ArchivedLogs:Readying

Readying
Dramatis Personae Cage, Hive, Regan, Flicker
In Absentia	2014-04-09 Part of Perfectus TP.
Location <NYC> BoM Safehouse - Lower East Side
Tucked away off a little-used side street in the Lower East Side, sandwiched between a youth drop-in center and a taqueria, this narrow three-story townhouse has very little to catch the eye. Boarded-up windows, a door peeling its paint, shabby grubby brickface; from the outside it does not look like much. Inside someone has gone to great lengths to renovate the building into something more habitable. It isn't glamorous but it is comfortable, old furniture dragged in, the place generally swept clean. The first floor holds a large living room, a smaller dining room, a spacious kitchen, a half-bathroom. There are three bedrooms and a full bathroom on the second floor; the attic is just a large empty space crammed full of boxes with a window out to the large flat roof. The basement, much like the attic, consists of a lot of empty space. A bare concrete floor, no windows, occasional poles running up to the ceiling. A tiny half-bathroom down here, too. Not a whole lot else. It's actually quite a lovely day in New York, sunny and bright and inching up around sixty; the glorious spring weather doesn't hardly seem /right/ for being in the least /foreboding/. Not the sort of day and time for discussing dismemberment and kidnapping /and yet/. To be fair, Regan seems reasonably springlike herself, lightweight denim jacket over a sky-blue curve-hugging blouse, pale jeans, hiking boots, blond hair tied back in a ponytail; there's a cup of Starbucks coffee in her hand where she's parked on one of the living room armchairs, leaned in towards the table in front of it to frown at her laptop screen. Her other hand hovers over the keyboard, halfway into a reply in her email. Flicker just seems much like he always does. Plain navy-blue polo shirt, khakis, a messenger bag slung over his shoulder that suggests he's just come from class. He doesn't knock, doesn't take the /door/; there's just a shimmer-blur from the back of the house and then he is /there/ where he wasn't before, looking more than a little bit harried. "Regan." There's a quiet urgency in his tone matched by a soft /apology/ for the intrusion. It's underlaid with a heavy brief squeeze of mental /pressure/ that pushes out and then recedes and suggests that though he appears solo Flicker does not come /alone/. But for now, past this heavyhanded polite hello-I'm-here, Hive stays quiet. /Probably/ listening, he always /is/. But quiet. Luke Cage is out on the streets, asking questions for the second day in a row. Not everyone recognizes him, but he does do a good job of getting peoples' attention for his questions without intimidating them or coming off like a cop. He wears black t-shirt and jeans, biker boots and wrap-around sunglasses as he canvasses the block. He has a computer print out with a color image of Dusk, and he's asking passersby if they've seen the distinctive mutant, when that might have been, and in what context. He's not getting a ton of helpful answers: Fuck off. Sure I've seen him, but not in days. Dunno the guy. Think he went outta town. No seriously, go fuck yourself. Etcetera. With the frequent comings and goings in the post-Loftsplosion Safehouse crowd, Regan only barely looks up at Flicker's abrupt arrival; it's just the sound of her name, really, that draws her eyes to Flicker, narrowing sharply on the young man at his urgent tone. "Flicker." Her head inclines to him, polite, a brief spare smile afforded him that accepts his apology and dismisses it just as handily. "... And Hive." This sounds a little more tired. She shuts the laptop, leaning back against the chair and lifting her coffee to take a long gulp. "It's not Friday." "No, it's not. And I'm -- I apologize. For dropping in unannounced, I was kind of hoping to find you or Kay or someone here. I just -- we've had news," Flicker explains softly. His hand drops to rest against his messenger bag, and he stands up a little straighter, quiet and rather unfidgety. His bright green gaze meets Regan's levelly; he draws in a deep breath, pulling in coffee-scent and stale cigarette smoke wih a small shiver. "But we need help. To act on it. And fast, I think." Having canvassed the street as best he can, Luke moved on to knocking on doors. Being midmorning in a working class neighborhood, most people aren't home or aren't interested in talking to the huge man, and he moves from door to door fairly quickly. He's just about to knock on the safehouse door when his brain tingles with a familiar presence. His body carries through with the physical act of knocking on the door, but mentally he tries a greeting, "Uh, Hive? Is that you?" "News?" Now Regan's brows lift with interest, her fingers drumming against the side of the cup. She takes another long drink of coffee, one leg crossing over the other. "Please tell me it's good. Or that we can /make/ it good. We --" Her head tips at the sound of knocking, and she leans forward to set her cup down on the table, uncrossing her legs again and heading towards the door. There's a reflexive tension, these days, that accompanies the arrival of new people; automatically she's /vanishing/ as she approaches the door. When she reappears, peering out the peephole, she just looks /puzzled/. She also looks nothing like herself, anymore, hair in a short-cropped black bob, a little shorter and a little curvier and a little tanner than her usual appearance, rounder in the face, eyes brown, brow furrowed in confusion. << Did you, >> floats over in mental speech to Flicker and Hive as she unlocks the door and opens it, << Order a wrecking ball? >> Outwardly, her smile to Cage is polite. "Luke Cage. Hello." "News." Flicker repeats this firmly. "It's --" He hesitates, noncommital on the good-bad front. "We can /act/ on it. That's better than no news." His head turns sharply at the knock, too, muscles tensing in reflexive /readiness/. His brows hike upwards, head shaking automatically at the mental query. << Didn't /order/ shit, >> Hive answers Regan in heavy /thud/, << it just /turns up/. >> And to Cage, an answering: << Only kinda. >> It's certainly Hive's familiar sledgehammer-heavy mental /pounding/, though the telepath himself is nowhere to be /seen/, only Flicker's very /serious/ face as he blip-jumps a little closer to the door. "-- Mister Cage?" /He/ sounds puzzled, too, recognition widening his bright green eyes. Luke blinks at the immediate recognition, then he shrugs and smiles. "Yep, that's me. Hi. Don't mean to bother you, but um," His eyes flick over Regan's shoulder to Flicker, and then he /winces/ as Hive's greeting pounds into his brain. "Ow... Hi. You know these people, Hive?" He just asks the question out loud, letting the full-page printed picture of Dusk drop to his side. "Someone asked us to help find a kid named 'Dusk'." The smile drops from Regan's face, immediately. Her eyes cut past Cage into the street, her thoughts shivering over with a reflexive-wary suspicion. Much more /unobtrusive/ than Hive's, /her/ telepathy is a silent thing, quiet as it slips out to flicker over Cage's mind, tasting surface thoughts and motivations; past this she's asking Hive, quietly: << You know him? Is he legit? >> Her hand taps against the door, eyes faintly narrowed as they return to Cage. "Someone? What do they want with Dusk?" << Know him, >> Hive confirms to Regan. << He's cool. Gonna attract some eyes if he hangs around too long, though, might want to let him in. He could probably be some help with what we're about to ask. >> "Hive's my --" Flicker hesitates; there's the very faintest hint of a flush that darkens his cheeks as he takes a step back further into the room. "We're friends." << Dusk was our roommate. >> slams in Hive's clarification. "Going to be our roommate again, at the Commons." Flicker's voice is soft. But firm. Luke's expression grows more serious as well, following Regan's tone shift. His mind shows his earnest understanding of her suspicion. He glances over his shoulder at the street out of habit, and nods, "Yeah well, some friend of Dusk's apparently. A guy called 'Josiah'? I just wanna make sure he's ok." His expression softens as does his mental defensiveness at Flicker's concern. Mentally, he also confirms that Hive is gay and is Flicker's lover, and doesn't have any issue with it. Close enough for government work, apparently. It's more just a checkmark on a list of facts he keeps in his head. Details. Even if they're wrong. "Yeah, I'd like to help you all find them," Luke says, glancing back at the street again. "But um, maybe I should come in and talk about this with you off the street?" Regan steps back silently, after Hive's confirmation, letting Cage in off the street and locking the door again once he's come inside. There's signs that quite a few people have been living in here, lately; she returns to her spot in the armchair, sinking back down into it and waving a hand to the couch to invite Cage to sit. "I think he may be a little far from okay. Hive seems to believe you can help, though." Regan sounds -- /noncommital/ about this, admittedly. But for now she's reserving judgment. There's a small ripple of pressure up against Cage's mind at the conclusions he draws; it feels almost amused. Then fades back into oblivion. Flicker ghosts his way back over across the room; he doesn't sit, himself, just leans up against the wall, arms crossing against his chest. "The thing is we've found them. Or -- well, we haven't. But we've found the people who have them and now we just need to narrow it down. Micah is --" His jaw tightens, here; there's a slight paling to his expression, his eyes lowering to the floor. "There's a meeting tonight," he just plows on ahead; Cage might need to stop him to /backtrack/ a little, "and Micah's going to be there with them. And we've tracked down a /lot/ of houses where they could be keeping them. But we just don't have the /numbers/ to hit them all -- but if they're having a meeting this evening it seems like the best time to /try/. While we know they're all -- or lots of them, anyway -- going to be in one /place/. I was hoping some of your people could help." Luke nods at Regan's assessment and shrugs. "I'll help if I can, definitely." He follows her into the house and raises an eyebrow at Flicker's /flickering/ but doesn't comment on it. Both eyebrows shoot up though when Flicker says they're found. He follows the conversation, but doesn't stop Flicker for further explanation. He makes a silent mental note to ask Hive for the details later without realizing Hive will have just received the memo. "What kind of meeting are we talking about? Kidnappers Anonymous or something? And for the record: yes, I will do whatever I can to help out. I've been hearing rumors about this shit for a while now, and this is the closest I've come to a real lead." "Found them? How?" Regan picks her coffee back up, one leg crossing back over the other again. "Micah's going to be there again." Her tone is dry, but it's almost -- grudgingly /approving/. "His acting skills are proving rather impressive. Do you know," and in her mind there's just quiet cool /blankness/, not a lot of hope one way or another, "if he's even still alive." She rests her coffee cup on her knee, not actually drinking from it yet. "Oh -- oh." Flicker blushes again, shaking his head at Luke's question. "No, it's -- more like a church. More like a /cult/. They've been taking mutants," he explains, quietly, "and cutting them up, as best we can tell, to /take/ their body parts and -- steal their powers. There may be some sort of faith healing aspect going on -- it's all really creepy." His arms tighten against his chest. "We've located a bunch of property they own and narrowed down a lot of /potential/ locations where prisoners might be kept. Micah's gone -- undercover. With them. He's -- hopefully meeting their leader tonight. And meanwhile while the cult's occupied we're going to try and find the people they've taken before --" He swallows, and nods to Regan. "Spencer saw Dusk and Rasa last night. They're alive. Not in one piece. But alive." "Cutting people up..." Luke says, his expression going stony. To Flicker he asks, "So Spencer saw them but he doesn't know where they are? How does his power work?" His mind shows him trying to put together the puzzle from not enough pieces. The big man isn't /stupid/ but he also doesn't have all the pieces. "Well they have to be alive-" he starts to say, and then stops, looking from Regan to Flicker and back. "Wait, I didn't get your names. I know Hive. And you know who I am. I wanna know what to call you." "Just get me a list of places," Regan agrees with a small nod. "If there's anything left of Dusk," her voice is a little bit /grim/, "we'll bring him home." There's a very small twitch of her lips as she looks at Cage. "And you too, I suppose. What time is the meeting? We'll meet here two hours before?" "Taking their body parts and /putting/ them in other people," Flicker clarifies, a little bit numbly. "Spencer's only -- young, his power works. A little fuzzily. He can teleport to people he /knows/. So he teleported /to/ Dusk. But that doesn't really help tell where he is, just. Some Room, Somewhere. And -- I apologize. I'm Flicker." He nods at Regan's statement, taking a deep breath as he steps away from the wall and pulling his phone out of his pocket. "I've got the details. There are -- a lot." He tips his head towards his computer. "You might want to write this down."