8862/Frozen Beef Delivery

Frozen Beef Delivery
Date of Scene:	29 November 2021
Location:	Chelsea Piers
Synopsis:	Meeting at the pier, the 'alien' corpse is delivered over to Jane and Jessica.
Cast of Characters:	Michael Erickson, Jane Foster, Jessica Drew

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Michael Erickson has posed:
    Piers are wonderful things. Plenty of nonsense can go down even in the middle of the day, even the worst kind of nonsense - like, say, the transfer of a dead body. From space. You know, as an example. Even piers like Chelsea Piers, where it's been fairly heavily gentrified.

    It's nighttime, of course, and in the parking lot of the closed sports complex that's taken up the piers Michael stands next to an anonymous rental van. Leaning against the side of the vehicle in his street clothes, he quietly stands waiting for the SHIELD crew to roll up and pick up his neatly bundled parcel of frozen beef. His eyes track the street leading up to the complex, draped in shadow. Waiting, silently, the familiar weight of his great-great-grandfather's pistol snug against his ribs in its lightweight shoulder rig.

Jane Foster has posed:
Piers and wharves certainly get their fair share of legitimate business, but not often by night. Definitely not in New York, at the turn of December, where people most certainly have ulterior motives to gather past the high rises and light-streaked thoroughfares arcing along the East or Hudson Rivers. Jane could make this matter all the /more/ complex if she wore the sparkling gold, hooded and sequined designer jumpsuit that some cruel, utterly evil Vogue editor had not forced on her for nefarious purposes.

Friggin' Met Gala. The offensive outfit is stuffed away in a backpack and she's in all black, dark jeans and a cropped coat, gloves, scarf. Someone get this girl some colour. Even the sedan is black, albeit one sporty enough to outrun a good many other vehicles, its saving grace being that it has a big trunk. Thrilling, isn't it?

Jane can manhandle that car without too much excitement, leaving Jess to look out the window at the pretty lights if she likes. Pulling up to an abandoned spot marked as "OWNER ONLY" and a bunch of crossed-out names on the sign helps, at least for a quick drop-off and pickup.

Jessica Drew has posed:
"The only reason I'm on this is that Commander Carter nearly had a tizzy fit when Michael told her about having a corpse, you know. Either that for muscle, though...honestly, you don't need it," she observes as she watches the street while Jane maneuvers the van into place.

Jessica, like so many city girls, wears black, a cashmire turtleneck under a black on black weave jacket, black pants, and boots. One flash of color at her neck - a fern green mohair scarf the color of her eyes.

So the freezer contingent, one scientist included, is in black, attired to walk in mourning behind the corpscicle they have come to gather for the disposition of scientists so ingloriously. But, who knows, the unnamed and unknown former inhabitant of the carcass might be the seed for hundreds of scientific papers if it ever is released from the deep sanctum of secrets that SHIELD harbors.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    Michael is a mysterious man of mystery - you know, the kind who stores corpses. Or even knows HOW. Though in street clothes, he's also bundled up in overcoat and flat cap, equally black; he looks every bit the part of some Eastern European cabbie from the Cold War. As the sedan pulls into the owner's spot, Michael pauses a moment to crouch down and squint past the back of the van, into the night beyond the lot's fence. Nothing. Right. Not that the team coming wouldn't be able to spot a tail, but he likes to keep his own skills sharp.

    And now that it's clear who's here and who's not being followed, Michael emerges from the shadows on the other side of the van and pulls open the back door, where he stands waiting for the agents to emerge. Steam issuing from his nostrils in the frigid night air, as if some species of minotaur or dragon.

Jane Foster has posed:
"I heard the basics of the situation, not that the chief responded so intensely. Though in fairness, her perspective of the ramifications greatly exceeds ours." Peggy's call is not questioned by the astrophysicist. One has their spy chops and the other is lucky to know to have five ranks in Stealth when she picked her initial career in life. It definitely has its perks, though.

Throwing the car into park and triggering the alarm system is nothing new here, and she snatches up her purse to further elegantly impose the notion two very cosmopolitan women wander the city in search of fun and reprieve from shopping, horrible Christmas music, and Steve Rogers: The Off-Broadway Musical. Her swinging braid, slicked and dense, ticks out the distance between Michael, Jess, and herself. The mysterious air of mystery is utterly absent around her, at least! Not so much the rest.

"We're black," she announces easily enough. Tradecraft? She knows how to drop a tail, not nearly to a Black Widow's level, but enough to use an SDR on wheels to run any chance of detection heading after them.

"What's a nice man like you doing all the way out here?"

Jessica Drew has posed:
The only sound on the street besides distant traffic is the slam of Jessica's door in the frigid air. She trusts her companion implicitly for her craft but never took her eyes off the side door mirror during the entire drive, doing her part of the equation. After a deep breath which she holds, she listens carefully to the surrounding area for anything out of the ordinary, super senses tuned to high. With a nod, she comes back to life.

"Who ever said he was nice, Jane? He /collects/ corpses like other people collect Carnival Ware." She walks over to Michael and smiles softly at him with her back turned to Jane, "We're going to have to check your house now to see if you've collected any others. Do you know where he came from, by the way?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "Mesta'lah Amerik'rosh." Michael mutters the words loud enough to be heard, but there's no heart in the invective. He looks between the two women, his heavy brows tenting slightly beneath the brim of his flat cap as he does so. "You ladies," he says in a voice with a heavy accent that to untutored ears might sound vaguely Slavic, gutteral. "You want to buy beef? I have...good Jovian beef, yes. For the, ah, restaurant, yes?"

Jane Foster has posed:
The scarf pulled higher gives Jane's neck protection from the cold, wet pull of weather where the river is so close. "Carnival cruises or morgues, you know they're one and the same. Always some elderly person bumping off," she asides dryly to Jess with great amusement. The amusement won't last long, a last candleflame before being pinched out.

Breath steams in the air, for the most part, curling in lazily swirls. Her thoughts skim to and fro, centered on Michael when she turns her head that way. Brows don't rise, that would be a giveaway. "Jovian Farms from upstate, yes. Cheaper now than before Thanksgiving, which is lucky for us. The bottom line suffers one way or the other."

Jessica Drew has posed:
"Are you going to tell us the story of how you got hold of this beef? Is it well marbled?" Jessica faces the street as she trades barbs with the man under the cap, hands deep in the pocket of her coat to protect the spinnerets on her wrists. They are oddly sensitive to the cold.

"We ready to unload him?" Asked as she rounds the car to stand next to the trunk.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    Another muttered string of syllables at Jessica's question. "From farm," Michael says, gesturing irritably to Jane. "Like she say. Upstate." He directs his attention back to Jane, heavy nose wrinkling slightly. "Open trunk. Is heavy, I carry."

    This man knows this role /way/ too well. Probably something he's used for years. Probably had better impact in the 80s, but...

Jane Foster has posed:
The car isn't immediately nearby, though not that far. Dragging something as heavy as a body or a slab of beef there shouldn't be impossible, but no one look at Jane to measure these things. She hits the fob in her pocket, the doubled-beep response unlocking the trunk. All very thrilling, fear not.

Another moment, and the transfer's ready to be made instead of hauling something distinctively disquieting from there to here. "I'll go check the emergency blanket to see it's out. Last thing we need is that leaking everywhere."

Jessica Drew has posed:
"Have you got this, Igor? Or would you like me to take the feet if there are any?" Tires screeching a few blocks away, bring her head up like a deer catching a scent on the air.

"Do you have a space blanket with the silvered interior, Janovich?" She doesn't try to hide her smile.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "Ey, no worry." 'Igor' lifts his gloved hands faintly before turning and getting into the van - emerging with a large bundle the size of a side of beef (or, you know, a corpse) carefully wrapped in a space blanket and trash bags underneath that, wrapped securely with electrical tape. It is, of course, not necessary body-shaped, but it absolutely looks heavy. "I have. Where is car?"

    He hefts the burden in his arms, though its weight is made even more apparent with proximity - it has to weigh a couple hundred pounds, at /least/. "Come, you show me."

Jane Foster has posed:
Igor; must not laugh. Don't laugh. The desire to laugh is fairly strong, though Jane bites her inner cheek to suppress the urge. She walks to the car and snaps the trunk open with a gesture. A wool blanket is pulled out, laid flat, the foil emergency blanket tossed to Jessica to rip open if she needs to.

That all said and done, though, there's a certain degree of calm as she waits on Michael-Igor. Because tossing in a very large, heavy weight into the sedan isn't going to raise questions. So it's with great calm that she waits, or at least /affected/ calm.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Dzhessika paces beside Igor, blanket at the ready, biting the inside of her bottom lip after catching sight of Janovich. If the scientist can keep a lid on it, so can she.

"You know once we get this home, I would love to go out for blinis and caviar. Some good food from the home country would be what's needed."

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "Mmm, prezhah," replies Michael, who grunts as he lowers the bundle carefually into the trunk - easing it in so that the car lowering on its suspension due to the weight isn't easily visible all at once. "Right," he says then, once the 'delivery' is made, "There. Is inside. You pay Mister Deyvishni, I just deliver." And then he's off, heading back to the van, leaving these two American women to deal with this very American problem. American, because that's where they are. The problem itself? Worryingly universal.

    But he's smiling to himself, at least. He hasn't gotten to puall the 'irritable immigrant' thing since '04.