I See You!!

Participants:

bao-wei2_icon.gif hortense_icon.gif ziadie_icon.gif

Scene Title I See You!!
Synopsis Bao's doing a little murder out in the water while Hortense and Ziadie are witnesses from afar who can do very little.
Date March 14, 2011

The Esplanade

The Esplanade runs the entire length of Battery Park City, along the Hudson River from Stuyvesant High School on the north end all the way south to Historic Battery Park. With its views of the Hudson River and New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the New Jersey shoreline, the Esplanade is a pedestrian paradise. Parks and gardens line the entire route, along with numerous sculptures and public art installations.

While the park itself remains well-maintained in the aftermath of the bomb, the city's growing homeless population has made large portions of the Esplanade their home. While not quite the tent city that Prospect Park in Brooklyn has become, the presence of tired and weary homeless individuals in the Esplanade plaza or sleeping on benches along the coast during warmer months is not an uncommon sight, though the NYPD does their level best to try and mitigate this, it is still a problem.


Morning finds Nocturne Ziadie earlier than he'd actually expected to be out of the apartment, bundled in an additional layer that he'd often lacked in winter against the chill. There's a newspaper and a small Jamaican publication tucked under his arm, and he's been meaning to find somewhere to sit down and read them, old-fashioned as it seems. He tries hard enough not to watch the news, reading it at least is a good way to keep up with the world.

But so far, walking through a section of The Esplanade that isn't overly far from his destination, he hasn't found somewhere quiet enough. People within earshot. Discussions that twinged on his ability enough to make just sitting on a bench and reading something not tolerable. So instead, the old man has continued walking, one foot in front of the next, cane put down and leaned on every few steps. People watching is a decent enough substitute for reading the newspaper, and it passes the time.

Spring is sprung and it's sunday and Hortense had promised the day before to come to Jersey, which she had. And now, curfew lifted, hangover still at it's zenith so she's behind sunglasses, her sailboat is puttering back to the Battery Park marina under power of it's motor, drifting as she goes, a hand on the wheel as she maneuvers her boat. Flat uggs, leggings, sweater, scarf, knitting cap and hair loose, she's looking around, making sure that she's not running into stuff, but also not driving too close to the wall that separates park from water. Coffee travel mug in hand, she's not your traditional looking sailor.

Still being morning, there is a lot of give and take with what people are doing; there have been a few joggers, of course, but for the most part the people up and down have been quite mild, sipping coffee and biting down on breakfast foods. It is that stretch of morning where people are suddenly heading to where they need to go, and almost tripping up in the process. New York is still a busy town, and even Sunday mornings can sometimes be awkwardly spoken for.

There are a few more boats out too, if only because of the weather, the lack of snow and the lack of overcast gray. Nobody is wanting to bother about looking below the water, the more interesting things are on top of it; the sun is also able to peek through and offer a glitter of reflection on the surface, obscuring wakes and making the sunglasses not totally unneeded. There's something amiss, though, out on the distant water-

A small motorboat with a thin canopy seems to be turning some lazy circles, consecutively getting smaller and smaller as it turns, until soon it is at a point where the little vehicle is whirling in short loops on the water.

The occasional passing glance has been given to the boats out on the water. But for the most part, the former policeman, who has never had very much to do with water in his whole lifetime aside from the boat from Jamaica to Florida when he was a young man, does not pay much attention to the boats.

As far as people watching goes, even with the slight twinge that it causes, listening to conversations within his range, the twinge of lie or truth something that the older man is learning to pay attention to without letting it drive him nuts. Trying to disassociate the feelings from his ability from the still present desire to drink.

Every so often, he retreats so that there is enough space around him for it to be peace and quiet. As he leans on the railing at one section of the wall overlooking the water, his eye catches on the beginning of the short loops, and his brows furrow. "Huh…" Not that Ziadie really particularly knows what is or isn't normal as far as boats go. But that pretty much isn't.

Hortense has the same expression on her face. Huh. Boats don't tend to do that, unless the drivers are really drunk or it's teenagers being assholes and stupid. She kills her own engine to idle, preparing to turn if needs be or to reach ofrward, grab her radio in case it is asshole teenagers partying with daddy's boat. Bad boating by one, reflects poorly on all. She's close enough to the wall to be called over at by Ziadie, should the need arise.

When the little boat whirls onto its back end, that is about the same time that it flips entirely over and flat onto the water of the river. Nothing explodes, nothing whirrs into fire, but even at this distance the crust of shining, dirt-filled ice is recognizable by Hortense. It's a familiar and chilling- no pun intended- reminder of what lurks under there. It certainly is not sharks.

Now that the boat is upside down, the pair of people that were inside are of course treading cold water. They are Chinese, but that is really the only thing that anyone with a pair of binoculars can see without getting too much closer. It may not be sharks, but there is a slow, creeping rise of a wake of water, undulating the surface as it circles a long U-turn around the other side of the boat, coming around towards where the pair are starting to swim away.

And at this point, even Ziadie knows it isn't normal, but from where he's standing on the sidewalk, leaning as much on his cane now as on the rail, there's not much he can do. He'd already found out he forgot his cell phone at home. And unfortunately, even while a few others stop at the railing to lean and look at what might be going on, Ziadie isn't inclined to break the bubble of space he has around him, keeping those who are there outside the range of his ability. Still, he stares and watches too. The newspaper and publication tucked underneath his arm are nearly forgotten.

Christ.

"DO YOU NOT HAVE SOMETHING BETTER TO DO?!" She yells out at the water, seeing the familiar form of Bao-Wei, twice having come across him. Who she's yelling at, who knows - well she knows - but she's looking over to the walkway proper, spotting Ziadie. "Call 9-1-1, tell them an evolved is fucking with people in the water" Not that they'll likely be able to do anything about it. "Some sort of fucking water element sort of guy" There's a bit of a snarl on her face. She could get there, but there's other boats nearer. SO instead she steps away from her own wheel, smacking the button that will drop her anchor (there by she won't drift and hit the wall) and march for the door to the innards of her ship, kneeling down to lean in, snag her radio so she can call out on the radio channel a mayday.

It won't do good to yell at him- Water may be a rather good conductor, but not when the person is above it. Hortense's yelling falls on no ears except anyone's on the nearby walkway. The mound of water that rises into a wake dives down again, and next thing anyone knows, the men in the water are slipping down beneath the surface with a couple of tugs from the mimic in the water, snagging them from their swimming and into a bloodless, frozen kind of death. At least it is near instant, and they don't know what exactly is happening.

If Bao-Wei does learn something while he motors around in the river, it is what the bottoms of boats look like. He knows patrol boats from party boats, and criminal boats from civilian boats. Usually he is able to make an intelligent guess before peeking out above the surface. This knowledge comes in handy when he disappears down under the water and jets along, stumbling towards the esplanade's route. The only thing visible from land is a vague, shark-colored shape that coasts closer. The boat nearby is a civilian boat, and while he knows this much, Bao-Wei regretfully takes a glance up at it anyway.

You have got to be kidding.

'Good Mooring' on the side sends a mental groan through him. For Pity's Sake.

"No phone," Ziadie calls out, but he does repeat Hortense's all for someone to call emergency services. There's a volume to his repetition that was lost from the water to the walkway to begin with. His face furrows into a frown, as well, as the faces of those who had been in the river as disappearing. Somewhere in there, he'd lost the newspaper, and turned out his pockets with a hope that he'd find his cell phone. He doesn't. And there's nothing he is finding that he can really do, so with the further impending arrival of more people to the scene, Ziadie slips away, walking down the walkway, an occasional glance back over his shoulder at the more commotion as he does so.

"I see you!" She drops her radio handle, reaching for an oar so she can stand near the side of her boat shaking it at Bao as he serpentines around in the water, her visage easily seen from above, waving that oar. "I see you! I see what you did! Dear god are you a monster?!" Wham, she brings it down on the surface of the water then hefts it again. It's not like it'll hit him, but he gets the point. Should get the point.

It's a little like throwing rocks at said shark. It doesn't do anything, but Bao-Wei is smart enough to know what it implies. When the things head comes up out of the water, it looks more like a frosted over Triton rather than the snappish reptile- but regardless, at least one other person on the Esplanade will see him rear his ugly mug to growl at the boat.

"Stop that. I am cleaning up. Triads or me, your choice." With that, his chest underwater heaves, and he sends a spray of spittle onto the side of her boat. In his case, it ends up more like a slick wad of frost that rushes in a mess arc over her bow, and as soon as it comes, he has ducked down again. No telling if he has disappeared this time or not- but there is no shape floating around down there anymore. Perhaps he went too deep.

"Triads? What the fuck is the Tria- Oh no you don't! I have a hairdryer and I am not afraid to use it you evolved son of a bitch" He's not forgiven for her own near meet with icy death, and she's moving along the side of her boat in her uggs, sure footed on her boat and still armed with the oar as she takes it to the spout of ice that's frozen across her deck. "You are such a dead man when I catch you for this. I will find a blowtorch and take it to your eye. I'm watching you mister! I'm watching you!" She pauses to point two fingers to her eyes and then back to the water. "blow. Torch."

Been there, done that. For the most part. As long as Bao-Wei stays under the shadow of 'Good Mooring', she isn't going to find him out. And as long as he never encounters her on land with a flamethrower, he should be fine with that too. Though there have probably been a couple calls to emergency services, they aren't quite expecting to handle boat accidents- so if someone is coming it is probably a boat from a security firm.

Hortense is met with a silent surface, lapping of water steady on the boat and on the wall of the walkway. When Bao-Wei moves now, it is swift and deep into the fine layer of grit and garbage along that wall, and he swims forward to leave the water muddy, and himself masked in grime enough to slip away through it.


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