Participants:
| Scene Title | What's Going To Change? |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A question from Abby brings an offer. |
| Date | July 8, 2009 |
Village Renaissance Building, Cat's Penthouse
Arriving by any of four elevators, visitors will find they open into three foot corridors facing wide double doors made from sturdy southern pine which swing outward and have the strongest locks available. The stairs lead to single doors, also outward opening, at the end of three foot corridors. Entry requires both a key and a keycard; other security measures are a video camera and voice communication terminal at all doors. The 4th Street side has floor to ceiling windows interrupted only by the access points. Cream colored curtains are normally kept closed.
This level has enough space for sixteen apartments. There is an office space with reception area, conference room, and executive office; a room for archery practice and other forms of physical exercise; a very well appointed kitchen and dining area; a music zone with an array of instruments, electronics, and amplifiers; an entertainment area with an HD set covering an entire stretch of wall from floor to ceiling; a locked room where security footage for the building is recorded and can be monitored; a laundry room; a staircase for roof access; central air and heating; the main bedroom and a few smaller guest rooms; plush deep wine carpet everywhere except the kitchen, laundry room and bathrooms; and track lighting everywhere overhead. The light levels can be lowered or raised in the entire place, or selectively by segments. The overall decor suggests the occupant is a woman.
Life for Cat is often busy. There are things like Arthur to plot against, along with his nefarious formula plans. There are people Tyler Case raped to set right, some of whom are still waiting. Then there are Linderman's machinations which cause a woman to reach her son's bedside only after he expired. That's Linderman's fault, for keeping it secret. Add to that former Primatech agents bringing files, attacks by Arthur on others, conversations with parents and technopaths, intel reports from spider queens… All of this and then some has conspired to delay Cat's attentions to a matter small in comparison, but perhaps large to someone else involved in it.
So on the morning of July eighth, at about nine-thirty, Cat has a decent breakfast for two laid out on her table. Steak and eggs, orange juice, toast, coffee, English muffins and a jar of peanut butter. She calls the security desk and asks one of the crew there to deliver a note.
Some few minutes later, Abby has a knock on her door, by the sound of it from a man's hand.
A night at the bar means homework did not get done. Which means Abigail's hastily doing it this morning for her classes later. So the knock on the door, sans the warning that someone is coming up, is important enough for Abigail to put down her pencil, mark her place in the textbook and shuffle off to the door, barefoot and loose haired.
When the peephole shows it's someone from downstairs, a familiar face, the locks are all undone and door swung open just enough. "Hi. Can I help you?"
"Miss Beauchamp?" the man in coat and tie asks. "I've been asked to pass along an invitation to the top floor. If you'll enter the nearest elevator, you'll find the access door just left of the floor buttons is open. Press the one marked six, and it'll take you there."
"Oh, uh.. Thank you." Instead of closing the door in his face, she's slipping on some flip flops from the orderly line up of shoes at the door. "God bless, have a good day." She calls out to the employee before she heads off to said appointed elevator. Access panel, sixth floor. She presses that and then the close door button. Now to wait. Because that's what everyone does. How many hours DOES a person spend in an elevator their entire life? Not long for Abigail today as it's only the sixth floor and the doors open soon enough.
When the doors open, Abby finds a pair of doors across a hallway standing open as if she were expected. Just past those doors is a woman slightly taller than herself, watching. "Thanks for coming up, Abby," she greets. "Please, do come inside." Cat's eyes remain on the blonde, displaying a slight smile. "I thought it was time you see the place."
"So it is you up here." The most of Abby is hidden by a green and cream printed sundress, the flip flops making their obligatory, customary sound as she comes into the residence proper. "I thought it was strange all the time, that Teeo, Flint, Liz and others were bypassing security. Well, no, maybe not Liz as she has a key to the place…" Abigail lets herself look around, peering here and there. "I got a few hours before I have to stop in at the bar, and then head to school. I can't miss more classes, or I'm going to fail."
She chuckles quietly, moving to close the doors as Abby makes her entrance. "You've time enough to eat, I'm certain," Cat suggests. "I've got breakfast ready." Eyes settle on her again, remaining on the face briefly while a question emerges. "You've been well?"
"It seems, yes," she adds, "I underestimated your detective skills."
"I've been better. God keeps lobbing stuff at me and seeing how much I can take." She did show up in bloody clothing six days ago on camera and not with a police escort. "Not so much detective skills though. Liz told me a long time ago you owned a building above a bar. I just never connected it with this place, and then… well, it wasn't until she texted me, and then showed up two moments later and said she'd been upstairs." Her palms are clasped, classic Abby style, one in front of the other. 'It's very beautiful up here. Very You."
"I like open space," she remarks with a laugh while turning away from the doors to head for the kitchen table. It's just one quarter of the total floor distance away, but still might take perhaps sixty seconds to reach. "They're very much not confining," Cat adds. A few steps are taken, in them the silent invitation for Abby to follow her. "Part of the goal, she explains, "is to help people find decent housing in the Village and work at encouraging artists and musicians returning. I dreamed of living here when I was younger, before everything happened." The words are spoken in a tone both wistful and hopeful.
"Made it nearly impossible. I pay now, to you, what I paid for a single room place that had thin walls. I had to leave it when Colette threatened to turn me in and the Vanguard had tagged it." The flip flops are taken off at the door, adjusted with her toes to lay flush with the wall before she joins Cat at the table. "I'm not an artist or a musician though, unless you count choir at church."
"Your pastor is interesting," Cat states as she settles in her seat and glances at the food, then lowers her head with eyes closing. It seems she expects Abby will wish to pray over the meal and displays respect for that. "I've visited him a number of times, at the most recent I found him elsewhere in the building, so… I started teaching myself to play the organ. He knows of me as Joan."
Abby does, but that cat is bowing her head startles the young blonde. A quick, fast and simple prayer over the food at the table, for the animals that provided it and the farmer, and everyone who made it possible for it to be on the table and she's done. Teo and Al have only ever been the others to join her in that fashion. "He's a good man. Like me, far from home. It's nice to have a church close and to have it so welcoming. I'm trying to nudge him towards the Ferrymen." Good to know what Sumter knows cat as. "I'll remember to call you Joan if you're ever around there. Have you thought maybe of joining on a Wednesday or Sunday for service and maybe playing the organ for service?"
Her reply starts with a slightly broader smile. "The Ferrymen… I was at the zoo not so long ago, I ran across a girl near the large cats. We talked for a bit, then Colette happened along. She called the girl Tamara, and spoke of wanting to return an umbrella you left somewhere. She asked Tamara if she knew how to reach the Ferrymen, and Tamara left with her. It was… odd." Smooth, perhaps, how Cat avoids confirming or denying thoughts of attending church.
"Why doesn't she just drop it off at the apartments here?" Oh right, cause Colette worked at the church and so Abby thought she knew about the Ferrymen… whoops. "Tamara's a pre-cog. I think that's what Teo called her. I've run across her a few times. She helped us find our first apartment together in the Bronx. I didn't leave it though. Colette found me. She was seeing if I could fix her eyes. Showed up soaking wet from the rain so I lent her my umbrella and some coffee in a thermos to keep her warm to… wherever she was going" Abigail helps herself to a little of the food. She ate not long ago, but it's steak and she needs all the red meat she can eat. "Can I ask you a question?"
With fork poised to spear meat and one hand on the glass of orange juice as she listens, Cat nods. "I'd heard of Tamara before, but hadn't met her or seen a face to put with the name, until then. It would be interesting to come across her again, perhaps I'll go back to the zoo soon." The food remains where it is while she tacks on "Yes." as answer to Abby's asking to ask. Then the bite is taken and chewed slowly in the manner of someone taught to observe Emily Post.
"What's going to change, now that I know you're up here?" She doens't know if anything will or not and it's her turn to cut a small piece from the steak and eat. No Emily Post for Abigail, just proper manners and a wooden spoon coming down on you're wrist when they weren't good manners.
"Does anything need to change?" Cat asks once her food is properly chewed and her mouth is empty again. She places the fork down, making eye contact with the blonde. "I don't see any reason it should." Up goes the orange juice, a drink is taken from it before she goes for more steak and egg.
Phoenix> Second Cat speculates about White Queen.
"You're basically, paying me, to pay you rent." Abigail points out. But no, really, nothing needs to change. "I just.. thought I'd ask. Just to make sure. It seemed a question to ask." Scratch that. No lack of eye contact from Abigail. "Why are the fourth and fifth floors not open?"
She chuckles. "I'd be more than happy to stop paying you rent, Abby, if I thought you'd accept the gesture. As things stood, I couldn't very well let it go rent free without questions being raised as to who held sway here. Effort's been put into obscuring my connections with the building from the world at large, not just you." Silence follows as a short time is spent thinking."
"I could also, of course, come up with a job for you which have a rent free apartment and the tuition as part of the wages. In fact, given your connections to the Ferry, which Phoenix is affiliated with, the tuition could be called legitimate training for that job. The fourth floor is a safehouse. The fifth holds a recording studio. As far as the building staff knows, I'm just an eccentric musician type who knows whoever owns the place and I very much like my privacy. They don't ask questions."
"And I'd have known that it was you or someone else who knew me, and no, I'd not stand for my rent to be paid. I don't take charity. I like to earn it. It's hard enough to swallow that you're paying for my tuition but I can get around that by making sure that I'll be the top of my class and I can pay you back over time, for that." But Cat's coming up with some suggestions, or starting to. "What would the job entail?"
"You'd assist with the general keeping of the floor and what people brought there need, as well as working as in house medic to whatever degree you can," Cat suggests. "Your hours would be flexible as needed for school purposes, and it could use a second attendant." Her fork lifts again, the process of chewing slowly and carefully is repeated.
"Deal." That would be good. She can swallow those terms. "Who's the first attendant?" A couple bites of steak are cut up and the eggs slowly consumed. She's not realy ever had steak and eggs for breakfast. It's very odd to her.
"Your neighbor," Cat shares with a grin while lifting the juice glass.
"I highly doubt you mean Niki, so it has to be Delilah." The obvious pointed out.
"Yes," Cat answers. "She had an apartment on the fourth floor, but wanted a place she could bring people to, so she moved to the third. I came across her one night a few months ago, she was in a dangerous place. Teo knew her, so when we left I brought her back. The next day we talked, and she had a job."
Abigail nods to that. Seems a very Delilah thing really. "She's a good person" Picking at her food now, feeling full. "I won't tell anyone, about up here. Since you want it that way. Since it's a safehouse" Boy though, Grace must have been laughing at her or something when Abigail offered her own place.
"Thank you." Cat answers. She goes quiet then, choosing to enjoy the food and drink in a comfortable silence. Later there will be the supplying of access materials and discussion of payment for the job. Right now there are steak and eggs on plates needing to be made empty.