Mingle ∞ Log
No Lifeguard on Duty
Summary
What's going on?
An
unexpected heat wave in mid-June, coupled with the cycling shutdown of all air conditioning units in motels across the Blocks, has made the summer unbearable. Meanwhile, the ever-eager
storm chaser,
Felix Bjurstrom, has uncovered a
fancy resort with a pool in a diffusion zone only 1 hour out from Panorama. Lucky, right? Well...kind of. It's got some quirks.
When is this happening?
June 10 - 30
What should I know?
- This area is one of many diffusion zones that appear throughout the planet.
- A storm chaser is someone dedicated to studying the cosmic phenomenon in the Diadem. Felix is a pioneer in his field.
- A winding highway filled with old empty barrels will take you to the zone.
- Characters can travel with a friend to save on gas! Parking's limited, so it might not be a bad idea.
- At any given time, there's max several dozen visitors. Most work long hours, some are traveling through the diffusion zones, and others prefer not to risk the drive or waste precious gas, so it won't draw a huge crowd (but there's still a crowd!).
- This is a mingle rather than an event. Plot-heavy elements will be minor. The game's first proper event will be posted in July!
What does my character know?
- Having lost his phone, Felix will spread the word using good old-fashioned printed posters that he's put up around Panorama. A young woman is seen helping him. They appear to be close. Some say that's his daughter.
- Though the timing is impossible to predict accurately, Felix believes that due to this zone's unusual proximity to an anchor point, it has a high chance of persisting for 2-3 weeks.
- Directions are printed on the posters, though characters are also free to stumble across the zone by accident.
∞ Links ∞
Introduction
The resort looks like your typical upscale vacation spot: a beautiful pool, lovely cabins, and plenty of pool chairs. The sky is
perpetually nighttime and there are
two moons. One moon is smaller than its sister and glows purple. The other looks like the Earth's moon. The weather is
pleasantly warm. In fact, conditions are almost
too perfect.
Other
fluxdrifts are here, too, and you might come across them, all of whom are taking advantage of the pool. They'll converse superficially with you and will come and go randomly. You'll want to keep a close eye on your belongings. Other than cooling off, this isn't a bad place to start making connections. Life in the Diadem is better when you've got allies if not friends.
Just outside the resort is a
spacious parking lot, designed for visitors. Nobody's following parking rules so put your car anywhere it fits. If you get blocked in, well, that's a problem for when you leave.
At the end of June, the diffusion zone will flicker and morph into an unremarkable overgrown park, long abandoned to the decades.
Prompts
As you wander around, you discover deactivated androids in many of the poolside huts. These androids cannot be mistaken for any organic species: their chassis is metal, and their heads are shiny. Circuits and wires are visible. But each is dressed distinctly human in a way that borders on disturbing. You spot lipstick drawn on some of the metal faces, as though they're playing dress up...or as if they don't realize they aren't human. One android is frozen in place with a diary clutched in its hands. Another has a hairbrush for its nonexistent hair.
Something seems to have destroyed them—perhaps a powerful EMP wave that knocked them all out. All except one.
The Bartender
The poolside bar is at the eastern end of the resort. There are plenty of seats. A few are occupied by deactivated androids. The bartender is also an android and appears to be the only functional one in this place. He speaks with a modulated voice and has a neutral accent. He exhibits the following behaviors if you sit at his bar:
- Icebreaker. Whether you're alone or with a companion, he'll try to get you all to be friends, asking random self-generated icebreaker questions. He'll be visibly disappointed if you don't play along.
- Bartending. While cheerful, he can't make the correct drink: it's always too strong, incredibly weak, added salt instead of sugar, messed up the ice. He's obviously doing his best, but it's just not working. The harder he tries, the worse he performs until it becomes a comedy of errors with stuff falling over, ice dumped in your lap, champagne corks flying, and any number of slapstick mishaps. You can help him out by mixing the drink yourself.
If you're nice to him, he'll introduce himself as Thomas Lustras. He's happy to
tell you about his son. Strange, you think, but who says androids can't have paternal instincts? Yet, when the android takes out his wallet to show you a photo of his son—named Edward Lustras—the picture is that of a
human child, roughly 5 years old, in the arms of his
human father.
The driver's license in the same wallet confirms that Thomas is (was?) a real person. The picture on the license matches the human male in the photo. A half-scorched business card states that Thomas was a consultant at Outer Rim Resettlements. Thomas believes he's on a company retreat and wistfully declares he's eager to return home to his son.
Maybe don't look too closely. After all, this place will soon disappear. And so will he.
The Grill
It's not a vacation without a grill! Not a grillable item is in sight, though, so you'll have to rely on what you can bring out of Panorama. Some of the visiting drifters will pitch in to share, unloading hotdogs (some synthetic, others authentic, and some far past expiry), burger patties (same) and buns, and "kebabs" made of blocky frozen vegetable squares. The squares vaguely resemble corn, mushrooms, and pineapple. The texture is passable, like a flavor-infused block of tofu.
Fire up the grill and take turns grilling. You'll also have to manage the propane. The grill's also prone to sputtering out, requiring regular minor repairs to get it back up and going. Any loose bolts or screws can be taken out of the dead androids to replace the rusty ones in the grill. You're unsure if you should feel uncomfortable doing that or what, but it is a solution.
Parking Woes
Like any crowded event, the parking lot can get chaotic, and the lawlessness of the diffusion zones doesn't help. While some are happy to help barbecue, others are more interested in picking fights over who got to the parking space first. It won't take much for a fistfight to break out, and a knife fight isn't out of the question, either, though nobody'll be killed (this time).
You can let the troublemakers beat each other, or you can try to intervene if somebody who doesn't deserve it is getting harassed. Just avoid causing too much of a scene. Breaking noses is acceptable; gutting someone head to toe is not. There are Enforcers visiting the zone, and if you interfere with their nice pool time, they won't hesitate to haul away everybody involved and make you sit in jail for a few days.
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Then it all clicks, and he blinks. ] Did you say Martian?
[ He huffs. Uh-huh. Okay. Not what he expected. There's a sense that Logan doesn't disbelieve him, exactly. Just kinda taking it in before he shakes his head and shifts his weight. He plants his ass on the ground, giving up on the idea that this is gonna be finished any time soon. Or that he's gonna take off in the next few minutes. Logan glances over his shoulder at the crowd—scans through it, as though he's really thinking about picking out who said that—and maybe something about his expression gets them to shut up for another thirty seconds.
Outer space, is that right? ]
And I thought I was from the future.
[ So much for that. First the one-armed time traveller, now this. Really starting to make 2023 sound like the ancient past. Suppose time is relative, as Hank would say. ]
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[ He's already met some pirates from a lot of years back, and met others who are sort of...not completely human, so he wouldn't be surprised to meet people from way into his own future anytime now. Different worlds, different species — someone even mentioned vampires and werewolves as just a thing in their time, so he's gonna just continue to be mostly unsurprised, if no less — interested, in the things he's learning about where others are from.
Amos shifts a little on the heels of his feet, leans back slightly in his kneeled position, just scanning for anything else he might want to unhook while he lets the pressure bleed off. Really just a few last things — he reaches into his pocket for some of the loose screws he'd picked up from the robots, holds up a couple to see if the sizes match the hose going to the fuel tank. One does, the others don't, so he pockets them again, unscrews the rusted one — takes a little extra force, like it doesn't wanna give easily — and gets that new one on. Another minute or two, he'll hook everything back up, see if this "reset" worked. ]
I'm from the twenty-fourth century. Plenty's changed, plenty hasn't. That's how it goes, though. [ Amos looks over at the guy, taps the ground near the beer bottle. ] That any good? [ He's drank things just to drink them before. Don't mean they were good, so. Figures he'll ask. ] Gonna stop by there after this, if they don't turn on us.
[ Considering the way the two of them are effectively sitting and seemingly not actually working on the grill for a minute, Amos can almost feel the tension starting to boil over behind them. No one's advanced on them yet, still, but it's hard to miss the angry murmuring, voices rising in volume. ]
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[ The girl who'd never heard of a car before, sword on her back—yeah. He's seen a lot of things in his life, but this jumble of time is brand new. It both does and doesn't make him feel better about what it means for his future. Whatever's happening...it's far bigger than anything he could've done. Time travelling or not. Gonna ask more about that twenty-fourth century part later, by the way.
While the other man fiddles with the screws, Logan turns the bottle around. He considers the label. Nothing he recognizes. Decent, though. Better than what he can usually find in the city. ] It's on the house.
[ Hard to be picky about shit he didn't have to pay for. Less hard to be picky about the amount of damn space they're getting as they sit and wait. He can't tell if the crowd's just inching forward from momentum over time or if some idiot at the back's started pushing. He doesn't really care, either. All he knows is, somebody knocks into him a little too hard—and he grabs the stray hand without thinking. ]
Hey, take a step back, pal.
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— kinda like the antsy crowd they just can't shake. They could handle it a little better, maybe, if they saw something happening. If he leaned in and kept turning the valve and hooking and unhooking the hose, maybe that would calm them down. Maybe not. But he's not here to reassure them or make nice. Any of them could have stepped in to try and fix it, they didn't. Either they didn't know how or couldn't be bothered. Either way, they're no worse off than they were.
Amos shifts up onto the heels of his feet a little, closer to the tank, but casts a glance over his shoulder when he hears the guy warning someone, and he looks between them. Silently, he thinks, if the stranger from the crowd was smart, he'd take the warning for what it is and step away. But he starts to speak, which is now the second (or first) mistake.
"Are we actually going to eat anytime soon? What are you even doing?"
Obvious slurring in his words; good combo — drunk, hungry, and probably already edgy from the heat. Calmly, Amos starts to slowly hook the hose back to the tank, no hurry to his movements, just following the steps he think will get them where they need to go. ]
You know what we're doing. It's just not happening fast enough for you. [ And he sure isn't moving faster for him. ] You heard him — step back.
[ Amos is neither peacemaker nor instigator, but he will handle something swiftly if it turns into a something. If they wanna be stupid, that's their call, he'll meet it. And he gets the same feeling from the guy next to him. Though, really, he'd just like to fix this thing and move along. Somewhere behind them, somewhere in the crowd not far from them, he hears a bottle breaking, like it was dropped or possibly thrown, and someone's yelling fuck you at someone else.
Amos lets out a breath, not even tense, just — is it really gonna go this way? about it. ]
Jesus.
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Realistically, it's not that many people. He's seen far bigger mobs gather on the streets of New York. This? They're talking a dozen, give or take. But it's still a sizable number around what amounts to few square feet next to a grill full of propane that might or might not still be leaking gas. He really doesn't wanna see what happens when the next bottle that goes flying cracks open against it.
Logan rises to his feet. If anyone was banking on the other guy to calm a bunch of uppity jackasses down instead, well. Doesn't look like that's happening. Problem is, he's not a peacemaker, either. Usually he stops a fight by ending it himself. Except this isn't worth his time, definitely not worth whatever headache-inducing bullshit might come his way if he throws twelve people into the pool in full view. And in the half-second beat where he waits to see what happens next, his hand still wrapped around one beefy fist attached to a man who looks increasingly alarmed that he can't break free—in that half-second, it's by sheer fucking luck that a shotgun cracks the air. Not here, but in the distance, back in the disaster zone that's become the parking lot. A dozen heads turn. Then: Hey! That's my car!
The slurring shark-eyed man yanks his arm away. Logan finally lets go, watching backs turn. The tension disperses as fast as it gathered, redirected toward a new source. You know what? He's gonna call that a win.
He huffs under his breath. Anyway. How's the repair job going? 'Cause he's not sticking around for them to come back hungrier and madder. ] Maybe you oughta let them starve.
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Them being gone doesn't stop him finishing this, though. It's more, now, just to know he can, with this piece of equipment he knows little about. He turns the valve, hears that slight hiss of the gas, and moves to the cooktop now, seeing if the burners turn on when he presses the little ignite button and bumps the temperature control up. There's a little smirk on his face as it all comes to life, and he shuts the doors, steps back. Nice timing; he could almost laugh. Works out, he figures. Really, he can't say he was motivated by any desire to get the thing fixed for them specifically.
His own hunger has somewhat waned, especially if it means lingering here and putting himself at risk of being in their general vicinity anytime soon. Still — feels like he owes it to the guy next to him to offer — so he gives a nod to the offering of...various proteins, to cook up. ]
Them, yeah. But you — rare, charred, or go load up on free drinks?
[ Basically, let's get the fuck out? He's pretty sure he knows the answer. ]