fandomhigh | Tricks, Cons and Bamboozles | Wednesday

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tricks & cons

Tricks, Cons and Bamboozles | Wednesday | Period 1

Today, students had been ~~handwavily~~ told to meet in the Danger Shop, which was programmed on this fine morning to resemble a busy transit hub that students might recognize as Grand Central Station. Although they would learn that it was actually set up to resemble most of Upper Manhattan.

Stationed toward the middle of the chaos near a circular booth, Neal was holding a paper bag full of bagels, which he was handing out to students as they arrived. He could be generous! Sometimes. Though he wasn't handing out coffee. That stuff was all his.

"Welcome to Grand Central Station," he said once everyone had arrived. "This is the largest¹ train station in the world, and over 750,000² people pass through it on a daily basis. Suffice it to say that it's not exactly the kind of place that's convenient for making a quick getaway."

Since he assumed that his students would be having need of that, possibly within the first two minutes of class. (Put that commuter's wallet down, Kenzi! Or keep it and share. Whatever.)

"Today we're going to work on a couple of things," he said, then enjoyed a sip of that amazing, amazing coffee that he wasn't sharing with any of you. "One: Finding your way around. Nothing's more embarrassing than trying to make a quick exit down the wrong hallway." If that had ever happened to him, he wasn't sharing. "Two: Actually getting around, which is harder than it sounds in a place this crowded. And three: Getting things cheaper than they're being sold for."

That one wasn't getting elaborated, apparently. It was pretty much self-explanatory.

"So here's what you're gonna do," Neal continued. "You can each have five dollars." Look, five magical Danger Shop dollars! "With that, you have to get: a roundtrip Metro-North peak-hours ticket to Poughkeepsie, a good slice of pizza -- which my illustrious TA and I will be verifying, a picture of you doing something unlawful, and something from a store in the station that doesn't have a heart or an apple on it."

That might just be the hardest challenge of all.

"And then you can take the subway to L'Arte Del Gelato and meet me there in an hour."

That was all the way crosstown. Not to mention Neal had intentionally neglected to give street coordinates.

"Good luck!"

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Ping me in the OOC thread if you want an NPC! Otherwise you're free to mod away!

The Metro-North ticket costs $42, pizza should probably be about $6, and good luck with finding something without a heart or an apple on it. Psh. And the meet-up place he named has three NYC locations, and he's going to be at the Chelsea one. Neal's mean.

Edited 2011-09-21 04:12 (UTC)

Kenzi had a plan. And she was hoping for a confederate. She needed a confederate, or a way to swipe a ticket, and that would be meaner than conning one out of the ticket counter.

"Want my bagel?"

That whole vampire thing meant no food.

"Or a partner?"

She could play nice, after all.

"Yes and sure!" Kenzi grinned at Alice, always a fan of food, and asked, "How are you at swiping things? And how are you at crying on cue?"

"Well... I have really, really good reflexes and I'm really fast, so I could probably swipe," Alice said. "And I'm not so good at crying on cue but I can look really tiny and adorable and pathetic. Does that help?"

"Yup!" Kenzi grinned, and nodded carefully over at the ticket counter where the Poughkeepsie tickets were being sold. "We go up there, and I explain in bad English that our tickets were stolen. Pretend you don't know English. They won't give them to us, I would guess-- there's good, and there's policy. But I'll make a big scene at a point where someone else's ticket hasn't been handed over yet, and you grab it. Works?"

"It's a plan." Alice grinned. "Let's do this."

Kenzi beamed, then sobered down to Very Serious and Worried. She headed for the ticket counter, shooting Alice sad glances all the while, and said in her best Latvian accent, "Pliss, we have problem? We need, talk to someone?"

The ticket seller looked wary, but concerned. "What seems to be the problem?"

"We have our tickets stolen! Our purses, them too!" Kenzi sniffled, and looked up at him from big sad eyes. "Please, help!"

Alice just stood there, looking confused and sad and very, very tiny and fragile.

Look, she was barely five feet in shoes with heels. She rocked tiny and fragile.

She tugged at Kenzi's sleeve and pouted.

Kenzi looked a question at her, then said in Latvian, "//What is it, sweetheart? Is something else wrong?//" Trusting that Alice would figure out a way to make herself understood even if she didn't know another language to fake. She rubbed at her eyes and tried to be Brave.

Alice might not've known another language to fake, but she did know how to look even more small and pathetic and confused.

With a few hand gestures, she managed to convey a general sense of "We're going to be late!"

"I know!" Kenzi said, and tears leaked out, before she turned back to the slightly more believing ticket counter guy now. "I sorry, is INS, we have meeting..."

A couple people in line were watching her with interest and sympathy, a couple others were looking at their watches. Kenzi threw herself at the counter, trying to draw all the attention to herself, gesturing widely as one of the ticketers printed out a ticket for someone. "You no understand! We no make it there, we deported! We no want to deport! We love America!" A sob. Kenzi turned to one of the other people in line. "You love America, yes? Yes?" Hanging onto him so he couldn't get closer to the counter.

Alice waited until Kenzi was hanging onto the other guy something fierce and the ticketers were staring at Kenzi in sympathy or horror of any other reaction that was just starting at Kenzi and not Alice.

And that would be Alice's hand snaking out to steal the freshly-printed ticket.

And also wondering if security footage of this would count as a picture of doing something unlawful.

Probably! Although how to get it...

Kenzi pulled away and burst into fresh tears as a security guard came closer. "We saved! Alitzia, little one, we saved! He come to take us on the train!"

The security guard looked somewhat alarmed. "Ma'am, no, someone said your things were stolen, I'm here to look into that."

"Ohhhh." Kenzi wiped at her eyes, walking away so he couldn't see her and Alice at the same time. "You find the bad men, get our purses? Yes?" hmm. Would stealing his baton work? Probably.

Alice sneakily folded the ticket and stuck it in her bra. Ha, let's seem them go after it there if they realize it was stolen!

She watched Kenzi with confused interest. "Help?" Said in the tone of someone mimicking a word they didn't actually understand.

"Help, yes," Kenzi said, patting her arm and grinning where the station cop couldn't see. "Alitzia, her English, not so good, so I tell you what happened..."

She then launched into an off-the-cuff explanation of how two big boys came along and swiped their bags-- "With our papers! We need zose!" -- along with descriptions, and then suddenly stopped, eyes wide. "There! There! Alitizia, that is them, no?" she said excitedly, pointing to two guys who looked like they were going to jump a turnstile.

Alice nodded excitedly. "Yes, yes! Them!" There was pointing here as well.

This was actually kind of fun, really.

"Hey, you," the cop called. The two boys froze, then took off, and Kenzi bounced up and down.

"Get zem! Get zem! Go go--" She hardly needed to tell him. People ran, cops chased.

Kenzi coughed to cover a laugh, then carefully started walking in the exit for another platform. No need to look suspicious yet. "Verrrrry nice, Alitzia."

Alice stifled a grin. "What can I say, I try."

Kenzi chortled. "And succeed! Pizza's on me, if you want to sit that one out. I think I have a semi-legal way to get it, too."

"Ooh. Semi-legal is good -- just to mix it up and all."

Bart was still looking around, kinda flabbergasted at the building he was in when Neal finished explaining the assignment. This was school, and it was like those old VR games, so it wasn't really stealing, right?

He looked concerned and a little overwhelmed at the giant station. Then he looked at the other people in the class, helplessly. Getting around fast would be easy. It's knowing what to do and where to go that's hard.

He chomped on his bagel and looked at the people around him, with a slight amount of panic in his eyes.

Though he probably wouldn't have done it out in the real world, seven years worth of pitying or sidelong looks from strangers meant Lex didn't exactly feel bad about taking advantage of fake people's assumptions about why he was bald in order to complete the assignment.

He paid for the pack of non-apple flavoured gum out of his original five dollars though.

Jack was frowning. He knew it was a simulation but the whole pulling off illegal things was not his style.

Plus he had no idea that his PDA could take pictures.

Miley? Was calling Roxy. Like, right now.

It was only when Roxy, in a fit of frantic energy, discovered that the Poughkeepsie service was down back in her home dimension that Miley realized she was going to have to do this for real.

Dangflabbit.

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