Participants:
| Scene Title | Open and Shut |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Felix and Leland isolate Deckard for questioning, but don't get far before it becomes apparent that there's some bad blood muddying up the effort. In the time it takes them to regroup, Deckard manages to get free. Shenanigans ensue. |
| Date | March 7, 2009 |
The New York Police Department Head Quarters is an old stone building, rennovated many times over the years. The plaster walls are not as cracked and in need of repair as the various Precinct buildings around the city. The fluorescent lights give the room a rather sterile glow. Old posters, civic reminders, duty rosters and newspaper clippings are tacked up on the walls, rustling every time one of the doors opens. A high, wooden desk sits on the north wall, manned by two clerks, who records all visitors and arrests.
The way out to the street lies to the south, while doors to the offices of the Head Quarters lie to the northwest.
Deckard's been here before. Oh, not this exact interrogation room. But aren't they all the same, really? One way mirror out to the hall, sturdy, battered table to which he's cuffed by one hand. Uncomfortable chair. Buzzing fluorescent lights above. A pair of chairs across the table. The stale scent of cheap coffee and fear sweat.
The door creaks open, to admit Felix and another cop - about the same height, but with a good bit of muscle on him, compared to the Fed. Fel may have won Best in Show, but this one is far more of a junkyard dog, despite the neat suit. Felix himself is not as chipper as one might expect, having scored the coup of bringing in a very wanted man. "Good morning, Mr. Deckard," he says, flatly. "Let me introduce my colleague with the New York police, Leland Daubrey."
Leland may be a junkyard dog, but he's a fairly relaxed one. He hasn't been sicced on anyone yet. Gripped in a strong hand is a mug of coffee with a cracked handle, a few dribbles and a scratched off police shield emblem. His expression is bland, like he'd rather be somewhere else. "Deckard," he says. The two syllables of the man's name drop flatly off his tongue.
The rattle of cuff chain away from table is a light, insectoid series of clicks while Deckard tests distance and range of motion for the twentieth time since he's been locked in here. The distance: not very far. The available range of motion: also not very far. Bony wrist turned over a few degrees within the metal lock, he frowns past the polished sheen to gears ground safe and still inside the locking mechanism. In short, he isn't going anywhere. Fast or slow.
He doesn't look too bad, really, eye patch and the sunken, crusty-edged pit beyond that aside. The sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled up to his elbows. He's been relieved of suit coat, holster and belt, but allowed the luxury of shoes and pants, which was nice of whoever processed him. He's had a decent night's rest and a few pills. Maybe Uncle Sam's not such a bad guy after all.
You know, except for the fact that he's chained to a table for something he didn't do for a case he's only tangentially related to. There's nothing written into the lines of his weathered face but ill-subdued dislike for Felix's entrance, that one blue eye scoring harsh from one pig to the next without any change in attitude. Morning.
Let's try nice. As nice as Felix can manage, which is far from saying much. Fel drops into the chair across from Deckard, regards him across the table with something like chagrin. "Deckard. We both know most of the charges you're wanted for are bullshit," he says, even as he drops files on the table. "A frame job. Help me establish your alibi for the supposed arson, and I can likely keep you out of HomeSec's grubby hands. As it is, we're having to do some fast footwork to keep the Gestapo from shipping you off to mutant Gitmo. You know if they get you there won't be any jury trial, no lawyers, no nothing."
Leland takes up a spot just behind Felix's left shoulder. He watches the one-eyed man with his two good ones and tips some of the diesel fuel coffee into his mouth. "And no way out," appends the Bostonian cop. "So. It'd be in your best interest to play ball with us."
Click, click, click, click. Deckard tests the length of his leash one last time, long fingers splayed before the right hand settles down onto the table corner opposite the left. "I'm merely a humble butler." If he's heard correctly, he doesn't give much indication beyond, perhaps, some darkening about the lines across his brow and a private sigh. This is going to suck. So much. "Just — as a matter of personal curiosity, have you had a chance to speak with our mutual friend yet? Because I'm willing to bet he'd love to hear your rationalization for raping me like this. I mean — if your cock was any further up my ass you'd be cheating on him."
Leland gets a flat, forced smile. Hi.
When Felix is really, really angry, it's the lack of expression that's disturbing. And his face seals over like a winter pond - Leland will recognize the signs of genuine rage being forcibly strangled. "Because I don't answer to a CI, no matter how helpful he may've been in the past. I answer to my fucking bosses, and they want to pillory you. Do you really want to get brainraped by Homeland Security? Whatever secrets you're trying to keep from us - they won't need to beat it out of you. They're just going to take it. Take it all," he says, forcing his knuckles to loosen, to unclench that grip on the arm of his chair. "I offered you, more than once, a chance to be an informant. Have our protection. And instead, it's slow suicide. What'sthe point, Deckard? What're you getting out of this? Every time you're offered an out, you turn up your nose."
Leland tilts his head, or rather, turns slightly from the shoulders to look at Felix. Mutual friend? But his eyebrows only go up for a moment and his attention returns to Deckard. Well well. He didn't realize this was personal. Rather than show division in the ranks, Daubrey keeps his thoughts to himself and casually sips his coffee.
'Oh you,' says the tilt of Deckard's brows, condescension traced harsh into crows feet generally reserved for less venomous contortions of expression. He's every bit as furious in his own ophidian way, cold-blooded and calculating behind the unblinking line of his stare across the table. "Guess you should have thought of that before you arrested me. With — the," his left hand twitches against the table in a casually aborted gesture, "secrets and everything." Two way mirrors are not much of an obstacle for x-ray vision. He turns his head to squint that way, forced humor showing thin over more heartfelt tension underneath. "If I help you, I go away forever. If I don't help you…I go away forever. We're talking the difference between various circles of Hell, here, and if it's all the same to you, I'd like to keep myself out of the ninth one whenever someone gets around to killing me."
There's a couple standing beyond the window. A female and a male. And if Deckard's x-ray vision is fine enough to trace the shapes of the badges they bear, a cop and a Fed. "It's the difference between having a chance to defend yourself and get a light sentence in a jail that people actually know where the fuck it is, and being renditioned into god knows where and never being seen again, is what it is. You help me, you don't go away forever. With your power being relatively harmless, you can be somewhere that they won't be drugging you our of your gourd and experimenting on you. Who are you trying to protect, Deckard? Phoenix? Teo? If you go into HomeSec's custody, it's all blown. Help me out here, and I can still do something for you."
Take down a terrorist organization? And this is a bad thing? "Forget it, Ivanov. I know a guy on self-destruct when I see one." He seems very laissez-fare. The coffee is sipped again. As if he has all the time in the world. "What's it matter to us if the info gets forced out his brain or whether he gives it up willingly?" A beat, "Y'know, Deckard? I had a look at the horse pills they got you on. Guessing it's for whatever the hell happened to your eye. Where you'll go if you don't talk? Bet they won't have any problem keeping your candies from ya."
What. The naming of names catches Deckard off guard. He looks immediately to Leland, slate blue rinsed pale under flourescent light while he ascertains that there is bone and muscle to go with the physical existence of him, standing there. Jaw moving on the verge of an answer, he listens before he looks back to Felix. There's a moment's silence, then a narrowing of his eye while his left hand plays its fingers across the table once more. "They're saying I killed a family of four. Better read the file again, boss. They don't send people who murder children to jail for 'a few years.'" Leland gets another, dirtier glance on a delay for the mention of pills, and he exhales a long breath, having held the one before it too long. "I'm going to kill you if I ever get the chance. You can add that to my list of charges. Menacing, I think they call it."
"And you and I both know you didn't have jack shit to do with that," Felix says, in a hiss. Wait, he's there trying to convince a perp of his own innocence? What sort of down the hole Wonderland interrogation is this? He sits back in his chair, throws up his hands in despair. "You're not going to have the chance," he says, a sneer lifting the corner of his lip. "I bet you good money you won't even remember your own name after a few weeks in there, let alone me. And you sure as hell won't breathe free air again in this life. Christ, Deckard, if what you wanted was suicide by cop, you should've tried to run. I coulda shot you, saved the taxpayers some money and the City of New York some trouble."
A slow smile spreads across Leland's features. But the smile doesn't reach his eyes, which remain cold and indifferent. It only lasts a moment before his entire face has schooled back into a rock-hard look. That's all the response Deckard gets from him. If he was looking for a verbal sparring match - well, that's Felix's job.
"And…if you didn't want to ruin my life over one case, you shouldn't have arrested me. Not that there's much about it worth preserving, in your defense." The last too snidely irritable to pass for real reassurance, Deckard sinks back into his seat, hatred grooved deep in a voice that's already rough with a very generalized type of unhappiness. "Maybe Agent J'll be there. Maybe he can give me happier memories. I mean, they can't all be as big of assholes as you are."
"I like to think I am unique in that regard, yes," Felix says, wryly. "I don't get to decide who I'm sent to arrest, Deckard. I am not the Director of the FBI moonlighting as a brick agent as a vacation from officework. Well, it was nice knowing you. By the way - I'll let it be known among the general population of whatever fine institution you end up in that you were in fact a Federal informant. Oughta make life a little more interesting. Who's this Tyler Case that he's worth twenty to life?"
Leland is starting to think he should've been briefed better on the situation before walking through the door. Like the fact that the suspect seems to have a hate-on for Felix. Not…that he's especially surprised. It's a hazard of the job. And, well, both of their personalities. "Either you've really got nothing to live for, or you know something we don't. Either way, we'll know which soon enough." He lifts one shoulder. "Show us that you can cooperate and we might be able to pull some strings. Prisons're not all the same, bud. Makes a difference where you get sent up."
"I dunno. You tell me. You're the one who dragged me all the way over here to get me brainwashed over him." Free thumb hooked up to pick at something between his teeth, Deckard looks away again, back to the mirror. A long-faced, one-eyed baboon staring blandly back at today's visitors to the zoo. Eventually the black of his pupil constricts to refocus upon the reflections of Felix and Leland respectively. "Assuming it's even a 'him.' Kids these days with their crazy names."
"Well, what we want him for is apparently being around while people get more or less pureed. I don't know if he's a power in his own right, or if he just makes other Evolved's power go haywire," Felix says. "We suspect the latter." What is that, the royal We? The collective hivemind of the Bureau? "And Daubrey is right."
Leland shifts from one foot to the other and gives Felix a meaningful look. It says 'can we talk outside?' without being obvious about it - without giving Deckard the satisfaction of knowing that the non-Evolved cop wants to talk to his good buddy about his…tactics. It's the fortnight of clusterfucks at the NYPD.
"Mmm." It's interesting to think about, to be certain. Increasingly distracted with God knows what, Deckard's tuning out bit by bit. Maybe with trying to imagine what the next couple of weeks are going to look like. Bad. Probably. "What would happen to you? Maybe your heart would explode. Or your lungs. It'd take a little longer for you to die that way."
Felix doesn't reply. He heaves himself up and heads for the door. Apparently Leland's signal did not go unnoticed.
Leland does his best to make it seem like the signal to leave was Felix's idea. He only moves to follow the Fed out once he's already moved towards the door. He spares a brief glance back towards Deckard. He doesn't offer any explanations. If Felix wants to give one, he can give one.
It takes the upward movement on Felix's end to bring Deckard's face around again, eyepatch black opposite a look of blank inquiry. Done already? Really?
Well, no. The bodies beyond the glass have gone, and now it's just Felix's many-fractured skeleton gesturing at Leland's sturdier frame. But no one approaches to take Deckard back to his cell. Odd that the regalia of their jobs are visible to X-ray vision - there's Felix's Sig riding under his arm, a little block of machined steel, and the badge gleaming in the shelter of his ID case in a jacket pocket. Once he's safely shut the door behind them, Fel looks expectantly to Leland.
Once the door has shut, Leland levels a look at Felix. He doesn't say anything for a long moment. Instead he crosses his arms over his chest. Then, "What the fuck was that?" He looks unimpressed. "That mutant cyclops is glarin' at you like you crushed the head of his puppy. And you're saying he can tell us about Phoenix? And this is a bad thing? And who's Teo? Jesus christ, Felix. You coulda filled me in before I walked in there blind. It was all I could do not to question you in front of him."
Meanwhile, through the window, Flint Deckard is visible making a half-hearted effort to test precisely how well the table has been bolted down to the floor.
"I arrested him. And the motherfucker is convinced I'm the source of all his problems, apparently," Felix says. "No, he's not a better source than the one I have in Phoenix. I don't need him for that, I need him to tell me what the fuck he's doing and what he knows about this Case guy. We've got -another- fucking Evolved serial killer, even if this fool might be doing it purely by accident. This is how many in one year? One got taken down, one is still grazing merrily in the green meadows of Staten Island, and now this. Teo is my CI. This fucking kid…..I wasn't that idealistic in the womb."
Leland leans up against the wall and presses a calloused hand to his forehead. "He's not going to give you shit, Felix. He might've talked if someone neutral came in and tried to get shit out of him. He's not going to give us anything out of spite. And it's probably too late for someone else to go in there." He glances back towards the door and sets his jaw, then looks back to the Russian. "Remember what I said about getting too damn close to a case?"
Back in the interrogation room, the chair is tried next. He has to hold out his chained wrist and twist a little awkwardly just to get the piece of shit furniture to wiggle.
Felix strokes his hand over his jaw. It's smooth shaven - that he had time for, if not actual sleep. "Fuck," he says, drooping visibly. "I know, you're right," he concedes, with displeasure, and no real rancor. "Let's go get some coffee, take a break. He can stew in there a little, you can try, if not….well, we palm him off on Metragan," he says, naming another interrogator on the NYPD's anti-terror team. And to Deckard's eyes, well…..the cuffs are hardened steel. But the chain that links it to the desk, not so much. There's a flaw in the link that actually fastens to the screw in the table.
"I'm not going to break him, Ivanov," Leland sets a hand on his hip, then lets a hand drop into his pocket. "I'm associated with you. You heard what he said. Uttered a damn death threat just 'cause I was in the same room as you. Only way I'll get him to listen to me is if I go in there and tell him you're a fuck-up. And I doubt that card's gonna play. We gotta pass this one off." He reaches out and swats Felix on the shoulder. "Next time brief me better, uh? So I can give you my worldly advice before we visit a guy in the hot seat."
Busy as can be in the room beyond this conversation, Deckard is still going. Having dropped back into his seat, he leans sideways to scan over the floor. No scraps of metal down there. No conveniently dropped keys. Bored annoyance hardens into his jaw along with everything else when he sits up to squint back at the locking mechanism again — only this time, his wrist isn't in the way of the chain's base. There's a minute tilt of his head, followed by a stillness, which is in turn followed by a stiff jerk of his arm. No dice. Also, that hurt. After a quick sideways glance through the wall after Sifl and Olly, he brings the blunt side of the cuff down as hard as he can at such a short distance. Once, twice, three times. His wrist is bleeding by the third, but the pain is dull, distant. Someone else's. When he jerks back again with the full force of his shoulder, there's a 'tink' and a little spatter of blood across the viewing window. Deckard's on his feet.
And for the moment, unattended. That's part of the point - you can safely leave a goon chained to a table for a little. The door out…..is not locked. "Oh, that threat was for me," Fel says, as he pours sugar into his coffee. He sounds utterly matter of fact about it. They're a few doors down, still visible through the walls. Directly in front of the door to the room is a cube farm, though there are only a few cops present - looking up and to the left, on the next floor there's a ring of skeletons around what must be a table. Death by meeting. So that's where they all are.
"Doesn't matter. Fact is, I didn't exactly endear him to me. Not enough to get him to say shit to me. Look…" Leland motions towards Felix. "We gotta get him a decent deal on the table, or he's got no damn reason to talk to us. I mean, would you in his position? We need leverage."
Bingo bango bongo doobie doobie dee doo. A glance over his shoulder is enough to determine that no one appears to be rushing after him with guns drawn, so. Important things first. Deckard walks over to the wide span of the two way mirror, summons all the creative energy he can muster, and lifts his bloodied hand to press paired fingers to the glass. A few wide, artistic arcs later, there is a giant stylistically dubious cock there, complete with spiky ball hairs after he takes a moment to consider the sad state of their hairlessness otherwise.
That done, he tips his head up after the meeting going on overhead — feet over hip bones over spine over skull — and meanders his way over to the door. Whoever views the tape of this later is in for a surreal experience.
He doesn't have to test the lock to know they left it open. The knob turns neatly under his left hand while the right wraps around the short chain swinging from it, and out he goes, the snarled end of the popped link poking jagged between his knuckles.
Happily, the cops in the cubes are busy with paperwork; working hard for their donut rations. They don't look up. Fed and bigpig continue to yap over coffee, for the moment, though Fel has put his hand on the doorknob to head back out into the hall. "Leverage we don't have. I don't know what the fuck his martyrdom complex is about. HomeSec is already panting to get at him. If he'd offer some fucking information, we could even argue for catch and release. We need more intel, not more idiots to put in the stocks or for HomeSec to parade around Washington and boast about how they're combatting the Evolved menace," He runs his fingers through his hair, leaving it in disarray. "I'm dealing honestly with him. He's innocent of what he's going down for, and that's a fucking joke. It's like that guy in 'Tale of Two Cities'. Carton."
"Since when does honesty get you anywhere with crooks, uh? C'mon. We should get him moved back to his cell." Leland sets a hand against Felix's back and pushes him gently towards the door. "This is giving me a goddamn headache."
The cops in their cubes might not be paying attention, but sooner or later, somebody along the line will be. It doesn't take a master of observation of the likes of himself to notice a guy walking around with a bloody handcuff on. Deckard's attention turns sideways instead, to Felix and Leland about to do the whole re-entry thing. One deep breath later, he snaps his wrist hard forward, scattering blood in a skippy line over the carpet ahead, between the first set of cubicles. Then he steps backwards, back into the interrogation room to squeeze himself in between the wide open door and the wall.
Fel steps back down the pseudo hallway between the wall that shields the interrogation rooms (as well as the breakrooms), and the end of the cube farm. "Oh, shit," he says, softly, stopping short to take in the apparent bloodtrail. "HEY!," he bellows, making several heads appear over the tops of the cubicles, like a prairie dog town. "Where's my suspect?" He's already pacing into the interrogation room that Deckard has apparently just left.
"Oh fer Christ's…didn't you lock the goddam door?" Leland draws his gun and moves down the hallway, past the interrogation room. "Escaped suspect. Look for a guy with an eyepatch and cuffs on his wrist." He barks out that rather ridiculous sounding order to mobilize the other grunts and detectives. "Lock this building down, now."
The advantage of being able to see through walls is that you don't have to peek around corners all conspicuous-like to know what's coming and when. The instant Felix is lined up with the door frame far enough to be squeezed further in than out, Deckard throws all of his weight forward into it with full intent to crush Felix as well as he can before he swings a chain-barbed punch at wherever his stupid head wound up.
He may be a speedster, but you can catch him unawares. And Deckard has done a beautiful job. There's the thud of the door slamming into him and bouncing back, before that punch takes him right in the side of the head. There's a lovely cut - that's going to need stitches, and without Abby around to kiss everything better, Felix will go to his actual grace with the print of several links left just past his temple. Fel reels for an instant, before his speed kicks in, and he's fully in the room with Deckard.
Fully in the room, bleeding liberally from that scalp wound, and furious. The door is slammed close with a resounding bang that has the cops in the hall pulling their guns out of sheer reflex, before Felix throws Deckard down. "Stay down," he orders, looking quite prepared to continue the beating.
Some young cop down the way announces that he doesn't know how to secure the premises. The drill's tomorrow. Fantastic. So Leland's left to do it himself, with the help of a handful of other officers. He's oblivious to the fact that Felix's getting his head busted in, busy as he is with putting the station into lock down.
So it doesn't take long for Felix to get Deckard flat on his back once he's come out. Is anyone really surprised? Bloody hand held hazily over his chest in the wake of a blur of motion that has literally left him breathless, he has to blink hard to get girders lining back up over their fuzzy duplicates overhead. When he finally does get his breath back, maybe unwisely, he spends it on a coarse, unpleasant chuckle at Felix's expense. And probably his own as well.
Felix is….shaking. There's blood all over the shoulder of his suit, utterly disproportionate to the wound originally dealt. Whatever he was about to say, however, goes unspoken, though it was clearly nasty by the way his lips've drawn back over his teeth. But Deckard is treated to the spectacle of Fel's eyelids fluttering, and all the color leaving his face. Followed by the secondary thud of the previously unwounded side of Felix's face hitting the table as all the strength goes out of his muscles, courtesy of a dead faint.
It's a shortlived victory, since a whole slew of cops comes piling in to subdue the terribly dangerous Deckard. He's frogmarched away, back to his cell, once his impromptu weapon's been stripped from him. Not, however, without one of the stone-faced cops who have him in hand whispering, "Well done."
 March 6th: Phone Call |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 March 6th: Hollingwood v. NYPD |