Participants:
| Scene Title | Emile Danko's Guns… |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | … are passed into another person's hands. |
| Date | October 24, 2009 |
Standing in the ruins of Midtown, it's hard to believe New York is still a living city.
There's life enough around the fringes — the stubborn, who refused to rebuild somewhere else; the hopeful, who believe the radiation is gone, or that they somehow won't be affected. Businesses, apartment complexes, taxis and bicycles and subways going to and fro — life goes on. Perhaps more quietly than in other parts of the city, shadowed by the reminder that even a city can die, but it does go on.
Then there is the waste. The empty core for which the living city is only a distant memory. Though a few major thoroughfares wind through the ruins, arteries linking the surviving halves, and the forms of some truly desperate souls can occasionally be glimpsed skulking in the shadows, the loudest noise here is of the wind whistling through the mangled remnants of buildings. Twisted cords of rebar reach out from shattered concrete; piles of masonry and warped metal huddle on the ground, broken and forlorn. Short stretches of road peek out from under rubble and dust only to disappear again shortly afterwards, dotted with the mangled and contorted forms of rusting cars, their windows long since shattered into glittering dust.
There are no bodies — not even pieces, not anymore. Just the bits and pieces of destroyed lives: ragged streamers fluttering from the handlebar which juts out of a pile of debris; a flowerbox turned on its side, coated by brick dust, dry sticks still clinging to the packed dirt inside; a lawn chair, its aluminum frame twisted but still recognizable, leaning against a flight of stairs climbing to nowhere.
At the center of this broken wasteland lies nothing at all. A hollow scooped out of the earth, just over half a mile across, coated in a thick layer of dust and ash. Nothing lives here. Not a bird; not a plant. Nothing stands here. Not one concrete block atop another. There is only a scar in the earth, cauterized by atomic fire. This is Death's ground.
Clandestine he wants, clandestine he gets. Cat is good at that. For this purpose, not so long after the encounter she engineered outside Piccoli's, Doctor Chesterfield has made her way to a place in the ruins. She's still got her face obscured by the hat being pulled low, and took care to see she wasn't followed.
So it is that she waits for Officer Varlane in the entryway of a place which at one time was a business, but is now no longer even identifiable as having been that. What she does know, of the most importance, is her own exploits with a geiger counter showed it some time ago to be of lesser radiation than other areas among this blighted zone.
Having changed into a plain black hoody, wearing the hood over his head, some baggy blue jeans, and black sneakers, he walks through the ruins with a large black duffle bag, looking like a common drug dealer when he walks up to her. "Thanks for meeting me, we going inside? I can't risk anyone seeing this stuff."
The man is eyed quietly when he arrives for a stretch of seconds before she nods and turns away. Already inside, being in the entryway, Cat makes her way further within. "We already are," she tells him, "but it's good to be more so." A short time later, likely less than sixty seconds, she stops at some interior point where no one with distance vision gear could spot them from the outside and turns to face the man again.
Magnes hunches down and unzips the bag after placing it on the floor, having everything placed into evidence bags. He pulls out [a matte black .45 with a recoil compensator to match and a more compact black .40,] "Emile Danko's guns." two ammo clips, "Emile Danko's ammo." then a phone, "Emile Danko's phone. No one touches any button on this thing until it gets to an electronics expert, don't even charge it, it needs to be looked over by someone who knows what they're doing." he instructs, then pulls out a slightly bloody ziplock bag. "Danko's molar. Do with it what you will, it's best I don't have it, but I don't think it should be thrown away."
"Kalashnikov," the woman murmurs as she eyes the weaponry, "I myself prefer classic American assault rifles. The M16 is perfectly functional." From there Cat's attention drifts over the ammo, the phone, and the… tooth. "Interesting, that," she remarks dryly. One never knows what a psychometrist might get from it. "The phone will be even more interesting, perhaps, once its secrets are unlocked. Have you looked at the contacts and such in it yet, or did you place it as it is now immediately?"
"I put it in the bag as soon as I got it. I haven't tampered with a thing, with the exception of the guns and the ammo, for safety reasons, I know how to deal with evidence." Magnes casually answers, starting to pack everything back into the bag once she's had a chance to look at it all, though holds up a bagged knife briefly too. Also Danko's. "You have no idea what kind of safety precautions may have been taken with the phone, that's why i want an expert to handle it before anyone else. You promise me you'll make sure everything gets to where it needs to be? I trust you, that's why I'm giving you this stuff and not the police."
"I will," she tells him with a nod. "Thank you for all this." Cat studies the items again for a brief stretch, then looks up to his face. "I take it, given this collection, you got the drop on him and had a positive confrontation?" She is speculative now, and quietly so.
"I took advantage of mercenaries cornoring him into a place only I could safely get into. I couldn't safely get him out with me, but, well, he's hurting, and yeah, I took this stuff directly from him." Magnes explains, not going into too much detail, but considering there's a tooth… "The mercenaries were moving in on him and he was stuck to a wall, thanks to my ability, but considering there haven't been any police reports, I have no idea what's going on."
"Mercenaries," Cat remarks. "If they got him, it'd not be a bad thing if no one ever hears what became of him. The last thing we need is some public spectacle which could make him seem a martyr in the eyes of some. But… I wouldn't in any way consider him dead unless I saw the body myself, or some other singularly convincing evidence of it."
"It isn't surprising he'd have a price on his head. Murdering people simply for being alive makes all sorts of lethal enemies."
"But I won't lie to you. I'm sure you'll think I'm a horrible person for it, but I tortured him before I left him where he is. I tried to make him talk, but when I realized he wasn't gonna, I kept going anyway. I felt like he needed to feel what he was doing to people. I crushed his stomach, collapsed a lung, cracked all of his ribs, all with my ability. I just… I don't know, I felt like I had to. But after talking to Elisabeth, I think that may have been a mistake, and I may be giving up on this vigilante stuff soon." Magnes admits as he raises the bag for her to take, turning it over to her care finally. "I can make it lighter for about an hour, if it helps any…"
She's silent for a time as he speaks and she contemplates what she's been told, but that time does end. "Anger is an easy thing to give in to, Magnes," Cat offers quietly. "I have it myself, perhaps more so than most people might. When one is incapable of forgetting, grudges mount up. Hatreds. Sometimes images of things I've seen come back at the slightest trigger. One might, technically, call it PTSD if the person didn't have my capacity for recall. Maybe even some might give it that label with me, too. I certainly can't avoid the seeming of remembering without it feeling like reliving the events, with such crystal clarity. But I deal. I've got ways." Like stoicism, maybe.
"Pragmatism, taking the long view. It sounds cold, and in many ways it is. Larger things have to be kept in mind. Much as taking revenge would be to some degree satisfying, I know it won't bring back people I've known who were murdered. And I know I have blood on my hands too. The people it came from, who at the time were seeking to kill me and people around me, had others who doubtless now miss them and had no connection to what they were involved in. They probably want vengeance on whoever they believe caused their loved ones deaths."
"At some point this will hopefully all be over, and everyone be able to move past the strife. I'd want them to let go of their hostility toward the source of their grief, so… I have to do the same. So I don't chase vengeance after a threat is ended. Killing isn't something to enjoy, it's just what happens when faced with dangers. All too often one kills, or is killed."
"And you, being a police officer, have an even finer line to walk, Magnes. You have to realize part of this is about power and the abuse of it. Were you a good student in school, were you able to stay awake during the classes on history and government?"
The questions she ends with bring out a slight grin. It's okay, she understands how many were bored to death by those subjects.
"When you're the only student in class for your whole life, you can only dream of being able to fall asleep. But no, they weren't my best subjects." Magnes shakes his head, standing and moving that usual comforting hand to place it on her shoulder. "I'm sorry you can't forget, I can only imagine how that must be. Well, I guess I don't have to imagine some things. When people get hurt, or I see someone like Danko, I almost instantly flash back to Abby trying to speak without a tongue… When you get that stuff to a safe place, and we've stopped White, will you let me do something nice for you?"
"Don't be sorry, Magnes," Cat replies, glancing briefly at the placed hand. "It is, like so many things, gift and curse both. Nothing is ever perfect. Now, what I'm aiming at by asking about your knowledge of history and government is simple, at least to me. But you might need to come to see it yourself rather than being told. Next time you get a chance, read the Declaration of Independence and think about how it starts. The part where Thomas Jefferson wrote about being created equal and the consent of the governed. What's he saying?"
"Don't answer that right now," she adds. "We'll talk about it later, and then get onto your role in doing things like this," she indicates the booty taken from Danko with a hand gesture, "and your role as a police officer."
Then she moves on from that topic, moving to take up the items he brought. "Making it a bit lighter would be good," Cat acknowledges before feeling the full weight, "but I think I can handle it. I work out, you know." A slight smile follows that claim. "As to doing something nice for me, I might." That part comes with a grin.
"I'll read it, I promise." Magnes promptly removes his hand and hunches down to the bag, beginning to quickly alter its weight. "Before you leave, there's one more thing I wanna ask. Do you have any military connections, preferably ones that might help me into FRONTLINE?"
"I can't guarantee anything on that front, Magnes," Cat replies, "but I can review the careers of some classmates from Yale and see what they might present in that area." Her opinions on that operation are withheld for another time as the bag is eyed. "Will these items return to their normal weight eventually, or is this permanent?"
"In an hour they'll be normal again. I'd tell you the specifics of how it works, but I keep that a secret." Magnes assures, even if a bit secretive, then nods in the direction of the exit. "Thanks for always being so reliable. I'll wait a while for you to leave before I do. Be careful."
"I will," Cat replies as she starts her exit. "You also." Through the door she goes, turns left, and is gone. In her mind, for the moment, among so many other things is Magnes and his potential for gravity-reversal. he could, she surmises, be very good at disposing of nuclear weapons which can't be disarmed and removing radiation from Midtown.