Participants:
| Scene Title | Ignition |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Isabelle arrives in SoHo to pick up a delivery for PARIAH, and finds out the delivery man is none other than Peter Petrelli. |
| Date | November 21, 2008 |
Originally associated with the arts, and later famous for both being a destination for shopping and its downtown scene, SoHo has changed drasticly since the bomb. The evacuation of SoHo after the bomb, due to its position in the path of the fallout caused as much chaos and hysteria as the bomb itself did. The damage done to the district in that upheaval alone never truly went away. Only finally reopened to the public on New Years day in 2008, SoHo has been struggling to reclaim itself in the time since. The vast majority of the neighborhood suffered as much of New York did from fires caused both by the bomb itself and arson-related incidents.
The reclimation process for SoHo has been slow going. Portions of the northern edge of the neighborhood were remarkably damaged by debris from the initial blast of the bomb, and even more were gutted by fires. The worst of the lot remain behind the one-story high concrete barricades that divide SoHo from the ruins of midtown, accessed only by Department of Homeland Security checkpoints reinforced by the presence of the national guard.
The fear of ratiation from the fallout has also kept many out of SoHo, even after its reopening. While SoHo had become fairly commercialized, much of that business closed and moved on in steady economic collapse that engulfed the city. Yet, the southern part of the neighborhood, along Grand Street and Canal Street, retains some of the feel of SoHo's earlier days, with a handful of small business struggling to remain open despite the rising cost of living.
The sun hasn't even risen yet, for most people that's too early in the morning for anyone. For PARIAH, it's a time when there's less eyes on the street and less ears to the ground. It's a prime hour for the sparsely popuated regions of New York, a prime time for areas still struggling under the reclimation of regions once abandoned due to the threat of fallout. It's at this unusually early hour that one of PARIAH's newest operatives has been sent to recieve a delivery from one of their operatives.
The destination, SoHo.
There could have been worse places to choose, places closer to the still smoldering crater at the city's heart, but SoHo is about as close to dead as you can get without being in the blast radius, espescially in the northern neighborhood. The streets here haven't been opened to road traffic, but the local law enforcement is stretched so thin that the barricades aren't manned, and residents who have moved in to the abandoned buildings pull them down just as fast as police can set them up again.
Eventually, they stopped putting them back up.
Greene Street used to be a heavily populated residential area of this neighborhood. Tightly packed apartment buildings with cast-iron fire-escapes on the street-side of the buildings, now littered with the twisted metal wreckage of those once secure emergency exits. Abandonec cars line the roadside, windows blown out and paint fading. Tires are either slashed or taken, leaving the vehicles supported by cinder blocks. It has been so long since road work was done here, that weeds grow up through the cracks in the pavement, street lights flicker and flash from disrepair, and the spotty electrical grid of this area leaves hauntings echoes of population in street lights that still function, but for lack of cars for them to direct.
It's here Isabelle is supposed to be meeting with one of PARIAH's operatives, somewhere on Greene street. But at the moment, everything looks equally abandoned…
And there waits Isabelle Ashford, dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a dark red tank top along with a leather jacket. Her hair is down and frames her face as she scans the streets, leaning against one of the abandoned cars. She plays with her knife, a long silver knife as she waits. She doesn't know who she is meeting with, but she is happy to help PARIAH with something as simple as picking something up. She figures that whoever she is supposed to meet will turn up and she'll know who she must meet, so she waits. A bored expression on her face.
"A girl like you in a neighborhood like this, that's just asking for trouble." The voice comes from right beside Isabelle, sudden and unannounced, along with the sensation of a hand settling on the shoulder of her leather jacket. "You must be Izzy." The hand slips away and footsteps are heard, but there's no one there — not at first anyway.
"Karl wants to keep this quiet, it's why he sent me." More heavy footsteps, the sound of zippered boots jingling across the concrete underfoot. Slowly, the air distorts around Isabelle, shifting and undulating like a heat mirage that slowly pulls away from a man dressed in as much leather as the young woman is, though his jacket's a bit longer. Dark hair swept back across the top of his head, and a long, deep scar cutting across his brow. "Name's Peter," he cracks a lopsided smile, "Peter Petrelli."
When the hand closes on her shoulder, she doesn't know what else to do but get ready to ignite her hands in flames but then she relaxes and puts her knife away as Peter reveals himself "Yeah Izzy is the name and maybe I like trouble." She winks as she flirts and then tilts her head, "Related to Nathan Petrelli, maybe?" Izzy asks and then grins, "I can see why Karl you sent you" her eyes travel around Peter and then she looks back up at him. She puts one hand in her pocket.
"Nathan?" Peter practically spits out the name, "Only by blood, and I'd deny that if I could." It doesn't sound like there's much love lost between the siblings. "Karl's got his heart in the right place, sort've." As he talks, Peter rattles something in his left hand, a small green plastic bottle with the word Excedrin printed across the front. The cap's off, and after a moment he swirls the pills in the bottle around, then raises it up to his lips and takes one of the asprin inside, swallowing it dryly. "So," one dark brow raises, "Before we get down to business…" Peter tucks that hand into the pocket of his jacket, leaving the asprins inside when he withdraws it a moment later. "What tricks does a girl who likes trouble have?"
Isabelle only nods her head when Peter replies to the inquiry about Nathan and then she notices the aspirin bottle. "Someone having a headache?" she asks and then she chuckles softly at Peter, "I'll show you." And with that her whole right hand ignites in fire. The flames cackle as she holds it up to Peter and then draws her hand back and a small fireball is generated in her hand. "I'm hot stuff, Invisible boy." Isabelle grins at Peter and then makes the fire go out, light smoke wafting up from her palms.
"Headache? Yeah… I've got a couple." It's both an informative and dismissive answer, punctuated with a smirk. However that smirk soon changes when Isabelle raises her hand to demonstrate her power to the curious Petrelli. At first there's a disappointed look on Peter's face as the flames erupt from Isabelle's hand, his head cocks to one side, watching the orange glow spread up and down her arm. The flames reflect clearly in his dark eyes, shoulders rising and then falling in time with a sigh. "Well, I guess we're both hot stuff then." The hand that slipped out of his jacket rises, matching the eruption of flames with ones of his own. They burn brightly, crackling waves of orange fire that ripple and dance down his arm, and then vanish wit a rush of smoke that wisps around his fingertips. "Too bad." It's said more as an afterthought than anything.
The other hand finally slides out of Peter's pocket, and opens to reveal a plastic jewel case with a DVD inside. "Homeland Security shipping protocols for Tier 3 Evolved." He waggles the case up and down between two fingers, "It took me three days to rip the passcodes to the server out of the administrator's head. It wasn't pretty, and it was a pain in the ass. I hope whoever's in charge of your cell appreciates the effort."
Isabelle's eyes widen as Peter demonstrates her ability. "Hm, man of many talents." She tilts her head as Peter looks disappointed, "Sounds like you were expecting something else." She comments and then takes the DVD with a grin, "Hot damn, nice work Peter. I'm sure they will. This will prove very useful." She takes comfort in knowing someone else that can control fire like she can. "How do you have two abilities? Never seen that before." Izzy licks her lips as she says this and removes her other hand form her pocket and then places it on the side of car she is still leaning against.
"I was hoping to see something new and unique." He admits with a crooked grin, letting both of his hands tuck into the pockets of his slacks after Isabelle takes the plastic case from him. "As for how… that's confidential." The smirk turns into a teasing grin, and his eyes dip down to view the DVD once more. "You're gonna find transport schedules, there's sixteen in total that they alternate. Whenever a Tier-3 is picked up, they ship them off to a temporary holding facility under full sedation as precaution, then wait for the transport — It's masqueraded as a semi-truck carrying refrigerated cargo." For a moment Peter grows quiet, eyes rising up from the DVD to peer at Isabelle, "I couldn't find anything on the guard detail, but I expect they're armed to the teeth…"
Peter starts to turn away, walking idly across the curb of the sidewalk, only to pause as he nears a rusted fire hydrant, turning around again, "There's one other thing, figured you might be able to handle it. Unofficial business, so this isn't an order from Karl." Letting that notion linder in the air, Peter turns his eyes up to the sky, still dark, but too much pollution from the city lights to see the stars clearly. "There's a guy, he frequents the bars on the upper east side. Irish graphic designer, goes by the name Hagan. I think he wants in." Slowly, Peter's dark gaze settles back on Isabelle. "He controls darkness. Ask around, see if anybody knows where he is. You might be able to recruit him, I…" Peter smirks, "Well, I got him on the right track."
Isabelle smiles at Peter's teasing grin and then shrugs, "Fair enough." The pyro nods to Peter's information giving and then pushes off from the car getting ready to leave the street as well. "I'm on it." She says in reply to Hagan and then she grin at Peter, "You should come by my bar I just opened. Old Lucy's, I'll give ya a free drink and maybe show you around my place." The implications in that, Peter can decide for himself and Isabelle is just a flirt like that. With another grin and wink, Isabelle starts to back away from the street to give the DVD to Karl.
One brow raises a little higher than the other at the offer, and a smirl curls up across Peter's lips. He nods, though only once Isabelle's turned her back on him. I'll see you there. The words echo into the brunette's mind, hollow and distant, but contained within her own thoughts. But the source of them, the dark-haired agent of PARIAH is nowhere to be seen behind Isabelle when she turns around to look. He's become like a ghost again, fading into the abandoned streets.
But like all ghosts, he'll show up again.
Just when she least expects it.
 November 20th: Coffee Klatch |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 November 21st: Nines, Zeroes, and Newspapers |