Enjoy The Silence

Participants:

cardinal_icon.gif elisabeth_icon.gif

Scene Title Enjoy the Silence
Synopsis Perhaps Redbird can help in the dome, perhaps not; it is still a sanctuary.
Date Feb 12, 2011

Redbird Security Solutions, Cardinal's Apartment


Best thing about full-out Horizon armor? No one fucks with you in the streets. At all. But she's careful in getting from the action she was just handling to Redbird — won't do to necessarily be spotted in the armor letting herself in. Which Elisabeth does, through the back door. Only once she's inside does she yank the helmet off her head. Leaning back against the wall of the back hall, the blonde drops her head back and closes her eyes to listen. There are heartbeats in the building…. but she knows exactly where his apartment is and where his office is. If he's not in one of those two specific spots, she'll have to check the basement in person.

Text. She can text. Elisabeth fumbles in the armor, beneath one of the thigh pads, to pull her cell out and text Cardinal. You in Redbird's Bldg? Plz say yes. Too tired to go farther.

long nite? yeah, upstairs. cmon up, there's nobody else warming my bed tonight so you wont be interrupting

A teasing text right back, even as Cardinal moves about his apartment to clean it up. It's got that whole bachelor thing to it sometimes.

The return text makes her laugh wearily. She pushes off the wall and heads upstairs. Elisabeth is still chuckling as she knocks on the door up there, her helmet under her arm. When he opens the door, she admits mildly, "I think if I'd been interrupting, you'd have found me asleep on the floor in the hall downstairs. It didn't even occur to me to text you first." Which … is kind of rude, in hindsight. She'll remember to next time.

Apparently, Cardinal hangs out in a grey t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Or maybe he just tossed that on when he got the message. The door's opened, and he waves her in with a chuckle, "Christ. Do you want help prying you out of that get-up, Liz? It's not exactly the most comfortable shit to wander around in all the time…"

She waggles her brows at him. "If you wanna help, you know where the clips are," Elisabeth retorts as she walks in, setting the helmet down inside the door. "Sorry — I was near the area and figured if I didn't do it now I'd fuckin' well get too busy to remember again." Her hands start seeking out the release hooks for the exoskeleton even as she's talking. "You been in touch with the contractors in the dome?"

The door's closed behind her, locked, and Cardinal steps over to help with the clips and locks that seal the exoskeleton on her. "No… I'm not in direct command of them, after all, they're on loan essentially. Why? What's going on?"

As she shimmies out of the exoskeleton and associated armor, she's still wearing the sleek black pants and pullover, sweat damp in spite of the cold. Elisabeth finally gets out of all the gear and looks toward him. "The mess in the dome last night? Humanis First staged a pretty organized attempt at a coup. Took out some of the Stillwater Security guys, rigged a truck to try to take out the Suresh Centre, and have begun to try to round up Evos and execute them," she says quietly as she turns.

"Christ." Cardinal exhales a sigh of breath as he eases the rest of the exoskeleton down to the floor, his head shaking slowly, "Sounds like they arranged for all of this, then. They couldn't have set this up without knowing the dome was going up…"

"Hard to believe that to be the case when they want to kill Evos. But…. I have to admit the thought has already crossed one of my informants' mind." Elisabeth bites her lip. "Suresh is the only place in there that's going to have the right kinds of medical supplies and a generator to keep them all safe. But that means dropping people right into the fucking hands of the Institute. Bella Sheridan and whoever the fuck else is over there." She shoves a hand through her damp hair, pausing only to rip out the pins holding the mass in place for her helmet. "Ygraine says there are at least two bands of vigilantes on the loose. The guy who's been using his boat to get people across is clearly HF, so they're going to have to find another way to get across the river. Jaiden is still out of contact. Ygraine's went across to check on JJ's status — he got through to me this afternoon."

She hesitates. "What I was hoping was that you could send Redbird people to back up whatever's left of the Stillwater contingent, have them protect the Centre, and I could tell them to start pulling any civilian who wants the help out of the line of fire. It's…. imperfect, at best, but … there's a plan in place to try to take down the field. Warren's got a drill, and we've been cleared to attempt the test."

"You say that as if they're above using the Evolved to destroy each other," Cardinal says bluntly, "That was Mitchell's plan, remember, with Carmichael…" He steps along over to the kitchen, asking as he ducks into it, "…do you want a beer or something? And I can't, really. They're not under my direct command, but if you want me to send some— suggestions to whoever's in charge, I can do that. A drill?" A pause. "I don't know if I want to know."

"I'd love a beer," Elisabeth says quietly, wandering into the living room area to climb onto his couch and curl up in a corner of it with her knees pulled to her chest, her arms wrapping around her legs somewhat defensively. Resting her forehead on top, she says to him in a voice is far less muffled than it has any right to be with her curled like that, "He thinks he can disrupt the field if he can find the right frequency. He wants to plug me into his contraption to manipulate the sound waves so that we can attempt to break through the thing. He's modified a tank into a drill. Very much like a cartoon character, actually…. and he keeps staring at my ass."

"Ugh." Cardinal shudders— at the mention of where he's staring, or at plugging her into the drill, is hard to tell— and pulls open the fridge, pulling out a pair of beers. He hip-checks the fridge door closed again, stepping out into the open and heading her way to offer her one. A brow lifts, "I do have some good news."

Elisabeth lifts her head to look at him, reaching out to take the proffered beer. "I could use some," she tells him softly. "Whatcha got?"

The beer's handed over, and Cardinal flashes a crook'd smile. "Alia broke out," he says, simply.

That brings her fully upright. "What???" Elisabeth nearly drops the bottle in her shock. "Oh God, Richard… seriously? Is she here? Is she okay?" She moves to scramble off the couch, almost bumping him, agitated enough to be a little clumsy. "Can I talk to her? Is she pissed? She's got every right to be pissed beyond belief. Christ."

"I don't know any details," Cardinal shakes his head, "She sent me a text. I'll let you know when I know more…" He brings a hand to her shoulder, "…she said she was hurting, finding cover. I don't think she wanted to get too… specific over an unsecure line. I told her to rendezvous with Monica when she could."

"Okay," Elisabeth replies, worry clear in her features. "Okay. Uhm… God, I don't even know what to say to that. They're going to be going apeshit trying to find her." She brings the bottle up and takes a hefty swallow from it. When she lowers it, she frowns. "Did she tell you anything?" she asks softly. "They took her to Miller Airfield, at least initially, so…. " She stops. "God, I'm horrible. I'm standing here wondering if she got anything useful," she says in disgust.

"I'm sure that she'll get in touch soon," Cardinal steps over to sprawl on the couch, leaning back and kicking both feet up on the table as he pops the beer open, "If she was in immediate need… she'd have told me."

Elisabeth sinks back into the seat, curling up tightly against him and lowering her head to his shoulder. "Okay," she murmurs. The beer is cradled into the curve of her waist between them absently. "Make sure all of ours are on high alert, okay? The people running shit out there are going to be pissed that she got away, and they may send Heller and his goons here looking for her. You're going to need to be very careful if that happens — that sonuvabitch will use any excuse to shoot people from what I can tell, Richard."

Cardinal tilts his beer her way. "It'll be interesting to see how they handle this," he murmurs, "I've got no doubt they aren't going to want whatever they were doing with her to be public…" A swig of beer, and he shakes his head, "She's a smart girl, too. And she'll be pissed."

"I'm just hoping she's not too pissed at me," Elisabeth replies without raising her head from his shoulder. "I should have known better." She grimaces a little and then sighs. "Yes." Going back to their earlier conversation. "Please make whatever suggestions you can. With Humanis First roaming about setting fucking bombs and both they and whoever this other vigilante group is now armed with automatic weapons from the Stillwater guys that were killed — and possibly a stockpile of their own — … I want as many civilians safe as we can get. I told Ygraine not to trust Sheridan but that if she needed a doctor, Brennan might be able to be trusted. In spite of Institute ties."

"I just don't know who's in charge down there," Cardinal says with a grimace towards the ceiling, "I'll give a call over and see what I can find out, but I can't promise it'll accomplish anything."

She nods slightly against his shoulder. "I know," Elisabeth says softly. "There's jack and shit we can really do from out here. It's worth a try, though. Kershner's given her okay for me to help Warren — being as the whole thing is fucking 'government sanctioned' already." There's bitterness in her soft tone. "The Institute told him he had permission to approach me for this."

"Yeah. Well." Cardinal's voice is quiet as he stares at the ceiling, thumb rubbing up and down the length of his beer bottle. "I'll be having a talk with her pretty soon too…"

Elisabeth doesn't say anything to that. Perhaps because she can't think of anything that's even remotely useful. The silence drags out a long time, and she simply remains where she is with her forehead snuggled into the curve of his neck and her body curled trustingly into his side. It may not be until she jumps a little — a movement that happens generally just as she drifts into the deepest state of dreaming — that the fact that she's fallen asleep on him becomes obvious.


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