10/23 - Bahir
10/23/2008
Logfile from Emma.
=NYC= Lab - Shaw Research Center
While security is not oppressively emphasized, there are all the little, quiet touches you would expect in a lab more or less funded by a major defense contractor. There are big machines and small, and all the computers and screens and gizmos one could want, as well as the simpler luxury of plenty of space. It is a lab space well-stocked, with the big-money machines just down the hall.
Morning has dawned, sunlight cracking open the gray cloud cover to wiggle transparent fingers through at the earth below. The grayness remains inside buildings too cool and too quiet to appreciate the feeble attempts. Early risers, attempting to catch the early worm, are stirring here and there, bright (or not so) mental spots scattered across the Center's mental landscape, though none near Bahir's lab. Emma waits in the dark, settled on a tall stool, knees crossed, a heel caught in the rung of the stool, on the table next to her, three items laid out in precise order: a bottle, a syringe, and gun. At her temple, cool metal gleams slickly.
In the lobby, Bahir pauses to speak with the woman on duty at the desk. Security guard, receptionist: her talents are many. There is no mail for him, no faxes, and no phone calls. No visitors. No love, in short. His response to her is sharp as he peels away to drift down the halls. He swipes his badge, passing through the first set of doors. He is typically quite closely shielded in public, less out of any sense of courtesy and more because people are /noisy/, but today, he is jumpy. Telepathy marks each point of brightness with flickering, subconscious twitchyness, but glides past the blankness provided by metal's shield. There is a beep at the door, and on Emma's side, a light flashes green. The door opens with a soft click. When the lights fail to immediately spring on, Bahir reaches out to give them an irritated swipe. Dressed in a buff leather jacket over a sweater vest ensemble of evergreen, he glances over the lab as he unzips -- and then pauses. He notes Emma, first, and then tracks bottle, syringe, and gun. His gaze slips back to Emma. Then he reaches back to catch the door before it can entirely close, about half a second from flinging himself back out it again.
Emma's hands are folded demurely in her lap, no where near the implements on the table. There is no threat here, RIGHT? "Stop," she says evenly, though in the tone of a woman used to having her direct orders obeyed.
Body halfway shielded by the door, one foot in and one foot out, Bahir pauses. "So," he says, tone light. "How are you?"
Emma lifts a hand up and holds it out, palm raised, and shrugs. "I won't complain. Do you mind?" She lifts her hand to her temple and her fingers hover over the inhibitor, waiting for his permission.
Bahir's lips part. It is a little like a smile. "Yes, actually." He thumbs the strap of the messenger bag slung across his body, fingers sliding down to find the pockets. He rifles, and extracts one of his own, which he waggles at her demonstratively before lifting it to the curve of his ear. "Shall we swap?"
"If you would prefer." Emma peels hers off with an expression of extreme distaste, and inhales. She straightens and sets the inhibitor down carefully on the table next to the bottle, her face following her hand, though there can be little doubt that her attention is still fully on Bahir. "Horrible little cages. Please, come in, Doctor."
"They have their uses," murmurs Bahir. His gaze tracks the movements of her hand. From the bottle, it is but a short step to syringe and gun. "I'd rather not." He leans against the doorframe, door falling halfway across his body.
"It makes conversation difficult," Emma points out, with a touch of petulance. Her fingers trace a path along the edge of the table underneath bottle, syringe, and gun before dropping of to dangle over her leg. Her elbow takes their place on the table.
"So does strangulation." Petulance answered with flat rebuttal, Bahir narrows his eyes. "Or gunshot wounds. Or -- you know, I have /no/ idea what is in the syringe, but it really can't be anything good."
Emma turns her eyes back to him, and lifts a brow. "Yes. It certainly does," she answers darkly and faintly accusing. "You have nothing to worry about from this syringe. It is simply here as insurance."
"If you have something to say, Frost, say it." Bahir folds his arms over his chest, clearly not at all willing to tread closer. "Perhaps an apology, or an explanation--?" he prompts.
"For what?" If not for the faint undercurrent of tension and danger that underwrites her voice and posture, she might pull off genuinely confused at his curtness. She drops her foot to the ground and uncrosses her legs as she steps off the stool. "There is no need for this suspicion, doctor. I have nothing against you. You have been quite honest with me. I want you to know I appreciate that." The corner of the table presses into the steel-lined planes of a corset top that wraps around a long sleeved, off-the shoulder blouse. Her fingers dance distractedly over the pattern in the tile.
"You attempted to strangle my brother and then fled. You greet me with inhibitor, gun, and syringe." Elaborate sarcasm draws Bahir's shoulders in a shrug. "I can't /imagine/ why I feel this nagging suspicion, and yet--."
"And yet here I am, preparing to offer you something /they/ wouldn't have even thought of considering." She flickers the fingers of her left hand in a expansive gesture and drops it closer to the items laid out on the table. "If I had wanted to, I /could/ have simply shot you in the dark."
Bahir tracks the gestures of that hand with a certain wariness. "Such marvelous restraint. Are you going to offer me a ... flu shot?"
"Your wit is truly dazzling. No, little telepath. A chance to be great." Emma flattens her hand against the table top even as her voice flattens and deepens.
Bahir prickles marginally at being labeled 'little telepath'. Big telepath. Strong telepath. Manly telepath. His eyes narrow at her.
Emma slides her hands toward the gun; the movement is easy and slow. She looks at him from the corner of her eye and slants a smile. "I can give it to you."
"Kick it," suggests Bahir, watching the movement toward the gun. He eeeeeases back behind the door again. Nice, strong door. Metal door.
Emma presses her lips together and shakes her head as she picks it up by the barrel and turns around, holding the grip toward him. "Your chance comes over her dead body. Take it."
Bahir's expression is rather blank as he eyes the gun. "Why are you talking about yourself in third person, Emma?"
Emma's eyes narrow and her grip on the gun's barrel tightens, but she does not reply.
Bahir sliiides from behind the door. It closes behind him, heavily. His step is measured as it crosses the distance, neither hurried nor dragging. He reaches for the gun.
It slides away from her grasp easily, and she steps back and lets her hands fall open at her sides in invitation.
Bahir puts it in his bag, and then steps back. A note of tension knotting his shoulders relaxes once the gun is out of her hands. He frowns, eying Emma somewhat dubiously.
Her face undergoes something of a transformation, ranging from arrogance to stupification. Her eyes widen and she takes a step after the gun as it disappears into his bag, then she snaps a disbelieving look up at his face. "No! Either you take her, or I take you! No other option!" She wheels back tot he table and slaps for the syringe.
Another step back, and Bahir leans to kick a chair between them. It is on wheels. It rolls more or less into place. "You never did explain the third person thing," he says, tone light, though the lines of his posture are freshly wired with tension as he watches her dive for the syringe. "Who /am/ I talking to?"
Emma scoops up the syringe, already filled from the small vial sitting next to it, and turns back around. She holds it in front of her like a blade, and kicks the chair back at him.
Bahir stops the roll of the chair with a foot, hop-skipping a step to keep his balance as he shifts to keep it between them. "Look, something's obviously wrong with you. Why don't you put the slightly ominous syringe down--?"
"There is nothing /wrong/ with me," Emma scoffs, pivoting around the chair in concert with Bahir. "I am better than I have ever been. You could have been better too." And then she streams forward in an attempt to connect.
Kicking the chair off to the side, Bahir moves in. He brings up his left arm, knocking aside the syringe with a hard strike at her wrist as he angles to sweep her feet from beneath her.
The syringe is knocked free, her fingers suddenly cold and bloodless from the strike, and it tumbles and rolls across the floor, squirting little beads of liquid as it goes. But at least she manages to keep her feet with a jumping step out of the way, wobbling precariously on her heels. She aims the heel of her palm at his face in retaliation.
Taller, stronger, and unburdened by high heels, Bahir continues to move, pushing into her space. The strike to his face he absorbs as glancing blow -- neglecting that little detail where glancing blow = strike past the side of his head = dislodging the inhibitor on his ear, although it doesn't /quite/ fall -- so that he can follow up his earlier sweep with a more direct throw. He drops her flat on her back, following her down. His hand brushes her throat, pausing a half-second as temptation provides distraction. Not that he'd throttle her. Really.
No. He prefers to subdue her and let /other/ people strangle her. Really. On the way down, Emma grabs for traction, and the dampner comes off in her hand. The advantage is delayed in the tumble to the ground, however, and she hits the back of her head hard on the tiled floor. Stars and tears flood her eyes. She gathers up the pain and dizzyness in mental hands, amplifies it, and shoves it back.
So focused is Bahir on /pinning/ her that he doesn't really notice sudden vulnerability until a moment or two after the dampener comes off in her hands. As tears flood blue eyes, dark eyes in slight panic. There's a yelped sort of, << Oops, >> resonating down the link shared with Adel, and then he reels -- physically, mentally -- at the blast of pain and disorientation. He fumbles back, throwing up walls as fast as he can construct them.
So focused is Bahir on /pinning/ her that he doesn't really notice sudden vulnerability until a moment or two after the dampener comes off in her hands. As tears flood blue eyes, dark eyes widen in slight panic. There's a yelped sort of, << Oops, >> resonating down the link shared with Adel, and then he reels -- physically, mentally -- at the blast of pain and disorientation. He fumbles back, throwing up walls as fast as he can construct them.
Emma rolls over to her hands and knees and scrambles away, moving blindly for the door. Her nails catch it's edge and she tugs it open with a violent shove, and climbs it hand over hand up to her feet.
Emma rolls over to her hands and knees and scrambles away, moving blindly for the door. Her nails catch it's edge and she tugs it open with a violent shove, and climbs it hand over hand up to her feet. She hangs on the doorknob, and holds the back of her head while formulating certain grisly (at least to his perceptions) death scenarios for the doctor. The treat lasts all of three seconds. "Bloody /hell/." Instead, she must settle for a single, pinpoint blast of power to drill through those shields at their point of convergence and maximum weakness, drawing unconsciousness up and over his mind. When the pawns arrive from outside the building, she is gone.
Bahir gets a dose of the crazy!