Interdepartmental

Participants:

audrey2_icon.gif lancaster_icon.gif vincent_icon.gif

Scene Title Interdepartmental
Synopsis Audrey Hanson is in search of useful, helpful sources in her everlasting hunt for Gabriel Gray. This is what happens instead.
Date June 28, 2010

Textile Factory 17: Sarisa's Office


It's a quiet day, at Textile Factory 17 — or one would hope it is. That FRONTLINE are spending a perfect good Sunday afternoon bouncing around their home base would be entirely unpatriotic, or at least somewhat lazy. Either way, no one stopped Audrey Hanson's approach to the office up the spiral staircase that she was directed to, and invited in by an enthusiastic come on in from the woman inside. Adrianne Lancaster has since paced back around her desk and sat down, defined in powersuit lines with the collar of her blouse open to splay lapels on pinstripe, face only somewhat touched with makeup and blonde hair windswept despite the still and stagnant air of the office.

There is nothing personal about the place, save for a coat hanging by the door and the grid-pattern screen saver on a mostly shut laptop. Blue eyes are currently narrowed as she studies Audrey across the desk, hands like tangled spiders just beneath her chin and mouth in a slightly skewed line as if in deep thought.

"I thought Audrey was a man's name," she states, after a second of observation, leaning back in her chair and picking up a pad of paper and pen. "But then again I thought you were kind of girly over the phone. Now what was it specifically you wanted to see me about, agent? I hope you don't mind I dragged a friend of mine along." She tilts her head to the other in the room. "He's my favourite."

Lacking the necessary assets to qualify as truly windswept, Vincent Lazzaro is arguably the lump of coal to Lancaster's…Lancaster. He's not a large man, either. Black suit, somber tie, immaculate collar. What little hair he has is buzzed down to a severe minimum around the back and sides of his skull only to be offset by the dark bristle he maintains around his jaw these days. For the sake of fashion. Or for distracting from his premature baldness. 'Both' seems like a fair bet, all things considered.

Anyway.

He's leaned into half a sit on the side of the desk at Lancaster's left hand, arms folded across his chest and toothpick fresh at the corner of his flattened mouth. His eyes are black, and aptly, he is looking blackly at Audrey, brows level and countenance — well. Unfriendly is probably a good word. He looks ill-suited to be anyone's favorite, at least. Even when he says: "Hi."

And I thought you were an oil that took to induce vomiting Audrey wisely keeps that to herself and prays there's no telepath on one of the teams downstairs. Simple navy suit, pencil skirt, hose, sensible heels. No windswept look for the dark haired pinch faced agent who's taken up a spot in front of Lancaster's desk. She's got what Audrey wants, and Audrey wants access to the Apollo files regarding Sylar. "And Lancaster sounds like a fish"

There's a glance to where Lancaster indicates with her head, sussing out the woman's proclaimed favourite, a nod to his one word greeting.

"I put in a request for the files pertaining to Operation Apollo. Because when you're doing you best to track down someone that the government wants you to track down, only to find oops they had him in custody but neglected to inform the agent on the case, things get a little murky there.

"Turns out my clearance isn't high enough, so here I am. Proverbial hat in hand Agent Lancaster and hoping that I might get a little insight at to why others got pardons, and a man thought dead, who isn't dead, didn't get his promised one and is waltzing free and pissing in my pool, not to mention showing up Agent Kershner's pet project"

There's another glance to Vincent. "I got the president and his prize pearl poodle breathing down my neck. I need to give results that amount to more than going blind for a week and a shot that almost made it. We both know, that almost doesn't count"

Already, the end of Lancaster's pencil is twitching back and forth as she guides the lead tip along the lined page, tilted out of the way of any prying eyes, although this activity does stop on occasion when Lancaster feels the need to listen a little more carefully otherwise. A silver ring looped around her index finger glimmers in the daylight streaming in through the window, and she shifts to cross a leg over the other leg.

"So because you got a whole lot of pee-dee-effs with classified stamped over 'em, you figured you'd have better luck in person?" she wonders out loud, though doesn't look up for an answer — flicks a glance up Vincent's way again with a flat— either a smile or a grimace, impossible to tell. "All mine woulda gotten pardons," she adds, "except they all died. And weren't criminals."

"Alright," says Vincent (after Lancaster and a pause with a very pointed air to it). "It sounds like you are trying to file a complaint regarding your having been left in the dark some six or seven months ago."

There are gaps before and after he speaks — chasms that stretch like the bastard children of paragraph breaks and very finite periods. Expectant more of being granted more room to elaborate than they are immediate response, really. Which is convenient given that he has more to say, one brow canted up at a skeptical angle when he fields and returns Lancaster's look with a pull at the corner of his mouth.

"Unless, of course, you believe his prior evasion of containment is somehow relevant to your current ineptitude."

"My job is to find Mister Gray, subdue him, and make sure that he stands trial for his crimes against the United States of America and the citizens that he has chosen to murder, kill and otherwise obliterate. He was caught twice already, neither time by myself and if you care to question the level of my my ineptitude maybe I'll ask that they turn the case over to you, Sir and see if you fare much better. Regardless, I have been been on this case since he first started killing and until I'm pulled off of it, it's where I'll be." Since Lancasters favourite really hasn't been introduced to her.

"I came down here because people sometimes require a little more than a polite inter-office email and I thought perhaps it might be looked on more favorably if I went this route instead of visiting each person who made mention of the little excursion on behalf of uncle sam, since I get the impression that I shouldn't have caught wind of Apollo in the first place"

Audrey's hands splay palms up and outwards, shoulders rising. "But here I am. Sometimes I find, that if you need to ass kiss, it's better to do it in person. Makes them more apt to play ball when you're standing before them and asking nicely, followed by some begging"

Lancaster's eyebrows only go up as Audrey fires off at Vincent, which is quite an exaggeration seeing as she's looking down at her notepad and at whatever— notes she may be taking, although the erratic twitches of her pencil suggest more than she's drawing. Not for long, however, sniffing as she sets the notepad face down on the desk and balancing pencil between both index fingers. "Begging won't make the difference between us telling you information to help your case to track down a serial killer and us not," she points out, stare pointed and fixed.

"More or less, what we know is what you know, Agent Hanson. Sylar's still at large. I don't have him on my speed dial and Agent Vincent Lazzaro has better taste in associates as well." There is a moment where Lancaster might tack on another comment, there, but seems to dial it back and start again after a minor hesitation. "Your sources say he didn't get a pardon. Why do you think that didn't happen, jawline?"

"Technically, seeing as we have had him previously located, contained and controlled, we already have. Faired better, that is. According to your sources." Vincent says so as he leans casually over to get a look at Lancaster's scribbling, expression thoroughly, unshakeably serious behind the jut of his toothpick for whatever he happens to see there.

He settles back when she sets the notepad aside, arms unfolded long enough for him to tweak toothpick deeper into his molars with index finger and thumb on his way leaning back off the desk and fully onto his own two feet. "It's certainly within our ability to speak to someone about having the case reassigned to someone else, if you feel like that would help," is added helpfully after Lancaster's last query. Helpfully!!

"Controlled and contained yet again and now he's where?Gone and escaped" She thumbs up Vincent. "Great job there. A one on that, gold star for effort because last I checked, he's not in custody anymore. No one though he might have survived or checked to ascertain that there was indeed a body? Or did not one check the pulse of the corpse? Isn't that one of the first things they teach us? Find the body or don't assume they're not really dead yet? But… surprise, he very much alive, and between then and now, with the added ability to create copies, not to mention curing diseases and who knows what else now. And those clones? There are at the minimum, three of him with their abilities split between then, running around in our city and I've had run in's with two of them so far."

"As for the validity of any pardon. I suspect that it's null and void if there had been one, given the stunt he pulled at St. Lukes when he helped his father to escape and opted to attack Federal Agents. Leopards can't change their spots."

Audrey's palms settle on Lancasters desk, leaning forward and getting a little in her face. "Tell me, Are you the expert on all things Midtown man Agent Lancaster? How are you to know whether I would find something in his file that would help me, and Homesec, the government in turn as a whole capture his ass and lock it down for good. It's not like you're in my head and feel free to make any smart ass remark you see fit about how small it is or how spacious it would be if you were in it."

There's a slight push away from the desk, spine straightening and jawline tight, lips pinched tight. "I want to know who else he interacted with, who was buddy buddy with him, if he even got that close with others. I want to read Gabriel Gray's file, I'm not asking for my own personal autographed copy of it. If that means I have to sit in this room or some stuffy little hole in the bottom of federal plaza with the gargoyle over there looming over my shoulder or your awe inspiring mug doing much the same, then that's what it will take, but I won't know if there's something in there that might lend me a hint or shine a light on something, unless I see it."

The brief flash of image exposed to Vincent's curious glance— maybe fleetingly, marginally a slight resemblance to the woman sitting across from them— has Lancaster laying a protective hand over the pad, the other one curling beneath her angular chin as she listens with hawkish attention to Audrey.

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"In this city, the cramped confines of your skull would probably be a luxury without needing to insult your intelligence whatsoever, sweetness," Lancaster notes, with a tilt of her head as if to indicate wider New York City. "But I can safely say I'd probably kick back in there even if I chose to take my entire Gym Direct suite and my pilates mats with me. Was that okay?" She swings a look up to Vincent to include him, then back down again, admitting; "Probably a little convoluted.

"Also, you're attack dogging the wrong homeboy. Sarisa Kershner pulled the psycho in and for all I know, opened the cage door again. My personal opinion, of course. She probably relates to him."

Vincent doesn't quite roll his eyes at Audrey's running stream of accusation, but there's impatience dully disinterested in his crude oil stare as he goes blandly about the process of flicking his toothpick into a small trashbin off to the side somewhere, only to hesitate and tuck it into his jacket instead. A subtle, peripheral show of second thought. He exchanges it for a box of cigarettes from the same region while terrifying women confer around and before him, a single unit tapped out into an office space that isn't his for all that it's as homily decorated.

It's probably optimistic of him to put that cigarette in his mouth without manuevering a lighter out after it.

Probably.

Very still for the second or so it takes Lancaster's sudden charity to sink in, flat surprise is slick about bleeding its way into a brackish, sidelong smirk. Oh you. Says the look, with an implication of naughtiness that might be more suggestive than he purely intends?

"Somehow, I don't think he cares that he's the wrong anything. Just finding endless amusement in my request. So then, I'll stick Kershner to my list of people to converse with as to Gray after I read his file then" Dogging the homeboy she may be, she's also stuck to the subject of reading the file, like it was a bone, a bone carved from a side of Kobe beef. Arms crossed, chin up, waiting

"Hey, she has a whole list of people," Lancaster says with a sudden, optimistic smile beamed up Vincent's way, blue eyes honing in on the end of his cigarette. The lines at her eyes deepen a little in what seems to be a glare. Loose leaf and light paper don't take very long — the second it would have taken Lancaster to blink is a second spent for the end of the other government servant's cigarette to abruptly flare up in fire. Hot enough for Vincent to feel it, but it dies a split second later, leaving the glowing, embering tip to give off smoke.

The look she trades back to Audrey is very much the same as the one that Vincent's cigarette endured, but nothing so dramatic happens.

Yet. "And I'm guessing that if we get you a sneak peak of this file, HomeSec is gonna do special things for Evo Affairs when it's so demanded. I'd bargain for the sake of my agency but fuck me if we don't need it, so I think I'll leave you in the able and immaculate hands of Vince."

A mildly muffled, "Thank you," tipped aside once he's taken a drag or two and felt casually around the square of his jaw for singe marks, Vincent conveniently (and perhaps miraculously) declines to register the suggestion that he is deriving any pleasure at all from the current situation. Even more miraculously, his cigarette is still lit when he fleets casually from one corner of Audrey's peripheral vision to the other — not far at all from Lancaster's right hand when he reappears in an oily turn of umbral smog.

Across the office, lighter, tobbaco-scented stuff is still dissipating slowly through the region where he was standing before.

"It's true," said of Lancaster's allusion to the potential for ~fair trade~ (or trade, at least) Vincent blows smoke from his nose in a black-to-white gradient, "that I am nearly always in the market for owed favors."

It's really not Vincents fault that after he does his little evolved trick that she can't help but look to where he'd been, look for traces of soot or ash left behind. They already had had one Gray pressed into service. Maybe they had a second? Not that Vincent resembles Gray senior. Okay, they have the bored look down pat, both are balding, aging, there's a few things in common.

"Nifty ability there Vince" No ash, not him. "What exact favor could the DoEA want from homesec?" Raised brows, chin up, arms coming to settled across her chest. Negotiations commencing, lay your bids plz, kkthnx.

If anyone asked what Vincent is Lancaster's favourite of, it would be small bald men who can vanish into vapory substance. At a midpoint, Lancaster has since snuck back her notepad into her hands to scribble a little more, sniffing distractedly as Audrey casts her question to the Affairs agent in the room. "Better coffee. The stuff they got over there is disgraceful," she mutters, an earnest glance up at Audrey, and back down again.

"Okay — look. She only gets to call me Vince because she can see into my apartment from outerspace," Vincent clarifies at length. Experienced enough being a small bald man who vanishes into a vapory substance that he has little trouble dredging up the kind of Look that makes even the thickest necks around his office stop texting long enough to at least pretend that they're getting some work done. Entirely deadpan. Entirely first things first until his phone buzzes whirr whirr whirr in his pocket and he slips it out to frown critically at the screen instead of at Audrey.

"I want what Homeland Security has on the incident that occurred throughout New York on June the 10th. Theories, common experiences, projected times and estimates. Everything."

"You want to be called something other than Vince, then standing there like some satyr from a mcihelle pfiefer movie and not giving up your name when introduced, would probably have been the proper step."

But the terms are stated, something that she hadn't had that much of an invested interest in other than knowing that come november 8th, She'd have Sylar at gunpoint. She was still determined to make that sooner.

"I can promise to get what I can, given my clearance level, and provide it to you. But if Lanny here can't get it for you, what makes you think that I can?"

"You're a Department of Homeland Security agent getting information from the Department of Homeland Security," Lancaster says with an eyebrow lift, eyes still fixed to page before she rips the page off the pad swiftly and efficiently, folding it up to stuff into a pocket and leaning forward a fraction to do so. "One might think you're a step ahead of me, sport — it's not about the data so much as who did the research. And besides, I'm not the one who owes a favour."

Spoken in a tone like she makes a point not to owe favours. Getting to her feet, she's pushing back her sleeve to glance at the time. "Shake on it, boys and girls, Kershner's gonna get back from her back wax any second." A glance to Vincent marks the fact that Lancaster isn't as impatient as all that, giving him opportunity to needle the brunette a little more as required.

"I knew who you were," pointed out with defensive poise and a pull of his cigarette from its perch at his mouth, Vincent taps ash out onto the otherwise immaculate floor and uses leftover fingers on the same hand to dial out a quick message after his phone starts to buzz still again. Evidently, his lunch hour is over.

"Furthermore, if you're looking to satisfy your local curiosity with the power of insinuation, I haven't asked 'Lanny' for her division's information. I'm asking you." Back the cigarette goes, cinder warming orange near his knuckles while he watches her. "So?"

"God you're a prick. No wonder you're her favourite. I'll get it. If I had to smack some heads around, I'll get it for you. Can't do shit about your coffee, my own isn't that much better. Do like the rest of us and buy it from starbucks or somewhere else. I'll assume you have my number there smokey. Lanny" A dismissal wave of her hand, Audrey's turning for the door, one can imagine her one eye twitching at what just went over in the office as she reaches for her own phone.

Head tipping heavy to the left as Audrey makes her exit, Lancaster's hawkish stare follows her out, before swinging her attention back to Vincent. Her smile spread broad across her angular face, eyes narrowing. "You enjoyed that about the appropriate amount," she announces once the echo of Audrey's foot falls reaches a minimum. "Personally I think we should celebrate by doing it on Kershner's desk in the ultimate act of both sacrifice and victory."

Pat, pat, goes her hand on the polished wood. "I'll ask her later what the instant replay's like," she adds. "Unless you got better ideas, somehow." Somehow, there might be a better idea.

"Mmm," says Vincent, left hand positioning his phone square at the near corner of Kershner's desk with excess care once he's watched Audrey swish out in self-satisfied silence. He did. And he could say, 'I didn't know you were an artist.' accordingly to carry on the conversation in a less mentally damaging direction, only. He looks to his watch, exhales smokily and sets to thumbing at the knot of his tie to drag and sssweep it cleanly away instead.

"In the name of interdepartmental cooperation, I have faith in your ingenuity."


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