Jul 20 20:10:00 108 PA - A Discussion About the State of the Continent
From Chronicles
Jul 20 20:10:00 108 PA.
THE ALIBI
Dirai is in a band. Not a HUGE band. But a band, nonetheless. More specifically, she plays the guitar, accompanying a piano player, and a songstress who loves doing old Fiona Apple covers. The lights for them are a soft blue. Not yet particularly busy, Dirai expertly plays her instrument, as does the pianoman, while the blue-skinned woman intones,"You make me sick, you wanna lick my wounds, don't you baby? You want the badge of honor when you save my hide, but you're the one in the way of the day of doom, baby, if you need my shame to reclaim your pride. And when I think of it, my fingers turn to fists..." And so on.
Gabriel is seated up at the bar, nursing something in a brown, translucent bottle. Something that those around him seem to be laughing at, not that anything on his face would seem to indicate that he cares what they think. He listens to the band play, not having expected to walk in on his friend performing. Nevertheless, he comments under his breath, "Bing Crosby she ain't."
For someone without fingers, she really is fingering that guitar quite wall. Still, for most people, it's the blue woman who draws attention. Apparently, Dirai noticed Gabriel though,"<Not your cup of tea, eh? Got a request, just think it REAL loud, and I'll see if I can't get Mandy to sing it.>"
Gabriel nods his head with a smile. "I've done this with Sage before. It's unusual, and frankly uncomfortable, but I suppose it's 'modern.' I want to hear 'Cecelia' by Simon and Garfunkle." That being 'said' the man hoists his bottle toward the stage.
The song eventually finishes, and with a smile, the blue woman points at Gabriel, and says,"This is for a fan out there feeling a little bit of nostalgia!" The tune changes a bit, and a feminine voice begins,"Cecelia, you're breaking my heart, you're shaking my confidence daily. Oh, Cecilia, I'm down on my knees..." Dirai would wink if she could.
The older man up at the bar starts to very delicately bounce left and right to the tune and beat that he knows better and prefers much more. It's not actually correct, but close enough, much better than the crap that they usually put up on stage as entertainment. Actually... as with most of the time, Gabriel is the oldest person in the room... by an average of ten years or perhaps slightly less. Not that he seems to mind. He once more lifts his bottle in salute to Dirai and her band. Or at least Dirai and the people near her.
Dirai eventually winds down even that song, and comes trotting off the stage, leaving her guitar behind for the songstress to accompany herself. She actually dances her way over, though. Despite her ugliness, it's actually a rather hypnotic swaying, the way her fluid flows and wraps around itself as she moves,"Having a little bit of a drink?"
Gabriel smiles as his blobby friend approaches. "Sounded not bad, Gorgeous!" 'Not bad' is better than not good. He then makes a show of looking at his bottle. "Depends on how you mean. If you mean it literally, yes, I am having a drink. If you mean it figuratively, no, I am not having an alcoholic beverage. If you mean a variation, yes, I am drinking soda, which is why everyone laughs at me. Old man with no balls and all." He offers up an amused wink. "I say if you enjoy something and don't get drunk while doing it, that's good for you."
Dirai chuckles at Gabriel and takes a seat next to the 'old man'. "Well, whippersnapper, if you like soda, you should totally try Psi-Cola sometime. It's... well... it's one hell of a drink, and totally not alcohol. I used to love it when I was fully human. So. I'm thinkin' about stockin' up on some vamp-killers for Maria's benefit. You got yerself any vampkillers?" She seems in a friendly enough mood. "Anyway, genitals are overrated. Trust me. I don't miss 'em."
Gabriel tilts his head slightly to the side and takes a drink before speaking. "Exactly what do you mean by vamp-killer, Dirai? Silver and wood? Yes, I have those in great amounts and I've shown that they work quite well. But if 'vamp-killer' means something else? No, I don't have it." Then he chuckles. "I was politely warned by another friend about avoiding Psi-Cola for someone of my uniquely boring constitution, but thank you for trying to get me into trouble." Wink. Then in a very curious tone, "I don't have much use for genitals these days beyond the natural chemicals they provide... but I am glad to still have them attached, if only for aesthetics."
Dirai stretches her legs a little bit, as if they really needed it,"Well, actually, I thought you'd love it. I TOTALLY loved it." Shaking her head,"Change of subject. Vamp killers. Get creative about it. You need water pistols. Get a flashlight, and tape a cross over the aperture. Silver spikes, and wooden stakes... you don't really think it's a good idea to get CLOSE to them, do you?"
The older man points the neck of his bottle in Dirai's direction. "Ah, I've figured you out! You *are* pretty, and cliché stupid." Wink. "Of course I don't get close unless I need to or the opportunity presents itself. I have an old but perfectly functional and amazingly accurate rifle that came through with me, a .45 that can put the nasty hurt on someone from closer - though too close considering the psychic crap they can do. Plus a jet pack and the knowledge of how to use it." He drinks, and chuckles. "More than two decades of hitting things from a distance. People laugh at my little weapons, but the fact is that they fire silver bullets from the sky, where I'm pretty much out of harm's way. I'll leave you to your more creative vampire hunting." He holds the bottle out. "You want one? Kingsdale's own 'Donovan's Fizz.'"
Dirai shrugs helplessly,"Donovan's Fizz? Sorry. No taste buds. I can't even digest it. One of the few things I /truly/ miss about my past. Anyway, I've gotta make vamp-killers because they're easy for Maria to use." Suddenly, a more serious tone enters her voice,"I've gotta help her install a kill-switch in my coffin, too. One day, I'm going to lose my mind but good, and someone's going to have to put me down. I want her to be safe when that happens."
Gabriel looks at his blobby friend for a while. Sucks on his bottle twice, then shrugs. "Well, unless you'd like to expand on that, I have so little of having absolutely no idea what you're talking about that I'm not even sure where to start asking for clarification. Only really one that I can possibly try to grab onto would be, why do you think you're going to lose your mind and need to be put down? You're invulnerable except to rabies?"
Dirai shrugs to Gabriel, then leans forward, and lowers her voice to murmur to the man,"Somewhere in this city, hidden, and connected to various tubes, and wires is my original human body. The Angel of Death, when she did that to me, she jammed some big metal devices into my brain. And that's where I get these powers. But it's allowing my mind to do things it was never meant to do. And that takes a strain. My mind will just lose its touch on reality bit by bit. And there's a good chance that one day, my mind will break open like a pinata. There's no going back from that. But if there's a kill switch, then she can blow up my body, and my mind will probably follow in a day or two."
"A kill switch for the things in your head? If she could do that, couldn't you just get switched off now, return to your body and start picking up guys at a bar?" Gabriel is intrigued, and turns to grab another soda. In doing so a small silver crucifix can be seen on a delicate chain around his neck. Obviously a religious artifact, not just something randomly and perhaps blasphemously purchased for simple protection without belief. "I guess I'm getting confused as to which part of you is the invulnerable part."
Dirai tilts her head to look at the crucifix,"That'd keep vampires from nomming on you pretty easily. Good thinking. Holiness burns them like fuck." She closes her eyes, and shakes her head,"Not a kill switch for the things in my head. A kill-switch for my body. A literal kill switch. Something that KILLS me. Blows up my body, releases a poison, turns off my life support. Something. It's my mind and soul that's invulnerable. What you're seeing, talking to... Is a memory, an idea, really. Outside my body, I'm a being of pure thought. Can't kill an idea, right? But if my body goes... there's nothing to think that idea."
"Huh? What?" Gabriel asks, turning at the vampire and holiness comment. He looks around, then gently touches the crucifix around his neck. "Oh, this. Yes, my parents gave this to me at my Confirmation. People think it's for vampires, but it isn't - though I have had one person tell me that it pissed that person off. I don't need to believe in God, because I see Him everywhere." He pops the top off of new bottle by deftly whacking it against the edge of the counter. The metal top flips into the air, and he catches it with one hand. "Ah! Good luck for the rest of the night! Better than a four-leaf clover. Pure thought? No body to encumber you?" He grins. "How many great big pure thoughts have you had?"
Dirai chuckles a little bit at Gabriel,"They'd be like children to me, I guess. Still, could use me some luck." She snatches a cigarette from a nearby patron paying it no mind and pushes it into her hand, where it sizzles and goes out,"No body to encumber me. I can't even feel that." She drops the cigarette, then closes her eyes,"I can speak any language, travel through vast dimensions formed of pure thought and spirituality, converse with spirits, demons, angels, and gods. I can laugh in the face of death, and wake up fine the next day." And then she reaches out to tap the man's bottle,"But I cannot experience the simple joy that you derive from drinking that soda. What kind of a trade-off is that, eh?"
Gabriel raises an eyebrow. "Can you check in on my progeny? See how the Blaze family line turned out?"
Dirai purses her lips, and then holds out her hand,"I'll need something of yours to touch. It helps me focus. As many important objects as you can give me. Then I'll try to get a look at their future."
"I've had someone ask this of me before," Gabriel admits. "Though not with this question involved." That special, guarded pocket above his heart is delicately opened, and he retrieves his old family photograph, a six-inch piece of pink ribbon that hadn't been seen yet, and then removes the silver ring that is always on his right hand's ring finger. No questions.
Dirai pushes the items back across after touching them for a few moments. She decides to settle on simply not telling the whole truth,"The future holds none of your descendants. I think you would be happy to know that when the Apocalypse happened... none of your descendants suffered through it."
The older man doesn't seem to take that for better or worse, just information. The photograph and ribbon are put back in their place, the pocket latched silently closed, and the ring slipped back on his finger. The right hand's finger. Gabriel seems to only think on it for a moment before moving on with the conversation. "So how will I know when it's time to find Maria and let her know that you're starting to go off your rocker? Will she just know, if no one is able to tell her?"
Dirai seems thoughtful for a time. Finally, she says,"You'll know. Everyone within miles will know. I'll be so batshit insane that I'll be impossible to miss. And it'll be sudden. One day, I'll be fine, if relatively weird. The next, I'll be trying to destroy everything in sight. You'll hear about a gooey person they had to blast into atoms. You'll have 24 hours to go find her if she doesn't hear about it herself. This is one of those: If I go around the bend, tell her I love her scenarios."
"Not that it's usually a particularly good thing to go handing out instructions on how someone can kill you... but perhaps you should let someone know how to find Maria? How to find her before you might accidentally destroy her yourself and then everyone's *really* screwed?" Gabriel wonders these things, then grabs his empty bottle from earlier and extends it toward Dirai. "Here, Gorgeous. Just hold it. You're attracting enough unusual attention; at least you can pretend that you're trying to get loaded like most everyone else here," he says with a surreptitious wink.
Dirai chuckles and takes the bottle, wrapping a pseudopod around it, and pushes it into her face from time to time. It's rather silly, but not outside the realm of possibility in this wild world. "Just look for her bodyshop. Maria's Bodyshop. Not hard to find. She's a cyber-doc. She's got tank treads instead of legs. Not hard to miss, you whippersnapper, you. Anyway, best case scenario, I'm deep in a Coalition base when I go nuclear."
Gabriel whips out his notepad and records the name of the shop (presumably) in wooden pencil before packing both pieces of memory-assistants back where they'd been. "Got it. I'll look for tank treads. My time? If you said that a woman was built like a tank? Not such a kind thing to say." Wink. "To be fair though, most of the people I ever knew who used that phrase were Canadian, and you know how they can be. Nothing at the camp down there by Boneridge? Just lots of empty tents?" He shakes his head side-to-side. "It's absurd, I bet that saying that only five percent of everything rolling from town to town makes it without an ambush is a generous value. That's just insane. Even Kingsdale has a large enough standing military that it could decently patrol the roads out a hundred and fifty miles."
Dirai apparently agrees on this matter. Even so, she offers,"Gabriel.... It's why the Coalition will win, in the end. They're evil, hateful, murdering assholes. And they're organized. They go to the trouble of patrolling and policing their lands. And for those it does accept? Life INSIDE the Coalition is one of the safest, most orderly things since the cataclysm. But if you're not a part of it, you're dirt. They'll win because they patrol like that. Give their citizens tangible benefits. Don't try to grow too far, too fast. It may take them a long time, but they'll eventually roll right over Kingsdale if they ever turn their full might against it. Unless Kingsdale and other places get serious about protecting what's theirs. See, all the officers in the Coalition? They think more like you. Not like the Juicers that run around this place like it's a playground."
The older man purses his lips, unconcerned. "There. When Rome was at its greatest, its highest intellect, military power, range - life was grand for everyone, assuming that you weren't posted as a centurion's gofer in some anus of Europe. But they couldn't hold it. Because within Rome, life was good. Good life for people like that means overconfidence, which means that people begin to stab each other in the back to try to get hold over all that power." Gabriel seems quite pleased. "So the barbarians came, the Huns came, the Goths fought back, the Britons rebelled. The empire's boundaries fell, the people realized that they had been slaves all along, happy slaves, but still slaves. Prosek and the Coalition aren't any different, just like Hitler wasn't any different, just like Stalin wasn't any different. Good does always prevail, anyone can see that, without even needing to have the faith that God wouldn't allow otherwise."
Dirai nods slowly, but something about her posture doesn't offer complete agreement,"Are they evil? Yes. But... They believe they are good. And sometimes they create good things. For example... The dogboys. They're frighteningly dangerous opponents. But most of them have no real cruelty or malice to them. They're brutal and vicious out of concern for the beloved citizens and masters they protect. They throw themselves in front of bullets with smiles on their faces. They're affectionate, and eager... Man's best friend, finally able to interact on the same basic level. Even if they're being cruelly used... Dammit, I like them."
Gabriel actually laughs at that, though not in a derisive manner. He uses his bottle's neck as a pointer once more. "They *all* think they're good, and they always have believed that they're the ones who are righteously bringing peace, tranquility and civilization. No one marches into battle thinking that God is on the other guy's side. The Coalition isn't any different, no matter what form their army may take. Good men will always eventually get pushed too far, they will get pushed beyond the boundaries of turning the other cheek when evil raises its head. It may not happen this year or the next, or in the next ten years. But the cities will hold, the people will fight back, the Coalition's army will begin to question itself, its population will begin to suffer because of greed, graft and the necessity of materials being diverted to the lines, and it will implode. The Visigoths will sack Chi-Town." The older man shrugs. "This is simply the way of the world. The people now, the Juicers who listen to no one? When their interests are threatened... they will find a common flag to rally around, and they will fight as one. Everyone will." On that last statement, he slowly waves an arm to indicate the Alibi itself.
Dirai finally shrugs in surrender for once. But being who she is, she has to try to win something,"Still, you've gotta admit... you're a little bit intrigued by the thought of a dog that can tell you how much it loves you instead of just licking your face, eh?"
"One that I could hump, instead of the dog just humping my leg? I wouldn't say 'intrigued,' no. I'm not sure what the right word *would* be, however," Gabriel admits. Then with a mild grin, "It's nice to have someone willing to listen to me for once, rather than simply spouting back the same argument over and over and shooting themselves in the foot by starting from the idea that everyone else is better than them, life is unfair, and we're all going to meet with a violent death. Anyway... I haven't been to Europe since last August. As far as my watch says. Apparently it's not the same pleasant place full of arrogant assholes; Germans wanting to rule the world, the French ready to get down on both knees and.. well.. I'll leave that to the imagination. The British standing by on their island and calling for everyone to go do their fighting for them and yet at the same time believing that there's still a British Empire upon which the sun never sets?" He drinks, he smiles, he chuckles.
Dirai shakes her head ruefully,"So life sucks. Bitching about it doesn't make it any better. And if you're wrong about the silver lining, well, no one will be around long enough to say I told you so, so optimism is at the very LEAST a good fallback. And your beliefs about the world are at least way more fun to contemplate than doom and gloom all the time." She shrugs, and then says,"The Germans are... not bad people, really. Not these days. The British have sticks up their asses about knights and spells and faeries and such. The French... I'm not so certain much has changed there, but no one cares. Just... if you go to Germany... Avoid the Gargoyle and Brodkil empires. That's how I ended up with metal rods in my brain." She rises, though, and says,"I need to really see about going and cooking Maria dinner. I don't eat, but she does."
Gabriel gets off of his stool so as to be polite as a woman leaves. No matter what she may look like. "Thanks for staying and listening to an old man ramble, Gorgeous. I guess you'll just be shocking the rest of the club by vanishing?" He grins, guessing, but not actually knowing how things work. "Just trying to recall what happened on the run to Boneridge. Tell Maria that I said hello, and thanks for letting you off your leash for a few hours." Wink.
