Participants:
| Scene Title | Get Cracking |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | It's Cooper's first week with Homeland, Audrey dumps a whole case in his lap to read up on. Sooo many boxes. |
| Date | September 02, 2010 |
Department of Homeland Security Facility
This government facility was opened by the Department of Homeland Security in the fall of 2009. As a thirty-story building it rises high over the landscape of Battery Park City, a monochromatic monolith of gray and black set admist manicured trees and a concrete plaza where several flagpoles rise and a granite slab sign displays the building number 663 in serif font face.
Inside, this facility houses department executive offices, holding facilities, interrogation rooms and an armory to supply a standing security force with the necessary firepower to defend the building against terrorist threats on home soil. The lobby of the building features a large seal of the Department of Homeland Security at the center of the ground floor in plain view of balcony tiers of the second and third floor, accessible by stairs flanking the glass facade entrance and security checkpoint.
He's been sitting at his desk for an hour now, every once in awhile, he leans forward to shift a picture of his daughter, he's probably done it a billion times now. Okay! So he's fidgety. Agent Thomas Cooper has his own office now on the 22nd floor. No more getting pelted in the back of the head with balled up reports. No one to snatch donuts from the pink box perched on the corner of his desk as per usual. No one to see every little idioic thing, he does.
Case in point.
Dressed in a dark gray suit with a white shirt and a muddy red tie, his converse sneaker'd feet, shuffle along the floor as he slowly makes his desk chair slowly turn. He has a long length of balloon — mind out of the gutter — in his hand, fingers deftly twisting into being the part of a very pink poodle. His eyes are not on what he's doing, he's just kinda gazing in wonder at the tiny office.
Cooper almost looks like he's still surprised they hired him.
It's on one of those spins, when his back is turned, that audrey enters into the office so recently made available for cooper, not far from her's.
THUMP
A paid of leather mens shoes, loafers, black. A little gift tag hangs from them with his name on it and congratulations scrawled across them. "This ain't converse country Cooper. You have to wear big boy shoes now." The goods delivered, Coopers soon to find out that, no, he'll still have donuts snatched as audrey lifts the lid with a forefinger of the pink box, and pinched between forefinger and thumb, do so abscond with one of the deep fried confections.
Pop
The poor pink poodle's life is ended before it actually even begins. A startled Cooper whips his chair around, to face 'she who would be his tormentor', shreds of dark pink latex still clutched in his fingers. "Hanson… hey." It's offered with a nervous smirk, before a skeptical look is dropped to the shoes.
"I…" The pink bits are tossed in the trash, so he can pick up one of the shoes, giving Audrey an odd look. There is a peek at the tongue, brows lifting high on his head. "How did you know I wear that size?" He looks at her, eyes narrowing. "Did you go through my things?" Lord, knows they live in the same building. Never know with these agent types.
Poor pink poodle, gone to balloon animal heaven to lap at pools of rubber with all the others who have suffered at the hands of cooper while he was learning his trade on the side.
"That you even feel the need to ask that question cooper" Audrey shakes her head, settling her hands on her hips and pivoting on one high heel to look at the sparsely decorated office. Only by virtue of not having the "grays" on his walls.
Half the donut disappears which could lead to potential thought that maybe she hadn't had breakfast yet. "I knew we did good hiring you. Now we can have donuts all the time. I told the guys on the floor, that you were the sugared addict and don't be surprised if you leave your office for a minute and come back and there's just crumbs left"
"Oh-kay." Cooper says softly, leaning back in his chair so that he can bring up a foot and start untying the dingy gray laces of his Converses. "I'll take that as a, yes. That blow up doll box at the back of the closet was gift from the Jersey guys when I left for the NYPD." The first shoe hits the floor, a glance going to the other agent. If she had looked, she would know he's lying. The grin on his lips would show he's yanking her chain.
The first shoe is tugged on, lips pressed together into a thin line of… well… he's never liked the tight constricting leather shoes. "Oh… and you know… thanks for making me the department's donut bitch boy." Said with a rather flat tone.
Note to Self: Find a way to hide them. Cooper needs his donuts.
"Christ Cooper, you can't take a joke can you, on either count. They don't know about the donuts, and unlike cops, they tend to adhere strictly to their coffee to fuel their overnight information bender's. Second, you stood beside Verante the other day during your debriefing on how things run here, I noticed your shoes were about the same size." Audrey taps the side of her head with a grin.
"Listen, I'm gonna have the GRay files dropped over here, get you up to date on the father and son far more than you were able to when you were playing tiddly winks with Sanchez down at PP1. While you're doing that, I gotta go see a lady, about a piece of metal, but I'll be back. I got enough time to show you around, and warn you off of where you don't want to go, which elevator to avoid and who is the coffee bitch"
"With you… I can't always tell." Cooper says with a chuckle, making quick work of tying the shoe, before turning to the other one. "And I was kidding about the blow up doll as well. You seriously think…" He trails off eyeing her for a moment. "Never mind, I don't think I want to know the answer to that."
Once the other shoe is on, Cooper pushes to his feet and tests them out. "Never understood how Agents and all could run in these things." He flexes his toes in the shoes, while answering her, "But yeah, that's great. I'll start getting familiar with the Gray case. Kinda curious how much crap was censored. I imagine the unrated version is much more interesting."
Then it kinda click. "Whoa… wait. You mean I don't have to get my own coffee?" Cooper looks pretty impress. "Nice!"
"It's called insoles. That's how they run. And there's traction on the bottom. It's all in buying the right shoe. Besides, we don't run often, this is not the NYPD. Our perps generally are already caught by the cops and then we just have to walk into the room" A gesture for him to follow, she's as usual in her skirt and jacket, simple plain jane no frills suit. "You, may on occasion have to, but we do have assistants around who if you really need it and can't get away from your desk, will be oh so kind enough to bring you some"
Intruiging, agents, working together, bringing others coffee. "Might reward them with a donut." There's a gesture for him to follow her, off towards her office. Something that he hasn't seen other than passing by a closed door and frosted glass. No windows in hers, she breaks out her keys to open it for him and let him in.
Her deck, computer, the ubiquitous brown and white carboard file storage boxes along the base of a wall carrying files. The two spare walls normally covered with a bookcase or maybe a motivational poster, instead, harbor Gabriel Gray's mug on one wall and Samson Gray on another, maps, strings and push pins relating to the maps, headshots of victims and lists. "My office"
One of his donuts is plucked from the box as he follows her. Breaking it in half, to pop a half of it into is mouth as he walk with. He's still wrapping his head around that coffee bitch idea and donut awards, when they step into her office. He pauses in chewing as he glances around. "Make mine look bad." He jokes, since he only really got it in the last day or two. She's been there for awhile.
His gaze falls on the two walls, moving closer and ignoring the feel of those shoes on his feet. "That… is his dad?" He lifts a lightly powdered finger to point at Samson's picture. "The sooty guy?" He looks between one photo and the other. "Yeah… they look related and similar abilities. Insane." He takes a bite of the other half as he leans near some of the victim photos, recognizing some. For all his weirdness and jokes, he's still an investigator.
"Samson Gray, the father of Gabriel Gray. So far as we've managed to ascertain. Like father like son, it was why, we think, the killings were almost copy cat like. So focused on the possibility of Sylar having an apprentice, we never thought that maybe, it really was someone with the same ability, and related."
Adurey comes to stand beside him, head tilted as she looks at the wall. "Government had him, this past winter, the real winter" The disgust in her voice not disguised. "Used him apparently, to help avert a crisis in antartica. What I'm saying now, goes nowhere. It's relevant to the case though. He was, others say, supposed to get a pardon upon successful completion of the mission"
Adurey turns away from the wall, back to her desk so she can drag out a yellow legal pad, and bring it over. "He died, supposedly, so they didn't need to follow through on the deal. Or so I'm told by others. I have a suspiscion, especially in light of yesterdays shenanigans by our co-workers with Hammerdown, that he wasn't going to get it. You can't pardon a guy for the deaths of how many people? Nothing, in my mind, is worth that"
The mention of a pardon, makes the former detective almost choke on his donut. Cooper is reduced to bringing a hand up to cover his coughing, tho. "A pardon?!? For a Serial Killer. For the Midtown Man?!?"" A bland look goes to what's left of his donut and its tossed into her trash can. "That is… wow." Hands are brushed off, while his head shakes with disappointment and disbelief. "Completely insane, yet seems like a government move.
"Sometimes, I have to wonder about them. Oh! Speaking of shenanigans." Cooper says suddenly, reaching into his jacket pocket to extract an envelope. He offers it to her, with an amused look. "You get anything like this?" The envelope had Thomas Cooper and his address typed on it, looks like an actual typewriter done job. "There is a puzzle piece in it, with the word 'cause' written on it. Figured I'd bring it in and see if others got anything like that. Not a big deal, but… figured it wouldn't hurt asking."
The hell…
Audrey looks between Cooper, and then to her desk where she goes for her purse. Ziplock bag produce, inside is an envelope, typed with her name and address and inside presumably, the envelope, would be the piece.
"Well look at that." Cooper says as she produces her own envelope. He tosses his on her desk, brows lifting a bit. "I wonder how many more people got those?" Tongue seeking to get bits of donut out of his gum as he turns thoughtful. "Damn…" He sounds impressed.
"Guy musta spent a good amount of time on it. Clearly whoever it is, needs to get laid." He looks at his own envelope, brows furrowing a bit, hands sliding into the pockets of his pants. "Think a memo to the department is in order? See who else got one? Or… I dunno… cause… I mean." A hand comes back out so he can gesture at the piece. "For the risk of sounding silly… Could be some kinda note warning of something. Or a brag of something that is gonna happen."
Audrey says, "Mine said "others" She too is looking at the envelope, running her tongue over the front of her teeth. "What are the odds, really, of you and myself getting one? How many more in the department do you think got one?" She had thought that it might be a warning, or a brag, hence it was in a glad bag, sealed and she was goign to bring it down to forensics later to see if they could get anything useable off it, or the envelope."
"Dunno. Puzzles ain't small things… So… could be anything from a hundred or so on up. So… the whole place coulda gotten one." There is a deep shrug of his shoulders, uncertain. "But… at least one guy I met in the coffee room said he didn't.
"Might do to keep ears on the media. Stuff like this will get out." Cooper glances down and notices dots of powder on his tie and works to fix that problem. "Maybe query other departments, see what we get."
"Came to my home. Possibly. They can figure out the typewriter just from the type and spacing, DNA from the seal or the stamp if he licked it" The list of stuff they could clean, would go on and on, right down to the paper used for the puzzle piece. "You can ask around the building" By that, she means where they both respectively live. "I can sniff around the news, we can see if anyone else in the building here got one"
There is a sharp nod of the man's head, eyes on the envelopes again. "I can do that." Cooper states with a short nod of his head. "Shouldn't be too hard to knock on the doors. Hopefully, they don't think I'm too much of a loon." A smirk plays on his lips at the thought.
Cooper nods his head at his own envelope. "I'll leave that with you then? I touched the envelope, but not the piece. Two has got to be better then just the one."
"Spare time for this though, isn't the priority. Welcome to the big leagues Cooper" A gesture to the two walls. "Where the president gives you more funding, but has much more of his nose stuck up your ass, or well, his lackey's noses stuck up your ass. Our jobs to catch Sylar. One of his three copies at least" Did Cooper even know that?. She gestures towards the boxes with files and papers in them.
"Get cracking"