Participants:
| Scene Title | The FNG Pulls His Weight |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Meeting Bones for the first time is interesting, and he finds something the first time out of the gate that was overlooked. |
| Date | Jan 21, 2010 |
New York Public Library
Bones is just barely getting settled in for the evening, having made a pit stop by the floor's fuse box and attached is emergency batteries to the cartography room. The room actually lights up with its own chandeliers that have new light bulbs in them and a boom box begins to lightly play some slow big-band music. Throwing his pack down on one of the tables in the center of the room which he has rearranged, he checks to make sure that the all-weather tarps and sound proof foam have managed to hold another day of wear and tear. After the brief inspection, he goes over to a shelf where he stores most of his food and supplies and unstops a gatorade bottle, just looking around the room for the moment. The door to the room has been left ajar, those hand written signs still in place that read 'UNDER CONSTRUCTION! KEEP OUT!'.
It's not too long after the music begins that the blonde slips into the library seeking the man now living on the main level of the library in spite of the cold. His coffee got raided earlier, and Elisabeth carries a small bag of replacement coffee because it's only right to replace what you take, right? She pushes the door open silently, taking a moment to observe the man in the room with cool blue eyes. Claire was not kidding — he's a massive guy. "I understand you're the newest resident," she says in a husky contralto from the doorway. "I come bearing gifts." She holds up the bag of coffee — it's the right kind even — and pushes her shoulder off the jamb. "I'm Liz Harrison."
Blinking and turning his head towards the door as he hears that feminine voice, Bones feigns a little puzzled expression at first, as if about to dismiss a trespasser but this act does not even get a chance to play out as the introduction is made. "Ah. Yeah, that's me and uh.. thank you, but I already have that…" he looks over at the table he keeps the coffee on and sees a couple of the neat little packets he buys of the rather expensive joe have managed to wander off. "..exact same brand." he finishes before he gives and amused smile and wanders over to retrieve said gift, offering his rather large hand which has quite pronounce, flat spurs over his knuckles. "Everyone just calls me Bones. Even my mother." he assures.
She walks toward him and takes the proffered hand, giving him the coffee with her left hand. "Helped myself," Elisabeth replies with a faint smile. "Damn good coffee, Bones — made the day better." When she gets her hand back, she moves restlessly around the room. "So I hear you're covering our asses." She shoves her hands into the back pockets of her well-worn jeans beneath the black fleece jacket she wears. Turning to look back at him, she seems curious. "Tell me why?"
"That was fast." Bones remarks, wandering over to the table by the wall and sets the new coffee down by his little Mr. Coffee and then leans against the table, crossing his arms over his chest and as he does so, his skin literally crawls as bones slide and rearrange under his epidermis. "I don't really like to waste time either. So… suppose it was originally curiosity, then it was me following my upbringing and gave you guys the benefit of the doubt. Then between Mack and Claire, it became some genuine concern with the state of things that I did not even really see happening. Me being me, having a genuine dislike of anyone getting mistreated for just being? Well it just does not set right in my head. Not to mention, I really hate the thought of being blown up and from what Claire said, if it wasn't for you and yours, I'd be so much dust on the wind. If I got that correct."
"I don't have the time or patience this week to waste much time, Bones. After all, you're living in the place some of my people call haven." Elisabeth walks, but her eyes don't leave him. She doesn't miss the sliding of the bones under his skin. Nor does she seem to think it's anything more than a curiosity — no disgust or horror here. She purses her lips and says quietly, "All right. So here's the thing…. people I trust already like you." She smiles faintly. "How far into the library have you actually gone?" Her curiosity is piqued about whether he's set off any of the defenses intended to slow down SWAT and such.
"Didn't even go down the stairs to the lower level." Truth. And he speaks it easily enough with a shrug of his shoulders. "And just as a sidenote, and I don't know how high up the totem pole Claire is, but when I spoke with her, I volunteered to leave and go sleep at the shelter for a while while you guys figure out what to make of me." Bones notes, lifting his hands off of his arms in a helpless gesture.
Shaking her head, Elisabeth says, "No need." She grins slightly. "We've been gone long enough that you could have done any number of things if you'd wanted to well before we got back. Considering what you already know, I'm thinking that whoever took the chance on you has a good gut. If you'd like to sleep downstairs where it's a bit warmer, that can be arranged easily enough. But before that happens, …. you know enough right now to be able to walk away pretty easily. From here on in, the story gets a bit wilder and crazier. If you don't think you can handle knowing for a fact that corruption goes all the way up into the highest levels of government and you don't want to see the proof that they're actively doing things like chucking Evos into secret prisons…. now is the time to speak up. If you opt in, Bones… you're one of mine. And I'll both kill and die if it's necessary to protect mine. But I'm warning you up front, the things you're going to learn are not pretty and they're not fun."
"I figure I am a fairly open-minded person. Maybe I was a little harsh on Mack when I first met with him, but honestly, I'm just trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I'm paying taxes to fund people getting killed and kidnapped who are just average citizens? Not even terrorists? Yeah, I think I need a trip down the rabbit hole, Morpheus." Bones says as he pushes off of the table and walks over to one of his bags and unzips it, taking out his laptop and boots it up. "Like this…" he says while it turns on and he brings up something, walking over to the big table in the middle of the room. "I read about this site in the paper today. Kinda piqued my interest so I looked it up." he sets the laptop down, displaying a browser page opened to a blurry photo of nuke going off. "What the hell is up with that?"
God damn it, that's the second time today she's seen that image, and it does not get any easier. "That," Elisabeth says tightly, "is Richard Cardinal giving up his life by yanking a 100-megaton nuclear explosion into the shadows with him so that it can't detonate and cause worldwide flooding by collapsing the entire polar ice shelf." Her jaw clenches and she averts her eyes to look up at the huge man. "It's highly classified, but that's what some of us were out there doing for two months. Trying to stop that."
"No, yeah, I get that. Totally and you have my greatest sympathies about Cardinal. I would have loved to meet a guy like that who would be that selfless as to throw himself on a nuke. But I'm talking more specifically about /this/…" Bones says as he clicks over on to the page options to display the source encoding and drops down to the letters in red at the bottom, highlighting the wiki page and the words underneath. "What the hell is /that/?"
There's a frown and Elisabeth looks … startled. As she steps forward and looks at the source code for the page, there's a pause. "A friend of ours, Rebel, posted the picture. I actually just came from another contact who was looking at the same image. I …. don't think she got this far with it." She looks up at Bones and asks, "What the hell does that do? Did you… try to go there?"
"Oh I went there, but I'm no code breaker or computer genius. I just hang out with enough Asians to know that when a web page looks /way/ too simple yet well designed, it's not and the real message is in the source." Bones gives another soft shrug, stepping back to allow her a closer look. "So… there it is. I hope that helps and all, but I got nothing besides that." he steps back over to retrieve his gatorade which he set down and picks takes a swallow before he grabs a poptart out of a box nearby.
"Where's Wireless or Micah when we need them?" Elisabeth murmurs under her breath, rubbing her forehead. She looks a bit stressed. She looks up at Bones and smiles. "Welcome to vigilante life, Bones. I think you just jumped through hurdles." She jerks her head. "C'mon, I'll give you the tour of downstairs." She grins a little bit and pulls out her phone to send a brief text. Cat: Check page source code. "The security in place is primarily to slow down anyone coming at the group to allow them time to escape the building. So nothing lethal," she tells him as she tucks her phone away again. "I'm not sure exactly where to start, so …. you wanna ask anything in particular?"
Bones quickly closes the laptop and stows it back in his bag, tossing the bag in to the corner once more. He grabs another couple poptarts and shoves them in to his cargo pocket while a spare gatorade is stowed in to his other cargo pocket. Seeming adequately prepared, he trails after Liz, closing the door to the cartography room after them. "Well…" he thinks quietly, before asking, "So what are we exactly? Because I am getting the whole guerilla/paramilitary meets Hackers vibe so far." he says, gesturing a little with his hands and then takes a large bite out of a poptart. Amazing how he stays so fit with the stuff he eats.
There's actually a bit of a huff of laughter from Elisabeth. "Probably not too far off. Some of us… like you, like me… we have day jobs." She looks up at him. "I hear you're one of the tunnel rats of the city. I guess if I had to put a word to us? We're… the balance in the system of checks and balances. We're the ones who ask questions and nose around for answers, and try to make the right people take action. If we catch a whiff of, as an example, the terrorist group known as Vanguard getting their hands on a tactical nuke or a biological weapon, we try to be sure that the appropriate authorities get made aware…. and then if they don't move on it, we do." She shrugs a little.
A soft knock on the door to the records room announces the arrival of Claire. "Hey… I see Liz finally found you." The tiny blond offers to Bones, before blue eyes drift to Liz. Her outfit today is simple, black tee and blue jeans.. with long blonde hair held back from her face with a black hair back. "Am I interrupting anything? I can you know.. skeedaddle." She jerks a thumb over her shoulder, boots scuff lightly on the tile as she back up a bit.
"I got ya. Sure. So we're asking the questions that no one wants to and act on it when no one else wants to acknowledge facts. - I just joined up with a bunch of militant investigative reporters…" Bones says as an aside, more to himself than anyone in particular. "I feel so Walter Cronkite at the moment." he licks his lips and takes another bite of his poptart as Claire walks in, shaking his head in response to her question. "Unless Liz was about to throw herself at me for discovering a missing piece of her puzzle, no, I think you're good, Claire."
Looking up toward the door, Elisabeth smiles slightly. "No, actually, Claire. This is perfect. Much to his dismay, I'm sure, I am not exactly in the mood to throw myself at him tonight, but Bones discovered something that I need to pass along to a couple other people — I was going to take him downstairs and show him the precog paintings and tell him about Pinehearst, and a little more about…. what we saw out there. And the string map. Since we're still working out where to go from here, the more eyes the better. If you're up for that, it'd be a huge help. And maybe show Bones some of the warmer spots to bed down if he wants." She looks up at the huge man. "I'm sorry to abandon you, but…. I think what you found is really important. Especially considering the last message from Rebel indicates that 'they' are building internment camps for Evos. So I want to make sure to get our computer people on this." She grins at him. "I'll be back in a bit here."
"Missing piece of her puzzle?" Claire arches a brow at that, looking between the two of them in mild amusement. Stepping out the way for the retreating audiokenetic, Claire looks confused. "Hmm.. Okay.. I'll show the new guy around." The tiny blonde leans a bit to look in the room, "Come on.. I'll show you one of the spare rooms for sleeping. It's definitely warmer down there. Then I'll show you around." giving him a grin, she adds. "And welcome to the group.. where we are all about the end game."
"There is some picture of a nuke going off floating around the web." Bones explains as he makes his way over to Claire, "And in the source code for the page is some reference to a wiki page and below it, it says, 'Names are powerful things that can open doors'. There's something embedded under the original picture of the nuke that we are apparently suppose to see." He takes a drink of gatorade and smiles as he begins to follow her. "See. Sandhogs are good people to know."
Chuckling, the regenerator leads him down a flight of stairs. "I'll take your word for it." Her head has to tilt back to look up at the tall dark man. "Lets see where to start in all this.. In a way we work for a dead man….. and I'm not talking about Richard." Just mentioning the shadowmorphs name, fades her smile some. "From what I've read there is a man Edward Ray and he saw the future and has been guiding our hand so to speak. Crazy I know.. but.. we just stopped a nuke and hopefully destroyed the Vangaurd."
Boots clomp down the chairs, "Watch your head…. your a bit taller then most of us." A grin is flashed up at him. "Anyway… At one time our future was headed to a point where a company called Pinehearst, headed by a really bad man.. Arthur Petrelli kind of ran the country.. or that's what I got from it. It was a dark future, but he protected everyone from a lot of bad things… Case in point, the bomb."
"Dunno if you saw the new about the destruction of Pinehearst?" Claire asks softly, looking way up at him again. "Taking it down, left all the threats that Arthur would have protected us from. That's where we kinda come in." Stopping at one of the rooms, Claire turns on a lantern in there showing a room with strings though out it. "Watch where you walk."
Managing to watch his head, Bones cocks his head to the side and proceeds after Claire, taking in all that she is saying because apparently from here on out there will be a test or four. "I remember hearing something about Pinehearst, sure. And that Petrelli guy sounds like a bad egg." he says and then turns when Claire walks in to the string room and glances around. "Yeah, I'm not even going to try going in there. I would be the one to catch a snag and bring the whole thing down. But… what the hell is it? Are all those little strings events or something? People? What?"
These are all the events that happened leading up the future we're trying to prevent." Claire explains, even thought she finds his hesitation to walk in there amusing. Letting him stand therem she ducks through the strings until she finds one. Looking back, she points to one. "This was Munin.. otherwise known as that nuke." Then she travels back carefully taking her time. "And remember.. what I tell you.. stays within the group." Straightening, Claire gives him a matter of fact look., before turning off the lantern, plunging the strings into darkness again.
"Arthur Petrelli was an awful man. He would strip you of your ability, making you normal and keep it for himself." The ex-cheerleader, touches the large man's arm and motions him to follow her deeper into the underground lair. "He was a hell of a force, but he was beaten.. Richard…. was the one to end him, but he was assisted by another group, Pheonix. So he's no longer a threat."
"I doubt he would have wanted my ability. Not even I want my ability, really. It slows me down, maybes me awkward and heavy." Bone says, watching the string room go dark and then turns to follow her, "And yeah, don't worry. I know what you say stays with these walls and me." he trails his fingers along the wall, watching Claire as she walks. "Crazy room with the strings though."
Moving ahead of him a bit in the darkened hall way, Claire sticks her head in this room or that, all empty office spaces. Pointing to one in passing she states, "That's my room." It's fairly plain with mattresses stacked on the floor, and a trunk, probably used for clothing, a duffel bag leaning in the corner. A little further down she pauses, grabbing the cracked doorframe, she leans in with one foot coming up. "This looks about right.." pulling herself uprights she grins and motions to one of the offices. "You can take this one.. There are already a few mattresses in there."
"Does Chester Bennington crawl in the dark? Does Eric Bloom lay low when a giant lizard is ravaging Tokyo? Does David Coverdale stay silent when there is smoke on the water? Does Rivers Cuomo really think we all need to be rockstars?" Okay, those were all fine examples until that last one. Bones looks in to the room that is offered to him and shakes his head slightly. "No, I think if I am going to be the frontman for this little operation and deter the authorities from even going down the stairs, I should probably staying right where they have to pass to get to you guys and stay nice and obvious."
That all gets a strange look from Claire Bennet. "Ooookay." Her mouth tugs up into a lopsided smirk. "You sure? It gets awfully cold." Brows lift a bit, then she sighs. "Okay.. well… it is here when you need it." Another glance to the room, she turns and heads a few more doors down. "This…" She grabs a lantern near the door and turns it on, "Is the fire room. The boxes are free reign.. the filing cabinets and anything with any kind of security.. don't touch it is sensitive material set up to incinerate."
"But here you'll find a lot of things.. Painting and prints of Precog visions.. Recorded visions.. various records." Claire is quiet a moment.. "Just.. don't touch the 9th Wonders Comics." She murmurs, eyeing the comic book box set off to the side. She really doesnt' want the new guy to know about her just yet. Last thing she needed is this one knowing she's the presidents daughter.. and someone central to things that have happened in the past. Let him get to know me first.
"Um.. that's the big stuff. We have a makeshift firing range further down that way." Claire lifts the lantern to illuminate down one of the long corridors some. Turning back to him she arches a brow. "Any questions?"
"I'm sure. I got a sleeping bag that is able to keep me nice and toasty even if the temperature drops down to -30. And it's reinforced around and had a hook on the top near the head so that if I really needed, I could hang myself up and sleep from a rafter or cliff." Why someone needs these things or even thinks to make them is anyone's guess. Bones ducks his head in to the archives room and looks around, actually daring to step in, glancing about and giving the place a once-over. As the box of comics is indicated, he looks from the box to her and back again. "Comics, huh? My little brother collects comics. What are they about?" he asks, completely ignoring her warning and tips the top off of the box, glancing inside with a wary look.
"No!" Claire moves quickly, to snatch the top and push it back on the box, but probably not before he sees the cover of a blonde cheerleader in flames and the bold lettering '9th Wonders!' across the top. She glares up at him and her hands stay pressed firmly on the top. "They are comics written by a guy names Isaac Mendez. He was a precog, comic were his medium.. But this is old news and you really don't need to be looking at them." Her words are a bit sharper then she means them to be. "Currently were sorting out the stuff already done, like the nuke from the stuff we don't exactly know what it is yet."
"Waitaminute, why can't I look at them then if they are old news? What if I /want/ to look at them?" Bones asks, stepping back from her and the coveted box. "Is there something in them about me that you aren't telling me?" The more that she denies him access, the more his curiosity grows. He thinks about what little he saw of the covers in there and cocks his head. "You know… the girl on that one cover…" he narrows his eyes a little and gets a mischievous look to him around the eyes just before he does a hop from one for to the other and swings himself forward onto his hand and plants his feet against the wall and literally runs himself along the wall, pivoting around behind her. He flings a foot away from the wall to kick the closed box out in to the hallway and continues to pivot all the way around her until it seems like he literally flows up to his feet to stand in front of her once more, blocking the door. Bones settles his large hands on his hips and grins. "C'mon, Claire. What's a comic or ten between friends?"
The ex-cheerleader is left standing dumbfounded. She can only stare at him for a long moment. Then there is a flash of anger, her chin lifting a bit as she regains her composure. He wants to know fine. "Because I don't want you judging me on my past… or my family." Arms cross and Claire shifts her stance, putting all her weight on one foot. "I'm in a lot of those comics. Me.. my family, adopted and blood." She's only read the comics recently herself since getting back.
"Ah. Thank you for reminding me that it really /isn't/ all about me." Bones says, his grin only faltering slightly as she glares at him. He would probably be the one to grin right in the face of a lion just to see if it would grin back eventually. The cheerleader needs to do better than that to wipe it from his face. "Allow yourself to have some fun, Claire. If you say you don't want me to read them, that's the end of the story." he reaches back behind him with a bare foot, hooking one of the box's handles with his toes and pulls it back in to the room, sliding it back over to her. "Couldn't care less who you were so long as you're true to yourself now." he shrugs and then begins to walk from the room, shrugging. "Though that red short skirt, tight red and white shirt with the spankie shorts… damn…"
"Yeah.. well.. you won't be seeing me in that." Claire grumbles retrieving the box and tucking it in a corner and dropping another box on top of it, as if to bury the memories away. "I haven't been a cheerleader in years." A part of her life she doesn't really miss. She doesn't pine for the 'good old days'. " These comics are more then just me Bones, it is my family too. There are some things people shouldn't know."
Finally satisfied they are tucked away, Claire follows him out of the room with lantern in hand. "The girl in those comic are not me anymore anyhow." She starts back the way they came now, "Of course, I'm not the same girl I was 2 months ago. I lost five month of my life and memories when a madman put a shotgun to my head and pulled the trigger. The only reason I know I changed is cause the guy I was dating, or everyone told me I was dating him… I couldn't understand why I had been. He didn't come off as the type I would." Her head shakes slowly in disbelief.
ooc Almost put that in the wrong window.
"So you keep saying. I am certain that he had some redeeming qualities once-upon-a-time in a galaxy far, far away where you had danishes strapped to the side of your head and he was wearing a bathrobe, but that's then, before some bad guy apparently gave you the wake-up call of a lifetime and blew made your head in to a canoe." He certainly has a way with imagery.
"Course you may not be the girl you were back then. Doesn't mean you can't shake your pom-poms now and again." he says, waiting for her to catch up to his side and nudges her shoulder with his rather sharp elbow that looks like it could break through the skin at any moment and cause some serious damage to someone were he to swing it just right.
"There will be no pompom shaking from this girl." Claire taps herself in the chest with her thumb and shakes her head. "And yes.. it was a wake up call.. a very big one I should have never survived. Never imagined I'd survive." The tiny blonde stops at the room she designated as her own. "Anyhow.. that tall, dark and handsome.. was the grand tour. I am here to answer questions as needed, otherwise I think I'm going to go lay down and try to get some sleep."
"Oh! Well fair enough then. I'll just be headed back to the archives for little comic boo-" He stops himself short, believing that she has had more than enough ribbing from him for the night but gives her a wink. "Had you going there for a moment." he lifts his brows and then reaches back to gather his dreadlocks at his back. "Go on and get some rest. I'll be upstairs, freezing for the better good. So if you start awake at night, thinking of the monumental sacrifice I am making…" he says as he begins backing down the hallway. "…feel free to stop by. Feel free to bring the cheerleader outfit with you." he smirks and gives a hop-skip as he turns himself around to walk lazily back down the hallway towards the stairs. "'Night, Claire." he says a little more genuinely, tossing a wave over his shoulder.
There is a sinking feeling in her gut, when he starts to mention the comics, but Claire quickly relaxes when he seems to be joking. "Night Bones." Claire offers at his back, watching him with an rather amused little smirk for a long moment, looking a bit thoughtful. What could be going through her head? Shaking herself out of that she slips into the room, shutting the door.