Participants:
| Scene Title | Stronghold, Part II |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Raith is brought out to the newly discovered warehouse where he is able to shed some light, on the situation. |
| Date | February 21, 2011 |
Long Island City - Railyard
They made it the send off point in enough time to fire off a message to the Island, request Raith and urgent and went off to spend the night in their respective places of off island habitation with the goal of meeting back up at the warehouse again, hopefully with Raith showing up. Cellphones on either woman, Delilah off to be a mother and who could blame her, Abigail and Quinn are in the Warehouse. The door to the basement has been avoided, lest they trip off any wires and they have daylight at least, on their side.
The bird has been transferred to a collapsible dog cage, sealed with bulldog clips to ensure it can't get out and the dead pigeon for it's gustatory company and is by the door with cloth over it. It had been an afterthought to not bring it to the island, at least not yet, till special activities weighed in on it.
Abigail is upstairs, holding the picture of herself, trying to place where it's from, when it was taken and studying the map as well. Two mysteries, and who's going to solve them?
It could be said that Jensen Raith is never late to a meeting, but of course, that would be a lie. He arrives on time, late, or even early as it suits his needs. Although with the present situations unfolding, his arrival late this evening has less to do with it suiting his needs and more to do with him simply not being able to make it earlier. Such is his life, lately.
When he does arrive, it is with predictable and understandable caution, although the warehouses door does not allow for a stealthy entrance. Once it finishes squeaking and creaking, the ex-spy pauses to look and listen. Movement, stray castings of light and carelessly loud footsteps can tell just as much, if not more about who is occupying a space and how many of them there are.
Of course, if someone shows up to meet him when he enters, all the better. Means he won't run the risk of shoving his MP5 in the face of someone who doesn't deserve it.
Quinn, meanwhile, is downstairs, keeping an eye for Raith's arrival. Not standing out in the open, but hanging a bit by the door, watching out. This, honestly, hadn't been her first choice for where to be today, with the Dome down. But, she had agreed to follow up on this, and she was intrigued, so she wasn't going to cut and run so she could see someone who was likely still in triage anyway - she could do that later.
When she spots Raith's approach, she pushes off from where she leans and pulls the black headphones setles on her ears down around her neck, adjusting the leather jacket on her shoulders. "Raith," is called out catiously, before stepping into view - she's not going to mess around with someone who has an automatic weapon in his posession. "Abby! He's here!" she calls back, hands slid into jeans pockets.
Abby turns away from the map and pictures, coming out of the glass walled room so that she's in view up above to the head of Special Activities. "We found a present for you, only problem is, we think there's explosives or something like that" Abby points to the door that leads down the stairs, the stairs where the trip wire will surely be seen. "Figured, who do we know, that loves things that goes booms and the stuff that they protect, just beyond out of reach? And we three girls we though, hey, Raith would love things that go boom"
She's a little cranky, but then again, her head hurts, and she has yet to get it stitched and washing her hair out had been the first time in a while where she had needed to take a dose of negation drugs to ensure that she hadn't burned up the cheapie hotel out here in long island.
Quinn receives a nod of acknowledgement when she addresses the ex-spy, and Raith lowers his firearm: Secured. Abigail's identification of him as someone who might love explosives just a bit too much is ignored, but when she directs his attention towards the door that leads below, 'measurably cautious' might be a good way to describe the way that his expression looks. his gaze cants back to Abby for a moment, and then he's withdrawing a flashlight from within his coat and, flicking it on, carefully approaches the door to have a look for himself. The criss-cross of wires nets an appropriate response: "They weren't fucking around."
The flashlight clicks off and the man takes one, two, three steps back, apparently not keen on going downstairs, just yet. "You don't set something like that up unless you want to make extra sure no one goes down there without you wanting them to," Raith explains. But that explanation doesn't explain quite everything. "Those're the only wires you found here? No other doors or rooms? Just the basement and nothing else?"
"There's some rooms upstairs, Abby's lookin' at the most interestin' one right now," Quinn replies as she ambles behind Raith - never too close, but not too far behind. "But nothin' else set up like this," she continues, waving a hand almost dismissively at the crisscrossing wires. "Hard as hell t' see too. Only found them because some bird decided Abby's head was food or somethin'. Pretty sure whatever it dropped set one off…" She trails off a bit, looking up towards Abby. "Definitely not the only interestin' thing we found here, but I'll let Abby tell you all about that."
Quinn rolls her shoulders a bit, taking a step back and turning towards the ladder up to the second floor. "I can't even imagine what someone would just… stick in a basement like that. Kinda scared t' find out, but…. well. I guess we;ll see, won't we?" She flashes a grin back at Raith - a vote of confidence in his ability to slove the problem.
"A body." Abby gives a grim little smile, pictures in hand. "Eileen has this trick right, where she can be in a bird right. I done don't know how she does it, but she does. Delia can do it, toss herself out from her body, Teodoro too, he kinda squishes himself inside your skull and comes along for the ride and talks to you too, but even when he doesn't, you can still feel him there"
Abigail gestures to the covered cage by the door. "We had that flock of a lotta bird that came at us on the boats when Kendall dropped the illusion. Then we had that one bird at the patrol, and… I dunno, just the way it dropped the pigeon and went straight for me and didn't fight us when we put it in the bag, i'd bet five dollars Raith, that there's a person down there, and her conciousness or whatever, is in that bird" She gestures with the handful of picture. "That'd be worth doing that for, if you had another way out, if you ask me."
Curiouser, and curiouser. "What you find in those other rooms?" His question is directed less at Quinn and more at Abby, since apparently she's the one who's been checking things out. "Anything that's actually interesting in the most interesting one?" Like, for example… "What's that you're holding?"
Quinn chuckles a bit at Abby's appraisal of what could be down there. "WOuldn't a person need, like… food and such, even if their mind's in abird? I mean, you can jsut head up t' Stop & SHop with a s setup like that." With Raith's question, thuogh, she does look towards him, tilting her ehad a bit. "We definitely know someone was here at some point, at least."
"Quinn, you bring a bunch of food down with you. It's basement. You could have hot plates and a space heater and a bathroom and everything you need to be comfortable. I've spent enough time in warehouses. Even my shipping container had a sink and toilet. Tell the man what's he's won!" And with that, Abby puts an elastic around the pictures and tosses them down to land with a clap that sounds loud and reverberates through the warehouse. She's starting to head down now, taking the ladder, and her time.
Snatch. Stripping the elastic off, Raith busies himself with inspecting the photos while Abby relocates herself. Photo of Abby? Okay, a bizarre coincidence, no big deal. Not at first, at least. As he thumbs through each one, pinning the persons depicted to some great collage in his mind, it may well come to Quinn's attention that something is up. Although he doesn't change the speed at which he looks through them, it's clear that heis busy trying to draw connections to everyone in the photos. Several of them are familiar faces. Several of them, Raith has even worked alongside in the past. A fact which bothers him intensely. "Abigail," he calls out, "What else is up there?"
"A map," Quinn chimes in this time, posture straightening up a bit as Raith inspects the photos. "With pushpins in it at a few places. Like I said, someone's definitely been here at some point or another." The Irishwoman rolls her shoulders a bit, watching Abby as she descends. "Maybe, but… I dunno! Just seems kinda odd, supllies can run out or go bad, you know? So unless there's another way in…" She shrugs a bit. "Anyway, if it's only something like that, I think that'll be good. A body without a mind is something I can handle," she continues wryly, smirking/
Quinn does a good enough job of answers. "Strings too, red ones, that stretch to another side of the room. Not much in the others and I think, if we're careful, we might actually be able to walk over the strings. They look to be arranged for someone to tip toe through, but…" but they haven't ventured into trying that. Though Abby might be deft enough.
"We still have the bird" Abigail gestures to the cage. "I was going to bring it back, see if EIleen can't have a chat with it, see if it's just a really odd and well trained bird or whether… you know" There's someone in there. She comes to stand before Raith, that angry red gash being held so far, closed with butterfly strips, but it needs real stitching and disappears into her hairline.
WATCH> Ellis has reconnected.
"Unless I'm mistaken," the ex-spy begins, wrapping the elastic back around the photos, "The only thing here that might pose a threat to use is the tripwires downstairs. Whoever set them up isn't here, and hasn't been here for a long time. Maybe they're dead, I don't know. Won't know without a look at that map, unless you can tell me accurately exactly what's on it." The tripwires, the stairs leading down, and whatever is at the bottom has been, it seems, pushed aside for something that interests Raith far more. And something that he apparently knows something about already.
The map isn't something QUinn's able to recall offhand, so instead she offers a look back towarsd Abby. "It's right upstairs, hasn't been taken out on it. Pushpins on a few spots across it, nothin' t' me that has any meaning, but I figure you an' Abby would be better atthat than I would be." She kicks idly at a loose stone thaat's found it's way inside of the warehouse, looking thoughtful for a moment. "Tripwires are a pretty bif threat, but I'm stll not sure exactly how much can be done about that."
"Strings. Red strings. That these pictures are hanging from" Raith only hold pictures of pictures, the real things are still hanging on the fine red strings. She beckons him and the Quinn towards the stairs, so they can look at them, heading back up the ladder that leads to those upper rooms. 'Either way, we'll need to go into the basement, and look around because this isn't that bad a place. At least for storage which it has plenty, some above ground living and likely, some below ground. But that it's been used, is the only disconcerting thing" And that she found her own face on a photograph. Once they're up, Abby leads the way to the specific room that bears these strings that stretch, the map and dangling pictures.
When the room comes into view, the strings and photos are ignore, so long as they don't get in Raith's way. The map is of prime interest to him. Each pushpin is mentally documented, the locations added to that grand mind collage and connections drawn between them. And it must be good news when all the connections are drawn, because before long, Raith is looking at that map with an enormous grin spread across his face.
"¿Chivito y chimichurri, si?" he says literally to nobody. Nobody that is present, in any case. "If you can bother yourself to come with everyone else in November, even though it's not your holiday," the ex-spy continues, this time speaking upwards towards the ceiling, "I'll make it for you. Cold beer and a good cigar, too, so you'd better show up." But that's it for talking to his invisible friend in the sky. Raith turns back to face Abby and, likely, Quinn as well. And he probably couldn't look happier if he tried to.
The exclamation catches Quinn by surprise, having followed a bit behind Raith - so she jumps a little, looking embarassed afterwards. She lets out a quiet little laugh, quirking an eyebrow at Raith, followed by a look over to Abby. "Did I miss something, Abigail? I feel like I missed something," she stage whispers to the brunette, before straightening her posture. She kind of wishes Elaine were here so he knew what the hell Raith ahd said, but oh well. "I think I could go for a cold beer," she notes with a grin. "Sounds like something t' do after all a' this."
Abigail can only lift her shoulder in query back to Quinn. Not a clue. "Lemme guess. More people you took money to kill, but just never quite got around to doing?" Quinn should by now, be figuring out that Abby's not so much Cranky as… She doesn't like Raith. Pink lips pursed, cheek bones a little too pronounced but a common thing amoung those from Pollepel or on the run. She crosses her arms, waiting and hoping for an answer as to why he's talking to God. Has to be God right?
"Are you still on about that?" Fortunately, Raith doesn't seem in the mood to stay hung up on who tried to kill who. "Never mind. There were two Vanguard cells operating in New York. Eileen was in one of them, but there was a second one that was here secretly. That map-" With one finger, Raith points back at it- "Shows us the location of every former Vanguard safe house and staging area in the city. Including the one secret one that we haven't cleaned out yet.
"Give you two guesses where that one is."
Quinn, for her part, is really a bit lost by the initial round of comments between Raith and Abby, but when talk starts on the map again, she perks back up, eyeing the map curiously. Admittedly everything she knows about the Vanguard has come from second had sources, and is almost always skewed negatively, but she's intrigued regardless. "Wait…" This, though. This is easy for even her to grasp, looking down at the stairway entrance. "Oooh. I think I get it."
"Yes. I still am. And I'm never gonna not be. You took money to kill me. Pardon me if I have a really hard time dealing with that still" Abigail can get snotty, especially since, if this was the map of vanguard stashes, then the people on the list were also targets more than likely and she reaches out, fingers closing in on her picture and ripping it off, a quick pull downwards so that it's no longer there, nor the red string that it was dangling from.
"So that's the rigging, there's more guns and other things down below. It means too that each of these places on the maps might also be viable places to convert into safehouses. yes?"
"Probably not. Daiyu knew about those other ones, and the government probably knows about them, too. But this one hasn't even been touched, meaning they don't know about it. And if Rico picked it, it was extremely defensible, and they probably made it even more so. The perfect stronghold, right under our noses. Say it with me, girls." With his arms outstretched, Raith pirouettes- albeit somewhat clumsily, spinning around to face the glass looking out towards the rest of the warehouse. He spends just a moment basking in the glory of their newest acquisition. And then, he says it: "Jackpot."
Okay, now there's a bunch of tension in he air, or at least that's how Quinn perceives it, so she's taking a bit of a half step back. It seems to diffuse quickly enough, though, and Quinn can't help but smile at Raith, laughing as he attempts a pirouette. "Jackpot," she echoes, hands still in her pocket and a pleased look on her face. "Christ, that couldn't be better if it was planned," she muses, looking around. "Fantastic."
"Language" This at Quinn, the use of the C word. THe glower though, is reserve red for raith with a below the breath muttered "Go trip on a wire" before she's turning away from the room, leave it and head for the ladder. "Congratulations, we have the supplies then it seems, for two places. I'm going to go, try and catch the boat, get this bird dealt with and see what it can tell us" SHe's convinced there's still someone down there. Or at least now, something at least up with the bird. "Don't forget to lock up when you're done" Ha. Haha.
"Maybe the bird is Eileen." Perhaps that was a suggestion no one was expecting to hear. Or at least one that had not been considered. "I haven't seen or heard from her in almost a week, and I don't think anyone else has, either. It is not outside the realm of possibility. If you've got it caged up, keep it covered so it can't see what's going on, just in case, but don't kill or hurt it either, just in case."
Quinn blanches a bit, laughing nervously. "Well. That makes me feel a lot worse about tellin' Delilah t' put it it down last night." Rubbing her chin for a moment, Quinn starts back towards the ladder down herself. Mental note to self - watch language a bit more in front of Abby. Shouldn't be much of a problem. "So what now? Report back, or tey an' handle all a' this?" This, of course, being tehe tripwires.
"It's not Eileen. Eileen wouldn't have attacked my head. She'd have gone for a shoulder, would have tugged me back, not sliced open my scalp. But I was already taking all those precautions, I'm glad to see that we're both on the same page about something" Her last foot touches ground and she's heading for said cake, big enough for a house cat to be comfortable, a heavy unbleached canvas cover. Inside, presumably, said bird. "I'll keep it then, until she shows up. "Report it back, to the ones who were organizing this, they'll put forth the recommendation to the council and the council, along with special Activities will yeah or neah what every other places showed up, but I'm pretty sure that this place is a given"
"It almost certainly is a given, but we'll see. Special Activities can take care of the wires, if the council approves us moving in. After that…" A shrug. Raith is no fortune teller. "We start moving in, I guess. Gives us a new staging point, if nothing else. Someplace where we can start bringing people and equipment back to. Little paint, some flowers out front, we'll have us a nice little safe house."
"Sounds like a plan," Quinn replies with a nod of acknowledgment to both Abby and Raith. "I think it would best t' go ahead an' get some stuff out here, at least, while we're watin' on official word. Outside a' the wires, there's no real reason not t', so…" She shrugs, starting her way back down to the floor below. "'m glad this place turned out so well, though. Was kinda worried, really, what might be waitin' for us in a place like this…"
"Even if it doesn't get picked up, Quinn's right, we should get everything we can out of it. Get the explosives untriggered Raith, scrounge what you can, stuff it somewhere else" She's plucking up the cage, looking over her shoulder. "Eileen's at Francois's. She had someone in the dome, or so he said. She'll return, the dome's up now" She'd tack on a don't worry but… this isn't the first time that Eileen's gone missing. At least this time Susan doens't have a hand in the pot in trying to do it.
"I'll take care of them after I get some tools," is the ex-spy's reply, "I mean, I could disarm them with some sticks and a little mud, but I don't want to." What he will do, however, is take down the map and photographs. It may be the case that no one has stumbled into this building for close to four years, but that doesn't mean someone won't. Better to remove the evidence ahead of time.
Quinn laughs a little at the sticks and mud comment, shaking her head. "Dunno where t' get tools, but I figure you do. Otherwise I woulda brought some." A last look is cast up to the room where the map is, and Quinn nods. "Hopefully, anyone who actually has stumbled in here to do more than kill rats has forgotten about it…"
"That's most likely the case," Raith says in reply to Quinn. The map and miscellany are rolled up tightly and stuff under his coat, and at least for the moment, that's that. "Let's get out of here. I don't know about you, but until we actually have this place ready to move into, I'm not exactly comfortable hanging around it."