Participants:
| Scene Title | Imagine All The People |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Sonny Bianco's vacation plans are put on permanent hold on the threshold of departure when something goes terribly, terribly wrong. |
| Date | October 6, 2009 |
Manhattan
Everything's prepared. Sonny Bianco's already forwarded several bags to the city he'll be working at east of Lima, Peru. He's said his goodbyes and has put things in order to be sure everything will be taken care of during his nine-month absence from his home city.
Naturally, the last stop is to Gracie Mansion, to have dinner with his parents before his ten o'clock flight. Harry and Melinda are ambivalent about their son's parting. He'll be free of the city that has become a war zone in some ways, but he will also be out from under the Bianco wing. They know their son needs to find his way. Harry still remains oblivious of all his son's dangerous exploits and his time spent playing terrorist. And Melinda knows, so she knows the city of Chosica will in ways be safer for her only son.
Dinner was oddly quiet for the usually animated Italian family. No one wants to leave on a sour note, which means they say little at all.
When it's time to go, hugs and kisses are exchanged, and the doctor exits the mansion flanked by a be-suited bodyguard. There are more guards at the gate, and snipers on the roof of the stately home. Once this was not so - once, Gracie Mansion did not have the look of an elegant fortress. But the days of complacency are gone for New York City.
Across the street, a black sedan is parked, attended by a driver and the doctor's personal aide and interpreter who will be accompanying him to Peru. His attache case is filled with books on Peruvian history and Spanish for Dummies. Nestled in with the small library is a book of Italian poetry. He can only read a few words, but he likes the shape of the poems on the page.
Two blocks away, around the corner and well out've sight with at least an entire row of buildings between himself and the most eagle-eyed sniper out there, a biker's smoke break at a parking meter is coming to a close. He's short. Too pale to be out in the daylight, even if the sun is well on its way out, red and orange lining harsh across the reflective visor of a robust helmet parked under his arm. Bald, save for the colorless fuzz buzzed in close to the dome of his skull. The leather of his jacket is thick. Black. His slacks are black. His boots are black. His stolen borrowed motorcycle is black. …He has a thing for black.
He has a thing for cigarettes, too. In the off chance anyone's been paying attention, this is his third one since he pulled over here, and he can't have been around for more than an hour. Even so, passers by will later be hard-pressed to provide anything but the most basic of descriptions. Short, pale, fuzzy and grey. Lots of black.
For now, there's a voice drawling updates into the wire perched at his ear, and with a mustelid scuff of gloved wrist to nose, he flicks his smoke away and tugs the black sheen of the helmet down secure over his head. The key is turned; he guns the engine. A careful turn carries him out and around into the street and into obscurity.
It takes approximately one minute for what otherwise might've been a slow evening to escalate into something more sinister. Traffic's steady murmur is broken and undercut by the muffled splutter and gravel-chewed roar of a single engine working above and beyond the rest a beat before a smudge of black blurs glossy from around an unguarded corner. One and a half blocks away and closing fast
In a world where people flout registration and curfews and engage in petty theft or robbery as a matter of course, speeding men on motorcycles is not entirely out of the ordinary. Still, the sound of a roaring engine off in the distance draws the attention of the men on Gracie's roof and at the gate - if only because they've never actually had anything happen despite the months of being posted as security.
For his part, Sonny pauses just on the far side of the street to do up the buttons on his elegant wool jacket and slip on a pair of leather gloves. And then, he and his guard wait a moment for traffic and move to cross towards the waiting black sedan.
It's hard to find openings coming on this quick, and Danko's rusty. He's still a block away when he has his first near miss against oncoming traffic. Tires squeal and screech; a taxi careens into the next lane over and strikes another vehicle. Glass splinters, rims grind through rubber and the shooters on the roof have a breath to register that something may be seriously amiss here before the bike is on them.
Or, more accurately, before it's on Sonny Bianco. The second time brakes set to screaming they belong to the motorcycle skidding and slicing into a diagonal halt and some twenty or thirty feet away — close enough for the mayor's son and the accompanying guard to register as wan ghosts stretched tall across the helmet's light-streaked visor.
A twitch of extra kick brings the bike 'round at a slithering, scraping spin at the street's center in the same instant Danko draws out from under his jacket, snaps the hammer back and takes aim, left boot braced solid against concrete and leather-clad arm unwavering. For those on the sidelines, adrenaline hardly has time to dilate pupils and pump guns to shoulders before his trigger finger is grazing its way into the first pull.
Too fast. Too unexpected, too violent, too bold. That's why terrorist actions work. They strike in ways that no one would anticipate, the way no reasonable tactician would. Men like Emile Danko are driven by a thing that men like Sonny Bianco could never comprehend. It's not just hate. Hate makes men snarl and rant and spew black words. This is hate, intelligence, intent and skill.
And in the face of actions driven by that, the human body cannot react quickly enough. Neurons don't fire fast enough to bring comprehension, to send limbs into action before violent intent becomes terribly clear.
In the moments before the motorcycle comes roaring towards him, Sonny fumbles with his Blackberry, smiles at a message from a cousin - some joke about his idea of a vacation. But then there are shouts from men paid to be his eyes and his bodyguard's hand is on his shoulder, ready to push him towards the open door of the car.
Too slow.
A single pull is all it takes. And that is the message, isn't it? For all their powers, the Evolved too, can be taken down. One bullet from one determined man and a shining cylinder takes a life. It leaps from the barrel of the gun to splinter through his left temple before the smile leaves his face.
Compared to the others Humanis First have set their sights on, this was mercy. As the curly haired and well-dressed form of the mayor's son slumps to the ground, crimson splashed on the window, across the face of his bodyguard, shouts erupt from the security officers. His bodyguard's first duty is to shuffle him away, into the car. It's too soon for him to know what will be deadly apparent in a moment.
The two men at the gate shout and draw their weapons, firing at the man on the motorcycle. The snipers on the roof of Gracie Mansion are positioned to protect those within the gate. Though they try, though they fire a few shots, they can't get a clear bead on the killer.
A second shot chases the first, punched solid through the rigid swing of Sonny's torso with the force of the bodyguard's momentum pushing towards the car.
And that's all there's time for. A splash of red, a falling body. The face behind the helmet isn't much different from the vacant exterior it presents, warped street scene playing cold across grey eyes and ophidian focus. Granted, Danko's breathing hard and fast by the time he's holstered his weapon and kicked his weight back up onto the bike to rev off from whence he came. Tension bolts his knuckles into a skeleton clamp and stoops his shoulders away from the crack and hiss of incoming fire.
He can feel accomplished and important later. For now, a pair of bullets sledgehammer themselves rap rap into his back and side only to stop cold at the vest beneath his jacket. The trail of rubber and burning stink he's left behind makes no bones about it: priority #1 is getting the fuck out've here before someone decides to pay his brain the same favor he just paid Sonny's. And just as brusquely as he appeared, he's swerving off again past the wreckage of his entrance until the bike's roar has faded into a purr and the purr has faded into the hollow stutter and wail of approaching sirens.