Participants:
| Scene Title | Her Eyes Are Shining |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Searching for the document archive, Danielle finds Zoe instead. |
| Date | October 13, 2008 |
For whatever reason that Danielle decides to take a mosey into the building's archive, she can make her way in to what appears to be a giant warehouse area - slash workshop. There only seems to be one person here at the moment, a somewhat dowdy looking redhead in a much beloved and kind of rumpled beige sweater and pink dress with glasses on her nose. She's gently cradling what looks to be a Victorian era doll in her hands, her gaze distracted, as if she were trancing. Which may make sense once the liquid silver overcast currently coloring her eyes is seen.
Danielle comes into the building, and looks around. This wasn't what she was expecting when she asked about an archive. She was looking for books. Paperwork. Records. Not a big warehouse place. She draws closer, seeing the person there, though she hasn't seen the silver yet. "Excuse me, I might be in the wrong place…I was looking for records? Paper archives?"
Zoe doesn't move. She's still as the grave, as if she doesn't even see Danielle. Which she doesn't. Oh noes, maybe she's a corpse!
Except corpses rarely stay standing up. Dani reaches out to gently tap Zoe on the shoulder. "Excuse m — " That "muh" part would be as far as she got before she saw the eyes. She stares openly, waving her other hand in front of the mirrored orbs.
Zoe's fingers seem to loosely tighten and relax around the doll, so clearly she's alive. The tap prompts a blink, but whatever trance she's in? Still in it, yo.
THAT is just fascinating. The former reporter slides out a little digital camera from her handbag, snapping two quick shots; one of Zoe, one of the doll, before she slides it back away. She takes a look around the woman, seeing if there's any notes, paperwork…anything that might help explain the situation.
Zoe seemed to react with at least a flicker when Danielle tapped her. Maybe a more forceful effort will prompt a stronger reaction? The work spread around the woman is seems typical to the location — lot listings, archive notes, some memos, delivery slips. The name 'Zoe Porter' seems to be the frequent signature of acknowledgment.
Danielle makes sure to look for anything important BEFORE trying to rouse the woman. After all, she might not have the chance once she's awake. She's not sure if the silvery-eye thing is the result of woman or doll, and so she grabs her shoulder and shakes gently. "Hello?"
Zoe is shaken, and her eyelashes flutter some more. Her expression becomes confused, then almost irritated, but still entranced. Still, it seems Danielle is getting closer to an aware response.
Danielle considers. Hmm. Okay, Plan A didn't work. Try Plan B. She reaches out to start taking the doll away. Gently, since she doesn't want to break it, but she'll try to uncurl Zoe's hands from around it.
That's a little complicated. Every time Danielle gets one finger unfurled and moves on to the next, the previous one curls back into place. She'd have to break Zoe's fingers. This is weird.
Grr. Okay, that's frustrating. The brunette will clearly have to take stronger measures. She reaches up again, grabbing both Zoe's shoulders, and this time applying a more vigorous shaking. "Hey, you okay?" is asked, more loudly.
Rapid eye fluttering as her head waggles and her glasses slide down her nose. But — success! Those eyes become vaguely greenish and normal looking. "Oh!" says the woman. "Can I um, help you?" She winces a little — Danielle was gripping kind of hard. She gently puts the doll on the desk.
Well, it's a success. A creepy success, but a success. Dani takes a step back, looking at Zoe, a little disbelievingly. "Are you all right?" Cause most people don't exactly just go catatonic with mirror-eyeballs.
"Oh, I'm fine." Zoe says amicably. "I was just in the middle of watching the ball. A ball. You know. Big hoop dresses and dance cards and mint juleps. It was very exciting."
The brunette looks dubious. "There isn't any ball." She gestures around the decidedly non-ballroomy-room. And your eyes were all…" She swirls her fingers in front of her eyes. That means reflective, dontcha know?
"Oh, there was." Zoe assures the woman earnestly. "But it was in the nineteenth century." She gives Danielle a sympathetic look. "You're confused, aren't you?" There there, strange brown haired lady. "It's alright. I'm a psychometrist."
Dani blinks. "A psych — " Wait, she's heard that word before. Not in the correct context, of course. "You talk to ghosts?" She looks at the doll suspiciously, like it's going to turn into Chucky.
Zoe laughs. "Oh no! Not a medium! I can touch objects and see their past. Or at least, the pasts of those that touched the objects. This belonged to a little girl, she'd sat on the stairway and watched the ball before being shooed off the bed. Such a lovely memory." She sighs.
Danielle considers. That could have uses. LOTS of uses. Suddenly Zoe is a much more relevant person, rather than a narcoleptic nutjob. She smiles. "That sounds really interesting. I'd been looking for records…what kind of place is this? It isn't what I figured it'd be."
Zoe blinks a bit. "This is the New York City branch archive." she explains. I'm the curator here. The really excellent stuff is in the Las Vegas archive of course, but Uncle Daniel was kind enough to give me this position. I was going out of my head for something to do."
Danielle nods, and starts to ask something, and then the words catch up. "Uncle Daniel? You're Mr. Linderman's niece?" An owlish expression. Big, wide-eyes. This may require a rethinking of strategy.
"Well, I'm not blood related," Zoe blinks, "But I've known him all my life. And after my parents died, he became my guardian." Her smile is genuinely fond. She loves the scary old man.
Phew. The look of relief is almost tangible. "So if they don't keep the paperwork and information here, it must be somewhere else. So two good questions: Do you know where they keep the records, and what do they do here?" Curator implies museum, and that sounds odd.
"Oh," Zoe blinks. She blinks a lot, like she's perpetually confused. "Well, that's a different archive. You'll want documentation. I mean, I have some, but really, if you're looking for something later than say, World War II era, you'll definitely want documentation. This is where we house artifacts and atwork and such."
She nods. "Okay. Documentation, then. And yeah, most of it would be later than World War II." She also looks a little confused, though. "Why does he keep a museum?" It seems out of character for a mobster.
"Oh, Uncle Daniel's quite the collector." Zoe says earnestly. "I just think he has a passion for it. Of course, not everything here is aged. There's some pretty interesting modern pieces in here. Baseball cards, comic books, fairly recent works of art."
Danielle looks interested, now. Because she doesn't necessarily buy that this is a personal hobby. "Hmm. You probably have a database of some kind, to search through things? Or do you keep it all in your head?"
"Oh, of course there's a database." Zoe enthuses. She so rarely gets people interested in her work. "I still have to document the items housed here."
 October 13th: Natural History Meets Evolution |
 October 13th: It's All Relative |