MCU: The Mines of Sub-Atlantica

[Hellbender]

Month 6, Week 2, Day 7, early in the AM. Follow-on to "Night Out on the Town". Open to MCU officers and anyone else that would plausibly be at the crime scene or police interviews.

Costigan followed the officer into the next room, shifting his shoulders a bit. The borrowed jacket was a bit too tight across the shoulders, and he was trying not to pop the seams accidentally. Well, at least he was dry now, and had a bite to eat; food is sleep, they say. He hoped so; he'd been up for a good 20 hours now except for the catnap he snatched before the cops showed up. His mirrored sunglasses hid the deep circles under his eyes.

Now they were here, and someone wanted to talk to him.

[Tessan Toov]

Tessan is amazingly fidgety. She should have been sitting still or had a nap or something. Instead, she has spent a large amount of time... breaking her empty beer bottles into the waist bin and listening to the noise that the glass shards make. She hasn't cut herself. She isn't making a mess because she's flinging the pieces right into the waste bin. It's still pretty odd behaviour. The other mine personnel seem to accept this as normal behaviour for her, though.

Then Tessan stands up and looks a bit... nervous that the cops are here. They don't know what she did on Cybertron. It'll be okay, she tells herself. Besides, they're human. It shouldn't matter to them how many Autobots died...

Tessan squeaks out, "Good cycle?"

[Spinister]

Esprit keeps looking at the car and thinking what she would have to do to make its radar signature vanish. Then she has to stop and tell herself that it is illegal. She keeps thinking about it, though. When Esprit drives, she keeps finding herself speeding. Then she has to remind herself that, too, is illegal. The car is just so slow, though! Speed limit signs are so far apart! The next sign could say 75 MPH. It might not be another 25 MPH sign. Then there is this whole 'turning radius' thing, which is just complete jetslag. Then there is 'braking', which is another pile of slag. Esprit has to fight the urge to just put the flashers on and break all the traffic laws.

The result is that while Esprit uses her turn signals, unlike Det. Dahlia, her turns and lane changes are the jerkiest things ever, and she has ended up accidentally drifting the car more than a few times, and she tends to brake way too late, such that her braking attempts are like being smushed in a NASA centrifuge.

Despite her bad driving, Esprit is calm and collected when she leaves the car to inspect it and make sure there aren't any nails in the tires and also to look up and make sure there aren't any skidplate Autobot attack planes Powerglide after them and then to look down for drill tanks.

She is especially calm and collected once she makes it to the conference room to... well, glare ominously at the witnesses. Esprit is hoping that someone else might ask the questions. The little pale one squeaking 'Good cycle' seems nervous, so Esprit fixes her glare there for now.

[Kup]

Kate is waiting in the room when Shades arrives, and thus she's been there to watch Tessan's odd habits. She's been watching the girl closely, anyway. Such... interesting records. An eyebrow raises at her greeting. "'Good cycle'?" she repeats.

She looks between the witnesses, and shrugs. "Well, let's get started, then."

"I'm Sergeant Kate Mason," she reaches first towards Tessan, than Shades, holding her hand out to shake. "Donal Costigan and Tessan Toov, right? Could you two give me a quick idea of what it is you do here, exactly? Something a bit more specific than, 'Mine for salt,' I mean. Like, what's your jobs."

[Hellbender]

Donal raise an eyebrow high enough to be seen above the rim of his sunglasses. He thought they'd figured that out by now. He supposed they had to have official answers for the paperwork.

"Well, Ah'm a professional mining engineer--work as a contractor to several mines and quarries here abouts. Currently Ah'm supervising a dolomite quarry down in Ohio, but Dale called me in as a consultant last night on an emergency basis. He needed someone to figure out what was causing the flooding and what the best way to put a stop to it and salvage the salt. For obvious reasons, flooding a salt mine is really bad. Seriously," Costigan explains.

[Tessan Toov]

Tessan shakes that offered hand, her grip strong but nervous. She tells herself that it doesn't matter to these human cops what she has done, but one is glaring. Tessan agrees readily, "Yes, I am Tessan Toov. My -" the guys rib her when she says 'my function is demolitions', "I'm a blasting tech here. Mostly, I set charges to blast rock to loosen it up so that it can be removed and then we can get at the salt. Sometimes, I set charges to blast loose big chunks of salt so they can be scooped up with a Bobcat."

She also has to tell the guys that they're full of it on a regular basis, but she somehow doubts that is relevant to the topic at hand.

[Spinister]

So, not only did Ms. Toov say 'good cycle', but Sgt. Mason pinged on it, Esprit notes mentally.

Mr. Costigan, on the other hand, is wearing sunglasses indoors, makes a living off stuff underground, has a vocal patterns that sound awfully familiar, and just said 'seriously'.

It can't really be this easy, can it?

Esprit glares at Ms. Toov just a bit more. Best to let Sgt. Mason handle the questions for now.

[Kup]

Kate nods, pulling a small tablet from a pack pocket to enter some notes in it. Mostly those notes are, 'Confirms what their records say.'

"All right, then... tell me about what triggered the call, then." She looks up at Shades. "Connected to this flooding, I'm assuming?"

[Hellbender]

Costigan lays his hands on the table, wishing he had another beer to fill them. Nursing a beer helped him think, and talk. Instead he lays them flat, stilling incipient shakes. Things had gotten crazy down there, and he hadn't blinked--must have been the adrenaline. Now, it has worn off, and he's feeling a bit shaky.

"Ayep. Some kind of fishmen--right hostile, too--dug an aqueduct between the Rouge River and the mine and it was flooding the place. Tessan ran into them first--Ah was looking for her along with the cause of the flooding because Dale said he had a demolitionist down on that level and found her and them 'bout the same time. We called you in after we sealed the aqueduct, on account of fishmen with lasers bein' not exactly what Ah was trained for. Seriously. Seemed more your sort of thing," Costigan says, trying to stay blasé; a careful listener might hear a bit of shakiness in his voice.

[Tessan Toov]

"Yeah, I noticed water on the floor. What the f-" not 'frag', the guys make fun of her when she says that, "kind of place has water on the floor?" Tessan demands, indignantly, "I know this mine. I knew it was weird. Then I got jumped by these fishmen screaming, 'Die, human scum!' and 'For Sub-Atlantica!' So I dropped 'em. All my demo gear and my drills got wet, so I tried to work my way back to the elevator so I could warn everyone. I bumped into Donal Costigan on the way there."

There is no shakiness in her voice. She actually is a bit bored and talks about all of this like it is perfectly normal.

[Spinister]

Seriously? Okay, Esprit probably needs to hunt down Mr. Costigan in her spare time. She also pulls out a tablet to take notes.

Esprit looks Mr. Costigan over, easing up on the glaring at Ms. Toov business. He isn't used to this, yet he didn't get himself killed. That's very odd.

She asks, "What makes you think you were qualified to deal with this in any fashion?" Aqueduct bringing in water from the Rouge River? This could have threatened a lot of lives.

[Kup]

Since Esprit has asked a question, Kate doesn't this time. After all, asking multiple questions at once is a good way of making sure one of them doesn't get answered. She does frown, however, as she makes another note. They are, of course, going to have to make sure this is a legitimate invasion attempt and not some confused capes, but if so it's outside of their jurisdiction. The Feds have already been alerted as to the potential, anyway...

[Hellbender]

Donal Costigan looks affronted. "Ah've got two degrees and over a decade of experience with the regional geology that qualifies me, and Ah've worked this mine before. Dale provided all the engineering plans, and Ah inspected the site. Tessan's a qualified demolitionist; between us, we knew exactly where to blow the aqueduct to stop the inflow without catastrophic collapse. Ah'm not some amateur who blows things up for the hell of it! Seriously!"

He sits up straighter. "Frankly, Ah don't think you've got anyone in the MCU qualified to do that--which is why we sealed the aqueduct first and called you second."

[Tessan Toov]

"Uh, the fishmen didn't seem that tough?" Tessan replies, a little confused, and she's genuine in that comment. The fishmen would have definitely been a challenge to someone with a civilian background. That Tessan didn't find them challenging... says something about her, which she does not realise she is saying. A little defensively, she adds, "And Donal Costigan was a good shot and really strong. He knew what he was doing. I wouldn't take a-" Tessan has to pause and think. 'Fresh-paint' makes no sense here. "-a kid in there?"

Yeah, well, he's obviously not a kid. That wasn't the word she wanted. English is not her first language.

"I wouldn't have taken him in there if I thought he'd just get killed by fishmen."

[Spinister]

"I meant fighting an invading platoon," Esprit clarifies without contrition. Is he purposefully being evasive there by insisting that he's qualified to close aqueducts? Because sure, Esprit bets he is qualified to close aqueducts. It's the fighting part she questions.

She looks to Sgt. Mason. The only consolation that Esprit is feeling is that the CIA might try to take over the investigation from the FBI if the fishmen turn out to be foreign.

Also, Ms. Toov is either a nutter, ex-special forces, or both. (Or something else...)