I've been walking forty miles of bad road. If the Bible is right, the world will explode.

[akablackkitty]

Walk by the CCTV room of the Kashtta Tower, and the following conversation can be heard:

"You know, I've got about a billion security protocols to run through and, uh, there's-"

"Mr. Flinkman, I think you can be spared from your duties for five seconds to humor me a little."

"....You're angry. Okay, that's... Yeah, it's not every day I can actually

Comments

[chimaerasaurus]

"...Marshall?" Abby sticks her head into the room, scowling at Sark's back and at the respective tones of voice goin' on in here. "All right?"

Sark does not get to pick on her sort-of-pseudo-not-boyfriend-friend-thing. So there?

[akablackkitty]

Marshall attempts to spin his chair around. This proves rather difficult when there's a Sark in his way who is looking at Abby like she might potentially be the person who left those flowers on April's grave... In his defense, she started it.

Meanwhile, after some struggling, Marshall finally settles on leaning a little bit to the side and peeking at Abby from behind Sark. "Hi! Uh... Yeah, everything's fine. Just, uh, checkin' somethin' for, um... Mr. Sark here."

And Sark is not strongarming him at all! Because that would be wrong and if he says as much, he might... Hurt him.

[chimaerasaurus]

Abby raises an eyebrow at Sark, utterly unimpressed. "Checkin' what?"

She crosses the room and braces her hand against the back of Marshall's chair, not overtly protective, but certainly gettin' up in Sark's space. Abby eyeballs the flowers. "...Weird arrangement."

She glances from it to the computer screen and glances at Sark. "Got a secret admirer?"

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark doesn't bristle, but he does narrow his eyes a bit more just to let Abby know how much he disapproves of people being all up in his business.

His jaw twitches a bit. "That's what I'd like to find out, although I hardly see where it's any of your business." He pauses, almost smirking a bit when he adds, "Unless you're Torchwood, here to see who is strongarming your Op-Tech personnel, but you aren't, are you?"

Marshall is turning several shades of red and stammering, but mostly keeping quiet. He hates being in the middle- in this case, literally.

[findaconstant]

Dan ignores a lot of things around the Kashtta, but the conversation coming from the CCTV room isn't one he can ignore in good conscience. Marshall is obviously in need of assistance of some kind, and Dan thinks maybe he can finally do something useful and help.

He leans past the doorway, blinks, and clears his throat. "Um. Hey."

[akablackkitty]

Sark moves out of the way, lest Marshall run over his toes when he moves the chair and just stares at Dan with the wary look of someone who has had a bad day and is just daring someone to make it worse.

"Hey, uh... Daniel, wasn't it? Um. I don't think we've met... I'm Marshall Flinkman and this is, uh..."

"Julian Sark," Sark supplies and then adds, "I was under the impression you were dead."

[findaconstant]

"Yeah, I heard you talking outside, and...." He motions toward the door, then falls silent at Sark's comment.

Then he just stares.

"...well, it's nice to meet you, too."

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark chooses not to comment on that. He just goes back to staring. Darkly.

Marshall, in the meantime, is just going to be oblivious to the fact that that even happened and do what he does best. Which is babble.

"Mr. Sark, here, um... He just needed me to look something up. Seems someone put flowers on Apri- Ow. Ow. Ow."

That sensation you're feeling now, Marshall? That is the sensation of Sark's eerily manicured nails digging into your shoulder... In a very calm, very restrained way.

[fireintothesky]

Here there be Henriettas. Or rather, where Bristow is, there is one. She's stopped to look at the cafe in a rather vague, dizzy way that suggests she hasn't really eaten since she ran off from the Conrad to try and find Jose. She's dirty, has a bit of blood on her face that isn't hers--though it's hard to tell--and is also hopelessly lost. Even if she wanted to get back to the Conrad, she couldn't. She hasn't studied American maps. Name any big city in Italy and she could recreate the layout from streets to buildings as updated by governmental records, but Chicago... Chicago is a very different thing.

[stopdropanddie]

There is a small child.

There is a small, bloody child staring at his cafe.

Bristow looks around. Surely, there is someone here who can deal with this? Someone who isn't him? No?

Fuck.

He sighs and calls out to her, "Are you lost?" Never mind that he hasn't dealt with a child since Sydney was one and after a point, he wasn't very good at it. He'll... Improvise. Or something.

[fireintothesky]

Henrietta doesn't immediately register that Bristow is talking to her. She turns to look at him, her expression blank and intense as it always is when she's looking for instruction. It's something newcomers to the Social Welfare Agency remark on with varying degrees of ill-ease, the fact that the cyborgs seem at the same time so vacant and so intense.

"Yes," she says. It's simply the truth. "I'm looking for signore Jose." Her English is good, while accented. It's one of the three cardinals she was studying. "I have to find him."

[stopdropanddie]

...This is someone punishing him, isn't it? Something about her expression reminds him of the kids in Project Christmas, all of them staring at their instructors with wide, trusting, innocent faces as they assembled weapons with speed not uncommon to seasoned professionals.

He stares back, like he's trying to not be intimidated or freaked by that. Nothing rattles Jack Bristow. Nothing

"Where did you last see him?" He asks with an awkward sort of paternal tone, gesturing her closer to his table. She's clearly not a normal little girl, so maybe this won't be as... Uncomfortable. Or maybe it'll just be uncomfortable for completely different reasons.

[rickynotmickey]

Ricky probably shouldn't be up and about. But he doesn't want to sit at the Tower all day. So, he's dragged himself to a cafe, deciding that eating out for once might be nice. He's kind of drugged up on pain killers, and a cup of coffee sounds nice right about now. Caffeine. Something to drag him through the blur. And then some food.

He's just hoping he can actually do something without something exploding or trying to kill him for once.

[stopdropanddie]

Suddenly, out of nowhere, there is a robot.

There is no real reason for this. There was just a robot where there wasn't one before. It is a very shiny robot like CNJ mated with a skinless Terminator.

There is nothing old or cheesy about it, however. It is holding a large gun and promptly opens fire on a group of patrons, and Bristow stands up abruptly, flipping his table over in the process.

Well. That's not... Normal.

[rickynotmickey]

Of course.

He goes out to lunch. He just wants lunch. All Ricky wanted was a sandwich.

But does he get a sandwich? No. He gets a robot. And it's not the good kind. It's the wanting-to-kill-everyone kind.

Ricky knows what he needs to do, but he needs to do it without getting shot to death in the process.

Couldn't the robot have shown up after he'd gotten his sandwich? Or at least a coffee? ...no. There is no time to be lamenting lost sandwiches. He has killer robots to be dealing with. That brings back memories he doesn't want to think about. At least it doesn't... look like them.

The upturned table looks like a decent enough cover for now. Hopefully this robot doesn't have x-ray vision. It takes him a few moments to notice that this is Bristow's table.

He looks up at the man, not exactly sure what to say. He wants to ask if Bristow can cover him so he can go disarm it, but-- He's not the one giving orders anymore.

[stopdropanddie]

Bristow is now kneeling behind his table, checking the clip in his gun, because, yes, he always carries his Glock around, even when having a nice cup of coffee. Don't you?

"Hello, Mr. Smith," he says, dryly when Ricky joins him as he snaps the clip in place. If he seems completely unsurprised, he is. This is the guy who seems to get into trouble with Casey all the fucking time. "What do you know about robots?"

Because he doesn't know a damn fucking thing.

[natureof]

"A Walther PPK. Fine enough weapon, though I've heard the older models have a tendency to jam. Not a fan by virtue of Bond"--he pauses so the name gets a proper ladle of distaste--"I hope?"

Hi there, Mitsuki. Meet the judge's bodyguard.

[armedandangelic]

Ooooh. Someone's an asshole. Mitsuki snickers and finishes the last touches on the gun before putting it back together with the delicate precision of a professional.

"Personally, I'll take an A-91 any day. Russia knows how to make guns." She snaps the clip in place and looks up at him, grinning like she just won Ms. Universe. "But I don't discriminate. No one likes a gun racist."

That sentence just reeks of wanting to end with the word bitch.

[natureof]

Someone is an asshole. He's quite comfortable with the idea of being one, in fact. It's difficult to be kind about convictions; he's given up trying years ago. Someone will hate you, regardless of what it is you say or how you say it. Better to know you have an enemy than be unsure whether or not you have a friend.

"Nobody likes a racist, period, I should say; no one wants to admit to the thoughts that racists express openly. Disliking someone who hates a given group for arbitrary or generalized reasons is simply an attempt to distance oneself from uncomfortable honesty."

He pokes inside the gun locker. "And yes, Russians are good with gun manufacture." A pause. "I wonder if one would consider that a racist or nationalist statement, or either one, as it's more or less positive?"