ArchivedLogs:Office Space

Office Space
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim
In Absentia	2013-10-01 '
Location <NYC> Rang Phueng Design - SoHo
There was no explanation, to go with the address Hive texted Jim. Just an address, in Soho, and, "You free to swing by?" It's nighttime, on Tuesday, kind of ridiculously late. Definitely too late to be frequenting an /office/ building, which is what the small building Hive is waiting outside seems to be. He's dressed kind of like a scrub, but when isn't he; ratty falling-apart sneakers, fraying jeans, a t-shirt with Zelda's Link perched in Eddard Stark pose on a throne composed of many video game swords. Hive is perched on the railing of the front steps of the office building, feet tucked onto a lower rung. He's very engrossed with his phone at the moment, though not so much texting anymore as playing some sort of puzzle game. Jim's response text was only 'Fuck Soho'. Followed by a variety of ominous dead silence that doesn't promise a follow-up. So he must be showing up at the designated address purely by unhappy coincidence. He's dressed no better than Hive, though you might have to call it New York Beach Bum-scruffy, ratty cargo shorts hanging in long shreds off the hems. His dirty grayish hair has been getting longer since he took to the sewers, nearly to his shoulders and shoved back off his face by a pair of sunglasses pushed back atop his head. The deep scar down his face just adds to the /charm/. "Y'know they /fine/ people for loitering out here." His mind is a broiling mix of FROWN and flippancy and latin and inhuman slow-growth of plant roots. It's purposeful, overlaid with more an intention than a direct thought - close as we can get to hanging out like /normal/ fucking people. "Pfft aren't you the king of loitering? You can show me how it's done." Hive doesn't look up from his phone. His game is Very Important. He only finally slides off the railing once he's beaten his current level. He still doesn't look at Jim, though he does /punch/ him in the shoulder (by way of greeting, maybe?); instead he shoves his phone into his pocket to exchange it for KEYS. And unlock the building's front door. "Ow," Jim curls in the arm Hive hit, like it /hurt/ him, and crosses his other arm over to sooth it with a scowling rub. His eyes are riveted on Hive's hands, a spike of suspicion rising in his mind << - are we breaking and entering. >> It's not asked OF Hive. It's actually kind of just rushing to /prepare/ himself to be... breaking and entering, now, apparently. While also thinking about having dinner? "Dude, it takes years of practice to loiter like a PI. You gotta be able to do it anywhere, anytime. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night kind of shit." "Yeah, s'been a whole few weeks since we got ourselves into any trouble," Hive answers Jim as he pushes inside. He takes the stairs, two at a time in a lope up to the third floor. "You can give me lessons. We've got plenty of night-gloom around here. I'll skip the fucking rain part though, in storms I will do my loitering on the /couch/ with a mug of cocoa like a sane person." On the third floor he seems to -- briefly be at a loss for where he is going, turning to glance one way down the short hall before reorienting to go to a door on the other side instead; it's opposite an office door whose door placard reads 'AdvertiSin', a small curl of flame dotting the second 'i'. More keys. More unlocking. The door Hive unlocks has no identifying placard. << Are we going to kidnap someone. You'd think he'd just mind-crawl his way up a few middle men. Maybe we're planting a bomb. >> Jim's busy mind is unraveling a million possibilities in default business, with the kind of grudging /enjoyment/ cats seem to get from murderously unraveling rolls of toilet paper. But if Hive isn't telling, he's NOT ASKING. Just muttering as he kind of bounces /off/ Hive (or, more likely, bounces Hive off HIMSELF) when the other man pauses, "It's not loitering if you're sitting at home, dickhole. Rain is the best god damn time to get your loiter on - stand at a street corner under a fucking... lamp post. Staring at someone through their window." << -or we're picking up drugs to mule. He's not carrying a bag for it. He better not be expecting me to grow him a knothole to hide his shit in To Kill A Fucking Mockingbird style. Poison ivy his ass. >> "I always read about those people who stash bags of heroin up their fucking asses. Bag splits open and suddenly /all the heroin/ right there in a suppository. Would it be like that for you?" Hive shoves the door open with his shoulder once it's unlocked, although it swings quiet and easy and almost certainly didn't need the force. Inside is -- an office! Or an office space. Unfurnished, though here in the small front room it's kind of a nice space, dark wood floors and exposed brick columns in the wall; there's a large room branching off behind, from the looks of it once he flips the lights on also unfurnished. "Is it loitering if you're sitting in your fucking office?" he wonders, eyes sweeping the room critically. "Y'know, I dunno?" Jim stops in the office threshold, hands crammed in his pockets, actually thinking about it. "Can plants get high?" He's glancing suspiciously around with a flat lack of understanding as to what he's looking at. Or WHY. Even if his healthy imagination is coming up with things you /could/ do with all this wide open, private space. << Just a tarp and a pair of rain slickers away from a scene from American Psycho - wait, what. >> "Wait, what." He HAD been looking up along the ceiling - naked walls does make it easy to look around for recording devices - when his attention suddenly snaps back to Hive. "Jegus, I'm not going American Psycho on you, dude, do you know how obnoxious it'd be to get /sticky treesap/ off of every corner of this apartment? I didn't bring my tarps." Hive is wandering in further, shoving the door closed behind them with a foot and slouching his way into the back room. It's wide and spacious, windows providing a rather unimpressive view of the street below. Off the side of the room there are two more much tinier office spaces. "S'd make a good workshop, don't you think? Drafting. Modelling. Glaring at the city." Right now he's glaring at the walls like they have offended him. "You're not serious." Jim says slightly behind him, in the doorway to this deeper room. One hand gripping the doorframe. "Unfortunately." Hive drifts in further, mostly to just glare at a second segment of wall. He kicks at it, with a shabbily-sneakered toe. "You have a -- business right? The fuck do you do to run a business it sounds like bullshit." Something in Jim makes kind of sucking air drearily in through teeth. << --Haah. Not really a legit business in... >> He's watching Hive - and the window. Maybe picturing him FROWNING down at the street below. << ...long ass time. >> But it's there; a brief PANG of a million little snippets; an office, much smaller than this one, cramped and smelling of mildew with a frosted front window and a toilet that never worked in back; the stenciled letters JM P.I. on the door and a typewriter, eating Taco Bell behind the desk with (Jane) a laughing woman, her engagement ring glinting in a flash of lightning outside. Leaning back. Putting his feet up, a phone propped against his ear and a bottle of Jack Daniels waiting in a lower drawer --. "How the hell-..." He could ask a lot of things. Almost asks a number of them. Instead, he's slumping a shoulder in the doorway and crossing his arms, "Ss -- You got a /name/ picked out?" "Was a goddamn surprise," Hive mutters, /crankily/ at the wall. He kicks at it harder, though this time it just elicits a pained grunt from him, his duct-taped sneaker providing not much barrier between toe and bright. "It was my finishing bonus. For the clinic. S'customary to -- well they couldn't afford a cash bonus." His next kicks are slower, a steady rhythmic thud. thud. thud. against the brick wall. "I don't know how the fuck do you pick names for things? Don't have a name, don't have a fucking -- anything. Staff. /People/. You wanna be my secretary?" He turns his head to lift his eyebrows at Jim. "I'll put a nice tub of potting soil behind the front desk. You can make my coffee in the mornings. Let me goose you now and then." "You do that anyway. -Lemme get this straight. The doc couldn't afford to get you a bonus but he can afford to /buy/ you a company. And an /office/. In the off chance your yellow ass MIGHT want a big damn company." << In your legal name. Shit, 'legal' as even that is. Not exactly low god damn profile. Not like plenty enough people don't know you're a freak on top of it... >> He's watching Hive's kicks slowly fall into their steady pattern, remarking to himself how small a big open room can make a man look. And, treacherously, remarking too how good that far wall would loon with a blown up photograph of the west face of the Mendel Clinic reaching up against a grey sky. << ...he could do it. That's the fuck of it, isn't it. It'd be hard but I was about his age and I ain't half as bright. >> All thought roughly in the same thirty or so seconds of silence. Full only of the dull sound of Hive abusing the wall and the faint city sounds of late night traffic below the windows. He tells himself to say congratulations and what blurts out is, "Can you even /say/ no to that?" "Yeah. This is actually much cheaper for them. They already have lawyers working for them so all the legal shit that'd have been a huge expense for me didn't cost them any more than they were already paying. And the rent here's like half the price with the lease in their name than it would've been in mine because -- nonprofit, landlord's writing the discount off on his taxes as a donation. It's probably like fifty grand's worth of /shit/ for me that they're actually /paying/ -- I don't know, a fifth of. Which is still only half what they'd've shelled out if they just gave me a bonus in cash." Hive is still thumping his foot against the wall through this, a heavy backdrop beat in the background of his words. "Could've said no. Would've been rude as hell but." Thump. "Never had much hang-ups about being a fucking asshole. Just." Hive's scowl deepens. "They even fucking lined me up a first client, if I want to take it. One of the clinic's donors. I could say no. But the truth is I'd already resigned myself to another long-ass period of not finding any fucking work. This is better than ramen and not having money to pay for a fucking hot dog and owing Flicker five grand in back rent. Just..." His words trail off, his shoulders tightening. "Fuck." It's softer, an irritated exhalation of a word. << Wonder if he'd've gone through so much effort if you were old and ugly as I am. >> Not a kind thought, there Jimmy. He knows. But there isn't a lot of kindness in him. He scrubs his face and comes further into the room, "You're gonna need a name. Logo. Or a fucking... Logotype in the least." In his mind, old old terms rise up in cobwebs; letterhead, fax number, business card, stylebook, target demographic, fucking shit, a potted plant /would/ look good in the window. Fucking... Fig tree. Or a palm. All that wall space... "Guess we'll never know. Even when I'm old I won't be as ugly as you are." Hive's slow thumping ceases with one last heavy whump, this time of his head dropping forward to bonk down against the brick. "I was thinking I'd just plant you in the corner. For ambiance. -- Most architecture firms have boring-ass names. I don't even /have/ initials to give this company. Maybe I'll hire Jax to design me a logo once I think of something. What'd you call yourself?" "Psh. Just PI Morgan. Not all that creative." Thmp. Hive's forehead thumps down on Jim's palm instead of brick. Jim's other hand remains crammed in a pocket. "My wife's-- ex-wife's nephew was in art school. Designed my shit for $300 flat. For all it looked to me he just aligned the letters in god damn Garamond." His head turns to assess the corner. Possibly for plant-a-bility. And with his head turned, into the silence he muses, "...let's fucking do it." Push. He just kind of shove-bullies at Hive to drive him away from the wall. "Why not. You can always fail if you change your mind." << Or get declared dead. >> "Garamond's a nice font." When Hive's head encounters Jim's hand instead he lifts it to thunk it down again. BONK. A small grumbling accompanies his wrestling away from the wall. "Ohshit," for the first time he sounds -- well, not excited, but slightly less cranky, at least, "-- This means I can have /business cards/. Maybe I'll call it GSD Design. That sounds staid and boring. Is it harder to get incorporated after you're dead? Knew a guy once who was dead. Been a doctor, then he died. Guess his license was invalid after that." Hive's hands return to his pockets as he slouches his way into the center of the room, staring for a long moment at the window. The dark city outside. "Most businesses fail. -- You could have an office here." He nods towards the extra rooms at the side. "My firm's got one person in it, I sure as shit don't need two offices and a workshop." "I dunno. My license is long expired. What's GDS." << Christ he could make a pun. Colony Architects. >> Hive's grumblings fall on unsympathetic ears. He's moved away from the wall but Jim continues to DOG him, pushing and randomly shoving him along like a warden might a convict, until he finally hooks an arm around the back if Hive's shoulders to haul him along like he's the one giving this tour. Pointing, "Coffee maker could go there, see. One of those Keurig deals with our own fucking --cups." Even if he's thinking of the mismatched coffee cups in his own apartment. One of which, hand to god, he nicked from IHOP in a moment of desperation. "Some low glass... Fucking... Coffee table this on some low couches over there, make a waiting area..." "Get Shit Done. What's it take to renew it?" Hive's bony shoulders are tense and stiff beneath Jim's arm, but his easy slouch puts up no resistance to being manhandled around his own office. "Those machines seem kind of like fucking magic," he admits. There's a brief moment at Jim's 'our' where his scowl actually lessens with a small upward twitch of lips, though it settles firmly back into place soon enough. "Couches. Tables. Shit. We're going to need to rent a truck. Hit up Ikea this weekend. Christ, I haven't been furniture shopping since, uh, /ever/." The shitty mismatched half-broken-down furniture in Geekhaus all looks more like it was plucked off the curb than actively paid for. "Supper could live over here. People like -- fish, right?" "I'm driving." Jim's entire mind REVS like an engine, for one single moment humming like they're both there in the front of a truck. Driving the haul, making the fucking /drop off/. Getting the goods. << Our goods. Shit. Have to pick out calendars and a- >>. "Dry-erase board." He looks perilously close to EMBRACING Hive- except that his arms are only thrown open to pantomime MOUNTING something large on the wall behind the telepath. Right here. "You kidding. People love fish. Fucking loads of em. They scream... Class. ...-iness right?" He sees pictures on the walls; Hive's scruffy ass parked behind some modern desk with noon sunlight streaming past his shoulders, lowering the property value of the whole god damn place with his sprung duct tapes shoes propped irreverently up on a desk. He wants to see it. Like some muscle cramp in his chest. "So." He grunts, looking towards the spare office room. "...I'll think about it." Hive turns to look over the walls, thoughtfully. "There's whiteboard paint that'll turn the whole damn /wall/ into a dry-erase board," he muses, eyes skipping over the room. "And glass tables are good for writing on, too. Hm. I'd put a whole fucking aquarium in the front room but Entree might feel outclassed." He claps Jim on the shoulder with a small rough jostle. "Friday. We're renting a truck. But for now I want some gorram fish for dinner, I wonder if anywhere good's still open. C'mon. My treat, I haven't given change to many hobos lately, I'm below quota." "Throw in some cigarettes," Jim pipes in, straight New York nasal-blunt. "Your karma could use it." << Christ I really am a god damn hobo. When's the last time I've worked... The Parker kid? >> "This place got a rooftop? Could bust the cherry on the local delivery scene. Spit at the street." << Friday. I'm gonna have to burn rubber getting licensed... >> "What're you smoking, dude. Sushi can't feel outclassed. He breathes the same water he shits in. Just give him a few pebbles to Hoover up and spit out again, his nasty fish-flakes," Jim probably tasted them at some point, yes. "He'a good to go." As they head for the door, other thoughts. A coat rack. A printer. A rug... All those strange things he hadn't realized we even missing from his strange green glade under the city until only now. Water cooler. Wheeled chair... "Don't rag on Sashimi he's got -- feelings. Maybe. In their somewhere. He definitely gets mopey if I don't feed him on time. Or -- " Hive stops to consider this a moment, "maybe that's just no energy because of starving. Uh. Fish /and/ smokes, dude, you're pushing it." But there's a small twitch of smile on his face as he heads to the door. "Rooftop? No idea. Earlier this afternoon's the first time damn time I've been here. To pick up the keys. We could," he's shutting off the lights, pulling the front door open to let them back out into the hall, "find out."