overjoyed_logs | [closed.] this ain't no place for no hero

Entry tags:

[closed.] this ain't no place for no hero

Who: Jason and Kate
Where: Old Town
When: end of week 4, just before ch 3 hits
Summary: Surely they have black market tech support for brain problems. Jason goes snooping, Kate inserts herself into the proceedings. Because that's what friends do.
Restrictions/Warnings: UH. Possible violence/some talk of gross cyborg things/unsanctioned medical procedures and the like, I guess.

[He starts close to home.

That is: what serves as "home" these days. Old Town is the biggest hub on Westerley, which serves a few particular purposes. One: it's centralized and easy to access, making it a good place to conduct business. Two: it's closely monitored by the Company in places, but the sheer density of its population makes it easier to disappear into the crowd. Know where to look and you can find just about anything. Weapons, jakk, smuggled goods. Sexters, fences, leg-breakers. And, most relevantly to this particular trip into the underbelly: black clinics. Bonesaws, hack modders. The kind of people who'll stitch you together or wire you up without asking questions. As long as you've got the joy to cover the bill.

It wouldn't be the first time he'd set foot in a place like that. Not that he'd been in a state to have a choice in the matter, the first time. Whatever slapdash thing they'd wired into his brainpan had jumped him like a dead battery. Dragged him back from the brink, even if it hadn't made for the kindest of experiences to wake up to. It had worked, he'd pulled through, and for the past few years that was the important part. But now, there's the deja-vu, the odd disassociation, the sneaking scraps of information that just don't fit right. Some serious mental glitching to persist after last week's weirdness should have settled. At some point, you start to wonder about side effects.

Of course, tracking down the 'doc' who did the job is almost impossible. He very deliberately doesn't keep contact with the parties responsible anymore, and black clinics are mobile and hard to find as a rule. So, he starts close to home, purely reconnaissance. Casting a wide net in the hopes of catching himself a lead to follow or a likely explanation. Place a few bugs, ask a few questions. See if it's all in his (hah) head.

The black market is lightly crowded, still bouncing back from the week just like the rest of town. The clinic is a ramshackle old tenement with an open sign in the window and nothing else. It smells like old blood and charring flesh and antiseptic.

There's a commotion behind him, and he backsteps to press his back against the wall, dodging out of the way of a man in a rush to get through the door. Hand clamped around a damaged mechanical implant on his arm that is sparking and spitting and sending his fingers into spasms. The door slams shut behind him.

Well, looks like he's in the right place.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Kate is here, as always, on business. She likes to keep in contact with the dealers and fences around Old Town, partially because they usually have great tidbits of information, and partially because it's a hell of a lot easier to find things that have been stolen when you have connections in the first places thieves like to dump their scores.

Still, she hates it down here. It throws her cushy Company upbringing in her face, and makes her feel irrationally guilty that she can't do anything for the desperate people here. There are predators, too—the ones profiting off of misery and suffering, but there are also those who don't really have a choice about being here, and Kate knows there's nothing she can do to help them. At least, nothing immediate. It means she's on edge and not in a great mood.

For some reason, Jason is the last person she expects to see. She has to do a double take, to make sure it's actually him, but there's no mistake. Here on a warrant, maybe?]

Jason?

[Jason's not really undercover but it doesn't ever hurt to be discrete. His collar is up to obscure his face, his RAC badge is nowhere in sight. He's alone, no one knows he's coming down here, and he wasn't followed. So he really isn't expecting company.

But company he gets. He sharpens up in the spine when she calls out to him, follows the sound of it swiftly back to the source with a sharp look and a bit of a frown. After a pause—barely-there, just long enough to weigh his options—he flags her over, ducking away from the storefront and out of the main street, into the alley next to the tenement. Getting them out of traffic and at least partly out of sight. After giving the area a quick once-over—]

Now, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?

[This isn't meant to dig at her upbringing—especially given he doesn't even know about it. But there you are.]

[Kate follows him willingly enough, but she rolls her eyes at the question, her reaction completely instinctive. She's heard that line so many times that it grates, even when it isn't meant to be condescending.]

Working. What are you doing here? On a warrant?

[Not at all, actually. But given that explaining isn't something he plans on doing any time soon, that's a fine assumption for her to make. Hell, it could help. She probably knows her way around parts of this place in ways he doesn't. So, rather than confirm it directly—]

I'm looking into some black market tech from a few years back. [He knocks his knuckles against the brick wall of the clinic.] Dr. Hunt over here specializes in illegal modding, I'm hoping getting a look around might point me in the right direction.

[So, working. Or close enough.]

[Kate frowns, but it's thoughtful this time. He doesn't really give her a yes or no answer, so she just assumes that he is here on RAC business.]

I don't know anything about Dr. Hunt, unless you count the fact that he's creepy. What kind of tech? Do you need help?

[He's RAC and it's his business. Good enough for plausibility.]

Why, looking to do a little moonlighting?

[It's not like he's offering to pay you for your trouble, bud. Despite fishing a little to see what she's got on Hunt, he waves off the offer of help, tipping his head toward the back door.]

I can do my own homework. I'm gonna have a look around his records, maybe say hello. I've got a description but not a whole lot in the way of specs, so this is mostly just narrowing the field.

[Gotta start somewhere. Wasn't like he could take it out for a better look at what's making him tick.]

All of that sounds easier with two people. You're talking to Old Town's best detective, remember?

[She says it teasingly, hooking a thumb over her shoulder at the door.]

Come on, let me help. It'll be fun.

[Most days, here's where he'd drum up a quicker quip about the merits of showing off, or some offhand joke about getting to watch her work. Instead, there's an off-beat where he frowns at her narrowly and looks a hell of a lot like he wants to stick to his guns. And then the air is broken with a muffled whirring, some mechanical sound from inside the clinic that can only mean the good Doctor's gotten to work on the poor sap who'd stumbled in before them. Running out of time if he wants to be finished in the back before Hunt is through.

Crap. He hisses through his teeth and ducks over toward the back entrance, waving her along. Okay, extra pair of eyes. He stoops to address the lock on the back door, folding an old-fashioned pick out until it clicks open quietly. To catch her up—]

He keeps his files on paper—harder to leak, easier to dispose of. Real low-tech for a guy who specializes in cyborgs.

[The door clicks open quietly and he pushes it open to let her through into the dim-lit backspace. Ladies first.]

Look for anything that mentions patients recovering from any sort of neurological trauma.

[Kate follows, then slips through the door when he unlocks it, keeping quiet. It's a relatively specific request, but Kate doesn't really question it, just nods and heads for a bank of filing cabinets against one wall. It's a good thing he agreed, really. They're both so stubborn it would have been a nightmare if he hadn't.

She spends a bit digging, which is slower work than she expected. It's strange that he insists on keeping all of these files as hard copies, and it also means they're forced to search the slowest way possible. Finally, though, she hits on two files that look promising—one detailing a patient with a severe concussion, and one recovering from a stroke. She's not sure if that's what he's looking for exactly, but it's worth a shot, so she slips up next to him again, her voice soft.]

Is this what you mean, or are you looking for something flashier?

[It's quiet work, for a while. And slow. So maybe it's actually a good thing Kate hassled him into letting her help after all, because there are a whole lot of files stacked back here, and he only sort of knows what he's looking for. You wouldn't believe how many people come to places like this for flashy combat augments and weirdo nanos. But there's cases that tip less to vanity—an amputee springing for an artificial limb even if it puts him dangerously close to the modding limit. A grievously injured woman with a knife in her gut who'd refused to give a name and paid in designer drugs.

Jason sets that one aside when Kate comes back, leaning in to take the files from her and dipping his head so they can talk without putting on the volume. He skims through concussion file quickly and then sets it aside, but spends a little more time on the one describing the stroke, frowning narrowly.

The files are brief but give a sketchy picture of the case. Details on the diagnosis, the treatment, and (sometimes) the recovery. Whether or not they've had any followups. There are names (or aliases) attached to most of the files, but no addresses, no contact information. Par for the course. People come to places like this for anonymity.

For the first time since they'd ducked inside and he'd narrowed his focus to the matter at hand, he looks back up at her.]

Good eye, detective.

["Detective" comes less ironically, this time. A little, anyway. He raps his knuckles against the short description of the symptoms. (The patient had been largely unresponsive after suffering blood loss to parts of the brain for too long.) The file goes on to describe the procedure. (INSTALLATION OF MODIFIER SUCCESSFUL AT C1 VERT, FUNCTION IN SPECIFIED AREAS LARGELY RESTORED. SEE NOTES FOR COMPLICATIONS AND CHARTING.) There's some recorded vitals, tests, specs for the tech used in the treatment. The model name for the mod in question is a string of numbers he's not familiar with.)]

Just might be paydirt. Maybe the good doctor can shed some light on it for us.

[Not that he's really explained what he's after.]

[Kate hums thoughtfully as she crosses her arms, getting in his personal space a bit as she skims the file again.]

Paydirt, huh? So, since I'm doing such a great job, are you going to let me in on the secret?

[All signs seem, for the moment, to point to "no." It's dark, he's got a good poker face when he's on the level, she's close enough in his personal space to get a read on him. And in stark contrast to his usual casual air, there's something about the way he's skimming down the data that is sharp and focused. Like a dog with a bone.

He doesn't look back up at her, but there's a subtle shift in his jaw. At length—]

That seems like a pretty big step in our relationship.

[Working relationship, that is. Maybe his client is big on confidentiality, Kate, can he really trust you with the big secret? (There is no client.) It's not that he doesn't want the competition, or that he couldn't use another set of eyes. Outright playing it off as a warrant has its own set of complications, and this is tricky business to start. For all he knows, it's all in his head and he's chasing his tail. Coming up on dead ends. But he deals best with problems by being proactive about them. Telling the truth means admitting to a little more than he'd like. He likes her. He's not sure he likes her enough to spill his guts.]

I can keep my mouth shut.

[He's intense about this, and she's not sure how to read it. Maybe he's always this serious about the warrants he takes—Lavi's constant the warrant is all deflection immediately pops into her head, but maybe this is different. Her voice softens, and when she nudges him this time, it's gentle rather than teasing.]

I just want to help, and it's not easy to be good at that when I don't know what you're doing.

[He doesn't shy away from her nudging, but he huffs a breath out trough his nose. Sharp, like she's said something funny. It's not that he's having trouble taking her word for it—he got enough of a measure of her to be unsurprised by her tendency to want to help. She made herself out to be that kind of person from the start. But he knows better than to let himself be touched by the gesture—not just because trusting people past arm's length isn't something he does a lot of. She doesn't really know what it is she's offering.

He looks briefly up at the door, where the muffled whirring of the doctor's work continues. They've got a little time. (The air's taken on a stronger iron smell now that they're inside. For a moment, it makes him feel strangely sick. Claustrophobic. He rakes a hand through his hair and grinds his teeth and ignores it.)

Eventually—]

Here. [She's seen the data, this much isn't really anything she couldn't work out if she applied herself. Jason flips the file over to the scifi quivalent of an MRI. Two images, one blotted with gaping areas of nothing where the patient had suffered damage. The next, lit up in a way that is a little more typical, but spidered through with wiring.] Before and after. Like jumping a car. Or replacing the motherboard of your computer.

[Amazing, right? Kind of seems too good to be true. ]

Only there's a reason this kind of tech hasn't seen sanctioned use. [Messing with someone's head. Rebooting a spark that had been burned away. For better or for worse, that's a sketchy science in the first place. It's still not much of a why, not yet, but she doesn't need to know the personal parts. Answering the question without answering the question at all—] What happens if it starts going off book?

[Untested equipment stands risk of degrading over time. Or what if it was just flawed to start? Or, if you're the paranoid sort, flawed on purpose. Faulty synapses, broken bridges, whole parts of whole people irreparably damaged or lost or corrupted or rewritten. Cluttered with buried junk data or programming. Who the hell knows. After watching Old Town go half out of its head last week, he's painfully aware he's not going to able to be the most impartial witness of himself. That's why he's started digging for similar cases.]

[It's hard to miss how on edge he is. She knows Killjoys, knows it isn't common for them to get this invested in their warrants. Maybe this is a soft spot for him somehow. Maybe he knows someone who was hurt by this tech, or maybe he just wants to keep it from happening. Either way, he gets a long, studying look before she tucks her hair behind her ear and peers down at the images, tracing a finger absently along the spidering of circuitry on the second.]

So what is your warrant, exactly? Are you just trying to find information on how they're doing it, or on who's doing it?

[That's the question, isn't it? He hums under his breath, then commits to the lie. They don't issue warrants for vendettas, so lets settle for the who.]

Guy I'm looking for was operating a couple years back, but the kinds of clinics running with this kind of tech don't like to stay in one place for long. They're long gone, by now. The more I know about what I'm looking for, the better chance I've got at pinning him down.

[Not to mention an idea of what may or may not be going wrong. He's casting a wide net, but if he can find the people who wired him up in the first place, they'd be the best ones to press for answers.]

I don't need him getting spooked, so do me a solid and keep it to yourself.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[closed.] this ain't no place for no hero

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject