Players:
Summary: A comedy of mistaken identities and miscommunication.
Date: January 19, 2010.
Log Title Robyn Redux
Rating: PG.
Xavier Mansion - Ramsey Dormitories Lobby
The lobby of Ramsey Dormitories has two elevators at one end of the wall along with the entrance to a cafeteria. On the wall are three pictures that say 'In memory of'. One is of Douglas Ramsey, another of John Proudstar and the last one is of Jean Grey. There are several couches and tables down here for students to relax. Large windows in the front and sides allow for a lot of light in the room.
It's late evening and most people have bedded down for the night. Or at least retreated to their rooms. Dallas is setting on on the couches, hooked into the school network as he researches. The quiet *tac-tac-tac* of his typing on a school-issued laptop is the only sound as he works. He's dressed in long black board shorts that come down past his knees and a gray t-shirt with the school logo on it. Pretty much every inch of exposed skin is either sunburned, bruised, scratched up or all three and his feet are propped up on a basketball as he types, though his shoes are on the floor next to the couch. He mutters, "The stupid glossary needs a glossary."
Richard has been simply wandering about the school today, taking everything in, and although it's terribly inconvenient that he should be arriving during one of the most hectic times at the school. He is here, and here to stay. The tall and skinny teen walks into the lobby, looking above, below, and around the room. Though he does not see Dallas quite yet, until the glossary quip. "Oh yeah. I know how that goes." He mentions, still looking up and observing the lobby of the dorms.
New Student C.Michael Drakos has just returned from a trip into town. He had even made his bike into a Kawasaki Ninja for the occasion. Acquiring a full tank of tas and four liters in his spare bottles, he now has enough to last for a few days. His '68 BMW bike is now safely stowed in the garage, and he is returning to the boy's dorms, where they had given him a temporary room until his real room was ready.
He opens the door and comes inside, turning off the lamps behind his eyes a moment after he gets inside. He's also dressed in long black board-style shorts, which have those giant garish flames like a hot-rod, and he still has his red Hawaiian shirt with the blue, green and yellow abstract on front. Other than that he's just himself: 5'11", shining white chassis, red pin striping, rubber tread on palms and bottoms of feet, your usual car/teenage boy.
Dallas is murmuring, "What on earth is a double recessive epistasis?" when he hears what he thinks is a familiar voice and looks up, grinning faintly, "Hey, Rob … been some changes today, have there?" His eyebrows lift and the grin fades as the sentence continues. He follows it up with a "Dude! I mean … dude! Not that I'm not cool with you not rocking the mutant love child of Tim Burton look, but … wow." Compared to a cleaned up, non-inked, preppy Robyn, the Robo-guy is almost normal to Dallas. He moves his stare from the boy he thinks is his friend to the newcomer an says, "Wow. Ok. That's a new one."
"Double recessive epistawhat?" Richard offers before changing his line of sight to Dallas. "Who's Rob?" He asks before going along. "Tim Burton, oh that guy. Naa, I don't dress like one of those Hot Topic Goth kids." The teen says before giving a grimace. As he hears someone else approach, he looks to Mike and his eyes open wide. "Woah, sup?" He asks Mike, giving a friendly smirk.
Not quite in time to catch "Double Recessive Epistasis" Mike is still in time to catch the interesting beginning of a comedy of errors, or is it prince and pauper? Anyway.
At an acceptable volume for the room and the time of night, Peter Gabriel's voice says "Hi there!" in a sample from Big Time; then a sample of a no-name wanna-be comic dj says "m-m-m(scratch)mY Name is MIKE!" … and then Mike notices he isn't wearing the stick-on identity label, shrugs and waves a hand at the other two late-nighters.
Dallas closes the laptop muttering, "Gene stuff." He gives Richard a closer look and says, "Robyn, dude. First, how did you make the tats go away? Is that some kind of psychic mojo or something? And second … changing your whole look and attitude…. that's not good. That's like, major league screwed up." He winces faintly at the irony there. "Did Addison screw up and turn you into a Mormon or something? 'Cause I think he's been locked in the brain box down there so long that even his astral projection smells funky." Mike gets another look and he frowns thoughtfully and then just shrugs. The guy who melds with his own shadow and is secretly convinced it's actually alive and sentient? He doesn't get to throw stones at the transformer kid. "Hey. Dallas. Welcome to Mutant High."
"What's happenin' guy?" Richard asks of the robot boy, who seems to have Richard intrigued. "Who's Robyn?" He asks again, before giving another grimace. "I've never had any tats. And, Mormons don't dress like this." Richard says all before moving to sit down at a chair. "I'm no mutant either, I'm a…Gallifreyan? Or I dunno, somewhere close to Alpha Centauri I think." Yes, he just said that. What 'chu gonna do? Either way, this may or may not be the Robyn Dallas is looking for. "Oh, I'm Richard by the way." He offers before holding out a hand to Dallas.
Somewhere in the distance (well, from Mike but it's turned WAY down) a radio can be heard switching channels. New York has dozens of radio stations, right? Well, most of them are offline right now. The 25 hour a day Elvis station? Not gonna even try to find words there. The Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Filipino, and Hindi channels? I do not speak your moon languages. The Catholic channel? Still playing choral masses interspersed with formal exorcisms. Probably a good thing, that latter part. And the all talk news channel? Most of those guys were probably demons before this all started, but they have nothing useful to say. Frustrated, Mike pulls out a dry-erase marker and a microfiber cloth and starts writing red letters on his shining white arm. "Nuthin haps, what wait, ur a timelord? whos robin & why you say rich. is?"
Mike taps under the first part and nods to Richard, and the second, nodding to Dallas.
Dallas blinks at Richard for a moment and says, "Ah, you are? Robyn, that is. Not an alien." He takes that hand shake and then his eyebrows go up. Calloused. Strong in a way that doesn't involve molding clay. He reads Mike's arm and tries another track, looking between the two of them. "Shapeshifter? Because you are a dead ringer for a friend of mine. Seriously. It's a little scary. And what's a timelord?"
"Shapeshifter? No, not that I can think of." Richard responds before looking back to Mike. "I dunno, it would explain a LOT lately though." He offers. "And it would be cool to have one of those Sonic Screwdrivers." He smirks as he thinks about it. "Timelords, a race of aliens who do cool things with time and in blue police call boxes that are bigger inside then they are outside."
THAT one Mike does have a sample for: the squeeeeTHUNK squeeeeeTHUNK wheeze of a TARDIS drive from the end of the song "Dr. Who" … now that would be an interesting vehicle. Probably wouldn't work though, since the new stuff says it has a mind of its own.
He wipes his arm clean and writes again - a clean mechanical scrawl, looks like COMIC SANS font, way too regular - and it says, '1nc u hav elimn8d th mposbl, wtevs rmnz no mtr how mprbbl, must b truth.
Dallas blinks at Richard, not speaking just yet but the sound effect jars him. "OH! Right, right. Geek stuff." He looks back to Mike and puzzles out that spelling. He looks back up at the robotic newcomer and says, "Dude. The last guy I saw who wrote like that? Ended up off the team and in remedial ed for like, twenty to life." And then he looks back at Rob… Richard. "Wow. It's kind of freaky. He's going to crap himself." And then a frown. "Actually, he kind of doesn't need the stress."
"Hey, not geek stuff. BBC is just what my parents watch, and in between Mary, Queen of Shops, and some other boring shit, is Doctor Who." He says, before looking on Mike's arm. "One-ce you have elimin-ate-ed the m-possible, whatever rr-mn-s oh remains, no matter how m-prob-a-ble must be truth. Ahh, yeah I guess so, huh. So Alpha Centauri then, or maybe somewhere in another solar system." Yep, he's more than willing to think of himself as an alien, and that he is sure of. "But you know, half of the shows are so wacky, that there might really be a Gallifrey. Who's gonna crap himself? This Robyn guy?" He asks, before looking around the lobby again.
Mike would make a face but … his face really did stick that way. In this pleasant almost-smile thing.
So instead he plays back that R2-D2 raspberry, erases his arm and writes, "It has to fit on my arm, OK? Ran out of paper."
The faint background sound of Mike's radio pauses for a moment - someone is cursing in the background, faintly… it's not clear whether Mike has found one of the newest gangrap sensations or a demon has found a radio broadcast booth. In any case it switches abruptly back to the exorcism being sung on the Catholic channel.
He emits another sample: "Sorry" — in a wispy faint emo tenor.
Dallas gives Richard a careful look, the sort one reserves for people who might be a little mad and says, "Ah, what makes you think you're an alien. And yea, Robyn. If somebody popped up who looked just like you but different you'd… wait. Wow. Ok, yea, it's going to happen to you too. You'll see." That sound effect from Mike makes him actually smile, rather than an ironic or polite grin. "Man, you and Mikhail, he's another friend, he does impersonations too… you guys need to get together. And sorry. It's been a weird week."
Richard gives Dallas a weird look. "Well, cause my parents aren't my real parents, I have little to no record of my birth. And I have…powers like Superman's. Not like Superman's they ARE Superman's. My skin is so tough I can't get a shot or give a blood sample, I fly without wings and without anything else to propel me, and the others." Of course, nothing is really going to be able to prove or disprove Richard on his theories. Fate had decided that a long time ago after he was adopted.
Mike erases his arm again and writes, "Why alien? Why not mutant? or evil clone? Or good clone?"
He _really_ wishes at this point that he had his voice back - instead, he shows the message and waits. It could be worse, like Papa had mentioned, he could be a Stephen Hawking only without the great mind nobody would bother to help him talk. So.
Dallas sits back. He's not a rocket scientist, but he's not an idiot either. "You're adopted. So is Robyn. You look the same, except he's Halloween and you're Homecoming. And you're both mutants. Your powers sound cooler, though. Ah, wow. It's like a bad Disney movie except you'd be played by Hannah Montana." He blinks at Mike and says, "I don't think /Robyn/ is the evil clone. He's a little out there but he's very cool." He hooks a thumb towards Richard. "If either of them are evil, it's him. But I think it's probably a little simpler than that."
"Wow, really, you're willing to call me evil and you don't even know me. That's just grand." Richard says before looking back to Mike. "Cause, I've never felt like I belong anywhere, yeah I'm good at sports, but I've never really felt like a…human." He says, before going on. "And I'm no clone. I'm pretty sure that's not even legal thanks to that dillweed President Bush."
Mike erases, and writes, "Robin the goth clone & Rich the one w/taste? OK No clones."
Dallas shrugs and says, "Don't take it personally. It's just easier to think of a stranger that way than my friend. I don't really think you're evil." He sighs and shakes his head, looking at Mike's writing. "No clones. But other than that? Who knows?" He takes a look at the clock over the entrance to the cafeteria and winces faintly. "I have to be up for my morning workout in, like, two hours. I need to go to bed at least a little tonight." With that he stands, collecting the laptop. "Cool meeting you guys. Welcome and all that." He looks back to Richard and adds, "I'll steer Robyn your way if I see him. Might be interesting." With that, he prepares to head towards his room.
