measured_words (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
measured_words) wrote2006-04-28 04:15 am
measured_words) wrote2006-04-28 04:15 am
Entry tags:
Pieces Part Eighteen
@_@ Notice the hour? Well. I get easily distracted. I hope to catch up at lest one more piece by the end of the week. I admit I spent waaaaay too much time looking at shiny sports cars for this section. "Red makes things go faster!" I have yet to decide what kind of car Daniel is driving, however, and am fastidiously avoiding describing it until I do. Anyway, I hope my readers find this enjoyable. Expect some more drabbles in the next few days :)
Other Pieces
This could be interesting. I received an email this morning from Brown. He is going to be in Portland today, and gave me a phone number. We arranged to meet at a Macy's Diner, a small truckstop on the fringes of the city towards Oregon City around 15h00. He couldn't guarantee his ETA, with the traffic and the weather – it's been raining hard since this morning. I am more or less on time, as it is just turning 15h08 now. I pull into the parking lot between a dirty white ford pick-up and a red Cadillac sports car that I would not be surprised to learn belongs to Brown. Most of the lot is empty, but there are three semis parked side by side on the other half, and a run down blue Dodge Spirit just beyond them. It is hard to see into the diner because of the rain, and I head quickly for the door.
Inside, two travel-worn men, probably semi drivers, are sitting at the counter talking to the waitress. She is middle aged, dark blonde hair held back in a bun, and wearing a short sleeved white blouse. Her name tag read 'Claire', and she looks up as I enter, and smiles somewhat wanly. There are several tables to the left, and a row of booths along the back wall. In one of these sits a young woman with dark hair in a green raincoat, and a small girl with matching dark curls, both eating from the same dish of ice cream. Two booths down, in the corner, is Brown. He is wearing a brown leather jacket, and has coffee and a plate of food in front of him already. There is also a slim laptop open on the table beside him, but he closes it as he waves me over. I cross over and slide into the seat opposite him.
"It's good to see you in person, Daniel." He smiles. All the clones I've met have perfect white teeth, just one more little perk of genetic engineering. Brown is blonde and blue eyed, neither strikingly handsome nor too plain featured. His hair hangs down just above his eyes, and brushes the collar of his navy polo in back. He seems healthy. Clones are generally resistant to most viral and bacterial illnesses, but some exhibit signs of degenerative genetic diseases as they age. I read this in a report, years ago, when Brown was fist assigned to my amalgam. Things may have changed since then, but he is getting old, relatively. He'll be eleven this year.
"Likewise. You look well."
"The company takes good care of me these days, what can I say."
The waitress, Claire, approaches. She looks tired, with dark eye circles covered by too much makeup.
"Hey there. What can I get for you this afternoon?"
"Just coffee, please."
She nods, and turns to Victor. "And is everything alright with you, sir?"
"Great. I'll take a coffee refill though, thanks."
Claire nods again, smiling in order to appear more energetic. "I'll be right back with my pot."
I have some serious things I want to talk to him about, but I would rather wait until we are less likely to be disturbed. "How was your drive?" I'm not even exactly sure where he was coming from.
"Long, but great until I caught up with the rain. I had great top-down weather coming through Wyoming. Did you see the car?" He grins – he seems very relaxed. I, on the other hand, am still somewhat apprehensive. Brown really wants me to trust him, and he seems to trust me well enough. That or he knows that I pose him little threat. I nod in answer to his question.
"I thought that might be yours."
"Yeah. I wish it was a brighter shade, but it was hard to convince supply that sports cars should be red at all. It's a nice little ride."
"How did you convince them to give it to you at all?"
"Well. The company's kind of funny with things like that. Cars and things they don't get worked up about. Too mundane for their interest. Also, they don't have as many ground agents that need their own transportation, so there is more room in the budget. I just told them I'd be doing a lot of driving while I was out here, and I might need to get around pretty fast. The commercials say the XLR-V can go from zero to sixty in 5 seconds. Mine is faster."
Claire is approaching again, with coffee port and a mug. Brown and I both look over at the same time. She smiles somewhat nervously.
"Here you go guys." She sets the mug on the table in front of me and fills it before topping up Brown's. "Is that your fancy car outside, then?" She reaches unto her apron and places a few creamers on the table. He nods, smiling easily.
"That's my baby."
"It's awful nice."
"Thanks, you should see it on a sunny day."
"I bet." She smiles again. Is she hitting on him? Brown seems amused, or maybe flattered. It's hard to tell. I try the coffee. It is somewhat bitter but otherwise unexceptional.
"Claire, what kind of pie do you have here?"
"We have a real nice cherry pie…" She raises her eyebrows pointedly. "We also have apple, coconut cream, and lemon meringue."
"Well, I'm not quite done with this…. Could you bring me over a slice in about twenty minutes or so? It all sounds good, so just surprise me."
"Sure thing." Claire smiles again. "Anything else for you?" I shake my head. She nods, and leaves. She never actually brought me a menu, but I don't need anything. This is the other side of my tendency to be overlooked.
"Well," Brown says after a moment. "I guess she wasn't to keen to have you order. Obviously, you need a nicer car."
"Her mind was apparently on something else," I reply dryly. I'd forgotten his sense of humor. This exchange seems suddenly surreal. I feel distant, like I'm watching someone else. Why is such a mundane scene so alienating?
"Hmm. Apparently." He's turned more serious now. We have business here today. I need the information he might have on Anna, and I need to know what his plans are, and where he is going. "So, Daniel… Are you doing alright? Do you need anything?"
"I need information." What else would he offer? Union resources? I could ask more about what he is doing for Iteration X, but I'm not sure he would tell me.
"About Anna, right." He frowns. "I have files for you. A lot of it is stuff I'm sure you either know or you've guess by now. Other stuff… well. Of course you won't have had access to anything that happened since you left." I nod. I need to know how much scrutiny she and Danny have been subject to over the years. "Some of the older stuff… I don't know. Are you really ready for all of this?" He is trying to read me, to judge my thoughts from my composure. That's training he received from the order – its almost instinctual. I'm better at this than him. I can choose what to reveal, and that choice is based on trust. And I don't trust him, not yet. Not enough.
"I need to know."
"I know you think that. But there isn't anything in these files that's, well, pressing. Just a lot of things that are going to be hard to know about on your own." What does he mean by that? Is he going to withhold them? It seems wrong somehow that should have access to this personal data about me, and my family. And Xi, as well as other that I don't know. It’s invasive. And how many files have I read over my years with the order and never given a thought to this invasive scrutiny? And if I had thought of it, would I have cared?
"I do already know most of it." He nods. "I have a better idea now of how much control they had of the situation from the start, and how much they knew about Anna's family and their… traits." I almost said their deviancy. Old habits still die hard.
Brown seems surprised. He is choosing to be open with me. "That's, well, impressive. They tried to extract or bury all that pretty deep. I wouldn't have though you could without some kind of outside help, or drugs, a program, some kind of regression machine…"
"I remembered it in a dream." I want to see his reaction. Again, he is surprised. It's so outside the experience of the order, to think that the mind can control itself, to understand that all the procedures and devices are just props, or crutches. They can't accept how close they are in nature to the groups they want to eradicate. They need to humanize themselves in their minds, because their actions speak of such a different process. And even if Brown really does see their flaws, he still can't get past that.
"Well." He is recovering his poise, and getting to his point. "I don't want to keep this stuff from you, and I'm not going to." Good. I nod. "I'm afraid that you're going about this all wrong. Your mind is messed up. Whatever control you have, it isn't giving you what you need. You need people. Human contact. Friends. You need to trust someone."
"Why you?"
"You came to me. You sought me out."
"For information."
"No. You came to me because you knew I would understand. It's not a wrong instinct, Daniel. Stop cutting yourself off." This is the same frustration I saw over the camera link. And it seems genuine. I just can't cross that line. Not yet. I shake my head.
He sighs. "Fine." He reaches into the right hand pocket of his coat, and pulls out a slim memory card. "But promise you will stay in touch with me. If I have to hunt you down, I will."
"Alright." I can agree to that – indeterminate future contact. I'm sure I could disappear from him easily enough if I needed to. He probably suspects as much, but he nods cautiously.
"Okay. I'm going to Sacramento for now, but I'll be moving around. Mike's going to put me to work while I'm around, and I'm sure he can find reasons to let me cruise all around the coast. You know how to get ahold of me if you need anything."
"I'll let you know." I stand and start to take out my wallet to leave a few dollars for the coffee I didn't finish, but Brown waves at me to stop.
"Don't worry about it – you can get it next time." He says this insistently, committed to whatever cause he sees in me. I nod, and leave, feeling withdrawn once again. None of the other patrons take any notice of my exit.
Other Pieces
This could be interesting. I received an email this morning from Brown. He is going to be in Portland today, and gave me a phone number. We arranged to meet at a Macy's Diner, a small truckstop on the fringes of the city towards Oregon City around 15h00. He couldn't guarantee his ETA, with the traffic and the weather – it's been raining hard since this morning. I am more or less on time, as it is just turning 15h08 now. I pull into the parking lot between a dirty white ford pick-up and a red Cadillac sports car that I would not be surprised to learn belongs to Brown. Most of the lot is empty, but there are three semis parked side by side on the other half, and a run down blue Dodge Spirit just beyond them. It is hard to see into the diner because of the rain, and I head quickly for the door.
Inside, two travel-worn men, probably semi drivers, are sitting at the counter talking to the waitress. She is middle aged, dark blonde hair held back in a bun, and wearing a short sleeved white blouse. Her name tag read 'Claire', and she looks up as I enter, and smiles somewhat wanly. There are several tables to the left, and a row of booths along the back wall. In one of these sits a young woman with dark hair in a green raincoat, and a small girl with matching dark curls, both eating from the same dish of ice cream. Two booths down, in the corner, is Brown. He is wearing a brown leather jacket, and has coffee and a plate of food in front of him already. There is also a slim laptop open on the table beside him, but he closes it as he waves me over. I cross over and slide into the seat opposite him.
"It's good to see you in person, Daniel." He smiles. All the clones I've met have perfect white teeth, just one more little perk of genetic engineering. Brown is blonde and blue eyed, neither strikingly handsome nor too plain featured. His hair hangs down just above his eyes, and brushes the collar of his navy polo in back. He seems healthy. Clones are generally resistant to most viral and bacterial illnesses, but some exhibit signs of degenerative genetic diseases as they age. I read this in a report, years ago, when Brown was fist assigned to my amalgam. Things may have changed since then, but he is getting old, relatively. He'll be eleven this year.
"Likewise. You look well."
"The company takes good care of me these days, what can I say."
The waitress, Claire, approaches. She looks tired, with dark eye circles covered by too much makeup.
"Hey there. What can I get for you this afternoon?"
"Just coffee, please."
She nods, and turns to Victor. "And is everything alright with you, sir?"
"Great. I'll take a coffee refill though, thanks."
Claire nods again, smiling in order to appear more energetic. "I'll be right back with my pot."
I have some serious things I want to talk to him about, but I would rather wait until we are less likely to be disturbed. "How was your drive?" I'm not even exactly sure where he was coming from.
"Long, but great until I caught up with the rain. I had great top-down weather coming through Wyoming. Did you see the car?" He grins – he seems very relaxed. I, on the other hand, am still somewhat apprehensive. Brown really wants me to trust him, and he seems to trust me well enough. That or he knows that I pose him little threat. I nod in answer to his question.
"I thought that might be yours."
"Yeah. I wish it was a brighter shade, but it was hard to convince supply that sports cars should be red at all. It's a nice little ride."
"How did you convince them to give it to you at all?"
"Well. The company's kind of funny with things like that. Cars and things they don't get worked up about. Too mundane for their interest. Also, they don't have as many ground agents that need their own transportation, so there is more room in the budget. I just told them I'd be doing a lot of driving while I was out here, and I might need to get around pretty fast. The commercials say the XLR-V can go from zero to sixty in 5 seconds. Mine is faster."
Claire is approaching again, with coffee port and a mug. Brown and I both look over at the same time. She smiles somewhat nervously.
"Here you go guys." She sets the mug on the table in front of me and fills it before topping up Brown's. "Is that your fancy car outside, then?" She reaches unto her apron and places a few creamers on the table. He nods, smiling easily.
"That's my baby."
"It's awful nice."
"Thanks, you should see it on a sunny day."
"I bet." She smiles again. Is she hitting on him? Brown seems amused, or maybe flattered. It's hard to tell. I try the coffee. It is somewhat bitter but otherwise unexceptional.
"Claire, what kind of pie do you have here?"
"We have a real nice cherry pie…" She raises her eyebrows pointedly. "We also have apple, coconut cream, and lemon meringue."
"Well, I'm not quite done with this…. Could you bring me over a slice in about twenty minutes or so? It all sounds good, so just surprise me."
"Sure thing." Claire smiles again. "Anything else for you?" I shake my head. She nods, and leaves. She never actually brought me a menu, but I don't need anything. This is the other side of my tendency to be overlooked.
"Well," Brown says after a moment. "I guess she wasn't to keen to have you order. Obviously, you need a nicer car."
"Her mind was apparently on something else," I reply dryly. I'd forgotten his sense of humor. This exchange seems suddenly surreal. I feel distant, like I'm watching someone else. Why is such a mundane scene so alienating?
"Hmm. Apparently." He's turned more serious now. We have business here today. I need the information he might have on Anna, and I need to know what his plans are, and where he is going. "So, Daniel… Are you doing alright? Do you need anything?"
"I need information." What else would he offer? Union resources? I could ask more about what he is doing for Iteration X, but I'm not sure he would tell me.
"About Anna, right." He frowns. "I have files for you. A lot of it is stuff I'm sure you either know or you've guess by now. Other stuff… well. Of course you won't have had access to anything that happened since you left." I nod. I need to know how much scrutiny she and Danny have been subject to over the years. "Some of the older stuff… I don't know. Are you really ready for all of this?" He is trying to read me, to judge my thoughts from my composure. That's training he received from the order – its almost instinctual. I'm better at this than him. I can choose what to reveal, and that choice is based on trust. And I don't trust him, not yet. Not enough.
"I need to know."
"I know you think that. But there isn't anything in these files that's, well, pressing. Just a lot of things that are going to be hard to know about on your own." What does he mean by that? Is he going to withhold them? It seems wrong somehow that should have access to this personal data about me, and my family. And Xi, as well as other that I don't know. It’s invasive. And how many files have I read over my years with the order and never given a thought to this invasive scrutiny? And if I had thought of it, would I have cared?
"I do already know most of it." He nods. "I have a better idea now of how much control they had of the situation from the start, and how much they knew about Anna's family and their… traits." I almost said their deviancy. Old habits still die hard.
Brown seems surprised. He is choosing to be open with me. "That's, well, impressive. They tried to extract or bury all that pretty deep. I wouldn't have though you could without some kind of outside help, or drugs, a program, some kind of regression machine…"
"I remembered it in a dream." I want to see his reaction. Again, he is surprised. It's so outside the experience of the order, to think that the mind can control itself, to understand that all the procedures and devices are just props, or crutches. They can't accept how close they are in nature to the groups they want to eradicate. They need to humanize themselves in their minds, because their actions speak of such a different process. And even if Brown really does see their flaws, he still can't get past that.
"Well." He is recovering his poise, and getting to his point. "I don't want to keep this stuff from you, and I'm not going to." Good. I nod. "I'm afraid that you're going about this all wrong. Your mind is messed up. Whatever control you have, it isn't giving you what you need. You need people. Human contact. Friends. You need to trust someone."
"Why you?"
"You came to me. You sought me out."
"For information."
"No. You came to me because you knew I would understand. It's not a wrong instinct, Daniel. Stop cutting yourself off." This is the same frustration I saw over the camera link. And it seems genuine. I just can't cross that line. Not yet. I shake my head.
He sighs. "Fine." He reaches into the right hand pocket of his coat, and pulls out a slim memory card. "But promise you will stay in touch with me. If I have to hunt you down, I will."
"Alright." I can agree to that – indeterminate future contact. I'm sure I could disappear from him easily enough if I needed to. He probably suspects as much, but he nods cautiously.
"Okay. I'm going to Sacramento for now, but I'll be moving around. Mike's going to put me to work while I'm around, and I'm sure he can find reasons to let me cruise all around the coast. You know how to get ahold of me if you need anything."
"I'll let you know." I stand and start to take out my wallet to leave a few dollars for the coffee I didn't finish, but Brown waves at me to stop.
"Don't worry about it – you can get it next time." He says this insistently, committed to whatever cause he sees in me. I nod, and leave, feeling withdrawn once again. None of the other patrons take any notice of my exit.
no subject
I really had pie on the brain when I was writing this...