Ferry Ride

Participants:

alec_icon.gif elisabeth_icon.gif

Scene Title Ferry Ride
Synopsis Alec seeks out Liz to chat.
Date May 11, 2009

Ferry to Brooklyn


It's already been a long morning. Elisabeth got up early to run but was interrupted mid-jog by her cell phone. Since about 6 this morning she's been on the run, notifying a family that their father wouldn't be coming home, following leads on why he's not coming home, tracing his last steps. One of those last steps involved the ferry from Brooklyn to Manhattan proper, so Liz is backtracking toward Brooklyn now, checking to see if any of the regulars on the morning ferry talked to him yesterday. The trouble is, most of the morning she's been on edge, tense. She's caught sight of someone she's pretty sure is Alec several times, and it's definitely making her cranky. If he's following her again, she's gonna chuck him off the ferry. Bastard.

"Hey." his voice isn't exactly hard to recognize, but his unheard approach is just further proof of the sort of things he does she never picked up on. He leans on the railing next to her and stares out at the water, "The ferries back home aren't this peaceful." he admits softly, his eyes peering at everything, and for now, for a moment, the masks are gone showing how hints of the things he's always hid with his goofy charming smile. The weary weight around the brow, the burning rage at the corners of the eye, the cold distant set of his mouth. "I know I'm not your favorite person, but you know me, I'm nothing if not productive and I wanted to talk to you about some stuff that might help you out along the way. Course, I knew if I called you wouldn't answer, so I figured on a ferry you can't run, and I'm not really intterupting your day since you're just waiting around for this thing to land like everyone else…" he shrugs.

His voice is familiar — intimately so — and Elisabeth's body tenses visibly when he speaks to her. She refuses to look at him, to engage in small talk. That'd just be an invitation for him to keep talking and her rage at him still has not expended itself. So when he doesn't just go the hell away and keeps on yammering about 'stuff that might help you out,' Elisabeth turns on him. Her very tone is a warning — it's not going to take very much for her to lose it all over him. "I don't have to run from you. If you piss me off too much more, I can just stop your heart with soundwaves." She might be bluffing, she might not. "But I have no interesting in your perspective on what might help me. If you've got something I need to pass along to Teo or Cat, speak your piece and get lost."

Alec shakes his head, "Actually, to stop my heart you'd have to exceed a decible level in excess of 200 decibles which is the equivellent of fifty pounds of TNT going off about ten feet from your head." he points out, "And it's much easier to shake the vessels in my brain loose first. Makes it look like an anurism and the skull makes a better sound chamber." he turns to face her, "It's what you do. I did a little… research. I was wondering what you know about hypersound?" of course, he's here to talk about something entirely 'Liz centric'. Cause he's an ass like that. He's also totally unworried about her threats, or at least appears to be. "I'm assuming you can hide the bomb blast it would take to pop my heart though. Just thought that was a nifty factoid."

Slanting him a disgusted look, Elisabeth turns her eyes back out over the water. Elisabeth would like to refuse to engage. Really, she would. Even having him stand next to her pisses her off beyond belief. "What do you want, Alec?" she demands in an angry tone.

Alec hrms at that, "Loaded question but okay I'll shoot. Understanding, a nice sixty foot single sail scooner, someone to watch Boogie with who doesn't think that because it's black and white it's worth sleeping through, George Lucas' autograph cause I'm a total nerd, to one one of those crazy Frank Lloyd Wright houses, a blow job from Scarlet Johannsen, forgiveness, and to teach you a little something some guys at Cal Tech are learning about sound and how to properly harness it as a weapon and tool in the fight for something or other that they think is important. That's just like off the top of my head, gimme a sec and I can totally quintuple that list."

There's a long pause, and in spite of herself Liz has to snicker. "You're a piece of work, you son of a bitch," she murmurs. Finally looking at him now, she says, "I might have offered you understanding and forgiveness right from the start if you had confronted me some other way than threatening me. I'm not exactly blameless either in terms of having been looking into your background, Alec. But instead of treating me like a friend, you treated me like a mark. And now you have to live with the consequences of it. You don't like what your actions have wrought, you miss your friend? Next time, maybe you'll know better. Because right now? We are not friends. We are not even close to being friends anymore."

Alec nods his head, "Uh-huh." he says with that tone that says he could have said that entire speech word for word with her because he already knew what she was going to say, "We've covered that ground before." he points out, "Not looking to rehash it. Hence," he waves a hand at the ferry, "new setting, new material. And you didn't answer my question. What do you know about hypersound?"

Elisabeth just shakes her head and turns to look back out over the water. "Nothing," she tells him. "And I don't have any interest in whatever you might have to say on the topic, either."

Alec nods his head, "Of course not. Because you're completely the sort of woman who'd turn down an opportunity to be better at your job and saving lives just because the information came from someone you don't like. I can see that. You're exactly that shallow." his words drip with sarcasim.

Elisabeth whirls around hits him in the arm with her fist. "You are a complete asshole!"

Alec winces and rubs his arm, cause he's a wuss like that before cocking an eyebrow at her and offering her a hand, "Hi, I'm Alec Bonder, liar, cheat, modestly skilled lover, thief, and grifter. Pleasure to meet you."

With an expression that is still part rage and part hurt, Elisabeth refuses to take his hand. "I'm not forgiving you. I don't trust you not to hurt me again or to hurt my friends. I can't afford to take that risk." She crosses her arms, averting her eyes from his face. "Tell me this wonderful bit of information you feel you absolutely must talk to me about, and then go away."

Alec chuckles, "Well, it's a little complicated and I'm not sure how your … thing," he waves a hand at her as if she were a tuning fork, "works, but here goes. When in resonance certain frequencies of sound will reach a harmonious pitch, when passed through an appropriately created focal device they can be turned into hypersound." he scritches his chin, "In short? I think, if we do this right, you can do more then make popping noises, big bangs, and mute spheres, which so far are all I know about your abilities. I think you can communicate, privately, over long distances with this so long as you have line of sight, you'll be able to listen in on conversations within line of sight, and, if I can make the math work, I think I can make it into a precise weapon for you to wield. Sorta. It's still in the experimental phase, but that's with those jokers working on it with technology, not a sound insider. I think, if it's done right, you can make something similar to a sound laser. Which is the silliest way to describe it, but it conveys the proper imagery."

Elisabeth hesitates, interested in spite of herself. "My abilities are far more expansive than you've ever had any reason to ask me. Silence bubbles are the most common thing I use, certainly, they guarantee privacy anywhere." She looks at him and smirks. "Concussion waves are easy enough, as well. Based on what the guy who was training me said, minor earthquakes are definitely within the sphere of my ability — but it's a stupid application…. unless, of course, you wanna bring down the ConEd plant." Which is exactly what Conrad did, and her tone pretty much explicitly tells him that, her amusement plain. "I can already talk and listen over distances, it doesn't even require line of sight, though solid matter between me and the person I'm speaking to does muffle things. It's far simpler with line of sight, though. And it can also be used in what has been called subsonic telepathy — I can basically use the subsonics to cause a subject to enter a more suggestible state and convince them to do what I want them to do if they're already willing to lean that direction. It's not a compulsion… more like hypnotic suggestion."

Alec nods his head, "Interesting, I hadn't considered the phsychological uses of harmonic displacement, good to know." his eyes get that far away considering look, "Out of curiosity, can you use your powers to weld steel or cut through a vault door? Precisely jam a weapon or disarm someone without harming those around them, or are waves and the like your only weaponry? I should know whether or not I should waste more time on the avenue of research." he seems almost disappointed that he's not more helpful.

Uncertain why she's even telling him this much — it just gives him more ammunition against her if he chooses to use it — Elisabeth says, "No, none of those… that I've ever tried. I can hit a single target with the disorientation factor that comes with subsonic attacks, but anyone in the direct line of the attack also gets hit — for a distance far greater than you might think. Walls don't stop infrasound, or even dissipate it."

Alec shakes his head, "No, but Acustix does, which is something else I wanted to get you to work on. There are materials out there designed to hamper and screw with sound, any kind of sound. One of them is called Acustix, it's most commonly used in recording studios and the like but I've seen it in the more sensitive areas of some of the jobs my benefactor has pulled as a means to hamper all manner of listening devices. I was thinking about getting you a sample of this crap, maybe let you play with it, see if you can find away around it's properties." he shrugs, "If nothing else the practice might be useful some day." he shoots her a look out of the corner of his eyes, "As for the other stuff, you should try it. Think of sound as being waves, just like light can occasionally be. If you can focus them tightly enough, you can create mini lasers of a sort. They won't be as powerful as the real deal or anything, but they could be used to do precision work as opposed to 'I Liz here by do blow up this office building to get that single bad guy'."

Elisabeth pffts. "I wouldn't bring down a building to get one guy….. maybe a group of 'em, though." She rests her elbows on the rail of the ferry. "I'll think about it," she tells him. "If you want to be bohtered getting me some of the stuff to practice with, I'll see what I can do with it." She looks at him. "But I'm not helping you break into things even if I can."

Alec chuckles a bit, "Sweetie, I'm rich. I was figureing I'd just /buy/ you some. I mean, I work in a development business, you don't think people that build studios would /give/ me free samples just to try and get my recomendation to my bosses? How easily they forget. In the world of geeky construction guys, I'm a rock star." he winks.

Elisabeth smirks faintly. "Well, if that's all it is, I alreayd have access to a recording studio, so I can just practice there." She's reluctant to take anything from him.

Alec shrugs, "Assuming they're well enough off to own the good stuff, sure. If not, you know where to find me. That crap costs about four grand a square foot." he says with a smile, "Anyway, that was all just some stuff I picked up in my excessive spare time." she knows he doesn't sleep much, she's been a victim of 'pacing Alec syndrom' before. "Looks like this is your stop." he points as the ferry nears the shore and the announcement blares over the speakers to prepare for docking.

Glancing at him, Elisabeth says quietly, "Don't think it lets you off the hook." In truth, all she can think right now is that it's a damn good thing she's not the falling in love type — in this case she's just pissed off with a little bit of hurt feelings and a raging case of 'don't trust you as far as I can spit you' over it all. She turns away from him and walks toward the stairs down to the lower level to disembark the ferry.

Alec doesn't answer, doesn't even pull his eyes off the approaching dock. He's said what he's had to say on the matter, apparently he's done hashing over that stuff, he's moving on… And he's patient. He'll wait for her to catch up. Eventually she'll get over it and he'll be back in her good graces … … right?


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