The City of Taxon

The visual from the tablet is that of a desk, one that's covered with mostly pictures with the occasional yellowed newspaper clipping buried underneath. The pictures, for the most part, seem centered around a girl and were sorted - by habit - by her age, starting at around age three and ending somewhere in her late teens. She's Asian American - although closer inspection of her features indicate mixed ancestry - and sometimes accompanied by an older gray-haired man. She isn't always smiling in the pictures; sometimes she looks thoughtful, sometimes she looks alone. There's no obvious parental figure to be seen, nor identifiable siblings; she's the only focus in most of the pictures. It's a strange, silent story of someone's life, picture by picture, year by year.

After a few minutes of this, just the desk and its contents, the tablet is snatched away when Harvestman realizes it's on. Though 'out' as a vampire, he still worked to hide it before, keeping his movements human, hiding his teeth. There's none of that pretense here; his normal brown eyes are blood red, and his lips are peeled back to reveal not the two fangs that might be expected, but an entirely mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth.

"I'm sick of this," he snarls, at the goddamn hamsters, at anybody. "I'm sick of this fucking game, I'm sick of this fucking place. Let me go already, I ain't got nothing to do with it. Let me go before I rip this everything to fucking pieces. Let me go!"

The speech ends when he draws his arm back, and throws the tablet through the glass window. With his strength, it ricochets into the building across the street, and clatters to a stop somewhere in the middle of the street - unbroken, unharmed. He couldn't break the tablet no matter how much he wanted to.

Despite his threats, despite everything, Harvestman remains in the hotel room, curled up on the floor, head buried in his arms.

Sergeant John M. Sugihara had been in Taxon all of thirty minutes and he already needed a drink. Nothing made sense - this wasn't Fort Hood, where he had been just a second ago, and it certainly wasn't Texas. The few people he had tried to talked to were polite, yet somehow strange, and none of their answers to his questions made sense either. One of them, finally, was able to guide his attention to the tablet in his pocket, and he was currently focused on figuring it out. It was nothing like the technology he was used to, and although he understood the basic ideas behind it, it was still a little mind-blowing.

He's got at least sixty pounds on the vampire known as Harvestman, much of it in muscle. His skin is tan from all that Texas sun, and (unlike Harvestman's) flawed - a nick on his cheek is visible from shaving too carelessly, there's a faint scar on his chin. He has bags under his eyes like he hasn't been sleeping, but he still looks healthy, so much more than his usual self. He stands in BDU uniform outside the apartment building he had found himself in, his rank prominent on his hat and lapels and his Signal Corps patch on his sleeve, frowning at the tablet in concentration.

"Is this thing working?" John's almost sure that it was, but he still has to resist the urge to push more buttons. "Um. I talked to one of ya'll here and they said I should use this thing. Can somebody help me?"

He sounds as lost and helpless as he feels right now. John reaches up to rub his eye, the golden wedding band on his finger flashing in the sun. "I really... I really don't know what's going on here."

This is probably the five location change Harvestman has made since he got there, this dingly little room with no windows. He's got a history of reasons to keep looking over his shoulder, and everything about Taxon puts him on edge. The fake sun, the vampires, the Hunters - everything freaked him out just a little.

Nevertheless, he looks pretty relaxed in a white wifebeater, scarred dogtags exposed and dangling from his neck, and drinking from what would seem to be a juice bag with a straw. It's too bad that 'juice' looks a little too suspicious to claim it's Koolaid, but he's finally given up on the hiding the fact that he's got fangs. He opens his mouth, and given the nature of Taxon at the moment, the following comes out:

Follow the rainbow my lucky omen
There ain't no pot of gold, just copper tokens
I found the key to life, the lock was broken
All my accomplishments are best left unspoken

My horror story is nearly over
I said I'm sorry, but I was sober
I beg for mercy from my infernal friend
The one that drops the nails into my coff -

And it's ended, quite abruptly, with a hand clamped over his mouth. Harvestman rolls his eyes heavenward (those little furry monsters have to be somewhere; the sky is as good of a bet as any.)

"What the fuck was that? Seriously, what the fuck? Can't you furry little assholes go for something classic? Nirvana, Metallica - shit, I'd take Iron Maiden. What the goddamn fuck was that."

He pauses. "I was gonna say something, but fuck it. This music shit is irritating."