Participants:
| Scene Title | Mercury Descending |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | On the way to a safehouse, Brennan and Liette are waylaid by a gang, who turn out to be almost exactly what the Doctor ordered. |
| Date | March 12, 2010 |
Subway - Empty Tunnel
Without electricity in this portion of the subway tunnels, there's no ambient light to help people along. The tracks are empty and dirty. Some patches of the walls and ceiling have fallen away, leaving behind chunks of rock intermittently. The tracks curve a little in places, but stay mostly straight for long areas. A large pile of rubble blocks the way to one of the stations, somewhat conspicuous because the ceiling seems stable around it. Almost as if this blockage had been intentionally made somehow.
Grand Central Station and the passages leading to it are clearly mapped out by the Ferrymen, and for good reason. The subterranean sections of Midtown have always been dangerous since the bomb, loose and shifting concrete shattered by a ten kiloton nuclear explosion, portions where the ceilings have collsped inwards with thousands of pounds of concrete and steel. Entire mile-long corridors that wind up in dead ends or submerged underwater. There's so many broken water manes, flooded subway tunnels and dead end passages filled with feral dogs, rats, and homeless that a few wrong turns could mean grave danger.
Down here, away from Grand Central Station, a single abandoned rail line has led through darkened tunnels towards the sounds of construction for over a week now. It's always been suspected that the Ferrymen would have neighbors, and scouting done by more stealth-minded (and invisible) Ferrymen operatives have revealed security cameras and work crews clearly not of government payroll setting up shop. Why, of all places, Doctor Harve Brennan was possessed to come this way, no one knows.
Fortunately for him, Liette of the many-talents seems undisturbed by their underground journey. Especially since she's lighting the way, shedding illuminaytion from a bright blue flame held in one of her outstretched hands like a torch. "This reminds me of somewhere I've been before…" Liette comments in the dark of the tunnel, voice cehoing through the arched concrete passage as the pair emerge into a derelict rail platform, both stairways heading up stuffed with piles of concrete, dirt and steel girders.
"There's this big tunnel underground, it goes all the way from one side've the city to the other, it's how me and my friend get from place to place. There's pipes and lights and trucks and all sorts've stuff down there…" She's been prattling on about everything and anything since they'd come this way, and Liette seems content to follow Brennan's directions, but lead the way with her burning light.
While the concrete and tracks look damp, it's clear that most of the water that once flooded this tunnel has receded out of here. The stench of mold still hangs heavy in the air though. This isn't a station coming up next, it looks more like a maintenance area, but up on the rail is a mostly intact subway car; its windows have all but a handful been smashed out, the glass still littering the ground around it. Old and faded graffiti covers the damp walls here in splotches of once vibrant color, ever-fading memories of a city that died before it knew what hit it.
Further ahead there's a few more signs of habitation; empty spray-paint cans standing up on a red milk crate. A few discarded cans are scattered on the ground nearby along with pages from newspapers and a few empty plastic bags. By the spray-paint cans there's graffiti covering the walls, mostly abstract colors and shapes; a long series of numbers that repeats itself down near the ground, a stylized profile of someone's face with closed eyes, a stormcloud with childishly painted lightning, and a wavy red line with three protruding bars from it, resembling the combination of an S and an F after a fashion. The red paint used in that symbol isn't clean, and it spatters around the edges, running in long-dried rivulets down the wall to flaking pools of it on the ground.
Wordlessly, Liette makes her way from Brennan to the graffiti and brings her hand close to her face and then blows on the fire, creating a tongue of flame that leaps out to illuminate another portion of the painting.
She reveals a hand; Not a real one — an artist's rendition, crudely laid out on the wall in black paint. The charred black hand is grasping up towards the viewer of the graffiti, and the grim depiction of it makes the young woman narrow her eyes and take a step back, blue flames dancing over her palm.
"Where are we going?"
"Deep. Some place where the technopath or the hacker or whatever he is can't track us, until I can figure out what to do" Somewhere along the way, he picked up a tire jack, used it to scare away some more of the bold rats that inhabit here. Hiking packs with sleeping bags and some basics in food, warm clothing, these cling to Liette's back and most of it on his.
"Maybe a few days. try to figure out a plan" he's picking his way through, careful stepping and grateful for another trick of Liette's that's come to the fore. He comes to stand beside her at the wall, free hand coming down on her shoulder with a squeeze. "Unsure of whether to take you to a place I know down here, but I heard of something happening down here, and there's lots of nook's, crannies, places to hunker down for a bit and we stuff for a few days"
Beyond that, he'd have to rethink and probably move if Liette didn't tell him something useful. Something useful to get her back to the people who would undoubtedly be looking for her and erase memories.
"We should keep moving Liette, at least find some place to set up and hunker down. I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired and hungry"
As the pair walk deeper into the tunnels, it gradually gets cleaner, less trash and even smells better. Where on would normally see busted flickering lights, these lights on the sides of the ceiling are new, motion sensitive and activating as they go along.
Then there's the footsteps that start, sounding like a good four or five people walking in from behind them. They haven't quite caught up yet, but they're getting close, and they're talking. They sound like people who just came from getting a pizza or something.
The lights that activate up above have Liette pausing in her tracks, squinting against the illumination as she closes her hand and snuffs out the blue fire. The blonde girl furrows her brows and wrinkles her nose, watching the lights before looking towards the sound of approaching people down the darkened corridor at their backs. "Friends of yours, Doctor Brennan?" Liette queries with a quirk of one brow, turning to offer her profile to the doctor and also so she can look down the subway tunnel to the direction of the voices.
"Not friends of mine Liette" His friends wouldn't be actively talking like that down here, nor would the travel in such a group. "stay close, think you can ping their minds and get a read off them? Friendly or unfriendly?" He wouldn't put it past the technopath to have found a way to track them despite the dumping of his cellphone into his car. His hand tightens on the crowbar, worried and a tinge of fear.
That group quiets down and gets much faster, possibly having heard the two talking. "Hey!" one of them calls out, like a person who just found children playing on their lawn. They're not so much unfriendly as just very alert.
"No one's supposed to be down here." another says, when they're a good hundred feet away. They're all wearing biker gear with red numbers on their helmets.
Wincing when the voice calls out down the corridor, Liette narrows her profile behind Brennan, brows furrowed and fingers curling at a zipper on his backpack for something to hold on to. "It doesn't work like that…" Liette notes quietly as she creeps further around behind Brennan, "All I can read is what they're thinking at the moment, not a lot else. But— I'll try." With a tilt of her head to the side, she extends her consciousness outward, drifting telepathic feelers slithering around the minds of the biker-clad men on their way over. As she listens, Liette swallows noisily, blue eyes flicking from side to side, trying to pick up on some sort of useful surface thoughts.
This is just like one of the games she used to play in the lab, it's something she picks up on easy enough.
Shit. Great. They walked in on a New York street gang. "What they're thinking right now Liette, is pretty much what I want to know" he points out quietly, hand tightening around the steel tire iron in his hand. "Don't get in front of me, i'm negating" WHich he is, the moment he says it, gaze switching from one person to another to discern if someone has an ability and giving a noticible reaction to not accessing that ability or not being able to.
"Gentlemen, my niece and I were just looking to get out of the cold, passing through really. We don't mean any offense, but, if you'll just let us keep going, I promise you there won't be any trouble. We're all adults here"
Their surface thoughts are rather mundane. One is wondering if his wife is gonna yell at him for not taking the garbage out, another is worried he didn't get the Jackson account today, while collectively, they're all thinking they need to take these two back to their hideout.
One man, number 7, shakes his head, being thin and only around 5'9. "We have to take you back to the boss. We can't let you go after you saw us down here, it's policy unless the boss says otherwise." He sounds more like a business man than a gang member, and they approach even closer.
"I— dunno." Liette murmurs quietly to Brennan's back, "they're not— I'm not sure. They're not thinkin' about anything important I don't think. But they want to take us to, um, well— what they said about going to their boss. Shouldn't we? It's only polite, right?" Liette's brows come up, not that Brennan can see her expression but he can just imagine it. She steps out from behind him, one hand still wound around the metal zipper she's clinging to like a tether, lifting up a small hand to wave towards the two with a waggle of fingers.
Careful in her positioning to stay beside Brennan and away from the focus of his negation, Liette shoots a look up at him, then glances back to the two bikers. Her thoughts, however, are directed in a different angle towards Brennan instead. We were looking for a place to stay right?
We were but Liette, if thier boss decides he doesn't like that we're down here, and tries something… This isn't like being over in Africa where I have Doctors without borders and the protection of the American government to rely on He mentally points out. But it's five of them, to the two of them and whatever is in Liette's little evolved arsenal.
"Then i guess we really don't have a choice. Touch the girl though, any of you, and I will bury this tire iron in your heads. Right through the helmet. Are we understood gentlemen?"
"Yes Sir." one of them casually says, the five of them flanking the duo from all sides, guiding them down the well-lit tunnel. "I don't know what you're all doing down here anyway, you can walk into all sorts of weirdos in a place like this."
The others seem to just chat away though, now that all the business seems mostly taken care of. "So then she even threw the dog out the other day." one man says, sounding as if he's talking about a wife.
"It's awesome down here, did you guys build all this yourself?" Liette nosily asks without a single fear as she's surrounded by leather-clad bikers with numbered helmets. "I've seen lots of tunnels and stuff before and I didn't know people lived down here, s'kinda' weird you know?" There's a wag of liette's brows as she continues to chatter away, one hand still holding on to that zipper with a tighter than she realizes grip.
"We're actually looking for a place to stay, because Doctor Brennan's car got angry at us and we had to abandon it in a parking lot, I think he was upset at his phone too because he was totally throwing it around. It was super crazy, adn then we walked all the way back home, and then here and then we ran into you. But it's lighter now, 'cause you guys have like these neat lights and stuff in the ceiling."
She's rambling.
Half of what she's saying, he'd really wish she wouldn't say. Like his name. But she's who she is and he'll have to contend with that. "We were just looking for a place out of the snow fella's" He adds, walking beside Liette, keeping the tire iron close and a wary look with regards to the men. THey're surrounded, and they're hiding out from some vengeful demanding fit throwing technopath. You need to calm down and think carefully on what you're saying Liette. Right now, babbling isn't a great thing. Don't tell them your name, don't tell them my family's name. Just like you're not supposed to tell me details about your pop….
"We added the lights, we didn't build the tunnels. Our hideout, that place was one massive renovation, you can't even get in unless you've got a Panzer tank that shoots nuclear missiles." 10, the shortest of them, and seemingly the smartest explains. He's only around 5'9, and he sounds very proud. "Wait, are you Doctor Brennan, as in the writer? 31 is gonna flip out when he meets you, I think you guys know eachother."
One of the taller individuals, 17, stares at Liette, though one can't quite see his expression through the dark visor of his helmet, he says, "My daughter could use a friend like you, very introverted girl."
Finally, walking deeper and deeper into the tunnel, they come across something that definitely hasn't been here for more than a few years. It's a large round vault, around ten feet in diameter. Two cameras follow them, a bit of a high tech operation for this to be an average gang. There's all sorts of gears and knobs behind the plate-glass covering the door, as if someone wanted everyone to see the amazing work that is this vault. There's buttons, as if one could enter a key code, but they don't look digital… there's something slightly off about them, like old metallic payphone buttons. When the large gears finally start turning and clicking, the vault moves off to the side, sinking into the wall to reveal the interior.
There's more men, but they aren't in helmets, they dress from casual to business, but they all wear sunglasses with a red number on each lense, if they have two that is. And this place is large, like some sort of secret night club with purple, blue, and even red neon lights in some places. There's a bar, tables with comfortable cushions to sit around, and televisions, lots of televisions, some flat ones embedded into the walls, others elevated above the bar, with men just enjoying themselves as if this weren't some seedy gang operation… it's a cult, but, symantics.
Apparently someone phoned Jack to let him know people were coming, because he, the only person without glasses, decided to wear a white suit and a tophat, with a black tie and arms spread. "Welcome to Fantasy Island! Or Oz… I haven't decided yet. Definitely not Wonderland, that's Michael Jackson creepy…" He's smiling, wide.
"I am friend to man and beast." Liette notes with a nod of her head; where does she even come up with this stuff? Probably wherever Mortimer finds the time to turn his world into Willy Wonka's magical subterranean fun timw show. Liette just sort've stands there staring wide-eyed at Mortimer, then around to his cronies, lips parted and brows twitching. Her fingers wind around Brennan's backpack zipper and her arm in the sling cradles a bit closer to her chest.
"Um…" Liette's brows scrunch together, blue eyes dart from side to side, and she looks up at 17, then over to 31, then over to the fop in the white suit and tophat. "Is this a carnival?" Suddenly her expression completely lightens and her brows lift up. "This is silly like a carnival! Doctor Br— Doctor, did you surprise me with a carnival! Is that what all this was about?" Letting go of the zipper, Liette takes a few backpedaling steps away from Brennan, eyes wide and lips parted in a smile.
"This is so neat!" Glancing over at one of the men with numbered sunglasses, she kicks up a brow and then twirls around to regard Mortimer again. "Hey, mister!" Well at least Liette doesn't think this is completely pants-on-head crazy.
There's something endearing seeing Liette live it up a little after the last while of quiet and fleeing. Mind you, Brennan's looking around like he's stepped into wonderland and the guy with the top hat and white suit regarded as Gene Wilder with a dash of mad hatter. "Better than the love boat sir" Brennan points out to Jack. "I apologize for inconveniencing your friends here but my niece and I were just looking for some shelter from the snow and a place to hunker down for a bit when they came across us"
He keeps a close eye on Liette as she spins to face Mortimer.
"No, I'm not Jesus." Jack answers, as if it's a frequently asked question, and thumbs over at 39, a long-haired guy in a Hawaiian shirt. "That's Jesus."
39 waves, "Hey."
"My name's Mister Jack, you can call me Jack." He offers a hand to Brennan, and turns his head to watch Liette. "I have enough supplies to survive down here for a decade, though you have to prove you're not spies or assassins. Now, can I help you, young lady?"
"Nope, but I can't tell you what I am it's against the rules." Liette notes with an incline of her head. "The Doctor," this is going to get very Whoish if she keeps referring to him like that, "and I are just here to stay out of the cold because his car got angry at him or something." As if the world is her oyster, Liette just starts walking away from Brennan with her eyes up towards the ceiling, sliding past 17 and across the concrete floor and over towards the bar with scuffing footfalls. "But that's the Doctor and I'm— a secret!" She's enjoying this game.
Walking by one of the televisions, Liette comes to a slow stop, brows furrowed and head canting to the side. She starts to creep towards the glowing screen, glancing back at Brennan before making her way over to look at the newsbroadcast about the weather. While she's standing there, Brennan is left surrounded by the security team and with Willy Wonka, Dr.Moreau, Colonel Sanders, Mortimer Jack.
If this could get anymore unnerving. Tire iron is still in hand and while Liette has opted to leave him alone over here, he's confidant that should anyone make a move on her, that she'll give them a what for while he makes his way over with the long steel. "Neither assassin nor spy. I had some car issues, and we're just looking for a place to hunker down for a short while" If the pack on his back is any indication.
"I have cash, a great deal of it and I can pay. Your place seems pretty secure from the sounds of it, and I just…" This is just surreal. He offers his hand out to Jack. "Doctor Harve Brennan, pleasure to meet you, hopefully."
"The Doctor, and his companion… and you say your car crashed?" Jack sounds suspicious, if not inquiring, giving the man's hand a firm shake as he studies his features. "Since they get younger every regeneration, you must be… at least the Fourth. Sure, you can stay here, but you have to promise to show me your police box before you leave."
He says nothing more of it, releasing the man's hand so he can walk off and see what Liette is doing. What time could she be from? Maybe she's a robot…
"Harve Brennan? Don't tell me you've joined, you're the last person I expected to see here." 31 walks over, a man of around 5'11, only a few years younger than Brennan. Even with his numbered glasses on, this is clearly Doctor Timothy Morrison, a surgeon turned heart specialist who was left by his wife for focusing far too much on his work. But in recent years, he's become far more relaxed, rekindling things with his wife, and going back to being a regular ol' non-specialist. "I can vouch for this man! Certainly no assassin."
Jack mutters under his breath, clicking a recorder in his pocket. "Note to self: 31 is possibly a Time Lord. Take advantage of powers at a later date."
"Hey! I thought you said names were against the rules?" Liette shoots out from over by the televisions, her attention drawn away from the forecasts. "My name's Liette," she introduces with a rise of her brows, "so Mister Jack," she clomps away from the television screens, wild blonde hair bouncing with each skipping step as she comes up to Mortimer's side. "What do you do down here, or is it a secret? This reminds me of Pop's lab! But it's a lot dirtier and everyone looks silly!"
The young blonde takes a step to the side, lips pursed together and eyes angled up to Brennan. "Are we gonna' stay here Doctor Brennan?" There's a somewhat hopeful sound to Liette's voice, but this place— can't be safe— can it?
"Timothy" Recognition and the own raise of brows as he offers his hand to a colleague. "Shit. It's been how long? You run with these people?" Dr. Who remarks are put aside, he can deal with finding a tartus at some point and deal with it then. "It looks like Liette. beats an abandoned rail car" Though the televisions make him wary. If they can get cable down here, a technopath can follow a cable line and they'll be found.
"Listen, I seem to have pissed off a technopath Timothy" Opting to converse with the sane individual that top hate man. "Michelle's taking care of the kids and I'm sorta going to ground till I can figure out what to do. How are you getting cable down here? I thought signals couldn't reach this far underground and…" He's plainly worried, content to let Liette wander near but not too far.
"They are Liette but it's fine now. I know the good Doctor here" Physcially safe maybe, technologically safe and hidden?
"I used to build things down here. Now we just, hang out, and have fun! We do whatever we want." Jack explains, removing his top hat to place it on Liette's head. "Would you like to watch a movie? We keep a large stock of VHS tapes, that's how man was meant to watch movies." He starts walking off to a small screen, motioning for Liette to follow. Apparently they must have some digital jukebox type set up, but for movies.
"This isn't satelite, these are very, very long wires. I think we steal our cable from someone, but since the wires are so long, there's a slight delay due to how far the signal has to travel. Your technopath is in for a hell of a ride if he's coming all the way down here. But I'm not sure how he'd see you, all of our cameras and electronics are analog, except for the televisions and the VHS jukebox."
THe other doctor motions to the other men, giving Brennan a friendly smile. "Don't worry about them. They're mostly students or other business men, people from all walks of life. Mister Jack over there, he unites people who completely miss the point in life, which is to enjoy it. You could say we're a cult, but he hasn't asked us to commit suicide yet."
Except for that whole Primatech raid thing…
"Technopaths are tricky, there's five known classifications for technopathy!" Liette admits as she looks up to Mortimer with a beaming smile, "digital, wireless, mechanical, software, and multi-purpose!" Bouncing with each step, Liette turns around to walk backwards as she follows Mortimer, looking towards Brennan with a broad smile, seeming to fit right in at home in the madhouse that this is. "I've never met a technopath though but Pop talks about them, we had a discussion once about technopathic shock countermeasures and self decompiling viral firewalls!" There's a light in her eyes as she sidesteps Mortimer and climbs up onto one of the stools at the bar, settling her knees on the cushion to look over the top. It's— not where he's taking her but she seems prone to raccoon-like curiosity.
"Doctor Brennan's a negator," here she goes again, "and there's four classifications for negator! Tactile, Targeted, Blanket and Personal!" Nodding her head once, Liette leans forward over the bar, brows still up and examining what's on the other side. "Can I have a glass of water Mister Jack?" She's remarkably polite if not somewhat squirrley.
"Just so long as he doesn't ask me to join. I'm up to my neck in stuff already. I gotta stick close to the kid Timothy. She's.. not my niece" There's not a drop of family resemblance. "And the technopath manage to get into my car and try to lock us in so…" He wouldn't put it past the techno.
"I'm a targeted Negator Liette" Offering that bit of information up to the young blonde as he moves towards the bar, glad she's asking for water. He could do with a beer but he's not going to be drinking while she's in his care. "We just need a room to stay in, away from any technological devices" He glances towards the getups that everyone is wearing. "And.. If you don't mind, I'd like to borrow an outfit, and maybe you Timothy, if I have to go topside to check on things" How to fool a technopath from above? Don't go in wearing what you were wearing.
Jack is a lot of things, but stupid and uninformed isn't one of them. Paranoia on the other hand, is one of his minor, less damaging traits, but he's certainly heard about things like this. "On the run from someone, eh? And this girl, she sure knows a lot about Evolved." He appears to be getting at something, walking behind the bar to pour her a glass of water, sliding it across the bar to her. "She's some sort of robot, isn't she? Programmed with Evolved and military knowledge, made to be some sort of super brain that would sway the tide of war. You stole her because you feel an unbreakable fatherly bond with this little robot, or perhaps she's an android?" He tilts his head, staring at her in slight fascination.
"I'll let you in on a little secret. I was sort of a technopath, well, I couldn't talk to machines, I was more intuitively inclined to the mechanical." He holds up his hands, which are in black gloves, then removes his left glove to reveal a bronze-colored robotic hand. He wiggles his fingers, which have a slight jerky quality, like a stop-motion animated Robocop 2 hand. One can see the thousands of gears under the thin plating, and he pushes the glass of water forward with one metallic finger. "I built nearly everything mechanical in this room, we renovated it years ago as a backup. The televisions are the only thing new, and I have a computer in my room, but that's behind another vault, and it's not connected to the internet. But my inventions, they're usually clockwork, I'm not a large fan of non-clockwork designs. This arm?" Fingers are wiggled again. "I stick it into a lightbulb socket or touch a livewire and it's good to go for a few days." It's certainly more advanced than any prosthetic one would see on the market.
Timothy on the other hand, simply nods in agreement with Brennan's request. "We should have plenty of extra things around. When we go out, we wear full biker gear, with helmets and all. You should be safe if you simply dress like us. And I'm sure there's a room without electronics somewhere, we have a lot of spare rooms."
Meanwhile, Jack's staring at Liette again, and asks, "Explain Mechanical Intuition and Intuitive Aptitude, and their differences, Miss Military Robot."
"Mechanical aptitude!" Liette chirps, settling down onto the stool proper with a slouch, leaning forward to take the glass and slide it over to herself. "Mechanical aptitude actually comes in two recorded varieties, logical and intuitive. Logical mechanical understanding is like book smarts, it's all about the completion of circuits and complex moving parts and very hands-on sort've things! Intuitive mechanical aptitude comes in a more instinctual understanding and can apply to broader subjects. Intuitive mechanical adepts can often apply their ability to broad-spectrum problem solving like social situations or even biological reconstruction! Putting a person back together again from injury, like a Doctor born with Gray's Anatomy in their head! Pop says there's a couple people out there who have a mosaic adaptation gene associated with their Suresh Linkage Complex that allows their genetic structure to modify to outwardly visible abilities once they understand the mechanics and biology of it, but it's different from empathic intuition!"
Huffing out a breath, Liette kicks her feet and brings up the glass of water, taking a slow sip from it before settling it down with a click again on the bartop. Her eyes search at the mechanical arm, and Liette's brows furrow, lips purse and her head quirks to the side. "One of Pop's scientists works on man-machine interfaces like that. There's a guy at the lab they have hooked up to this big noisy machine that plugs into his brain! He's ina vegetative coma with minimal brainwave activity and they're trying to get him to type into the interface, it works a lot like your arm!"
"Not a robot. Would explain so much. She's just a very smart young woman who was dropped in my lap and I was asked to take care of her till I can get her home" Brennan offers up to jack, a request for some water as well. The mechanical arm though, gains his interest as much as what Liette's spouting. He'll have to write stuff down when she's sleeping, things she's said so he can go back over it. "Can It rust her with you guys for a few hours Timothy? Can I trust you to protect her with your life? I'll need to make a call, but I want to do it from a landline. I can't trust a cellphone, hell, I'd rather prefer to walk into the man's office. There's something big going on and it involves that girl and .." Brennan shakes his head. "I'm just a doctor but fate's somehow decided that i'm going to play Bruce Willis to her Miko Hughes"
Brennan shakes his head, levering the pack down and for once, letting go of the tire iron. "You guys know you're right near a safehouse right?"
"So my ability is better than his, good to know." Jack sounds quite proud of that fact, getting Brennan a glass of water as well, then slides it over. There's certainly a lot to think about, and he'll be doing a bit of writing himself. "So tell me, Liette, what're the major weaknesses of the broader intuition? How could you exploit it to defeat, distract, or disable someone?" He'll be damned if he's not gonna take advantage of this girl's brain. Again, crazy, but not stupid. "And I'll protect her with my life! The Doctor's companion is my companion! But you have to promise to introduce me to Sarah Jane. I'll Sarah her Jane."
"She'll be safe here. Even if that technopath could find her, he has absolutely no way of getting in here or causing any harm." Timothy reassures, walking to the bar himself now. "There's no way to open that vault unless you're physically standing next to it, and we don't have defense systems. There's no much I can think of that a technopath could do to it."
But something Brennan says seems to get Jack's attention again, and he asks, "A safewhat now?"
"The folks not far from here. I'd ask that you don't go impeding on them. Friends of mine. I was heading there when you're group came upon Liette and myself. I'd like to ask that you don't bother them. They're doing good work, helping folks. They're probably a little nervous that this place is so close. What with the doors and camera's and all" His glass of water is picked up, gulps taken from it. There's a gesture though for Liette to carry on with the question and answer session with Mortimer since the two seems to fit with each other.
While Brennan is informing Mortimer about the Ferrymen down in grand Central Station, Liette is quietly downing the entire glass of water, nose wrinkled and brows furrowed. She pops a look over to Brennan, thoughtfully considering why so many people seem to choose to live underground, and then with a crease of her brows turns to look back at Jack after setting her empty glass down on the bar in front of him.
"Have you ever read Peter Pan?" Liette asks with both brows raised to Mortimer. "There's a pirate in it, and a monster that makes clockwork noises, and people that don't age, and lots of people who live in the woods and walk around barefoot and stuff." Her chin tips up, brows furrow. "The pirate's named Captain Hook and the monster is a biiiig crocodile that swallowed a clock, and it makes this ticking noise that Captain Hook can hear. So whenever he hears the ticking, he gets all distracted."
Pursing her lips to the side, Liette rests her elbows down on the bartop and her chin on her palms. "Mechanical adepts are like that, you must've noticed it too right? If a machine isn't working properly and its in your presence, it drives you nuts, right?" One brow lifts up slowly. "You have to tune it up or fix it or something? It's the same for intuitive or logical people, an out of tune musical instrument, a clock that's a few seconds off, an engine that needs tuning up. Put enough of them together and it's almost impossible to ignore."
Letting her head tip to the side, Liette rolls her tongue over the inside of her cheek, brows lifted as she pushes the empty glass of water towards Mortimer as if to imply more, please.
"They can stay down here with me, as long as they don't interfere with my grand workings. Speaking of." Jack holds a hand up to someone near the movie machine. "Put on Ratatouille!"
But then Liette starts talking, and his eyes go a bit wide with his smile, refilling her water. He sits on the stool behind the bar, soaking that all in. "It's perfect. This girl is already paying for herself." Now, another question seems to be in order, to test this girl's brain. "Do you know any secret Evolved-related organizations?"
"Of course!" Liette comments with a quirk of one brow and a laugh, "but if I told you about them they wouldn't be a secret anymore, would they?" There's a teasing cast to Liette's smile as she swings her legs off of the stool and takes the glass of water. "Story time's over anyway, now it's time for movies." It's a very clearly delineated difference between the two.
Looking to Brennan as she walks, Liette offers a finger-waggling wave and a smile. "Don't be gone too long okay Doctor Brennan? The news says it's going to be nasty weather tonight!" Seemingly unconcerned about anything else, Liette looks side-long to Jack and nods her head slowly. "Proceed with movie time!"
"I'm going to try and get some rest and some food first Liette" The physician offers to his charge, rising from his own seat to snag her before she can walk off quite yet. Pull her in and give her a gentle hug - lets not worsen that fracture. He whispers something to her before dropping a kiss on her forehead. "Tim, show her to wherever you're going to put us, then lets find some spare costumes. Think I can be number 24 for this trip?"
"She better come back to watch the movie! This is fine cinema and young people have to be exposed to it as soon as possible!" Jack jumps over the bar counter and heads to the more loungy of the lounge areas, sitting back on the couch that already has a hot pizza on the table in front of it, with a large flat HDTV on the wall across from him.
"Sure, I'll show you everything you need to know while staying here. First rule is to stay away from Jack's room unless you're invited. Second is, don't follow any orders from Mortimer; you'll understand Mortimer very soon, so there's no need for me to explain. If you see something strange and mechanical laying on the floor, don't touch it…" He lists a lot of seemingly arbitrary rules, but they're fairly easy to follow, and he's motioning for Liette to come so he can show her the room.
It's the Kidnapped the President's Daughter Suite, which will unfortunately be cleared of the television, video games, and movies.
Claire wouldn't appreciate them anyway.
