Metastasis, epilogue
Sep. 5th, 2009 06:47 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsThere are evenings when getting drunk is the only logical answer to all the questions you can't answer.
"You know, it really would have been nice if Morse had given us a little more information," Scott said dourly as the waitress appeared with another tray of drinks. By mutual agreement, the three of them had decided that Harry's and copious amounts of alcohol were definitely in order tonight. It had after all been a shit of an afternoon. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I deeply appreciated not being taken in for questioning, but if the world was fair she'd have offered a little quid pro quo."
"I cannot believe those words just came out of your mouth," Jean-Paul snagged his beer before their server had a chance to set it in front of him. The violence of the afternoon had left him feeling oddly unnerved, moreso than he felt he should be, and even a fresh shirt and a hard scrub at the men's room sink to get the blood out from under his nails hadn't really helped him to settle. "I can scarcely conceive of you thinking them."
"What?" Scott asked, rolling his eye. "We're alive, there's alcohol, I'm allowed to be wildly unrealistic." Scotch was a good thing. No, a great thing. "We should have invited Charles. Except," he amended, "then we would have been picking over the events of the afternoon in even more meticulous detail. Here's to threat assessment." He raised his glass, tossed back a good part of the alcohol inside, then set it back down, grimacing. "I think it has to have been a shapeshifter."
"Shapeshifters do seem to have a tendency to engage in more questionable lines of work," Zanne agreed, taking a long pull from her pint glass. She was going to get good and trashed tonight to try to wipe the things she'd seen from her memory, or at the very least sleep through the night. She had a feeling that she'd have nightmares about blood-spattered walls and yellow metal wire for months to come.
"Except what was wrong with him... her... it, then?" Scott swallowed past a sour taste in his mouth as he found himself wondering just what kind of experimentation a person would have had to undergo, to have lost the ability to do anything but react violently to stimuli.
Jean-Paul was quiet for a bit, entirely focused on his drink, then shrugged. "Is it that difficult to imagine? Pym in the others did know or did not care if it was aware, it was just a thing to be taken apart. If someone is hurt enough, their entire world is viewed through a filter of pain, and everything outside of the self brings only the possibility of making it worse. So is it a wonder that it struck out first at anything that might have been a threat?" Jean-Paul snorted softly. "For all we know, it had begged them to stop in its own way. Perhaps it knew that killing was the only option left for escape." He drained his glass and signalled for another.
"If we ever run across Pym again, I'm going to have some choice things to say to him. And if I can manage to knock him down and drag him places, I have some very choice things to show him. There are just some things you don't do." Zanne stared morosely at her drink. "Some lines you don't cross."
"But if he left. With a... a sample-" Scott paused to take another drink of his scotch, to try and wash the sour taste out of his mouth at the idea of Pym hacking off a piece of a living being. Didn't work. "What does that mean?" he said more softly. "And what the pyrokinetic said, about it being 'just a copy'... I keep thinking we might just be looking at the tip of the iceberg."
"It means that we're fucked and I'm never going to sleep again," Zanne replied with a touch of asperity. "Where do you even begin to try to get a handle on it? With Pym? With the Feds? One is missing and the other sure as hell isn't going to tell us anything. But at the same time, we just can't let it go. So drink up, gentlemen." She raised her glass in salute. "Here's to not getting killed today, and resuming efforts tomorrow."
The sentiment was greeted with grim smiles and the cold, dull clink of glass against glass.
"You know, it really would have been nice if Morse had given us a little more information," Scott said dourly as the waitress appeared with another tray of drinks. By mutual agreement, the three of them had decided that Harry's and copious amounts of alcohol were definitely in order tonight. It had after all been a shit of an afternoon. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I deeply appreciated not being taken in for questioning, but if the world was fair she'd have offered a little quid pro quo."
"I cannot believe those words just came out of your mouth," Jean-Paul snagged his beer before their server had a chance to set it in front of him. The violence of the afternoon had left him feeling oddly unnerved, moreso than he felt he should be, and even a fresh shirt and a hard scrub at the men's room sink to get the blood out from under his nails hadn't really helped him to settle. "I can scarcely conceive of you thinking them."
"What?" Scott asked, rolling his eye. "We're alive, there's alcohol, I'm allowed to be wildly unrealistic." Scotch was a good thing. No, a great thing. "We should have invited Charles. Except," he amended, "then we would have been picking over the events of the afternoon in even more meticulous detail. Here's to threat assessment." He raised his glass, tossed back a good part of the alcohol inside, then set it back down, grimacing. "I think it has to have been a shapeshifter."
"Shapeshifters do seem to have a tendency to engage in more questionable lines of work," Zanne agreed, taking a long pull from her pint glass. She was going to get good and trashed tonight to try to wipe the things she'd seen from her memory, or at the very least sleep through the night. She had a feeling that she'd have nightmares about blood-spattered walls and yellow metal wire for months to come.
"Except what was wrong with him... her... it, then?" Scott swallowed past a sour taste in his mouth as he found himself wondering just what kind of experimentation a person would have had to undergo, to have lost the ability to do anything but react violently to stimuli.
Jean-Paul was quiet for a bit, entirely focused on his drink, then shrugged. "Is it that difficult to imagine? Pym in the others did know or did not care if it was aware, it was just a thing to be taken apart. If someone is hurt enough, their entire world is viewed through a filter of pain, and everything outside of the self brings only the possibility of making it worse. So is it a wonder that it struck out first at anything that might have been a threat?" Jean-Paul snorted softly. "For all we know, it had begged them to stop in its own way. Perhaps it knew that killing was the only option left for escape." He drained his glass and signalled for another.
"If we ever run across Pym again, I'm going to have some choice things to say to him. And if I can manage to knock him down and drag him places, I have some very choice things to show him. There are just some things you don't do." Zanne stared morosely at her drink. "Some lines you don't cross."
"But if he left. With a... a sample-" Scott paused to take another drink of his scotch, to try and wash the sour taste out of his mouth at the idea of Pym hacking off a piece of a living being. Didn't work. "What does that mean?" he said more softly. "And what the pyrokinetic said, about it being 'just a copy'... I keep thinking we might just be looking at the tip of the iceberg."
"It means that we're fucked and I'm never going to sleep again," Zanne replied with a touch of asperity. "Where do you even begin to try to get a handle on it? With Pym? With the Feds? One is missing and the other sure as hell isn't going to tell us anything. But at the same time, we just can't let it go. So drink up, gentlemen." She raised her glass in salute. "Here's to not getting killed today, and resuming efforts tomorrow."
The sentiment was greeted with grim smiles and the cold, dull clink of glass against glass.
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