InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Gopher, Everett?"

Katherine Athena (oceantoocean) wrote in we_float,
@ 2010-05-21 22:37:00

Entry tags:

character: alistair icenhour, character: katherine athena, plot: sympathy for the devil

Who: Alistair Icenhour and Katherine Athena.
What: Conversations and further strategy.
When: Saturday, May 22, 2096
Where: Waiting for the Interurban, Fremont, Seattle
Status: Closed; in progress

"Well." Katherine said as she came to a full stop in front of the four statues. "That's something, isn't it?" Her arms, still clutching the notes from a brief meeting with the mayor, pressed her notebook up against her chest without even thinking about it. To protect her heart.

"Waiting for the Interurban" was what someone had titled the work of public art so many years ago that even Katherine, who studied her city's history carefully, knew little about it. It had become an institution--four stone figures standing, on which the public draped clothing and changed outfits at will. However the figures had changed. Someone had sewn on extra limbs into some of the outfits, added lumps of stone to the heads... in short, they were jokers.

"You don't have to stare," a teenage girl stopped and told them, plucking a headphone out of her ear for a moment. "It's been like that since Wednesday." She snapped a piece of gum and rolled her eyes. "I think they shoulda added something more dramatic. Like maybe the Troll." Before Katherine could get more words out of her mouth, the girl had stepped back on a board and let the air hover her down the street.

"Wednesday," Katherine repeated, stepping a little closer.

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theseainsideme
2010-05-22 06:03 am UTC (link)

Alistair hung up his call and looked first to Katherine and then to the statues. Art, he knew, had it's place in the grand scheme of history. He just didn't get it all of the time.

This was a fairly simple declaration he thought. Even one he could suss out.

"I wonder who's idea?" he said aloud as he followed her closer and peered with a more critical eye. This is what people thought of Jokers - extra limbs and heads like some twisted amalgamation of an incomplete attempt at forming identical twins. It was hard not to look at the statues and analyze his own faults. So he stopped looking at them.

"We should be getting along," Alistair pressed gently.

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oceantoocean
2010-05-22 06:10 am UTC (link)

"Right." She turned away and began walking briskly across the intersection. It was apparent that she was frustrated, from the short, sharp steps to the way that her hand kept reaching up to pull nonexistent strands away from her left ear. No wind was blowing and not even the quickness of her stride could joggle her carefully pulled-back hair from position.

The sidewalk met her heels soon enough and she forced herself to slow down, lest Alistair fight to keep up. She tried to think of the meeting that they'd been to and the conversation that had been going before her eyes fixed on the intersection but she kept wondering what the intent was behind the statue and the comment that the girl had made. The Troll. Was that what she was? An abstract?

Stop it, Katherine, she told herself. You can't be President if you're a joker first. But she wondered whether she could even tell the truth then.

Not for the first time, she thought that she would have liked to have sought Alistair's opinion on that matter. But again, she rejected the idea. She was too close to asking too much, as it was. To tell him that she'd hidden her own joker would push him over the edge.

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theseainsideme
2010-05-22 06:21 am UTC (link)

He sighed quietly as he followed her, walking at a nice clip to keep up. She was annoyed and had reason to, he supposed. It was a song and dance she had to do occasionally, none of it new or original. This reaction to it though was new - the open annoyance, the stern set of her jaw, the way her eyes were fixed ahead, but not on anything substantive.

"This is getting difficult to gauge, Senator," he said when she finally slowed up enough for him to presume that conversation was now acceptable.

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oceantoocean
2010-05-22 06:27 am UTC (link)

The smile that returned his remark was blatantly false.

"I assume that you're referring to my actions, Alistair," Katherine said, pausing to slide her credit card in a newsreader. Resting her watch against the panel, she glanced over at him as the information began to download in. "I miss newspapers. The kind that they printed on paper."

What she really missed was the fact that that particular media made it possible to slap someone with information quite literally, something that she would have liked to have done at the meeting with the mayor.

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theseainsideme
2010-05-22 06:47 am UTC (link)

"You'd assume correctly," he replied, tone clipped. "I'm not sure you're handling the sudden resurgence of your conscience as smoothly as you might."

Alistair swung around to stand against the newsreader to face Katherine. "I realise that you may no longer agree with his politics, but you can't alienate both town and country and expect to not end up clam digging after the next election."

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oceantoocean
2010-05-22 06:55 am UTC (link)

Her hand jerked down, interrupting the dataflow. She knew what it said, regardless. Stream after stream of hate crimes and it was only beginning. This was what she had legislated.

"You're right. I was harsh." Katherine pressed her lips together tightly for a moment, gritting her way through a smile. "But don't you think it's ridiculous, whatever side you're on, to suggest that legislating wild cards out of work is a good idea?" Her arms clenched around her notebook again. "You can't remove an entire segment of the population, particularly not one that size, and not expect the economy to collapse. Goddamnit, Alistair, not even the President went that far."

She halted, staring down at her watch. "Let's talk about this in the car. I need food or I'm likely to get worse."

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theseainsideme
2010-05-22 07:08 am UTC (link)

He held his tongue for just that - long enough to complete the circuit they'd walked and get into the town car. He put the privacy window and the sound dampeners up before finally addressing her statement.

"I imagine he'll circumvent the economic issues by not simply editing them out of the work force. He'll edit them out of collecting unemployment, receiving public health - or at least threatening to pull public funding for hospitals that continue to maintain care, and then welfare. Really, if anything, paring down the societal strain by excluding a sizable amount of the population may do the local economy good - more available jobs, money concentrating on 'Real Americans', no paying for those pesky Joker medical bills."

"Of course," Alistair added, taking the bottle of water he'd left and resuming drinking from it, "this increases crime which makes the whole Wild Card Act seem awfully prescient. It's a win-win for Yang."

He fell silent as he breathed and drank and existed. All the money in the world wouldn't matter if he was turned away from every establishment that would serve him. Money wouldn't matter at all.

	theseainsideme 2010-05-29 10:32 pm UTC (link)
	His head tilted slightly, glass still in hand, his eyes unavoidably drawn to her chest. A warm heart thrumming under fabric. It certainly answered his question. Burt had to know about this. "They can't put it back in?" he asked as his eyes finally drifted over to the tap. He filled up his water glass and took a sip. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)