Corner of Godiva and Serendipity, Wednesday morning

[vdistinctive]

The air was gently sweet, like a subtle perfume. The sky was blue, folks on the street were cheerful and smiling at one another, and there was a giant freaking tower at the end of Eliot's street that hadn't been there the day before.

Eliot stood across from it with his arms crossed over his chest, Val sitting at his feet. It was definitely alien, whether from space or another dimension, he wasn't sure. It didn't look like they'd been invaded by anything other than the towers -- why would they be so obvious with those if they weren't going to come tromping out with ray-guns or whatever. Were they microscopic, maybe? That might be what the perfume was.

"What do you think?" he asked Val. She looked up at him and panted blandly. He frowned. "You feelin' okay?" She cocked her head to one side.

A passing rickshaw driver rang his bell to get Eliot's attention and waved cheerfully at him. "Fine morning, isn't it?"

Val yipped happily and wagged her tail at the driver. The passengers in the rickshaw looked over and smiled blandly.

"Yeah," Eliot said, looking between the rickshaw and his oddly behaving puppy and the tower. "Because none of this is suspicious at all."

[ooc: open to any fellow abductees!]

Comments

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Go ahead an' tell me that that's not the kinda thing that can happen in Fandom," Hardison pointed out. Not that he was looking at the towers. He was staring down at Val and frowning. "Ditto with it smellin' like the inside of a Febreeze bottle whenever you walk outside...Yo, what's wrong with Megabyte?"

[vdistinctive]

"Yeah, well, so're elder gods and dead serial killers," Eliot said. "Just 'cause it's happenin' in Fandom doesn't mean ain't suspicious." He looked down at Val, who watched them talk and occasionally turning her head to watch the passersby. "I don't know. She's been actin' weird all morning. I mean -- she's actin' like a perfectly normal, healthy dog, but not like her."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"She, like, ain't respondin' right to stuff." You can keep your alien towers and your glowing lights, Eliot. Hardison had more important things to worry about. "Hey, girl! Hey, look what I got here!" He pulled out a bag of jerky from his pocket and held a piece out. "Mmm, look! Somethin' Daddy says you ain't s'posed to have, but that sure smells delicious!"

[vdistinctive]

"Dammit, Hardison," Eliot started, but trailed off when Val didn't do much more than bark at Hardison and wag her tail. She didn't leap up to snatch the jerky from him. She didn't run excitedly in a circle.

"If I find whoever put my damn dog on valium I'm going to take them apart."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Word," Hardison said, popping the jerky into his mouth. "I'mma help you with that. Ain't nobody messes with our girl and keeps breathin on their own."

He stretched and looked around, actually looking at things, then reached over to pinch Eliot--hard--on the arm.

[vdistinctive]

"Ow." Eliot whacked his knuckles -- gently -- back at Hardison's shoulder. "The hell was that for?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Establishin' a baseline," Hardison said cheerfully, before sticking his hands in his pockets and sauntering over to the side of the road and whistling a cheerful tune.

Way to oversell it, Hardison.

He barely had to wait more than a minute before a rickshaw driver trotted over to him, greeting Hardison with a grin and a tip of his hat. Hardison turned to give Eliot a, Can you believe this? look before saying, "Sorry," to the driver and pinching him, too.

The driver didn't respond.

"Thanks," Hardison said, and walked back to Eliot. The driver stayed where he was for another moment, then shrugged and headed off. "Well, we ain't dreamin'," he said. "But we've left normal behind, even for this place."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot hadn't honestly thought the rickshaw drivers would get any creepier. He should have known better.

"Alright," he said. "Okay, so either someone really did put most of the island on valium or. . . ." He didn't have an 'or' yet. He looked back up at the tower again. ". . . Pod people?"

Okay, maybe he did have an 'or'.

"Why would it go after my dog and the rickshaw drivers, but not you and me?" Hell, Val slept basically on top of Eliot, when there was room in the bed. How would it have gotten to her but by-passed the rest of them?

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"You fed her yet?" Hardison asked. "Food and water might be spiked with somethin'. If it were airborne, we'd all be halfway to la la land, not just some of us." He held up his phone, angling it around in several directions. "The air's too clear."

[vdistinctive]

"We both had breakfast before we came out here," Eliot said. "Same water, and I make her food myself. Not sayin' it's tamper-proof, but -- still, why go after her and not me?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Maybe she's processin' it faster?" Hardison suggested. "It might take more time or more...whatever...to affect you." He peered at his phone again and shook his head. "This is just weird. Okay, so check it--there's always somethin' in the air. Radio waves, wi-fi, TV signals, text messages...all the millions of ways folks communicate with one another over the whole damn planet, right? I should be gettin' feeds in a hundred damn languages--Baltimore's not a major communication hub, but it's big enough an' DC ain't more'n an hour away. An' yet..." He waved his phone around in the air. "Nothin'! Not a damn thing! I mean, okay, it ain't dead, but it's barely a fraction of what should be there. An' it's all...local."

[vdistinctive]

"That's what you meant?" Eliot had figured he meant the sky was too blue or something. "Is it possible this thing is putting out . . . some kind of dampening field or somethin'?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison just gave Eliot a sigh. Like he knew the appropriate amount of nitrogen in the atmosphere or something. C'mon now!

(Okay, technically he did. Shut up, that was science, it was different!)

"Stuff should still be comin' in, though," Hardison argued. "Like, if you went home an' turned on the TV you ain't got, you should still get a signal from your cable company so you can watch Rudy for the one millionth time or whatever. But there's nothin' comin' in, nothin' goin' out, an' nothin' that suggests anything is even out there at all! According to electronics, we're in the middle of a goddamn dead zone."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot nodded. "They're tryin' to cut us off. Nothing in, nothing out. Question is why."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"There's more than one reason someone might wanna cut us off?" Hardison asked.

Because he could only think of one and it was nasty.

[vdistinctive]

"Sure there are," Eliot said. "They want somethin' from us, and they don't want us gettin' away. They want somethin' from the mainland, and they don't want us gettin' in the way. They're testin' us, maybe for science, maybe just to be deliberately cruel. Or they ain't got a damn clue what they're doin' and they just happened to park a big ass space-RV on our lawn."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Well...ain't you spent years preparin' for this exact scenario or somethin'?" Hardison asked, now thoroughly creeped out by those listed possibilities. "I woulda figured you'd have what to do all worked out or whatever."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot sighed. "Too many variables. Too much we still don't know. I'll let you know when I've got somethin' figured out."