A Few of My Favourite Things

[Molly Quincannon] Since Molly and Ellie hadn't really had time to talk after meeting Lord Bedlam (owing to a tech call that Molly had to turn up to her workplace to sort out), Molly rescheduled the meal she'd promised Ellie to a dinner later in the week. Ellie does, at least, know where Molly lives, so that's relatively easy.

The place has changed a little, though, as was evidenced by her warning of "Do not touch the front door" when they arranged a date and time. The reason for the warning comes clear for Ellie when she notices that Molly's front door is reinforced with sheet steel and bears a lightning-bolt symbol - the universal sign of DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE. The doorbell is lit up, though, to flag up to people that there is a doorbell here, no need to touch the front door. When Ellie rings that doorbell, there's a quiet buzz and then Molly (black jeans, massively stained and battered Hard Rock Cafe NYC T-shirt) opens the door. "Hey. Come in. There've been renovations. How've you been?"

[Ellie James] Ellie stared at the door for a few minutes once she did finally show up at Molly's place. It'd probably be more effective if there was no warning, but... y'know, legalities and all that. She rocked back and forth on her heels while she waited, backpack hanging low on her back.

"I can see the renovations. You know that the door would be more effective if the baddies didn't know it was electrified, right?" She grinned, giving her friend a hug once she was inside and the door was shut again. "I'm okay. Found a couple of new books to read, so I'm staying out of trouble. Mostly."

[Molly Quincannon] Molly grins a bit. "Well, look at it this way. They see the door's electrified, they find another way in. They don't know that the window frames are electrified the same way. And no one with good intentions uses the windows to gain entry. And cool! What're you reading?"

The interior of Molly's place is a riot of colour and tech. The customer service desk from when this was a sales office for the auto shop is still there, but there are six computers on top of it, all on and humming away. The walls are covered with a variety of posters, the ceiling is covered with colourful silk scarves, and both have lines of plastic Habitrail tubing of various colours running over them, connecting to other rooms in the 'house'. These tubes lead to a hutch-slash-playpen in the corner of the room where a ferret is batting around something jingly.

"Anyway, what do you mean 'mostly' staying out of trouble? Anything I ought to know about?"

[Ellie James] Ellie blinked, and then giggled at the mental image. "Devious. I like it. And I'm reading a couple of fantasy books, for once. They're supposed to be teen books, but they're pretty good. Ambient magic type thing, and the author seems to be kind of... well, almost Awake."

She admired the interior, enjoying the riot of color and the almost-imperceptible hum of electronics running in the background. "Not really trouble, exactly. Sticking my nose into the subway tunnels and under the bridges. Talking to people. Dunno what I'm looking for, but some of them just want someone to talk to and have that person listen."

[Molly Quincannon] "Don't do that alone, okay?" Molly looks serious when she says that. "You do know that Jim Butcher based his Undertown on the subway tunnels and bridges and buried walkways of Chicago, right? He always imagined them being full of creepy. And ... I haven't met the creepy exactly, but I did wind up somewhere else for a bit. I helped turn the seasons this year. Anyway, take me with you next time. We can make a day of it." Then she chuckles. "And I have to do some tours of that area anyway. Stormwatch remit. My crew's been too busy with other stuff and I don't want to get snuck up on by nasty again."

Then she gestures to the seats - poofy red microsuede loveseat, battered black armchair, three beanbags and goes on, "Take a seat. Want anything? I have coffee, Mountain Dew, fruit juice, milk and ... stuff you're technically underage for but I look at that as guidelines anyway. Strawberry beer is worth a try."

[Ellie James] "Huh. No, didn't know that; never read anything of his." She gnawed on her lip. "Okay. I guess I can do that. Not sure you'll like it much..." She paused, and tilted her head at Molly. "What goes into turning the seasons, anyway? It's.. not an idea I'm really familiar with."

She set her bat next to a beanbag and then dropped gracelessly into it. "Mt. dew is good... but I've never even heard of Strawberry beer, so if you have one can I try it? Don't want to open one and then not like it and waste it. Things shouldn't be wasted."

[Molly Quincannon] "Storm Front, bottom shelf of the bookcase. Borrow in good health. There's eleven more of them and they're worth reading. Butcher's got a really good view of magic." Then Molly grins at Ellie from around the kitchen door. "And I like it fine. I've been down there before, and it's got a certain kind of charm as an experience. Bit of a thrill. Besides, if something goes wrong, I'm armed. Which reminds me, I need to get my concealed carry licence."

She comes back in with a bottle of strawberry beer, which she places in front of Ellie as she explains, "As far as I saw it, turning the season involves hitting trees in a certain portion of the Umbra with a stick. I helped this year. It was kind of awesome. And tell you what; you try the beer and if you don't like it, I'll get you a Dew and I'll finish it. But if you like soda, you'll like this, promise." It's quite nice, as these things go; it tastes more like strawberry soda than anything else.

[Ellie James] Ellie grinned at the offer of books. "Hey now, I turn all my library books back in on time." She crawled over to grab the book Molly'd told her about, and then crawled back to her chosen beanbag. "I don't' think anyone has ever applied the word 'charm' to the parts of the subways I was thinking about. And you have a gun? How's that working out for you?"

"Hitting trees with sticks. Huh, that does actually sound like it could make some sense." She sat up and picked up the bottle, opening and taking a cautious sip. She gave herself a moment to get a feel for the taste, and then smiled. "Not bad. Definitely better than some of the 'usual' beers I've tried."

[Molly Quincannon] "I have a gun. I have a Beretta, in fact," Molly says, and grabs herself a beer before settling down on the loveseat. "And it's going well; I'm getting lessons from a friend of mine and the licence stuff is all a matter of hacking into the right databases anyway. Plus I'm taking bojutsu - Japanese quarterstaff fighting. I figure the life I've been living, I ought to learn to defend myself with more than a steel-toe to someone's crotch. Assuming what I'm fighting has a crotch. As to the subways and stuff, compared to some of the other places I've been, Undertown is a long weekend in Aruba."

After taking a sip of beer and letting the sour, taut look on her face when she mentions 'some of the places she's been' subside, she goes on to say, "Thanks. German import; something I keep by for guests. Not anywhere near as good as the apple cider Cricket gave me after the hitting trees to make their leaves turn and the apples fall. Man, that was fun. I dunno if I'll ever be able to help with that again, but ... it was kind of what I needed at the time, y'know?"

Then she asks, "So been keeping clear of the hoodoo stuff, more or less? Admittedly it's been kind of quiet lately, but I like to check in."

[Ellie James] "Huh. I'm not huge on the gun thing... seen too many gang wars... but that quarterstaff thing might be cool. It turns up in a couple of my favourite fantasy books, and it wouldn't be that hard to find a pipe to use as a staff in most places around here." She sipped at her beer thoughtfully, though she nearly snorted beer through her nose at the idea of trying to kick a thing with no crotch in the crotch.

"Once in a lifetime thing, huh?" She took another sip. "I've been trying to. It's not like I tried to get involved with that necklace thing with Isabel. But... I guess so. Just talking to some of the lonely ones under the bridges and reading."

[Molly Quincannon] Molly sighs. "Well, put it to you this way. Next time a corrupt, tainted psychopath of a cop is shooting at me, I want the means to lay cover fire. But bojutsu's cool, and yeah, I wanted to go for a melee fighting style where I could improvise a weapon easily. But between that, the shooting lessons, the belly dancing classes, coding ay-eye for a friend of mine's spy drones, the various tech projects, the apprentice and the day job, it's been busy. And my friend's insane; how do you not think to code in some encryption into autonomous drones' transmissions? Or code in an auto-destruct in case they get caught?" She shakes her head and tuts. "Man, and people call me reckless."

Then she grins a bit. "Hey, I guess you're kind of lucky, all that time underground and not spotting anything hinky. Maybe it's just me that's the chaos-magnet. But if you do see anything ... weird down there, mind letting me know? Eyes and ears on the street is always helpful. It's sort of what I based my new crew around." Then she frowns in thought and adds, "You ever had a crew? A cabal? Whatever?"

[Ellie James] "Oh. Okay, yeah, I can see where wanting to even the odds a little would be appealing." She settled a little deeper into her seat, and frowned, trying to follow the technical babble. "Umm... maybe you're a different kind of reckless?"

"I haven't been going very deep yet," she pointed out. "But I think you're a chaos-magnet anyway." At Molly's thoughtful question, Ellie shook her head sadly. "Nah. I've been running alone since I Woke up. Never had a chance to do any sort of group anything, really."

[Molly Quincannon] After a swig of beer, Molly shrugs. "I'm the kind of reckless that does what needs doing even if it might be dangerous, I guess. Especially when people stick me on the fieldwork and then get really reluctant about providing backup even when complaining that I should bring some along." This is apparently a sore spot with Molly. Then she smiles, shaking it off. "At least my crew's not like that."

Another sip of beer. "So ... how'd you learn what you know? I mean, what do you know? Just ... my apprentice - great Google; I have an apprentice, how did that happen? Anyway, you met her; the British girl who got sucked into the necklace thing. She seems to have been having a hard time finding anyone who's patient enough to sit down and tell her the basics. Not accusing you; I hear you met her at a really stressy time. Anyway, did someone at least explain all that to you? Trads, Mirrorshades, Nephandi, all that good shit?"

[Ellie James] "They put you out there without backup? That's kind of a lot of asshattery, isn't it?"

Ellie took a deep, slow breath, trying to figure out the most logical way to explain. "I've been a foster kid/runaway for most of as long as I can remember. Finally found a family I could fit in with, that wanted me for me instead of taking me because no babies were available. I Awakened in the car wreck that killed them, and would've killed me if I'd been Asleep a moment longer." She took a long swig of her beer before continuing. "I got dumped in another foster home after that - one of those group homes for 'troubled teens.' Turns out the biddy in charge was Verbena, and nabbed me because she could feel me. She started explaining things - some of it made sense, okay, a lot of it made sense - but she was... she expected me to change too much. To shape up and act right and stop getting all my ideas from poorly written fantasy books. I bailed once I had an idea of what I was and what I was doing, before she started laying down the rules.

For Verbena, she might as well have been Hermetic."

[Molly Quincannon] The comment about the asshattery gets a sigh. "Well, okay, what happened was this. I was being followed. I wanted to find out who was following me and why. I asked for back-up from my maybe-sorta-won't-admit-it boyfriend-whatever-thing and he came along while I tracked down my tail. Which turned out to be a Mind-fragged cop. He pulled a gun, the maybe-boy pulled me out before it got really serious. But there was another badge number to track - another bad cop, with a worse record - this one was involved in gangland killings, overly violent drug busts, and at least one rape. But I got told that I should do the fieldwork, and the one running the maybe-boy's cabal got really nasty about my involving anyone from her cabal so I couldn't ask him and no one else was available or willing so I decided to let the crowd in the public place I chose be my backup. I didn't count on him being so corrupted that he'd pull a gun in a crowded bar. And then I got shit from the maybe-boy for not going with backup when he said I should do the fieldwork in the first place."

Listening to Ellie's tale, she sighs. "Damn. I mean, good that you got some basic info, bad for everything else. I just ... do you need anything? Like ... I can probably get you fake ID, if you need it for job or whatever. And a friend of mine is starting a company that could probably use some support, if you're up for that. Or I have other contacts. I just ... I know I'm all of a pushy, but I don't ... I like you, y'know? You seem nice. And people I like? I don't like to think of them crashing at public libraries and rummaging for scraps or I don't even know."

[Ellie James] Ellie snorted in annoyance at the whole cop debacle and then came up a little short, startled at the offer.

"I... a fake ID would be nice... I'm not sure if Lisa could still try and drag me back, but I really don't want that." She actually sipped at her beer, looking thoughtful. "What kind of company? And you're not being pushy, Molly... you're trying to help me, not make me change the way I think. The libraries aren't that bad, though. And I've got... skills enough to make sure I don't have to pick out of trashcans... not respectable skills, but enough to get me by."

[Molly Quincannon] Molly smiles. "Well, look at it this way; I know from experience that getting nabbed by the cops can be more than just an inconvenience. The lengths I've had to go to in order to keep friends out of jail so they don't end up on Mirrorshade radar ... dude, the hacking. Though Chicago PD's database has loopholes you could drive a truck through. So probably best not to use those not-so-respectable skills, useful as they are, unless you have no choice. Not so much for the moral reasons as for relative safety. And yeah, I can get you ID. Actually, less fake ID than real ID with a fake name, if you don't mind claiming this as your address. I mean, hell, you can crash here if you want; I have a sleep-sized beanbag and wouldn't mind the company. And the company's called Tree of Life; it's into green power sources. I'll show you the clip that was on the local news. Run by a local Verbena. A bit ... sultry and feline, and cagey as hell, but seems nice enough."

[Ellie James] Ellie wasn't quite sure what skills Molly was thinking she had, or thinking she didn't have, but it really didn't matter. Molly was still offering her one hell of a safety net.

"Seriously, Molly? You'd let me crash here and use it as an address? I mean, you're my friend, but you don't know me that well. I don't want you to regret it. I'll never be able to pay you back for something like this!"

[Molly Quincannon] "Trad values," Molly explains. "There's a part of the Code that goes 'Each gold coin given yields two like it; each stalk given creates a bundle. Yet, each coin taken turns the rest to dross, and one bundle gone creates a famine. Thus shall a Seer count his deeds'." There's another swig of the beer, and a smile at Ellie. "Like all codes like that, it's open to interpretation, but what it means to me is ... well, a bit like that whole threefold-rule and karma and things. I'm not going to call in favours or hold it over you; I just ... you're my friend, y'know? I want you to be happy and have a chance. It's like ... my first crew Woke me, and they taught me and guided me and kept me out of too much trouble. So now I get to pass on what help I can. And one day, when you're settled and everything, someone'll probably need your help and you'll be in a position to give it, and then you can maybe pass it on. Just help me keep the fridge stocked once you've got work or whatever, and we're good."

Then she blinks. "Oh, speaking of food, I've got fixings for sushi, paella or roast chicken. Your pick. I did promise dinner, after all, and I want to practice."

[Ellie James] Ellie nodded like that made exact sense, and then relaxed at the mention of the threefold-rule. That one was in plain English. "Pay it forward I can do. Kind of what I've been doing when I give an ear to the other street rats I talk to. They're better friends to me, a lot of them, then all the 'good' kids I had to deal with when I'd go to school."

She finished her drink, and then grinned. "You have the stuff for sushi? Man, I've only had that once, and I really liked it. Can we do sushi?"

[Molly Quincannon] "Ooh, you must have the most awesome contact network," Molly says, sounding congratulatory. "I've got four go-to guys - well, entities; two of them are female - and that's about it. Though one's big on the New York legal scene, one can get me damn near anything I want from a network of ... somewhat shady individuals radiating out from Texas, one gives me the heads-up on shit hitting the newspapers hear in Chicago and the last is my ear to the ground politically over in the Capitol, but nothing quite beats street info. Tell you what; when I do my cooking practice, and I'm cooking portable? Bring 'em leftovers."

Then she chuckles. "I did say I have the fixings for it, didn't I? Yes, of course we can do sushi. It'll be pretty standard fare - salmon and tuna and sea bass and things, nothing exotic like California rolls or roe - but it'll work. I think. Most of it's slicing things and working the rice cooker anyway. And the chicken and stuff'll keep. So. Beyond sushi? What else do you like? So I know what to practice most."

[Ellie James] Ellie shook her head, smiling. "I did, back in my last place. Still getting to know people around here." She beamed at Molly at the offer of leftovers for her friends. "They'll love that. Chicago's got some pretty good hot-kitchens, but not near enough."

"Umm... I mean, I'm used to eating fast food and stuff. What do you like? Best cooking I ever managed was grilled cheese and tomato soup out of a can."

[Molly Quincannon] There's a laugh at that, and then she gets up to rummage through one of the mini-fridges behind the customer service desk, pulling out two cans of Mountain Dew and waggling one Ellie's way in an unspoken offer. "Ellie, seriously - I used to live almost entirely off Hot Pockets and Pop Tarts, remember? But I do have some favourites, I guess. Burgers with guacamole and cheddar sharp enough to cut paper. Open-face chicken sandwiches swimming in gravy. Homemade apple pie with extra cinnamon. Lamb rogon josh - Indian dish, all onions and green pepper and spicy sauce. Thai green curry. Sushi, obviously. Garlic cheese fries. Stuff like that. Any of that appeal?"

[Ellie James] Ellie bounced up for her can of soda, popping the top and taking a happy drink. "Mmm.. garlic cheese fries are awesome, and I like pie. Can I learn to cook too? i want to learn to make chocolate chip cookies that don't come out of one of those tubes you can find in the cooler at a grocery store. Meatloaf. Never had a burger with guac on it but burgers are good anyway."

[Molly Quincannon] "Sure; may as well have two of us destroying the kitchen as one. I get most of my recipes online but there are a couple of dead-tree cookbooks over in the bookshelf over there." Most of Molly's stainless steel bookshelf is full of books on computers and code language and a couple on robotics and things, and the bottom shelf has all the fiction (which isn't much) but there are a couple of cookbooks jammed in there as an afterthought. "I thought about doing chocolate chip cookies; I've got most of the ingredients around here but I'd have to go out for the actual chocolate chips. Maybe we could do that after sushi?"

A thought occurs and she looks over at Ellie. "Where do you keep your stuff? I mean, clothes and things."

[Ellie James] Ellie grinned, glancing over at the 'dead tree' cookbooks, figuring she'd look at them later. "That'd be fun. Walk off a little of dinner and then come back and make a mess baking?"

At Molly's question, she points to her backpack. "A lot of my stuff lives in there, and I've got a locker at a bus station downtown that's close enough to a truck-stop that I can shower and wash my clothes every few days." The backpack is a pretty good-sized one, abused enough that its only color is a dusty near-black. "I don't own much."

[Molly Quincannon] "Sounds good," is Molly's opinion of the baking idea. "Hey, it's the right time of year for random fresh bushel-barrels of apples from street vendors. Maybe if we really get lucky, we can do pie too. Double the mess, double the fun!"

She looks over the backpack, nods and says, "We can probably stop at the bus station and pick up the rest of your stuff, if you don't mind a ride in the TARDISmobile. And I've got some stuff that was going to go to the Salvation Army or something, if you want to dig through it. Mostly T-shirts and jeans, a pair of shoes that were too small for me but might fit you, some books. Since you don't have to worry about carrying it, may as well save me the trip to the charity shop or whatever if you've got any use for it. Check the garbage bag in the corner, near Neal's pen." The ferret (presumably Neal) is hanging from the mesh of his 'playpen' wall, looking at Ellie and chittering as if to say Pay attention to meeee! Give me love for I am fuzzy! "Little furry con artist," is Molly's comment.

[Ellie James] "Oooh... Pie could be fun. Not to mention we might have apples just for eating. Apples without bad spots, even."

She glanced at her backpack, and then back at Molly. "Really? Cool. I promise I won't make a mess." She wasn't sure what Molly meant by 'Tardismobile' but she was game if it meant getting the rest of her stuff, what there was of it. "Can I pet your furry con artist or will he nip me?" She wandered towards the cage - he was small, and furry, and cute, and she'd only been ignoring him because his person was her friend. "I can poke through the bag after we make food."