Starring:
Summary: The Times Square tornado/earthquake is discussed, info is shared, and opinions voiced.
Date It Happened: May 4th, 2007
New York Experience: Circumstantial Evidence Versus Proof
Enlightenment Books, East Village, Manhattan, NYC
She sends another text, following the others to Enlightenment Books. Elena doesn't look over her shoulder until it's all clear - and it's only when they actually get BACK to East Village that she'll chance it. She fires the message off to Eric, about how they ran into a man-made cyclone in Times Square and that they were meeting at Enlightenment to chat about the possibilities. Afterwards, Elena stows the cellphone back in her pocket.
It's only when they're safely inside the store that she speaks up, making sure the establishment is devoid of other ears that didn't belong to their motley crew. "What the hell -was- that?" she blurts out. "This isn't the first time this has happened, is it? Jane told me about what happened to you on the…boat ferry thing," she says, looking at Cass.
Having already caught a sight of Claudine in Times Square, Cass doesn't feel the need to look back. Already having been dragged off by Lachlan, now she's walking of her own accord and doing it silently. When they reach the store, she unlocks it and lets everyone in before shutting the door and locking it behind her again. "It was a tornado. In Times Square. A little tiny one." That's the obvious answer, but one that she'll state anyway. "It wasn't a tornado at Battery Park. Just a strong gust of wind that carried a kid off into the water. But, I didn't see that girl there that time. So, I don't know if they're related at all."
She goes with the group, not speaking herself along the way. Jane just runs what she saw over in her head, several times. Two places, two weeks running. Wind, Cass, the Filipinas. Orion. Her expression, should anyone look at her, reflects the existence of a mental process happening. Inside the bookstore, as Elena seeks to make sure the place is devoid of ears, Jane herself goes silent and moves in a circle with her lips pursed, emitting an ultrasonic tone, to verify they weren't followed by anyone unseen. It's a thing she sometimes does these days.
"I saw one of them there, Cass," Jane replies. "I shouted for her to get the ferry crew to help." She takes a deep breath, asking afterwards "What the hell did we just see?" Her gear is set down, and a pad of paper is taken from the backpack on which she starts to list people common to both incidents.
And bringing up the rear is Lachlan who, once it's apparent that they are all someplace (relatively) safe, immediately digs into his pocket for his handy pack of cigarettes and lighter. He doesn't give a thought as to where they are until he's got a cigarette between his lips — and only then does he pause to frown around at the bookstore. It … there's no smoking in here. Goddamn it. "'ll tell ye wha' we saw: was a bloody tornado." Mister Obviousman is obvious.
"Apparently a small tornado. So one of them is a tornado maker?" Elena looks over at the rest of them. Now that Cass has locked the door, she moves to the desk so she could lean against them. "I wasn't there during the ferry ride thing, but I did notice that the tornado stopped when the big guy moved on the two asian girls, and then the -earthquake- started. You said that one of them was someone you recognized, Cass?" It had to have been this 'Claudine' chick. She was the one with the terrakinetic powers - so whoever caused the earthquake was probably her. That meant….it was down to the other girl, and the big guy she's never seen before.
What Jane says makes Cass frown and she thinks that over. "So they /were/ there?" Well, that would make sense if the two incidents /were/ linked. "I guess I was too busy trying not to drown to notice. Though…that big guy…I think he was there with the life preserver. The one who dragged me to the surface." Hm. She wouldn't bet her life on it, but she's pretty sure. "Yeah. One of the girls, the older one…she's the one that came into the store and shook everything off the shelves."
She's writing things down as she listens. There's a line down the center of the sheet. One side is marked Ferry Incident at the top, the other Tornado/Earthquake. Under both sections, at the top, Jane enters the name Cass. The next entry in both sections is Filipina who likes Bob Marley, followed by Man With Filipina. After them? On the ferry side, she lists Unknown Teen. Across from her, on the Tornado side, goes Younger Fililpina in Sleeper Hold. Zac is entered in the Ferry side, then a person only called Liina. The other entries, listed only on the tornado side, are Clumsy Businessman, Elena, Lachlan, Punk in Midair and Man Holding Punk Down. "The big man with the older Filipina was there too, Cass. Both places. He put the younger Filipina in a sleeper hold, soon the tornado was gone."
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.
That would be the front door. Eric would be the one standing outside that front door. Looking around before he glances back towards the door. Come on~ come on~ its cold out here. He'll call Elena if he has too. However he's sure SOMEONE will open the door for him eventually he is.
"So, wha'? Tornado's gonna happen b'cause o' some punk canna keep 'is powers t'gether 'r somethin'?" Yeah, Lachlan's starting to get the hang of this stuff. The cigarette remains between his lips, though unlit, and when there's a knock at the door he goes rigid and then holds up a hand for the others to be silent as he starts slipping towards the door. A quick sweep of whatever stray dogs might be nearby doesn't give him much information as to who might be on the other side of the door, damn it. With the window still boarded up, he can't see out, so he instead presses his back up against the door solidly, just in case someone attempts to bust it down. "Store's closed," he calls.
"Lachlan!" Eric hisses though the door. "Its me Eric, open up! Elena called me!"
"I texted—" And she hears the hiss. Elena can't help but bite back a laugh at the byplay between Lachlan and Eric, walking to the door and nudging her hip against Lachlan slightly to try and scoot him over. She'll let Cass and Jane look at the diagram that's being drawn. In which case, she opens the door when Lachlan makes room for her, and lets Eric inside before closing the door and locking it quickly again. To Jane and Cass, she looks over her shoulder. "If the other girl looked younger, and they're both the same race, spotted with the same guy, you think maybe they're related?" She asks. It's only a guess, she won't believe it herself unless there's more proof. That and they're asian. They all look alike.
Allowing Lachlan to take care of the door and barring Eric from coming in, Cass keeps her attention on that diagram, a frown of concentration on her face. "I don't know. I didn't even know that other girl's name until you helped me out with that." It's something that certainly requires more attention. "I don't even know if what happened in Times Square has anything to do with those two. She's supposed have Terrakinesis, not tornado making powers." She crosses her arms.
Studying the diagram she made, Jane listens again to others speaking, considering what they say. Only the briefest of glances is given the door when Eric knocks, it's all handled, and there's all of… this to mull over. Once she has the floor again, the lawyer/guitarist asks "You know a name for one of them? And they could be related? Terrakinesis?" Doctor Out Of The Loop looks up from the chart to rest eyes on Cass, then the door answering Elena, and back again. Her expression, a bit stormy, seems to ask if people are holding out on her again, or still. Her hands move aside and leave the pen so changes can be made, like attaching powers and names to people.
As soon as Eric identifies himself, Lachlan relaxes and shoots a frown at Elena before obligingly scooting out of the way. He moves to find a place to seat himself not too far from the others — up against the wall, oddly enough, with his knees bent and elbows resting atop them — where he takes the cigarette from between his lips and holds it between middle and index finger as though it really /is/ lit. There he remains, watching the others try to sort out the whole mess. The more they think, the less he has to.
And in comes Eric as he glances around for a moment, he just nods to the others in greeting before he closes the door before locking it and glancing back to stroll across the room and find a place over near Elena…and then try to figure out just what he's been missing. He'll be cought up in a moment really.
"Claudine," she supplies to Jane. "She's also a Company agent. If you saw the guy perform a sleeper hold on the other girl, Jane, chances are the big guy is one too. Don't they always work in pairs, or something like that? Just like the Men in Black, FBI agents, and detectives?" Elena crosses her arms over her chest. When Eric stands next to her, she turns to him, and starts murmuring at him to catch him up. Tornado in Times Square, small but powerful enough to carry off some punk kid. Three suspects spotted, and one of them Claudine, who they already know can move the earth (thanks to information passed to her by BFF Drake), and a company agent.
"If you get an ashtray, you can smoke, Lach," Cass glances over at the Scot and smiles. She's certainly noticed his desire to light up that cigarette. And since there are only a couple books in the store, this is the least flammable it will be. "Just this once." While Elena explains what she knows to Jane, she just nods along. "Right. I don't know how exactly they work, but it would make sense. Most groups that have recovery teams or the like work in pairs. Wouldn't be surprised. So we've got to assume that the Company at least knows of what's going on if they aren't flat out the cause of it."
"Claudine," Jane repeats, looking back over the chart. She writes Company agent? next to the Man With Filipina entry. Then she gestures toward the sheet, asking both Elena and Cass "Which one of these is Claudine? If the big guy was Company, then I think that explains something. He was capturing the one he had in a hold. Making her unconscious to stop the tornado?" And the mental light bulb goes on, it occurs to her if Claudine has earthmovage, then she can't be the one in the sleeper hold, so she writes that name next to Filipina who likes Bob Marley and notes her power next to it. "Shit," she whispers. "I've talked to her twice since early March. Played for her outside my building and had coffee with her at Starbucks."
When given leave to smoke, Lachlan smirks a bit. "Thank ye." He rises to his feet with a soft grunt and goes in quest of an ashtray, or something that can be suitably substituted for an ashtray. He's not picky.
"And I've seen and talked to her several times around campus, though it didn't seem that she was suspicious over anything…though I'll have to be a bit more careful now that I know," Eric finally makes the comment before he frowns slightly. He's never been very good at lying to anyone, and this is close to lying. Ah well. He'll deal with it he will.
"I don't know, Jane, I've never met her. Cass recognized her, and— Eric you -know- her?" Elena says, looking over at the young man and blinking at him. Suddenly, she looks worried. "And she hangs around NYU?" Now she's even more worried. Why is this woman dogging Eric on campus? She narrows her eyes a little bit. Do they suspect something? Was it just a hunch? She can't help it, a protective surge fires up her blood. With this woman stalking Drake, and 'chatting' with Eric on campus, she can't help but be wary. The fiery side of her wants to confront the bitch and take a baseball bat to her face— or make her FEEL she just took a baseball bat to the face. But at the violent thought, she blinks, and rubs her face. Whoa. Where did that come from?
"Sure. Don't burn anything down." The smile she gives Lachlan only lasts a moment because then she's tossed back into the discussion about tornados and the Company. "I don't know. None of this may be linked. Or maybe all of it is. We can't be sure till we get more information." Frowning, she thinks back to the fact that she told Claudine that she knew about the Company. Hopefully this doesn't stem from all of that.
"…well…I met her at a party, and at the park…and a coffee house," Eric frowns slightly as he thinks back, eyes narrowing. "…no though, I don't think she's following me. I think its all been fairly honest random meetings…" He trails off slightly before he glances at Elena. His face is entirely clueless, more worried than anything when the looks at the young woman. "…you alright? Not feeling after effects from what happened are you?"
Another notation next to the name Claudine, that of Company agent, as Jane studies the list for an extended moment of thought. On the Ferry side she adds more entries. Middle Eastern Man In Water, Medicine Woman, Blown Away Boy, Father, and Mother. "This is everybody I remember seeing. This one," she taps the name Claudine, "makes the ground shake, so she'd probably have caused the earthquake. The other one was in a hold just before the tornado stopped. Do we agree she made it happen, and the big man was arresting her for it, knocking her out to make it stop?" While speaking, she writes Tornado Girl? next to the entry for younger Filipina, then circles her and Claudine before adding a question outside it. Related?
It takes some time, but Lachlan finally manages to locate an old soda can in a garbage bin and he shakes it top-first over the trash before crushing it flat with a good /whunk/ on his forehead. Doesn't hurt at all and when in a pinch, it's as good an ashtray as any. The concave bottom will work, and so with that in tow, he goes back to his seat and lights up his cigarette, taking a deep, grateful pull from it and exhaling it through his teeth. "Sure. 'F ye say so," he responds to Jane's assessment. Lachlan has cigarette. Lachlan doesn't care.
"Ah huh," Elena growls. "So the fact that she's been stalking Drake too is -completely- random." It's a strange sound, a purring rumbling at the back of her throat with the golden glints of her eyes flashing ferally under dark lashes. Probably because the more vicious side of Elena in all of her spirited latina glory tends to be shut down unless something happens. Something like young asian company agents dogging her boys across New York waiting for them to slip up and have them wiped or worse. Like give them venereal diseases. Hey, she doesn't know where the woman's been. She hasn't even met her and she -hates- her already. And Elena isn't big on the hating.
"I'm not sure if I'm ready to make that call, Jane," Cass shakes her head at the musician and her diagram. "We don't know anything about this tornado. It's a possibility, but I don't want to focus on it and let other ideas slip away because we're too busy with something that may not be correct." Anything else she has on the subject is paused when she sees Lachlan crushing a can on his head and then Elena's growling. "Wow. You sound like your father," she blinks at the Latina. It's something that takes her a bit by surprise. The two, obviously, are related, but this is the first sees seen of that side of her friend.
"…easy Elena…easy, she didn't actually do anything," Besides want to make out…but he doesn't mention that, even IF he didn't want to do so with her. Mentioning that might /really/ get the woman mad. Please though, don't go and kill her. However there is a little bit of him that just goes…woah…when her eyes flash like that and she looks so mad…part of him definitely wants to drag her into a back room somewhere. Mmmm. Sexy.
While waiting for answers to her queries, Jane looks from Cass to Elena, and raises an eyebrow when the latina's focus is on something else entirely. "What about Drake?" she asks. "Someone stalked him? Is… that the guy you worked with at Starbucks?" She pauses. "We really need to work on our communication." She's been wondering before if more things she once knew and forgot are at play here, now suspects it more strongly, and is starting to show annoyance. Her hands grip whatever surface is at hand and the knuckles soon turn white. "Have you other theories, Cass? Is any of this related to anything I used to know?"
The Grown-Ups are talking, so Lachlan is more than content to stay out of the way. When Elena starts to get all fired up, though, he watches her blankly a moment before digging into his pocket, producing the pack of cigarettes again, and plucking one out. "Here," he grunts at her before tossing the cylinder her way. Cigarettes make things better and they calm people down. The cigarette will be shortly followed by his lighter: a simple metal affair with a spike-collared Doberman etched into the front.
"I—" Elena blinks when she's handed a cigarette. She declines the lighter, but she does smile at Lachlan. Despite the man's….less than graceful attitude, he does what he can. It's enough to make her want to pat him in the head, but she doesn't. Instead, she sticks the cigarette behind her ear, the way she sees other kids do it. But she doesn't smoke it, she's grateful for the gesture though, so she accepts it. She'll give it to someone though, later. "Sure, you say that, but I don't trust any of them," she mutters, incensed, still. To Jane, she nods. "My friend, and yeah, he used to work with me at Starbucks. And yeah, he was the one who told me about this Claudine character in the first place."
Frowning at Jane's annoyance, Cass shakes her head. "I don't know what you used to know, Jane. All I've got is what I've got. Most of this is new to me, too." Shrugging she leans her back against the counter and sighs. "I'm not saying I have other theories. I'm saying that we can't fixate on a singular thing right now with so little information. These tornadoes could be the result of something else entirely and we'll have wasted a lot of time tracking some people down who have nothing to do with it. Not to mention the fact that if they're Company and involved in the Company we'll have a whole other ballgame to deal with. I'm not saying we forget about the theory, I'm saying we don't count our chickens before they turn into tornadoes and rip down Fifth Avenue and kill us all." Then, she turns to Elena. "She's…stalking him? Why's she doing that?"
Jane's calming a bit now, her knuckles are relaxing in their grip and regaining color, though there remain hints of that I may scream soon expression about her features. "I never know when I might meet someone or hear something I don't remember and haven't been reminded of yet." Her eyes dip back to the chart and she begins to consider other possibilities. "This one," she remarks while indicating the name Liina, "was at the pier, in the water. Met her again a few days ago, she gave me a line on tickets for Phantom of the Opera. I'll play for the cast, and get front row seats. I don't know if she has abilities or not, she wasn't at both places in any case."
B-but … the cigarette is no good if Elena doesn't have or use the lighter. Lachlan frowns, perturbed, then tucks the lighter and pack away again. Fine. Whatever. See if he offers /his/ help again. /He'll/ just go back to /smoking/ his cigarette.
"….in any case, I agree with Cass." Another reason why she and Cass got along so well, Elena needed more proof and hard facts before she could be convinced of something. Circumstantial evidence was for lawyers. Facts were for scientists. She sighs, and glances over at Cass. Speaking of which…she leans over and murmurs something softly to her. But this is short, and quick, and she eases away to check her cellphone's clock. "…anyways….at least we narrowed it down, somewhat. Unless something else happens. I have to get going though. Finals week…" She frowns, and she rubs her eyes. "And my brother's back in town so I better get dinner started before he whines at me for being hungry."
Eric blinks at the cig being handed over and just shakes his head slightly. Lach is crazy, he just kinda accepts that. However he leans back against the wall to listen and watch, his mind slowly working on several different planes of existance at once. As for Claudine stalking Drake…well she might be for doing it just because she knows what she is. The mention of finals though snaps his back to reality. "…oh geeze, on top of everything else…" He coughs slightly before he shakes his head and pushes himself off the wall. "…I'll walk you home if you like." He adds towards Elena with a smile in her direction.
Cass blinks at what Elena whispers to her and smiles. "That's great," she replies, since it's not a sensitive reply. Anything can be great! "We'll figure this out. Keep your eyes and ears open. And if you feel any out of place wind, make a break for it. Don't be stupid and don't get yourself killed." Seems like basic ground rules, right? "It's okay, Jane. We'll…we'll get everything fixed. I guess that's all we've got for right now. Night, guys. Be careful."
Looking from one to the other, Jane listens for other theories and hears none. And something is whispered. Her head shakes. "See you, Elena. We really need to talk soon." A partial smile is managed, as she adds "About good news, and… other things. Maybe you're free on the seventh?" She looks hopeful of this happening, and partly needing it to happen.
"We do, and I hope so," Elena says, looking apologetic. "I've been running around all over the place so much that I don't know where I should be half the time anymore." She rubs the back of her neck, and mutters under her breath. "Doesn't help that Manny gets into trouble almost every day." She looks over at Eric and she smiles faintly. "Sure. Let's go. Goodnight everyone." She waves her fingers to all of them, and then heads out the door.
"Ye take care o' yerself," Lachlan offers to the departing Eric and Elena, the former of which he gives a meaningful frown. He considers … then decides not to throw out another rubber. Nope. They can supply themselves now. He already gave them a cigarette — and besides, he doesn't exactly carry rubbers on his person anymore anyway, so.
"You don't have any other theories either, Cass?" Jane asks after Elena and Eric have left, while studying the chart again. She seems to have re-entered lawyer mode, or at least college flashback. This organizational thing may be a glimpse of what she was like in those days, when needing to be for meeting requirements of tough courses. "It would seem, if Claudine and the large man are Company, that the one with tornado power is already in custody. Can't be proven, but… she's the top suspect, right? And Claudine herself for the shaking ground?"
"Not right now." Cass shakes her head. "This is the first we've actually gotten on a lead for this tornado. I know Claudine can shake the ground. She did it in front of me. But we don't know who causes this tornado at all. Them being in the same place twice is suspicious, but both you and I were in the same place, too. It's not hard evidence yet. I wouldn't be surprised if the Company's involved, if only because the Company seems to have their hand in absolutely everything. It's something to look into, but I can't say anything for sure yet. I just don't know, Jane."
Nodding once, Jane replies "It might not be her, but I just can't get past the man using something that looked like he meant to make her sleep, and the tornado stopping soon afterward. It… looks like he knew what was up and took action, so with him and Claudine being Company…" She trails off, picking up her chart and tucking it into the backpack. "I'll see you soon, Cass, Lachlan. Take care." Backpack and guitar case are lifted from the floor and shouldered as she starts heading out.