[New York] Antagonistic Roots

"What? Is your Statue of Liberty less big? Is Liberty Island a plaza?", for someone who spoke so loosely, Jamie sure liked to get hung up on technicalities. "Uh...I don't think so? I might have...", Jamie inhaled through his teeth. "Not been paying attention, but it didn't sound like her", he gave no answer to the second question. The spirit of the world was quite a diligent steward, it came forth when Jamie was in distress, and even arranged Strange a phone call back in the shoe shop, though one was to wonder if Jamie even consider it a conscious boing, or whether its disposition towards the sorcerer was still as ambivalent at best.

"I don't even want to think about talking statues, to be honest. Do you still need me here?", Jamie leaned on the desk, Strange could see the door behind the engineer blink back into existence when he blinked. This force still hung around Jamie. "This is gonna come out of my PTO, and I might need it at some point". He mentioned, yearning to return to his comfortable normalcy, that's all he yearned for, after all, that's what Liberty fought to provide him with.

"And here I was thinking you were helping me, but sure, I guess that's how that works. Medical plan's gonna cover this anyhow. God I can't believe we didn't have one till now", Jamie stretched, and as he did, the world shifted once more, and the entire office placed itself where it should've been, transporting Strange to his former office in the hospital. "Not a coffee person! Surely you wouldn't think that, but Diana seems to not be able to function during Mondays without a trip to the local Stardom, it's, like, 3 blocks east from here, so let me know how that goes", the man made his way out, blending into the puppeteered mess of the clinic, not that it would be difficult to find him again, should the Sorcerer need to. Strange was actually quite booked for today, or was he? No, he had his mind on too many other things for that, good thing his agenda was cleared for the time being on second glimpse.

New York can be a bit of a chore to walk, but he's been largely unimpeded by the expedient, simulated traffic. It might have been at most a handful of hours since he breached the explosive portal, though it would be more difficult how equivalent that was in 'real' time. Stardom was not quite full yet, the atmosphere was as sterile and efficient as the other place he visited, if he made his way there expediently, he might be able to still catch the breakfast menu before afternoon rolls along.

Jamie was quite startled to hear the doctor beckon him, prompting him to turn around quite expediently. Two golems conspicuously peeked from the doorframe with ill intent. "A what? In the middle of the week? Wait what day is it? Today is not the 4th is it?", he wondered to himself, Strange better come up with a date before any calendar came within sight of the engineer. "How could you even tell? Aren't you from, like, a whole nother New York?"

Strange would feel resistance to his sorcery, as if the world objected to his intervention and would not be meddled with, ultimately, by the time Jamie peeked over his shoulder, it was forced to stop, which allowed his misdirection to go through. "I mean, yeah, woo independence and all that, but it seems odd we're taking a day off. What does this parade even look like?", he pulled out his phone and opened his browser with a couple dozen tabs open, opting to find the search engine among them rather than open a new one. "Lliiibertyyyy Paraaadeee...", he ennunciated, Strange better fill in the blanks before the world does.

"Man, I don't think I would be so big on that. Surely I could watch that from the office floor, if anything", Jamie dragged his feet around, both figuratively and literally, there was a suffocating density in the air, air stopped flowing, the constructs around strange were stiff as statues, it was as if the world itself had halted just to listen in. "But I think I threw away my lunch this morning, so Hotdogs might be fine", the world breathed in again and carried on, Strange would feel that the people behind him simply ceased to be there, why would they be there anyways? There's a parade going on, after all.

"You better be right about the multiversal constancy of patriotism, Doctor Wizard", he hurried along. The world seemed to creak and churn around them. "Way I see it, you owe me the grub", Jamie yelled through the now relatively vacant hallways, Strange better catch up.

The hospital was eerily silent and vacant as they walked through the exit, not a single sound could be heard, and yet when Jamie pushed the door open, the blares of trumpets and drums chanting in a vaguely patriotic fashion took over the atmosphere. The parade cars were lavishly decorated, though they didn't seem to have any significant motiff beyond the star spangled banner. The floats were mostly about sports teams, no celebration of the Avengers this time around. Most importantly, everyone was here, there was a neat array of, erm, people, watching the parade with interest, and taking their kids to the food stands. "Wow, discreete work", Jamie accepted the contrivance, and walked off to a near hot dog stand. Should Strange riffle through his pockets, he would find just enough change to pay for Jamie's two fully loaded hot dogs, but not any of his own.

Jamie prefered to stay still and engage in small chat with the vendor, which would give Strange some time to scan his surroundings, though it might be briefly interrupted by the odd time that an unpronounceable name assaulted his ears. There were people, real people, amongst the crowd in the parade, or at least they were arriving, seeing as they weren't all prompted as quickly as the phantasms of the city. They were all, however, doing their best to enjoy whatever succor they could from this anomalous parade, and individually, on their own. Rounding them up, and most of all, confirming that they would all be accounted for, would be a much more difficult task.

"Parade's cool and all, but do they do something at the end?", Jamie adressed Strange between bites, table manners, pleasant. "Can't be all buzz and no payoff"