Participants:
| Scene Title | DIY, Star Wars, and Memories |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | While various members of Phoenix demonstrate ever-easier ways to perform DIY, conversation ranges over various topics… |
| Date | January 19 2009 |
On the outside, this sprawling multi-level complex has not seen use in many years, its walls covered in greenery and stone exterior and glass windows showing evidence of disrepair. Surrounded by a chain link fence, a drive leads from the street to a large dock, and around the back one can expect to find more sprawling greenery that eventually leads to a concrete drop off into the Atlantic Ocean.
Passing through the chainlink fence and into the dispensary will reveal that the aged and crumbling outside is a facade. The loading dock is kept clear for the most part of everything save vehicles and supplies, though a section has been quartered off and transformed into an open workshop. The dispensary itself has been transformed into something akin to a makeshift dormitory, complete with common areas, a sizable kitchen and eating area, with various rooms converted into bedrooms for the residence. One room has even been set up as a makeshift clinic, amply stocked with supplies.
The back lawn and garden of the dispensary is surprisingly well tended, green and lush during the right months. Vegetables have been planted in accordance to season closer to the building, though someone has indulgently planted a plots of flowers - notably sunflowers - here and there. Further out, the ground drops a little and makes it to a concrete edge from which opens out into deeper water of the Atlantic.
Though the Dispensary is indeed open for business as it were, Conrad still has work to do around the place. He's currently on a step ladder in the main first floor hallway tapping the screws to install a mounting bracket high on the wall. This'll be where one of the security cameras is mounted, though at this point he's just putting the bracket up. Shamelessly abusing his ability to control sound, he revs up the power drill and dampens it with a thought, making the otherwise shrill scream of metal biting through wood totally mute. In fact he's humming a little tune to himself as he drills.
The tune is Metallica's Enter the Sandman.
Ygraine arrived at the Dispensary some few minutes ago, but has spent the time since then working her way out of the dayglo all-weather gear she wore to ride here through the falling snow. Her motorcycle's panniers have been dipped into for footwear not caked in the polluted slush kicked up off the roads, and - now clad in monochrome flamboyance rather than the garish glare of high visibility roadwear - paces curiously into the building, peering around quizzically.
Though if he were trying under the right circumstances Conrad could hear Ygraine's heartbeat from a mile away, he's rather focused on what he's doing so her arrival isn't popping up on his radar at the moment. He keeps jamming to the tune that is mostly in his mind, making a mental effort to keep the drill silent and to NOT let his ability blast and boom the actual sounds in his head throughout the building. Because Metallica puts on a very loud show. The drill is finished with and put down, and then he gets the bracket and holds it up to make sure he tapped the holes correctly. So far, so good.
Ygraine pokes her nose into open doorways, but for the moment resists the temptation to try anything that's been left closed. Lacking the sound of the drill to guide her, she progresses slowly through the rather eerily quiet building, lingering briefly at a window to admire the drifting snow.
There's still the humming going on, which gets interrupted necessarily as Conrad works on tapping the plastic anchors into the wall so the screws will have a good purchase. That's not muted, so there's the required tap tapping of that, and then he gets to actually affixing the bracket using a screw and washer on each hole.
And then the drill falls to the floor with a loud crack. "Shit." Because that might've broken the drill. It was up on the ladder with Con.
That clatter does catch Ygraine's attention. Moving a little quicker, she rounds the corner - and cocks her head, the scene painting a seemingly clear picture of what just happened. "Would you, ah, like a hand?", she somewhat cautiously asks the stranger, though her accent might provide him with her own identity.
Looking over his shoulder, hand still up on the bracket, screws sticking out of his mouth (because that's a handy way to hold them), Conrad apparently knows who he's looking at because he goes back to what he's doing and his voice comes (incidentally as if there were nothing in his mouth) "Oh hi. Ygraine, right?" Probably he's seen her around or has been told about her. "I'm done with the drill. Just hope I didn't break it. Not much else you can do unless you wanted to climb on my shoulders up here."
Ygraine blinks slowly, frowning a touch in response to the apparent ventriloquism. "I think I'll pass on that", she says with a slight smile. "But what did you need done up there?"
"Oh, just installing a camera bracket. What's up? You come looking for a place to stay?" Because that's one of the Dispensary's main purposes, after all. Conrad seems rather casual about the idea. He decides to do a little explaining on the camera thing. "We're gonna have all the hallways and the grounds monitored by cameras and the feed will go into a monitor room upstairs. So we can have just a couple of people cover the entire place visually."
Ygraine chuckles softly, shaking her head. "I'm not rolling in money, but I do well enough. Have you finished with what you're doing, or would you like the process made a little easier?"
"Still gotta put three screws in." Con says, glancing over his shoulder again. "Be my guest if you have an idea."
The front door opens, and through it comes she who is called Cat. A few steps are taken, and with them the door closes behind her. She adjusts the guitar case over one shoulder and the backpack carried across the other, then taps the soles of her winter boots to knock light snow off of them before she moves inward to seek Conrad. Gloved hands settle into the pockets of her heavy coat after brushing back the hood of it and the sweatshirt she wears under it.
Ygraine stalks over, crouching to pick up the drill and give it a quick whirr to confirm it still functions - before casually stepping onto the wall and walking up it. As she does so, gravity appears to shift, her hair and clothing hanging quite naturally even though she's now perpendicular to the ground. Drawing level with Conrad, she quirks a rather impish little smile, and holds out one hand. "Screws, please."
Con takes a moment to stare at Ygraine and puts the screws in his hand. The potential for various ways to misuse that ability of hers is staggering. Then he hands them over. "Screw my bracket, baby." he says with a grin. Then he just kind of leans on the top of the ladder to watch.
They're both in the first floor hallway doing this at one of the ends, so Cat ought not to have much trouble locating them.
This is new. Cat finds the two easily enough and sets down her gear, then watches with interest. Should they look down they'll spot her, but for the moment she simply observes and records.
Ygraine snorts faintly at the comment, but cracks a grin and smoothly sinks into a crouch, proceeding to screw the bracket firmly into place - applying pressure straight "down" making the process rather easier, quite apart from her lack of need for a ladder. For Conrad, the view's probably odd enough - but Cat can see the entire scene from top to bottom. It'd probably be a rather memorable, even for someone with a wholly mundane memory.
For Conrad the view is about watching a cute English girl crouch on the wall and finish a chore for him. "I got about a dozen more of these to do and then the cameras oughta be here in two days so I'll go around installing after that." Then there's one of those moments where he feels watched, so Con looks behind him and down and sees a Cat lurking there. "Hey. Where the hell'd you come from?" he asks good naturedly.
"From Manhattan," Cat deadpans with a slight grin. "Before that, New Haven, Hartford, and Mother's womb. She does have one, despite being made of frost otherwise." One shoulder leans against the wall as the recording continues. Not that it wouldn't, with her eyes open and all. Inwardly she grins a bit more widely and considers offering to buy the cameras directly so he won't have to wait, but it occurs to her she already has, at least in part. Technopaths and their usefulness. "Hello to you too, Conrad. And good to see you, Debater."
Ygraine peers around as well, flashing a somewhat sheepish grin. "Hello up there", she says with a wink. "It's good to see you." Glancing back to Conrad, she shrugs faintly. "And sure, I can help you with the others - fancy doing a bit of wall-walking yourself? I can let you step over, if you want."
"Nah," Con says in response to Yggy with a grin, "it'd lose its magic if I joined you. Better just to watch you and visualize things." Things which may not be entirely wholesome either. But that's okay. He doesn't even bother looking at Cat at this point, simply replying, "You're being awfully catty. Wassup with you, Kitty, bored and looking to talk?"
"I'm always a Cat, never a kitten, Conrad," she chides. Eyes continue to rest on the pair not standing on floor with her. "I think you've got something for me." Her voice changes tones, to one a bit more subdued. "I've got something to cover with you too, Debater."
Ygraine finishes drilling the third screw into place, then shifts position a touch, forearms resting on her thighs. She seems to opt not to respond to Conrad's comment about visualising, instead focusing upon Cat. "You do?", she asks curiously. "In private, or…?"
Without a moment's hesitation Conrad says, "Gotcher claws down in the loading dock right now, Cat. They came in last week. Take your pick and leave the rest, and I'll see that they're used responsibly." He accompanies this with a point down the hallway toward where the back loading dock is. By way of being on the subject, he asks Ygraine, "You looking for weapons?"
"It's not terribly private, no," Cat answers. "Sometime after we pull off the big job, I'm planning a bit of ritual at the highest point of a bridge, just because the bridges are still there." The eyes move over to the man. "Thank you." She slides into a sitting position and pulls out some printed material, starting to read it.
Ygraine blinks at Conrad, then once again gets distracted by Cat. She winces slightly, then offers the woman a rather relieved look. "I'm glad", she says gently, before hastily refocusing upon less directly emotional matters. "Weapons? I, ahhh, no. No, I'm not. I'm scared enough of what I can do in hand to hand combat without adding to my lethality. And as a Brit, I'm afraid that I tend to regard gun-ownership or use in a different light to many over here. Normally I'd bend your ear with a lecture about non-violent options… but I'm aware of what we're presently facing. Or at least as much as is in the Catabase."
There's a dismissive wave toward Ygraine and Conrad says simply, "Don't worry about it. I don't carry weapons either, just thought I'd ask. And if you start lecturing me I'd just mute you." He grins and starts climbing down the ladder. This particular job's done.
"I'm not big on monarchy," Cat replies, "you should join the 21st Century and throw out the practice. I'm not in favor of limiting weapons either. Limiting weapons means people fear government agents, rather than being feared, and have no means to throw them off when they need to. But there's one British practice I totally agree with. Disarmed police. That should be the rule everywhere."
Ygraine quirks a wry smile at Cat. "Enter the 20th century and abandon the corruption and delay of grand juries; the 19th, and get over making a fuss about Jewish politicians; the 17th, and let people who win the election take the office. Disarming the population was a process begun in the 15th century, and even now, Britain's vastly less violent than anywhere - save Canada - on this side of the Pond. And for myself, I'd far rather have a powerless figurehead monarch who serves well as a symbol of unity and a chief of the executive wholly open to criticism rather than the cult of personality that surrounds the office of the President here. All the most socially cohesive and caring societies are constitutional monarchies, y'know - the Scandinavian trio, Belgium, the Netherlands…" she responds with a teasing grin, before nodding to Conrad. "Glad to hear it. Very glad. D'you want to tackle those other brackets while I'm up on the wall?"
Alexander comes skulking in, looking rather weary and disgruntled with the world. "I can help, you know," he offers, without preamble, once he's observed just what they're up to.
Conrad kind of stands and stares at this for a moment. "Political arguments are for douchebags." he declares simply and without a hint of shame, then says to Alex, "I'm gonna go pull some wire in the monitor room for a bit, dude. Can you get the camera bracket mounted on the other end of the hall?"
She doesn't look up from her reading material, but does display a slight grin at the British accented reply. "You still need to change the tradition so the eldest child of the sitting figurehead is the heir, regardless of gender." And there's another person. "Al," Cat greets.
Ygraine glances up - or across, given her current perch high on one wall - and studies Al for a moment, before frowning at Conrad. He's mutely offered the return of his drill, the insult and lack of response to her own offer of assistance apparently terminating _that_ working relationship for the moment.
"Can do," Al says, utterly unconscious of whatever previous agreements. "Hey, y'all," he says, casting an eye over those gathered. No Helena, no Teo. Which is…for the best, really, these days.
Gamely Con holds out a hand to take the drill from Ygraine and says, "Thanks, Princess." with no ire at all. Then he passes it to Al and says, "I'll be upstairs."
"So Dr. Ray put us in a grouping, Al," Cat states. "I want to find Minea Dahl at some point before things go live, so I know who she is." Her eyes remain on the printed material, not the least bit of acknowledgment given to Conrad and his insulting declaration. If there's a safe place to fire weapons out here, she'll find it without him, and as to the weapons themselves, she's already memorizing all she could find on them.
Ygraine rises from her wall-mounted crouch and walks down to the floor, stepping onto it without pause. She remains silent, frowning a touch in bewilderment as she watches Conrad depart.
It's always like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, when Al gets to work. He merely looks at the drill, which soars up to the proper height, and starts working on its own. He nods absentedly to Cat. "What've we got on her thus far?" he wonders, clasping his hands behind his back, a sort of unconscious approximation of parade rest.
"Not much. She's someone Teo recruited," Cat answers. "I saw the name when I looked over Dr. Ray's updated teams."
Ygraine's frown deepens at mention of those. "I was somewhat surprised to see that my name appeared", she confesses. "Brian, I've met - but the others, I've not even heard of."
Al grunts, as the drill bores into the wall. It doesn't seem to be costing him too much by way of effort. "I don't know much about her myself. We'll have to track her down. Best ask Teo." He sounds oh so enthusiastic about that.
"Well," Cat replies quietly, "I doubt it'll take that much work, actually. There's the big meeting on Friday, she should hopefully be there." Her eyes remain on the printed material, a page is turned.
Apparently a third wheel to this conversation, Ygraine dithers for a moment then steps over to Cat, bending down to plant a quick peck atop her hair. "Take care of yourself", she murmurs before straightening up. "I'll go and explore some more", she says quietly, nodding to Al as she moves to head further into the building.
Alexander glances back over his shoulder. "Nice place, innit?" he says, cheerfully, before nodding at Cat. "Teo and his talent for dragging in all and sundry, huh?"
Her eyes close at the contact atop her head, and one hand reaches up to touch digits if possible. "You too, Debater. I've also got someplace to show you, Jennifer will tell you about it, if she hasn't already." Cat doesn't elaborate. Her next words go to Al, along with a nod, she not commenting on her possible part of the funding involved in securing it. "He found us some allies. The more the merrier for this grim party." And back to the Briton. "Do you really need to go?"
Ygraine allowed the finger-to-finger contact, moving her own hand to brush against Cat's, and mustered a slightly weak smile in response to Alexander's comment. Cat's last words bring her to a halt a few paces further down the corridor, part-turning to cock her head, offering the woman a rather quizzical, slightly sorrowful look. "I can stay if you would like me to", she says gently.
Alexander watches the interchange with a curiously gentle expression - for just a heartbeat or two before he feigns absorption in his work "Yeah. Talk about a dead man's party," he opines, before hovering up screws to where they might be useful.
"We're going to pull it off," Cat states, her eyes still on the page a bit longer. She won't hear of defeatism or doubt. Then she sets the pages aside to look at the British one. "Please," she answers. "I'm thinking to collect what Conrad got, they'll add to the forty caliber and the M16 I got a while back from the library, and practice what the books said about their operation."
"I've not got much to offer to a discussion of weaponry", the Briton points out quietly, albeit with a wry smile. She does, however, remain that short distance down the corridor - though she folds her arms, leans over to prop one shoulder against the wall, and crosses her legs at the ankle.
Alexander's smile shifts from fond to smug. Ooh, weapons. "I want my old AK," he says, sounding a touch mournful, a little regret in his voice. Cat gets a nod. "We gotta," he says, simply. And then adds, not entirely sequitur, "I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home, and they're not much more than two meters."
"I found a place in Greenwich Village," Cat states, "called the Rock Cellar. It's the basement of an apartment building. I may play there from time to time," she informs, turning the topic away from weapons for a moment. It takes her a bit longer to process something Al said. The last line. "That's from Star Wars."
Ygraine snorts and chuckles at Al's comment, then offers Cat a warmer smile. "It is, yes. I'm glad to discover that the nerdish tendencies extend somewhat further than just myself and Jennifer. And I suspect that you might see me there from time to time, Cat."
"I'll come by," Al offers, almost shyly, with another over the shoulder glance.
"I made a point to watch it about three years ago," Cat states with a grin. "All of the ones that were out then." Which means she can watch it again anytime and anyplace she wants. Panmnesia rules sometimes. Well, a lot of the times. She gets up and slips the printed matter into her pack, then leans against the wall again.
Ygraine smiles once more, this time to Al, then ducks her head to Cat. "Is there anywhere in here to make oneself a hot drink? Or should I bring a kettle and supplies with me next time I visit?"
Alexander murmurs, quietly, "I think there's a hotplate down the hall…"
"There's a decent sized kitchen and eating area," Cat replies, gesturing toward it with her head. "I'm sure Stormy keeps it stocked well. With hot chocolate too."
Ygraine giggles at that last comment, momentarily poking her tongue out at Cat. "Fancy joining me for a cup of something, then…?" she suggests to the pair of them.
"Soon's I'm done, I be along," Al says, still oddly shy.
"Yes," Cat answers with a brisk nod. She gathers up her gear and heads for the kitchen. There will be firearms practice later, for now the order of business is heated chocolate drink and conversation.
Ygraine nods to Al, sparing him another momentary look of mild confusion, before smiling to Cat and falling into step beside her, offering a playful wink. "Being remembered for liking cocoa's not a bad thing, I suppose."
 January 19th: Our Lady Of The Capricious |
 January 19th: Everyone has Limits |