Participants:
| Scene Title | Egg Foo Young On Your Face |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | It's close enough for government work. Two gals discuss the pitfalls of their professions, past and future. |
| Date | November 16, 2010 |
Le Rivage: Audrey's Apartment
A typical dwelling for what one might imagine that Agent Hanson would reside in. No embellishment, simple furniture that is comfortable and practical. The living room spilling into the kitchen with an island separating the two, low back bar chairs providing space to sit and eat or the couch in front of the modest flat screen. A corner of the living room has dog beds and bowls, two French bulldogs can be found napping there beneath the windows in the sun - Cooper and Felix.
A hallway gives out in one corner to two bedrooms, closets, bathroom. The last being much like the owner and the living room, no frills. The first bedroom with a king sized bed, patterned quilt, curtains and lazy ceiling fan that circulates air. The guest bedroom transformed and kept closed, doubles as an office and her sanctum. Desk, computer, bookshelves take up one wall, windows another. The other two walls devoted entirely to maps of NY and the states, pictures of victims pinned to it and red strings that connect them to round red push pins on the map. She calls it the Gray Room.
"PAK!" Audrey's moving slowly through the apartment, the front door being knocked on by someone who's quite likely bearing the Thai food that the two of them were going to have tonight. "Food is here" Audrey's friend - what few of them she has - is over, their usual racquetball session is on hold thanks to Audrey's trip off the side of the bridge. There's ribs to heal, muscles to mend. That she didn't die was mostly luck and the DHS agent taking the last few seconds of her fall to hit at an angle instead of belly flop.
The woman was elsewhere in her apartment, likely feeding the two french bulldogs that liked the other woman while Audrey went for the door with her wallet so she could pay. "Wanna come get it?"
"Jesus Christ, Hanson," Jane notes with a chuckle as she comes out from the kitchen, leaving the dogs behind as she zips past Audrey to get to the door first. "Just so you know, this is only going to work as an excuse to skip out on losing raquetball for so long," she notes with dry humor in her tone just before she pulls the door open.
After the two exchange money for food with the boy at the door, Jane carries the bags over so they can eat and watch TV at the same time. "Didn't they give you a cane or anything? Or are you just being stubborn?"
"Last time they gave me a cane, I was blind and still didn't use it except to smack Cooper around. What makes you think I'm going to use it around my home. I'm perfectly fine. I fell only forty feet, not a hundred and I'm not an invalid" She just shuffles around like one. More medical leave. But she wasn't the only one.
And for the record, they gave her a cane, one of the silver ones with the four feet and her physiotherapist was already giving her hell for not using it. "Besides, Coopers not here, he's snug in his own place watching the game and eating his own food. I think he's intimidated by you" Her path diverted to the couch, the dogs getting into begging position in the hopes that they might eventually get some scraps, the DHS agent plunks down gently into her spot, adjusting the volume.
"Bet their panties are in a bunch at your office"
"What? Intimindated by me? Moi? Little ol' Jane?" G.I. Jane, as it were. "Is it the tattoos?" Jane smirks over at Audrey, amusement in that gaze. "I would love to see them trying to get you to use a cane. I would get it on video and show it at the interdepartmental Christmas party. And I'm a Buddhist."
Those last words get a whistle, though, as Jane settles into a spot on the couch. "Well, you heard Mayes telling the DoD to get their shit together on the news? That was a thing of beauty. But everyone's trying to focus on this humane Evo prison. Instead of their panties."
"Humane Evo prison. Built by the spring of this upcoming year. You realize right that this means, they've been building that thing likely since whatever the date was that the supposed inhumane was one was built right? Because there's no way that they can magically push that whole thing throw in the span of a few days."
Mayes though, she shakes her head. "Mayes has balls. Some days I think I should have asked for a transfer to the DoEA, but I don't think that they would take me. Don't think there's enough room for another bitch"
"Politics, Hanson. Public opinion. Even under martial law, we're still the USA. Gotta give everything the right spin so the folks at home will play along. We all play that game." She wasn't a lawyer all those years for nothing! "Timing is everything."
Jane picks up one of the take out boxes and a plastic fork as she sits back to start munching. "Oh, come now, there is always room for another bitch. Plus, it would make me pushing the DHS around a lot easier," she says with a toothy smile.
"It's always politics. But think about it. They're making it already, then someone exposes some secret prison. Of course they have to come clean and the convenience of it being that it's in the aftermath of the hell that broke out last Monday" Audrey shifts, stretching carefully with nary a sound, but a grimace to show for it all. "And if I joined the DoEA, who would you call when you have a decapitated victim Pak? Huh? Not me. Then who else would claim they beat DHS when we get back to the courts hmm?" Audrey smiles, reaching for her own takeout container, picking at the food.
"It's reassurance for everyone. Yes, MOAB existed. Yes there were riots, but look over here! Humane, completely public prison to make everyone feel better about life." Jane pauses to take a bite, but only just long enough. "I should have stayed in the propaganda business, I was good at that shit."
Those latter words, though, she laughs and shakes her head, "Alright, alright. Stay over there, then. For Sylar."
"I got the Telepath for a boss, you got… Praeger. I'll take Parkman over Mayes. Mayes seems like she's stick a stiletto up your ass if you didn't do your job right and keep it there till you did" What you hear in Audrey's voice is pure admiration for the woman. "Christ, pass me my pills there would you, I think I'm allowed to take some more right about now." She points to the orange bottles on the coffee table, the DHS agent having made the couch her bedroom since she got back.
'But seriously, if the Moab prison hadn't come to light, do you think they would have spoken up about the one they's clearly, already making? Or would they have kept it as hush hush as the other one seemed? I bet it's going to be testing ground for that new negation drug the Commonwealth Institute made"
"That's why you gotta learn to dodge better," Jane says with a point of her fork in Audrey's direction. She does, though, reach over for the pills and even opens the bottle up, too. Because the child safety caps are getting ridiculous. Push, turn, pull, do the hokey pokey, turn yourself around.
"I think the Eighth made it necessary. Let the people know we're still doing our job. And if this does become some sort of testing ground, they better make sure they've got their volunteers and paperwork in order, or I'm gonna kick someone's ass. We don't need the PR nightmare that would be."
Audrey snorts. "Don't ask, Don't tell doesn't just apply to the gays in the Military Pak and you know that. I mean, come on. Everyone and their mother thinks that Sylar died in the midtown, and they don't realize is that he's very much alive and very much still running around playing patty cakes with his dad" Two pills are washed down with some Coke and the woman goes back to eating, pausing long enough to offer each dog a small bit of beef.
"Yeah, but some of us know. You know. I know. I know us G-Men are all supposed to be corrupt sons of bitches — or just bitches in our case, huh? It's a delicate time, though. One misstep and everything falls apart. I'm not going to let them risk everything my department does that's right just so they can play doctor." Jane even folds her arms there, fingers tapping on her arm. "Sometimes all it takes is one person to know."
"G-men" Audrey laughs at that. "THey'll risk what they can get away with, and you know it. You'll just have to sit there afterwards and clean up the mess, if all your hopes and prayers that things don't get exposed, come to light. Tell you what, the day that everyone finds out that Sylar didn't die, you can come over and toast to my department's egg covered face, like we're toasting yours, deal?
"You've got a date, sister," Jane says with a smirk, toasting in Audrey's direction with her own Coke. So healthy these days. "We'll have egg foo young. Egg drop soup. Scrambled egg…" And she picks up an egg roll to take a bite of, just to punctuate it, grinning around that bite as she does.
"Chinese food it is, now shut up and lets get this horror movie going, so that when it ends, you're not needing to flash your credentials just so you can get home. Don't need Mayes pissed at you" Audrey snorts, picking her fork in her takeout container to lift some food to her mouth while the dogs wait patiently. "Saw 3. Lets see some gore"