Trying Plan B - String Theory: Aftermath

Trying Plan B

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Scene Title	Trying Plan B
Synopsis	Dani is returned home after meeting Linderman
Date	September 28, 2008

Dorchester Towers: Cat's Apartment

There's a sign of activity inside the apartment with the door marked 101 on this Sunday evening. It isn't loud, fortunately a place of this type doesn't have such thin walls as to transfer sound so easily, but on approaching that door a person playing guitar can be heard. It's skilled, Cat is doing something improvisational which fuses classical style with the metal genre. If the doorman called to let her know anyone was coming from the lobby, she didn't respond. Her attention is entirely on making music.

And there's a knocking at her door, finally. It sounds like someone fairly bulky, whoever is doing the knocking.

It's a good thing, this person's bulk, it probably means he has the strength to knock loudly enough for hearing above the instrument's sound and piercing her being in the musical zone. After a stretch of some few seconds, maybe even as many as ten, the playing ceases. It takes another ten or fifteen seconds to reach the door and open it. She's standing there in all her five foot eight inch brunetteness, hair secured in a ponytail, clad in a red tank top and blue shorts with no shoes. Cat was on a roll, being disturbed causes her expression to be a bit stern.

And on the other side, there's a pair of large men in suits. Legbreakers, as it were. One is on either side of Dani, with an arm around her. They're collectively supporting her…the brunette seems to be completely unconscious.

Her expression hardens further, seeing this. Not a single word is spoken. Cat takes time to assess the reporter's condition, whether or not she seems to have been harmed in the slightest before gesturing them both inside with her.

No marks on her, but she's out cold. The two guys move inside, and put Dani down on the couch, before straightening, and looking back over. "Compliments of Mr. Linderman." One says, before the two head back out the door, leaving a Dani there.

Cat closes the door after they carry her in and declare that name. Her eyes narrow, and she seeks to actually stand in their path for a moment, intending to block their departure so she can demand answers. "Compliments of Mr. Linderman? What the hell has he done to her?" She glares, putting on her most intimidating of expressions, one which would work on many people, but utterly fails here. They're much bigger, there are two of them, and moving her aside bodily by simply wrapping arms around her and setting her down behind them is child's play for one of the pair. Cat's attempt to keep them here is thus as futile as the attempt to cow these guys. She stands there fuming for several seconds after the door closes behind them, then engages the security system.

Her next course of action is all it can be, really. She goes to Dani on the couch. One hand feels her forehead, checking temperature briefly, while the other checks her pulse. Then she taps lightly on Dani's cheek. "Wake up," she urges quietly.

Pulse steady. Temperature normal. Out cold. The tapping begins to rouse her, finally. Her eyes open, and she looks really disoriented. She looks at Cat for a long moment without the slightest inkling of recognition, before it's like someone turns on the processor in her head. "Cat." she says, with a smile.

The concerned and, yes, pissed off expression eases a bit, just a bit, when the not conscious reporter becomes conscious. Cat stays where she is, watching the eyes, studying them for signs of anything out of place. Like dilated pupils. "That's me," she murmurs. "Being worried, after you were brought here out cold by goons claiming to be sent from Mr. Gestapo himself, who moved me out of their way like a sack of potatoes and left after putting you down."

Dani nods. She sits up, running a hand through her hair. Her pupils seem okay. "I'm fine, Cat. I took some steps. The tape was a non-starter. There were too many issues with trying to bring it forward. Too many people likely to get hurt."

"Some steps," she repeats a bit dubiously, moving back a bit as the reporter sits up. Cat seems calmer now, and she's listening, but it's very clear she's not the least bit happy about contact with Linderman. "Steps which had you brought here out cold by goons. What steps were these, Dani?"

Dani replies, "Trying plan B. I went to Linderman directly and told him all about the tape. And my concerns." She stands. Wow…the lack of headache after you've lived with a nonstop one for weeks is liberating.

"I see," Cat replies, with her expression clearly saying she thinks there's more and would very much like to hear it. Her posterior settles into a seat, and the eyes settle on Dani again.

The reporter replies, "So, we have a deal. I make the tapes vanish. And in exchange, everybody's safe, my head's fixed, and I have a new job. One on the inside. Where I can get something better than a tape full of indirect information."

"Interesting," Cat replies after an extended silence, during which her eyes and face demonstrate calculation, consideration. The darker emotions there have departed. This is the pragmatic side. "I'd decided to find you a healer," she admits. "No way were you going to have memory problems any longer than it took to locate one." Eye contact is made there, showing she was entirely serious about that, and after a few seconds of pause she's speaking again. "I'm curious to hear all about your meeting with him, Dani."

Dani looks over at Cat and smiles a little. "Well, I've finally got a lack of headache for the first time in a couple weeks. I won't have my job at the paper…but, high stakes and all. If I want the info, now I'm in a better position to get something I can really use."

She nods slowly. "It'll sour your reputation in the city with other papers, if you go looking again, that you've resigned so soon after starting, but you do have the opportunity to dig up things which would ease that. I… I'm so glad you're fixed, I can't say that enough." A smile is flashed. "But I'd still like to hear the whole thing. What he said when you told him what you had, all of it."

Dani nods. "I know. But "roughed up and brain damage" is about the best excuse you could ask for, Cat. It's risky, on all fronts. But it was either fold, or bluff and up the ante." She smiles. "And some of us don't have a photographic memory to replay conversations, you know."

"So you did use some pieces of the plan I had, or got there on your own in a different way," Cat replies in a musing tone. "Handing the detective a letter of resignation would call any bluff she might've been running, and making things public as allegations would call the Linderman bluff if there was one. If the threats were put in the press as allegations, and anything happened to the detective's daughter after that, it'd give credence to the claims, and I don't think he'd have gone there." A pause is taken, she nods conceding on the issue of memory, before adding "I still want to know as much as can be shared about what he said, and did. Like the nature of the job, how he goes about healing. Because he's dangerous, and working on the inside is like a minefield. He could be setting you up to find something and publish it, then demonstrate it as false and discredit you forever. If you're lucky he senses weakness in you coming to him and letting things go, taking the job, which you can use to advantage."

She makes eye contact, her own showing sincerity and calculation. "I think navigating this minefield will take both our brains, Dani."

Dani smiles. "Believe me. I'm not confident. But my head doesn't hurt, and right now, that's more than I could have hoped for. The chance of a landmine doesn't bother me as much right now as it would otherwise. I think there needs to be a celebration."

She's thinking; it's what Cat does. Parameters and possibilities, of how to turn this lemon into lemonade. One of them has Dani actively promoting the Linderman Act, a thing which she finds distasteful to no end. But the situation is what it is, she realizes. Neither of them have to think right now of how to not step on a metaphorical mine. And the former reporter's mind is whole again. Her face curves into a broad smile of relief at that truth, and her head nods with agreement. "Yes. Celebration."

The reporter grins. "So. Out to dinner?" She suggests with a smile. "We can go have a nice celebratory dinner. For one evening at least, things can be normal."

It's after ten, but this is Nuked York. Even with a huge crater still where things used to be, places should be found to have that dinner. Cat wraps her arms around the not tall one, bestows a hug of warmth, then lets go. She's headed down the hall to change for said celebration.