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

Entry tags:

!event: newbie shuttle

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The portal thing alone was enough to convince Peeta that not everything about this school was what it seemed, but standing around waiting for the shuttle cemented it. The kids milling around didn't seem to be worried about whether or not this whole thing was a Capitol trick so Peeta let himself relax a little and took to people watching.

He'd take to being more sociable once he got a hold of his bearings.

Oh look, another person who was preferring to watch from the sidelines. Was it weird that made him more approachable to Karolina?

"Hey," she said with a little wave and an equally small, friendly smile. "Going to Fandom?"

Peeta nodded. "Sure am. You don't happen to, uh, know anything about the place do you?"

"It has a boarding school?" Karolina offered, smile bordering on sheepish. "Other than that, not a whole lot."

Well, except that it was supposed to cater to... people like her. But that didn't feel like something to bring up.

"I'm going to guess you don't, either."

"Not a clue," Peeta said, shaking his head. "I'll just be thankful if it's not some sort of death trap."

Despite the truth to that statement he seemed pretty damn cheerful.

And Karolina was pretty sure Captain America wouldn't sanction sending her off to a place likely to be a death trap. Pretty sure.

She smiled. "It's probably not that. I mean, how bad can a school be?"

Oh, Kar.

"True," Peeta allowed. "But you gotta admit, a school would be a good cover for something nefarious."

"Also true, but I hope that's not gonna happen. I mean, uh, it would still be unexpected."

She really, really hoped so. She ended up fiddling selfconsciously with her bracelet, but then she'd been doing that a lot since she'd left LA anyway.

"I'm Karolina, by the way. Hi."

"Hi, I'm Peeta," he said, giving Karolina a friendly smile. "Where are you from?"

Certainly not District 12, he knew that.

"Los Angeles," Karolina replied, with a somewhat wry expression of 'yes, I know I'm a long way from home', which... wasn't going to help here, but she didn't know that. "You?"

Edited 2012-05-04 23:22 (UTC)

If Peeta looked like he had been thrown for a loop it wasn't because of the question. It's just he had never heard of Los Angeles before in his life. "I'm from District 12."

Maybe Los Angeles was a nickname for someplace in one of the Districts, like the Seam.

Karolina would've looked curious about why someone would sound like there was something weird about LA (well, weirder than usual), but she was busy tilting her head and looking mildly confused about where he was from.

"Oh. Where's that?"

She was also assuming it was maybe a nickname for some other place.

"It's on the outskirts of Panem," Peeta answered, finding it strange that someone wouldn't recognize one of the Districts. There were only twelve, after all. "I gotta admit I'm not sure where Los Angeles is either."

Mostly because it was underwater during his time.

"Panem?" Karolina repeated, latching onto that first. "Is that... somewhere in the midwest?"

You know, in the bits she'd never paid that much attention to.

Also, um. "Wait, how do you not know where LA is?"

"I'm kind of wondering how you don't know where Panem is." Considering they were standing in it. Or were they? "...I'm confused."

Probably went without saying.

Karolina frowned. "Me too." Yeah, it probably would have gone without saying. "Really, Los Angeles, doesn't ring any bells? East coast, entertainment capital of the world?"

Wow. It was almost as if the world didn't revolve around LA after all! Maybe they just were that self-centered.

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

district12baker.livejournal.com - 2012-05-05 00:09 (UTC) - Expand

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

solarhippie - 2012-05-05 00:25 (UTC) - Expand

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

district12baker.livejournal.com - 2012-05-05 00:28 (UTC) - Expand

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

solarhippie - 2012-05-05 00:30 (UTC) - Expand

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

district12baker.livejournal.com - 2012-05-05 00:33 (UTC) - Expand

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

solarhippie - 2012-05-05 00:47 (UTC) - Expand

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

district12baker.livejournal.com - 2012-05-05 00:51 (UTC) - Expand

"I am about ready to get to campus," Victor observed in passing. "We've been here way too long."

It hadn't been that long, really. Victor was just jumpy.

"Have we?" Peeta asked. "I guess I didn't notice. There's a lot going on here."

He was the type of person to find enjoyment anywhere he went so he thought waiting around the airport was almost fun.

"Really?" Victor looked genuinely surprised. "I thought there'd be more .... machines, I guess, and people being all crazy busy, but this is mostly just chairs and boring shops. Maybe I'm looking for the wrong thing."

"Well the people are interesting," Peeta pointed out. "It's kind of fun to see how everyone is handling this whole boarding school thing."

"I get the idea it's not exactly old news for most of us," Victor nodded. "I'm okay with the school part, but being away from home's gonna be weird."

"Weird and exciting." Of course Peeta would have done just about anything to see places outside of District 12. "This whole place is kind of mysterious, isn't it? The brochure seemed purposefully vague."

"I maybe got a different one," Victor said. "Mine made it sound like it was about using powers and stuff. Kind of weird it doesn't really say who's behind it, though. My friends still sort of think it's a trap."

"My family thinks it's a trap as well," Peeta said, glad he wasn't the only person to have run head first into this after being warned against it. "Though, yes, I think our brochures were different. Mine didn't say anything about powers."

He wasn't even quite sure what using powers meant. Unless it was some kind of metaphorical thing.

Victor shrugged a little. "Maybe they know their audience?" he said, wondering if that had been a dumb thing to mention.

Though the guy didn't seem hostile.

"How come your folks think it's a trap? My friends basically just thoguht it was too good to be true.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only