Maddy Rigby (maddyrigby) wrote in plainsite, @ 2018-08-20 21:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | elliot rogers, maddy rigby |
Opposites on Almost Every Metric
Who: Elliott, Maddy
What: A $50 Bet, An Introduction, A Chat About Goals
When: Monday
Where: Plainsite
Rating: Mild
“Listen, I’ll do anything for fifty bucks!”
“Famous last words...”
So began the incident in which Maddy, while demonstrating the unexpected talent of juggling a couple of prop daggers, agreed to have an actual knife added to the mix. A waiter, a boom operator, and a grip stood in a loose ring around the blonde, one recording as they watched the rhythmic rise and fall of silvery blades. They egged her on as she caught one, two, the third behind her back and began again.
Elliot's eyebrows went straight up toward his hairline as he came upon the impromptu carnival attraction. The last time he'd seen something like this outside of a carnival tent had been during the war. An infantryman from a Pennsylvania regiment had juggled bayonets, and remarkably hadn't had his hands sliced to ribbons. Whether the blonde would be so lucky remained to be seen.
He waited until she caught the blades a second time and then cleared his throat before she could begin again. “I know I'm a mite new, but I reckon the higher ups would frown on such a thing as this?”
“Eh, screw ‘em.” Maddy smiled as her coworkers took a cue from the man with the beard and cheerfully wandered towards their various corners of the property. “See ya.” On his way past, she elbowed the waiter and reminded him, “I’m coming for that cash,” before turning her eyes on the new guy. She gave him a good up-and-down. He was very… upright. Great posture. Attractive and kind of grisled, like he’d seen some shit. Age was relative, but she wouldn’t take a dollar bet on his. With those crinkles at the corners of his eyes, it was tough to hazard a guess: they might be from years, sun damage, or a tendency to worry too damn much.
“Wanna see something neat?” She smiled and her mouth was a bright splash of color next to pale cheeks. Maddy dropped the prop daggers. She took the knife by its blade and tapped the handle against her palm, appearing to get a better idea of the weight of the thing. Then she pitched it directly overhead with the fluidity of a majorette in a marching band. The sharp blade spun end over end in a beautiful arc.
She took her eyes off it and watched Elliot, appearing not to care where the thing landed.
On its gravity-fueled descent back to earth, it vanished. “Ta-da.” She wiggled her empty fingers at him.
[In fact, the knife had landed across town, right in the center of Fletcher Yates’s coffee table. Maddy knew that her acquaintance would inspect the object from all sides, come to a weird conclusion about the space-time continuum, and leave it embedded there forever like the legendary sword in the stone.]
The corners of his mouth curled upwards at the blonde’s comment, the cheerful demeanor reminding him of more than one soldier in his command over the years. Irreverence for authority was a fine thing that had a time and a place, and situations like these probably counted in the here and now. But he would have hated to see her have an accident or something to happen to one of the others, which is why he’d spoken up.
Before he could say anything else she’d dropped the two prop weapons and tossed the dagger up into the air. He watched as it spun through the air until it vanished, and Elliot felt the blood drain from his face. Was this what had happened to him? “How did you do that?!”
“Magic.” She smiled. Paused a beat.
Oh, the poor man’s face! He looked as if he’d seen a ghost and not a parlor trick, as other people might have assumed. Maddy had done street illusions for cash as part of a collegiate course on performance art and to thicken her wallet; whenever it was the real deal and not an illusion, it tended to wear her out after a while.
She took pity on him. “Well. Not really. I’ve got a knack for sending things from one place to another.”
“Ah.” His shoulders drooped a bit and he shook his head. It wasn’t the same thing then, probably. “That’s a nice trick.” Still, he couldn’t help himself. “Just place to place, not different points in time?” Well didn’t that sound perfectly normal? He brought a hand up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Forget I asked.”
Any strangeness of such a question didn’t occur to her. Maddy placed a finger to her chin. “You know, I never tried that. Hmm.” As her mind wandered, Maddy stuck out a hip and considered an easy to test scenario in which she attempted to send an inanimate object to next Tuesday and see if it worked when that place in time rolled around. The specifics of it seemed complicated, especially as Maddy had never been certain of whether her ability was grounded in physics or metaphysics. There wasn’t an annual teleporter meeting. But there should be.
“My friend, you’ve just given me a weekend project. And you are…?” She searched his uniform for a name tag.
“Glad to be of service, miss.” If he’d had a hat he’d have tipped it to her. He missed wearing a hat but nobody seemed to wear one anymore. Maybe he’d try and bring that fashion trend back from the ash heap of history. The disappointment of not finding exactly how he’d been brought forward was short lived, it wasn’t something that could be helped so there was no point dwelling on it.
“I do apologize for my rudeness.” He extended a hand. “I’m Elliot Rogers, whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
“Oh..!” Maddy’s eyes widened. “Check out the manners on this one.” She shook her head. “Sorry. That wasn’t meant to be out loud. I’m Madeleine Rigby. Maddy. Mads. Whatever floats your boat.” Their hands met in polite greeting. “I work here, back in props. My hours are crazy, I kind-of work when the spirit takes me, so you’ve gotta be fresh off the vine if I haven’t seen you.”
“I see.” He didn't, really, and it probably showed on his face. Most of what she said made sense. Up until it didn't. He could only guess what she meant with the last sentence.
“I'm pleased to make your acquaintance Miss Rigby. Have you worked in props long?”
Maddy’s head canted to the side. The formality of his speech puzzled her, and she had a feeling her figures of speech confused him. What was he, Amish? She made up her mind to speak more plainly, the way she might do with a non-native English speaker. “‘Bout a year, little more,” she estimated. “It’s a great gig-- err, job. Steady work. Most propmakers are independent contractors. They’re brought on for a particular project. Having something this consistent, day in and day out? It’s rare. But then,” she gave him a crooked smile, one that might be interpreted as mildly flirtatious, “Everything about Plainsite is rare. The only question is… what kind of rare are you?”
She picked up the faux daggers and began to walk, indicating with a tip of her head that he was welcome to join her.
The tilt of her head seemed an obvious tell that he hadn’t done as good a job hiding the confusion as he’d hoped, but her explanation helped clear things up and he nodded in understanding.
“Just a boring, old fashioned human.” His smile had a wry quality to it that suggested there was more to the story than he was prepared to let on right now, even though every word he said was true. “Sometimes it even feels like I’m in the wrong century.”
There wasn’t anywhere he particularly had to be, so he accepted the silent invitation and fell into step alongside her.
“Me, too. Only when you say it, I get the feeling you mean the past.” Maddy tipped her face to the sky as if the year she pined for could be found there. “I’d be better off fifty years from now… preferably with some kind of body modification, like,” she chewed her lip, “A robot mouth with a telescoping arm so I could steal bites of other people’s sandwiches.” She smiled at him. “Nah. I suppose living in the now isn’t the worst thing, even for a boring, old-fashioned human.”
“That would certainly be something to see, like something out of a science fiction story.” Elliot smiled at the image. He’d enjoyed Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea when it came out a few years before in his time, but he’d never imagined submarines would be a real thing and deadly weapon within fifty years from then. “I think you’d find that the future wasn’t anything close to what you thought it would be.” A wry smile. “The now can be fascinating if you look at it with fresh eyes.”
“What made you decide to do propmaking for a living? The variety?” Even in the short time in this century and at Plainsite he’d seen any number of amazing things the propmakers had produced, although sometimes he wasn’t the best judge at what was a prop and what was an actual everyday 21st century item.
“Sheer luck,” she said. “I took a lot of art classes when I was a kid… during school, after school, on summer breaks. Honestly I think I started it to piss off my parents. They’d much rather I spend my time in science camp, where smart kids go to suffocate in their own separatist think-tanks. Anyway, a teacher figured out I had some talent. She invited me to work with a community theater productions, and I just… fell in love.” She shrugged. “Then it was art school, an apprenticeship in Hollywood, and the rest is history.”
They had walked through the roll-up of her building. Maddy stopped at a spread of food for crewmembers. She prepared a small plate of crackers and dip for herself and munched on it. “Bleh. Health dip.” Maddy wiped the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “Organic, vegan, farm-to-table, low-calorie, conflict-free… health dip.” The adjectives came out like a string of cuss words.
“I can certainly understand about pissing off parents.” Even if he'd never heard the phrase before it wasn't hard to figure out from context. His own family had disowned him after all. “Did they relent once they realized you had a talent?”
Seeing no reason not to indulge Elliot followed her example and made up a small plate of food, sticking with cut up fruit and celery. “You're the one who picked the dip.” He pointed out with a grin. “No one forced it on you.” a fresh celery stick scooped out a little of the dip and he plopped it in his mouth. “Not bad.”
“Elliot, my man, I’m one of those people who learns by doing. I don’t always know what I’m dealing with until I put it in my mouth. Think of me as an overly tall toddler.” She stooped to examine the descriptive card beside the dish. “You’d be hard-pressed to find anything around here that isn’t health food. Kind of a Hollywood prerequisite for looking young and fit forever.”
She straightened. “As for my parents, I think they’re relieved I have a paycheck and a dental plan. Are yours still trying to call the shots?”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Elliot helped himself to more of the dip and wondered what food could possibly be unhealthy. There was the danger of eating too much and getting fat of course, but as long as people didn’t go crazy what was the harm? “Young and fit forever? A lofty goal, but impossible. And no, they aren’t, they gave up on me a long time ago. We had a falling out and they refused to reconcile.” He shrugged, the hurt from the break less with the passage of time but he’d always remember it like it happened yesterday. “It’s ancient history though, I’m more focused on the here and now.”
“So,” she said, having a cracker, “What’s that mean for you? Whatcha got going on?”
“It means I’m evaluating my options for a second career.” He tossed a grape in his mouth and chewed, enjoying the sweetness. “I needed a fresh start and Mr. Allen was kind enough to help me find a position here.” Not entirely truthful, but close enough to serve. “I’m using it to examine what I might want to do next. What about you? Will you be in props forever or move on to something else eventually?”
Maddy chewed and considered the question. “I don’t know. Probably more on the conceptual side, less in the doing. I’ve got so many ideas but I’m usually building to suit someone else’s vision. I’d like to have my own gallery show. Mm,” she said and the sound was noncommittal. “I’ve kinda got an itch to live in Germany, though. Or maybe Japan. You ever go abroad?”
“A worthy goal.” Elliot inclined his head. “Owning your own business is a great deal of work but definitely something to be proud of when you’ve achieved it.” He had no idea if there was a market for sculpture these days, but he assumed if there was room for paying professional sports players tens or hundreds of millions there was room for artists.
A headshake. “No, I never have. Didn’t have the money or the time.” He nibbled on a baby carrot and considered the question. “I’ve travelled around the country quite a bit though.”
Maddy hadn’t meant she wanted to own a gallery so much as have a full-fledged art show in one, instead of showing a piece or two, but it was a fledgling idea. Not worth correcting. “You should go to central America.” She smiled. “The culture’s so… authentic, you know? Everyone’s connected.” She twirled her hand. “Through food, music, God, family. Hey, maybe I should move to Guatemala... or Costa Rica. Course, I have no idea what I’d do for money, but life’s an adventure, right? An adventure with salsa verde.”
Maddy tossed her plate in a receptacle. Resisting the urge to wipe her hands on her pants, she found a fresh napkin to clean them instead.
“Reckon if you can make props you can make a bunch of things in the real world too.” Elliot pointed out, finishing up his own plate. “Trade on your skills and you’ll never go hungry.” From what he’d read in the papers since his arrival he didn’t think Central America was the best place to be for a young American woman on her own, but it wasn’t his place to say anything. Especially if it just turned out to be a whimsical thought without any impulse to carry it out in the near future.
“And I might have to investigate that, one day.” There was his own country to get reacquainted with first however.
A check of his watch and he frowned. “If I’m to catch the bus home I’d best be about it.” His hand started up toward a nonexistent hat before he caught himself, and settled for a smile instead. Damn the current fashion, he was going to have to start wearing hats again!
Hmm. He didn’t have a bad point, there, although taking on a trade would lead Maddy into an ethical debate about gentrification. She watched him check his watch. Who wore a watch nowadays? Huh. Funny guy.
“Coolio. It was nice meeting you.” She gave a little wave and grabbed her stuff. “Hi ho, off to work I go.” Maddy smiled and headed back to her department.