[Location | Speares - Theta's Shop]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

Paul Smecker had had his duties explained to him-- keep the shop and the apartment above it in order, clean, swept, dusted, etc. Cook meals three times a day-- but do not nag if she didn't want to eat them. The use of the in-the-building-hatch to get ingredients for the meals had been explained; he had said he'd just as soon walk to the nearest grocery store; she had shrugged and said it hardly mattered to her as long as things were on time.

And she had gone upstairs, and he had looked at his cleaning supplies, and decided what the hell, get started.

How much of this was due to a coping mechanism of just wanting to stay busy he didn't want to analyze. But the idea of having a specific task to accomplish, a specific simple task in which he could judge his progress, was appealing. For that matter, he'd always found cleaning somewhat therapeutic.

So Paul had dug out his mp3 player from his pocket, popped in the earbuds, and lost himself in some Chopin and some industrial-grade dusting. He compiled lists of things to do as he worked, not least of which was start gathering information on everyone he ran into in Taxon, try and ascertain what if anything was the common thread binding them all. See about getting a weapon. That would (might?) require money, which this job worked towards. See about finding his own place, even if this worked as a temporary measure.

Paul couldn't focus entirely on his own internal thoughts-- possibly because dusting required he move various clockworks out of the way, off the shelves, and a lot of them were distractingly... well... alive. Little toy soldiers walked along shelves in short marches; a teapot scuttled away from his feather duster in a way that suggested wariness.

It was disturbing, but then, he was rapidly reaching a numbing point for disturbance.

He dusted for an hour, the time it took to get everything clean, and felt frustrated when he looked around and found nothing else to dust. So then he went back into the supply closet, took out the bucket and rags he found there, and set to washing the inside of the shop's display windows.

Then the outside.

By the time he had moved on to sweeping the floor, Paul had already had several trains of thought complete themselves in his head. The first was how much this reminded him of his early days in New York, doing all sorts of shit grunt work to survive. The second was that surprisingly he didn't mind it-- back then it had all been someday I'll be out of this, I'll be goddamn FBI. Well, he'd tasted being goddamn FBI. It wasn't all shits and giggles, and it was damn well never as straightforward as clean this room.

Third was plans to go shopping. For some tools of the trade, not clothes. He was developing Plans on that front. They might not work, but they were plans. He made a note to discuss them with Westen. Maybe Cain.

For that matter, four was to see if there was anyone else in this city he felt on the same approximate wavelength with (Paul drew the line at saying 'anyone he could trust.'

Fifth was that it was awfully quiet in the shop, and he was getting hungry.

He put the broom away and pondered. Finally he went up the narrow stairwell to the upstairs suite and knocked on doors. "Ms. Theta? You about ready for some supper?"

There was no answer.

After some debate, Paul started opening doors. After five minutes it was very evident that Theta was nowhere in the building.

He frowned, then dismissed it. He'd had his earphones on-- she could easily have gone down the stairs and exited the shop's back door when he'd been cleaning. She didn't strike him as the sort of person who needed to inform her subordinates of her every move. No doubt she'd be back. He went out, got himself some dinner at a little Chinese place, came back, and went to sleep in the second bedroom she'd said was his.

The next day he cleaned the upstairs, the living quarters. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen-cum-small-dining area. Dusted, swept, windows washed, vacuumed. No sign of Theta. Paul debated with himself whether or not to turn over the Open-Closed sign in the window. If anyone came by, well, he didn't know fuck-all about the clockworks.

On the other hand, the register was fairly straightforward, and the clockworks all had price tags. Paul shrugged, said to hell with it, and put the sign to open again. Bosses rewarded initiative in his experience.

He spent the rest of the morning examining one of the clockworks, out of intellectual curiosity as much as anything else, and keeping an eye out for the return of his boss-- or anyone else coming through the door.


[OOC: Open to anyone who would be passing by Theta's former shop and curious; especially open to any of the characters who were talking about buying clockworks! Paul will still sell them to you even if he has a limited idea of what he's doing...]

Comments

[ voice ]

[taxshakey.livejournal.com]

[ paul, it seems to the aliens, needs some extra holiday cheer. he's all new and alone, so wherever his tablet is, it is now turning on and the dulcet tones of a certain christmas song are beginning to play as the aliens prepare to serenade him. ]

On the twelfth day of Christmas my captors gave to me...

[ there is a pause as the music swells. ]

Twelve robot glitches!

[ voice ]

[taxspice.livejournal.com]

[The song continues, grandly.]

Eleven hamsters squeaking!

[ voice ]

[taxshark.livejournal.com]

I really don't think this is-- fine.

[ somewhat less enthusiastically than the two that came before: ]

Ten tablets-a-posting.

[ voice ]

[taxcollectors.livejournal.com]

[ and they are joined by a lovely if slightly off female voice. ]

Nine ladies flashing.

[ voice ]

[taxspice.livejournal.com]

[The sonorous glory returned, although the lyrics were hardly heartening.]

Eight vamps-a-feeding!

Re: [ voice ]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

When the first voice starts, coming out-of-the-blue from his tablet which is resting on the shop's counter, Paul nearly has a coronary. He jerks upright from his position in front of one of the shelves, spins about reaching for a gun that isn't there, realizes it's the tablet.

He doesn't really relax, but he does stride over to the phone with narrowed eyes, listening intently. Unless this is another resident pranking the hell out of him, then this is the closest he's heard yet to anything like... direct contact... with their captors; he doesn't want to miss a single word.

"Ninth Day," he says shortly, right after the 8th day is sung, "you're singing off-key."

That's a lot better than letting himself react to 'eight vamps-a-feeding'.

[ voice ]

[taxcollectors.livejournal.com]

[ and yet, they continue on! this is the song that cannot be stopped. and if the current squeaky voice sounds a bit giggly at their verse, it has nothing to do with recent events in paul's life. nothing at all. ]

Seven strangers kissing!

[ voice ]

[taxshakey.livejournal.com]

Six trams exploding!

[ that sounds entirely too joyful. ]

[ voice ]

[taxshark.livejournal.com]

No, no, I'm not-- yes, I understand I signed off on the lyrics, but you didn't-- this is coming up when they ask for our evaluations.

[ flatly. ]

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiive booty caaaaaaaaaaaaaaalls.

Re: [ voice ]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

Paul didn't really expect the singing to stop, didn't really expect an answer, but he narrows his eyes further (watch it, Paul, you're gonna just close them in a second if you keep that up) at the dig, as he perceives it, about the kissing.

The next line, though, makes his eyes widen right back up.

There's a notepad by a (non-functioning) telephone on the counter. Paul starts hastily scrawling down the lines of the song. Fortunately his memory's plenty good enough to fill in the lines already sung.

[location | passing by Theta's shop]

[hasaheart]

The thing about claustrophobia is it makes staying in your cramped excuse for an apartment (that still manages to be bigger than the cottage you built with your own hands for you, your wife and future children). The walls keep closing in on you when you least expect it, and whether you like it or not, you find yourself heading out.

What's more annoying is you keep finding yourself making up excuses to leave the relative safety of your four walls, two windows with a (1) fire escape, and one door. He sometimes lies awake cataloging the ways people can get in there; the past few days he's had far more alarming things to occupy his mind.

And right here and now, he's ignoring just what happened the last time he thought it'd be a good idea to head out into the snowy excuse for a living that he had become begrudgingly acclimatized to.

This time around he walks to the first hatch he can find, gets a damn scarf and a thicker pair of gloves and figures he might as well get that knitted thing that doesn't look half bad if he doesn't feel like burying himself under a ton of blankets at night. 'Cardigan'? Yeah. Something like that.


And just when he turns around to head back home, he's struck by just how much he really doesn't want to face his green door right now. Or ever again. So he sets off in a different direction entirely, hoping to all that is right and good that he doesn't run into the resident zipper-head. Again.

[location | Theta's shop]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

Paul has discovered to his perverse pleasure that the entrance mat needs to be shaken out, something he missed on his previous day's cleaning. (In point of fact the mat seems little-used but he doesn't care, it's something to do.)

Paul grabs it up, opens the front door to the winter cold, and steps out onto the 'stoop' to shake it out, taking the time to look at the front of his boss's shop in a way he hadn't the first time.

There is a big clock, like one of those old-fashioned town-square clocks, on a pole three feet from the front door. Overnight it has sprouted a wreath and ribbon decoration. Paul shakes his head at both the absurdity of decorations and absurdity of architecture-- it's like their captors just reached into a railroad set of "typical town" and started putting stuff down everywhere in the weirdest hodgepodge possible.

The front of the building is vaguely small-town Art Deco, which Paul distantly approves of. It looks like it should be on Main Street in the 1930s. Big glass windows in front have faded gilt lettering that say "APPLIANCES - NEW and OLD - BOUGHT SOLD REPAIRED".

He snorted. Well, he can see why Theta had been drawn to the place anyway. Paul finished shaking out the rug, and turned to step back inside, giving the street a last scan.

Not too busy, mostly Extras wandering in their patterned way-- and then he saw a hat he recognized. Paul blinked, then called out, "Hey! Officer Cain. Over here- by the giant goddamn clock."

[location | Theta's shop]

[hasaheart]

A very recognizable hat it is, and with the added height and broadness of shoulders it really couldn't be any one else than Cain neatly sidestepping a bunch of manic Extras caroling to their hearts' content. Or whatever they had that would make them want to sing about the whiteness of Christmas.

He's relieved, really beyond relief to hear a familiar voice. He looked up, resisting the urge to do something radical to a particularly insistent Extra, and hurried over.

"Agent Smecker," he returned the greeting, then righted the bright red scarf wrapped around his neck. Slung over his arm was a particularly green knitted something like a cardigan or a sweater. He hadn't exactly planned on taking a stroll through town, and he wasn't about to take off his coat just so he could put the knitted thing on. It was too cold for that (or perhaps he just felt this particular weather more keenly than most people).

"How very...domestic of you. What are you doing here?"

Re: [location | Theta's shop]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

"Workin' for the Man," Paul said with manic cheer, laying the carpet back down in the store. "Or Woman, technically. Except she's not here. Come on in?"

It wasn't quite a question, just an offer, Paul standing to one side holding the door to provide further incentive.

"Unless you're going somewhere in particular with that very fine cardigan there."

[location | Theta's shop]

[hasaheart]

Cardigan! Yes! He knew he knew the word for it, at one point in time or another. He shrugged, and stepped inside when offered. Nothing like coming in from the cold, after all (rosy cheeks never felt so stiff and frozen when he was a kid).

"I found out the hatches give away free stuff, like winter clothes. Thought I'd get some stuff while I had the chance. My place isn't really optimal where heating's concerned."

Re: [location | Theta's shop]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

"I've been... witnessing that," Paul admits, thinking of his intensely blue blanket that River gave him, "but I've yet to try it."

He shuts the door after Cain, the little bell jingling. The room inside is fairly spacious, with three doors at the back and a narrow stairway leading up to a second floor. The ground floor, though, is filled with Clocks.

Well, not quite. Mostly the sound of ticking. Lots of ticking. From everywhere. The shop is full of shelves, and all of them boast small mechanical devices which are all whirring away to themselves in metronome. A large counter before the doors is, however, bare of small clockworks.

Paul introduces, then dismisses, the room and its machinery with a wave of his hand. "I have been hired," he says dryly, "as a shop-boy. A demotion to be sure, but what the hell are you going to do."

He moves to the counter and hops up on it, heels hanging against the front, hands on his knees, looking Cain over. There's bags under the other lawman's eyes which suggest he hasn't been sleeping the best, and other tell-tale signs of stress. Paul nudges the stool out from under the counter, rolls it across the big floor towards Cain.

"There is a coffee-maker if you'd like a cup. That had better be included in my wages or some negotiating will happen. Or I do still owe you a drink and, pardon my nerve, but you look like you need a stiff shot of something."

Re: [location | Theta's shop]

[hasaheart]

Some might say that the noise of so-and-so many ticking things is annoying, but right now they make pathetic competition for the Extras. He takes off his coat and hat, bundles his gloves into said hat and takes a heavy seat on the stool.

"This entire place feels like a demotion. Or a twisted mind game and a demotion wrapped into one."

He sighs, pausing to rub a hand over his frozen cheeks. "Coffee'll do for now," he mutters, and adds a "Thanks," in afterthought.

Re: [location | Theta's shop]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

Paul hops down off the counter and moves through the middle door of the three at the back, punching the coffee-pot into life. The door's open so he can lean against the jamb, watch Cain as the pot does its thing.

He takes a moment to answer, one foot braced against the opposite side of the doorframe, his eyes moving from Cain to his shoe's tip. The fine Italian leather is getting a little scuffed. He needs boots.

"I got shot before I-- well, before I got zapped here," he says after a few seconds. "I mean just before. Not to be a melodramatic ass about it, but I should be dead." A shrug, his head thunking back against the doorframe.

"So really. I'm still keeping in mind the background hypothesis that this is actually Hell. Haven't ruled that out." This is said fairly cheerfully.

The pot's re-heated and Paul fills two mugs, grabs a handful of creamers and sugar too, and comes back out juggling this assembly to set one cup down by Cain on a shelf next to a ticking china doll.

"Although I don't suppose Hell would have left me opera," he muses absently as he puts down the creamers as well.

Re: [location | Theta's shop]

[hasaheart]

He nods, thinking the situation over. If this is the afterlife, chances are it's all one big cosmic joke. You lead a good life, you're told you'll reap the benefits when you find your final rest.

This doesn't look like any kind of benefits. In fact, it looking less and less like it, and he wasn't all that impressed to begin with. "It doesn't add up when most people here are good ones. With one or two exceptions to the rule, of course."

He shakes his head, eyes roaming the varied clockwork contraptions. "Not like I have a blizzard's chance in a desert to check anyone's records, so what do I know, right?"

[ voice ]

[taxshark.livejournal.com]

[ being as through the magic of rp time warp this is after the carol, everyone's favorite alien intern is here to ask you some questions, paul. ]

Now that that's all done with, I have a few questions for you. Won't be but a minute!

[ voice ]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

Paul eyes the tablet with a look reserved for certain species of cockroaches.

After several seconds have ticked by, he says, "What a coincidence. I have some for you too, Mr. Tenth Day. Do you believe in the concept of trade?"

[ voice ]

[taxshark.livejournal.com]

[ ah, trade. this intern knows all about trade. ]

Goods for services, it's a sound system. Now, my questions.

Re: [ voice ]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

"Top of the class, you get an A on that exam question," Paul says with forced cheer. "It is indeed a sound system, but not an audio system.

"Right. What's your first question, Ten-day?"

[ voice ]

[taxshark.livejournal.com]

[ ...well. they didn't program the people to be anything more than what they are, so maybe the obvious can be explained in these cases. ]

The season! Snow, carolers... I did extensive studies. So! [ if a shark could rubs its hands together in anticipation, this would be that sharky moment. ] How are you liking it?

Re: [ voice ]

[smecker.livejournal.com]

Paul Smecker is not a ninja, he is not a vampire, he is not all that sort of awesome.

But if years in the nasty tedious hierarchy of the FBI have taught him anything, they have given him a shark's (har de har.) instinct for a subordinate seeking approval.

"Oh, you're up for a performance review, aren't you? What's your name, kid?" he says in his very best Ranking Agent tones. Yeah, he knows it's not likely to work. But godammit if he won't try.