Starring:
Summary: Surprises happen, explosions are had, and plans are made.
Date It Happened: Oct 12, 2007
Surprise Surprise
Bat Country Parking Lot
A day or so after Ericahembuys a PLANE—to get home, Ramon comes striding out of Bat Country, reaching into his pocket for his car keys. He strides out with purpose: a man on a mission. He is apparently not sick, and he is apparently not just going to sit around waiting for something to get fixed either. He raises up the little thing and the small blips of the car doors getting opened electronically can be heard across the parking lot.
Eric had come and gone while Ramon was resting at Bat Country labs. The young man had indeed flown back to New York right after getting the message. He had come to the labs when everything else lead to nothing, and after finding out what he could he had gone home and crashed.
Hard.
However it was hard for him to sleep, and after a few hours he was up again and working. Now he had come back to the labs too see Ramon on one of the real reasons that had had him going to California and Europe in the first place.
You didn't really think it was just business now?
He pulls easily into the parking lot of the Labs right after Ramon's little button press opens the car up. His blue mustang snarling to a stop as the young businessman starts to get out with a hurried look on his face and a folder over one arm.
This of course gives him as excelent view of Ramon's car turning into a fireball, the explosion sending flames licking outward and debris skidding all over the parkinglot.
Ramon flies to the ground, putting his hands over his head and yelling, "SON OF A BITCH!" in a startled, freaked out sort of yelp. "Son of a bitch /fucking/ car fucking bombs!" His ears start to bleed a little bit; he wasn't that far from the car, and at this point he can't hear shit. He watches his muffler land right by his head with slightly widened eyes, and then snarls, in Spanish, "That was a good fucking car," as if he ought to be worried about that and not the fact that if he'd been any closer he'd have been a piece of street pizza. As it is, debris starts slamming into /him/, for all his efforts to roll away from it, though luckily nothing fatal.
"…that wasn't me," Thats the first words uttered by Eric as he flings himself down beside his own car to shield him from the blast. After the inital wave of noise and flame passes, the young man is up and running towards Ramon, entirely ignoring the shrapnel sticking out of /his/ car. He's already calling people he knows he can trust to come take care of the damn thing.
He skids to a stop next to the older man as he goes to one knee. "You alright Ramon?" He murmurs softly, his eyes going over the others injuries quickly enough. "…you look like you'll be alright…no more than bruises and stitches." He mutters to himself before he notes the spanish words of the older man. A smirk. Yeaaaaaah. He'll be just fine it seems, if he knows that tone. Puzzling threw the spanish after a moment he smirks once more. "…we can get you a new car." He adds.
He can't hear, but as soon as he becomes aware of Eric he starts to 'listen' instead. His mental voice sounds way more harried and shaken than his physical voice does. Its just not as easy to conceal things mind to mind. *Are you okay, boy? Where did you come from?* He sort of staggers up, plucking out bits of shrapnel that aren't lodged too deep.
"My house, I wanted to talk to you…good thing that I was here…lets get you back inside," Eric says quickly as he helps Ramon back to his feet. He easily settles Ramon's weight on his shoulders as he starts to carry the man towards the door to the door to the labs. "We'll get you patched up…and let you get your hearing back. I'll take care of the people coming to make sure the fire doesn't spread so don't worry about that."
*I just f** left the hospital,* Ramon grouses, but he lets Eric take care of him all the same, and his mindvoice feels rather grateful for it. *Cass is busy.* Not that Eric doesn't already know that. All the fear and worry for his daughter is packed into those three little words.
"I know," All Eric's worry about the same thing is packed into in his reply. He just flew all the way across the country to find out what was wrong, and when he got back he found it was nothing at all he can do about it. "There isn't anything there to bother Cass about anyway," He replies as he does his best to smile at the older man. "…and you can stay at the hospital for a few more hours. I'll be right back." He nods once as he leaves him in the waiting room, dropping a file of papers in Ramon's lap as he heads outside to deal with the emergency services people.
Ramon picks up the papers, wiping some blood off his hand before doing so. Right onto his nice pants, because they're already not so nice anymore, ripped and torn and bloodied as they are. He pulls off his tie and tosses it aside, grimacing.
The papers are rather odd. They seems to be a collection of cell-phone calls, bank payments, normal phone records. Its an odd assortment of information, but all of it seems to have one thing in common in that its all from Eric's phone and too various other numbers, some that are reconised by Ramon and some not.
What the s*** is this? Ramon rubs a hand under his nose, forgetting his car and the pain of his wounds as he tries to figure out what he's looking at here. He's trying to find some sort of pattern in all this madness, some sort of reason why Eric put it all in his lap.
What this is, well its hard to puzzle out. However as Ramon concentrates on it…as Eric hoped that he would to take his mind of the explosion and the pain and shock, a pattern does form. It seems that there all of Eric's phone records for the past year or so. Most are just fine, going on alright and with no hitches. However there is a section of several months where every single call, every message, /said/ they went just fine on /Eric's/ side. However the recipient of those messages never got any of them, they all came back to Eric as calls that didn't get picked up.
The number that Eric was calling is easily reconiseable to Ramon. Its his eldest's daughter.
Ramon's brow furrows into a frown, and he reaches up to scratch at his balding head. Drying blood flakes off as he pulls out a pen and makes a big circle. That many blocked calls can't happen as a fluke, and he knows his daughter wouldn't just randomly block someone's calls. She'd /tell/ them that she was pissed and didn't want to talk to them, or confused and unable to deal with them. She's not the type to play games, so it didn't happen as a result of something Elena did.
Footsteps signal the return of Eric as he shakes his head and steps back into the room. "Well thats all fixed, you'll have to make some kind of statement later but not right now." His eyes flicker down towards the papers that the man is looking at and he sighs. "…I take it from the look on your face that you figured out the same pattern that I did?" He asks towards the older man. "I happened when I was away, after I got shot."
Ramon grunts. "My statement will be: I'm not sure what happened, I'm confident the authorities will handle it, and this will not affect, at all, the very profitable new product launch we have planned in June. No need to worry, stockholders, Papi is fine." He taps the paper and says, "I'm a computer man, not a phone man." He takes out his own phone and dials the cell phone company. "Lets find out what something like that would take."
"Sounds like a truthful statement," Eric replies with a wry smile towards the gruff man. "…always looking for a bit of product placement." A shake of his head slightly though before he sinks down in a chair next to Ramon and shakes his head. "I did that awhile back when I was trying to figure all of this out. It wasn't like Elena to refuse all of my calls. I got suspicious. It would take money, time, willpower…and some rather high tech equipment." He says with a smirk. "…I figured out /how/ just /who/ and /why/ are entirely eluding me."
Ramon hangs up the phone. "Someone with an interest in keeping you and Elena apart. Just how did your family feel about you dating, if you'll pardon the phrase," now his tone turns sarcastic, and takes on a bit of accent, "A poor Spic girl from Queens? Who got you shot?"
A pained smirk crosses Eric's face, well its not entirely pain. There is pain there for a moment, but then its subsumed by some other emotion. Anger. Just anger doesn't quite cover it, its a little bit beyond anger. Its rage. White hot rage that burns behind his eyes. Quickly masked as the young man looks away. "That was my first thought," He admits in a quiet and controled voice. The obvious sarcasm doesn't even get a rise out of him though as he glances back towards Ramon. "My father was fine with it." He says with a frown. "My mother though…" He shakes his head. "…I don't have any proof."
The sarcasm wasn't aimed at him anyway. Ramon thinks about this. The ringing in his ears has mostly subsided, along with the ringing in his brain. "Maybe a more important question would be what you'd do if you did have proof." He looks up at the boy with his single eye. His scarred eye is hurting badly, probably because a massive explosion caused /that/ and the body is whimpering in remembrance.
"Maybe the other important question would be just who you pissed off?" Eric replies with a slight grin towards Ramon before the young man sighs and shakes his head. He leans his head back against the wall, trying to take his mind off of Elena being sick and the rest of it. "…I don't know." He says finally, heavily. "…my first thought was to come charging back to tell Elena. Then I thought…well…what good would it do really?" He asks with a shake of his head. "…THEN I thought…well, someone besides me needs to know. So I was thinking about heading back to tell /you/…when I got that message and…" He smirks slightly. "…paniced…not to put to fine a point on it."
"There's some cause for panic," Ramon says grimly. "I was on my way to go see Dr. Samantha Applebaum, who had been involved with some sort of quarantine months ago that they think might be linked." He expels a breath, looking out the window. "As for the car—could have been the elder Jones couple. Could have been the Company. Could have been Carter's bosses. Could have been a rival corporation. Could have been someone I don't even know about yet. I've been pissing off a lot of people lately." He gives a low, gruff chuff. "And I haven't even gotten started good yet." He drums his fingers against the papers, still contemplating Eric's problem.
"…well you want company?" Eric offers with a slight sigh, he sitting still with his head still leaning back against the wall. He smirks slightly though. "…ahhh…spoken like a true businessman. Havn't gotten started yet have you…and you say you don't fit in here." He pauses a moment before adding. "…and I'm sorry to drop this on you Ramon. I just had to tell someone, I thought you might be the best to know. I…didn't want to make things more difficult for Elena."
"I'm glad you came to me with this," Ramon says, shaking his head. "I think with a little computer work and by calling in some favors that the money will make flow, Eric, we can find out who did this. Thing is, you could have made that happen before you ever came to me. Are you worried?"
Eric smirks slightly as his eyes come open and his head comes forwards. "Terrified," He says much too cheerfully. "…after all, if I find out I'm right…and I don't think I'm wrong…then I get to deal with the fact that my family is trying to manuiplate me after I've been as loyal as I possibily can to them. That my own mother and possibily other people screwed with my life for my own good and…" Then he snarls the last. "…and they /won/." He stops though, regaining control of his voice, fallsing slient as he tries to regain control. His thoughts are rather bitter ones, he lost her because of all that.
Ramon nods and finally puts the sheaf of papers down. He shrugs out of his jacket and says, "I think everything's surface. Hand me the alcohol." The gruff man is quiet for a long moment as he strips off his shirt. He finally says, "Of course. There are some costs of sticking your head in the sand, too."
Nodding once the young man goes to find some alcohol, bandages, and swabs before he hands them back towards Ramon and hands all the items off. "…I'm not going to stick my head in the sand Ramon. If I was going to do that I wouldn't have bothered spending the time or money to do look things up, and I wouldn't have given them to you. I know there are costs both ways…" He smirks slightly. "…I've already paid some of them." A shake of his head before he sighs slightly. "…I'm willing enough to pay the rests to get down to the bottom of all this."
"And it may not be them. If so you need to do that too." Ramon, now assured that Eric's on the right trackreally, the man will father /anyone/ it seemshe takes the alcohol, and opens it up. He starts pouring it over his wounds, hissing and groaning and jerking. "Sonufabitchsonofabitchsonufabitch," he hisses. And then, through gritted teeth, "Who's your provider? Lets call their CEO."
"If Dezi was here she would be calling you a baby you know," Eric replies as he hisses and moans as he douses his cuts with the alcohol. He smiles slightly though as he blinks slightly at the suggestion. Then a slow smile crosses over his face and he shakes his head. "…well we have the power and the ability. Might as well do it." He would never have done it himself really. It takes Ramon to make that very senceable suggestion.
"Hey fuck you man," Ramon snorts, but it's that very—jovial between friends hey fuck you man. The thing is, now that Eric and he are working together in the higher levels and Eric is sort of /his/ mentor, and even now that the love triangle has been resolved, he feels freer to outright befriend the guy instead of be the distant watchful father figure. Go figure. "You wanna talk or you want me to do it?" Apparently Ramon's thought is they're doin' this right now.
"Yeah yeah," Eric replies with a smirk towards the older man. He smiles though before shaking his head lightly. He does feel more friendly towards Ramon, more used to him. The whole love triangle thing /is/ still indeed on his mind though, Ramon can tell just from surface thoughts thats true. He has…a plan though, at least he has something he wants to do. Something he feels he needs to do. What that something is though seems to be a bit more private than just surface thoughts. "I'll do it, I don't want to get any more people involved than I have to do."
Ramon isn't going to go digging in the kid's noggin. "Then do it. Don't spend any more time waiting around to do it." Meanwhile he starts digging still more crap out of his skin, grimacing all the while, and tossing it in the trash. "Damn it. I think this used to be the knob on the six CD changer," he mutters. "Damn, damn, damn." Such a good car. SUCH A GOOD CAR.
"Alright," Eric replies as he pulls out his own cellphone and starting to stand up. "…I'll do it. Right now infact, you just sit there and…" He waves a hand. "…bitch about your car." A smirky little grin towards Ramon before he turns away from him to start…well…doing just that. "…and you might want to call a taxi too."