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evilbeejWelcome to Beacon Harbor, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lyosha! :D Don't let anyone take your trousers. Trust me, you'll need them.
It's a cold, drizzly night; the combination of wet and chill produces that particular kind of weather that weasels its way through windbreakers and jackets and-unless one happens to have anticipated the weather-can make folks utterly miserable without too much effort. The rain is mostly over now, but humidity has remained, and it makes the night air sticky. Puddles have formed here and there on the damp ground, rocked when hit by the tiny water droplets that still fall from the sky.
The noise the droplets make depends on the medium with which they intersect when they fall. On the pavement, it's a gentle 'tap-tap-tap'. On grass and foliage, a livelier 'patter-patter' marks its passage. And 'thip-thip-thip' is the noise the rain makes as it soaks into a sorry, sodden mess of a man that's slumped in the gutter, head down. To the casual observer, it looks almost like a pile of garbage that got left in the street or perhaps abnormally large road kill. In any event, it's not moving.
Nothing like a walk in the park to keep your mind on /exactly/ what it doesn't need to be on. Logan needs a break from her life right now, and she's taking a walk through the city, aimless, hoping maybe she'll bump into someone she knows, half hoping she won't. That horrible, sick feeling has been with her for more than a day, now, and she's getting very tired of it. Tired and ill.
She aims a kick at that supposed piece of garbage, hoping to make herself feel better by virtue of plain violence. Stupid angels. Stupid Logan. Stupid everything. "Fuck." A garbage can tips, makes a loud noise, and she kicks at the pile repeatedly. It - wait. That didn't feel right.
It might not be The Badlands, but even here, one wouldn't expect to see a 5'4" young lady just casually out walking on her own in the middle of the night, in the pouring rain. And yet, there she is, making her way down the pathways of the City Seat Circle. It's the benches that are her destination; since this place tends to be a nice, comfortable spot, if there's any new portal folk, they tend to gravitate toward the well-lit areas near the statue to sleep the shock off. It's usually pretty easy to tell who are the 'normal' homeless and who are the 'just arrived' homeless. The second are the ones that Tracey's doing her usual rounds for. It's a moment before she registers the dripping mess over at the roadside, and even longer before she clicks in that it... _might_ just be man-shaped. And... that it is apparently getting kicked by something. What remains of the hero in mind pushes her to move over that way and see what's up.
Vroom! is the sound Italian motorscooters make when they're working well, and therefore the sound that echoes through the curiously traffic-free Circle. Possibly not so curious though, as people have, for the most part, already left work to go home. And it's not like this part of the city is a night life hot spot, or even a commercial-ridden haven of capitalism. Mostly just an asphalt circle, a park, and some boring-ass buildings. And someone doing some kicking at something big, and someone wandering vaguely in that direction. And, well, the really tall girl on the Lambretta, checking out the way the vrooms echo. *Fabulous* acoustics. Especially in the rain, it muffles a bit and adds a soothing percussive white noise. She - Vesper, the girl on the hellmachine - slows to a clearly rubbernecky puttputtcrawl, peering at the kicker and the walker through reflective RAF goggles.
Most've left work to go home long since - but Jack's just leaving, clad in his suit and overcoat, and carrying a battered attache case in one hand, umbrella with lit-up shaft in the other. He's got a vague, abstracted look as he wanders in to the circle, pace a meandering walk rather than his usual businesslike stride. The sound of the scooter's enough to attract his attention, though, breaking him out of the reverie, and he eyes that for a moment, before following the rider's gaze to the others and the one lying on the pavement.
No, it didn't feel right--to either of the involved parties. Not to Logan, and certainly not to the garbage that she was kicking--because the garbage lets out a loud moan and moves sluggishly, away from her foot. "Gaaagh," says the pile of... whatever... as it shifts, but it falls silent almost immediately thereafter, and its motion also stops.
Consciousness, however, has returned to the pile of garbage, no matter how much he wishes it hadn't. Oh, it /hurts/! Why does it hurt? If the light is right, Logan might notice the blood that now coats the toe of her shoe. However, the head that suddenly rises out of the gutter and looks around, weaving, might also distract her. Oh dear. The man looks groggy at best and half dead at worst, but slowly---painfully--he turns his head to look back at the instrument of his abuse. He squints up at her for a long moment. "...Hello," he says, slurring badly. There's another pause. "...Why're you kicking me?"
"Shit!" Logan jumps back, but there isn't much of a pause before she's crouching down with Jerry, a hand on one of the garbage cans for support. The blood is noticed, and hands try to feel for its source, concerned, only really so because she feels so guilty about other things. Oh, and those motorcycle noises might mean a cop's seen this, and seen her kicking him. Most of the time new arrivals, people in the gutter can go to hell.
"Er. Are you okay? I didn't see you there, I thought -" Oh, never mind. Jesus Christ. "Can you get up?" A hand reaches for his upper arm, preemptory, trying to pull him up to a sitting position, but if he's going to be anything but lying down, he'll have to help. "I'm so sorry."
Oh my. Yep. That's an actual person. And whether Logan was kicking it to test it or not, it's hard to tell from this distance just why it got the kick. "Hey. Hey there. Hey you. What's going on?" Her stride lengthens into a jog, to get there before any mischief... or worse... can be done. The couple of other arrivals are glanced at briefly, but without any familiar faces in the crowd, Tracey doesn't bother to yell out to them. Not until she knows that they just happen to be there, and aren't the local branch of predators.
"Oh for--" starts the scootergirl, blinking. That's a *guy*. Who had been being kicked and is now being helped up. Er. And hey! She has a first aid kit in the back. Squint - darkness, rain, *and* goggles - Vesper finally just pulls the scooter up to the curb nearby and stops the engine, dropping the kickstand. Then she pulls the goggles down around her neck and calls out, "Need help?" Original. If she gets told to fuck off she will. Otherwise...
Predator, no - though Jack looks fierce enough and picks up his pace. What's this about? Tracey's voice is vaguely familiar, and he squints in her direction. There doesn't seem to be any real threat of violence, just yet, but he's been left more than a little wary after the last few months. Folding his umbrella, he comes up not long after Vesper.
"Aaa-h! Ah! NghhH!" Logan's handling of Jerry's upper arm is met with... something less than enthusiasm, and he doesn't stop yelling until she lets go. Oh, no. Wait, no, we're not to the point of doing anything like 'sitting up' yet. Even if she hadn't just grabbed a sore spot, Logan's tugs are ineffectual and Jerry is not a small man. He remains dead weight in the gutter. Jerry lets his head fall with a painful sounding 'clunk', back onto the pavement. "Uhhh... Uh? Al...whah," he mumbles.
Logan's busy hands are going to come across sticky-warm-wet if she runs them over the left side of his torso-- and any exploration of his bicep under his beaten leather jacket will produce similar effects. There are shallow, jagged wounds ripped there. The bleeding isn't severe; they're just flesh wounds, but they're probably painful. "Wh-whuh-whuh... wh-where?" Lucid? Um. Not exactly. Oh, and how wonderful. There are other people coming! Wild-eyed, the grounded man stares at approaching feet and tries not to be sick.
"Okay, okay." Logan lets go almost immediately. Wow. Okay, maybe a trip to the hospital is in order. Logan considers, briefly, turning toward Tracey's voice. "This guy. He's hurt," she calls. "Do you have a cell phone?" Jeez. She doesn't know how to manage the situation in the least, other than getting an ambulance here. Logan turns back to the man. "Did you hit your head? What's your name?" Pause. "Are you wanted for anything?" Because if he is everyone else can fuck off, the hospital too. No sense in turning a man over to Beacon Harbor's corrupt police force.
Tracey's eyes easily pierce the gloom and the rain. It's pretty obvious, really soon, that that's blood. And possibly more of it, down in the gutter. "Oh _shit_." says Tracey as she starts groping through her pockets. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. Damn. What happened to him?" As if Logan might actually know? Yeah right. The approaching strangers get another cautious glance. And... wait. Only _one_ stranger. Tracey does recognize the other. Briefly. In passing. Not well enough to start giving greetings or anything, even if there weren't this torn-up guy in the street. "Shit," she says again, loud enough to be heard, "what on _Earth_ got a hold of him?"
"Hurt badly or...?" comes Vesper's voice from the darkness, as the tall girl - wearing an army parka - digs quickly through the boot of her scooter and comes up with a nylon bag, then starts over. On her way, she fishes out a pair of spectacles from one pocket and puts them on, wrinkling her nose at the rain's effect on them. "Merde," she mutters, getting a better look at his face and stopping a few feet away. Hey, at least her shoes are interesting. There're big silver stars on them. "I think he's going to hurl."
"At the risk of sounding like a Monty Python character, it's mostly flesh wounds," Jack observes, dryly, already pulling what looks to be an aviator's scarf out of the pocket of the attache case. Tracey gets a nod. "And I would imagine that he's a new arrival? So the hospital might be unadvisable, at least for the moment. I don't think there are any injuries severe enough to necessitate it." Wait. How's he able to tell that without even examining him. "Hurl what? And do you have first aid equipment at hand?" he wonders, turning to Vesper. No, no memory of her, considering just how tanked he was at the time.
Luckily for Vesper's shoes, the nausea passes and something else takes its place: fear. "Wanted?" Jerry yelps, his voice becoming loud enough to drown out whatever conversation the others are having. "Wanted? Want... wanted for... for...." The speech pattern is odd; the inflection isn't right, and the repetition sounds unnatural. The slurring has cleared a bit, but he still isn't making much sense.
Jerry makes a guttural noise and then flings himself over onto his back, giving no regard to the second 'thunk' his head gets. It doesn't seem to bother him. A glazed expression settles over the man's face now that he's staring up at the sky, and he peers from Logan to Tracey and back again, slowly. The others aren't in his immediate visual range. "Wanted for... uh... for-for-for... HA!" With surprising speed, one hand shoots out abruptly and makes a snatch for Logan's shirt. "Aaahah... aahh.... wurr-- where? Wanted for /testing/! Tested on animals! Animals are non-biodegradable!" Sounds like there's something wrong with this guy beyond a few good bonks to the head.
Okay, we're getting scary now. This is frighteningly reminiscent of her treatment at the hands of that blind guy, but - different time, different place, different situation. Logan finds herself yanked forward, but she's not really.. well, yes, she is scared, but not scared enough not to level a glare at him. "Yes, they are." And a smack is aimed for his temple. "Let me go, you freak. You want another wound to go along with those?" She doesn't spare a glance to the other people, mostly because she doesn't want to turn away from this guy while he's got her in such a vulnerable position. "Anybody got a cell phone?" Another look down at Jerry. "Tell me what city you're in."
"New arrival?" No, Tracey doesn't ask how Celliers knows. She doesn't need to know. Questions like that just don't go answered here, anyway. "Are you sure about that? If so, I can get him back down to Solace." That's what she was here for, anyhow. And even while she's saying that, Jerry is... uh... he's going through a.... rant? Or something? Oh, _lovely_. Those are the _fun_ ones, aren't they? "Good move," she asides to Logan. Hey! _Logan's_ the one who asked about being wanted! "Yeah, I've got one. But lay off! He's scared shitless! And if he's new..." ... if he's new, then there's no _way_ Tracey wants to see him go off on the street. What if he... explodes? Or turns into a giant, slavering demonic creature? Or starts oozing poisonous gas? In a place like Beacon Harbor, scaring the locals can sometimes be more dangerous than it's worth. "... just, lay off a little, Ok, Guy? We're not here to hurt you. At least, I'm not."
He might even generate fish from thin air. God knows. Vesper squints at the ranting weirdo - he sounds kinda like Dylan did on the bad acid - then glances at Celliers. "Yeah, here," she says, handing over the nylon bag and fishing a mini-maglite out of one of her pockets. The bag's a blue zippered thing with a big red cross on the side. "Jack, right? You go ahead." I don't wanna get grabbed. "Are his eyes dilated? He sounds like he's tripping. Or delirious. Fever?" She leans forward slightly, ridiculously long braid rolling around her shoulder and falling in front. "Hey, listen, buddy. You've never met any of us before, so that should put us one up over whoever the hell beat you up, right? This guy here's all right even when he's sloshed, so he should be great now he doesn't smell like a member of the Russian Army. She said she's all right, I'm all right, and the girl whose shirt you're holding is probably all right even though she was kicking you." Pause. "Sorry, that sounded awful."
Celliers holds up his hands in a gesture of placation, the white scarf still dangling from one - it makes him look vaguely as if he's trying to surrender to Jerry. "Indeed, we are not. There's nothing to fear." Well, not right at the moment, if one stretches the point. Logan gets a chiding look. "And his behavior would seem to indicate that, though I admit I hardly saw him arrive." He accepts the bag from Vesper, only to give her a decidedly fish-eyed stare at that introduction. "I beg your pardon?" he wonders, in tones that could be used to chill vodka, speaking of. "But yes, Jack. You seem to know me, though I don't recall meeting you." He's already beginning to suspect just where and how - and as a result, a bright blush is creeping up from the collar of his overcoat. After a moment, he turns his attention back to Jerry, already unzipping the kit.
The blow hits home with a solid thwack and Jerry flinches, releasing Logan and making a little unhappy noise. He's silent through Tracey's words, and only interrupts Vesper with a grunt. Jerry pauses a moment; then, as Jack speaks, he rolls over once again with a wince and curls into a stiff fetal position. "Nuh-hey. Hey. Wait," he says to the gutter. "Jerry. Jerry... I'm Jerry." Something of Logan's question must have filtered through, because the next thing he mutters is his location-- or at least, where he thinks his location is. "New York," he says sadly, face pressed into the asphalt. "New New York. Old Y-York?" There's a pause, and then Jerry whispers something that sounds suspiciously like "Baby York", if anyone's still listening to him.
Logan turns, a hand on the asphalt to support her. "Maybe we should - I mean, /after/ he gets his bearings. You know?" she says to the others present. There's no sense scaring him after all he's probably been through. Besides, he doesn't seem like the type to take it well. The girl stands and backs away, moves toward his head and crouches there instead, looking down at him, and then back up at the others. Jack gets a Look. "Yeah, and he could also have been attacked and hit his head, couldn't he? Nobody saw any fuckin' blue light. Don't patronize me." Son of a bitch. She looks toward the two women instead. "I have extra beds, but there's someone staying with me who's not entirely... I don't think he'd react well." To a man with wing stubs growing out of his back, anyway. "Anyone willing to take him home?"
"Oh yeah. He's new. Nooooo doubt about that, now." Most of what Tracey's saying is to herself more than anyone, since they'd be able to see the same thing. "Ok. I'd say something like, 'clear out, nothing to see here', but you all know that'd be bull, probably." She's approaching closer, trying to get down to where she can look at the mess that is Jerry. "Look. I run Solace House." That's both to Jerry and Logan, really. "It'd probably be the best place to bring you and get you cleaned up and rested. And," she adds, glancing at the others as she does so, "get a little information to you." Don't tell him yet? Not until they're in a place that's a little more used to... well, whatever might happen to a freaking-out meta? "And just because you didn't see a light doesn't mean he hasn't been laying there a while," she informs Logan. "Or that he crawled here. I've seen a _lot_ weirder."
"...Baby York?" repeats Vesper, under her breath, before glancing at Jack again. "Wow, sorry, I didn't know you were /that/ drunk. Most people remember meeting me, for some reason. And you kept insisting on calling me Miss Antagonist instead of just Vesper, but hey, whatever floats your boat. Kitty and Erik were there, if it helps." She cheerfully stuffs her hands in her pockets and rocks back on her starstruck heels, and her eyebrows go up at Logan's ARRR!-ness and up even further at Tracey's self-identification. "I'd do it, but it sounds like she's got a much better idea. Hey, do you really run Solace House? Have you seen Kurt around recently? Kurt, you know, the blue guy? He was supposed to come over but then I got mono and then when I was back up and about and stuff, he wasn't around campus. Do you need me to get you a cab?" Mid-chatter, she switches addressees, looking down at the bloody gutterguy. "Jerry. Would you get in a cab if we got one?"
Logan's language gets a wince from Jack, but he doesn't bother to respond directly. Instead, he nods to Tracey quietly. "You have someone who'll be able to tend his wounds, I assume?" he asks. "But I think you're right. I have room if he needs somewhere to stay, but I rather doubt I'd be the best one to help a new arrival." Not looking the way he does, certainly. Vesper gets a long look, and the blush is back inspades. "Oh, the coffeeshop. I do recall now." Sort of.
Jerry starts to shiver, now. He's cold and wet and hurt, and his body suddenly realizes it. Still cheek-to-road, though, the confused man isn't quite ready to 'go along quietly'. "Where's Alice?" he says softly, turning his head and looking from face to face with slow regularity, making sure none of them is familiar. None are, and Jerry's brow furrows. There's damp gravel sticking to his cheek. "Alice. Alice...? Alice Sutton." Jerry starts to move again, struggling to right himself. He fumbles until his wounded arm will take his weight, then slowly manages to prop himself up, grimacing. His eyes flick from Tracey to Vesper, then stop on Jack. "You! You... you. Are you one of them? Wh-where-- what did you do? Where's here?" The last question sticks in his throat, and the shivering man turns his attention to Tracey, and repeats it. "Where's... here?" Vesper's question, perhaps luckily, distracts him. He must have the attention span of a goldfish. Jerry pauses. "I drive cabs," he says. And then he goes very pale.
"What's Solace House?" Logan asks Tracey. Some meta-thing? She could have used that when she popped into the city. There's nothing like New England in January, that's for sure. Jerry is addressed again. "Look, if you're running from somebody, if you're supposed to be in New York, I don't think there's anybody here looking for you. You'll find out why in a bit, just trust me. Who's Alice, your wife?" The poor guy! He looks so lost. The other immigrants Logan has seen seemed so collected after the initial shock. She puts a hand on his shoulder to support him in case he falls over.
"Kurt? No. He sort of... pops in and out. I don't get to see him often. I'll tell him that he was being looked-for, though?" And Since Tracey seems to have gotten the general consensus as a 'yes', here... "Alright. Someone, hail a cab, if you would. Let them know it's for Solace, and to put it on the tab. Solace House..." This, to Logan, "... is the local spot for, uh...." How to say this that she's not going to freak Jerry out. There isn't a way, is there? "... folks new to the city. And I'd say Jerry, here, fits that description pretty well. We've got medics there, and plenty of open rooms available. Trust me: I'm used to this." Not... so ripped-up, generally, but she's used to it. Kinda. Sorta. Almost. "If you can help him out, Miss...?" is directed, as well, to Logan. Tracey might be strong, but she ain't _that_ strong, and he's not showing much sign of being able to get up on his own. The question about 'Alice' isn't being answered. Nope. Not by Tracey, it's not. Not quite yet, thanks.
Whatever works. "Cool beans, then, Jack," replies Vesper cheerily. "Oh and /do/. Yeah. With the telling of the Kurt. I can give a hand, too," she adds, addressing the last to Logan more than Tracey. Big guy. Two-chick job. She pulls a bunch of crap out of her parka pockets and stuffs it all in her jeans pockets, then pulls the coat off and waves it in Jack's direction. "Here, hang on to this a second, a'right?" And *then* she steps forward, holding out extensively scarred arms to Jerry, palms up and open. "You drive cabs? That's great! That's what we're gonna get for you, okay? And it'll take you someplace warm, with food, and someone who can tell you what's going on. Come on, the road's gotta be really uncomfortable." Oh yeah. "My name's Vesper, Jerry."
Collected? Not Jack - he merely fainted. Most of Jerry's questions are ignored, but he answers the last, quietly. "You're in Beacon Harbor, in the US, the year is 2003." He looks reassured by Tracey's answer, but doesn't step away just yet. As Vesper brandishes the coat at him, he takes it reflexively, looking utterly bemused.
A distracted "No," is the only answer Logan gets. Exactly what Alice is to him is far too complicated to get into now... and even if he wasn't injured and in shock, Jerry probably wouldn't be able to keep up in a conversation with four strangers talking about things he doesn't understand. Although no one answers his questions, Jerry has thankfully already forgotten what he asked. Logan is treated to a blank look... but the blankness goes away when Vesper approaches, arms out. Jerry jerks back, reflexively, but the woman's genial tone keeps the man's paranoia from running entirely amok. "Uh... wait. Uhh...." His voice wavers. "Ahh..." He pauses for a moment, then latches on to her name. "Vesper... I... uh... maybe I should... just go home." That sounds good. Yeah. Home. I'll just stand up by myself and walk away, and get myself cleaned up. Okay. Jerry slides backwards, hitting the curb, then stops. What did Jack just say? "Where's Beacon H-harbour?" There's a momentary pause, and then he's moving. Very abruptly, Jerry tries-- and actually succeeds-- in standing. Weaving, he begins backing stiffly away from them all, injured arm stiff at his side, the good one up and palm outwards. "Just gonna go," he says quickly, swallowing.
"New England," Logan says. She'd shoot Jack a glare if she weren't busy trying to make sure Weavy here stays on his feet. Why'd he tell him that? As if the poor guy weren't upset enough already - this place could pass for part of New York. She's been there. Big cities are all the same. "Let's just get you into a taxi, huh? I think you're way too far from home to attempt getting there tonight." Besides, he needs medical attention. Logan's small, but she's strong, and if Jerry needs to lean she'll probably be able to support him.
Great. Just great. Nice move, Celliers. Unlike Logan, she can and does shoot him a glare. She'd... been hoping to wait on the bomb. "Easy there. Just hang on." Tracey takes the classic 'defenseless' stance, with hands held up, palms out, where Jerry can see them. A placating gesture. She's not going to approach just at the moment. No need for four different people to start advancing on the poor, scared man. She can try and do her placating from back here. At least until she sees whether things can be backed off. "Look. We're here to help you. Not to hurt you. You're already hurt enough. I've got a place that we can get you fixed up, and I can do some explaining there. Just relax, Ok? You're not alone, here." Her voice is dropped into conciliatory levels.
Oy. Vesper mutters something *incredibly* obscene at Jack in French - poor boy, do you feel ever so slightly ganged up on? - and drops her arms. And, well, stays put. "Solace House, the place is called," she adds. "I've heard about it, it's cool. And you can leave if you don't want to stay there. But you're really lost, and in bad shape, and you could probably use some sleep. You can sort everything out in the morning, okay?" She glances at Tracey and goes for eye contact, eyebrows up, and mimes talking on a cellphone. Then shrugs, questioningly.
Jack assumes a momentarily defensive look. Sure, lie to him so he'll be even less likely to trust us later when we really have to tell him the whole crack-headed story. At least he doesn't snap, "All hope abandon, ye who enter here," even though it's precisely the first thing that comes to mind. He's pointedly silent for the moment, raising his chin. Wordlessly, he takes a cellphone from his coatpocket, and proffers it to Tracey.
Hahah, no, he doesn't want to lean right now. Still stumbling, Jerry moves away from Logan, pausing only when the others have stopped advancing. He gives them all a wary look, and then looks left and right at the surrounding territory. Nothing's familiar at /all/, and he swallows again, mulling over what Tracey and Vesper have said. He doesn't buy it.
"How'd I get here?" Jerry demands, taking a half-step back and clenching his right hand convulsively. His tone is suddenly incredibly lucid; the speed at which he went from "babbling mad-man" to "scared but serious" is remarkable. "Who do you peop--..." Jerry's voice breaks, but he shakes his head angrily and tries again. "Who do you p-people work for?" One more half step back-- he takes a deep breath and lets it out, expression twisting into worry, and then near-grief. "I didn't do anything.. I hon--I honestly... I didn't." His hand comes up and rubs at his face and comes away salty. "Oh God. I swear. I didn't."
Tracey is a little busy trying to be the calming one here to make the call. She twitches her head toward Celliers' phone in answer to Vesper's little head-tilt. "If you don't know the number, I've got a card." Her voice is still low and placating, even while she's talking to Vesper. And then, pretty much keeping her focus on the retreating man, she keeps the flow of words up. "Easy. I work for Solace House. It's a place for people who've just gotten here. We've got medics who can give you a hand with those wounds, and a free bed for you to use until you can get your feet under you. You don't have to say anything. Just relax, settle down, and let us give you a hand, here. You look like you need it." Now, she actually dares a step forward toward Jerry. Just a single one, hands still out in that way.
"We don't work for anybody. Do you think if someone were trying to take you away they'd be a little more organized? With.. you know, guns and shit." She's sensible. Logan considers. You know, he's not going to calm down until he gets the full story. Logan takes a step back from him. "Maybe you better sit down, huh, buddy? This is a long kinda story and it's gonna sound like science fiction. I don't think you're in a state to hear it, though. I think the main thing is, you're safe from whoever you think you're running from." A glance at the others. "You guys wanna help me out? Last time I tried to explain to an immigrant it didn't go very well."
Vesper takes the phone from Celliers and makes a face at him. Sticking toungue out and wrinkling nose and all. The only reason she doesn't include raspberries is because it'd be a sudden sound, and stuff. She nods to Tracey and turns the phone on, then pauses. "Oh well if you're gonna explain the whole thing right now, better hold off on the cab, eh? And - er, I can't help much with that, sorry. I dunno most of it." The phone gets traded /back/ to Jack, for her parka, which she holds, addressing Jerry. "I work at the University, I'm --" Brief assessment of what's left of his soggy clothes. "--right, you've probably got the Internet and everything whereever you're from, right? I'm the sysadmin there. Part time information broker and musician, but those two are all about the self-employment. And if you /are/ gonna sit down and listen to the story, put this on, okay? 'Cause fuck if I'm gonna let you catch pneumonia." She's as congenial as she's been. Only time her tone changed was the under-breath mutter at Jack. And yes, the coat's being offered.
The Englishman's gone utterly pokerfaced, and takes the phone back. "It might be best to get him to some sort of shelter and tend those wounds, before giving him all the information," he observes, tone as flat as a Kansas highway.
Jerry doesn't retreat further at Tracey's slight approach, but it's probably because he's gaping openly at Logan. "Immigrant?" The hand comes down, hovering in front of him as though he's not sure what to do with it. "Immi... but I... I live in... what did I immigrate-- where did that happ--..." He stops, his eyes glazing over again. Too many questions to ask, and none of them want to wait their turn to come out of his mouth. But Logan mentioned a story, and Jerry wants to know what's going on. Still watching them warily, he shakes his head again and sends water droplets flying.
"Nnnngn... wait." His voice cracks again. "Wait. Just wait a second. This place, it's not... It's not New York. I was in New York and now I'm not." Okay. He gets that part down, and then Vesper is given a suspicious look. "I use a... a t-typewriter. No one c-can watch you or hack into your files." He swallows, and then very, very slowly, he takes two wobbly steps forward and takes the proffered jacket, and then retreats back to his previous position. There's a pause, while he tries to put it on one-handed-- he ends up just tossing it over his shoulders, but it's better than nothing. He eyes Vesper, and then looks away. "...Th-- uh... thank you." Jack is treated to a baleful look. "No. You tell me. All of you." Jerry hunches a bit, getting a little pale again. "God, tell me. I n-need to know."
"Too bad you didn't think of that before telling him he was in Beacon Harbor," Logan says to Jack. Ass. "I have to go. I left my friend at home all day." She's avoiding him, but there's no sense in explaining to everyone the trainwreck her life is right now. Forget it. She looks up at Jerry. "Listen, if you need a place, if this Solace House isn't cutting it, come down to the docks. I'm the /Ingrid Esther/."They can deal with this guy; he doesn't seem dangerous, and even if he is, what can she do anymore? The girl gives a subdued wave and walk off in the direction of the docks.
"Well. Usually I prefer to do this over a glass of something strong." She glances over at Jerry as she takes another reassuringly slow step. "If you want to get something strong to drink, there's spots that would be available." She waits until he's sat back down with his jacket, then draws a breath. "I guess I should be the one to lead, though. I've had to do this enough times, booze or not." Another of those pauses, to help collect her thoughts. "Alright. I'll start slow, and let you decide whether you want a drink for the rest. Welcome to Beacon Harbor, Jerry. You're not in New York any more. You might very well not be anywhere _close_ to home anymore, depending."
The typewriter comment from Jerry earns a crooked grin from the tall Quebecer, and she clasps her arms loosely across her chest. She can afford to get damp, was the idea. "No problem. And - I grok that. I fight the watchers and the hackers by being better than they are, though." When Tracey starts explaining, she quiets down; she /doesn't/ know the whole deal. Someone said something to her about Sliders, and she was like, 'cool'. And Kurt said something about it, and she was like, 'aw man, that sucks. sorry.' But she didn't research it or anything. It occurs to her that she probably ought to.
Celliers is still quiet, listening, still rather uselessly holding the folded umbrella. Tracey's doing a far better job than he could, after all.
"No alcohol," is all Jerry says. Coffee. But he doesn't need it yet. The exhausted man gets himself settled, watching Tracey as she draws near, but not backing away from her. He's too sore and too tired now that he's seated again to bother. As long as she's telling him what's going on, he's not going to wig out on her. Much. Hopefully. She's subjected to some scrutiny, but Jerry takes this first bit of information with no outward reaction. A muscle twitches in his jaw, and he nods stiffly for her to continue. Every so often, he shoots a sideways glance at Vesper and Jack, as though they'd better not use this opportunity to do anything weird or tricky. I'm watching you.
Tracey is getting rained-on, here. She was kinda hoping the guy would take the drink. Because, well... that's get them inside. "Wherever you were from," Tracey says, voice still relaxed and placating, stopping well out of arm's reach for her so Jerry doesn't end up feeling more threatened, "It's probably not even a blink on the map, here. Like... uh... you know. Her. Like the woman that was just here said" Hey. Tracey only just _now_ noticed that Logan never did give her name... then again, Tracey hasn't, either. "... it's going to sound like you've walked into the biggest science fiction movie you've heard of. But there was an experiment done here, several years ago. No one is exactly sure what happened, but the end result is that there's been some sort of... effect, here. They call it the Infinity Effect. And it pulls people from their own world and into this one. Exceptional people." She pauses again to let that bunch absorb.
Vesper isn't gonna /do/ anything weird, she just /looks/ weird. "Like Kurt," she supplies helpfully. "He's blue. And not in the sad way. In the he's actually blue way. And fuzzy. But it's other kinds of exceptional, too. People that do cool stuff, people that know cool stuff. There was this kid in the computer lab who was telling me about this one guy who was sure he just got pulled through because of the sheer sexiness of the car he was driving." She tugs her shirt down a little and tries to ignore the fact that her hair is sticking to her. "The upside to all this is that whoever you were trying to get away from isn't after you here. I mean, if you were trying to get away from someone. You /could've/ got all chewed up by falling in a combine or something."
Now it's Vesper who's getting the thousand-yard stare from Jack. What in the hell is she going on about? But he does add, "She's entirely right. Whatever it was you were fleeing is not here. You're safe, from that at least."
... Um. Right. Jerry doesn't do anything except furrow his brow, but that furrow says "You must be crazy" and "I must be crazy" at the same time. Exceptional people. Different world. Not in Kansas anymore. Blue people. Sexy cars. Sure. The man shifts again and grunts, the shallow wound in his side pulling a bit. It obliges by beginning to bleed again, sluggishly, under the jacket. Oh! And the people he was running from are gone. How nice. Heheh. This is such a joke. A tiny half-smile forms on Jerry's face and he watches the others quite calmly. "And... and what about the people I wasn't-- wasn't running from." He looks at them, mouth still quirking up at the corners. The smile doesn't reach his eyes. "What about Alice?"
Can Tracey just bring him home now? Away from the not-so-reassuring people? She matches Jack's glare with her own. Yeah. _Nice_ work being reassuring, Girl. "The people you weren't running from," she says, "are... just as far away as the rest of them. In other words... I'm sorry, Jerry." Now, she takes another of those half-steps in. Just in case she needs to _really_ be reassuring. "Alice... probably isn't here."
Err. Sorry. Vesper has the grace to look sheepish instead of defensive. She /was/ trying to help, but, uh. She can see she's not. And this part - she heard one version of it, for one person, and it sucked. So she just hugs her arms to her chest and listens, standing in the rain.
Celliers sighs, simply, finally recalling the rain enough to snap open that umbrella again.
Ha ha ha h--... wait, what? Jerry draws back a little, taking his attention off Vesper. The smile disappears from his face entirely and he looks from person to person, not at all liking the expressions he finds there. These people are very good actors. ...Very good. Yes. "Well... when is she coming?" Jerry asks, frowning. He doesn't quite get it yet-- or maybe he just doesn't want to get it. It's hard to tell with Jerry-- his expression doesn't come close to expressing what's really going on inside. "Never mind. I'll go find her... I'll find her tomorrow." Yeah. That sounds good. "What else?"
So far so... good? Bad? "No one's been able to find a way to activate it. No one knows why it activates, how it activates, or when it'll activate. Once you've been brought here... I'm sorry, Jerry. But you're here for the duration. This dimension. Not this city. But there's not much outside the city that'll be any more help than here." Yeah, she's a good actor alright. She looks dead-serious about everything that she's saying.
"Except not the cops. There're probably a few good ones, I mean, they can't *all* be rotten, right? Uh - but, the force on the whole here is crooked. And the hospital's kind of spooky, there were some weird stories in the paper." Vesper finally reaches up and pushes wet, clingy, not-entirely-held-by-braid hair off her face, and adjusts her shirt again. "And if, when you're feeling a little better, you want to read up on any of this - come to the University, okay? The library's really good, and I can set you up on a lab terminal, you can check out web information. Just ask where the Comp Sci building is, then ask for me, Vesper Antagonist. That way you can doublecheck everything we're telling you." She looks the same as she's looked throughout, really, except chillier. Chillier in the 'wow it's chilly out' way, not in the 'I am being a cold cold bitch' way. And more soaked.
The Englishman adds, tone again flat, "Be extremely wary of the hospital, in fact. In some ways, there have been doctors there worse than the police."
Jerry just stares. He watches them while they talk; part of his mind absorbs the information they're giving him, but the rest just stares blankly. There's a low, sick, acidic feeling forming in the pit of his stomach right now... the idea that maybe-- just maybe-- they aren't acting. That this is real. He clears his throat once, then lifts his chin and speaks. "S-so. Okay. All right. Let me see if I've got this right." He straightens himself, losing whatever colour that remained in his face. "I'm in another... another dimension. I got pulled here from my own by an... effect that randomly grabs extra-- extr-- certain people. Alice isn't here. She can't get here and I can't get to her. And there's... no way back." His voice has been rising in octave but lowering in volume as he speaks, and now he looks from one to the other for conformation. "Ever. Is... uh... is that about it?"
Tracey braces. It's actually visible in her stance. She's just waiting for the explosion. "That's the size of it. Solace House, where I manage, was set up to handle people in your situation. You're not alone." Gods, it always sounds like she's talking about AA when she says that.
"And it's not necessarily ever," Vesper hastens to add. "I mean, it's just that no one knows how to do it yet. There's someone I *know* is doing research in that area. I can tell her - I think it's a her - to send you any information she finds, if you want. Except it's mostly weird physics notes."
Celliers gives Vesper a curious look. "Can I add myself to that list as well?" he wonders, tone suddenly hopeful.
Oh. So that's it, is it? There's a very long silence from Jerry. No explosion, no bursting into tears, no anger, no demand for an explanation. He just sits there and looks shell-shocked. "...Oh," he says. And then slowly, painfully, he gets back to his feet. He turns to Vesper, expression blank. "I'll remember that." Remember what? What just happened? Oh. Oh wait. This can't be... this....
His expression suddenly turning into one of wretched and utter horror, Jerry takes one step backwards and turns to run. Perhaps it's a blessing that his legs pick that particular moment in time to stop working. Jerry stumbles once, and then his legs go out from under him and he crashes back to the pavement, hard.
"Right on cue." Tracey's voice sounds both relieved and weary. She was rather hoping that it'd go better than that, but... well, it didn't. "Alright, you two. You can stop /trying/ to be helpful, now, and be helpful? Someone call a cab? I've got to get him to Solace House. He's going to end up with hypothermia if he stays out here." See, now that he's down, she doesn't have to handle with care. He won't bite!
"Oh, calisse de crisse de tabarnak d'ostie de ciboire de testament..!" exclaims Vesper, remarkably disgustedly, finally unfolding her arms in order to wave them around a bit. "Look, he wanted to know what he should know. I told him shit people told /me/, all right? Jack, /you/ call a cab, it's your cell. Here, give me my kit back, I'll clean and bandage anything I can see's bleeding a lot," she says, not waiting for it to be offered, reaching for it. "And at least the parka's still drier than the rest of him."
"Garde votre lingue." Tracey says in Vesper's general direction, as she stands up from the out cold body and heads over toward the curb-side, ready to catch the cab and give them the directions. "Anyway," she adds, going back to English, "let's just get him, and ourselves, in our of this rain." She's damp, she's cold, and she's a little worried about the whole situation. New faces are always so... volatile. Never know what's going to happen.
Right, Tracey gets raspberries because Jerry's out cold and won't get startled by it. "You didn't have a problem with my English cussing," she points out mildly. As she's taking the bag over to Jerry and being as good as her word - uck, his shirt's fucked - she adds calmly, "When the cab gets here, I'm going to follow you two to Solace House. Then come back tomorrow after work. He sounds about as paranoid as these eighteen-year-old Russian conspiracy theorist twins from Staten Island I had Logic with sophomore year, so giving him things to read will probably make him freak out less." Plastic gloves on. Clean, clean. Bandage, bandage. Just any that're bleeding significantly. And then she carefully works on getting the coat on him better. "It always go this way? When people portal in?"
Celliers replies, completely deadpan, "No, sometimes they faint and get abducted by crazy English people and their friends."
Tracey rolls her eyes. But, well, she certainly can't argue Vesper's point. Especially not when Tracey was doing some cussing of her own, if not quite so... enthusiastic. "Sometimes," she says, almost ignoring Celliers' comment. Or confirming it. "Or sometimes they freak out and blow apart streets, buildings, stuff like that. I try to handle new arrivals as though they could explode at any minute. Because I'm sure that some can." She's had her accidents before this. She's trying to learn from them. "And if you want to follow me, you can. It might not be all that interesting, depending. I'm just going to send him to be checked by Medico and get him settled in a comfortable, quiet room." As the cab pulls up, Tracey leans in through the window and gives the general directions. Yeah. It's another one for Solace. "Come on.," she says toward Vesper, "let's get him in. Can you help, too?" That, to Celliers. "I'm not strong enough to hoist his unconscious ass into the car."
Hee hee. Poor Jack. Hee hee hee. "No, it's not for interest. I mean, I know where the place is, but that doesn't mean I can find it again," says Vesper, *definitely* sheepishly this time. "I get lost a lot." She pulls open the door, then comes around to help pick him up and put him in. There's a crooked grin. "And you can tell him he knows I'll be back because I left my coat."
Tracey nods as she swings into the car to help brace the unconscious man up. "Not a problem. I'll meet you up there." She then glances over toward Celliers. "And you, if you decide to follow. I don't think you'll get to see anything, though. I expect him to get a good night's sleep." She can hope, anyway. And with that, she shuts the door of the cab and signals it onward.
lyosha! :D Don't let anyone take your trousers. Trust me, you'll need them.It's a cold, drizzly night; the combination of wet and chill produces that particular kind of weather that weasels its way through windbreakers and jackets and-unless one happens to have anticipated the weather-can make folks utterly miserable without too much effort. The rain is mostly over now, but humidity has remained, and it makes the night air sticky. Puddles have formed here and there on the damp ground, rocked when hit by the tiny water droplets that still fall from the sky.
The noise the droplets make depends on the medium with which they intersect when they fall. On the pavement, it's a gentle 'tap-tap-tap'. On grass and foliage, a livelier 'patter-patter' marks its passage. And 'thip-thip-thip' is the noise the rain makes as it soaks into a sorry, sodden mess of a man that's slumped in the gutter, head down. To the casual observer, it looks almost like a pile of garbage that got left in the street or perhaps abnormally large road kill. In any event, it's not moving.
Nothing like a walk in the park to keep your mind on /exactly/ what it doesn't need to be on. Logan needs a break from her life right now, and she's taking a walk through the city, aimless, hoping maybe she'll bump into someone she knows, half hoping she won't. That horrible, sick feeling has been with her for more than a day, now, and she's getting very tired of it. Tired and ill.
She aims a kick at that supposed piece of garbage, hoping to make herself feel better by virtue of plain violence. Stupid angels. Stupid Logan. Stupid everything. "Fuck." A garbage can tips, makes a loud noise, and she kicks at the pile repeatedly. It - wait. That didn't feel right.
It might not be The Badlands, but even here, one wouldn't expect to see a 5'4" young lady just casually out walking on her own in the middle of the night, in the pouring rain. And yet, there she is, making her way down the pathways of the City Seat Circle. It's the benches that are her destination; since this place tends to be a nice, comfortable spot, if there's any new portal folk, they tend to gravitate toward the well-lit areas near the statue to sleep the shock off. It's usually pretty easy to tell who are the 'normal' homeless and who are the 'just arrived' homeless. The second are the ones that Tracey's doing her usual rounds for. It's a moment before she registers the dripping mess over at the roadside, and even longer before she clicks in that it... _might_ just be man-shaped. And... that it is apparently getting kicked by something. What remains of the hero in mind pushes her to move over that way and see what's up.
Vroom! is the sound Italian motorscooters make when they're working well, and therefore the sound that echoes through the curiously traffic-free Circle. Possibly not so curious though, as people have, for the most part, already left work to go home. And it's not like this part of the city is a night life hot spot, or even a commercial-ridden haven of capitalism. Mostly just an asphalt circle, a park, and some boring-ass buildings. And someone doing some kicking at something big, and someone wandering vaguely in that direction. And, well, the really tall girl on the Lambretta, checking out the way the vrooms echo. *Fabulous* acoustics. Especially in the rain, it muffles a bit and adds a soothing percussive white noise. She - Vesper, the girl on the hellmachine - slows to a clearly rubbernecky puttputtcrawl, peering at the kicker and the walker through reflective RAF goggles.
Most've left work to go home long since - but Jack's just leaving, clad in his suit and overcoat, and carrying a battered attache case in one hand, umbrella with lit-up shaft in the other. He's got a vague, abstracted look as he wanders in to the circle, pace a meandering walk rather than his usual businesslike stride. The sound of the scooter's enough to attract his attention, though, breaking him out of the reverie, and he eyes that for a moment, before following the rider's gaze to the others and the one lying on the pavement.
No, it didn't feel right--to either of the involved parties. Not to Logan, and certainly not to the garbage that she was kicking--because the garbage lets out a loud moan and moves sluggishly, away from her foot. "Gaaagh," says the pile of... whatever... as it shifts, but it falls silent almost immediately thereafter, and its motion also stops.
Consciousness, however, has returned to the pile of garbage, no matter how much he wishes it hadn't. Oh, it /hurts/! Why does it hurt? If the light is right, Logan might notice the blood that now coats the toe of her shoe. However, the head that suddenly rises out of the gutter and looks around, weaving, might also distract her. Oh dear. The man looks groggy at best and half dead at worst, but slowly---painfully--he turns his head to look back at the instrument of his abuse. He squints up at her for a long moment. "...Hello," he says, slurring badly. There's another pause. "...Why're you kicking me?"
"Shit!" Logan jumps back, but there isn't much of a pause before she's crouching down with Jerry, a hand on one of the garbage cans for support. The blood is noticed, and hands try to feel for its source, concerned, only really so because she feels so guilty about other things. Oh, and those motorcycle noises might mean a cop's seen this, and seen her kicking him. Most of the time new arrivals, people in the gutter can go to hell.
"Er. Are you okay? I didn't see you there, I thought -" Oh, never mind. Jesus Christ. "Can you get up?" A hand reaches for his upper arm, preemptory, trying to pull him up to a sitting position, but if he's going to be anything but lying down, he'll have to help. "I'm so sorry."
Oh my. Yep. That's an actual person. And whether Logan was kicking it to test it or not, it's hard to tell from this distance just why it got the kick. "Hey. Hey there. Hey you. What's going on?" Her stride lengthens into a jog, to get there before any mischief... or worse... can be done. The couple of other arrivals are glanced at briefly, but without any familiar faces in the crowd, Tracey doesn't bother to yell out to them. Not until she knows that they just happen to be there, and aren't the local branch of predators.
"Oh for--" starts the scootergirl, blinking. That's a *guy*. Who had been being kicked and is now being helped up. Er. And hey! She has a first aid kit in the back. Squint - darkness, rain, *and* goggles - Vesper finally just pulls the scooter up to the curb nearby and stops the engine, dropping the kickstand. Then she pulls the goggles down around her neck and calls out, "Need help?" Original. If she gets told to fuck off she will. Otherwise...
Predator, no - though Jack looks fierce enough and picks up his pace. What's this about? Tracey's voice is vaguely familiar, and he squints in her direction. There doesn't seem to be any real threat of violence, just yet, but he's been left more than a little wary after the last few months. Folding his umbrella, he comes up not long after Vesper.
"Aaa-h! Ah! NghhH!" Logan's handling of Jerry's upper arm is met with... something less than enthusiasm, and he doesn't stop yelling until she lets go. Oh, no. Wait, no, we're not to the point of doing anything like 'sitting up' yet. Even if she hadn't just grabbed a sore spot, Logan's tugs are ineffectual and Jerry is not a small man. He remains dead weight in the gutter. Jerry lets his head fall with a painful sounding 'clunk', back onto the pavement. "Uhhh... Uh? Al...whah," he mumbles.
Logan's busy hands are going to come across sticky-warm-wet if she runs them over the left side of his torso-- and any exploration of his bicep under his beaten leather jacket will produce similar effects. There are shallow, jagged wounds ripped there. The bleeding isn't severe; they're just flesh wounds, but they're probably painful. "Wh-whuh-whuh... wh-where?" Lucid? Um. Not exactly. Oh, and how wonderful. There are other people coming! Wild-eyed, the grounded man stares at approaching feet and tries not to be sick.
"Okay, okay." Logan lets go almost immediately. Wow. Okay, maybe a trip to the hospital is in order. Logan considers, briefly, turning toward Tracey's voice. "This guy. He's hurt," she calls. "Do you have a cell phone?" Jeez. She doesn't know how to manage the situation in the least, other than getting an ambulance here. Logan turns back to the man. "Did you hit your head? What's your name?" Pause. "Are you wanted for anything?" Because if he is everyone else can fuck off, the hospital too. No sense in turning a man over to Beacon Harbor's corrupt police force.
Tracey's eyes easily pierce the gloom and the rain. It's pretty obvious, really soon, that that's blood. And possibly more of it, down in the gutter. "Oh _shit_." says Tracey as she starts groping through her pockets. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. Damn. What happened to him?" As if Logan might actually know? Yeah right. The approaching strangers get another cautious glance. And... wait. Only _one_ stranger. Tracey does recognize the other. Briefly. In passing. Not well enough to start giving greetings or anything, even if there weren't this torn-up guy in the street. "Shit," she says again, loud enough to be heard, "what on _Earth_ got a hold of him?"
"Hurt badly or...?" comes Vesper's voice from the darkness, as the tall girl - wearing an army parka - digs quickly through the boot of her scooter and comes up with a nylon bag, then starts over. On her way, she fishes out a pair of spectacles from one pocket and puts them on, wrinkling her nose at the rain's effect on them. "Merde," she mutters, getting a better look at his face and stopping a few feet away. Hey, at least her shoes are interesting. There're big silver stars on them. "I think he's going to hurl."
"At the risk of sounding like a Monty Python character, it's mostly flesh wounds," Jack observes, dryly, already pulling what looks to be an aviator's scarf out of the pocket of the attache case. Tracey gets a nod. "And I would imagine that he's a new arrival? So the hospital might be unadvisable, at least for the moment. I don't think there are any injuries severe enough to necessitate it." Wait. How's he able to tell that without even examining him. "Hurl what? And do you have first aid equipment at hand?" he wonders, turning to Vesper. No, no memory of her, considering just how tanked he was at the time.
Luckily for Vesper's shoes, the nausea passes and something else takes its place: fear. "Wanted?" Jerry yelps, his voice becoming loud enough to drown out whatever conversation the others are having. "Wanted? Want... wanted for... for...." The speech pattern is odd; the inflection isn't right, and the repetition sounds unnatural. The slurring has cleared a bit, but he still isn't making much sense.
Jerry makes a guttural noise and then flings himself over onto his back, giving no regard to the second 'thunk' his head gets. It doesn't seem to bother him. A glazed expression settles over the man's face now that he's staring up at the sky, and he peers from Logan to Tracey and back again, slowly. The others aren't in his immediate visual range. "Wanted for... uh... for-for-for... HA!" With surprising speed, one hand shoots out abruptly and makes a snatch for Logan's shirt. "Aaahah... aahh.... wurr-- where? Wanted for /testing/! Tested on animals! Animals are non-biodegradable!" Sounds like there's something wrong with this guy beyond a few good bonks to the head.
Okay, we're getting scary now. This is frighteningly reminiscent of her treatment at the hands of that blind guy, but - different time, different place, different situation. Logan finds herself yanked forward, but she's not really.. well, yes, she is scared, but not scared enough not to level a glare at him. "Yes, they are." And a smack is aimed for his temple. "Let me go, you freak. You want another wound to go along with those?" She doesn't spare a glance to the other people, mostly because she doesn't want to turn away from this guy while he's got her in such a vulnerable position. "Anybody got a cell phone?" Another look down at Jerry. "Tell me what city you're in."
"New arrival?" No, Tracey doesn't ask how Celliers knows. She doesn't need to know. Questions like that just don't go answered here, anyway. "Are you sure about that? If so, I can get him back down to Solace." That's what she was here for, anyhow. And even while she's saying that, Jerry is... uh... he's going through a.... rant? Or something? Oh, _lovely_. Those are the _fun_ ones, aren't they? "Good move," she asides to Logan. Hey! _Logan's_ the one who asked about being wanted! "Yeah, I've got one. But lay off! He's scared shitless! And if he's new..." ... if he's new, then there's no _way_ Tracey wants to see him go off on the street. What if he... explodes? Or turns into a giant, slavering demonic creature? Or starts oozing poisonous gas? In a place like Beacon Harbor, scaring the locals can sometimes be more dangerous than it's worth. "... just, lay off a little, Ok, Guy? We're not here to hurt you. At least, I'm not."
He might even generate fish from thin air. God knows. Vesper squints at the ranting weirdo - he sounds kinda like Dylan did on the bad acid - then glances at Celliers. "Yeah, here," she says, handing over the nylon bag and fishing a mini-maglite out of one of her pockets. The bag's a blue zippered thing with a big red cross on the side. "Jack, right? You go ahead." I don't wanna get grabbed. "Are his eyes dilated? He sounds like he's tripping. Or delirious. Fever?" She leans forward slightly, ridiculously long braid rolling around her shoulder and falling in front. "Hey, listen, buddy. You've never met any of us before, so that should put us one up over whoever the hell beat you up, right? This guy here's all right even when he's sloshed, so he should be great now he doesn't smell like a member of the Russian Army. She said she's all right, I'm all right, and the girl whose shirt you're holding is probably all right even though she was kicking you." Pause. "Sorry, that sounded awful."
Celliers holds up his hands in a gesture of placation, the white scarf still dangling from one - it makes him look vaguely as if he's trying to surrender to Jerry. "Indeed, we are not. There's nothing to fear." Well, not right at the moment, if one stretches the point. Logan gets a chiding look. "And his behavior would seem to indicate that, though I admit I hardly saw him arrive." He accepts the bag from Vesper, only to give her a decidedly fish-eyed stare at that introduction. "I beg your pardon?" he wonders, in tones that could be used to chill vodka, speaking of. "But yes, Jack. You seem to know me, though I don't recall meeting you." He's already beginning to suspect just where and how - and as a result, a bright blush is creeping up from the collar of his overcoat. After a moment, he turns his attention back to Jerry, already unzipping the kit.
The blow hits home with a solid thwack and Jerry flinches, releasing Logan and making a little unhappy noise. He's silent through Tracey's words, and only interrupts Vesper with a grunt. Jerry pauses a moment; then, as Jack speaks, he rolls over once again with a wince and curls into a stiff fetal position. "Nuh-hey. Hey. Wait," he says to the gutter. "Jerry. Jerry... I'm Jerry." Something of Logan's question must have filtered through, because the next thing he mutters is his location-- or at least, where he thinks his location is. "New York," he says sadly, face pressed into the asphalt. "New New York. Old Y-York?" There's a pause, and then Jerry whispers something that sounds suspiciously like "Baby York", if anyone's still listening to him.
Logan turns, a hand on the asphalt to support her. "Maybe we should - I mean, /after/ he gets his bearings. You know?" she says to the others present. There's no sense scaring him after all he's probably been through. Besides, he doesn't seem like the type to take it well. The girl stands and backs away, moves toward his head and crouches there instead, looking down at him, and then back up at the others. Jack gets a Look. "Yeah, and he could also have been attacked and hit his head, couldn't he? Nobody saw any fuckin' blue light. Don't patronize me." Son of a bitch. She looks toward the two women instead. "I have extra beds, but there's someone staying with me who's not entirely... I don't think he'd react well." To a man with wing stubs growing out of his back, anyway. "Anyone willing to take him home?"
"Oh yeah. He's new. Nooooo doubt about that, now." Most of what Tracey's saying is to herself more than anyone, since they'd be able to see the same thing. "Ok. I'd say something like, 'clear out, nothing to see here', but you all know that'd be bull, probably." She's approaching closer, trying to get down to where she can look at the mess that is Jerry. "Look. I run Solace House." That's both to Jerry and Logan, really. "It'd probably be the best place to bring you and get you cleaned up and rested. And," she adds, glancing at the others as she does so, "get a little information to you." Don't tell him yet? Not until they're in a place that's a little more used to... well, whatever might happen to a freaking-out meta? "And just because you didn't see a light doesn't mean he hasn't been laying there a while," she informs Logan. "Or that he crawled here. I've seen a _lot_ weirder."
"...Baby York?" repeats Vesper, under her breath, before glancing at Jack again. "Wow, sorry, I didn't know you were /that/ drunk. Most people remember meeting me, for some reason. And you kept insisting on calling me Miss Antagonist instead of just Vesper, but hey, whatever floats your boat. Kitty and Erik were there, if it helps." She cheerfully stuffs her hands in her pockets and rocks back on her starstruck heels, and her eyebrows go up at Logan's ARRR!-ness and up even further at Tracey's self-identification. "I'd do it, but it sounds like she's got a much better idea. Hey, do you really run Solace House? Have you seen Kurt around recently? Kurt, you know, the blue guy? He was supposed to come over but then I got mono and then when I was back up and about and stuff, he wasn't around campus. Do you need me to get you a cab?" Mid-chatter, she switches addressees, looking down at the bloody gutterguy. "Jerry. Would you get in a cab if we got one?"
Logan's language gets a wince from Jack, but he doesn't bother to respond directly. Instead, he nods to Tracey quietly. "You have someone who'll be able to tend his wounds, I assume?" he asks. "But I think you're right. I have room if he needs somewhere to stay, but I rather doubt I'd be the best one to help a new arrival." Not looking the way he does, certainly. Vesper gets a long look, and the blush is back inspades. "Oh, the coffeeshop. I do recall now." Sort of.
Jerry starts to shiver, now. He's cold and wet and hurt, and his body suddenly realizes it. Still cheek-to-road, though, the confused man isn't quite ready to 'go along quietly'. "Where's Alice?" he says softly, turning his head and looking from face to face with slow regularity, making sure none of them is familiar. None are, and Jerry's brow furrows. There's damp gravel sticking to his cheek. "Alice. Alice...? Alice Sutton." Jerry starts to move again, struggling to right himself. He fumbles until his wounded arm will take his weight, then slowly manages to prop himself up, grimacing. His eyes flick from Tracey to Vesper, then stop on Jack. "You! You... you. Are you one of them? Wh-where-- what did you do? Where's here?" The last question sticks in his throat, and the shivering man turns his attention to Tracey, and repeats it. "Where's... here?" Vesper's question, perhaps luckily, distracts him. He must have the attention span of a goldfish. Jerry pauses. "I drive cabs," he says. And then he goes very pale.
"What's Solace House?" Logan asks Tracey. Some meta-thing? She could have used that when she popped into the city. There's nothing like New England in January, that's for sure. Jerry is addressed again. "Look, if you're running from somebody, if you're supposed to be in New York, I don't think there's anybody here looking for you. You'll find out why in a bit, just trust me. Who's Alice, your wife?" The poor guy! He looks so lost. The other immigrants Logan has seen seemed so collected after the initial shock. She puts a hand on his shoulder to support him in case he falls over.
"Kurt? No. He sort of... pops in and out. I don't get to see him often. I'll tell him that he was being looked-for, though?" And Since Tracey seems to have gotten the general consensus as a 'yes', here... "Alright. Someone, hail a cab, if you would. Let them know it's for Solace, and to put it on the tab. Solace House..." This, to Logan, "... is the local spot for, uh...." How to say this that she's not going to freak Jerry out. There isn't a way, is there? "... folks new to the city. And I'd say Jerry, here, fits that description pretty well. We've got medics there, and plenty of open rooms available. Trust me: I'm used to this." Not... so ripped-up, generally, but she's used to it. Kinda. Sorta. Almost. "If you can help him out, Miss...?" is directed, as well, to Logan. Tracey might be strong, but she ain't _that_ strong, and he's not showing much sign of being able to get up on his own. The question about 'Alice' isn't being answered. Nope. Not by Tracey, it's not. Not quite yet, thanks.
Whatever works. "Cool beans, then, Jack," replies Vesper cheerily. "Oh and /do/. Yeah. With the telling of the Kurt. I can give a hand, too," she adds, addressing the last to Logan more than Tracey. Big guy. Two-chick job. She pulls a bunch of crap out of her parka pockets and stuffs it all in her jeans pockets, then pulls the coat off and waves it in Jack's direction. "Here, hang on to this a second, a'right?" And *then* she steps forward, holding out extensively scarred arms to Jerry, palms up and open. "You drive cabs? That's great! That's what we're gonna get for you, okay? And it'll take you someplace warm, with food, and someone who can tell you what's going on. Come on, the road's gotta be really uncomfortable." Oh yeah. "My name's Vesper, Jerry."
Collected? Not Jack - he merely fainted. Most of Jerry's questions are ignored, but he answers the last, quietly. "You're in Beacon Harbor, in the US, the year is 2003." He looks reassured by Tracey's answer, but doesn't step away just yet. As Vesper brandishes the coat at him, he takes it reflexively, looking utterly bemused.
A distracted "No," is the only answer Logan gets. Exactly what Alice is to him is far too complicated to get into now... and even if he wasn't injured and in shock, Jerry probably wouldn't be able to keep up in a conversation with four strangers talking about things he doesn't understand. Although no one answers his questions, Jerry has thankfully already forgotten what he asked. Logan is treated to a blank look... but the blankness goes away when Vesper approaches, arms out. Jerry jerks back, reflexively, but the woman's genial tone keeps the man's paranoia from running entirely amok. "Uh... wait. Uhh...." His voice wavers. "Ahh..." He pauses for a moment, then latches on to her name. "Vesper... I... uh... maybe I should... just go home." That sounds good. Yeah. Home. I'll just stand up by myself and walk away, and get myself cleaned up. Okay. Jerry slides backwards, hitting the curb, then stops. What did Jack just say? "Where's Beacon H-harbour?" There's a momentary pause, and then he's moving. Very abruptly, Jerry tries-- and actually succeeds-- in standing. Weaving, he begins backing stiffly away from them all, injured arm stiff at his side, the good one up and palm outwards. "Just gonna go," he says quickly, swallowing.
"New England," Logan says. She'd shoot Jack a glare if she weren't busy trying to make sure Weavy here stays on his feet. Why'd he tell him that? As if the poor guy weren't upset enough already - this place could pass for part of New York. She's been there. Big cities are all the same. "Let's just get you into a taxi, huh? I think you're way too far from home to attempt getting there tonight." Besides, he needs medical attention. Logan's small, but she's strong, and if Jerry needs to lean she'll probably be able to support him.
Great. Just great. Nice move, Celliers. Unlike Logan, she can and does shoot him a glare. She'd... been hoping to wait on the bomb. "Easy there. Just hang on." Tracey takes the classic 'defenseless' stance, with hands held up, palms out, where Jerry can see them. A placating gesture. She's not going to approach just at the moment. No need for four different people to start advancing on the poor, scared man. She can try and do her placating from back here. At least until she sees whether things can be backed off. "Look. We're here to help you. Not to hurt you. You're already hurt enough. I've got a place that we can get you fixed up, and I can do some explaining there. Just relax, Ok? You're not alone, here." Her voice is dropped into conciliatory levels.
Oy. Vesper mutters something *incredibly* obscene at Jack in French - poor boy, do you feel ever so slightly ganged up on? - and drops her arms. And, well, stays put. "Solace House, the place is called," she adds. "I've heard about it, it's cool. And you can leave if you don't want to stay there. But you're really lost, and in bad shape, and you could probably use some sleep. You can sort everything out in the morning, okay?" She glances at Tracey and goes for eye contact, eyebrows up, and mimes talking on a cellphone. Then shrugs, questioningly.
Jack assumes a momentarily defensive look. Sure, lie to him so he'll be even less likely to trust us later when we really have to tell him the whole crack-headed story. At least he doesn't snap, "All hope abandon, ye who enter here," even though it's precisely the first thing that comes to mind. He's pointedly silent for the moment, raising his chin. Wordlessly, he takes a cellphone from his coatpocket, and proffers it to Tracey.
Hahah, no, he doesn't want to lean right now. Still stumbling, Jerry moves away from Logan, pausing only when the others have stopped advancing. He gives them all a wary look, and then looks left and right at the surrounding territory. Nothing's familiar at /all/, and he swallows again, mulling over what Tracey and Vesper have said. He doesn't buy it.
"How'd I get here?" Jerry demands, taking a half-step back and clenching his right hand convulsively. His tone is suddenly incredibly lucid; the speed at which he went from "babbling mad-man" to "scared but serious" is remarkable. "Who do you peop--..." Jerry's voice breaks, but he shakes his head angrily and tries again. "Who do you p-people work for?" One more half step back-- he takes a deep breath and lets it out, expression twisting into worry, and then near-grief. "I didn't do anything.. I hon--I honestly... I didn't." His hand comes up and rubs at his face and comes away salty. "Oh God. I swear. I didn't."
Tracey is a little busy trying to be the calming one here to make the call. She twitches her head toward Celliers' phone in answer to Vesper's little head-tilt. "If you don't know the number, I've got a card." Her voice is still low and placating, even while she's talking to Vesper. And then, pretty much keeping her focus on the retreating man, she keeps the flow of words up. "Easy. I work for Solace House. It's a place for people who've just gotten here. We've got medics who can give you a hand with those wounds, and a free bed for you to use until you can get your feet under you. You don't have to say anything. Just relax, settle down, and let us give you a hand, here. You look like you need it." Now, she actually dares a step forward toward Jerry. Just a single one, hands still out in that way.
"We don't work for anybody. Do you think if someone were trying to take you away they'd be a little more organized? With.. you know, guns and shit." She's sensible. Logan considers. You know, he's not going to calm down until he gets the full story. Logan takes a step back from him. "Maybe you better sit down, huh, buddy? This is a long kinda story and it's gonna sound like science fiction. I don't think you're in a state to hear it, though. I think the main thing is, you're safe from whoever you think you're running from." A glance at the others. "You guys wanna help me out? Last time I tried to explain to an immigrant it didn't go very well."
Vesper takes the phone from Celliers and makes a face at him. Sticking toungue out and wrinkling nose and all. The only reason she doesn't include raspberries is because it'd be a sudden sound, and stuff. She nods to Tracey and turns the phone on, then pauses. "Oh well if you're gonna explain the whole thing right now, better hold off on the cab, eh? And - er, I can't help much with that, sorry. I dunno most of it." The phone gets traded /back/ to Jack, for her parka, which she holds, addressing Jerry. "I work at the University, I'm --" Brief assessment of what's left of his soggy clothes. "--right, you've probably got the Internet and everything whereever you're from, right? I'm the sysadmin there. Part time information broker and musician, but those two are all about the self-employment. And if you /are/ gonna sit down and listen to the story, put this on, okay? 'Cause fuck if I'm gonna let you catch pneumonia." She's as congenial as she's been. Only time her tone changed was the under-breath mutter at Jack. And yes, the coat's being offered.
The Englishman's gone utterly pokerfaced, and takes the phone back. "It might be best to get him to some sort of shelter and tend those wounds, before giving him all the information," he observes, tone as flat as a Kansas highway.
Jerry doesn't retreat further at Tracey's slight approach, but it's probably because he's gaping openly at Logan. "Immigrant?" The hand comes down, hovering in front of him as though he's not sure what to do with it. "Immi... but I... I live in... what did I immigrate-- where did that happ--..." He stops, his eyes glazing over again. Too many questions to ask, and none of them want to wait their turn to come out of his mouth. But Logan mentioned a story, and Jerry wants to know what's going on. Still watching them warily, he shakes his head again and sends water droplets flying.
"Nnnngn... wait." His voice cracks again. "Wait. Just wait a second. This place, it's not... It's not New York. I was in New York and now I'm not." Okay. He gets that part down, and then Vesper is given a suspicious look. "I use a... a t-typewriter. No one c-can watch you or hack into your files." He swallows, and then very, very slowly, he takes two wobbly steps forward and takes the proffered jacket, and then retreats back to his previous position. There's a pause, while he tries to put it on one-handed-- he ends up just tossing it over his shoulders, but it's better than nothing. He eyes Vesper, and then looks away. "...Th-- uh... thank you." Jack is treated to a baleful look. "No. You tell me. All of you." Jerry hunches a bit, getting a little pale again. "God, tell me. I n-need to know."
"Too bad you didn't think of that before telling him he was in Beacon Harbor," Logan says to Jack. Ass. "I have to go. I left my friend at home all day." She's avoiding him, but there's no sense in explaining to everyone the trainwreck her life is right now. Forget it. She looks up at Jerry. "Listen, if you need a place, if this Solace House isn't cutting it, come down to the docks. I'm the /Ingrid Esther/."They can deal with this guy; he doesn't seem dangerous, and even if he is, what can she do anymore? The girl gives a subdued wave and walk off in the direction of the docks.
"Well. Usually I prefer to do this over a glass of something strong." She glances over at Jerry as she takes another reassuringly slow step. "If you want to get something strong to drink, there's spots that would be available." She waits until he's sat back down with his jacket, then draws a breath. "I guess I should be the one to lead, though. I've had to do this enough times, booze or not." Another of those pauses, to help collect her thoughts. "Alright. I'll start slow, and let you decide whether you want a drink for the rest. Welcome to Beacon Harbor, Jerry. You're not in New York any more. You might very well not be anywhere _close_ to home anymore, depending."
The typewriter comment from Jerry earns a crooked grin from the tall Quebecer, and she clasps her arms loosely across her chest. She can afford to get damp, was the idea. "No problem. And - I grok that. I fight the watchers and the hackers by being better than they are, though." When Tracey starts explaining, she quiets down; she /doesn't/ know the whole deal. Someone said something to her about Sliders, and she was like, 'cool'. And Kurt said something about it, and she was like, 'aw man, that sucks. sorry.' But she didn't research it or anything. It occurs to her that she probably ought to.
Celliers is still quiet, listening, still rather uselessly holding the folded umbrella. Tracey's doing a far better job than he could, after all.
"No alcohol," is all Jerry says. Coffee. But he doesn't need it yet. The exhausted man gets himself settled, watching Tracey as she draws near, but not backing away from her. He's too sore and too tired now that he's seated again to bother. As long as she's telling him what's going on, he's not going to wig out on her. Much. Hopefully. She's subjected to some scrutiny, but Jerry takes this first bit of information with no outward reaction. A muscle twitches in his jaw, and he nods stiffly for her to continue. Every so often, he shoots a sideways glance at Vesper and Jack, as though they'd better not use this opportunity to do anything weird or tricky. I'm watching you.
Tracey is getting rained-on, here. She was kinda hoping the guy would take the drink. Because, well... that's get them inside. "Wherever you were from," Tracey says, voice still relaxed and placating, stopping well out of arm's reach for her so Jerry doesn't end up feeling more threatened, "It's probably not even a blink on the map, here. Like... uh... you know. Her. Like the woman that was just here said" Hey. Tracey only just _now_ noticed that Logan never did give her name... then again, Tracey hasn't, either. "... it's going to sound like you've walked into the biggest science fiction movie you've heard of. But there was an experiment done here, several years ago. No one is exactly sure what happened, but the end result is that there's been some sort of... effect, here. They call it the Infinity Effect. And it pulls people from their own world and into this one. Exceptional people." She pauses again to let that bunch absorb.
Vesper isn't gonna /do/ anything weird, she just /looks/ weird. "Like Kurt," she supplies helpfully. "He's blue. And not in the sad way. In the he's actually blue way. And fuzzy. But it's other kinds of exceptional, too. People that do cool stuff, people that know cool stuff. There was this kid in the computer lab who was telling me about this one guy who was sure he just got pulled through because of the sheer sexiness of the car he was driving." She tugs her shirt down a little and tries to ignore the fact that her hair is sticking to her. "The upside to all this is that whoever you were trying to get away from isn't after you here. I mean, if you were trying to get away from someone. You /could've/ got all chewed up by falling in a combine or something."
Now it's Vesper who's getting the thousand-yard stare from Jack. What in the hell is she going on about? But he does add, "She's entirely right. Whatever it was you were fleeing is not here. You're safe, from that at least."
... Um. Right. Jerry doesn't do anything except furrow his brow, but that furrow says "You must be crazy" and "I must be crazy" at the same time. Exceptional people. Different world. Not in Kansas anymore. Blue people. Sexy cars. Sure. The man shifts again and grunts, the shallow wound in his side pulling a bit. It obliges by beginning to bleed again, sluggishly, under the jacket. Oh! And the people he was running from are gone. How nice. Heheh. This is such a joke. A tiny half-smile forms on Jerry's face and he watches the others quite calmly. "And... and what about the people I wasn't-- wasn't running from." He looks at them, mouth still quirking up at the corners. The smile doesn't reach his eyes. "What about Alice?"
Can Tracey just bring him home now? Away from the not-so-reassuring people? She matches Jack's glare with her own. Yeah. _Nice_ work being reassuring, Girl. "The people you weren't running from," she says, "are... just as far away as the rest of them. In other words... I'm sorry, Jerry." Now, she takes another of those half-steps in. Just in case she needs to _really_ be reassuring. "Alice... probably isn't here."
Err. Sorry. Vesper has the grace to look sheepish instead of defensive. She /was/ trying to help, but, uh. She can see she's not. And this part - she heard one version of it, for one person, and it sucked. So she just hugs her arms to her chest and listens, standing in the rain.
Celliers sighs, simply, finally recalling the rain enough to snap open that umbrella again.
Ha ha ha h--... wait, what? Jerry draws back a little, taking his attention off Vesper. The smile disappears from his face entirely and he looks from person to person, not at all liking the expressions he finds there. These people are very good actors. ...Very good. Yes. "Well... when is she coming?" Jerry asks, frowning. He doesn't quite get it yet-- or maybe he just doesn't want to get it. It's hard to tell with Jerry-- his expression doesn't come close to expressing what's really going on inside. "Never mind. I'll go find her... I'll find her tomorrow." Yeah. That sounds good. "What else?"
So far so... good? Bad? "No one's been able to find a way to activate it. No one knows why it activates, how it activates, or when it'll activate. Once you've been brought here... I'm sorry, Jerry. But you're here for the duration. This dimension. Not this city. But there's not much outside the city that'll be any more help than here." Yeah, she's a good actor alright. She looks dead-serious about everything that she's saying.
"Except not the cops. There're probably a few good ones, I mean, they can't *all* be rotten, right? Uh - but, the force on the whole here is crooked. And the hospital's kind of spooky, there were some weird stories in the paper." Vesper finally reaches up and pushes wet, clingy, not-entirely-held-by-braid hair off her face, and adjusts her shirt again. "And if, when you're feeling a little better, you want to read up on any of this - come to the University, okay? The library's really good, and I can set you up on a lab terminal, you can check out web information. Just ask where the Comp Sci building is, then ask for me, Vesper Antagonist. That way you can doublecheck everything we're telling you." She looks the same as she's looked throughout, really, except chillier. Chillier in the 'wow it's chilly out' way, not in the 'I am being a cold cold bitch' way. And more soaked.
The Englishman adds, tone again flat, "Be extremely wary of the hospital, in fact. In some ways, there have been doctors there worse than the police."
Jerry just stares. He watches them while they talk; part of his mind absorbs the information they're giving him, but the rest just stares blankly. There's a low, sick, acidic feeling forming in the pit of his stomach right now... the idea that maybe-- just maybe-- they aren't acting. That this is real. He clears his throat once, then lifts his chin and speaks. "S-so. Okay. All right. Let me see if I've got this right." He straightens himself, losing whatever colour that remained in his face. "I'm in another... another dimension. I got pulled here from my own by an... effect that randomly grabs extra-- extr-- certain people. Alice isn't here. She can't get here and I can't get to her. And there's... no way back." His voice has been rising in octave but lowering in volume as he speaks, and now he looks from one to the other for conformation. "Ever. Is... uh... is that about it?"
Tracey braces. It's actually visible in her stance. She's just waiting for the explosion. "That's the size of it. Solace House, where I manage, was set up to handle people in your situation. You're not alone." Gods, it always sounds like she's talking about AA when she says that.
"And it's not necessarily ever," Vesper hastens to add. "I mean, it's just that no one knows how to do it yet. There's someone I *know* is doing research in that area. I can tell her - I think it's a her - to send you any information she finds, if you want. Except it's mostly weird physics notes."
Celliers gives Vesper a curious look. "Can I add myself to that list as well?" he wonders, tone suddenly hopeful.
Oh. So that's it, is it? There's a very long silence from Jerry. No explosion, no bursting into tears, no anger, no demand for an explanation. He just sits there and looks shell-shocked. "...Oh," he says. And then slowly, painfully, he gets back to his feet. He turns to Vesper, expression blank. "I'll remember that." Remember what? What just happened? Oh. Oh wait. This can't be... this....
His expression suddenly turning into one of wretched and utter horror, Jerry takes one step backwards and turns to run. Perhaps it's a blessing that his legs pick that particular moment in time to stop working. Jerry stumbles once, and then his legs go out from under him and he crashes back to the pavement, hard.
"Right on cue." Tracey's voice sounds both relieved and weary. She was rather hoping that it'd go better than that, but... well, it didn't. "Alright, you two. You can stop /trying/ to be helpful, now, and be helpful? Someone call a cab? I've got to get him to Solace House. He's going to end up with hypothermia if he stays out here." See, now that he's down, she doesn't have to handle with care. He won't bite!
"Oh, calisse de crisse de tabarnak d'ostie de ciboire de testament..!" exclaims Vesper, remarkably disgustedly, finally unfolding her arms in order to wave them around a bit. "Look, he wanted to know what he should know. I told him shit people told /me/, all right? Jack, /you/ call a cab, it's your cell. Here, give me my kit back, I'll clean and bandage anything I can see's bleeding a lot," she says, not waiting for it to be offered, reaching for it. "And at least the parka's still drier than the rest of him."
"Garde votre lingue." Tracey says in Vesper's general direction, as she stands up from the out cold body and heads over toward the curb-side, ready to catch the cab and give them the directions. "Anyway," she adds, going back to English, "let's just get him, and ourselves, in our of this rain." She's damp, she's cold, and she's a little worried about the whole situation. New faces are always so... volatile. Never know what's going to happen.
Right, Tracey gets raspberries because Jerry's out cold and won't get startled by it. "You didn't have a problem with my English cussing," she points out mildly. As she's taking the bag over to Jerry and being as good as her word - uck, his shirt's fucked - she adds calmly, "When the cab gets here, I'm going to follow you two to Solace House. Then come back tomorrow after work. He sounds about as paranoid as these eighteen-year-old Russian conspiracy theorist twins from Staten Island I had Logic with sophomore year, so giving him things to read will probably make him freak out less." Plastic gloves on. Clean, clean. Bandage, bandage. Just any that're bleeding significantly. And then she carefully works on getting the coat on him better. "It always go this way? When people portal in?"
Celliers replies, completely deadpan, "No, sometimes they faint and get abducted by crazy English people and their friends."
Tracey rolls her eyes. But, well, she certainly can't argue Vesper's point. Especially not when Tracey was doing some cussing of her own, if not quite so... enthusiastic. "Sometimes," she says, almost ignoring Celliers' comment. Or confirming it. "Or sometimes they freak out and blow apart streets, buildings, stuff like that. I try to handle new arrivals as though they could explode at any minute. Because I'm sure that some can." She's had her accidents before this. She's trying to learn from them. "And if you want to follow me, you can. It might not be all that interesting, depending. I'm just going to send him to be checked by Medico and get him settled in a comfortable, quiet room." As the cab pulls up, Tracey leans in through the window and gives the general directions. Yeah. It's another one for Solace. "Come on.," she says toward Vesper, "let's get him in. Can you help, too?" That, to Celliers. "I'm not strong enough to hoist his unconscious ass into the car."
Hee hee. Poor Jack. Hee hee hee. "No, it's not for interest. I mean, I know where the place is, but that doesn't mean I can find it again," says Vesper, *definitely* sheepishly this time. "I get lost a lot." She pulls open the door, then comes around to help pick him up and put him in. There's a crooked grin. "And you can tell him he knows I'll be back because I left my coat."
Tracey nods as she swings into the car to help brace the unconscious man up. "Not a problem. I'll meet you up there." She then glances over toward Celliers. "And you, if you decide to follow. I don't think you'll get to see anything, though. I expect him to get a good night's sleep." She can hope, anyway. And with that, she shuts the door of the cab and signals it onward.
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Date: 2003-03-26 05:51 pm (UTC)