2012-12-03 New York Style Chicken

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Intersate 87. A major thorough traffic eight grid highway between New York City and North New York State.

Three quarters of a mile away and parallel to it? A two-lane State Route that -used- to be a way between the same two spots. Also a much better place to go speeding recklessly through the middle of the night on a motorbike.

Shift, wearing his gunmetal gray costume and black leather jacket, is doing just that. He has no need for a helmet, but he wears one simply to help further conceal his identity, and keep the bugs out of his face. Racing through the twisting road at speeds nearing three digits is entirely illegal and altogether unsafe, but he doesn't care. He has some angry thoughts to sort out, and this is how he's chosen to do it.

What are the odds that a woman he thought to be dead would be racing along the same road, at the same hour, at speeds that challenge or may even defeat his attempts at oil burning?

With the bugs planted and the hour late, Domino's taking a little time away from her current job of being a digital spook to take care of some other business. She did owe someone the first round of drinks, after all. It's dark, it's late, and she's not in the best of moods, either. The older model black Nissan that set her back a hefty sum holds no connection to her, it's just another tool to be used. Right now she's seeing just how fast this particular tool can take her across the state. Passing triple digit figures is a lot easier when one has four contact patches instead of two and many more horses living under the hood. No cars, no cops, just her, the moonlight, and some loud music.

Or so she thought.

Rounding a bend reveals something she isn't expecting to see. One lone headlight, bouncing up and down like an over-excited Chihuahua, at speeds that push nearly as fast as that of her sedan. This..could get ugly.

There would be plenty of time to avoid striking the car that peels into view ahead of him. Shift doesn't seem to be bothered by it, until he realizes that his depth perception is all sorts of screwed up right now. It's almost too late when he skids the bike to the right, unable to tell if the car is just coming around a curve or veering into his lane. The bike begins to tilt, and there's nothing he can do to stop it from happening.

In the blink of an eye, his body and helmet are lit up by headlamps. In that same blink of an eye, he could -swear- he saw a very pale face with a telltale patch over the left eye. He's also quite convinced that now, he's seeing ghosts... and that distraction proves enough to cause him to tip his bike.

He's already whizzed past Domino's car when the bike hits the pavement. The helmet suddenly goes free, careening off into the wilderness along the roadside, for the body upon the bike has turned into a cloud of thick, black smoke that goes soaring through the air as the bike's body screams and sparks along the pavement. The cloud of smoke, nearly invisible in the night, disappears into the foliage. However, when the bike comes to a rest, a voice sounds in the night.

"SON OF A...!"

Anti-lock brakes light up like a barrage of machine guns, the dark sedan suddenly pitching forward and veering to the side before its forward momentum and poor traction cause it to spin around a full circle plus another half. Headlights cut through the darkness just in time to watch the tail end of the bike disappear into the brush, along with something smaller and roughly round in shape that goes leaping up into the air.

Domino stares out of the windshield, jaw clenched and fingers welded onto the wheel as the dust sweeps across the hood, further obscuring her vision.

"..-Bitch!-"

A second later she's out of the car, leaving the door open as she hurries across the road and follows the single line skidmark until she's well into the ditch.

"I did -not- need this shit tonight..." she hisses under her breath, popping a flashlight off of her harness to sweep the area. Where there's a bike, there's a biker. Whether he's conscious or not, or -alive- or not... "Hello? Where are you? Talk back to me, guy!"

That voice. It stops Shift cold where he sits in the underbrush. Convinced now that he is -hearing- the voice of ghosts, his breath catches and he tries very hard not to make a single sound, until the sweeping of the flashlight gets too close.

Suddenly, he bursts out of the underbrush, his hands raised in a self defending stance. "Go away!" he cries out. "Whoever you are, just go away! Leave me alone! I don't want any trouble! Do you understand me?" As if in afterthought, he rips the mask up from where it dangles against his chest, forcing it back over his head. Off comes the jacket next, making him look like a proper superhero, or supervillan. Whatever gets the job done. "I'm warning you," he growls. "Stay away from me!"

Time to face the facts. Someone that took a spill like that should not be on his feet, yelling cohesively, and making threatening motions. None of the above. Definitely not all three. Dom's other hand already has a throwing knife selected, out in a flash, ready to send it across the way to silence that other voice--

Except that she knows that voice.

And the look of the person that's thrashing about and yelling at her. And the bike...

"Jesus. -Shift?- Damnit man, talk to me, is that really you?" She's not sure whether to stay on the defensive or not, or if she should be on the offensive for that matter!

"Bet the odds didn't see -that- one coming," she mutters under her breath.

There is a momentary silence, before the masked man damn near loses it. "How the -hell- do you know my -name-?"

Shift begins to back away and to the side, utterly confused and unabashedly conflicted. Beneath the mask, he's glowering at Domino, wondering whether he's finally lost his mind. Not only does the hallucination talk and breath and -act- like Domino, but it even knows his nickname, it even seems to move like she does. Like she's going for a weapon.

Mouth visible beneath the mask, the Ghanaian's lips peel back to reveal snarling teeth. "You're not real," he swears aloud, as if doing so might make the vision disappear. "You're not real, that car's not real, NONE OF THIS IS REAL!" His hands have risen further, no longer adopting the stance of a man ready to defend himself, but of some religious bigot holding his hands in the form of a cross. To banish the demon from his waking eyesight, which he is becoming more and more convinced is an effect of the nanites that swim throughout his blood.

Suddenly, the masked man turns and darts away, making a run for it toward his tipped bike. Perhaps, if he was lucky enough, it would still work, and -that- would prove with absolute certainty that it was, in fact, a hallucination.

Domino has another snap decision make. This raving lunatic at least believes that he is, indeed, named Shift. Shift, one of the people that had been part of the raid on Latveria that went so horribly wrong, presumed dead on the other side of the world, back here, tonight, -now.- What the -hell- are the odds?

1 in 1,749,330.

As you go for the bike, Dom makes her move. There's the quickest flick of her left hand, a momentary whisking of honed steel through the chilly night air, and the sudden hissing of pressurized air as the tip embeds itself into one of the bike's tires.

One: If it -is- you, she can offer you a ride. Two: If it -is- you, she can't let you go running off like this. And, three: If it -is- you, killing your mode of transportation is the only shot she's got at keeping you from disappearing into the night. You can turn into smoke at will, hard to contain someone like that.

Of course, that also makes her at a distinct advantage should she try to close the gap between the two. You could tear her apart and there's nothing she could do to stop you. Fairly dangerous situation, this one.

"Damnit kid, get hold of yourself or I'll show you just how not real I am," she practically growls as that free hand curls into a savage fist. "Metalhead said you were -dead,- the hell are you doing out here!"

The knife goes soaring past his vision and right into one of his tires, causing his booted feet to skid to a halt. Anger boils beneath his skin, and in a poetically appropriate manner, his own fingers ball up into a fist. However, with the surge of anger comes the surge of his mutation, and that fist begins to release a telltale crackling sound.

A crackling sound the real Domino would be all too familiar with; the sound of flesh becoming harder than galvanized steel.

He's about to rush at you and put that hardened fist through your temple. But before he can act, a single lucid thought dares to penetrate his near-manic mentality.

What if it -is- her?

He hesitates, teeth revealed in a snarling response. "I might as well -be- dead."

Your move, Lady Luck.

How quickly we forget... With that sound, Domino stops short. "Aw, hell..." Good thing for her that you stop when you do, getting up close and personal with you is not on her list of fun activities. Not when you can pull that little stunt. But, how can she handle this situation now?

For one, she can stop blinding you with her flashlight. Now she's holding it high above her head, letting the light show you -her- for once. Not much has changed. The new shades she's come to favor are left in the car, it's too dark for them. "Yeah, can't tell you how many times I've been there before." Maybe it's just from the stress of what you had to endure back there that has you all wired up and paranoid, she doesn't know. "Point is, you're not dead. Neither am I. And if we're -both- alive then there's still hope for the others.

..Shit. She's got a phonecall to make. Already not looking forward to that one, but it can wait.

"Something tells me we have a lot to catch up on, Shift. Get in the car, we'll get to the bottom of this." Business as usual, it would seem. Does she even care that you're alive? It's kinda hard to tell!

It seems fate is being granted a bit of luck tonight. Had it been anyone else, he may have not let down his guard. Carol? He'd have certainly not even given a moment's thought as to whether seeing her was not a hallucination. Blink? He'd have most likely been tempted to give her the finger and a few choice oaths. Psylocke?

Well, that one would have driven him right over the edge. He put a bullet in her brain.

But Domino? He saw her die. She never betrayed him, or anyone else. If there was a chance that he might consider getting into a car that's not real, with a person who is probably actually in a grave somewhere, it would be her.

He walks up toward you slowly, as if waiting for you at any moment to try and knife him. Of course, if it's really you, you'd know how pointless that could be. Out comes a hand, and he does the oddest thing... he -pokes- you, right in the shoulder, twice. That hand hovers for a moment, before moving to take the mask off and reveal hesitant, speculative eyes... but mismatched eyes, nonetheless.

"I -saw- you die," he growls, before turning and walking toward the passenger door with decisive footsteps. He gets in and doesn't care to avoid slamming the door behind him.

Wait, what's this, now..? God, Domino swears, if you try to give her a hug or something--

Whaaaaat..? Being poked isn't expected. Your words give her reason to understand why you did it, though. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

She stands her ground while you make your way to the car, only deviating from such a course of action on her own long enough to retrieve her lost blade and return it back to hiding. "I owe you a tire, we'll come back for it." A moment later she's back behind the wheel, killing the radio while closing the door. "From the top, kid. How'd you get back here? Obviously Doom spared you, which means he's a lying bastard, which we already know. What did he do to you, and have you heard anything from the others?"

While Dom drops the questions she reorients the Nissan back onto the road, heading toward New York City. What better place to go with a former teammate than to their base of operations?

While Kwabena is still not fully convinced that -any- of this is real, he's already learned the hard way that going back to drugs will not help sate his predicament or clarify his mind. His prison is very real, and very inescapable now. He completely ignores the predicament of his ditched bike and blown tire, for it's of such little consequence at this precise moment.

"I was free to leave, so I did." His answers seem quite nonchalant at first, as if he was telling her about a boring day at the office. "I got on a private jet straight from Doomstadt to upstate, took a train to Grand Central."

There is an awkward pause, but it's one of those upon which lingers the promise of something more; the kind that dares the other not to speak or else lose the chance at hearing a greater story.

"Blink betrayed us. Joined him. Carol's dead. As for me?" He hasn't looked over at you once since getting in the car, his eyes simply staring at the black, yellow, and white lit by the Nissan's headlamps dead ahead. When he speaks again, his voice is filled with a venom unlike anything you've ever heard uttered from his accented voice. "He left me with a little 'present'."

Curious, how he completely neglected to mention anything what so ever about Betsy.

Gathering intel is always a critical thing for any mission, especially before it begins. They lacked solid data when going in the first time. If Domino's going to go back to that place ever again, she's going to make sure that mistake doesn't happen twice. It's what leaves her clinically detached while going through the motions of driving, practically interrogating a former ally, possibly even a friend. The walls are up, the distance is secured. Her third rule of survival is to never get close to anyone else, yet it's one which she's constantly breaking.

Right now, she has to remain strong. For herself. For both of them. Possibly even for the entire team.

"I'm dead, you're dead, we're all dead here," she scoffs. "I'm aware of Blink, but we have to look around what Doom -wanted- us to see. Psychological Manipulation 101, kid. 'Your team's all dead, everyone's abandoned you, you're all alone now.' Maybe Danvers isn't dead, she's a tough one. Who the hell knows what's up with Blink."

Your comment about being left with a present earns you a lingering glance from the monochromatic mercenary. "Did he implant something into you? Would that even work with your power?"

Then the cold truth of the situation hits her. Doom had just -let you go?- With a 'present?' A slow, subtle breath fills her lungs then comes right back out, a fresh weight falling upon her shoulders.

You've been compromised.

"Ghanaians don't -psychologically manipulate- one another," comes Kwabena's snarling remark, though it's fair to note that the level of snarling seems to be taming somewhat. It's almost more of a growl, or perhaps a hiss, really. "So, fine. Carol might be alive. Blink might be playing him. That's what you're getting at."

Still, no mention of Psylocke.

The subject changes, which is a relief to Kwabena. He didn't want to even think, for a moment, about the steel injected through Betsy's grey matter at his own tortured and misled hand. Especially now that you've planted the seed of possibility; that he may have been puppeteered into murdering an innocent person, much less a friend. The mere thought is so disturbing that he blocks it away out of sheer, violent self defense.

"Oh, it works," he answers. "They're called nanites. Perhaps you've heard of them. Cell-sized micro-machines, programmed to serve a specific purpose. They now swim around inside of me, and believe me, they haven't gone away. They have a pretty damned distinct way of reminding me."

The possibility of them being used to -spy- on himself or his friends has never even crossed his mind, and it still doesn't.

"Not -you,- numbnut," Domino almost snaps back, "-Doom- manipulated us. Big flippin' surprise, too."

She'll get to the matter of Psylocke. Not now, though. Not yet. Now she's got the thought within her own mind, anything that she might say or do, anywhere that she might -go,- you might be unknowingly transmitting all of this data right back to the mad overlord, himself. She can't take you back to the warehouse. She can't take you to any of her safehouses. She's risking herself and everything that the others are trying to work for, simply by having you here beside her.

Betsy was right about one thing. This is becoming a matter of war. Dom has to step up her game and treat it like one. She doesn't take chances. Not stupid ones. Luck only favors the reckless, not the ignorant.

"You know what, I could really go for a drink," she says out of the blue while slowing the car to a halt. The trunk pops open an instant later. "Hold tight, I'll get us a bottle."

It's one of the first things to go into any of her cars. Alcohol. It sterilizes, it kills pain, it burns, it eases stress. It's cheap and easily obtained, too. Such a universal tool should always be close at hand. Like the bottle of vodka, her usual brand. Still plenty full. She pops the top and takes a long drink from it before looking back to the transparent fluid with a slight grimace. It's such a shame to waste so much of it... From another container comes a trio of plain white pills, all of which get dropped down into the bottle and promptly dissolved as she swirls it around.

By the time she climbs back into the car there's no obvious trace of their addition to the drink. She hands it over, barely with a glance, then starts to drive once more. "Just one of those nights, huh." They've shared plenty of drinks before.

This is the first time the bottle's been spiked with enough extra chemicals to knock out Wolverine, himself.

"No! You don't understand what I mean," he answers, then flicks a hand through the air as if to dismiss it. "It does not matter. You say that he manipulated us? I only hope that is the truth."

When you offer a drink, Kwabena could barely give a damn. He makes another dismissive gesture, then sits back in an attempt to relax as the car comes to a halt. He's already got a cigarette in hand and lit when she returns, hand half-cocked outside of the window. "You won't mind if I smoke," he declares. "This is a piece of shit car anyway." He takes the bottle without even thinking, then throws back a good -long- sip, before resting it on his knee. You're driving, you'll take it back when you're good and ready.

Suddenly, he begins to sober, the anger fading just somewhat. He's already accepted the possibility that he very well have gone crazy. Perhaps he's locked in a padded room somewhere, stuck in this perpetual dream? Might as well spill some more beans.

"I don't know about everyone else, but he knew me. I don't know how the fuck he figured it all out, but he knew me. Knew my past, where I've been. He used it against me. He..."

Eyes begin to droop, and the cigarette-wielding hand begins to sway in the window.

"...got me... he got me back on... back on... he got me back on dope. It's..."

His eyes go wide with surprise, for he's convinced that the nanites are dosing him in a much stronger way than they have to date. "The only... way I... thing. You..." His eyes blink once, very slowly, and his slowing brain barely begins to register that this is -not- what an opiate high feels like. Droopy eyes swivel over to stare at you, and as he begins to pass out, a single word gets breathed out with as much spite as he can muster.

"Bitch."

The bottle droops, the cigarette falls and sparks against the pavement, and Kwabena Odame is out like a busted light.

Well. Thank goodness that all worked without a hitch. Cost her a bottle of decent stuff, oh well.

Some extra intel is gathered, which is a definite plus. Along with the bit about you being back on dope, which gives Dom another reason to slowly tighten her fingers around the wheel until the vinyl coating subtly creaks in protest.

This is war. War is ugly.

And so is what she's doing to you.

"Yeah. That's me," she admits with a gentle sigh as the bottle ends up in the footwell. Lucky for her that cigarette is destined to go out the window and not somewhere that has a loose, open bottle of flammable liquid.

She's gotta act fast. Blood samples, maybe get hold of one of her contacts. Find as much info about your situation as quickly as possible, then dump you in a cheap hotel somewhere before you come back around. This meeting, as they say, never happened.