ArchivedLogs:A Practical Addition

A Practical Addition
Dramatis Personae Parley, Luke Cage
In Absentia	2013-05-27 Cage gets a wake up call. Parley gets a job.
Location Heroes for Hire Office
The office of Hero for Hire. The front room has the secretary's desk, a small filing cabinet, a computer, and a ceiling fan. Janice, the aforementioned secretary is a sixty-something woman who's accent clearly marks her as being from Eastern European descent, though probably one generation removed judging by how well she speaks English. Janice was almost certainly selected by some busy-body lawyer on Luke's behalf, probably to keep him free of any more accidental law suits. The paint is faded, but everything pretty much works. Off to one side is the bathroom, and the other door leads back to Luke's office. There's isn't much in Luke's actual office but a small desk and a swivel chair pushed into one corner, with a pair of straight backed chairs on the other side of it. A couch is by the window that looks out over Times Square. All things considered, its actually a pretty decent little spot. There is a certain bundle of feral synapses in the animal hindbrain of a human mind that instinctively keeps a tally of personal space in a shared environment. It lives somewhere between the primal and the social, the voice that whispers 'I'm not alone right now' and 'I'm being watched'. A recognition of those presences that are alien and other in what would otherwise be the safety of privacy. Parley, ever washed through /with/ the external colors and scents of the minds around him, does not tend to blip much on this radar. Call it psychic camouflage, the shape of his personal presence all /stuck about/ with the fractured surface emotions and intentions and memory /bits/. He's strolling through the front portion of the Hero's for Hire office, possibly unnoticed by the secretary at all, trailing fingers along the walls like a cat /dragging tail/ along the corners of a new territory. He peeks over dear Janice's shoulder? Glances at her computer? He then ghosts on to invade the back office MANCAVE where Cage dwells. "Is it safe to not even have a wall of bullet proof glass in front?" The camo /breaks/ when he speaks, suddenly just THERE. It's not a terribly threatening figure, short Japanese man in a gray turtleneck with three quarter sleeves, hands tucked into pockets of black slacks, brown belt, brown loafers that used to be polished. Now a touch /scuffed/. And dark eyes that /peer/. Janice is henpecking her way through some work on the computer. She would be considered 'painfully slow' by some, but since Cage is actually /worse/ with computers than a his sixty-year old secretary, he thinks she's fantastic. When Parley peeks, it looks like she's replying to a press request for Luke's comments on the bank robbery the other day. Boring, boilerplate response spools out under her attention. Luke, on the other hand, is in his office. He's pulled his couch around to face the window, and has his feet propped up on the window sill, reading an honest-to-god, pulp and ink newspaper. Or, he would be, if he hadn't dozed off twenty minutes ago. He's still propped up pretty well though! And then someone is speaking, right behind him. A small squeak of surprise comes from the front room at the noise. Nicely handled, Janice. Cage, on the other hand, snorts and comes awake in a flurry. He twists out of the couch and comes up in a fighting stance, brandishing the rolled up newspaper as a terrifying weapon of doom. Looking around, Cage relaxes when he just sees the small man standing in his office. He takes a long moment STARING, before finally he seems to recognize him. Janice peers around the corner of the door, horn-rimmed glasses dangling from around her neck. He waves at her, "It's ok Janice," Luke sighs. "He's with Ms. Basil's office." Janice harumphs and makes unsatisfied noises, but retreats to her desk again. "Sorry buddy, what were you saying?" "-and your security is atrocious," Parley has this steady undercurrent of bemused monotone, continuing as though he /hadn't/ just been interrupted. Save maybe a brief -- widening of eyes when Cage brandishes his newspaper. Excuse me, he wants that, by the way. "May I?" He reaches up (up... up...) for that newsworthy rag. "Do you even have a contingency plan for the event of a bomb scare?" "Uh, sure, here," Cage says, handing over the newspaper-weapon. "Ya wanna sit down?" Cage pulls out one of the straight backed chairs for his visitor, but ends up perching on the arm of his couch rather than go behind the desk. "Well I mean, I don't own the /building/ you know. The city has ordinances, I guess?" There's this swirl of not-truth, not-lie, mostly made out of bluster, that pretty much sounds good, which he'll stick to until someone says he's wrong. "I think we'd just leave. If there was a bomb, I mean." "Under the assumption you knew it was there." Parley ignores the offer of chair, taking the newspaper and proceeding to /wander off/. Or at least, over in this direction. It's a random direction, he's shaking out the paper with a crisp little /crinkle/, scanning the headlines, "Do you enjoy this sort of attention, Mr. Cage?" He's opting, in the end, to perch on the corner of Cage's desk, in fact. Hoist: one ass cheek. And a folded leg to join it, half-lotus. "No, of course not." Cage's words might not even be heard by the empath over the volume at which his mind is hooting and hollering, 'AB-SO-FUCKING-LUTELY. Cage glances out the window and then says, "What was I supposed to do? Just stand back and let them get away?" "Exactly that, actually." Parley says casually. To the NEWSPAPER. "Between you and Mr. Holland, all these flagrant public uses of mutant powers are going to practically render the registration act /obsolete/ for the lot of you." He /peers/ up at the other man, over the top of his news paper, "Because the entire universe will already /know/ the full range of your abilities. Do you have coffee here?" He's kind of just. Moving in. He'll order eggs and toast next, possibly. Cage is stunned a moment at the exact opposite answer he was expecting. He starts and stops a couple times, and then goes with one he knows. "Uh, yeah, /Janice/," he doesn't have to say it very loud, it's a small office after all. "Can we have a couple coffees in here please?" There's some sort of grunt that he must know as a 'yes' because his attention comes back to Parley. "Well look, I busted out of prison. Its all on tape. Everyone already /knows/ what I can do." Huh. Sincere point of reasoning on Luke's part. Not just justification, in his mind, at least. By the time the cops had gotten there, it would have turned into a car chase, all over the damn city, gunfire exchanged - /people could have gotten killed in that mess/." He's not raising his voice, but his argument actually comes out as crystal clear, genuine motivation. He ALSO just happens to be a glory hound. No one says you can't have both. Except Claire. And Parley. And, oh never mind. "There was already gunfire exchanges." It's not sing-song. But if it were someone else saying it, it might be. "Knowing what you can do and knowing what you /will/ do are very different things." Peek. Parley's murky dark eyes /track/ this order for coffee with great dedication. "Bedlam is practically becoming your /bat/ signal, Mr. Luke Cage. If I need to speak with you, all I'd really need do is light a dumpster on fire. I tend to be strictly opposed," his smile is /thin/, "to predictability." Wrumple! He folds the newspaper closed, doubling it in half again and setting it aside, "Has it affected your business?" Does he sound almost concerned? At least. Genuinely interested, brows slightly pulled together. It's hard not to take some investment in former clients. Luke lets out a long sigh, turning to stare out the window. He's quiet for the whole amount of time it takes Janice to bring in two coffees, and a basket with creamer pods and sugar packets. Luke's coffee already looks like its had four of each added, while the coffee served to Parley is still black. Luke accepts his, mumbles something about thanks, and waits for Janice to shuffle back out to the front room. "I... haven't had many clients this month," Or ANY, actually. "Its a new business though, so we're still getting off the ground. Advertising..." Luke trails off, switches topics. "Predictable, huh? I just... Little kids want my autograph, you know?" Genuinely mixed emotion there. "Little boys in Harlem have someone to look up to." Complex emotions swirl and battle within the big man, none of them even fully resolved within himself. "Why is it so hard to help people without pissing everyone off?" "Pride. Likely." Parley lifts his eyes and nods thanks to Janice, his smile for her and her gifts of caffeine a little more secretive, gentler. Threadbare. Then it's gone again. He adds two creams to his coffee and takes a large handful of sugar packets, loading them into an inner pocket. Except one, which he keeps out, nips the corner off of with his teeth and pours into his tipped-back mouth. "Heroes tend to come with pre-installed spotlights. Expose the fact that most people on the planet are not, in fact, heroes themselves." He crunches on a pile of sugar with his molars, to one side of his cheek. "That's not criticism on you. But it's still true. I let my employer be concerned with the legalities, it's the practicalities that concern me. What you need is to better demonstrate your /discretion/." Luke sips at his coffee while Parley prepares his own. And then, as the smaller man elaborates, Luke's face goes slack with the expression of an average intelligenced man processing something entirely new. He blinks, sets his cup down on the side table by the couch and paces the length of his office. "Holy shit... I never thought of that way. I help someone, and it makes them feel like an asshole because they couldn't help themselves. I would /totally/ feel that way if it happened to me. I've had my head completely up my own ass..." Parley pulls up his other foot, leaving Cage the entirety of the floor to pace upon. He's sitting fully crosslegged on the other man's desk now, sipping his coffee and /watching/ over the cup rim as if he has if enduring a split second compulsion to just... /tackle/ him down before he hurts himself. "Mh. You /are/ an all or nothing man, aren't you." He rotates in the torso to begin searching over the desk top for objects to fiddle with. Or papers to rifle through. "You can't really take it all on, most people also happen to /be/ assholes. Do you want to hire me?" "/Ano/, co dela" comes a quiet, tired voice from the front room, followed by a sigh. Cage hasn't learned any Czech yet, but any translator-empaths present would understand her perfectly: /YES/, he does. Cage looks slightly baffled, but adds, "Well, yeah, I think I should man. You worked for Claire, right? Well I think its pretty obvious I need a P.R. guy. I think you know Jennifer Walters too, right? I think she's coming on as council. Can you work with her ok?" Ah, bless you, Janice. "Ms. /Walters/." Parley interlaces is fingers around his cup, ducking partly behind it with the corners of his eyes turning up in crinkles; it's some enigmatic little feline grin, eyelids lowering. "Mmh. I would relish a chance to work side by side with her. It will be part-time work, of course." He fishes into an inner pocket for another sugar packet, the moment's pleasure back to all brisk business. "I will need access to all of your case files up to date. And expect you to notify me the instant you've done any more," he holds up the paper, giving it a shake, "/gratis/ work on the field. I cannot /aid/ in what I do not /know/ about." He polishes off his coffee and slips to his feet, "I'll be in the office every Monday and Wednesday until there is a change in plans. I'll email you my information once I am home tonight." "Well, ok!" Luke says, feeling like he accomplished something productive today. "That sounds fine. We don't have that much going on yet anyway. /Janice/," he calls, "Can you take down Mr. Parley's information please? We need to get him on a 1099, and give him access to our files," Luke waggles his eyebrows at Parley. Sounds like he really /did/ do that business course in the prison's vocational school. Good Cage. You get a little quirk from the side of Parley's mouth for that. It makes the eye on that side alone squint a little. He nods briefly, a shallow dip, and slips towards the door, "I look forward to doing business with you, Mr. Cage. You're an interesting man." He's beyond the threshold now, standing by Janice's desk. And he adds over a shoulder: "Do try to stay alive long enough for me to enjoy it?"