Participants:
| Scene Title | Enjoy Your Visit |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | April and Reed come to visit Level 5, and to take other visitors away with them. Len and April attempt to stop April, Reed, and co. but don't quite make it in time. Neither are they, precisely, late. As a result of their timing, part of the building falls down. |
| Date | May 10, 2009 |
Primatech Research: Ground Floor
It is a truly absurd hour of the morning. As in somewhat after the witching hour but a long ways yet before dawn. The Bronx at night is not what it used to be; the lights are fewer, dimmer, and farther between, the people who make them hemmed in by economic troubles and government-mandated curfew.
It's an inconvenience. It's also a blessing. There was no one on the streets to see the two who skulked through them, a tallish woman, a skinnier teen of equal height. April asked Reed to dress respectably; the technical term is 'business casual'. But she didn't make much point of it; ultimately, Reed's clothing isn't important.
Not like April's. She's crossed the last line between her future self and that native to the present, having removed even the wedding ring that has adorned her left hand since day one; a little bit of makeup turns the wear of ten additional years into something muted and less identifiable. She leads the way unerring to a door in the side of Primatech Research — not the main entrance, but one that looks like it should be labeled 'employees only'. It's locked by a code-entry pad.
Reed's confidence lies in her ability to manipulate electronics — more specifically anything that can be considered computing. Cypherlocks hold no real challenge for her as there is no AI involved to muck things up like in the future. Having to come to this location in person, well — that gives her something to be nervous about. The attire she wears is specific on order from April. She had actually go buy it — not with her own money, of course — and so the blouse/skirt combo, along with dress flats make her look somewhat official — maybe even like she belongs where she knows she doesn't.
She brushes her hand across the cypherlock and simply tells it to let the two pass — she doesn't need a pin or a password as she communicates directly to the CPU and executes the 'unlock' command as if she had entered a password. This way there's no record of the transaction, or any reference in any log that might be looked over the next day. April will have to lead the way as the teen looks up to the woman.
She does lead, after a grateful nod to Reed; into the first floor of a structure crafted from steel and glass, its interior illumination dimmed to a minimum. But not, in fact, turned off altogether. Just enough that it's difficult to look in from the outside.
Their shoes click on the floor with each step, seeming loud in the building's hushed atmosphere. April walks as though on autopilot, feet locking themselves into a familiar and well-worn path as her eyes lift to the walls that were once familiar sights, now serving to wipe the dust from old, cherished memories.
The pang of nostalgia reminds her again of just how wrong a fit her current cohort is for the woman once an agent.
"If we're lucky," April murmurs, "we'll miss whoever's on patrol tonight. If we aren't, I suggest you say as little as you can get away with."
"Understood."
There was no way in hell Reed was going to attempt to wear heels. The flats fit her just fine, so she making more of a scuffling sound as she falls in just slightly behind and to the left of April as she makes her way down the long hall. Her eyes take in everything, almost as if this were some hallowed place and they were stepping on sacred ground.
She has already mentioned her dilemma with Elisabeth Harrison and the fact that she thinks she may have been made, but that has been pushed aside as this mission is important to their success here.
Three more steps after Reed's reply; the elevator is in sight. And apparently so are they. "Bradley! Hey, Bradley!" So much for luck.
…Bradley is not the name this April goes by.
The woman turns around; she isn't wearing heels either. Not for an event like this. She looks up at a man currently coming down the interior stairwell, a helical edifice of shiny metal and blue-tinged glass eminently in keeping with the 'modern' flavor of architecture. "What're you doing out at this hour?" Though he is no doubt a security guard, the question is one of curiosity rather than challenge. "And who's this?" he adds as the stairs spill him out onto the bottom floor, peering quizzically at the teenager in April's shadow.
April Silver has had nothing but time in which to work on her story. The rueful smile she gives the guard and the ease with which she replies make the answer seem natural and sincere. Practice does make perfect, or near enough. "Hey, Miller. Faith showed up half an hour ago with recruit in tow. Promptly dropped her in my lap and took off…" A vague wave of one hand. "Probably to use up the sleep I'm now not getting." There are, however, no hard feelings on that score, judging from April's nonchalant shrug. "So I figured I'd give her the ten-cent tour. Should take just long enough that I can go disturb Faith after," the woman concludes with a mischievous smile.
Having did a little checking of her own, Reed is well aware that April is being addressed when that name is called. She stops as well and turns around to face the security guard with a smile, though an uncertain one. Almost as if perhaps giving the impression that she's not entirely sure what she's getting herself into by being recruited.
She considers introducing herself, but April said to say as little as possible, and giving Mallory's name or another fake name could sound some alarms when they aren't needed. She figures she'll let April handle this and only speak when spoken directly to. She does nod her head in greeting to the man, brunette hair bobbing forward, then back again when she does.
"One of these days," the security guard remarks, shaking his head slowly, "that woman's going to have to start following procedure." Apparently he believes the story. Miller nods to 'the recruit'. "You enjoy your visit, miss. Bradley's a better tour guide anyway."
"Yeah. That'll happen around the time blizzards become the standard weather in Hell," April agrees. She chuckles at the compliment, then resumes progress towards the elevator, the security guard watching them enter.
When the doors have closed behind them, April turns to Reed. "We need to go down five floors." To the level whose cameras Reed previously looped.
As they turn to leave the security guard behind, Reed grins. Sucker. As they step into the elevator, she nods to April at the direction given and places her hand on the CAC access device. Again, as with the cypherlock, she just needs to tell the device they have the appropriate access. In communicating with the device she somehow knows what to do as she reaches over then punches the unmarked button and down they go.
They travel down five floors, then the door opens up.
Primatech Research: Level 5
April closes her eyes as the elevator drops, though she doesn't share her thoughts, and her face is as close to expressionless as she can keep it. Then there's a chime, and the sound of metal doors sliding aside; the woman opens her eyes and steps out, glancing in either direction.
No one else here. And she knows, or as close as can be, where she is. The glance was mere reflex. "Niles first; he's closer." April turns left. Niles' cell is — somewhere in that block.
It doesn't take too very long. It's not like Reed can find out exactly where he's at without actually going by one cell at a time. When she finds Niles' cell, she places her hand on the device and executes the open door command, watching the panel slide open.
She can only imagine the surprised look that he might have on his face, as she steps aside to let April take over from here and give the explanation. She's just here for the heavy lifting.
The young man that lays on the cot in the darkened, small cell hardly seems like the confident, charming sociopath that Reed and April know. He's thin, extraordinarily pale and looks to be around twenty years of age.
At first, he lies there, still and indignant, like a teenager who would rather not get up and go to school. 'Visitors' aren't uncommon. Scientists, shrinks, Agents. None of them are pleasant, none of those visits are welcome. So it takes some time for him to sit up.
When he speaks, he addresses the floor with hunched shoulders. "I see the Gestapo have decided to add sleep deprivation to their list of tortures." His voice is pitched higher, but the venom that will carry through to his adult self is present and biting.
As Reed steps away from the door, April lingers in front of it. Hazel eyes flick over the simple, unadorned cell; settle upon the young man inside. He looks so similar to the one they know — and so very, very different. "Well, if you'd rather sleep, you can stay here. Or you can come with us. But we're leaving now."
Reed has stepped away from the door and is already looking for Edward. One by one she glances into each cell moving down the long corridor.
She finally stops in front of one. Now, she's not going to open it until April gets over here. There's no way in knowing how he will react when the door is opened. "Here." she notes to April, waiting for her to gather up Niles.
Niles stands up very hesitantly. He moves towards April like a skittish animal, like one who has been struck down before. "Leaving?" His head tilts. But that's not a real question. "Well now."
He eyes April up and down, then moves past the threshold. It's almost like he expects to be shocked like a rat in a maze. But really, he has nothing to lose by trusting her.
Once it's clear Niles is going to tag along, April turns away from his cell and moves to join Reed in front of Edward's. She looks in the window for but a brief moment, then nods for the technopath to open his door as well.
Niles is apparently not going to get shocked today.
A simple touch is all it takes, same as all the rest. The door slides open as Reed again steps to the side. This is April's show and Reed isn't planning on doing any explaining here today. She's just here to clear the way.
Reed glances at Niles as he joins them, as she gives him a nod in greeting. He does look younger. This could get complicated here.
If he was his future self, Niles would consider killing April (or at least trying to) and then making a run for it. But this version has only been locked away for six weeks or so, has only just begun to grow with bitterness and darker thoughts. And on some level, he is still just a kid.
He looks at Reed from under a floppy forelock of hair. It's a curious, head-tilted expression and he's clearly examining her to try and figure out if they've met before. "I suppose there will be time later for you to tell me who you are."
Edward's door opens, and the man inside — younger than the one April knows, but not young — lifts his gaze to study the woman just outside the threshold, head cocked quizzically to one side, two fingers lifting to make a minor and probably unnecessary adjustment to his glasses. "Well, this is an unexpected surprise," the statistician observes mildly.
April Silver looks in at Edward, makes a brief beckoning gesture with one hand. "Doctor Ray. If you'd come with us, please? We don't have much time left, so explanations will have to wait." She steps out of the way, begins moving down the corridor to the other elevator whose camera Reed meddled with earlier. Next stop: exeunt stage left.
Edward's brows arch, but he rises and walks out to join the little group in the hallway, taking a moment to regard both Reed and Niles with a speculative expression. "I would even venture to suggest it is a pleasant one," he concludes rather jauntily, before following in April's wake.
The alarm that begins to sound some fifteen seconds later, just prior to their reaching the elevator in question, is decidedly not so.
"Shit."
It escapes from Reed's pretty mouth before she can stop it — Blame it on Mallory's potty mouth.
She has the loop running, but of course, the guard saw them on the first floor and now suddenly can't find them. Should have considered that. First course of action is to disable that fucking alarm. There's a terminal nearby so Reed places a hand on it and the sound is silenced. At least she can hear herself think now. She also receives some other information as the elevator begins to rise up without them on board. "We are about to have company — unless.." she stops and places her hand on the control panel that you push when you want to get on board. Suddenly the elevator stops and changes direction heading back down to them. "Problem is.." as the door opens up for them.. ".. if we get on, we're going to run right into them as they are waiting for this particular ride. Whaddya want to do?" she looks to April.
Niles meets Edward's gaze with his own measure of curiosity. If he's housed on this level, then surely he's worth paying attention to.
But there's no time for curiosity now, especially when the alarms begin to sound. He casts a look over his shoulder at his cell door. No way he's going back in there now. His shoulders begin to hunch, his hands clench into fists. Not that he can do much of anything. The suppression drugs are still strong in his system and he can't throw much of a punch. It'll be ten years of prison life before he learns to take care of himself in a martial sense, sans his power.
He simply watches with a simmering, intense quiet as he looks from the pair of women to the bespectacled man. Helpless. At their mercy. He hates this feeling. Reed's tricks get his attention, but it doesn't take long for him to piece together what the girl is.
April glances up as the alarm stops — not as it starts. She figured they'd get made somehow. The odds were largely against them in that respect. The woman unbuttons her jacket, slides a handgun out of its shoulder holster.
"Get us to the ground floor," she informs Reed. "I can clear the way if you'll get them— " A tip of her head towards Niles and Edward indicates which 'them' this applies to. "— to the rendezvous." As the elevator door opens, April steps in; she waits for the others to join her before offering the handle of the gun to Reed. "You'll need to bypass locks on the elevator and the external door. You know where the second one is. You shouldn't encounter anyone on the way out — they're still reacting, and they'll sweep other areas first — but if you do a bullet or two will make them duck and take cover long enough. And keep running. All you have to do is meet John."
Edward is quiet throughout this, letting April handle the leadership, a faint and most cryptic smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
After everyone moves inside the elevator, the technopath pushes the button for the ground floor. There's no need for a card swipe to get out, just to get in. She does however, have to keep an eye on anyone who might be trying to disable the elevator. She doesn't let the car stop on any floor on the way up, though there are probably guards located on each one waiting for it to stop. But to no avail — this is a non-stop ride to the ground floor.
"Alright gentlemen, whatever happens, just follow me." she addresses the males, since April is going to take the task of keeping the rest covered. She looks at April and nods. "Be careful."
There's a ding — and the door opens.
Niles can't quite figure out who these people are and why he is being freed along with Edward and not anyone else on Level 5. But he's not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, even though his suspicion is growing.
He steps into the elevator and eyes the weapon as April gives it over to Reed. Then he says, as innocently as he can, "Do you have one of those for me?" Eyebrows up, even the thinnest traces of a smile. He doesn't have the confidence of his older self, but it's very easy to see the similarities.
He's not really expecting to get a gun, but he follows instructions anyway, falls into step behind April. Well. If nothing else, he gets to leave his cell for awhile. Even if he ends up right back in there if they fail.
Primatech Research: Ground Floor
No, she doesn't have a gun for present-Niles.
April is quiet on the ride up, looking straight ahead at the elevator doors. As they approach the ground floor, she lifts a hand, fingers curled loosely together; a translucent silver bubble approximately the same size as her fist coalesces just inside the reflective metal surfaces. When the doors open, the bubble expands rapidly — but only into the corridor.
It forms a shell they can step out behind, taking stock of their surroundings from the other side of a deceptively thin silver veil. It proves to be a lot sturdier than it looks when tranq darts bounce right off, metal wasps chiming incongruously on the tiled floor.
There's one person picking herself up on the right of the bubble, dark-haired form uncannily familiar, another standing on a landing halfway up to the next floor; that's where the darts came from. Not much of a welcoming committee. The left side of the bubble shimmers and drops. "Go," April Silver directs.
"Let's go." They hang to the side as the move towards the exit provided. This route seems entirely clear as there is only one emergency exit which will certainly sound a nice loud alarm once the door it pushed open, which will not give them much time to finish the clearing.
Unless you happen to have a technopath on your side. Reed touches the alarm, telling it that it still holds the connection as she pushes the door open. "Go. Go," She says as she picks up the pace and begins to run towards a van that is sitting a couple of city blocks away inside this compound.
As they get closer, someone steps out of the van and opens the side door, for everyone to get in, which Reed is happy to do as she reaches it. "April is still inside. You know what she said." Having already discussed this beforehand.
Niles follows like a good little prisoner and veers down the corridor to the left as the shield drops. He's confused, but there will be time to puzzle over it later. He hasn't had the opportunity to run in weeks, so his legs are shaky as he follows after Reed.
The van is eyed, but he drops in anyway, heart thundering in his ears. Very strange indeed.
It's like looking into a mirror whose reflection isn't perfect — subtly distorted in a way that can't be pinned down concretely but is nonetheless unmistakable. April looks at April, confusion on the face of one, resolution on the other.
April Silver retreats as well, bringing along the forcefield that shields her from the gun in another agent's hands. April Bradley fails to draw hers, but watches her doppleganger retreat, mind reeling at the abrupt confirmation of something that… well, knowing time travel is real and that your otherself is here doing something you yourself would never contemplate… it has a way of derailing mental trains.
The forcefield sticks at the mouth of the corridor, a flat plane barricading others from following; April Bradley drifts over to stare at her double through it.
"Why?"
"90 seconds and we go with or without her," she tells John as she looks at her watch. Edward has climbed into the van and they wait. Reed stays by the side door, leaning to look out to a) see if April is coming yet, and 2) to see if anyone is coming after them.
Without his power and without knowing what's going on, all a twenty-one year old Niles Wight can do is sit in the van, hands clasped eyes to the door of the van. He would love to shout 'let's go now' but he figures that wouldn't go down well with her buddies. So he sits tight.
She watches herself. The last days of the most perfect time in her life — how much has she changed, in this? How much is ruined? How much can be salvaged? It isn't August yet.
"I have no better option," Silver informs Bradley, as she continues to retreat down the hall, walking away from the field that shimmers between them.
"But you — you could have come to me," Bradley counters plaintively, resting an open hand against the barrier.
Silver lifts her hands. "That's the last thing I could have done," she disagrees, as more planes of force manifest in her grip. "Shield them."
Hazel eyes widen; Bradley steps back from the forcefield her double still maintains. "No, wait!"
There's more than one reason April Silver chose this route by which to make their exit. She had weeks in which to study the building plans — particularly the upper floors, in all of their minute details. This side is sparsely occupied in the earliest hours of the day; less likely to present opposition. And — the first-floor walls carry just enough weight, by her uninformed and half-guessed estimates. Her desperate hope.
From the outside, it's apparent only that a portion of one of the building's edges crumples down upon itself, accompanied by the dull roar of falling concrete and the crackling sound of many glass panes shattering.
Watching intently, Reed eyes her watch and even waits an additional 15 seconds before sighing and shouting "Just go! Shit!" She ducks inside and the van before to tear out of the place, disappearing into the night.
Inside, there is loud clopping coming up the stairs as a big black cowboy bursts through the doors, weapon drawn. "What in tarnation is going o—" He's cut short as he spies April stand there just staring. As Len Denton's eyes follow where she's looking at. His arms lower, the gun pointed to the ground. As much training as you have as an agent, you are not prepared for something like this. As the support beams are cut out from underneath and the hallway collaspes, he comes to a sudden stop; glances at current April and shakes his head, having seen the other April just pull the corridor down. "Well, if that doesn't hogtie you to a hanging tree, I have no idea what does. C'mon… we got some rustling to do, missy. Make sure no one gets hurt here." He turns and moves back the way he came trying to find an alternate route, the clopping starting up again as he runs down the hallway, without April — er.. going after April — or something like that.
He's already on the phone calling for reinforcements.
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