ArchivedLogs:Keeping Up With the Times

Keeping Up With the Times
Dramatis Personae Ash, Charlie Torres, Daken	29 March 2015 '
Location <NYC> Guerrilla Garden - Lower East Side
Situated on the lot directly adjacent to the distinctive sleek form of the Mendel Clinic, this space was once abandoned. The chainlink fence around it is still rusty, dilapidated, and the signs affixed to it still unwelcoming -- rusty as well, reading KEEP OUT, and PRIVATE PROPERTY. For those who venture into the slitted gap cut out of the fence, though, the yard within tells a different story. Neat and cleaned of any garbage and weeds, the once-abandoned lot has been rebuilt. Packing crates have been broken down for their wood to create raised beds full of rich soil, each bed neatly tilled and tended. Stakes label the different plants growing -- a wealth of vegetables growing three seasons of the year in the carefully tended soil. Around the edges of the lot, smaller beds have had brightly coloured flowers planted, lending even more cheer to the little hidden garden. Very eclectically mismatched seating has been brought in; old packing crates, chairs scavenged from curbs, though it's all been brightly painted. As the days grow longer and brighter, Ash has been spending more hours in the guerrilla garden. At first it was just to gather the refuse that the hard winter blew in, and then to till the ground in each of the containers and mix. Now, he's transplanting small seedlings into the soft and squishy earth in each of the beds, a tray of baby plants sitting next to him as he scoots his way around on an upturned five gallon bucket. He's dressed in muddied blue jeans and long sleeved, layered shirts, light colored originally, but now dingy from use. He doesn't even seem to notice as he smears more mud on his forehead when he wipes with the back of his wrist. Longer and brighter doesn't seem to have had an impact on Charlie's clothing choices. The hare-girl is bundled up under a navy hoodie, hood pulled low over top of a teal wool hat, cream and navy scarf tugged up over the lower half of her face, black corduroys and oversized work boots concealing the rest of her. One thin-gloved hand clasps a /large/ to-go coffee from Evolve in it. Her casual stroll past the garden pulls up short, surprise at the goings-on in the middle of the city. Actual gardening! Huh. Though she doesn't speak she does very clearly linger and watch from outside the fence. Ash continues planting until he runs out of little bitties in his tray. He gets to his feet and stretches, his hands resting on the small of his back for a moment before stretching them further back. He blinks around blurrieyed before he gets all of his senses back and locates the next tray of little leafs. He pauses when he catches a figure near the entrance to the fence, his brows climbing for a moment before he turns and heads back to his work. He's a little more wary than he was before, his enjoyment on pause. He keeps peeking over his shoulder at the figure. Benefits of fur and concealing clothing? No one can tell when you blush. Charlie does shift a little self-consciously, foot to foot, when Ash notices her. Her head ducks slightly. "Apologies, I...wasn't staring at /you/. Just wasn't expecting to run into a real /garden/ here, y'know? It's...a nice thing to see." She turns slightly, looking over her shoulder farther down the street as if contemplating whether she really ought to keep going that way. "OH, Oh... good. I mean, well, you're noticing the garden in a good way. I guess I was more afraid you'd think that the garden would be fun to wreck and it's so sad when that happens." Ash turns toward the voice and flashes a large smile at Charlie. "I... well, I'm not so worried about me, but the garden, you know, that's left undefended all the time and it produces some nice food so it's best if it's not wrecked. But now, listen to me prattle on making you feel uncomfortable. M'name's Ash. You can come in, if you like." “Shit, no. You don't mess with somebody's way of feeding themselves. That's beyond fucked up.” Charlie sucks a quick breath between her teeth at that. “Too bad you can't get scarecrows for assholes 'stead of birds. I do some gardening, myself. Food and ornamental. Plants are kinda like...the way most people look at pets? To me, anyhow. Dependent companions. Make things brighter. That much better if they also have a delicious to offer.” She hesitates, eventually tugging her scarf off of her face and looking up a bit more before so much as moving for the gate. “You sure?” "You eat your pets?" Ash chuckles lightly and turns to sweep an arm in an inviting fashion. "That's a funny thought, but to each their own, you know? but it's not so outlandish with what I've seen before. At least you're not a zombie, yeah?" He gives the other woman a little more space to work with before turning his attention to the seedlings. "You want to plant anything? It's kind of dirty work, but that never bothered me - getting nice clothes dirty - so maybe it's not a bad thing for you too. I just... stop having nice clothes." “Hey, you better bet if I had me some chickens I'd be eating eggs all the damn time. No different taking tomatoes off the vine.” Charlie flashes a bright smile at that...more than a little toothy. “No zombies, no. You were here for that? News was all kinda fucked up.” She finally does open the gate and move in, more than a little pleased at the lack of so much as a batted eyelash at her furry features. Setting the coffee on the edge of a raised bed-box, she tugs off her gloves. “Don't think I got no clothes anybody'd be willing to call 'nice'. Means I'm always ready for dirt, too, so's one of those blessings in disguise. You the boss here, I'll do a thing for sure. Point me. This spot, it belong to some kinda group or one of the buildings around here?” "Yeaaah. I was here for that. Got the sickness too, but well, I was a little lucky because I knew some people who were working at the clinic that came up with the treatment and the cure. Could have been me wandering around eating peoples' brains and getting smashed in the skull for it." Ash gives a little shrug and a sheepish smile before wandering over to Charlie with a tray of sprouts. "I'm not actually a boss, you know, just a worker bee. My bud is the one who started it so I'm also not entirely sure how they picked the place. We kind of started with a roof top garden, but then you know that roof went away, but that was after we started this one, so it's not relevant. Anyway. Um, put these in sort of a circle around ... umm..." Ash places an empty solo cup partially in the ground in the plant bed nearest Charlie. "Man, that's rough. We didn't run into any of that where I'm from. Far enough away, I guess. And as soon as the word got out on the...words. Just stopped speaking English for the longest damn time. I mean, my neighbourhood, it wasn't /that/ big a switch, you know?" Charlie gives a nod, pausing to pull a minty-scented licorice twig chewstick out of a pocket and pop it into her mouth sort of like a cigarette but more back in her teeth. "Don't matter if you're everybody's boss. Get to be the boss when nobody else is around, at least, yeah? Take what you can get." She sets right to readying the seedlings for planting as instructed. "Rooftop gardens, that's my usual speed. Any building we lived in that'd let us, anyway." "Ha. Well, I stopped speaking English for a while as best I could, but there are also a lot of English-Speakers around here, so the Spanglish got kind of bad, you know?" Ash grins a little and watches what Charlie is doing for a few minutes before turning back to where he was working. He is using his fingers to dig into the dirt rather than a trowel, but with the softness of the earth and the shallow depth that the seedlings need, it works. "Aww, you're nice. I'm not trying to be a boss, you know, I'm good with what I do. Kind of more of an equal thing, you know? I'm just sharing knowledge and making sure everyone's capable, right?" “Yeah, mostly it was cutting the Spanglish out back home. In the neighbourhood, at least. Plenty of English-speaking once you walk far enough.” Likewise, Charlie is just digging around with her dark-furred fingers to place the seedlings. The dirt on her brown fur isn't exactly standing out. “S'good, good. Knowledge and capability are both admirable. This is kinda a family venture, then? Not to pry. I'm just impressed and curious how this came into being.” "Yeah. It's a place where people who need to can get fresh veg. It's kind of like giving back to the community, but it's also helping people in need and yeah, they're kind of family... I guess, at this point. Been living with some of them since I got to New York and they've kind of taken care of me when things where bad. Hell, they helped me get here, so I dunno how else I'd describe them." Ash speaks softly, but then switches to Spanish. "{How about yourself? What brings you to New York City? Is it the food? They sure got a nice variety of food here. The hotdogs are great. We didn't have hotdog venders in my little home town like we got here.}" "That's awesome. Sure there's some folks who don't have enough space or green-thumb of their own to be getting in the tough times. I always tried to have a patch growing, but it was just for me and my uncle, keep something in the kitchen even when there wasn't money to buy it, you know?" Charlie smiles at that description, and the Spanish, sliding over into it herself. "{Much the same. What family I had back home ain't there anymore. Came up here after some friends...family. Been good to have someone. Food's been good, though. Couple shops around here I can even go in without all this.}" Her hand lifts to gesture generally at the hood and hat and scarf still half-covering her. "{Still need it getting to and from if I don't want trouble. Figure I save my trouble for when it means something instead of just walking down the street, you know?}" "{Yeah, money can be a problem sometimes. Growing food is good and cheap, but kind of a problem in the colder months up here. Now that I think about it, I should probably start growing potatoes in my home.}" Ash scratches his chin as he considers, smearing more dirt on his face. "{I'd offer to get you some stuff from places that don't serve so well, but those are places we probably shouldn't give money to. I could give you some places you can go, but it's still always iffy, you know. You never really know who is going to be a hater.}" He finishes another tray and gets up once more, examining the remaining seedlings. “{Mmn, yeah. Winter. Get stuck with just what you can keep going indoors. Sad, sad times. Spring, she's springing all over though. One of my favourite times, planting.}” A little chuff of laughter makes its way past Charlie's chewstick. “{You got a little dirt goatee going on there,}” she points out with a vague gesture toward Ash's face. “{No, I get it. I really prefer going to places as don't want to throw me out first glance. I got some friends, obvious as I am and more, some of them. Huge wings, all different colours and what-not. They tipped me off a few good places to go. Was over that Evolve place for my coffee. Freaks all over the place in there.}” In the afternoon sun, a couple people are gathered behind an opaque fence, chatting away in Spanish. There's an opening in the fence where the pair can be seen, gardening of all things. The guy seems to acquiring a fair bit of dirt on his person as well as his clothes, utterly unperturbed by it. He's standing over a tray of seedlings, considering, his attention drifting back up to Charlie. "{Yeah? Really?} he reaches his hands up and scrubs them across his face, smearing the dirt around rather than leaving it in one place. He shakes his head slowly and grins, his teeth all the whiter for the dirt darkened skin. "{How's that? Better? And yeah, Evolve's the easiest place to get a good coffee - mostly because the owner is the amazing sharkkid.}" Despite having grown more relaxed through talking with Ash, Charlie is still dressed for Public, hood on her hoodie up, hat and hair concealing her ears, most of her body well covered. Her scarf has been pulled down from her face and her gloves removed to allow her to dig in the dirt unimpeded, however. Currently, she's laughing outright at the young man's antics. "{Hot,}" is the hare-girl's assessment of the dirt situation. “{Always good to figure out who's a dirty boy right up front.}" The tease comes with a wicked-broad grin betraying just how aware she is of the horribleness of the joke. "{I keep hearing rumours about the kid but have yet to run into him myself. Just hope all this protection they say they got is as good as they say it is. He's doing a service for folks like me. Hate to see anything happen to him, meeting or no.}" A lot of things can be said about Daken. Him not liking to make an entrance isn't one of those. Instead of making his way in through the opening in the fence, there is a brief rustle before he plops down near the pair, having jumped the thing. "{Hey.}" he offers with a slight wave upon spotting Charlie, though his usual grin has been replaced with a thoughtful frown. "{Well, I can definitely be described as a dirty guy. Dunno... if it's the same as the other meanings.}" Ash blushes through the dirt on his face, laughing softly as he speaks. He scuffs his toe against the ground and leans over to reach out for another one of his trays of seedlings. "{Don't worry about the protection issue. There's plenty. It's the best anyone can manage. I know the guys that watch over the place. Good people.}" He starts to turn toward one of the garden beds when Daken lands. His tray clatters to the ground as he crouches low, fingers digging in deep into the hard Manhattan ground. He is silent as he cowers, still tense as the new person speaks. "{Oh, he blushes under it all, too,}" Charlie continues the light-hearted verbal prodding. "{That's good. Good. Need more places and people like that...Jesus fucking /Christ/!}" Rather than crouching down, the hare-girl pops /up/ at the sudden rustlings and crashings, light on her feet and fists readied as she faces the new arrival. "You can't just go sneaking up on people like a goddamned alley cat, Daken. 'Specially out the damned open like this. I don't know you that well and like as not this guy know you not at all. /Fuck/, man." Her fists are far slower to lower than they were to raise. Daken brushes the dirt off of his blue coveralls, before managing a smirk at the pair. "Sneaking is what I do best." his shoulders lift in a light shrug before he crouches down to collect the tray Ash dropped. "{Sorry about that, frightening you wasn't my intention,}" he assures, before looking back over at Charlie. "Had a strange dream last night. Been thinking about it all day. Was almost like I was there. Was in Alberta, Canada after mutants had been wrangled up and sent to concentration camps. Was half starved. I still remember the hunger. And then Anette found me. She'd seen some stuff too, looked half starved herself. Was distraught because her child, well, our child, had been taken." He gives his head a slight shake. "I don't know what to make of it." It takes Ash a moment to extract his hands from the ground, his jaw set, reluctant rather than stuck. He doesn't speak immediately, moving forward in his crouch to take the tray of plants. "{Try not to smirk when you say that. Doesn't have the same effect.}" He lets out a low grumble as he moves away with his tray to start fixing the mess with his fingers and perhaps a little something extra - though he tries to keep that from being obvious. The conversation keeps his attention and soon he's turned back to study Daken and Charlie in turn. "{Seriously, man. Oughtta know better than to pull that shit.}" Charlie shakes her head, then rolls her shoulders a little, coming back out of her fighting stance to resume the planting she was working on. "So, you creeped up in here to tell me you had a fucked up dream? I'd make of it probably you had too much spicy food right before bed or something. Maybe you take a Benadryl before you tuck yourself in tonight." She pulls in a long breath and heaves it out heavily as Ash looks between them. "Ash, this is Daken. We've met a few times. I won't vouch for him not being a psycho just yet. Daken, this is Ash. We just met a few minutes ago, so there's that." "{The smirk was more for Charlie than you. It's not as much fun to scare a person on accident.}" Daken assures Ash, before offering the man a hand. "I'm Daken, yeah." But his attention drifts back towards Charlie. "I actually didn't know you were here. Smelled you from the other side of the fence. And... I don't think it was just a dream. It just felt... Wrong, real even." "That's because it wasn't a dream." Ash concedes quietly, a note of disgruntled as he ignores the hand that Daken offers. "You got a glimpse of the future, probably about five years from now. Surprised you ended up going north. I went south to Mexico." He sets the tray down and shakes his head, muttering quietly to himself. "Did you learn anything interesting while you were asleep? You know, aside from the fact that you have a kid?" "{Fuck you, too, man}," Charlie replies without any heat to it, doe-eyes rolling a little but head not turning from her task. "I don't know anything 'bout no dream things. You want, you go find yourself some kinda palm reader or shrink talk you through that, depends which flavour of crazy you're wanting." Ash's contribution finally has the hare-girl turning away from the garden work. "How you gonna know that? And him knowing the same thing? I stumble into some kinda psychic convention without noticing?" "I got your scent when we met the first time." Daken explains towards Charlie. The lack of a handshake gets a grunt from him. "That's why I prefer cutting hands off to shaking them." But the future talk catches his attention again right quick. "If that's the case... We need to stop sentinel production, pronto. Blow that building up, and kill all the scientists working on it, and pray they didn't send the government a copy of the schematics." "Cutting off hands because I didn't shake yours?" Ash raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. "Oh, no, no, no, no. Senor, you are just not on the right page for any of this. It's not that easy. Just running in and killing people may make you feel safe for a while, but fate's a vicious thing and finds another way to kill us all anyway. How do you know that destroying the medical models isn't what sets them off on us in the first place? So, did you learn anything in the future or are you just another dead end?" He glances over at Charlie and shrugs. "Dunno, man. See... maybe it's regional. Lots of people are having dreams about this shit. Lots of them. Most of the dreams just scare the shit out of people, other people are learning things we can use." "Believe me, I understand 'bout knowing how people smell. I smell and hear everything all the time with /this/ set-up." Charlie's hand flicks toward herself, likely indicating that whole hare-featured head of hers. "It was more of a fuck sneaking up on people who constantly have to watch their backs for people want to hurt and kill them. You're lucky I didn't punch you in the damn face. Was only knowing /your/ smell that stopped me." Her eyes widen at the hand-chopping talk. "See, this is why I can't vouch for you not being a damned psycho. Always talking about shit like that. Scare the hell out of a guy and then act like that when that don't make him want to shake your hand." The hare-girl's nose twitches, eyes just growing wider and wider as Daken blithely plans terrorism in front of a virtual stranger. It takes her a few moments to respond, deciding to play at shaking it off, though the /look/ that she gives Daken is worthy of a mother informing a child just what she thinks of their Behaviour In Public. "This guy. Always talking big about kill all the damned things. Make him feel some kinda macho or something, I don't get it." She even gives a little shrug before turning back to Ash. "You mean New York got some kinda psychic dream bubble? Nobody put that in the brochure, I'm telling you." "No, I'm just saying. I don't normally do nice." Daken shoots Ash a wink, before giving a shake of his head. "Unfortunately, I don't know much else. Except that most of Westchester was blown up. So, I'm not going to be selling any explosives to anybody. Especially of the thermonuclear type. But you can bet your ass I'll be working on finding something useful out now. Nobody puts Daken in the corner." He just grins at Charlie. "You know if I really ran around killing everyone, or actually blowing things up, I'd be in jail. Look at me, I'm almost sixty-nine and I haven't been in jail once. Well, except for that one time in France. But that wasn't for anything really bad. Anyway... I need to get over to Clinton and see if Anette's home. I have a feeling /she/ will want to punch me in the face." And with that, he turns to head out the same way he came in, hopping over the fence. "If we put it on the brochure, who'd move here?" Ash scratches his head and wrinkles his nose, almost mimicking Charlie's expression as she dresses down Daken. "It's not something you tell a person about until they experience it. I'm... lo siento. No one believes it until they've felt it. It is perfectly okay if you just think I'm crazy." He turns his gaze on Daken and draws in a deep breath. "Sure. No jail -- except getting rounded up and put in a concentration camp. Maybe for running off half cocked, {like a fucking twice dead donkey humper.}" He inhales deeply and shudders once the other man leaves, moving his jaw as he tries to relax. "Yeah, you...do that." Charlie's head shakes as she watches Daken head off. "{I am so sorry for that. Like I said I barely know the guy, but he ain't no kind of kidding about the not nice. I'm not sure all the lights are on with this one.}" She looks like she /wants/ to scrub her fingers over her face, but isn't /quite/ as fond of being that covered in dirt as Ash is. "{I'm not saying you're crazy, man. It /sounds/ crazy. Pretty sure /Daken's/ crazy. That's all. I mean, with freaks around...stranger things've happened. We was /just/ talking about word-zombies not a few minutes ago.}" Her shoulders bunch up, brows lowering. "{So, you think all that's gonna happen? Medical bots gone crazy? Mutant concentration camps? Big explosions?}” "{This is the first I've heard of big explosions. But the medical robots get weaponized beyond anything I can deal with and the camps are...}" Ash shakes his head, inhaling sharply, his latin and dirt colored skin slowly pales. "{They're bad. Run by the robots. I know this sounds completely crazy, but it's... kind of a big deal - something we're trying to stop from happening. We got ways, but I don't know if I want to tell your bud about any of that if he's the stab first, ask questions later type.}" "{It sounds crazy. I wish it was the kind of crazy that didn't also kinda sound...true. Be a lot easier to write you off as a crackpot, I'll tell you.}" Charlie gives a little shudder, eyes briefly pressing closed at the descriptions. "{'Bud' is a real strong word. I don't know what kinda whatever he is, other than someone who likes to shoot off at the mouth. So probably not a bad idea not to spread any serious plans you got cooking through him, you know? I got...people I should probably talk to about this. You got a phone number? Or I can give you mine?}" "{Yeah. Phone numbers. Okay.}" Ash pulls out his phone and opens up a text message. "{I can give you mine when you're ready, or you can give me yours and I'll text you.}" He scuffs a hand at the back of his neck as he lets his attention wander. "{I'm all for leaving him out if possible. I'll let your people decide if they want to talk about it... I should probably check in with some people I know.}" "{You're fast. I'll just give you mine, since you're already out,}" Charlie offers before rattling off (slow enough to type along with) her number. "{Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. Opposite of Hollywood people. I talk to my people, you talk to yours, we get back to each other with something, then.}" Standing, the hare-girl dusts her hands off on her thighs. "{Thanks for sharing your garden with me, though.}" "{No problem. Come back again some time, you know, the garden ain't going anywhere.}" Ash punches in the numbers before adding a short message and sending the text. "{And I'm totally getting used to the world of today. Trying to keep up with the times and all.}" He smiles and slips his phone back into his pocket once more. "{It's kind of fun.}" “{I'm gonna have my hands in all the dirt in the state, keep me up the way it's been since I've moved here. Pleasantly surprised, all this gardening.}” Charlie's lips curl into a half-smile in a way that only someone with lagomorph facial features could achieve. She pulls her phone out to store the number it receives appropriately, then pockets it. Gloves go back on her hands, scarf wrapped back around her face. “{There's fun to be found most places. I should be getting back now. You have a good one. Let me know if Daken...shows up ever or gives you trouble. I never intended any... We'll leash him in, okay?}” Ash gives a quick little nod and smile. "{Take care of yourself, okay?}" Charlie smiles and waves, heading out the gate. Still within sight walking down the street, she sends a text back to Ash, "{Always have. You, too.} --Charlie."