Paranoid Hallucinations

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Scene Title Paranoid Hallucinations
Synopsis Felix's delusions solve the entire case for him. They do it with shadow puppets!
Date February 22, 2009

Felix's Motel Room

It's a generic room in a generic midline motel. The kind of room that generally travelling businessman. Not posh, but not seedy. Serviceable. There are, despite Fel's residence here, almost no signs of occupancy. A few suits in hanging in the closet niche in the back near the bathroom. Some clothes in the dresser, as well as a box of ammo for the .45, and a tightly sealed flask of vodka in the mini-fridge….and the little safe in the back corner has the Walther locked in it. He owns little, and the vast majority of that is still in storage. A scatter of books on the table by the window.


It's been a long day, and Felix is visibly weary as he keys the lock and slips in, locking the deadbolt and the security latch behind him. He smells of smoke, and drags his feet a bit over the carpet, already removing his tie and shrugging off his suitjacket.

The voice that emerges from apparently nowhere is, doubtless, rather an unpleasant surprise for the man that steps into the portal. "Ivanov," it observes flatly, "Long day, I take it?" It's a hollow voice, subtly echoing like one heard down a corridor or from the depths of a whole, and seems to be more ambient than directional. The true source of it slips from beneath the bed in a darkening of the light there upon the rug, spilling to mingle with the agent's shadow once again.

"Shut up, Ivanov," the voice snaps with a hint of heat—shifting about him with the light as he moves, always lingering near and yet seemingly sourceless, "We aren't exactly long on time here, and you're not going to find me by looking around. I'd like to get back to Abigail as soon as possible, so can we give the entire 'who are you, where are you' Abbott and Costello routine a pass?"

"I've no evidence you're anything other than my own paranoia. I'm looking for Abigail," Felix says, trying for calm, even as the muscles in jaw and throat tighten. "What do you want?"

"I rather thought that I'd tell you where she was," observes the voice rather dryly, "Although if you'd prefer, you could give me Agent Parkman's address, and I could go bother him, instead. You do seem the sort that's likely to run off solo and get yourself maimed like Deckard did, after all."

"Well, Jiminy Cricket, I'd be delighted to hear where she is," Felix says, more softly. There's nothing to aim a gun at. "What happened to Deckard? Is he in need of help?" I am Jack's Smirking Surreality.

"The last I saw him he was hiding underneath a cot trying to keep his empty eyesocket from bleeding," replies that disembodied voice—biting the words off, anger threaded through them, "In the cell next to Abigail. It's funny, really. You'll laugh. She was about two floors down from you and Laudani's room at the Dagger."

Oh, that's bad. Only a handful of people know Felix was ever there. Felix's response is a thread of whispered, heartfelt Russian obscenities, directed at himself rather than his nebulous informant. "I'm not laughing," he observes, tone as flat as a Kansas highway. "But I am grateful. The Dagger, huh? And why did they do that to Deckard?"

"I would wager because he was there looking for Abigail." The agent's shadow sways ever so slightly back and forth despite the fact that he's standing still, the frustration in that echoing voice carrying through into movement there, "Everything going on, on this island, it's all tied together… the Pancratium, the Dagger. Logan. Muldoon. Sit your uptight ass down and let me give you all the fuel you should need to set this whole god-damned pile of shit we call Staten Island on fire, so I can piss on its ashes."

Wow. My paranoia's talking to me, and it solved the case on its own. I'll have to leave off taking my medication more often. Fel's expression is openly wondering, but he does sit down without further protest. There's nowhere to direct his gaze, so it darts around the room, looking for some betraying ripple in the air.

The disembodied voice — or auditory hallucination — waits patiently for the agent to take a seat before the shadow-play begins, so as to visually illustrate the explaination.

A foot-tall female silhouette moves across the wall, and then figures from all sides rush her, leaving darkness spread across the wall for a moment before spilling away in a shift of the light, leaving a box-like shape within which a figure seems to weep. "People disappear. They take them — men, women, they seem to seek out Evolved, particularly. The women are given to Logan to be broken. I don't know what he does, exactly, some sort of… psychoactive chemical touch, perhaps, that makes them want to please him. He can also negate abilities, to an extent."

"Not just purely for the fighting ring, then?" Felix says, quietly. He's settled the pistol comfortably in his lap, listening.

"No." The caged girl scatters to either side, forming the stirring mass one might assume is a crowd, as two bulky figures seem to clash at the heart, "The Pancratium is only the other half of the equation. They move Abigail out to heal the fighters, once they're injured — " One shadowy fighter falls, and the others fade, "—so they can keep fighting. They're pandering to the lowest common denominators of mankind. Blood and sex."

Felix nods, still watching the shadow play, like Saint Clare and her visions of the Mass. "Why are you telling me this?" he asks, as an aside, as if his invisible confidant might be sitting beside him. The room is cool, almost chill, but he's still sweating. Please don't let this be merely a delusion.

The question brings silence, as the shadow play fades away for a moment, leaving merely a shadow there against the wall—shapeless, like the line of a door or a shelf, but there's nothing to cast it. Then that unseen informant replies quietly, "I can't claim to stand amongst the righteous, Ivanov, but there are lines not even I'll cross. This needs to end."

Felix's gaze slowly tracks to the shadow, and Fel narrows his eyes. "That I can hardly argue," he says, lightly. "I'm grateful. If there's anything I can do for you in return…."

"I don't know where to find Parkman—she named him. I presume you can?" A moment's silence, before the shadow says cynically, "Only one thing, Ivanov. Don't ignore this, don't leave it on some paper-pusher's desk to think about in a few weeks. We aren't animals, and I won't let us be treated like such."

"Parkman's Homesec. Walk into any Registration office," Felix's voice is acid, but his ire's directed at that particular branch of government, rather than his informant. "I'd head out there tonight, if I thought I could spring the both of them alone. I owe her what remains of my career, not to mention my life, several times over. It is personal,"

"I'll pass, thank you," replies a voice bone-dry to that acid commentary, "Don't make Deckard's mistake, though. Logan's not a man to lightly cross. Just you and your gun alone won't do shit to help them. I'm guessing that there's no way in hell that the authorities will come to Staten in force, given the way things stand — even at the word of the media's latest darling?"

Felix snorts at that. "Pff. Not a chance. I know a few people who might be able to help, though. They won't come in force until we've got the National Guard on our side, and god only knows when the politicking will get them there. And who's Logan, when he's at home?"

"The shit-stain that owns the Dagger," the disembodied replies in a low growl, shifting into a silhouette of the man — not that silhouettes are terribly good for identifying people, mind, unless possibly you're used to looking at things in term of their shadows. "He can negate abilities, and apparently he's also basically a euphoric drug in a can. From what it sounds like, most of the whores are addicted to it."

The shadow fades back to a neutral state once more, "Very well. I have others to talk to. When the time comes, though, will you be there, Ivanov?"

"Never doubt it," Fel says, tone apparently casual. But his eyes are very cold.

"Psalm fifty-eight ten." The shadow bleeds down the wall, spilling across the floor as if something was passing before the sun, "Remember it."

Beneath the door. Gone.

"He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked," Felix says, to empty air. And then he smiles.


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February 22nd: The Green Mile
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February 22nd: For Flint
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