ArchivedLogs:Limits

Limits
Dramatis Personae Claire, Hive, Flicker
In Absentia	2013-05-29 '
Location <NYC> 403 {Geekhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
There's kind of a college-dorm feel to this place, though some of its occupants have left college behind. Entering the apartment finds visitors greeted by the perpetually messy living room, a mismatched assortment of couches and chairs (and milk crates) surrounding the wide table in the center. The wall holds a range of posters; some political, some sporty, some from video games, and a string of white lights strung over the kitchen doorway might be a holdover from Christmas. The kitchen adjacent is just as cluttered, its table unfit for eating due to its perpetual covering of books, papers, cereal boxes, projects; the fridge is usually sparsely populated. Ketchup. Beer. Not a lot of food. There are two bedrooms here, split between the four people; the fold-out couch in the living room (often folded out!) suggests that at least one of them does not actually claim a room as their own. Claire's arrival is swift and sudden, but she at least has the courtesy to call first and make sure this is an opportune time. There is a -- knock, knock, knock -- at Hive's door, followed by the presence of that very clean, very /polished/ mind, so prim and proper and /gleaming/. Claire is dressed loosely for the warmer summer days; a green sun-dress, along with a purse strapped over one shoulder -- a little flower hat, her red curls springing out beneath it -- and pink sandals. Her face carries a trace of a frown to it, though -- and despite that mental sharpness, there is an obvious hum of quiet-but-present stormclouds. A grimness that stubbornly refuses to evaporate no matter how sunny it is outside. The door is answered almost immediately after the knock. Not by Hive but another young man, slim and darkhaired, brilliant green eyes, boyish-pretty features marred by a pockmarking of pitted scars that etch his face and arms. He is neat-dressed in blue button-down and khakis, once-starched and now kind of worn after a day of work. "Ms. Basil?" Flicker has a ferret squirming in his arms. Attempting to burrow down his shirt. His expression is largely solemn despite this, but there's laughter glimmering warm in his eyes because it is hard /not/ to laugh while having a ferret burrowing down your shirt. It is also hard not to laugh while /watching/ a ferret burrow down /someone else's/ shirt. But Claire does her best. "Oh, hello -- erm -- Flicker?" Claire asks, trying to remember. "Yes, I'm here to speak with -- Hive?" As if, she's checking to make sure this is the proper name to refer to him by. "I wanted to update him about, ahh, news. Concerning fallout. And such." A brief glance to the room behind Flicker. Her surface thoughts flickering in casual French. << {Everyone involved is so young.} >> Wrigglewriggle. Alanna is GOING DEEP. At least that was her intention but once she has achieved SHIRT she doesn't really know what to do with this triumph so she just pops her head right back out, peering around with the same enthusiasm that she had for trying to get /in/. Flicker squirms. A twitch-curl of smile breaks through. "Flicker, yes. Hive'll be out in a second." He pulls the door open wider, gestures her into their cluttered-messy apartment. They've at least bothered to clear some sitting-space on the couch! And cleared away leftovers from the table. It's still scattered with gaming sourcebooks and dice and three different laptops, though. Two monitors hooked up to one of them. "Can I get you -- something? Drink? Um. Snack, maybe?" "No, nothing to eat, thank you." Claire eyes Alanna the ferret warily, as if fearful that once she has conquered FLICKER'S shirt, Claire's own will be next. But if need be, she has her cane with which to fend off any such intrusions -- she leans on it lightly as she enters the apartment, eyes surveying the cluttered mess on the table -- gaming books, dice, laptops, /monitors/. Soon, she's sitting on top of that couch, as prim and proper as she can manage! "...maybe orange juice, if you have it," she soon adds. "Or, if not, water?" Flicker closes the door behind Claire, locks it up securely. There are -- many locks on the door. He is in the kitchen before even crossing through the living room, really; there's a faint ghostlike /appearance/ of him in the living room in one place and then another and then he is kitcheny. Alanna is still peering. Excited. She seems undisturbed by this method of travel, either used to it or just habitually excited by /all/ things. She is crawling back higher, aiming for his shoulder as he opens up the fridge. From the far side of the apartment behind them, there is the flushing sound of a toilet. Of running water from a faucet. Hive is scrubbing one just-slightly-damp hand through his hair as he emerges from the bathroom. "{Most of us stopped being young a long time ago,}" he offers in greeting as he saunters towards the couch, leaning against its back on the opposite side from Claire, elbows propped against it. He's watching Flicker in the kitchen. Claire watches as Flicker starts to ghost; eyebrows shoot up in surprise, a little smile starting to wiggle its way across her features. She settles her cane down across her lap and turns -- to the sound of the toilet flushing, the water running. The emergence of Hive. Her eyebrows lift even /higher/, now, although the smile she was wearing thins when he speaks. "{You know French?}" she asks, curiously, before adding -- "Or is that an effect of..." She gestures, toward her own temple. Her expression -- and thoughts -- darken. "I suspect you already know this, but I don't have very good news to bring you." "{I speak French,}" Hive gives in offhand agreement, leaning his weight down against his arms. His eyes still stay fixed on Flicker as he pours orange juice, puts the carton away. "I spent all weekend with a crowd of --" He doesn't finish this, just lowers his gaze to the couch cushions. Flicker doesn't teleport back from the kitchen with a glass full of liquid; he walks back, setting it down on the table in front of Claire. "-- Do you mind if I --" He's gesturing to the old busted armchair cornering the couch. "-- No," Hive answers for them, before Flicker finishes asking. "Sit. Stay. I wasn't really expecting good news. I usually assume people who show up with good news are lying." Claire picks up the glass and drinks -- /hungrily/ -- perhaps more than she should. When she sets it down, a third of it is already gone. She inspects the glass for just one more moment -- as if it might explain to her the best way to approach this. In the end, she just, well. Launches right into it: "I was over-excited about what we had. The bank account gives you -- quite a lot. It gives you the names of everyone who paid money to watch -- the names of those who profitted -- the names of those who accepted bribes directly. What it doesn't give you is /evidence/ that anything sinister was going on. For that, I had hoped the footage and bodies would serve our needs, but... the bodies were cremated. A pet shop. They even disposed of the fillings. The footage is... much trickier to secure than I had hoped. I thought we had found some of it, earlier, but it was -- unrelated." Claire leans back on the couch, craning away. "From what I've gleaned of the minds you've shared with me and my search for the footage -- they weren't stupid enough to sell any footage of non-obvious mutants. Of mutants who look too /human/. So even if we find it, it will look like..." She sighs. "To the public, it won't necessarily look like what it actually /is/." Flicker's lips press together at this, and he is silent, but Hive's eyes flick to him and he snorts at something unsaid. Not /long/ unsaid, though, because he echoes: "Yeeeeah. It might look like /exactly/ what it actually is." He sinks down, socked feet sliding farther away from the couch so that he can sink his chin to his palms. "Public just might not give a shit. Could try 'em and find out. No guarantees we'll like what we see." This time, when he glances to Flicker, it's with a wince. And he doesn't repeat. "If you could. That would help. Computers are not -- an expertise of mine," Claire admits. "But from what I understand -- they did live-streaming. There's no way this footage was not copied by /someone/. Stored, perhaps. But..." She sighs, again. Fingertips lift upward to stroke her forehead. "Without bodies? With the footage being what it is? With the people involved being who they are? We do not have /nearly/ the leverage I hoped for. I am fairly certain we have the /money/, at least," she adds, a little grim and careful. "You can perhaps use it to help the survivors put some of their lives together. But -- I had hoped -- as terrible as it might sound -- to find the bodies of younger victims. Ones who's mutations were not as readily apparent. Ones whom the public might more readily -- /sympathize/ with." "Mmnh." Hive's head tips, one side to the other, like weighing -- something. Whatever it is, his lips press together at the end. "Could find someone to track down -- well. We'll see what's out there. Gotta be /something/." His fingers drum against his cheekbone. "Hive still has them," Flicker finally speaks up quietly. One finger taps against his temple. "Maybe they could --" He hesitates, glancing downward at his hands. Hive's lips pull back; sort of a smile but with too any teeth. "Survivors'll need it. Any idea how much? There's a few dozen of 'em. Probably all of 'em could use /some/ help." Claire's head lifts when Flicker mentions Hive still having them. Something -- sharp seems to slip into her eyes. That dark, thrumming storm in her mind rumbles ominously as not-very-pleasant thoughts seem to drift across the facets of that well-worn mind. "...you still have them," she says. "Right now? How long can you -- safely hold them?" At Hive's question, Claire just retrieves a slip of folded paper from her purse. Flip, pass. It's a bank statement. As she hands it over, though, there's that edge to her tone again. "...how /precise/ is your control? How powerful? I can't imagine -- it's safe for you to hold them much longer." "Safe for who," Flicker asks, softly. Hive's jaw tightens slowly. He leans forward to take the paper, and unfolding it earns a hike of his eyebrows. "Man," he says, handing the paper to Flicker, "I am in the wrong fucking business." "Murder's lucrative." Flicker's nose wrinkles. Alanna has draped herself around his neck but now she is wriggling back down into his lap. Nosing at the paper. He holds it up out of her reach. "I can hold them." Hive's eventual answer is a little clipped. "If there's something worthwhile to be done with them, I can hold them." "I don't know. If there is. The only things I can think of are--" And here, Claire just begins to -- mop at her face. Slowly but surely. Mop, mop. "--/cravenly/ illegal. Some small part of me is tempted to tell you we should /stage/ a fight, using them. Video tape the event, make it -- perfect for selling to the media. As something terrible. That is a horrible idea," Claire swiftly adds, head lifting over her hands to /stare/ at Hive, just in case -- he actually thought it was a good one. "...there is another part of me that is tempted to tell you to -- do something awful with them. I can't think of anything that would be useful. Manageable. /Realistic/. The information, we should gather. Their names, the names of everyone involved. Write it down, record it. Otherwise? What /can/ we do with them?" "Kill them." Hive says this immediately and sort of bland, dispassionate, no particular weight to the statement. "Though I'd be down for a cop-on-cop bout of cage matches, too." "You can't kill them," Flicker curls his knees upwards, lazily trapping Alanna against his stomach. Wrigglewriggle. "But you can keep all their information. You know, there's nothing stopping them doing it /again/. I mean, /we'll/ have to stop them. But nothing /else/." "You can't kill them," Claire agrees, and there's -- /maybe/ a bit of decisive force behind that statement, though not a lot. "It would be -- a terrible thing. /And/ a very unwise thing. The sudden death of so many members of the NYPD would be credited as a mutant action..." Claire's eyes drift over to Flicker, frowning. "No. There isn't," she agrees. "Maybe, if you--" She looks to Hive. She sighs. "We can get them arrested. For something else. Taking bribes." Hive's fingers unfurl in a lazy flick towards the bank statement. "If you've got the paperwork to prove it," he says, shrugging a shoulder. "There's a crapton they could get slammed with. I'm pretty sure they need a fuckton of licenses to run --" His lips twist downward distastefully. "Sporting events. And gambling's not on." "Whatever paperwork we don't have, we can have them draw up themselves," Claire agrees, and then -- her head descends for her hands, cradling it. "{God have mercy.} We could make it out to be an illegal dog fighting ring. I don't even want to talk about this. But. The evidence is not sufficient for -- it /is/ sufficient for that. Or, you could have them, nngh. Release them, once we have their names. All but a few. Over the next month, have them make suspicious deposits in their bank accounts, sign some suspicious paperwork. Switch between them. We could implicate them in a wide-scale fraud or extortion scam. It would--" Claire cuts herself off. Takes a deep, long gulp of the orange juice. "...we need to take down their names, all the information -- see what we have. Then we'll discuss... ways to put them away. Make sure they can't do it again." Then, perhaps a bit softer: "Who should I send this money to?" "I could have them turn themselves in to the fucking FBI if it didn't look so -- mmnh. Yeah. OK. These cops are going t become the shadiest fucking money-launderers ever." Hive's fingers scuff through his hair again, fingertips scraping along the side of his head. His hand drops abruptly at the question. "Woah, shit, don't ask /me/," he says, eyes widening, "/I'm/ not in charge of this fucking -- send it to Jax, he's the one who --" "-- No," Flicker cuts this off quiet but firm. "Don't send it to Jax. His kids were -- he wouldn't take a penny if he were deciding, and they /should/." His fingers scratch slowly against Alanna's head. "He /will/ know how many of the rescuees there were, though. Could make a fund to help but --" His teeth sink against his lip. "Maybe we should just split it evenly and give it to them. /We're/ not really -- it's not our job to decide. What help they need." Claire nods at what Flicker says, as if this merely confirms some suspicion she's had. "/If/ you trust me," she says, lifting her eyes to Hive -- then back to Flicker. "I can set something up. It's going to take time. We need to /relocate/ each one of the individuals -- did anyone take a headcount? Of how many we saved? There's also other decisions that need to be made -- difficult ones. The ones who didn't survive, for example. Should some of that money go to their families? What do you /tell/ those families? They deserve the truth. But if they know the truth -- they might want justice. Which would risk exposing you. I can contact them, keep you out of this. But again, this is -- only if you trust me enough to handle that end of it." Claire turns back to Hive. "And I can help you with the -- mmnf. With making them /appear/ to be money-launderers," she says, as if this very idea were giving her a headache. At a glance, Hive can tell she is very /uncomfortable/ with breaking the law. This whole situation -- is /way/ out of her comfort zone. Then again, she thinks to herself: Who /isn't/ outside of their comfort zone, here? "We'll probably need to use some of this money to make it look sufficiently bad, however. I'm not sure how much. But however much of it we use, we won't get it back. But, yes -- if we take our time -- if we do it right? We can implicate them all in wide-scale corruption charges." "Jax took a headcount of the ones we got out," Hive answers, "-- but we have no fucking idea how many died. /They/ didn't have records of /that/. I mean, who these people were? Where they came from? How do we trace that. They treated them like animals, not people. It's not like they signed them in with their names and social security numbers. I don't even know how many there were. Some of them," his fingers wave towards his head, "know names. Knew names. But they didn't even pay enough /attention/ to --" He shakes his head. "I don't trust you," he adds, blunt more than accusing, "but I don't know you. I trust," here he has a very thin twitch of smile, "that you'd be kind of an idiot to fuck all these people over, though, with us watching." His fingers scrub through his hair again. "We have time." Claire smiles grimly at the mention of her having to be a fool to -- well. "Fair enough. But they know /some/ of these names, yes? You and I can work together. My power allows me to do more than give you greater control over your power -- it allows me to help others remember things much more /clearly/. I will interview each of them -- with your help. Soon. As soon as possible -- so you may rid yourself of their brutish minds. Talk them through everything that happened. Each abduction, each location, each event, each name, each face. Get as much of it as we can." Claire reaches for the glass in front of her. "We can videotape it, perhaps. Useless in court -- coerced testimony. But in doing so, we will be able to find -- as many names of those who died as we can. Track down any family members, anyone searching for these people, give them closure. And maybe, perhaps? Some day, we /can/ use the videotapes. As evidence." The glass is finished. Claire frowns. "Would you be able to do this, do you think?" "We know some." It takes Hive a moment before he says this, and his expression in the pause is kind of distant, his posture slouching further against the couch. "If you can help us remember. We can -- find some of them, at least. Maybe not all. But more. We'll see." Flicker's brows draw together briefly. He stands, picking up Alanna and moving over to deposit her on Hive's back. She skitterslides for a moment, scrabbling for purchase, but then climbs up towards his hair. Snuffling into it. "I can help you remember," Claire tells him, "help /them/ remember. But it might be best to do it a few at a time. We'll take down all of their names, first -- the ones you have... control over. Then, you'll release some. Most. We'll cycle through -- interview, gather the data. Then, you'll switch to the others... until we have it all. Then, we'll take the next step. Getting them... off the streets. To make sure they can't just start this over," she adds. Claire frowns, watching as Alanna snuffles. "I know you probably don't think you've done anything more than look after your own, here, but -- you've /done/ something -- people /don't/ take on half the NYPD and walk away to tell the tale." "If you could help us remember --" Hive starts, but stops with a /twitch/ as Alanna presses her nose into his hair. Climbs up the back of his neck. Starts to burrow down into /his/ t-shirt, too. His eyes scrunch shut for a moment, and he lifts his hand to pluck the ferret off his neck and lower her to the floor, where she immediately proceeds to attempt to wrestle his foot. "Haven't walked away yet," is what he ends up muttering, "but we haven't. Done anything more than -- fuck. This is fucked up." "You haven't done anything more than save the lives of who knows how many mutants from a plot by the NYPD to put them in cages and watch them die," Claire responds. "But, yes. This /is/ 'fucked up'. In every sense of the word. You just -- do whatever you can. Without losing yourself in the process. I don't know the extent of your power -- how much is too much. I don't know what your /limits/ are, Hive." Claire reaches across the table as Hive lifts his hand from his foot, where Alanna wrestles -- moving to, carefully, touch the back of his knuckles. "I'm trusting you -- and your friends -- to not let you extend past them. This is -- of /extraordinary/ importance. But it's not important enough to lose anyone else." "Limits," Hive echoes this with a thin curl of smile, but it vanishes soon. He twitches again when Claire touches him, and this is more mental than physical -- a slight stiffening of his arm but there's a solid-heavy mental press that flicks out instinctively, pushing in against Claire's mind. It withdraws as Hive sinks down to sit on the arm of the couch. "Got a lot of cops in here. When can we start with this shit?" Claire's mind instinctively retracts -- not sharply, not fearfully, but a slow rolling /back/ and away from that pressure, as if it were yielding to the presence -- yet at the same time, not surrendering any actual piece of her headspace /to/ it. More like a careful, practiced retreat. The contact at Hive's hand -- physical -- doesn't recede, however. Instead, she gives his hand a soft squeeze. "Now," she tells him, reaching for a pen. Hive eyes the pen like what is this bizarre archaic technology, looking from it to his laptop on the table with its pair of attached monitors. And then he exhales heavily, sliding from the arm of the chair to sit properly on its cushion. "Now," he agrees. Flicker considers this answer, and quietly gets up, disappearing back into the kitchen to refill Claire's juice, and get one for Hive. They might be here a while.