2014.09.16 - The Great Lint Storm

It's the financial district. There's probably a fair amount of crime going on here...behind closed doors, in those shining offices. Nothing Jack Hawksmoor is really equipped to do anything about. Right now, he's crouched on the top of the Empire State Building, relaxed despite being in a position that might cause him to fall any moment. At least until something impinges on his senses in the streets below and he starts to...run down the side of the building. Nope, not going to fall, not this guy.
A lint ghost floats through the air while an astral Croyd looks down below at the awesomeness of the city. He manifests himself next to Jack, "Hey there! You probably don't recognize me. I'm Croyd. Nice to see ya again. How's the city?"
Hyde isn't equipped to deal with the sort of crime that goes on here, for the most part, the kind that involves men in suits with computers and large bank accounts. The main reason he visits is for the people, of which there's a surplus during the day. What most people would see as an indisinct blob, hawk eyes happens to look up to witness the law of gravity being violated, watching long enough until a familiar lint blob appears. He waves few dozen stories below with little chance of being seen. It only causes other pedestrians to look up.
Jack Hawksmoor hasn't spotted the guy waving to Croyd. He waves to Croyd, but doesn't stop until he's about a storey up, at which point he launches off the wall, does a neat twist in the air and lands lightly on the quiet sidewalk, off the main street. "Hey there," he greets the ball of lint. Not questioning that it's Croyd.
Croyd swings down far below and doesn't splatter cause he's a ghost. Ooooooooooooooooooo...scary! Then he sees Hyde waving and waves back. "Jack, meet Hyde. Hyde, meet jack. Both alright guys."
Hyde moves to hug Croyd, entirely forgetting that he's the spirit of Christmas dread. The two come right up to him, which is great, because he doesn't have to wade through the litters of people pushing past on the sidewalk, generally in the wrong direction. He hugs non-corporeal fluff, looking sheepish at the result. Upon composing himself, he offers a handshake, one of the first tricks he ever learned, to Jack.
Jack, who smells...odd. Off. Metallic, almost, but also it's as if he blends into the city, reflecting all of its various scents. No human would notice this, but the ex-dog is likely to almost straight away. The handshake is returned, a slight roughness evident on the man's palms. "I'll settle for being an alright guy," he says with a bit of a grin.
Croyd says, "so check this out. I helped take out intergang here. Me, right? I mean I've done ok things but those guys are messed up. A church, that church of crime right? Totally real. I kid you not.""
Hyde shakes, releases and sniffs the air, finding Jack immediately odd. Running down the side of the building is also taken into account. He restrains himself from getting a more detailed sample. People have boundaries, he found out early on. He lives here, so he ought to have heard of Intergang, but it's the sort of disconnected way he'd feel about any gang. They're always someone else's problem and more of a boogyman. "What happened?"
"Those guys are causing trouble again?" Jack leans against the wall, casually. "I've been busy putting something together to go after a certain missing statue."
Croyd says, "they wanted to use me for some freaky experiment and me and some pals went in on em and busted the joint up but good. I linted the hell out of em. Statue? Like the Maltese Falcon style statue? That's just neato. Hidden plans or something?"
Hyde tries to imagine doom by lint. Lint in the eyes and the mouth, the muffled screams and confusion. He's staring into space for a moment before snapping back to Croyd.
Jack Hawksmoor points to the harbor. "No. That statue. Unfortunately, the thief seems to have gone to Antarctica, so I had to find somebody for whom that's an easy trip." He turns back towards Croyd. "Doom by lint, eh?"
You say, "I can astral project but I'm afraid that I cant go that far. Antarctica? Why'd they move the statue to there? I loved lady liberty. You OK Hyde?"
Hyde pipes up, although he has no idea where Antarctica is. "Yeah, it's cool. How far is it?" He brushes some lint off his vest, then some more, shaking his hand off.
"No. Some bitch stole her." It's clear Jack's pissed about this entire thing, or he wouldn't be insulting female dogs. But he's trying his best not to take it out on the innocent. And then when he sees Hyde do that, he checks *himself* for lint.
Croyd looks and realizes that he thought he felt rather non crazy from taking all the speed...a thin cloud of lint hazes in the air growing larger, "Well...that's not good." He looks at Jack, "Yeah that would upset me to. It does.
Hyde doesn't know it yet, but a sleep-deprived Croyd is probably the most fun of all possible Croyds. "I can take you there," he offers, never having taken a geography class or having looked at a globe. That's probably safe.
Jack Hawksmoor shakes his head. "Some really competent people are hunting her down. We'll find her and put it back." And if it's destroyed, he has a backup plan...but...
Croyd laughs at Jack's assesment. He doesn't feel compotent himself. He's self depreciative and puts his hand behind his head, "Well that's good. I think she's an inspiration we need. And teleportation is fun dude, thanks for offering anyway."
Hyde looks disappointed in the way a dog would after he's been told he's going to go outside, but just so invited guests can see how he crazy reacts to the words, can see him go to the door expectantly.
Jack Hawksmoor has never owned a dog, so doesn't recognize it. "You can teleport?" he inquires of Hyde. It's a handy ability.
Hyde lifts his head, blue eyes lighting up. Strange blue eyes, like other animals have been humanized, mixed like paint, the outside of each iris a darker blue ring. They don't really light up, it's just an expression. "Mmmm, yup. But not here. I keep getting bumped."
Croyd says, "I can teleport sometimes. Its a fun ability. Unless you can only teleport by leaving people's mouths. That's digusting. I never wnat that power again. You keep getting bumped to where Hyde?""
Hyde, just then, is bumped in the shoulder by a pedestrian intent on getting past the three obstructing the sidewalk, a glare given to them for daring to be in public. The good citizen stares at the floating lint ghost for too long, tripping into someone else whose automatic reaction is to yell about it. He gives Croyd ghost a 'See?' shrug, though that explains the situation almost not at all. "It's not a good spot." Hyde's eyebrows raise. "You can?"
"Every time he sleeps, he wakes up with different powers. I can teleport, in a sense." He shrugs. "And yeah, I get it, hard to concentrate when people keep walking into you."
Croyd considers, "Well have you tried the sewer or the subway? There's all kinds of quiet places in the city if you look for em. Jack here is the guy to go to if you need something in a city. Like food. Very good at finding food." He grins. The cloud of lint slowly increases.
Hyde backs up to the side of the pavement furthest from traffic. "Easy to find a place," Hyde says, his focus threatened by the mention of easy food. Someone his size just might be interested in a lot of calories. He looks to Jack expectantly.
Jack Hawksmoor laughs. "Irony of ironies, asking the guy who doesn't eat where to find food. What sort of food do you want, though>?"
Croyd says, "I'm always partial to pizza myself. Best pizza I ever had was near this pharmacy with a pet shop near a sewer entrance. Youd' think the sewer would make it awful but the turtles were so cute and the pizza so good I didn't care. But I was ...out of it...towards the end of my cycle." It is raining link like snow in a one block radius. Croyd yawns. "It was pretty good stuff.""
Hyde holds out one hand, his attention drifting upward as lint collects in his palm. He sticks out of his tongue, catching a lintflake on the tip and quickly spits, having to pull it off his tongue. That only gets more on his mouth. He has to turn his head and sneeze into his arm, spitting slobbery lint at the sidewalk.
"Croyd, you're linting the neighborhood," Jack points out, evenly. It's probably his lint, too, a fair bit of it, given how he tends to dress.
The amount of Lint starts to grow. It is at least four blocks in radius now and his eye twitches. "You know...I do have to admit Jack, I've been awake for three weeks now and am normally tripping balls but I tried Oding on Xanax...didn't wanna have Nate thinking I was crazy...but...this...might be a bad thing."
"Hyde, you got a power that can deal with the lint? It's starting to make New York...itch." Yup. Starting to annoy the city, but he doesn't really have a good way to make it go away.
Hyde coughs. Most of it's gone, but there's a piece in the back of his throat. Now he has a better idea of Intergang's strife. His hand is brushed onto his jeans, the guy shaking his head. The city is doomed as he regains some composure, lint collecting in his hair. His eyes are watery as he finally swallows the piece vexing him, shaking his head, "Nope." All he wants is that pizza.
Croyd thinks a moment, "Knock me out. I'm supposed to be crazy right now. I'm not even afraid to go to sleep. That's the only way to stop it." The link is now covering most of manhatten, drifting down like so much early snow.
Hyde already tried hugging Croyd when he got here, and he's a nice guy! How could he knock out one of his best friends who he's only met twice? He waves one arm through the ghost, like that'll work.
Hyde disperses some Croyd, arms flailing, but that's not very effective.
Jack Hawksmoor narrows his eyes, and his right eye flares red, a la terminator...but Croyd vanishes a moment later. "Phewf. I guess he fell asleep." That doesn't, though, get rid of the lint that was already summoned. "What a...mess."
Hyde watches as the last of the lint falls from the sky, leaving the weather stations with some explaining to do, a couple of inches of it piled on the streets, sidewalks and fleeing people. He believes he'll be glad when Croyd loses this power, but there'll be stranger ones to come. "I better get back. I have a shift tonight."
"I'll call the...snow clearance people. They should be able to sweep it up." He tugs out a cellphone. "Good thing New York has actual snow ploughs, not the hybrids they use further south." And then he's talking into the phone. Covered in lint.
Hyde closes his eyes, picturing someplace else, someplace familiar. It isn't long before he flickers and is gone. Business as usual for the good people of the city!
Category:Log