Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous Moon phase (60% full).
Currently in Saint Claire, it is partly sunny. The temperature is 62 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the north at 6 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.06 and steady, and the relative humidity is 64 percent. The dewpoint is 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius.)
It is currently 13:26 Pacific Time on Sun Jul 29 2001.
Walker Safe House(#2832RAJ)
This small tenement building is a work that any interior decorator would be proud of. The building is somehow filled with light and space, despite the fact that the room is far from large. Mirrored surfaces and lush green potted plants are much in evidence - jarring only slightly with the video cameras that perch unobtrusively in various locations. A small sign on the wall lists the number of apartments upstairs as eight, though there are no names next to the apartment numbers. A very thick door leads downstairs, with no visible method of being opened - except a keypad next to it. A monitor is perched above the entrance, showing images from the hidden camera that watches the outside of the building.
The lobby branches off into what appears to be a small recreation room; for use only by residents and their guests. Much like the rest of the building, mirrors are prominent. There is a pool table set up in one half of the room, along with a small fridge for storing drinks and a cabinet for snackables. The remainder is dominated by a large home theater system, with an incredibly expensive-looking couch in front of it. The couch nearly screams out, 'Don't spill anything'. For those who might, there are also two matching side-chairs, and a bean-bag on the floor - far too close to the television to be good for anyone's eyes.
Jeremy blinks once and peers into the rec room, then shrugs. Tao What? Blah. Putting the keyboard and mouse to the side, he makes sure the newly opened Mac is all in order.
Dizzy comes down the stairs, gives Jeremy a silent wave in greeting and walks over to the entrance to the rec-room, "Hey Sophie. Kit was looking for you last night, while you were sleeping."
Sophia looks up and smiles. "Who'da thought, ya' know? That she and I'd ever be friends?" She shakes her head, sipping at her Kool-Aid and setting it down again.
Jeremy glances up as Dizzy comes down, grinning even broader. That was, until the mention of Kit, then Sophia's statement. ".. Hey Dizy'. Um.. I made some modifications to your computer."
Dizzy shrugs, "I don't know. She seemed to have a pretty high opinion of herself." She turns to the kin boy and inquires, "Modifications?"
"Yep, she does. But she's still a nice person." Sophia turns back to her book, not particularly interested either in Kit's conceit or Jeremy's obsession with this cute little blue box.
"Yah, I updated you to O/S 9.1 on there and put in another 128 megs of Ram, so now you have a total of 192. I had some lying around from my old Mac tower, so I felt it'd help out ya'know?" Jeremy seems pleased with himself. "I even took out some of the boring start up programs so you have more resources free when your computer come son."
Dizzy blinks, dumbfounded, at Jeremy, "Um... okay. Thanks, I guess." She leans back and says to her roommate, "I don't know what she wanted. She didn't say."
Sophia yawns and closes her book. "Don't get me wrong, here. Kit is a nice person and everything, and I respect her. But she's, well... I just don't really see us becoming close. Her view of the world and mine are just too different. She probably just came by to chat, but it's just as well I was asleep. Anyway," she says, popping her neck, "Did Hops give you the box yet?"
Jeremy rolls his shoulders back a bit and listens to them.
"The box?" Dizzy blinks, "No, I haven't seen him lately. Is he going to give me an exploding present or something?"
Sophia chuckles. "If it explodes, it's your fault, not his. It's an olive branch."
Jeremy glances from each of them in turn, then goes back to tending to the blue macintosh, finding a lot more interest in that then a conversation he's not apart of.
"An olive branch?" Dizzy asks, indcredulously. "Why does he want to apologize to me for?"
Sophia shrugs. "I don't think he wants to apologize, I think he wants to make peace. But you'll have to ask him about the details. He does have some apologies to make, but not to you. You weren't personally affected by any of his recent screw-ups, so."
Dizzy nods, "I know. He should be less concerned with making peace with me and more concerned with apologizing to you, Sophie."
"Um.. I guess I'm going to go home or something guys." Jeremy calls back to the two girls.
Sophia chuckles. "Yabut, see. He already has. You're the one holding a grudge still, not me. Me and him got our shit straightened out already. He tries anything again, I'll just break things. No big deal. But it seems like some people, i.e. /You/, think he's some kind of psycho freak. So. I think he's trying to reach out, convince you that you've judged him unfairly. You, Jer, are the only one I can think of that he owes an apology to still. But I think he's afraid to offer it, that he'll scare you after what he did. I told him not to even come near you, so."
Dizzy crosses her arms, a dissatisfied look on her face.
Jeremy shrugs his shoulders and opens up the front door. ".. Um.. bye.." He trails off, not really caring much for the topic at hand.
Sophia shrugs and waves at Jeremy, annoyed. She opens her book again, sighing as she begins to read.
"Bye Jer," Dizzy says to Jeremy as he leaves. She looks back at her roommate, "I can't belive you are so forgiving of him."
Sophia licks her lips and raises her eyebrows. "Eh. It's no big deal. I don't think he played Kit as bad as she makes it sound, and it's not like he broke my heart or anything. He's the one with something to forgive."
Dizzy shakes her head, "Not, Jer. Hops."
Sophia scratches her head. "Oh. What's so hard to believe about it? The kid got shot. That's all the fire and brimstone he deserves, I think. Was it Lacan who talked about a person's debt being forgiven through punishment? Anyway, I figure he knows better now, and there's no reason to draw it out. Like I said. I haven't forgotten it or anything. I'll always be on gaurd around him, and if he touches me and I don't like it, I'll break his hand and ask him why he did it. In that order. You can't let things torture you. The world's bad enough to begin with."
"But he wasn't shot for that, Sophie," Dizzy explains, "I talked to Lianne. She only shot him for pushing Jer around."
Sophia chuckles and shakes her head. "I know, Dizzy, I was there. But because he got shot for something that caused no one any serious damage, I should take less pity on him?"
Corey comes down the steps slowly, and peeks into the rec room when he's got a clear view. Aha, he thought he heard voices, and was fairly certain they weren't all in his head. He quiets his approach even more as he walks to the doorway between lobby and rec room.
Dizzy is a bit surprised as she suddenly notices Corey standing behind her. "Oh!" she says, "Hey Core. You surprised me."
Sophia looks up at Corey, having also not noticed him. "What do you think, Corey? Say I kicked your dog, and I forgot to feed your cat for a couple days. If the cat shot me cuz he was hungry, would you forgive me about the dog?"
Corey grins at Dizzy. "Oh, good, I'm getting the sneaky thing down. All that's left is.. umm. Pretty much everything else about the whole deal." He blinks at the phrasing of Sophia's question, especially the part about kicking the dog. "Personally I'd be more interested in who sold Mr. Kitty the Glock, and forget all about the dog."
Dizzy suppress and giggle at Sophia's analogy and covers her mouth with a hand to help achieve that. Other than that, she stays silent, choosing to listen to Sophia try and make her point.
Sophia holds out her hands, like, 'See what I'm saying?' "Let the dog take care of his own damn shit, bite me back if wants. The cat's obviously capable of defending itself, why should the dog need backup?"
Corey tries to give a serious answer. Gaia only knows if this is really the best he can do. "Because the dog's a puppy? Admittedly a large puppy with sharp teeth, but still a puppy?"
Dizzy sighs, and shakes her head. She heads to the fridge and removes a soda, then takes a seat, still listening to the conversation.
Sophia shrugs. "You think that puppy's so dumb it doesn't know it's been kicked? This puppy can handle her own shit, I'm telling you," she says, setting her book aside and picking up her glass. "There's more important things for you to be worrying about." She takes a swig of her Kool-Aid, the size of the gulp almost suggesting the drink might be spiked. "Like, for instance, how you're going to defend yourselves when the need comes."
Corey shrugs back, and leans against the door frame. "Badly?" Okay, humor's obviously back on. "Honestly, I don't know. I won't really know until shit hits the fan again."
Dizzy opens the soda and adds her two cents, "I don't think that the person kicking the dog and failing to feed the cat would necessarily learn not to kick the dog by getting shot by the cat."
Sophia smiles wide at Corey, laughing softly. "We'll talk some of that stuff over in a minute. But Diz, here's the thing. I don't need to learn a lesson from the cat. What I need to learn is that if I fuck around with animals I'm gonna get hurt. What I need, is just to learn to get my act together. It's a worldview thing. And Corey here can be fairly confident that if his dog feels threatened, the dog will attack."
Corey smiles and applauds. "Y'go girl. Just wanted to make sure you could see where the feet were moving." He moves to the fridge to dig around in it, himself.
Sophia grins at Corey. "Speaking of feet, and kicking dogs. I think I saw him kick you the other day, Cor. You gonna do something about it? Or just allow that shit? You don't seem like the Omega type to me, but I could be wrong." The ice cubes in her glass clink against the side as she swirls the liquid around, slurping loudly from it.
Dizzy gives up and moves to leave the room, "I pity the dog that neeeds to be kicked a couple of times before it learns to bark before it gets kicked again."
Eureka! The hunt successful, Corey stands up with his quarry already letting off a soft crackling as it's opened. "I'm still working on ideas for later. Right now, I don't feel like kicking a guy while he's down." He takes a sip and moves to take a seat on the couch.
Sophia nods. "I agree with you Diz, I do. But see, here's the thing. It's /not/ like he's gotten away with it. I'm just not the type to hold grudges. I'll fuckin' throat him if he tries it again, but I'm almost /certain/ he won't. He understands now." She looks over to Corey on the couch and says, "I think that's good of you, by the way. It's one thing to let a person know they can't fuck with you. But it's a whole other thing to just attack them suddenly when they've already got too much on their plate. You wanna let him know you aren't going to be stepped on, but you don't want to destroy whatever friendship you might have."
Corey nods to Dizzy. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." He considers his soda a moment, regards the entertainment center for half as long, and begins to wonder what he's doing down here in the first place. "Drat. I've clean forgotten why I came down the stairs originally."
Dizzy points to Sophia with her soda, "If it were up to me, he'd be gone already. But, it's not. So I'll just stay away from him thankyouverymuch."
Sophia tilts her head, not wanting to believe what she thinks she's hearing. "Gone?"
"Kicked out, live somewhere else, sent to another Sept," Dizzy clarifies.
Corey looks back at his cubmates and arches an eyebrow. "Okay, time out. Diz, I must respectfully disagree with your assessment. One, we're cubs. Which means that the elders cut us some slack, which means I don't see why we can't cut each other some slack. Two, I think if every sept or whatever did that with their misbehaving cubs, we'd have a game of international hot potato going on, and what's more, which is point three, /they wouldn't learn anything/. Aside from the idea that nobody really wants them around. And finally, point four: Respect those beneath ye -- all are of Gaia." He grins. "I think we can agree that Hops is beneath all of us at the moment."
Sophia nods in agreement with Corey. "We know him, we know what to expect. You know anything about training dogs? Like, for obedience and all that?"
Dizzy shakes her head and finishes walking out. She's finished with this conversation.
Corey shakes his head. "Unless, like Hops, you count me as a dog. Anything I know about them is from early memories at my grandma's. For some strange reason my mother decided a dust mop with teeth was a dog, and that's been my only experience since."
Sophia makes a snick sound with her tongue. "The fuck! Your opinions aren't strong enough to be challenged, or what? You disagree, fuckin' say so. Don't walk out; that's just rude," she says loudly.
No answer comes from Dizzy.