Participants:
Scene Title | Institutionalized, Part I |
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Synopsis | Doctor Harve Brennan awakens at the mercy of the _institute |
Date | April 15, 2010 |
Doctor Harve Brennan's eyes snap open as a gasp of breath is sucked into his lungs, heart racing a mile a minute in his chest, so hard that his blood pressure throbs in his ears. The doctor's pupils dilate wide and then contract when confronted by the halo of light shining down on him from above. Muscles twitch, and the sting of an IV in his right arm comes into crystal clarity. As the ringing and pounding in Brennan's ears clear, he can feel beads of water rolling down his forehead, his hair is slicked wet and the taste of saline is salty in his mouth.
Strapped to a table across his chest, arms and legs in padded restraints, Brennan feels his world tilt as vision blurs, and the whirr of pneumatic pistols begins to shift the table into an upright position as a mechanical arm holding that surgical lamp pivots up and away fluidly. A shadow in Brennan's periphery looks distinctly human, a glowing blue light at his right ear.
"Doctor Brennan," intones a voice in the dark of the room, coarse and deep, weathered like sandpaper and as as old as the grains of sand in an hourglass, "I've heard so very much about your from my associates, most of it good, some of it disappointing." Barely visible beyond the glow of the surgical lamp, a tall and lanky old man stands in an ink black suit, weathered brow furrowed in creases all the way up to the hairline of his close clipped hair.
It looks like a surgical theater, but the room is perfectly spherical with a circular flat bottom, recessed lights in rings in the ceiling glow a sedate blue color and seem to create deep shadows by their ambient glow. At the side of the operating table stands a young man with short, dark hair and a bluetooth headset plugged into one ear, brow lifted thoughtfully but also silently.
"Doctor Brennan, I'd like to take some time before we go any further today to clarify the situation you're in, clarify my position, and outline what is going to happen next." The old man in the shadows silts his head back, two small points of light reflected off of glasses on the bridge of his prominent nose. "As for introductions… you may call me Doctor Broome."
Never does he want to experience that again. He's done it to others before, did it to Kaylee to try and rip her away from whatever it was that had her in the unnatural sleep. Adrenaline not from his body but from whomever slid it through the IV make him nearly shake within his bindings and look wildly around. Likely a migraine on the schedule for later thanks to the sudden rise of pressure and hammering heart away in his chest.
Panic floods in it's wake as he comes to with the rapidity that was desired thanks to the drug and the glow of the bluetooth grabs his attention. But bluetooth isn't talking but someone else and wild eye's search out the person responsible and he listens with rabid attention. Doctor Broome. "C-" There's a rattle, or attempted, of his limbs to test the straps and really, you can't blame him. Everyone does it. "Call me Harve" He rasps out, swallowing hard a few times, as if it might wash the salty water out from his mouth. "Since we seem to be more intimate at this point. Where's Liette?"
"That's a very good question," Broome notes with a sharp tone of voice, like a condescending grandparent, "unfortunately thanks to your misguided heroics we have absolutely no idea. Your cavorting with the Department of Evolved Affairs has brought a serious pressure of unwanted attention down on this institution's head, Doctor Brennan, and the actions of the technopath Rebel in attempting to steal that young girl away from us has cost us millions in resources already."
Unmoving, like some great wrinkled gargoyle looming just on the edge of visible light, Broome lifts one brow slowly to Brennan. "Doctor Luis is likely going to ask you that very same question, as is someone else you'll be meeting today. But right now, Doctor Brennan," there is no pretense of informality here, "my concern isn't miss Fournier at all, but rather what miss Fournier has told you about us."
There's motion at Brennan's periphery, and the figure of Desmond Harper comes clearer into view as he comes to stand right at Brennan's bedside. Yet it's Broome who continues talking, "I would like to believe that you'll be compliant in answering our questions truthfully, Doctor Brennan, in fact I'd like to believe that with you chemically negated we could trust a telepath's results. But unfortunately, I find them unreliable and unfortunately human in their capacity to misinterpret."
Silent for a moment, Broome looks towards Harper, then back to Brennan. "So, Doctor Brennan, I'm going to call this an exercise in faith. I won't tell you how I intend on discerning the truth from you, and in turn you will answer truthfully. For every lie you tell, you will lose a family member. Are we clear?"
What is it with people threatening his family. Seriously.
Rebel's disadvantage to making that particular threat work is that he's a technopath and operating from afar, seeming dependent on other people to do what he needs and remaining aloof. Dr. Broome here though, is very much present, as is the unnamed individual who slinks forward. "Would you rather I have given her over to the technopath? Or let Doctor Chesterfield have plied her endlessly with questions?" There is stress and the adrenaline is making it hard to put coherent thoughts together, not to mention the restraints. It's all fairly intimidating.
"I'll answer what I can, keep your hands off my family. They're not involved in this beyond having accepted her as a guest when she first came into my home." Liette's still with the ferry, she wasn't caught. He doesn't know whether that's a relief or fear at the unspoken knowledge that they didn't get her.
"If it wasn't for the department of the evolved, who knows who might have had their hands on her. There were enough people clamoring for her and what she knows. You're attempt at 'rescuing' her failed. If a single person had approached instead, things might have been much different"
"Doctor Chesterfield?" Broome's voice reaches that questioning quality, and a wrinkled hand lifts up to ward Harper back. The young agent does so reflexively, as if afraid of Broome having lifted a hand or so much as moved at all. "Just because a person is not aware that they are receiving stolen property does not exonerate them from the crime of possession. What I want to know, Doctor Brennan, are the lines connecting point A to point B…"
Lifting his chin up and arching one slender brow again, Doctor Broome's rectangular glasses reflect the glare of the surgical lamp again. "I'd like you to tell me how you came into possession of miss Fournier, what you know about Rebel, and where you think that your former charge may have been taken after the altercation the previous evening. You have my sincerest apologies for the way in which the situation was handled, my agent," his head turns to address Harper, then moves to look at Brennan again, "was over-zealous and over-confident, and used a hammer where a brush would have sufficed. But, it is far too late for apologies now."
"Everyone favors the Hammer Dr. Broome. It tends to guarantee results far more efficiently and effectively than the brush and apologies may seem sincere, but considering how you woke me up, that I'm wet and have a sinking feeling about where I've been and that I'm strapped down, it doesn't quite ring true at the moment."How'd Liette come to be with him? He can tell that.
"She came into my home because she was clipped by a bus and broke her upper arm. Rebel left a message of where to find her and to go and take care of it. Liette declared she couldn't go to the authorities, but didn't know where to go, just that she was to go somewhere. When she said that she's always found, I decided to take her home and wait a few days, see if there would be an amber alert or people come knocking"
Given that that was some time ago, obviously, that didn't happen." What I know about rebel is little, same as everyone I inquired with about him. He has ties to PARIAH, technopath who is doing the same as you, threatened my family which is why I went to ground with Liette to protect them. As for where they took her, I can't begin to tell you as I only know of the places we stayed and since you seem to have possession of me, that they likely won't be taking her to places I have been or know about" Which really, he thinks they wouldn't be that stupid to.
"I appreciate your honesty, Doctor Brennan," Broome notes in that grumbling old voice, "and it seems all roads lead to this technopath once more. I can't apologize for your current condition, I had no way of knowing how you'd react on being woken up. You see, the people you were communicating with in the Department of Evolved Affairs didn't share as much information with us as we would have preferred. In fact, the only reason we were even informed of miss Fournier's status was because they wished to make a back-room deal with us."
Beginning to move now, Broome slowly circles the table, his dress shoes reporting noisily against the smooth white floor. "Had we known your intentions, perhaps things would have gone differently. Alas for the power to turn back time." Watching Brennan, Doctor Broome folds his hands behind his back, now standing opposite of Harper but further back from the table. "I think that brings us, then, to the meat of this interrogation — and let's not call it anything but — What did miss Fournier tell you about her home, about this place?"
Praeger or Vincent made a back room deal? Jaw tight. "Or telepathy that you can rely on" Or Brennan not being a negator which might counter whatever it is that Broome could do, or Harper. "She told me enough, enough that I don't expect to frankly either be let go without a sweeping of what I remember about her, or alive" He plainly states. He's long since tried to struggle against the straps or try to get loose, concentrating instead of calming down and letting his body absorb and deal with the adrenaline.
"TLV, individuals submersed in tanks that work as sensory deprivation to heighten senses and abilities. The nature of her ability I figured out on my own. That she was saved from Pinehearst and brought to your facility. It's located above tunnels that run the length of a city and act as transportation. There's an individual hooked up to a machine by the name of Edward Ray who's a predictive probability for his ability. That you're hoping he'll interface with the machine and be able to access it. In the process of trying to find out where she was from so I could return her, I learned a great deal."
"He looks to Harper before back to the wizened older man. "The article in the PAUSE magazine helped me connect dots. It was the request of the individuals at the department and the Technopath that kept me from bringing her back as well as the individuals who were helping us to stay out of the cold"
When Brennan explains just how much he knows, Harper and Broome share a silent look between one another, and the lift of one of Broome's brows up ponderously says so much more than words ever could. In that awkward silence, Doctor Broome only nods his head and steps back further into the darkness. "You would be surprised how comparable my humanity is to my magnanimity, Doctor Brennan." There's only the barest hint of a calloused tone in Broome's voice.
"I have a deal for you, Doctor Brennan, one I feel you may well benefit from more than you even realize now." Nodding to Harper, Broom moves back into a more proper line of view, even if staying shrouded in the dark as he circles. "You're an odd fit for a group like the one you work for, and your natural intelligence is stunted by association with them. You have an instinctual concern for miss Fournier, and frankly… knowledge of our operations beyond your ken. In a way, you're already halfway through induction."
Tilting his chin up, Broom's wrinkled and shadowed visage peers intently down on Brennan as Harper begins unfastening his arm and leg restraints. "You have a meeting with doctor Luis to attend, proper clothes to be dressed in and some time to yourself. But before then, I want to propose to you a choice."
Light glinting off of his glasses, Broome gives just enough pause for a moment of anxious anticipation to set in. "I would like you to consider a future with the Institute. Safety for your family and children included. You may continue being a part of miss Fournier's life, and pursue greater medical horizons than what the Ferrymen entrust you with."
When the light fades from Broome's glasses as his head tilts down, the alternative is just what Brennan presumed. "Alternately, I can return you— eventually— to where you came from, with no memory of Liette or the events surrounding her entry into your life. Take your time," Broome suggests, "sleep on it."
There is a certain squid inked individual who would be gnashing his teeth at the way Brennan's heart leaps just a little at the thought of being able to stick close to the kid. It's the father in him, the protective instinct. The close time spent with her has only sunk it's hooks into that.
He doesn't take his eyes off Broome while the offer is made, letting Harper undo the restraints.
The moment they're free, there's a feeble but well aimed punch to Harpers jaw, hoping to catch the guy by surprise. "That's for the shit you pulled yesterday and the terror you put in that girls eyes" The girl being Liette and that's about all that he's going to do to the man. No other move made to attack Harper further or even Broome.
"I'll think about it Dr. Broome. For now, I'd like to shake off whatever you put in me and feel as normal as I can be. Also, you need to stop whatever you're doing to her sister. She's got atmokinesis and she's the one saddling this state and others with the deep freeze. She's depressing every atmokinetic and killing people"
Remarkably, Harper seems just a touch faster than Brennan's adrenaline trembling muscle twithc of the right hook and only just barely. The agent is leaning backwards just far enough to feel the side of Brennan's fist clip against the very tip of his nose. He stumbles back after the swing, eyes wide and hand moving to the inside of his jacket, but a wordless noise of Broome clearing his throat comes and halts Harper's motion. "Let the Doctor have that one transgression," because Doctor Broome doesn't seem to have much in the line of reservation about what happened in Midtown, "he'll have plenty of karma for it when he meets Luis."
Turning away from Brennan, Doctor Broome begins to walk away from the table and deeper into the dark of the room. It's only when he disappears into the shadows entirely that an automatic door wooshes open into the wall, casting bright artificial light in to the surgery room, turning Doctor Broome into little more than a silhouette from the contrast.
"Clean up and rest well, Doctor Brennan, you have another father's fury to attend to other than your own." When Broome steps through the door, it slides back shut with a pressurized hiss, swallowing his silhouette into darkness once more. Harper's brows furrow, blue eyes track to Brennan, and the corner of his mouth quirks up into a smile.
"Get undressed."