A Very Hypothetical Theoretical
| A Very Hypothetical Theoretical | |
|---|---|
"ASA Monrose. That is one hell of a detail to leave out until now." | |
| Players |
Ethan isn't quite as willing to let go of the ASA Monroe thing as he'd let on, but he's not keen on getting arrested again. Maybe enlisting some help from a certain in-the-know CPD Detective can help clear the path. |
It's late...or early depending on how you look at it. Either way the coffee shop is open and providing a good supply of the black stuff. More importantly from Nadia's point of view it is not the station and it is on the South Side, letting her sink into the feel of the area without exactly being in the midst of...everything. She has a lot of work on her plate and even the ever patient ME might blanch at being asked to make coffee at this time of the - Nadia glances at her watch and winces. Definitely AM now. The Sky Goddess is pretty much dead at this time, a lone server looking only a little less exhausted than their handful of customers. Detective Tofana is hunched over a corner table with a half empty mug in front of her - the largest they serve here. The table is scattered with pieces of paper, notes, place names, times, things that might be initials or could just be a code of her own. The little bell above the door rings, hailing the arrival of another night owl. He does, at first, what any customer does. He goes to the counter and orders something and he’s so quiet and unobtrusive about it that it might seem, at first, like this is not going to in any way interrupt Detective Tofana’s work. But too good to be true is a thing, and soon there is someone…not quite at her elbow, but close enough for government work, holding out a fresh new cup of the steaming black stuff. "Brought you a refill,” Ethan offers. As greetings go there are maybe worse ones. He’s got two in his hand; so he bought one for himself, too. She looks up, blinking slightly owlishly as she persuades tired eyes to adjust from staring at pages of unhelpful information to looking up at an actual human. "Ethan right? And bearing coffee! My saviour." She dumps a pack of sugar in the new cup and pulls it towards her, shuffling her papers into a rough pile out of splash range. "You working late, early, or just up at an ungodly hour for shits and giggles?" Nadia recognises the wolf from the other night and is glad of the distraction for the time being. "Pull up a chair." She waves a hand at the seat opposite her. A quick, bashful grin from Ethan, who takes the invitation, settling down across from her. “Yes ma’am,” he says, at the name. “Working late. And thanks for the warm welcome considering you’re hella working.” His chin dips down at the pile of files that she’s going through. "You kicked some serious ass at that thing,” he adds. “As I’m sure everyone and their long lost mother has already told you. I think you seriously saved our asses from a second awkward conversation.” Nadia chuckles and takes a sip of the fresh brew. "And here I was thinking I might have made it all harder when I just announced you folks had dealt with one of thiers with no kind of discussion. I've never been much of one for politics and sweet talking the brass." She waves off the pile of papers. "Trying to put some things together, which itself is an excuse to avoid writing up the report on that whole situation for another day. Quiet time at the precinct is non existant so... here I am spending a small fortune on coffee that at least doesn't taste like it was put on to brew last week." She pauses and adds as an afterthought, "Please don't call me ma'am, Nadia's fine." “Opinions might vary on that one,” Ethan says. “And I mean. I’ve been at this shit less than a year, so don’t take me as the good and final word on politics. But me? I tend to think things like that have a way of coming out whether you want them to or not. You got out in front of it, told the story, set the narrative, called the, uh, keto-diet enthusiasts on their own failures to handle their own business, and—probably in ways that could complicate your life later, but still helpfully—got them far more interested in talking to you than in bitching about some problem child. I personally call it a net win. And it was fun to watch so, you know, extra points for that.” As for the other? The ma’am? Another quick, sheepish expression. “Sorry. Habit.” But he moves quickly past that, adding, “I’m glad I ran into you though. You still interested in helping out after all that?” "Hey that's a year longer than me! Or 11 months at the very least." Nadia scrubs both her hands through her hair and leans back in her seat to stretch her legs, trying to get the parts of her body to wake up afer they've spent the last several hours in the same position. "I've been told that I can be abrupt at times, occasionally even rude. That usually requires me to be pretty certain that the other party is in the wrong though." She flashes a grin. "As a general thing, absolutely! Right now? No promises." A general gesture at the paper again. "I've bounced from one case right into the next, you've seen the news right? 4 dead, police baffled? We definitely didn't admit to being baffled because it's too damn early for that, but it's giving us all sleepless nights. So, what can I do for you?" "Seven,” Ethan says sheepishly. “Less than a year sounds better than a little over half a year.” But he winces with a hint of empathy at the way the press spun the story. "They always love to say police baffled,” he says. “They’d say it unless y’all literally held him up seconds after whatever. I did read that, yeah.” But apparently hadn’t raced to poke his nose into it either. Maybe because he’s poking his nose into other things, as evinced by this. Asked real slow: “If. For example. One wanted to set up a time with you so that, if any calls came up about someone creeping around on the 400 block of Miercoles Street, you were the one to answer those calls, and not some other cop who might be actually inclined to *arrest* a dude who might be creeping around on the 400 block of Miercoles Street for actually really good reasons…would that be something you’d be open to arranging? Or *able* to arrange? I don’t really know how real law enforcement works. Just. Sort of have the. TV version like everyone else.” Nadia's grin broadens as he explains his tenure as the occasionally furry but the expression freezes and fades as he goes on. She crosses her arms over her chest, a familiar position especially given the references to the Allthing. "And, hypothetically, if this person was creeping around on the 400 block of Miercoles Street, what might their 'really good reasons' be? Because if they're illegal I'll arrest his ass myself." She purses her lips. Ethan drums his fingers against his coffee cup like he’s suddenly wishing he hadn’t initiated this conversation. He says at last, “The activity isn’t legal, but the problem isn’t something that can be solved with guns and handcuffs, and the activity might help the person, the very hypothetical and theoretical person that we are very theoretically talking about right now, keep something really bad from happening. It could save a lot of lives, including the life of the person who lives on the 400th Block of Miercoles Street.” He lowers his voice though, leaning forward, intense. He already doesn’t speak too loudly as a matter of habit, but it drops quieter still. Someone standing a foot away would be hard-pressed to hear, even in the quiet cafe. “You’ve been working with Alex. Has he told you much about spirits, yet?” Now she sighs, leaning forward to catch his words. Nadia has always prided herself on doing things by the book, the same book for everyone no matter what. Sensitive where it's needed because someone is dealing with disabilities or struggles, unconcerned with 'incentives' when they're significantly higher than her on the totem pole or have pocket change that puts her wage packet to shame. She was already having to tweak reports because no one would believe the thing she'd helped put down, trying to work out what she could tell about the 'Candyman'. Seeming to come to some kind of decision after a long minute of silence, she looks Ethan straight in the eyes. "He has told me that they exist, that he can talk to them, that he sometimes tries to help them. Between talking to him and some others and doing my own reading around, I get the feeling that not all of them are friendly and in need of help and some of them can be downright vicious. Not all ghosts either, more like the Shinto idea of everything having its own spirit?" "Right,” Ethan says, his eyes earnest, his nod decisive. "Well, here’s what else they do. Spirits have a place in the order of things, and when they stay on their own side of the reality fence it’s fine. But sometimes they don’t. For all kinds of reasons. And some don’t want to. And some are just hungry, and know that if they push their influence into our world they can get more food. Either way, some of them, sometimes, take notice of a person. They see something in that person that appeals to them.” He pauses, eyes intent now. “And they latch on.” He raises his fist. Closes it. “At first, it’s not much of a problem. Maybe the spirit is content to have a safe food source. A fear spirit hangs around a guy with anxiety disorder, say, and just laps up the guy’s anxiety-flavored essence. Because it has to be the anxiety-flavored stuff, right? Fear spirit can only eat fear-food. It can’t eat happy-food, or the concept-of-coffee food, or creativity-food. It has to eat fear-food. That’s early stage.” Nadia nods slowly, reaching for her coffee again. "So...kinda like a narcissistic abusive partner? They start out on reflected glory then start putting someone down to make themselves look or feel better, then it gets into serious gaslighting territory and making the person totally dependent on them. Or a dealer where the first taste is free but once you're good and hooked the price moves from cash to favours?" She had her share of references for the darker side of normal life, it seemed that the spooky side just upped the darkness level rather than changing the tried and true patterns to cause it. "*Very* much like that,” Ethan says, with another quick decisive nod, tipping a finger to her in the way people do when someone’s hit the nail right on the head. Even as his mouth flattens a little in a grimace that says on some level he absolutely understands that thought process, the knowledge of the darker side turning even worse because knowing more just means seeing more dimensions in the darkness. Knowing she’ll never be able to unsee them. Knowing, on some level, that he’s contributing to that. “Except it’s worse. They don’t even know their new abusive buddy is *there.* So they can’t do a damn thing about it, right? And like the dealer or the narcissist, the spirit wants more supply. So it starts working on the person. Making them more susceptible. Exercising its influence. Making anxiety-guy feel more anxious, more paranoid. Whispering thoughts in the back of his mind. Now he’s not just a little tense in a way that he can mostly deal with. Now he’s forgetting to take his medication. He’s suddenly getting so anxious that he rapid-fire spins his long spaghetti-thoughts all over his friends, and now, hell, they’re feeling anxious too. He messes up at work or forgets deadlines and now the boss is yelling at him and so it’s just worse and worse. And the worse it gets, the more of a resonance match to this spirit he is. He becomes soaked in fear. His entire life becomes soaked in fear. That’s stage two. And it’s not even the worst stage.” "Stage three? That's when they wind up on the desk of someone in homicide with a bunch of saturday shoppers dead, or school kids? And the headlines decide whether anxiety guy is a lone gunman, mentally ill, or a terrorist in training depending on the colour of his skin and how much money his parents have?" It seems the usually relatively cheerful woman has a broad streak of cynicism as well - or perhaps realism. "Hang on a minute...can these things do anger, violence as well as anxiety? No, don't answer that yet, go on." Nadia tugs a piece of plain paper from the bottom of her stack and rescues her pen from the floor so she can make some notes. "That’s still probably Stage Two, and bad enough as it is,” Ethan says with a quick, mirthless smile. He tilts his head to one side in acknowledgement as she indicates an interest that might relate back to her own work. "Stage three they crawl right inside. They merge their spiritual self to the target’s soul. They become one. And when that happens they turn into a monster. The victim might even feel *great* now, or think they’re acquiring super powers, or give it little thought at all. Their bodies mutate. Their minds adapt. They begin pursuing the spirit’s agenda full time, and those agendas are almost never healthy to anyone unlucky enough to be near them. Now this thing, in this example, spreads fear and paranoia at a touch, to the point where a place breaks out into insular behavior and violence. It was a fear spirit to begin with, so maybe it can open up its face and reveal seven rows of shark teeth when you really make it mad. The lucky ones can still fly under the radars, live their lives. The lucky ones have spirits that can be persuaded to let go voluntarily. They revert back, mentally scarred, physically fucked up, their lives in shambles. The not-so-lucky ones…sometimes all you can do for a Claimed is put them out of their misery to stop the damage they’re doing from spreading.” He winces, just a little, aware he just said those words in front of a cop, but she’s already proven they can go kill a monster without inspiring her to reach for the handcuffs. "Claimed?" She notes the word down. "That's what they're called? Presumably because they're 'claimed' by the spirit? Like a Lemure - old Roman spirits, usually of the dead but some of them are...Or full on Linda Blair style possession?" A part of her can't help but recall the conversation she'd had about the Lost and their attempts to claw back their lives. "Fuck." She breaks off into some vehement sounding Italian cursing - at least to judge by the inflection and the frown on her face she is cursing. "And you think, or know, that someone living on that block has been...attached to? And you want to indulge in a little bit of B and E in order to..." She shrugs, inviting him to fill in the blanks. On the up side she hasn't started reaching for the cuffs yet or radioed in to suggest she'd received a confession of criminal intent. "Right,” Ethan says, but that’s of the Claimed part. Still, he says ‘Right,’ again at the second. "I think she’s only Ridden. Maybe late stage one, early stage two. But if I can verify it early, do something about it early, I might be able to help her before she notices more than a blip. But she’s already endangering her career and acting in ways that are lifting eyebrows. I don’t really think I need to break into her house.” He blushes for some reason. And the reason becomes evident. "You’re uh. A *real* investigator, not a uh, enthusiast or newbie but uh…I figured I’d just steal her garbage and see what was in it. But I’ve uh. Had reason to believe. Recently. That uh. Stealing folks’ garbage. It’s. Harder than it looks on TV.” A pause as he circles back to her question. “And yes, there’s spirits for *everything* and *any* of them can do it. Hate. Anger. There are literal coffee spirits. There’s a fucking *Best Buy* spirit. And they’re no less dangerous because they seem to be of something good or nice. Even a spirit of Joy crawling up inside a person is…bad. Real. Bad.” "It's hard to imagine positivity being a bad thing and as for coffee..." Nadia manages a half smile and lifts the cup to her lips. "Rummaging through trash is...Mostly it depends where they are living and how good they are at shredding things - at least from my point of view. Someone in an apartment block is harder than someone in a nice detatched property in suburbia for example. In theory so long as you're not on the property then there's not much you can be arrested for aside from littering or causing a public nuisance." She sticks the end of the pen in her mouth, tapping it against her teeth as she thinks, a bad habit that has been with her since middle school. "If you are concerned about this lady I could probably run a wellness check. Would that be enough for you to get an idea? Seeing her I mean." "I’ve seen her in person once already, that’s what put me on the trail,” Ethan says, slowly. “I need more of a…pattern. Of behavior. Maybe she’s exactly like this. Then again you may have met her. Know her for yourself. Or…could…ask around and see if anyone’s noticed her acting odd. It’s not easy to tell, but any information is good information. I think the neighborhood is…fairly upscale. And she might. Be the type. Who is careful about shredding her garbage.” There’s a specific quality of pause that people give when they’re about to drop a bomb, and the soft inhale Ethan offers bears that very quality. He was going to have to reveal this anyway, there was no ethically roping Nadia in without doing so. He almost looks apologetic. "It’s Assistant State’s Attorney Alicia Monrose,” he murmurs. He hesitates, like there’s another piece of information there, one that he knows he should share but is reluctant to for some ungodly reason. "ASA Monrose..." Nadia whistles softly. "That is one hell of a detail to leave out until now." She can understand his reasoning but even so it's making her more wary than she was. "And the rest? Because right now you look like you've been sat in an interrogation room for the past five hours and are wondering how much more you need to spill before someone will let you go for a piss." She knows of Alicia Monrose of course, who doesn't, but given her own position Nadia is not particularly on the woman's radar. "Did that way more recently than I’d like to admit,” Ethan mutters, with a grimace that said he did not enjoy the experience. That’s probably how he came to meet an ASA in a first place. He doesn’t exactly look like he rubs elbows with crowds like hers. He shakes that off though, and rubs the back of his neck. “I…am trying to figure out how to answer in a way that might not…embarrass her,” he says slowly. “I’ll tell you, I’m just. Trying to figure out how to be a little polite about it. About what kind of spirit I think it might be, I mean.” "Did she hit on you?" Nadia *did* say that she wasn't good at diplomacy and she can't think of anything else that would have Ethan quite so circumspect about the whole thing. "Because I'm getting the feeling you're trying to find a polite way to say she has been infested with an Empousa. A succubus." She drains the coffee and props her chin on one hand, staring at him. "She is not here, I am and I am the one you are currently asking to possibly put my job and my freedon on the line in order to help her. I respect your desire to protect her reputation but..." A shrug of her shoulders. "I am not exactly going to be sharing all the gossip around the watercooler with the boys." "Oh. Uh. Yes. That’s…actually exactly it,” Ethan says, flushing bright red. “I mean. I’ve been hit on before.” He hastens to say. While quick drinking his coffee. “It’s not usually a uh. Hunt the bad thing. Event. But she even acts kind of like a succubus now. Truth be told. A little. My friends had to tell me no ASA would put her career at risk the way she seemed ready to…I *have* been hit on before.” He winces. He is *not* making things better by saying this! "Jesus I’m bad at this…being a rookie…” don’t say sucks. Don’t say BITES. "I hate it.” There. "Look uh…you don’t *have* to help, I will find another way. But if you do I also um. Don’t expect you to do it for nothing. I kind of get that oh shit the world is full of sucktacular shit so I want to help fight it but also the fighting of it is endless and a pain in the ass and requires you to shit you thought you’d never contemplate. I can offer return favors. Or. Well. I’ve got some of the weird John Wick coin shit we all pass around, and you might need a good stock more than I do given…given the interest you’ve attracted from the ah. The keto diet…crowd…” This tall man is just sinking lower and lower in his seat as the runaway freight train of his *mouth* goes careening down the tracks into territory that is embarrassing him more and more. "You wanna get refils or shall I?" She figures he can use a bit of a break, even if it's only picking them both up more coffee or having the table to himself while she does. "I understand all too well wanting to fix the world, why do you think I do what I do? It's shit, it's exhausting, and it ends up with you staring at piles of paperwork about messily dead bodies and reliving your worst shift ever at some stupid o'clock in the morning when you get interrupted by a random..." She gestures at Ethan, stopping just short of saying the word 'werewolf' in public. "I will absolutely ask around about ASA Monrose and see what I can get from people who deal with her a whole lot more than I do. The best I can offer for not getting you arrested is to have you on record as a CI, which won't stop someone hauling you in but does mean I can get you out with a minimum of fuss. And you might just regret offering to return the favour when I get done telling you how much you might have helped already..." “Oh. Uh. Yes please.” Ethan gives her a grateful smile. She may not think of herself as diplomatic but she just was awfully graceful about letting him off the hook while he dug himself a verbal hole. And being listed as a CI piques his immediate interest. That would be useful and helpful for more. So does this other thing, about helpfulness. “I’m interested in hearing about it,” he says. Definitely time for a verbal breather. He takes one. And notices he’s slouching. And sits back up. Nadia collects their cups and wanders over to the counter, ordering more of the same and a couple of muffins. With the late night/early morning hustle it takes...all of two minutes for her to be back at the table with Ethan and dumping yet more sugar into the wakeup juice. "Let me give you a scenario and tell me if you think one of these things could be responsible. Or anything from your side of things to be honest." She nudges one of the muffins in his direction and takes a bite of the other, trying to work out where to start. "And it absolutely sounds like a creepy pasta so bear with me." "A group of people make noise complaints over the same 24 hour period, something about this weird, loud humming that they really want to make stop. Shortly after they all disappear for a period of time, not necessarily the same amount of time but they all go dark for a while. When they come back they are...violent; monstrously so. Some of them disappear again but all of them seem to upgrade their security to the point that even their snitches have bad addresses for them. Now they are mysteriously turning up dead...or parts of them anyway." "Thank you,” Ethan murmurs, and he unwraps the muffin and starts in on it. And just listens, his full attention turned on her. "Holy shit,” he murmurs, when she lays it out. And he sits back. Thinking about it. "It could be. There could be a Claimed in that area, generating both the humming sound and influencing the local population. The fact that they’re turning up dead or their parts are turning up though, I’m not sure how to account for that. I wouldn’t rule it out. I also wouldn’t say with any definitiveness that’s exactly what’s going on. But I’d definitely call it our kind of thing. And it isn’t even necessarily a person. Spirits can mess with physical objects too. Buildings. How big was the radius of effect?” "Pretty much the whole of the Southside. I don't know if you remember back in the summer of 2010? Things got..." She pauses, picking the fruit out of her muffin with a level of focus that suggests she is trying not to think of something else. "There was a lot of talk about it being the start of the whole 2012 Mayan apocalypse stuff, it was that bad. I was still on the beat at the time but got to do a ridealong with a dude in homicide - that was a thing, try out a bunch of departments. We got a call, two dead and two down, officer on scene, partner missing..." She shudders, the woman faced down a bug monster and shot the damn thing in the head, then ticked off the vampiric princes of the city, but right now Nadia looks like she is reliving something that puts all of it into the category of 'just tuesday'. "It was slasher movie bloody. Perky blonde 30 something had taken a power drill to her husband, brother in law, and kids...by the time we got there she was in the middle of dismembering them with a handsaw. My mentor rode a desk for the last few months of his career and I don't think I've seen him smile since. He..." She closes her eyes and swallows, discarding whatever she'd been about to say. "The current deaths? All disappeared originally in December of '09. I don't know if it's something collecting payment or someone hunting things. People are sitting on information because it's all new and shiny and no one really wants whatever's killing now stopped because it's taking out the badguys." Ethan had shaken his head a little about the 2010 comment, but the more she talks the deeper he frowns. “And the victims are freshly dead? Newly dead? We’re not talking like…decades old corpses showing up and being identified? And is there any pattern in *how* they’re showing up? Anything like…” He tilts his head upward, brows drawing down as he thinks. “They’re all face down in a puddle. Or they’re all missing a tooth. Just any kind of weird, rando pattern, I guess, that most people would dismiss or not pick up on. And everyone who disappeared in ‘09 was some sort of criminal?” "The four we've got so far yes. I'm working on the records of who else we lost track of around then but...when I say bodies are turning up I should say parts of bodies, heads and hands. They're fresh and bloody and so far we've identified them as coming from two guys who were sort of...middle management in various cartels or other organised groups and two who were street level gangbangers with similar levels of pull in their own crews." She sighs. "I really can't get much more specific than that at the moment and certainly not in public. Talking to you people might get me leads that regular police work will never uncover because it's designed for dealing with regular people, but it can also get me locked up and destined for a life flipping burgers if I survive to get out." Nadia's voice is hushed, and she's playing with her cake rather than eating it now. "Every one of these guys was bad before they disappeared, but when they came back? It was like someone turned their prediliction for violence and death up to 11. And despite that we couldn't find them. Not just me but they gave the Gang Taskforce and OC the run around, hell we thought one of 'em might have been dead he was so far off the grid. It doesn't makes sense, not any kind of normal world sense anyway." "Jesus,” Ethan says quietly, all while sort of lowering his hand over empty air in this gesture that says he well understands why she’s not willing to go over some things here and now. His brow is still furrowed but this is now a furrow of concern. "In this case,” he says, “I wish I had something that could give you an immediate, excellent lead. It could be spirits. It could be weirder and worse. But if I think of something or spot something I will of course help, and I mean. Everyone was saying they see you as one of us anyway. There are bound to be others of us that will see something in this I’m not seeing yet. Alex, John, Colt, though Colt’s likely to be a little skittish around you. Any one of us you were sitting with, really, anyone who has been at this longer than me. But if I can help, I will help, and if you find yourself in a tight spot and need someone to call for emergency backup cause you can’t call the precinct, well…I’m happy to come help you fuck something up if it needs fucking up.” "If I'm honest I wasn't really listening to the chat behind me the other night, too busy snapping harder so I didn't have to admit how hard my legs were shaking." Nadia lets out a short, sharp laugh; brittle and entirely lacking in actual amusement. "I've got a few theories, links, things that might be leads but..." She gestures at the pile. "I was hoping a change of scenery might help give me a different perspective on it all. I'd like to have something more than 'holy shit' and bad memories before I meet with Hazel to discuss everything but right now it's hard to see past the day that nearly made me quit before I ever made detective and a collection of heads." She pauses to glance at her watch and wince. "And this time tomorrow I need to be on shift... Look, take my card. This one's got my personal number on it not just the work one, and if you find yourself wandering past the morgue, poke your head in - might find us there and talking shop and if not me then maybe one of your crowd. I will ask around about the ASA and let you know if I turn anything up. If you get picked up trying to save her from herself call me and I'll see what I can do." He takes the card and says, “I’ll text you my number. I’ll also ask around to the others, they definitely have a wealth of knowledge I’m still trying to acquire. Thank you for talking to me today, especially when you had all that on your plate.” The gentle motion of his hand takes in all her files as he rises. “Try to get some sleep, okay? You can’t help nobody if you run yourself into the ground.” The unsolicited advice is given with another quick concerned frown, even as he turns to go. She nods. "Yeah I'm going to head home I think. You know you've got a caffeine problem when non-ME strength just doesn't give you that hit anymore!" Nadia stacks the papers a little more neatly and shoves them into a messenger bag. "Maybe talking it out will help jog something loose." | |