Fuzzy On The Details

Participants:

cat_icon.gif gillian2_icon.gif

Scene Title Fuzzy On The Details
Synopsis There's a lot of details missing when Cat and Gillian catch up.
Date September 1, 2009

The Verb - Cat's Penthouse

Arriving by any of four elevators, visitors will find they open into three foot corridors facing wide double doors made from sturdy southern pine which swing outward and have the strongest locks available. The stairs lead to single doors, also outward opening, at the end of three foot corridors. Entry requires both a key and a keycard; other security measures are a video camera and voice communication terminal at all doors. The 4th Street side has floor to ceiling windows interrupted only by the access points. Cream colored curtains are normally kept closed.

This level has enough space for sixteen apartments. There is an office space with reception area, conference room, and executive office; a room for archery practice and other forms of physical exercise; a very well appointed kitchen and dining area; a music zone with an array of instruments, electronics, and amplifiers; an entertainment area with an HD set covering an entire stretch of wall from floor to ceiling; a locked room where security footage for the building is recorded and can be monitored; a laundry room; a staircase for roof access; central air and heating; the main bedroom and a few smaller guest rooms; plush deep wine carpet everywhere except the kitchen, laundry room and bathrooms; and track lighting everywhere overhead. The light levels can be lowered or raised in the entire place, or selectively by segments. The overall decor suggests the occupant is a woman.


This visit is expected. The downstairs desk buzzed her up, Gillian gave a nod at the monitor in the elevator, and even said a few simple words so that her voice could be heard, before making her way up. Out of contact, with small assertions that she was fine, alive, and with Else had been a majority of what she's had to say lately, but now there's music to answer to. Or a musician, at least. When she steps out of the elevator, she looks as if she's wearing borrowed clothes. They're just a little bigger than her normal clothes, a little more colorful. Her arms are visible, showing still mangled tattoos.

Doors across from the elevator are open when she arrives, Cat standing near them in not-borrowed clothing. There's beer in hand, Guinness stout, for both of them. "Good to see you, Gillian," she greets calmly. Questions she has are held in check, the recent image of Gillian exhibiting strength she shouldn't have is in mind.

"Yeah, sorry, I've been a little busy the last few days. I know you'll have a lot of questions about that," Gillian says, running a hand through her hair as she moves further into the penthouse apartment. For a change of pace, she actually takes the Guinness stout, and takes a good gulp of it. She's never been much of one for drinking beer. It would seem that's changed. Or more likely she's just in the mood for it right now. "Else is in a safehouse." A moment later she gives the address of the exact safehouse. "Eve had a dream that she was going to get attacked and killed. We went in on our own to try and change that. Eve's still under close watch in a safehouse under Ferry care from getting shot twice."

"Feng Daiyu?" Cat asks, scowling, as she closes the access panel in the elevator and turning to reenter the penthouse behind Gillian. "Peter came to see me again, this time being much more reasonable, and said he feared for her. That Feng was a danger to her given his Vanguard ties and her songs. I told him he should simply have said that in the first place and gave up her address." She drinks from her own bottle, looking displeased.

"Yeah, Feng Daiyu. Definitely wasn't the one who…" Gillian starts, then trails off, shaking her head a bit. "Nevermind. Feng was the one who attacked her. According to Eve he was going to question her, shoot her when she didn't have the answers he wanted… and then… Peter was there too. Guess he was watching Else's place, and when Feng attacked, he went in. I'm not sure what Else is going to do now. It's up to her, I guess."

"I think, hope, she'll at least see it isn't just her business now," Cat replies with a scowl. "Tell me Feng is dead, please." Inside the penthouse she walks to whatever part of the place which could hold sixteen apartments of the type on other floors and then some Gillian might be heading.

There's a shake of her head. That's answer enough as she moves to keep close to Cat, taking another drink before she responds. "He escaped. But so did we. I think Eve might have grazed him with a bullet, and I think he jumped out a window, but it's likely he's still out there intending to fuck things over for us." She hesitates a moment, before continuing, "Peter suggested we go to a hospital and tell the cops that it was the Triad or something. Said that if we mentioned Feng we'd all probably be in a lot more trouble than we already are. I'm still missing, so hospital wasn't an option, so we took Eve to the Ferry and prayed they had medics. Luckily they did."

"He isn't someone you want interested in you," Cat agrees with an emphatic nod. "He's got links to CIA and has been hunting former Vanguardites. His move on Else suggests a link between what's left of the Vanguard and her music, though we already knew that. He's attacked Eileen before and had a battle with Ethan which left him injured. Feng was Vanguard himself, one who hunted people like us. Studied, charted weaknesses, and made his move."

"He was at the concert," Cat goes on to say. "A spook like him at a concert dressed in a suit, who took a cab when he left. It's like he wanted to be seen and maybe followed."

"Maybe he did," Gillian says quietly, thoughtfully, with a frown down at her glass. "I had us both where bullet proof vests, cause we knew he'd be using guns. Didn't work against the bullets he was using, though. Eve's lucky, honestly." There's a hesitant glance down, as if there's a lot more she could add on, but she doesn't seem to wish to. "He seemed pretty confident in himself. Practically dodged bullets. I might've had a chance to shoot his gun out of his hand, but I honestly am not that good a shot yet. I hesitated and he shot Eve instead."

"It's likely he knows how not to be seen, given his profession, so that he was seen must be intentional. I had Wireless look into his background a while ago, there's not much. He was a soldier in China's army, after that he joined the Beijing police force and was doing well, but after the Tiananmen Square crimes committed by China's government his career tanked. The Communist Party labeled him disloyal, and he just drops off the radar."

Something else is in and on her mind, though, as she considers the fight against Feng at Else's place. "It was probably too dangerous to try grabbing the man and tossing him out a window, or picking him up bodily to slam facefirst into a wall." Because Gillian can totally do that still.

Except that she can't. Gillian laughs a bit, finding the very idea to be funny, in fact. "I think Eve was planning to try and take him in hand to hand. I think she got her nose broken and her face bloodied for the efforts. I certainly wasn't planning to try and get any closer to him than necessary. And I bet he would've thrown me out the window before I could've done a thing. I'm not a martial artist. I don't know how to throw a guy."

"You don't have to know how to throw a man," Cat replies with a grin, "you can just pick him up and do it. I saw you out there on Staten Island when Norman White was holding court. You were bodyguarding Vincent King… Shard," she explains, "and when guns entered the mix you picked up a huge rock and threw it like it weighed two pounds. It's okay, really. I don't know why you're acting like you don't still have all those abilities, but I saw you."

That causes a major pause and a lot of confusion across her face. "I did what?" Gillian says, looking genuinely confused. "I mean— what? I've heard of Shard, yeah, I know he's doing stuff in Staten, thatw hole 'Save Staten' campaign, but I've never met him and I certainly wouldn't be much of a bodyguard. I don't have any of those abilities anymore. If did, do you think I wouldn't just punch Peter in the face for being a moron since I would be okay in the end? You must have mistaken me for someone else."

Gillian gets a look which says Have you met me? Hello! before Cat speaks with a shake of her head. "I don't mistake people for others. It is possible it wasn't you, though. Someone could've made a person with that ability look like you. Or it could be a person of multiple abilities shapeshifted to look like you. Shard's got multiple abilities. I saw him using electricity from his hands, and he flew away from the scene. Maybe one of them is illusions." There are possibilities to explain it away. The only one that doesn't enter her mind is the correct one.

"I don't think I like someone using my appearance," Gillian says with an obvious frown across her face. There's a sudden pause, a conversation from a long time ago ripples back in. She doesn't remember it in full, she'd have to check her journal, but there was something about missing time back a while ago. Someone seeing her somewhere she knows she wasn't. "Well, it's not me, whatever it was. If I still had all those abilities I wouldn't have been limping for a week— and I probably could have done a hell of a lot more to stop Feng."

"I'm hoping to meet Shard and talk with him," Cat replies. "Maybe then I can see if there's anything that stands out, find out about his bodyguard who looks like you. Can't be a pleasant thought, it's true." In her head, Gabriel is a suspect. She knows he has that ability. So is Peter; she knows he has the death kami or something like it, what she doesn't know is whether or not he has anything else. Her attempt to think at him told her nothing conclusive.

There's a nod, agreeing that it is certainly unnerving. Gillian has no idea who might still have that ability, but she knows she doesn't. "I'd love to fly again if I still could. Or run fast. I got so spoiled in not needing to take a fucking car everywhere. And sometimes I wish I could still remember everything— it's weird going from remembering every single conversation to watching things just… slip away. I keep journals just to hold on to as much as I can."

"We'll figure it out," she assures. "When I give my sessions at the Center, I take notes too, just as I pretended I did in college all those years. Acting like I don't have what I've got." Cat laughs. "It was tricky to sometimes randomly get things wrong on exams to be less than perfect and keep up the facade. Or to seem a bit at a loss when discussions were held in class. Were you able to turn it on and off, or was it always on for you?"

"Always on, as far as I know. Even when I was doing other things," Gillian explains, thinking back on it. "In fact it helped me use my abilities most the time, but it wasn't on in any of the replicants I made. Each one just got one ability and the link back to me. I remembered what they saw if I was actively trying to look through their eyes— like I was when I sent the one into Pinehearst that got killed by Arthur."

"I still need to work with our negator to block the power from time to time and build a standard memory as a redundancy system," Cat relates, "so I don't go so clueless when something interferes." What Edward suggested she should be capable of isn't mentioned. Maybe someday she'll seek augmentation to see if that triggers it. For now it's a theory only.

"Yeah, that would suck, especially in the heat of things," Gillian admits, still smiling a bit, before she finishes off the beer she was offered, and sets it down somewhere. "I need to be going soon. I've been away from the Lighthouse since the incident and I'm sure Brian's pissed he's had to handle the first week of the kids being there mostly on his own. Or well, with the rest of him."

"See you, Gillian," Cat offers. "I'll be in contact if I meet Shard and find anything on your bodyguard doppelganger."

"Thanks. And check on Else, will you?" Gillian says, nodding as she moves back toward the elevator. There's a pause before she adds, "And see what she wants to do— Whatever she decides, we went there to save her, and we did. So the rest is up to her. We did our part. I didn't intend to ruin her whole life doing it— I gave up mine cause of some foul ups. She shouldn't have to— but there's no telling if Feng won't just come after her again, either." There's always that possibility. "Take care of things," she adds, before hitting the button to leave.


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