Participants:
| Scene Title | Penetration |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Calvin's penetration ruins Yana's dress. Odessa is scandalised. |
| Date | May 26, 2011 |
Despite it's name Coney Island is a peninsula, and only formerly an island. This small piece of real-estate is the southern-most point in Brooklyn, with beachfront property abutted by the Atlantic Ocean. A neighborhood of the same name is a community of 60,000 people in the western part of the peninsula, with Seagate to its west; Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach to its east; and the Gravesend neighborhood to the north.
This area was once a major resort and site of amusement parks that reached its peak in the early 20th century. It declined in popularity after World War II and endured years of neglect. Since the bomb, Coney Island has fallen into a tragic state of disrepair, most prominently evidenced by the closing of the amusement parks on the island, notably Astroland and Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park. The latter of those two serves as a rusting and monolithic ferris wheel that overlooks the decrepit state of the island. It's once bright carnation red paint peeling to reveal rusted steel.
Much of the amusement park areas surrounding the beach are now closed off by chain-link fence, though some portions have been battered down by vandalism and portions of the closed amusement parks are now used by gangs and other unsavory figures as meeting sites. With the NYPD stretched to its limits, police rarely have the availability to respond in a timely manner to this small and remote peninsula, making it a relatively dangerous part of Brooklyn.
As soon as the day had begun, an emergency meeting of the 'Triad of Supereminence' had been called by one Dr. Elvira Blite. Recent.. events and unforeseen circumstances have deemed it a necessity to get the small group together, and discuss just where to advance in the current venture. The time would be in the evening, and the place would be Coney Island, which has it's own mystique for hosting shady meetings of even shadier characters… At least in the movies. Amidst the ghost town of near carnival-like structures, and the low lighting bathing the area from the street lights above, a vehicle, smaller than a limo approaches. Lexus, Black, tinted windows, sleek but not too flashy.
The headlights pouring across a few of the booths where tattered tarp hangs and billows in the breeze, and then darkness as the vehicle's power is cut. The rear door opens, and out she steps, the elegant piece of work that she is. Yana, wearing her signature color of a rather clingy and close dress-skirt, shoulderless, a little low cut, and her trademark sash tied about her neck and her arms. She apparently has plans of luxury for the evening. Her expensive shoes clatter across the worn wood as she makes her way to the designated meeting spot, the hall of mirrors inside the abandoned funhouse, that looks far more frightening now than it ever did when it was alive.
The woman is still internally fuming from her meeting with Brennan, and you can bet that the man's picture is posted in the center of her mental dartboard as she ponders away, tossing her poison tipped darts, looking for one that will hit his face…
There's a driftwood fire burning near the entrance. Why not? The human eye needs light to see and in the evening haze of this Thursday the 26th there is less to be had than usual. Orange light licks sallow across a thousand faces, broken glass carpeting virtually every turn of the maze from wall to wall. Where it's still standing in the frame, cobwebs and graffiti and mouldering decay blot across what little of interest there is to reflect.
Calvin stands with his hands hunched into his long black coat, shadows blocked in harsh around the length of his face where he waits a ways inside, summoned the way demons sometimes are. Occasionally, a smear of electric blue about his eyes marks his presence as one local hoodrats'd rather not trifle with.
A meeting with the boss is not how Odessa wanted to start her day. Though going to the zoo sort of made it better. But as the day wears on, and she's gone through subsequent re-listens of the voicemail left for her by her colleague, she finds her mood turning more and more sour. How did this happen?
Some of them don't have cars either, (or people to drive vehicles for them) and have to rely on public transport and then walk the rest of the way to the meeting place. This does nothing to improve Odessa's spirits, arriving fashionably late, as the saying goes, but only by virtue of being the last to arrive at the designated time. She started the day in her own favourite colour, but for this meeting as traded her canary yellow sundress for a simple, dark heather grey sweater dress instead. It's a monochrome palette when paired with snow white hair, dark stockings, and black and white damask patch over one eye, trend broken by a pair of orange spiked heels. The staccato they make when she walks is satisfying. She will take what she can get on that front.
It's that staccato that gives her away (intentionally) as she steps over shards of glass inside the mirrored hall. "What the fuck, Yana?" she demands impatiently, arms crossed over her torso. She looks like shit and she hasn't bothered refreshing her make-up to hide the fact that she looks like shit. "What possessed you to bring my name into your conversations with Clendaniel?!" Straight to the heart of the matter on this one.
Behind the dim lighted darkness that is cast by the fire, a pair of eyes, human in shape, but inhuman in their coloration and the fact of their sickly green luminescence. They grow larger towards Calvin, indicating their drawing closer, along with the telltale click of high heels and the occasional crunch of glass beneath her dainty feet. This is before the light reveals it to be Yana, using the sight aspect of her ability, just a general viral scan out of habit really. The woman walks across the wreckage like she were the goddess who brought it all into ruin, taking a refreshing stroll in the garden of her destruction… Not yet, but soon, if she can help it.
"A true gentleman, awaiting the arrival of a lady with patience. A quality that I can appreciate in a man, Mr. Rosen," she still uses that name. "…Normally. As it stands right now, the gesture brings a few unpleasant memories to mind. But I appreciate it none the less. Thank you for coming." The woman affords him a nod, rather grateful indeed, to be honest.
Her mood is almost shattered like the glass on the floor as Odessa arrives and starts things off in a rather.. harsh manner. The f-bomb she drops brings a twitch to Yana's face, as she has had quite enough of people using vulgarity towards her in the past week, to last her a lifetime. But still, she is a bit at fault here, so she owes the woman the right to vent a little, letting it stand as is. "Please, Odessa, calm down," she remarks coolly, adjusting her sash. "I had no idea of you had any associations with Devon, and I simply had offer up an explanation that the vaccine was being worked on. There is a credit to your skills that accompanies your name, and since you were assigned to assist me, there really was no need to hide the fact that we were working together. Had I known that you had dealings with the…"
For a second, Yana's mouth is about to say something possibly unsavory, as her hesitation and the sour look on her face would indicate. But she swallows, and continues more gracefully, "…young man, I would have left out that minor detail. As it stands, I don't think we have actually established just what information we need to be keeping to ourselves, and what information is alright to let a little light onto. I prefer not to be too secretive, as that tends to arouse suspicion. Hiding in plain sight is something I do best."
A tilt at Calvin's scruffy chin is all the acknowledgement Yana seems likely to get for her gracious — ly informing him of his unintentional creepiness via timeliness. He looks at her too, but it's not an expressly nice look.
Not like before.
For all that his eyes glitter with scalpel-sharp lucidity in the murk and the firelight, there's an air of disinterest about him that fails to flatter. Like a father taking his twin daughters to a Justin Bieber concert or someone forced into the same bus seat as two five year olds fighting over a glittery rainbow pencil, he stays quiet. Even once he's raked a look over Odessa from nose to toes and set to shuffling in his coat after a smoke.
He even winds a step or two deeper down the hall while he lights up, by all indications content to let them sort it out between themselves.
"Calm down?! If you hadn't mentioned my name, I wouldn't have Brennan breathing down my neck!" At least, this is what Odessa believes. It makes it easier to hold her ire. Or maybe it's the ire that makes it easier to hold this opinion of how things would have been different had her name not been uttered to Devon. But seething is cut short by a coughing fit that has her pressing a handkerchief to her mouth and checking the pristine, if crumpled, white fabric for traces of red.
So far, so good. The fact that she isn't coughing blood anymore stays some of the anger. Odessa does have Yana to thank for that much at the very least. After a deep breath, she addresses her co-conspirators, "Brennan thinks you're looking to defect, Yana. He thinks you're aiming to take your research find other avenues. He doesn't yet realise the full extent of what we're doing, but he has his suspicions. He's asked me to ascertain what your next move is and to keep him informed." She fixes her gaze on Calvin then when she's finished speaking. The urge to insist this is not my fault fought back, but only just.
Back to Yana, she asks, "Do you have anything yet? I've already started to work on what I've got," and it's possible Odessa's using the strain she's contracted herself to work from, "but I imagine you work faster. How quickly can you develop a small batch of vaccines? I have… interests that need protecting." And again, she finds her self drifting to watch Calvin's movements. She's keen on not disappointing him. Given that he's a Sheridan, that's virtually impossible.
The nature of Calvin's greeting goes notice, and noted by Yana as she accepts it for what it is, as well as his silence for now. You'll never hear her claim to have messed up, and be serious about it, and in this case she really didn't. She just ran into coincidences that she couldn't really account for in all of her grand scheming. And Odessa has a right to be angry as well, so this is also something that she can accept, and she will of course have to make it right.
"I'm not looking to defect from the Institute, Odessa. I did however want to keep it out of there eyes as much as I possibly can for the sake of Calvin, who.. as we both know.. if we were doing our devoted jobs, would have him dead upon the first sight of him. The opportunity to appear on Mr. Russo's show, and discuss my research was just to be a glimmer of hope placed in the eyes of an otherwise terrified population that will no doubt turn this virus upon Evolved, which could result in a sheer catastrophe. I don't think any of us are quite prepared for an outright war." She remains easy and unchanging, though not unconcerned or without remorse for what has happened. At least for Odessa and Calvin.
"Devon was the closest connection I had to get to Bradley Russo, but it seems that his immature zealousness got the better of the situation. Plus the fact that he associated closely with Dr. Brennan." A deep breath is taken into her lungs, and released as a sigh of difficulty, before she turns her eyes to look at the woman, then Calvin, "For this, I apologize. As a further show of apology, Odessa, I am going to place a bit more trust in your hands. My.. biggest and closest kept secret." Her eyes turn away from the woman, and she wanders over to one of the mirrors that is still in something of a decent condition, to where she can view herself, adjust, and primp as she talks.
"I don't just see and eradicate viruses, as I initially told you. I control them: alter, create, transfer, remove, identify.. you name it, I can probably do it. I'm certain it isn't hard for you to put two and two together with that information. Though the release of the virus was actually not my initial idea." Her eyes look into the mirror, shifting to Calvin for a moment, "Neither was the adaptation to turn it totally against Non-Evolved. But.. It was something I could get behind, trusting in the vision of one who obviously shared the types of sentiments I do quite often."
Finished in her primping, she turns to look at Odessa, "As for the vaccine, I can have one made for this half-month's mutation within a day or so, in time to meet Dr. Brennan's deadline, but it will quite simply be a temporary solution, as the virus will only mutate again, and another will need to be developed. With your help, I believe we can keep up a steady facade of finding a cure, while the virus runs it's course a little slower than it is now. And.. of course, if there are any that you wish to place on a list of safety from it's effects, simply let me know, and I'll fix it."
When Odessa looks at Calvin it's to find that he's looking back at her, eyes standing out like coals polished in the semidark. He has been ever since she coughed, sickled dreads swept clean away from the oranger ember of his cigarette. Listening.
Or at least present and sober enough to register what's being said.
It's a long beat before he looks back to Yana, heightened focus temporarily stayed by the amount've time that passes without another cough.
Talk of vaccines is taken in with more of the same silence. Not quite stony, but oppressive in its way. Third pole of the tent not doing its job, letting canvas press and smother in such that it might occur suddenly to one or both of them that Mister Rosen never asked for any cure — temporary or otherwise — to be concocted.
More truth-telling instead evokes a smokey sigh through his sinuses. Sounds more patient than he looks like he feels, with sleeplessness bruised in easily as thick as his latest application of kohl.
Sobriety is where he went wrong, tonight.
Calvin's gaze is held for the length of time it takes Yana to explain her stance, and where she intends to go from here, and how she intends to make things right. It's only once she's finished talking that she holds Odessa's attention again. "If it's all the same to you, I'll just have you supply me with injections off the books and I will make sure the people I care to protect are safe." The other doctor's jaw sets tight, having little intention of giving over the names of the people she intends to look after. Though for Calvin, it shouldn't be hard to guess who tops her short list of names. It's just the minor detail of being unable to actually contact, let alone reach Bella Sheridan.
"And… it might be handy if I had a few doses for… myself," Odessa admits softly. Though the glass of a nearby mirror may be shattered, the frame is still intact and it makes for a convenient spot to lean when the white-haired woman feels lightheaded. There's a beat that passes long enough for a wheezing intake of air that doesn't quite make it all the way to a cough, but is threatening to get there. "You're wrong about something though, Blite… One of us here is prepared for all-out war." And she might throw an accusing look Calvin's way if she didn't start hacking into her handkerchief again.
One vaccine is hardly a cure, as far as Yana is concerned. It is more like taking a cold pill, which relieves the symptoms for a little while, but the threat is still quite present. Aside from her being on a bit of the same boat as Calvin, her reasons for releasing the virus mostly stemmed from the desire to test the scope of her power, as she normally does. And in these experiments of hers, it sometimes becomes necessary to choke it back a bit, create a bit of balance so that it doesn't get out of her hands. If there is one thing Yana hates more than anything in this world, it is to not have control.
Truth be told, if you were to ask her about it, Yana looks fabulous tonight. As she should, seeing as how she has a date later, which is the reason for her dressing up this evening. Brennan might have told her to forgo her personal activities, but it isn't likely that she'll listen, given that she really doesn't need to spend the time developing anything as she lead him to believe.
Odessa's cough does cause her a bit of concern however, and the woman of white hair finds Yana looking at her with those sick green glowing eyes of hers, checking her over for any new viral activity, which she is sure she was quite thorough in purging from her system. Satisfied that the woman is just going through recovery, she nods at her words, "Of course, that is what I meant. It would look rather strange if I were to do the same thing to them, as I did for you. I'm not ready for that type of exposure.. You'll have it in the morning after tomorrow. As well as the same samples of the virus that I provided Mr. Rosen. For your research purposes of course, as well as delivering it to anyone that you.. might see fit. I am a firm believe in revenge." she grins.
Her indication of Calvin, opens the door for her to address her curiosities on something she wished to know quite some time ago. "You have an interesting point, Dr. Price.. I've been quite curious myself as to wonder…" she turns her gaze to settle upon Calvin, "…Why?" she asks more to him, than in general. "I'm simply curious as to the details of your reasons for wanting to commit genocide on this grand a level. I won't judge."
"Evolutionary bottlenecks are occasionally necessary to make way for better-equipped opposition that does not have superior numbers on its side. Particularly," says Calvin at length out of his silence, quite level and plain for all that he's describing inspiration for murder on a massive scale, "when natural selection is all but nullified by technology, modern medicine and social organization."
He smokes a minute, then, temper smoldering away at a fuse whose length he feels is very generous behind the taste of tobacco on his tongue and nicotine's insufficient rush. "Unless, of course, you fancy being politely rounded up into ghettos and selectively bred out've existence."
Visible irritation stings through, finally, in a stabbing poke-y-flick at the end of his smoke in Odessa's direction to clear ash of the end before he finally asks: "Why is she sick?"
Odessa's also a fan of revenge, but being as how she's been told twice that she meets an untimely demise by virus (initially her own manipulation of Shanti, then the first outbreak of the H5-N10), she finds herself reluctant to want to come in contact with them outside of a clinical setting. Not to mention outside of one where she's actively working to create a vaccine or a cure for it. Call her selfish, but she's already managed to pick up one of the various strains when the three of them were convinced she wouldn't.
Continuing in this trend of selfishness, Odessa isn't sure she wants an answer to Calvin's question, either. And so it's her turn to return his look with one her own silence. At least until she finds herself looking at her shoes, suddenly timid. Nervous. "Don't answer that," she instructs the virologist.
"No no," Yana shakes her head at Calvin, "I was just curious. Quite honestly, I was just wondering if your motives had any similarities to my own. It's a bit of a relief to know that they are. Though I suppose I fancy myself in a bit more of a… dominant position— when it is all said and done." This is spoken in the honey flavored venom that comes from her tongue. The woman even raising her eyebrows at the the apex of her words for effect. "But either way.. don't worry. I don't have any intentions on curing this thing. Just simply.. treating it, more or less. With false hopes a cure. You'll get your world, Mr. Rosen." She puts so personally, possibly appealing to his more arrogant nature.
The question of Odessa's illness prompts Yana to look at the other woman, almost for clarification on the situation. As Odessa gets a little sheepish, Yana grins at her next words, "She's clean." She says simply at first. "Cillian 2.0 is just as much out there still as Cillian 3.0," her and her little names, "You know? The one that was delivered to your little guest in the trunk of your car?" Yana takes in a breath, and speaks out the next sentence in a sigh, "She somehow contracted the double strain, which effects both evo and non evo. Probably through contact of someone walking around, as it's been out longer, and it is similar to the more recent strain, save for that one aspect. But I saw to it that it was removed, as I promised, and will provide her with the means as to keep from getting it again." Though.. Yana has her suspicious as to if her information is correct. She has decided that the origins of Odessa's condition are.. inconclusive as of yet. Tests to run and all that. But Elvira Blite doesn't make mistakes, so she must be right.
"But, Dr. Price does bring me to a rather.. interesting topic. Ontop of your vision, Mr. Rosen.. I have a bit of a dream, which I hope to one day accomplish, however unlikely it is, or however long it takes, I desire to.. push the evolutionary scale up a bit, so to speak, through.. viral methods, if possible." She's obviously talking about instilling Evo abilities in non-Evolved. "And in working with Odessa's knowledge of genetics, I believe I could be a step closer to that goal, however small it might be." Or.. she could never achieve it in her lifetime. But we all have dreams.
If Calvin's mood might've been called 'tiredly tolerant' before, it takes a slow but deliberate turn for the blacker the more Yana goes on.
Arrogant's about right — his scruffy chin lifts a shade and his nostrils pull thin and he bristles, as Sheridans do. Subtly. Quietly. And nastily. Dominant position and don't worry and you'll get yourrr world, ~Mr. Rosen~ and being plainly lied to at Odessa's request over sweet venom and implied pats on the head.
But he hears her out without batting an eye. Like a gentleman, all the way up until he bites at his cigarette, nudges the flank of his coat aside and draws his sidearm cleanly out've its holster. For old time's ridiculousness, he even rolls the gun over on its side when he fixes the bead round abouts her gut — gangta style — and pulls the trigger.
The muzzle blast is very loud over the chitter and spin of the spent casing, for all that the semi-automatic is only a 9mm. Mirror panes rattle in their frames and dust lifts and Calvin rankles his nose as he steps away from the fire, boots stirring through ruined glass and whorling sparks. "Choose your side," bitten nasal-like over his shoulder through the ringing in his ears for Odessa's sake, he looks to be leaving. Gun in hand.
"I'm so sick of all this megalomaniacal bullshit. Don't fucking touch her."
What did she just say? Odessa won't even look up as Yana gives her explanation anyway. She exhales heavily, somewhat annoyed by the disregard of her request, though it isn't immediately apparent at to why she attempted to be evasive in the first place. And hope, a glimmer of it, is snuffled out just as quickly as it comes, with a bang!
Odessa's hands are held out in front of her, reflexively and entirely without effect. Her chest is heaving, jaw slack as she looks on in horror between shooter and victim. "You didn't have to do that," she insists.
Frozen for only a few seconds longer, Odessa looks to Yana and shakes her head. "I'm sorry." She'll send the driver in after her, but she's picked her side. And she's following Calvin. Without question.
In all of her arrogance… out of everything that could have happened… All of her calculations, plans and devices, Yana could not have seen anything like this coming. Nor was she expecting it. Which makes it all the more surprising when it happens. It is certainly a feeling that she never believed she would have to feel, being shot. Though that is something that comes when you play around with dangerous fellows.
Pain doesn't strike her immediately. First she is afflicted with a terrible sensation of cold striking out from the point of impact, all through her body, followed by the actual physical jolt from the explosion of the device, which leaves her to crumple forward onto the ground, almost crashing into the mirror in front of her. Yana is even able to wonder as to why this is happening before the pain even sets in. She didn't lie to him, so much as not believing what she saw when she looked into Odessa initially. It would be like Yana to think about how to explain what has happened, but she doesn't even know what just happened to be honest.
He. Shot. Her. This is.. unbelievable!
This goes beyond… anything, and everything that.. that.. He just—
It leaves nothing left but the pain, everything else is just.. No, there isn't anything else. Whatever else she is meant to feel is pushed aside to make way for this new sensation. One that leaves her choking on her own scream, muting it inside of her throat as her hand balls into a tight fist, near where her head hangs to the ground. She can't think of revenge, she can't think of betrayal, she can't. Think. Of anything. For once in her life.
So much so, that their departure goes unnoticed, and their words fall upon deaf ears. Yana will probably not come to her senses once again, until she is screaming and bleeding in the car.
"She'll survive," says Calvin, who's gripping the gun hard enough to imprint the grip into his palm as he strikes off across the carnival grounds with Odessa in tow. The driver's there, somewhere, waiting like a little doggy — might've even already heard the shot. In the off chance he didn't, Cal pop-pops off two more into a brambly patch of dead brush — all he can do to keep himself from flipping the sedan like a fucking turtle. Still angry, teeth shown white, eyes pitched dark. Tension's locked into his spine and stiff at his shoulders, hot gunmetal pressed briefly to his temple until he flings it off hard to the side as well. It lands in a puddle with a nasty-sounding hissss.
SUV's around here somewhere.
There is a lot he isn't saying. And it is all in angry italics.
Too many panicked gasps brings on more coughing, but Odessa tries to keep it quiet as she can, unwilling to draw more attention to herself than is necessary considering the circumstances. She doesn't even glance back to where Yana lays bleeding once her back is to her. Afraid that if she looks away from Calvin for a moment, he'll be gone. Or turning on her next. (Is this what other people feel like around her?)
"I know," Odessa utters in assurance that Yana will live. "Cal, please calm down. I'm with you. Always with you. I said it. I meant it. You didn't have to- You could have just-" Her mouth shuts with an audible click of her teeth together. Nervous babbling.
Oh, fuck.
Christopher is up and out of the car after the first shot. Shots being fired don't usually happen with Dr. Blite's meetings, and he isn't sure exactly what is going on, so he is up and out to give a check. And when he sees Odessa and Calvin exiting without Yana, well that just kicks it into high gear for him. His concerned saunter quickly turns into a panicked jog, not offering the other two so much as a second look as he shoots past them into the funhouse to find a wounded Dr. Blite. When he does find her, hunched over as she is, the woman is shaking, partially from the cold, partially from the pain and partially from the… laughter?
Looking up at the tall man, as he enters, there is a slight bit of a surprised and maniacal look upon her face as she holds up her hands, which are bathed in her own blood. Having your brain broken like this has a strange effect on one such as Yana. And her tousled, broken smile is accompanied by a single sentence before Christopher snatches her up.
"He ruined my dress…"
"This isn't about you. Jesus — rollerblading Christ. Just — be quiet. Hold your fucking breath or something," sounds awfully like an order for all that a fleeting pause steers him off less polite language. At the very least, it's an imperative that she'd be well-advised to follow along with once he's rounded the corner where Ryans' baby sits under a lamp and pops the locks with a stir of his right hand through his pocket.
He waits until she's on the passenger's side to drive a fist against the vehicle's armor flank. Then again, until his knuckles are numb as they are raw and he drags in a stiff breath to open the door and lever himself into the seat with.
He's quiet once he's clapped the door shut after himself, three more breaths drawn in slow before he keys the ignition and turns off the radio. Quiet time.
She doesn't hold her breath, but Odessa does keep her jaw clenched to keep from saying anything else. Even an apology. She climbs into the SUV and pulls the seatbelt around herself, wincing every time his fist connects with the vehicle's panelling. She keeps her head down then and focuses on her breathing, counting beats.
In, two, three four.
Out, two, three four.
Anything to keep from opening her damn mouth to ask something stupid like then what the fuck was all that about? Or where are we going? Odessa simply folds her hands tightly together in her lap, fingers crushing the wad of cloth up tightly into her palm. Only the briefest, most fleeting of glances shot to him out of the corner of her eye. She doesn't even realise she's trembling.