The Right - Of Video's and Licking Wounds
Sep. 29th, 2024 11:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsThe team gathers to scrutinize the footage after Kyle has played his part.
"Jesus Christ, Gibney, how many ice packs do you -have- right now?" Doug asked, looking at the several packs attached to various parts of the lanky feral's body with medical cling wrap. He also was holding at least one to his face, and it was tough to count accurately given the way Kyle was sprawled into a chair like he'd been poured into it. Between moisture from those and the large amount of soot Catseye was leaving on -her- chair, plus whatever bits or fluids left from the drone Molly was currently tinkering with, Doug didn't envy whoever was slated to clean the upholstery in the lounge they currently occupied.
"Uh.' Kyle picked up the cold pack draped over his eye and nose, both bruised and the nose bent in a way that suggested he was going to be back down in medical getting it re-set later. "Ribs, groin, neck, kidney region... Uh, six." One was taped around his knee, but two more were laying partially melted on a soot-marked towel. "Real question you should ask is how much Vicodin I scored off Clarice. Healing factor's real mad at the hundred bruises and contusions and I can't think of a tooth word that rhymes with bruise right now. Lucky I'm only re-growing teeth, not an.. " he paused. "not a finger or something."
Sharon glanced up from licking the back of her forearm. Her skin was a dusky color from the residue of dye they'd used to blacken her vibrant purple fur. As she had learned with makeup, shifting away your fur did not actually get rid of the pigment. That she could have used a towel did not seem to have occurred to her.
"This fault is yours," she pointed out, "for finding no plan other than to be seen drinking openly in an anti-mutant bar."
"Oh, it's totes my fault. I also told the one guy his ass looked great." Kyle said, laughed a little and then shifted uncomfortably as his ribs gave their opinion on his decisions. "It didn't, I lied. Sides, I had to be pretty harmless. Bad enough Mols had to pilot drones around that parking lot, I don't need to give her video editing duties to make me look all innocent and shit." He waved one unbandaged hand at Molly, and gave her a thumbs up. "I'm actually surprised the guy sold me a beer."
"Still money, I guess," Molly said, wincing at Kyle's face, and well, everything. "The SD card's good so we should have footage," she added, holding the tiny card up like a prize, because it was.
"I'll pop it into my laptop and we can look it over."
"I have the SD card from Sharon's camera here as well." Hope gingerly held the card as she put the camera to the side and carried it over to Molly's workstation. "And I hate to say it Sharon, but with a bit of luck we got exactly what we need."
"Is no luck," Sharon remarked as she casually swiped the back of her hand across her forehead, "only Kyle's very short pants."
Doug snorted reflexively at Sharon's antics, imagining what a closeup on Kyle's ass would look like from cat height even before anyone opened the footage from the SD card. "I've got some longer range footage from the bar area. That whole part of 'Person of Interest' where people can be tracked from ATM cameras and such? Still definitely creepy, but more than occasionally useful in this line of work." He started throwing the angles that most clearly saw the events inside (and then abruptly outside) of the bar on a monitor.
"Strategic short pants. Hard to look like I was cruising if I wore pants that didn't advertise my ass." Kyle said, far too amused for a man with green and ocher bruises anywhere there was skin. "Dude, did you get footage of the guy stomping my knee while I was trying to leave, because it hurt like a bitch but it's pretty damning. I'm pretty sure he called me a fag -and- a mutie." He reached down with his good arm and adjusted the ice pack. "On record, I almost feel bad for all the guys I've done that to."
"Almost." Doug echoed.
"Yeah, almost, I mean, one of them was Toad."
"Toad does not need your pity." Hope stated delicately, glancing over Molly's shoulder. "Oh, you have both the video streams next to each other. Nice." Her eyes narrowed as she took in the dark look of hate in the man's eyes on one of the camera's just before the start of the fight. "Molly, I would definitely like that shot included... with both the hate in his eyes and that little FoH pin."
"You got it," Molly said. Her thing was mostly engineering but she'd learned some video editing for this...project. It'd come in handy in the future as well if she ever needed it.
Sharon, never worried about editing her body language between shapes, jumped onto the conference table and inched towards the other women until she could peer over the edge of the laptop. Her grey-tinged hair hung over the screen as she studied the footage. "Is impressive," she said to Kyle, "the way you curl into a ball to protect vital organs rather than disembowel. You have had practice with beatings?"
"I was in jail when I manifested." Kyle answered. "Skinny short kid, braces, bad haircut, GTA. Got the shit kicked out of me a couple of times before I manifested." He showed his teeth, sharp, one missing. "Never got jumped in the showers after that, but you there's things you don't forget how to do." He hissed as he pushed his rolling chair towards Hope's laptop. "That fuckin' guy, yelling about how we're dangerous, wearing that fucking pin, and he's the one breaking my ribs. All the talk about how we're scary, they're just bigots who wanna hurt people."
"As a fellow dude who got beat up some in high school, hard agree." Doug winced at a particularly brutal stomp from one of the bigots. "And I definitely hope we've got everything we need, because damn, this is getting hard to watch in spots." If he just looked at the footage in more abstract terms of 'does this show faces well enough', it was a little easier to stomach. "We've got solid angles on most of these guys while keeping Kyle from being identifiable, and it's pretty clear that nobody could even think it's self-defense."
"Let's get this video cut as soon as possible then." Hope's face had also turned more grim as she saw more of the footage. "Kyle, if you wish we can make sure that you can review the final version before I send it off. And Doug, Molly, as we work, let us try to get some good screenshots of their faces. Who knows, we might be able to identify them and try to get them off the street."
Doug's grin was very toothy. "Doxxing bigots? It's not even my birthday."
He considered, then his grin grew more playful. "Or are you angling to top at the HFC 'party' Emma's planning?"
"Jesus Christ, Gibney, how many ice packs do you -have- right now?" Doug asked, looking at the several packs attached to various parts of the lanky feral's body with medical cling wrap. He also was holding at least one to his face, and it was tough to count accurately given the way Kyle was sprawled into a chair like he'd been poured into it. Between moisture from those and the large amount of soot Catseye was leaving on -her- chair, plus whatever bits or fluids left from the drone Molly was currently tinkering with, Doug didn't envy whoever was slated to clean the upholstery in the lounge they currently occupied.
"Uh.' Kyle picked up the cold pack draped over his eye and nose, both bruised and the nose bent in a way that suggested he was going to be back down in medical getting it re-set later. "Ribs, groin, neck, kidney region... Uh, six." One was taped around his knee, but two more were laying partially melted on a soot-marked towel. "Real question you should ask is how much Vicodin I scored off Clarice. Healing factor's real mad at the hundred bruises and contusions and I can't think of a tooth word that rhymes with bruise right now. Lucky I'm only re-growing teeth, not an.. " he paused. "not a finger or something."
Sharon glanced up from licking the back of her forearm. Her skin was a dusky color from the residue of dye they'd used to blacken her vibrant purple fur. As she had learned with makeup, shifting away your fur did not actually get rid of the pigment. That she could have used a towel did not seem to have occurred to her.
"This fault is yours," she pointed out, "for finding no plan other than to be seen drinking openly in an anti-mutant bar."
"Oh, it's totes my fault. I also told the one guy his ass looked great." Kyle said, laughed a little and then shifted uncomfortably as his ribs gave their opinion on his decisions. "It didn't, I lied. Sides, I had to be pretty harmless. Bad enough Mols had to pilot drones around that parking lot, I don't need to give her video editing duties to make me look all innocent and shit." He waved one unbandaged hand at Molly, and gave her a thumbs up. "I'm actually surprised the guy sold me a beer."
"Still money, I guess," Molly said, wincing at Kyle's face, and well, everything. "The SD card's good so we should have footage," she added, holding the tiny card up like a prize, because it was.
"I'll pop it into my laptop and we can look it over."
"I have the SD card from Sharon's camera here as well." Hope gingerly held the card as she put the camera to the side and carried it over to Molly's workstation. "And I hate to say it Sharon, but with a bit of luck we got exactly what we need."
"Is no luck," Sharon remarked as she casually swiped the back of her hand across her forehead, "only Kyle's very short pants."
Doug snorted reflexively at Sharon's antics, imagining what a closeup on Kyle's ass would look like from cat height even before anyone opened the footage from the SD card. "I've got some longer range footage from the bar area. That whole part of 'Person of Interest' where people can be tracked from ATM cameras and such? Still definitely creepy, but more than occasionally useful in this line of work." He started throwing the angles that most clearly saw the events inside (and then abruptly outside) of the bar on a monitor.
"Strategic short pants. Hard to look like I was cruising if I wore pants that didn't advertise my ass." Kyle said, far too amused for a man with green and ocher bruises anywhere there was skin. "Dude, did you get footage of the guy stomping my knee while I was trying to leave, because it hurt like a bitch but it's pretty damning. I'm pretty sure he called me a fag -and- a mutie." He reached down with his good arm and adjusted the ice pack. "On record, I almost feel bad for all the guys I've done that to."
"Almost." Doug echoed.
"Yeah, almost, I mean, one of them was Toad."
"Toad does not need your pity." Hope stated delicately, glancing over Molly's shoulder. "Oh, you have both the video streams next to each other. Nice." Her eyes narrowed as she took in the dark look of hate in the man's eyes on one of the camera's just before the start of the fight. "Molly, I would definitely like that shot included... with both the hate in his eyes and that little FoH pin."
"You got it," Molly said. Her thing was mostly engineering but she'd learned some video editing for this...project. It'd come in handy in the future as well if she ever needed it.
Sharon, never worried about editing her body language between shapes, jumped onto the conference table and inched towards the other women until she could peer over the edge of the laptop. Her grey-tinged hair hung over the screen as she studied the footage. "Is impressive," she said to Kyle, "the way you curl into a ball to protect vital organs rather than disembowel. You have had practice with beatings?"
"I was in jail when I manifested." Kyle answered. "Skinny short kid, braces, bad haircut, GTA. Got the shit kicked out of me a couple of times before I manifested." He showed his teeth, sharp, one missing. "Never got jumped in the showers after that, but you there's things you don't forget how to do." He hissed as he pushed his rolling chair towards Hope's laptop. "That fuckin' guy, yelling about how we're dangerous, wearing that fucking pin, and he's the one breaking my ribs. All the talk about how we're scary, they're just bigots who wanna hurt people."
"As a fellow dude who got beat up some in high school, hard agree." Doug winced at a particularly brutal stomp from one of the bigots. "And I definitely hope we've got everything we need, because damn, this is getting hard to watch in spots." If he just looked at the footage in more abstract terms of 'does this show faces well enough', it was a little easier to stomach. "We've got solid angles on most of these guys while keeping Kyle from being identifiable, and it's pretty clear that nobody could even think it's self-defense."
"Let's get this video cut as soon as possible then." Hope's face had also turned more grim as she saw more of the footage. "Kyle, if you wish we can make sure that you can review the final version before I send it off. And Doug, Molly, as we work, let us try to get some good screenshots of their faces. Who knows, we might be able to identify them and try to get them off the street."
Doug's grin was very toothy. "Doxxing bigots? It's not even my birthday."
He considered, then his grin grew more playful. "Or are you angling to top at the HFC 'party' Emma's planning?"
