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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Well, the place didn't smell, his feet weren't sticking to the ground every step or two, and Atton hadn't been shaken down by a nasty-faced Exchange member in the last... oh, two hours.

Yeah, this had been a good choice. All he really needed now was a place that served juma juice and somewhere to rest his head, and he'd be golden.

Atton draped himself over the seat and waited. He was in no rush, thanks. A little tired, but he could be doing a whole lot worse.

He reached into his luggage and got out a couple of pazaak cards. That was the third thing that was missing - a few good games and a few good suckers to take credits from.

"Hey," Victor said, once he'd watched Atton fooling with the cards for long enough to realize he didn't know what they were. "Sorry to bug you, but what game's that?"

"Pazaak," Atton said, looking up from his cards to size up the new guy. Sedately.

Switch the face of the +3/-3 card, the totals are...

"The number one way to pass the time while you're waiting around wasting it."

Edited 2012-05-04 20:38 (UTC)

"I don't know it," Victor said, frowning just a little because he honestly thought Molly had taught him every board and card game known to man. "Is it like solitaire, or can you show me?"

Atton made a good show of eyeing him up. "Eh, sure, I'll show you," he said, tossing his cards on the little table-thing to his side. He picked up one and held it up. It had the number six imprinted on it. "It's simple, really. The goal is to get a total of twenty before the other guy does."

"Like blackjack but no dealer," Victor summarized. "Cool. And then if you go over 20, you lose?"

"Pretty much," Atton agreed easily. "You pick a main deck of ten cards, you draw four cards, which you can put into play whenever you think you need the edge."

He put down the card. "First person to get three wins, wins the game."

"We still have some time to kill," Victor decided, sitting down. "May as well spend it on a game, right? Hey. I'm Victor."

"I'm Atton," Atton said. Gotten used to saying that, so that was fine. "And sure. We'll play Republic Senate rules the first couple of rounds until you get the hang of it."

Hey, he was fair. Sort of.

Victor eyed him. "I don't know what Republic Senate is," he said. "Is that code for 'little guy loses his shirt'?"

"Nah, you can keep your shirt on," Atton said, stacking his cards. "'Republic Senate' is a nice way of saying 'wasting our time swapping cards back and forth without any credits involved, so everybody loses and nobody wins'."

Sia had reason enough to be a little paranoid, coming from where she was, so when she sensed another Force sensitive person around, she kept her distance but still watched him just in case. At least he didn't seem like a threat.

...the total is eleven-thirteen...

Atton'd noticed her looking. He'd have been stupid if he hadn't. But he still waited a couple of minutes before he bothered to respond to it. "Hey," he called. "I'm guessing you're Fandom-bound too. That, or you just really like my haircut."

"The first thing," she answered. No offense to his haircut. "What's your name?"

...put the +2 card into play...

"I'm Atton," he answered.

Bald-faced lie. From a certain point of view. His own point of view was that he was Atton and Atton was him, so there wasn't a damn reason to call it a lie.

"For whatever that's worth. I might as well be calling myself 'lost kid number twelve' right now. How about you?"

His instincts said there was something about her.

If he did in some way know of her, he wouldn't need to ask, she figured. "Marasiah," she answered, and looked for any sign of recognition at the name.

She had a funny way of saying it. "Hey, Marasiah," Atton said. "Here's a tip - try not introducing yourself to the next guy by staring. For a minute there, I thought you were planning to take my wallet or something."

"Thieves aren't generally as obvious as I was," she pointed out. "At least, not the successful ones."

"Exactly," Atton replied. "So stop acting like an unsuccessful thief. It's going to throw people off."

"I'm so glad I have you to advise me on matters like these," she said, so evenly she might have sounded serious.

"I try to do my part to make life a little easier."

Same here.

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

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