Participants:
| Scene Title | Good Works |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Cardinal gets an update on the various projects that Gillian and Warren are working on. |
| Date | October 17, 2010 |
Redbird Security - Cardinal's Office
There's a sharp, professional feel to the main lobby of the building. The carpet is a deep maroon underfoot, the walls an off-white cream that doesn't glare too brightly beneath the recessed lighting in the ceiling. Half a dozen chairs upholstered in a sandy light brown sit against one wall beneath a painting, a print of a Thomas Brill that shows the ruins of Midtown covered in vines and greenery as seen from the rooftop of the Deveaux building. The receptionist's station takes up almost an entire wall on the right side of the lobby, guarding the hallway that leads back into the building's offices. Behind and above the desk, the logo for Redbird Security Solutions hangs on the wall in glossy black.
The central hall continues the same carpet and wall colors to a number of doors. There are four offices, a restroom done in shades of blue and pale sand tones, and a comfortable employee lounge with attached kitchenette. An open doorway in the main lobby reveals a flight of upward stairs, and there's a locked door at he end of the central hall that guards the basement steps.
The worst part about having an actual business is that Richard Cardinal needs to be up when the sun is at least some of the time. The afternoon sun's kept from passing through the window by closed blinds, but it filters between the plastic blades irritatingly as he works over some paperwork.
The office is rather spartan, just a desk and a few scattered chairs, the largest of which occupied by the Red King himself. Behind him, an original Thomas Brill hangs upon the wall, a street corner and a couple beneath a lamp-post.
There's a lot to be said for being up before the sun sets. Gillian, always a night owl in her younger years, has lost such a sense due to other important events in her life, but that doesn't mean she won't sleep in when she can. Especially with all the extra work she's been putting in the last few days. Learning a new trade, making miracles, it's all very worthy of sleeping in past noon.
As she wanders down from her room, newly awakened and with some quick cooked food in her stomach, she spots a shadow in the office that draws her over. "I think this is the first time I've seen you in here," she admits with a smile, spotting the older man behind the desk, and the sunlight past him. "It's brighter than the basement."
"I prefer not to be up here when I can help it, but… we are running a business here," Cardinal admits, gesturing vaguely with a pen to the assorted paperwork, "I'd be totally lost without Peyton to help out around here, I swear to God." The pen's flipped easily in his hand, and he leans back, "So how'd it go with Warren?"
"Are you sure he's insane? I get that it might be a side effect of his ability, but he's extremely lucid right now," Gillian admits, moving deeper into the office so that she can drop into a chair with a plopping sound. "He's been teaching me about putting stuff together. I can probably help Alia with the computer stuff, too, but for now, mostly helping him." And learning a lot of new skills, in the meantime. "He's also got me doing a side project. Did you hear about University Woods?"
"Miracle of miracles, I suppose…" A wry note to Cardinal's voice as he considers her words, gaze hooding a little, "…Rene did a complete personality wipe, so, maybe he is stable for the time being. I just hope he stays that way, because the person he used to be…" A splay of his hands to either side, "…a side project?" He pauses, "I read something in the paper, yeah."
Closer, she might recognize something he's using as a paperweight. A raptor's foot from one of Hector's robots.
"Apparently that 'seeing the world as a broken machine' thing that happened when I augmented him made him decide he needed to fix it," Gillian explains, looking at the paperweight with a wrinkle of her nose. She knows what it is, and she has to work next to a mechanical lions mouth when she's helping Warren. And oddly enough she still hasn't said why she recognizes it. Government may have betrayed her, but she's not going to break that secret. If she can avoid it. "He met a woman who can make plants grow, and he introduced us, and we restored University Woods— we're probably going to do it a few more times, too."
"So that was you all…" A pause as if in thought, and then Cardinal leans forward suddenly, arms folding against the desk's edge and his gaze suddenly intent, "Have you seen the painting out in the lobby?" It's a print, not the original; a view of the Midtown ruins as seen from the Deveaux building, everything overgrown with green.
"Yeah, I've seen it," Gillian says, thinking back on it, as her mood settles a bit. "We weren't anywhere near that building, though, and I don't know if we're going to be. University Woods is only a few acres, so it was a little easier to handle. I was able to keep from passing out, even." Which of course means she didn't use the full force of her abilities to do it.
"I know," Cardinal's head tilts a little to one side, "Something Edward once told me… the future has inertia." He pauses, "Liz pointed the same thing out. There're— events, that occur one way or another despite how much we've changed the timeline from Arthur's future. Just because Arthur's Mother Earth Project never happened, doesn't mean that someone's won't."
"Yeah, but some things will never happen, no matter how much we might want them to," Gillian says, her eyes staring off into the distance, for a few moments, before she makes them snap back. "I like Miracle Day Every Day better, though. We're only going to do public areas, make them nicer and better for the public. Or that's the plan, at least. Maybe it'll inspire somemore people to do things like it— Phoenix tried to do that, too, and even if it didn't work the first times, doesn't mean it can't work eventually."
"I approve," says Cardinal with a firm nod, "It's a great idea. We can't re-seed Midtown until we find some way to remove the radiation damage in any case… it would've killed Delphine doing it Arthur's way, but maybe we can eventually find a better way. In the meantime, I think it's a great idea. There's a lot of Central Park that's still damaged, too, you might want to sweep down there at some point."
"I was planning to put that on the list— there's a lot of parks that have been neglected that never recovered from the Blizzard. It's not just the bomb that's destroyed a lot of things," Gillian says, a sad sound to her voice, as if the blizzard could have been prevented. Or stopped earlier and with less damage. "There's lots of Staten Island that could benifit from a refit. If you think of any other examples, we're more than willing to listen."
"I'll think on it… it's a great idea," Cardinal admits, "I was always a big proponent of Miracle Day, I thought that Phoenix should've been focusing on that sort of thing more often. It helps people, and it's good public relations."
"I agree. It was one of the things that made me proud to be part of Phoenix," Gillian says in soft tones, before she pushes herself to her feet. "I hope Warren stays sane, cause right now I rather like him. He even took a note from you and asked me not to augment him, as if he realized that might cause an issue." And by like, with the slight smile tugging on the corner of her mouth, it may be more than the friendship kind of like. Will her taste in men never change?
Oh, that's a look that Cardinal recognizes… and he gives her a rather flat look for a moment before bringing one hand up, fingers rubbing against the side of his face. "Mhm. I see. Just keep in mind that he is an Institute operative that, I've got to point out, we have no idea what they did to his brain, exactly. How's work going on the jammers?"
"Yeah, I know," Gillian says, not liking that part of him at all, and hoping that whatever they did to him doesn't include whispering her real name back to those people. She wants to stay dead, as far as they're concerned. "It's going. He thinks he's got it working, at least in a small area— we just gotta make it work in a big one. But even if we can only black out part of the city from the message, that's still going to save lives."
"Hopefully we can make it work in a wider area… Alia's back in town, I told her to contact him," Cardinal says, fingers drumming on the table's edge to see if there's anything he's forgotte, "I need to open a line to the Ferry, too - I suppose I'll call Cat - oh, would a hydrokinetic help for your little greenery project? Irrigation or, whatever?"
"I'm not sure, if he can clean water we could definitely use one to clean out some of those nasty ponds in the city," Gillian says, but there's something of hesitation when she says that. Hydrokinetics and her have a varied past… "What do you need the Ferry for?"
"Jaiden's a hydrokinetic, see if he's willing to help out," Cardinal allows, shaking his head then, "Atmokinetics. If we can make sure there's a very thundrous storm over the city that day, it'll interfere with transmissions too."
"There definitely wasn't a thunder storm mentioned in any of the flashes, so it could be a possibility," Gillian says, thinking about it, but unsure how much it would help. "But yeah, contact Cat, see if anyone's willing to help out with that." So many options. "I haven't met Jaiden, but I can talk to him and see what he's capable of, but I should head over to the Library and get to work. I also have a couple other things to work on, though, no more trips through time." She hopes.
"I hope all that's over… Nakamura grabbed Francois out of the middle of our extraction mission up in Mass," Cardinal grimaces, "No wonder from him yet, hopefully he'll be back soon… alright. Keep up the good work."
"It's time travel— it'll never be over," Gillian says as if the whole thing is a joke. After all, time travel has been a big part of the last two years of her life. Different people, different times, different futures— but time travel never seems to end. "Keep up the good work here, too," she adds, with a smile, before she moves out of the office.