Have a car thief with no cars

[vengeance_driven]

[Do you know what happens when you put a confused Serb Yugoslavian expatriate in the middle of a strange building in a strange place while he's in the possession of his favorite carbine rifle? He skulks through a hallway quietly, looking for a way out.

Niko nears a window with his back to the wall. And off in the distance? That jungle? That sure wasn't Middle Park. Not long before he heard something that sounded like the most fucked up war-zone he's ever been near. More rushing fire, less bullets. So he's just playing it careful until he finds some sort of damned map.

First he finds a soda machine, though. And that soda machine is not a Sprunk soda machine. He ventures closer, pokes it with the gun as if that's going to help anything, and moves to look behind it as if he's searching for the mechanism for a bomb in an obviously fake piece of inexplicable equipment. Surveillance maybe?

He's pretty sure he's not in Liberty State, anymore.]

Oh, here we go. [Traces of his Balkan accent in those sarcastic sounding words he goes back around to the front of the soda machine, not creeping along for the time being and with his rifle lowered at his side. He's ready to hop behind that thing defensively though.]


((OOC: New person, new character. Niko Bellic from GTA IV. Snarky bastard but pretty friendly and easy to reason down.))

Comments

look I totally have an excuse for being late to the party

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

Expecting it to explode or something?

[Sibyll spoke from the doorway after spending a few seconds watching him curiously. Once she had spotted the gun, the Courier kept her distance. She didn't pull out her own automatic, but it was ready in case the confused man turned hostile.]

I have the slow, so it is fine!

[vengeance_driven]

[He doesn't jump too much at the voice. Helps that when he looks over, she looks like a Slav too (which he knows he probably shouldn't think and it's such a Hove Beach attitude to have. But he steps back from the vending machine.]

Maybe a little. Still checking the place out for surveillance and things.

[Not hostile yet. He was good about reigning it in until guns were actually pointed at him, and even he was wisely keeping his lowered.]

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

I can safely tell you there's a lot of it, but I'm pretty certain the vending machines are safe.

[Casually, though still watching the man out of the corner of her eye, Sibyll strolls over to the vending machine and presses a button. She's rewarded with a bottle of water that she immediately takes several gulps from.]

Don't know how they're watching us, but that crazy bitch is somehow. She even has all our rooms set up for us with fitting clothes and everything.

[She turns back to Nico, twisted smile on her lips.]

So where and when did she snatch you from? Never heard an accent like yours before.

[vengeance_driven]

Oh, good. Just what I like to know. As if I don't have enough people breathing down my neck.

[The last part is grumbled more lowly. He leaves the machine put, though, slinging the rifle after a moment. That's a hard edge of a smile she has going on there, and he can't tell if it's directed at him or the faceless entity keeping track of how many times they use the toilet.]

I am from the Balkans. Eastern Europe. But she took me from Liberty City in America.

[At kind of a bad time. He feels like he's finally making the right contacts to find someone that he needs to find.]

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

[The Courier tilts her head, trying to connect the dots of what he was saying. Okay, she knew where Europe was. It was on the globe in her suite. But eastern Europe... She seemed to recall that area being all swallowed up by the USSR. Liberty City was also new to her, though it sounded oddly familiar. Finally, she shrugs. If anything, she now knew he was Pre-War, like many others here.]

So when are you from?

[Perfectly normal question given this place.]

[vengeance_driven]

Autumn.

[Wait.]

2008.

[His eyes flick around in confusion, before he tilts his head at her and takes a couple of steps closer, looking at the computer on her arm and then the scars on her forehead.]

Is all ladies in the future shot in the head? [Because fuck the future, then.]

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

[Her lips purse into a small frown of confusion at his odd phrasing. She folds her arms and scans Nico curiously. Must be from English being a second language or something.]

I'm the only person I know who's really ever survived it.

[But Sibyll gets the sense that's not quite what he's asking.]

[vengeance_driven]

[He does try, he really does. But sometimes the language runs away from him.

He drags his fingers down the stubble on either side of his mouth as he's considering.] Sorry if it is sensitive subject. I saw a girl with similar computer and she had similar scars.

[He comes from a country that's torn up by war, though. It's not all that odd. But that doesn't mean he likes it any more.]

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

[Now she got what Nico was trying to tell her. Her eyes narrow a little and she watches him, thinking to herself.]

No, it's fine. [She waves a hand dismissively, despite the expression.] Did she call herself 'Courier 6'?

[vengeance_driven]

Technically she didn't introduce herself. But someone else calls her 'Elle'. They were new, too. Didn't know anything except they had bottlecaps for money.

[And that's really bizarre to him. But with the tech similarities he's thinking it's from the same kind of place.]

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

Huh. A girl carrying caps, wearing a Pip-Boy and has two gunshot scars to the head. So I guess it's my turn to meet my alternate.

[Strolling over to the couch lounge, she drops down onto it and glances back up at Nico.]

I had to see it a couple of times before I believed it myself, but this place can do some weird things. Like pulling out an different version of yourself. One who might have done things differently from you, made different choices, maybe is a younger or older version of yourself.

I think this 'Elle' is something like that to me.

[vengeance_driven]

[And Niko's eyes swivel one way. Then slowly the other.]

I think either my English is not good enough for this or my brain is very very tired from a very hard day.

[Of stalking suspicious vending machines. But at least he seems to be taking what he can of it well.] What is "Pip-Boy". That? [He points at the thing on her arm.]

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

[She laughs. Just wait until he got around to the idea of magic being a real thing. She still didn't quite get it.]

All you really need to know for now is that our prison is a weird place. Really weird.

[As he mentions the Pip-Boy, Sibyll glances down at it, then holds up her arm to show him.]

It's a computer. Keeps track of various things. Also has a Geiger counter in it to keep an eye on radiation levels.

[vengeance_driven]

I am looking forward to when my cell phone can do this, too. [He says wryly as he looks in to see the screen. It does look handy, though. And difficult to drop. And really strange technology.]

I am starting to see what you mean. I think I would have been less surprised if it was a normal place and there were cameras in the nonsense brand soda machines.

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

When did you say you were from? 2008? You might see 'em in your lifetime.

[Or maybe not. Was it really possible that whatever world he was from, there wouldn't be an war to end all wars?

She turns to give the vending machine a sidelong glance, but continues drinking her water.]

I really don't know how she does it. I'm not too familiar with security cameras, least not unless they have a turret attached to them, so she could be using those. But she only seems to notice the big things that happen. Like one time, the school caught fire, and she was all snotty about it. She's clearly not all there.

[vengeance_driven]

Oh, good. They know how to kidnap but then they let us run around like chickens without heads. Very good to know.

[Obviously he thinks this whole situation is crazy. Though he's wondering if it's mostly him.]

I think things go a little differently for me. [He pulls out a coin and flips it towards her, an American quarter with the Statue of Happiness on it.] Or they might go the same. The world is probably fucked from almost any angle.

[Just joy and rainbows.]

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

[She catches the coin easily and flips it over a few times, not really paying attention.]

Yeah, it's usually not a bad idea to make friends quickly. But you look like you can handle yourself.

[The Courier purrs at Niko with a grin before inspecting the coin more closely. Her expression changes to a more perplexed look.]

Is that what the Statue of Liberty looks like? It looks... uhh... different from what I've seen in books and old papers.

[Your world is weird, bro.]

[vengeance_driven]

Well, I do try. [And tends to survive whether he cares to or not, so he figures that his slim amount of trying pays off. Don't want to make it too easy for anybody. But-] Statue of Liberty? That is the statue of Happiness. On Happiness Island in Liberty City.

[Now it's his turn to look confused.]

I was there. I have the T-shirt. [He found it behind the statue.] So I'm pretty sure I'm not wrong.

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

Huh. Maybe I just remembered it wrong. Not like I can really check, either. It'd probably take me a year at best to get to the East Coast on foot. Not to mention it's probably been turned into radioactive sludge by my time from the nukes.

[How strange. She takes the coin in one hand and flips it end over end between her fingers before flipping it back to Niko.]

Happiness Island. Suppose you could have done worse. But what's Europe like? Is it really different from the US?

[To Sibyll, Europe seemed as far away as the moon. She knew it existed, but had no clue what it could possibly be like.]

[vengeance_driven]

[He catches it, and then looks at it strangely. Something seems a little odd there, but he's willing to let it slide with everything else.] It is like the rest of the world. My country was torn apart by a civil war. I was a soldier before I had ever even kissed my first girl. I know how to handle large arms before most American boys are learning how to drive. No one should grow up around mutilated corpses and worry about bombs dropping on their heads in the night.

But I go to America, and there is just debt and ignorance. People so obsessed with looking nice that they do not notice the homeless around them. Where it is easy for someone to die but people to go on around them smiling and not notice they were there. At home, the communists take our money and keep us poor. In America, it is the capitalists.

[Niko's views are harsh, and he can't keep the bitter edge out of his voice. But- he's far from home. Further from home than he's ever been before.]

...I grew up on a farm, in the mountains. It was cold there, it snowed a lot and there were tall trees. You could see all of the stars, and most of the food was meats and cheese and bread. Not hot things. And we do big celebrations with our families. Wedding receptions last for three days and everyone gets drunk together.

Maybe it's not all so bad.

[Someone who doesn't know anything about Europe can maybe appreciate that.]

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

[She listens with naked interest, though the harshness of his words seems to confuse her some.]

I guess some things never do change. We don't have cars anymore, and you really need to know how to handle some sort of weapon by the time you hit your teens. Unless you live in a really secure city and never leave it, like Vegas. But step outside the gates and you'll still probably have some idiot try to rob you with only a switchblade.

Just how things are.

[vengeance_driven]

I am a sucker for a good universal constant. Some things stay the same no matter what.

...That is sad that you do not have cars, though. That was the best part of the war, learning to drive all of the military vehicles. [He's going to mourn cars, though. His heart hurts for all the cars. The rest? Sounds par for the course.]

now I'm just imagining Niko jacking a Corvega. The chop shop is not going to take that, dude

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

I don't know. I don't think I trust something running off of a mini nuke reactor. Just imagine crashing into something and all that radiation. If you didn't flat out explode first.

[Why wouldn't cars be ridiculously dangerous in Sibyll's world? Almost everything else was.]

In PSL right now he's trying to kludge together a BF Injection out of wasteland parts.

[vengeance_driven]

I'm from fucking Serbia. We expect everything will one day be irradiated. It would just make me drive more careful.

[Less lamppost destruction. But now he's just thinking that he'd never have to get gas.]

I think I see another big difference, though. We use gasoline. [He pulls out his cell phone.] And this instead of that. [The big arm thing, he motions to it.]

XD Where's he going to get the gasoline from?

[wildcard_of_the_desert]

[So apparently this Pre-War Serbia place was sort of like her current world.]

Does that mean you lot are already being taken over by the USSR?

[Sadly she's never received formal schooling when it comes to Pre-War politics. Not that many have. Most of her Pre-War knowledge comes from the rare intact book, scraps of old papers and the occasional ghoul.

But she's immediately distracted by the tiny device Niko produces.]

Wow. I've never seen a computer that tiny before. Does it get radio?