ArchivedLogs:In Which The Labrats Have Revelations, Disquiet, And A Distinct Lack Of Cake

In Which The Labrats Have Revelations, Disquiet, And A Distinct Lack Of Cake
Dramatis Personae B, Daiki, Dusk, Flicker, Hive, Horus, Ion, Jax, Joshua, Killian, Matt, Mirror, Rachel, Scramble, Shane, Taylor	2015-10-29 "They're /all/ that kind of human, Sunshine." (Meetings of a Promethean nature.)
Location <NYC> St. Martin's Church - Harlem
St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church is not large, but it has a quiet majesty to it all the same, in the way of many old churches. A tall stone building tucked into the center of Harlem, it is one of the earliest Catholic churches in the city, and it looks it. Inside, the wooden pews stretch off towards the alter, the crucifix an immense and solemn wooden carving that presides over it all. Most of the windows are stained class, rich and vibrantly colourful depictions of various saints and Biblical scenes. Small recesses along the wall hold the Stations of the Cross depicted in intricate stone carvings, and the prayer alcove holds real flickering votive candles unlike many modern churches who have switched over to electric. The vaulted ceiling has detailed painting done between its arches, and the distinctive scent of frankincense often lingers faintly in the air. Below, the basement of the church has been heavily modernized; there is a pair of meeting rooms for classes, a pair of bathrooms with showers, a door leading out to the tiny adjoining rectory building where the pastor lives. In tribute to the church's namesake, ministries for the poor are a large part of the church community; one room holds a wealth of donated clothing that is free for any to take. With the large dining room and industrial kitchen that serve hot dinners six days a week and distribute donated bags of groceries every Monday, there are frequent visitors through here who are often in need of the helping hand. In the basement of the church there are people flowing in and out of the dining room -- though mostly in, with dinner in the process of being served. The kitchen has been busy, volunteers preparing and serving the meal. One of those volunteers brightly-dressed in purple skinny jeans, knee-high black boots, a lightweight peacock-toned wrap sweater over a black tank top. Jax has a brightly coloured bandana tied on over his brightly coloured hair, and is just tugging down the sleeves of his sweatshirt from where they'd been pushed up over his elbows. He's wiping his hands (still slightly damp, smelling of dish soap) on his jeans as he slips down the hall to make his way into one of the meeting rooms. "Oh, gosh, 'pologies, there was a bit'a cleanin' up to do -- hi. Hi." Dusk stretches out an iridescent-coloured wing, draping it over Jax's shoulders in a small squeeze. He has a bowl of black-eyed peas and rice in his hands, munching on it from where he sits on a stool by the corner. A white-noise generator has been set up near him, a shifting rushing sound coming fom it. "Hey, we got delicious food, I'm not complaining." Shane is sitting, crouched on the seat of a chair with his own plate (heavy on the beans, very little rice) resting on his knees and a small bee-shaped robot sitting on the table in front of him. "You didn't bring cake." See? HE'S complaining. B's voice pipes up, clear and TOTALLY indignant, where the robot is sitting. "Nobody brought me any food." Helpfully, Shane places one, singular, black-eyed pea in front of the bee. "I have a curfew." Taylor doesn't really sound /particularly/ complainy, though. He's just giving Jax a hopeful look: "Will you write me a note." He has a stool of his own rather than a chair, settled in next to Shane where he's already gone through his first plate of food and left to go get seconds. Joshua isn't eating. He's standing in the corner, talking in a low voice to Rachel. Who /is/ eating, though only a few pieces of buttered bread. Joshua looks up swiftly when Jax enters the room, tipping his head up in a nod. Scramble gets up from her chair to close the door behind Jax. Settles back down, shortly, in front of her (long-since-emptied) bowl. "You said there was news?" The mention of news just presses Hive's lips together in a thin line. He has no food. Just a large cup of coffee. His fingers tap against it uncomfortably. Flicker pushes his chair back from his place beside Hive when Jax enters, flitting over to give the photokinetic a bowl. Filled with dinner. He doesn't /ask/ if Jax has remembered to eat, just kind of presumptively assumes the answer is no, before blipping back to his seat. "Hi. Yes, I -- hi -- oh!" Jax's eye widens, a flush darkening his cheeks as he finds himself confronted with Food. "Oh, oh thank you. I didn't -- I forgot to -- thank you." Taking the bowl with him, he moves to find an empty chair and settle into it, pulling it up to the table beside Hive. "News. Yes. I got -- well. M'sure you all -- many of you -- know Dusk been workin' for a while now looking for. What information he could find, trackin' down the labs that --" With his still-clean spoon he gestures vaguely in the air. "... I didn't prepare notes for this talk." He sounds a little abashed. "I've been," Dusk offers, "doing what I can to isolate probable locations for where the missing labrats are being kept. And information on how many -- and who they even are. I didn't have much luck for a while but -- actually it was B who helped me get farther there than I'd been able to before. I'm pretty sure we've found records of -- who still /is/ in captivity. We just..." His expression is a little tighter, a little paler. "... had to narrow it down against the records of. Who'd already been killed." Perched on a stool at the table, Horus takes a break from pecking at his food to give a low warble at this. << ... do we get the list? >> There's a reluctance in his mind. Not like he /wants/ the list. But. Daiki says nothing in answer to this. He /does/ pull his chair a little bit closer to Shane's. Hive sips at his coffee, leans back in his chair. "But how long to go from that to us /doing/ anything, s'the question." Shane raises a hand -- raises his spoon -- almost like class! Though without waiting to be called on -- no, wait, that's like class for him too. "And when you do. You're still going to need a team, yeah?" From the tiny-robot there's a very low thrum of growl. Only a second. Then gone. This question furrows Taylor's brow deeply. His jaw tightens, eyes flicking first to Shane. Then over to Jax. Sliiightly narrowed. Shane's question puts a faint ripple in the light around Jax. Briefly. A small shake of his head is the closest he comes to /answering/ that question, though. "Well. The question of how long is -- maybe had a bit of change, recently. Maybe. We had some -- we found out some --" He pulls in a slow breath, one hand pressing down against the table. "Rasheed," he finally just /says/, outright, "been workin' for Prometheus all this time. Not -- not workin' for. He -- /founded/. Prometheus." He waits ooonly briefly after this before plowing on ahead: "... which could mean a lot for information-gatherin', maybe. Like. Even if he says he ain't doin' nothin' with them no more he's sure to have contacts or knowledge that'll be /more'n/ useful. The question we gotta figure now is how -- how to. Go about... dealin' with that. With him. With --" He trails off, his head giving another shake. Flicker's eyes skip restlessly from face to face around the room. There's no surprise registered in /his/ expression at this announcement. Only a heavy resignation. "There's a chance he already knows -- that we know. Dr. Saavedro has known about this for a lot longer than we have and just. Chose to. Keep it to himself." His words are a little bit choppy. Stilted. "So I'd -- at least think -- probably confronting him sooner than later. Is best. He could easily vanish to who-knows-where." Around the room there's an almost palpable ripple, at all this. Quiet murmurs from one person to another, a faint shiver of rather unpleasant mental disorientation that comes in time with a softly muttered swear from Scramble. Horus's feathers ruffle up, his beak clacking together sharply. << Nope rubbish such nonsense nope, >> he has a soft mental chorus to himself -- even as he mentally crosses the Mendel Clinic off his inventory of Safe Places. (His mental checklist now reads solely: "Commons" right under "Lofts circa 2012" and "Possibly Redwall? TBD") When Hive speaks up, it's direct and without much inflection. "You know I could get that information. And then we wouldn't need him anymore." There's a thump of booted feet outside, the door opening abruptly without any knocking. Ion looks a little bit windblown, /smells/ a little bit like sweat and oil, like smoke and gunpowder and blood. He looks around the room with brows raised. "... lo siento, hermanos, not used to traveling slow. What I miss?" Shane is opening his mouth to speak, but snaps it shut again when the door opens. When it turns out to just be one Very Late electrokinetic, his brows raise, breath huffing out once quickly. "Rasheed. And Io. Like -- like /Rasheed/? And /Io/?" The food in front of him is very much ignored. "... was Dr. Saavedro also working with them?" Daiki's voice is quiet and even as ever. His mental landscape -- not so much. There's a quiet litany of chanting streaming through his mind, kiiind of struggling to maintain some semblance of calm in this crowded room. Dusk's initial response to this is a very low growl, deep and rumbling in his chest. "... /Dealing/ with him? Is there even any fucking /question/?" One hand is kind of THROWN out in Hive's direction. Like look? SEE? Someone is already talking the Sense. He shakes his head when Ion comes in, stretching out a wing to hook-hook-hook the once-and-future electrokinetic in towards himself. "{Jesus /Christ/, man, I'll fill you in.}" Dressed incredibly plain in a dark green t-shirt and worn old jeans, Matt had lingered in the kitchen longer than probably necessary, tidying up things that probably could wait until after supper. When he does come in with a bowl cradled to his chest, he sits down quietly. He says nothing and eats little, moving his peas and rice around with his spoon. When Jax mercifully makes the revelation, he stops even pretending to eat, his thoughts a jumble of anger and loss. He looks up at Hive, then closes his eyes. << I wouldn't stop him...again. >> His shoulder hunch in, but the new arrival provides a welcome distraction. He stares at Ion, momentarily nonplussed. << Ah. The serum. >> Followed by a stab of guilt. Bright green eyes flick to Daiki. "He was not, to the best of our knowledge, although he was all too ready to defend R-rasheed." Mirror has been sitting, throughout all this. Quiet. Not eating. Not really anything but sitting. Wearing hir own face, for once; a face that looks remarkably unruffled by this announcement. Ze isn't wearing hir own face for /long/, though; shortly after this news causes ripples through the room, hir features start to twist and warp, reshaping as she fills out slightly broader and more muscular, skin lightening from hir natural dark-brown to Joshua's deep tan, hair shortening. Ze vanishes from the room nearly as soon as the transformation is complete -- though only for a few seconds before ze is back. Still quiet, sitting in the same spot ze had been. Taylor is staring very firmly down at his hands. "... the Clinic," he asks, suddenly. "I mean if Rasheed was -- does that mean they've been /using/ patients there to --" His words stutter out as if uncertain where they were headed at all. Kind of reflexively, Hive's eyes flick to Matt. Juuust for a moment. His hands curl tighter around his coffee mug. Jax's pierced brows knit together; he stays quiet through the initial wave of disquiet, waiting it out. "So far as we know, the Clinic weren't /involved/ in none'a this," he answers first, giving a nod of acknowledgment to Matt. "... but the fact still do remain that Io knowed for months an' months --" There's a distinct flicker of guilt in his /own/ mind, here, "-- an' didn't say nothin'. I don't think we can assume nothin' from that but." One shoulder hitches up. "But who's t'say? Not long past I'd'a swore for certain /Rasheed/ wouldn't never be /that/ kinda human an'..." He shakes his head. "I do feel it's most important t'find out what information they can /give/ us that'd be a help before we rush into... anything." Another sitting quiet, haunting the background of the meeting is Killian. Dressed in black jeans and black T- shirt, he balances slightly back onto the back legs of the chair with one knee on the edge of a table to hold himself there. Arms crossed, a particularly set and uncomfortable look on his face, his gaze flickers around the group, then pauses on Jax. "And give it how much time- a week, a month? It's already been--" He finally speaks a flat non-specific comment, whether about the other subjects or Rasheed, unclear. He lifts a hand with it, a dismissive gesture. From her post at the table, Scramble speaks up, brows lifted. "They're /all/ that kind of human, Sunshine." Ion has been conferring quietly with Dusk -- or quiet on one of their parts anyway; it is punctuated by a whole lot of swearing on Ion's part. Eventually he looks up, both hands spread as he turns his attention back to Jax. "Dude, Glitterbug, think there ain't a person in this room what don't got you to thank for our fucking /lifes/, you /know/ the most of us we'd follow you to hell and back --" "-- and most of us /have/," Joshua interjects here, slightly dry, "-- but fuck if it ain't clear as day that motherfucker just needs to fucking /die/, yo." In hir seat, Mirror's form is reshaping itself again. Growing taller, leaner and lankier, skin darkening once more and hair receding to a short dark crop. Hir original clothes sit both too-loose and too-short on this new figure, sleeves and pant legs both stopping far before wrists and ankles. By the time hir form has settled, it is Rasheed who leans forward against the table. "If it's information we need," Mirror now says with Rasheed's voice, "that won't take me long at all."