Participants:
| Scene Title | Putting It Together |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | 1. Find Missing Link 2. Put It Together 3. (if fail) BANG! |
| Date | September 9, 2010 |
Ambient lighting blankets the establishment in a soft luminescence, glowing in tones of appealing orange from the front face of the bar and low hanging light fixtures overhead. Old style brick walls given the pub an appealing depth, reflecting the tone of lights in a more amber hue down upon the lengths of the polished, wooden floors. The bar counter of lacquered dark wood stretches along the northern wall, the forefront for shelves of numerous liquors and the substantially sized LCD televisions spaced liberally behind it. The screens flicker with the latest games and news as the labeled spirit bottles wink from lighted shelves with a beckon of their own. Barstools and high tables welcome tipsy patrons to their support, scattered with throughout the barroom with a few wedge into the darker, quieter, and more secretive recesses. Over the bar are a few banners of sports teams, most notably one of English football club Manchester United.
The thick wooden door to the west is fitted with a single neon sign sponsored by one of the brews on tap, glowing in the door's center window to shed its light onto the sidewalk outside and summoning in new customers when the bar is open for business.
It's been a busy week-and-change since Evan got that odd little package in the mail - and with the school year now comfortably in progress, there have been long stretches of the day where he's barely had time to think about it at all. But he's always come back to it eventually… it could be the meaningless gesture of some madman with too much free time, but what if it isn't?
Having heard little about it since that day, he's decided to give it a push himself, tacking up fliers at various spots around town with a hand-drawn outline of the piece he got, along with a phone number. Including the pub, after pointing out to the bartender that anyone gathering here would be another potential customer.
Well, this was unexpected. Nadira actually hadn't been planning on meeting Evan here. In fact, she'd come because she'd seen a flyer about the puzzle pieces. She steps into the pub, eyes scanning around the room until she found a familiar face. Well, this is what you get for not calling ahead. Surprise. Making her way over to the table, she peers at him cautiously. "Do you like Piqa Coladas?" She jokes.
Elle Bishop doesn't look so much like she normally does. The blonde hair is gone, replaced by a shock of dark brown, almost black hair, which she wears up in a bun today. She also wears a pair of faded blue jeans, a somewhat ratty t-shirt, and a pair of tennis shoes. It's not that she likes dressing like this. In fact, she hates it, because she's even shorter than normal.
But it's a good way to blend in.
She glances around as she enters the pub, her brows raised as she makes her way straight for the bar, taking each face she spots into account. She slips into a bar stool, and promptly orders herself a nice whiskey sour, leaning against the bar. Her eyes drift to the flyers being put up, brows raising. Then, she's digging in that backpack she carries around, frowning.
In addition to the drawing and the number, the fliers have a note near the bottom with the pub's address - it might help others to link up with each other and compare notes. There was a copy stapled to a stretch of particle board near the entrance, but someone else ripped it off, for whatever reason. Evan is leaning across a table to put up another one in its place when Nadira speaks up. "Ah!" he exclaims, almost driving the metal through a fingertip instead of the paper, before easing back. "I don't normally go for them, but I could be persuaded. If you're feeling in a persuasive mood tonight."
"I was, er, trying to make a musical reference as a joke." Nadira rubs her neck. "I think that one's a little older, though…" She looks at him. "I was just going to ask you about the flyers. You're the one putting them up." She fishes around in her pocket. "I didn't realize there were so many people who got them." She murmurs, pulling her own piece out of her pocket. "It's kind of boring, though."
After a moment, Elle fishes her own puzzle piece out, peering at it thoughtfully, before looking up to the flyer tacked up to the wall with a peculiar look upon her face. As her drink arrives, she lifts it and takes a sip, before turning toward the two who are discussing said flyers and puzzle pieces. Her brows raise, and she holds up the piece. "…I have a puzzle piece…"
Evan nods, pulling up a chair, and turns to gesture Elle over as she also speaks up. "Well, I don't know how many there are, exactly… but this makes four that I know of, including myself. I'm guessing there are more out there."
His own piece is set down in the middle of the table, face down, revealing the word on the back: lethal. "Is it nice," he asks, eyeing Nadira, "having a boring one?"
Nadira's attention flickers back to Elle as she notes the piece she's holding up. "See? This is weird. Someone must want to tell us something in a cryptic way. A serial killer? They enjoy those things, don't they?" She peers at her piece, setting hers down on the table with Evan's. It's got the word like on it. "See? Boring. Or I suppose valley-girl if you look at it differently."
Lifting her drink, Elle stands; after a moment of peering at the pair, she makes her way over to the table. She seats herself, crossing her legs, and setting it down in the middle of the table, face down. Her word is boring: you. "Mine is pretty boring, too. Just 'you'." She shrugs, sipping at her whiskey sour for a moment, before setting that on the table and peering to the other two. "No clue what it's all about…"
Evan shakes his head. "Me neither… I mean, obviously someone wants us to put a message together, but four words aren't enough for much of a guess. The other one was 'are'." Well, even a lot of poems contain a lot of ordinary words in amongst the flowery ones. "At least it's a start, though. And no one's trying to drown us this time."
"So if someone's trying to say something, why give us all puzzle pieces? Is it just for the attention? Seems an odd way to send a message, but I suppose at least it's non-violent." Nadira points out.
The petite brunette peers thoughtfully at the puzzle pieces, rubbing her chin as she examines them. "I don't know if it's so much as for the attention…maybe it's to get people to work together to figure it out?" She leans forward, tapping at the puzzle piece with her head tilted to one side.
Leaning forward a little, Evan nods, absently shifting the pieces around to see if they connect. Oh, they should be so lucky. "You're probably on to something there. I guess we'll know it's an attention thing if we put it together and it turns out to be a picture of the guy's face or something."
"Nah, no one would be that bold. Unless they were stupid." Nadira purses her lips. "Even if we're to work together, that still means some weirdo is coercing us into doing something. There's an agenda."
Elle rubs at her chin, leaning forward to peer at the pieces. She reaches out, grabbing her piece, and flipping it over to peer at the other side. "Maybe, for the picture we're looking for, we can go to the art department of Columbia University…I'm sure someone there could help us figure out what it is."
"Maybe. If they went to this much trouble already, then it might be an original piece… it'd still be interesting to know what style it is, though." It doesn't look like dogs playing poker, at least. Evan looks to Nadira and shrugs. "Weird isn't always bad, though. We're among the poster children for that already."
"I don't know. This still seems too suspicious. I don't trust it. It's a message or a political statement or something like that. A warning, perhaps. Maybe they're trying to piss us off with whatever it spells out." Nadira frowns. "Riots have been started on less than that. Although she's right… getting some art opinion might help us."
"If you two want that piece, you're more than welcome to it. It'd be better to keep them all together, in any case." Elle shrugs, sipping at her whiskey sour. "It could very well be a political statement, especially if there's so many of these." Blue eyes turn down to the puzzle pieces.
Evan digs through his pockets, coming up with a plastic zipper bag and setting it down next to the pieces. "I suppose I can hang on to it for the time being. If I start getting too busy, I can always pass the set along to someone else for a while."
Nadira nudges hers towards Evan as well. "There you go. I'm not sure I'd want to go pursuing something like this. It feels… I don't know. I just think it's something that's going to turn out unpleasantly in some way. It's got an agenda of some sort." She points out. "I suppose the only thing to do is get as many as you can and try and put them together."
Elle spreads her arms. "I have way too much going on to really take part…and honestly, I'm of the same school of thought as her." She gestures toward Nadira, finishing off her whiskey sour. "It just seems like it has way too much potential to turn out bad, and I'd rather not deal with that."
Evan makes a face. "Everything has way too much potential to turn out bad, these days. For me, especially." The hammer hasn't fallen yet - maybe it never will - but the idea of it still weighs on him. "And I'd rather risk walking into a trap and then try to get out of it, than risk that this is an important clue to something and we all miss it."
"Well, you know I'll be around. I'm just willing to take a backseat to it all." Nadira says, folding her arms. "Whatever happens, I just would rather be on the sidelines than in the big game. Safer. One never knows what kind of trouble they'll get into with something as simple as a puzzle piece."
Raising to her feet, Elle quickly pays for her beverage, turning a small smile to the two. "Thanks for getting that off of my hands. It's a bit of relief not to have that weighing on my conscience too."