ArchivedLogs:Cocoa and a Story
| Cocoa and a Story | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
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2013-01-28 A shaken sewer-dweller submits a surreal story of skulking gone south, and learns that she's scrapped with a serious suspect. |
| Location
<NYC> NYPD Station - Garment District | |
Tatters sits alone in a plain white room, humming quietly to herself and peering closely at her left hand while she does that thing where you tap each of your fingers against your thumb in sequence. She frowns and looks unhappy with the results of her little test; after a second something adjusts itself beneath her skin and she tries again. Hand Calibration: boring, but necessary. Tatters looks quite the worse for wear this morning, with a ragged, gaping hole in the shoulder of her hoodie and a smattering of burn-marks over her clothing, the whole ensemble smelling strongly of gasoline and sewage, and her expression one of annoyance as she waits for the officer who was supposed to be "right with her" at least...half an hour ago? It's hard to tell with no clock in here, and her watch is in her backpack, which is out front so some latex-gloved cop can gingerly dig through her crap. This sucks. Outside, a tired looking officer waves Siddhartha down the hall, pointing to her door. "Okay, the freak's in there. It's all yours." The story he'd been given when he'd been called down here was a confused one; some homeless goblin had shown up dragging the unconscious bodies of two men dressed like Action Movie Terrorists (who promptly turned out to be registered sex offenders), babbling something about Evil Frasier and a plot to blow up a sewer pumping station but not actually, and also inflatable leeches? So she'd been held for questioning and the whole ridiculous case had been referred to the Mutant Crimes Task Force because dealing with this nonsense is their job. Siddhartha knocks twice on the door before opening it. Under casual examination, he looks quite together--light blue dress shirt, gray tie, navy blazer, and black trousers. A closer look, however, shows the bags under his eyes and recent nicks from shaving. His expression is none too amused, either. He slips inside with a manilla folder tucked under one arm and a USMC travel mug in his hand. When he sees Tatters, he pauses in the act of closing the door, but his face does not move. "I must apologize," he says slowly, "for the behavior of my fellow officers. Not that an apology is worth much." He walks over to the table, sets down his mug and folder, and braces the heels of his broad hands on the back of the empty chair across from her. "I'm Detective Sid Ashanti. As tired as you probably are of hearing this, I'm going to need you to go over what happened again. The report they gave me," he says, tapping the folder, "didn't make a whole lot of sense." "Come in?" Tatters looks up at the knock, crossing her legs and resting her hands on a knee as she she watches the man enter, smiling a lopsided smile at his greeting. She's had a long night, okay? Symmetry is hard. Raising a hand, she leans back in her seat and waves off the apology, making a little hacking sound that's /almost/ like a dismissive grunt. "Meh, coppers 'gonna cop. And my /evening,/" she makes a face. More of a face, rather, as she leans forwards and scrubs at her forhead with a sausagey looking left hand. "Didn't make a whole lot of sense." Taking a moment to collect her thoughts, Tatters rests her chin on a hand and flicks her eyes up to regard the detective curiously. And then she begins. "Okay so, from the beginning. I'm a homeless mutant who lives in the sewers. As you do. And I was skulking around -- as you do -- when I found myself poking around in the sludge pumping station...Number Eight, I think? Um, someone out front already wrote me up for tresspassing on municipal property, I think, if you need that paperwork." While her voice is raspy and croaky and clearly quite sick of all of this, her eyes are bright and her tone seems surprisingly cooperative -- though a note in the file made it clear that she'd refused to give her name (only indentifying herself as "Tatterhood"), or answer questions about her background. Naturally, she wasn't carrying anything even closely resembling a valid ID. Breaking out his notepad and dropping, Sid nodded and scribbled while Tatters talked. His brow creases a few times, but he does not interrupt her. When she stops, he waits a beat before replying in case she had something to add. "While it is my duty to uphold the law," he says at last, "the Special Investigations Division is meant to handle crimes of a significantly larger caliber than trespassing. As you came here in good faith and seem willing to help us sort this mess out, I am strongly inclined to drop that citation." He takes a long pull of his coffee. "Kind of a waste of time and paper anyway," he adds evenly, "given you don't have an address or a name to cite. So, happened while you were...poking around at this pumping station?"
"So I was skulking around when I ran into this guy I shall henceforth refer to as 'Baldie.' Older, white, not a ton of hair, kinda square face -- a bit Frasier-y. Sitting there, wearing a suit, reading the Times, next to a friggen...ACME-looking 'bomb,' the guys I dragged back here passed out on the floor, a couple of AKs stacked against the wall. And he was all 'Come in, I've been waiting for you.'" Tatters scrubs at her forehead, her apologetic expression betraying how silly this story feels. "It was surreal, like I'd walked onto the set of a TV show. Not a movie, they'd have more've a budget. I'm still waiting for someone to walk up and tell me I've been Punk'd. ANYWAYS, Baldie asks for my help, tells me he needs someone to play hero, pretend they'd foiled some Terrorism Plot to blow up the pumping station and marginally inconvenience all of Manhattan. Said the other guys here Bad People he'd pulled off the sex offender registry, and who'd recently recieved large suspicious payments. Apparently the idea was to take some heat off mutants by having someone *else* do some Terrorisms." She pauses at this point, giving the detective the opportunity to get a word in edgewise before she barrels on with the rest of the story. Recording the key details of the story, Sid's eyebrows climb steadily for his hairline all the while. When Tatters pauses, he gives her a long, searching look, as though attempting to assuage his doubts about her story with some mystical cop sense. "So this man was down in the sewers, reading the paper, wearing a--" He breaks off, clearly censoring himself. "--wearing a /suit/? Did he actually claim to be expecting you in particular?" Tatters shrugs helplessly and leans back, closing her eyes for a second and sighing. "Man, I dunno. He said something like 'took you long enough,' but I dunno if he meant me in particular or just someone in general. I'd never interacted with him or anyone who seems related to him before. I /was/ tracking some weird sewer creature, but that shouldn't have anything to do with him." She makes a face, flicking a thoughtful glance at the detective. "Maybe he knows a clairvoyant? Or was waiting for a city worker or something? If I knew what to make of any of this I'd've just moved on or sent you guys a tip or something." Siddhartha nods ruefully. "Fair enough. If it's this surreal for /me/, being there must have been quite something." He writes down another note to himself and gulps down some coffee, the looks back up at Tatters. "Please do continue. Oh, and I can have someone bring you coffee or hot cocoa, if you'd like." "Cocoa would be /great,/ thanks. And some water, actually, if you could. I prob' shouldn't caffeine until I make sure my blood chemistry's sorted out." Tatters sits up a little straighter and smiles a genuine smile of thanks. It involves a bit of teeth but well, nobody's perfect. "Um, so anyways, I told him that that was the dumbest and most counterproductive thing I'd ever heard. That pissed him off, and he started talking about how he'd burn these guys anyways and how his Plan B involved streets running with blood, so I, uh, kinda jumped him. "So he threw a leech at me and then the leech got /really big/ in mid-air," Tatters holds up her hands a few inches apart, and then makes a 'whump' sound as she pulls them rather far apart. "I assume that's his mutant thing, it shrunk back down when I hit him. So, um, fight, and he knocked a fuel drum over, then /I/ used a Bic to light it before it could spread and mix with the air and stuff. 'Cause, like, there's a fumes mix ratio thing that makes it explode instead of just burn I think? I need to Google that when I get a moment and a computer. So anyways, I maybe averted an explosion but, you know, fire. I hit him pretty hard and he went down, but I had to hustle to drag the guys out of the way of the fire, and he'd vanished by the time I'd gotten them out of the room. "So," Tatters sits up and waves vaguely towards the front of the station. "Batshit crazy Villain Guy, which...I mean, crazy's crazy, but he clearly had money and the motivation to actually, you know, /do/ plans and stuff instead of just ranting about them and writing threatening letters or whatever. Which is why I'm here, in case you've heard of this guy before or can talk to those other guys or trace the payments to their accounts or whatever, in case Baldie turns out to be a big deal." Rising, Sid opens the door far enough to poke his head outside and rattle off a few commands to some unlucky soul kibbitzing in the hallway. He closes the door and resumes his seat as Tatters continues her unusual tale. His scribbling stops briefly when she describes the amazing inflatable leech, and he seems even more interested than he was before. A knock at the door punctuates the end of Tatters's story, and Sid opens it to receive two styrofoam cups. He sets them down in front of the girl--one contains water, and the other slightly watery hot chocolate. Sitting down again, he props his elbows on the table and clasps his hands together. "I must thank you for coming to us with this, Ms. Tatterhood," he says--no pause or flinch or stutter on the name. "There should already be a specialist team looking into the device at the pumping station, if it is still there. This man you call 'Baldie' is a suspect in an ongoing investigation. He is, as you know, a very dangerous individual, and your interference has assuredly saved those two men's lives." He picks up his notebook and flips back a few pages. "Your description of him is thus far the most detailed one we have been able to obtain, and your interaction with him was more extensive than any other eyewitness we have been able to locate. If you do not mind, I would like to have you work with a sketch artist after we are through here." "I think some of it's left. It wasn't much of a bomb." Tatters picks up the cup - carefully, with her right hand. Her left twitches slightly and she gives it an unimpressed look, resolving to keep it away from hot liquids until she's finished sorting it out. After a sip of her chocolate-flavored hot water, she looks back up and nods a slightly weary nod. "Sure. The place wasn't that well lit, but I'll do what I can. Um," an eyebrow lifts curiously, as she thinks things over. So he /was/ a Deal. "Can I ask what else he's been up to? If that won't compromise your investigation or anything. It still feels kinda weird that, like," she gestures vaguely (if carefully!) with her hot chocolate. "He was trying to rope me into going to the authorities after 'heroically stopping' a fake terrorism, and here I am talking to the authorities after heroically stopping an attempt to fake a terrorism. It's weird enough that I'm wondering if there's another angle. But maybe I'm just overthinking it." "I am extremely grateful for your cooperation," Sid replies. There may be something akin to relief in his voice. "Unfortunately, I cannot discuss the details of the other case, but I can tell you that this man is not to be trifled with. His fake terrorism is real enough. The fact that he intended to pin it on someone else--whatever their previous crimes--does not change the fact that he is trying to create terror, and is putting lives in danger to do so." He sighs, picks up his pen, and puts it back down without writing anything. "It is also probably apparent to you that there is a political component here. He wants good PR for mutantkind, but this Wiley E. Coyote--nonsense is not right the way to go about it. Now, as for your heroism..." Here Sid actually cracks a faint smile. "That is real enough, too, even if he had planned to let you stop him all along. I'm supposed to discourage citizens from taking such matters into their own hands, but you hardly had any other choice. You did good." He pulls a slim metal case from the inner pocket of his blazer and extracts a business card from it. "If you encounter that man again, or if any of your friends see him slinking about...your territory, you give me a call." He slides the card across the table to her, then frowns a bit. "I guess it's not easy to get hold of a telephone where you live, though." Tatters takes the card and after giving it a quick look she...eh, she'll put it in her backpack later. For now she shifts in her seat and slips it into a pocket with a rueful grin. "I have /some/ money, and a sister with a Real Job. I keep meaning to pick up one of those prepaid cell dealies. And I'm not sure what kind of reception I'd get underground, but I'll do what I can to put you gents on his trail if I cross it." Looking back up, she exhales and gives the man a smiley, generally relieved look as the reassurance visibly dispels some of the tension that's been eating at her all morning. "And...thanks. It's always good to hear that good intentions and punchiness haven't ruined everything." "Thank you, again," Sid says, rising. "I'll send you up to the artist--Natalie, she's a sweatheart, and she won't give you crap." A pause. "Well, not about how you look, anyway. Meanwhile, I'll see about getting your stuff back and putting your citation to rest." He offers his hand. "You are clearly quite capable, but still, take care of yourself out there, okay? There's a lot of folks who are jumpy about mutants, and the...new president has emboldened them." "I'll try and stay clear of the torches and pitchforks, thanks." Tatters stands, and leans forward to give his hand a firm shake with a leathery, almost rubberized hand. "And worst happens, I've got some ability to put myself back together." She pauses, frowns. "I guess that's not what 'worst' means, but still. Good luck with your detectoring!" | |
