taxonomites | [HOLO | sanctuary] the sound of your own wheels

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[HOLO | sanctuary] the sound of your own wheels

“Andy?” Jason called out loud, looking around. “Can’t I do something else now? No one’s calling.” This working at a desk business wasn’t going to work. When he said he wanted to be a cop he meant being out in the field, taking down the bad guys and busting meth labs every Tuesday. If he had known that being a cop meant playing secretary he would have just stayed on the road crew. At least there he had a supervisor position and some authority. Being on the bottom rung and making copies got old within the first hour.

He wandered to the office supply cabinet and grabbed a box of paperclips. After opening the box he began to loop one through another and loop the other after that, making a chain. Now he could at least stay entertained. He strung one end of the chain at the top of a filing cabinet and strung the other against his desk and attempted a limbo, bending backward and walking underneath the paperclip chain. Upon successfully completing this he lowered the end that was attached to the cabinet and tried again from the other side.

This time around he couldn’t quite make it and got himself caught, slipping to the ground. Instinctively Jason shut his eyes during the fall and upon opening them he looked up at the ceiling. This wasn’t how he remembered the sheriff’s station. Why was everything silver all of a sudden? Jason pressed his hand against his head and upon doing so noticed what looked like a bracelet fused to his skin. “What the fuck? What is this?” He picked himself up and shuffled backward, looking around and dropping into a defensive stance. “Whoever kidnapped me, you’d best get your ass out here right now. I got a lotta people who’ll come looking for me when they find out I’m gone. You will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for kidnapping a cop.” Jason had no idea what the validity was of that last sentence, but it sure as hell sounded good.

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Jason?

Jason's stance relaxes a little, but he keeps his hands splayed outward just in case. "Sook?" he calls out loud into the air. "Is that you?"

Oh my Lord, Jason. [ even though she knows he can't see her, sookie's hands fly to her mouth, trying to hold back a sob. it's been a long while with no one, jason. godric's lovely but he's not family. (and eric's... eric.) there could not be a more welcome face on her tablet. ]

It's so good to see you.

Jason lowers his hands and walks toward what seems to be the source of her voice. He doesn't yet see the tablet but he's getting closer. "I'm glad to hear you and all, but something's happening to me. I'm stuck here in this bigass silver place and whatever fuckers stuck me here slapped this bracelet on me that looks like it's suck on forever. I know it sounds crazy, but you gotta help me out."

Oh Jason. [ this time the affection is tempered with a little bit of helplessness. ]

We are stuck, every last one of us here.

"But how did I... and you... get here?" He rubs the back of his neck, confused and frustrated that he can't seem to remember traveling to a new place.

"The last thing I remember, I was over at the sheriff's station. How long've you been here?"

Well... now, I know this sounds silly but it's true, I promise. [ she inhales audibly. ] Aliens.

[ she'll just leave off answering that question for now, because it's been just about two months, and lord knows how he'll take that. sometimes when jason gets it in his head he's the man of the family it's better to just let him have his head, and deal with it later. ]

"Aw, hell." Jason trusts Sookie not to lie to him. As weird as this sounds, he had already opened his mind to the possibility of different kinds of supernatural beings. Aliens didn't seem too far off, but that didn't make them exactly welcome news either.

"Where are you? I might be able to bust us out of here if you tell me where to go."

I know. Believe me, I know.

[ she'll leave the 'eric's here and i broke up with bill back home' bombshells for later, thank you very much. ]

You see that cell phone lookin' thing, on that high table? Pick it up, and the room'll let you out. I'll start headin' that way now.

Jason approaches the tablet warily. It's not Sookie that worries him, but the alien technology. He's half afraid that once he touches it he'll be whisked away to another strange place.

Thankfully nothing of the sort happens and a door opens as soon as he picks up the tablet. "Do you want me to stay here or should I start walkin'?" The time to run out with guns blazing would have to wait until he actually had guns.

If you walk just a bit you'll get a room with big glass walls. Just wait there for me, I'll be there soon as I can.

"Ok," he replies and dutifully follows Sookie's instructions. There are many more things he would like to know, but Jason is having difficulty putting things into words and chooses to wait.

Godric is no longer surprised when people appear and re-appear in Taxon, so he watches Jason's unintentional intro somewhat fondly, debating whether or not he should reply. It might be better to let Sookie explain that Godric is alive here, but it would also be rude not to say hello. He makes up his mind, and decides to risk shocking Jason.

"You're a policeman now, Mister Stackhouse?" Somehow, the idea is strangely appropriate.

The sound of Godric makes Jason become even more on edge than he already was. Godric had been more than kind to him, and for that Jason was thankful. But considering the circumstances of how he had last seen the vampire plus the added experience of this entirely new place, well, Jason was far from comfortable.

Yet with all things considered, Jason wanted to remain respectful to someone of Godric's stature. "Yes sir, I am," he replies, doing his best to not offend. He is steadily creeping toward the tablet, unsure of if he should trust it or not. "I'm still in training though." This was good. Maybe Jason could ease his way into bringing up the strange room with Godric.

"It's a profession well suited to you," he compliments. Jason may have some growing up to do, and Godric is well aware he isn't the brightest bulb in the bunch, but he has a good heart. That counts for quite a bit.

"I'm afraid it will do little good against those who have captured us, however. The law has little meaning here."

Jason can't help but smile at the compliment. It means a lot coming from Godric.

"Yeah, I'm beginning to find that out," he answered, resigning himself to the possibility that his new job would be meaningless. "How'd you end up here?" If Jason had any impulse control, he would have hoped the question isn't too abrupt.

Elisa, having been a cop herself what seemed like a lifetime ago, is generally inclined to be sympathetic for fellow law enforcement officers. Something about this newcomer, however, tells her to keep her sympathy in measured doses.

"Trust me, I think we'd all like to do some prosecuting."

"Whaddyou mean?" Jason instantly replies. This is the first new voice he's heard and he is eager to get some answers. "Who is 'we all?'"

"Pretty much everybody here in Taxon," Elisa says. "We're all kidnap victims."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Jason could have figured out that he had been kidnapped, but this extra information was even more unsettling. "What's a Taxon? And I don't see nobody else around. It's just me in this room, left to fuckin' rot."

In his past experience, laying on the drama results in added sympathy points. Jason is legitimately worried, but it didn't hurt to exhaust all options.

Legitimate questions, Elisa realizes.

"Okay, Taxon's the city you're in, which the room you're in is a part of. You can get out by picking up the tablet on the pedestal."

"When I get out, where do I go?" Jason asks, relieved that there is a way out at all. "Can I even breathe outside? I've seen those movies where once people open a door to go outside their lungs fill up with some kind of poison."

"It's completely safe," Elisa assured him. "Just follow the hallways. And if you run into anyone who doesn't have a silver band on their arm, well, they're not exactly real. But they won't hurt you."

"Not exactly real?" Jason knows that he's full of questions, but if she's offering he's happy to accept the help. "You mean like projections?"

"More like... robots, or dolls or something. They move around, they do stuff, but they're not people."

"So why are they around in the first place?"

"Presumably so the city wouldn't be so empty, I guess. They... do a lot of the jobs and stuff around here."

"Huh." He says slowly, letting the information sink in. He edges toward the tablet. "Guess I oughta meet 'em soon. What's your name?"

"It's Elisa. Elisa Maza."

"Well, Elisa, thanks a lot. I mean it." He doffs an invisible cap. "I'm Jason Stackhouse."

Pretty sure the big hamsters upstairs don't really care.

"Back the fuck up." There's no hesitation in Jason's reply. He's irritated, and now the kidnapper of all people has decided to taunt him. "Stop messing around with my head. Why'd it take you so long to say something?"

Angel's not a kidnapper. ...okay, he hasn't been the kidnapping sort in a long time and this is very much not his doing.

"Whoa there, buddy. Not aiming to mess with your head here, and not all of us keep our tablets on twenty-four/seven. Noticing feeds from new arrivals isn't always instantaneous. I take it no-one's bothered to explain your situation to you?"

"I was told I was kidnapped," Jason replies defensively. "And I dunno what you're talkin' 'bout with hamsters, but it's not funny."

Angel is saying a lot of things that don't make sense to Jason, and that makes him guilty until proven innocent as far as Jason is concerned.

"And you have been, and none of the people who've spoken to you so far are responsible. Neither am I."

How can he be so sure of this? Well, the aliens don't make a habit of speaking to them, let alone to new arrivals. They step in at random intervals, often where it makes little sense for them to exercise their ability to give a voice to a situation that they are doing little to help and possibly more to hinder, unseen.

"As crazy as it may sound, our captors tend to take the forms of giant hamsters."

"Now that's just stupid," Jason dismisses. "How can a hamster kidnap anyone? They don't even have thumbs."

He paces in an arc, holding his index finger to his chin and peering at Angel's holo transmission with suspicion. "Ok then. Let's say the hamsters did kidnap me. What form are they supposed to be?"

"They're not actually hamsters, they're aliens who take the forms of hamsters. It's an illusion, not actual giant hamsters."

A sense of déjà vu washed over the vampire, and for a moment, he felt as if he were having a conversation with one Harmony Kendall.

"Oh." Jason still frowned. This man had at least explained his hamster logic but it wasn't as if aliens made much more sense.

"You mean aliens, like space aliens? Are we in space?"

"Yes, space aliens." Angel was by no means an expert on space. Demons and the supernatural were more his specialty. "The more commonly accepted theory is we're on another planet. Somewhere not Earth."

That was exactly the answer Jason was afraid of. He had a hard time believing any of this, but at the same time if this story was true he should probably prepare himself.

"Aside from the whole kidnapping business... are they dangerous?"

"Yes," Angel answers. It's probably not what this man wants to hear, but it's the truth. No sense in lying to the guy.

"I'm Angel, by the way."

"Hi," Jason replies slowly, turning over the idea of dangerous kidnapping aliens in his head. "I'm Jason."

"So how do I get out of here without running into aliens?"

"Welcome to Taxon, Jason."

It sounded corny, even to him, but what else was there to say?

"Good news is, you won't run into them. They've yet to show themselves in person. Sometimes they talk to us over this tablet network, but even then, it's few and far between. To get out, you just need to pick up the tablet from the stand. The doors should show themselves, then."

"Cool." If Angel sounded corny, Jason sounded like a mix between uncertainty and lameness.

He picks up the tablet and the door opens. For better or worse he'll figure out where to go and what to do. In his attempts at half looking around and half playing with the tablet Jason has managed to pull up the map. It renews his confidence somewhat. "Thanks for your help," Jason says to both the tablet and Angel as the door shuts behind him.

So, you're a cop now? That's very...surprising.

That voice was unmistakable. Jason swallowed. "I been through with V for a long time if that's what you're talking about."

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[HOLO | sanctuary] the sound of your own wheels

[ voice ] /quietly comes off hiatus

[holo] i feel so special!

[ voice ] i could not resist this.

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[ voice ] WHOO and back in, provided i don't need to get all house with the vicodin again today

[holo] AHHHHH! I am the MOST excited!

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