divisionary

162

It's been quiet ever since their return from the Chelsea pier the better part of a week ago. Work still continues in the Post Office to make it more hospitable, even as civilians stream in from further into the city. Lindianne's spent a lot of time elbow-deep in the heating system coaxing it back to life. There's little point in creature comforts if everyone freezes to death in the cold.

Heating is temperamental now. But it's warm enough for people to shed their coats and scarves. There aren't a lot of smiles to be found on the faces of either civilians or JTF personnel. The mood is still muted. No one's talking about "after the Dollar Flu" or "when things go back to normal" yet. There's not a lot of hope for things to ever improve.

But there's still brightness, if you know where to look.

Lindianne is perched on a pile of boxes in what was the mail room, turning a baseball hat over and over in her hands. There's dirt caked on the brim, but she looks at it like it's the greatest treasure she's ever received in her life. (A gift from a grateful woman for sparing some food.) Even a long way from Queens, small reminders have made the journey to Manhattan.

Small things like a Mets hat.

"Man. Didn't think I'd ever see this again." She looks up, smiling bashfully. "...Never thought I'd miss baseball this much."

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"Wha-"

He's long since taken off his helmet - it's just another pound or so of gear he doesn't need to use right now. It sits on his waist, and so when Lindianne pops the cap on his head, it gels with the watchcap and the tactical headset to make Voodoo look like he's in the running for angriest hockey fan in America - which, to be fair, he would sweep, if not for legacy left by the paternal side of his family.

Not that he knows it's a Bruins cap at first, though. He'll just pop it off his head to make sure it's not, God forbid, a Yankees cap.

Upon seeing the logo, he smiles and prods Lindianne in the side - gently - with his elbow. "Wiseass. -but thanks."

The sticker on the brim is the first thing to go, of course, tossed to the floor before he works on bending the brim. It's true, this store is one of the few that somehow hasn't been worked over by looters. There's gear from sports teams all across the country, from Sacramento Kings to Florida Marlins to Cincinnati Bengals. There's even some San Diego Padres jerseys - and why not? As far as baseball teams go, they're harmless.

(Still no Red Sox gear, though. He'd be surprised if there were so much as an actual red sock in the entire metropolitan area.)

A Mets jersey with 31 stitched loudly across the back catches his eye, and he takes it off the rack to get a second look at the name above.

"'Piazza'."

He quirks an eyebrow and turns it towards Lindianne. "One of your guys?"

If it's possible to get whiplash from snapping your head around, Lindianne probably just gave herself a bad case of it. "31?! Oh my God, let me see that right now." She reaches out to gingerly take the jersey from Voodoo. She looks at it. Then, softly: "Mike. He was their catcher. And a damn good one."

This jersey, unlike the others, is folded with the utmost care. She tucks it in her bag. (This one won't be going to the civilians. This one's staying with her.) She looks a little misty-eyed for a moment. Nostalgia for a more peaceful time.

For a time before everything went to shit.

"...Thanks, Voodoo." She means it. "Heh. That hat suits you." She isn't denying the charge of being a smartass, though. Sometimes the situation calls for smartasses. If you can't laugh at the end of the world, then there's no point in going on.

Sometimes, you have to fight despair with sarcasm.

The sum extent of his baseball knowledge, beyond basic rules and regulations, has been occasionally refreshing his memory on the Yankees' roster so he knows who to cuss out whenever they come up in conversation. Still - it's obvious this is a special moment for Lindianne, and so he maintains a respectful silence.

Times like these, it's good to find something to ground yourself in a time before all this happened.

And then, re: the hat:

"You think?" He smiles and fiddles with the brim, tugging it down a little further on his face. "I like it, too."

And then he strikes a pose, his stance bladed, feet set and knees bent, M60 at low-ready. He's staring a hole at some indeterminate point on the far wall, eyes barely visible under the brim of the hat. It looks every bit like something you'd see on a low-budget G.I Joe knockoff - they'd never let it slide on a recruiting poster.

"How do I look?"

Don't snicker. Don't snicker. Don't-

Well, crap.

She holds her composure for a few moments before breaking down into giggles. "You look like a bad action movie poster," she says once she's regained her composure. "The guys would laugh you out of the state."

It's like how civilians tend to think of special forces: cold, vicious, ready to pounce at a moment's notice. Kind of hard to shake images of Rambo when you're busy posing like that. Anyone who spends more than 30 seconds from Voodoo or his guys would learn very quickly how wrong that is.

"Kinda wish I had a camera for posterity."

And so she could see how the others would react. (They'd probably laugh their asses off.)

Voodoo rolls his eyes as she breaks down laughing, relaxing his stance and tapping the brim of the cap to bring it up a little higher on his head. "Everyone's a critic."

As he starts looking around the store for anything else they can take back:

"Better wear it while I can. Mother'll knock it off my head as soon as we make it back to the post office."

A beat.

"-it ain't that he don't like the Bruins. More like he's real strict on no covers indoors," he says, rapping the hat with his knuckles.

A flash of blue and red from beneath an overturned shelf catches his attention, and he gets down on one knee to move it. Beneath is a child's Red Sox hoodie - dusty, but intact.

"Here we go," Voodoo says, brushing it off as he stands back up. "Get 'em while they're young."

"You can always wear it when out in the field. I won't tell." Problem solved.

She cracks a smile at the sight of the hoodie. Personae non grata? Apparently not. "Heh. Look at how small it is! That's pretty cute." No doubt there's at least one kid back at the Post Office who would want that thing in a heartbeat. It isn't very warm. It wouldn't do much good against a blizzard in the heart of winter. But it's... enough.

A long pause. Then:

"...On a scale of one to ten, how evil would it be to make a trek to Yankee Stadium and stick that in the locker room?"

Probably at least one hundred.

Voodoo looks at Lindianne.

Then at the hoodie.

Then back to Lindianne.

"I'd wanna stick it in Clemens' or Jeter's."

He shrugs.

"But I'll settle for A-Roid's."

Echoing her:

"I won't tell if you don't."

A pause.

A very long pause.

Then, finally, with absolutely no concern whatsoever: "Eh, fuck it, it'll make for an interesting story if they ever play again. A-Rod's locker it is."

It's going to be a long trek, though. Across the entirety of Manhattan, across the river, to the stadium, and back. Mother would be having conniptions about it if he knew. Good thing he won't ever know.

"Shit, maybe we can finagle a ride in. You think that Staten Island chopper guy- what was his callsign, Judge? Think he'd give us a lift? We could always say it's for resupply purposes."

And nobody would ever ask twice.

He has to pause and think about that for a second - on the surface, it doesn't sound like such a good idea. Involving more people in a lie is a good way to get yourself tripped up and found out.

Then again, walking through 14 miles of quarantined Manhattan on foot doesn't sound so great, either. Not to mention the time involved - three hours there and back, just to fuck with Old Man Rodriguez's shit?

And so he shrugs, nodding his assent. "Fuck it, why not? I'll raise him on the AFO freq. We can be in the air inside 15 minutes."

(Mother, being a Senior Chief, is inhumanly fast when it comes to enforcing discipline and enacting punishments - but Voodoo's hoping they'll be gone before then. Whatever punishment he gets after they touch back down at Chelsea will be worth it.)

"See anything else you like?" he asks, nodding to the shelves of as-yet unclaimed apparel and gear. "Some of the kids might dig some equipment to keep them busy."

Whatever punishment is hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles will be worth it. How bad could it honestly be? (Very bad. Very very bad.)

It's better than crossing the island on foot and trying to cross the quarantine line. The JTF may be working with her on this, but there's no way they would let her go through without some serious checks up the food chain.

She busies herself with rifling through the remaining goods in the store. "Why not? Beats having them throw snowballs at people." Nothing quite like getting a face-full of powder to wake you up in the morning.

There's a mesh bag of baseballs sitting on one of the shelves. Lindianne shoves as many gloves as she can fit in it, along with two aluminum baseball bats. She looks ridiculous with everything strapped to her back.

Thank God for bungee cords.

"Let's hope he's got his bird gassed up."

"Guess we'll see."

Voodoo, for his part, stuffs a football or two in his pack - it wouldn't do to return empty-handed for the kids.

As they head back out onto the cold Manhattan streets, he keys his radio. "Judge Two-Two, Judge Two-Two, Neptune Four..."

True to Voodoo's words, they're in the air before anybody can stop them. For what it's worth, Judge doesn't ask questions - it would seem neither does his crew chief. There's the persistent whine of the engine permeating the interior as they lift and bank over Manhattan, heading north towards the Bronx.

"Far be it from me to question a Division agent," Judge says, not taking his eyes off the sky in front of them, "but I can't imagine what kinda supplies are still at Yankee Stadium for the taking."

"Double-checking just to make sure," Voodoo says, gently elbowing Lindianne. Play along. "Ain't that right, Parker?"

Morale boost. -No.

Raiding the place for concessions. -Hell no, that's stupid.

She shrugs one shoulder when Voodoo elbows her. "Hey, you never know," she adds on casually. "At the very least, you can't discount the morale it'd give the civilians to know the place is still standing. News about the Bronx is kinda hard to come by."

As in night-impossible. Nobody's talking about the other boroughs. Nobody's talking about Albany or Chicago or LA or Washington DC. Lindianne leans forward to emphasize the point.

"You get me, right?"

It isn't a terrible lie by any means. It's technically true. And she's had a lot of practice in lying about things.

Please buy it, please buy it, please buy it...

Judge shakes his head. "Can't say I do. But if you think it'll help, then who'm I to say no?"

(Silently, Voodoo gives Lindianne a thumbs-up.)

Manhattan races beneath them as they continue to head north - first the Empire State building, then Central Park and Broadway, all reduced to shells of their former selves by the pandemic.

"I can touch down in the outfield or you can fast-rope onto the bleachers. Your call."

"Take us down." Lindianne's already slung her pack back over her shoulder and is adjusting the load. Better to not make it too heavy. If she's going to have to run, it does her no good to limit her mobility. "But stick close. We'll make a quick sweep, snag what we can, and come back to the outfield for exfil."

The Empire State Building is dark. In Central Park, fires burn far below. Trenches criss-cross the park, filled with bundles. She turns her face away; she wants to remember the park as it was, not as a mass grave for the dead.

As they fly, she nudges Voodoo in the ribs. "If Mother kicks up a fuss, it was my idea," she hisses quietly.

One saving grace of this entire thing? She doesn't technically answer to Mother. She answers to Faye. So when they return, that should blunt whatever punishment Voodoo's CO might be cooking up.

Hopefully.

"Hey, if you say so."

Will he still get an asschewing? Definitely. Will he still get a taste of old-school Navy keelhauling? More likely than not. Will that keelhauling not be as bad as it could be?

One can hope.

(Does he plan on letting Lindianne take all the blame for it? Nah.)

Judge comes back to them. "Thirty seconds out." They're past Manhattan now, sweeping low over the Bronx. Yankee Stadium still stands - from up here, the structure looks intact, and as they sweep down over center field, even the bleachers are eerily clean. They're not spotless, but you'd think at least some Yankee fans would take advantage of all the chaos to nab some souvenirs. Still - the grass and the warning track are feeling the lack of TLC from a full-time groundskeeping crew.

As the helo flares for landing, Voodoo gets up and crouches at the door - then, the instant the helo sets down, he steps out, walking towards the bullpen in left field.

"Clear so far. If that didn't bring anybody running, I think we got the place to ourselves."

This is such a terrible idea.

As soon as they touch down, she's out the door right behind Voodoo. The rotor wash rustles the grass in center field. Dead grass and dust is kicked up into the air in an eye-stinging cloud. She coughs for a moment before setting off at a brisk walk.

"Looks like it." It's eerie. The park is always crowded during games. Seeing it like this, in the long quiet between post-season and Opening Day, it's not a pleasant feeling. (Hopefully enough people survived to ever play again.)

It's strange that no one's set up camp on the field or in the bleachers. The place feels huge enough to act as a forward base or a field hospital or- hell, even a weapons depot. but there's nothing. Nothing but them.

"At the very least, this'll be one hell of a story to tell. Won't it?"

No one's ever going to believe it. It's crazy. 'We took a chooper all the way to the Bronx just to annoy the Yankees with Red Sox gear' is too far-fetched.

And yet, here they are. Doing just that.

"It'd make for one hell of a Kodak moment."

If they still had Kodaks. Or cameras to spare, digital or otherwise.

It's an easy trot up to the bullpen, Rabbit's halligan jostling against the side of his pack. It, along with the rest of the field, looks like it's in need of a groundskeeping crew - with nobody to attend to it, the dirt around the practice mounds has clumped together in an unsightly scene. To their front is a nondescript door, solid blue in color.

"This must be it. Direct shot to the tunnels around the stadium. We just follow the signs for the clubhouse."

Voodoo tries it. Locked.

"-yup, figures."

He reaches around to take the halligan in both hands - then just as he's about to swing for the fences on the doorframe, he turns to Lindianne, hand held out in a fist.

"Rock-paper-scissors to bust the lock?"

A beat.

"You're serious. -Hell, why not?" She holds up her fist, grinning at him toothily. "But just know you're not winning."

Rock. Paper. Scissors.

When her fist comes down for the last time, it turns into her hand held flat. Paper. From her experience, most people tend to stick to rock right off the bat. It's a safe bet.

Rabbit would be laughing at them right now. Two adults standing in the bullpen playing rock-paper-scissors like a couple of little league kids trying to solve batting order.

Good thing she never played when she was younger.

Voodoo is known for many things. Originality and subtlety are not among them.

And so, true to Lindianne's intuition, he plays rock, groaning as she plays paper. "Bullshit."

But, to his credit, he doesn't protest beyond that as he clears the doorway to give space for her to do her work.

"Alright. Picks or hoolie?" he says, holding the halligan aloft.

That definitely gets a laugh. "Sucks to be you, Voodoo."

She hesitates for a moment before gesturing for the lockpicks. No sense in destroying everything just for the sake of a prank. "Gimme the picks. I got this."

Picking locks is standard training for all SHD agents. It's just difficult locating intact kits anywhere in New York right now.

Lindianne is focused while she tries to pick the lock. It's slow, methodical, precise work. But the moment the pins trip is the best feeling in the world. She grins. Standing up from her spot, she gently opens the door.

"After you," she says with a theatrical bow.

And, eyes-a-rollin', Voodoo enters. The door leads to a long white hallway, a tall navy blue stripe running in the middle on either side. A nearby sign indicates the clubhouse is straight ahead - though how far, it doesn't say.

"'s weird," Voodoo says. "End of the world, in the middle of Yankee central, you'd think somebody'd set up shop here. Surprised it ain't a field hospital or refugee camp."

Maybe it's paranoia talking, but...

"You think there's a reason folks stayed away?"

It's so quiet. It's bringing up unpleasant memories of the Dark Zone. If music starts playing, she's turning tail and running straight out to the outfield. Screw that.

"Maybe they didn't think of it?" The excuse sounds hollow to her own ears. They're a few yards down the hallway when something clangs in the distance. Lindianne pauses mid-step. "...Did you hear that?"

It wasn't the sound of the pipes freezing.

There's a long silence. Then, from down the hall, there are the echos of sneakers squeaking on bare concrete.

"Shit-! Guess we're not alone."

"Get behind me."

The corridors here are winding and full of blind spots - not the best place for the pig. He lets it drop across his chest as he draws his pistol. His steps are even and measured, slow yet swift.

"Didn't sound like a boot," he says. "Cleaners and LMB wouldn't run. Neither would Rikers."

He glances back at Lindianne. "You didn't lose contact with anyone here, did you?"

"No. All ours were in Manhattan."

She's pulled her own pistol from its holster. What she wouldn't give for her trusty rifle. But you can't solve problems by wishing for them.

Her steps are as slow and quiet as Voodoo's. No sense in provoking whoever or whatever is making that noise. She has her back pressed against the wall as she moves.

"Not any of them. They'd have to run the cordon." Break quarantine. Bring the chaos out of their tiny corner of the world and unleash it on the rest of New York City. If it hasn't already spread that far.

The eerie silence out there is proof enough that things have gone wrong in the wider world.

"A looter, maybe?" She peers around Voodoo to get a better view of the corridor. "Not groundskeepers."

The silence is long. Then, from one of the blind spots, a figure breaks from cover and runs down the hallway towards the clubhouse. It's a small figure in a sweatshirt three sizes too large for it. Its sneakers are in tatters and peeling away from the soles.

Lindianne pushes past Voodoo. "Holy shit, wait!"

The motion makes him draw up, but it's the size of the target that makes him pause.

"The fuck-

-Jesus Christ. A kid all the way out here in the Bronx. Just surviving day to day, probably on their own. How long's it been like this for them?

(And then he's chasing after the kid, hot on Lindianne's heels.)

"Hey! Hey, kid, wait up!"

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