Description: Alan's incarceration continues, much to his irritation. A few days later, after letting him soak his head, they send in WOMAN OF WAR, Sorsha, and MAGICAL MIND COP, Carmine, to have their go! WATCH OUT FOR: The worst bar!
Time heals all wounds, except the ones it creates in the first place.
The holding cell appears empty when a couple uniformed cops in riot gear step up to it, but they seem unconcerned. One raises a nightstick and bangs on the door. "Alright, cut the shit." Yellow lightning crackles in the air, and Alan R.B. drops from a blur, a smooth ring in the concrete floor showing how he's been spending his time. He's annoyed that he's been in holding for the better part of a week, but he can deal. For now.
"Hey, chucklefucks!" He grins through short blonde stubble, lifts his heavily secured hands, and doesn't bother with a token resistance.
In a few moments, Alan's in the interrogation room again, the block around his wrists chained to the table, tapping his foot and making an effort to appear unconcerned. "So who you sending in this time? Rawhide? Rookie? Or is it just Rockets again? Look, does this thing /gotta/ be orange? Shit, got it in any other material? Come on, people, this is superjail, you got the budget for some better clothes!" Alan stares at the large two-way mirror in one wall, picking distastefully at his coverall.
Time passes.
Alan yells at the mirrored wall.
More time passes.
Justice has many traits. Among them is patience. Then suddenly!
The door is shoved open. In walks a woman the size of a small van, Sorsha Carcetti having put on a business suit with jacket and blouse and everything for the purposes of this interrogation. Her heels don't click so much as slam on the floor as she steps inwards, eyes hidden by glasses as she reviews something in a manila folder.
It's actually a two-page summary of what Alan said, padded out with entertaining pictures of kittens with comical captions to make the entire thing look like a fat juicy file.
"So," she says, after snapping a piece of gum in her mouth. "You go into a casino, taking out every goon inside of the place. You followed a kinda... surgical path through everything, avoiding the primary gaming floor, only slightly damaging two slot machines... Most of the damages are incidental or based in, lemme see," shuffle shuffle, "I believe this is labelled as 'roulette related lacerations'."
She lowers the glasses slightly to look over the edge, downwards, at Alan. "But you were all alone. Totally your idea. Do I have that right?"
Sorsha is not the only one to come in, though Alan's second guest is not so unfamiliar a face. Staying outside as Sorsha begins to pose her first few questions to the perp, Carmine enters only after she asks him if she has everything right; his presence might disrupt her concentration, either directly (ha ha, as if) or by causing Alan to break out into uncontrollable laughter (much, much more likely). When he does come in, he takes a moment to straighten out his tie, adjust his shirt, and quietly check his pen and pad to make sure the former is still carrying some ink after a long set of sudoku puzzles.
It is Tuesday. Tuesday is Daffy Duck day. Daffy Duck looks hella mad at Alan. Alan should feel ashamed.
He glances at Sorsha's ridiculous file on 'Alan' (and also the entirety of icanhazcheezburger), and manages to stifle the inevitable laughter. Fortunately, focusing on Sorsha's own focus on the situation allows him to buoy himself a little.
Alan blinks at Sorsha. He looks singularly unimpressed. She goes and she asks her questions, and the entire time, the blonde boxer stares at her, expression uncharacteristically flat. Carmine enters just in time to see Alan turn toward the mirror, hook a thumb at Sorsha, and complain: "All the hot lady cops I saw wandering around out there and /this/ is the one you send me? Holy shit, I would rather have Gertrude."
Aside from undercurrents of intense irritation at his captivity, Alan feels exactly the same to Carmine as he did before, overall. Greed. Hunger. Selfishness. An incredible desire to warp the entire world to ease his own pain.
Finally, Alan deigns to respond to the tank herself. "Alright, Koko... well, that ain't fair, you're alright in the face but I like my women a little less..." He licks his lips. "Slammasters. Anyway, yeah, sure, took all those bitches out, fist-style. You're getting at the same thing Squints was, right?" Alan slumps back in his chair, and rolls his eyes.
He glances at Carmine. "Come on, rook, tell Ford Tough here this is a waste of time."
He's guarded. There's something.
Sorsha gazes down towards Alan as he describes her figure in unflattering terms. She pops the juicy fruit in her mouth once, and then her lips creak back in a small smile.
She reaches over to, lightly, pat Alan on the cheek. "You're a real charmer." Then she glances at Sorsha for a moment, together with Daffy. Daffy's a key part of this investigation.
She flips through the pages. "Well, I understand we already got most of what we wanted together, but there's something that's bothering me, sweet-talker." Flip, flip. She smiles, if at a kitten sticking its head out of a drive bay in a computer.
Then she looks at Alan, leaning forwards to fill his personal space. "You took all the bitches out. But how did you know which bitches were which?"
Sorsha actually looked at Carmine, but the artist fucked up the perspectives for a minute. Go with it. We'll fix it in post.
"This /shit/," mutters Miracle, "Does not fit with our /file/." The MCPD sergeant sits in that little room adjacent to the interrogation chamber, face contorted into puzzled, furious collection of creases and frowns. He is surrounded by surveillance equipment, biometric recording devices, and one enormous monitor zoomed in directly on Alan's features despite his movements - Miracle controls that camera's angle with a joystick nearby. A half-emptied cup of coffee sits before him, lukewarm.
He's not speaking to himself; Miracle expects Sho to be settling down next to him at any moment. The older officer's dulled eyes remain riveted to Alan's leering face.
"A thug doesn't suddenly get more professional and start talking about God like that. Get all high and mighty because he knocks down a few pushers or whatever. For fuck's sake, Sho, the guy -did- most of this stuff not even a year ago." Miracle shakes his head twice, slowly, disbelieving.
"You got a take on this?"
"He's faking it, or he found god."
That would be Sho, who not only has settled down next to Miracle, but has also pulled out a book. To Kill A Mocking Bird, of all things. A classic, without a doubt. Thumbing through the pages with a certain care, the scarred man seems hardly frazzled by what's going on.
"I really think we're wasting our time here if Carmine can't pull something out of his mind. Wonder if he'll have the resolve to do it? It's borderline quite unethical."
Another page is turned. Sho doesn't even look up.
It's Carmine's job to be the 'good cop' here -- the one who accentuates Sorsha's own insistence by looking like he wants her to chill out. Really, he wants to get this just as bad... if not worse, considering that he got the shit beaten out of him by this selfish son of a bitch. He doesn't even acknowledge Alan's bitching about the lack of attractiveness.
Tilting his head a little at Alan and squinting, he says, "You're right -- this /is/ a waste of time," trying his best to sound like he actually believes that. "So just cooperate and we'll all get out of here faster."
The tip of his nose itches as he feels something tug at the back of his head. This is most assuredly completely unrelated to Sho talking about him behind his back. Reaching up, he gives it a scratch, letting Sorsha take point. He hasn't done interrogations before.
"I am known for my silver tongue," Alan shoots back at Sorsha, smirking as she pats his cheek. He never stops dishing it out, but at least he can take it, too. He slumps back when Sorsha challenges his knowledge - annoyance and arrogance. "You kiddin'? Think about it for a second!"
Alan leans close, invading Sorsha's space right back, lifting his manacled hands to tap the side of his head. It's an awkward motion, but he is dedicated. "I was a dealer! I've sold drugs and guns to half of those fools personally, all I gotta do is pull a few connections and boom!" It's half true - Alan lies with the ease of a man washing his hands, but he prides himself on it, which is enough of a mental cue for Carmine to snatch.
He lifts a foot to kick the table - they didn't restrain them because he's a boxer, and the chain sticking him on the table is enough to hold a furious elephant. Still, chi crackles out from the point of impact. "Even Rook's tellin' ya it's a waste, the hell do you want from here? I already gave you all the shit I got on "R", speaking of, you could've sent someone that didn't smell like he lives on cigars and garlic to take down those notes."
He falls back. "Let's just agree to disagree on this, how's that? Like I told Squints, I did you all a service scattering those fools, gimme my shit back and I'm out of your hair."
Sorsha seems prepared to listen agreeably as Alan builds his case. She may even look convinced, her lips curled down in a small thoughtful frown, her face in general holding its structure. She doesn't wince as he touches the table and sends a shock through it.
She reaches up then to pull the glasses off her face, folding the earpieces together as she lets the silence stretch out.
Then she slams both hands on the table and leans inwards, about six inches away from Alan. He can smell her breath and probably see every specific stroke from when she put on makeup in the morning. "You did us a service, huh, fuckface? So you're telling me you got a list of people you knew we were riding from your scumbag buddies and then you went out and busted up the entire operation, all by yourself, in order to make some kind of a statement?"
She moves an inch closer. Her eyes are blazing (not literally (that would be a good trick)). "You son of a bitch, do you know how much fuckin' time and effort we wasted? I ought to--"
Sorsha's phone begins ringing.
Sorsha straightens up, taking a deep breath.
Her ring tone is some kind of blaring metal.
She flicks the phone open then, without looking. "What."
"Just got off the line with the DA. Turns out not just one but seven God-damned victims had their pacemakers go off during the perp's apprehension. She's pushing for the death penalty by reason of multiple murders. In the end, he's just gonna look like a crazy. Thought he might want to know." Miracle closes his cellphone, grim-faced, and regards Carmine closely.
"That kid better not miss it. I'll bust him down to nightly beats if he can't catch -something-." Miracle regards Sho for a moment, apparently relaxed by the other man's striking lack of concern.
Both officers know that the DA hasn't called since yesterday, and -that- was to shriek, for over ten minutes, about how hard it is to get anything more than a few years for 'excessive assault'. And everybody knows how -that- goes, with superpowers.
"Hopefully it'll teach the kid about ethics."
An amused sound passes through Sho's mouth and nostrils, one of those breathy, gusty little exhales that is best surmised by the following;
Sho hehs.
"This is all inadmissible if we're caught," the former Agent notes. "Good to see we're results orientated, ends justifying the means. I'm sure Haggar won't mind." Finally, Sho looks up, as if to pierce through the nearby wall with his gaze alone and see the Mayor, buildings away, their gazes meeting, their brotherly bond of muscles and working out and it's not gay at all sparkling.
Looking back down at his book, Sho shrugs slightly, forearms bulging as he cradles the book. Finally he slips his bookmark back into place, and rests the book against his burly chest. "I'll lay you two-to-one he doesn't catch what we need," he casually offers.
Carmine takes this opportunity to turn away and just rub his face for a second. This guy really thinks he's doing the world a big favor -- and for that matter, he's got the balls to feel proud of saying it. ... or proud of something else, maybe -- too proud. Puffed up. Something doesn't quite add up here.
Attention back on Alan in short order, Carmine studies him carefully, leaning in a bit as Sorsha talks on the phone with the Sergeant, taking the conversation down a different road from hers for a moment. "A dealer, huh? So what'd you sell to these guys to know exactly what they were up to?" It seems like an innocuous enough question, but Carmine thinks he might be able to pull something out with it.
Deciding to press this one a little further, he keeps going, "I'm gonna guess you were where all those M1s with the serials filed off were coming from." This is a bluff -- Carmine may be green, but he reads a lot. No one in Metro uses a gun that nice; too high maintenance, too many questions. "... gotta admit, you might be right -- I was getting tired of us having to deal with crooks with a decent gun supply line."
Alan leans in at Sorsha again, sneer turning into a shark's grin. "Well golly gee fuck me, how was I supposed to know you boys in blue were being competent for a change?!" His eyes actually /are/ sparking, chi apparently dancing /inside them/. It really is a good trick. "You guys have just gotta stop getting mad at me because /you/ didn't move fast enough!" He finishes yelling right over Sorsha's ringtone, slowly sinking back to his horrible little chair.
He'd have his arms folded if he could, manacles resting in his lap, leaning back as far as physics will allow. "That your boyfriend? Girlfriend?" Alan needles away. "Personal trainer? Zookeeper? Come on, give me hot or cold here. HGH supplier? Something!" Alan tires of screwing with her call, shifting his attention back to Carmine. His gaze drops to his tie, and he shakes his head. "You've gotta be fuckin' me," he mutters, almost under his breath. "And actually, AKs. Easy to move in bulk, world is /flooded/ in AKs. I have sold so many AK-47s, I could build a whole goddamn mansion with 'em. We're talkin' shipping crates packed /full./ You open that door, oh man, just guns rushing out like a sitcom closet."
He sighs wistfully, a show, as though thinking back on better days - but there's no pride in him when talking about his business. If anything, it disgusts him. "Point is," there's the guard again. Here's where the lie starts. "You do the kind of business I do, you keep track of who you sell, and you put together patterns in your spare time. You might've noticed, I talk a lot, it's kind of my thing, and I find that if you just talk at someone forever and ever and everever they'll say anything just to feel like part of the conversation. Give up secrets without even thinking about it. I've had that whole Red Light operation mapped out for a year."
Sorsha's phone is turned up pretty high, conveniently.
But not quite high enough.
She looks at Carmine and says, wryly, "Turns out we had not one but seven pacemaker failures during our friend's totally fuckin' awesome crime fighting exercises." The phone is snapped shut. "Multiple murders!"
She gives Alan a look then, now showing her teeth as her eyes crinkle in a distinctly unfriendly smile. "Pretty big charge, huh? Get it? Charge!" And then she laughs, a loud and not very pleasant sound. Carmine may need to take the opening /if he sees it/.
"It's all inadmissible anyway. See how smug this guy is? Song and dance for him, he's not gonna tell us a thing. You called it when you walked in the room." Miracle pulls his coffee from the desk, takes a pull from the mug that suggests he's more than a little smug himself.
He frowns the second the lukewarm, bitter stuff hits his tongue, but sees it down.
"Two-to-one? You're on. I'm giving you the Westside beats, so you know." The Sergeant can't help his sneer: Metro City's West Side has to be his least favorite place. It's got... that -bar-. Miles away, above a seedy doorway set into a descending staircase in Westside's Red Light district, a neon sign flickers off and on: "POISON'S IN-N-OUT"
Miracle shivers, unconsciously.
In the Haggar Arms penthouse, Haggar wakes up from his couch nap in a cold sweat.
"I already spoke with him. I know precisely how little he really knows. It's more 'what was his intent' that I'm interested in," Sho says, leaning forward to put his book down. He takes up his own mug, which seems to say 'NESTS' on it with one of those circular cross marks over it. No doubt he's 'Anti-NESTS.' No doubt at all.
"We'll see how he goes. It's a bet I'll be happy to lose if it helps us get a little more mobile, beyond the upcoming tournament."
Sho drinks his tea. His delicious tea.
Seven murders, huh... now that one Carmine's /really/ suspicious on -- if electrical chi caused that there'd be a whole lot more reports of that kind of thing at events. But... if it's coming down the pipe, then he can't really /discount/ it, can he? His eyes turn toward Alan, and he bites his lip a little as he considers how to approach this one.
That disgust... he can use that, he thinks. "Look. We both know the way you rolled over for the last guys was too easy -- you're sitting on something bigger. If you give us something bigger, maybe we can bring down your old operation and keep you comfortable. The intent argument's real easy here, we could probably get you down to aggravated assault and a depraved-heart charge and have you out in..." He pauses, glancing away again, adding some things up. "... five years."
He resists the urge to nod back to Sorsha, under the assumption he has correctly picked up her cue. He is /really/ new to this interrogations thing.
Most events don't have people with chi actually falling off of them in sheets, all the time.
"Seven?" There's finally a chink in Alan's armor - something spikes in, remorse, though it's difficult to read. It's definitely not as strong as it could be. Alan's sneer falters, and he leans forward, rubbing at his forehead. "Shit."
Carmine can watch it happen. The spike of remorse tunneling into the palm of that grasping hand of selfishness... and then the hand closes like a fist as Alan rationalizes it to himself. When he looks up again, he's accepted it - written them off as casualties of fate. "Guess it's true - blood's the only thing than can grease the wheels of change, no matter how much you try."
"You ain't keepin' me for five years and you damn well know it, Rook. Well, shit, maybe you don't. But c'mon, look at me! You can keep me here in your big fancy thing with constant supervision, sure, but go ahead, throw me in general population. You don't have people like me there. One slip up and I am /out/. Besides, what're they gonna do to me? Electric chair? Haaahahahahahaha!" He finds that hilarious, even though he didn't laugh much at Sorsha's earlier pun.
"Aaahhhh. Man, though, I can't believe that you guys just can't get this idea. You know, I think you're working on an incorrect base assumption." He jabs a finger at the table, sending a tiny spiderweb of crackles around his finger. "You think I changed, went from what I was to what I am now. News flash, I was like this from the start. Denial's a pretty nasty thing, but I've hated the goddamn institution of money ever since..." He cuts himself off, looks away, and then back up at the both of them. "What can I say? The wool got pulled off my eyes and I decided to start /doing/ shit about it."
After a moment, Alan realizes he's let his own mouth get away from him. Word choice. His face doesn't shift at all, but internally, he contracts, a cold hand down his spine. He lifts his chin, going silent.
"Pfff, come on man, you shouldn't blow smoke up his ass," Sorsha says as she glances at Carmine. She is trying to think through just where to go next with this; interrogations of this kind, where she isn't punching someone's balls in to find out where the Centox gas is, are not her strongest suite.
She listens to Alan again. Especially when he stops. She extends one hand, waving vaguely in the air. "So you hate money. Like the whole idea of it. So why start in a casino, anyway? I can't figure that shit out. Like," she looks at Carmine, spreading her hands, "if I was gonna try to fuck with.. money, like some kind of Batman villain shit, I'd go to a bank, right? Or a mint, or the," she snaps her fingers, "what's it called, that bank that prints all the dollar bills and bailed out Ken Masters last year."
Miracle's eyes blaze like two aquamarine bonfires. The Sergeant stares into the one-way mirror separating him and the interrogation for terse, long seconds.
"He is -looking at the death penalty-! Crack his crooked ass!" Miracle does not realize his own punnery in his start to get out of his seat. Once again, he glances Sho-wards, scowls, and slides back into his seat. Who the fuck drinks tea during an interrogation?
"Who the fuck drinks tea during an interrogation, anyway?" He eyes the other officer's mug, casually. Opens his mouth to ask - it's obvious - exactly what NESTS might be, but recalls every other conversation he's had with Sho on the topic. Stony silence fills the room.
"I just thought I'd float it," Carmine says, shaking his head a little. "I know for /sure/ we could get him off without the death penalty if he'd open up to us a bit." He decides that now is a good time to go silent, though -- when it comes to clemency, that's on Carmine, but when it comes to actual hard questions... well, Carmine's curious little gambit didn't pay off, that's for sure.
"... They paid out to /Masters/? He doesn't even need it," Carmine says, bringing his hand up to his face and rubbing again. "You've got to be kidding." This one's actually news to him -- he tends not to read the business section of the paper if he can avoid it.
"Tea is calming. Maybe you should try some," Sho replies, which is about all he needs to say. This interrogation isn't playing out quite like how he'd have done it, if he'd been given permission to start the hardballing. Oh yes, the hardballing. There'd be a lot more electrocution happening, for one. But then, Alan would probably get a kick off of that, being of a similar chi nature.
"Do you want to try mine? It's oolong," the Agent offers his cup to Miracle.
The talk of the death penalty isn't shaking him at all. Alan's always had that lack of concern for the future and the unshakeable confidence that he can manage whatever he needs to. What he focuses on instead is what Carmine said, holding his right hand up and transposing two fingers. "Other way around, Masters bailed /them/ out. Good publicity, that motherfucker has God's own talent for PR. Anyway."
He shrugs, but now, in his mind, he's wary. More guarded. He let something slip earlier. He smirks at Sorsha like what's next is obvious, but as he starts cracking - even minutely - it's easy to tell when he's talking out of his ass. "It's about buildup. This is the kind of thing you don't just ass up and do. Shit, who even knows if I pull it off? But it's high-profile. I smash up enough shit and sooner or later it's gonna start inspiring people. Pulling them in to my ideal." Something about that word. Ideal. He keeps using it. "Look, I'm not a planner. I'm a doer. I take opportunities as they come."
Sorsha tells Carmine, "Far as I know. I could've read it wrong." Sorsha is not a big reader. Although SOME THINGS she can read - like telling that Alan's sitting on something else.
She looks at the man, frowning as her arms fold underneath her chest. "So your big /ideal/ is busting up a casino so people will follow you along," she says. "So when people go with a casino, you think they think about money? Maybe about /losing/ money. That's the big 'ideal' people get out of a casino." A glance at Carmine. "Am I right? This is looking a lot more like his big /ideal/ was getting out or, I don't know, maybe he just decides he likes killing people for fun."
Alan rubs his forehead again. "You're missing the goddamn point." He finally loses his calm veneer a little when Sorsha gets on him about killing, slapping his hands on the table. It's a little dangerous - a shockwave pulses through the whole thing, not enough to do any damage, but enough to sting if you're touching it. Hardwired reflexes cause his muscles to relax as he gets het up, and the chi already crackling around him forever is intensifying.
"Brains /and/ beauty, look at you. Forget it, you're the kind of person who'd never get my ideal." There is the /slightest/ hitch in his voice before he says 'my'. He stops, taking a breath. It'd be so much easier to lie if /he/ knew why he was taking down that casino in the first place. Alan is annoyed and angry, but... not at anyone in the room.
For Carmine, it's concrete proof that there really is a third party pulling his strings. Not admissible in court, but...
"Lemme guess, big girl, growth spurts, picked on all the time so you got a chip on your shoulder? Hell, maybe something else, you know what, don't give a shit. You're too focused on what /is/, not what /could be./ This goddamn world, this piece of shit is going to /change!/ I'm going to fucking help change it!"
Sorsha answers Alan by breathing deeply...
And then flipping the fucking table. This may bring Alan with it. She does it with a contemptuous sweep of one hand and an exertion of strength which is probably unnatural, or at the very least not based in something purely mundane.
Her voice is louder if not much deeper. "Your fucking ideal can kiss my ass! You know what you managed to change, you son of a bitch?" she says, eyes narrowing to slits as she steps forwards with only a momentary glance to Carmine that may well pass Alan's notice in the whole 'flipping a fucking table' thing. She takes another step, raising one foot up to put it up against Alan in some area of the body he's pretty attached to.
"You managed to change seven live people into dead people! There's a bunch of fuckin' grandkids who have to know that Gammy and Dada and whatever the FUCK died when they went to go drop a hundred bucks on nickel slots! That's your fuckin' change! I ought to change YOU into --"
Her foot arcs up and she gives Carmine (hidden by her leg, relative to Alan) another look, mouthing 'go'.
The table flips, and the chair goes bouncing away into the corner as Alan's speed comes to the fore - he stands, darts under the table, following his chained hands, and is now in front of it, with nothing between him and Sorsha and Carmine. The arms still being chained, he's at an awkward angle, unable to get away from Sorsha completely misreading Alan's signals and also assuming he's a foot fetishist.
After Vice and Mature, though, threats to his manhood can no longer evoke that full, primal fear.
For Kolodzik, it's hard not to notice all the little tics and twists in Alan's words -- even if he can't see things written on his face or hear them, he can feel them, and for working an interrogation suspect, that's enough. ... at least, it'd be enough if he had any talent for sweating perps. As it is it merely gives him an excuse to extend his elaboWHOA THERE
Sorsha flips her shit all over Alan, with only the slightest signal to Carmine. This one, though, he /doesn't/ miss -- this is elementary stuff, good-cop bad-cop taken to its natural conclusion. "-- Jesus, hold up a minute --" Carmine mumbles, as Sorsha flips the fucking table.
It's not until she's about to stomp his balls that he actually moves into action, though, reaching out toward Sorsha and attempting to physically restrain her. (Given he is kind of a beanpole and she is probably more physically robust than he is, it might end up looking unintentionally hilarious.) "That's not how we're going to do this --" he grits out, certainly /sounding/ like he's having some difficulty restraining her. "Look -- I can't hold her forever, give us /something/ --"
Relief - and then recognition. Alan's been busted and ran through the ringer before. 'R' is known for busting agents out like it's going out of style. Maybe his current organization prefers a little more... autonomy. "Sure, I got somethin' for ya." She's not about to come at him. He fought Carmine - his strength isn't purely physical, so this has to be an act.
Alan stands, chi down into his leg, and /stomps/ on the now-conveniently leveraged chain holding him to the table. His arms are still manacled together, but he has a little more freedom now.
Chi racing down his arms, he charges the door, covering the space in half-an-instant, slamming into it. There's a boom of thunder, a plume of chi around his arms, and the door shudders horribly.
The door holds. This building is built like Sorsha. "Damnit!" He tries again, swinging his arms up and down, pounding at the latch. Someone outside sets off an alarm.
Sorsha gives Carmine a firm nod as she steps backwards -- and then Alan tries to make good his escape. Sorsha puts her foot down hard enough to make the ground shake faintly but palpably, stepping away from Carmine and probably literally shrugging him off.
Because Alan just hit the door.
She grins when she sees he didn't actually hit through the door. She steps forwards, rolling her neck for a moment. "Awww, here you were all big about your purpose for a moment, buddy! Come on, tell me about your BIG IDEAL all the way to --"
Her arm slams forwards like a piston in a truck engine, one manicured-fingernailed hand curling into a fist as she aims a punch at the back of Alan's head. She is sure he can take it, and she doesn't pull back, aiming to, indeed, propel the front of his head into that reinforced door that had locked behind her. She probably says something after this. Something sassy. Something appropriate.
Alan probably doesn't hear it.
The sudden spike of intensity in the room, coupled with being physically shrugged away, catches Carmine completely off-guard, sending him staggering back into the wall. For a minute, he's just jarred -- it's hard for him to focus, perhaps because he's banged his head on the wall. Once he manages to get his bearings and pull himself back up, though, he's jarred in a completely different manner.
More to the point, holy shit Sorsha is swinging her head right into the back of Alan's head as hard as possible. He's fairly certain that's something you can't do in an interrogation... though this stopped being an interrogation when he tried to make a break for it, didn't it?
He doesn't have the instincts to get involved with this one, not right away, not yet. For the moment he's mostly struck dumb.
In the observation room, Miracle smiles, broadly. It is the first time he has done so in a very, very long time. He glances sidelong to Sho, to Sho's offered tea, and then his shitty, lukewarm, overbitter American coffee.
"Prop his ass back up, tie him down, and clear out for a debriefing." Miracle's voice rattles over the lone intercom near the door, cut off as the Sergeant flicks the intercom's switch to standby.
He's happy enough that draining the rest of the dark beverage doesn't do a thing to diminish the smile.
Alan has low soak.
Alan rebounds off the door after the second swing, and yells, "Shit on me, what did you build this thing out of?!" Crack-thoom. It's finally dented outwards. "Fuckoffite?"
Alan sways back for one more hit, both arms relaxing, entire body slumping, putting him in the absolute worst state of readiness for Sorsha's freight train called an arm.
Crack-thoom.
The crack is skull on fist, the thoom skull on door. Alan has low soak. Unprepared for the sucker punch, it takes him basically as you'd expect, his head not bouncing off the door only because Alan's entire body has slumped forward. The gathered chi bleeds away into the air like St. Elmo's fire as he slumps down the door.
So that all went well.
"I like that one," Sorsha says as her hair sticks up like the Bride of Frankenstein from the bleedoff. "Fuckoffite."
Log created on 19:12:58 01/18/2011 by Alan, and last modified on 01:40:51 01/19/2011.