Participants:
Scene Title | Protective Custody |
---|---|
Synopsis | The morning after arresting Cyrus Karr and Martin Pines, Lucille and Colette go to try and make amends, only to find the situation infinitely more complicated… |
Date | December 7, 2019 |
The butt of a cigarette is thrown to the ground, orange embers snuffed out as a black boot smashes and grinds it into the pavement. Lucille had taken up smoking again recently. Her father wasn't around to frown at her. "You ready?" Her tone is soft and tired, she hadn't slept much the last week, she could go a while without sleep but it had been many years since she had to do anything of the sort.
Not since the war.
"I feel like shit," This whole fuck up makes her think of the war, the endless thought that she would die. That her comrades would die. Cyrus had been one of them. Hands are stuffed into her leather jacket, both women had ridden their bikes over here, the motor vehicles cooling off in the parking lot of the Red Hook detention center. Light blue eyes stare off into the distance, thinking back on a time that she wishes she could forget.
The echoes of bombs going off were always in Lucille's mind.
NYPD Holding Facility
Red Hook, NYC Safe Zone
December 7th
8:42 am
Colette Demsky had been quiet on entering the holding facility. She and Lucille checked their firearms, signed in, and waited while the detainee they were here to see was escorted from his holding cell to a cramped interrogation room. The window in the hallway outside the room is one-way glass, and through it Lucille and Colette can see Cyrus Karr sitting handcuffed at a table, shoulders slouched and a frown spread across his face.
“Beard’s new,” Colette quietly offers as an aside, looking askance to Lucille. She hadn’t seen Cyrus well during the raid on the triad warehouse and now, seeing him handcuffed to a table, her stomach sinks a little. “He shouldn’t be here,” she says defensively, shaking her head and opening the door without so much as a pause.
When Colette enters, Cyrus sits up in his chair and then pauses. He hadn’t expected to see her, or Lucille for that matter, though the bitterness that sinks into his expression is nonetheless there. He doesn’t say anything to either of them, just offers them a heavy and resigned sigh as he slouches back into his chair. Colette lets Lucille in, then shuts the door behind them. “I’m Detective Demsky, this is Lieutenant Lucille Ryans,” she introduces them for procedure, he knows who they both are.
“Yeah,” the introduction elicits from Cyrus, “we’ve met.”
Quiet as they enter, watching Cyrus' every move. No, he shouldn't be in here and Lucille feels at fault, what if she had just let them go? Maybe they would have found them again… it's spilt milk but Lucille might just still cry over it. "…I'm sorry I got you thrown in here." That's as good an opening as any. She doesn't lean against the wall or move to sit. She just stands there, back straight and eyes portraying guilt. "I… what the hell are you doing out here? Bringing Pines??" A look towards Colette. That was a stupid decision, the man was nearly a hundred years old!
Lucille runs a hand through her hair, "I'm gonna get you out of here." There she goes, making promises she has no surefire way of making come to past.
Rubbing the bridge of her nose with a sigh, this wasn't easy already. "You were trying to tell me something after I… beat the shit out of you. Was it about Zhao?"
“Yes it was about Zhao!” Cyrus practically spits his response out, kicking a leg of the table at the same time. Colette jolts at the sudden movement, then eases when she remembers who it is they're dealing with. “Fuck, Pines was in my protective custody. We grabbed him off the street months ago when we found out Mazdak was targeting him. We barely made it, too. But now he's in police custody and is as good as a fucking sitting duck!”
Colette makes a confused face, leaning over and resting her palms on the table. “Cyrus, he's just a fucking radio DJ, he’ll be fine we can put him in protect— ”
“You absolute unit,” Cyrus says through his teeth to Colette, “he's not just a radio DJ!”
Meanwhile
WSZR Radio
Jackson Heights, NYCSZ
There's less dust on everything in the old WSZR building than Martin Pines has accounted for. Stepping through the spacious and largely vacant main floor, he makes his way to the radio booth to find post it notes everywhere in Lance Gerken’s handwriting. Setlists, news bulletins, show promos. The young man had taken it upon himself to run the station while Pines was away. Being back here makes Martin feel nervous, hesitant.
Meanwhile
“What're you talking about?” Colette asks, looking from Cyrus to Lucille and back again.
“Martin Pines used to work for the Company. We found evidence in the database you got at Ross Dam. Your Wireless shared it with us and we spent months trawling it for data on dangerous Company assets. But the Institute… its leader, he'd started to piece together some sort of…” Cyrus tries to make a pantomime for a Rubix Cube with his cuffed hands, “…a puzzle. A mystery. Lucille, something fucking insane happened and the Company covered it up.”
Back straightening, Colette looks wide-eyes from Cyrus to Lucille. “What's Pines got to do with this?” She asks intently.
Meanwhile
Checking over the old equipment, Pines runs his hands over the broadcast system, checking the switches that have WSZR on automatic broadcast at repeating the WRAY station from the Midwest. He steps past the DJ’s chair, past a pair of old dust-covered crutches Lene left behind as a backup before she stopped coming around as much.
It's the milk crates Pines is looking for. With a toothy smile he hauls one black milk crate out from a stack with shaky arms, setting it down on the table beside the broadcast equipment to paw through the dusty old collection of records in it. There's no hesitation as he sorts through the collected music in alphabetical order, stopping on one album in particular with a sun-bleached cover so faded the artist can't even be read anymore.
Meanwhile
“Martin Pines was Melchior, to the Company. He was a repository of information, their greatest secrets, their darkest secrets! It's all up in his head— he's like Chesterfield, he's a living library of a man! Mazdak wants him dead for what he knows but he won't tell us. He kept talking about jazz music.” Cyrus whines, “and now I'm locked in a cage with you two!”
Colette looks back to Lucille again, then over to Cyrus. “How's Zhao figure into all of this?” She asks, and Cyrus is glib you answer.
“Zhao is a link in the chain,” Cyrus groans, “I was doing scouting on his operation. He works for Adam Monroe and that fucker has ties to Mazdak. There's gotta be a connection. But he was there and I was going to leave and come back after he left to get answers and then you all rolled in!”
Meanwhile
Pulling the record out of the sleeve, Pines carefully places it on the turntable and sets down the needle. Smiling, he sets the playback speed and switches WSZR from automatic broadcast to manual. Then, sitting down in his chair, Pines depresses the call button on the studio microphone.
“You're listening to WSZR, the free radio of the Safe Zone. I'm Martin Pines,” he says with a smile, eyes red and glassy, “and it has been my distinct pleasure to host WSZR for all these years. But sometimes, a person has to… take a stand for what they believe in. For the safety of the world, for everyone they care about, for the future. So,” Pines flicks the switch to turn on the turntable, “I want to play you all my favorite album. One of only three copies of this printing to exist…”
Meanwhile
“I told the feds when they arrested me,” Cyrus says with a wave of his hands, “that Pines was in danger. That his life is in danger.”
Colette looks to the door and then back to Cyrus, “he has a security detail, they released him this morning.”
Meanwhile
“This is Martin Pines,” he says as smooth jazz notes begin to play over the radio, “and you’re listening to Japanese Folk Song by Thelonious Monk from his album Straight, No Chaser on WSZR, Radio Free Safe Zone.” With that, Martin takes his hand off of the receiver and looks to his left to the doorway of the broadcasting studio and the dark silhouette waiting there. He doesn't have his glasses on, he can't see them well enough.
“Thank you for… letting me do that one last time,” Pines says with a weary smile.
“We can go now.”
Meanwhile
“I'm telling you, Pines is in danger,” Cyrus pleads, eyes darting back and forth to Colette and Lucille.
The world seems to tilt and Lucille holds a hand out to steady herself, head spinning. Mazdak? The Compan-
"…."
"…"
"…Fuck."
Luce slams the palm of her hand into the wall and looks between the two in the room with her. "Pines was like Caspar Abraham, working with memory. I told you back during the war that my dad use to work for The Company," Or, maybe she actually hadn't. "Caspar could take your memories away and store them on objects, he used pennies." They still needed to find the proper owners for those.
"I have a guess what The Company didn't want anyone to know… what Mazdak wouldn't. Something fucking terrible happened in the 80s. Some kind of… force invaded our world. They worked to force it out… it's not like anything I've ever seen." Lucille isn't sure how to explain it but the look she gives Colette is one of pure fear.
The man with the answers to all of this had been laying under their noses the whole time.
"You told them all of this and they let him go?!" Lucille throws her arm out in frustration, even with a protective duty. What the fuck?! Colette is given a look, "Check on them," The please is implied by the look she gives.
“I don’t know half the crazy shit you’re talking about!” Cyrus shouts, which is practically what Colette wanted to say as she angles blind eyes over at Lucille in a pointed stare. Apparently a lot had happened since she left Wolfhound. “Look, they told me they’d put a security detail on him, how was I supposed to know— ”
“Cyrus can wait,” Colette says with a shake of her head.
“Wait what?” Cyrus objects.
“They brought Pines to his residence, kept a car on him. It’s not far across town, if we leave now we can get there in maybe fifteen minutes.” Colette says, opening the door to the interrogation room. Cyrus, looking around with wide eyes, tries to get up from his seat but is yanked back down by the chain going through the loop in the table.
“Hey— hey! You can’t just— don’t leave me here!” Cyrus pleads. Though both Colette and Lucille realize the legal struggle to get Cyrus released is going to take weeks, if not months. They don’t have that kind of time.
"It's hard to explain, I'll try…" Shaking her head. Later. Right now they had an old man to check on.
"Just sit tight, we're gonna get you out of here. It's our- my fuck up." Lucille opens the door and holds it for Colette, giving her a look and not saying anything until they've gotten back outside to the parking lot.
"Look, there's been some weird shit going on with the Hounds since you left, weirder than usual." As was clearly made evident by what the hell Lucille was going on about.
"It's not easy to understand but just trust me, Col. We don't want that thing, getting to Pines. It fucking… it fucking killed Robyn's mother." Throwing one leg over her new what she calls, YAMABIKE. "I have some files for you to look through, I'll get you caught up. It's a lot my dad…. he's involved somehow." Shaking her head and slipping her helmet on, expression determined. If she could only ask Martin about what he knew.
It's in that moment that Lucille realizes that Martin must have known who she was this whole time since her father and he worked at the same place.. and if he hadn't made a mention of that by now…
The glimmer of hope she holds on finding answers begins to die slowly. At least they could make sure he was alive.
“Cyrus is going to kill both of us, you know that right?” Colette says as she climbs aboard her much more old school motorcycle. Snapping back her kickstand with her heel, Colette revs the throttle of her bike as she turns it on, the engine shuddering alive with all the noise of an internal combustion engine. Lucille’s streamlines ride instead automatically retracts its kickstands and comes alive with a soft electric hum.
“WSZR isn't far from here,” Colette says, grabbing her helmet from the back of the bike and sliding it on.
“Follow me.”
Not Long Later
WSZR Building
Jackson Heights, NYC Safe Zone
There's a trio of unmarked, black SUVs waiting outside of the WSZR building when Colette and Lucille’s motorcycles come screaming around the corner from the freeway off ramp. Colette signals with one hand to the vehicles, then pulls a sharp left into the WSZR parking lot and blocks off the path out by turning her motorcycle sideways as she brings it to a stop.
Colette is first to come off of her motorcycle, pulling her NYPD-SCOUT badge out from her inside jacket pocket and holding it in one hand while she keeps her other hand free, notes of firefly light dancing around her fingertips. Across the parking lot Lucille is too far away to tell how many people are in the unmarked vehicles, but the door to WSZR’s studio up on the second floor entrance at the top of exterior stairs hangs wide open.
"Oh I know alright." Lucille mutters as they set off.
Approaching the building has Lucille leaning over the front of the bike, squinting in the direction of the unmarked vans.
Lucille comes off her motorcycle and casts a look around before those light blue irises shift to a hot gold, throwing her senses out as wide as she can. Eyes on the vans but the wide open door makes her eyes widen momentarily. Sliding her phone out of her pocket she zooms in on the van's front windshield, takes a photo and studies it as she trails behind Colette.
"Suits, three guys. Assuming it's the same for the other two vans," Luce utters while rotating her wrists and moving her fingers slowly. She had her blades and a sidearm but for now she would rely on her own abilities just like Colette.
There's a deep calm that settles over the Ryans woman as Lucille breathes deep and keeps herself centered, beginning to take the stairs with soft footsteps.
Colette looks unfocused, standing beside Lucille, eyes open but lacking the usual performative attentiveness they have to mock normal sight. Her brows come together, head angling to the side to look at something that isn’t there. “Someone’s inside the Radio Station with him,” Colette says, seeing beyond the side of the street they’re on. “They’re coming out, I can see Pines,” she says, reaching for her sidearm, “he’s with— ”
She doesn’t answer, not more than a suck of breath in surprise.
Lucille joins her in that reaction when Martin Pines emerges from the entrance to WSZR, followed shortly thereafter by a very recognizable face.
Alice Shaw, public relations chief of SESA exits the building behind Pines, followed by two SESA agents in sleek black suits. One of the men, on a second glance, doesn’t really fit as a SESA agent. As Lucille and Colette get a better look at him they can tell his suit is midnight blue, velvet, his patterned floral undershirt pops with color.
“It’s SESA,” Colette says breathlessly, removing her hand from the holster of her sidearm and bringing a hand to her forehead. “Of fucking course it’s SESA, God, I’m a fucking idiot.”
Lucille's eyes revert back to their natural eye color and she stops next to Colette. What the fuck? Lucille's eyebrows raise as she looks over to her friend, relaxing as well. "Figures," she comments, of course SESA would be handling it, he is SLC-E. Former Company. Her spine tingles and before she can stop herself the tall woman is making her way up the stairs.
"Martin," She's not winded as she comes closer and stops not wanting to alarm the agents or Stone too much. "Ms. Shaw," Lucille dips her head at the woman who is very familiar with her father and family. It dawns on her that Pines probably knows as well.
"We were worried about you… I need to speak with you, it's urgent…" Lucille pauses and considers before deciding: fuck it. "Melchior."
The women at the head of the Deveaux Society were said to have their fingers in everything but Alice's status in SESA alone makes Lucille believe she might already know about the codename, Pines' past work with the Company.
Alice Shaw might as well be a marble statue for all that she doesn’t react to Lucille’s approach or her conveying of Pines’ long-ago codename of Melchior/. The air grows still around her, the gentle breeze stops, and the other SESA agents pause in their approach to the SUVs and look deferentially to Alice. Colette, slower on her approach, hisses, “Lucille//,” at her friend’s back.
“Lieutenant Ryans,” Alice says with a crook of one brow, otherwise motionless. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Pines is in protective custody, we were simply allowing him to take care of some personal matters before moving him to a safer location.” Alice smiles, a patient but also impartial one, and inclines her head in a slow nod before walking past Lucille.
Martin affords Lucille a look that is both familiar and friendly, offering her a warm smile and a small wave. “Hello there Miss Ryans, I’d love to stay and chat, but…” he looks over to the agents at either side of him, “these fine gentlemen need t’get me somewhere’s safer than here.”
Slowly approaching, Colette lays a hand on Lucille’s shoulder and looks back to the SUV as Alice steps inside one of the middle vehicles, leaving the door open. “Come on,” she says softly, giving a squeeze to Lucille’s shoulder, “we can file a report or… something if they need to know whatever. This ain’t the time or place.”
One of the SESA agents breaks off from Martin’s escort, diplomatically interposing himself between Lucille and Martin as he’s led to Alice’s SUV. “Ms. Ryans, I’ll have to ask you to step back. If you have any information pertaining to Mr. Pines, I recommend you file it as a report directly to Deputy Director Voss at Fort Jay.”
"That's not good enough, I'm sorry. Not when it comes to my family," Lucille doesn't wait and takes the railing to fall down to the ground below, slowing her fall with a beam. "Miss Shaw!" Holding her hand out and jogging over to the SUV. "My dad is with Adam. Martin is the only person who has any knowledge that can help me, help him. Get him back."
She is well acquainted with women who appear to be as immovable as a statue but weirdly enough, the other woman that comes to mind also has a past relationship with her father. "Martin needs to be safe yes, but so does my father. His life could depend on the things that Martin remembers. Please," Lucille tries to hold her gaze level and unwavering but there is a tiny hint of moisture that she blinks away.
"I just need five minutes, to try. That's all I ask." Swallowing hard before she opens her eyes to view Alice now with a more steady gaze. "My father did favors for you, vice versa. I would owe you one and you are already aware what being owed a favor by a Ryans can mean," Lucille means that and she doesn't need to say much more on that.
There was supposed to be some sort of… connection that Lucille was hoping to tap. She had never used her name or father's past connections as currency.
Halfway into the SUV, Alice waves off the agent at Lucille’s back, then offers a mild smile with a raise of one brow. “Mr. Ryans has no one but himself to blame for his predicament, Lucille. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but he isn’t a captive or a prisoner. Benjamin Ryans is a traitor to the United States and he left willingly with Adam Monroe to conspire with him. We have sources who have confirmed this suspicion for us.”
Alice’s smile is a smug one, but also sour. There is no love in her eyes when she squares them on Lucille, just a stern and disconnected stare of a pragmatic woman doing her job without regard to how it affects those around her. “If you think for one moment that I intend on assisting you in aiding and abetting your father, you’re sorely mistaken. “Your offer of a favor means nothing to me. You work for a paramilitary organization that the federal government could disband on a whim if it so felt inclined. Martin Pines is going into our protective custody, and if you have umbrage with that you can file a formal complaint at Fort Jay.”
Alice blinks twice and her polite and lifeless smile widens. “Do I make myself clear, Ms. Ryans?”
That moment of vulnerability, slowly unfurling just as quickly snaps shut and the tall woman's insides go cold. Lucille doesn't smile at all.
"Don't forget the backs you walked on to get where you are," All of the Old Ladies had made use of her father at one time or the other. Calling him a traitor, it's laughable but she has no stomach for the physical gesture. Sources or not, Nicole told her why he left. "And get over yourself, the federal government doesn't own me or Wolfhound. They could barely stand then, barely standing now. It's why you had us do your dirty work in the first place."
An equally dead stare takes over and Lucille takes a step back giving Alice the door to shut.
"You've made something clear, that's for sure." Now she does smile and waves her hand. "Carry on," Turning on her heel, the younger woman stalks back to her bike and Colette. Expression dark and her eyes find Martin as she passes him.
"Stay safe," Lucille grunts and rubs the inside of her wrist.
“Jesus Christ Lucille,” Colette hisses as she catches up, pivoting her field of view to watch and make sure the agents aren’t chasing them. Alice watches Lucille’s departure wordlessly and disaffectedly, then waves for the other agents to return to their vehicles as she climbs back into hers and shuts the door firmly.
Sticking close to Lucille, Colette puts a hand at the small of her back and leads her toward their motorcycles, “I know you’re pissed, I— get it. But she’s— ” Colette cuts herself off, she realizes there’s no reasoning with Lucille right now. Maybe in a day or two once she’s cooled down. Instead, Colette employs an old Wolfhound tactic. “Let’s go get a drink…” Between the morning she's had with this and Nicole's traffic accident, she could use one.
“…or three.”