fandomhigh | Newbie Shuttle, Portalocity Terminal, BWI (Saturday Morning Fandom Time)

After everyone was done shouting at and/or hugging him to say goodbye – and there had been a lot of both –Victor Mancha had two choices in getting from Los Angeles to BWI. The first was taking a commercial flight, which would have been reassuringly normal.

The problem was that, even if he somehow got past the metal detectors, he suspected his circuitry might count as the kind of portable electronic device that wasn’t very takeoff-and-landing-friendly. He didn’t exactly have an easy off switch, and crashing a plane by mistake seemed like a big step towards super-villainhood.

Which meant he got to the Baltimore airport via portal. He’d never been through one before so he didn’t have much to go by, but it seemed like a nice portal: If nothing else, it smelled far better than Cloak’s ... cloak had. Victor was grateful to know that hadn’t been the state-of-the-art in teleporting.

And now he was on the East Coast other than New York for the first time. Once he’d exhausted the little potential for exploration the terminal had, he sat in a semi-comfortable airport chair, suitcase at his feet, and tried to break the Tetris high score on his phone while keeping watch for any other kids.

[OOC: Operation newbies: Go! I will be slow for a few hours after 5:30 EST, but otherwise around all night.]

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"Freshman, yeah," Frank confirmed. He fumbled a little for something to say, because conversations were hard, and then finally thought of what his father would do in a situation and stuck out his hand. "I'm Frank Abagnale. From New York. How about you?"

Victor took the hand and shook it. A little formal, sure, but he doubted anybody was at their most low-key right now.

"Victor Mancha," he supplied. "From L.A., but I was in New York couple days ago. You, uh ... doing okay?"

There really wasn't a good way to ask someone how he'd gotten through an alien invasion, was there?

Uh?

"Yeah, sure," Frank said, wondering if it was that obvious that he was a little nervous. "I mean, it's not like I'm on the other side of the country or anything." Look at him, totally not getting the point of the question. How cute. "Wow, L.A., though. Have you ever seen Bettie Page? That girl is righteous."

"... the old pin-up model?"

That was a really weird question.

"Yeah, on TV and stuff. You're into her?"

"She's not old," Frank defended. "She's like twenty-something. I mean, compared to us, sure, but..."

Weiiiiiiiiird.

"I guess she's not getting older in the pictures, sure," Victor said, trying to be agreeable. "How do you feel about Scarlett Johanssen?"

...

"Who?"

Cute name, but...

"You know, from that new superhero movie," Victor said. "I like redheads."

Girls: the universal language.

"I'll have to check it out," Frank decided. "I haven't seen a flick in a while. And redheads are always great."

Dorks, the both of them.

You should. I downloaded it but my connection was crap, plus it's a cell phone video anyhow," Victor said. "I might have to actually pay."

...

"You whatted it?"

"Look, it's not really breaking the law," Victor said defensively. "They basically expect us to do it, if they didn't they'd put up some kind of firewall. Promise, it's not a big deal."

He might have misunderstood the question a little.

Frank tried to decipher that.

Yeah, it wasn't happening.

"How does that, like, work, exactly?" he tried. "The... downloading."

"I just use torrent," Victor shrugged. "And then I run anti-virus programs like crazy. Not really a computer guy?"

"I don't even know what that means," Frank admitted. "You're not seriously saying you have your own computer, are you?"

Not so common on the late '50s, apparently. ~~This revelation brought to you by a really surprising round of Googling.~~

"Yeah," Victor said, tapping his laptop bag. "Past due for an upgrade, but yeah. Is that weird in New York?"

He was starting to wonder if Frank was Amish or something.

"Totally, uh, weird," Frank confirmed. "I mean, I've read about them, but I've never heard of people just having them in their houses. Except in crazy futuristic sci-fi movies."

Definitely Amish. Or else...

"Hey, man, not to sound weird, but -- what year do you think this is?"

Frank blinked. "1959," he said, with a tone of 'well isn't it obvious?' "Why?"

"Because I'm pretty sure it's 2012," Victor said awkwardly. "Uh. Sorry?"

...huh.

"Wait, really?" Because whoa. "That would explain all the... other-planet people." Beat. "And that."

He pointed up at a pretty high-tech airport screen.

"Probably, yeah," Victor said, pleased he hadn't freaked the guy out. "Wait, there are other planet people here?"

He doubted Karolina had shared quite this publicly, but maybe somebody else was on the alien and proud bandwagon.

"Yep," Frank reported, nodding first toward Atton and then over to Sia. "Him and her. Which is awesome, because back home they're sending ships into space, like, now, but I don't think they've found actual people yet. Kind of cool to know they eventually will, you know?"

"When they aren't evil and trying to take over, yeah," Victor nodded. "But that hardly ever happens."

"...is that a common thing in 2012?" Look, it had to be asked.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

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