Girls, Interrupted

Participants:

ygraine_icon.gif sara_icon.gif m_alex_icon.gif

Scene Title Girls, Interrupted
Synopsis Ygraine and Sara chat martial arts and then "Alex" (Mortimer) makes quite an entrance. Cop-calling ensues.
Date July 1, 2010

Coco's Boxing Gym

The gym's been around so long that no one knows who Coco was. Legend has it that he was an ex-mobster or some grizzled former POW. Either story would fit with the general atmosphere of the place. This is not a trendy location that offers yoga, pilates and spin classes. The gym is grimy, run-down, perpetually smells of sweat and full of well-worn, mostly manual equipment. It offers a wide selection of weights, a wall full of bikes, an area for martial arts training and a boxing ring towards the rear of the space.

Despite its lack of modern equipment, the space is almost always busy. It has a reputation for hiring serious trainers for both weight and boxing training. A world welterweight champion once trained here, and his picture hangs over the desk. Anyone who is serious about their training would feel comfortable here.


The weather is relatively nice, so Sara has the front door propped open. That makes it easier for the Gym's usual assortment of stray cats to wander in and out as they choose — oh, and for other visitors as well. At the moment, Sara is perched on a stool behind the well-worn counter of the Gym. She's taping a makeshift splint to the underside of one of her wrists, focused on wrapping the roll of tape around without too many creases.

Though the world outside is blessedly cool compared to the past few days, the interior of the battered old gymnasium welcomes visitors with a heady mix of potent aromas. Nose and lips wrinkling a touch as the wave of old scents hits her, Ygraine bounces through the front door and glances around.

Focusing upon Sara, she moves closer, the soft soles of her boots near-soundless on the floor as she studies the wrapping process underway - though she seems not to want to interrupt.

Sara glances up with a somewhat blank expression for just a second as she realizes she doesn't recognize this person, then she breaks into a standard-issue smile. "Hey," she addresses, since the Gym is basically empty right now. "Welcome. Can I help you with something?" Belatedly realizing something as she holds the tape roll aloft, she adds, "Um, or actually… could you help me for a second if you would, cut this please?" There's a pair of scissors on the counter, but she doesn't want to drop the tape.

Ygraine cracks a swift grin, stepping forward to pick up the scissors. "Sure. It's always easier to have a hand with that sort of thing", she says, her accent unmistakably originating on the far side of the Pond. Bending over the wrist to line up the cut as neatly as possible, she pensively bites her lower lip.

"Mmmm. There. And yes, quite possibly", she responds, smiling as she straightens up. "I was wanting to find out a bit more about the classes offered here."

"You have good timing, walking in to rescue me right as I need scissoring," Sara declares with a smaller smirk. "I mean, the cats are smart, but they surely wouldn't bother. So, thanks." She holds her wrist still and leaves a good length of tape to snip, catching the stray end before it falls. Folds back the last couple millimeters so it'll be easy to peel later, and smooths it down. "Classes eh? Hmm. Well, it is a /boxing/ gym so we've got classes for different styles of boxing, of course. And we offer some other classes too… lemme see, there's a flyer here somewhere." She hops down off the stool and ducks under the counter for a moment, taking the tape with her, rummaging around. From below, she notes, "It's out of date, though. Our mixed-martial-arts guy Carlos only just called me back, haven't seen him in person since before the snow. He said he might have a buddy interested in teaching some other martial arts too…"

"I've been studying savate - or French kick-boxing, as it's often known over here", the Briton explains, leaning forward again to rest her forearms on the counter. "Was considering either trying to find a second teacher - to get some more variety - or perhaps branching out a little."

Savate? Sara raises her eyebrows to just above counter level, but it's more of a clueless expression than anything judgemental. "Huh! French? What, like… what was it called… Brotherhood of the Wolf?" Another smirk, then she says, "Oh wait no, that was supposedly some Native American sort of capoeira, wasn't it…" She gives up on looking for flyers, deciding as she stands up, "I guess I'll have to print some new ones." Then finally gets around to saying, "I'm Sara Claremont, by the way. This is my family's gym. Nice to meetcha."

The Briton cracks a broad, swift grin. "Gregoire, the French lead, uses savate in Brotherhood of the Wolf. And the Transporter's fighting style is heavily based on it - with Hollywood additions. It crops up in a few other places, but… I'm impressed you could think of anything connected to it."

A momentary pause, then offers her off-hand to shake Sara's uninjured side. "Ygraine. Nice to meet you."

Sara can shake with that hand, sure. Why not? She doesn't do any macho/facho hand-crunch though, just a normal confident handshake once she adjusts for mirroring. Her face lights up as Ygraine confirms Sara was basically on the right track. "Oh, awesome. I'd love to see you in action some time! Do you free-spar at all, or mostly study theory? Not that there's anything wrong with that." Then she admits, "I couldn't remember the real French title, what is it — Pack of Loops or something?" She knows she's saying it wrong but whatever, maybe it'll be amusing. "I'm more of a Mark Dacascos fan myself, but the French guy was great. He goes through the whole flick and then suddenly whips out this sort of secret badassitude. Highly amusing."

Ygraine cracks a broad, swift grin. "I'm very impressed", she says, sounding as if she means it, before providing a smoothly fluent burst of French. "Le Pacte des Loups. And yes, I love it - the visuals as well as the bad-assery…. As for sparring? Ummm, sure. Soft contact only - I can't afford to break anything, since I ride a bike for a living, and kind of need all four limbs working. But if you promise not to laugh, I can show you what little I've got."

Sara holds up her currently-unhappy wrist, waves it vaguely toward the empty ring off to one side of the gym, and recommends, "Don't be an idiot about it like I sometimes am. I can never turn down temptation even when I'm already banged up!" Not that she actually seems bothered at all. "Today, definitely not. I mean no sparring anyway. If you wanna show off some practice moves though, go for it!" She continues on by way of explanation, "Last week a fella, what was his name… Richard something? Came in and said he was rusty, then proceeded to show me just how rusty *I* got during the snow break. It was fun but, ouch. And Doc is MIA. Heheheh. … so, bike courier, then? Must be nice to finally get the roads clear."

Mortimer has arrived.

"Ouch! And yeah… though I managed to miss the worst of it, I admit. Got out just before it was impossible to do so. Returned a couple of weeks ago", the Briton says with a smile, darting a glance further into the gym.

"Hmmm. Want me to beat up a dummy, or do some free-standing work?"

Sara is standing behind the counter chatting with Ygraine, gesturing toward the ring with one splint-taped hand. The front door here is propped open since the weather's nice, to allow the Gym's various stray cats to wander in and out — oh, and to let other visitors in as well.

Sara looks unnecessarily happy about what Ygraine's saying. "Hey, it's your show, lady's choice. If you're good, maybe you should be teaching some folks here instead of the other way around — it's such a fun-looking martial art after all! Bet you'd get some takers." Her expression gets more serious then, as she says, "Smart move with the rapid evac. I'm sure you heard how bad it got. Lotta digging folks out of snowbanks. I'm still looking for some of my employees." Then, perhaps to lighten things again, "Though the cats seem to all be accounted for."

Ygraine laughs softly. "I… brought some kit with me, on the motorcycle", she says, jerking a thumb towards the open doors. "But I wasn't at all sure if I'd need it. D'you want me to get changed, or just give you a quick demonstration as I am?"

Having slept in his car all night, and completely unable to drive, he's been walking for most of the morning, holding his arm. Alex is wearing a black suit, jacket unbuttoned with a flowing black tie over his white shirt. He pushes the door of the gym open, ignoring the two women as he unbuttons his shirt and pulls both it and the jacket off, tossing them on a bench. What he revealed is a clockwork robotic left arm that extends from his fleshy elbow, the bronzed arm sparking and twitching with a piece of shrapnel stuck in the outer parts of it.

"Shit…" he mutters as his eyes turn silvery, and he begins to inspect the damage after sitting next to his shirt and jacket.

Again, Sara shrugs. "Whatever you're up for would be great, seriously. Uh. But you might not wanna leave your stuff out on your cycle, regardless… The neighborhood isn't horrifying or anything," from her perspective, "But it never hurts to keep your loot with you." And… a nother visitor! And… so much for the neighborhood-isn't-horrifying theory. "Uh, whoa, shit dude. Doc's MIA. You banged up uhhh, meatwise?" That fancyfied steampunk arm draws a good stare from Sara, though she wouldn't know the word 'steampunk' per se. As a distinct afterthought, she wonders and/or offers, "Fire extinguisher?"

Ygraine stares, jaw dropping for a moment, before she exhales a short stream of rapid-fire French. "What the fricking Hell?"

Shaking her head in apparent disbelief, she switches to English. "Might as well offer a dilithium crystal", she says dryly. "Bloody Hell."

"I need tools, watches, and clocks. Maybe a toaster if you have one." Alex requests, looking over at them with silvery eyes, then back down to his twitching arm. "Someone bombed an Evolved registration thing yesterday. That's the last time I'll trust an ice cream man." he shakes his head, then quickly grabs the shrapnel and tosses it to the floor, which causes his fingers to suddenly straighten, and stay that way.

Sara tries to take this in stride, but this is pretty far out of her realm of expertise. "You uhhh, some kinda technopath?" she inquires as if she doesn't entirely expect a response. She's still staring just to kind of confirm that that arm is actually stumped off at the elbow, considering those fingers just moved. "I… have… uh, a toolbox…" With an uneasy look to Ygraine, she ducks back down behind the counter to rummage around again for the toolbox. Apparently she's willing to share that much at least. "But the clock stays, that's all I got up here. And don't touch the treadmills, they're fucking expensive." Sara mutters to herself softly, something about watching the news maybe.

Ygraine doesn't exactly seem reassured, either, eyeing the short man distinctly warily. "You were in the bombing yesterday and you're only just pulling out shrapnel now? Sounds like you should go to hospital and get yourself checked out", she advises cautiously.

"I'm not going to any hospitals, and I'm find other than a few bruises, it's just this arm that's hurt." Alex grunts, pulling out a hand full of tiny parts from his pocket, and dumping them next to him on the bench. "I just need a few tools, and I'll be fine. And I prefer the term mechanically intuitive." he says with a slight grin, shaking his head. "I'm not a computer hoping techno child."

Sara has to put in, "What bombing — registration, you said? Where? I didn't read the paper this morning…" Maybe she should have, obviously. As she hauls out the toolbox with her uninjured arm, she declares, "With that crazy hardware, lucky guess." — although that wasn't really confirmation, was it? Perhaps she's still a little bewildered by the weird, abrupt entrance. Coming around the counter, she heads over to Mortimer… but before she forks over the toolbox, she says, "You can do your little maintenance here, but you start a fire or screw up any of my equipment, I'll be less than thrilled. This is my gym." Sort of.

Ygraine worriedly eyes Mortimer for a couple of moments longer, then takes a couple of steps towards the door. "I should see about fetching that kit I mentioned", she directs to Sara, before adding, "do you want me to give Gregoire a call for you? Or wait to do that yourself?"

"I'm not sure where, I was just riding in my car and stopped when I saw lots of people gathered. I went to get ice cream and the ice cream man suicide bombed." Alex shrugs, then reaches out to take the toolbox. "I don't mess things up, I improve them." he says as his eyes scan over the room, seeming intrigued already. "Some of your equipment could do with a few updates, but I'll leave it alone."

Sara admits freely enough, somewhat distracted, "I haven't upgraded since," wait no nevermind, "A while back. But like I said. Expensive. You just focus on your uh, arm thing there." Setting down the toolbox, she nudges it over the rest of the way, although she doesn't seem particularly intimidated or worried. Trying again, she puts in, "I'm Sara Claremont." That last name familiar, Alex? "And this is uh, actually I didn't catch her name. Or yours." Hint, hint. And speaking of hints, she gives Ygraine a direct look and a shrug, "Feel free. Though I think we'll be OK here. Dude's focused on his casualty here." She thinks that's all it is… and may be very wrong, of course. Back to the fella now: "So what was it you said you needed? Clocks? I have some old wind-up toys…"

Ygraine musters a smile for Sara, nodding to her. "I'll give you my sign-up details when I get back", she replies, promising a return, at least at some point. "But I'd best go and grab that stuff."

Raising a hand in farewell, she turns to head out the door, squinting up at the sky as she does so.

Alex reaches into the box for a pair of pliers, then starts pulling and twisting things inside the damaged area, causing fingers to twitch, bend, and squeeze. "I'll take those wind up toys." he agrees, and when she looks at the arm, through the little spaces in the thin shell and exposed area, there's all sorts of gears, springs, and other mechanical pieces put together in an infinitely complex show of engineering. "Since you're helping, I'll upgrade your gym equipment. It shouldn't be too difficult."

Sara doesn't seem to quite get it that Ygraine might be leaving-leaving, but she smiles and waves to Ygraine regardless. "Sure thing!" As for the arm… empty spaces? So it definitely is prosthetic. Freaky. But — "No seriously, you can just leave the gym stuff as-is. No thanks of that sort needed." For all Sara knows he could make it sentient or something, after all. "Lemme just, uh, go get those toys. But seriously. No upgrading. We're tragically Luddan here." Luddite, Luddan, close enough. She zips over toward one of doors, marked 'Employees Only', and whips out a small set of keys from her pocket. Sara can probably hear any replies from the closet… but she will try to keep this quick regardless, for a variety of reasons, as she opens a dusty-lidded plastic box in the closet and quickly pulls a few old toys out that might have gears in them. "At least somebody needs 'em," she tells herself.

For her part, Ygraine slips outside… collecting her bike and wheeling it away out of earshot of those inside the gym, coming to a halt by a corner, to allow for a rapid exit if required. There, she pulls out her phone and gets in touch with New York's boys and girls in blue, to have an earnestly interested conversation about whether or not they're still looking for anyone in connection with yesterday's bombing, and whether she should be requesting SWAT or an ambulance as a response to strange, shrapnel-studded men demanding clockwork and tools while talking about being at the bombing.

"It's about time I built a new arm, I've been stuck with this outdated thing for a year. But for now I'll make due with repairing it." Alex continues tugging at things, wincing a few times when sparks fly. "My name's Alex, by the way."

Sara reappears with a moderate armful of toys: some with wind up knobs, some pull-and-go cars, that sort of thing. Little boy's toys. "These ought to help, if you built that arm yourself." The logic connecting those two statements might be less than obvious, or just nonexistent. She sets them down on the bench and doesn't look at them again, instead sitting on the opposing weight bench. As she says, "And hi, Alex," she surreptitiously glances around just to confirm there are no random LifeCycle pieces strewn about. Ya never know.

"Yes, from his arm. Shrapnel. Which he indicated had been there since yesterday. And yes, we're miles from the site. And it's a boxing gym, yes." Ygraine is calmly repeating herself to the operator on the other end of the phone. "Yes, he brought up the bombing himself. And demanded clockwork and tools. Apparently for the strange prosthetic he has. No, he's not seemed threatening as yet, but…"

"Alex looks down at the toys, cracking the shell of one with his pliers before he starts taking gear parts he thinks will fit, and places them into their correct position in the arm. "So what's this? Some sort of women's fitness boxing place?" he asks in a teasing tone, clearly just wanting to see her reaction.

A teasing tone? Huh, and he seemed so focused before. Sara replies agreeably, "Not women in particular, no. Just regular folks looking for a workout. But also, we've got some pretty serious fighters who train and play here. Evolved and not. Registered or not too, presumably." Yeah, she's fishing — but she won't mention the basement, certainly not yet. "So, there's a lot of variety." She glances at the door, but Ygraine hasn't reappeared. Hm, maybe that was a real goodbye and Sara was too distracted? Phooey…

"Okay. Thank you." Outside, Ygraine hangs up, then immediately sets about finding the number for Coco's, fidgeting nervously as she waits for the call to go through. "C'mon, c'mon…."

"Fighters, eh? That could be fun. Something to do when I'm not building." Alex continues connecting things, placing more parts into the arm, and the mechanical fingers open and close slightly more accurately. At least it's not twitching so much anymore. "I'm guessing this isn't free. I could pay you in fixing this equipment." he suggests again.

Rrrring, rrring! Looking back to the desk, Sara tells the unique new visitor, "Gotta get that, Oleander's off today." She hops up to her feet and paces over quickly so she can snag the receiver before it stops. The phone still has an oldschool cord, heavily twisted. "Hello, Coco's Boxing Gym, this is Sara. Need a good beating?"

"Oh, thank goodness. Glad I caught you." Ygraine sounds a little tense, though she keeps her voice pitched low, to avoid shouting down the telephone, attempting to pitch her tone so that her words can only be heard by someone holding the receiver on the far end. "I'm just calling to say that Gregoire's on his way. Should be there in a few minutes. Very keen to meet your visitor."

Sara furrows her eyebrows for a moment as she listens, then says, "Oh! Cool." She looks back over at Alex, even as she says, "Yeah, sure. I mean, why not, right? — uh that was to the phone, not you Alex — listen, I should go, got an overeager mechanic here. He seems friendly enough but I should go. Drop by whenever's good for you." Click. And, Sara's attention is fully back now. She stays by the counter, though, working on unwinding the perpetually snarled phone cord. "It's thirty bucks a month, usually. … nothing's busted right now, but you're right, repairs do get expensive." She seems to be actually considering it, even as her hands continue on that cord. Though to be specific, she's still favoring the right one, the one with the taped-on wrist splint. "How's the arm doing? Are the toys helping?"

Call delivered, Ygraine shuts down her phone again, worriedly eyeing it for a moment, before tucking it safely away inside her jacket. Then it's time to quickly sort out her helmet and gloves, before swinging aboard her bike and letting the rumble of the engine carry her off into the distance. Civic duty done, she's little desire to stick around and find out quite what form the response might take….

"I'll be fine in a few minutes." Alex wiggles his fingers more, then looks down at those toys more. "So you fight? I may not be able to build people, but…" He points to her forehead. "You look very structurally sound." this is added with a bit of suggestiveness to it. "I may need to call a ride, could I use your phone?"

The toys are — were — nothing too newish, years out of date but not "vintage" or anything of the sort. Sara smiles lightly at the news about the arm. "Ah good! … Heheh, yeah, I'd say I'm structurally sound aside from occasional injuries. All part of the job, though. I do a lot of boxing and some other kinds of fighting, mostly with the regulars here. It's a lot of fun for me." He might've been saying that suggestively, but her reaction completely glosses over that, nothing flirty about it, just relaying her general enjoyment. But… the phone? Uh. She looks at the receiver as if the phone will answer for itself. Still, what's she going to do, say no? She belatedly lets go of the cord, which she had been re-twirling (no wonder it's so torturously snarled) and steps back from the counter, a vaguely inviting gesture. "Sure, go for it. You don't dial anything special to get a call out here." Sara will grab the wastebasket and go sweep the toy leavings away instead.

Alex stands and heads over to the phone, sitting his pliers down as he makes a tight fist. "This should be fine until I get to a proper work space." His silvery eyes trail down to the floor, and he lays down, pressing his ear to it, then knocks a few times before standing up again and returning to his pursuit of a phone. Odd, that. "Have to call my doctor to pick me up. I have a few genetic issues."

Sara glances at the aforementioned clock, the one she refused to give Alex (and yet she handed over her kid's toys?) Yeah, she doubts the cops are in a rush… oh well, she'll probably have some explaining to do if his ride gets here first. She doesn't look worried, regardless. Although his inspection of the floor does cause her to raise an eyebrow. "We have more training space down there," she offers by way of pseudo-innocent explanation. "Doctor eh? Well hey, wouldn't want to violate doc-patient privilege, go ahead and make your call. I'll just be ummm… over there." Pretending not to eavesdrop, cleaning up expired toys, somesuch.


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