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| Scene Title | First Day of the New Life |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Elle and Warren get to know eachother, and stalker meets sociopathic user. |
| Date | July 28 2010 |
Crumbling concrete tunnels beneath the streets of Manhattan eventually lead towards what may have at one time been a subterranean access point for a basement level of some midtown business. An enritre section of concrete wall has been demolished to give way from the subway tunnel into a large and derelict circular chamber. A staircase here is filled with broken pieces of concrete and twisated steel girders, clearly whatever building resided above here has long since collapsed down onto itself, leaving this vault cut off from the rest of the city.
Opposite of the cut entrance in the concrete, a massive bank vault door rests in the wall, a pair of closed-circuit security cameras mounted on the concrete sweeping through the chamber, electricity still powering them from somewhere. An analogue keypad has been installed next to the vault door, and the circular door itself looks to have been modified to be operated by the mechanical keypad rather than the combination lock it should be.
For those able to bypass the security and enter the chamber within, reality seems to be completely held off on the other side of the door. What was once an expansive storage chamber in this building's basement has been converted into — of all things — some sort of nightclub. Electricity powers neon lights and flashing strobes beneath glass flooring. Everything in here is clean, from the faux wood of the wrap-around bar to the stenciled curtains featuring silhouettes of faces, to the colored light in recessed sconces in the ceiling. Televisions completely fill one wall, connected to cable lines leading out from the bunker. This place is some implausibly constructed and well-maintained hideaway that clearly must have cost a great deal of time and money to construct.
They've been walking through tunnels underground in Midtown for a while, and Warren has been explaining everything to her, well, at least about his newly learned background and how his personalities work. "So no, I'm not the one you met before. I'm the crazy one, as they like to say. I used to be known as Jack, but since that story Harper told me yesterday, about all the lies, I'm taking my birth name, Warren Ray." It's taken him a while to tell her everything Harper told him about himself, but the walk has been long, so he needed something to say.
It's later in the morning, and it's clear he's a different one from the day before. This one smiles a lot, and occasionally waves to one of the cameras. There's cameras in the partially-lit tunnels now, suggesting that they're getting closer. And occasionally one sees a robotic rat covered in blood. Real blood. "Alex is the one that wanted to talk to you, but I think I need to broaden my horizons, beyond Lola. I may be crazy, but this one-sided relationship with the two of us is getting old, and you seem promising." He also seems to be pretty forward.
"We're here." he says as they stop at the large vault down another large tunnel, like some advanced clockwork piece of art with a few cameras peering at them. "I made this door a long time ago, we moved in here after I blew up my old base. Didn't want to be on Staten Island when FRONTLINE came. I like the challenge, but I hate having to replace so many men all at once." He looks down at a body with a numbered helmet, which seems to be nothing but bones and tattered clothing now. "Alex needs to clean up after himself. I'll have someone take care of it."
She really can't believe she's actually here, talking to this really insane dude who she doesn't know whether to like or hate. His earlier phone call was a surprise, especially after the way Elle treated him yesterday. She shocked him. And turned him over to people who put him into a medicinal coma. Of course, she doesn't know what went on behind closed doors. Even more surprising was how he got her number in the first place, and the fact that for all the praise she got, he's out the next day. But, curiousity got the best of her.
Now, Elle walks along beside Warren, her hands tucked into her pockets as his words wash over her. She's been somewhat quiet throughout the walk, apparently content to listen to him with that thoughtful look on her face. She's got a few things on her mind, but she's apparenly far less willing to divulge such things than Warren is.
Those pretty blue eyes of hers also scan over the surroundings, her nose wrinkling at the bloody robot-rats, as well as the body. Ewww. Gross. After a moment, however, her eyes turn toward that door, brows raising as she peers over it. She's quiet for a long moment, before smiling to Alex. "That's pretty cool."
"The master of the house has returned!" Warren enthusiastically exclaims with his arms outstretched, and the vault begins clicking and turning as it rolls to the side and into the wall. Elle sees that deep in these particular gross tunnels, is a pretty classy night club/lounge. There's televisions lined up, men behind the bar, at the bar, talking, discussing things ranging from sports to philosophy. There's even a guy painting. They're all wearing black suits with sunglasses that have red numbers on each lens, or only on the right lens, for those in the single digits. They seem to range from one to almost forty.
"I have a guest, someone clean that up, it's disgusting. Once a body stops being fresh, it stops being art." he explains as he begins to enter, and motions for her to follow.
Two men quickly pass by, saluting and saying, "Yes Sir!"
"I like the new outfits, at least Alex has some style."
She can't help it. Her eyebrows raise high as she views the insides of the vault, hands in her pockets. Curious eyes trail over inside of the vault that the humongous door opens into, and as she follows the man in. She peers quietly at the men with numbered sunglasses, a small smile gracing her features. Then, she's looking right back to Warren, that thoughtful look coming back.
"I'm really curious. Yesterday, I electrocuted you into unconciousness, then I called the Institute, and watched as they put you into a medical coma and cart you away in a coffin, on a helicopter." She pauses, peering at him. "Now, I don't know much about you, but if it were me…well, I would be pretty pissed." She speeds up just a bit, so she can see his face a bit better from her petite vantage point. "Yet you've called me up the very next day, and invited me to your base of operations. Might I ask why?"
"You helped us gain what we've been working to gain for a few months now. I didn't fight back, I wanted to see where it would lead me. And it led me to the truth, getting my identity, resources, everything I needed. I let Alex think he had full control, but he was doing the things I didn't have the patience to do." Warren explains as the vault begins to close behind them, and the other men rush in after cleaning the body. He leads her across the room, not stopping as he continues to speak. "You're interesting, and you helped me, so I called you. The first thing I like to test in a woman is how much of my crazy she can tolerate." He stops, then walks in front of her and leans down so he's eye level with her, directly in her face with a wide grin. "So how much crazy can you tolerate?"
The girl regards Warren with a quiet, yet interested look, her head leaning toward her right shoulder. Helped him. By zapping him. Now that is something entirely new, and it interests Elle quite a bit. Her heels click as she follows along behind the man, mostly watching him. As he stops, she stops, blinking quietly as he leans down to eye level, one brow arching higher than the other.
Crazy? She can certainly handle crazy. She's just a little bit, herself. A small smile appears over the girl's face, and she leans forward, close to Warren. One hand snakes out, reaching to touch his chest; Elle never did have any respect for personal bubble space. "The question is, Warren…" She leans a little bit closer, her face hovering inches from his. Then, a tiny little arc of electricity sparks between her hand and his chest. Nothing horrible, but then, shocks aren't always pleasant in any regard. "…How much crazy can you tolerate?"
Warren jerks back, not expecting that, then he looks down at his chest, a pained look at first, then he can't help but maniacally laugh, a laugh that echos through the vault. "Amazing, just amazing." He quickly marches over to one of the men at the bar, then grabs him by the collar and starts dragging him over. The other men turn and look, but they don't move to help. "Sacrifice yourself for the good of a higher being." he tells the shorter man, then shoves him to the floor in front of Elle's feet, on his hands and knees as he tries to stand. "Let's see how crazy you are, Elle. He's your canvas, I want to see the art of your mind."
The girl arches a brow as the man is dragged over, tilting her head to one side as she peers down at him. She leans back on her heels, peering at the man. Quietly, she regards the fellow, one eyebrow arching. Then, slowly, she reaches down…
And she offers the shorter man a hand up. "Warren, Warren. I said I'm crazy. I didn't say that I'm homocidal." She turns an enigmatic smile toward Warren, giggling a little. "Well…maybe a little homocidal. Selectively so." Then, she steps closer to Warren, her brows raised. "You said you know things about Adam Monroe, didn't you?"
"I like to test a girl's limitations." Warren says as he grabs the guy by the collar again, turning him so their eyes meet. "She's found you worthy of breathing, you should thank her." To which the man quickly bows, repeating thanks before hurrying off away from the two. "Adam Monroe. I know a lot of people don't like him, and by the way, Alex said that. He appealed to a particularly crazy time in my life, well, and the fact that I like finding reasons to build new bombs. I plan to catch him, maybe torture or freeze dry him a bit, I'm sure that'll get the Company off my back."
The girl arches a brow, smirking quietly at the man. She steps closer, reaching an index finger out to poke at Warren's chest, a charming little smile gracing her features. "Well, then you be sure and let me know when that's about to happen…I would certainly love to get in on that." She giggles softly, sending another tiny jolt toward Warren. "Maybe help with the torture part. I have a score to settle and all."
"I'm not usually one for electricity torture, but you've probably learned ways to be creative with it." Warren suddenly slips a hand into his jacket pocket after wincing slightly at the jolt, then holds up a scalpel with a snicker. "I like to get a little more personal with my torture, under the skin, make it into art. Can you concentrate your electricity into a beam? I think I can build something to make you capable, if you can't. You could burn nice messages into someone."
Appeased, Elle leans back on her heels again, grinning just a little. That sounds kinda cool. No…really cool. "Well…back when we had Adam at level five…" She grins, fondly remembering those days. "Mmm, he was always so much fun to torture. You don't really have to watch limits with him. He can handle it." A small giggle escapes her mouth.
His suggestion of building something for her causes a bit of owlish blinking. This is almost too good to be true. Fascinating, really. "Something that could make my electricity into a beam?" She tilts her head to one side. "That might be interesting. I can sharp shoot like you wouldn't believe, but I never really considered the possibility of concentrating it down into a beam…" That might be really awesome. She'll have to wait and see.
Warren reaches for her hand so he can gently raise it and look over her palm, his eyes taking on that pure reflective silvery color. "It could be a removable cannon, something you can grab, like a gauntlet I can see it now…" By the expression on his face, it's almost as if he really can see it. "You'd charge electricity into it, then it'd concentrate and you'd press a button for a valve to release, firing a concentrated beam from the front… The more you charge it, the more powerful the beam would be. Of course I'd have to build some limitations, to keep it from being overloaded…"
With her head tilted to one side, Elle watches quietly as Warren examines her palm, though her eyes are drawn to that change in his eyes. She leans a little closer, peering at the reflective silvery pools that are his eyes. That's pretty neat, really. She always thought that those with changing eye colors were fascinating. The vision that he describes makes her even more cheerful, nodding. "That sounds awesome! I'd love to have one of those…maybe make it so you can control how much power is released or something? Like, if it's fully charged, it can use the maximum amount of power, but it can also use the less potent settings or something and last longer…" She shrugs. She's no technical genius, but that sounds really cool.
"Buttons, buttons could control the release levels." Warren's answer is buttons, buttons are good. "Well," he starts as he releases her hand, then starts heading to a silvery metallic door with more locks on it than most of the other doors. "I have a few hours to kill before a little meeting. I could show you a few of the inventions in my room." He's not subtle, no even really trying to be, but in this short time, she should know that by now.
Wow. He really likes some buttons, does't he? Elle grins widely, lowering her hand back to her side. Quietly, she follows along behind Warren, an amused smile on her face. He'll be fun, she's quite sure. He doesn't put up a fuss about the shocks, at least. Which is good. Elle likes that little bit of control without protest. It's part of who she is, after all. His final suggestion draws raised eyebrows from the cute little blonde, and she just peers at him for a long moment.
Then, she suddenly draws close, placing her hands on Warren's chest as she peers up at him with a little coy smile dancing its way across her lips. "Oh, you want to show me the inventions in your room, do you…"
"Well I am an engineer, it's up to me to make you confident enough to leave your engineering needs in my capable hands." Warren reaches into a pocket, dialing a few things on an unseen remote, then locks click and snap until the door to his room swings open. He motions his head back, revealing shelves lined across his wall with hundreds of assorted gadgets, except for his back wall, which is full of embedded safety boxes of varying sizes. Then there's his neatly made king sized bed with golden gear designs on black blankets and sheets, and he has an old computer not connected to the internet sitting in the corner, turned off at the moment.
Turning to watch as she doors open, Elle doesn't pull away just yet as she watches the door open, her brows raising. Well, there are inventions, at least. Those big blue eyes travel over the man's room, one brow arched. Those are pretty cool. She turns a sly grin up to Warren, and another small jolt springs from her hands to his chest. Then, she's pulling away with a giggle, turning and making her way into the bedroom, her hands tucked behind her back as she goes about examining things.
Warren winces when she jolts him again, though he seems to be getting used to it… at least the small ones. He follows her in, and the door snaps shut and locks behind them. His inventions range from things like deactivated clockwork fish, to a strange blender-like machine full of blades that seem made to spin in circles… some sort of grinder. He also has quite a few weapons and other strange, unidentifiable things, like spheres or innocent-looking jewelry. "Don't touch anything, you might lose a hand." Then, placing his right hand on her shoulder, he asks, "What do you think?"
For a long moment, Elle just stares at the inventions, her brows raised high with interest. These are pretty neat. Really neat. As his hand goes to her shoulder, she blinks a few times, turning to peer up at him. "They're all awesome." She grins, pointing at an innocent-looking bracelet. "What does that do? Or is it just a bracelet?"
"This," Warren grabs the bracelet, holding it up so it hangs on his index finger. "Is an old prototype of one of my bombs. They make a controlled explosion so they can cleanly remove a limb without destroying it." he explains, then puts it back and starts searching the rest of the shelf, grabbing another bracelet, this one more of a golden-bronze color. "This one holds an electrical charge, I never really used it since it takes too much power to charge the battery." He grabs a small one button remote, holding both out to her. "You press this button while someone wears it, then it electricutes them for as long as you hold the button."
Elle's eyes widen as she takes the bracelet and remote, grinning widely. "That's really cool…an electrified bracelet." She peers at the bracelet, examining it carefully. Then, she crouches down suddenly, setting the bracelet on the floor. One hand is held out, and the crackle of the girl's electricity sounds as she begins to charge the bracelet herself. All the while, she wears an amused grin upon her face, even taking to humming to herself a little bit. "Hmm…you invent a lot of neat things. This place is pretty awesome." She glances up at the ceiling and other shelves, grinning.
"You're a very neat thing." Warren suggests, watching as she charges the bracelet. "So, what does a crazy guy have to do to get a crazy girl to stay for a while?" he asks as he pulls out what looks like a slightly upgraded version of the remote she shot the other day, pressing a button that causes the bracelet on the floor to spark a bit.
Elle grins as the bracelet sparks, reaching out to wave her hand over it. Morbid little thing, too. As he asks the question, a small grin appears on her face, and she stands. For a long moment, she simply eyes Warren, before she finally raises to her feet. Then, she leeeeaaaaans forward, grinning up at the man. "Are you asking what I think you're asking in a trying-to-be-subtle way?"
"I thought you might be a subtle kinda girl, and I'm trying to approach women in a less crazy stalkery way, I don't think they like it." Warren laughs for a moment, then steps a little closer when she leans forward. "I always wondered what happened when two particularly crazy people got together for a few hours."
"Well…" Elle reaches a hand out, one index finger tracing a swirl pattern over Warren's chest. All the while, a coy smile plays over her features. Strange, though, it doesn't reach her eyes. "Before you not-so-subtly hint that you want to roll around in there with me…" she gestures toward the bed, before placing her hand up on his shoulder, grinning. "There's something that you should know." Insert a pregnant pause.
Warren furrows his brow, staring at her as he attempts to inwardly deduce what this 'something' could be. Then, he just can't help but laugh again. "If you're a man, this could possibly be the single most confusing experience of my entire life."
The little blonde offers a little giggle, shaking her head. "No, silly. I'm definitely not a man." She grins up at him almost awkwardly for a long moment.
Really, he should come to expect this. It's not like she's been too unpredictable since she arrived. She suddenly pushes up against the man, briefly confusing his mind into thinking that she actually wants intimacy. Then, suddenly, from the points where she's contacting him comes a jolt. It's just bordering on that line between uncomfortable and painful, certainly stronger than the ones she's been administering throughout her entire time here. Once finished, she pulls away, grinning up at Warren.
"I'm really not sure if I like you or hate you yet. After all, I have so many reasons to hold a grudge. But at the same time, you're so…interesting. Fun, maybe?" She giggles a bit, linking her fingers together behind her back. "So, until I make up my mind, you can be certain your attempts will more than likely end up in failure!" This is said in a cheerful tone, the peppy little blonde smiling up at Warren.
"Well that's good, as long as we're not wasting time hanging out in my bedroom for no reason." Warren snickers, but jerks back from the shock, not seeming too bothered by the rejection, he instead presses a few buttons on his remote, opening the door again, then motions his hand to it. "You wanna go joy ride for a bit? We're in Midtown, we can go as fast as we want. I'll even let you drive, lots of slow, fat, radioactive pigeons."
He rubs his smoking shirt, then sighs in relief for some reason. "You're the single most exciting woman I've ever met. Would it be going too far to declare that I'll kill anyone who stands in my way of getting you?"
Aww, he's such a good sport! Yet at the same time, he satisfies that desire Elle has for control. Thus far, his outlook is favorable, though he is pretty crazy. She'll keep him around and play with him for a while, at the very least. "Sure, we can go for a ride! That sounds fun, actually." She grins, turning on her heel and stepping out of the room.
His final statement and question prompt her to pause, turning to peer at him with a smile and a raised eyebrow. "Aww, that's sweet! But ask my permission before killing them, okay? I might want to play with them a little bit." She giggles.
"Alright, I'll ask your permission first, you have my word. It is my bond and all, usually." Warren reaches out to take her hand, leaving her out of the room as the door slams shut behind him. "If you ever need anything, or to capture someone, me and my men are at your disposable. I think this will be a very healthy relationship."
Wow. Obedient, too. Elle permits Warren to take her hand, that grin playing over her face. Healthy relationship indeed. He just wrapped himself around her little finger, with very little effort required on her part. Elle can't help but be amazed by Warren, grinning widely as he leads her out. "I think I might be inclined to agree with you…"
In Progress