Participants:
| Scene Title | On a Cold Winter's Night |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Sky finally touches base with Griffin on Christmas Eve, after the events of Silent Night II |
| Date | December 24 2010 |
Prospect Park is a 585-acre public park sitting square in the heart of Brooklyn. While the borough around this verdant region of lush foliage, tall trees and rolling hills is prospering, Prospect Park has become something of a ghetto within the city's bowels. Brooklyn has grown steadily following the destruction of Midtown, but not everyone in New York City can afford to live in Brooklyn, and those that cant have resorted to vagrancy across the city. Some brave the southern edge of Central Park on Manhattan, but the lion's share of mainland New York's homeless are here in Prospect Park.
Where once was a blossoming park pulling itself up from a nadir of abandonment and disuse in the seventies, Prospect Park has sunken back down into a state of disrepair and squalor. Tracts of forested land are laden with blue tarp tents, fire pits and makeshift shanty towns. The park is no longer officially maintained by the state of New York due to budget constraints, so the park's once pristine boat house and other facilities have been made into a makeshift homeless community, such as they are.
The Prospect Park Zoo, which once featured over seven hundred animals, was closed shortly after the bomb and the facility rests in decay in the park behind rusting iron gates and sturdy fence.
Skyler walks home from work, the long way. Now, for most people this would be dangerous. Okay, it probably is dangerous for Sky too. But the dangers of the city seem small now, compared to the danger of being blown up, and she wants to spend Christmas with at least one of her friends from the previous year. Before everything changed. Before she stopped letting the world go by without her and became part of it again. She slips her phone out of her pocket and calls a number she's thought about for a while but hasn't called. Also reaches into the phone, and makes an "official" query to the cellular network, asking where the receiving phone's GPS locator says it is.
With a bag slung over his shoulder containing clothing for him and his son, Griffin is slowly making his way out of the ruins at a fairly quick pace. His combination Violin and Cello case is carried along with him, and he's walking as fast as he can, greatly assisted by his vectors in the chilly weather. His destination is to make it north, to the safe place that his son is staying in.
As his phone jingles, he turns his eyes down to the phone, brows raising. Unknown number. He'll ditch the phone quickly enough, certainly. But…who knows who this could be. After a moment of thought, he pauses in his stride, clicking the 'talk' button and raising it to his ear.
"…Hello?" The greeting is gruff.
Skyler's phone snarfs the coordinates. "Hey Griff. It's me, Sky. Listen… I was thinking of spending Christmas with some folks from the old neighborhood, and I was wondering if you're, you know, busy." Keep it innocuous. If the transmission is monitored, it meant they knew his phone number already and might be gathering his network. So she plays dumb. Besides. Comes down to it, she really would like to see him, before some government agency disappears him. The stuff in the news…
There's a moment of quiet, before Griffin nods slowly. "Skyler, yes?" He goes quiet for a moment. "I don't really have much in the way of time. I'm just…on my way out." He tilts his head to one side. "I can meet you at the shanty village I showed you, if you can be there in five minutes. But time is not on my side, and I can only spare a small amount of time. Gotta go for now."
Paranoid Griffin doesn't leave Skyler a chance to talk. The line clicks rather suddenly, and the man tosses the cell phone away. He can purchase a new one when he returns. People don't need his number, anyhow. Then, he's on his way at a swift pace, making his way toward the homeless shanty village he mentioned.
Skyler turns and heads to the nearest place with taxis and gets a taxi there. The place she lived for oh, a week before deciding it was too doomed to stay, and before her teeth started bothering her so much she had to go. Reminiscing for her isn't that healthy. It's too easy to recall why she came in from the cold. It's too new. Five years she lived like this, and now? People there don't see her as one of the family anymore. They hit her up for change, and they ignore her. It's been a while since Griff hung up on her. She looks around.
No tech. That is the rule for Pollepel Island, for the most part. It is thus that Griffin slinks forward from the shadow of an empty shanty as she approaches, gesturing her in. "Join me." The most eerie part about this, however, is the fact that Griffin's eyes no longer have their pupils, solid bluish-white and glowing.
He's not taking any chances tonight.
Once he's certain he's gotten Skyler's attention, Griffin slinks back into the shadow of the shanty, settling down onto his rear and waiting patiently for the woman to join him.
Skyler isn't especially freaked out by the eyes. It's no worse than hers when she's tinkering in some computer or other. The flicker. The steady amber glow when she's really sucking in the data. She finds a place to sit and draws her coat around her a little more. She's really not dressed for this sort of thing much. "Before we start, Griff, I have one question. I was at D'Sarthe tonight. I want to know if you had anything to do with that? I know what they say. But I'm asking you.
It is in silence that Griffin regards Skyler, his brows arched faintly. It takes him a moment to finally come to answer, as well. "…I was there with my organiza— no, my group, would be a better way to put it. We had prior intelligence that Humanis First was going to be attacking, and we were there to stop them. Perhaps even capture one of them."
The man frowns. "The feds apparently didn't know that there was going to be a bombing. They were there for me. The damage to the building— that was caused by FRONTLINE-OS when they were attempting to apprehend me. I caused no damage, and the only person I attempted to harm was one of the fine folks in the Horizon armor. All other damage was caused by the government."
Griffin arches his brows. "But then, I'm an easy scapegoat."
Skyler nods. "I believe you." she says simply. "I think you'd tell me the truth either way, too." Sky goes out on a limb there, because she never really knew Griff all that well. "I kept the poor fucker from blowing up." she says at last. "Warren disarmed the damn thing, but I stopped the remote detonator from firing." Sky shrugs. "For what that's worth. You're sure it was Humanis First?"
A quiet nod. "Our sources were not incorrect. Humanis First was behind that bomb, from what I've heard." The man peers quietly at Skyler with those glowing eyes, which resemble dim flashlights in the shadows. "Warren…as in, Warren Ray?" He arches a brow, quietly putting two and two together on his own. He rests his chin against his knee, peering thoughtfully at Skyler.
"You have an ability. What is it?" He tilts his head toward the woman, brows raised as he considers the woman.
Skyler nods to both questions. "Remember how I was fixing phone and stuff in the park?" she asks. Apparently it's rhetorical. "Normally you'd need a work bench full of diagnostic gear to do that. Board level repair on those things. I don't." She looks into the snowy sky. "I'm a technopath, Griff. I could feel the circuitry the guy was wearing. It called to me, like every other complex piece of electronics in the room. I analyzed it, made a schematic of it for Warren, and then excused myself so I could focus on the remote detonator and the biomonitor. The rest was so simple I couldn't control it. I don't do relays. I'm a technopath, more or less. I'm finding out mine is a little different from other people's, but it's close enough.
Griffin tilts his head to the side, watching Skyler thoughtfully. "A technopath." He repeats it thoughtfully. This would be his first time actually meeting a technopath, really. He smiles, and gestures to himself. "Telekinetic, here. Mine is different than you'd think, too. It takes the form of arms, is the best way to describe it. You just can't see them."
The man tilts his head toward Skyler. "So, Miss Skyler, what can I do you for? And perhaps, once that matter is attended to, I can perhaps ask you a favor. In return, I will offer my services whenever I am able." His services involve violence, usually.
Skyler shrugs. "Just company, and I wanted to know if it was true about what you supposedly did. I was thinking to spend time with folks from the old neighborhood, you know? I don't have much in the way of ties to my new life yet. A boyfriend who's around sporadically at best, is about all." She smiles. "Shared history there. I seduced him when he was sixteen. Not that sixteen year old boys take much seducing." Her face grows serious again. "I hear wild-ass rumors about the stuff that goes on in this city. You know? Terrorist organizations, and now I'm told there are evolved who can travel through time. I was wondering if this suicide bombing was predicted that way? Normally that level of intelligence is… tricky at best.
Griffin watches Skyler thoughtfully. "Well, you're certainly talking to a wanted terrorist. I'm sure it's all over the place that I'm connected to the awful Messiah. Honestly, we're trying to turn over a new leaf…change things." He listens further, his brows raising. "There are all kinds of abilities in this city. People who can control water with their minds, earth manipulators, people who can manipulate pain, people who can erase your memories, people who can read your private thoughts. I've met two of the ones who can travel through time, and I've traveled the streams of time myself." He goes a little quiet there. "It's…amazing." Was that a sad note to his voice?
Skyler looks at Griffin, and closes her eyes as though her very worst fear has been confirmed. She inhales slowly, trying to catch her breath. "Can you change the past that way?" she asks. "I mean… if you can, why hasn't anyone gone back and mugged the guy who blew up the city, for pete's sake? Or the President, or whoever else is partially responsible for all this suck?" She gestures to the world in general. "It's like one of those movie where everything went wrong here and our time travelers just have to go back and fix that one event. Well? Why haven't they?
"Because…things could be so much worse." Griffin says this quietly, turning his glowing gaze down to the ground. "There are those who fight to change the flow of time…and then, there are those who fight to preserve the flow of time. It's better…not to change things. Or that's what they say." He raises his eyes back up to Skyler. "I wanted to save my wife…and I would love to go back and save my sister. Take her and my son away before…"
He goes quiet. "There's a man. Colonel Heller. He is the leader of FRONTLINE-OS, which is based out of Staten Island. He murdered my sister in cold blood, after she made tea for him. My son, who she raised in my absence…he heard all of it." Griff frowns at the woman.
His voice gains a cold note to it. "I need information on him. I don't know if you can— but all info you can get would be appreciated. Detailed as possible." Then, he lifts his eyes up to the ceiling of the tent. "And perhaps a bit of help on one other subject."
Skyler nods slowly. "I'll see what I can dig up. Anyone I shouldn't talk to about him, besides, like the DHS goons? I sometimes find that when I start from scratch, my subject and the persona asking about them know each other way too well, and it trips me up. Also, what other subject?
"Keep talk about Colonel Heller between me, yourself, and Warren Ray. I've already spoken to Warren." He inclines his head toward Skyler. "Don't tell anyone you're on his trail. I don't want him to know what aces I have up my sleeves." He leans back, glancing out of the opening to the tent with a soft sigh. Then, he reaches out, taking Skyler's hand for one of those gentlemanly greeting kisses on her knuckles like he did the first time they met.
"I need help getting Heller off of my trail. I need the time to turn around and watch him, instead of being under his eye." He runs a hand through his hair.
Skyler nods. She leans close and kisses Griffin's cheek softly. "I'll try." she says quietly. "How do I get ahold of you if I do find something? Your phone still thinks it's at the dock or something."
"I'll be in touch with you when I return. I'm leaving for a little while— hiding out like I should be, and being a father like I should be. I have a traumatized son who is going to be all alone for Christmas if I don't." He accepts the kiss to the cheek graciously, though nothing further is pressed from that. "I have your number still. Since I've gotten into the habit of throwing away cell phones, I tend to keep an address book these days."
Then, he's pushing to his feet, assisted by those vectors of his. "I'll be back anywhere from a week and a half to two weeks. I can't be certain."
Skyler nods. "You be careful. I don't want to hear of you being "detained", or dying in a blaze of glory." she says. "So don't bust hump trying to get hold of me. These things take time.
The man nods slowly. "Indeed. I won't get caught before I speak to you again." A faint, halfhearted smile is cast to Skyler. "You take care, Skyler. I'll see you when I see you." The man lifts his hood up over his head, and…suddenly lifts off of the ground. After a faint smile is cast to Skyler, Griffin turns, and promptly shoots out of the opening of the tent, disappearing into the night.
He has places to go.