Participants:
| Scene Title | The Bad Guys |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Hector and Kazimir discuss sources of villainy and trustworthiness, and one more mad scientist is loosed on the carrier. |
| Date | January 7, 2009 |
The problem with being a prisoner of war is — well. There are multiple problems with being a prisoner of war, actually. Particularly when you exist within the spread of unique conditions that currently defines Hector Steel's level of oppression here.
In the brig.
The same one he's been in since he initially arrived here and was swept for weapons — of which he had quite a few strapped creatively to his person. They did (kindly) leave him with the clothes on his back, but after however many days spent moldering in here without proper sleep, a shave or a shower, he's rrrapidly beginning to resemble something homeless scraped off the streets of turn-of-the-century London. Turn of the last century, that is.
He's rumpled and hollow-eyed, mascara long since rubbed clear of the raccoonesque shadows he's accumulated for himself. Other things he's accumulated include: a rusty bit of toilet sharp enough to scrape white paint away from tempered steel and a dismantled convex observation mirror that he has not yet had the heart to break and stab anyone with.
Of potentially more immediate interest are the walls. More specifically, the tidy scrawl marked deep into all three of the ones that do not have a door in them. Text in the form of notes, calculations and re-calculations are marred black and grey into previously well-maintained paint jobs floor to ceiling where he was able to climb up onto something to reach, and he is rapidly running out of room. Even now he stands with his back to the grated door, lapels and collar flipped high around his neck while he scratches some irrelevant minutiae of detail into the sketched trunk of an upright cannon that looks to be taller than most buildings, if the elephant placed randomly at its base is there for scale and. Not because at some point he felt like drawing an elephant.
The measured click-step-click of someone coming down the hall through the brig isn't surprising, the hour of the day for visitors is a bit unusual though, it's outside of the routine of Ethan wondering if Hector can building him an iPhone out of toilet parts like MacGuyver, or the navy crew offering up Hector meals ready to flush.
That steady progression comes down the long hall of barred doors, towards the endof the brig where Hector is (largely) isolated, just in shouting range of Holden when he's feeling baldly cantankerous. It's the sleek black suit of the man that killed Iago Rameirez coming in to view of the mouth of the cell that was announced by those noises. He's found a cane — god knows where he got it — but it is garish enough with bronze globe-styled cap and copper tip to be befitting of his theatrical nonsense.
Blue eyes peer into the cell, brows tensed, and the scar between them seems to furrow deeper from the effort. "You always did have a hard time staying idle…" Kazimir admits in a quiet tone of voice, one side of his mouth downturning into a frown, as if the other side has some difficulty in meeting the same motions.
A cursory glance over Hector's shoulder to see who the fuck's come arond to irritate him this time twitches into a jerky doubletake once the shadowy impression of Kazimir, Cane and Suit has had a moment to resonate within the busy cage of his skull. The look he then narrows out of his gloomy cell is one of purely feline malcontent, poised but not without the slightest fluff of a bristled indignation about his imaginary tinkly bell collar.
That is to say, Steel does not look pleased to see him.
At all.
Whatever rusty bit of bluh he's been carving at the walls with trips in his fingers as if he might drop it (he doesn't) and then finishes what it was doing (because it has to) so that he can flick it irritably aside onto his bunk, where the mirror's unshattered eye reflects the tension ridden up through his spine and into his broad shoulders when he turns more fully to face the door.
A picture is worth one thousand words, and such is the case here, which is fortunate because he's not actually saying anything. Obstinate hatred furrows at his brow and juts his ginger scruffed jaw, goatee still well-defined for all that it's got some competition for space going on now. His hair is more than deliberately disordered, and he looks like he hasn't slept for a month for all that he's been here less than a week, collar open and cuffs flared wide at his sides.
Even Hector's clothing looks angry, like a frill-throated dinosaur hissing and ready to spit. Kazimir's eyes narrow for a moment at the posture, and then he slouches those squared shoulders and relaxes his expression. "I came to offer an apology," he speaks in quiet consideration of the other cells, mostly empty, but the last thing he wants is Ethan overhearing this. "For what happened in Argentina, for Iago, for you." Dark brows crease and Kazimir takes a few steps over to the white-barred front of the cell, leaning his cane up against it with a clink.
"You deserve as much," the darkly-dressed man admits, wringing his gloved hands together before folding them behind his back, "and if I do not take the time, now, to offer you these considerations then we're not ever going to have the opportunity to speak on the matter again. To save you the prose of the poetic edda, the end is coming for some of us."
"You turned my only friend into a fucking Pompeii plaster cast and then wwwaltz down here a week later to say 'oh sorry 'bout that but we're probably all gonna die so don't let it get you down.'" Hector's impression of Kazimir falls somewhat short of spot on. In inflection if not overall intent, even if this version of Volken is decidedly thin and floppy. His eyes tick tell-tale to the cane, potentially close enough to snatch, then back up again. Ruminating. "Christ you're a bastard," comes out at more of a grumbly undertone.
Even after a year of not having technically not been under his employ, he's a scary motherfucker to be calling names to his face. :(a
"If you want something spare me the pandering and just fuckin' tell me so we can disarm the warhead and set to worrying about Contingency Plan #907 that you didn't tell us about killing everyone."
The pragmatism from Hector shouldn't be a surprise, and Kazimir's eyes avert from the machinist and regards the gleam of fluorescent lights in his shoe-polish instead. He's silent, words taken away by the bitterness of the man's words, and only the pop and ping of the metallic ship hull and groan of distant supports serves as a backdrop to this bridge in the conversation.
"I spared your life so you could disarm Munin, yes. I would have sent you on with Iago, for what it's worth, but like you said — I still need something from you." There's more reluctance in the admission than there is mustache-twirling pride. Reaching inside of his jacket, Kazimir produces a jingling key ring, and brings one of the keys to the door, a click and a pip later, and the entire thing unlocks. One gloved hand pushes the door, and slides it aside to match with the bars of the wall parallel.
"I have been furnished with technical schematics of the bomb's design, afforded by Agent Kershner. You have been given some limited freedom on the ship to allow you to look over these documents, and access to whatever supplies you'll need to prepare for the dismantling." Dark brows furrow briefly, and Kazimir steps aside from the door, watching the floor with an uncertainty as his eyes follow his own muted reflection in it.
"We are also currently stationed at Marion Island, a secret ship-refurbishing bunker codenamed Midgard. I have made certain that we stopped here, specifically so that you can have access to the bunker's machine shops and mechanical supplies. I do not know how well stocked Wagner kept the station, but there should be enough at your disposal to do what you do best."
Swallowing, audibly, Kazimir looks up to Hector. "We're only here until Saturday. I recommend you get to an aircraft as soon as possible and make headway to the island. The Vanguard element there have been cleared out, but the ship administration do not know why I am having you access the bunker, or whatever it is you'll be making. You will have a two-man armed escort, but I highly doubt they'll be able to discern what it is you are making."
He reaches out, picking up his cane in one hand to tuck under his arm. "Make whatever you need— want." It's almost like a Christmas present, after a fashion.
Very intently, is how Hector watches the nose of keys into lock and door into wall. But he doesn't actually move. Suspicion tilts his brows and clouds grim distrust through the lines 'round his eyes even when he leans slightly to better see into the hall beyond. His shoeleather creaks with the effort of awkward suspension all the way until he settles back again. So far as he can tell, there are no snub-nosed guns poised waiting just around the bend for him to misstep.
"Why do they listen to you?" seems like a foolish question to ask, given that he too was taken in once upon a happier time with bars of Nazi gold and paid vacation time on the table. "Give you keys, let you talk them into letting people like me run around willy nilly in a machine shop. I mean, clearly," a lazy flap of a one handed gesture encompasses the scar, the creepy blue eyes, the cane again, "you're an untrustworthy wichser."
Impatience with his own dilemma crosses his face at a cross twitch of irritation. Untrustworthy wichser or not, a scarce five minutes swinging about thinking he's free for a time would be nice after being pent up in here and he's considering it clearly enough to be annoyed at how clearly he's considering it. "I'm not sure what you're telling me to do," he confesses at length, hard-pressed to refine patience into tone and expression where another tackle attempt seems altogether more appealing. "Are you offering me the promise of permanent escape or a temporary reprieve from insanity before we set off for the consummation of your duplicity?"
The smile Kazimir offers at that is a bit more honest, the snort coming out his nose pronounced in amusement. With a shake of his head, he takes a step away from the bars and removes his cane from under one arm, leaning his weight on it when it comes to click down on the floor, tip first. "They think I'm not really Kazimir Volken," he offers with a crooked smile, "they think this is some sort of— I don't know— elaborate ruse by the young man I am inhabiting. Or, perhaps they have just resigned themselves to the belief that I know what's coming, and that I have their best interests at heart. In a way, I do."
Moving away from the cell another step, Kazimir looks down to the floor in consideration. "I'm telling you to build whatever it is you need. I need you to disarm a one hundred megaton nuclear bomb, Hector. That is no small feat. But I'm also going to need you to disable the inevitable security that Wagner has placed on the area leading to the bomb." Blue eyes narrow just slightly, and he looks back up to the machinist.
"What you build while you're in that bunker is up to you. I don't know what you need to disable an armed nuclear device— if you need anything at all. But what I do know, is that you are a heavily resourceful man, and when your survival is on the line, that turns into innovation. Whether you manage to disappear on a jetpack once you're done and elude the government or resign yourself to recapture when we're through, isn't my decision."
Dark brows raise, and Kazimir's head rolls to the side along with a rise of his shoulders. "But, I'd like to give you the option that this government would not afford you. What you do with the time you're left with, is entirely up to you. I owe you that much."
"Liar liar pants on fire," says Hector with such a dismal drawl
that for a moment it seems likely
he prefers to stay put aft'rall.
He doesn't, of course.
Rather, with a sly sideways look of acknowledgment for whatever undefined clusterfuck he's signing himself up to march into, he gruffs out a snort of his own and steps forward. For the open door. And Kazimir on the other side of it.
"Someone in this bunch is gonna find a way to kill you again, you know. Magnes in the chow line with the thousand pound wrench; Veronica in the cargo hold with the silenced nine millimeter."
"It would be an admirable attempt for them." Kazimir offers without much humor to his tone, tucking the key ring back inside of his jacket as he moves to start heading down the long hall of the brig but pauses and turns, looking over his shoulder to Hector with a look of consideration. "I think you'll appreciate the way this ends though," he offers a mild smile, "the bad guys lose." He can't quite smile at that, just looks back down to the floor, blinks somewhat distractedly, and begins walking down the corridor past rows of empty cells, that interspersed click-step-step-click of his footfalls and canetaps sounding out his exit.
Hector, it seems, is either expected to follow or find his own way. In that measure, little has changed in their relationship.
"Depends on who you think the bad guys are I suppose." It's hard to root against them when you technically still are one, for example. "And how the hell you think you know in advance."
In any case, Hector does follow at Kazimir's heels for a ways, more out of necessity than desire, which could be a metaphor if not for the fact that he diverts down a side corridor the instant he sees a sign marked Showers.