ArchivedLogs:Some Light Recon

Some Light Recon
Dramatis Personae Murphy, Aloke	2013-05-21 (Part of Thunderdome.)
Location <NYC> Chinatown
One of New York's oldest neighborhoods and the oldest Chinese enclave outside of Asia, Chinatown is a vibrant ethnic community, which draws throngs of tourists annually as well. This neighborhood is packed with Chinese-owned businesses, from restaurants to groceries to theaters to fashion. When Aloke approaches the scene in Chinatown, he'll find - just as Jackson instructed - Murphy /FUCKING/ Law. A man who, it is said, rarely has a plan; dressed sharply in a black wool coat - white shirt - army boots (for stompin'), a smoke (for smokin'), a cane (for canin'), and a glare (for your mom), he's currently leaning up against the wall of the very warehouse Aloke has been directed to. Hands shoved so deep into his pockets that one might think he's trying to tear his jacket off his shoulders. Aloke streaks/crawls through the alleyway, making a pass safely ensconced in the bizarre fold of relativity created by his mode of travel. Anyone in the alley would barely even notice a flicker like street lamps as he passes. He zips around the far corner, satisfied with his fly-by, and walks into the alley from there. He's wearing a black, zip-up hoodie with the hood up, dark jeans, and converse sneakers. His /spy/ clothes, apparently. "Namaskar," Aloke says as he approaches the tense man, apparently at home with the Hindi language. Jax said he would convey that greeting to Murphy, and tell him to expect the code word. "Utparivarti?" "Haaj," Murphy replies, managing to somehow butcher the pronounciation of even this word - although, not to the point that it becomes unrecognizable. Murphy Law is a vicious brute of a man; the eyes that sling their way toward Aloke are neither kind nor caring. Those who are sensitive to the signals that precede violence would quickly recognize that Murphy is a repeat customer. He does not, however, appear to be interested in doing violence to /Aloke/. At the moment. "Warehouse," Murphy says, jutting a thumb at the building beside him. "Been told you can get me in. Have a looksee at their basement. No one the wiser. Can count the number of prisoners. Remember their faces. See the layout. Shit like that." The cigarette between his lips twitches; he drags in a harsh, hungry pull of smoke. Breathes it out his nose in Aloke's general direction. "So. /Can/ you?" The slight man swallows hard. Aloke is soft. A total stranger to violence and combat, fear is plain on his face. But his conviction is there too, right in his glowing eyes. His /students/ are in there, and he's going through with this, no matter what. "Yeah," Aloke says, all trace of foreign accent gone. He's all New Yorker. "I can get us in and out, but there are some things you need to know ahead of time." Aloke glances over his shoulder, openly nervous, and continues. "You'll feel like you want to hold your breath, like you can't breathe. I don't /know/ what would happen if you let go while we're moving. Lets not fucking find out. The whole trip will be over in less than a second, but it /feels/ like time passes. I can't explain it man. Just don't let go." Aloke runs his fingers through his hair and points at the man's cigarette, a very minor tremor evident there. To an observant man, either this guy has never smoked, or he quit a long time ago. "You got one more of those?" Murphy draws the cigarette out of his mouth - stubs it against the wall - skrntch - and flicks it down the alleyway. He then pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, half-full - pops another one into his mouth, and proceeds to pull a lighter. *FLNKT, FLNKT*. It briefly casts his face in a metallic orange glow - giving it a demonic mien. "Nope," Murphy tells him, and then he reaches an arm out to - slowly, yet /forcefully/ - clasp Aloke's shoulder. "Let's go." "Fuckin' charming..." And without any preamble, Aloke converts their combined mass into the energy of a beam of light. To the traveling observers, the world seems to grind to a halt around them. The guy walking past the alley, mid stride, the fly buzzing by the lamp - everything just stops. And then they're /moving/. The sensation of speed is at the same both time mind-bogglingly fast, and mind-numbingly slow, which generally leaves first-timers with a dizzying sense of vertigo, but only after they return to solid form. Aloke flicks them around some tight turns, maybe a /little/ tighter than were absolutely necessary, in honor of his passenger, and then he finds a light-leak, and the streak inside the building. Murphy is silent, clinging, there-yet-not-there, the whole while; the whole while, he is /observing/. He has no control over where Aloke goes, but Aloke likely needs no directions to navigate the building's interior - through the interior gladiator ring, where a sunken portion of blood-stained concrete is flanked on all sides by bars, marking the place where the gladiators are meant to fight - cells for keeping some of them separate - rooms for providing brutish, squalid medical needs - and below this, in the belly of the building, a massive room in which they are kept, among cages that flank either side of a crudely fashioned cafeteria. Murphy is there. The whole while. Clinging to Aloke's arm. /Observing/. There are shapes - people - lounging, sleeping. Some injured. Some maybe-dead. Adults. Children. A shape like a tree, withered and dying. Perhaps, at the sight of this, Aloke may feel Murphy's presence tightening, as if his non-existent muscles were in the process of gripping. Another cell, where there are - two blue-skinned boys. Sharkish. A green-skinned boy. Lizardy. A black-skinned boy. Spidery. More tenseness. When they emerge, at last, in that alleyway - Murphy gasps for air, stumbles forward on his cane, and starts spitting out /curses/. "Fuck me." "That's awful... it's /fucking awful/..." Aloke starts, looking fine at first, and then steps around a dumpster and is quietly sick onto the pavement. To anyone walking by, they look like a couple of guys who've had way too much to drink. Way too much of something, anyway. Aloke puts a hand on the dumpster slides down to his knees. He's sick one more time before he turns, and slumps to the ground, his back to the dumpster. "Look, I could probably start... popping people... outta there. One at a time." Yeah right. This guy is wiped, physically so-so, but emotionally he's a wreck. "We have to help them." "Just hold-the-fuck on," Murphy replies, grimacing. /He/ doesn't seem sickened by what he sees; he's just - teeth gritted, trying to recover from being turned into a chunk of /photons/ for a while. It apparently didn't sit well with his brain. He's clinging to the wall, just gasping for air. "Fuckin', /lightbeams/ and shit--" Murphy flashes Aloke a look, narrow-eyed and grim. "One at a time. You're pukin' your guts out, Speedy," yeah, SPEEDY is a good name, we'll go with that one, "and if they start vanishin' one by one, somebody's gonna get /wise/. You see the cameras in there?" Of course Aloke didn't. Because he wasn't /looking/. Okay, maybe that's not fair; Murphy Law didn't notice them either. But he does now, reviewing the memory like footage from last night's Big Game. "I'm gonna find the people... responsible... and find out... what happens when I let go." Aloke grimaces and uses the dumpster to haul himself to his feet. Somehow, his clothes stayed puke free. Then he really registers what Murphy was saying. "Yeah, fuck, of course there were cameras. I didn't even... yeah. One at a time isn't going to work. But who the fuck do we /call/?" "Fuh," Murphy responds to Aloke's comment about discovering what happens when he lets go. The image of one of the people running this place - bouncing about forever as a beam of fucking /light/ - that almost manages to wipe the scowl off Murphy's face. /Almost/. "Relax. People are workin' on it. You helped me get some recon. Will report it to Jackson. See what the fuck we can do about it. Just -- don't do something stupid." The glare Murphy levels at Aloke - now shifting up to his full height -- indicates that doing /anything/ probably qualifies as 'something stupid'. "Yeah, ok man, /you/ relax." Aloke nods, getting himself somewhat together. "I'm pissed as hell, but I'm not an idiot. I know I'm no soldier." Aloke bangs his head back against the dumpster. It's not loud, but he's obviously frustrated. "But hey, do me one favor, and I'll tell him the same when I see him, but tell Jax I want in. Whatever it is that goes down, I can fucking evac people to Spain if I have to, one at a time. I want to /be/ here for it though, ok?" "Sure. I'll tell him," Murphy says, plucking his cigarette out of his mouth and flicking ash out to the street behind him. "Now piss off. I got calls to make." Murphy's already turning around to shove his back against a wall and /stare/ at the warehouse while fishing out a cellphone.