Participants:
Scene Title | Shock Wearing Off |
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Synopsis | Evan talks to Marcie about the gunfire earlier in the day. |
Date | March 1, 2011 |
University Woods, The Bronx
A signpost near the entrance to the park is actually a living oak tree, the black sign embedded in the tree's trunk and still pointing the way to the playground nearby. But that isn't the only tree in this forest; hundreds, maybe even thousands of deciduous and coniferous trees grow in close quarters around footpaths. The ground underfoot, once bare and dead, sprouts with a whole manner of things, and this greenery traverses outward in a wave.
Willow trees grow here and there around the forest's perimeter. They hadn't existed there before, and their size and sudden appearence suggests the work of an Evolved. Under them, park benches are formed out of bits of dead maple that have been sculpted into places to sit. Flowers of all colours grow everywhere in the spring and summer, and even sometimes in the winter, defying reason.
Everything here is alive, from the benches to the signposts. And that's a thing that not many parks in the world can boast.
It's been a hell of a day, but it could be a lot worse. It wasn't him that got shot (this time). The victim survived, and clearly has some people looking out for her well-being. And the cops didn't make him stick around too too long to give a statement— there were lots of witnesses, and not a lot to see, and he wasn't all that close to the heart of the action.
Still? Having a gun go off is plenty enough to shake someone up when they don't deal with that sort of thing on a regular basis. Evan calls the department and lets them know what's up, and then he just walks away for a while, striking out into a less familiar and less crowded part of the city.
The strange little forest draws his attention as soon as he catches sight of it. He tries to take advantage of the quiet and solitude… but no, something's still wrong. He wants to talk through it, which means he needs someone to talk to. Taking out his phone and checking for a signal, he brings up Marcie's number, leaning back against a trunk as it rings.
"Yeah?" Marcie answers after two rings, having stopped her bike and checked the caller ID before picking up.
"Hey, it's me," Evan replies, pushing forward and beginning to pace. "Are you free tonight? I— " Well, he doesn't want to dump it all on her over the phone, either way. " —something happened during lunch, I'm still a little freaked out here."
"Oh." Not really what Marcie expected to hear. "Sure, Ok. I'm still in The City. Where do you want me to meet you?" She's not entirely sure how she feels about being the one Evan calls to come over when he's freaked out. Not so much that she minds talking to him this evening. It's just, it says something about their relationship. Marcie is beginning to feel that Even's a lot more committed to it than she is, at this point.
The directions are rattled off in short order - GPS is useful for that sort of thing - and then it's just a matter of waiting. What does it say, that she's the one he's calling? Maybe just that he hasn't gotten too close to much of anyone else in the city, either. He's too close to the situation to be able to tell for sure.
One nice thing about working for years as a courier is that you get to know the city pretty well. Marcie finds the little forest without any trouble. She's glad, at least, that Evan picked somewhere out of the way, without many people. Marcie doesn't like crowds.
She walks up to him and gives him a smile. "Hi."
Evan returns the smile, briefly, but it soon fades into just a general sense of… relief? Something like that. "Hi. Like I said, lunchtime— all of a sudden, this one guy pulls out a gun and fires a couple shots into the crowd. Put this one girl in the hospital— I think maybe they had a bad breakup or something?"
"Wow …" It's not an excited 'wow', more of an 'oh crap' kinda 'wow'. "Is she going to be Ok?" Marcie's first thought is that she's glad she wasn't there.
"I think so," says Evan, shrugging. "She was still conscious, last I heard, just pretty woozy." Hands stuffed in his pockets, he glances out into the midst of a thicket. "It happened to me last summer. Nobody was attacking me, just a mugger and a bad ricochet. And I got through that okay… but this was different. I mean, the mugger was really just after money, this guy was trying to hurt somebody. I didn't realize how big a deal that was until today."
"Are you Ok?" Marcie asks, meaning more mentally than physically. It's pretty clear that Evan has no gaping wounds.
"Not yet. I will be…" He turns around to face her once again. "I'm sorry to drag you out here for this, but pretty much everyone else I know is tied to the school, you know? And this happened right near the school… I just needed to get away for a bit."
Marcie smiles in understanding. "I know how that can be." After a beat, she continues, "So, what can I do?"
Evan thinks it over for a second. "Distract me?" Er, okay, maybe that wasn't the best way to put it. But whatever. "What's happening in town that I wouldn't think of on my own, that sort of thing."
Marcie laughs at the 'distract me' comment, probably thinking the same thing that Evan was. But then she obligingly regales him with tales of the city. She leaves out anything regarding Linderman or the specific deliveries she's made, for her own reasons. And she leaves out anything regarding the University, for Evan. But, there's still a fair amount of news she's been privy to.