Starring:
Summary: Everyone's planning. Gene's plan involves some weirder than usual items and help from Niki (and Cam), a venture that brings them, coincidentally, to Sophie.
Date It Happened: May 27th, 2008
Plan Gene
Best Buy
New York City
"You are bringing a kid with us while we are doing secret mission stuff. Now I feel totally silly wearing these fake contacts that make me look like I have green eyes and fake glasses. That's like two thousand dollars down the drain."
That thought in mind, the bizarre genius known as Gene pulls up to Best Buy parking lot halfway between Hartsdale and New York City with his company in his car. The passenger in the front seat might not that Gene's car lacks a door, the Genius forced to resort to NASCAR netting to keep it in place. Thankfully, the police haven't pulled him over about it yet. If someone is riding in the backseat, they might notice a bizarre pile of things in the back: Circuit boards, fast food wrappers, laser pens, and if he roots through the stuff, .22mm ammo boxes that have no ammo in them.
Pulling out a piece of paper, the disguised young man hands it toward the older passenger. "Now, I have a list of items I need. I have the cash out to avoid being traced, but if I spend over five hundred dollars and pay in straight cash, people will start to wonder. So I'll need you to buy the items I have on this list." Getting out of the car, Gene asks, "Any questions or stuff you need to tell me before we begin?"
The older passenger happens to be Niki Sanders, not sporting anything as fancy as green contacts and fake glasses. She does, however, have giant sunglasses and a grey hoodie with the hood draped low over her head. Gangsta', yo —otherwise known as an attempt to be less recognizable. She is, technically, in hiding. That begs the question: why are she and Cam helping Gene? The answer is… well, not simple. It involves Gene and some kind of plan and she's making an effort to understand it. She takes the list while she's still sitting, looks at it, lowers the paper… "Yeah," she says, forced to climb over to the driver's side in order to get out, lest she get tangled in netting. "What the hell happened to your door?"
Cam is sitting in the back seat, with just sunglasses and ball cap to hide his identity. But then, he's pretty good at blending in when he wants to, and who'd recognize him anyway? He does end up doing some rooting, exploring the stuff in the back seat as they drive. Though he comments, "My dad had me doing 'secret missions' since I was like six. 'Course, he was trying to con money out of people… hey, this is cool!" He's found one of the laser pens, shining it at the back of Niki's seat, flicking it around a little. After Niki is out, he gets out of the car too, carrying the pen.
Sophie isn't hiding from anyone. No one to hide from.. that she knows of anyway, not yet. She is wearing her now usual turtleneck, pants, gloves.. and she is already in the store, in the gardening section. She's looking through the little indoor 'herb garden' selection.
The Geek God first glances over to Cam. "Well, nice to know that we all had jerkfaces for fathers," Gene admits with a sad smirk. Sighing toward the tallest of the trio, he speaks to Niki as he advances on the store. "Well, I HAD a very nice door. Then I was talking with your twin and explaining how she had a secret power that she didn't know about. She was all 'No I don't', I said that people's powers likely came out during stress and insisted that she did… And she froze my door. I STILL haven't gotten it paid for… Not even an 'I'm sorry' for it. I guess getting taken advantage of my kindness is a genetic-I mean, my bad, I forgot we are getting along now. She's not nice."
Moving through the door, Gene looks around. "So, any word from Cass? I'd offer to directly get involved, but not sure if our friend of the future is already planning on doing that. He's almost as hard to figure out as I am."
As the unlikely trio head into the store, Niki tucks her hands into the pouch of her hoodie, more oversized a sweater than is normally her fashion. In it, she hangs onto the paper Gene gave her, but the eclectic checklist is forgotten as Niki turns around, walking backwards for a few paces. Hold up a second, Kensington! "She…" Niki shoves her shades up onto her head under the hood and shoots a look back and forth between Cam and Gene. "…she froze…" It takes her a minute to get past this news, and even as she tries to move on to the important topic at hand, she's distracted. "Um… no, no, we don't know where she is. We're working on it. This… isn't really the best place to talk about it." A beat. "You're sure she froze it?"
Cam frowns, "Hey! My dad was nice. You can't be a good con man without being nice. And he was great to me. Taught me lots of stuff." He then blinks, looking back to Niki, "Twin? Who can freeze stuff? A *whole door*? All I can do is frost up a window. Maybe freeze a door shut." He's talking softly, of course.
Sophie is picking up a little row of pots, packaged together, to see the price. Looking up, she catches sight of the rather odd looking group. She peers, as they seem a little familiar.
"No, she turned it into a girlfriend who I called Susan. She gets me dip on Fridays and then we go to church together on Sunday." Pause. "Yes, she froze it." Moving on, Gene only looks from Cam to Niki, figuring that it would be better to let her discuss his power. After all, the last time he talked about Micah's power and him training the kid, it didn't go well. Not seeing Sophie in the 'Grow your own Herbs' area of geek central, he continues on with the conversation. "Well, whatever… We can talk about it later," he replies simply as he pockets an item from his list… Four or drive of the computer controlled dart guns that people can connect to their USB ports.
"Okay. So my sister, who I didn't know I had, broke your door. I believe you." Niki thinks to re-check the shopping list after a moment and finds herself squinting down at Gene's writing. The look of seriously? on her face is plain. "Army of Darkness?" she asks with a raised brow in Gene's direction. "This is your plan?" As she turns to head (skeptically) toward the section of internet junk, making sure Cam is nearby all the while, she catches a glimpse of Sophie. The bright, unforgiving lights of Best Buy strike a different image than the dim bar she first saw the woman in, but she looks familiar, and as Niki hesitates in front of the aisle housing wireless routers, she starts to remember why.
Cam follows Niki and Gene in, and says, "Hope I can meet her, sometime." He glances around as they get in the store, and asks, "Where do we go first?" He hasn't spotted Sophie yet, probably because she's with gardenning stuff, which has no interest to the boy.
Sophie puts down the pots, meeting Niki's look with a slow expression of recognition. She frowns a moment, in thought, then enlightenment strikes. She gives a quick nod of greeting.
"The Army of Darkness is not part of my plan… I just figured I'd get it while I was here." Of course, this is also part of his plan. By having Niki get random items, even if she was questioned, it would be hard for someone to know what he was planning. Who knows, maybe the Army of Darkness WILL be part of his plan. He appears ready to move on when he looks over toward Niki, putting a hand up to Cam. "Something up, Niki?" Cautious? Just a little, but there are reasons for that.
"Can you find a few wireless ports?" Niki asks of Cam, her voice a little distant as she continues to look Sophie's way. "That woman," she says in a lower voice to Gene, "I've met her before." There seems to be more to the story, but it goes untold — Niki doesn't return Sophie's greeting, save to give her an unsure look. She goes back to looking over wireless routers, picking a few from the shelf.
Sophie moves toward Niki, keeping the expression open, pleasant enough.
"I think I have too," Gene replies softly, whispering toward the Niki, pausing only to give a nod toward Cam to send him off. "Said she was a friend of Hiro and Hiro introduced her to me. Didn't get to talk much though."
Cam glances up to look as Niki mentions 'that woman'. "Oh, that's Sophie. She's a friend of Kory's, helped rescue her I think, and worked at the Lair after rescue to help fill in." Since it seems Sophie's recognized them anyway, he gives a wave. Then he nods quickly to Niki's instructions, "Sure." He steps to start looking.
Friend of Hiro's? And Kory's? That comes off as unexpected — and so does Sophie walking towards them. Niki doesn't quite smile, but her features hint at it; pleasant enough, just like Sophie's, but there's a skeptical edge to the blonde's. All she knows is the other woman got a hint of her memories and, well— she wouldn't want to know her after that, personally. "Hi," she ventures, in the midst of taking another item off the shelf. They need a cart.
Sophie hesitates once she gets there. How do you bring this up. So, she looks at the items on the shelf, then she says, casually, "Hey there." then tilts her head, in thought. "I have no idea what those are." with some humor. "But, I should ask Kory. I don't think they're on her List." yes, special emphasis on that last part.
There is a long pause as Gene looks over toward Sophie with an arched brow, as if unamused with what he hears from others and the girl herself. While his gaze is on the woman, his one word of a question is left open for almost anyone to answer. "List?"
Cam doesn't take long at all, finding the items in question and coming back after Sophie's made her comment. He doesn't say anything, just passing the computer parts up to Niki and glancing up to Sophie, "Hey."
Niki glances down to the list in her hands Just above her thumb: 'a bazillion watch batteries (all types)' is marked. She gets, however, that Sophie is talking about a list of another kind. "I take it you know about the list." Niki shuffles the items from Cam into her arms and nods at him in the direction of the shopping carts with a hopeful smile. To Gene, she clarifies, "…different list." To Sophie, she adds, "Pretty sure you wouldn't be talking to me otherwise. I wouldn't if I were you."
Sophie nods. "Actually, yes, and I'm on it." keeping her voice low, "Not sure why, though I guess I've been a little useful so far. Kory's asked me to check on anyone on it." then she looks at Niki, eyes still warm, "As for the other.. with what I do, I see things. And everyone I've ever dealt with, we all have our dark times. But Peter, he put you on that list, and I trust his judgment in thinking that you are the kind of person to do the right thing." simply as that.
There is a look of realization as the name Peter gives him enough clues to figure out what exactly is going on. He remembers Peter's advice. Even if he did feel like taking it now, this would not be the time nor the place. "Nice to see there are a lot of random strangers on this 'List'. I recommend you try and make a meeting of it." Gene glances around once before adding, "Not in Best Buy."
Cam looks up to Sophie and to Niki and Gene, then around. He stays quiet, still, letting the adults do the talking. It's obvious he's listening, though, even as he takes a step to look through some of the stuff on display.
"…Yeah. Well. I'm trying. I guess we all are." Niki manages a warmer smile and lifts up her current list. "Apparently, doing the right thing means going to pick up…" The hooded blonde squints at Gene's writing. "…webcams? Gene…" She lets her shoulders droop and eyes roll in mostly mock exasperation as she heads to the next aisle to steal an abandoned shopping cart to drop the boxes of internet supplies.
Sophie smiles a bit, "I suppose you're right." to Gene, her voice staying soft. "I guess.. I just wanted to sort of touch base."
"It's part of my PLAN, Niki. If I told you all the details, it wouldn't be a secret plan then. But if you want me to tear apart the place in question, let's just say I'll be able to do it without even being in the building," Gene admits with a smirk. "And that will be just the start of things, if I can get it all together in time." Looking back toward Sophie, he nods. "Think nothing of it. As I said, talk to your friend Kory. Sure between her and Niki you can all find the needed people. While I doubt we can get everyone at once, the more we can get, the easier our lives will be. If this is gunna be an outfit, we need some organization and marching orders." With that, he advances down the isle, getting some 'Pay to Use' cell phones and tossing them in.
Cam hesitates, and then points, "I think the webcams are over there." He stays by Niki, following her along, and says, "Yeah, need to start talking and stuff I think. Somehow." He glances up to Sophie and says, "But guess need to find everybody first. And have a safe way to talk."
Sophie says, thoughtfully. "We have at least one, but need to coordinate for that to work. Its kind of based on what Kory can do. But I'll check this out with her. I'm, thankfully, not any kind of leader or anything.
"Kory knows how to find me." Niki browses the aisle she found the cart in, frequently casting glances to Gene and Cam. "Thanks," she says with a smile to the boy. Cameras: check. Times twenty-five. She starts clearing the shelves with the smallest web cameras she can find. Next up, the gaming area. This better be worth it. "We'll have a safe way to talk," she adds to Sophie's comment, but it doesn't come with an explanation, not here. "We shouldn't even be here together." She grabs something that she recognizes as a Wii remote. She takes two.
"When I'm needed, I'll be around. You guys have a nice time… I have some stuff I have to handle." Glancing toward Niki and Cam, he gives a small smile. "I'll meet you buy the car in an hour or so." Glancing back up toward Sophie, he gives a simple nod with the smile still in tact, "Good meeting you again… Looks like we'll be running into one another once more." That said, Gene merely turns around… and prepares to walk toward the Geek Squad area.
Sophie nods as she smiles at Cam, then back to Niki and Gene, "I imagine we will. It was good seeing.. and kind of meeting you all again. I have to really get some plants, I have nothing at my place. Take care of yourselves."
Cam is momentarily distracted by one of the new games on display, picking up the box to look at it, but then looks up to Gene and nods, "Ok. We'll get everything you said to." He glances up to Sophie again and says, with a small wave, "See you later."
"Sure," Niki calls out to Gene. To Sophie, she smiles. "Yeah. I hope it was better this time." Turning to push the cart along, she calls out to Cam while scrutinizing the shopping list. "Do you know what Ranma Half Season Five is?…"