ArchivedLogs:Deja Who

Deja Who
Dramatis Personae B, Domino
In Absentia	2015-03-08 "The Netherlands can wait their damn turn." (Part of Future Past TP.)
Location <NYC> Riverside Skate Park - Morningside Heights
Tucked between Riverside Drive in Morningside Heights, and the Hudson River, the Riverside Skate Park is a mecca for skaters of all ages. The fenced in area is ringed by trees, and the park itself is actually manned by a city attendant during daylight hours. Skaters must sign a waiver before using the facilities, but anyone can come in just to watch. Also, Friday-Sunday food and drink vendors often circle the park, or come inside to sell their wares. Inside, the park is packed with skate trick elements. Many can be daisy-chained together in complex routines; ramps, jumps, rails and curbs. There is also a competition-sized half-pipe wide enough to support several riders at once. All of the trick elements are sturdy, and well built, because the city doesn't want to get sued. Skate on! It's not /exactly/ ideal outdoor weather. Still /kind of/ chilly, still /kind of/ cloudy, but jesus-freaking-christ after the long run of ice and bitter freezing cold and more ice and more freezing rain that the coast has been bathed in, people seem willing to take what they can /get/. So mid-forties and overcast? It's practically like summer. All around the city parks are getting kind of packed and this one is no different. One /particular/ side of the otherwise-crowded skate park is a lot more empty than the others, though -- which might have to do with who is currently using it. With school on spring break B and hir friends are enjoying the respite from wintry weather -- which means that right now grinding along the rails is a muscular teenager with jet-black skin and an enormous wealth of tentacles. Nearby, a girl with spiky bone-shards poking out from her shoulderblades and curling in huge rams-horns from her head. And B, diminutive and blue-skinned and sharky; it's altogether not a group that fills most people with /ease/. The tentacles are getting the most stares (and shuddering, and cringing), though the kids seem used enough to it that /they're/ just focusing on their skating. If it can be really called skating. None of their boards have /wheels/. Just glowing strips at their undersides, low hums; the boards /hover/ a short distance off the ground. B (dressed brightly in black and skinny jeans, pink and grey and black velcro sneakers, a silver-dusted green denim jacket over a purple tee that reads 'Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty', vivid mismatched rainbowy armwarmers) is just getting off hir board over by a bench at the side to reach into a backpack and pull out a water bottle, take a large swig. Then splash a little of the water on the gills at the side of hir neck. "Man, why those freaks gotta get in the way of everything?" one youth gripes to his friend as they take their own (much more traditional) boards to the sidewalk, both close to the park and a healthy distance away from it. Even in the Big Apple tolerance comes at a premium. "Yeah, why can't they a-Whup!" the second youth yelps as his board slips on a patch of ice. In another instant he's on the ground while his board goes airborne, smacking his pal in the shin and dropping -him- onto the ground. Moments later the second rider-less board rolls out into the street and gets snapped into kindling by a passing cargo truck. Maybe it's just the ice. Or..maybe it's just not their lucky day. While they're trying to pick themselves up off of the sidewalk another peculiar looking individual walks past, the skin of her face infinitely more white than any of the lingering snow within the city streets. Dark blue sunglasses fail to mask the black spot around her left eye, though the black leather trench manages to keep a good number of other oddities hidden, mostly in the form of restricted or downright illegal weaponry. A girl's always gotta be prepared. It isn't until she glances to the skate park in question that she stops short, which distracts another person at -just- the right moment for them to find the first lost skateboard and go flying right onto their front, swearing profusely upon landing. Domino frowns, pulls the sunglasses lower on her nose, then looks at the park again. Yeah, that..really is blue skin... Out in the open. Do these kids have no sense of self-preservation? It's more than just the brazen public exposure, however. It's almost a sense of deja'vu, except..not quite. She just can't shake the feeling that she somehow knows this person. Thus, Dom steps into a skate park for the very first time in a number of years. It might look a lot less sketchy if she didn't look like a reject from the Underworld movies. The spiky-thin girl some ways off from B chuckles at the mishap from the complaining teenagers. Her tentacled companion doesn't /actually/ laugh, though there's a small curl of smile on his lips. If B is taking any glee at the misfortune of the bigots it is lost in a more puzzled expression. Nostrils flaring as hir brows furrow, head tilt. Ze takes another gulp of water, black eyes fixing on Domino as the woman enters the park -- then dipping away with a sudden blush as she catches herself staring. Her foot moves slowly back and forth, shifting the hoverboard a couple inches to each side in the air. "You -- look really --" She sounds kind of hesitant-uncertain as she recaps the water bottle, tucks it beside the backpack. Along the sides of hir neck, hir gills flutter slightly, the water droplets on them glistening and sliding off. "... not dressed for skating," she finishes instead of whatever her initial thought had been. She sounds kind of apologetic about pointing this out. There's a moment where a small number of bystanders not currently tripping themselves up start to get the feeling that a fight is about to break out. Dark woman striding with a purpose toward those mutie kids, -can't- be good. Right? Their suspicions aren't given any support when Domino just comes to stand there a few feet away from Bluegills and Co, her own hands currently buried within coat pockets. "Thanks for noticing," she flatly replies while regarding Bones and Octokid. "Last I heard it was some kinda risky to be out with the normals, particularly with toys not currently on the market. But you..." she trails off while extracting a hand long enough to point at the blue one, looking..conflicted. "Where the -Hell- would I know you from?" Not knowing what's going on here means she isn't in better control of the situation, which just secretly drives..her..mad... "Well -- I mean, yeah," B answers with a small crinkle of nose, a small dip of head. "I guess it's risky but. What else do we do? Sit inside all day? That's -- more. Boring. Besides --" Here ze manages a shy-small closed-lipped smile. "These are totally on the market. Two-fifty will pick you up one. Though they sell out /so/ quick it's hard to keep up with demand. On eBay it's way higher right now." The last question, though. That makes hir shift. A little uncomfortable. The gills flutter faster. She presses a hand to them like keeping them in /place/. "... I don't. I don't /think/ we've met?" It's really reluctant when ze tacks on a quieter: "... yet." Here a well-shaped black brow hooks upward over the frame of the albino's sunglasses. "Are you shitting me?" she blatantly asks about the hoverboards, regardless of the age of her current company. "I must have slept right through that year." Well, there's one mystery solved. The second matter is one which Domino clearly isn't buying. Dreams can be annoying more often than not but when they're so vivid as to rival her own -actual- memories then something very odd is going on, and that's just the start of it. Darnit, what was the name she had called the other in that dream..? It takes her a moment before she inclines her chin a few degrees, feeling like an absolute fool when she says "I hear the bulgogi's good around here, Fish-face." To anyone else the statement might seem more like some B-grade spy movie. 'The angel shark prefers to dine at noon.' It's just..well..dammit, she -has- to know! Now she's expecting either complete confusion from the other mutant or some tell of recognition. If the former, she can just walk away. If the latter, these two need to have themselves a little chat. "They've only been out a couple months," B assures Domino. "And my company only has, like, two employees. So it's been really hard to manufacture fast enough to --" She cuts herself off with another blush. "I mean, no, I'm not joking, I really sell these." So, yeah. Not just on the market, but the tiny blue teenager's evidently the one making them. The back-and-forth restless shifting of her foot stops at Domino's statement. With a small /huff/ she plops back to sit on the bench, resting both her sneakers on the still-floating board. "You don't actually work for Stark? I mean, I've never seen you. There." And, with a small lift of /her/ chin and a bit more firmness than her previous timid tone: "And my name's B. Not Fish-face." Wellll there goes any sense of normalcy this conversation might have had! The blue teen is in business making -hoverboards.- Sadly this isn't the most bizarre thing Dom's heard this week. She couldn't be so lucky! It is, however, information which she files away for later. Something like this could be useful for a whole slew of different reasons. Bullseye. Perhaps the one subject which could shift her focus away from the matter of hoverboards right now, she has her recognition. Unfortunately this only means that she has -more- questions, and the initial onset of a headache. One hand, wrapped in a fingerless black glove, reaches up to rub at a temple. "'B,' right," she mutters before dropping her hand to stare at the other oddball. "Short for 'Blue,' I'm guessing. Another quick glance is passed to the other hoverboarders before she continues. "You had it too, didn't you. Look, do you have any idea what the hell's going on? Last -I- knew I wasn't a telepath so either you've got some mental trick up your sleeve, or..." Or -what?- She doesn't have a clue! This is all just way too surreal. "It's -- not short for blue --" The furrow of B's brow looks a little /perplexed/. Maybe this is actually the first time ze has considered this connection. "Just B." Ze digs in the backpack again, this time pulling out a Tupperware -- not bulgogi. Alas. Thick soft-rice-paper wrapped spring rolls, loaded heavily with pork and then a much smaller smattering of rice noodles, veggies, basil, cilantro, mint. A small tub of dipping sauce. Ze plucks one up for hirself in sharp (brightly chromed-tipped) black claws, offering the box out to Domino after this. "Not a telepath," she assures the other mutant. "Just blue. And fishy." Her brows furrow slightly, eyes slipping back over towards hir friends -- though still skating they're making not much of a secret of sending glances towards the pair at regular intervals. Perhaps kind of used to Trouble cropping up when out in public. B eating spring rolls doesn't seem like a particularly /threatened/ B, though. So their skating continues. "It sounds kind of crazy I know but. I think that's the future. I mean like the /actual/ future. We're not the only ones. A /lot/ of people have been having these -- dreams." Domino's well past the time where she could turn around and walk away. With B already sitting down, and offering spring rolls, the albino gives in and takes a seat. And a spring roll. Sure, let's keep things friendly. "If that's the future then I'm moving to Europe," she thinks aloud while leaning forward to prop elbows onto knees. It's followed with a side-long glance, asking "You're aware of other people experiencing this, then? Is there some sort of support group for collective chronological dreaming?" And if that really is the future, where this city's heading... She'd better not accept any job offers from Stark Industries, that's for damn sure. "I don't actually work for Stark," she finally confirms. "I've only been in the city for a few days. They never mentioned anything quite as trippy as this in the brochure. There's gotta be something more to it. A cry of help from a precog or something, I don't know. Or maybe someone's having themselves a grand ol' laugh at all of our expense." Wait. 'I've never seen you there.' Sooo... "-You- work for Stark? He was there. In the ..dream..thing," she says with a confused motion of her hand. "Hell, maybe we should hit him up for some ideas on what's happening." "That's the future. As far as we can tell. About five years? Or so?" B shrugs a shoulder a little uncomfortably. She dips her spring roll into the sauce, takes a large bite, chews over her mouthful of mostly-pork while she considers her next words. "I work for Stark but! But not like /that/, I'm a researcher. I wear a lab coat and write a lot of code. The only time things explode is in really controlled situations and we all groan and go back to our computers to fix it. That -- isn't how the world is supposed to..." She trails off, looking down at her food. Then up at Domino. "I mean, who /are/ you? Why /would/ you be working for Stark? I don't -- think there's a support group but. I know someone who..." For a moment her teeth press down against her lower lip. Trailing off again. She offers Domino a crooked smile instead. "I hear the Netherlands isn't a terrible place to be for us?" "Must be a real riot," Domino deadpans while thinking of things blowing up at Stark Industries. Like a grenade which she's apparently going to stick to the ceiling sometime in about five years. Hey, at least now they should all know to hide the Scotch somewhere else! Silver linings. When B asks who she is it only then comes to mind that the albino had never been introduced by name. Not even in the dream. She tends to gloss over that whole small-talk thing, it's hardly anything new. "Domino," she replies. As if her name isn't any more strange than 'B.' "I've been known to work in the private security sector at times." Pausing then shrugging, she says "In this future the machines didn't seem to care about him any. Self-preservation might have had something to do with it. I mean, I don't know the guy outside of the media and the dream." Netherlands... "I hear it's really pretty out there," she replies with a thin black-lipped smirk. "In the future they're hunting down mutants. There's camps -- they put us all in. /All/ of us. He's human, they wouldn't care about him -- but us." B nibbles another strip of pork out of hir spring roll. "... its not a great future." Hir eyes drift back to where the others are skating. Hir feet bounce restlessly against hir hoverboard. "And as far as we can tell people are sending us these dreams because they want us to stop it. From happening. The camps and the robots and all of it. It's just -- all kind of nuts. Who do you go to with something like that? Like, what, tell the police, the politicians? They'd probably just speed it all up like man, wish we'd thought of rounding them up /sooner/." Hir foot is tapping faster against the board. "... private security." Thoughtful. "Are you any good?" Hunting mutants, camps, large flying machines... Could this be why it had felt like Domino had lost her nerve during the dream? What could have possibly happened to have her be so rattled..? "Pretty flippin' awful, really," she softly agrees. So what can they do to prevent it? "All I could suggest would be to round everyone together. Those of us sharing the dream, not..all of the mutants," she clarifies. "Who knows if it's going to be one major event or a slow progression toward it all? If I had the slightest idea of what I could do..." Or who she could kill to shift things in their favor... Another wad of spring roll disappears as Dom looks down at B's feet. "Are you restless or am I making you that nervous?" she asks next with a smirk. Then she answers B's next question, dipping her head in something of a nod. "Good enough to stay on top of the game, apparently. Why, is someone trying to rip off your hoverboard design?" Because she knows a few solutions to that kind of problem! "Well. Sitting here talking with someone who I only met in a -- dream of this terrible future where my whole family is dead and murderbots want to kill me it's. Just /strange/, you know? I think I'm. Little -- jittery?" B chomps down another bite of spring roll and presses hir other hand to hir knees. The restless bouncing calms -- somewhat. Just a little. "/I/ don't need security. I just. All this stuff going on, there's. There's kind of a -- team being put together? People trying to -- work with all this dream stuff. Figure it out -- stop it. And I -- if you're good. I'm sure they could -- maybe they could use the help." The hairless ridges of hir eyebrows crease inwards. "I mean, unless you really want murderbots. Or the Netherlands, I guess." "Sure beats bumping shoulders at a Starbucks though, doesn't it?" Domino asks with the first good-natured smile she's yet shown, as crooked as it happens to be. "I might be a little jittery too if I had the slightest idea of how I -should- be reacting to all of this. I just..don't have all of the variables yet. 'Does not compute.'" News of a team already coming together is as much of a surprise as it is a feeling of reassurance. There -are- more people experiencing this twisted phenomenon, and they're already banding together because of it. Now, normally she wouldn't be so interested. 'What's the payout? Nothing? Yeah, see ya never.' But... It's just... -Murderbots.- Maybe she can try to figure out what might be happening to her by hanging out with these guys, too. The remainder of her first spring roll disappears in a hurry, having taken her time with it up until this point. Her hands come together beneath her nose, thumbs hooking under her chin as she considers her options. "Definitely no murderbots," she eventually agrees. "Alright... You know where to find this crew? I can help back 'em. The Netherlands can wait their damn turn." B polishes off the remainder of her spring roll, too, licking her fingers clean after. "Starbucks doesn't tend to let me in. I usually caffeinate at Evolve." She digs a phone out of her pocket, finger swiping against its screen to wake it up. "You have a number? Email? I can get you in touch. I don't know -- when there's like. /Meetings/ or -- whatever. This is all... sort of. New territory." Her nose wrinkles up again. "For everyone, really." "Fair enough," Domino agrees while retrieving her own phone for ye olde number swappe. "'Evolve,' huh. Catchy. I may have to check that out sometime." Granted she may not have gills or pieces of bone jutting out of herself but she's still got just enough going on to risk making the normals uneasy. "Though, hey. Whatever. If there's a thing going down then let me know when and where to find you kids. That scary dark future won't know what hit it," she states with a grin. "Thanks for the roll." B lifts her phone in a small salute to Domino. "I hope so," is all she offers. Back to kind of timid, again, though her smile is a little less hesitant. "See-ya." Her chin tips up in a nod, and she tucks the rest of her spring rolls away, hopping back onto her board to join her friends again.