Participants:
| Scene Title | Red Queen's Croquet Field |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Jane wanted to see where the rabbit hole went…. |
| Date | April 4, 2011 |
Central Park
Jane knows taking meetings from mysterious numbers is probably a bad idea. But that's why she's got a gun. Of course, this afternoon, she's got a pretty good idea of who would send her such a message. But then, meeting someone like Liz Harrison just now, well that might just be career suicide. But she's been ready for that for months now.
She stands in a busy part of the park, eating a hot dog near a bench and looking like one of the crowd. She doesn't look too happy, but at least she's here? And it doesn't look like she brought cuffs with her, so that's something.
The blonde walking toward the agent looks very little like the well put together head of FRONTLINE Manhattan. Elisabeth Harrison always wore her hair neatly plaited, pinned up under so its length was mostly unknown. She always wore the right amount of makeup, neatly pressed, walked like a cop. The only thing remaining of that demeanor is the wary caution in watchful blue eyes. Liz has spied on the agent for about the last 15 minutes, her ability very focused and sweeping the area to see if anyone's even remotely in position to grab her. A sniper she can't do a damn thing about.
Now she scuffs up the path toward Jane Pak with a backpack slung over her shoulder wearing a pair of ripped low rider jeans, a yellow spaghetti-strapped tank top beneath an orange-and-pink patterned fleece. It might look ridiculously flower child-like on the businesslike woman who used to head FRONTLINE. But on the young woman with nearly waist-length blonde hair blowing in the wind? Looks pretty normal. She looks almost like a college student dressed this way. And from 50 feet away, she murmurs her quiet greeting. "Agent Pak."
Turning when she hears her name, Jane's gaze flits right over Liz at first, until she has to make a second, more careful sweep of the people around her. Then she spots her, and her new look gets a lifted eyebrow.
"So how's this work? You stand over there and I stand over here and make people think I'm one of those crazy New Yorkers who talks to herself?" Still not happy, but she hasn't completely lost her sense of humor. "You can get over here. I didn't bring back up."
The blonde glances around the park once more and walks closer, her smile faint but present. She looks exhausted, but alert. "I wasn't sure you'd meet me," Elisabeth admits. "Nor was I sure you wouldn't bring a whole fucking team or a sniper with you." She stops within normal talking distance. "Wanna walk?" she asks.
"I was tempted, believe me. I know a number of people who'd jump at the chance to come take you down right now," Jane says as she turns to toss her trash in a can. "But curiosity wins over good sense, apparently." She gives a nod to the question and starts them off through the park.
"Terrorists, for fuck's sake, Harrison," she starts on a low whisper. She knows she'll hear it anyway. "You should have stayed out of it. Pretended you were a team player. I can't fix this. And frankly, lady, I'm a little too pissed off to want to fix it. People died. Good people, following orders."
Elisabeth's jaw firms. Not on Miller, they didn't. The blonde doesn't speak that aloud, though. Instead she says, "I didn't ask you here to fix this. You wanna be pissed off? Welcome to the goddamn croquet game from hell, Jane." She drops any semblance of formality. "Those two men haven't had a trial, have never seen a lawyer, their families have no idea if they're even still alive. Martial law is a joke. It's the fucking Third Reich out there. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing. Well…. I did nothing for as long as I could stomach it." She grits her teeth.
"Look, I know! And I'm working on it. It's not an overnight fix and now you're a good man who can't do anything but hide your ass somewhere so they don't make you the next one in one of those transports. And I'm standing here because I do think you're just trying to do the right thing in all this mess, but damn if you didn't throw a wrench into the mix." Jane lets out a breath there, a huff really, as she tries to get her calm back.
Which she's pretty good at. So when she looks at Liz again, she has a much milder expression on her face. "And don't tell me where you're going. But if I find evidence for all the mess up there, you want to know about it? How do I get a message to you?"
There's a soft sigh. "I won't. I'm not stupid," she tells Jane quietly. Before she tells Jane how to get a message to her, Elisabeth walks along quietly. "I owed them. I owe them… my life. If it weren't for the Ferry and someone they used to have as a healer…. I wouldn't be here." She feels the need to explain this. "Humanis First picked me up 18 months ago off the streets. I was on an unsanctioned run. Back when I was still a cop." Her blue eyes are restless. "Two men, one of whom I don't think I ever got a name for because I was blindfolded the whole time…. spent three days torturing me. Most of it… it's mostly snapshots. Terror. Absolute blackness. Loud noise and silence. Blood. Rats." She shudders slightly. "The one thing I have the clearest memory of is the last thing they said. The one that broke me. He told me if I didn't give him an address, he'd cut off my foot with an axe." She swallows hard. "He hadn't lied up to that point. I believed him. And I gave them Beach Street."
Elisabeth's power is creating that soft hum, a buzz of anxiety that flows around the two of them. "And then he told me if I'd lied… he would still cut it off and he'd feed it to me." She blow out a breath. "And when they confirmed it, Emil Danko put a bullet in my head and splattered my brains all over a warehouse somewhere. They threw my body in the Hudson."
Elisabeth finally looks at the woman. "Yes. I want to know if you get anything. And I can tell you exactly where to look to get it. I can tell you where to start looking for the proof that the US government used Coyote Sands, New Mexico, as the first Evo concentration camp back in the 1960s. That they've known all along that the Evo were out there. I can tell you where to start looking for the proof that they were the ones who created the Formula that was going to give normal humans Evo powers as part of a supersoldier program. You want to know why I was part of Phoenix? Because Pinehearst and the fucking Company were exactly who helped develop those things for the US government. And now they've got people developing Evo-detecting robots and negation drugs so that they can convince everyone that it's for their own safety that they should live in segregated communities."
Jane looks over at Liz, listening to her story in silence. She doesn't have any sorries or condolences, all she does is pause a moment to state, "They're going down, Harrison. You can bet on that." It's far from an impassioned declaration, but rather a simple statement of fact.
"You let me know where to look, I'll get it. And we'll find a way to get it out. I have the perfect news man in mind…" And speaking of. Jane lifts an eyebrow and looks over at Liz, "I don't suppose you know who it was that told Brad Russo to go poking around out there, hmm?"
Elisabeth grins just a little bit. "Oh… maybe," she admits. "Although his little eruption on live television sort of blew his credibility on the matter away." She walks along on the path, scuffing her feet. "The biggest problem is getting hold of the hard copies of the proof. And the DoEA has a technopath out on Miller Airfield who's had extensive experience with the technopath I could get hold of." She glances at Jane, pursing her lips. "Although if we could get him out of the way, we might be able to get ours in there." She shrugs. "Maybe. Maybe not. Most of what you'll be trying to get we expect to be hard copies somewhere in the DoEA." She considers. "Or possibly if you have a thief good enough to try for it… somewhere in the mayor's house. Like a panic room safe or something." She shrugs.
"Well, I've got this badge that lets me wander the DoEA buildings, so that's a plus. And I try not to know thieves, but I'll see." Jane smirks a little, "If there's hard copies around the office… I'll find them. And if I can't, I'll figure something else out." She pauses and looks around a bit, just generally checking out the area. "If your technopath can get things to print out into my office, that'd be helpful. Or my house. That might be better. But tell her to tread a little softer if she's running through again, huh?"
The blonde laughs quietly. She can't help it. "You're a piece of work," Elisabeth says quietly, shoving her hands into her pockets. Her blue eyes scan the park, full of kids, joggers, dogs, people on bikes, people near the water. They come back to the agent. "I'm not going to lie to you, Jane. They've killed anyone who's ever gotten close. Don't make a target of yourself. Or you'll wind up … like me," she says quietly, shuffling her feet uncomfortably. She hands a card to the woman with a number on it. "It's not traceable, so don't bother." She smirks a bit. "And if you could … look out for the people on my squad a little, I'd be much obliged. They're good soldiers. Not involved in any of this."
"So I've been told," Jane says with a crooked smile. "Don't worry about me. I only put my ass on the line if it's absolutely necessary. If I wind up like you, though, I hope you'll get an extra bed ready." Taking the card, the agent chuckles at that comment before she pockets it. "I'll do what I can for the squad. It's probably best if you get yourself off the grid for now. I'll be in contact if I find anything."
Elisabeth purses her lips and then shakes her head. "I thought I was a terrorist, lady," she observes drily. "Line's not so black and white, is it?"
"You are, but everybody's got their usefulness, huh?" Jane lifts her hand to wave in a see saw gesture. "I never did believe in black and white. Which is probably why I'm standing here talking to you at all."
"And now you stand where I stood two and a half years ago," Elisabeth murmurs, her hands still in her pockets. "Humanis First has tortured Feds with impunity. Me, Ivanov… " She shrugs. "And Danko was saved from Antarctica. It had to be by the US government. There's no one else who could have pulled him out. Gotta love swimming in a pool of piranha." She pivots at a fork in the path and takes a different one from Jane. "Be careful out there, Agent Pak."