Players:
Summary: Heather and Alexander go for lunch, but someone gets stuck with the bill…
Date: July 8, 2010.
Log Title Dine and Dash
Rating: G.
NYC - Chinatown
The hustle and bustle of Chinatown. Here the streets are always crowded, the traffic is always jammed and street vendors are everywhere. Chinese restaurants and Chinese bakeries litter the streets along with various small shops selling everything from swords to bowls to plastic toys. If your looking for bootlegged purses, movies, toys, anything, you can find it in Chinatown at low costs.
Heather recently received her allowance from Xavier's. It's not very much money, but it's more than she really received before. That means she has the opportunity to collect plenty of cheap junk, which is one of Heather's favorite things to do. She has a small bag hanging around her shoulder as she zips about the street looking at the signs on each building. She has reached a dilemma, though. She is hungry, but she hates waiting for food, especially when she's by herself.
CRASH! This is probably the sound that someone makes when colliding with a girl that's holding bags full of cheap junk! The man that so rudely collides with the girl stumbles backwards and almost falls onto his posterior. "Oh, sorry!" He says quickly, trying to figure out who he just ran in to.
Heather barely seems to notice the collision. A weird side effect of her timeshift is that she actually experiences some aspects of physics a bit differently, so the young man's momentum seems almost nil. She blinks a few times as she oh-so-stably stands there and states through her tape recorder, "Watch where you're going otherwise you'll crash into people." She is wearing colours that clash oh-so-terribly, a pair of red sweatpants and a navy t-shirt patterned with green polka-dots, all likely from a thrift store. Her hair is tangled and she looks a little bit twitchy.
"Sometimes it's hard to pay attention through this heat." Alex replies, "Let me make it up to you." The mutant reaches into his coat's pocket to remove some tin foil scraps that have been joined together to form a perfect chrome rose. There's a few sparks of red electricity but it almost looks like that's just a reflection of the setting sun. He hands the rose to Heather, "Here."
"Aaaaugh, you're a mutant?! Call the police!" plays Heather, flailing her arms slightly. It's not hard to tell that she's moving in a fast-forward state, making her a very obvious mutant. She leans in slightly towards the mutant, taking the rose from his hand, "Thank you. This looks nice."
Alexander laughs, "Only if you consider my power to be one of producing tinfoil roses." The rose appears to be solid enough, if not a bit warm to the touch. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Alex. I'm a bit new to this city, you see." He smiles happily, "I hope I didn't hurt you, I've been zoning off a lot lately due to—" The reason is self explanatory, as his stomach grows as if on cue. He grins a bit wider, "Food."
"Hurt me? I barely even felt you. I wouldn't have stopped if I didn't see you stumble there," plays Heather on her machine. "Good power. Folding and bending. I'm jealous. So what's a scary mutant like you doing out here at such an hour? Don't you have banks to rob or something?" She blinks rapidly and crosses her arms over her stomach, "I'm hungry too. I think there's a Chinese restaurant nearby." In Chinatown. "You will accompany me so I don't get bored when the service is insanely slow."
"I thought I'd do something a little different than my normal routine of eating normal people like pixie sticks." Alex replies jokingly, "I can do more than fold and bend things sometimes! Sometimes I even wear gloves like right now in this insane heat. I'm that frightening." He laughs again. "Why don't you lead the way? There are lots of Chinese restaurants and you seem to know what you want."
"Pixie sticks? People are not filled with sweet farie dust," scoffs Heather at that, like it's the craziest thing she's ever heard. "There's one close by. How fast is the fastest you can run?" She looks down at Alex's arms and up at the sky, noting, "I'm probably going to get sunburns because I didn't wear long sleeves." Her ghostly pallor prevents her from doing much else than burning in the heat.
Alexander shrugs, "I am sure you're way faster than me. I'll just try to keep up with you." How could someone keep up with a speed-demon without being a speed-demon? "So your 'gift' is super speed or something? Is that why you use a tape-recorder?"
"Ummm, gift? What. No. I just eat too many humans. I mean pixie sticks. The sugar has an impact," says Heather flatly over the tape recorder, "Anyways, if I have any gift, it is inventing time control. That's what I heard. From myself. From the future." She scratches her head lightly and plays, "But enough about me. Let's eat." She walks quickly towards a nearby restaurant, her short 'slow' steps approximating a jog.
Alexander instantly takes off to match the 'jog's' pace. He's pretty silent up to the restaurant, but seems to have no trouble keeping up. The staff at the Chinese place are quick to place the duo with menus, though Alex orders immediately. "One shrimp lo mein, beef lo mein, sesame chicken, and Mandarin pancakes please." That's a lot of food! Does he really plan to eat all of that?
The server seems to turn away after the order is placed, probably assuming that the food was for both patrons, but Heather stops that short with a stomp of her foot and the audio on her tape recorder, "Ginger beef, hot and sour soup, orange chicken, salty fish fried rice, dumplings and, ummmm… Those yellow noodles with the… um. They're spicy. And thin." She nods a few times, and the server walks away a bit mroe confused. She looks towards Alexander, "So who are you?"
Alexander stops the server again, "Make that spicy noodle order double!" Just the finish the confusion act, but also, spicy noodles are delicious. "I'm Alex." He tplies to Heather, "Who are you? Also do you like games?" He takes one of the spare napkins and somehow produces a marker from his overshirt, drawing a tic-tac-toe chart on the napkin.
Heather looks at the tic-tac-toe game for a few moments, and makes the first move. She simply picks the top corner, pointing at it to tell Alexander that she wants to move there. "Heather Brown, codename: Timeslip. And games are what I do best." She is aware of the nature of this particular game, but plays it because not everyone is.
Alexander laughs softly, "It's a tie. You know how to play. You could have chosen diagonal or the other corners depending on what I chose." The marker is recapped and slipped into Alex's overshirt again. "It's nice meeting you, Heather. Do you go to school here in New York?"
"Place your choice in, though. You have to play the whole game just once," plays Heather. "I took the top left corner with X. I want to see what it looks like when you make ties. And I go to school at someplace somewhere. I don't know. It's boring. Move too slow." Speaking of moving too slow… she stares off towards the kitchen for a few moments. It's unreasonable to expect them to be finished, but she can be a bit unreasonable sometimes.
Alexander rebrandishes the marker to place an O in the center after placing an X in the top left corner. "When a player one takes the corner, player two has to move in the center." Alex smiles a bit.
Heather nods at that, "You're right. Then it's just responses." She points at the top right corner and shrugs. She still watches the board with some interest, "I know how the game can play out. I pity 'O', because it has very little chance at victory even against a novice player."
Alexander draws an X, and fills in the middle spot between Xs with an O. "X will win twice as much as O. Much like real combat, the one who takes the initiative in a fair fight will often win." Alex glances towards the kitchen, obviously hungry as well.
Heather sighs softly and takes the block, gesturing at the bottom middle. It's necessary so not to lose, so she doesn't even consider it a proper move. Heather is more excited about what comes next. A choice is presented to her opponent! "Against a novice player. Against a strong player, I don't even play. It's a waste of resources."
Alexander takes the obvious corner to defuse any ambitious moves by Heather in the future, insuring the game will be a tie. "See? It's a tie." He hands the marker over to Heather. "So you invent time travel in the future? That sounds interesting."
Heather nods and says, "You've given up your only chance at victory. You aren't clinging to the hope that I'm more foolish than I let on," states Heather, nodding at the choice. She carefully marks an X in the middle square on the right side. "And I guess it's interesting, but I'm also evil or something, so it comes with a cost."
Alexander points towards the lower right corner. "Would you have been satisfied if I pulled the move you just made? The only winning move is not to play. So in a way, you didn't win, because you accepted my challenge to begin with." He smiles happily, revealing a part of a greater scheme. The food should be coming any minute now.
Heather shakes her head and says, "No, I won as much as this can be won. I asked you to play despite your insisting it's a tie. I learned something. My goals are sometimes different than the game itself. Secondary goals are what make these things interesting. I could have played it so neither of us ever had a proper choice. That's dull. But there are two kinds of people." She places an O there, and then an X in the remaining spot just to complete the board. "Anyways, it's best to always to check on the first time. Sometimes, novices are unaware that they're novices."
Alexander extends his hand, "Good game." He smiling even wider now, maybe that previous comment was also a test. It's hard to tell with this guy! He's a riddles within riddles sort of person at times. The door to the kitchen swings open and food appears to be coming out. On multiple platters.
Heather just lightly slaps both sides of Alexander's hand in her own version of the handshake. She finds the real thing to be uncomfortable and long. She smiles brightly as the food starts to come, but the expression vanishes just as fast. "Good game," plays her tape recorder.
Some time later, Alex stacks the last of the empty cartons together, looking pleased with the amount of food that is now gone from his side. That is — all of it. "Wow—, what an excellent meal. How was your food, Heather?" How he ate that much food is astounding. He could win a competition or something.
Heather manages to eat most of the food, but does just package a box or two up. She prefers not to get too full, since it makes her feel lethargic. She glances down at her watch and then back up at Alex, "It was good. I like the food from here. It is different."
Alexander stands up slowly, "I haven't had Chinese in a long time. .. Hold that thought, though." As he walks towards the counter. He can be seen talking with the person at the counter for a little bit before the restaurant gets a little crowded for a moment, then he's gone.
It doesn't take Heather long to realize what happened, and she slams down the remainder of her current allowance onto the counter (which covers the meal, but barely), inquiring, "Where did he go?" Her brows are furrowed angrily.
Alexander has long since vanished onto the streets. He was kind enough to tell the lady how Heather was going to be picking up his tab, then proceeded casually out of the area. Such is the advantage of the maze-like alleyways of Chinatown.
