[hr][h1][i][color=Gray]Quentin Taylor[/color][/i] and [i][color=dodgerblue]Lihua Vuhong.[/color][/i][/h1][sub][@Mr Allen J][/sub][hr]

Quentin had known it was coming one way or the other, getting out of that hellhole wouldn't have been an instant "get out of jail for free" ticket. NEST agents had flooded the place not too long after the one with the concrete powers had turned up and the ordeal with that... thing had left him exhausted. Everyone had been taken in for questioning and he'd been no exception, yet sooner or later [i]something[/i] suspicious about him was bound to pop up. He hadn't told them he was a Metahuman just yet, though. 

Part of him was uncertain of what awaited him, afraid. For years he'd dodged the government register, avoided having himself outed as "one of those people", partially out of fear of being labelled or placed on a list of people to be kept under tabs and partially because he was his own man, free from some kind of list. Part of him was consumed by... guilt? He'd seen things in that hellhole. Been made a part of them by those bastards. And now he was being questioned by the kind of organisation known for putting a leash on people with abilities like his, and he wasn't sure what to expect.

The door opened, and the NEST Agent who was doing the interview was Lihua Vuhong. Stepping in wearing a black pinstriped suit, with a red dressshirt that showed a bit of cleavage, and suit skirt that went down to her knees. She placed a steaming hot cup of coffee on the table in front of her, as she sat down, and crossed her legs underneath it. She looked at Quentin. Not saying a word as she reached and grabbed her cup of coffee.

"We're a little short handed at the moment, so I'm going to be questioning you about what happened...." Lihua trailed off as she took another sip of her coffee. She saw a little bit of him when she killed that monster. It didn't take a genius to note that he was apparently fighting it. But without a weapon? Quentin Taylor isn't registered with NEST, which is why they're testing his DNA. Thank God the Fiends didn't smash [i]all[/i] the machines. However, she wasn't going to be direct. Never be direct..

"Now... I'll ask you the usual questions. What did you see down there? What did they tell you? What did they do to you? And when were you taken?"

Quentin had filled out a vague cover story for himself, one that seemed believable at that "I'd just got back home from work and realised I'd forgotten to stop by the shop to get my bike checked out, so I figured I'd get it out of the way and drop it off and call a cab home."

"... And which shop is that?" Lihua asked. Hoping to find a correlation of some sort.

"Levi's Autos," he answered, plainly as could be. Getting caught in a lie would be costlier than if he gave them a convincing explanation for why his bike had been left outside the place.

This was interesting. Lihua quickly looked up the location on her datapad, and got the location, the owner, etc... Except, the owner was recently murdered. Alec Lebedev. Quite brutally. She looked a little bit more into it and his cadaver appeared mutililated by a animal of some sort. Alec Lebedev also had plenty of crimes under his belt, and was associated with a few crime rings. Dealing arms. Which made Lihua question how [i]close[/i] Quentin was to the group.

"...And are you aware he was murdered a few nights ago?"

"Murdered?" Quentin asked, arching an eyebrow. Even now, Quentin regretted the man's death, if only a little.

"Yes. I'll spare you the details... It wasn't pretty." Lihua turned the datapad off, and put her hands back on the table. This is something NEST will definitely have to look into. "Now, continue with your story."

"Can't remember much after that except those people - the ones running that place your people pulled us out of - they jumped me at gunpoint, dosed me with something potent. One of them was some crazy bitch, uh... I never heard a name. Other one there was that big bastard, the thing you smashed with a chunk of concrete.."

"Hmmmm...." Lihua thought for a moment. Other interogations with the scientists has brought up the woman who infiltrated the NEST Base. It was a stretch, but maybe this was the same one? She pulled the photo of Heartbreaker one of the cameras got out of her suit, and put it on the table. 

"Is this the woman?" Lihua asked.

Quentin took a couple moments to match the photos to the brief glimpses he'd got of the woman whilst being held up at gunpoint, before he finally nodded, "Yeah, that's her."

Lihua pulled the picture away. Okay, she was with the Hands of Science, but [i]who[/i] is she? The second Lihua finds out, there isn't anywhere she can hide where NEST can't find her.

"Anyway," he continued, clearly disconcerted at the notion of recalling the events that had transpired in the lab, "First thing I could remember after that was someone in a doctor's coat looming over me. It was.... surreal, I guess, like being someone's personal snuff movie. Guy had an accent that was strange, too, can't put it down.... European? I guess that's what it was, something like that."

[i]"You're our newest asset, Quentin Taylor. You're going to be doing much work for us..."[/i] was what he'd said, and he kept his word. Quentin remembered what they'd made him do in that fucking hellhole and with every word he spoke his tone became disgusted, angry. "He knew my fucking name, of all things. Where I lived, the contractor I work for, even my fucking family!"

One thing that Lihua could understand was his anger. She had a similar anger inside of herself that they took her daughter like she was some dog on the street. She was more capable of controlling her anger, and directed it towards bringing down the organization. However, Quentin's anger only got in the way of the interview (Which meant she couldn't get as much useful information out of him). 

"Simmer down. Would you like something to drink before we continue? Coffee? Water?"

Quentin stopped himself from going any further and took a deep breath. "Water would be appreciated, please." He couldn't recall the last time he'd drank something that didn't taste like the lining of the pipes leading into that cell.

Lihua raised her finger, and a NEST Agent behind the door peaked in for a moment. "Cup of water, please." The Agent closed the door, before she came back a minute later with a cup of water. Which she handed to Lihua, and Lihua handed it to Quentin. "Here you go." She said, before Quentin continued.

Finally, he began again "Look, I want to help you. I saw the things they did to people inside that place and I can't get any of it out of my head."

[i]That's the sign of trauma, of course.[/i] Lihua thought to herself as Quentin spoke about what happened. She wished to help him [i]only[/i] so that she could get more information out of him. She was no therapist, and didn't intend on trying to be one. She was wondering if she should show him the picture of Berlioz after... someone did work on him.

"Now..." Lihua said as she reached into her suit again. She slipped out a picture of Berlioz, taken from the morgue. A blue sheet had covered him, and covered the wounds done to his neck. However, it showed the nasty injuries to his head. "Is this the man? We've identified him as Berlioz Auxere, he was murdered by one of the escapees who we're trying to sort out."

"Yeah," Quentin answered coldly, recognising the corpse almost immediately. Seeing him dead gave him little joy, save for the relief that the bastard wouldn't be coming back to haunt him.

Now that she had her question answered, she pulled the photo back, and put it back in her suit. Personally, she was just stalling at this point for the Jarheads to come back with the test results. She already knew what happened after he escaped, she was just confirming a few things before she got to the real questions. 

"Now, can you tell me how you escaped, and what happened afterwards." She asked, continuing with the story.

"Two girls found me in a cell, locked up. The one you knew, your d-," he stopped himself from getting personal out of some unspoken form of respect (Which Lihua appreciated), "The one with the water abilities broke me out. They were carrying another girl with them who was out of it, given an even stronger dose than they gave me." Meifeng said she'd been experimented on, yet Quentin had been made no part of it.

"Anyway, we headed out when the big one turned up, whilst at the other end we had these other.. things, turning up. Don't know what they were but they weren't human. One of the girls, the other one - she got attacked. It was a mess, shit.." Things had progressed so quickly, it had felt like a literal blur.

Recalling his fight with the Nemesis, he'd no idea how to explain the situation save that he'd probably been running on adrenaline at the time. "The big one attacked me, tried to smash me against the wall. Can't remember much after that, other than that you turned up and smashed it with a chunk of concrete."

Lihua was already fully aware of what happened. Though, standard for such situations, everyone had their own version of the story, and others noted things that others missed. Lihua took a sip of her coffee, and wondered if those [i]jarheads[/i] would get finished with the test already. Things might be broken, but she couldn't continue to stall much longer.

"Understood." Lihua said, leaning forward, and wrapping her fingers around each other.

Someone walked up to the door, and started knocking on it. The Agent from before opened up the door with a hand full of papers. The Agent leaned in and whispered, "Here are the results...." and Lihua and the NEST Agent exchanged papers. 

[i]Good. This will decide whether or not this was a waste of my time.[/i] Lihua thought to herself as she raised a finger, telling Quentin, "Hold on for a moment..." 

The papers showed information on Quentin, name, date of birth, residence, and that sort of information. However... there was a stamp on the bottom of the papers under the testing informative.

[i]POSITIVE.[/i]

Half-smirking, Lihua put the papers on the table facedown, and slid them up to Quentin. "Read this, and politely explain it..." She was interested to see his reaction, and what he had to say to it.

Somehow, deep down in his gut, Quentin had seen this coming. Reading through the test papers, he wound up staring blankly at them for another minute. It was all there. Where he'd been born, his brother, his mom... even the certificates to indicate that Uncle Cass had become his legal guardian when she died... and they knew. Knew he was one of 'those' people. A [i]Metahuman[/i]. It felt like a part of him had just disappeared in a snap. His face suggested he seemed resigned to whatever fate awaited him. Shit. 

"What do you want me to explain?" He finally asked, wondering how she'd react to that.

"You aren't registered." Lihua stated blankly. "You should just come clean, and just tell me what your power is." Depending on how he answered, Lihua would have a [i]new[/i] opportunity for him.

"And if I do? Do I even get a guarantee that I'm not going to end up in the same place as before, dragged off to some hidden facility?" He was no fool. He knew what it'd entail if he did confess.

He had a valid concern, and even if she did try to reassure him, it'd only be her word. Lihua sighed deeply. "... Do you take us for butchers like the people who took you?" She asked, blankly. "I shouldn't be telling you this early, but... we have a deal in place for you should you cooperate. A deal that should protect you, and your family, from the likes of those monsters. [i]That[/i] is your guarantee." 

"I get that in writing?" He asked again.

"We [i]are[/i] formal, after all. I'll have that Agent get the paperwork, now." Lihua raised her finger in the air, and the NEST Agent (from behind the mirror, of course) nodded her head and grabbed the paperwork for the desk that wasn't too far away.

"You'll get your answer when it's here." He finally answered, knowing his options were limited. 

It wasn't long before she came around, and handed Lihua the paper work, and a couple pens. Before she shoved it in Quentin's face, she figured that she should just say, "Verthaven's NEST branch is very short handed right now, and we're going on a bit of a "recruitment drive"...." She trailed off as she put the paperwork on the table, and slid it over to Quentin. "If you join NEST, we will keep you and your family safe. This will be preferable to jail time, if you value your freedom." 

Quentin took his time to read through the paperwork, taking care to look through the smaller sections of print when they came up. It checked out, more or less. Just for good measure, he read through it again before he finally nodded, ready to sign. 

She pointed at the line that said "Sign". "Just sign here." and handed him a pen.

After a moment's contemplation, he signed his name across the line. No going back now.

"You want to know what I can do?" He arched an eyebrow, before continuing "I can take other people's powers and use them." His answer was blunt and to the point.

"Power Replication....?" Lihua said, her eyes were more focused on the papers he signed. "... You'll be a great addition to NEST." She added on. Now, her job here was one. She raised her finger in the air one last time, and the NEST Agent came in.

"Quentin has accepted our offer." Lihua said to her as she got up, grabbing her cup of coffee. "I have other business to attend to." 

"Oh Good." She said, facing Quentin. "If you'll come with me, I'll get you all sorted out..."