Participants:
| Scene Title | It's A Deal |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Hiro gets wise, so Minea and he make a deal that's far better than being sent back to the dinosaurs. |
| Date | March 5, 2009 |
Staten Island - Stuck in Time
"Get up."
The words are said without kindness or ire. It's a simple command, insistent but neutral. Hiro sits perched on a chair, elbows on knees. He's facing Minea, who finds herself solidly tied to the lone other chair in Hiro's little basement apartment, lashed at the knees and ankles and at the wrists behind her back with power cord.
The eerie silence betrays that time is still not flowing.
For good measure Hiro reaches out and kicks the leg of Minea's chair, giving her a jolt.
The kick is what does it, going from waking stupor, with a dry mouth. Unhappy japenes man is staring at her and kicking a chair that she's on. Seriously, that's rude. She's on the same stuff he's on and she feels like it's a hangover. Yet there he is, not hungover? Minea moves, or tries to. Except wow… how long was she out? He's got her secured. She goes through the usual motions, testing everything, trying it all before she looks up at Hiro, one brow raised. "Well, i'm alive, and no extra holes in me. That's… a good thing. Could I have some water?"
It would probably be premature to say Hiro has no hangover. He does not look happy, remember? Plus he's not sounding particularly energetic.
On that note, the woman WOULD ask him to get up and get her something. He heads for the kitchen area and opens the non-working refrigerator to grab a bottle of water. One of the ones he brought in just…however long ago it was that he came home. Then he heads for Minea and stares right at her.
Significantly, he twists the cap off the bottle, then up-ends it as if to pour it. The water does not come out.
Oh.. wow. "Holy shit" Minea looks up. "Holy shit" The older Brunette starts moving the chair back then, little hopping rocking motion to try and back away from the upended, yet non pouring bottle of water.
"Who are you?" Hiro asks, sitting down a little roughly with a thump against the back of his chair. There's a mild wince in his features as he does so, and just sets th bottle on the table beside him.
You say, "Minea Lancaster. Did you do that. Tell me you did that""
"Why did you kick in my door?" asks Hiro, a hand going to his eyes to cover them. His tone of voice is one of those that says he's just tired of this.
Jig is up. Shit. Minea studies Hiro, arriving at that conclusion and that he's as hungover as she is. "How'd you know" Her brown eyes go to the door and then back to the japenes national. "You can untie me. I'm not going to be attacking you. I swear"
"I'll get around to that." he answers, sighing. "I don't feel like it yet." Hiro remains silent for a few breaths, rubbing his face with his hands. Then he jerks a thumb at the door without looking at it, "You and I are the only ones that can move. I didn't kick in my door. It wasn't like that when I stopped us. If it was anybody else they would still be there outside with their foot up, kicking. So you did it."
"I gathered that you did something to me in regards to time. Because I'm here and … everything else is not. I didn't realize the extent of your ability till now and I have to say, I'm suitably impressed." Minea glances to the door, noting what he said. "Well shit. I'll remember that"
"Homeland Security?" he asks, making himself look at Minea. "The Company? Somebody else?" There are more possibilities than Hiro knows to even ask about but he'll start with what he knows. "I could explain it to you." he adds, waving a hand at the room, "But I really don't think you need to hear it."
"Maybe another day I'll have you explain, right now, that rohypnol is kicking my ass as I'm sure it's kicking yours" Minea sighs. Well he got it on the first, and the second, but she doesn't give that away. "ISA. Military Intelligence. No, you won't find ID in my purse, I'm not prone to carrying it around, because I'm under cover and that would just blow it all. So don't bother looking"
"What is rohypnol?" asks Hiro with a disbelieving scowl. Okay, so he's not up on date rape drugs…one should not be surprised at that. "Is it dangerous?" Briefly he remembers to check his pockets and finds the flash drive. Looks visibly relieved.
So that was important. He pulls it out to take a look at the thing just to be sure it's the same one.
"Drug. great for knocking out your mark,makes the brain a little muzzy in the memory section, fast, gives you a hangover, it'll be gone in a few hours and you'll be fine" Boy, she's relieved she opted not to take that right away, though Minea's features are still outwardly schooled to neutrality.
The little flash drive goes back in his pocket. "So. Miss Lancaster," he begins with another sigh, "what am I supposed to do with you? What would you do if you were me?" Not that he hasn't had ideas. But there's a problem now in that he has to decide. Hiro goes back to looking at her with baleful eyes, colored more by dull aching pain than anger.
"Oh, I could think of a few things. I have a vibrant enough imagination. But i'm not you, and I don't know your proclivities. so" There's a shrug of her shoulders, though she watches him still.
Hiro continues giving her that look and says, "You're in trouble. I don't want to kill you. I wish I could let you go, but I can't. Right now I'm seriously considering sending you to some distant future or past where you can't touch anybody. Do yourself a favor right now and don't tell me how many other lives you've ruined. I don't want to know and I'm not going to ask."
"yeah, yeah I was told you could do that. They suspected it. This is also what they get for sending a document forger to do a fucking spy's job. For the record, that art place I pointed you to? That might help. I lied, I know a lot about art. He's a place you need to look at if your seriously looking for some painting that wouldn't be on the normal market. He can maybe point you in the better direction"
"I'm never going there." answers Hiro honestly. How could he? It'd be so stupid at this point. He COULD explain how he could give a damn about those paintings, but why? He's not in the mood to give useful information. "Get comfortable." he adds, looking at her feet. Probably ought to check and make sure her bindings are nice and tight.
"Understandable" Hell, even she'd think it was a plot. Get comfortable though. Great. Lost in time. How do you write that on your report. Suspect froze me in time I spent the rest of my life there. Fuck, why did Goodman send her on this? Seriously. Minea just nods, not going anywhere in a chair really, at least, not while he's there.
Taking a moment to decide he cares enough and that's important enough to do, Hiro gets up and walks behind Minea to check that her wrists are firmly bound. "So how can I be sure anything you tell me is true? You pretended to be a prostitute. Pretended to be learning Japanese. For all I know you're fluent."
"I'm fluent in a couple languages, Japanese is decidedly not one of them. But I'm not pretending to learn it. As for prostitute, well, it's Staten Island, there's very little choices in covers, that one blends in. She doesn't both to try and disrupt him. "As for the truth, well, I don't know. You'll have to decide for yourself now won't you. Don't worry, if I don't pop up, they won't give a damn. I'm expendable. This whole thing is punishment. For me. not you. So I was fucked either way. I mean seriously, how do you track a guy who can manipulate time? It's not like you walk everywhere and had a car for me to track"
In spite of himself there is a pause at hearing that. Hiro can't help the sympathetic pang that most definitely does not show on his face. Living a life like this is consistently about being used, and he finds it very easy to believe that this woman has been used as much as she tried to use him. Not her fault she got in over her head, is it? "What did you manage to get about me so far? You found me a few times already." He says this as he walks back to plop down on his chair and watch her.
'
"Sheer luck. You were in the chines place when I walked in with that perverted asshole. The second time, luck again, you came in. Three days ago, I was heading towards the docks and I saw you come out of this building. I staked it out for a couple days to make sure that this wasn't just a random drop. I've had amazing luck, figures it would end at some point" And he's going to keep her here, time locked. Was time passing in the real world? How much time HAD passed? What would Goodman do when she eventually didn't show up with more information to Carter, and .. the possibilities play on and she lets the dejection shift across her face. "I got squat on you. I was going to hit up your computer, get some files off it, but there's no electricity. I bugged the clothes your wearing right now, your jacket and the jacket in the closet, so I could get a better idea of where you were going, but, other than that, the whole time stopping thing? Yeah, that fucked up a lot of stuff. I thought, easy, I'll drug you, get information, drug myself, wow look someone roofied our drinks, someones after you, and that would be it. I told you, documents forger, not a surveillance expert"
"You bugged my clothes?' he asks, sounding slightly amused. There's even something like a smile to it as he begins to shake his head and then thinks better of it. Headache. "I'll have to wash them again I guess." Or maybe just burn them.
You say, "Not bug bugged. Look in your pocket, flip up the inside hem, one there. Same for the jacket in the closet. GPS tracking. Fuck, I'm so screwed. Can you at least, put me some place you know, comfortable if i'm gonna be… stuck like this?" Minea glances around the room then back to Hiro. 'Or some Advil?""
Just because it's interesting, Hiro does check his hem to find the tracker. He looks at it and says, "Military intelligence? What military?" For now he's not answering about where Minea's going to end up. At least not definitively. "I'm working on what to do with you still. Remember?"
'American military" DUH. 'Do I look like.. the finnish military to you? Oh, wait, no, Canadian" Minea nods then rolls her eyes.
Hiro holds up the tracker he got out of his pocket and looks at Minea while showing it to her. "I don't know a lot about American military intelligence, but I don't believe they'd send a forger after me with tracking devices." He stares for a moment longer and then says, "Do you know who Ishida Mitsunari was?"
"Honey, you work with what you got in the area. i'm a temporary patch till they pulled someone in who was better at this and then I could go back to making fake ID's and verifying documents for them. I seriously don't think they expected me to succeed. Like I said, I'm pretty sure, this was punishment for something. Ishida Mitsunari?" Minea shakes her head then regrets it a moment later. "No"
Stonefaced, Hiro explains, "Ishida Mitsunari was a daimyo who died in Kyoto in the year 1600. He was buried up to his shoulders and left with a sign next to him inviting the local villagers to come take turns sawing at his neck. There was a bamboo saw left there for the villagers to use." Beat. "You need to understand something. I am not eager to harm you, but I will have it done if that's what it takes. We have all the time in the world right now." Looking left and right, he makes a point of their isolation. "You need to start thinking of ways to make me your best friend."
"You can choose to believe what you want to believe. Or you can accept that when I say i'm a documents forger, that i'm a documents forger. Either way, what happens to me, is up to you from this point in. I'm expendable in the military's eyes. And i'm a sitting duck tied to a chair, stopped in time. I'd call that pretty fucked. Would you rather I be begging for my life? I'm pretty sure I can do a reasonable facsimile of that if it'll make you feel better. But when it comes down to it, I have nothing on you, no more than I did before which has amounted to shit all, They'll be pulling me out if I ever get free and I'll be in a shitload of trouble. All of my own making and theirs because they put me on something I wasn't capable of handling. so Hiro Nakamura, keep me here, or toss me in with the dinosaurs, do what you want, I'm screwed either way and nothing that you do to me is going to compare to the shit storm they'll be shoving up my ass if they find out how badly I fucked up"
Pretty nihilistic speech, but Hiro just stares at her during and after it, trying to ignore his own head. "What if you agree to tell me what your bosses do, what they want, in exchange for me giving you something? Information."
Minea just stares back at him, incredulous. "You want me to play snitch for you?"
"I'd like that, yes." Hiro states evenly. "You apparently think your bosses don't like you, don't have much use for you. If they're the kind of people I think they are they'd have me killed. But I would like to find another way."
Minea licks her lips then with a mighty sigh nods. "Right now, I'll give you this. I'm only to track and observe you. If I felt comfortable getting into contact with you, I was to do so. Find out where you go, where you live, your habits, nothing more"
A rueful smirk crosses Hiro's face and he explains, "I can tell you now all that information you've gathered is no good anymore. I'll change everything now. You have to know that. But I could offer you something a little more careful for me and maybe enough to keep you out of trouble. I think it'll be the best deal I can think of."
"Obviously you'd be changing everything" Minea replies. "I'd change everything" She eyes him though, carefully. "okay"
"The deal is this. You tell me the truth about who you are and who you work for right now. If I find out later that you were lying, deal's off. Depending on what I learn and whether it's bad enough, that might mean getting rid of you or it could just mean vanishing. You can change your story now or you can tell me that you are who you say you are, and you work for military intelligence, whoever that is." Hiro then observes with his eyes on the woman who he still has not untied, "There's no way your name is Minea Lancaster."
Smart bugger. "Homeland Security. I'm in between. I work for them, and for the next month still with the ISA. I really am a document forger. I'm a low level peon who got yanked because I'm in the right place and have the skills to stay alive on this island. I'll tell you my real name, when you untie me and give me something to bring back to my superiors that'll make them happy"
"What you give me is up to you. If you lie you're taking the chance that I won't find out later. That's all." Hiro explains simply, watching her closely. "And I'll untie you when my head stops hurting. Because I'm still mad at you for doing this." Maybe a little petty, but it's minor.
'Fine" Minea relaxes in her seat. 'Not like I'm not suffering right there along with you"
Hiro rolls his eyes and gets to his feet with a grunt, then goes behind Minea to unbind her wrists. "You get your own legs." he insists dully just as she's loosed.
She could sooooo kick his ass right now, hungover or no. He's close, it's her specialty. For a brief moment she entertains that thought. Instead, she jsut flexes her hands, swings arms forward and starts to work at her knee's and the bindings there. Not a thank you in sight for him.
If Hiro's worried about having his ass kicked it sure doesn't show. He has a seat again and looks pensive. Waiting. "Well?"
"Minea Dahl" Is the answer her gets. With both hands the woman is making swift short work of his knots around her knees and then ankles till she's free as a bird. bird stuck in time that is.
Standing again, Hiro stretches a hand toward Minea. "Okay. Take my hand."
Hiro's eyed, cautiously before the older woman puts her hand in his. 'you send me to like.. the alien ridden future I will snap your neck"
"I always have to go along for the ride." Hiro explains as he grips Minea's hand. And then suddenly the door caves in and slams against the wall. There's traffic noise outside. The appliances hum. The sink runs. They're nowhere different, but they are now continuing along as normal. "We need to figure out how to contact. I won't be staying here anymore."
"Your not getting that information, until you hold up to the rest of your half of the bargain. I need something to give to them, that'll satisfy them, not irritate them" Minea's arms cross, a glance to the door that's broken in and then back to Hiro. 'Maybe whats on that flash drive your coveting, or a copy of it?"
"That's off limits." insists Hiro simply. He points at his laptop and says, "Feel free to go through that. You can see all my web searches. Computer's brand new anyway so…" he shrugs. Obviously he hasn't had much chance to put anything incriminating on it. And stop the attitude." He gives Minea a glare that's more pissy than anything, because headache, then turns to go try to see if he can close the door. "Oh you really ruined this thing."
"Stop with yours, I'll stop with mine. We're both in the same fucking boat" Computers not going to give her anything. "Something else Nakamura. Computers going to yield nothing, since you seem smart enough to keep anything on that flash drive."
The door can be closed but it'll never latch. Splinters all over the floor now too. "I am looking for the Brill Paintings. They were stolen from Daniel Linderman's archive. I believe they are predicting the future and can lead to avoiding some tragedy. I don't know what exactly yet. Use that."
Though she's said that the computer is useless, it doesn't stop her from sitting at it and making her way around it, opening folders, looking, peering, some other non-standard peeking as well, including a trip through the computers trash. "Why the brill paintings? Certainly not just to amuse you. Are you working for Daniel Linderman to get them back? Another group?"
"I just told you why. Because I believe they predict the future. I'm interested in that." answers Hiro, just a hint of impatience in his tone. He goes back to his refrigerator and opens it, looking the contents over. And he'd just bought these groceries. "I don't work for Linderman. I don't like Linderman very much."
Downloads folder, temporary cookies, she's flipping through it all. "You disappeared, and your back now. Just for the pictures? Where have you been before that?"
"You don't know yet. But I have a feeling you will find out." He comes in to hover behind Minea as she goes through his stuff. Turns out he's been searching quite a bit of information on the latest computer programming developments, as well as developments in current technologies in the field of computing.
There's also been some looking into a lot of Manga.
"Whenever you're finished." prompts Hiro.
Tour through recent documents, see what files have been pulled up, most notably, ones that don't seem to be on the computer, indicating they'd be from the flash drive. "Gimme a hair, couple of them. and we'll call it a night hmm?" Minea looks over her shoulder at him.
Hiro rolls his eyes and takes a few hairs off of his head and then holds it out for Minea. "Enjoy." he says sarcastically. "Can I have my computer back now?"
"Yeah.. I'm done" Minea turns, plucking the hair from Hiro's hand. A tissue from her purse is what becomes the bearer of the new source of DNA. "What are you doing, besides the brill paintings?"
Finally. There's a noticeable impatience that disappears when Hiro gets to shut his laptop and put it in its case. He doesn't even power it off. "I'm enjoying myself. It's a nice time and place." hah. Staten Island. Okay, so that's not exactly sincere is it? "I'm going. Figure out how we're going to keep in touch. Hurry up." He slings the laptop case over his shoulder and looks at the woman.
Oh Minea knows already. To her purse she goes, fishing from it a business card. Alice, and a stylized heart hanging on the bottom of the E and a number. "Call this, when you want to have a night with Alice" The business card is dangled there, waiting for him to take it, a really perverse smile on her face. He has to arrange a night with a call girl, to pass information.
A Look as Hiro takes the card. He pockets it after a glance and says, "Good luck."
And then suddenly Hiro and everything he's carrying ceases to be there.
Minea swipes a hand through where he used to be, then pulls it back. There's a scowl on her face before she turns and kicks at the table that held the computer, sending it crashing against a wall. "Fuck, Goodmans going to kill me"
 March 5th: Don't Drink The Punch |
 March 5th: Everyday |