A Bitter Pill To Swallow

GRAYBRIDGE, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot
"We're mostly focused on the medical field," Bree replies. "It's all rather complex to explain and I'm just getting started." She raises an eyebrow when Dave points her to her drink and ecourages her to keep drinking. She glances to Augusta as if looking for reassurance about her rather intimidating looking friend, but then does take another sip before seemingly instinctively covering the glass again. "If you can taste the tap water, your drink isn't strong enough."

Tim shuffles along next to Eva. The unimpressive looking man receives some incredulous looks by the people around for arriving along with the beautiful and head-turning Eva. He lets out a nervous breath, then throws a quiet greeting in the round before turning to his sister. "Hey Bree. Looks like you already met Dave. He, uhm, was curious to meet you." He clears his throat. "This is Eva, by the way. Eva, that's Bree, my sister."

"Right," Bree replies, clearly still skeptical about this whole meeting. "Get yourself a drink, Timothy. I'll pay for it." She then looks around the strange group of people her brother appears to be hanging out with now. "Well, you know about my job now and I know nothing about you." She sips again from her drink, then asks, "What do you do for a living?" The question is addressed to all three of them, but her focus is clearly on Augusta.

Melissa goes into full hair twirl mode, her thumb and forefinger twitching around an errant strand. "Ok Brian let's cut to the chase. Something happened that night at your place. You put something in my drink. I know you did. Next thing I know I can see through walls. Now I see you know an awful lot about Belinda. Why would you have such knowledge of her superpowers? You're very defensive and you're keeping something from me and I am getting very angry!

Now her drink was having the opposite effect. The creeping mellowness had been replaced by anxiety and extreme annoyance. Her thigh muscles tightened readying her to spring out of her chair and leave. But she fought the impulse, her curiosity trumping her discomfort.

"There will be no relationship between us without honesty."

She saw the flicker of an image from a movie she had seen not too long ago. An angry woman stands up from a table and flips it over. The dishes, silverware, and food go crashing noisily to the floor. Her fingers itched at the idea and how satisfying that would feel.

ANNESBURG, 1 NOV 2023
The Brewseum Restaurant
That fucker!

Melissa doesn't give him the satisfaction of a response nor does she even look at him. She stews silently in place staring at both their plates.

Fuck him. I'm going to enjoy this meal. What arrogance!

She digs in knowing that she will be cooled down by the end of the lonely meal. If she was one to hold onto her ire, she wouldn't have been sitting in this restaurant to begin with. Brian had this magnetism that she couldn't shake free of and now he knew about Belinda. Knew things that she didn't and he wasn't sharing them and what was with the strange phone and the "work" interruptions anyway?

Maybe she should go on a shopping spree with his credit card, she thought mischievously. That would teach him. She already felt better at the idea and started fantasizing about expensive dresses she had seen the last time she had gone shopping. Clothes she definitely couldn't afford that Belinda would have had no problem buying.

GRAYBRIDGE, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot

Augusta sees that Bree has taken a shine to her, or at least finds more familiar with her than the fierce countenance that is Draven, and then the startiling profile struck by Eva. She turns and faces her, and gives her an honest truth of who she is.

"I'm a concert pianist and an activist. I don't really work, not as the word normally applies anyway. You may have seen me on stage at the Schreiber Center, or on TV. I used to do a lot of work unveiling the hardships faced by the inmates at the TANC. I may resurrect that lobby group soon, actually."

She gestures to Dave. "I have some experience with metaviolence, and Dave and his support group has been instrumental in helping me come to terms with all of that. I really owe him more than I can ever repay."

Graybridge, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot

"You've never tasted Graybridge's tap water.'. Dave countered. "I'm not sure they make or sell a proof strong enough to disguise it." He settles back and watches the interaction between Bree and Augusta. Bree was clearly seeking some kind of validation from the posh, well put together woman. He could almost see the gears turning in her mind trying to figure out the 'how & why' of her brother falling in with the likes of Annesburg's elite. Eva's appearance with the young man must've really thrown her for a loop. "Augusta is an exceptional pianist. The reviews on her last performance listed her as a 'once in a generation' talent." he shook his head slight, in agreement with his own estimation. "Just goes to show that things... unfortunate things...can happen to anyone in any walk of life. I'm just glad I could be there to help pick up the pieces. That's what I do these days. I just run a support group over at St. Javelina's a couple of nights a week. Other than that, I'm officially "semi-retired". Retired from what he fails to mention, covering with a smile. Dave sure didn't look old enough to retire from much of anything. "If you'll excuse me, I think I'll load up the jukebox with something other than the crap currently playing..." he stood up and sauntered through the crowd over to the jukebox in the corner, just beside the stage and fiddle with it for a few minutes before talking to one of the nearby bar patrons and shoving some wadded up bills into his hand before wandering back. He sat back down at the bar a bit befuddled, "I had no idea you needed an 'app' to use a jukebox these days... And two whole dollars a song??" The opening strains of Pinball Wizard crank to life over the surprisingly good speakers in the dive bar.

https://youtu.be/hHc7bR6y06M

Leaving Tim at the table with his sister and Ang, Eva follows Dave to the jukebox, unaware of the attention she, Augusta and the rest of the group is garnering.

"The Who, right?" the blonde says to Draven excitedly when he sees she's accompanied him to the music machine, which she also pours over. "From Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy?"

The woman likes 60s rock, especially from the British Invasion, so she has a lot of time for Daltrey, Townsend, Entwistle and Moon, bopping a little to the sounds of the power quartet without even meaning to. Her eyes go back to the table as she gets right to the point that she's so far missing. "So... what's up? What's this meeting all about?"

At a lift of her eyebrow, she asks Dave to pay for another song, and if she does she selects a Kinks song she loves...

GRAYBRIDGE, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot
Bree listens to Augusta with visible appreciation in her eyes. "That sounds amazing," she says, nodding when Dave also chimes in to further emphasize Augusta's talent. "I would love to see you play one day." As she meets Augusta's eyes, she tucks a strand of brown hair back behind her own ear. "I'm sure you're incredible."

Behind her, Tim groans. He has a beer bottle in his hand now and is drinking from it. "Seriously, Bree?" he asks. "Please just don't."

Bree throws him an annoyed look but then turns to look at Dave and Eva by the jukebox. "So this Dave is the leader of this support group?" she asks, drinking from her glass before covering it again in that subconscious gesture, her eyes returning to Augusta. "He doesn't look the type but if you say he helped you, that's great. He must be a good man." She pauses, hesitating for a brief moment, then asks, "Why did he want to meet me?"

Graybridge, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot

At the jukebox, Dave scrolled through the music selection having picked a list of songs from the borrowed phone when Eva came up behind him. "Yeah, The Who." he agreed. "No idea what album it's from though. I'm familiar with it from when I was a teenager. They played it a lot at the skating rink in the town where I grew up.". Given Eva's sheltered upbringing, it made Dave wonder where she'd encountered it enough to get an appreciation for the classics. Either way, her body language was easy enough to read and he handed the borrowed phone over to her. "Knock yerself out. Gave the guy two Twentys so pick what ya like. I don't think Mike here would mind a bit...". He looked over at the thin, reedy man he'd borrowed the phone from and smiled, though it looked more like he was baring his teeth.
He let Eva scroll through the list before answering her last question. No sense souring her musical selection with the details of the bar crawl/stakeout/fishing expedition. "I'm just playing a hunch. Turns out someone paid Tim to lightly rough up Tanya just before the meeting last week.
The guy who paid him met Tim outside this bar. Tim's sister, Bree, asked to meet up with him here. She's just started work at some Plaxo Pharmaceuticals subsidiary and is being pretty dodgy about it. Too many coincidences piling up to ignore. I figured some answers might crop up if I put enough of the questions in the same place at the same time." Dave caught Eva's eye, "I noticed you and Tanya getting pretty close during the last meeting.
I don't think she's on the 'up & up' either... The paperwork for her court-appointed volunteer work looks fake. I don't think she's who she's pretending to be... Be careful around her."

GRAYBRIDGE, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot
Picking a few songs as she sways unconsciously to the music, Eva's eyes go glassy for a moment as fragments of memories come to her. A turntable. A big LP collection. A small, one room apartment where the needle skips when the train goes by...

Were these memories real? Were they even hers?

She's wondering about that when she realizes Dave is still talking. She wants to just listen to the music, but the young woman can tell what he's saying is important.

Can't hear no buzzers and bells!

"Oh? What's the connection with all this? Tim and Tanya. Tanya and... me. She says she's my... sister, Dave. I don't know if I believe her. Says she lives at Wyvern Lake."

That deaf, dumb and blind kid -- sure plays a mean pinball!

Reaching out without even really knowing she's doing it, Eva grabs Draven's hand and she tries to get him to dance as she continues. "Who do you think... she is if she... isn't Tanya?"

The Who finishes, and what comes next makes Eva smile and gyrate more. I Need You, by the Kinks. Perhaps surprisingly, Eva can dance.

"So what's your next move?" she asks, doing the Bus Stop. "Find the guy who put Tim up to mugging Tanya?"

GRAYBRIDGE, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot

"I don't know, Bree. I wasn't involved. I wanted to meet with Dave about another matter, trouble with an ex I needed his advice on, and he asked me to come here. Maybe he was just being efficient with his time, or maybe he knew you and I would get along better. He's rough around the edges, but behind that? More rough edges." She laughs. "He's consistent."

She points a manicured nail idly to Bree's drink. "I got roofied a few months ago, serious stuff. It wasn't in a bar, but it's still wise to guard your glass."

GRAYBRIDGE, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot
Bree laughs with Augusta but gets serious when Augusta points out her drink and alludes to what happened to her. "Oh fuck," Bree says, her eyes searching Augusta's face. "Did something happen? Is that related to why you attend Dave's group?" She shakes her head. "No, that's... Don't answer. It's none of my business. But I'm really sorry." She lowers her eyes to her own drink. "I had an experience that very nearly went bad during a party when I was in university. A friend got me out, but since then, if I lose sight of my drink for even a second, no chance I'm touching it again."
She's quiet for a moment, then clears her throat. "So, uhm, do you come here a lot?" She chuckles at herself. "I know, that's like the lamest question to ask, but I'm asking because this place does not feel like you."

As they're talking, Augusta notices from the corner of her eye a group of five men, all of them looking like trouble, and one of them the very insistent man who harrassed her upon entering and then tried to do the same with Bree. They're talking, but their eyes are far too focused on Augusta and Bree's conversation, as well as on Eva and Dave - who appear to be... dancing?

Graybridge, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot

A sour expression knitted Dave's brushy eyebrows together. "Your sister, huh?" the idea tumbled around in his mind for a good minute. "Wyvern Lake? Is that the place you said you escaped from??" He wasn't sure if he'd get an answer as the tall blonde's eyes seemed a lifetime away, lost in a different wing of her memory palace than he current occupied. Her hand reached out for his and joined her in clearing out a dance space in front of the jukebox for the both of them. Whereas Eva had a strong sense of elegance and grace, Dave was awkward and haltingly jerky in his motions but not entirely a terrible dance partner. The pair made quite the spectacle in the ring of space they'd cleared out.
The motions of the dance seemed to bring the statuesque blonde back into the moment. "I mean, she could be your sister. We really don't know anything about you before you escaped... She could be trying to draw you back into what you escaped from. I'd be cautious but keep an open mind. I'll try to find out more about Tanya." The song changed and the big man altered his dance mode to match Eva's change in motions, albeit poorly. He epitomized the phrase 'dance as if no one is watching' but was clearly enjoying himself even if everyone around him was wondering how or why the caveman and the supermodel matched up.
"Yeah. That was kind of the plan." he admitted. "Brought Tim along to see if he could spot the guy that hired him. Invited Bree to feel out if she was connected to it in any way. Now I'm curious if Tanya might be wrapped up in this too. It'd be a sure way to make an impression on her first night with the support group, eh?"

GRAYBRIDGE, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot
She touches her hand only lightly when she talks about the party near miss, offering sympathy and support, and later laughs about the come-here-often line.

"No, I've never been here before. In fact, this is my first beer ever! I suppose it's a pale ale and that's different somehow." She smiles at herself in embarrassment. These are the sorts of things people know, isn't it?

"I don't avoid places like this, but well, I usually stay in Annesburg most of the time."

GRAYBRIDGE, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot
Considering it’s a relic from 1965, the Kinks song now blasting on the bar’s speakers pops, making Eva shake her hips and shimmy her shoulders. In short order, the grinning blonde incorporates elements of The Twist, The Watusi, The Hitch Hike, and The Swim, dancing literal circles around Draven as the song blares.

Somewhere, somewhen… a skinny, pre-teen girl with stringy blonde hair dances in cramped little apartment, sweltering in the city’s summer heat as she plays one record after another. With abandon she moves, with energy and a zest for rhythm that almost makes it look like she’s in a trance.

And then we’re somewhere else. On a droning C-130, high over the Middle East. The lone occupant in the rear of the plane, a woman in black fatigues with a military pack, an advanced-looking rifle, a knockout figure and a pair of headphones, strides down the open loading ramp and jumps into the night sky. Pink Floyd’s Interstellar Overdrive is blasting in her ears as she falls, angling her descent towards the lights she knows surround the embassy — her target.

And then a third place and time. The Beatles’ Hey Bulldog pounds in Eva’s head as she runs for the fence surrounding the warehouses that contain the equipment she’s supposed to sabotage. She scales the twenty foot, razor wire-topped barrier in seconds, then she’s sprinting a the guard who’s seen her.

Lennon sings in the girl’s earbuds as she drives a knee into the man’s ribs, breaking them despite his Kevlar vest, and as she breaks his rifle over her knee before she casts it aside.

Some kind of solitude is measured out in you
You think you know me but you haven’t got a clue…

Now, back in the moment, Eva is smiling incredulously. She’s not normally a woman who smiles a lot, and Dave has definitely not seen this side of her. "I… I don’t know how I know any of this!" she says, continuing to dance with the man as the music reaches at crescendo.

She does offer a thumbs up, though, when she hears Draven talk about finding out more about Tanya. It’s a thread that needs pulling… but Eva is terrified of what she might find at the other end. Raising her arms provocatively above her head as she dances, she nods meaningfully at her friend as the song comes to an end.

GRAYBRIDGE, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot

"Oh, I know the Cicada, I went in once with some friends after we went to the TANC for research. It's nice, I like the mirrors on the ceiling," she laughs, a little flustered with the unexpected female attention. She's been hit on by women before, and this one time, at band camp ... no, that's a story for another time.

However, all of that changes when she sees B. Floyd on the phone. Her boss. So he does work for Plaxo. The slug! She feels her rage bubble up inside her, and looks around for Dave, partly to see if he's not looking -- she feels like she has to hide her 'other side' even though Dave is been encouraging her to, like, merge her two sides somehow. He doesn't really understand, but how could he? She sees Eva being hit on by the bold guy, and winces -- Eva doesn't seem like the type to need rescuing, but maybe the guy does. Get popcorn and watch!

Bree bumps into another, and she is suddenly less inclined to intervene again. Plaxo, Brian, what is going on? She did kind of zero in on me. In Hollywood, the lesbian is always the villain, but this isn't a show.

Then she gets hit on by yet another man (What kind of meat market is this? A Tinder speed-dating hot spot?), as she deals with her own dude.

"Touch me and I'll tear your bladder out through your rectum, dirt bag." Her voice comes out in a growl, as Augusta feels her savage instincts threaten to take over.

The timing is perfect.

As the song finishes, a bunch of jerks intrude on Eva and Dave's hip-shaking action, and the powerful blonde looks confused as the lead jerk tells her he'll show her a good time. Then the Yardbirds begin playing, and Eva smiles as she starts moving again in time with the driving beat, and as she makes eye contact with Draven.

Can I? her eyes plead, but in the end she doesn't wait for a green light from the man. "You know, I bet you can," she says simply, striding towards the leader of the miscreants, still half dancing as the guitars start screaming. "Good times... coming up!"

Eva had already been energized by the music, but if there's one thing the woman lives for, was built for -- it's fighting. She might as well have electricity in her veins as she strikes at the shitheads surrounding her. Her eyes flash, her limbs are a blur, her feet plant precisely to loan power to blows that can break bones and shatter concrete!

ANNESBURG, 1 NOV 2023
Outside The Brewseum Restaurant - Waiting for a Taxi

Melissa finishes her meal and convinces herself that she enjoyed it. Asking for a doggie bag for Brian's meal because why waste perfectly good delicious food, she pays the bill with the asshole's card and then thinks about asking the driver to take her to the nearest upscale clothing store. Suddenly hit with a pang of guilt as she stands there waiting for her ride, she texts Augusta.

Hey. I'm really sorry about Brian. I swear he has some kind of unnatural power over me. I am going to try and get to the bottom of it as soon as I can. We just had a sort of fight and he walked out on me in the restaurant. He fucking left me to eat alone!! Want to come on a shopping spree with me? He left me his credit card. LOL

GRAYBRIDGE, 1 NOV 2023
The Hop Spot
"Got a feisty one here," the man who's pushing himself uncomfortably into Augusta's personal space laughs. He turns his eyes to her, still not letting go of her with the arm he wrapped around her. "I'm sure you can put that passion to a better use."

"Hey!" Tim exclaims, surprisingly throwing himself into the altercation by addressing the man towering over his sister. "You leave her alone, understood?"

The man raises his eyebrows in disbelief, turning his focus from Bree to Tim. For a moment, he's just quiet, which on its own is enough to get Tim to shrink back. The man chuckles. "Or what?"

- - -

When Eva starts speaking and approaches the man, a grin stars showing on his face as his first instinct appears to be to believe that Eva is into him. Maybe that she likes his machismo and the way he's showing his dominance over Dave by taking his place without even looking at the man, letting his two goons handle him.

It's only when Eva's stance suddenly shifts that the realization of what's actually going on hits. At the last moment, the man raises his arms in a defensive posture. His reaction time and stance shows that he's been in a number of fights - and probably won a lot of them as well - but it's doubtful that any of that experience will really come in handy against someone like Eva.