Logs:A Doomed First Step

From From Dusk till Jawn
Jump to navigation Jump to search


Cast

Alexis Bartram, Mei Lee

Setting

Mei's Office

Log

Mei's office is in a part of town that's not quite bad so much as not good, although it is fairly close to the gayborhood, so it has that going for it. It's on the fourth floor of a building that has the options of stairs or a tiny and dubious elevator, and it's in the back corner of the building as far from the elevator as possible, but she has an office, and her desk, a filing cabinet, a couple of chairs, and a couch that looks both extremely cheap and also actually pretty comfortable.

There are two windows on the wall behind her desk, but they have a view of another building's brick wall across an alleyway.

Mei's currently at her desk, feet up on it and her phone in her hands as she fiddles with her phone, waiting for her potential client to show up. She's dressed like she has heard of professionalism before and is trying to imitate it, which she doesn't do too bad a job at., with slacks and a jacket, and even a tie, although the tie is loose.

Its probably possible to hear the steps of someone coming down the hall, and if listening closely, even the deep breath that Alexis takes as she gathers herself before opening the door and stepping inside, "Mei Lee, I presume?" She asks with a slight smile as she closes the door behind her. She's dressed somewhat casually - it is Friday after all - in a plain dark red shirt and black jeans, with a light, charcoal coat that looks mostly wind and waterproof. She's got a manilla folder in one hand.

When the door opens Mei's feet are coming down off the desk, not in a hurry like she's trying to pretend they weren't up there, but because she's standing up. Her phone gets put down on the desk, and she steps around it to head toward Alexis. "That's me, yes. Just Mei is fine." She extends a hand. "You're Alexis Bartram?" Might as well make sure this is actually her appointment.

"Yes, that's me. Alexis is fine." Alexis shakes the offered hand firmly, once. Her hand is slightly cool, but she visibly forces herself to smile a little wider, "This place wasn't nearly as bad to find as you made it sound." The hand holding the folder gestures towards the desk, "Should we sit?"

Mei's hands are a bit rough, the hands of someone who regularly does martial arts practice that doesn't treat her hands kindly, but her shake is light when she offers it. "Some people aren't great at following directions," she answers with a faint shrug and a smile as she heads back behind her desk, then pulls open a drawer to get a small notepad and a pen out. "Feel free to have a seat. I'd offer you something to drink, but I don't have a fridge here, so anything I have is warm. I've got some water, though, if you need anything."

"I should be fine for now. Thank you, though." Alexis hands are those of an academic, but she has her nails - currently painted a dark red metallic that goes with her shirt - cut rather short so they are gentler on a keyboard. She sits herself in one of the chairs in front of the desk and sets the folder down, "Like I said when I first got in touch with you, I don't think you'll find any sort of culprit or something for this, especially locally. Its more a matter of figuring out what on earth actually happened to me."

Mei makes a few chicken scratches on her notepad, but mostly keeps her eyes on Alexis. "Want to start at the beginning?" she urges. "I'll do my best to figure out whatever I can, but let's go over the whole story before we start talking about money and the like." She adds after a moment, "this part I'm not going to try to bill for, obviously."

"Right." Alexis takes another deep breath, "So, 9 years ago - wait, actually 10 now, it was in early April - I was doing my undergrad studies at RPI up in Troy. I think my friends had convinced me to take the night off and go to their place to play board games. On my walk there, something happened to me." Alexis looks extremely frustrated, "I don't think its easy for most folks to understand quite why this bothers me so much. I don't forget. Like, hardly anything ever, and I can usually remember minor details exactly even years later."

Mei listens with a professional interest and detachment alike, separating herself from her feelings as much as she can to avoid them showing on her face, even while she's trying to stay in tune to the details about how Alexis feels. Judging things like whether she's being told the truth, things are being held back, etc. At the end of that she smiles and says, "I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm the same way. Once I see something, I generally never forget it. But you can't remember what happened that night?

"Not at all. Its a blur, fuzzy, and it feels like the inside of my head is itching if I try to focus on it. It doesn't feel REAL, like...someone reached into my head and plucked what was there out, and put what they expected to be there in its place." Alexis reaches up under her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose, "And there were other things. That morning when I woke up, some things were out of place. Most significantly, I was still wearing my clothes from going out, but my pants had been cleaned. I spilled a drop of sauce on one leg while eating lunch the day before, but the stain was completely gone."

Mei leans back, takes a couple of notes, and then continues the conversation. "That's pretty specific," she says. "Did you happen to go to a doctor? Is it possible that you were drugged, and that's why you don't remember the details? I know that..." she stops. "Well, I've had a few experiences that have made me actually drop memories, even though I otherwise never do."

"I did, just on the off chance that had happened, but they gave me a clean bill of health. And I didn't have any of the symptoms of being drugged, or of drugging myself. No dry mouth, or headache, or anything like that." She reaches over to the folder and flips it open, "I can actually prove it, too, assuming you trust these pictures. Which to be fair is a bit difficult these days." There are two scanned pictures printed out, enlarged to basically fill a full size page. The first one is of a group of college kids that look to be talking to each other, sitting on and around an outdoor bench. A younger Alexis is sitting on one of the iron armrests of the bench, one leg up off the ground.

The second picture is a pair of shoes - the same pair Alexis is wearing in the first picture. "If you look at my shoe in the first picture, which was taken a week earlier," she points to the date in the bottom right corner of the picture, "You can see that I scuffed the leather above the toe on something, its all scratched up even though the shoes are pretty much brand new. But in the second picture..." she gestures to the second print, apparently taken 8 days later. Its obvious the scuffed leather on the toe is somehow gone entirely, like the shoes were perfectly new again.

Mei nods and makes a couple of notes again, then puts the notebook down to lean forward and look at the pictures that are being put out for her. "Can I?" she asks, holding her hand out for them, asking to hold them so that she can take a closer look at them, which she does, assuming they're handed over. "It's like someone replaced the shoes entirely, for some reason," she says as if she believes Alexis, and she leans back to look at Alexis. "What do your friends remember about this?" she asks, as her eyes shift like they're looking Alexis over, but not even entirely at her.

(Mei's going to use Aura Reading on Alexis. Is Alexis telling the truth? What emotion is Alexis trying most to hide?) (Yes. Everything she has said is the truth. And she is most trying to hide a horrified feeling of violation)

"They were very vague. They made noises about me being there but apparently not feeling well and leaving early, but none of them could agree on any of the details. And before you ask, only one out of the four of them was a regular pot user, and the rest of them didn't do any drugs at all." Alexis grimaces.

"That's strange," Mei admits, making a puzzled and/or thoughtful expression for a moment. "You're telling the truth, though," she says, as if Alexis might not have known it. "Sorry to imply there was doubt, but you'd be surprised how many people come along selling me a line of nonsense, trying to convince me to do some thing or another for them. Or just to try to test whether I'm actually psychic. Do you have their names? Know where they live now?" She realizes she might have jumped ahead and explains, "your friends, I mean."

"Yeah, I've got a contact list for all of them. I think the same doctor is still working at the clinic, too, although I'd be surprised if she remembered me after all this time." Alexis shrugs, "After a while, I expect most of the students start to blur together once they aren't her patients anymore. As far as psychic is concerned, well..." Alexis taps the pictures, "This isn't the only time I've run into something out of the ordinary. Its actually turned into something of a personal project, to be honest. This is just...the one I could never understand."

"Can I ask why you've waited so long to hire someone to look into this?" Mei asks. "I'll be honest that after a decade, there's a good chance that trails have gone cold and that I won't turn up anything. I'll try, and I'll provide an accounting of my hours to provide that I'm not just twiddling my thumbs, but I'm going to be up front about the fact that after this long, it might cost you a fair bit of money for my time, and not come up with results."

"The short version is, I didn't. Wait so long, that is. I tried to have someone look into it about two years later. And again four years ago. They couldn't find anything either time, and it wasn't for a lack of effort either. Like I said, I don't expect you to find anything specific...just...I feel like there's a thread, somewhere, that I've missed. Some connection that can unravel the whole thing. I just want to know WHY." Alexis scowls, "What happened that was so awful that it...that someone or something made it un-happen?"

"You've never had any similar recurrences since?" Mei asks for clarification. "This particular event was a one time thing, no other instances of missing time?"

"I've never experienced anything like it. Ghosts, several different kinds of psychic powers....there was one incident involving a very irritated genus loci, even. But nothing that just...ate my memory."

"Well, if you give me the details for all of the people involved, and want to agree to a certain number of hours at [Mei's rate]," Mei says as she jots a few last notes down, slides the pictures to the middle of the desk, and continues. "I can start looking into it and let you know at the end of that time period where things are at. Obviously I have no idea how long this will actually end up taking. There's not a lot concrete to go on." She hesitates before saying, "do you still have any of the things that you were wearing?"

"Yes, actually. I've got them stored in a sealed plastic bin in a closet." Alexis gives her a lopsided smile, "After I started learning that psychic powers might be real, I decided to hang onto them just in case I ever met someone who had psychometry or something like it. They admittedly spent a bunch of time stuffed into the back of a closet before that, because I didn't want to even look at them."

"Then the places I'd want to start are some of the things that are least time consuming," Mei explains as she clicks her pen closed and puts it on the desk. "I'd like to try to read some of those objects with psychometry, and if you're comfortable with the idea, I'd like to try to explore the memories you have surrounding the event to see if I can find anything strange. Telepathically, I mean."

"I'd be open to that." Alexis nods, "Maybe you can see something that I can't. I certainly don't see how it could hurt, in any case."

Mei winces and says, "it can, but probably only me." She frowns for a moment before saying, "how many hours do you want to me to put into this to start with? My minimum is typically four, or half a day."

"Let's start with three days as a beginning, I think? And you don't have to put this at the top of your priority list or anything - if someone comes along with something that isn't basically a cold case you can just let me know no problem."

"It's been ongoing for this long, and it's not going anywhere at this point?" Mei asks with a nod. "Well, I have a couple of other things on my plate, but they're things that leave me with plenty of the day free, too. I can certainly get started on this soon." She leans over to pull her drawer open again and takes out a bit of paperwork. "This is all some boilerplate stuff, things I'm required to tell you, etc, and my contract." She picks up her pen again and starts filling in some things on the mostly already filled in contract, in regard to hours. "Obviously you can look over all of it at your leisure, if you'd like." She slides it across the desk.

"Just let me read it over." Alexis takes her time to read everything, but even saying that it doesn't take very long for her to nod and go back, filling in her information where she needs to and signing. "Looks good to me. Mind getting me that water you offered earlier?"

"Sure, take your time," Mei say says as she leans back and picks her phone up again, just poking around through messages to give Alexis time without feeling pressured, while Mei sits there staring at her. When Alexis starts signing things she puts the phone away again, and she gets up when asked for water. "No problem," she says as she leans down to pull a 24-pack of water bottles from under one end of her desk. She takes one of them out and offers it to Alexis. "I'll start getting on this today. Since you're here, though, do you want to try letting me delve into your memories to see what I can find?"

"Sure, that seems like a good starting point." Alexis opens the bottle and drains about a quarter of it in a single swig.

(What's the foremost thought in Alexis's thoughts right now? And what is there in Alexis's head regarding the memory in question? Mei's looking for any details that might stand out as wrong, or holes where there shouldn't be, etc) (She's actually geeking out a little about coming across a psychic - she doesn't know that many in town. The memory feels wrong - its distinctly different in its quality from her other memories, as though it was created by someone who remembered things in a much more 'normal' way than the clarity of Alexis' other memories. There is also a distinct hole on either side of what she remembers that's covered over by mental fog, a sort of grey static hiding the nothingness underneath)

Mei sits down in her chair again after she's given permission, and for a brief moment she stares at Alexis before she closes her eyes to avoid being kind of creepy. After a moment there's a sense of her presence in Alexis's mind, since she's not trying to be sneaky about this.

<<Don't worry,>> she says in Alexis's head. <<I'm only going to get what you're thinking right now, which I can't really help, and then specifically the memories about the incident.>>

There's a fraction of a second of silence and she laughs softly out loud. "Not many? You know others, then?" she asks aloud.

The presence in Alexis's head is gentle and unobtrusive, and a couple of seconds later it slips back to just the very periphery.

"Those memories don't look like yours," she says.

"I've met a couple, yeah..." Alexis nods, and there is the brief whisper of a diverse group talking over brunch before her mind returns to the subject at hand, "I've always gotten that sensation. That they're not right, not mine."

"Your memories look a lot more like mine than they do most other people's," Mei explains with a nod. "Crisp and clear, full of detail, unfaded. The memories on either side of the missing time look more like typical memories I run into in most people. There's less clarity and certainty to them. Not that any of this gets us any closer to answers, unfortunately."

"Well, I mean, it tells us that something can cut out entire sections of memory and replace them with fakes. And I'm sure I've never heard of anyone like that, though I admit I'm mostly only a dabbler in the shallow end of the pool of the unusual."

"I certainly can't do anything like that," Mei says emphatically. "It's kind of frightening, and I can understand why this has been a bit of an obsession for you for this long." She taps her finger on the desk for a moment, thinking. "I wonder if I'll find similar if I look at the memories of your friends from that night. It might be harder to tell if their memories are implants or not, if they're not as clear in their memories as you are, but I can look. I'll want to see if I can read any of the clothes, too."

"I can certainly bring them to you, but I didn't bring them with me, alas. I can give you the contact info for my freinds now, though."

"Sure, I'll start there," Mei agrees easily enough. "When you get a chance, bring the clothes by. I should warn you that using these abilities takes a lot out of me." The presence in Alexis's mind fades as she draws her attention back. "I can pull these tricks a few times over a couple of days, but pretty soon I'll start needing to rest."

Alexis nods in understanding, "Thank you so much for being willing to take a look at things. Even if you can't find anything, its a huge help just to have it confirmed that I'm not just delusional."

"I'm convinced you're not, at least," Mei says as she stands up. "Is there anything else you think I should know before I start digging into all of this? Otherwise I'll start trying to get to the bottom of who or what did this to you."

"Not that I can think of." Alexis stands up as well, "I'll bring the clothes back around...I suppose Monday?"

Mei thinks about that before she nods and says, "Monday works. Thank you for coming by. If you think of anything before Monday that you think I should know, don't hesitate to call. You should have my mobile number. I'll let you know if I have any questions, or if anything comes up."

"Thank you again!" Alexis gives her a little wave as she heads out the door, walking down the hall with a much more cheeful step than she did coming in.