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Lydia Marie LaRochelle

From riches to rags, a desperate genius

0 · 644 views · located in Berkeley, California

a character in “Weeds: A College Experiment”, as played by Abbi Normal

Description

GENERAL INFO
Name: Lydia Marie LaRochelle
Nicknames: Leela
Ethnicity: French
Birth Date: September 9th (Virgo)
Age: 25
Sexuality: lesbian

APPEARANCE
Height: 5 foot, 4 inches
Distinguishing Marks: -A long, thin white line of a scar down one side of her neck, starting behind her left ear, and ending near her collar bone. It's from just after her parents kicked her out; during her first few nights on the street, she was attacked by another homeless youth with a knife. It was the first physical fight of her life. She lost it. -She has a single large tattoo, covering her back from the nape of her neck to her hips, and across her upper arms. It's a blazing orange and red phoenix, whose lower half fades into a pile of swirling ash, so that you can't tell in this one frozen moment if the bird is rising from the ashes, or burning all over again. She had it done when she finally managed to get into school so she could get on with her life. She even secretly used a few hundred dollars of her scholarship money to get it, writing it off under living arrangement needs, like furniture.

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Lydia is short and slight, with a slightly-foreign look, and a lean, wiry muscularity. She still wears her hair in dreads, and never really got back into the habit of make-up after it became an option for her again. She wears glasses that have been dashed and repaired repeatedly. Her wardrobe varies wildly from her older clothes in dark colours, unobtrusive, not in good condition but unlikely to attract unwanted attention, to her newer clothes that are loud and colourful to make up for all that time she went through life hiding in her old ones, especially since after she started making friends here in America, she started exploring the rave scene with them, and is now into it pretty heavily. She talks with her hands a lot, especially when she's excited, and it's a good idea to maintain a distance greater than arm's length when she's explaining something.
PERSONALITY

Tenacious, smart, and ambitious. She's smart as blue blazes, functionally a genius in some areas, and seriously out of her depth in others, mostly with people. She has very little natural awareness of how other people feel and react, and doesn't ready facial expressions and body language well, and speaking on most normal conversational topics, she sounds like maybe a bit of an idiot. Because of her lack of social awareness, she can be easily cheated by people who take advantage of her inability to read the situation, and is sometimes excessively wary of this. On the topics she enjoys though, she's practically an encyclopaedia, and she never stops designing and theorizing. She projects an energetic, cheerful--sometimes even unsettlingly manic--exterior, but is still very bitter about her parents' exiling her to America, and bitter about all the beautiful things that she lost and might never be able to replace, and regrets that having lost that innocence, she can never be again the person she was when she did have all those things, even if she could replace them. While she may seem well-adjusted, she struggles with this anger and when her drive to revenge is motivated, it can't easily be ignored. "The best revenge is living well", Oscar Wilde once said, and she firmly believes that. She wants money and power and everything her parents had exiled her from, and she wants to get it herself, without their help, and if half the chance is afforded her, will stop at nothing to get it. She has big ideas and huge ambitions drive that together can push things a lot further than anyone but her had been originally willing to go. She also has more to lose than perhaps anyone else she knows: before her scholarship, she was technically here illegally. When her schooling is done, her student visa expires, and she could be deported back to France, losing everything all over again, including her family and life here, and be back on the streets in a city she never wants to see again.

Likes/Dislikes/Hobbies: She likes electronic music, and is still involved in the local rave scene. She studies rare ethnobotanicals in her spare time, but has never managed to get her hands on much. She's always had an interest in science and experimentation, and frequently develops small designs or formulas by herself. She doesn't like using computers, not having really grown up with them, but sees them as a necessary evil. She is phenomenally bad at any and all video games.
Role: Grower
Major: Organic bio-chemistry, with a minor in plant/fungi genetics

HISTORY
Relationships: There's the handful of friends from around campus she's about to go into business with of course, and her raving buddies (some but not all of whom having once been other homeless kids). She's totally estranged from her family back in France, and was an only child.
Known Languages: French (first language), English (fluent, with accent)

Lydia was born in France, only child to an 'Old Money' family. They had a huge castle-like house that had been in their family since historical times. Like most 'Old Money', they held to the oldest traditions, holding the chronicles of their lineage as high as living people because the historicity of their name is really the only advantage they have over the 'New Money', families who were rich by their own hand, typically business moguls, who the older families feel are forcing their way into High Society without having a legitimate place there. The descendants of old nobility simply resent having to share tables at black-tie events with the sons of shoe salesmen and peach farmers.

But since Lydia's family is from the Old School, she was raised 'properly'. Taught to speak with the French equivalent of a the upper-class boarding school accent, to ride a horse (which she was rather bad at), to quote French classical literature and poetry, even taught to walk in heels with a pile of books on her head. She always went along with this quietly as a child because she knew nothing else, but never really enjoyed much of it: her private tutors focussed on history and etiquette, no maths and sciences. Like most children of old, traditional families, she was assigned shortly after her birth to an arranged marriage with a boy from another old, traditional family. For most of her life, this idea seemed distant and unreal, and she had little or no opinion on the matter other than to hope he wasn't her cousin or something.

At the beginning of high school, she was switched from personal tutors, to a private high school. To help preserve family image and honour, and make sure their daughter made the right marriage, her family sent Lydia to an all-girls private boarding school, where they assumed she would be away from any temptation unfitting their plan for her. This backfired badly. Lydia had never looked at a boy before in her life, not because her parents didn't want her to, but because she didn't want to. But now that she was here, she was certainly looking at the other girls. It was strange at first, and frightened her, but a lot of the other girls there were in the same situation as her, and through her time at the boarding school, learned a lot about herself through her first few romantic relationships, just like any other high school couples. When her time at the boarding school was up, she decided to come out to her parents when they brought her home, and try to introduce them to her then-girlfriend.

Her parents were furious. She hadn't expected them to react this way. She knew it would be a hard sell, but she thought they cared more about her than just what her uterus could some day do to provide another link in their precious genealogy. The fact that this meant she'd never marry the boy she was betrothed to was only the icing on the cake. She'd shamed their family, their appearances and reputation, and their French Catholic God. They tried various ways of "fixing" her, firstly by cutting her ties with the girl she'd hoped to introduce to them (Lydia often wonders what bcame of her high school girlfriend). They wanted no part of this, and would never deign to accept this black mark against their family, and after the failure of the last of their 'anti-gay treatments' told her it would be best (for them, of course) if she just left. They had her pack some clothes and things into a big rucksack, and took her to the airport that night. They told her the Americas probably are okay with this filth, and some distant relatives would pick her up at the airport.

No one ever did. She stayed around the airport for a couple nights, until someone noticed, and then simply wandered blind into a foreign city. She was about eighteen. The first few nights were the hardest. She didn't know The Rules. She didn't blend in. They heard her posh accent, they saw her expensive clothes under her jacket and in her bag. She was robbed practically immediately. What they left her with, she intentionally defaced so that it wouldn't happen again, and from then on was very careful about not coming into possession of anything "too nice" that someone bigger and meaner might take from her. She got in her first fight with a boy a bit older than her who had a flip-knife, who thought she was trying to rob him while he was sleeping. She wouldn't have done that, especially back then when she was vulnerable. She'd just ignored the wrong territory-marking graffiti scribble and wandered into the wrong dark corner looking for a place to sleep of her own. She doesn't bother to cover the scar. But she did learn The Rules, and The Rules don't leave you once you know them. They're always in the back of your mind, even when you're off the streets, and you peek into doorways and under bridges on your way to your house, as if still always scouting for a place to sleep tonight.

She passed much of this time in libraries during the day. No one minds people staying at the library all day; even homeless people if they don't cause a fuss. She could feel her diamond-sharp mind dulling with the stress and ill-health of being on the street, and it scared her. Her mind was all she had, her greatest tool, her greatest strength. Her ace in the hole. Her mind is incredibly powerful, fast, and agile, and she needed to keep it sharp, like whetting a knife, if she ever wanted to pull herself back up from here. So she practically lived in the libraries, feeding her brain voraciously with knowledge of every kind, reading every word in that damn library, studying from textbooks of schools she'd never even heard of, on topics her tutors had deemed people of her station had no need of knowing. And she wrote. She wrote notes, she wrote essays, she wrote theories. In dozens of 3-for-a-dollar spiral-bound notebooks, she wrote enough material on enough topics for 100 thesis papers. Even when she sat by the side of the road with other homeless kids her age begging for change for dinner, between appealing to passers by, her nose was between two pages of a notebook, scrawling ink over blue college-ruled lines. Then she'd go back to the library, and type up her latest writing. Then she sent it in to universities as a scholarship application. Day after day, year after year, she just kept writing and kept sending them in, until she was fairly sure every university and college in the country had blacklisted her completely.

Finally, one day she got a response. It was a letter, from the university where she would later meet her friends and 'business associates', accepting her into the bio-chem program thanks to her extensive treatise on the subject she'd written. Full scholarship, fully paid textbooks, even basic living arrangements for the first semester. And they thought she was a foreign student because of the photocopy of her French passport she'd sent with her paper work. So she could use the money they'd give her for transport from France to get off the streets. It was perfect.

Recently, she finished her first semester of classes, pulling honours marks so far. She doesn't have trouble with her student visa yet, but did just run out of funding for her living arrangements, and will have to find some other way of raising the money: being still a French citizen, she can't get a job in America. So while she's just barely comfortable for now, in her cramped attic apartment in a rooming house on the bad side of town, the money is already running out, and she's looking to her big, beautiful, dangerous brain-power again to get her out of the situation.

OTHER:She once, while she was on the streets looking to make money, invented a chemical litmus test for street drugs, which she formulated from items shoplifted from a pharmacy, that could test the purity of the kinds of drugs she and her friends would see in the rave scene. Basically, with a tiny, tiny sample, you could tell, say, how much MDMA is in an ecstasy tab, or if it's all just baking powder and meth. Since that let everyone know who's selling drugs that have been tampered with, it could have gotten her in a lot of trouble, and she was nearly killed by less-honest dealers angry they couldn't dupe their customers anymore. But before they could 'get rid of her' and her invention, she was contacted by some smarter dealers in the scene and one of their suppliers, who saw how they could turn it to their advantage. They offered to buy the formula from her, so they could know when the Big Guys were sending them shipments of lower quality than they'd been promised, thereby keeping themselves from being similarly duped on a larger scale. She happily sold the formula in exchange for her safety. Later on, having met the guy who is to become the Leader in her and her friends' own 'business venture' she strongly suspects (but can't be sure) the guys she'd dealt with in this incident, were ultimately connected to said Leader's father.

So begins...

Lydia Marie LaRochelle's Story

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Violet VinLee Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia
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Having the day off from work freed up time for your average college student to study, however with Kay it was a lovely excuse to sleep until noon and stay in her PJ's until well into the evening. She had spent the majority of her day killing things and crushing teenaged boys hearts on Xbox Live as well as taking a short stroll on the beach to capture some timeless shots for her somewhat popular instagram page, however she really wouldn’t do much with herself or her attire until it was time to meet up with her friends for one of their typical poker games.
Before heading out for Danny’s room she’d hop in the shower for five or so minutes and get dressed in a pair of high-rise denim cutoff shorts, a crudely cut Led Zeppelin crop top, and her bright tie-dyed Grateful Dead converses – which matched the various rainbow bracelets and body jewelry she frequently wore.





As the time to call their hands came around again Kay leaned back with her legs crossed and fiddled with her long purple hair that was still damp from her earlier shower.
Her expression was one of befuddlement but not because her hand was confusing or bad, quite the the opposite, It was flawless
.again.
”I’m gonna spend all my scarce luck up on this damn game
.” she’d joke before throwing down her third Royal Flush of the night, right as Danny walked through the door.
”I hope you guys aren't playing strip poker without me” he’d joke.

”Oh if this was Strip poker they'd all be naked by now, or damn near close to it!”
Kay couldn’t help but gloat in a joking manner before taking a long sip from her bottle of Jack Daniels followed by a few puffs of her cigarette. It was always nice to be winning more hands than you were losing.

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Violet VinLee Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia
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JORDIN CARTER

The distractions rattled though Jordin's mind as he tried to focus on his hand.

His knee and his pride both ached from today's practice. The knee he could put out of his mind if he tried; since the operation to repair his ACL two years ago, it had always ached after practice. You were supposed to hurt after football, after all. The old mantra, 'Pain is just weakness leaving the body', sparked through his mind. He attempted to suppress a wry smile as the offensive lineman riposte, 'Sweat is just fat crying', followed unbidden. No, physical pain wasn't a distraction. It was a comfort.

But Gregg's words whispered in his mind again: "Don't keep showing me the same side, Sauce." The running back was only 5'8", but he was as broad in the shoulders as Jordin was, a real barrel of muscle. It took a perfectly timed, full-contact tackle to stop him, and he'd gone through Jordin like a turnstile. He'd appreciated that Gregg had only muttered it to him as he was picking himself up off the ground, rather than revealing the weakness in his play to the entire squad, but the shame had burned Jordin's face nonetheless. He had been weak, he had been afraid, and it was becoming a habit, the kind of bad habit that would see him picked apart mercilessly. There was no hiding place out on the field, and Jordin knew if he kept protecting his knee, his whole body would be useless to his team. Really, he should ask one of the coaches for help, but why give them another reason to keep him on the bench?

As a result of this humiliation, Jordin hadn't stayed long at the post-practice meal, wolfing down only three or four mouthfuls of bacon mac'n'cheese. As a result, his stomach was now groaning and grumbling at him; another distraction. Jordin had finally stopped growing in the last few months - no longer was the world shrinking around him, bringing shower rails and doorframes down for him to bump his head on - but nonetheless it took an enormous amount of calories to maintain his huge frame, and his stomach - the laughably rotund Coach Keith called it 'the fuel tank' - was letting him know it was running on empty.

He shifted uncomfortably and the chair creaked ominously beneath him. The movement saw him jostle the Asian girl with the British accent next to him. He knew he knew her face from somewhere, but couldn't place her. No matter. She was nothing compared to the ultimate distraction sitting opposite him, playing with her hair, arching her back to reveal a toned stomach, smiling that coy smile.

Jordin knew Kay didn't do it on purpose, or, at least, it was little more than a reflex. She had to be used, at this point in her life, to the effect she had on men; it must be second nature to her now. Jordin snapped his eyes from her breasts back to his cards just as Kay purred: "Oh, if this was strip poker they'd all be naked by now."

"Daaamn, girl," he exhaled, and threw his cards, face down, next to Kay's royal flush, grateful that her stunning hand had excused him of the need to concentrate. Three of anything would often win a hand, and kings were especially pretty, but against a royal flush? Forget it.

He nodded at Danny in greeting, watching his hyperactive friend fidget in his seat. He hadn't realised Danny and Vya were together - neither had seemed the 'type'. Then he winced inwardly and corrected himself. There wasn't a 'type', just like there wasn't one 'type' of black kid, which he already knew, or one 'type' of hot girl, as he was discovering as he got to know Kay. College really was a learning experience. "Keep it shut and keep learnin', fool," he told himself.

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Violet VinLee Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia
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#, as written by TushoKa
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When he started here at Berkeley, Chris could never had thought that 8 people would fit in their cupboard-sized room. Still, it apparently was possible, with some people on chairs, some on the floor and some on the bed, they all sat around the table in the middle of the room. Chris himself was sitting on his bed cross legged, with an open seat next to him and Vya a bit further off.

Chris was wearing a pair of grayish camouflage shorts for comfortability and had only put on one of his band shirts when the first person had entered the room earlier that evening. He sat with his back against the wall and his laptop, as the name suggests, on his lap. His dreads hang loose around his head and his eyes were red and concentrated on the screen in front of him. On the open seat between Vya and himself lay a few cell phones, current jobs he was busy working on. In between his lips was a joint, lit, and the scent coming from it was quite strong. It was one of their own making, a quality check so to say.

Taking a break from working on his laptop Chris looked up when he heard his room mate entering the room. He picked up the cell phones laying between him and Vya and threw them into a shoebox on his desk, so Danny could sit down. He closed his laptop and put it out of the way underneath his pillow. "I hope you guys aren't playing strip poker without me." With renewed interest Chris looked at the cards on the table.

He heard how Kay had her third Royal Flush of the evening. "Kay..., you know that to get a Royal Flush you have a chance of about 1 in 650.000. I wouldn't say that getting three in one night is impossible, as I think that nothing is impossible, but the word 'improbable' comes to mind. Luck definitely be a lady tonight." Chris had been one of the first out of the game this night, so jealousy and admiration were the biggest motivators for his comment. If they had been playing strip poker he had been naked before the cards had been dealt. In poker he was quite literally an open book, you could see through his bluff as easy as looking through glass. And if you ever played with Chris before you would know that he will only bet if he has very good cards. He would then quickly get bored and go all-in on a pair of threes or something. He himself preferred playing Blackjack, at least you could use maths to beat the odds in that game.

He saw how Danny grabbed a beer from the fridge and took a seat next to him. Chris handed him the joint he had and got up himself to get a beer as well. Hearing Jordin's stomach on the way he grabbed an energy bar first. "Jordin, heads up!" Chris threw the energy bar at his general direction, but threw a bit to far to the left without noticing. He dived into the mini fridge and got a beer out, Heineken to be exact. Ever since he had been to the Netherlands he had been addicted to the golden Dutch liquid, how he was ever able to drink any other beer before was a mystery to him. With the beer in his hand he walked back to the bed and sat down again.

He looked at the cards that were being dealt for the next round while enjoying his beer. Absent-minded his thoughts went to his ex-girlfriend, his only ex-girlfriend. They hadn't really fought before breaking up, but to say they were still friends would be an incorrect statement. Sometimes he thought that Berkeley was his way of running away from her.. and anyone else he knew. He looked around the room at the others, some friends, some not, some male, some not. You know what, maybe a room as full as this isn't as bad as I thought. He picked one of the phones from the shoebox and stripped it down to the core in order to start fixing it.

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Violet VinLee Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia
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{ berkeley, dorm of chris & danny }



Sleep could be neglected; efficiency in the duration of deprivation had to be compartmentalized, combated with mental respites and caffeinated beverages. Therefore he had risen with the sun and donned Armani, appropriate dress for a house visit, although by ten in the morning debris of macarons collected on his knee. Off Albany there was a home with a basement owned by an elderly porn actress, a friendly woman familiar with obscured transactions, had sought asylum in the states after ruffling the feathers of the wrong people back in France, and she smiled when giving him a rent estimate to turn her basement into growing center for plants made illegal. They could trust her, who offered cups of tea along with homemade confectioneries. It’d be inconspicuous, and with a schedule often dictated by trips to islands and foreign locations he would call it perfect if born equally spontaneous and foolish.

Vyacheslav stared at his poor hand, the low numbers mingled with fruitless intervals of false hope, and he wondered if this consistency was more on part of bad luck than lack of experience. He might burn holes into these playing cards, though that was more likely to trigger a brain aneurysm than provide comprehension further than basics and vague memories. It had come to some misfortune that his career in gambling had been snuffed the night it began, fourteen and betting portions of his own money with men two, three, four times his age. His right pinkie finger would be crooked until the day he died after father sprained the other nine, broke the tenth when his mien distorted on reflex – and on that account he hadn’t repeated those mistakes. Still, the knowledge would have been useful now, with Kay achieving another flawless victory and Jordin admitting to his own defeat, however his own hand was discarded with an amount of secrecy, so as his silence, from glancing at the various models of cell phones to calculating the possible threats and benefits of locations currently presented to them.

The organic farmer owed him more than a favor, and there was a fish merchant who had premises scented in the stench of raw mackerel and fermented shrimp, which wasn't ideal, nonetheless the design of the building would permit needed ventilation. Thoughts of urgency wouldn't become muted, not by substances or distractions, but the nerves began to uncurl and heal their frayed edges, forgot time itself when the electricity fragmented the air because Danny, no matter how brief, had a presence of a memorized heartbeat that quelled the tempest of mental gymnastics, seconds nonexistent for a moment, and time resumes. His eyes flicker, the attention on these people abandoned for a moment, his cigarette left burning between his fingers and knuckles joint to the surface of the table. Actions are limited incessantly, the individuals in the room liabilities, couldn't be wholeheartedly trusted but more importantly the direction he should take remained a guessing game.

Too accustomed to directing those that had pledged oaths of loyalty and tucked experience and birthrights underneath their belt his tongue tasted the bitter poison of hesitance. Were they discussing business or were they indulging in merriment - and if the latter, why was he taking part when there were phone numbers to dial, addresses to visit? His fingers tangles with Danny's, skin against blood and veins communicating through the quiet pattern of life. His lungs don't constrict but the alveoli tightens, and he must remind himself that this is fine here - those with grudges and agendas of tradition weren't watching, and Vya squeezes the bones, gently so, to reaffirm the reality underneath his palm.

"Outdoors or indoors." To Hell with this, his patience wears thin and pulls apart in fibers, the vocal cords in his throat buzzing, a nemesis to the atmosphere of off-work days and the appendages of his free hand collide with the wood in mundane rhythm, sliding, lying flat afterwards. Since the morning he had altered his appearance, swapped formal attire for casual, light weight T-shirt of gray and jeans predestined to not stray far from the form of ones legs, and the heat had never gotten to him, even in the cramped dorm room early summer seemed to be a tale never told, leather jacket hanging off the back of the chair. "There's still opportunity for us to transfer what we have to an outdoor garden, given we are able to find a decent piece of land. The risk involved is just as high as it is unpredictable, but a larger harvest will come out of it, which obviously means more money. Indoors yields less, however, the control is better, even with the threat of discovery." The professional metronome, steady and confident when pulling information dissected in his head, and he pauses to look at the cards dealt to him, cigarette butt pressed into the basin of an ash tray.

Three of hearts, Five of Spades, Five of Diamonds, Ten of Spades, Jack of Hearts. What a surprise, another 'fuck you' packaged by some ancient God of prosperity. Facial muscles do not twitch and his visage is composed of stories of ambiguity, no answers sketched in the expression, a poker face mastered to perfection - too bad he was absolute shit at this game. "The sooner we can come to a decision between these options the quicker we can eliminate the risk associated with keeping to closets, our current situation isn't one we one to be in too long. Days pass and the probability of being caught early rises, and even if relocation is problematic, it'll lessen the chance of someone being charged with a felony." What should be his, and their, next move? The unnecessary cards are examined for a moment, his thumb trailing the structure of Danny's knuckles and he debates on the value of the Jack and turns over rocks in his head, seeking for those that need to remain exposed. "...And so we can conclude with picking a place to grow properly, be it a basement or outdoor private property." Yes, he really wants to burn these cards, will create a special place in Hell for them.

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Violet VinLee Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia
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JORDIN CARTER

Jordin lurched to the left as the object spun towards him. As always, his instincts had his body in movement, halfway to where he needed to be, before his mind even engaged. He reached up and knocked the energy bar off its trajectory and tumbling up and then down, allowing him to gather between two palms as it fell. The chair creaked and rattled as it settled back on all four legs under him, and Jordin was immediately aware of the scowl coming his way from the Asian girl as she straightened herself up again after his latest intrusion on her.

"Hey, sorry, Dollface," he grinned sheepishly, patting her shoulder in an awkward attempt at familiarity. His large hand all but enveloped her shoulderblade; he could feel bones delicate as a bird's beneath her cold flesh. Her scowl deepened as she attempted to shrug him off; the dorky smile fell from Jordin's face in her cold glare, and he blushed as he dropped his hand, feeling clumsy, oafish, next to someone of her minute size. The rest of the room seemed to darken as he stared into the girl's angry features.

Danny came to his rescue. "Nice sports catching, Jor," he quipped, playing up his ignorance of football terminology. It was one of the differences between the unlikely friends they'd managed to turn into a virtue, each able to tease the other about their areas of expertise. Jordin felt relief fill him and he shot Danny a grateful glance. "Hey, you know I got mad receiving skills. Even when noodle-arm over there is quarterbacking me." Chris raised his bottle in salute.

Feeling grateful to his friends for bailing him out of a possible emotional confrontation, Jordin tore open the bar and bit off half of it in one go. Mashing it noisily between his teeth, he chanced a glimpse back at the girl next to him. The mention of football had triggered a memory. Was she a player's girlfriend? An enthusiastic fan?

"Thanks Chris," he mumbled as he chewed and picked up his next set of cards. "I gotta get me some groceries." Unlike his friends, who had to keep their cards clutched to their chests or face-down on the table, Jordin could hide all five cards in his two hands. Jack of Clubs, Ace of Clubs. Promising. "I am just one broke-ass son of a bitch though," he finished off before quietening down with a small sip of the beer he'd been nursing all night.

It was true, though. His entire food stock at his off-campus SRO consisted of a drum of pasta, some mouse-nibbled instant noodles and, in the mini-fridge, a rapidly-drying block of cheese. He had to know, and soon, whether this business venture to which Vya kept alluding was going to come to something. Sure, it presented unique difficulties, most of which would be faced by people other than himself, but it was either that, or giving up the job at Scooters for longer, later, more hazardous shifts at Pigalle, and that would mean kissing goodbye to his sleep, his grades, and eventually Berkeley and the glimmer of hope of a new life.

He spread the rest of his cards. Two of Diamonds, Six of Spades, Eight of Hearts. It was all he could do not to crush them in his hands.

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Violet VinLee Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia
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The reaction that came from Jordin caused her to chuckle a bit under her breath. She wasn't sure if it was the remark about them all being naked or the fact that she had once again managed to stomp each and every one of their hands that caused such a response from the heavily built linebacker, but nevertheless it tickled her.

Being one of the first out in their little poker game Chris had been sitting back on his laptop in his own world, at least that was what Kay thought until he finally spoke up again. "Kay..., you know that to get a Royal Flush you have a chance of about 1 in 650.000. I wouldn't say that getting three in one night is impossible, as I think that nothing is impossible, but the word 'improbable' comes to mind. Luck definitely be a lady tonight."
"I must admit I'm not up on the latest odds of various poker hands, but I do adore that song, and i adore Ol' blue eyes even more!!" Kay would giggle after her comment - a common reaction from her whether she was sober or not, yet one that was much more frequent when she was lit.

"Luck be a lady tonight! Luck let a gentleman see, just how nice of a dame you can be..."
Being a huge fan of the dearly departed Sinatra, much to the surprise of everyone she told this fact to, she'd sing the rest of the verse word for word an even theatrically throw her arms about as if auditioning for Guys and Dolls until the deck was shuffled and the group was once again forming their hands.

"Oh this would just be cruel..." Kay mumbled. She had managed to pull a nine of each suit as well as a two of hearts - giving her four of a kind.

"The sooner we can come to a decision between these options the quicker we can eliminate the risk associated with keeping to closets, our current situation isn't one we one to be in too long. Days pass and the probability of being caught early rises, and even if relocation is problematic, it'll lessen the chance of someone being charged with a felony."

Out of the lot of them Vya was the most focused on business at the moment, he brought to the table of cards and intoxicants an important discussion - Outdoors vs. Indoors.

"Indoor has my vote. Yes you'll yield less growing indoors however you don't have to worry about the lost dog, nosy neighbor, or bored teenager stumbling upon a yard full of our yumminess. Also you can grow all year long and control the environment better - from CO2 to soil to nutrition to pest control, and of course human control. In a perfect world we could do both, but last time I checked this world has more flaws than I care to count...."

After stretching her arms over her head for a few moments Kay would stand and throw her cards face down. "It would be wrong of me to continue spanking you guys and dolls so I fold....out of compassion of course"
She'd wink at the end of her sarcastic remark and then scoot around the table as she made her way to the kitchen - bumping a few knees in the process.


"What to eat what to eat...." she muttered to herself while combing through the cabinets until she stumbled upon an unopened bag of Cool Ranch Doritos - one of her favorites. Kay opened the bag as she'd rounded the corner of the Kitchen counter just in time to spot Jordin's catch. "Impressive, you should play football!" she'd say in jest before digging her bag of chips.

Chris and his phones had caught her attention on her way back to her seat so she stopped beside him and bent down until she was able to get a better view of the phone he was working on. "So are you just stripping it down for fun or is there something you're specifically trying to fix?"

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Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Violet VinLee Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia
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Danny's eyebrows raised as Kay threw down a handful of cards, and he used his pinkie to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose before leaning forward just slightly. Royal Flush. And, as he could guess from the aura around them, not her first one of the night. He snorted, nodded back at Jordin, and fell against his seat again.

Chris threw facts at them about the probability of Kay getting not just one, not even two, but three royal flushes since the game began and Danny shook his head a little. "Or she's cheating," he mused. Which is where he always went when things seemed 'improbable'. Mostly because Danny Jacobs was the biggest fucking cheat in the world. He could find a way to get around the rules of just about anything. He had a professor one time that told him if he put half the amount thought into doing the actual work that he did figuring out how not to, he'd probably have a perfect gpa.

Kay went on to sing about her victory.

Danny took the joint Chris handed him happily, setting aside his beer long enough to take a drag, because there was no way he was letting go of Vya's hand. Thus, he even passed up the next round of cards. Poker was his game -- he was an effing awesome liar, but he also hadn't seen his boyfriend in quite some time.

Almost as if Vya could read his thoughts his grip on Danny's hand tightened, ever so slightly, reminding them both that this was real...they were real, and Danny squeezed back to remind him that they were safe. Their relationship was nothing if not complicated, dangerous, always hanging on a thread...and paranoia and training was hard to shake.

They had gotten good at pretending not to be together around outsiders...so good, that relaxing, that holding hands even under a table top felt terrifying. It was still engrained in him so deeply that regardless of that fact that he wanted nothing more than to steal a kiss, press himself into Vya's side, rest his head on the older male's shoulder...he kept his distance.

Chris tossed an energy bar Jordin's way, but his aim was off and the kid pulled a spectacular move to catch it. He jostled Violet though, who Danny had learned long ago wasn't particularly a fan of touch, and her glare could shoot down a room like nothing he had ever seen before. And make Jordin look increasingly uncomfortable. "Hey, nice sports catch, Jor!" he commented, using his grounded foot to push him up on the back two legs of his chair. Jordin looked grateful, said something about mad-skills and Chris having noodle arms with some words Danny didn't know...nor particularly felt like googling at the moment so he just didn't bother.

"Man we need to get some shopping done too," he admitted, pushing his glasses up again while Chris rejoined them. "I think all we have right now is beer, tortillas, and energy bars." Danny actually loved to shop, but Chris ended up disappointed in him every time he came back from the grocery store. Mostly because he bought a lot of candy...and then tried to buy beer, but he was actually underaged and with all the sweets would undoubtedly get carded. Every. Time. But someone should go shopping because the group were always eating their food. Maybe Danny should tell one of them to go...

"Impressive, you should play football!" Kay had mentioned on Jordin's part, and Danny had actually almost missed it he'd been too worried about the amount of food in their room. Especially now that she had doritos. They weren't his, otherwise he'd probably take them from her. His brows knit together, confusion drawing on him. "Wait," he whispered, leaning towards Chris a bit. "Doesn't he play football? Did I confuse my sports again?"

"Outdoors or indoors." Vya's voice brought Danny's attention back to business problems, and the fact that they were actually supposed to be discussing. He went on to probably explain the cons and pros to both, but Danny wasn't really listening...actually he hadn't realized he was openly staring at the man until Vya's free hand hit the table, dropping cards, and he smirked slightly. His boyfriend had never been good at poker. He laid his head back on the edge of his chair, focusing mostly on Vya as he spoke but trying not to get distracted again. It was hard to do. Two years and he still hadn't quite gotten over just how attractive Vyacheslav Yanayev was.

"What's safer?" he wondered aloud more than anything. He knew he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but Danny basically ran his mouth twentyfour seven so everyone by now had either learned to block him out or just ignore him. "I mean can we even find land we need like that in California? Can we even handle a crop that big? Can we even grow a crop that big?" Of course he was picturing like a cotton field of weed...that was a lot of weed...and there were just eight of them. "What about the weather? I mean, like, what if we have a hurricane or something and it wipes us out?" Which was extremely rare, but the idea was kind of panicking him a little bit.

He took another drag of the joint Chris had given him and shook his head. "Ignore me. I'm just selling this shit. I don't need to know all the specifics." He watched smoke blow in front of him for a moment, mixing with the cigarette in the air. They should probably open another window but...he didn't particularly feel like getting up. "I guess we do need to make a decision though because we're doing too good to stay in closets..."

His talkative nature stopped there, though, because in the next moment he realized Vya's thumb was soothing across his knuckles, and that was a nice feeling. Enough so that he closed his eyes for a moment, sighed.

Kay voted for indoors, for climate control like Danny had been worried about to stuff about Co2 he wasn't even going to pretend to know about. He wasn't nearly the smartest kid in the room but he could live with that. He was a good pair of legs, he didn't need to be smart when he was cunning.

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Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Violet VinLee Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia
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With the srew driver in his hand he carefully removed the two bottom screws from the phone that he had in his lap. The screws he put on his desk in a little cup that was usually used for this purpose. Next he took out the simcard which ended up in exactly the same place. While busy he heard the thank you coming from Jor as he chewed in to the energy bar. "No problem Jor, Noodle arm's got your back." Chris replied without looking up. He was already busy with removing the glass of the phone in order to display the inside of the mobile device. Danny leaned into Chris and whispered out of anyone's earshot but his: "Wait...Doesn't he play football? Did I confuse my sports again?" A smile appeared on Chris' face and he replied with equal volume:"You're spot on Dan. Just try to remember, if he really would be a chess player he would be far less muscled, that's how I remember." Chris thought for sure Danny would appreciate the sarcasm, after all Danny had thought him well.

While continuing to disassemble the phone to get to the deepest insides of it, Chris listened to the moral question of this evenings meeting. Are we out or are we in. Chris had his answer from the beginning, although his role gave him a bias point of view. What technology would he be able to install if they were going to choose outside? If he wanted to stay involved into this lucrative enterprise he either had to make sure they would choose inside, or he would have to become a salesman, like Danny. The latter one however, was very unlikely to happen. He was proud of himself for talking with these people without sweating profusely, with others he would not fare so well. Vya laid out the pro's and con's of either option as if he had them written down in his head. "The sooner we can come to a decision between these options the quicker we can eliminate the risk associated with keeping to closets, our current situation isn't one we one to be in too long. Days pass and the probability of being caught early rises, and even if relocation is problematic, it'll lessen the chance of someone being charged with a felony."

Chris had actually quite enjoyed the cupboard phase of their enterprise. It had given him a lot of work, but also a lot of experience with less than safe electrical solutions. He thought though if they were expanding to a basement he might be able to learn a lot more, plus the money would be better. From the group they were in now, he actually didn't need the money as much as the others..., certain exceptions considered of course. His other activities like fixing cell phones and setting up party lights kept his pockets well filled. For Chris it threw up some questions that he had thought about a lot in the past two weeks. Why was he doing this if not for the money? Of course it could be the excitement, the fact Danny asked him, a learning possibility, or maybe even something else. With 'something else' in mind he looked at Kay who answered Vya's question first.

"Indoor has my vote. Yes you'll yield less growing indoors however you don't have to worry about the lost dog, nosy neighbour, or bored teenager stumbling upon a yard full of our yumminess. Also you can grow all year long and control the environment better - from CO2 to soil to nutrition to pest control, and of course human control. In a perfect world we could do both, but last time I checked this world has more flaws than I care to count...." Kay ended her retort rather philosophically.

Obvious as his answer was he decided to reply as well: "Obviously I would choose indoors, unless you want me to install the sprinklers and walk away. Thinking logically, most of us are here for one reason....., school. Since we need to study, attend class, activities, sport and other things I think we shouldn't move away from campus, or at least not very far away. If you consider that most weed growing businesses are caught because of abnormal electricity usage, a campus would be the perfect cover up. Lights are on around the clock and school itself uses more then 60% of the power of the entire city. I mean, I would install the lights wherever you want me to, but keeping it hidden is a second one.."

The moment he stopped talking Kay was standing beside him and seemed to have a look at what he was doing. She bent down quite far and gave Chris a view that made him think of twin Capitol buildings and simultaneously made him red in the face. "So are you just stripping it down for fun or is there something you're specifically trying to fix?" Chris didn't know if it was a weird sense of humour, a nervous twitch or the fact that Kay used the word stripping, but his response came out before he had properly thought it over. "Some things just look better naked...", not believing what he just said, he quickly tried to recover, "Eehm, I mean water damage, probably a wet T-shirt contest or something..." Oh no, what was he doing. He hastily spoke his next words with a voice a bit louder and higher than he intended: "Or a toilet or sink accident..., sink, definitely sink." In a desperate attempt to stop himself from talking, Chris grabbed a few Doritos from the bag Kay was holding and put the entire handful in his mouth. He almost dropped the phone he was fixing out of his hands when he felt his own phone vibrate in his pocket. He dumped all the parts in the same cup as before and grabbed his phone.

With almost shaking hands he navigated to his messages and saw two messages came in from Lydia. Glad to have an excuse to save him from his clumsy behaviour he got up and accidentally knocked over his beer. He picked it up as quickly as possible and took a sip to calm him down. He read the message and thought it best to call Lydia from outside the room. Trying to hide his red face with his dreadlocks he walked over to the window first, to open it a bit. The weed smell became a bit too heavy for such a small room. Then he walked over to the door. "I'll be right back, just helping Lydia with something." He opened the door and closed it again behind him. He stood there for a moment breathing in and out and picked the Doritos from the corners of his mouth before he looked at his phone again.

Deducting from the two messages he learned that Lydia had both 'an idea' and 'a thing'. He smiled at the two messages that you apparently needed to be psychic for to understand. He replied back: [Awesome, do you need help with your thing? Where are you?] Awaiting her reply he already walked to the stairs past the blasting music from one of his neighbours and on his way to the dorm entrance.

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Violet VinLee Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia
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JORDIN CARTER

Kay had lain down her cards and wandered over to Chris, who was already out. Vya looked to have lost interest, perhaps distracted by Danny, who wasn't playing anyway, certainly distracted by the conversation's turn to business. Looked like the game was over. Jordin slung his cards casually into the discarded pile and pushed his chair back, this time careful not to bump anyone. From here, he was able to admire Kay's long, lean legs as she bent down to chat to Chris. He was partly envious of the attention his friend was getting, and partly amused as Chris stammered and stumbled, caught in the full beam of Kay's charms.

Jordin took advantage of the break in conversation caused by Chris's awkward departure from the circle. He cleared his throat and began hesitantly. "Uhhh..." At his deep rumble, Vya fixed his penetrating gaze on Jordin. It unsettled him, and the words stuck briefly in his throat. "Y'all scientists gotta decide indoor or outdoor, what's better for the product. All the same to me. Here's what I gotta know."

Now he returned Vya's stare directly. The rest of his friends were, as far as Jordin could tell, just regular college kids, pooling their unique skills, resources and interests into something larger than themselves. They could be a band at rehearsals, the college newspaper staff, charity campaigners, for all anyone else knew. But Vya, Jordin knew, was connected to a far more sinister world, one that Jordin had glimpsed on Baltimore corners his whole childhood. Jordin couldn't stop his friends endangering themselves. But he could make sure the risks were minimised, he could make sure they were aware of all the risks before they got involved. To a certain extent, he felt that these confident Californians had taken him under their wings; now he could return the favour.

Feeling he had the room's attention, that no-one was going to ignore or talk over him, Jordin spoke more assuredly. "Right now, we slingin' nickel and dime bags to nickel and dime dudes. We right down on the bottom rung, we small fish. You get me?" Vya nodded imperceptibly. "Some kid buys from us 'stead of his regular man, no-one notices." Perhaps intrigued by his boyfriend's focus, perhaps intrigued because selling was his area of business, Danny dropped all pretenses of clowning around and leaned forward.

"But if we grow up ten, fifteen, twenty times more product, we gotta sell ten, fifteen, twenty times more product. We don't just gotta be the biggest game on campus, we gotta be the only game on campus. That don't just mean more legwork, more selling. That mean cracking some heads."

There was no fidgeting or joking in the room now. Danny glanced searchingly at Vya, knowing he'd be on the frontline. Vya kept his gaze fixed on Jordin, his eyes narrowed.

"And I ain't just talking 'bout no college heads. We can fly below radar for some little while, sure, but after a while someone pretty serious is gonna feel it in their pocket, gonna ask why they got all this product piling up at home and nobody smoking it."

From years on the field, Jordin was used to subconsciously reading minute shifts in body language. Vya's lean body was deceptively muscular, and it looked like his shoulders had bunched up marginally. Jordin knew Vya would keep his cool; he wasn't expecting a physical confrontation. But he got the distinct impression Vya hadn't wanted to broach this subject right now.

"Hey, I don't wanna speak out of turn or nothing," Jordin said, attempting to diffuse the sudden tension that crackled across the table. "Just, turf war is turf war, and I seen too many fools brought low just for not thinking it through."

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Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia
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With two steps at the time Chris basically jumped down the stairs. Three floors later he felt his pocket vibrate again, and he took his cellular device from his pocket. Quickly navigating through the options he called up Leela's latest message. He still didn't know what 'it' was, but apparently they would need the elevator to move it. Too bad, he thought, as the elevator had been broken since last week. Whatever it was they would have to carry it upstairs. He didn't reply as it would take longer than actually going downstairs.

Many steps, but a short time later he reached the ground floor and opened the door to see Lydia standing there. She stood there, smoking, just of school property. Officially she wasn't allowed to smoke if she would come even just a little bit closer, although Chris didn't think anyone would object. Campus security might throw a fit, but then again, they don't really have much to say around here. Next to her he saw a standard server box that the university used, old as it was. He walked up to her and started on a light note. "You know shorty, if you want me to help you with any IT related problems, you can just call me, and I will come over. You really don't have to bring the server to me, I'll come to the server."

With her own words, French accented of course, she told Chris about her idea with the server box. The moment the words came out Chris brain started working. The previously smoked joint that made him a bit giggly, now made room for sheer focus and creativity. Not even checking if anyone was around to listen into the conversation he started listing pro's, cons, requirements, problems and solutions. "We could easily create an irrigation system with regular intervals to keep the water level... A fitted light in each box should be easy enough to power, maybe only minor cables needed... Stacking them could be hard, since we don't want water running on top of a fitted light. Unless of course we get special watertight cabling..., but that is quite expensive. I can probably find a discounted dealer somewhere though, especially for the quantities we would need... The hardest part will be the ventilation as it always seems to be. We can have the vans in the server, but the smell would still come from the box, an then where does it go... Moving them would be much easier and server boxes we can get for free from any dump in the city." Chris had rambled non stop, not so much to Lydia, but more to himself. He didn't even know if Lydia had heard everything he said.

One more minute of silence and thinking brought Chris to a few simple words, this time directed at both himself and Lydia. "It could work.... Let's see what the others think. Could you get the door Leela?" He picked up the server box. It wasn't necessarily heavy, since it appeared to be mostly empty, but it was difficult to get a good grip on it. With little choice he made his way to the door again, walked in and started ascending the stairs. Going up the stairs slowly, but surely Chris mind started to wonder off. If Jordin is the muscle, why am I carrying this? He had the reply already in his head, where Jordin would probably tell him that if Chris was the technician, why is the elevator broken? Surprisingly he couldn't find a clever retort to Jordin's argument other than well, I think it's stupid... He wondered if Lydia would be able to distract him from his current task. "Leela? Don't you want to sing us a French song while were going up?"

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Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia Character Portrait: Jordin Carter
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Lydia passed him with several quick steps to the door and held it open has he went through. She nodded along with his monologue enthusiastically, occasionally interjecting extra ideas as they came.

"If the insides were lined, with mirrors or aluminium, it would multiply the light intensity, like greenhouses. We could have smaller lights to need less power. Would that need less wiring?"

She frowned ruefully at the 'Out Of Order' sign on the elevator as they came up to the first flight of stairs. She let Chris get ahead of her on the steps, and then reached to grab the bottom end of the server case and help carry it up the stairs. When he asked for a song, she tilted her head and raised one eyebrow credulously, wondering if he was making fun of her.

"If the school cafeteria is ever stormed by the Germans, we can sing 'La Marseilles', like in the 'Casablanca' movie." she smirked. But with a sigh and a light smoker's cough, she gave him the benefit of the doubt and gave him the first four lines of "Trois Navires de Blé", a folk song common in most regions where French is spoken.

"Un gros coup de vent de nordet -/ Nous irons jouer sur le bord de l'eau/ Trois Navires de blé s'en fit rentrer -/Nous irons jouer sur le bord de l'eau."

She sniffed slightly and examined him again, trying to get a sense on of if this was some kind of joke, and whether or not she should continue. She gave him a small, awkward smile.

"Is everybody else up there, too, then?" she asked, as they turned in the landing and took the last few stairs, letting go of the bottom of the server so they could put it down for Chris to open his door. She straightened her jacket, mentally preparing herself for the crowdedness of the room on the other side of the door. When it opened, she smiled and waved at everybody with one hand and gestured enthusiastically at the server with the other.

"I have a thing!"

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Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia Character Portrait: Jordin Carter
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{ berkeley, dorm of chris & danny }



No, he wasn’t familiar with this, to those using their voices to oppose him, to speak in anything other than a ‘yes sir’ if he does not blatantly request their opinions and knowledge. The insubordination burns underneath the nails of his fingers until he remembers that this isn’t a hierarchy of obedience and dogmatic rule, that there is no justification in rage towards Jordin, that what he says should be regarded, break through the disconnect brought to him from physical reminders. Still, what emotions he has doesn’t show, from childhood he had been severed from ties of sentiments and his face is a blank parchment, listening with expression void, but he does feel, feels the uneasiness of ocean tides waxing and waning within his blood.

“Chris doesn’t need to act the part of a gangster to assist in our aggressions and defenses. I may not comprehend technical terms, but I know that in a world dependent on electronics that he can be dangerous – potentially more so than either you or I.” In cold heart of hale the vexation doesn’t leak into his voice but he still falters, fingers curling without his permission and he knows it’s because of Danny – and no, he isn’t a gangster, loathed the proposition of him selling enough as it is and bites the inside of his cheek. Possibilities of harm were too frequent in his cerebral whiteboard; he could spare no forgiveness for himself if he happened to let anyone harm him, yet knew that the man was much more capable than his insecurity would like to believe, and his lungs contract before relaxing, the small blight of panic subsiding.

For this moment, this exception, he’d let his countenance speak for him, his brow furrowing despite the reminder that he should resist, the screams from within a torment ultimately ignored. “No, it won’t be easy. Had I said it would be?” Vya questions, and he contemplates what his father would have done – tug on that tongue and ask if he would like it to be removed – and he has to be better than that savage, lets the thoughts recede into their own corners where strategy resided. He needed to be more prudent, had to sketch new onslaughts that would suit them best, however, with a lack of information, typical of the beginning stage, he was left with blindness, guessing. Had Jordin suddenly developed a sixth sense and an eye for the future? The thought is laughable, but he isn’t wrong, and when he opens his mouth next he’s promptly interrupted by one door and one girl, not to mention the boy behind her.

"I have a thing!"

There’s a disruption ringing in his head, a guillotine to the conversation and even the atmosphere shifts, a lightness enveloping the room and assuaging the tension that had grown during their absence, and he’s grateful for it, didn’t want to continue with a conversation they shouldn’t be having yet in the first place. “Jordin, we’ll continue this conversation later, just the two of us.” His voice is beneath the new excitement and his eyes move from Lydia to Jordin when he speaks, will accept this and continue later, isolated from the rest of the group to save them from distractions they do not need, not now. Now it can depart, where he can reexamine their potential future and their reactions to the caustic forces that will oppose them, but for now he looks to Lydia and Chris, stands when noticing a bulky computer skeleton – had they raided a tech graveyard?

“I’m assuming that
computer skeleton – ” Eloquent, but he wasn’t sure what else to call it. “Is the ‘thing’?” It’s a pleasant change to the previous tone of voice, a dial warmer, and his hand covers Danny’s shoulder for a moment simply because he can before retrieving the pack of cigarettes of his pocket, a hunger gnawing at the back of his skull. “It’s impressive, but what’s its purpose?” He’ll need to break this pattern of sentence structure soon, it is too formal among their casual sentences, though when thinking of how to reformat them he’s lost, had never been expected to speak to fit in with those in a ‘lower chaste’ than his esteemed family. Should he begin using ‘yo’? That doesn’t sound like the best idea, and looking at the unidentified object outside the room he lights a cigarette between his lips, inhales the pollution and walks towards the duo with a sense of curiosity.

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Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia Character Portrait: Jordin Carter
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The song she started to sing didn't sound bad. Of course he had no idea what it was about since his knowledge of French did not really go further then 'merci' and 'Je m'apelle Chris'. Chris was thankful for her help with the server, although he would probably not have asked himself. Something about pride and being a man, he guessed. Somehow he felt more comfortable around Leela then around other girls, maybe it was their scientific minds thinking alike. When Leela stopped singing he wanted to ask what it was about, but before he could they arrived at their destination. They put the server down and he opened the door.

When looking again at the people he left about 10 minutes before he could see the mood in the room was different. He couldn't see what happened, but the smiles that had been there before were not on their faces right now. Were they talking about me? Did I do something when I left? Whatever it was, it couldn't be anything good. If it really had been because of something he did, he shouldn't let it get to him. He wanted to say something, but Lydia came past him. "I have a thing!"

The small statement seemed to change the mood in the room in an instant. Vya told Jordin they would speak later, Chris probably didn't even want to know what that was about. He reached behind him to pick up the server box and he placed it on the table in the middle of the room on top of the playing cards that were still laying there. In the process he knocked over a glass that he quickly picked up. Thankfully it had been empty already and with a red head once again Chris put it back on the table. Involuntary he glanced at Kay for the first time since he was back in the room, he just couldn't seem to shake the clumsy streak he was on. It was Vya that spoke before the others. "I'm assuming that... computer skeleton is the thing? Impressive, but what is the purpose."

Chris got a smile on his face when he thought about it, he was really getting on board with Lydia's idea. Polite as he was he made a hand gesture allowing Lydia to explain what she had come up with. Before she could even open her mouth Chris started telling himself. Now that it came to science he could at least step over his clumsiness. "Okay, Lydia had this awesome idea..." Chris started explaining that they could grow the plants in these boxes with some minor adjustments so they could easily move the whole thing when needed and nobody would suspect anything from a few old server boxes. Knowing he spoke before his turn he stopped. "I should really let Lydia explain..." He looked apologetically at her and continued. "It is her brilliant mind where this idea comes from."

He himself grabbed the chair that had belonged to Kay earlier that evening. He turned it around and sat on it backwards. He reached behind Jordin to take the beer bottle he had left there earlier. He took a sip, looked at Lydia and kept his trap shut while he waited for her to give the specifics.

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia Character Portrait: Jordin Carter
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JORDIN CARTER

On the field, the ultimate triumph for Jordin was to scramble and bully his way past blockers to the quarterback, to hit the star athlete before he threw and leave him in a pile, limbs disarranged like a puppet with its strings cut. But his favourite moment was the second or two before each play started, when both teams crouched poised, ready to unleash their collective pent-up energy in a barrage of force and pain. In those moments of white-hot concentration, the roar of the crowd faded until all he could hear was his own heartbeat thudding inside him.

Even as the doorhandle turned, even before the door burst open, Jordin had pressed his hands down on the table, bent his knees and transferred his weight to the balls of his feet, ready to spring into action. He ripped his eyes from Vya's to analyse the intrusion.

"I have a thing," a deadlocked girl cried cheerily, her accent rendering the 'th' as a 'z'.

Jordin glimpsed Chris behind her, and the lightning ebbed out of his tensed muscles as the focus of attention shifted from the impromptu confrontation. He met Vya's eyes once more, this time finding them empty of their previous glacial depth, and he nodded gruffly as Vya muttered "Jordin, we’ll continue this conversation later, just the two of us." He rose slowly, making room for Chris and the new arrival, satisfied he'd done his duty by his friends and impressed on their leader - for it was unspoken but acknowledged by them all that Vya was the true entrepreneur amongst them - that he couldn't put them in danger carelessly. There would be danger enough without being careless.

He lumbered through the small space and parked himself by the open window by Kay's chair, breathing in the fresh air as the dreadlocked girl and Chris and their "thing" took centre-stage. Jordin knew that, stoned though she was, Kay had a nose for physical danger; working in a bar gave you that sixth sense.

"Sorry 'bout that," he murmured, leaning forward over her shoulder, admiring the splashes of colour tattooed into the smooth, toned flesh of her arm.

"You're a macho man, Jordin," she teased.

"I guess," he replied, leaning back again, glad she couldn't see the embarrassment on his face. "I just wanna keep you safe - y'all safe," he corrected himself, a second too late.

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia Character Portrait: Jordin Carter
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It was a habit of Kay's to smoke a blunt until burning the tips of her fingers, getting an odd sense of pleasure from the sharp tingle on her fingers as the burning cannabis passed inbetween them. However as the tension in the room grew her grip on reality tightened and she'd instead toss the roach into a nearby ashtray as she dropped her feet to the floor once again. She assumed Vya's seemingly lax perception on the threat they'd garner by pulling customers away from other dealers was an attempt to downplay the danger for the sake of the rest of them in the room. Kay however wasn't raised in a bubble nor had she fallen off a turnip truck last night, so she wasn't afraid to broach the issue of violence, but still - this wasn't a discussion she felt like putting herself into anymore than she already had so she'd simply lean back in her chair, arms crossed, as the tension in the room continued to grow.


“No, it won’t be easy. Had I said it would be?” Vya said in response to Jordin's remark, which only caused the bulking football player to tense up even more before he pushed his hand down on the table in the middle of the room and appeared to be standing - ready for a confrontation. Such a sight caused Kay to sit up from her chair and go to stand as well in a bid to prevent any type of scuffle between the two hot-tempered men , but much to her relief the door would open and Lydia's quirky comment of "I have a thing" seemed to quickly defuse the rising tension.

"That was close..." Kay thought as she sat back down, sighed, and crossed one leg over the other before looking up just in time to glimpse Chris and his thing.
"I'm assuming that... computer skeleton is the thing? Impressive, but what is the purpose?" Vya inquired, and Kay would begin to think of a myriad of things that could be done with it, however the idea that Chris would soon explain didn't even cross her mind.
"And here I thought I was smart....."



The bag of Doritos were nearly gone but Kay's insatiable appetite was only barely quenched, so as Jordin took a seat beside her she'd begin to scarf down the remaining chips as if they were the first thing she'd eaten all day.
"Sorry 'bout that," he'd murmur over her shoulder - causing Kay to look over towards him for a second.
"It's no problem, you know where I work...I'm use to macho men going at it - nothing little ol' me couldn't have handled." she teased, before turning her attention back to the bag of chips on her lap.
"I guess...I just wanna keep you safe - y'all safe."

Jordin's comment caught her attention an after throwing the now empty bag of Doritos on the table Kay would turn in her chair to face him as she licked her fingers clean. "You wanna keep me safe huh? Well ya know, outside of that bar you don't owe me any kind of protection, I did know what I was signing myself up for here." Kay winked and smirked as she leaned up in her chair a bit and without a second thought casually patted Jordin on the knee. "But thanks for the sentiment. You and Vya keeping fights to a minimum would be lovely though.....you both should consider taking some Yoga lessons from me sometime."
She couldn't help but laugh at her own suggestion since the image of the two of them doing Yoga together was quite hilarious.

"So Lydia, there wouldn't happen to be a Pizza in that server box would there? Three maybe, with extra bacon, feta, pepperoni, an even more bacon? Oh God please say there's three pizzas in there!!!" Kay moaned as she leaned over the side of the chair and looked up at Lydia with a soft smile.

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia Character Portrait: Jordin Carter
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JORDIN CARTER

Jordin grimaced in embarrassment at Kay's gentle teasing put-down. It reminded him of nothing more than of the reaction of the college football groupies, who would beat a hasty, almost hostile, retreat when they found out he was little more than a regular reserve. The friendly pat on the knee just re-emphasised how much of a mistake he'd made; of course he shouldn't have veered away from straight-down-the-line friendliness in front of the rest of the gang. How did he think Kay was going to react in front of all their friends? However, He knew from his rejections by those cookie-cutter starfuckers that the worst thing he could do was protest. He swallowed deeply and tried to retain what was left of his dignity. And, a small voice at the back of his mind reminded him, Kay was no cookie-cutter starfucker.

Even if he'd been paying full attention, the dreadlocked girl's excited patter about technical details would have mostly passed over his head. Danny, Chris and Vya all seemed to know her, so he tried to listen, but his brain switched off again in a flurry of diurnal cycles, servers and ports.

His mind drifted back to Kay's comments. "You don't owe me any kind of protection," she'd said. Had she even been listening to his and Vya's conversation moments earlier, or had she been completely absorbed in her phone? Being on the deep end of a blunt could do that to a person, he mused, and then there was the assumption that, as the money and accounting side of the operation, she would be off the street, out of harm's way. He'd wanted to tell her that, as their operation grew and brought them into conflict with other gangs - real gangs, street gangs, not college students - any of them could be targets. But his protestations would have sounded like bitter arguing, especially to someone as fiery and head-strong as Kay. But the fact remained; the more money they made, the greater the danger to the person who controlled the money. And not just from rival gangs either. As their notoriety grew, so would their attraction to stick-up artists, and to law enforcement - one of the easiest ways cops got wind an operation like theirs was through the sudden flood of cash. He'd seen it in his old life in Baltimore, when one of his former schoolfriends, a low-level dealer, had been viciously beaten by his own gang members for buying a fur coat. Jordin vividly remembered that fur coat, smeared with blood in a crumpled pile on a street corner, like a wild animal shot down.

A sharp slapping sound snapped him out of his reverie. "If everyone understands and approves?" the dreadlocked girl asked in her musical accent. Jordin shrugged his enormous shoulders as if to indicate it was nothing to do with him, unable to shake the sulk that had descended on him.

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia Character Portrait: Jordin Carter
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Even with the two spirited energy bursts Lydia and Chris in the room, the old tension hadn't washed away completely. Although he looked calm and with his attention now on Lydia, Chris' mind was racing. He still thought they had been talking about him, how strange the workings of the young adult mind. It seemed normal though, if you walk into a room that all of a sudden falls quiet, there is only one explanation. His focus now seemed to shift to his beer while listening to the sounds around him. Just when he was about to take another sip, he could overhear a few words that Kay spoke softly to Jordin. Chris didn't think that any of the people not sitting direCtly next to the two would have been able to hear them. "You and Vya keeping fights to a minimum would be lovely though."

Okay, that was something else than I thought... He looked over at Danny to see if he had also heard the comment. His eyes were facing down as if wanting to frame himself out of the conversation. Chris gathered from that, that he was indeed aware of Kay's comment. Thinking to himself Chris realized that he had not been part of the tension at all. It had been one side of the room against the other. He could also see Danny's dilemma not wanting to choose either side. It is not easy to make a choice between a very good friend and a lover. Bad as he felt about it, the sudden realisation cheered Chris up a bit.

If he was not the problem, maybe he could be the solution. Having an argument was one thing, but if there would be constant friction between two or more people in the group their enterprise would surely fail. The common goal should be clear to anyone and everyone. Chris turned to Danny when Lydia finished. "So Dan, with or without Lydia's brilliant idea, our weed output has gone up massively. I know you can sell ice to an Eskimo, but how are you going to sell all of it?" Chris had thought about selling himself, but quickly realized that if you don't like speaking to people you don't know, you won't get far with selling.

While waiting for an answer Chris also thought back to a location for their business. He knew for a fact that there were some university labs and classrooms wee not being used. Either because of maintenance or because they once housed courses that were no longer available. With the blueprints to the school he would be able to locate the main power sources to give the necessary energy. He could even install card readers that would let them in, and not any of the security personnel on campus.

In order to get the blueprints though, he would need to break in to the school's administration office. "Guys, I have another idea, but before I can see if it's any good I need to have access to the administration office. Someone up for watching my back?"

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia Character Portrait: Jordin Carter
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After laughing at Lydia's Triscuits remark Kay would sigh - really regretting the fact that she hadn't stopped to get something to eat before coming over.

As Lydia shared her idea with the group Kay would sit and listen while once again twirling a strand of her hair absentmindedly, slowly but surely finding herself quite impressed. Not only was the plan brilliant from a technical stand point but it was a brilliant production move that could possibly net them even more product then what they initially thought was possible.

"So Dan, with or without Lydia's brilliant idea, our weed output has gone up massively. I know you can sell ice to an Eskimo, but how are you going to sell all of it?" Chris asked, causing Kay to chuckle at his choice of words. She had considered selling herself, and still wasn't completely turned off by the idea, however even though the various rave and beach festivals Kay took part in would make for a perfect selling ground she figured selling could still interrupt her daily routine and work schedule too much and instead was rather content to fill a role she was instantly attracted to and much more at ease performing.

As she mulled things over in her head Lydia would mention knowing another girl who could possibly be a seller. The name and family story was familiar enough and it was likely Kay would recognize her face, but nothing more about the girl came to mind.
"So, a trust-fund baby....interesting, not sure why such a gig would be appealing to her. However, if a pretty girl can sell anything then why don't you just sell the stuff yourself?" Kay suggested in a playful manner as she stuck her tongue out at Lydia.
Chris would suddenly speak up again in the brief moment of silence that barely had a chance to linger in the increasingly fogged room after her comment
"Guys, I have another idea, but before I can see if it's any good I need to have access to the administration office. Someone up for watching my back?"
Before she could respond both Lydia and Danny would chime in with their willingness to tag along, but despite one more than necessary already Kay still raised her hand up proudly as she stood.
"Oh this is my kind of fun, count me in....it's Adventure Time baby!" she joked, referencing one of her favorite cartoon shows. "I'm ready to go as is, just indulge my stomach and lets stop off at Dominos or Pizza Hut on the way back - my treat."
Leaning over the table Kay would grab her bag before stretching her arms up over her head.
"I don't mind walking you to your place Lydia, and perhaps I'd get to steal a scrunchie or two?"

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia Character Portrait: Jordin Carter
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{ berkeley, dorm of chris & danny }



When people congregated underneath the same sky they became sandstorms and whirlwinds, and instruction had found him, constructed talent in silence and speaking, and it had been habit to listen to their words and systematize them, found himself the gargoyle watching from a distance. Here he had nodded to Lydia’s proposition, of minimizing the space seized and manipulating tiny ecosystems in their palms, they could take advantage, the theory only a benefit to them, especially if they could move at a moment’s notice, pack up and smuggle forbidden plants underneath the prying noses.

“Four may be excessive for the endeavor, I wouldn’t recommend it.” Again he vocalizes himself, finding Danny’s gaze and, to speak to him in a language of subtleties, shrugs, and returns to focusing on the myriad of tasks at hand. “External influence may be somewhat of a safety net, however being caught could be detrimental. Security cameras will be your enemy, and if they cannot be disarmed or manipulated then an alternative to acquiring the blueprints would be desirable.” He didn’t doubt them, no. Here were gathered the clever and the strong, with their alcohol and drugs and sorrow and laughter on their tongues, and there were capable men and women that had erected lives in this business that would have made themselves eager comrades, but their souls were eroded and twisted – he couldn’t find better people to put his trust in other than here.

“Regardless, succeeding a night of drinking and smoking, reconnaissance wouldn’t be the wise decision.” His eyebrows raise, if just for a second, in good nature, pondering the possibility that Danny might have forgotten the smoke pulled into his lungs. “Find sobriety, then become thieves.” Vyacheslav concludes, solemn and placid, or perhaps worn from the energy found here, the vibrant vigor so different from the radiation of his family, and those that worked for his family. He directs his pupils over to Lydia now, redirecting the flow of conversation, to the potential seller recommended, would have to study her first, as with selling comes risk, and as much as it made his throat dehydrate and taut, Danny had that competence to talk circles around people and then sink into silence, possessed a nature for the job he couldn’t ignore, and it wasn’t something everyone had.

“Contact her, please. It’d be preferable to meet her sooner, rather than later.” He paused, already picturing the possible future, should bring Jordin along to meet this Frankie woman, admittedly as a bargaining chip, their illustrated security and equilibrium, but more than that, could use the time after to speak to the other man one on one. “If she agrees, I’d like it if you join me to meet her, as I imagine she’d be more comfortable with someone already familiar to her.”

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kay Vassallo Character Portrait: Vyacheslav Yanayev Character Portrait: Danny Jacobs Character Portrait: Lydia Marie LaRochelle Character Portrait: Chris Garcia Character Portrait: Jordin Carter
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"Four may be excessive for the endeavor, I wouldn’t recommend it." Vya chimed in. "Regardless, succeeding a night of drinking and smoking, reconnaissance wouldn’t be the wise decision."

Kay chuckled as she picked her wallet up from the counter and shoved it in her side pocket. "Vya, watashi wa bujoku....are you insinuating that I can't function at a high enough caliber, while literally high may I add, to break into a little measly office?" Again she'd giggle as she ran her fingers through her thick hair, knowing full well that partaking in such an expedition would indeed be wiser if done while sober, so there was really no reason for her to protest - she was simply teasing Vya for fun.
"Find Sobriety, then become thieves you say? That's cute, you should write poetry."
After sticking her tongue out towards Vya Kay would become somewhat distracted by her phone buzzing as Danny spoke up. She had never considered herself one of those people who were hypnotically attached to their phones or tablets, however tonight seemed to be a popular evening for her instagram page and she seemingly couldn't resist the urge to scan through the comments as her friend chattered away.


"....and you can have me and Kay for whatever you need" Kay heard as she caught the tail end of Danny's remark. "Whatever he needs, hmm?"
Soon after the words slipped out of her mouth Kay was laughing the hardest she had laughed all night. "I tease, I tease, I know what you meant....i think. I really shouldn't drink when I smoke, I get a little silly."

As she shoved her phone in her back pocket with one hand she'd casually wave to her friends with the other. "I think I'll go hit up a food cart, grab a bacon cheeseburger or two and eat it in the sand. It's been fun as always you guys."



Kay would make her way out the door after a brief round of goodbyes and lazily head to the elevator, however when it didn't open right away she impatiently opted for the stairs. It wasn't anything new for her to go out to the coast in the middle of the night and catch one of the few food carts still serving something to eat. At times she wished she could sleep on the sand every night, finding it much more comforting to lay by the water than wake up to the cackling of her roommates - who she'd be glad to move away from as soon as she finds an affordable place to at on her own.




**(( Watashi wa bujoku = "I'm insulted" or "I am Insulted"....of course she means it in a joking way in my post. =P ))**