Everrett Mac (ex_maths16) wrote in regulation, @ 2008-04-03 21:53:00 |
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Current music: | mgmt - of moons, birds and monsters |
Entry tags: | christopher warrington, everrett mac |
Who: Christopher Warrington and Everrett Mac
Where: Christopher's office
When: 3rd April, morning
What: Jelly Babies, tea, mutant octopi and credit cards.
Rating: G
Status: Closed; complete
Chris frowned at his desk - more appropriately, at the pile of owls on the corner of his desk. Zacharias Smith was an ass. There was no other word for it, really, and he was glad that the arranged meeting had been cancelled, even if that did mean all he had to go on now were theories. Half-proved, semi-substantiated theories, but theories nonetheless. It was disappointing, but he supposed he'd figure something out eventually.
I shouldn't have sent the mirror back.
Reaching over to the bowl near his inkwell, he picked up a piece of candy, a Jelly Baby, and ate it, chewing contemplatively. What he could really use, though, was a proper cup of tea. He stayed where he was, though, and ate another Jelly Baby. It was amazing, the array of sweets that Muggles had come up with that didn't involve hopping or something else that one could conceivably categorise as mildly unpleasant.
Everrett stripped himself of his white lab coat and itched at the bare skin of his arms, his fingers reaching up under the capped sleeves of his t-shirt and rubbing thoughtfully at the skin as he walked out of the small room that he called his office-slash-work-area. The chemicals that he had been using seemed to irritate his hands and skin despite the fact that he'd worn gloves and the coat - there was no rash, though, no sign that he'd been dabbling with anything dangerous. He was imagining things - phantom bugs, he liked to call them.
Frowning thoughtfully, he pulled his Batman wallet out of his back pocket and made his way down the long corridor that lead past the archive section, into the main staff room and canteen area. What this place really needed was a vending machine. He wasn't particularly in the mood for anything substantial.
Whistling to himself, he passed an open doorway and paused, glancing into Warrington's office and catching sight of the other man frowning at a yellow Jelly Baby caught between his fingers. It wasn't a Wizarding sweet, that much he could tell by the fact that it wasn't squealing or gurgling or anything ridiculous like that.
"Alright?" he said with a polite nod.
Blinking, Chris lowered the Jelly Baby and raised his brows, then let a smile curl at the corners of his lips. "Morning, Everrett..." Eating the sweet, he caught sight of the other man's wallet and tilted his head to the side. He didn't say anything, though, despite the fact that the patterns on it, whatever they were, looked interesting at the very least. "It's been a while since you brought something buy - that MP3 player was fascinating last time, though..."
He opened the drawer on his desk and tipped all of Smith's owls into it, then shut it and let the ward take effect. He'd deal with that later. If he decided to deal with it at all. A small voice in the back of his mind reminded him that of course he'd handle it. He couldn't do anything else. It just wasn't in him to ignore something important.
"Jelly Baby?" Chris nudged the bowl toward the edge of the desk, brows raised.
"You're the only other person I know in here that likes to eat sugar this early," Everrett replied with a shy, crooked grin, slinking into the room and picking out one of the green ones with a thank you. He caught Chris' gaze on his wallet and his eyebrows raised when he remembered. "Oh! Of course, I forgot all about the credit cards, it's been kind of mental downstairs.." He took the free seat next to Christopher's desk and peeled his wallet open, the velcro making a loud scraping noise as it was pried open. "Here, this is... one of them..." he said as he slid out his NatWest card. Technically it was a Switch card, but he didn't think that was terribly important.
"I've had that one for a while now, it should be running out soon."
"There's nothing wrong with having a healthy appreciation for sweets," Chris murmured, eating one of the purple Jelly Babies before pushing the bowl a little closer to Everrett and taking the card from him. "Run out? Why does it run out? And out of what?" Turning the little piece of plastic over in his hands, he saw how it had the younger man's name printed on it, then other identifying pieces of information and a rather long number. "What's the purpose of the number? And why are there spaces between them? Do they all mean something separate? Is there some sort of significance to the colours?"
It was so strange - such a small, thin piece of material could do something like purchase clothing. It seemed counter-intuitive. Who would trust this, rather than hard currency? Well, aside from Everrett Mac, of course, and millions of Muggles everywhere.
Everrett's small grin grew slightly and he perched up on the chair for a moment, gazing down at the card in Christopher's hands almost as if he hadn't seen it a billion times already. "By run out, I mean expire," he explained, sitting back down. "Each card has an expiration date and we get issued with a new one once it 'runs out'. I think it's to stop things like fraud and so on. The number's my card number, each card has a different one so we can tell them apart. The numbers underneath that long number are my bank details - roll number, account number. All of those stay the same. And... I think the colours are just for show. I seen someone with a picture of a pig on their card once." He shrugged, propping his wallet up on the desk and crossing his legs.
"Fraud?" Chris flipped the card over, looking at the minuscule writing on the back and the black strip... there was a white one beneath that with numbers on it and Everrett's signature. "So if someone steals this from you, they have access to your bank account and the like?" Suddenly, he felt as though he should be rather more careful with the thing than not. "That seems like an ill-advised risk..."
He pondered it for another long moment, then asked, "And there are lots of these? Corporations and companies who make them, though? Do you actually have the money? Someone - didn't someone say that the money didn't actually exist? How do you use them if you don't have it? Are you permanently indebted to people? Or... whoever gave you the card?"
Everrett's smile slowly slipped away from his face and he blinked, trying to process the multitude of questions. He frowned thoughtfully, picking at the hem of his t-shirt, thin fingers twisting around the yellow fabric. "They can have access, to a certain extent - but if I knew that it was missing it's easily solved through contacting the bank - they can cancel the card and then it would become useless. Just a bit of plastic. And yeah - there are loads of banks in England who make them. And not just banks, supermarkets do them too. And other stores. It's quite hard to explain, but I suppose anyone who can afford to lend out money can create credit cards. Any company, I mean."
He took a breath, not sure if that was all one hundred percent accurate. Maybe he'd look it up later on his computer, print out some stuff to give to Christopher. "The money exists, kind of. They're called Credit Cards because money is just really credit - something you have to pay back when you use it, with real money. God, I'm sorry, I'm not explaining this very well..."
"What?" Chris asked, blinking again as he caught up with the last thing Everrett had said. "Oh - no, no. Thank you. I apologise. I forget to breathe, sometimes, when asking something new." Handing the card back, he tilted his head and asked, "So it's much like a loan? You can use this credit card to purchase things and then you owe that amount to whoever it is - whichever company, I mean - that lent it to you?" It was an intriguing concept, but one that he didn't think was terribly feasible for himself, as he had no need to work with Muggle currency, anyway. But still.
Smiling, he shrugged a bit. "It's an interesting premise, in many ways... such a small thing could be worth quite a bit - or nothing at all. Which isn't anything like Wizarding currency, is it? Of course, lugging Galleons and Sickles about all the time is something of a chore..."
Everrett took his card back and slipped it back in his wallet, closing it up and leaning up in the chair to slide it back into his back pocket. He couldn't even remember why he'd left the lab. "Like a loan, yes." He smiled and fiddled with the frames of his glasses, pushing them up the bridge of his nose. "But I think it would be helpful if the Wizarding government considered introducing notes as well as coins. And maybe money dispensing machines."
"Money dispensing machines?" Chris' brows rose yet again. "You mean like a miniature bank? I'm not entirely sure Gringotts would go along with that. They seem quite happy controlling... well, everything. What's the purpose of such a thing, though? This machine? Is it much like some of the others you've shown me? And would you care for tea?" Chris leaned back in his chair, reaching over the arm and down to the small cabinet he had behind the desk. It was stocked with everything he might need for tea as well as biscuits and several bags of Muggle sweets - they were something of a guilty pleasure for him.
"Um, tea would be great, thanks," Everrett said, watching the dark-haired man fiddle around with the cabinet and having a quick peek inside. It looked like Willy Wonka lived inside it. Or the witch from Hansel and Gretel. "And yeah - it would save all of us from walking back and forth from the bank, going to our vaults. It's a bit time-consuming for some. It'd be nice to see some money dispensers in other Wizarding districts, like Hogsmeade. Some people don't like to Apparate, or can't."
"That's a good point, but it would be difficult to get most Wizards to agree..." Chris was muttering more than anything, stretching to reach for the teacups and then just giving up. He picked his wand up off the desk and charmed the things out of the cabinet instead of persisting until he tipped himself over backward. "But yes, it would be difficult - and I believe that there's something in effect in most stores that allows patrons to have a tab of sorts? The bill's then shipped to Gringotts and taken care of... that's how it's done for my family, anyway - I would assume similar circumstances could be arranged so that Apparating wasn't altogether necessary..."
Leaning back in his chair, he watched the tea steep for a moment, then asked, "Would you care for something other than Jelly Babies? I do have biscuits, not just sweets... and I'm positive there's some fruit here in the office somewhere..."
Everrett snorted. "No thank you, tea's fine. I was supposed to get some breakfast but I'm really not all that hungry..." That's what I get for poking at octopus mutants all morning...
He offered the other man a smile and reached up behind himself, snagging the hair band from his wrist and tying it around his thick hair in a ponytail that knotted off on the end. "Besides, I think it's a bit late anyway," he said as he caught sight of his digital watch, the little numbers flashing eleven.
"It's never too late for Skittles," Chris murmured, pulling a miniature bag of said sweets from his cabinet and smiling. He pushed one of the teacups toward Everrett, then the sugar and the cream as well. Sometimes, he wasn't sure what he'd do if he wasn't able to magically keep things cold. Opening the Skittles, he ate one of the orange ones, then another, and shook his head. "What have you been working on recently? I can promise you, it's likely a million times more interesting than my current casework."
Everrett sipped his tea and bounced his ankle against his knee thoughtfully. "Mutant octopi and squid found in the Thames," he said with a nod. "Just small ones, with crab-like shell bodies and tentacles. Trying to work out if its the pollution in the water or something a bit more sinister that made them that way."
Everrett shook his head. "Not yet, we've only had them a week. I expect I'll come closer to an answer in a couple of days when test results come in. It's not a priority thing, really. Just a bit of research. Goodness knows what else could grow in that river, it's full of toxins. Waste. Corpses. Vehicles. Old boats. Fish. Horses. Centuries and centuries worth of crap." He wasn't too aware that he was getting a bit too detailed with his list, and smiled in a way that he hoped was polite.
"What about you? Looking at anything good?"
Chris thought about the owls from Smith where they sat in his desk. "I had my hands on a mirror that actually spoke - and I have some theories about why, based on a few conversations with the artist... but he's far from civil. In fact, he's really quite rude. I suppose 'volatile' might be a better word, really, but either way, I think I've lost my chance to see him actually make a piece."
He stopped talking, fingers tapping the rim of his teacup for a moment before he shrugged. "The theories involve my ideas about Wild Magic, but they're all fairly unfounded. It's likely not a good sign that my side projects within the Department interest me more than the job I was officially hired to do..." He smiled ruefully then, but shrugged.
Everrett shrugged. "Jobs evolve," he said. "Especially if you're doing something like research, reports, that kind of thing. It's lucky we have such varied tasks to do." He set his half-empty cup down and rubbed his fingers together thoughtfully, glad that the itch from them had gone away. He thought back to George, the mutant octopus sitting in the tank in his lab. He was likely getting quite impatient.
"It was really nice talking to you, and thanks for the tea-... but I should really get back to work otherwise we'll never know where those things came from." He grinned. "But your work sounds interesting? It's nothing I've come across before."
"Me, neither," Chris murmured, waving his wand to clear and clean the dishes. "Which is likely why it's interesting. Let me know how things with the octopi go. And do have a good afternoon." He'd have to figure it out sooner or later, but he could put off dealing with Smith for the time being, at least.
Everrett stood and brushed himself down, offering the man a short wave as he walked around the chair and out of the office, back into the long hallway leading to the labs.