2024-12-30 - Talking to Meat... the Park

Evidently, Drea doesn't work today, because it's 10 am and she's in the Winding Vine wearing a long hoodie, leggings, Uggs, and with her hair in a messy bun at the top of her head (under the hoodie's hood). She's already gotten her coffee and a little nosh, and is scrolling through her phone as she waits for the others to show up after the brief text exchange that set this whole 'discuss dreams and visions' thing up.

While Enzo does work today, his shift started later in the evening, unfortunately. Or perhaps, fortunately, because he'd been out binge drinking and the like over Christmas and then the masquerade and his birthday ski weekend, so he could use the sleep-in time. But here he is, out in the morning, to discuss dream things and the like.

Dressed in a long black sweater and dark jeans and boots with a dark jeans jacket worn for warmth, he enters the Winding Vine and quickly notices Drea's familiar face shortly after stepping in. Doing his hardest to suppress a yawn, he orders himself a latte and pastry before going over to join her, "Someone looks bright-eyed and bushy-tailed." Whether Drea actually looks bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, it's an opening that he'll use anyway as he settles into a seat.

It’s 10 AM on a workday and Parker is working. “Just tell them they’ll lose as a client if they can’t reschedule.” When he shoulders his way into the coffee shop, his phone is held to his face in a way that let’s everyone know he’s leaving a voice message, probably because he’s too busy (and don’t forget important) to text. “We pay them too much and I won’t lose anyone else to that damned yeti.”

One flat white later, the man in the crisp grey suit finds his way to the meeting spot, his loafers click-clicking against the floor. “Good morning, everyone.” His tone is board-room casual as he sets a leather satchel bag on one of the empty chairs, and then his coffee on the table. “How are we today?”

Miriam comes rushing in like a ball of ferrets, auburn hair loose and slightly wild. And slightly damp. She's in an oversized purple sweater and black leggings with riding boots, earbuds in.

"Hey, hi, sorry I'm late, I got sidetracked trying to befriend some of the local crows. Dumb excuse, I know."

Drea looks up as Enzo arrives, lifting her brow and pushing out a chair for him with one foot, "Polo." She knows his name, right? Maybe. "You look how I feel." With all the yawning and such. The arrival of Parker in his suit causes Drea to narrow her eyes for a moment before she nods, "You must be Parker, yeah? I'm Drea. And I'm awake." Miriam's excuse causes her to laugh though, and she pushes out another chair, "You never know, around here, that might be some of our coworkers, so maybe not so dumb. Also don't they like, remember and share knowledge of who's nice to them?"

"The Serpent of Ser..." Enzo starts before realizing his error, "You know what, I'll just call you Drea." He then starts over, "Hey, Drea." Before settling down into that pushed out seat. "Thanks. And I hope you feel spectacular, because I'm sure I look spectacular." He is probably joking...

Though when he notes Parker's arrival, he remembers the wei-- the man, and after giving him a side-long observation and an upnod in greeting, he calls out, "The Ferryman. Mornin'." He then makes sure to take a good hearty drink of his latte, because he really needs it." While he hasn't spoken much to Miriam, Enzo, as PR, is all around the park, so he a lot of faces start to become somewhat recognizable to him. Especially performer faces. "The Night Mare... here to discuss, well hopefully it wasn't a nightmare." To the crow talk, he nods, "To that they do. Don't piss off corvids."

Parker glances at Miriam, then his watch. He nods to Drea and unzips his bag to retrieve a tablet, which he effortlessly prepares for the meeting, nestling it in the crook of one arm.

"May I?" To the table next to them, he flashes a smile and tugs at an unused chair, pulling it to their table so both he and his bag can have a seat. Once settled, he expels a contented sigh. Contented except for the nickname Enzo has for him; that, gets a raised eyebrow. "Good, you're here." Someone who knows his idiosyncrasy, should he lapse into something debilitating. "Is this everyone?" His gaze then sweeps across those assembled.

"Wasn't so much of a nightmare as a glitch in the matrix. I was awake and for a moment, I wasn't where I was supposed to be," Miri explains, settling down in a chair and tucking one leg underneath herself. "I'm pretty sure the crows could sort of understand me."

She clears her throat. "Anyway."

There's a glance at the tablet. "This a formal thing? Should I have worn a tie?"

Drea starts to lift a wagging finger at Enzo, but he corrects himself, and she nods her satisfaction, taking a sip of her coffee and shaking her head slightly. Looking around the group, she points to Parker, "Yes, this is everyone," and then Miriam, "No it's not formal." She draws in a breath and lets it out slowly, deflating in her chair a little before she points between herself and Miriam, "We experienced two different things, but related. I had a dream that involved some people from the park and me fighting some science-types in an underground lab of some sort, with tunnel-halls running off the main room we were in. Some people hooked up and powered up a thing, and then I woke up. Miri -- " she glances over to her fellow knight and shrugs, "I'll let her talk more about it if she wants."

What Miriam says has Enzo looking slightly confused, "Wait, so yours wasn't a dream then?" But then Drea brings up her experience and while it's in no way similar to his, at least hers was a dream.

"Tunnel-halls running off the main room? Damp and made of stone, perhaps?" There's the slightest of pauses there, before he adds his own input, "Because in my dream, several of us were running through these stone walled tunnels and away from," and here he looks to Parker who had heard the story already, "Bio-mechanical... dog creatures. Which we were forced to fight before we moved on. We didn't find a lab though, but we found an old man on a ferry who mentioned a lab."

And with that, he'll pause there for any questions and if Miriam or anyone else would like to add input.

Even as Drea is commenting how this isn't a formal gathering, Parker is nodding his head as if he thinks it is one. Maybe that's how he justifies being here during office hours, if he feels like he needs to.

Formal or not, though, the gathering is an interesting one. As people begin to speak and share, he tugs a magnified stylus from the side of his device and starts to scribble away. His eyes move between them all, but land decidedly on Miriam in the end. "I also had a pair of experiences where I found myself awake one moment, and then someplace very different the next."

Blinking, he tilts his head toward Enzo. "This one found me on a ferry after I saw myself running through dank, old tunnels. Running away from something." Then, he takes a breath and adds, "More recently, I woke up in a Tarjay after seeing myself power up a machine with a strange device. There was...I don't know. Some bluish energy." He taps at his pad and sets it down on the table, showing an image of some runes he scribbled on a scrap sheet of paper. "The device had these on them. Have any of you seen something similar?"

Tarjay. Miri mouths this to herself and it takes her a moment to get it. She nods.

"Yeah, I was fucking around and play-dueling Benedict and suddenly I was in this dark, wet, claustrophobic stone tunnel. Then I was back. Didn't see any machines or runes or anything."

She pauses.

"Wait. Were you in the store before you had your thing, or were you minding your own business and then suddenly found yourself in a Target?"

“There was an old man in the lab we were in — he got snatched by some people in black coats and red gloves.” Drea starts to rub at one temple as she listens to all of the different stories and tries to piece them together. “And he told us to power up some machine, and some of the people did while the rest of us fought off more of the people in black coats and red gloves and like wrench-clubs. And then there were people in white coats who were shooting electricity at us. And then they got it fixed, one of the people from the dream said it was impossible, it glowed blue, and then I woke up.”

Drea goes back to her coffee with a grimace, “Definitely sounding less and less like ‘too many jalapeño sidecars.’”

There's an arch of Enzo's brow when Parker calls him This one, but he makes no comment about it. Though when Parker actually shows them a picture of some runes, if anything, the public relations guy is disappointed that his language understanding capabilities has not extended towards runes.

"Huh..." Enzo says as he rubs at his chin when Drea speaks of her old man, "I wonder if they're the same guy. The one I spoke to said something about getting back to his lab, but he was expecting us to have brought some sort of electronic lockbox to give him, which none of us had, obviously." He then tries to remember other details of the dream.

Tearing off a piece of his danish, he pops it into his mouth as he considers, "Some sort of machine... I wonder what it does."

Parker shakes his head at Miriam. "I was on a walk one moment, and the next I was on a mediocre couch with some kid taking a video of me." He scoffs and glances away for a moment, then reaches to collect his tablet again and switch over to his notes. "It was embarrassing."

He settles in to listen then, peering at Drea's mention of people in coats and gloves, and making a thoughtful hmm at Enzo. "I wonder as well. When I tried to speak to the park, I was met with a sense of loss. Do you think that's somehow tied to all of this?"

This was all new to Miri and she now looks deeply lost and confused.

She doesn't have anything to say other than a whispered, "What the fuck"

Drea snaps a finger down to point at Miriam in a clear 'that, so much that,' gesture at her expression, groaning and lowering her forehead down toward the top of her coffee cup. She never lets her brow touch the lid, but it's a near-run thing and a tendril of hair falls out of the messy bun under her hood and hangs down in front of her lowered head for a moment.

Drawing in a slow and apparently-fortifying breath, Drea straightens up in her seat again, pushing her hair back behind her ear. "Oooooookay. So we're in one of those Linked-Visions-And-Shared-Dreams-That-Mean-Something situations. Happens all the time in fantasy books, right?" There's a little bright, sharp, even brittle edge to her voice that suggests that those sort of things don't happen in real life. "Now we just need a deus ex machina to explain what it's all about, right? And, you know, if we're the faces or the heels in this. Those people seemed pretty dead set on stopping us from starting up the machine." She blinks, and then narrows her eyes over at Parker, "You tried to speak to the park? Like, a VP somewhere? Or like, the ground?"

Okay, Parker gets a snort out of Enzo at the mention of this mediocre couch at Tarjay. "Your subconscious took you to Tarjay, you know that, right?" He asks, before stating, "Maybe it's not as mediocre as you thought?" Says the guy in designer clothing and $100 t-shirts, probably. He then gestures to the tablet, "If you don't mind, I'd like a copy of those runes sent to me. Please." There, he's being polite.

His brows then lift to Miriam's whisper, but he agrees with her sentiment.

Having heard enough information that he hadn't known before, he pulls out his phone to make some notes. "After the machine in the lab was powered on, there was a blue glow? And there were people in white coats that... shot electricity at you? Like a taser?" He's looking at Drea when he asks this. He jots it down anyway.

Then when Drea asks Parker about his speaking to the park, which is something Enzo had already heard about before, he just gives a casual side-glance his way between note taking.

Does this happen all the time in fantasy books? Parker's expression suggests suggests ignorance, but he's fine with pulling from literature to make sense of the situation. "There are more questions than answers at present." He scribbles something that he notates with several question marks.

"I plugged a device into the machine and it lit up, yes. The runes, too." He side-eyes Parker again, but nods about sending over a copy of them. "I'm guessing someone didn't or doesn't want that to happen."

He sighs and shakes his head at Drea. "No, not a VP or the ground. To the park. Whatever's out there making magic happen." He taps the end of the his stylus against his chin, thoughtfully. "It tries to speak through me through visions. Perhaps not only me." Here, he gestures to Miriam. "And I've been learning to speak back."

"I mean, I've dissociated in Target, but I've never dissociated my way to a Target."

Visions. Is that what they are? Miri considers Parker's take on it. "You think this... seeing stuff... is the park talking to us? You think the communication might be two-way?"

A big pause.

"This is the weirdest fucking job I've ever had and I've worked room service in a casino," she declares. She snap-points at Drea. "This is some Daemon Targaryen tripping balls in Harrenhal nonsense."

Finally, she considers Enzo. "This machine. Are we sure it's related to these tunnels we saw?"

"Yes!" The Harrenhal link clearly speaks to Drea. But then she focuses in on the further discussion, going back to Enzo first, "Yeah, big blue glow that sort of wiped out the dream. And not like tasers, but like shot electricity out of their hands." Parker's response has her rubbing her face, "Okay Drea... reset your worldview." Drawing in a breath, she lets it out quickly and does a horrible Geoffrey Rush impression, "You'd best start believin' in ghost stories, Miss Swan, ye're in one."

"Then, um, if you get in contact with The Park," the capitalization is evident in her voice, "if it is," she gestures to Miriam, "two-way, finding out if The Park wanted us to turn it on would be good. And then finding out what it wants. Because if it wants the glow on so it can have power to eat all humans, that's a bad thing, but if it wants the glow on so it can protect the people on the islands and give them magic, that's a good thing."

"Did it look like a box or lockbox of sorts...?" Enzo asks Parker now when he mentions plugged a device into the machine. That's when he snaps his fingers and points to the other man, "You were holding something against your chest when I saw your running for your life on the ferry. Were you the person the man on the ferry was supposed to meet with then?" He then decides to clarify after a roll of his eyes, "I mean, the old man on the ferry, the boat, whatever, in my dream, who asked if we brought the mechanical lockbox from his lab."

His gaze lifts from his notes, when he looks over towards Miriam, "If I must be honest? I have no freakin' clue. Because a friend of mine dreamt of fighting undead pirates alongside others and I have absolutely no idea how that connects to anything either."

At something Drea mentions, Enzo's brow arches, "Protect us from what...?" He then lets a breath, "The old man mentioned a name... Laundry... Landrydale. Something like that. When no one had the electronic lockbox, he'd said that hopefully Landrydale escaped with it. He also said that I looked familiar, but who the hell knows if that really means anything."

Notes. Parker is taking so many notes. He pauses at first to shrug at Drea when she mentions eating all humans, though he doesn’t argue about some of the big questions that need to be answered. Any reference to fantasy literature goes way over his head.

To Parker, he pauses to say, “It was a tube with electricity running through it. Could have once been in a lockbox.” It would even be likely, by the tone of his voice. “I hadn’t heard about the pirate dream. That’s interesting.”

When he puts down his stylus, he lifts his coffee and peers over at Miriam. “I do. Have you tried talking back?”

"I mean, I dreamed that my uncle had hair like Kramer from Seinfeld and wanted us to go to Connecticut to kill New York mayor Eric Adams because in the dream, there was no punishment for murder in Connecticut, but, like, how do you know if it's a weird dream or something significant? I don't think killing a mayor is part of this, and neither is going to dinner with Penn and Teller at an Italian restaurant that refused to serve us bread sticks." After that bizarre peek into Miri's psyche, she furrows her brow.

"If it is The Park talking to me, it's only done it the once and I don't know how to... commune with it? Do we want to have like a seance?"

"Undead pirates? That sounds lit AF." Drea may have some odd versions of 'amazing.' "And I have absolutely no idea what the Park might be protecting us from, I just wanted something good for the other side of the 'or' after talking about it eating us." Looking between Parker and Miriam, she takes a sip of her coffee and starts to tear apart her pastry to eat it, listening to the talk of visions and communing, "I think a seance would be pretty cool too. But I think it's fair to say that any dream that involves a lot of people from the park that isn't one of those kinds of dreams might be important? Especially if others have had it?"

"If you want to learn more about the pirate dream, Angelo's experienced it." Enzo brings up as he settles back into his chair and sips at his coffee. "I don't remember who else was there with him, but it was a bunch of park folk. Just like the dream where we were running through the tunnels away from those bio-mech dogs." He then looks to Drea, "And whatever dream Drea had. Getting the machine started."

Looking between Parker and Miriam now, he asks, "So how do you talk the park? Better yet, listen to what the park says?"

Parker stares at Miriam for a moment, digesting the dream she just described. Apparently, he finds it acceptable and offers a quick nod. "I don't know about you, but the difference for me is that I snap out of it somewhere strange. Or at least not where I first feel it coming on."

He blows on his coffee and takes a sip before setting the cup down again. "I think it's more than fair. People are posting about these things, aren't they?" If they aren't, they should, and he writes as much in his notes.

As for how he communicates, he offers a thoughtful hmm. "Well, recently it was with a piece of cured meat. But that was in a dream. It takes...things." He gestures around him at various objects: napkin, cup, spoon. "Concentration, too, and a specific question in mind."

Shared dreams. Got it. Miri nods silently, feeling entirely out of her depth.

"I'm sorry," she says softly, "I think I've been as useful as I can be." She's a new hire. She's starting to get really, really freaked out.

Drea looks a little incredulous at bio-mech dogs and talking to the park, but does her best to cover it up with another bite of torn-up pastry. She leans forward to reach for Miri's forearm and try to give it a squeeze, "You don't have to be sorry, Miri. Seriously. I don't know about these two," she gestures to the two well-dressed men, "but all I've got is a dream that apparently other park people had too? Maybe? And felt freaky and I killed people in it and I really didn't like that," she might be talking a little fast through all of that, but she takes in a breath and lets it out, doing her best to slow down again, "and I don't know anything about talking to the Park or talking with pieces of cured meat, which sounds way more like dropping acid -- from what I've heard -- that dreams?"

Yeah, Enzo was onboard listening to how Parker communicates with the park, but there' just this bewildered look that he gives when the answer is a piece of cured meat. "Okay..." He looks like he has a lot of questions that he'd like to ask. In fact, he opens his mouth a few times with some false starts, being unable to articulate just what he wants to say.

Though hearing what Drea says to Miriam, after setting down his coffee cup, he raises both hands, "I've got nothing. I've been in one dream." Though he does give her a sympathetic look when she mentions having killed people. He only killed bio-mech creatures. "I'm sure they deserved it." Those words are only said to be reassuring.

Now he has a question about the cured meat thing, "So this cured meat thing, was this your way of talking to the park because it was a dream? And dreams make no sense? Or would you actually try this out in your own kitchen while awake?" Pause. "Just curious."

Parker's levels an intense gaze that shifts between Miriam and Drea, eventually settling on the later when she admits dream murder. There's a question there, but first he must set something straight. "I didn't talk to the meat." He raises and index finger between him and the rest of the group. "It's not unlike acid, but I didn't go that far."

He turns his head to Enzo, watching him try to form words with a growing impatience. When the question eventually comes, he simply sighs. "Of course I would try it if that's what was on hand." Not here, obviously. There's only coffee and pastry here.

"So, what are our next steps? I need to catch the next ferry for another meeting at the park." He readies his stylus to take the minutes.

"I think that we need to work on some kind of communication with The Park, if that's what's going on. I don't speak vague and menacing vision." Miri chews the inside of her cheek.

"I was kidding about the seance, but maybe some sort of focused group gathering of people who saw the same stuff might not be a good idea."

Drea points from herself to Enzo and back at his mention of only being in one dream, doing her level best to ignore the sympathetic look and the silent question from Parker. She rolls her shoulders up and hunched, burrowing down into her hoodie like it's armor. She shrugs in an attempt to look nonchalant and unaffected, collecting her coffee under her face. "I think next steps are up to you folks who see the visions. Or, I guess, just talking if we have more dreams that seem to mean something? I guess if you do some sort of... vision quest or whatever, and you need someone to watch your back, let me know."

"Unless something big happens on say New Years Eve or whenever that the rest of us could actually look into," Here Enzo lifts his shoulders into a shrug as he eats another shred of torn pastry, "What Drea says is right. It's up to anyone with those visions. And anyone with the abiilty to speak to the park. Which is not me, by the way, as far as I know." He then adds, "Or, maybe we can reconvene at Parker's place, when he's prepared some cured ham for dinner. Who knows what answers we might get from that?" He's most likely joking when he says this, but hey, if that's the guy's technique, so be it!

Though he will also say, "Unless you have other techniques that you prefer." This is to Parker, of course.

Parker taps a few things on his tablet and then flips the cover over and reattaches the stylus. "Well, I don't know about having everyone over at my place." He eyes Enzo for a moment, then takes a breath. "But it's not a bad idea. I'm only just learning how to communicate, so no promises we'll hear anything solid."

After admitting that, he looks around the table at the others, gaze calculating. "Let's see where we're at in the new year? I'm sure we'll all be busy with work until then."

"No ham for me, thanks. I don't keep strictly kosher, but that's one of my no-goes. If you need a place to go, I can ask my roommates if they're cool with it."

Miri looks around, glad to have some sort of a plan, even if it feels insane.

"Yeah. Let's talk after the new year."

"I don't think we have to go to anyone's place. This seems private enough," Drea suggests. "It's not like this is super-secret or anything or we wouldn't want to bring anyone else with a clue in, right?"

She takes another sip of her coffee and shakes her head, "You boys can all focus on talking to your meat, and we can check in again on creepy dreams and visions after the New Year."