the_campus | Mingle: Beach Side BBQ!

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Mingle: Beach Side BBQ!

Today, everybody received a neatly written note under their doorstep:

TUESDAY, AUGUST 20TH ONLY
COME DOWN TO THE BEACH FOR A SPECIAL FEAST!
We will be having BBQ, ice-cold sodas and alcohol (please only drink if you are 21 or older, thank you), and a cooler filled with icecream. There will also be beach toys and towels for the kids. Enjoy the fun and the sun!

So, if you were so curious as to let that note tantalize you and headed to the beach just outside the Campus, you would find the sweet nurse Lisa to greet and welcome you in...and then lunch lady Edna scowling at you as she cooked.

At least with Lisa's supervision, the food might just be bad, instead of likely to give you food poisoning, right?!

"Enjoy the fun and the sun!"

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[Shepard didn't come here for the party. He came here for the hope that there was someone he could "talk" to. As luck would have it, the fidgety nurse and irate lunchlady were not very helpful. One he's pretty sure he almost gave a nervous breakdown while the other -- once again, he's pretty sure -- was mere seconds away from spitting at him.

So instead he decides to direct his attention to the other kidnapped, which is why there is a man in full armor with faint glowing red scars on his face (and eyes) approaching people. As he does so, he lifts his right arm where an orange holographic arm brace like thing appears. He's going to be taking notes for these ~~interrogations~~ questionings.]

Commander Shepard. Mind if I ask you a few questions?

[Without his suit, and instead dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, Norman appears to be another ordinary beachgoer. However, the FBI agent has also been keeping an eye on the others attending this party, although he hasn't asked anyone any questions yet. The fully armored man with a few oddly glowing features easily catches his attention. When he approaches, Norman finds himself alternating between observing those, and the holographic arm brace. Now that's some fascinating technology.]

Of course. [It's always nice to see other authority figures around here. He's more than willing to help out.]

[It may not look like it, but Shepard is more than grateful for the cooperation, considering how he's used to the exact opposite.]

Name? How long have you been here?

[Shepard's more interested in hearing from those who have been around longer, but he'll take what he can get given the situation.]

[He knows how that is. Some days it feels like there's no decent people left in the world... almost like people are making a concerted effort to be simultaneously unhelpful.]

Agent Norman Jayden, FBI. It's been... nearly three months now, I think.

[As far as Norman knows, he arrived with the first batch of "prisoners". If anyone's been here longer, he doesn't know about them.]

Did you just get here?

[FBI, huh? Interesting.]

I did.

[Shepard quirks a brow.]

Three months is a long time. [But this is the kind of person he was looking to speak with.] Is this place always...?

[He looks around the immediate area. A beach, food laid out on a table with beer, ice cream. Shepard's seen a lot of things but this is probably the oddest kidnapping scene he's ever witnessed.]

...hospitable?

[Sure...let's go with that.]

Yeah, tell me about it.

[Luckily, this had happened when he was between cases. Still, this "vacation" has lasted long enough, and Norman would like to return home as soon as possible.]

[He also glances around when Shepard does. It is incredibly strange how well they're treated for prisoners. Maybe it's a way to keep their guards down.]

Sometimes. This is the first time there's been a party like this, though. I've been here long enough to know that you can trust the food, so you don't have to worry about that. ...Er, well... usually. If the food wasn't made by that lady over there, or you didn't make it yourself, you should be careful.

[He recalls cupcakes that had caused strange changes in peoples' behaviors. Best to avoid suspicious baked goods from now on.]

[He was thinking something along those lines, too. They were probably waiting for everyone's guard to be brought down, until they feel less like prisoners for the moment to strike. He's not sure why, or what these people want to gain, but he's hard pressed for information.]

Speaking of, what's their story? [He nods his head to the nurse and lunch lady.] Do they work here willingly? Or are they prisoners too? Talking to them wasn't really helpful.

[Neither was threatening them.]

[Norman glances over at the two women, frowning thoughtfully as he considers how to answer.]

I'm not really sure. They don't seem to know anything, but they still work everyday... it's almost like they're some automatons or something futuristic like that.

[Although looking at Shepard again, he's wondering about that red glow on his face and eyes. It definitely seems like there's something futuristic going on with him.]

Mind if I ask you a question? What year was it when you got here?

Makes sense.

[Shepard takes note of how Jayden said "futuristic". He's about to ask what the hell year he's from (albeit more sarcastically) when it gets asked of him instead.]

2186. Why?

Uhm... I guess not.

[Ryou hadn't exactly come for the party either. It was more like he'd woken up here, blinking at the sun and feeling too hot in his other's trenchcoat. Not to mention feeling a little 'odd'. Setting the trenchcoat on the sand in order to sit on it, he tried to stop his gaze flickering from the holograph to the strange, strange man. It didn't really work out so well. This guy had 'demon' written all over him. Or at least robot. Robots had glowing parts right?]

If I can be of help, I will.

[Close enough. But Shepard's all too used to the constant staring for one reason or another, so it doesn't seem to bother him at all.]

Is there anything you can tell me about this place? The people, the building -- anything odd about it? Aside from the obvious.

... [He has to take a minute to decide whether to answer that or not, but eventually does.]

Most of what I know can be easily observed. The people here don't seem dangerous, for the most part. They don't even seem to have much in common. But at least a couple of them are pretty heavily armed, and one of them is from three hundred or more years in the future, as compared to the year it was before I woke up here.

If this is done by technology, it's technology advanced beyond anything I know. But I don't think it is.

[All of that takes him by surprise, though the only indication of it would be his slightly raised brows. That's not at all what he had been expecting to hear.]

[He holds up a hand.]

Wait.

You're telling me there's a person here from three hundred or so years in the future...[He's not done because that's not the strangest thing about that sentence.]...and you don't think it's done by technology?

Huh? That surprises you?

[He stares blinking at the stranger as if it was the weirdest question he's gotten yet.]

Technology will always be limited by the rules of the universe. Short of this place turning out to be a virtual reality with programmed memories, there's little reason to assume any sort of technology was involved.

There's just too much that doesn't make sense if you take it as a technological method. This place is low-tech, mimicking the 20th century in style. There's no electronic locks, no working computers, and the most technological thing I've encountered has been a hologram of a city, which is doable with modern technology.

On top of that, it's able to interfere with non-technological abilities dating back three thousand years. It's possible for it to be technological, but. I doubt it.

Then what do you suggest did it? Magic?

[Rhetorical question, of course. This kid is smart, and Shepard could see his reasoning. But there was always a logical explanation for everything. Like his "visions" back on Eden Prime.]

I can't claim to be sure. It's possible for it to be magical in origin - I know some people here who have abilities that would be considered magical. But without proof or clearer clues, I'm pretty much just grasping at straws. It's entirely possible that we're all just plugged into a machine and imagining ourselves to be here.

[It's an eerie thought, but one with precedence. He's sure he's heard the others talking about something like that in the past.]

[Now Shepard is curious about these people who could be considered to have "magical powers". Not that he's buying it.]

That seems more likely. [And yet still doesn't make sense -- not with his current situation.] Except I would have had to have been knocked out and dragged to some machine somewhere near by.

[And considering he was in a literal war-zone before he arrived, that's not very likely.]

What were you doing before you were brought here?

I was knocked out by a dragon.

[That could have been sarcasm. It probably was. But it's all too real a memory. Awakening on that deck... it had been a shock to him. Awakening here, less so.]

Ahahaha, I'm joking, I'm joking! [He holds his hands up.] Actually, I got injured during a tournament and I'm pretty sure I ended up in the infirmary on the Duel Ship. But then I just woke up here.

[This face. This unflappable lineface is how funny he finds that joke.]

So you were fighting. [That's what he assumes, at least. What other kind of tournament could send someone to an infirmary?] What kind of injury?

Why do you need to know that?

[Besides, he'd already told him, in a fashion. What fool would believe "God smote me"?]

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Mingle: Beach Side BBQ!

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