Ending In A Clusterfuck

Participants:

conrad_icon.gif elisabeth_icon.gif helena_icon.gif

Scene Title Ending in a Clusterfuck
Synopsis The day gets more and more complicated and screwed up!
Date December 8, 2008

Subways under Midtown


The call to Trask's line is certain to set off a chain reaction of events, and Liz heads back to her apartment in a set of borrowed scrubs to change clothes, call Conrad for an immediate meeting, and heads back out the door to the meeting site — those damn subway tunnels again. Wearing black pants and a black fleece jacket (just because it's the first thing she grabbed), Elisabeth stops in about the same spot she did last time and calls, "Con!"

It's actually a little bit before Conrad makes it there. So when Liz first steps into the tunnel, she's met with silence. Perhaps a minute later though he's approaching, footsteps. Of course, hard to be SURE it's him, but it turns out it is.

By the time he arrives, she's pacing back and forth. When he does get to the spot, she's withdrawn to a corner where there are shadows until she makes sure it's him. And then Liz steps out. "Thanks," she says in a tone that conveys her agitation. "I need to make some strides really fast."

"What's going on?" ask Con, a fist clenched when he first heard her voice. Normally they'd wanna do some kind of password-exchange crap just in case it's Sylar, but Con's been kind of lax about that. He's not as paranoid as Helena. "You get your ass kicked again?"

"Not quite," Elisabeth replies. Although if he gets a look, the bruises on her throat are a bit darker once more. "I got Abby taken out from under me, though." She looks at him. "So far as I know, I can't stop a bullet."

Long pause. "Abby? Beauchamp?" asks Conrad. Yeah, he knows her. "What the hell happened?!" he demands, as if Liz did something wrong. He walks toward her but stops about five feet away, watching intently and waiting for his answer.

Elisabeth backs up about three steps when he comes at her, not quite flinching but definitely far more wary of him than she has been. Her voice goes up some, her fear of Jessica and guilt at letting Abby be taken translating to anger. "She was attacked last night, was left alone in the hospital, and I went to sit with her until one of your people could get there. She said Teo and whoever would look out for her. But they didn't get there in time, and I couldn't do anything about it! Don't fucking yell at me, Wozniak!"

"Why didn't anybody TELL me??" Con demands, again in Liz's direction. As if she knows. He slaps his forehead and shakes his head. "You don't know. You're still wet. Dammit…Who took her? Do you know where?" He looks Liz up and down then, more closely. Asks in something of a concerned way, "You okay?"

"No, I don't know where. I do know who…." Elisabeth swallows hard. "Her name's Jessica, and so far as I know, she's superstrong. I know that she works for some kind of organization up to something with Evolved, but I don't know what the name of the place is nor do I know what she does. If I have to guess, I'd say she's an enforcer of some kind. And she's got enhanced strength." There's a pause. "Yeah, I'm fine. But I was damn near useless against her, and it's pissing me off. And I'm scared to death for Abby. Jessica's a shooter, no doubt about it."

Conrad pinches his nose and asks, looking away, "I know they've been talking to you about joining." Joining what? As if they both don't know. "I didn't want that to be my idea. Do you know where the hideout is?"

Elisabeth shakes her head. "No…. I just have a cell phone hooked to the network, and Sergei's my handler," she tells him quietly. "I've already spoken to the little blond. Before I took my badge back, as a matter of fact."

"All right, all right. Do you need someplace safe to stay?" he asks then. Con looks at Liz hard and then steps toward her, reaching for her shoulder as if to get a better look at her. Not rough.

Elisabeth does flinch slightly now, though she doesn't retreat. "No," she replies. "If Jessica wanted to kill me, she'd have done it when she got me by the throat in the hospital. Or anytime between last time and this one." She waves that off. "What I need is to NOT be completely fucking useless out there, Con," she tells him.

"You're not fucking useless." Con insists, sighing as he mutters, "You look like a fuckin rape victim. Why is it your throat? This is the second time." He lets go of Liz and is frowning at her like he's missing something and he really wants information.

Elisabeth looks surprised and then grins a bit. "Cuz Jessica thinks I need my voice to hurt her," she tells him, as if it ought to be obvious. "Until you, I did." She shakes her head.

"Hmph." Conrad grins, a little proud. "Good. So it's working out for you." Sigh again. "We gotta do something about Abby. I was gonna teach you anyway, or keep doing it. Hold on while I make a phone call."

Elisabeth eyes him and says, "I hope you were going to teach me. I'm going to need all the tricks we can come up with to survive both being on the SCOUT squad and this shit."

Conrad dials on his phone and nods impatiently to Liz. "Well get this through your head first: It's not about you being on that gayass little SCOUT squad or even hanging out with Phoenix. It's about teaching you to protect yourself. Period. From whoever. Hel." Hel must've picked up the phone. He talks to her for a moment, conveying basically that he's with Liz, She's gotten a little roughed up by some strong bitch named Jessica. Jessica took Abby from the hospital after pulling a gun on Liz. I think we oughta get Liz to a safehouse. Advise.

"I'll be damned!" Elisabeth says strongly. "You're not stashing me anywhere, Wozniak. I'll deal with Jessica again if or when it's necessary."

Hand over phone, "You'll deal with her with backup next time and you'll fucking LIKE IT!" Con shouts right at Liz, using his ability to underscore it. Lowering the volume a touch he adds, "I'M in charge of security around here, and I'M in charge of keeping people alive, and you're a people and god dammit you're staying alive. Got a problem with that?" Wow. Somebody was in the military all right.

Elisabeth throws up her hands and shouts back, "You can give me backup if you want, but I'm NOT BEING STASHED like some wuss!" She rolls her eyes. "And don't go shouting at me like that, I'm learning to negate your ass." With a sigh, she says, "Look, just find ABBY. She's the important one right now. And if you're in charge of security, you're doing a piss poor job, being as Abby and her friend Brian got pegged last night by the same assholes that torched my school!"

Listening to the phone for a second, Con holds up a finger and says, "Shut up a minute will ya?" Pause. "Sorry, here you go." he says to the phone. Hands it toward Liz. "She wants to talk to you."

Long distance to (Helena, Conrad): Elisabeth takes the phone from Conrad and sighs. "Yes, I'm here." She sounds resigned, cuz it seems that arguing with Con is next to useless.

To (Conrad, Elisabeth), Helena pages: Hey, Elisabeth? It's Helena. Listen, Conrad is suggesting you go to a safehouse, but I'm wondering if that's best. Would it be wiser for you to report to SCOUT on this? Who is Jessica, exactly?"

Con stares at Liz with hands on hips, eyes narrow. Chin big. Watching.

You paged (Conrad, Helena) with 'THANK YOU. Asshole won't listen to me a bit. I haven't reported it to SCOUT because right now, she's in possession of my cell phone, and Sergei is the only way I knew to get in touch with you. If you want the cops in on this, that's fine — Jessica's whole schtick was that if I called the cops in on it, though, they'd send me Abby's head in a box. And if you want the God's honest truth, the woman means it. She does not joke. Jessica's…… a complicated situation, but let's just say she's an associate of Petrelli's.'

"You hardheaded crazy bitch." blurts Con at Liz directly, making that all he says for the moment because she's on the phone.

To (Elisabeth, Conrad), Helena pages: I see. Tall blonde, wearing a business suit? That means Company. I'll try to see if I can find anything out. I don't think a safehouse is going to do any good, but we need to pull everyone in and see if there's anything we can do. Put Conrad back on.

You paged (Helena, Conrad) with 'She was wearing scrubs, and I don't know what Company is. I don't need a safehouse. Jessica knows where I live and has done for weeks now. It's a far longer story than I can go into at this moment. Here's Conrad.'

Elisabeth slants him a look and hands the phone back. "I'm not crazy. There's just more to it than you know."

Conrad puts a hand over the phone for a second and says, "You're new to this life, sister. Remember that."

From afar, to (Helena, Elisabeth): Conrad takes his phone back and says, "Con-Man. Talk."

To (Conrad, Elisabeth), Helena pages: I agree with Elisabeth, she doesn't need a safehouse. She can see to her own precautions, since this Jessica got what she wanted. Contact Wireless and ask her to see if she can use the GPS on Elisabeth's phone to track her down. We can't do anything until we figure who's taken her. I'm bringing in a new recruit to the library, so I can meet up there."

To (Helena, Elisabeth), Conrad pages: Want me to bring Xena here to you?

***TBC


Other scenes will tie into this phone call, I'm sure — and follow-up scene to be done soon!


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December 8th: And Got Worse As It Went
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December 8th: Leaving The Garden
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