A Change of Tactics

Summary:
March 23, 2014: Now that Cable's caught up to Domino, he's the one left holding the winning hand. All he needs to do is convince her of the fact. (Language Warning)

Graymalkin

Cable's secret home base. From the future. Because that's how he rolls.


Characters

NPCs
None


Mood Music:
None


Late afternoon, who knows how many days after the 'on purpose'. News stations carried the reports, the eyewitnesses completely baffled as to how a car could suddenly go end over end, and then, there were no more reports. Silence. As if it had never happened.

Up on the space station Graymalkin, there is more than a little activity, at least where the AI is concerned. Screens and screens play and replay scenes of the best and the worst of the goings on of the planet below. Someone has to monitor such things when Cable is busy—

And he is.

Down a level, Nate leans against a wall in a reasonably empty room, the only other occupant at the moment is Domino. There's a bed, but that's it. No windows. One door. Lights. He's keeping his distance for the moment, but at the first sign of any real conscious movement, he's crouching, forearms resting upon legs.

"Wakey, wakey, Domino."

~

The instruction is met with a forced scoff from the diminutive albino woman sharing this part of the station along with its owner. "What's the point? You've won, congrats, now either let me mend a busted leg in peace or finish the job."

(Oh, and nice to see you, too.)

She's just grumpy because she lost. Domino -knows- this man. If anyone had a chance in Hell of evading him for any length of time, she'd be a serious runner-up. Unfortunately, she tends to underestimate the tiny fact that he also happens to know -her,- as well. Once a psychic has spent enough time around another, those people become much easier to locate.

Case in point.

Lying flat on her back with one bruised arm curled around behind the back of her head, she doesn't even make eye contact with Nate as she stares up at the blank ceiling. (I seem to spend more time here against my will…)

~

"I haven't won yet, Dom. That dirtbag, whoever it is, still has a sample of my blood. Now, we could look for someone who suddenly came down with a case of the TO virus, or we're we can do it the easy way." Cable doesn't move from his crouch, doesn't move much at all, really, as his eyes are dead set upon the prone figure on the bed. "Who was your drop off? Where was it?"

Casting his gaze down for a moment, Nate chuffs a quiet laugh, though there's no amusement to be found in it anywhere. "If you give me the info, I'll have you back on your feet in the next ten minutes. Because there's going to be lots of cleanup from this."

Now, Cable rises to his feet and from the wall springs a monitor. There's a news feature from one of the many stations, and the story is still unfolding. A cop is sent to a $5 million house to prevent a suicide only to be killed, supposedly by the death-seeking couple. And the couple also succeeded. No reasons, nothing stated.

~

"Oh get real, Nate," Domino snaps back with a roll of her eyes. "You don't need me to put the pieces together. If it was going to be a problem then you would have already known about it, Mister 'I Read The Future.' Right now, I don't see you've got a thing in the world to lose." (And -I- do.)

"Back on my feet just in time to throw in with you for high risk and no pay, sounds like a -fantastic- deal. Get fucked."

While she may appear to be ignoring the news broadcast, she can still hear it fine. The air about her doesn't change one bit, however. 'Why the hell should I care?' Stupid people doing stupid things, it's not her problem in the slightest. All she has to worry about is how to get out of here, and what to do with the eight million she scored from this hit.

And speaking of hit… He still has that wound in his arm, doesn't he?

"You might want to get that looked at. Could get infected."

~

A rumbled growl sounds from deep in the mutant's throat, and he looks as if he's ready to smash the screen. Instead, it disappears into the wall once again. "I didn't know about it because I didn't think you'd be that -stupid- to take a job like that. It wasn't on the radar because I didn't think it would be." And he's kicking himself for it. And it'll be a long time before he stops kicking himself for it.

"Why should you care? Because right now, if something isn't done, you're going to hasten mutants' demise by about a thousand years."

Nate points to where the monitor disappeared and his voice drops in the obvious attempt to remain calm. Er. "And now, we have to fix it."

He ignores her words; it's Domino after all. He expects it. Cable does, however. look at his arm, and in a breath, the hole begins to close, the metals entwining as it does so. In the next couple of seconds, it is no longer evident that anything was amiss.

~

(Stupid, sure. Stupidly -rich.-)

"I still fail to see how that affects me, Nate," Domino flatly replies. "Even I'm not lucky enough to live that long." (Now if you told me the world was going to end next Tuesday, -then- you might have had some ground to stand on.)

"What's this 'we' business?" she suddenly demands, sitting upright to look over at the much bigger mutant for the first time since they arrived on Graymalkin. "You wanna save our kind ten generations from now then you go right ahead, I've got more immediate things to worry about." And much more selfish things. "All any of us are doing is circling the fucking drain, Nate. Ten years or ten thousand."

At least he's healing his arm, finally. Knowing that it was still there had been bugging her, on a couple of different levels.

~

"Yeah, Dom. 'We'."

Cable begins to stalk the floor, keeping a slight distance from her. He's silent for a long moment before, "I know. You're right. We are circling the drain, and that has to change. Survival doesn't work. Playing a defensive game keeps us down. What we have to do is take it to them. Start striking offensively."

Now, it's Nate's turn to scratch at the back of his neck, where the damage had been done only a couple of weeks ago. Tops. "The SRD is after me now. They don't know everything I can do. We need to scramble their structure in order to get at the real players. Weapon X is only the tip of the iceburg. And with that virus sample?" He shakes his head and points to the patched albino. "You have no choice."

For all this time, Nate's been… impersonal. Trying to keep things at arm's length, and he simply can't keep that sort of thing up for long. A deep breath is drawn, and he bows his head, his gaze set to the floor once again for a three count. "I need your help."

~

Throughout his side of the argument, Dom's thought process never changes. (Don't care, don't care, big flippin' deal, don't care…) Granted, taking the fight to those Sardine assholes could be a hoot and a half. That's something she might actually consider doing on her off-hours, as it were. But, Nate trying to tell her that she has no choice?

"I always have a choice."

Presumably.

Then he plays the proverbial ace. It's all fun and war games until it comes back to that one open nerve, the one uninsulated wire within the closed circuit.

She still has feelings for this man.

Pale blue eyes fall closed in time with her head dipping forward, a weary but silent sigh passing across blackened lips. (God damn you, Nate…)

"Kyle Lansing. New Orleans. Now patch up this leg so I can stop lying around, bored out of my goddamn mind."


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