I'm hoping she doesn't decide to explode anything besides a toilet, honestly."

Sighing, Liz is quiet a long moment before admitting in a soft voice, "I understand how scared you are, Wright. But I need you to keep doing what you're doing so I can keep doing this, yeah?" Because Wright's job right now is holding Elisabeth's life together too.

"I got this part nailed down," Wright promises her. "And actually, now that I think about it, if you want to talk to Marthe I’ll trust you to do that. Honestly I think she’ll find your fury and focus very comforting in this situation. I’ll talk to her about it after."

"All right. I'll call her as soon as I'm off the phone with you," Elisabeth promises. "Hang tight, Wright – we're going to get her back." It's a promise that she is determined she's not going to break.

"And I know you have your part in hand," she adds quietly. "I would be much obliged if you'd tell him I love him, as awkward as that will be for Elliot." Elisabeth sounds wearily amused at the prospect. "I do have a bit of bad news for him, though – that man of intellect he met got caught in a bloody mist at 2345 Zulu time. I don't know if it really matters, but I thought he'd want to know. It's a shame he died with just his songbird for company."


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