tampered | Log: Static

Log: Static

When; The 14th
Rating; PG?
Characters; Abberline (

noh_dancer)
Summary; They're out taking pictures at the beach.
Log;

It wasn't much of a walk from building seven to building eight, and there was little going on as he did so - the maintenance day was over, and it seemed that the City had nothing sinister planned for its inhabitants the next day, aside from the normal oddities. Abberline was used to roaming miscreants and abnormal sights being very normal within the confines of one area or the other, so he wasn't too terribly shocked by the things that the 'locals' got up to. It was the aspect of the supernatural that unnerved him. In both the workings of the City and the people it took, things that weren't supposed to be real were proving day by day to be very real indeed. One might not think he would find such things so shocking, he himself subscribing to his own 'visions' of the future, but sporadic bursts opium-induced clairvoyance was nothing compared to the things that were here.

Abberline found Scarab's door easy enough; the buildings were layed out the same, and he lived just one door down in building seven. In fact, the door the the beach (supposedly) was just another door down, so things were working out very well indeed. He knocked politely, and waited.

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Sighing with reignation, Scarab stripped the upper part of her body suit off and ties the sleeves about her waist. The little tank top she had on underneath would have to do since vinyl was decidedly not hot weather material, and she had only her 'work clothes' to wear at all.

The pants she would just have to deal with, and hope that it wasn't sweltering.

Her black duffel had been emptied of it's contents of two glock 9's a Long range sniper rifle, four kunai, her wakizashi, spare underclothes and brush to be replaced by the cameras, tripod, extra film, and some towels to wrap the equipment in to keep it well padded.

She was just zipping up her hip pocket with the only money she had when there was a knock at the door.

"Just a minute" she called, quickly piling her hair onto the top of her head and sticking one of her needles through it, and inspected herself in the mirror over the mantle.

She looked as non-threatening as she could manage just now...it would have to do.

Opening the door with a smile, she gestured " Come on in. I'm just getting the rest of my stuff packed up."

Abberline wasn't exactly in tropical beach wear either, but then, he was British. He was in for something of a shock when they arrived at the beach and found something besides murky water and fog.

"Hello," he said, nodding in greeting and stepping inside at her invitation. He was still getting used to the way the women dressed here - no one seemed to be from his era, and seeing so much skin on a daily basis was rather distracting. On the other hand, he had always been of the more liberal persuasion, so it comforted him to know that suffrage (among other things) had (eventually) been successful.

"It seems the entrance to the beach is just next door, so we won't have much of a walk. I've been assured that as insane as that sounds, it is... somehow perfectly logical."

She blinked once at him.

"Um...I've seen next door and there's nothing beside this building except more buildings, Frederick. I don't think there's an entire ocean tucked into an alley way."

She still kept getting ready to leave, putting the battery pack for the digital camera into the duffel, and slinging her combat boots with laces tied together over one shoulder.

".. I mean .. the flat next door," he said, one eyebrow arching, his voice showing just how much actual faith he had in his words. "The pirate who apparently owns it gave me those directions.. Er. Would you like help carrying anything?" Not that Scarab seemed incapable of lugging around a variety of heavy objects without effort - but it was an impulse to ask.

"The flat." She repeated idiotically.

...."Right...well, why not? Makes about as much sense as anything else around here I suppose." She said shaking her head with amusement.

Pirates and beaches inside apartements. People who looked just like people from her past, and Death Gods. At least this city was interesting.

"I'm good", she replied cheerfully, mentally adding brownie points to him for the offer. ( Who says chivalry is dead?)

Swinging the bag over her shoulder she turned to look at him expectantly. " Lead on, then, lights-a-wasting."

"Light... yes." Abberline nodded, and headed out, holding the door for Scarab. He knew enough about photography to know that light indeed helped, but that's why you had flash powder. Her bag didn't look big enough to carry all of that, though - but this was a world full of modern-ness in a way he rarely comprehended at first; he would be enlightened soon enough.

He made his way to apartment number thirteen, like he'd been instructed, and went ahead and tried the handle without knocking, not knowing if the beach had a doorman. The door opened and he stepped through... and onto worn, sand-dusted wooden planks tapering off to a particularly amazingly beautiful beach with white sand, clear blue water overseen by pure, bright sunlight.

"Well I'll be fucked."

Very little truly stunned Scarab. Even now, having seen so much of the impossible, this new bit of impossible was amazing.

She stood there a solid three minutes with her jaw hanging open before Abberline's epithet snapped her back to reality.

"That makes two of us", she added, then after a moment stepped back into the apartement building and rummaged in her duffel.

"Hold the door for me.." rummaging a bit more, she came up with the digital camera and stepped back until she could get the sight of the apartement door with the beautiful ocean vista lined up together, with Abberline looking on.

A moment of aligning the image, and she had a lovelly still of total improbability.

Somehow seeing the moment captured made it just a bit more real, and with a grin she stepped back onto the boardwalk next to Abberline to show him the picture in the viewer.

Abberline barely noticed what Scarab was up to behind him, but held the door as he was instructed, glad to have something to bring him out of his stunned stupor. He didn't look at the camera because he didn't realize that was it was - in his day, camera's were huge, clunky pieces of machinery that needed to be painstakingly set up on a thick wooden stand, with a photographer and an assistant to hold the flash - so when she showed him the tiny little thing with the image of their setting captured on it, he was fascinated.

"What in hells.." he touched the edge of the camera curiously, staring at the little viewscreen, mystified. "That is a camera, these days?"

"Yes. Some even come smaller than this, and there are little mobile phones that have the ability to take pictures too. Not as nice a quality as this, but still photos nonetheless."

Looking out down the boardwalk toward the docks, she took in the ships. One looked highly ridiculous, and not even sea-worthy, really. One that reminded her of the old images of american and british tea clippers, and another that seemed to be some kind of mutated ship.

"Come one, I'll show you how to work this one while we see about nice seascapes, and then I'll switch to the one that uses film"

With that she strolled off down the pier as though talking to turn of the century british cops, oceans in apartements, and crazy looking pirate ships were the most common place thing in the world.

"Fascinating," he murmured, but his attention could only be held so long by machines. He followed Scarab, but not before pulling off his heavy wool coat and cotton suit jacket, and laying them over the railing near the door back to the building hallway. He would still be too hot for comfort in his thick linen shirt and vest, but at least he wouldn't be dying of head stroke.

The area was remarkably scenic - he picked out Jack's ship easily, and forced himself to ignore the other two, which defied even the bizarre time traveling logic, as far as he was concerned.

They were both quiet for a while, except for Scarab occasionally telling Abberline to stand still in certain places, and then to show him how to use the digital camera ( which took a few minutes of button pushing, but he got it in the end).

All too soon the heat was becoming bothersome, and she called a break from strolling int he sun in favor of sitting in the shadow of the Black Swann.

After rummaging in her bag agian she took a water bottle, then offerred it over.

" So do you know who owns these ships?" she asked after a moment, seeking to start the conversation ( and the questioning in neutral territory).

" You said something about pirates? Do you know any of them personally?"

Abberline frowned and muttered over the camera, but it was clear that he was at interested, and also rather impressed. He snapped a few here and there, not really comprehending the lack of film. The buttons were small and fiddly and he was a bit useless with them.

He was pleased with the break, but didn't think it was proper to divest himself further in the company of a lady (even if she was showing an obscene amount of her skin). He thanked her for the water and took a drink gratefully.

"Mm. This one, the.. one that looks real, is what I believe is the Black Swann. Her captain would be a man named Jack Sparrow, who is, apparently, a pirate. It's interesting because we look very similar - and there seems to be a number of other men about the city that look equally similar. They're all up in arms about it, but it doesn't bother me."

Scarab stretched her legs out in front of her, and leaned back comfortably.

As an operative she had worked as a model to cover her erratic travel arrangements...and of course being a model opened many doors otherwise closed to most girls.

She wasn't stupid, though. Her life often depended on reading people, and she knew when certain amounts of subtle flirting could help her in gathering the sort of information she needed.
She wasn't using this excursion strictly as an intel gathering means, she genuinely was enjoying herself, but she capitalized on the seemingly innocent stretch in order to show just enough skin to be distracting, without seeming overtly sensuous.

"A pirate, for real? Huh.

Well judging by the look of his ship i would estimate he is the real thing, yes? Originating from the 1700's maybe, around the time the East India Trading company was hitting it's prime."

She took a drink while he spoke of the other look-a-likes.

" Similar? How similar? Are we talking family-type resemblance, or long lost twins running all over town?"

Abberline caught her movement - even if they were from different times, he was no fool. One didn't make it all the way to Chief Inspector without knowing a thing or two about people - and while this woman was a damn bit more subtle, he'd worked around enough 'unfortunate women' to pick up on the habits of 'feminine wiles'. He knew a variety of things, the first and foremost being that if Scarab were to be trying to get information out of him, she not only just had to ask, there was little to get out of him to begin with.

"I assume it's real," he said, sitting and leaning back against a mooring post. "As real as anything here is, I mean." A pause. "The latter, actually. I think it would bother me more if I spent any large amount of time admiring myself, but I just don't think about those sort of things.. and people have always told me I have one of 'those faces' - whatever that means."

She smiled inwardly, awarding Abberline more mental brownie points for no falling for the mild flirting. Smart man.

" Wow, that must be really wierd having dopplegangers all over the place."

" You know, I have to confess; I know who you are. In my world your somewhat famous for investigating a very messy serial murderer...

It makes me wonder just who else might be here that I would recognize."

She sighed wearily. Wasn't death supposed to be 'eteranl rest'? Why was it now necessary to throw her headlong into a whole new world of problems.

Abberline seemed to freeze up a bit at the mention of the Ripper case. Why did everyone have to know about that? He'd looked for it in the library - unsolved. No leads. None of the so called 'historians' that were ludicrously obsessed with the case had even made a close guess ... and the theory that the Royal Family had been involved had been debunked and shuffled away, now seen as a completely laughable thing (by Royal lawyers, of course).

"Yes... I did investigate... that."

He paused, obviously much tenser than just a moment before. Mention of Ripper put him in a poor mood normally, but knowing that it had survived through hundreds upon hundreds of years and the truth had never been brought to light vexed him terribly.

Sensing the shift in his demeanor, she looked down.

Hmm.

" I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry."

She sighed quietly, and fiddled with the sleeve of her suit.

" I seem to be rather good at stirring up unwanted feeling from people's past", she commented ruefully, thinking of the reaction Ran had when Scarab mentioned seeing the shinigami in her line of work.

"Ah.." Abberline gave a little half-smile, flicking his eyes back up at her. "It's just when someone brings it up, I can't help but think about it, and it's... difficult. The time I spent on that case encompassed too much of my life for such a short span."

Feeling a bit guilty for dredging up such unhappy things on what was supposed to be a fun excursion, she nodded, and patted his shoulder softly.

" I'm sorry. If it's any consolation I always believed in the royal conspiracy."

She gave a smirking laugh.

"Then agian, working for people who wouldn't hesitate to do the same may have made my perceptions a little different than most of the public's"

A slightly uncomfortable silence descended agian, and kicking herself for causing it, Scarab stood and set her boots near her bag.

" Want to go walk on the beach? The sun will be setting soon, and I bet we could get some beautiful shots?"

Hopefully she could turn the conversation to happier things, and then get back to more positive, and productive questioning soon.

Abberline blinked in surprise at her words, but stood and made to follow her. After a moment's awkwardness, he bent to remove his shoes, stockings, and roll his trousers up to his knees. He stared down at the desperately pale skin of his feet and shins, bemused.

"Sounds good," he said lightly, and walked with Scarab, flashing her a small, but genuine smile, showing that all was forgiven, and that he appreciated what she'd said.

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Log: Static

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