8791/Undercurrents: Red is Dead.

Undercurrents: Red is Dead.
Date of Scene:	14 August 2019
Location:	Queens Subway Station
Synopsis:	Frank and Elaina descend into the Queens subway, and right on down the rabbit hole.
Cast of Characters:	Harlequin (Dent), Frank Quaid

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Harlequin (Dent) has posed:
It might be quittin' time for a lot of cops, near the bitchin' hour, middle of the night, middle o' nowhere, somewhere along the subway tunnel in Queens. But there have been a few calls about a street performer or possible clown along the tunnel. Peering in the windows of the sparsely populated trains as they whiz past, with a vacant expression that's enough to make a person crazy at this time of night. Especially with all the reports of a new drug that /actually/ makes people crazy. So the obgligatory call goes out. Anyone out there in Queens close enough to just peek in? Suspicious activity in the Queens Subway Station.

Y'know. If you have the time.

Suspect is a female, about 5'5" and apparently batshit crazy. You'll probably know her if ya see her.

Frank Quaid has posed:
"FIDO," Frank grunts to Elaina while working on his Blackberry. The two have been unusually quiet in the Tahoe tonight.

"I want to check it out," Elaina says. She calls in that they will check it out and call patrol if needed. Frank looks over at Elaina for a moment then back to his Blackberry. He shakes his head.

Elaina pulls them up to the curb by the subway station with the lights on. They climb out and leave the truck locked to go look around for the crazy lady.

Harlequin (Dent) has posed:
It doesn't take long for Frank and Elaina to run across their girl. When they descend into the station, she is doing a back-handspring off the platform and onto the track below. There isn't a train in sight, but there's one coming down the tunnel. When the young woman spots the two investigating, she moves back one large step, just to the other side of the track from them, and stares blankly as the train whizzes in and comes to a stop, obscuring their view.

Frank Quaid has posed:
"Yeah, that's crazy, but not voices crazy," Frank mutters to Elaina.

"Is that woman with the mallet who killed the werewolves behind Luke's?" Elaina wonders.

"Fucked if I know," Frank replies. The two look at each other for a second.

"Not it!" they both say, but Frank is slower. He grimaces and waits while the train unloads. Elaina moves back and to the side, and calls dispatch to ask for that patrol car after all. Maybe two.

Harlequin (Dent) has posed:
From over top of the train comes an airborne figure. A flash of green and purple somersaults into view and tumbles across the platform, rising to her feet directly in front of Elaina. She tilts her head slowly to one side, gold-limned, green eyes wide. "Not what?"

"THERE SHE IS!!" screams a man's voice, hoarse with panic. He charges off the subway, obliviously straight past Frank Quaid, and pulling a knife by the time he reaches the sideshow freak staring at Elaina with the sweetest, eeriest smile ever. He thrusts the knife straight toward the left side of her lower back.

Frank Quaid has posed:
"Knife knife knife!" Frank shouts. Time does funny things under extreme stress. Slows down. Comes in pieces.
Frankstarts to draw his firearm. He moves sideways behind one of the pillars to get out of the way of what he knows comes next.

Elaina has one hand up and is about to tell the crazy lady to back off. She hears the shout and looks toward Frank. Her firearm comes out of the holster and she moves past the tumbler. Elaina is firing before her gun is fully up; one, two, three. Holes appear in the man's shirt. She steps off the line of movement.

Sounds rushes back to the two officers. They move together. Frank tells the tumbler to get back. Frank and Elaina descend on the wounded man, cuff him and Elaina starts to call for an ambulance.

Frank looks around for the tumbler.

Harlequin (Dent) has posed:
"Not what?" repeats the girl now standing directly behind Frank who was, until this moment, the intended target of a man from the subway train wielding a knife. This time, she asks Frank, since the woman cop is busy shooting somebody.

The man who rushed with a knife was wearing what had been a white t-shirt, once upon a time, but now it's a dingy off-white, stained with grime and might not have been washed in awhile. It now has three holes in it, and it's quickly becoming blood-soaked. His jeans are in the same dingy condition, faded and rather worn. He's knocked back, and staggers, but remains standing. He looks feral - even rabid - as he jerks his head around, looking for The Harlequin. "Where is she? WHERE IS SHE??" His hair is shoulder-length and dirty brown. Unkempt, in frizzy waves. His eyes, likely brown, look nearly black. He is pale and thin. He turns around in a fight-or-flight induced frenzy, looking. NEEDING to look. He staggers a little to one side, but he doesn't go down.

"Not what?" the young woman asks again.

Frank Quaid has posed:
Frank spins to look at the girl, bewildered and confused.

"Wha...." the veteran cop half-asks. He feels numb.

It takes a second or two for Frank's wits to catch up with what is happening but could not be happening because of what already happened. Frank looks down to see if his firearm really was in his hand and then starts to move. Slowly at first, like he was waking up, but then getting up to speed.

"Get down!" he motions to the girl. He moves around her to put himself between the girl and Elaina's line of fire and raises his gun at the man.

"Get down!" he yells now at the wild man. His cop voice, commanding. In charge.

Harlequin (Dent) has posed:
The girl in question looks to be about twenty. She is dressed in garb one might expect to see on a ringleader in a steampunk circus. A burnt orange ruffled corset with gears on leather belts - detached violet sleeves from elbow to wrist - violet velvet bustle that hangs like tails in back to mid-thigh. A garter belt, and plum-coloured stockings. Lace-up boots with brown leather spats. A purple top-hat beset with green-glass goggles. Her gold-limned eyes are painted like a harlequin. Her mouth like the joker. And her skin is ghostly white, in contrast to her nox-green bobbed hair. She watches the goings-on impartially, seemingly unfazed.

The man that the nice lady cop killed is still standing, and he begins to cry. "Help me," he sobs, and he moves toward Frank, dropping the knife, which clatters to the concrete below. The train departs, carrying most everyone who didn't flee the scene when the gunshots began. Only those using their phones to film the encounter remain, and they are perched higher on the steps, ducking against walls and trying to get a decent shot without endangering lives so pathetic that they're worth risking to get a video in a subway of some junkie attacking a clown.

"Help me," the man pleads, and he begins to lose his balance, falling toward Frank. "She was watching us, she's always watching, she's gonna kill us all..."

Frank Quaid has posed:
"Jesus," Frank says under his breath. He takes a risk and ignores the 1+1 rule once the man drops the knife. Frank moves in to grab the man's shoulders and ease him to the ground without letting his head hit.

"El, get the medics!" Frank shouts.

"Hang in there, you're gonna be fine, she won't get you," Frank says to the man, not at all clear what he is raving about. It does not really matter in the moment. They shot him. Now they need to do their best to save him. He whips his jacket off and props it under the man's head. "Put your hands here, don't move them. You're gonna be fine."

"Police officer! Any of you a doctor?" Frank shouts to the people watching. "Nurse?"

Harlequin (Dent) has posed:
The man finally goes down, and his holes go with him. The Harlequin standing behind Frank looks over his shoulder impassively into the face of the dead man who is bleeding on his shirt. The man's eyes go wide and he becomes frantic again. "Is she Death? She's DEATH!!" He struggles, clinging, holding onto the arms of the cop who didn't kill him. "Don't let me die, Man! She's gonna take me down the hole..."

The Harlequin just tilts her head, her eyes raking down over the body of the man, and to the ground beside him. "Oooh, did that kill him?" she asks in a curious voice, nodding toward a tiny ziplock baggie lying on the concrete beside his pocket.

The woman who put holes him the man takes hold of the Harlequin's arms firmly, but not roughly, and pulls her away from the boy cop. For her part, The Harlequin allows herself to be moved like a chess piece, and stays where she's put, several feet away from the cop and the dead holey man.

"You gotta save me, Man!" The shirt is now soaked in blood, and the holes are just a darker red. His strength is astoundingly strong, as he pulls on Frank's arms to try and stand again. His feet move, scrambling fiercely, as if they could find purchase on the concrete and run. His sneakers have holes, too, but those ones aren't bleeding.

Frank Quaid has posed:
"Nobody's dying," Frank tells the man. He is trying to reassure the man on the ground but suddenly Frank needs it. That familiar ice cold hand grips his heart just as hard as this guy grabs his arms.

"Police! Stay down!" Frank barks at the injured man. Fighting now, not helping. His eyes pass over the ziplock bag and holes in the sneakers and he starts to feel numb again. Frank drives the man backwards and tries to roll him over. Helping has turned to restraining.

"El, psychosis!" he shouts.

And all the time that shirt gets more red. And his hands are near the red. And every cop knows you don't touch the red. You never touch the red. Red is dead.

Harlequin (Dent) has posed:
Red is dead.

The woman who made the holes in the man, but not his sneakers, is on the radio, moving closer to the one who's wrestling the man in the red shirt, to assist if she needs to. To make more holes. If she needs to.

The man convulses as he begins roll over. He makes a sound like he's choking. And groaning, and choking on the groan. The dead man's eyes aren't black anymore. They're white. And he stops fighting the boy cop. And he stops fighting death. And The Harlequin is no longer a Bishop. The Bishop was taken from the board.

And Red is dead.

Frank Quaid has posed:
"Shit," Frank swears when the fight goes out of the man. "Shit!"

The motions come automatically even through the numbness. Cuff. Check for vitals. Update Elaina for relay to the medics. Call for the guy to wake up, even when it is pointless. Roll him over. Put something over the red and start chest compressions.

Training. Instinct. Good for the cameras. Banality. The man is very dead and Frank knows it.

"What the fuck just happened," Frank says to Elaina without looking up. He is sweating hard now from the fight and the compressions.

"You got the knife and the clown?" he asks his partner.

Harlequin (Dent) has posed:
"Got the knife," Elaina replies, turning back to Queen 4, where she left the Bishop. "Fuck." She spins in a methodic circle, gun drawn, but averted from aim. "Clown's gone. Medics are here."

The few people left on the steps are gone, and the EMT's have replaced them, moving a gurney down the steps toward Frank and the dead junkie. They move in and sweep Frank along like a tide of blue rubber gloves, taking over compressions, placing a clear mask over the man's nose and mouth.

Frank Quaid has posed:
"Where the fuck did she go?" Frank asks rhetorically. He lets himself be pushed aside by the tide when it descends on the red.

Frank checks his hands for blood then looks to Elaina. He wants to ask her. And he can see the question reflected in her eyes.

But neither of them speak. They can't. And when the patrol supervisor arrives they hand over their firearms and get read their rights. For homicide. For internal investigation into a police shooting.

And Frank just hopes to hell the videos make more sense than what he saw.