Participants:
| Scene Title | No Wonder You're So Mad At Me |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Peace and friendship are difficult. The world being imperiled does however, as usual, help— and Doctor Edward Ray, version 2019, qualifies as a considerable threat. |
| Date | May 14, 2009 |
Le Rivage: Leland and Felix's Apartment
It's not a huge place. But the kitchen….surprisingly large, to suit Lee's particular fetish. At the moment, Lee's out on a shift. And Felix, who's currently keeping bankers' hours with his job, is at home alone. He's demolished the remains of Thai takeout, and is lounging on the sofa, wearing a worn Moscow Dynamos hockey jersey and jeans, watching 'Das Boot' with his best 'I don't want to go to bed yet' sleepy-blinky expression going on.
Teo remembers that face. It occurred at about a one-to-three ratio with himself being slack-limbed and comatose from physical exhaustion, back in some earlier chapter of his acquaintance with the Fed. He can guess at it, still, as he knocks on the door and waits in the hallway, shifting restlessly, fractionally on his boot-shod feet like a hunted thing: he is. The GPS information is long since tucked away with his phone into the interior of his jacket, as safely stashed and sealed away on his person as his small personal arsenal of weapons and cigarettes are. In the peephole, his expression is a lack of one.
The door does not open. Teo may not be a vampire. But he might. There's the shuffle of feet, the peephole darkening and brightening again. No obliging rattle of the lock. "What are you doing here?" comes the flat voice from behind the wood panelling.
The baby terrorist looks at his feet, automatic, the way a dog might when scolded, registering a tone of voice that predates actual language by years. The roof of his head is cropped close, and done recently; bristles at Felix in place of actual hackles. "Business interests. Ours and yours have intersected recently, I d'no if you noticed."
"You're at what passes for a home for me. I take exception to that," His tone is…still bizarrely flat. But the door does open, and Felix stands there, the blue glow from the TV limning him, like this is some bizarre version of the Annunciation. Behind him, Jurgen Prochnow is frozen in the U-boat's conning tower. He motions Teo in. "Let's have this clear. Unless there is a Vanguard level threat in the offing, you never do this again. This is Lee's place, he doesn't need to be involved."
Hands in pockets and shoulders casually slouched, Teo comes inside. His hoodie's skewed over toward his left shoulder like he'd run part of the way, but he isn't out of breath or colored. His eyes travel across the interior of the apartment again. "You didn't care when I was here before. And if Leland's as good a cop as you say, maybe he fucking should be," he replies. There's no real growl or pick of argument in his voice, though. Not really. Felix might well be able to discern the difference. Not that that's really stopped them before.
Felix notes, with a faint, vicious edge that hasn't been present before, "He's specifically requested I not bring my fuckbuddies home. Lest I stain his carpet, or something," It's…..there's something not quite right about Fel. A strangely hollow quality - even the irritation is distant and disdainful, unlike his former waspish irritation or quick rage. He shuts the door behind Teo, gently. "What do you want, Teo?"
"You can tell him I promised not to touch." Of all things, Teo smiles. It isn't as unequivocal an expression as the Sicilian's capable of, since he's standing at a profile still, glancing oblique at the officer. After a breath, it fades, the corners of his mouth dulling slightly. "Bad joke." Said apologetically. He is that, as usual. Shrugging faintly, he turns, finally, rocking back on his heels, swiveling the window outof his peripheral in order to stare at the agent. He proceeds to speak frankly, as ever, honesty as often as a function of tactlessness as of brutal pragmatism. "I want to save America, 's usual.
"Means offering you and your boys in blue a little help— with information. You know what we can do, and that neither our intentions nor our actions have ever been more harmful than…" He grimaces faintly. "Just. But we'll let you do the mainstay of the actual law enforcement work: vigilantism was never supposed to be Phoenix's area. We just kick a lot of ass at getting into places you poor fucks can't or won't. Also a plus," his head seesaws slightly on its axis, weaving, wryly. "Gives you a few practical excuses for other shit."
"You killed Federal agents," Felix informs him, like he might've forgotten this. "Nevermind Gabriel Gray. That's pretty fucking harmful, right there. But yes, you've done enough good. Information won't go amiss. Why are you talking to me, though? You have Liz as a feed."
"You killed Federal agents," Felix informs him, like he might've forgotten this. "Nevermind Gabriel Gray. That's pretty fucking harmful, right there. But yes, you've done enough good. Information won't go amiss. Why are you talking to me, though? You have Liz as a feed." He's still standing, staring at Teo with that sort of faintly disgusted look. Like some Kafkaesque scenario has one of the roaches in the bathroom lecturing him.
A shrug moves through Teo's shoulders, no less bluntly straightforward in answering: "Those Federal agents were trying to kill me, as well as jamming citizens and visitors in jail and experimental pens like they're plumbing for turds. And Gabriel Gray saved my life. Liz needs to not have us at each others' throats. So do you." A new line etches itself in on his forehead as he studies the look on Felix's face, surprised— if nothing else, at first— at its novelty.
There's a day. The day Fel has actual sympathy for the goons that belong to HomeSec. It's honestly like Jekyll and Hyde. Or Hyde and other Hyde, maybe, because the previous version of the Russian was no Shirley Temple. "What information?"
There's a day. The day Fel has actual sympathy for the goons that belong to HomeSec. It's honestly like Jekyll and Hyde. Or Hyde and other Hyde, maybe, because the previous version of the Russian was no Shirley Temple. "What information?" It's not quite naked enough to be called hatred, but his tone is utterly acid. His posture isn't -quite- threatening, but there's that look in his eyes. The Dobermann trying to figure out if he can clear that fence and reach the cat on the other side.
"Depends on what you already know." The cat on the other side has an arching loop to his spine like he's bracing against the grass on the very edge of the urge to flee up a tree. Tail fluffed bottle-brush size; no hissing yet, still maintaining appearances because appearances must be maintained. Teo watches Felix watch him. "Don't leave anything out?" The incline of tone at the end of the sentence makes it a question, makes it obscenely polite. "You might have leads we can do more with."
"The suicide of the thirtysix. I'm fairly sure there was an instigator. An adult who urged them on. Perhaps with more than just words," Felix says, quietly. "A technopath named R. Ajas, digging up leads on the Tyler Case thing. An electrokinetic names Niles Wight. Both of those two have to do with the time displacement thing that happened. Liz needs a medal, too," he says, lip curling in a sneer, more at himself than anyone else.
The calm cracks. Just a sliver. Teo's eyes widen fractionally and his lips part like he's going to say something, but he doesn't, before his teeth meet again with a click and his face flushes faintly above the fabric of his collar. His mouth flattens. "She told you more than that, didn't she?" he asks, but it's entirely rhetorical for once. "Well, shit." Felix's sneer finds itself mirrored, inverse and negative; there's something bizarrely fond about Teo considering Elisabeth's loose lips. She has faith in her comrade's decision-making skills— or regard for her— that this revelation implies unfounded. "No wonder you're so fucking mad at me."
He knows about Gabriel, then. Probably that Moab Federal Penitentiary lies in ruins, the majority of its guard, the white-coated geeks who'd managed the negation drugs and proper containment and feeding of the mutants. Teo stretches his face around an expression that could be a smile or a grimace or both, before the look on him turns inward, thinking.
Fel's expression sets like concrete, into a nothing that's more eloquent of rage than any teeth-baring snarl could be. Just malevolent patience. No threats. No point to it. Just waiting for Teo to make himself useful, or depart. He nods once, in return.
"I told you about the Company before," Teo starts, slowly, "and you heard about them again when we fought the Vanguard. Sponsors and partners of Homeland Security. They're the ones who designed the supervirus, and invented one of the Vanguard operatives who was part of Ethan Holden's cell.
"Tyler Case, Niles Wright, the hacker known as Robin Hood, former President-elect Allen Rickham, and HomeSec Agent April Bradley have thrown in their lot with a man who's trying to protect the Company. Unfortunately, that man is the future incarnation of Doctor Edward Ray. You probably remember— he's Evolved. Can predict probability, and he's already met us. You, me, Phoenix. We're known quantities to him. Chances are good that he already knows every fucking move we've made and will, and every single one of those crazy names I just mentioned are pretty fucking powerful Evolved.
"So there's your first few clashes of priority." There's a vague motion of his hand, sketching out the tangle of invisible threads around Felix where he's standing. "HomeSec's secret subfaction has a new set of patron saints that happens to be murderers and terrorists. Supposedly, their interest in the Company is heavily oriented around a hate-on for another fledgling political power. Any questions so far?"
"I….there's a preacher who has visions. Wright went to him. I went to ask questions, and he gave me a vision, as well. No Wright, but Ray was in it," Fel looks exhausted. "I saw Case the other day, when I'd been canvassing in Chinatown. He fucked my powers up - I screw with metal. I'm on suppressants, at the moment," No wonder he looks so awful.
There's a reflexive curl of Teo's trigger-finger at that: recoiling against the automatic urge to reach out to somebody in need. Occasionally, now and then, he defers to someone who doesn't want his help and he's well aware that if he tried to touch the— erstwhile speedster now, ability or no, he'd lose his hand to his wrist. "He switched your ability?" he inquires, his brow furrowing. "I— this has happened to a few others. With who?"
"Wait, switched?" Felix says, looking to the kitchen, and moving to pour himself aglass of water. "I don't know there - the girl. Logan's…..well, not Logan's, I don't think, now. The girl from Staten Island," He's got a bit of aphasia, apparently. "The one who watched over me when I died,"
That's news to Teodoro, if nothing that changes the broader scope of the board. "I remember the one." He studies the older man during the protracted moment that he spends shuffling off to the kitchen, his pale eyes sliding out of focus— at least on anything near enough to be actually seen. "Which Wright went to him?" he asks, finally, reaching over his shoulder to pull the hood up over the roof of his head. It will protect him from nothing his skin couldn't have taken, but his paranoia feels better for it: having his face hidden.
Felix looks at him for a moment, as if perplexed by the gesture. "The one from the future, I think," he says, musingly. "Threatened, but didn't hurt him. Apparently the preacher gave someone else a vision about him that was used against him, and he didn't appreciate it."
A long breathe eases out of Teo warm between his teeth. His eyelids shutter halfway down over his eyes, a drowsing variant of pensive that lasts only about two seconds. Restless again afterward. His shoes squeak the floor as he trails haphazard footsteps around the living room, careful not to touch anything in this pristine museum exhibit of honest — 'honset' — cops' domesticity. "What are you going to do?"
"Call in HomeSec to help us catch Wight. He took out a whole set of Evolved cops on his own, so it won't be a random collar that gets him," Fel says, quietly. "I honestly don't know what to do about the rest. From what you say, the Company is the lesser of several evils."
There's a perfectly eloquent grunt of disagreement before the verbal reply. "You forget: Wright's boss wants to get in bed with the Company. Trying to save it from destruction. I don't know what murdering his childhood mob has to do with that, but it's hard to guess around the long-term plans of somebody like Edward Ray.
"As the Vanguard found out." The spidersilk of alliances and battle scores is too complicated to track. The shadowed half of Teo's visible face buckles under a grimace. "The cyberpath I know is going to look in on what's up with Edward's and see if that leads anywhere. Your vision anything I should know about?"
Felix shakes his head, wearily. "No. I haven't puzzled it out yet. It concerns another cop I know. A detective Myron. Look out for him, if you can. He's good people."
"You're adorable," Teo says in a voice so dry it's probably leeching some of the comfort and humidity out of the air. "Spitting on me and mine in one breath, asking for favors the next. I'll see what I can do, but you should probably talk to him yourself. He isn't the only one about whom Sumter's given fucked up visions." Whatever that means. His eyes skate past clean walls and solid furniture, narrow on the glass of the window, looking like a thing gone feral since the last time he'd been indoors. "The other big fish in the pool is Pinehearst.
"Some— bio-engineering corp with a bone to pick with the Company about the experiments they'd conducted, among other things. Be careful around them. They say they want Phoenix to become publically recognized for that shit against the Vanguard, which is one thing they shouldn't know about. They also know Liz is one of us."
"Your issues with me are personal, not the Department at large. He might be someone you can talk to, and you all have resources we don't. Or don't dare bring to bear," Felix says. Teo's annoyance seems to roll right off. "Pinehearst, huh?"
There's a list of Teo's head, though he doesn't turn around to make a face to go with it. "Your issues with me are professional," he points out flatly. His word choice may lack for accuracy, but 'professional' seems to circumscribe Teo's moral sponsorship of Gabriel Gray, compulsion to defend Eileen, and bring bombs and time-traveling samurai to Moab Federal Penitentiary. "Far as you're concerned, there's nothing personal about this, except that you won't shoot me in the head.
"I'll keep Myron in mind. You should tell me what you saw, if you're serious." His neck torques to offer Felix a brief profile, a sidelong glance from beyond the threshold of the kitchen. "Pinehearst."
Fade/paused indefinitely.
