Exile on Main Street

[Bjorn]

Bjorn sets the beer down, unopened.  "Can it," he interrupts roughly.  "The question is why the fuck you're here."  He stares Paul in the eyes, his face expressionless, though his voice does not soften.  "Answer it."

[Huitzil]

"Well... I'm here because I walked here, I guess. I've been walking for a while. I picked this house 'cause it looked abandoned, and I was tired and didn't have money for a motel. Jimmied the lock in the back, made sure nobody was around -- didn't look like anyone lived here, judging by the lack of stuff and all the dust. Crashed on the couch. Took a shower in the morning, a long and hot one, they feel better the longer you've gone without one. Almost walked out afterwards when I saw that box on the dinner table, looked inside and found my driver's license. Except, I never had a driver's license, and my ID card I left somewhere in Nebraska. Figured I'd stick around for a while, rest up, see if anyone came by.

"Didn't really know who you were until you called me 'Unseen', then I knew that as goddamn crazy as it was, you guys had to be from the Internet. Nobody calls people by their screen names in real life, not unless that's the only way they ever met someone, and if it was someone trying to pose as an e-buddy, he would have called me 'Ulayoth'. No, only you yoinks are that stubborn.

"As for why did I make my way up here? Don't know, really. I set out walking and this is just where I ended up. Dumb luck. Why this house? Dumb luck. Saw it once, thought it felt right, like it felt like a good place, went over to check it out. Sounds crazy, but that's par for the course about now.

"So, Rez, who's your friend? And what have you been up to? You guys look like Hell."

[Rezantis]

Rez just closes his eyes.

"Bullshit.  Someone had to have directed you.  Get out of my house."

[Huitzil]

He shrugs, not one to say that he doesn't care, but that hey, whaddaya gonna do? "I don't know what to tell you, man. Yeah, it all sounds pretty unbelievable. You just don't realize how unbelievable until you try to explain it to something else.

"But nothing sent me here, unless you count State Road 99. I've been following it for a few days, passed right on through Modesto by it, was ready to pass here too. Then I took a right to get out of the way of a car, was getting tired, I saw the house, and, well, here I am.

"And who'd send someone like me, out to meet someone like you? Trading mp3s, or something?"

[Rezantis]

"Uns, look at us.  Look at the fact that we had your fake ID in a fed-ex box, and -" Rez breaks off suddenly, "Drac, you're cleaning that up later."

Rez shakes his head.

"You hung a right to get out of the way of a car?"

[Huitzil]

"Thought they might be watching me, so I went off 99 just like I was walking back to my house, and they drove by. You're not the only one allowed to be paranoid, you know."

[Rezantis]

"Uh-huh.  So, Uns, what are you doing so far from Nebraska that people might be following you?"

Rez has a rather flat tone, and he doesn't look that impressed.  Or, he could be just fucking exhausted.  It's hard to tell.

[Bjorn]

"What Rez said.  Try starting at the beginning of the fucking story," Bjorn suggests, a little less than pleasantly.

He's still squatting by the wall, seemingly relaxed, with his sword across his knees -- but at the same time, there is a definite air of an end of patience.

[Huitzil]

"Walkin'. Getting my shit together. After... after the Moffet explosion, I realized my best friend was dead. My best friend, dead, and I had never met him in person, wouldn't even get to go to his funeral. Try as hard as I could, he would be a name in angle brackets to me, defined solely by text. That... well, it messed me up. It broke my heart.

"Had to go back to the hospital. Never went back to college. Didn't really try to makesomething of myself. Then, after Ayer's Rock, I made a decision. I had to get over it, I had to get in touch with myself. Brian was dead, but I had to move on, you know? I was letting grief and guilt control me. So, I shut down my computer and told myself I wouldn't turn it back on again until I was ready for it. Then, I started hiking, just picked a direction and went. It was like those trials of manhood the Indians had to endure in the desert or something. Really, it doesn't seem all that smart now that I try to explain it to someone else, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, and now here I am. And I'm pretty surprised that after leaving the Internet, the Internet came to me."

[Bjorn]

The snort that Bjorn produces is best characterized as "indelicate."  "That," he pronounces, "is just about the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever heard.  Of course, it's also perfectly consistent with you, and too idiotic to be a cover story."

He rises to his feet as he speaks, shifting Shinmyouken to his right hand, and staring at Paul.  "But there's a difference between 'probably' and 'definitely,' and I'm not really up for taking chances.  So, if you don't want to leave right now, then you're going to have to do us a favour."

Turning his head just enough to catch Dracos' eye, Bjorn cautiously pulls in his mindboard the barest amount necessary to turn it out, and then scrawls, in the biggest, most readable hand that he can imagine, Dracos?  Can you read this?

To himself, Christ, I hope this works.  I've never had to try to get a telepath's attention before.

[Huitzil]

"You wouldn't be named Gary Kleppe, would you? I mean, I'm just curious."

[Rezantis]

Rez looks at Bjorn with more than a slight amount surprise.  He actually sits up a bit.

"Er, what the hell?"

[Dracos]

Dracos blinks, eying Bjorn back and trying to figure out what he wanted.  Pondering a second, his tired mind grasped upon the lazy solution.  He lifted his hand slightly at his waist, trying to imitate what he'd done before and sending out a What's the plan? in Bjorn's general direction.  Dracos blinked, hearing Bjorn's question back at him as he tried.

Dracos

[Brian]

Bjorn:  You've been around telepaths to know that most of them (in your memory) are pretty subtle.  Dracos is not, in fact, subtle at all.  It's like he's trying to read the mindboard by braille.  He does seem to pick up on your message, though.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn winces slightly -- not because it hurts, but out of surprise.  Wiping the mindboard clean of both his message and the dirty fingerprints left behind by Dracos' touch, he writes, in a very pointed script, You need practice.

Another pass with the mental eraser, and then, written in gothic, solemn letters, You need to read Paul's mind.  It's the only way we can be sure he's not lying.  If we can't trust him, then we'll have to take him out right away and evacuate this house.

Just... try and be a little more gentle?