2020-08-21 - Takeout for Two

There's also a Rhys, settled at one of the tables with his phone and some Thai food, which is approximately what someone would be likely to expect him to have; it looks as though it's only recently been delievered, or else he's a pretty slow eater. Neither on the way to or from work, likely, given the jeans and the t-shirt that shows three ways swallows could theoretically carry coconuts, the first two versions crossed out and the last circled as presumably most likely. A brown leather satchel of the sort that might well hold a laptop and/or papers is hung on the back of his chair. The table he's picked has a pretty decent view of the entry way, and not very much behind him, which could be an indicator of watching for something specific, general paranoia, or complete coincidence. What's definite is that whatever he just saw on his phone makes him grin, briefly, before he taps a few times and has a drink of his soda.

Must have made a mistake. Blake paces in a side alley near the Thai restaurant. "Fuck." He knows either he made a mistake or someone better than him is onto him. No, not possible. Is it? He pulls his hands out of his hoodie pockets and rubs them on his jeans, letting his head tip back to take a few deep breaths. It's only for a moment. He looks over his shoulder and then down to the other end of the alley.

Spooked.

This isn't his jam. Meeting in public. So much risk. People knowing your face, but he has to. His hands shake and he ends up leaning against the sticky brick wall. Finally, when he steps out, he's got his poker face on, the one that regards the world with little passing interest. He pulls his backpack up on his shoulders a little more and walks around to slip into the Thai place, goes straight to the bathroom while scoping out the customers, and then returns after checking that his back isn't covered in gum.

Then he sits down in a spot adjacent to Rhys', their seats abutting each other. He clears his throat. "You uh-" He looks down at his hand where he scrawled Rhys' handle haphazardly but it's since sweated off. "-the guy? readersweeper?"

Readersweeper? That's a weird name to be looking for. Which means it's also an interesting one. Also an unusual position to be asked it from. So... are we talking vaguely espionage here, or a weird online blind date? Inquiring minds want to know. Rhys's has him taking a flicker of a sidelong glance as he sips the soda, back enough to get another brief glimpse of the man he'd idly watched cross the room and try to parse the expression as he replies in a quiet but fairly casual tone, "Might depend who's asking."

"ElmosKnife," gotta love burner email address generators! Blake's forehead wrinkles at the aural assault of the song that crackles through distractingly. Then he shakes his head and reaches for his backpack, opening it and pulling out the laptop. He's going to be one of /those/ customers, though he doesn't realize he hasn't bought any food. The laptop flickers to life. A Windows 95 logo splashes across the screen.

This still does not entirely answer which side this all falls on, really, but it doesn't make it any less interesting. Rhys nods once, and catches the wander of the delivery boy (or not), stopping short of any further reply as the latter joins the maybe-spy. Though if they were spies, he should probably look more concerned about whether they might think he now Knows Too Much. Instead, he takes a bite of his meal, and effects to pretend not to be listening to any of this. Which is not as easy as it might be; Windows 95? We're still in the 21st century, right?

Blake pulls out his phone from his pocket and frowns slightly. "What the fuck?" he whispers to himself and then puts his phone back away. Sluching in front of the booting laptop, when his visitor sits down across from him, he looks off to the side, the realization of the situation falling into place, or, well he thinks he knows what's going on.

Finally, he cranes his head a little, lifting his chin just enough to be able to make eye contact with the delivery boy. "Why are you sitting at my table?" The pointed, brief look should indicate he knows why, so he must be getting at something else.

The OS is /still/ booting.

Rhys gets stared at. He wasn't facing their table, really, but the stare bores into the back of his head, as noticable as certain other things apparently aren't today, and he does turn to look, then. Directly, and as though he has no idea what he might be being stared at for. He has a meal there to eat, and the food's not bad, actually. The look's almost blank, then with a brow lifting in silent question: yes? As though whatever the point is, it is not getting through. After a moment it stops being a silent question, and instead turns into a level, "Can I help you?" just about as the guy's reaching over to shut the laptop.

Blake seems undisturbed by the guy's demeanor, at least until his laptop is closed. That's when he frowns and actually starts paying attention to the fact that the guy's words might be for him, or are they for this guy behind him? He actually twists in his seat to get an eyeful of the back of Rhys' head (presumably), and then slips his laptop away. "I don't fucking know," he mumbles as he pushes up to his feet and heads outside. Did he bring his knife? He gropes at his empty pocket. Nerds keep knives in hoodie pockets. Amateur.

Rhys's chin lifts just a fraction at the regard after that double-take, the look still steady. It's not quite aggressive, but it does assertive pretty well. When the reply comes, he inclines his head slightly as if acknowledging an agreement, and continues to watch the pair. There's no pretense not to be, now, and when the door swings open his gaze takes that in as well, and he rises to his feet. If he were about a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier, it'd be threatening without trying. Since he isn't, he doesn't even aim at anything more than confident and in a better position to move if necessary. "If that's not your ride, I'd order for here," he says, giving Blake a quick, definite look, "Really the food's pretty good."

Blake looks back at Rhys, his hand on the door, the patter of the rain heard beyond. "I think it is." He pushes through the back door, but keeps the door open a little as he checks his phone, almost expecting a message or something. His nostrils flare up ever so slightly when the buzz from this pizza guy never makes it to his phone, but he taps anyways. When the van enters his peripheral view, he looks up without raising his head or lowering his phone. "Fuck-" He immediately shoves off of the door with his foot and starts bolting for the street he can see somewhere beyond the van down the alley. His knuckles are white as he clutches his phone.

Oh, for fuck's sake. Fine. Rhys starts toward the door at a stride, and what he also starts is making a scene -- a very definite, hey bored housewives here's something more exciting than annoying SOs and kids sort of scene. "Hey! Where are you taking that guy?! Call 911, that's a kidnapping!" Door-guy may be going with Chinese, but Rhys is sticking with good old locally-well-understood English, thanks. Definitely the most useful of his options.

The tone sounds like it really expects to be obeyed, imperative rather than afraid, and apparently the delivery dude is not the only person exercising Second Amendment rights today, because as he moves to try to stop the closing door, he's also drawing a gun. Maybe that touch of distraction is what means he ends up with the door slamming in his face as he shoves against it; maybe the other guy's just faster or stronger. Either way, he twists the knob and thrusts his shoulder against the door, managing this time to shove it back open on him.

Blake's heart thumps against his ribcage. PU DUM-PU DUM. "Fuck you! H-" but suddenly Blake cuts off when he feels that hard steel pressing against his spine, his backpack giving them perfect cover for anyone who might or might not have looked their way all the way from the street. He puts his hands up in the air as a reflex, but then feels the resistance from the pizza guy trying to rip it from his fingers. He holds onto it for dear life while his other slips down into the front pocket of his jeans...oddly. He spreads his stance to give himself more leverage and tries to stay put, figuring if he gets in the van he's dead, and if he fights now, or delays, he /might/ die. After all, he hasn't been shot yet right?

"What's your name?" he asks suddenly in a strange calm voice, like some guy who's a little out of it, asking for directions.

Rhys shifts his position to use the wall beside the door for as much cover as he can manage, and aims at the nearest man, he who held the door and knows the words. "Don't," he snaps, "Neither do you." Worth the try, though if the attempt to draw doesn't immediately halt, it'll turn out he isn't bluffing on whether he'd shoot. "Cops are on the way." That, he might be bluffing about; he doesn't know for sure right now if the women made that call or not, or whether things are being efficient, or any of a million other aspects. But they heard him tell people to do it, at least. "Let him go, it's not worth the bother."

And all Blake can remember is something like readersweepers. There's only one time Blake might part from his equipment and it seems like that time is now, well almost all of it. When the Thai cough delivery guy jams the gun into his spine, Blake's back arches sharply and the backpack slides off his shoulders. It's not a move though, it's a reaction, and he pleads, "Ow, fuck, ow, let me take it off," as he does so, sliding it off the side to the ground. That's one less thing someone can track right?

Barely a moment passes before Blake's pivoted and handled into the Backwards Hostage Scuffle. He winces and hisses, "I wish I had my fucking knife right now."...By the way, it's still booting, just heating up while it's all snuggled in the backpack.

Man, all Rhys wanted from this place tonight was some decent tom kha kai, and not only is this not how he planned his evening, but now the soup is probably getting cold. Granted, this is less of a worry than the math he's working with right now, which involves three times as many of them as there are of him, at least two and odds say all three with guns, and a maybe-hacker clearly wanted by people he's pretty sure he'd rather not have what they want. Plus one reasonably-sturdy Thai restaurant and a not at all suspicious van.

It's probably hard to be certain from the outside whether it's the not-delivery-guy he's going for, or if he's just decided there have got to be other likely-hackers out there that'd be less trouble, but that's the way he suddenly adjusts his aim from around his piece of wall, and really, it's Blake in the metaphorical crosshairs. Hit or miss, this can't be the hacker's best day either.

Blake's had a lot of bad days. The bullet enters his his thigh, burrowing through skin and muscle with ease. Instead of crying out, jolting, or anything, the color in his face drains and his eyes slightly go lax. Then a moment or so later, his eyes bolt open, eyes filled with a blue fire not there before as he screams, his hands bunched into tense fists. Pain? Battlecry? Maybe both. Suddenly, harp blue electricity shoots out of him like bursting lightning. Splinters of light arc out to seize each of the kidnappers in a crackling blue embrace, hopefully.

Rhys has seen people get shot before. Rhys has even shot people before. Rhys has not seen someone take a bullet and turn into fucking Electro before. Not outside the movies. Maybe not even there.

So it may be a good thing taking further cover was already what he was doing, because there are some distractions in one's environment that are just too much to process and move on. "Holy fucking shit," he exhales, eyes widening as he takes a extra half-step back. Maybe that helps with how much the shot misses him; maybe with that much power through him the driver's aim was as likely to hit Reese Witherspoon as Rhys Evans. Either way, the way the accountant's brain processes the immediate situation has him shifting position enough to shoot back at the driver from where he stands.

Blood starts to dampen Blake's charcoal jeans. He drops down to his hands and knees once the energy leaves him. "Fuck," he breathes sharply at the sharp pain that shoots through his leg and reverberates up his side. The smell of ozone and faint scent of caustic burning, the source of which seems to be a few wisps of gas leaching off of his backpack, kissed by the charged atmosphere.

Blake's chest heaves as his heart tries to decide to go faster or slower. "You fucking shot me," he says between soft pants, still riding the adrenaline through the pain. "well it worked," he mumbles. Then he just rolls over on his side to keep pressure off of his leg. Fun, alley germs.

Rhys is still keyed up and moves as if to shoot again, but for whatever reason -- quite possibly involving that growing wash of red and blue -- does not in fact shoot any of them in the back as they do their best to run. He does, however, lower the aim and attempt to shoot out one of their tires for good measure as the delivery guy hauls himself in. If the cops are inclined to try to catch the would-be kidnappers, he's inclined to try to improve the reach of the long arm of the law, for once.

"Yeah," he agrees to Blake's observation/accusation, "Yeah, I did. Sorry 'bout that." Probably not very, particularly given it did, indeed, work. But there's things one says. He's not inclined to emerge clear immediately -- pretty sure there's at least one gun left in that departing van -- but as that danger recedes so does the immediate adrenaline, and his memories of what just happened start popping up with extra question marks as decor. "What the fuck-- must've-- some kind of battery there I must've shot," he mutters as his mind tries to make sense of things the Veil's already trying to draw itself across. "Probably oughta put some pressure on it," he suggests a little bit louder, before he holsters his gun and starts to approach.

Blake succumbs to the pain quickly enough that the look in his eyes is glazed as he listens to the attempted kidnappers' footsteps on the pavement, the thrum of the motor. By the time Rhys starts talking to him more, Blake eyes are closed as he grits his teeth. He doesn't offer any explanations. Blake just holds his hands to the wound. "Call fucking 911 man!" he suddenly bursts out.