taxonomites | [OPEN] [Casa Westen] Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other

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[OPEN] [Casa Westen] Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other

Michael sat on his kitchen counter, tablet in his lap expanded to its biggest laptop form. He was pretty sure he'd worked out most of the kinks in the gadget -- well, more or less -- except for the crucial matters of breaking it, sabotaging it or trying to get it to stay off for long periods of time. How was it even powered? Taxon (he was resigning himself to accepting it was called that) defied the laws of physics as he knew it, like it had its own laws of sci-fi physics. It probably did. That unnerved him beyond belief -- he was used to being from a world where vinegar and baking soda made foam and gasoline and Coca-Cola bottle made Molotov cocktail. Having to re-learn the basic rules of reality was like getting the muscles in his legs rearranged while he slept so he woke up not actually knowing how to walk.

But: first things first. You broke a task up into tiny steps, and you took the steps. Eventually you got to the end of the task. Or it kept adding steps faster than you could keep up, but Michael Westen was Michael Westen and in his own opinion he could keep up pretty goddamned fast.

He crossed his legs next to the new range Jesse had installed and, after a moment of consideration, tapped a few icons and dialed Paul Smecker, call set to Visual.

[OOC: Call is locked to Paul, but post is open to anyone who wants to call or visit Michael ~~for some reason~~]

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Michael switched it to voice out of habit too, not a huge fan of conversations where the other person could see him better than he could see them -- it put him in mind of a captor interrogating him in a dark cell or a sniper on the phone to him on a rooftop somewhere. "Yeah, I know, I was thinking just the same thing," he said, leaning back against a cabinet. "How're you holding up? You want to go first?"

Paul laughed in answer, a bit hysterical-sounding, but then cleared his throat.

"I was doing pretty well until--" he tried to pinpoint when the caroling shit went down, and watching Godric and the other... whenever it was. Yesterday? Day before?

"Two days ago. So have you pegged yet we're in here with...." Paul didn't know how to say this. "...people who aren't... people who are more than human?"

"That's what I hear, yeah," said Michael, hopping to his feet again as he cradled the phone against his shoulder. "I figure since you said more you don't just mean the Extras? I've heard some people talk about it, but I haven't seen anything for myself. Why, what's the story from your corner?"

"Yes. Okay. Yes." Paul paced himself, making a circuit of the shop, stopping to adjust a clockwork that seemed too near a shelf's edge.

"Sorry, I'm still stupidly trying to filter my words to things that make logical sense and I don't know why as that is obviously pointless. Alright, in one ridiculous word: vampires.

"Haven't exactly seen any horror-flick blood-sucking going on but I did see, on a broadcast, one of the teen drama club breaking a tree with a kick. I don't mean... a sapling. I mean a tree. Also moving mostly too fast for my eyes to follow."

This was definitely not a conversation Michael had every day. He was starting to reluctantly abandon the notion of 'every day,' though. It seemed like it should've been hard to make a spy's life look normal in comparison to something. "You sure that's not a --" he began, letting the video or trick or whatever he was going to say wither on the vine, because he knew he was probably kidding himself. "Okay. I believe you. Amazingly. I talked to a girl who runs a shop, Tamper and Trick," he walked to the other side of the kitchen, leaned on the fridge, "she says we've got both demons and aliens here? So if that's true, that might encompass the Drak Pak you said you saw. Hang on, you said a tree? What kind of tree?"

"I don't know," Paul said a touch aggrievedly. 'Nature shit' had never been his strong point, city boy that he was.

"....birch I think? Whatever those white ones are? It had to be a good... eight, ten inches trunk diameter."

Paul dropped onto the stool behind the counter and rummaged for his cigarettes. They were still on the counter by the paper he'd written down the 'carol' on.

"Maybe," he said, and rubbed at his face. "I mean fuck knows what we've got here, I've just heard the word 'vampires' from one person and I've seen other people doing things shouldn't be physically possible. Like, well, most of here."

He stretched and managed to reach for the pack, drag it closer to him across the counter. "...the other major thing is... I've either been pranked, not ruling that out, or I've... talked... sort of... with the, uh, the... you know. Aliens."

On some level he was hoping Westen would laugh at that. It would be the sane thing.

"Aliens," Michael repeated without really thinking about what he was saying, and then blinked and repeated -- "Aliens. The aliens?"

Aliens were one thing, but his automatic inference was that the aliens denoted the aliens important enough to warrant an article designating them as the only aliens particularly worth talking about, which probably meant they were the -- what the fuck had gone wrong with Michael's life in the past couple days, seriously? -- which probably meant they were their captors. Or so his shaky logic chain was leading him. At this point he was pretty sure secondguessing all the mathematical premises on which his formal proofs were based, so to speak, was going to lead him to the conclusion that this geometry had gotten decidedly non-Euclidean.

And that was about as far as his layman's understanding of math was going to take him in this metaphor, so: "Are we talking, like, the hypothetical aliens that are keeping us captive in UFO City? Or some other aliens? I'm not making fun of you, seriously, I just wanted to clarify. Because if we're talking the people who've got us here --" His mind leapt five steps ahead and he reined it in and waited for Smecker to answer.

Michael's logic was accurate, for what little it was worth.

Paul dug out another cigarette from the pack and lit up, taking a long drag before answering Westen, who didn't have the common fucking courtesy to tell him he was nuts and of course it was just a prank.

"The hypothetical Alien Overlords, yes," he said with each syllable measured out like a letter in a security key for nuclear armament.

"And before you ask what they said or what I said or what I learned-- I--"

A no-doubt maddening pause for Westen as Paul scrubbed fiercely at his face, ground his thumbs into his temples.

"--they were-- they-- it's a fucking game to them, they seem about five goddamn fucking years old, they're like a parody of some fucking committee, I really don't know. They sang me a motherfucking Christmas Carol, okay? A warped one."

Edited 2010-12-16 08:23 (UTC)

"Hey," Michael said, alarmed, his automatic reaction to someone freaking out kicking in, "Hey. It's okay. Calm down --" This didn't seem like the right time to grill Smecker for further information about the five-year-old caroling committee aliens, not until he was a little less rattled, so Michael ran a hand through his hair and, when he spoke up again, was slower and in a quiet, even register of his voice.

"Agent, you know they were just fucking with you. Someone was just fucking with you. It might be whoever's keeping us prisoner, it might not be -- my money's on is, personally, but I'm not the one who was in the conversation." He put his hand up in a just hold on gesture as if Paul could see him. "On some level, at some layer in this archaeological dig once we dig deep enough, this is going to make sense. I'm sorry you ran into the Gaslighting Committee for Psychological Warfare, but -- that's just what it is, is the thing -- and now we know something, right? Whatever's got us here," he made a face, "it's not above toying with you or me. Sometimes you can't analyze a lot beyond that."

"Mmnghh," was Paul's ever-so-eloquent answer, muffled because he had his knuckle jammed against his mouth. He took a breath and let it out, then dropped his hand down to the counter again.

"Yes," he said wearily. "Yes. Fair enough. Sorry, I've been... awake a little too long I think. Coffee here tastes like shit but at least they got the caffeine right. I wrote down the... lyrics, and I've been trying to figure if there's a message in it and I think you're really probably goddamn right, it's just fuckery for the sake of fuckery, but..."

He trailed off, hand moving over his jaw and discovering the stubble there. Yes, he'd definitely been staring at his paper too long.

Lips curving in grim humor, he added on: "It was a rip-off of Twelve Days of Christmas. Except one of the lines was seven strangers kissing. Really fucking cute, no?"

"Yeah," said Michael, wondering if the brief flush of embarrassment was audible over the phone. "Adorable."

He paced over to the living room and, pausing as his mind blanked out on what he was going to do there again, settled on sitting down on the couch. Was there anything on Taxon TV? Did it get cable reception? Did Michael feel like finding out right now? "It all sounds kind of sadistic. It's -- it's the kind of thing people do when they, when they don't really consider the people they've got under their thumb to be, you know, people exactly." He closed his eyes. "You see that with armies in foreign countries sometimes." It wasn't going to come as any shock to someone like Agent Smecker that he'd been in an Afghanistan or an Iraq. Or that he'd seen some things there. It wasn't going to cost him anything to be honest to another human being just this once, he decided. "Or in a zoo, with the animals. Both of those things is what it sounds like to me; whoever they are, they kind of fundamentally think they're people and we're... not."

This was all disturbing him more than he wanted to admit, over the phone to Paul Smecker or to anyone, even Sam. He was holding onto the hope they had some purpose for them other than just amusement; if they were sadistic prison guards or zookeepers, at least once the day was done they'd still have a job to do with Michael and the others, and that meant they'd have to act practically and, more importantly, hold onto them for a while. If their captors were just having fun, they might as well be a serial killer who'd picked up a hooker to kill tonight -- maybe batting her between his paws was fun for a while, but sooner or later he'd get on with the rape, the murder, the dumping her in a metaphorical ditch and moving on with his psycho life.

All in all, Michael was hoping for sadistic prison guards. "Whatever it is," he said, "I suggest you don't engage them next time. I'm not criticizing you," he said quickly to head off defensiveness, "I would've too: I just mean I think we're better off without their attention right now. Besides, by the sound of it," he rolled his eyes, "we're locked in here with some big drama queens to take the heat off us, don't you think?"

Paul smoked meditatively as Michael spoke. Hey, it was breathing in and out. It was sort of meditative.

There was a note in the other man's voice that was a shade more.... personal... then their dialogue to date. It wasn't much to tell, just a slight pause on certain words as opposed to things coming out so smoothly and practiced, just a little human hesitation here and there. Paul wasn't sure how he felt about that.

All-business all-the-time was its own sort of comfort.

But at the same time hearing it in someone else's tone that yes, this place was fucked up and yes, someone else found it disturbing as hell-- not just disorienting, but disturbing-- Paul couldn't help a little rush of relief at that.

"Let's hope," he said in answer, taking another long drag on his cigarette. "Let's... let's hope the drama queens don't notice us for that matter. I... don't know how many people here know about the vampires if there really are vampires; knowledge seems to be so wildly spotty between people. I'm resisting the impulse to get on the damn tablet and make a big goddamn broadcast about that because, well, a) possible unnecessary panic and b) if there are fucking vampires I'd rather not be their target."

(Ah, Paul. You're going to be so frustrated on the day you do make that announcement and most of the city responds with, yes, there's vampires, one of them runs a nice bar....)

Paul got to his feet, and grabbed the warm winter coat he'd taken from a rack. "Moving outside," he muttered to Michael as he moved. "Been in the same room too long, getting some air." The sounds of lots and lots of ticking could be heard in the background.

Agent Smecker conversed like someone who knew the person he was talking to was going to be wondering about every noise on the other end of the telephone line. It was a good deal more helpful than most everyone else's conversational habits here. "Got it," answered Michael just to acknowledge, leaning against one of the back cushions. That reminded him of why he'd called Paul in the first place. "So, hey -- if you don't mind me changing the subject for a moment, we can get back to the vampires and aliens afterward --"

He picked up the TV remote and idly contemplated the power button. "I've got some good news, actually. Sort of." He let his voice trail off again listening to the silence to check if Sam was in the house, but he knew he wasn't -- habit, he supposed, it felt naked and vulnerable to have a phone conversation without some kind of white noise in the background to cover it, like the cars in a city or the motion of a train. "I ran into a friend of mine. Navy SEAL, we go back a long way. He got kidnapped not long after I did, a few days, I think, and he doesn't know any more than we do, but I can guarantee you," his voice had gone back to briskness, but he let a little grim humor shine through for a moment, "he was born on planet Earth and he can eat garlic. His name's Sam, Sam Axe," yeah, you always had to give them a moment to let that name sink in, "I think you should meet him."

Michael put the remote back down on the coffee table and kicked his feet up on the couch, half-settling into a reclining position as he switched the phone to his other ear. "Aside from that, I've got some really weird news. It turns out some of us -- maybe all of us -- are getting stuff from our lives taken with us or replicated here. Sam found his car parked right outside my house. Seriously, one way or another they rebuilt my house to a T right here, it's where I'm sitting right now. Down to all the details. Believe me, I checked." He grimaced and decided to leave the concealed weapons for another conversation. "It's somewhere to stay, anyway, though I'm seriously starting to wonder what they're getting at. No passages, no bugs I could find. It's in Speares, the northern district, like a fifteen-minute walk from a tram station I think. Go figure."

The air outside was cold, crisp, felt like a slap to the face. It was clean too-- he hadn't realized how cigarette-laden the air inside had been getting until he had this to compare it with. He inhaled deeply, his cigarette dangling from his other hand as he listened.

"I've gathered several people seem to be here with friends, so to speak," he said. "This guy Cain I've been talking to-- magic kingdom guy?-- has at least two of his buddies present."

Paul was silent a moment, and one didn't have to be a mindreader to guess that he was likely considering people he knew from home and what it would be like if they were here. After a few seconds he snorted, then said, "But sure, yes, any friend of the Clyde to my Bonnie, yeah, I'll meet him."

Paul kicked at a drift of snow as he started to walk. Nowhere in particular- just needing to be out, out of the ticking room.

"No shit?" he asked in response to the house thing. "Huh. I... have got nothing on that one, sorry. Haven't run into my apartment if it's here. If they bring my fucking Volvo in I'm just going to shoot someone. ...you're in Speares? So am I," he added on hastily, brain catching to that bit of what Westen had said.

"I'm-- actually right near the train line, can chuck a stone and hit it from the place where I'm at. Hell, you can probably see it if you've gotten off at said station-- got a big damn clock out front."

"I might've," allowed Michael, reluctant to conclude anything before he knew if they were even talking about the same station and unsure that Paul Smecker's tech skills were up to trying to operate the virtual map and a telephone call at the same time. "Where're you holed up? How're you finding the accomodations? I haven't stayed in any of the derelict houses they've got around here -- I spent the night at the Sanctuary, then found where I am right now. I've checked for wires," he frowned, glanced at the ceiling, "otherwise I wouldn't be talking to you right now, but but I figure it's likely all our phone and video conversations are wired and recorded anyway: it's what I'd do if I were them. Hello, wiretapper." He tapped the phone with his finger.

"Anyway --" He let the line go silent for a moment or two, considering. There was professionalism and then there was making a friend in a place without a lot of friends. There was the chance reaching out a little would make Agent Smecker suspicious or take him less seriously. But there was always a chance, anyway, no matter what action you took. No avoiding chances in life. Just picking them.

Michael closed his eyes. "Volvo makes a nice car," he said. "I have a Charger back home, '73. Not much with the horsepower compared to what they put out these days, but she was a real beauty in her golden years."

Paul's technical skills probably were.... not. But to be fair to him, he was learning. Much better at the map than he'd been the last time they'd met.

"I'm in said building with the big damn clock out front," he said dryly. "It's an appliance shop. I'm a workin' man." Pause, then without the sarcasm, "Except my boss has disappeared and I'm starting to expect she's not coming back."

A one-shouldered shrug at the talk of wires. "This is Their playground. If it's wired, then we're dealing with an entire city they could have wired, could have under surveillance-- they apparently know about the fucking kissing-- as you say, we have to assume everything's known to Them anyway."

Paul hates talking in capitals. It reminds him of a sometime professor he'd had. But the occasion seems to merit it.

By the time he tuned his head back into the conversation-- note to self, really should get some sleep soon-- Westen was talking about cars. Cars. Why? Oh. Yes. His mention of his damned Volvo.

Paul is many things. But he is not a Car Guy.

"I'm sure," he says, rubbing at his jaw. "If your car turns up here you can show her off for me, Clyde. Hell, then I can have a taste of home too-- that's the best thing about being Bureau you know, making junior agents drive," he cracks.

The somewhat flat attempt at humor dies. "For all I know you might be able to make your car, you can make just about anything it appears-- those goddamn vending machines? I made print powder."

Oh. Yes. That was the other thing he meant to bring up. "--fuck, right, the printing-- I'm making a database. You want to play?"

"Yeah, the clock building," said Michael distractedly. "I know the clock building. That's right by my train stop." That was convenient. There was a part of him that still ground to a chilly halt for a moment bringing up the compelled-kissing, and the notion their captors thought it was funny -- it reminded him a little too much of what else they could to to him, if they wanted, if they thought that was funny too -- but if he spent his life in gruesome what-ifs he'd never get anything done. "I'll, uh, try the car-copying if I've got some time on my hands, Mr. Barrow -- Miss Parker? Agent. You said something about a print database?"

Damn his inability to keep Smecker's running jokes straight, even. He had to be shaken. This wasn't doing him a lot of favors in Operation Take Me Seriously Paul Smecker.

His mind lit up at the idea mentioned, though, and he went on: "Fingerprints. Collecting fingerprints would be a great idea, thank you. I'm game -- only question is, are you planning on doing this," he double-checked his call settings to be certain they were still locked, "overt or covert? Overt... I'm getting the sense it might be hard to get a couple of our fine citizens to tango, if you catch my drift. It's going to have to be overt eventually, you realize, so you're going to have to deal with the fallout once you tell them about it." He ran his hand through his hair. "Anyway, you'd probably need some kind of gathering... do they throw parties around here?"

"Parker, yes, full points," Paul said absently. He paced the sidewalk, sidestepping around a group of Soy People who were-- caroling? Yes, caroling--

"They can't all sing in tune and with perfect pitch," he said loudly at the quartet, moving the phone slightly away from his mouth. More accurately he was speaking to the aliens, since he'd decided he was well within his rights to address them through their creations. If they didn't hear him that was their problem.

"It doesn't happen," he continued informing the aliens. "You don't randomly run into four fucking people on the street who know all the verses of Good King Wenceslas and sing like a trained musical quartet. Your research is faulty again, assholes."

A throat clearing, and Paul spoke back into the phone again. "Sorry. I was being holiday-cheered at. Anyway yes, the printing. Yes, I'm planning on doing this as quietly as possible for now. If it comes to it that we actually need the prints for... something... then I think we'll have bigger problems at hand than just dealing with some people's privacy issues. That bridge, I will jerry-rig a hangglider to fly over when I get there. For now I'd just like to quietly gather information.

"As for parties.... I do believe there is one coming up. You run into a guy named Glitch yet? You can't miss him. He has a fucking zipper on his skull."

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[OPEN] [Casa Westen] Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other

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