Participants:
| Scene Title | Guerrillas In The Mist |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Mr. B fails the password test, but it lets Danko step forward when it seems that Aude's the real deal. Offers are made through either side and further safeguards. Humanis First is now in possession of 4 evo tests. |
| Date | June 1, 2009 |
Before the bomb, Chelsea was most known for being "gay-friendly," home of the stereotypical "Chelsea Boy." It was a place of culture and art, of eclectic ethnic restaurants and cutting-edge performing arts studios.
One of the last places in Manhattan to be reopened to the public, the streets of Chelsea almost give the impression of an urban ghost town. Many buildings are dark, inhabited only by the homeless, if by anyone at all. Their walls have been tagged with graffiti, the windows broken; forgotten cars line the streets, slowly rusting away. Close inspection reveals that their interiors have already been gutted of anything valuable or useful.
Housing in Chelsea is quite cheap; it therefore doesn't stay on the market long, despite the potential threat of residual radiation. The population has become a mixture of all ethnicities, desperation being their thread in common; those who have the money to live elsewhere do. Culture seems to have been washed out entirely on the neighborhood scale, survival taking vast precedence over art.
Pre-dawn in Chelsea is a ghastly experience for those who haven't had time to grow familiar with the desertion and early stages of urban decay. Streetside, stripped cars hunch immobile at curbs overgrown with yellow grass, their rusting hoods humped against the fog that tends to weigh heavy between the buildings here at this hour. Lifeless buildings stretch up into oblivion, roofs lost to the smothering cobweb of cloud cover that seems to have settled in for the long haul. Grey blue light has just begun to color through the humidity when a single figure appears at a predetermined car at a predetermined corner. Odd, given that the approaching scuff of his bootfalls was echoed by another.
He's not particularly tall, but lantern-jawed and broad across the shoulders, with close-cropped brown hair and some stubble growth to match. The coarse black of his fatigues stands out from the shapeless grey of everything else all around. So does the orange flick of a lighter in front of the cigarette he's produced from one of many, many pockets.
Aude's car was parked a couple blocks over, but she's shuffling her way down the street. Work is soon, so she's in her uniform though the tank jacket she wears obscures the most of her get up. Brown bag in pocket containing 4 of the evo kits that she's managed to get her hands on, she starts heading towards the pre-destined corner, hands in her pockets, untamed hair brushed back off her face. First time meeting up with someone, taking the chance that she just might be about to get made. Risk everything. So when she gets within a safe distance, outside of arms reach, she stops, eyeing the scruffy chinned man.
"Heeey there, beautiful." Charming. Mr. Fatigues even smiles, white, white teeth bared brilliant behind the butt of his cigarette. He's good-looking — maybe even a little pretty, hands lax at his sides, with the right only an inch or two away from the semi-automatic holstered into the stiff vest that guards his midsection. "You here on business or just for the scenery?"
"Back atcha Handsome" They're so alike in how they dressed and the location of their hands. "Little of column A, Sprinkling of column B" Comes Aude's soft voice. "Who'm I talking to?" Her finger is actually on the gun in her pocket, as she shifts in her standard issue shiney shoes.
"M'name's Mr. B." Mr. Fatigues, now Mr. B, is chill as he can be, as laid back in the chilly fog as he would be under the shrill glare of the noon day sun. "I'm here on business too. Sight seeings never really been for me." He looks more like a shoot first, take pictures later kind of guy, quick about the fingers — a twitch of movement sees his left hand up at his cigarette, holding it steady for a couple've steeper puffs against the haze's cloying moisture. "You gotta name?"
"Starla" She always did like that name growing up, when besides being a cop, she wanted to be a Vegas show girl. So odd ends of the spectrum. "How many was I supposed to bring?" If he didn't give the right number, she was going to turn and walk away. "Got a spare smoke?"
How many was she supposed to bring? Uhhh. Mr. B suddenly looks unsure, hazel eyes passing down quick to Aude's feet and then to the bag, like he expects the number might be written there. He thinks a minute, brows lifted and mouth pulled down. Is that something he should know? 'Cause he doesn't. "All of 'em?" There his teeth show again, gratingly cocky while he fishes out a second smoke. Guy's used to grinning his way out of wrong answers.
"Four."
A more specific answer comes not from Mr. B, but from a second voice approaching out of the fog around the corner. Shorter, older, balder. Less smily. Danko is also dressed in black, but it's a different breed of black, all jacket leather and narrow pin striping and slacks. His military history is confined to the stiff confidence in his spine and shoulders, smug superiority lengthening his strides and pulling sidelong at his mouth. He too is at home in the shadows and the mist. Maybe even moreso than the friendly Mr. B, who offers his cigarette over only after he's blown a bit of black lint off the end. "What he said."
There weren't supposed to be two of them. Now she's getting the heebie Jeebies and is distinctly uncomfortable. but it makes sense now. Send a decoy, and not just you. "Get out of here Mr. B. You failed. He succeeded" She's not even taking that smoke and shifts her attention to the military bearing man with absolutely no hair. Yeah…. this is what Humanis First people are supposed to look like. "What do I call you?"
Mr. B looks a little offended, like maaaybe he isn't used to being talked to the way she's talking to him now. His brows tilt up, first at her, then at Danko, who can't make himself smile any more than he already is, which is to say: hardly at all. "You heard the lady."
Sssooo he did. Lefty tipped up into a lazy salute, B gives Aude one last looking over before he turns a little dramatically on his heel and saunters off a ways. Curiously, his footfalls don't fade away once he's blended back into the fog. They stop somewhere just beyond the point that the last grey brush of his armored back fades white, silent and still.
At closer range, Danko does, to his credit, retain some hair. Grey-white and buzzed close to the dome of his skull, it only serves to make the rest of him more stripped down and severe. He's taller than her, though. By about an inch. That counts for something, right? "I don't think I need a name. And if these tests work out, so far as I'm concerned," his eyes tip down to the cut of her uniform beneath her coat, one brow lifted, "neither do you."
"Can only get 2 or three a month. We have to account for them. there's some dud's, fault of engineering. 'damaged' strip and all that. Too many though, and they notice and I like my job thank you very much" She digs into the pocket not containing her firearm, and pulls out the brown bag, passing it over.
Mr B isn't frankly looked at as soon as he disappears into the fog. She doens't care about him. He failed, plain and simple and in this life, this moment, she doesn't need someone to discover what she's doing.
"'Two or three,' is two or three more than we'd have without your help." Emile Danko: Always looking on the bright side in the war against evolution. Matter-of-fact, he holds himself still while she reaches into her pocket, easy confidence in his own gut feeling and safety painted through the tilted angle of his neck and head over the set of his shoulders in bold strokes. He knows what he's doing.
Further out in the fog, a quiet rustle denotes that Mr. B may not be as confident in Aude's intent.
But nothing comes of it, and Emile reaches for the offered bag without incident. He doesn't even glance inside on its way into the confines of his leather jacket. Out've sight. "If you expect to be paid for the risk you're taking, know that I understand completely."
"Nope. I don't do this for the money. Some day, they're gonna kick me to the curb cause I ain't special and it'll just be them on the police force." Aude shrugs. "Every little bit helps. I don't know of any other sympathetic cops but, I'll see what I can do about the other precincts and maybe getting one or two that way. Don't think you'll have to worry for too long though, best I hear, they're rolling them for the public soon" She keeps her other hand still on her gun in her jacket. Danko's not the threat it's Mr. B shuffling in the fog. "You know how to get a hold of me, if there's anything else you need"
"I know the feeling," Danko agrees with her concerns about the force, articulate brows lifted in something that looks very much like sympathy while he tugs down the lapel of his coat and smooths a thumb back around the collar. The movement exposes the gun and knife fastened to his hip, but he's far from reaching for either. "Sounds like you're doing good work — and I can offer the same in reverse. You run into any problems…" he trails off there, the shift from sympathy to innocent offer a subtle thing, measured in individual degrees in the tip of his brows over weathered grey eyes. He's good at solving problems. "Next time you make a post, include some kind of word that reminds you of Mr. B. An animal, and adjective. Anything. We're not the only ones watching."
"Can do. Offer stands. If you need someone to some things. Same place, same time, name the day" With that, Aude turns away from the man, giving him her back in some bizzare show of trust. He's her brother, in this world filled with sicko's with malformations of their genetic code. Dangerous people. Everyone has to stick together if they're gonna make it through.