Summary:Interrogating the winged beings reveals interesting stuff Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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People with actual honest to god wings. Even in a city of heroes, that's not something you see every day. It would be a pain if they were doing good things - but mostly a 'traffic stops while people stare at the 'angels' kind of pain'. Unfortunately this is not an episode of Touched by Angel and some of these winged people have been committing crimes. Two of them were caught doing so yesterday and are in SHIELD's custody.
SHIELD, per it's arrangements with NYPD has made them available for interrogation. The file says they were caught being involved in a smuggling operation and that other similarly winged people have been implicated in robberies and even outright terrorism - though that last charge originates in Canada. That makes it interesting that one of the people here to do the interrogating is also a winged person. A woman that the NYPD knows, something of an… exchange cop from somewhere called Akah Ma'at.
Just to round out the menagerie, there is a wolfman and a woman with cat ears here, sitting outside the interrogation room, waiting for everyone to arrive.
"Do you have anything to eat, Nick?" Isis, the woman with cat ears, asks the wolfmen. "I'm hungry." Of course, the question here is when is Isis not hungry? The answer is never.
She's dressed in a long sleeved collared T-Shirt with a logo on the breast, Paragon Investigations - a local PI company, and snug jeans.
"And how long do you think they're going to be?" It's normally about now that Isis would start climbing on things.
Admittedly, since Marisol joined the force, there have only been at least three times since people in her division were called to SHIELD. Since none of those cases really belonged to her, and citing professional courtesy, she never really dipped and dived into anothers' caseload; she had plenty of her own. But it would seem like something of an honor, if she weren't currently watching her back. Those against IA were moving quietly and she needed to do the same.
Business as usual, there at SHIELD. Badge offered up, scanned in, temporary one given access so that she could move through the halls escorted and not. Pee breaks are important and private.
There were a few that pass her by who happen to give her strange looks, one even doing a double take as and quickly picking up the pace the opposite way. Must be that mojo, those who are affected by that untrained gift of hers call her a brujah, though half of the time it's out of anger. She didn't care.
Outside of the room, she joins Isis and Nick, file in hand, tucking it under her arm to offer a nod and a brief smile. "Hello," Marisol offers up on the tail end of Isis' words. "Detective Aguilar." And.. that was that. Brief.
Shayera arrives a moment or three after Detective Aguilar, or, well, her voice does. Carrying from the main entrance, she can be heard speaking loudly and in a tone of voice bordering on angry. "I said, I am here to speak with the Detective in charge of the case involving wi— no not me, you doughnut-laden pencil-pusher. LOOK at my ID." There's the buzz of the doors unlocking to admit her to the halls where the others are. "Thank you," the woman's voice carries more clearly as she shoves through the doors, her tone just barely hinting at civility.
Striding towards where she already sees Nick, one could say she has an angry stormcloud over her, but it's more accurate to say her gray-tipped white wings are fluffed up like an irate monochrome parrot while she mutters likely impolite things to herself in her native language and her impatience is likely VERY clear to Isis. She's dressed simply enough in jeans, knee boots, a long sleeve shirt, and a … mace. Like, a medieval weapon thing.
"What room are they in?" she asks of the investigators and the woman standing with them. Yeah, she's pretty brusque as well.
"Detective." Nick stands to offer a handshake to Marisol. "Nick Gleason. Paragon Investigations."
Marisol might know of him. Possibly. There aren't THAT many wolfman PI's in the city after all.
"Shayera." Nick says dryly as she arrives. "They're in here. Let me just…" He stands up to open the door.
It's a fairly simple interrogation room. Table. Four chairs. One winged man and one winged woman both cuffed to the table. Glasses of water. One light.
The wolfman gestures. Once everyone is inside he follows in and shuts the door.
It is sliiiightly snug in here but not overly so. Mostly there's just not enough chairs for everyone but Nick doesn't take one.
The two winged people stare up at the grounders with undisguised contempt… and to Shayera with barely disguised hate.
"Your torture efforts are laughable, unless your food was part of them. In which case they are terrifying." The man says in oddly accented English. It's… hard to place exactly what the accent is.
As Marisol arrives, Isis shakes her head, frowning and looking around. "Uh. Isis. Isis Marik." She answers, looking a little distracted. Nick might think her cat instincts are kicking in - making her scatterbrained again.
He'll be disabused of that as she stands and steps close to him, putting her hand on his arm for comfort.
For a moment, her cat ears disappear and then reappear - Shayera and Nick might see that.
"Hello Shayera…" she says as she follows them in, frowning even more as she looks around the room, ears going flat against her head.
The papers shuffle, one arm to the other. The hand of Nick was shaken. "Mr. Gleason. Ms. Marik." The sounds of Shayera draw out amusement, as she turns around and takes a step back to keep them all in her view. She noticed it all. The mace. The wings (which she herself has personally never seen before), the hair on the wolfman.. the disappearing and reappearing ears as she follows them into the room, and the two culprits who were just like the winged woman who entered with them.
Well alright!
Accents abound, noted and filed away for later. The chair was reached, tugged out to drag upon the floor, in which the Detective helps herself to. File was placed upon the table, but not studied, instead her attention was upon the one who spoke up first.
"Who said anything about torture?" She asks, at least the one who could be leader. Jacket was opened up to snatch a pin from the inside of her pocket, which was clicked three times to ensure the inked tip was ejected. "I'm simply here to ask a few questions." As for the others?
Up to them!
Shayera completely misses Isis' ears doing that disappearing reappearing trick, and places herself behind the chair that the detective claims, settling her wings a bit more closely to account for the tight space of the room and resting one hand on her mace to make it clear she's ready to use it at any moment. And then she stands there and scowls at the other two winged people. There's no hate in her expression, but there's plenty of 'I don't have time for your BS' in its place.
"And I'm here to make sure you answer her questions." Not saying HOW she intends to do that is kind of the point. Let them wonder and worry. Of course, it would have been nice if she could have talked with Marisol first, but she'll work with what she's got. The Grounder woman will figure it out, or they'll have words later, no doubt.
Nick gestures for Isis to take the remaining seat. He leans on one of the walls and eyes the two bird people. He has questions as well but he'll get to them. The people with badges and the people who are law enforcement in cities with unpronounceable names probably have things that are really important to ask.
"What makes you think we're going to answer any of your questions, grounder?" The man glowers.
"Because if you don't I'm going to let Isis play with your wings." Nick replies completely sarcastically but betting that it will be taken seriously.
The woman looks at him. Then at the man. Then at Isis. "I think he's serious. And I'd rather not have the mud-lover smash my face in." She means Shayera. "Ask your questions."
It takes Isis a moment to take that chair, Nick will notice the slight agitation from her - empathically as she draws his head down to hers and murmurs in his ear "Are these cells shielded?" The sense is muted though.
She's just sat when he uses her as a threat, the blue eyed feline-like mutant looks over and smiles, revealing sharp little fangs. Raising her hands, claws extend from each finger one by one - much like a panther in a certain Disney movie.
-NOW- things were getting to be a little out of her comfort zone. Marisol never really did too well with anyone standing nor sitting close to her, and the only tell she had to the two women was the way that she shifted in her chair to right herself. Grounder. Mud-lover. Those without wings and those who actually like them without it. It wasn't too far from the other racial ephitets that happen in the city.
Marisol says nothing, even as Isis makes her display, even as she could at least 'hint' at the movement behind her back. Shayera's words had intent, so it was no question that the woman would at least make a show of it through her hand resting upon her mace.
"We're all good?" She asks of everyone in the room, then flips the file open. The pen clicks three times again, the tip pressing against the paper.
"Who do you work for?" Detective asks, straight and to the point. They did agree to answer, by the way.
Without so much as glancing at Marisol, Shayera waits until the woman asks her first question before stepping out from behind her chair. Sidling up next to Nick, she asks seemingly quietly but more than clearly enough for the other winged people to hear her, if their hearing is similar to hers.
"Do you happen to have a pair of wire cutters with you?" It likely seems incongruent, but she's nothing if not skilled at knowing where a winged person's weak points are. Primary weak point: wings. And she knows exactly how to exploit that, both physically and psychologically.
"I'm sure there's some in a tool shed here." Nick responds. He looks down with some concern at Isis. "I don't think so." He murmurs quietly to her. What's wrong with her? She feels… wait. He can't feel her. That has him blinking and looking down at her again.
"We're good Detective." The brown wolfman says.
The woman glowers at Shayera but she does look worried. Then she turns her eyes on Marisol. "Kelso. Kelso Mez."
That may or may not be the person they actually work for. The name doesn't particularly mean anything to Marisol, but Shayera knows that's a name of her language. An OLD one.
"I might have some in my bag." Isis answers still watching the bird people, letting her sharp little claws rap on the table. Best not ask why she has wire cutters, though.
The look intensifies at the Bird People. This is a look the researchers who raised Isis know well - pure determination to stop the pain they were inflicting on her - something that might serve well now.
It's then Nick and the others feel her. Pure determination rolls over everyone. Isis winces and touches her temple for a moment, the feelings start to settle and change.
A feeling of lassitude starts to permeate the room. The desire to be … agreeable and get along.
Well, that was a start. Intimidation tactics carried out and the bird people were singing in their cages. At least. She wrote the name down, Kelso Mez, and looked towards the others to see if they showed any signs of recognition.
"Kelso Mez, who is he? And what is the purpose?" She asks, flipping the pages. Even though Canada was technically not in their jurisdiction, she reads it off and asks anyways. All points lead to somewhere.
"Tell me about the incident in Canada. Did the smuggling operation that.." Well.. ".. you two are allegedly accused of expand to that far of a reach? Does the pipeline start -there-?"
Shayera nods to Isis' offer of wire cutters possibly being in her bag, and hands her mace to Nick without taking into consideration that he might not be expecting how much it weighs, then steps over to rummage in the cat-eared woman's bag. And they're easy enough to find. Perfect.
Then the woman says a name and … Oh HELL. She knows that name, all right, but she's very careful to not let on that she does. Hopefully. She looks over the wire cutters, testing to see how far they'll open. Hm. They might work.
Then, she looks at the winged man with the cutters still in hand. Or more accurately, she looks at the closer of his wings.
The bird folk visibly pale as the wire cutters are broken out and the female squirms back. "You wouldn't dare…"
"I dunno." Nick muses, almost bored sounding. "Would we?"
As Isis 'aura' starts to blanket over the room the two prisoners relax ever so slightly.
"He aims to punish the grounders for crimes against the sky." That's a lie. Marisol can tell it is. It's not far from the truth but it's a perversion of the truth.
"He works with the true masters of the sky. The masters of the floating isle. What we do we do for ALL those who are born to the wind. And the world of mud and dirt will kneel!"
That's the woman. But that is also a lie. Again. Closer to the truth. But not the truth.
As to the rest of the questions? Well that seems to be what they go with when nervous. But surely they will break and talk.
"I like wings …" Isis answers, feeling a little better now she can 'feel' again. "… they're very tasty." There's something about the way she says that's believable. "And fun to play with." Those bright blue eyes are on the man's wings, though she slides a glance at Shayera "Can I have what you cut?"
She can feel the 'lie'. It's not that she can tell it's a lie directly, but there's emotions that surge when you're obfuscating. These two have it spades.
"Do you do it for her people too?" She asks, jerking her head to Shayera and then realising, she's not here to ask questions. That's Marisol's job.
Marisol was amused, but it was only told in her eyes. In fact, she slides her chair back from the table just a pinch as she folds her arms about her chest. She even slumps a little, tilting her head towards the cutters juuuust in case they didn't see it, even as they spew their lies and fanatic talk.
"You see.." Marisol says. "..this badge right here?" She taps at the metal NYPD badge on her hip. "Says I'm the ranking authority in this room. And you're lying. You both are deflecting." She suddenly sits up, flipping the file closed, then stands.
"So this is what I'm going to do." She gestures around the room. "I'm going to let them have a crack at you both and stand outside and watch. Because from what I can tell, and what was spoken here?" She smiles. "You're not from around here. Pretty sure if we were to finger-print you right now, you won't even register on any data base, let alone pop out with a social security number. You bendejos have no rights here. So, I'm going to step out, stand right behind that window and watch them work you two over with a pair of bolt cutters and kitty claws. And once you puta's start to tell the truth, only then is when they're allowed to stop."
Marisol makes the sign of the cross, then steps away from the chair and towards the door. "Ai dios mio fuckin' floating isle bullshit.." She mutters as she steps out of the door..
"You're welcome to every piece I cut off," Shay tells Isis. And as an apology for not actually having anything to give the cat-eared woman when this is done, maybe she'll share feathers from her last molting. Because she doesn't actually plan on cutting these people's flight feathers, but she's sure going to make it LOOK like she intends to.
With a nod to Marisol and she steps out of the room, she steps around the table and toward the winged man. "Have you two seen what your people do to the birds they keep as pets? They CUT their wing feathers to stop them from flying." With that she rather abruptly grabs the closer of the man's wings, the one that she intentionally damaged when they were fighting.
"They also tie pretty pink bows around them. Can I have one of them when you're done? I've been meaning to get a bird." No Nick doesn't ACTUALLY want that and it's a little difficult for him to even lie about it given his background. But he's going to try to sell this because it's their best shot at getting information out of these people.
"Maybe you wanna be a bit straight with us before she goes snip-snip, though." He adds.
"Alright, look. Fine! Kelso came to the city. He's got some kind of a problem with the authorities in his own. We agreed to help him. He's got something important to us."
With Marisol leaving, Isis' power returns to full strength fairly quick. "Can we have a bird, Nick?" She asks, almost innocently. "I want him, if we do. I have a pretty hood for them…" It's not hard for Isis to lie, this is what she was trained to. To fight and to use her powers.
"Where's Kelso now and what did he have…?"
The small feline like mutant sends another empathic broadcast, this time, there's fear in it. Fear Shayera and Nick. They mean what they say.
Shayera forces the man's wing onto the table, likely doing so in such a manner that the tips of his primaries are RIGHT in front of Isis and forces it still with one hand while opening the wire cutters with her other hand. She sets the cutter's blades around the shaft of the longest primary and looks at the man.
"Better answer her. I've never done this before with weak little cutters like these, and I'm sure it's going to be ugly." Yes, she just implied that she's cut people's primaries off before. She really does need to know what they know about Kelso Mez, because this is information she will NEED to report back to her superiors as promptly as possible.
This whole mess goes farther than she realized.
"Hells if I know!" The man screams in a panic. "He gives the orders. Works from his lab or workshop or cave or wherever he is. Sometimes he's… sometimes he's with our people." Our people. Not his people. That's interesting. Shayera knows that some of these bird people seem to use tech foreign to her. But she also knows that some of them seem to know her language, or a variant of it.
"He needed what we were bringing in to hold up his end of the bargain."
"What's your end of the bargain?" Nick asks.
The man looks at Nick. Then at the woman. Then at Isis and Shayera and swallows.
"We help make the city that rejected him see the light."
That makes Isis frown, feline eyes narrowing at the man as she crawls on the table so she can put her face right into his, hissing a little. There's so much of the cat there now.
"What city was that … " The woman for the moment is left alone, though Isis still sends that empathic broadcast through the room.
Eyes narrowing further, holding the avian man's, the slim feline lets the silence grow. "And you will give Shayera all the locations you know where this person might be. Who are your people by the way…."
Keeping her tight grip on the man's wing, Shayera looks and Nick and tilts her head toward the winged woman so she doesn't get any bright ideas about trying to get Isis away from the man. Because even handcuffed to the table, their wings are mostly free, and while they can't do THAT much with their wings in front of themselves, the woman could potentially turn enough to try and wing-swat Isis.
And that just will not do.
She tightens her grip on the cutters against the man's primary, not enough yet to actually start cutting through the feather, but likely enough to shear off a few of the vanes (not nearly as devastating damage-wise) and just barely start to crease the shaft. "Answer her. Now. Or I turn you into a kakapo."
The man swallows. "No. Cut my feathers. I won't betray our people. Not to grounders. Not to a mud-lover like you."
The woman winces. "The Isle. It's the Isle. But you won't find it. It's been hidden from your kind for ages."
The Isle. No one calls Akah Ma'at like that. Could there be ANOTHER city full of winged people? Are they Aerieans like Shayera? Or are they something else?
"Our people are the kings of the sky. The heirs of the wind. You have forgotten us. But we have not forgotten you."
Isis might wonder why Nick doesn't call her off, later. For now, she's quite in her cat brain. "You're not like her, are you? You look like her and your gear is similar but is it like saying an American is the same as an Australian… or more like a martian is like an earthling?" What TV shows has she been watching now?
"Where did you say you were from, Shayera? Do you have forgotten people in your legends?" the feline-like mutant hisses once more in the mans face and backs off, sliding from the table and slinking to Nicks side.
Shayera is inwardly surprised by the man's words, but does her best to hide it and flat out lies hopefully doing so convincingly to the other winged people. "I know exactly what he's talking about now. You've already given away your most valuable secret, you might as well tell us the name of the item you're so desperate to get that you'd willingly attach yourselves to someone claiming to be a genocidal butcher."
She sneers at the man in open disgust, even as she inwardly tries to make sense of his words and resolves to talk to her superiors about any past exiles. She pulls the cutter away from his wing and releases him as if he's no longer worth her time or effort and her last demand for information isn't really important enough to try for.
"Let's go," She tells Nick and Isis. "These two don't know anything else of use. Let SHIELD deal with them from here." She REALLY needs to talk with her superiors now.
"The lifeblood of our people." The woman says. "You wouldn't understand, mud lover."
Nick straightens up and loops his arm around Isis. He turns to usher the group out. Once they're clear he closes the door behind them leaving the two rattled prisoners alone. "Why do I think this is going to be a lot of trouble?"
Nick is, like most PI's, sadly rarely wrong when he asks that question.
Isis senses Shayera's surprise. It's hard to hide things from the feline mutant. She gives Shayera a look as she rubs her ears against Nicks arm, resisting the urge to climb and perch on his shoulders.
"Don't I get a wing?" She asks, a little disappointed. It really is hard to tell if she's serious or just hamming up.
"Because it is. Those people … are dangerous. They're fanatics." And Isis knows fanatics, she was raised by them.
With a low feline growl, Isis lets Nick usher her out.
"Not worth it," Shayera tells Isis as she follows the pair out. "Not enough meat on there, be a waste of good buffalo sauce."