capeandcowllogs | There were originally five horsemen of the Apocalypse

There were originally five horsemen of the Apocalypse

WHO: Shego and Jack Bauer.
WHERE: Police station.
WHEN: Saturday Evening.
WARNINGS: Almost definite violence. [ETA: And now torture. Big warning for torture.]
SUMMARY: Jack made an immunity deal with Shego in exchange for information. Shego doesn't know the deal has since been rescinded...

The room was empty except for Jack and the false immunity agreement Harvey Dent had drawn up. Jack himself was unarmed except for a taser hidden in his jacket. He hoped it would be enough to subdue Shego if she resisted.

The plan was simple, but it could be better. Almost no one else in the building knew about this fake deal, which meant it was up to Jack to make sure Shego didn't escape. But for now, he intended to play out the deception as long as possible. Shego would be more cooperative if she thought she was still getting immunity, and Jack badly needed her information. And he was willing to do whatever was necessary to get it.

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Shego...didn't really want to be here. In fact, she couldn't believe she was actually going through with this. But hey, immunity was immunity, and like she cared about what would happen to the disc and the 'porter if she did blab.

What did get her thinking was Drakken's offer of having her hide out in the lair. Maybe she should have taken that up, disappear off the radar of the police and hide out until this whole thing blows over.

She enters the room, look less Shego-like than ever with her lack of green skin and not even wearing her catsuit. She was wearing green but...well, she blended in a lot easier than she used to, that's for sure.

She takes a seat across from Jack, kicking her legs up onto the table with confidence. Her, nervous? Nah, this was going to be cake.

The casual way she just kicked her legs onto the table made Jack narrow his eyes, thinking of destroyed museums and dead children. He pushed the 'agreement' towards her. "This protects you from prosecution for all past and present crimes. If your information plays out, then you'll get the twenty thousand."

She casually takes the agreement and looks at it, wiggling a foot in a rhythmic motion as she quickly scans over everything. The dead children didn't bother her too much. In fact, she practically forgot that she wasn't the only one at the museum at the time.

You have to forgive her, she had been at the heat of the moment during that time. She was also trying really hard to forget that she died, but considering every time she looked in the mirror was a blatant reminder...well...it was hard.

Shego wasn't exactly too trusting of whatever was about to go down in here, but she figured she was ready to fend for herself if needed. Whipping out a nail file, she starts shaping her nails with an annoying grinding sound, and casually shrugs.

"Sounds good to me."

Jack can already tell that this is going to be a long, trying interrogation. "Good, then let's get started. The Porter AI hired you to retrieve its backup disc. What did it offer in return?" This wasn't strictly relevant to the crisis, but Jack thought that knowing how exactly the AI bargained could be useful in the future.

She continues to file her nails, examining them rather than giving Jack the eye contact he probably deserved. Then again, no authority figure deserved her respect, they needed to earn it.

"Why don't you guess what it would offer a thief like me? Can't be too difficult to figure it out."

He'd had a lot of training and practice with not letting subjects get under his skin, and Jack was using all of it right now. He couldn't remember a time when his subject had been so nonchalant as to file her nails while discussing something this important. "Money? Is that it?" He asked. "You took a job from quite possibly the most powerful force in the City, and all you wanted was money."

She jabs towards him with the nail file, still not looking him in the eye. She found her nails much more interesting and worth her while than this loser of the law. And, yeah, she was trying to get under his skin. Call it a habit.

"Bingo." She goes back to filing.

"Next. I'd like to get this over with. I have a very important meeting with a great masseuse coming up soon, and I am not going to be late."

Jack leaned forward, his eyes narrow, almost daring her to jab that file a little further at him and see what happens. "We are staying here until I am satisfied with your information. How late you are for your meeting is up to you." He did start going faster though, questions coming one after another in a low, intense voice that was nowhere near a yell, yet still seemed to threaten that yelling was imminent. "What did the AI tell you about the disc? Where did you steal it from? What was the HIVE doing with it?"

Shego rolls her eyes as he leans in. She holds her hands up defensively, giving him an unamused look. "Woah, ever hear of personal space, buddy?" There were very few people she allowed to get close to her when physical violence was not involved. And then again, it was she who initiated the hovering, merely to be annoying.

She was used to the intense voice, however. Dr. D had pulled similar speaking tactics like that with her many a time in the past. She knew that upcoming yelling if he didn't get the information he wanted. Not that she cared, this guy did not scare her at all.

"Nothing. She just wanted it, and I honestly didn't care enough to ask what was on it." There's a long pause in between each answer as she goes on to file her other hand.

"Their...y'know, California...base...thing. And yeah, like I know what they were doing with it. Like I said, I didn't, and still don't care." She raises an eyebrow at him, finally giving him eye contact. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

So she doesn't like him getting close? He can work with that. He leans in further, his face inches from hers, getting right up in her proverbial grill. "You're not telling me anything useful, Shego. You need to stop wasting my time, right now. Where did you hide the backup?"

She may not like invasion of her personal space, but when someone leans in on purpose like that, Shego takes it as a challenge. She stares back at him, eyes narrowing into slits, lip curled upward. She grips the sides of the table, digging her well-manicured nails into it.

"Why don't you stop wasting my time. I've been answering your damn questions like a good little girl." She pointedly ignores the last question, wondering how riled up she can get him before he snaps.

Edited 2010-05-26 23:27 (UTC)

Suddenly, Jack understands Shego just a little bit more. Oppositional personality, he thinks. The harder she's pushed, the harder she pushes back. Need to let her think she's in control. He backs off, and sits back down. "All right, fine. You're right, you've been extremely cooperative so far, and I'm grateful. You're taking a big risk by coming in here and agreeing to this, and I can appreciate that."

She raises an eyebrow, giving Jack a curious look.

Nevertheless, she cracks into a smile, fixing her positioning so she was leaning her elbows on the table, looking pretty damn confident with herself. "Bipolar much?" She was used to it.

People have pulled this shit on her before. "Nice to know I'm appreciated. Now then, I can just...leave and make that appointment of mine." She pushes back on her seat, squeaking it against the ground harshly, and she rises, as though readying herself to leave.

And just like that Jack's patience snaps. He is all-too-aware that they are running out of time, that they've been running out of time for weeks now, and that this soulless mercenary would watch the entire country burn before she shared anything useful unless it bought her an entire mansion.

In a flash Jack is out of his chair, grabbing Shego by the head, and slamming her facefirst into the table. He then flips the table across the room in one mighty, furious heave, and it crashes into the door to the interrogation room, blocking it. If anyone tries to interfere in what's going on in this room, they're not going to be able to do anything about it. Not pausing for an instant, he seizes Shego by the shoulders and throws her out of her chair and onto the floor, and then brings his foot down with brutal force on one of her hands. It all takes five seconds.

He pulls the taser from his jacket and activates it, sinister blue light arcing at its tip as it crackles. "I'm done playing with you," he growls. "Here's the deal. There is no deal. The immunity agreement's fake. There's no money coming to you. You're going to jail for your crimes. The only thing that's up to you right now is whether you're gonna walk into prison, or be brought there in a wheelchair." He presses down harder on her hand and the nails she was just filing. "Now tell me what I want to know. WHERE'S THE BACKUP?"

For the first time in a long time, Shego did not have the chance to react. She felt his hands lace through her hair at the back of her head, and at the next moment she was seeing stars. Ooooh, that was going to bruise. She stumbles back into the chair, hand flying to feel at her forehead, and the next thing she knew she was down on the ground, thrown to the side like some ragdoll.

Oh. She did not like this. She did not like this at all. Snarling, she struggles to get up. Lighting her hands...trying to light her...aw shit her powers. No no no.

"Aaargh!" There's a cry of anguish as he brings his foot on her hand, and she continues to struggle, attempting to pull back, pull her hand out from under his foot. But what he says next really sets her off. One, nobody ever, ever threatens Shego like that. Nobody. Secondly, he had lied to her. She had fallen for a friggin' trap! Oh no, oooooh no that was so not fair.

And Shego was usually the one who played dirty.

She lets out another cry, followed by a growl as she feels a nail break under the pressure of his foot. Nevertheless, she was still hopeful on being defiant.

"You...LIAR! GET OFF MY HAND YOU LOSER!"

"That's not what I wanted to know, Shego. Your only chance right now is to tell me what I want to know." To punctuate the point, Jack kneels down, still on her hand, presses the taser to her chest, and gives her a hefty jolt. "That was a low setting. This-" he holds the taser close to her face, blue sparks flickering only a few inches from her eyes- "carries enough voltage to paralyze someone for life if they're hit in the right place. It's gonna be awful hard for you to steal anything when you're in that wheelchair, Shego. Especially with a pair of ruined hands."

He stands back up, now standing astride her, with his other foot very close to her undamaged hand, staring down at her with pitiless cold eyes. "You like your hands a lot, don't you? You ever wonder what they'd look like with every finger broken? Every nail torn off? I know a couple ways to break a person's finger in two seconds. That's ten seconds for every finger, twenty seconds for both hands. Twenty seconds to cripple you, Shego, that's all I need. And you don't even have that much time to tell me where the backup is." His eyes narrow to slits and his foot moves closer to her other hand. "I'm going to count to ten, and then I'm going to shock you again, and then I'm going to start on your hands. Your choice. One. Two. Three. Four..."

The jolt...didn't really do much for her, but it still made her jerk. After being thrown into a signal tower and electrocuted in the rain no less, she could take electrocution. But that never stopped it from hurting, that's for sure, and she had the weird feeling that her powers had something to do with her high tolerance of outrageous pain.

But this. This friggin' hurt. She spent so much time taking care of her nails, so much time taking care of her hands...she couldn't...he wouldn't. For a brief second, there was fear in her eyes, quickly covered with a defiant scowl but nevertheless, she felt her eyes burn from the pain.

Her breath hitched as he spoke, and moved his other foot precariously close to her good hand. She balled it into a fist. It takes her a few seconds to speak, hating herself for it, but she just couldn't...

"The Lincoln Memorial."

She still manages a glare, looking up at him with equally slitted eyes. "Happy? Is that what you wanted to hear?"

He stares at her for a moment, making sure she isn't lying, then finally steps away from her. "You're under arrest. We're done here." His guard is relaxed a little, he thinks he's finally pulled out a victory after months of, for the most part, futility in the City. He puts the taser back in his jacket and pulls out his handcuffs.

Now it's Shego's turn to react quickly. As soon as he steps away to pull out the cuffs, she jumps up, ignoring the growing headache and the pain in her hand. The fact that one of her nails was now shorter than the others also went unnoticed.

She essentially throws herself as him, taking advantage of his lowered guard, and she grabs him by the shoulders, pulling him in close. A bruise is starting to form on her forehead, but it's likely he won't notice that as much as he'll notice her sharp jerk of the knee at his groin. As she does so, her bruised hand slips into his jacket and grabs the taser. She might have been down, but she wasn't weak. And since he had decided to play dirty, she might as well. She jerks her knee again, ramming him in the same spot just for good measure, and she lets go of his shoulder, letting him to do whatever he wanted to do with himself.

"Oh, we are so done." She growls, taking the table blocking the door and throwing it with an unnatural ease in Jack's direction. She doesn't bother looking back, and she flees the scene as fast as she can before anyone else watching can react, holding the taser at the ready so she'd have something to use if attacked.

Lucky for her, she's a fast one. She's used to fleeing a scene before getting caught.

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There were originally five horsemen of the Apocalypse

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