Surprise! Elephant!

[npcz]

{Conrad Hotel Basement party thread!}The headwaitress at the Conrad hotel has seen an awful lot in her time working there. Angels, demons, shapeshifters, elementals who weren't aware they were elementals, and, on one particularly notorious occasion, an elemental who seemed to only be able to work with balsamic vinaigrette

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[clockwork_doc]

Doc was just passing through, intending on maybe finding someone who had something to do with the hotel and tell them about the possibility of problems with the locks. Hey, if it happened to Ricky, it could happen to someone else. He wasn't expecting to find a full buffet in the middle of the lobby. He stops for a moment and stares. Then, slowly, he makes his way over to see what they have. He's been living off sandwiches for the past few days, more or less. Some variety would be nice.

[clockwork_doc]

Subject changes are good. Doc nods and sighs. "Precisely. Living here, you get to know all about Murphy's Law. Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong." He chomps down on a bite of chicken. "I'd like to think I'd be able to think fast enough on my feet. Having powers like mine are a distinct advantage in that arena." Both the weather ones and the remnants of the Fae ones.

[rickynotmickey]

"I'm just used to looking at a situation and seeing what could go wrong with it," Ricky says, shrugging. He's a bit disillusioned, but it's to be expected. "Although, sometimes, that was half the fun. Do something, knowing how much could go wrong, and try to get away with it still." Perhaps it is a bit wrong that he found fun in his 'profession' of sorts, but you had to find it somewhere, right? I mean, when you're working on taking down a conspiracy, you can't be all solitude and darkness and misery all the time. That just gets so tiring.

[clockwork_doc]

Doc smirks a bit. "It's not really a bad attitude to have," he says. "You'll probably find it coming in very handy here in Chicago. There always seems to be some sort of disaster looming over the horizon." Doc's become a real pessimist at times. Of course, living through the end of the major angel/demon war and this CLF nonsense hasn't given him much reason for optimism.

[rickynotmickey]

"Yes and no," Ricky says. "It got Jimmy killed and quite a few others locked up for extended periods of time. You have to be able to keep your nose down enough to be able to get away with it, otherwise you're just risking your arse for some giggles." And here they are on a not-happy subject again

"Although, I guess it's a relief to know it won't be dull here."

[clockwork_doc]

"I meant the first part -- looking at a situation and seeing what could go wrong," Doc quickly clarifies. "Though the part about trying to get away with it even if it does go wrong could have its uses. If the reward's greater than the risk."

Doc grins, though there's not much humor behind it. "Oh, it's never dull. Just ask the employees of that one coffee shop that has a tendency to go up in flames every so often."

[rickynotmickey]

The reward was generally not greater than the risk. Ricky, however, begs to differ. His life was based on making stupid choices for the thrill. Sure, in the long run he had been doing the right thing, but he'd always put it at risk with the stunts.

"Burning down by chance, or are people burning it down?" Ricky asks, his attention riveted for the moment. Ricky finds it a lot more entertaining than he probably should.

[clockwork_doc]

Doc waves his fork around in what he hopes is an expressive gesture. "It's happened both ways," he says. "There was a chance meteor strike a while ago, and before that some bastard bombed the place. Luckily after one of the local authorities convinced him to let his hostages go." Doc grimaces as he remembers that whole situation with Luther. He may not have been present for most of it, but he ran like hell to get there after he learned JD was one of the hostages. Damn, he's really gotta check up on him again, make sure he's okay. . . .

[rickynotmickey]

"What were they asking for?" Ricky asks, a lot more interested. He wants to get a grasp of the politics of the area, but he hasn't found a real way to do that yet. He looks back at the food, wondering if he's still hungry. Even if it's free, he's not going to stuff himself until he's sick. Anyway, though, he can't imagine anyone taking hostages without a good reason to.

[clockwork_doc]

Doc sighs. "It has to do with the angels and demons," he says, trusting that Ricky knows about them. He did say he'd been brought up to speed earlier. "From what I understand, the man who took over the shop was a demon, and it was all a power play against the local high-ranking demon here. Ours won that little battle, though. Even if the coffee shop ended up exploding."

He shakes his head. "I can't give you the complete picture, I'm afraid. I try to stay out of this sort of thing." The politics of the angels and demons hold no interest for him until the Wanderers start getting sucked in.

[rickynotmickey]

Politics in general held Ricky's interests. Then again, when you're a conspiracy theorist to the point of actually doing something, it's not really politics you're looking at. He finds meaning through his defiance of cultural norms and standards for a higher... It always does sound better on paper. He'd always been told to stay out of such things himself, but they kept sucking him back in.

"S'alright," Ricky says. "Not everyone can pay 100% attention, or else no one would ever be able to spin nothing."

[clockwork_doc]

Doc was never interested in politics in general. He kept abreast of candidates' interest in scientific advancement, and generally voted on the liberal side, but other than that? Not really his thing.

"Exactly," Doc nods, spearing some chicken on his fork. "Though the basic overview is pretty simple. The Conrad Hotel is the angel stronghold, the Main Gauche in Cicero is the demon stronghold. Both places host Wanderers. And the angels and the demons currently have a treaty to prevent them from holding war without a very good reason." He shakes his head. "There's also supernatural humans here, but they seem to be very good at keeping their heads down."

[rickynotmickey]

"Wouldn' you be?" Ricky asks, finally deciding on reloading his plat. "I mean, Martha said that they don't know what's going on. If you found out there was something funny about you, don't you think you'd just try to keep your nose down, rather than become ostracized?" That is a big word for him, and he wasn't sure he liked the way it fit in his mouth. Ricky isn't stupid. On the contrary, he can be brilliant in many ways. Common sense and vocabulary are not his strong suits.

The basic overview of politics always was pretty simple. And then there was the undercurrent no one ever saw. And no one ever talked about. "It's kinda crazy, that the people here know nothing when you've got stuff blowing up and all."

[clockwork_doc]

"Good point," Doc admits, swallowing his chicken thoughtfully. "It's not like us Wanderers openly advertise what we are, either. Especially not in this climate." Steam hisses from his back at that, and Doc glances back at it in annoyance. "Not intentionally, anyway. . . ."

"Well, they seem to know now, what with the CLF being at large," Doc says, scowling. "I don't know how on earth they justified most of it before. I'm starting to think people prefer to be willfully blind. Just so they won't have to put up with all the strangeness."

[rickynotmickey]

Ricky laughs, shaking his head and picking at his chicken with his fingers. "Not much for me to advertise here," he says, shrugging. As much as he'd been able to tell, he's completely normal compared to most of the folks around here. He'd mostly been keeping to himself, as expected, trying to figure this place out before just jumping in. "But even without the danger of death, I think they'd mostly want to keep their noses down." The first thought in someone's head, if they thought they were alone would be the fear of experimentation.

"Although, I have to agree with willful blindness. It's amazing what people will overlook in order to convince themselves that the world they're living in really is that beautiful utopia they always wanted, not a teetering mess about to collapse in on itself due to the fear of death and the loss of power."

[clockwork_doc]

Doc gives him a weak grin. "Yeah -- most of the Wanderers are lucky enough to look like normal humans," he acknowledges. "I just have some disadvantages." He shakes his head. "I don't blame them. With all the craziness that happens around here, keeping your nose down seems to be the best policy."

Though if Doc knew what Ricky was thinking about, he'd let him know that being a normal human doesn't always preclude you from experimentation.

Doc rolls his eyes. "I know. There's been any number of incidents in the past, and everyone normal just glossed over them all. Until now." To be fair, when they were glossing them over, there was no CLF, so. . . .