For The Future, Part I

Participants:

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Guest Stars:

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Scene Title For The Future, Part I
Synopsis he Institute abducts a necessary component for Project Delphi from Staten Island.
Date June 8, 2010

Staten Island


For all that the winter weather that had swallowed up New York City tried to crush the life out of Staten Island, the fact that the snow is finally melting and nearly gone is something that most people never thought would happen. The Rookery is especially a place that most people never would have imagined could survive the weather, but the resiliancy of cockroaches and rats is a time-tested fact. It's this very gutted neighborhood on the northeastern side of Staten Island's miserable coast that is the starting point for a series of events that — once set into motion — could very well bring the city down into a fiery ruin.

That realization is not evident to the people gathered outside of the Fiddlehead Market, a tiny privately owned fresh foods market situated on the coastal edge of the Rookery, one of the few places on Staten Island where fresh food can be purchased, and one of the few businesses that actually operates on an island largely disowned by the government.

On a warm Tuesday afternoon the bright orange sunlight of a sun sinking down into New Jersey reflects bright off of the dirty windshield of a beat up old Dodge Spirit parked outside of the market, a car that once belonged to none other than Brian Fulk and has seen so much in its time that if it could talk, no one would believe the stories it tells.

It's the only car that doesn't have flat tires parked on the street, and the only car that likely hasn't been sitting there since before the snow fell. Such is the Rookery, and such is Staten Island.

" — Thank you, again," Gillian calls out as she pushes the door of the market all the way open with her back, a cardboard box of goods held in her arms. Even if it's far warmer than it has been for a while, she's wearing a heavy black coat with large buttons done up in the front, covering her all the way to her ankles. Snow boots squeak on her feet as she moves outside, turning with the supplies in hands. Fresh produce, some of it, cereal. One thing she's learned about a house full of kids— there just never seems to be enough food.

Brian could do these trips, and many other things, but she's more restless than she gives herself credit for, always needing to do something.

The box rests on the hood as she opens the passanger door, then gets slid into the seat. There's a second bag in the backseat, something not from this store. As she moves around to her side and unlocks the driver's door, she reaches to pull up the blankets, as if to make sure it's still there…

Can never be too careful in this part of the city. Inside, tucked out of sight, sits a birthday present for one of the kids, Bray. A gift of an Astronomy book, and a small telescope.

The car starts up, a few smacks on the dash before lukewarm air sputters out in her face, and she starts out on the street, back toward the Lighthouse.

The roads of the Rookery are just as bad, if not worse, than most of the other roads in New York City at the moment. The presence of cracks and fissures in the pavement insinuates bumps in Gillian's journey across the long untended streets where dead vegetation grows up through the splits and abandoned buildings with shattered or boarded up windows line the streets. There's a long stretch of bad road between the Rookery and the south side of Staten Island where life has a semblance of normality, a stretch of collapsed houses crushed flat by the weight of twenty feet of snow, flooded streets, and parking lots that look like swimming pools.

The radio in the old Dodge Spirit still works, well enough, but reception out on Staten Island has been terrible since the government moved in to Miller Field, picking up most radio stations has become a chore and the popping hiss of static coming from the radio insists noisily that this is just a bad day to pick up radio transmissions.

Looking up from the radio, Gillian is surprised to find something enormous and white pulling out in front of her at the lightless four-way intersection where dead traffic signs hang without a touch of electricity to them. The van itself is enormous, long and boxy, armored like a bank truck and wide, unmarked, windows tinted. It matches the very same vans that have been described by the Ferry durring the vaccine raid.

It pulls out right in front of her car, swerving sideways and blocking Gillian in, giving her only a fraction of a second to decide whether she's going to slam on her brakes, or test whether the Dodge's air-bags still work.

A few weeks ago, slamming on the breaks wouldn't have helped at all, but with the road covered in cracks and fissures, the tires find plenty of traction to slam to a stop, sending her against the steering wheel with a grunt, as she processes the situation. In the past, Pheonix had plans for panic buttons— they don't have them anymore. The best she can do is reach for her cellphone in her long coat pocket and try to get it out.

It's not reception that she's looking for, but something else, the record function in her phone. Her personal phone, not used for anything sensetive. Pictures from Las Vegas, of the kids, little things that she knows are harmless. As it starts to record, she reaches for the passanger door, and then running out of it. Just based on the vaccine raid description alone, she's not going to sit in the car and wait.

The screech of tires comes as a second van comes rumbling up behind Gillian's car, blocking in the dodge even as the back doors open. In her full sprint she can see in her periphery the silhouettes of white-suited man in biohazard gear stepping out of the backs of the vehicles, most of them armed with automatic weapons. Gillian only gets about thirty yards down off the side of the road and across a section of lightly flooded parking lot before she hears the first few snaps of suppressed gunfire. Water erupts in splashes and plumes beside Gillian before she feels the sharp smack of three rubber bullets strike against the small of her back and one against her right shoulder.

The force of the non-lethal rounds knocks her square off of her feet and sends her falling face first into the inch of water covering the parking lot, thankfully with enough presence of mind to brace herself in the fall with her hands, unfortunately giving her cell phone a hearty smack against the concrete and splash of water. Even though she's been knocked down, another pop of a single shot goes off and a fourth rubber bullet strikes Gillian in the chest, welting black and purple beneath her clothing and weeping blood from the impact.

«Target is down,» crackles one of the masked figures, «popping gas.» That horrifying announcement comes a moment before a metallic canister is lobbed through the air in a steady arc before landing with a splash near Gillian in the water, then begins spinning wildly and hissing out a yellowish gas that clings to the skin and very lightly stings the eyes and nose, but more importantly confuses the central nervous system and afflicts the very basis of Evolved abilities, shutting them off almost immediately.

Through the yellow smoke, Gillin can see dark silhouettes approaching.

The water will ruin the cellphone, but in some ways, she might think that is best— if she could think beyond the gas and the pain in her back. Gillian's felt a lot of pain in her life, especially the last few years, but they'll never really make it easier on her. The damp hand leaves the cellphone behind in the water, to try and cover her mouth and nose as she coughs, squints through the air. The last hit against her chest killed off her screams by stealing her breath, but that doesn't stop her from trying to make noise. It's only when the flood of energy disappears that she realizes what it did.

The knot had been blown out by the hit, and now the energy just— stops flowing.

The dark silhouettes approach, and no matter how much her mind tells her it's useless, she still starts moving again, pushing up in the puddle to try to stand, only to splash back down to her hands and knees. If she can't run or stand, then she'll crawl and kick.

She never was one to go quietly.

The struggle is clearly unwelcomed when the Retrievers come through the smoke, billowing trails of mustard colored gas rolling off of their plastic-wrapped bodies and visored faces. The first two that come through just train what look like machine pistols down on Gillian, though the barrels seem much larger thanks to the silencers affixed to the muzzled of the MP5s. It's the third retriver, carrying a boxy looking handgun that receives the most attention from Gillian as she struggles away.

There's a noisy pop as a pair of taser darts erupt from the front of that stun gun and punch into Gillian's abdomen and hip as she tries to scramble away, mere seconds before an overwhelming surge of electricity comes in rythmic bursts thorugh her body, causing muscles to involuntarily clench, pain to shoot up through her and her back to arch, mouth opening in a breathless and wordless scream.

As Gillian's body writhes around uncontrolably on the ground, there's a crackling hiss and pop from the respirator of the man that tasered her, «Bring it in,» he clearly requests, and as Gillian's pain-wracked body lays incapacitated on the ground in the water, she can see what looks like the progression of paul bearers carrying a coffin thorugh the yellow gas.

A coffin for her..


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