The Queen's File Clerks

Participants:

gillian_icon.gif peyton_icon.gif

Scene Title The Queen's File Clerks
Synopsis Peyton and Gillian discuss various Endgame issues, such as Danko's whereabouts, real estate on Staten Island and the possibility of having to punch Liz in the face if she gets brainwashed.
Date February 6, 2010

Peyton's Apartment, Upper West Side


Saturday afternoon is an exciting time at the Whitney residence: Aaron is asleep and Peyton glances up at the baby monitor once in a while, looking up from her work on her laptop. While at the library, she created a cross-referencing system for the boxes of files. Of course, the very reason the files are in hard copy is so that the technopaths can't breach the system and gain information that Endgame certainly doesn't want in the wrong hands. Therefore Peyton has made up codewords, not using any encryption that could be decoded, to represent various subjects, and is typing up the list into her computer, to create labels for the various boxes. It's not exactly rocket science, but it makes her feel useful.

A lot of the days this week, Gillian has left earlyish and come back around evening. Today she stops in a little earlier in the afternoon, pushing the door open with her but as she twists into the apartment, carrying a box of paper work, with a laptop stuffed on top. She moves deeper into the apartment and lets it drop onto a chair, "Hey, Peyton," With her burden gone, she walks back across to close and lock the door, then starts to take off her scarf and coat. She's moving a lot better than she was a week ago, almost no more grimacing when she steps, even after carrying that box. "You and me get the filing jobs, it looks like."

"I'm definitely not a good sneaker," Gillian says, frowning a bit at thin air because they knew a really good sneaker once— and he blew up in Antarctica. "But hopefully Liz'll have some idea what to do with that. I've been looking into properties on Staten Island that are being bought up. It's not as much as one would think, but I did find a reference to a government hospital that might be worth checking out, with all that stuff Rebel put up about camps and the H1N1 virus stuff." That's not something she seems to understand, by the way she shrugs, but it's something.

"Checking city archives isn't my forte, but it could be that there's just not much there. Or they're hiding it."

"I'm surprised they have to buy anything at all — you wouldn't think anyone who abandoned the places out on Staten expect any money for them. I'd except the government to just swoop in and take, but maybe they legally have to, even if there's nothing but squatters out there," Peyton says thoughtfully. She shivers a little at the thought of the camps and the virus. "What's your take on the Rebel stuff, anyway? I mean… we might lose Mack, if Liz doesn't get him to stay, if we keep working with Rebel and those PARIAH people. Do you know them at all — Knox or West?"

Peyton nods in response. "I don't know either of them, or at least I don't think I do. Claire obviously doesn't have too much of a problem with them if she used to be with them — she seems to regret some of it, but if she hadn't had a gunshot to the head, who knows what she'd think? Mack was adamantly opposed and Bones skeptical.. I think that knowing what they're up to is not a bad thing, better than not knowing." She chews on her lower lip, brows furrowing together as she considers the ethical dilemma. "I wish Cardinal were here… but then we wouldn't be all split. We'd just do what he says, right?" She sighs, reaching up to touch the little cardinal charm she wears on the same chain as the fleur-de-lis Aaron gave her.

"It is better than not knowing," Gillian agrees, moving to plop down as she pulls out the laptop she's been borrowing to open it up and look at the screen as it comes immediately out of hybernation, the little blue lights coming on as it starts to load again. It must still have battery, cause she doesn't seem in a hurry to get the thing plugged in. "I do wish Cardinal was here, though. He could handle almost all of this stuff better than we are— he could check on Danko without being seen, he could smack PARIAH around if he wanted to… But really until we know what PARIAH is up to now… I'm not sure if it's something to be adamantly opposed to. I know that they were framed for some of the stuff they supposedly did. Certainly not all— but like that school bombing. I know they didn't do that."

"That's good to know at least," Peyton says, frowning, wrapping her arms around her knees, resting her chin on top. She's dressed for home, in yoga pants and a sweatshirt, her feet in fuzzy lavender socks to keep them warm. "I know Liz is doing the best she can, but she's out doing FRONTLINE shit… that's hard to deal with too, you know? I thought FRONTLINE was one of the things to be scared of; back when CAT told me how bad it was to be Registered, she kind of made them out to be one of the bogeymen, and now Liz is one of them. I know she sort of had to, but it's still scary."

"I'm not sure what to think of it, either," Gillian admits, using the little touch pad to move the mouse around to click on files. A lot of it will need to be printed out, but most of what she got is in the paper work below, anyway. "FRONTLINE seemed like a scary thing, but at the same time it's— not as scary as some things. I mean I saw what…" she trails off, grimaces. CLASSIFIED seems to be stamped across her face for a moment.

"FRONTLINE might be able to stop a lot of bad stuff from happening without getting the government up our ass about it. With Liz among them, maybe we'll get a warning if they turn into something worse. But if she ends up getting brainwashed, we'll have to punch her in the face."

Peyton listens, then laughs at the face punching comment. "I have never punched anyone in the face in my life. I'm more of a hair pulling and face clawing kinda fighter, you know?" Peyton says with a grin. "Actually I took some self defense, but I should learn more… every time someone starts to teach me they either get in a fight with me or disappear." She meant Mack, but the word disappear makes her think of Cardinal, and her face falls for a moment.

"It's not too hard," Gillian says, raising a fist and keeping her thumb on the outside. Kerpow. Right at the air. "Just don't tuck your thumb under. I learned that the hard way. It'll still hurt like a son of a bitch when you do it, but at least it'll hurt you both. And actually I always liked kicking better anyway." But as she lowers her hand, she shrugs again. "But that's the extent of my knowledge. Cat was going to teach me, but I got side tracked with a bunch of stuff." Cardinal… "I'll handle punching Elisabeth if she gets brainwashed, but let's hope she doesn't."

"Yeah, I took some kick boxing but that's more on keeping your butt in shape than actually hurting someone. At least the kind they teach at the gym instead of at a dojo or boxing gym. But sure, I'll leave the face punching to you," Peyton says with a laugh. She sighs again. Cardinal's on her mind. Claire and Liz, she likes well enough, and Gillian's one of her best friends. "I might need to hire you to punch Bones for me if he gets mean again in the future." They've made up, but she isn't all too sure it will be the last time they fight.

"I'm not sure I want to punch a guy named Bones," Gillian admits, before she closes the laptop lid and dropping it into the box again. The lights go out, as it seems to be set to auto-hybernate. "I think I'm going to go out for an hour or so. Check on a friend. I'll be back afterwards, though— Hopefully Aaron will be awake. Maybe we can do something besides go through files and sleep-monitor." She offers a smile as she starts to stand up, seeming to be in an okay mood today— at least she got something accomplished this week.

"All right," Peyton says, glancing at the sleep monitor and then standing up as well. "Liz is probably around this weekend, if you need to talk to her about this stuff." She gives a nod to the two laptops, knowing that Liz has trust in Gillian to keep an eye on Endgame when she's in Anapolis. "I could use a good dinner that doesn't consist of pizza or Lucky Wok or the few things all of us know how to cook. My treat," she adds as she walks Gillian to the door to see her out.


Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License