Chapter 2: Hostage Situation

=Amanda Loup-Archambault=

Amanda glared at the Thirteenth Children as she rolled past, eventually splitting off from Pala to go look for some exhibits about France's history on her own.

Paul

Clearly, all the other pilots were conspiring to make this trip less glorious than it should be. His cheeks lit up like the Lighthouse of Alexandria (he passed by a small scale model of the Wonder a few minutes ago) at Renton's incomprehensible comment; he responded with nothing more than a confused look, a weak wave, and a "What?".

He turned to ask Amanda about the comment, only to see her heading towards the French history section. Waffling for a bit, he was eventually distracted by an animatronic Confucious exhibit.

Dark080Matter

Lucky13: Sure, what the hell.
Lucky13: What seems to be the problem?
Lucky13: Have you seen them yet?

Ekman

The girl glances up in surprise at your comment about Renton and freezes in place.

"A-are you sure? They both actually look kind of nice, but it's... odd. Wait, they can't begin together and then split apart like that at all. Uh, you're right, they really creep me out!"

Fortunately Renton is completely occupied with a fascinating text conversation he's having. The girl leads you in a wide circle around his lounging position against the wall and continues on towards the Egyptian displays for no feasible reason you can guess at. Her pace has quickened a bit since seeing Subject 13 and she appears distraught.

Sicarius07

The boy does a brief double-take before quickly showing you

his cellphone.

"Oh uh... the phone already had the number on it, honest! I saw your cell and I just sort of figured it out...I dunno, the battery is almost dead anyway. Maybe I should just let you take it back to those Nerv people who lost it.

Hey speaking of those people, did you know that lady is one of them? What's it like having them watching out for you all the time like that? It must be nice, like having a protective family all around you..."

When you follow the careless wave of his hand you realize that he's right: there is a woman sitting in a corner of the cafeteria, not eating, who appears like a well-dressed office professional, although she's definitely not museum staff. The look seems just a little out of place considering most other women her age here are wearing more casual attire or herding kids. She has a bluetooth earpiece in her ear that reminds you of the ones you've seen on lots of Section 2 agents recently, but what confirms it in your mind is the way she glances at your table for just one split-second before looking away. The boy sighs for a second, lost in thought. He then sits down at your table a few seats removed from you, an apologetic smile on his face. The phone he showed you buzzes weakly and he quickly picked it up and fired off a few text messages with alarming speed, fingers blurring across the touchpad without him even really looking at it. He then laid it down and frowned at the blinking red battery indicator before shutting it off.

Mask_De_H

Unformatted Account began messaging you at 9:31 am

UA: hey uh
UA: uhoh sorry
UA: wrong #!
Lucky13: hey now
Lucky13: don't go
Lucky13: lets make this a right number
UA: ummm alrigt
UA: but its ok im talking to the nice chloe girl now
UA: except i think I acidentally uh freakd her out
UA: but I think me and her can be friends
UA: I dunno maybe this is dumb but can you help
Lucky13: Sure, what the hell.
Lucky13: What seems to be the problem?
Lucky13: Have you seen them yet?
UA: I guess its like
UA: she was talking to her mom and i sorta interupted
UA: oops, bad timing huh
UA: sorry my batery is low, maybe you can meet us at the cafeteria
UA: if she hasnt like run away then : (

Unformatted Account stopped messaging you at 9:36 am

Whoever this guy or girl is, they can obviously text message like a freaking pro, albeit with a few spelling slip-ups and a general disregard for punctuation. As soon as you see the first text of a sequence the entire rest of the sentence appears in the blink of an eye.

Confused, Paul ends up going it alone down the fascinating East-Asian wing of the Museum. A small display on the inconsequential spiritual movement of Daoism expands outward to vast treatises on Confucianism and it's influence on the Chinese dynasties. The tenets of Confucianism, which stressed an orderly hierarchy and respect for rigid rituals, as well as ones' elders and superiors alike while downplaying the individualistic and the personally spiritual, are pointed to as one of the primary causes for this incredible span of time in which the entire known (to them) world paid their respects seasonally before the Forbidden City, and a vast land empire was maintained peacefully for so many generations by a nation firmly rooted in bureaucratic principles of governance.



Meanwhile, Amanda discovered a massive up-scaled replica guillotine imposingly arrayed over the French Revolution section of the civic museum. The French Revolution was clearly considered a critical turning point for a great many of the evolving theories of civic contracts and the rights of the governed. There are off-shoot displays describing the cascading historical effects of the Revolution in other countries around the world: Constitution-based governments from North America to the Dutch East Indies, the rise of populist Nationalism as a world-wide phenomenon, the Napoleonic Codes... This stuff would be absolutely fascinating to somebody interested in theories of historical causality. Whatever.

Samaelryn

As you roll up to the guillotine you see that girl from earlier standing at the base of it, looking up at the guillotine with the same fixed stare she was giving Renton earlier. She's about as old as you are. Her red-rimmed glasses have a dark tint to the lenses, and she has one hand resting on the wooden guillotine base. As you come to a stop near her, she turns her face over to look at you slowly and then smiles viciously before looking back up at the object of her affection.

"Girls like you and I really missed our calling, huh?"

Chloe

Dark080matter

Now Chloe was a bit more embarrassed than scared. Her cheeks flushed red for a second. "Oh...umm, sorry." Chloe apologizes. Chloe thinks for a second. "I probably should take it back...umm...I don't want you to get in trouble for having it." Chloe offers rather politely. "But...umm, I'm new...so I really haven't had any experiences with them. So, I'm sorry, I really don't know.

=Amanda Loup-Archambault=

Samaelryn

Amanda wheeled slowly through the French area of the museum. Sure, the guillotine was impressive - but it wasn't really all that interesting to her. She reads over most of the plaques in front of the exhibits before moving to read the plaque for the guillotine - ignoring the girl at first. At her question, Amanda gave her a quizzical glance before finishing reading the plaque.

"Qu'entendez-vous par là?"

Paul

Jack

dark080matter

Now, Jack isn't the sharpest crayon in the box about some things, but there was something clearly suspicious about this girl. He follows her into the Egyptian setting, eyes glazing past poorly drawn 2d characters as he looks half-heartedly for someone who might possibly fit the description of... a male? Whatever, he's just tagging along.

"So, where are you from?" He asks, nonchalantly.

Mask_De_H

The 30 second backlight on your phone finally blinks off.

Over in one corner of the nearby Egyptian exhibit, in the opposite direction of the cafeteria, you can see that Jack guy standing near a bench talking to some girl.

Sicarius07

The boy brightens a bit, perhaps at the thought of maybe being able to keep the cell-phone by your unwillingness to put him in a compromising position.

"Well... uhhh, I suppose could just give it to you and you say you found it lying around somewhere. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's very nice and is better then all the other phones I find! ...But I guess I've never had one that was actually somebody's that they wanted back before. I dunno?"

He glances at Chloe sidelong once or twice before slowly sliding over to be more directly across from her on the bench... then leans in conspiratorially, excitement lighting up his dark eyes.

"So uh, if you don't mind my asking.... Oh man what is it LIKE? ...You know, to be uhhh... in one of the machines. What... what do you call them? They're like, giant metal samurai or something. Or maybe like I dunno, Knights?"

Turning suddenly awkwardly aware of his over-enthusiastic questioning the boy shrinks back to his side of the table and mumbles a bit. "Just you know... if it's like something you want to talk about..."

Samaelryn

The girl responds enthusiastically, although her current orientation makes it look like she's addressing her reply to the big faux guillotine blade over your heads.

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about! Smug assertions of intellectual superiority through a casually-flaunted foreign language are Just. So. You.

Hold on, what are you looking at over there. I bet it's good."

With a slightly meandering step that seems to make her feet drag on the ground a bit, the girl slides her black cargo pants past the front of your wheelchair over to the plague you were reading about Robespierre's Reign of Terror. She then leans carefully in and stares down the plague at point-blank range, nearly clicking her tinted glasses on it.

"I can't even read this crap! Where are all of the audio exhibits in this dump, anyway? Sorry, I would totally have said that in French just now, but I forgot my Translation Guide for the Pretentious back at my house.

You'll just have to magnanimously forgive me this one time. Shouldn't be hard from that throne of yours! ehehehe..."

Ekman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack "So, where are you from?"

Your question seems to be the final straw on the camel's back. The girl stops and gives Jack a glassy-eyed gaze before shuffling to a nearby bench and sitting down. Her chin falls to her hands heavily and messy black hair cascades over her downward-turned face.

"S-Sorry... what? I can't seem to get those twins out of my head. You said you were f-friends with them? I think I'm gonna have nightmares...

...Um, can we just talk about... s-something else?"

That's a funny request, considering you only brought up the quickly-dropped subject of 'home' to begin with.

Dark080matter

I kick down the door!

I mean, I go up and chat with them.