Fill In The Blank

Participants:

deckard_icon.gif grace_icon.gif

Scene Title Fill In The Blank
Synopsis For lack of any better ideas about what to do with a charge that he maybe isn't actually supposed to have, Deckard calls Grace so they can try to fill each other in on wtf is going on. Plenty of questions remain unanswered. For instance: Who the hell is Niles Wight?
Date May 17, 2009

Hotel California/Grace's Place via Telephone


It's late morning on Sunday when the drab grey of the ill-christened Hotel California gives way to the bleach of sunlight at the crest of one last turn of ruined stairs. Deckard rises from the ash rather undramatically: with a sneeze as he crosses the threshold, dust thrown forth into otherwise clean air with the sudden movement. Christ. It scatters to a rest against weathered, rotting furniture and a few overturned file cabinets. The thing about this building is that it doesn't actually have a roof anymore, just bare carpeting and a few partial walls still standing against the wind where this floor somehow managed to stand strong.

The wind is louder up here, shrieking about his overlarge ears until he drops himself heavily down onto his ass behind an overturned desk. The backpack on his shoulder is sloughed off so that he can retrieve a small black notebook from its bowels. It's several minutes before he actually forces himself to dial one of many numbers scrawled into its interior, clear eyes squinted against the harsh sun and what wind still manages to whip at his collar. "Fuck."

It never fails, there's a phone call. Grace was in the process of fixing lunch — sure, it's before noon, but she is always up early — when it rang, and that phone is always immediately answered. She does take three seconds to turn the stove off first. "Matheson," is the single-word response when the call is picked up, spoken by that distinctive ruined voice.

Matheson. Was that her last name? Deckard tilts a squint down at his notebook, which doesn't say.

Fortunately her voice is distinct enough that there's little question he has the right number, even with the wind moving like it is. "It's Deckard. I have a problem at worst, a mystery at best." That sounds a little ominous. The notebook is flipped shut so that his hand is free to fish a pen out from the company of a pipe bomb, a bag of beef jerky, a bottle of water, a flask, and various other things that shouldn't be all up in the same backpack together.

On the other side of the line, Grace exchanges a glance with the man who's looking askance at the way she's stopped square in the middle of the kitchen doorway; a simple gesture signals Scott to wait. "A problem?" the raven's voice echoes. That word by itself is ominous. "What kind of problem?"

"Some skinny beat up kid showed up at the Lighthouse a few days ago saying the Ferrymen sent him. Name's Niles. I put him up on Staten for a few days, just finished moving him into Midtown." Underlying self-disgust keeps him concise, rough voice overloud across the line to combat static hiss and the breeze's heavy breath against the receiver. His mouth thins out, his jaw works. There's an awkward pause on the precipice of admitting further stupidity on his part, then a gust of his breath that's his own rather than the weather's.

"Now he's saying he's not sure the Ferry sent him at all. Some guy with glasses and 'buggy eyes' broke him out of some kind of holding facility and told him to find me and say you guys sent him."

Glasses and buggy eyes. Grace doesn't recognize the description. The name that is given, however, raises her brows. "Niles. As in Niles Wight?" she prompts.

"I…dunno. I could ask him. He's British, pale. Early twenties, I think." The last is speculated after a lean over that casts his line of sight down through the floor, all the way to the long skeleton left to roost on the floor below. Creepy grins and swollen face aside, he doesn't seem so bad, really.

"He made it sound like someone's still after him. His own friends ran him out of their…club or gang. Or whatever."

"Please do," Grace replies. "I don't know anything but the name. A watch-for request trickled down just this morning, as it happens." Talk about timing.

"Okay. Hang on." Deckard drops the phone into mold encrusted drywall and rust to push up off his ass so that he can take half the stairs back down again. This is why he and technology are not friends. "Hey, kid," his voice rings harsh down the remaining stairs and into the floor that opens up beyond them, "What's your last name?"

Niles has been resting, back flat on a sleeping bag, close to the little propane heater and as far away from pane-less windows as possible. His eyes drift open and he squints upwards through the gaps in the 'hotel's' floor. There's a moment of hesitation, then, "Wight." Well. He's on a truth-telling roll, might as well continue.

"Thanks!" That seems like the polite thing to say.

Whump. Back down at the overturned desk again, Deckard frowns to himself and brushes some suspect black grit off the abandoned phone before he lifts it back to his ear. "It's White."

Well, would you imagine that. Grace nods to Scott after the answer comes through, mouthing the words call Liz to him — since she was apparently the one who asked that they keep an eye out in the first place. "Well, I guess he's supposed to wind up in our hands or something." Two different directions angling towards this meeting. "Do you want to keep an eye on him, us to move him somewhere else…?" Her voice trails off, letting Deckard supply a different option if he prefers.

Deckard's mouth opens and closes, brows knit while he plays the question back over again as if he isn't sure he heard her right. Weird voice, snarling wind. It's possible. "I…can keep a watch. We should stay here a few days until the dust settles, but he's already restless. If possible it'd be better to move him somewhere less…" Midtownish. He trails off there, brows gradually lifting out of their heavy hooded furrow. "I'll keep this phone with me."

On the other end of the line, Grace nods. "When you're ready to move out, let one of us know; we'll see to it." End of story. "Anything else I can do, Deckard?"

"I'd like to know what's going on, if anyone gets around to finding out. I dunno who we're hiding from. Otherwise." He shrugs a shoulder, ignorant of the fact that he's having a phone conversation. "He's been in a box for a while, sounds like. He should be cooperative. I'll let you know if we run into any problems."

"Grapevine's running a little thin these days," Grace answers. "Though I think we're basically hiding from 'everyone else' anyway, aren't we?" Dry, sardonic humor; the kind her ruined voice is best at conveying.

"Basically," Deckard agrees, also dry but with less humor. Probably on account of the fact that he has to hide even when he's not trying to hide other people or else spend the rest of his life seeing things through walls in prisons. A mangy-looking pigeon flags down to a raggedy halt on the opposite corner of the makeshift roof, and Flint's back to scowling again. "Okay. See you around, I guess.”

Unseen, Grace nods. "Goodbye, then." And the woman hangs up her end of the call.


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