Sue Kim (sunshinenoir) wrote in mnhttnprjct, @ 2010-03-21 21:42:00 |
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SUE: It was a sunny day, one of those that come after a long period of rain and grey, and the city of New York was reveling in the good weather. Bright, colorful outfits came out from behind black trenchcoats; artists set up their tables and hawked their wares; vendors of all sorts offered samples and haggled prices. Union Square was full of that fresh spring smell, and though the trees weren't budding just quite yet, tulips and crocuses were poking their long green blades out of the soil, and the grass was bright green, not yet flattened by hoards of feet. Lots of people were taking their lunch on the shallow steps, chatting amongst themselves and basking in the sunshine. On the west side of the park, a trio of troubadours played and sang, passing around a well-worn fedora. On the east side, where the ramps were, skater kids showed off among themselves, sliding up and down rails and steps, boards scraping as they jumped off at the last second, others tumbling as they caught on a curb. Sue Kim was not, by nature, a skater kid. But she'd just delivered the package she'd come into District 0 for, and she couldn't help but be inspired by the ollies and grinds. With a nod and grin to the others, she'd taken her turn in the rotation of riding up, down and around the southeast corner of Union Square. Truth be told, though, Sue was more of 'get from A to B' skateboarder, and the skills she'd had as a surfer had yet to translate to the concrete & wheels. It wasn't long before she attempted a kickflip... and ended up tangled up in her skateboard, and on the ground. "Ooouch!" she yelped, wincing at her smarting knees and palms even as she wrinkled her face in good-natured self-effacement. "Oooh, way to go." NICK: The long bout of rain meant it had been awhile since Nick got to go skateboarding, so he decided to take advantage of the sunny, spring-like day and headed off to Union Square, which had the advantage of being near where he had found a place to squat for a bit. After about an hour of completing various jumps and spins and other tricks, he was tired and bruised up enough to take a break. After getting an apple and filling up a bottle from a water fountain, Nick found a bench to sit on and did some people watching. He was particularly interested in seeing what the other skaters were up to and it wasn't long before he was eager to get back out there. He just gotten up when a skater bit it hard nearby. He wouldn't have thought much of it, if he hadn't noticed it was a girl and some latent sense of chivalry kicked in. "Oh, God! Are you okay?" he asked, bending over her. SUE: "Oh, yeah!" Sue was reassuring Nick before she even looked up; when she did, it was with a big smile. Gingerly, she sat back on the grey stones, brushing bits of gravel and dirt from her hands. A little scraped up, but not too bad -- she started talking again before she attended to her knees. "I soooo should not have tried to do that, I'm a total amateur," she admitted. She could feel that her knees were pretty scraped up and smarting, but even so, when she looked down she drew in a long, hissing breath. "Oh man, I feel like such a kid right now! You don't have a napkin or anything, do you?" NICK: "Don't worry about it, everyone falls. You won't ever be able to land it if you don't fall first, right?" Nick tried to reassure her as he dug around in his pockets for something that would help. After a few seconds, he pulled out an old bandanna. "Uhh... I've got this," he replied, holding it up hesitantly. SUE: "That's true!" Sue agreed, cheerful even as she accepted the bandana with requisite thanks and started to carefully brush off her knees, tiny stones embedded in her skin. Within a few moments, she was done, and looked skeptically at the bandana. "Thanks, man... I can wash this, if you want? I mean, there's not a lot of blood on it, but it's a little grungier..." Suddenly, she swapped the old cloth from the hand outstretched to her other hand, leaving her free to offer up a handshake. "I'm Sue, by the way." NICK: "Nah, that's okay," Nick said in reply to Sue's offer to wash his bandanna. He always disliked imposing. "Oh, and I'm Nick," he added, shaking her hand, a little awkwardly. "Nice to meet you, Sue. Uh, do you need a hand up?" SUE: "Oh, please," she returned, happily accepting his offer. Once back on her feet and brushed off, she walked over to her board and kicked it over, rolling it beneath her foot. "It's nice to meet you too, Nick," she grinned. "Do you skate around here a lot? I've actually never tried anything over here, it's always people more experienced than me -- plus, I'm always running from one place to another, I don't have time -- and there aren't a ton of places like Union Square in Zero, y'know? Usually I'm in Three, but then I'm on my bike." She paused, politely, so Nick could actually answer her original question. It let her get a chance to look at him more closely, and he looked kind of familiar, in that vague and distant way. NICK: "Just a few times," Nick replied, also getting a better look at Sue now. He, too, had a feeling that she looked a little familiar, somehow and that wasn't something he was used to. It took a second for him to realize for him to realize he might have been staring and he quickly down at the ground where is own skateboard was resting. "I've... only been here a couple of weeks, actually. I've pretty much just stuck around here, though," he admitted. "I haven't really gotten know what districts are what yet." SUE: "Here in Zero?" Sue asked, looking mildly startled. Squatters weren't particularly new or surprising, but winter was just over, and nights were still cold. It wasn't something she'd ever want for herself. "Where are you coming from?" NICK: "Uh, well, you know, where ever," Nick said with a shrug, trying to be vague. It probably wasn't the sort of thing he should really be confiding in anyone about, anyway. "I was just in Philadelphia for a few months and some guy, on accident, I think, gave me a train ticket up here, so I thought, why not?" SUE: "Sounds rough," she replied, pursing her lips in thought. "You've just been bouncing around, then? I guess a lot of people do. I don't know what I'd be doing without my dad, I'd--" She stopped abruptly, the little cogs in her subconscious making a sudden connection. "Are you from California?" she blurted, clutching at her board with both hands. "I mean, did you surf? Oh, man, I'm sorry, that's a really weird question, it's just that you look sorta weirdly familiar, y'know?" With an awkward shrug, she grinned, inwardly scolding herself for leaping into such tricky territory. NICK: Even though Nick had been thinking the same thing, he hadn't made the connection, yet. He still couldn't help being a little surprised that it wasn't just his imagination, either. "Yeah! Yeah, I'm from San Clemente. I did some surfing," Nick said, a little more animatedly, though "some" was a bit of an understatement. "I thought you kinda seemed familiar, too, actually. You surfed, too? Where are you from?" It was Nick's turn to let Sue have a second to answer him. SUE: When Nick answered in the positive, and didn't comment on her total social fumble, Sue's eyes lit up. "Yeah!!" she cried, all smiles and eagerness. "I was in San Diego, but I was on the JV team, so we went to a few competitions, up the coast and stuff." Unable to contain her excitement, she lightly punched Nick in the shoulder. "I miss it so much! This skateboarding seriously does not compare." NICK: Nick couldn't help flinching a bit a Sue's playful punch -- he just wasn't very used to people touching him, especially in a nice way, but he also couldn't resist a small smile. "Yeah, it's just not the same," he commiserated. "I could teach you a little if you want, though? It just takes practice but you know, hitting the ground sucks a lot more than when you fall in the water. I guess you kind of have to get used to it." SUE: "Noooo kidding!" Sue laughed, gesturing at her skinned knees and making a face. "You'd teach me? That'd be so fetch! Oh, oh, hang on, let me put you in my iHolo..." Her skateboard clattered to the ground again, stopped by an almost absent-minded foot as the young woman fished her little iHolo out of her pocket. Within seconds, her holoscreen was between them, and her fingers were flying through the menu options before she thought to look up and say, "Oh, do you have one yet? I know you said you're new..." NICK: "Oh yeah, I got one a few days ago," Nick said, taking his own iHolo out of the pocket of the hoodie he was wearing. "I don't really know how to use it much, though. The last phone I had was a few years ago and they've... changed a lot since then, it looks like. I figured out how to use the maps though and the browser, but I was never really into computers that much. Spent too much time in the water, I guess." SUE: "Fair trade, then: you teach me how to skateboard better, I teach you how to use your iHolo," she joked. Dragging board with her, she pivoted about so she was standing next to Nick, rather than in front of him. "Okay, see this screen? This will take you to your Repository contacts - y'know, people you wanna follow or password-protect to. You'll find me under Susan Kim, but there are about 500 people with that name, sooo you should just use my e-mail instead." Patiently, Sue waited for Nick to get to the appropriate screen, and then rattled off her e-mail before she turned back to her own, and quirked an expectant eyebrow at her new friend. "And you?" NICK: It took Nick a lot longer to get to the right screen. He still hadn't gotten his head wrapped around the holograph thing. He slowly typed in Sue's email address before giving her a confused look. His? "Oh, damn," he muttered, having forgotten what the neglected email address he had was. "Oh, yeah," he remembered and gave it to her. "I guess I should have set that up before," he said sheepishly. It had been kind of nice not worrying about emails and the like for awhile, he thought. SUE: "It takes a little getting used to," Sue said with her most encouraging tone. "It's not exactly like touch screens, I remember always being scared that I'd jumble it all up somehow." With their information swapped, Sue quickly collapsed the screen and put it back in her pocket. "I actually gotta run back to D-3, but we should totally meet up again soon! Just ping me on the holo, okay?" she smiled wide, stomping on the end of her board and flipping it up into her hands. No use in riding it to the subway station -- it was just across the street. "That's easy enough to figure out -- the options will show up when you click on my name." NICK: "Oh, okay cool. Yeah, just give me a call whenever. I'm always free," Nick replied. As he looked up from his iHolo his expression turned from bemused back to slightly awkward. "It was cool running into you." SUE: "Definitely!" she returned enthusiastically. Then, with one last smile and wave, she was off, jogging to catch the 'walk' light at 14th & Broadway, and then disappearing among the throngs of people, and down into the subway station. |