ArchivedLogs:Change in the Air

Change in the Air
Dramatis Personae Joe, Anna
In Absentia	2014-04-05 Part of Perfectus TP
Location <NYC> Gramercy Park
Known as a quiet and safe neighborhood, Gramercy Park is home to a lot of families, a lot of yuppies, and a lot of townhouses and pristine architecture. There are not any skyscrapers to be found, here, just quiet shops and quiet homes. The eponymous park in the center of the neighborhood is one of the only two privately owned parks in the city, and access is only allowed to those living in the surrounding neighborhood -- those who pay a fee are granted a key giving them access to the two acre parkland. It's been a long week for Joe Zerah. The 'Amazing Zerah'. He snorts thinking of the name as he walks along the dark streets towards his home. 'Amazing' indeed. Except he's worked Tuesday through Saturday with a matinee Friday and today. Seven shows in five days, and he looks tired. He wears a shiny, satiny top-hat, and a worn-looking tuxedo, walking along with a black cane topped with a silver ball on the handle. The silver cap on the other end clacks quietly as he walks. He stops briefly on the corner when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He takes it out to look at it, smiling at the /fan mail/ he's getting on Twitter this week. Things are finally going well for the dour, old magician. Ever since the snowmen, life has been on an upswing. Maybe things will finally change for him. Maybe things will! It certainly seems like the kind of night where Change is in the air. Possibly the grey panel-van making its way down the street is offering free candy and bags of money! Maaaybe-possibly. It is definitely, at least, Joe's lucky day, because the van is pulling its way right up to the corner where he's standing! The door slides open quickly. Unfortunately, though, the whipcord-thin man inside, hazel-eyed, curly dirty-blond hair, does not offer Joe candy. /Or/ money. Instead two very thick-heavy lengths of iron chain are uncoiling themselves from the very thick-heavy /heap/ they are piled in, whipping out towards the magician at very high speed. Dropping his phone and cane to crack and clatter to the concrete sidewalk, Joe doesn't even have time to make a yelp. "No no no," he mutters, more confused than frightened, yet. His mind whips out to try and teleport the chains away, but they're so heavy, and reach so far away. He can't make his power cleave through them. His eyes go wide as he's wrapped in the chains. Now the fear the sets in, looking at the man in the van with wild eyes. "What the fuck is this?!" One of the chains is thrown off course by the teleportation attempt, at least, which -- mostly only makes it /thunk/ bludgeon-heavy into Joe's side rather than neatly wrap around him, at first. It takes a moment before the man recovers it, both chains now snaking firm around Joe, pinning his arms to his sides as they squeeze in -- rather more /constricting/ than is really necessary. The chains lift the man up, a little bit off the ground, dragging him into the van (possibly with a jostling bump of head against the doorframe on the way in. Perhaps this telekinetic is not /great/ yet at fine control.) and then slamming the door shut. Inside, the back of the van is kind of /cluttered/. Shelves and boxes of what looks like an assortment of medical equipment. Papers pasted up against the wall with photographs of a number of people, each one together with an assortment of information -- home addresses, frequent whereabouts, what might be known about their mutations. Another man, tall and broadly thick-muscled, dark brown hair and a sprinkling of stubble, is sitting in the back, drawing something with a syringe out of a vial. "This, my friend," he tells Joe with a not very reassuring sliver of teeth flashed in a smile, "is the future." "The future huh?" Joe says, his fear suddenly curbing. "And I guess those are just vitamins?" he sneers, nodding at the syringe. "Well, /you first/," Joe snarls. What he does next sickens him. Sickens his stomach, and his soul, but he pushes his power to reach out. He pulls the liquid from the syringe and the vial, two little quantities of fluid, which are deposited directly into the stomachs of the two men in the van. He has to push his awareness through their flesh to place them there, but it's done in an instant, and his awareness snaps back to the hear and now. "Kkk --" The syringe shakes in the man's hand, and then clatters down to the floor of the van. He recoils at the sudden /bizarre/ feeling of the drug, and lunges forward angrily to stab the syringe kind of /blindly/ at Joe's neck. Unfortunately empty. Still pokey. The ends of the heavy links of chain are still busy winding themselves into a tight secure knot around Joe, at this point. "What the fuck?" It's not immediate that the telekinetic even notices what is going on. But when he does, postures slumping back against the wall of the van, there's rage in his expression. "/Drive/," he snarls up towards the front of the van. The chains around Joe tighten /very/ abruptly, squeezing in hard enough, now, to crack bone. The man with the syringe is lying, now, beside Joe on the floor of the van. The other man is twitching -- and with him the /chains/ are twitching, squeeze-release, squeeze-release. A heavy length of the coils still piled on the floor thunks down atop Joe's head. Joe winces and grunts in pain as he feels his ribs crack under the pressure. It's painful, and scary, but the only upside is that he's gotten the crap kicked out of him so much, this is a familiar pain. His mind is stretching out, searching the detritus of the rubbish strewn van for something, /anything/ he can use to help him. The box of medical tools seems promising, but then the chains clonk down on his head. His vision swims and he's instantly nauseous. 'Oh', a distant part of his mind acknowledges. 'Another concussion. Very nice.' Dizzy and disoriented, Joe's power starts going wonky too, just like the telekinetic. Bits and bobs start flashing all around the cargo area of the van, some even getting dropped just outside the van, and Joe's mind tries to make sense of all the things within reach. The chains still squeeze and crush and -- then go still. Unfortunately not /slack/, still firmly /bound/ around Joe, but at least no longer constricting in bone-breaking tightness anymore as the telekinetic sags limply to the floor of the van beside Joe. From the front seat there's a quiet litany of, "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," from the wiry redheaded woman driving the van. "My night," she tells this to Joe as if it's /his/ fault, finally pulling up to a stretch of curb so that she can climb into the back with him, "is not going to plan." It's strange as she climbs into the back -- her foot, at first, goes intangibly straight /through/ Joe. And when she kneels, she kneels /in/ the still body of the man who'd been holding the syringe, as though he weren't even there. But the hands that press in against his arteries definitely /feel/ very solid. Joe mutters as the woman starts to cut off his blood flow. "Please don't do this. Please... Everything was..." And Joe's frail body just gives out, losing consciousness and falling completely slack. "-- /Ugh/," the woman says as Joe goes slack, dusting her hands against her shirt and returning to the front seat with a grimace. "/What/ a fucking mess."