About three blocks from the Conrad Hotel, Dmitri Lang is arguing with a man who's standing on a corner with a sandwich board proclaiming that the end is nigh. She's been there for about twenty minutes. Fifteen minutes before that she was there for about an hour; those fifteen minutes were spent ducking into a coffee shop and getting them both
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The sign catches her eye before Dmitri or the argument does. She wanders up, peering into Paul's face. Never mind that he's arguing with Dmitri and may or may not have personal space.
"Silly," she says. "It's not for awhile yet. And hi!" This last is delivered chirpily Dmi-wards.
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"What?-it is! Nigh, that is!" He stumbles over his own argument, and catches himself. "I know I must sound mad, but I have seen the future! Since coming to this city I have seen it in snatches and fragments and I say something terrible will come!"
"He's predicting this in the middle of Chicago," Dmitri says, apparently at the same time as she's recognizing Babel. "...mijn zoete witte esdoorn! Good to see you out and around, unbeset by the unwashed demonic hordes! How's the stomach? Everything fine?"
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She shrugs, turning toward Dmitri and finishing her argument at the same time. "I can feel that sort of thing. And it's good," she flips up her shirts to reveal nothing but a small scar on her stomach, "shiny and only a little scar."
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Dmitri has no scars to show off. Plenty of scars, but none she wants to advertise.
Paul, after a moment, joins in weakly with "But something terrible is going to happen! To everyone!"
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She turns back to Paul, smiling at him. "That's different," she says. "Terrible doesn't predicate 'end of the world'. For one, it doesn't hurt as much."
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Paul beats her to it. "...I admit I may have been a bit hasty in the wording on the sign," he says. "But I've been here for years, now, and every time I think something bad will happen, something bad happens. And this is the worst bad feeling I've had for a long time."
"We've yet to develop a unified measuring system for severity of bad feelings," Dmitri says.
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She turns the headtilt in the other direction, toward Dmitri. "Level of nausea mixed with general unease, adding in levels of increased heartrate and emotions, possibly adrenaline, and taking into consideration any other psychosomatic symptoms," she deadpans, talking very quickly and imitating a professional cool.
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Paul is scribbling "bad shit will go down soon" upside-down on the top of his sandwich board in a tiny, messy paragraph. Yeah. He's taking notes.
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"Don't write shit. You'll influence the children." This is directed towards Paul. As though Babel hasn't spent hours teaching friends' children nasty words in other languages for kicks on occasion.
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