2019.04.14: PDA: Public Display of Aggression
| 2019.04.14: PDA: Public Display of Aggression | |
|---|---|
| Alicia shows Dawson a disturbing video that can’t easily be ignored. | |
| IC Date | April 14, 2019 |
| IC Time | Morning |
| Players | Dawson,Alicia, |
| Location | Styx and Stones |
| Spheres | Mortal+, |
Styx and Stones - Pool Hall
Watching Izayah leave, Alicia puffs out a soft breath to relieve the tension, then dances her way back up to the bar, singing along as she goes, "Ooooh don't go 'round tonight, it's bound to take your life..", returning to her stool and pulling herself up onto it. "Well, that was interesting.", she states as she settles down again.
"Is that normal? I'm still deciding if I'm flattered or disgusted.", her lips curling up into a little grin. "I could use a drink, if you have a cold one..?", twisting on the stool until she's facing him straight on again, "I'll pay you next time.".
Dawson reachs down into the ice box behind the bar and pulls out a bottle for the little lady and flicks off the cap with the opener like he's done it a thousand times. He sets it down in front of her but his eyes are still on the door - as though he were -just- making sure that the Latino scout was really gone. Only after a moment or two does he turn back to his food and coffee and realize that she's snuck some of his bacon.
"People have been killed in prison for such things my girl..." he mutters and grabs another strip, his last, to shove into his mouth. Tommy comes out with a plate of food for her in one hand and a sawed-off shotgun in the other - apparently he's a very practical sort of cook. "Everything ok bud?" he asks and sets the plate down in front of Alicia.
"Yeah Tommy, we just got swept. Tell the others to keep an eye out for anything weird in the back and don't leave doors open or unlocked if they leave." The cold beer is quickly gathered up, pulled over and lifted for a long, soothing drink. Alicia puffs out another breath as the bottle is pulled away, lowered to the bar where she goes about her usual habit of peeling at the label. "See? This is what I mean. You should teach me a few things, you know?". And then Tommy is appearing from the back, her eyes drawn immediately to the shotgun, "Or get me one of those!", a finger quickly pointing at the firearm.
"Thanks Tommy.", sliding the plate over and immediately starting to pick at the food, appearing quite hungry. "I can get you a history on that guy, if you want it?", she suggests in between bites, "Give me some time to hack a few sites and I'll get you his social security number and favorite cafe.", a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes. "Which reminds me. Have you got a laptop or something here?"
The cold beer is quickly gathered up, pulled over and lifted for a long, soothing drink. Alicia puffs out another breath as the bottle is pulled away, lowered to the bar where she goes about her usual habit of peeling at the label. "See? This is what I mean. You should teach me a few things, you know?". And then Tommy is appearing from the back, her eyes drawn immediately to the shotgun, "Or get me one of those!", a finger quickly pointing at the firearm.
The idea of getting or giving a weapon to Alicia is not the first thing that comes to Dawson's mind. "Shuddup and eat," he grumbles a bit and takes his fork to shovel in a few mouthfulls of the egg. Seasoned lightly and with chives mixed into the scrambled goodness, they're light, fluffy and could easily be shoveled into one's mouth by the plate full. He takes a drink of his coffee, turns to the pot behind the bar and gets a refill before answering her other question.
"Yeah...why? It ain't much though," he reaches down below the bar for a gym bag and pulls out what some would call a poor excuse for a computer. It's a chromebook - relatively new by the looks of it but enough that he can do what he needs to on it. The thing is so new that it's still got the plastic bits on the cover - as though he hasn't peeled them off yet from where it was shipped.
There's a huff of discontent around the mouthful of food after Dawson's denial, Alicia doing exactly as instructed and continuing to eat; not that she needs much motivation in that regard, she can't seem to get it down fast enough. Mumbled words spill around the food, fork pointing down at the plate, it sounds something like, "T'is 's 'ooo good.", nodding with appreciation.
The beer raised, washing down the food, and then she's pulling her slingbag around to drop into her lap, digging around through it and pulling out small USB sticks. "No. No. No..", up comes one, down it goes again, another, and another, "No.. This one.", the bag thrown back over her shoulder as she reaches out to pull the chromebook around to face her.
Powering it up, she slips the USB stick into the slot and starts tapping the keys. "I wanted you to look at something. I figure you would know.", the directory structure of the stick opening up, a few video's lined up, one of which she clicks open but doesn't play. Instead she shuffles the video forward to a still image around three minutes in. It shows a young man in gang colours, SMG in hand, seeming to be in mid-laugh with some blurry background behind him, likely from the quick shaking of the camera. Turning the book around so you can see more clearly, she pokes her fork in the direction of the image, "Do you know who that gang might be?", then the fork is diving back into the food while you look it over.
Dawson takes a sip of his coffee and leans in to watch the woman work with her techno-somethings and finally pulls up an image that he can see. Thankfully she's not checking his browser history but when he spies the guy with the SMG he leans down and closer to get a good look. "Yeah...I know 'em. Small time. I think they like maybe hold a block or two. Nothing really significant. Why? I couldn't even tell you their name they have almost -no- rep."
Standing back up straight he asks the woman if she knows computers and all that 'technology stuff'. "I've been looking for someone to help set me up in the back - for work, but people don't want to even come to this part of town for the job." He takes a moment to let her consider his unspoken offer before asking, "You think you could get me hooked up to the internet? Nothing fancy just a signal."
There's an attempt to talk, but Alicia can't even muffle it out this time, her mouth is so full. Finishing off her meal first, she places a hand to her tummy, puffing out a contented breath. "That'll keep me running for a while.", she says with a little smile up to Dawson. "And I didn't even pay for it..", the beer gathered up, the already picked at label being peeled away. "You should be careful, people might think you're going soft.", the little smile growing into a grin.
"Okay.", she starts, shuffling the stool even closer, so she can start tapping at the computer keys, "So..", a glance over her shoulder, then the other, checking to see if they're still alone. Content, she continues from where she left off, ".. it's a Youtube upload that I found. I've put a block on it for now, data is automatically rerouted to an alternate site that encrypts the incoming signal and logs the..". Noticing the eyes glazing over, she changes her tact, "I've made sure nobody can watch it.".
Scrolling the bar back to the start, she hits play and lets you watch, her own attention returning to the beer while also taking the occasional look around, double checking the pair are alone.
Whoever is taking the video is doing so on a mobile phone and isn't exactly the best cameraman, as the image is shaky and usually out of focus. It shows the small gang of five approaching a rival gangs turf, the five spread out quickly and start opening fire, cutting down two before they've even had a chance to react. It's a heavy location, however, windows from the building above smash and gunfire comes back, the voices of the nearby gangers shouting, 'Oh fuck!', 'Cover me, I'm moving.', 'Keep ya fuckin' head down.', 'Come on man, get Tyler in here!'.
At that, the camera spins to focus in and out on a young african-american boy, no only than twelve or thirteen; he looks scared, crouched behind the cover of a vehicle, "I don't wanna. I don't wanna.". Another off camera shouts at him, "We're gettin' our arses kicked here, fuckin' do it!". He doesn't want to, but the boy looks through the window of the car then throws his hand upwards. The camera zooms in on the effect, two members of the opposite gang pulled out of cover, lifted into the air and held there, sitting targets. The gang opens fire, easily cutting down the two and 'Tyler' lets them drop back to the ground with a messy, blood filled squelch. "Up top, Tyler!", the camera zooming in to catch two gangers pulled out of their apartment cover, straight through the windows to a messy death below.
And then the man in the still image appears, showing his SMG and laughing, "We're gonna fuck you all up! Yeah, man, we got magic shit!", and then he's off attacking again. The sound of approaching sirens has them all pull back and the camera switches off, the video coming to an end.
"A little too public, don't you think?", Alicia asks, lifting the beer for another drink.
"Fu..." is all Dawson can say at seeing -real- evidence of some kid's magic on display. His eyes flick between the screen and then to Alicia to see how she's reacting to this little bit of information. Does she believe it? Does she think it's a fake? He slowly takes a drink from his coffee mug and chews on his lip for a bit in consideration.
"Yeah...that's uh...public." He's now very curious about the girl - his blue eyes watching to see how she's handling it all. "But why do you care? I mean you talkin like you were able to keep others from seeing it but why? I mean...so what, if this gets out how's it gonna fuck up your day?"
The beer, now empty, is pushed onto the bar, sliding across to come to a soft landing in front of Dawson. Is she asking for another without asking? Maybe. "You know how it goes. It's why the Vampires stay in the shadows, why the Garou don't run down main street in wolf form..", another glance around, the place is still empty; too early for customers, thankfully. "It's why you try and hide the fact you sensed me messing with your jukebox.", Alicia giving a little smile at that.
"Because once it becomes known, we're all in danger. We have governments and hunters chasing us down, laws brought in to limit us.. if we're lucky and they don't just lock us all up.", a light shrug of her shoulders. "I have enough people hunting me without adding more to the list.". The young woman gives a nod to the empty beer bottle sitting in front of him, "You going to get me another?". Okay, maybe she is asking.
Ok, vampire he knows. Garou - not so much. Dawson's eyes tries to watch the woman to see if she's just making stuff up or throwing smoke up his ass. For now, though he'll continue to listen to see what she has to say. When she asks for another beer, however, he comes out of his moment of interrogation and asks, "You gonna set up my internet and stuff?" Clearly the man still has his bottom line in mind and he's willing to help the woman out if she'll do the same for him.
"Like I said before - I don't need hell coming to my door but if you work for me on this I'll do what I can for ya. I..." he tries to watch her movements to see if there's any falseness behind her eyes and finally he starts talking once he gets an idea of things. "...I can tell that you're in trouble. What kind of trouble that is remains to be seen. You could just be a bank robbing hacker or something. I dunno. But -maybe-...just -maybe- we might work something out."
"A legal line or a tap off your neighbours?", Alicia asks at his question, "I can set you up with either.". Her black painted fingernails tap the top of the bar restlessly, eyes now falling to stare at the still empty beer bottle, and finally she gives up the chase, "Come on! Just give me another. It's thirsty work, all this talking. I don't do a lot of it, usually.", she adds with a little grin.
There doesn't seem to be any falsehoods behind her eyes, the young woman confident in what she's revealing. "I'm going to shut that down before it gets out of hand.", a nod toward the computer screen, "With or without you. So pick a side already.", the woman sitting up, adjusting the rest of her slingbag on her shoulder.
The swing of the door catches her attention, quickly glancing over at it, while a hand reaches out to snap the laptop closed, hiding what's on the screen.
Dawson doesn't know much about technology and it shows. He answers Alicia's question with a simple and direct answer by saying that he needs a legit signal just so that he can get on the net. He's not saying why he needs on or what he's doing with it and with his familiarity it's probably just for basic stuff like email and web browsing.
He reaches down into the ice box and pulls out a beer bottle and sets it and the opener down infront of the woman as though she were no longer -just- a customer. "Like I said. I don't need nor want any more trouble than I got. But if someone comes looking they're not going to like what they find."
