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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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.

"Nope, no bell ringing," Peeta said with a shake of his head. "Sounds nice though, what with the entertaining and everything."

Considering he came in through a portal you'd think he'd be more open to the idea of different worlds but it hadn't come to him yet.

"That's... odd." There was some hesitation there, because it felt rude to tell someone they were weird for not knowing the city she was from.

Some more hesitation and some worrying of her lip, and she asked, "You're not, uh, from some other planet or anything, are you?"

No reason.

"I...don't think so," Peeta said slowly. "This is Earth, right?"

"Yeah." Which made the question feel a little embarrassing to her now, but... Too late to take it back. Best to press past that. "Well, then I'm stumped."

"Me too," he said. "Well we're going to the same place, that's what's important. We're in this together now."

"Guess so," Karolina agreed with a little smile. And this place confusion would clear itself up at some point. Probably.

Or possibly just get buried under some far more pressing confusing things. Either or. "So I... Guess I'll probbly see you around."

Peeta nodded and gave Karolina a smile. "Definitely. I'll see you."

He was the type to check up on people he barely knew.

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

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