[Holo] [Arrival] this is the first day of the rest of your life

[kings_fool]

[Maybe 20 minutes after Johannes eventually leaves the arrival room]


Another new arrival, as shown by the holographic image being broadcast to the tablets of everyone in Taxon, as usual. However, this man is lying on the floor of the arrival room, tangled up in a blanket, curled half-around a body pillow. He is snoring. And maybe drooling a little.

After twenty seconds or so, the chill of the hard metal floor starts to penetrate the sleeping man's consciousness. He grimaces, shifts around as if trying to get comfortable, and then slowly cracks an eye open.

"Whussat?"

Eyes squeezed shut, unshaven face squinching into a grimace. Man, what the hell... 's cold, and hard, and this is not his bed, he's pretty sure he went to bed in his bed last night, and yeah, he was doing shots pretty heavily, but he's pretty sure he did not drink to the point of passing out on a sidewalk, or... He risks opening his eyes again.

Definitely not the Strip. Not anywhere he knows. Fuzzily, Jeremy Fischer sits up, blanket falling down around his waist, showing that he's not wearing a shirt. He is still clutching the body pillow to him like a protective talisman. The holo shows a man in his probable late thirties, extremely scruffy, with an enormous amount of untamed curly brown hair and a stocky body.

"Uh...." He looks around him at the steel walls, the weird thing overheard, the utter alienness of his current surroundings. He runs a hand over his face, through his shaggy curly hair, and scratches at his head.

"The fuck...?"

Then he starts laughing. "Okay. Nice. Good one, Charlie! Not sure how the hell you got me here without waking me up, but seriously, nice one. Lunch is on me. It might be our last, right?"

There's a few beats of silence. He shivers a little in the coldness of the room and pulls the blanket up over his shoulders, grin slowly fading.

"Charlie?"

***

Sometime later, Jeremy is outside. This is a problem, since he's wearing his underwear, socks, and a blanket wrapped around himself, and it's freaking cold.

"THIS IS BULLSHIT!" Jeremy hollers at anyone who might listen, trying to avoid the patches of snow on the sidewalk as he looks around the Bazaar for clothes.

Or shoes. Shoes at least would be a great fuckin' start.


eta to add in alternate run-in location of Jeremy at the Bazaar

Comments

[kings_fool]

Jeremy offers no argument to the economic realities of being a street performer. It is definitely not something done for the money. Sadly for Sherlock, Jeremy doesn't offer any glimpse of recognition at the name Sherlock Holmes. It's just another slightly unusual name, fitting in with 'Metody' and others.

"Sherlock Holmes," he echoes, eyes dancing with genial amusement. "Alright, Homes."

The question is-- unexpected, off-as-everything-else is, like-- who doesn't know that? Jeremy doesn't answer right away, the amusement fading from his face to give Sherlock a long look that isn't confused so much as trying-to-ascertain-why, trying to make the puzzle of everything since he got here make sense. So far, he's not yet found an explanation that makes everything work.

(A sane explanation, that is. Yeah, he read the little file. He knows what it says. It's not even a very good joke/hoax thing, if you want aliens, have green guys in flying saucers, not dudes with violins.)

"Yeah, he wins," he says after several seconds. Jeremy lifts a hand to scratch at his jaw, squinting at Sherlock, who, well, aside from the guy having his mind-reader shtick, registers less on his scale of something-is-mildly-off than Metody had.

"--so-- so is this all some giant performance art installation or what?"

[infinitelystranger]

"I don't know," says Sherlock. It occurs to him that six months ago he might have said no with more certainty, or something with more certainty, at any rate. Today he just levels Jeremy Fischer with a frank, serious look. "It could be. I think it's virtual reality, but I don't have a fine enough understanding of programming," he waves a hand to indicate, or whatever you call this, "or neurobiology, for that matter, to know if that's feasible or how. It's very realistic. Not entirely, but extremely. And you'll find things that--"

He hesitates to say break the laws of physics, because he loathes that phrase. The term 'laws' is misleading in the subject of physics: people are always gleefully talking up the possibility of 'breaking' the laws of physics left and right when of course, there's no such thing. Any observed violation of physical laws only proves that they were in error, or that your observation. Sherlock tries to remind himself of that: either they were in error or you were. No one is incapable of being tricked, not even you, Sherlock Holmes.

He summons a smile, an ironical, chilly one--if nothing else, he can make a show of good humor for this American. "You may find it all a bit new," he says.

It's getting colder as the sun dips lower. Sherlock has noticed that the Extras are thinning out for the day. Prime busking hours are over. He kneels and starts to pack up his case. "Can you cook?" he asks Jeremy, apropos of nothing.

[kings_fool]

Jeremy's brows furrow and he looks around at the broad concourse, the people heading home, the buildings and the lights and the beginning-to-set sun.

"VR? All this? You're shitting me," he says, tone incredulous more than argumentative.

Jeremy absorbs that ominous-kinda statement and turns once in place, staring up and down and around until he is back facing Mr. Britain again.

"I met a chick in body armor who says she's from somewhere so polluted that it's gotten into her freakin' B.O.," he offers much as he'd offered the factoid about Dr. Dre. "'s a pretty weird-ass video game."

Train of thought gets derailed by Sherlock's question, which may have been the intent, who knows. "--hm? Yeah, I do okay. Why, do I get video-game points for that?"

[infinitelystranger]

Video game's as plausible as anything, really. The main thing separating Sherlock from that theory is the lack of any discernible game logic in Taxon: no achievements, no incentivizing, no progress. Not even grinding. Gaming isn't about making the player's life easy, it's about making it ever so gradually more difficult. He shrugs in response, with a slight smile and no comment at what he imagines is Jeremy's description of Metody Green--explicating Metody's gender identity is neither Sherlock Holmes's concern nor his business, and explicating his/her world is entirely beyond him.

He addresses the only question of Jeremy's to which he's suited at all. Buckling his case, he pulls it up over his shoulder before he answers. "Not really," he says. "I've got groceries. I don't know how to cook. You don't have groceries." He tilts his head to one side as if to say, QED.

[kings_fool]

"Why do you have groceries if you don't cook?" Jeremy asks smiling, but he accepts the implicit bargain being offered, by a practical stranger at that, without so much as a blink. Such arrangements are pretty standard in the drifter lifestyle Jeremy's elevated to a lowbrow art form.

He pulls the hood of his hoodie up against the dropping temperature and rising wind. "Take- me- to- your- groceries- Earthling. --you like omelettes? Cuz I could kill for one of those right now."