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| Scene Title | Flowcharts |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Libby Case gets a post-midnight crash course in terrorist alliances, time-travelers, and what chaos her baby brother's been up to the past few months . |
| Date | July 14, 2009 |
Village Renaissance Building - Fourth Floor Safehouse
The floors here on the fourth level of the Village Renaissance Building at 14 East 4th Street are of polished grey marble and the smooth walls are painted a cream color. Four corridors with four apartments each are found here, with stairwells at the front and back and elevators centrally placed in each corridor. The elevators have buttons for the first three floors visible, and control panels requiring both key and keycard to open.
The apartment doors, made from sturdy pine, are operated by keycards only on this floor. Like the second and third floors, they're numbered 401-416.
But that's where the similarity ends. This floor isn't for rental to the general public. It's a place reserved for temporary stays by whomever the person who lives on the top floor chooses to give sanctuary.
It's a safehouse of the Ferrymen, operated by a member of Phoenix, using the cover of musician's eccentricities to explain away the motley crew of folks who might come and go if anyone should ask.
Novelly, Ghost had chosen to use the front door. Just this once. Mostly because Libby didn't look particularly amenable to being summarily slung over his shoulder while he scrabbled his way up the sheer surface of the back wall like a spider with rough fingers and ruined nails in lieu of hairy feet. They get the warning, then, the entire nest of burning birds: Ghost's coming up. And he's brought company.
Which, given the nature of the establishment, is probably a whole other level of rude, over even the ungodly armpit of night-time and the point of fact that he could have called ahead, but this is not entirely unexpected for the self-proclaimed specter, now. He swipes his keycard without knocking, lopes in across the mirror-sheen varnish of floorboards on long, wolfish strides.
Pauses to offer the token gentlemanly courtesy of pulling the door open by its knob for the woman that follows.
First of all: she's short.
Helena is woken up from dreaming, vague nothings about chessboards and gardens and queens and dark forests. And having been woken up so abruptly, she remembers none of it, and instead heads down to the safehouse floor to see what the ruckus is.
It's one thing to clean rooms- another to be called up in the middle of the night to be told someone's bed caught on fire and someone needs an air mattress. Delilah had brought one up for said person, only to sit for a moment in the kitchen and pass out in the chair, still sleepy. The new shuffling about the floor, however, wakes her up out of her dozing, embarrassed that she came to check the kitchen cupboards and konked out.
And rather than stay, the redhead, hair tied back and still in her nightgown and a blue satin robe, wanders out the door of this particular apartment in her own quiet steps , shutting the door- only to find herself nose-to-nose with something going on in the hall. And only one familiar face.
"Oy!" Shenanigans!
Leo's room is bare, spartan. There's an air mattress, there's a couple of Rubbermaid trunks that serve him for dressers, a milk crate for a nightstand. Cheap things, easily knocked over without damaging them. And, hidden behind those Indian cotton tapestry bedspreads, the walls are lined with eggcrate foam pads. Like a room in a cutrate asylum. The reason for this is immediately evident, because there is the soft 'whumph!' of milk crate, plastic boxes, and travel alarm clock hitting that foam, as Leo comes abruptly awake and rolls off the air mattress and into a fighting crouch. Which lacks the proper intimidating effect, because he's wearing nothing but blurred war wounds, a pair of tie-dyed boxers, and a grouchy attitude. Three stumbling paces later and he's out in the hall, bristling like a prodded pit bull.
Elisabeth Case looks remarkably good — for a dead woman — and the muddy brown shade of her leather jacket matches the ringlets of her hair, but not quite the pitch black shade of her eyes, espescially given the cold look they now possess. Tense and uncomfortable, Libby follows at Ghost's heels with her hands tucked into her pockets, fleeting glances given in each direction to the litany of unfamiliar faces that haunt this gathering.
The look she delivers to ghost, balefully quiet, says so much without having to say anything at all. You're bringing me to see Terrorists? Ghost knows the look, it's written into his lexicon of unfortunate expressions, right next to sorry for leaving after coitus and you never call.
"Hey." Her voice doesn't quite sound as impish as her slight height might afford, and while she's only a touch over five feet it's that rough tone she speaks with that makes her seem just a little taller, in the way a cat arching its back and raising its hackles tries to puff itself up in front of a predator. Because, clearly, she's swimming with sharks right now. Very sleepy sharks.
On the upside, optimistically, drowsy sharks are harmless, though. She could probably set them all on fire with her mind pretty easily. At least, such are facts that the ghost would personally find reassuring, were he occupying her shoes, here, in Phoenix's burning belly at morning's smallest and darkest hours. Mind you, he's aware his standards are a little departed from norm, these days. He tries a smile on.
Finds it crashing to a juddering halt against the Look filed in between sorry for leaving after coitus and you never call, which means, presumably, that it didn't work. His face goes innoce… nonchala… blank.
Stifling the urge to sigh, he moves instead — to the left, leaving Libby curiously exposed to the rank and file of terrorist operatives, less for tactical posturing than like some sort of equine demonstration, modelled out for Helena and cohorts to see. He starts to say something, cuts short when Leonard comes tumbling in. There's a skipped track of thought, an interrupted silence, gnawing worry blinked back behind pale eyes that are the only real thing he retains of Teodoro Laudani's face.
"This is Elisabeth Case," he remembers, finally. "She's Tyler Case's sister. He can't remember her. Neither the one Edward has nor the other. But I think" a clever euphemism for Edward rather eliptically implied, "that if he can get some face-time in with her, he'll turn." Long, short.
Helena is either not caught up on things or still mentally dusky from sleep. "So you brought her here?" Helena blinks some more, but is plainly baffled. "If someone around here knows where Tyler Case is, it certainly isn't me." she remarks, and then scowls. "We're not terrorists." she mutters before noting to Ghost, "I want to talk to you, so don't you disappear."
Delilah remains a bit away, eyeballing Leo when he appears wearing tye-dye boxers. She looks back down towards Ghost, Helena, and the strange little woman, but her attention goes back to Leo again. "Nice pants." Forgive her, but Ghost did wake everyone with his bringing the woman in. Just a minute, she'll wake up.
There are strangers. I have no pants. That sense of gathering storm that accompanies Leo when he's frightened or startled is abruptly gone, and he looks down at himself. Yep. Blue spirals. And then he looks around the assembly, and is gently sidling back into his room for a moment, door closing silently behind him.
Ducking her head down into a raised hand, Libby's head shakes slowly, a very simple gesture accompanied by a tense sigh. She she looks up, over the bridge of her fingers towards Ghost, there's no real expression there save for disbelief. Fingers move to rub at the temple of one side of her head, just before she turns to look back over her shoulder at the way they'd come in from, as if contemplating an exit.
"I— thought he knew what he was doing." She's talking too quietly, making it difficult to hear her in the hall. "I— this was probably a huge mistake, ah, but really… thanks for— " Dragging me down to the village? Stalking around my apartment? Bringing me to meet terrorists? "— nothing?" Her nose wrinkles, both hands raise in the air as she begins to backpedal. Her hesitation to continue in this is perhaps warranted, all things considered.
"Would it be better or worse if I showed you dead people instead? Come on, cut the kids some slack." It probably doesn't help that he actually did say that out loud— 'the kids,' but Ghost tosses that word out there less for Libby than for Helena.
He and the young woman's pride are old friends, and nothing gets you up in the morning like anger. He'd know. "Cardinal.
"Richard Cardinal's been cultivating an appearance of friendship with the time-travelers." The other ones, he means, but Ghost decides not to complicate things overly by defining that distinction or the two quantities on either side. He walks over to the wide table adjacent the kitchen hallway, hooks a chair out for Libby to sit in, gesturing invitation. "The bedhead you're looking at right now are some of Doctor Ray's worst enemies, and Cardinal's one of their friends. I think your motivations overlap somewhere. Something to drink?"
"We're not terrorists." Helena tells Libby firmly. "We've never so much touched civilian targets, and the only times things got hairy it involved people either incarcerating us or trying to blow us up first, thanks much. You're on the run, and you actually believe what the government tells you?" She runs a hand through her hair, and sighs. "Del, do you have the maintenance keys to the apartment that used to belong to Kinson? She can hole up there."
The whole civilian targets thing gets a bit of raised hackles out of Delilah as it comes up, and she's a step or so behind Helena when asked about the keys. She does keep a wary eye on the new face, however. "Mhm." And after a seconf of fishing on the front pocket of her robe, out comes that ring of keys. "Someone burnt something, was up here…" The redhead feels the need to try and explain a little bit as she flicks through the different metal keys.
Oh, there comes Leo. Now with PANTS. The telekine reemerges from his den of foam and raging PTSD wearing black fatigues and a faded t-shirt. Still barefoot. His hair is in disarray, what there is of it. He most certainly is a terrorist - he's even on the FBI's High Value Target List in his old face, but he doesn't pipe up to claim the epithet. Still trying to dig sleep out of his eyes one knuckle at a time.
There's a long, awkward sare given to Helena from Libby. Dark eyes peer across the hall towards her, then direct back towards ghost with her brows raised, hands still up in that I give up posture. "I've got a hiding place, alright? I didn't come here for you to stuff me in — whatever the hell is going on up here. I came here because this guy said someone here'd know where my brother is."
Anger redirects towards Ghost, and he can almost feel Libby's stare burning a hole in the back of his head. Thankfully, for now, it's a figurative one. "Look, thanks for— whatever," Libby backs towards the ekevator that brought her up to the floor, "I didn't see anything and I don't know anything so— just pretend like I wasn't here. The last thing I need is— " she stops trying to explain herself or her excuses and just exhales a heavy breath as something Ghost said finally clicks with her.
"Did you just say time travelers?" It's going to be a long night.
Dislocated by the bend of the doorframe, Ghost's voice emerges and pays still more homage to his namesake than his various and sundry bizarre habits are normally wont to do. "There has to be a dossier or some shit you guys can let her read." There's a squeak of damp metal, a cessation of the liquid hiss of running water.
When he steps out of the kitchen again, there's a cup in each hand. He sits on on the table, glances across the room at Libby as if he's surprised that she'd gotten up, started to leave, or as if he hadn't noticed earlier. There's a stoop of his brow, some middling expression creased, shadowed in the tawny complexion of his face. "If you know what your brother can do, you're not all that surprised he's made such a fucking ridiculous catalog of enemies."
Helena sucks on the side of her lip before regarding Ghost. "You know full well there's a dossier or some shit that we could concievably let her read." She's deeply suspiscious, as she too heads for the kitchen, her turn to grab coffee. She's furious, and rather than say anything just yet, she wants to think about why that might be.
"It's called a rogues gallery." Delilah corrects Ghost sleepily, as if he should obviously know this term. Finding the right key on her ring, she lets out an 'aha'. "Here it is. She staying here or not? I mean, if he could find her, what's saying nobody else could?" She doesn't ask anyone in particular, but looks over at Libby knowingly, trying a tired attempt at making a point.
"I'm no longer blonde, but I'm still totally fucking confused," says Leo, eyeing Libby like he's half hoping she's brought cookies. Or will announce that she's a Stripper-gram. "You're Case's sister. What is it she's supposed to do with us?" He wonders, blithely switching whom he's addressing mid-conversation.
By this time Libby's navel-gazing with a somewhat stern expression. Her tongue rolls slow over the inside of her cheek as she stays still on the far side of the room. Awkwardly rolling one shoulder, she looks up towards Helena just before the blonde disappears into the kitchen. Delila, of all people, draws her focus back to something more pressing, the question of her security. She looks over to Ghost, jaw clenched, and realizes that the redhead has a point — if he could find her, somebody else could. But the trust still isn't there yet.
"That's what I want to know." Libby echoes Leonard's question, turning an expectant stare back towards Ghost. "I don't know what's going on. The last I knew— my brother was knee deep in trouble with the Triads, and got bagged by the government before Ezra could— " she winces, after dropping the name, nose rankling at how terrible of a spy she would be.
"I don't know what's going on. I just— " her eyes close, jaw setting. "I— just want my brother back. I— don't care what bullshit story I have to listen to," because obviously evil time travelers is nonsense, "I just want to know where he is… so— so I can smack some sense into him."
Given the chair he'd pulled up has remained unadorned by any small, ferociously ember-eyed brunettes, the ghost decides to drop himself into it. It's then and only then that there's visible evidence to attest to the physical taxation of the past few weeks on him. He hits the chair with a noise like a hammer coming down on melon, tries to pass it off as a lazy man's indifference to making mess and noise.
He's Teo. Not that unconvincing, is it? "Cardinal can find your brother," he says, in the tone of repetition, even if it isn't, quite; he manages to refrain, at least, from sounding particularly grandiose in his exasperation. "Card has his fingers in a lot of pies right now. Doctor Edward Ray's using him like he's using your brother. And Cardinal is in with Phoenix.
"Not an extended bird metaphor— that's his actual fucking name. Do I need to draw a flowchart?" He bites off a pause, glances at the doorway through which Helena had momentarily excused herself and her temper. "There is probably a flowchart in a dossier."
The appellation accorded to Teo that Helena shouts back from the kitchen involves two syllables and a particular area of the body. Likely he also knows her well enough to realize it's not entirely meant in seriousness. She walks back out, this time with her own mug of coffee. "I can pull up what we have on Tyler. I don't see the harm in it." Her tone is cautious though.
He's tired enough that the faux Brooklyn accent cracks like old Bakelite, and Libby Case gets the benefit of Leo's full-on Deliverance drawl. "Where you -been- all this time, woman?" he demands, turning the grumpiness on her. "Your brother's been dickin' around getting into fuck-all knows what and you just finally turned that dial to the right channel?" he says. And then he just steals Helena's coffee - it comes sailing towards him like he just called it his Firebolt, takes a sip, and then sends it gliding back to her.
Rubbing a hand across her cheek, Libby looks around awkwardly between the people gathered here and the rather disrupted manner in which they were all awakened just so Ghost could announce she was here. "Look I— I appreciate— " she doesn't know if up is still up right now, and that causes her to hesitate in saying exactly what she appreciates. It'll take some thought to figure that one out. "Alright, look I… I'm sorry if I seem a bit on edge. It's just— " her dark eyes flick over to Leonard once he gets a little dig into her.
"I thought he was locked up in some government center. It's not like he's been on the news or anything." Though the look she gives Ghost is more of a he hasn't been, right? look. "I— I've been hiding out with…" she glances around the room, and reconsiders her answer, "a friend. The world thought I was dead, I thougth Tyler was dead, I figured it was a fair trade off. I didn't realize… that he survived the bomb until the government was after him. I— was a little too late."
The rather unladylike choice of words Helena is hollering down at him from above puts a smile on Ghost's face, crooked more from fondness than from fatigue. He takes a pull of water from the rim of the cup, winds up flicking beaded overflow into his own eye with a lazy drag and jig of a thumb. "It's okay. I'm edgy too," he says. "You're taking all of this pretty well. Hel's printing off some documents for you to look at— we should be able to field questions if or when you have some.
"I understand about little brothers, and legal death is a common problem here." His ankle hurts for some reason. This warrants a scowl, a brief glance down at the surface of the table.
The shrill of his ringtone jolts a blink through his eyes. The device is hitched out of his pocket on a long finger and thumb, unfolded with a furrow in his brow. Liquid crystal iconographs light his face a moment before his expression brightens; he hauls up off the chair, connects the call with a jab of thumb. "Hey, Richard— we were just talking about you. There's someone y—"
His boots scratch a stop on the floor, back to the room, surprise etched in the rigid axel of shoulders and the plowed depth of his silence, the air cleared enough that the tinny buzz of the other voice filters through the safehouse's chill quietude at the bottom of human hearing.
Then: "You shot who?"