Participants:
| Scene Title | Roundup |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | King and Rico continue their assignment, but this time they're taking them alive. |
| Date | December 23, 2008 |
Derelict Shopping Center, Jersey City
A savage sound, a mix between a roar and a scream echoes in the confined space of a narrow and unlit hallway. Heavy footfalls thunder across tile floors strewn with debris; glass and broken plaster crunching under each slamming bootfall. Another pair of more frantic footsteps rush down the hall in the darkness, mixed with panting breaths and ragged, uneven sobbing. With a sudden smashing sound and a creak of old metal, light from clouded skies fills the near lightless void.
Running straight into the emergency exit, a young man tumbles and trips, rolling over his shoulder into a snow-filled alley. He smashes up against an adjacent drift of ice-crusted snow, struggling to his feet with eyes wide as he watches the door slowly swing closed, nothing but a pitch black hallway beyond.
He stays motionless, one hand clutching his shoulder the struck the door, keeping his breathing quiet. With one ragged swallow, the young man gets up to move, and as he turns his head, there is someone framed at the end of the narrow alley. "Oh god."
"No, senior, no God." One arm of the silhouette figure raises, and there is a //click, followed by an intense pain in the young man as a pair of electrically charged darts plunge into his abdomen. Muscles tighten and joints lock as high voltage is forced through his body from the taser, and his scream comes out strangled and choking.
His legs give way, and the young man collapses onto his back in the snow, arms and legs convulsing even after the electrical charge fades from the tethered darts.
His assailant drops the taster, expended, down into the snow and begins his approach. With a flick of his tongue, a rolled cigarette is shifted from one side of his mouth to the other. "Like hunting foxes, yeah?" There's a pause as Rico strokes some ice from his scraggly beard, "You make a good bloodhound."
The aforementioned hound pushes the emergency door open, finally emerging from the hall. King looks the part of some fearsome beast as he stalks out of the doorway, ducking his head as he does. "Tha' makes seven," King's voice is deep and rough, but shows no sign of fatigue from his full sprint. "Only a few more, then we done w'th' hunt."
"Yea…" Rico crouches down, removing a handful of plastic zip-ties from a pocket in his cargo pants, "It ain't much longer now, King." The uncertainty in Rico's voice doesn't extend to the movements of his hands as he binds the young man's hands and feet.
"You're afraid." King doesn't require supernatural senses to be able to see it in Rico's face, and like a loyal hound he moves to stand behind the crouched operative, looming disapprovingly. "Do'na lose you nerve now, les' you lose y'head."
Turning to look over his shoulder, Rico's narrowed eyes peer up silently for a time at King. He considers the mountain of a man without words, and King too spares none to Rico; His point is made, and he knows it.
Rico draws in a slow breath, sucking in a lungful of hot smoke that he slowly releases through his nostrils. King's head tilts to the side, to which Rico comments, "I happen to like my head." With a lopsided grin, the South American soldier turns back to his qurry, "More than is sane."
King smiles, a small one, but a rarity in itself, "We gave up sanity," he opines, turning back towards the alley, "When w'gave ourselves t'Kaz'mir."
Rico's stare goes vacant as his thinks about that, and with a grimness in his expression, he silently agrees.
 December 23rd: Not a Fan, Really |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 December 23rd: Stocking Stuffer |