Participants:
BJ NPC'd by:
Scene Title | One For Three And Counting. |
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Synopsis | BJ cambria and Alicia are found thanks to Murdoch and his ability, and Bolivar. |
Date | September 25, 2009 |
New Jersey - Monmouth
An desolate ghost part of New jersey, that's where everything so far seemed to be leading them. By them, that meant Minea, Murdoch and Officer Rodriguez-smith and his dog. His name had been on the case file about BJ, the missing child, and frankly, his dog would come in handy. Minea had asked that he secure a piece of her clothing for logan-rose to smell, just in case. She had managed to snag something of Felix's and a call to the Guiding Light had managed to secure something of Josephs as well. The three individuals who'd come in contact with the deceased owner of the finger.
So far, they were finding nothing, arriving in unmarked vehicles and everyone told to wear plain clothes today. The less screaming visually of "Law enforcement" when coming across potential HF hideout, the better. Only concession was that there would be back up ready, if they needed it. The three separate bags of clothing items dangling from her hand, her customary three weapons on her person though only the tranq gun visible. "Rodruigez. Lets try someone elses smell again" She should have brought the telepath but she'd resisted. "Billy Jean's"
Murdoch can't help but look the slightest bit professional. Honestly, he has nothing in his closet that doesn't look like it belongs to a Capital-S suit. Still, he's not in blue or anything, his long coat a somber grey, to match his hat, hiding his shoulder-holstered standard issue Glock, as well as the stun gun he has attached to his belt. His expression is intent, eyes sweeping over the abandoned buildings, looking for something that jogs a memory. Not his memory, of course, but one belonging to the deceased Jim Dannigan, former Humanis First member and second rate murderous, kidnapping bastard. The first rate spot being reserved for one Emile Danko.
Thematically speaking, there's a lot of angry gay cop going around lately. Not that Bolivar is generally anything else, only, it's been an exceptionally shitty few weeks and it shows if not in discernible differences in his permanent scowl or the huddle of his small shoulders underneath his denim jacket, then the attitude of the tiny, curly-tressed Welsh spaniel skittering her trot at his heel.
Logan Rose is typically pretty good at maintaining her girlish good cheer in spite of her master and companion, or the presences of explosives, weapons both discharging and still, bigger dogs, bellowing traffic, et cetera, but there is nervous, frenetic energy to her gait, the swivel and snuff of her face. Too much misery has presided over her humans, lately. Despite the toll it takes on her sensibilities, she's prompt and professional about butting her nose against the small yellow shoe that her master wordlessly holds out to her nose.
Her tail straightens, hesitantly, waves its ostrich feather shag gently through the air once, twice. Her ears shift fractionally on the sides of her head, and she swivels her snout in a circle, considering.
…the missing kid in question looks, in the words of her father, a hot mess. But she's not hot. She's a tad cold, depending on her buddy Alicia for body heat at the moment. Her clothing dirty and a bit ripped in places and she's huddled up somewhere away from people and things, curled up with Alicia and singing softly to herself. After all…music is what feelings /sound/ like and she feels really bad right now. But mind over matter! It is nap time, after a nice dinner of what she's pretty sure were earth worms, or so she hopes. "Little bunny foo foo, hopping through the…zzzzz…" Billy Jean, is not fond of singing Michael Jackson songs to herself half asleep. In her huddle. In NJ. Over ----> there.
Not much talking. Don't want to alert the unfriendlies that a finger gave them away. Satisfied that the dog is smelling the shoe, Minea moves forward, looking around. Looking for things that are out of the ordinary, out of place. Signs that there has been activity and people storing kidnapped people somewhere.
So when there's that sound of something, Minea holds up a fist, other hand going to her waist and the tranq gun there. "I hear something"
When someone hears something it's instinct to ask 'What?'. But that usually prevents you from hearing what there is to hear, so Murdoch keeps his mouth shut, ears perking in hopes he'll catch what Minea has caught. Noting Minea's caution, his hand moves to his own stun gun,
She hears something. Bolivar doesn't hear anything, except maybe the crescendoing thrum and buzz of hot adrenal anger inside his head, critical mass reached after weeks of numb routine, desiccated crackling paperwork, stagnating silently in the monochrome of Raquelle's peripheral vision and little Diana's silence. There's an intake of breath, a razor-straight jerk of his shoulders.
"The fuck you heard something," says the least productive asset to that venture in the world, loudly, "Why the fuck are we out here? Why didn't you fucking report whatever the fuck skinny Anglophile grandpapi found with his motherfucking mutant gene cancer cam? You know, I read your psych profile, gringo," his eyes refract light like a hyena's, stare at Murdoch out of a face ugly with anger, scars brindling heavy around one edge. "There's an eight-year-old girl missing and you're jerking off your worthless bullshit iss—"
Logan Rose barks, her diminutive white feet locked still on the concrete, head pointed with the acuity of a compass needle down the way that Minea had been looking, listening. Abruptly, she rears up, snapping her leash taut as she waves her little raspberry footpads enthusiastically. There. There. Bolivar stops with his jaws splayed around the next syllable of what he'd been saying, his brow buckled in consternation, train of thought derailed, overturned, on fire.
…Alicia probably is starting to get on edge, lifting a doggie head but BJ is trying to tug the head back down while going 'shhhhhhhhhh' and so on as she freezes up and starts to sing louder. "It's getting hot in here!" - What? Her mental list of songs is limited.
"Shut the fuck up Rodriguez, or would you rather be at a fucking desk shoveling paperwork. Think I haven't thought how futile it is, running around the god damned Ruins with a teep? Or Staten Island? I got Ivanov kidnapped, and this-" Minea's fingers make quotation marks. " Mutant cam gave us the best lead that we have been getting at all. So shut up, respect Detective Murdoch and go see what your dog has found" Because the dog was scenting the little girl and … she's barking. Barking and there's.
"Christ. Murdoch, call in backup. Bolivar, someones singing some Justin Timberlake and I think we're about to bring something more than sexy back" Minea takes off then, in the direction of the singing, tranq gun out and pointed down.
"Billie Jean Cambria?" She calls out, tentatively, waiting for bullets to fly.
Murdoch's hand is off the stun gun and at his cellphone in an instant. He flips the display open and flicks to the relevant number. "We need some more officers and an ambulance," deciding that the condition of the hostage, while hopefully better than Officer Harrison's condition, may not be tip top. He gives their location and then pockets the phone, "Give them half an hour. We're in the midst of nothing. The bastards chose their location well, certainly."
The fact that the white man isn't even going to dignify Bolivar's outburst with direct address would normally instigate further attack, but Logan Rose smells something, Minea hears something, and all of Bolivar's outbursts have been fuelled by a certain anxiety after what this something could be.
He gets his own gun out. Glock, company standard, no taser-stunner-whatever bullshit, unsafeties it, but keeps it low, too, as he starts off following Dahl at a pace brisk, not much slower than the woman's own, despite that she has a considerable number of inches on him. The spaniel scurries along at his side, keeping her line out of the way of his scratching shoes, tongue lolling excitedly.
Was that her name? Billy Jean Cambria starts to get to her feet carefully, resting a hand on Alicia's head before coaxing the dog up on her feet and then turning to glare towards the voice. "YOU AREN'T GONNA GET ME!" She calls out. "I'M GOING HOME AND THE POLICE ARE GOING TO SPANK YOU!" - Just so they are clear.
"Billy Jean, my name is Minea Dahl. I'm with Homeland Security. We've been looking for you. We are the police." The tall brunette calls out, approaching the area, the alley that the young girl had hidden in. Unaware of the big black dog. "I have Officer Rodriguez-smith, and Detective Murdoch with me. If you want, I can toss my badge in for you to look at?" Smart child. Very smart child. Minea looks over to Bolivar and then to the dog, looking to see if he has any better plan.
"What in God's name are you planning to shoot with that?" Murdoch says, eyes cutting over to Bolivar's sidearm, voice pitched low so as not to interfere with what Minea is trying to convey, "Don't risk a ricochet that might harm the hostage. Put the damn thing away." Whether or not the older cop would have been quite as acerbic before Bolivar's polemic is unclear. The chastisement is ostensibly nothing personal. He turns and checks the perimeter, taking out his stun gun and disabling the safety.
For a moment, Bolivar's plan consists primarily of willing his brain to work again. It's stalled out, ratcheting and whirring nonsense inside the socket of his skull, even with Logan Rose jouncing and clinking like loose change on the end of her lead. His throat moves. He fails entirely to respond to Murdoch's address, either to put away his weapon or to explain his rationale or sniper credentials in some nasty choice of words. Even the verbal vehemence of his normal reflexes have gone dead.
"Beej?" Pet names are like code. Difficult to encrypt or replicate by the enemy. Or else, it was instinct, and Bolivar calls her 'Beej' because of course he'd call her Beej. "Sweetheart— it's Bolivar, I was… um, your dad's waiting. Are you alone?" An unwonted croak insinuates itself in the normal tenor register of his voice. He clears his throat and shifts the gun in his hand, like he just remembered he has digits attached to his knuckles. He sets his shoulder against the bricked wall. "Any bad guys around you?"
"…" BJ's nose wrinkles as she adjusts the skirt she has made out of the bag that used to be put over her head (8 years from now her dad will be bitching that the skirt is too short, for now it is just cute and tragic okay?!). "I'm 8, I don't know how to read a badge!" She yells out but she's edging forward a bit, hand resting on the bear that is her doggie companion, holding her back for now…or something. Then she hears that familiar voice and her eyes go wide as she starts crying and blinking but trying to be tough. A sobby response. "I knew it!" Alas, the werewolf has come. A few steps forward and then she shakes her head. "NO, those sons of fitches won't get me again!" Unfortunately, she doesn't know she's supposed to use the b word there, and for now she doesn't need to know.
Minea's fingers don't relax around her gun, though her fingers shift a bit as she glances from the alley in question to Bolivar with a 'well' sort of expression on her face. She cranes her head to watch BJ and her inching out of the alley and smiles. "Hey Beej. Wild trip huh. We got an ambulance coming so that we can get you looked over and taken back to your dad. I'm sure you miss him a lot. Can you come out all the way, so we know you're okay?" Minea keeps talking, because talking might, should put the young girl at ease. "We can go back to the car and wait, I have some chocolate bars there. Bet they'll taste real spectacular huh?"
Murdoch relaxes somewhat. The girl has emerged, and seems to be in fairly good health, insofar as that can be said of someone who has survived kidnapping. He frowns slightly, making no further complaint vis a vis Bolivar's weapon; that would be beyond tasteless right now. He does another perimeter check. After so much futility, it almost feels as if this has tied up too neatly. His literary sense, if nothing else, leaves him suspicious.
Suddenly: no more gun. Bolivar's hands are free, Logan Rose wound around his wrist, instead, and both dog and master scrambling forward to check on the midget while the white folks worry about chocolate or literary endings. He winds up scraping his knees up on the asphalt, scooping at the girl's tiny torso with canvas-bundled arms. He squeezes her, puts his nose in the unkempt scraggle of her hair.
Little concern afforded to Alicia despite her size and potential aggression from the probable nightmare of trauma she, too, has managed to survive. Logan Rose takes over canine relations: whimpers once, barks again, prods the larger animal's black chin with her face. "Gringo lady's gonna get you food. The old bird's one of the heroes— you don't have to worry about him. He found you. Your daddy's missed you, and Dee-dee's okay," and it goes on, gruffed under his breath, a continuous litany of promises Bolivar finally dares to think he can see through.
After just staring at Minea with wide blurry eyes and patting her horrible mess of an almost fro of tangled up hair, BJ just licks her lips and blinks slowly and gives a tiny uncertain nod before just half rushing into Bolivar's arms and clinging to him with both arms and legs like a spider monkey and she's latched on pretty tightly. Now? Now she can cry, and sob hard, and leave tears and snot and…dirt where she buries her face against Bolivar's shoulder. She really has nothing more to say now.
Alicia doesn't eat Logan Rose.
'Lets get her to safety, god only knows if they're out looking for her" She's safe in Bolivar's arms and that gets a look from the brunette. There's a grateful look thrown Murdochs way. This is him, this was all him. His ability and the lead that it provided. "Lets get her to the car and get her warm. Dog can go in the back" The dog. Fuck that's a big dog. Minea tucks away the tranq gun so that she can coax and get the dog to follow. WHy the girl is latched onto the dog, they'll find out later, but for now..
For now, they're 1 for 3. God willing, they'll be 3 for 3 at some point.
What secrets remain locked up in Billy Jean's head are going to the subject of much speculation both at PD and among the nebulous forces that left Minea Dahl and Leland Daubrey with fingers and vigilante objectives.
Such inquirers can go away and fuck themselves a bit, though: Bolivar needs to facilitate the processes of chocolate and getting the girl back to her daddy. He aborts, with only the slightest of squeaks, out of his querulous burble, lifts the girl off the ground. He's little for a grown man and she's pretty big for her age, there's a nested gun poking her arm and he's having difficulty breathing between raspily sentimental external and internal pressures in his lungs, but they make it work.
"We should head over to a hospital, get her checked up." He steadies himself, moves toward the car. Clicks his tongue, once, requesting Alicia's cooperation. Logan Rose orbits faithfully.
Murdoch watches the reunion with an impassive expression. This is, of course, something of a front. He's not particularly good at showing visible signs of sentiment, and his skill at /suppressing/ any such signs is commensurately great. Instead he extracts his phone once more and makes a call, canceling the request for an ambulance. "Faster to just drive her. Agent Dahl, we can afford to let Rodrieguez-Smith drive her to the hospital, no?" Why waste taxpayer money? The additional cruisers, however, he keeps on call. "We should sweep this area from top to bottom," he says, "A strand of hair, a bit of skin… anything that might help." This job isn't done, not until Minea's 3 for 3.
'Sounds good" Her keys are dug out of her pocket, the SUV a few blocks over. They're offered to the tiny latino. "Take her to the hospital, get her father called in, We'll get back up out here. Try and find out from BJ everything you can and call us with the information" She's fine to let Bolivar take the cake on this, be the savior and the man to get the recognition for saving BJ. "Come on Vincent. Lets earn our keep"
There's an instant hesitation, Bolivar's eyes on the keys, his mind's ear loud with the clamoring uncertainty that— this— is all a little bit off-procedure, and what if they summarily vanish on him, as weirdo mutant and HomeSec agents are wont to do?
It's probably better if Dahl and Murdoch both come, explain themselves, but Bolivar has better eyes in his head than the average human being and you'd have to be blind and really, really stupid not to realize that this gift horse had come trotting from strange places. It isn't in him to forget that it had carried his girl back, too.
There's a string of monosyllables, roughly affirmative. He takes the keys, jingling in the scar-roughed mess of his hand, folds them away neatly into his palm. "I have your number. Thanks." The latter syllable, coarsely grunted, is angled sort of— past Murdoch's left shoulder by a few degrees and inches. He moves away, fallowed by a rickety cadence of dog paws.
Murdoch's reply to Bolivar's vaguely directed gratitude is no more than a nod, a gesture that is less perfunctory than stoic, if such a distinction can even be made. He glances, very quickly, at BJ. Questioning her wouldn't be necessary, he knows, if he could just take her hand for a moment. But that suggestion, right now, would be the height of poor taste. For now, the walls will have to speak. He moves over to Minea. "If we find Ivanov, I expect him to buy us dinner. He's led us on a merry damned chase."