ArchivedLogs:Steve and Oscar

Steve and Oscar
A Welcome Distraction
Dramatis Personae Doug, Micah
In Absentia	1 March 2013 geekgeeknerdtechthetechtechgeeknerdgeek
Location <NYC> Evolve Cafe - Lower East Side
Tucked down an alley, this out of the way coffeeshop is easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking for. Unassuming from the outside, its inside makes up for it -- spacious, with abundant seating and plenty of plush couches and cosy armchairs along the room's edges. The coffee is good, the prices are cheap, and there is a definitive alternative vibe to the room, from the music they play to the art that hangs on the walls. The real draw to this place, though, stems from its client base -- one of the very few businesses in the city that is welcoming to mutants, Evolve has become widely popular as a hangout with that crowd, and it is quite common to see them among clientele and employees both. At night, the thump of music can be heard from above, coming from the adjoining nightclub of the same name that sits over the coffeehouse. Friday night is the night to be out, although by strict clubbing standards it's still too early to be /seen/ out. Still, the night-crawlers are beginning to emerge, heading for their various clubs of choice. Some are headed here, to Evolve, the music already beginning to thump in the ceiling of the coffeehouse as the club upstairs begins readying to open the doors. Which explains the disproportionate number of club-dressed people currently keeping the coffee shop at near-maximum capacity. Those who are just regular customers find themselves being forced to share tables if they wish to sit down. Doug is /not/ one of the party-dressed. In jeans and a t-shirt with a picture of a spaceship in a mason jar, he's focused on his laptop, rather than the people around him. It's hard to do, as there are quite a few of them, and he's jostled more than once as someone makes their way past his table. A large cappuccino cup sits mostly abandoned to one side, the foam mostly returned to milk, from the looks of it. Every now and then, the blonde looks up and frowns, as if trying to decipher the native beat of the rhythm upstairs. Micah is standing a few feet from the counter where he had picked up a very large coffee cup, eyeballing the incredibly full room in search of a place to plunk himself down. He is in an unzipped olive green puffy coat over a similarly coloured T-shirt depicting Darwin-inspired sketches of finches with…upgrades…like jet-packs and laser eyes. His faded jeans have seen better days, sporting colourful patches on both knees. The hand not holding a coffee cup contains an orange wool Jayne hat and a rolled up magazine. He spots the empty seat at Doug’s table and approaches. “Hey…you mind if I set up camp here? You’ve got prime real estate.” He offers a little smile and taps the back of the empty chair with the magazine. Doug glances up when he's addressed, and it takes him a second to parse that the man in front of him is /not/ one of the club kids gathering. He offers a grin, and waves at the empty chair. "By all means," he says. "Anything for a fellow Browncoat." He plucks at the chest of his shirt meaningfully, and shifts his laptop to make room, briefly flashing a glimpse of what appears to be a 3D line-form drawing of something. "I'm Doug," he offers, holding out his hand amiably. "I like your shirt." A broader grin lights up Micah’s face at the Browncoat reference, nearly obscuring the somewhat haggard look in his eyes. “I suppose this coat is kind of a…brownish colour. Well, more greenish, but it was on sale.” He slips into the chair, depositing cup, hat, and magazine on the table. Said magazine declares itself ‘The O&P EDGE!’ in a font that is entirely too exciting for its advertised feature article, ‘The New Reality: Documenting O&P Medicare Claims’. Micah shakes Doug’s offered hand firmly, his own hand notably rough from manual work. “Micah. And likewise.” "Actually, between the coat and the hat, you could be Jayne Cobb's little brother," Doug says with a grin, leaning back in his chair as Micah gets settled. The magazine is noted with a small uptick of his eyebrows, and he nods at it even as comments about his shirt get another grin. "It's nice to meet you," he says, reaching for his cup and taking a sip with a mild grimace. "Are you a doctor?" he asks, nodding at the magazine again. "Only that seems sort of field-specific reading." Micah wiggles out of his coat, a little slow on freeing up the left arm, then shrugs it over the back of the chair. Doug’s little brother remark earns an actual /giggle/. “Awesome. I need to get myself a better arsenal to live up the family name, now.” Hazel eyes slide over the magazine, as if to remind him what was there. “Oh, yeah, that. I’m afraid I /was/ burdened by an overabundance of schoolin’. But I stopped at the Master’s. I’m just the assistive tech guy, not the wielder of the mighty prescription pad.” The mighty prescription pad earns a reverent finger-wiggle, even in its absence. “I needed a distraction and these guys /insist/ on sending me physical copies of their mag instead of just the digital, even though I told them to stop. They /almost always/ have articles about the latest amazing Luke Skywalker arm from DARPA or something, and the day I need a major distraction, they offer me /insurance documentation/.” He pulls a Mr. Yuck face to opine on /that/ subject. “You an artist?” A nod of his messy auburn-haired head indicates the laptop and the drawing Micah had glimpsed thereupon. "You just need one really big gun," is Doug's input on the arsenal. "And proficiency in the others. That should set you up good for holding up the Cobb honor." He listens to the explanation, eyebrows climbing at the flux of information, and when Micah pauses to make his yuck face, he chuckles. "Assistive tech...that's wheelchairs and robotic prosthetics, right? I've read about some of that stuff online. It sound interesting, but it's way too mechanical and medical to wrap my head around." He grins. "That's pretty cool, though." The question gets a shy grin, and a small shake of his head. "Oh, gosh. I've been told that I am, but I'm really just a student. This is a side-project of mine. Character designs for the game I'm working on." Micah sips from his cup, burns his tongue a little, then stubbornly drinks more of it anyway. “Eeyup, that’s most of what I do. It’s actually a lot more fun than it sounds. I tend to deal with some serious /characters/ in with all the medical hooey.” He perks up visibly at the mention of ‘character designs’. “You’re making a game? What kind?” He scoots his chair closer to Doug’s, its legs squeak-squeaking along the floor, intent on peeking at the screen again. Doug grins. "I bet," he says, with a bob of his head. "It probably reduces your stress, having a job that's fun for you. I hope I'm that lucky, one day." Micah's interest in his project, however, brightens him considerably, and he pivots the laptop, stroking his fingers over the keyboard to pull up a title screen. The landscape behind the lettering looks like an alien landscape, circuitry running along every surface. The letter is big and similarly circuited, reading: TECHNARCH: RISE OF THE WARLOCK. "It's essentially an open-world platformer," he says, leaning over the keys. "You're playing the Warlock, who is part of this race of beings called the Technarch, who essentially absorb every living thing into their technorganic society." He's starting to bounce as he pulls up one character design which looks like a robot with spiky hair and various attachments. "Warlock, though, does the opposite -- he can extract the virus from the infected things. So, you're essentially saving these claimed worlds from the Technarch while pursuing the Warlock's father, the Magus, and defeating him." He wrinkles his nose, and tilts his head to one side. "I'm still in the early stages, but I've got it planned out for at least ten open-explore worlds." “Ooo,” Micah offers eloquently, looking over the screen with keen interest. “Man, I haven’t done any serious computer gaming since, like, /Dragon Age/ came out. But that was a good one for ‘let me play all of the races and get all of the endings forever!’ I didn’t even play the sequel, though I hear it was kind of disappointing. Just hasn’t been feasible much since I graduated, but that looks /really cool/. Is that seriously a solo project?” Did he stop to breathe during any of that ramble? Probably not. "Dragon Age was cool," Doug says, chuckling a bit at Micah's enthusiasm. "I kind of broke my copy open so I could study the code." He grins, and lifts a hand. "But I swear every line in this is totally my own. I just wanted to see what the guts of something that complex looked like." He shifts a bit under the praise, and punches a button, bringing up another character. This one looks like a beefier version of the Warlock, with a beard added. The notation at the bottom identifies it as The Magus. "It is a solo thing," he says with a nod. "Which is why it's taking so long to get to actual gameplay. In a perfect world, I'd have a team of geeks working on all of that while I focused on this." He leans forward, and wrinkles his nose. "But, to be honest, the less people who work on a game, the better. Less chance of it getting leaked or sold out from under you." He shakes his head. "But you should always find time for gaming," he advises. "If nothing else, it improves hand-eye coordination. “Maaan, you computer geeks are like /magic/,” Micah asserts with a soft laugh. “The most I know how to do is, like, get a gait analysis program to feed me the numbers I want and provide some sad stick figure visuals. Or program speed settings on a power chair control. The engineers are the ones who get to do the real gritty design-y bits. And then it turns into too much math for too long and my brain goes bleh.” He crinkles his nose bunny-like at that last bit. “I’d say you qualify as an artist, too, though. I couldn’t begin to imagine how you got all that done still bein’ a /student/.” "I kind of have a talent for coding," Doug admits with a lift of his shoulder. "It's kind of like its own language, and I guess I have an ear for it." There's a lift of eyebrows, and the blonde motions at the older man. "I'd be happy to look at your systems, and see what I can do to make them more user-friendly," he offers with a crinkle of his eyes. "Maybe upgrade the graphics. My rates are shockingly low." There's another shy grin, and a duck of his head at the compliment. "Oh, well, I don't go out partying or anything," he confesses. "So I have a lot of free time to poke around with it. I've been working on it for a couple of years, though. Like I said, it's slow going." Micah’s laugh this time is a deep, wry thing. “Oh, you know not what you ask. These tasks are always a bigger mess than they look. I don’t really have the resources for that kind of development, is how big a mess they are… Usually gotta get yourself a grant or a hospital system or somethin’ to really dig into that stuff. I’m kind of a solo act with my new company, so I just swoop in and utilise other folks’ more established resources for now. Set up shop in a hospital’s casting room or gait lab during their orthopaedics or limb deficiency clinic day and the like. I’m doing my manufacturing out of a mobile unit. Well, except for the serious metal shop stuff. I borrow facilities over at this auto repair place I work at for that.” Wow, Micah is extra rambly today. “It’s kind of more impressive you’ve been working on it that long, though. That means you started pre-real-student-dom.” And now we’re on to making up words! "Still, if you need IT work, I'm your guy," Doug says. "I'm cheap, and amazingly free on short notice." He grins, and takes another sip of coffee, watching Micah carefully. "You really love your work, huh?" he asks, scrunching his nose amiably. "I hope I sound that excited when I talk about my game." He thinks a long moment. "You work out of a mobile unit?" he repeats. "Like, one of those RV things, like a bloodmobile or something?" He glances at the street through the window, as if expecting said vehicle to have simple escaped his notice. "Hey, high school students are real students," he protests good-naturedly as he turns back. "I just have less money than I did then." He puts an elbow on the back of his chair, stretching languidly. "So, how did you get interested in your field?" Micah blushes just a little, across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. “I…uh…guess I’m just really /enthusiastic/ about pretty much everything. It’s what I do. I can’t reel in the awesome-face when somethin’s awesome.” He pauses to sip from the coffee cup again, nodding silently in response to Doug’s mobile unit query until his mouth is free to talk again. “It’s more of a cargo van that I converted for techie purposes, but same idea.” He frowns a little, talk of the van bringing uncomfortable images of a still-too-recent collision with a pedestrian and no real closure on how that kid /was/ after. And no way to find out, either. Micah’s brow furrows a moment before he recalls himself to the present conversation. “I…uh…came by it pretty naturally. Not just a founder of an O&P company, I’m also a customer.” The joke is a bit weak, as is the attempt at a smile that comes with it. "Enthusiasm is good," Doug says with a warm smile. "Much better than being Debbie Downer about everything, any day." He nods at the explanation of the vehicle, glancing back at the window. "Hey, if it serves the purpose, it's still pretty cool," he says. "Especially if you've tricked it out for tech stuff. I bet that thing looks like a mini version of that 18 wheeler they used on the old Knight Rider show." He waggles his fingers. "You got all kinds of lights and beeping things in it?" he teases. "A grumpy old man telling you that you can't do something?" The admission stops the teasing, and Doug's eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. "No shit?" he asks, eyeing the older man more studiously. "I wouldn't have guessed," he says, and ducks his head. "That didn't come out right." Doug’s going on about his imagined setup for the van gets Micah back to chuckling. “She’s mostly a /lot/ of crazy storage and some machinery on the interior. Painted her precisely TARDIS blue, though. She may, occasionally, go /ding/ when there’s /stuff/.” A grin pulls at the corners of his mouth. “I did have to come up with a trailer unit for hauling the bigger assistive tech stuff, too. Power wheelchairs are enormous. That part’s painted up as an AT-AT. Because it’s where I keep my A.T. It’s a horrible joke and I don’t care.” Another chuckle at his own expense, before responding to Doug’s last statement. “Not to worry.” Micah pats at the air dismissively. “I know what you mean. I’m stealthy. Ninja amputee. Well…ninja prosthesis. I’ve got fancy-tech-leg so my gait pattern is amazingly symmetrical.” He’s got the casual, ‘so used to talking about this’ tone of someone who has lived with his disability since childhood. "Oh my God!" Doug practically shouts at the revelation of the van's color. "I /love/ Doctor Who. I've got to see this conveyance, for sure." He grins, and wobbles a hand. "Please tell me you painted the windows and everything to match." He slaps the laptop shut, leaning forward. "Because that would be /awesome/." Micah's revelation gets another lift of eyebrows, and Doug leans out to glance under the table. "Ninja amputees sounds like an awesome comic," he offers with a grin. "Especially if they have awesome tech to replace the lost limb." He brightens. "Oh, hey! You're Steve Austin! Mobile lab and all!" “Seriously, though, who /doesn’t/ love Doctor Who?” Micah offers a huge, squinty-eyed grin. “Captain Jack is best companion… And /of course/ the windows match. No Police Box label or instruction sign, though. Had to put the company logo and such on there somewhere, so it’s more of an /abstract/ TARDIS.” He nods along with Doug’s comic ideas. “Yeah, I might have heard the Six Million Dollar Man thing before…” he still sounds amused, as opposed to annoyed, with that comment. "Oof," Doug says, rolling his eyes. "Captain Jack is fucking /delicious/." He waggles his eyebrows, and grins. "I have every season of Torchwood on Blu-Ray. I've worn out the disc with Jack and Ianto kissing on it." He wrinkles his nose in disappointment at the admission. "I hope it at least looks bigger on the inside," he quips. "But I guess it couldn't, unless you've managed somehow to break quantum laws." He looks hopeful for a second, then scrunches his nose. "Probably not." He smiles, and lifts a hand. "Hey, if you ever need an Oscar Goldman, I'm your guy. I'll make your computers sing like a tabernacle choir, and I /rock/ a houndstooth blazer." “For /real/. Poor Ianto…” Micah pulls a sad puppy face for a moment. “Nah, though, it looks incredibly /cramped/ on the inside. I wish I had a relative dimension to store things in. That would be handy as heck.” Doug’s unexpected wisecrack-offer is met with a sputter as Micah almost chokes on his coffee. He dissolves into giggles, though, so he must be okay. “I’ll have to keep that in mind. I’m all about singing, but I don’t know if I could handle feelin’ like I’m bein’ stalked by /Mormons/ all the time. I won’t argue you playin’ dress-up if you want, though.” This last is mostly playful, avoiding being /too/ flirtatious with a probable-teenager. "Yeah, I was bummed out for weeks after that," Doug says, frowning in a similar sad-puppy face. "If they bring it back, it just won't be the same. Miracle Day just lacked the heart." Fellow Whovian found, Doug seems very relaxed, leaning back in his chair and stretching lightly. Micah's giggles get a wider grin, and Doug leans forward. "Man, if I ever do stand-up, you're totally sitting in the front row. You're good for a guy's ego." Then he's leaning back, taking his cup with him. "Hey, I'm happy to give a full-on fashion show, for the right audience," he says, sipping at his coffee with an innocent look over the rim for Micah. “Yeah, I was not overly impressed with Miracle Day. Doctor Who-and-company is just so /wonderfully/ British. It doesn’t really work when they decide to have the team hop the pond. Evidence: the Eighth Doctor film. Bleh.” Micah smiles broadly at the ego comment. “I /am/ very easily amused. I’ve actually been accused of bein’ dangerous for people’s egos before.” And Doug’s look is just a /little/ unfair on top of that comment. Micah flushes more obviously than before, in true redhead style despite his only vaguely auburn hair, and hides behind his own cup for the duration of another gulp. Doug acks, and crosses his fingers at the mention of the horrible film. "No, no. That movie never happened," he insists. "The Eighth Doctor was Rowan Atkinson." He grins at Micah's blush, and leans forward to set his cup down. "I don't think you could be /that/ dangerous to an ego," he says, allowing his gaze to rake over the older man briefly. "But I can tell you'd probably be a hell of a cheerleader to have around. That kind of enthusiasm and good humor is nice to find around the city." He grins, and narrows one eye. "So, I'm guessing you're /not/ from around these parts." Bah, ongoing blushing! Still not fair. Micah brushes a loosely fisted hand over his right cheek, as if that will help. “Ha, yeah, the Fatal Death. Much better than that film-which-shall-not-be-named.” More banter gets him to stop hiding behind his cup, at least, leaning with his forearms on the table. “Haven’t been here long enough to go native, f’sure. About 7 months for me now. I’m out of…er…/rustic/ Southern Virginia.” For a half a second, Doug's tempted to see if he can actually make Micah pass out. It's evidenced by a mischevious gleam in his eye that accompanies the flash of a grin he offers. "Virginia?" He rests his chin on a fist, bracing his elbow on the table. "What is it about New York that draws so many Southerners here? I've met more people from below the Mason-Dixon line than I would have ever guessed." He blinks. "How rustic?" he asks. "Like, you had animals and grew crops and stuff?" Micah nods in response before speaking. That grin of Doug’s looked a little dangerous, but the conversation actually went safer. His colour is slowly returning to baseline. “Yep. My guess is that it’s /not the South/. I mean, like, the /opposite/ of the South. So people who want to /not/ be in the South congregate here. That pretty much did it for me, along with knowin’ a couple of folks hereabouts before I moved.” More nodding at the last question. “Not, like, professionally, but for personal use, yeah. Chickens for eggs. Rather impressive vegetable gardens. Enough to do some canning for the wintertime and trade with neighbours who grew different things. I’m guessin’ you didn’t come up rural from that question.” "That makes sense," Doug says of Southern emigration. "I imagine everyone wants to go somewhere different than what they know." He grins, watching Micah as he speaks. "It's good you had friends here," he says. "I know a couple of people who didn't know anyone. They said it was awful, not knowing where stuff was." He leans back, then, and shakes his head. "No...I grew up just outside of the city, but my life was more suburban." He waves a hand. "We moved around a lot when I was a kid, but I don't recall any country living." He frowns. "Canning...that's like preserves and stuff, right?" His tone is impressed. "That's really cool." “Different was certainly my goal, I know. ‘Different’ didn’t go over well back home, generally. And, yeah, preserves if you’re doin’ fruit. Also pickling. And just /vegetables/, like you’d get in the store, but not from the store. We did a lot of tomatoes.” Something draws Micah’s attention to his watch. “I should probably head out, though. I’m pulling an early shift for Jake’s shop tomorrow morning. No good fallin’ asleep under somebody’s car when you’re supposed to be workin’ on it.” He offers Doug a smile as he starts gathering his things. “Thanks for sharin’ your table.” Doug looks thoughtful. "Yeah, I've heard 'different' isn't a popular subject in some parts of the South," he says, and his mouth presses into a line before relaxing into a grin. "I bet those are good,' he says. "Fresh food is the best." He looks genuinely disappointed as Micah gets ready to leave, and nods. "Anytime," he says earnestly, and holds out his hand. "It was good meeting you. Do you have a card or something?" he asks, color creeping into his ears. "You know, in case I need your bionic services against the fembots or whatever." Micah takes Doug’s hand for another shake as he stands. He’s also smirking at the younger man, perhaps a little gleeful at the blushing sickness being passed on. He pulls a business card out of his back pocket, the stash that he’s kept altered for non-business purposes. The card has a blue background with white writing on it: ‘Gorilla AT. Micah Zedner, MSOP, CPO, ATP, PYT’ (the last acronym is added in pen). A P.O. Box address. Two phone numbers, the second of which is circled in the same pen. “The circled one is the best way to reach me…in case of robots.” His eyes glitter with this, teasing. Doug accepts the card when he breaks the handshake, which lingers a little longer than is probably necessary. Looking it over, he snorts a laugh at the addition, and he looks up at the older man through his lashes. "Well, I'll definitely use it," he promises. "You wouldn't believe how much trouble I have with them." His own tone is teasing, and he leans on the table. "Besides, you still owe me a tour of the TARDIS, right? Gonna let me twiddle your levers and stuff?" That might be a tease, except for the wide-eyed gaze Doug turns on the redhead. "Punch some buttons?" Micah clucks his tongue softly, shaking his head as he stuffs the Jayne hat back over his mess of auburn hair. The ear flaps manage to obscure, partially, that he’s started blushing again. “Kid, you /are/ trouble.” He cuts himself off from saying much else, clearly believing that statement. “I’ll see you later.” A little wave serves as Micah’s final comment as he finds the door and heads out into the now much-deeper night.