[Visual| The Clock Shop - Speares]

[smecker]

"Goooood morning, fellow inmates."

Paul tap-taps the little screen, exhales cigarette smoke towards it. He thinks he's got the right settings for 'city-wide broadcast' but only experimenting will tell.

"There's still, what, a fucking foot of snow on some of the sidewalks? Just the right conditions to go shoppingThe view of his face vanishes as

Comments

[Visual]

[beenthroughhell]

[Someone leaving a shop behind was familiar, even if her situation was a little different. Still, she said,]

Doughnuts are a good plan. Maybe I should try that.

[Visual]

[smecker]

Paul nodded at the young woman; he didn't know her yet, so play nice-ish.

"Doughnuts are always a good plan. Especially with this many cops around. You have a shop of your own, miss?"

[Visual] - yay for formatting fail above

[beenthroughhell]

"I do, in Wilde. I opened it with a friend before he went home." It's not falsely bright, but losing Ethan was also an old hurt at this point, and she'd lost many other people since. Talking about it is fine.

"I wanted mine, though. Do you know what sort of things you'd like to fill your shop with, once the watches are gone?"

Re: [Visual] - yay for formatting fail above

[smecker]

Paul shrugs, propping his elbows on the counter and looking down at the little screen.

"I'm not really.... a shop-keeper by inclination. I may turn the downstairs space into a sort of work area, depending on if I can get some of the equipment I want." No use saying 'I wanna make a homebrewed crime lab!' to someone he barely knew.

An amusing thought struck him though and he snorted. "I could sell music-- got about 2000 songs with me in digital media format. Don't really need a lot of shop space for that, though."

[Visual]

[beenthroughhell]

"Oh, that's like... like mp3s?" For Tara, the first iPod has only been out a little under a year, and she's never been the technophile that Willow is.

"Taxon could use a little more music, I think." Music that wasn't them being forced to sing by glitches.

Re: [Visual]

[smecker]

For Paul, it's been out even less time. Yes, he jumped on the bandwagon and bought one as soon as it came out.

"Yes, mp3s-- fantastic invention, beats the hell out of the Sony Walkman I was using. No idea how I'd get them to other people without the proper computer setup though. Sorry-- what was your name, miss?"

[Visual]

[beenthroughhell]

"Oh - oh, sorry, I should have said. I'm Tara Maclay. California, 2002," she added, helpfully, as she'd been in Taxon long enough to anticipate the question.

"You could probably hatch a computer, but I bet it would be expensive."

Re: [Visual]

[smecker]

"Nice to meet you, Miss Maclay. Paul Smecker, but you probably heard me say that on the transmission. Boston, 1999, and wow did I never expect to be telling people my year of origin as part of a greeting."

Paul digs a cigarette out of his pack on the counter. "Probably so, yes. Likely be simpler to find a computer shop being run by a Soy Citizen and just take one," he says, with indifference for the 'crime' aspect of this.

"So what is it you sell?"

[Visual]

[beenthroughhell]

She doesn't comment on whether stealing from an Extra is proper stealing - she doesn't know, and feels odd speculating on the subject.

Instead, she answers the question. "Oh, um. It's a magic shop." They do, in fact, sell a few non-magical illusions, because she and Ethan had thought it would be amusing back when they first set up, so she doesn't specify right away. She wants to see how he reacts, first.

[Visual]

[smecker]

Paul takes a breath, and then he laughs.

"....aaaaaand that's not even the weirdest shit I have heard today. Okay. Okay. You run a magic shop. You're not a demigod or a vampire or something else along those lines, are you? No offense meant."

[Visual]

[beenthroughhell]

At that, she smiles. "None taken. No, I'm just a witch. Totally human." ...and a witch.

Re: [Visual]

[smecker]

"Just a witch. Right." Paul squeezes the bridge of his nose.

"I don't know why I let stuff like this still throw me," he admits. "You'd think I'd be over it, being here."

[Visual]

[beenthroughhell]

"No - no, a lot of people aren't. And it's not like it's something everyone knows about, back home. But I sell things for people who can't do magic of their own, too - protective charms and things." Nothing that would stop a glitch, but she's been experimenting.

Re: [Visual]

[smecker]

"Well, no offense, but I hope I never happen to need your.... 'protective charms'," Paul says with a grimace for the weirdness of everything.

Then he pauses. Thinking quite clearly of a broadcast of someone kicking a tree in half.

"Actually-- stupid question time. How much do you know about vampires, if that's the sort of thing one can politely ask? Hell, even if it isn't."

[Visual]

[beenthroughhell]

"Um... quite a lot about the kind from my world, but not all vampires are the same, apparently. What were you looking to know?" Scooby ganging, as a hobby, gave one a lot of miscellaneous knowledge.

Re: [Visual]

[smecker]

Paul looks blankly worried at the idea of 'not all vampires being the same', grimaces, but presses on.

"...how to... well, alright, look, prior to Taxon I didn't know they were real, so I'm trying to figure out-- how close to the sort of thing I think of from movies and crap. Like.... crosses, would wearing a cross protect you, or is that just bullshit, pardon my French?"