You say you're wrong, you're wrong

[viced]

WHO: EVERYONE
WHERE: City Hall
WHEN: 7:00 PM, EST
WARNINGS: RAMPANT CHAOS
SUMMARY: This is the townhall meeting, where everyone can come and show up, and wave accusations and shout to their little heart's content. They can also discuss skrull accusations in a calm manner if they really want.
FORMAT: Tagger's choice!



[ And the large room where the City Council met was open for business. The walls were lined with seats, there were rows and rows of seats, nice lighting, and even a couple tankards of coffee open for business. Look, he wasn't a complete monster! There was security, but they remained silent and observed, instructed only to interfere if things were escalating to violence, and only then. Most of the Mayor's staff were already there before people started to arrive, and they were sitting in most of the seats reserved for the City council. There wasn't music, but it would be a good half hour to forty five minutes before the actual proceedings got started.

When they did, it was all about an open forum. ]

[ooc; we're going to get the log up early! The plan is for everyone to go ahead and have fun tagging, and the ooc post will be up later tonight! ♥ ]

Comments

Open

[out_of_time]

Jack could be found leaning tiredly against a wall. His right arm was in bandages up to the shoulder. Lust had gotten him good- stabs and cuts on the bicep, forearm, and shoulder, and his hand had gotten a nasty burn when she destroyed his taser too.

He knew he was in no condition for a fight, but that didn't mean his replacement sidearm wasn't close by. Fortunately, Jack was a damn good shot with either hand. Whatever happened here tonight, he wasn't expecting anything good. Not after everything else that had gone wrong lately.

[trueltning_fury]

Geddoe had to take a moment to check up on the other old soldier in the room. "Jack. How's the arm?" he wondered. He had noticed the emergency call but had no way to intervene himself, so he merely observed from afar.

[out_of_time]

"Geddoe." Jack gave him a tired half-smile. "It'll heal. I'll just have to use my other arm until I can find someone to speed up the process." Being restricted like this while so much was going on was maddening. But Jack knew the City's Import healers had a lot on their hands already, with that damn torture squad operating.

[trueltning_fury]

"Mm. Unfortunately, I don't carry any healing runes. Sorry." Geddoe huffed a short sigh. "Was it really an unrelated crime? At a time like this."

[out_of_time]

"I'd bet my life on it," Jack said without hesitation. "I wasn't even looking for Skrulls when I encountered her. She was just coming out of a bookstore, and I tried to follow her."

There was something else though: Jack's radio had almost certainly been tampered with, which was how he had ended up taking on a homunculus alone without backup. Ordinarily Jack might have shared that information with his ally, but right now... right now was need-to-know.

[trueltning_fury]

"Unfortunate." Geddoe gave him a knowing look. "Though my advice to keep one's guard up still rings true. You're still in one piece." He nodded toward the arm. "You wouldn't be the first who had to re-learn a weapon on the fly."

[out_of_time]

"Yeah, I'm not dead yet." And he's had worse. He returned Geddoe's nod, while carefully not mentioning that he didn't really have to re-learn firing with his other hand. If Geddoe turned out to be a Skrull, surprising him by shooting well with his left hand could mean the difference between life and death. That was just how things worked for Jack in the City these days.

"Too bad more people haven't been listening to you," he said.

[trueltning_fury]

Geddoe closed his eye and sighed. "This is madness," he groused under his breath. "No one has even bothered to use their brains. It's one thing to ask who people suspect, it's quite another to take their panicked opinions as fact over basic reasoning."

He looked around briefly, and then added, in the quietest tone he could, "...this could be a plot to remove our most powerful fighters, strategists, and commanders from view so that chaos will erupt. Or, it will end up with that result regardless."

[out_of_time]

Jack's voice became quiet as well. "If you're right, they've been playing us all like an instrument all along. The torture, this meeting, Zoidberg- it's all been feeding into their hands."

He looked around the room, filled with fresh fears. At this point, giving Jack new things to worry about was a lot like dumping water in the Pacific. "I don't like it."

[trueltning_fury]

"Me neither." Geddoe gave him a brisk nod. "Guard up, at all times. We may be left with only handfuls of scrappy children and untrained fighters to defend in the worst case scenario." There was a dryness to his tone; he didn't expect it would be quite that bad, but he was definitely starting to believe it could approach that level.

[out_of_time]

This was why Jack liked Geddoe. The optimism.

"Right now, I'm not sure I could drop my guard if I wanted to. But I hear what you're saying." The worse-case scenario was too often where Jack lived.

Open

[newbvampire]

Seras has staying close to Jack tonight. After what had happened there was no way she was letting him out of her sight especially with who might be attending tonight. It still grated her that the Mayor was giving them amenesty, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. Those were the orders and she'd follow them. At least right up until things got out of hand and then she'd do her job. That was why she had brought the Harkonnen with her. It was mostly to remind people what would happen if they let things get that bad, but she was still debating if it would be worth taking a shot at Lust if she showed up.

[out_of_time]

Jack appreciated Seras' presence and her closeness for support- he couldn't really take out troublemakers by himself right now, unless they were ordinary humans. Still, the howitzer inside City Hall got a look. "Seras, please tell me you're not planning to fire that thing in here."

[newbvampire]

Seras stopped glaring at the crowd and looked at Jack. "Not unless I have to. I'm hoping it will mostly just scare everyone into behaving, but if anyone does try anything I'd rather not take the risk of not being able to take them down right away. With the Mayor and everyone here it just seemed better to be catious."

[out_of_time]

Jack decided this was fairly sound reasoning, under the absurd circumstances. "All right, just don't shoot the Mayor whatever you do." Not that there was a chance of that. Jack had seen enough of Seras' vampire senses and enhanced marksmanship to know she was a surgeon with that ridiculously-sized tube of metal. "Let's face it, anyone who isn't intimidated by that thing probably deserves to get shot."

[newbvampire]

She smiled at that comment and felt rather proud of herself. "You have a point sir, and don't worry I won't hit anyone that I'm not aiming for. And if I can't get a clean shot I can always swing it at them."

She knew from experience that the one hundred kilo gun swung with all her vampiric strength could be just as devestating as a shot fired from it, if a bit messier.

[out_of_time]

He had to chuckle a little at the image of Seras whacking a hostile with that thing like a baseball bat. "Sounds like a plan."

His bandages itched. Despite having gotten used to the process of healing and injury long ago, it still took an effort to keep his right arm still and unscratched. Every moment he spent at half-effectiveness grated on him, all the moreso because of how it had happened- a random, pointless skirmish that had produced no real results.

[newbvampire]

"So sir, I was wondering who you suspected the most. I'm not really sure myself. I mean I would have almost thought Ghost was one, but you seem to trust him, or at least enough you talk to him. This whole thing is so mad and I know a lot has happened, but it still feels like we don't have any real evidence." It also didn't help that she'd been wrapped up in her own vampires case, which in her mind presented a much more immediate threat to the city.

[out_of_time]

"The way I see it, there still isn't enough hard evidence to suspect anyone," Jack said. "I'm still not sure there even are more Skrulls. That makes this a waste of time, but it's also an opportunity to detain a suspect we usually wouldn't be able to touch."

Norman Osborn. Norman 'implicated in the apartment bombing, the Bernard murder, and who knows what else besides' Osborn. Jack's already sure where his vote's going.

[newbvampire]

"I hadn't thought about that sir." As much as she'd grown as a sergeant the past year she clearly still had a lot to learn about making the system work for her instead of the other way around. "I'll follow your lead then and vote for however you choose sir. If we can actually catch a real bad guy out this than it will be worth dealing with this mess, even if they aren't a skrull."

[out_of_time]

"It's good to know you've got my back, Seras," Jack said. His tone was earnest. Right now people he really trusted were in short supply. "I mean it."

[scarabsuited]

Jaime took his time sliding over, wanting to give the guy space, let others say their piece, and also give himself time to figure out what to even say.

Hi, Jack! What has two thumbs and can't even track a crazy monster lady this week?

"Hey," he said, moving over to his side at last, giving a nod. "Doing better or...?"

[out_of_time]

"I'm fine, thanks." He forced a small smile. "I can still work, that's the important thing." Which meant he was still pushing the limits of his endurance to stay on top of the C.P.D.'s cases and the City's crises. One fringe benefit of the Lust fiasco: while Jack was passed out at the hospital, he had been forced to actually get some damn sleep.

"Have you made any progress?" He doesn't specify Lust, not while they're in a crowd.

[scarabsuited]

Whatever upbeat expression he was trying to push left as he shook his head, making a point of looking elsewhere. He made a dubious sound as he sighed.

"Not as much of anything as I'd like," he admitted. "I might be a little in over my head, maybe. But not for lack of trying." He shot a quick glance back at him. "But I am trying. I'm not letting any of it go."

[out_of_time]

"Keep at it," Jack said. "Anything you can find, I can use." He paused. "Especially weaknesses. I might as well have been unarmed when I encountered her. I don't want to let that happen again."

After two years in the City, Jack was used to the idea that his training and experiences still left him at the low end of the power scale. But he had never had it ground in to him the way he had while he was getting slashed up by Lust.