Logs:Of Drinks and Dimensions (Or, X-Kid Clown Car)

Of Drinks and Dimensions (Or, X-Kid Clown Car)
Dramatis Personae Asva, Kavalam, Roscoe	2023-06-13 "You telling me Lassiter is mutant-proofed? Lassiter?"
Location <PRO> Cafeteria E 16 & Commissary E 17, Lassiter Research Facility - Ohio
The cafeteria is single the largest room in this wing, tiled with the same multi-gray linoleum throughout, its walls clean but bare of any decoration or relief for the eyes. The floor space is mostly taken up by rectangular tables with attached if often creaky bench seating, with a long stainless steel counter at one end serving up bland, often overcooked, but reasonably nutritious food day in and day out. It's noisy and crowded here at mealtimes, but no so much that it's impossible to have a table to yourself. Or be exiled to your own table. Adjoining the cafeteria but still accessible from its own entrance in the hallway is the much smaller commissary. It's an awkward room divided by an L-shaped counter, behind which are rows and rows of shelves holding labelled bins. Basic hygiene items can be requisitioned here for free, but everything else, from personal care products to snacks and beverages, must be purchased. Given the limited options in paying work details, purchased commissary items are coveted luxuries. Among these luxuries is a rather Child-Like carton of chocolate milk, poorly concealed in Asva’s baggy sleeve as he takes intermittent sips from the Very Obvious straw (which sticks out of a thumb hole in his hoodie that he made yesterday, and Totally defeats the point of trying to hide it at all). He knows that the drink is perfectly allowed here, bought with Gaé’s Nepofunds and permission, but with recent events still hanging in the air of the Cafeteria, Caution is currently his best friend. In a close second to Caution, however, is Not Being Alone whenever he can help it. He’s not been the most sociable newbie so far, chatting to those he came here with almost exclusively, so in an effort to change that he beelines for a table housing a couple of kids he has yet to meet. “Mind if I sit?” Roscoe is done eating, his empty tray pushed to one side to allow him more table real estate to hunch over on his elbows, very seriously and importantly. He pauses his story to flick a sideways look at Asva, sizing him up, his eyes narrowed, then sits up and slides his empty tray back in front of him to clear up the spot next to him at the table: "Knock yourself out." Now that he's abandoned his serious and important posture, he doesn't seem interested in resuming the serious or important tone -- he finishes the story he was telling with, "Anyway, he didn't tell anyone where he hid it before he got transferred out, then the guards found it like a week later and put everyone on lockdown." Among the unfamiliar faces, a for-the-moment familiar one: has Kavalam even been eating? He has no tray, whether he already finished his meal or hasn't actually bothered with one. What he does have is a mostly-empty bottle of commissary cranberry juice and a single plastic spoon, his finger resting in its bowl as he spins it lazily against the tabletop. "A terrible waste," he opines ruefully at Roscoe's story, "if they ever remember to get rid of me I promise you I will let you know first where all our -- hello." Whatever juicy contraband he's promising Roscoe is forgotten as he blinks up owlishly at Asva. "If anyone tries to steal that from you," he's advising Asva, looking toward the not-very-well-hidden chocolate milk, "just say Beau's name three times in the mirror. I think we have at least another solid week to milk that before he will need to slay one other giant." “Duly noted,” His smile is warm but slightly withheld, the rest of him now straddling the bench next to Roscoe. “Beau’s… kinda scary when he wants to be, huh.” His tone is complimentary, directing his response first to Kavalam with a raised brow, then shifting his attention more to the unfamiliar face beside him. Another sip from his Chocco Sleeve. “I’m Asva, it’s Roscoe, right?” "Yup, that's me." Roscoe folds his hands under his chin, tilting his head sideways to regard Asva curiously. "You come in with Kavalam, too?" It's not posed entirely like a question -- he's already looking at Kavalam for confirmation. "You guys are like a clown car. How many more of you are there?" "Beau has always been kind of scary. It comes with being a seven foot tall white man who can crush your skull with his hands." Kavalam's tone is not complimentary. Not particularly critical, either, a bland matter-of-fact. "How have you not met? Roscoe has been a very helpful Lassiter tour guide. When I ask for a refund for this vacation I will make sure to let the manager know -- not any fault of his." His lips purse at the question of their numbers, and for just a second his shoulders sag before he replies lightly: "More daily. Spencer has been recruiting. Asva here was a day-one for this gang, though. In his normal life he is also a ghost. More classically ghost than me. Roscoe," he's explaining to Asva in turn, "sees everything." "Five stars, really. We haven't spoken just the two of us but you've come up a lot in conversation - nine times out of ten its been positive." The intonation in his accent seems to make the sarcasm easier to point out, but just in case, "I'm only joking." Asva finally removes the chocolate milk from his sleeve at the mention of Roscoe's all-seeing abilities, takes one last sip and scrunches the cardboard in his hand. "Everything? Even invisible things? I wonder why they haven't shoved us together in testing yet. Now that would be interesting, though I'm not sure if invisible is actually what I can do after all." A beat, "Still, that sounds incredibly useful, outside of mutant jail of course. How have you been faring in testing Kavalam?" Roscoe squints at Asva as if he can test his ability to see invisible things right now, though neither of them have use of their powers. "Not everything," is his very succinct answer. Even more succinctly, his mouth pulls silently to one side, but he doesn't dispute his usefulness verbally, just seizes on the new topic, raises his eyebrows with amusement at Kavalam. "Yeah, how have you been faring in testing?" "Roscoe sees everything that matters," Kavalam corrects himself breezily. "Some people they don't even know what to be looking for." His lips twitch at Asva's question and his eyebrows are raising right back. "Oh, testing's been deadly, ya? I am doing so well they have full-forgotten to put me on the schedule entirely." He is narrowing his eyes as he searches the other X-Kid's expression. "What do you mean not what you do? I have seen -- or. Not seen. You turn invisible." “In the sense that I disappear from view yes, but get this-“ He swings his leg over the bench so that he’s sitting ‘properly’ now, “They hooked me up to all sorts of do-hickeys and I think they brought a telepath in,” He turns his attention to Roscoe as if he can confirm, “least that’s what I assumed - she was making very strange faces at me - but they couldn’t find me in the room with them. I wasn’t detectable, like… at all. Apparently my Ghostwalking is inter-dimensional.” He says this with an increasing excitement, one which far outweighs his disinterest in the finer details of how exactly they found this out. “I’ve been wracking my brain to see how to use it out advantage in here but it feels like they’re always one step ahead.” Roscoe's practiced disinterest -- eyes half-closed, chin on his hands -- freezes on his face, a little too disinterested now to be genuine, as he listens. "Huh," he says. "You raid kids and your other dimensions. I wonder if I could see you. We probably won't find out, you know, just 'cause I can see everything don't mean they want me looking." He folds his arms on the table, grinning -- "You telling me Lassiter is mutant-proofed? Lassiter?" "You are in a whole other dimension? How do they stop you then from --" Kavalam's first two fingers make a little walking-motion, off into the distant air. "Spencer and Sriyani they seem to have under some kind of no-teleporting-out-of-here compulsion. Very creepy. I am taking good notes for just in case you all ever turn evil some day." Though now it's Roscoe he's looking at and not Asva, a pensive frown knitting his brows. "Lassiter is mostly mutant proofed," his voice is still casual, though it's dropped a fair bit quieter. "They have not catch me sneaking out yet to wander the halls. Unfortunately," his sigh here is a little exaggerated, "the doors out are still very locked past here. Probably a tour guide would help." “Compulsion… that’s probably it for me too. We got a few escape artists among us so I guess they had to keep us here somehow.” Asva shivers at the thought of his free-will being influenced like that, before dropping his tone to match Kavalam’s, “Is it a keycard situation? Or have they got some kind of scanner that zaps your eyeball?” Even with everyone's voices lowered, Roscoe doesn't seem too thrilled to be talking about escape at dinner -- his eyes dart anxiously around, though he maintains his same bored slouch, before fixing back on Asva, narrowed with amusement. "Bro, you can walk through dimensions. Forget about the keycard and start worrying about dying of exposure in Appalachia. But --" he shrugs. "If the teep couldn't track you or control you, fat chance they let you use your power again." Kavalam sips at his juice, eyes flicking across to some of his Xavier's compatriots at a nearby table. "Hnn." He's looking back to Asva, and then down to the table. "Maybe they just control you differently next time." He sounds pretty blase about this as he finishes up his drink. "They do plan around many-many things. Hard," he sounds just slightly distracted here, "to blindside them." He's rolling himself up out of his seat kind of lazily, screwing the top back on the empty juice bottle. "I am going to steal some ramen," he's informing Roscoe of this as if he has some say over his roommate's cache. "I don't know why you don't just bully Gaétan into giving you better food than --" He's glancing at a nearby tray with a very dubious expression. “Think they mentioned someone who can travel dimensionally, that’s probably how they’ll still get to Mad Science me.” A puzzled expression finds its way to his face as he fights the urge to further plan their escape, noticing how it seems to make Roscoe uncomfortable. “Ugh ramen…” Asva exclaims breathily, placing his head in his hands, “The things I would do to have ramen in here…” Roscoe's expression lifts out of its vague uneasiness when he rolls his eyes; he pulls his spine straighter as Kavalam gets to his feet. "Sure, yeah, go right ahead, that's only my bedroom where I keep everything I own. Here at Lassiter we're actually super chill about our personal space and privacy." His gaze flits questioningly at Asva beside him -- "Go with Kavalam and steal some, then. Sheesh." "That's why I am telling it to you now," Kavalam tells Roscoe magnanimously. "I thought if you want to fight me you should have a chance." Though he's reconsidering this straight away as he starts to amble away from the table, adding instead: "Wait, no. Fight Asva instead, he is more buff. If you lose," he calls over his shoulder, "in consolation I will give you a ramen."