A Welcome Lunch

[Hestina]

Vicki's eyes widened to nearly the size of plates as she was horrified to cause such a reaction,   She pointed to the table that Eileen was about to walk into, and then made a fist and made little circles with it in front of her chest the mortified look still plastered all over her face.  She hadn't really thought that anything would surprise people in Claremont, given all the crazy things she had already seen.  Then again, she hadn't really thought either.  Being able to have people accept her communication had been such a breath of fresh air today that her natural wariness over her powers had been suspended.  Yet now she knew that she was still going to have to careful, but more in a responsible way.

She made the circular gesture with her hand a few more times before dropping to her hands and knees to look for the missing phone.  Thankfully, it had just slid under a table, which she sheepishly pointed out to Eileen.  She kind of feared going to get it, because if it was broke that was going to totally stink.  Instead, she smiled and held her hands out to take the large tray of food from her roommate.

[Notice Roll: http://orokos.com/roll/282761 (7 +10 = 17)

[The Sailor]

Sakurako blushed, straightening out her coveralls. "You know, I could design up a arm-mounted typing device that can transmit to wearers wearing HUD glasses, or earpieces that translate text to speech." She said, smiling. "Wouldn't be as hard to lose, and it would open up communication options." Sakurako said, smiling. "Of course later on I plan on making a head-worn device that can translate thought to voice over a communication device."

She looked over to the newcomer. "Oh, hello. I'm Sakurako. Pleased to meet you." She said with a smile. "I'm starting to notice there is a huge number of new students recently. A new wave if you will."

She starts eating her Lasagna. "I sort of had an idea, gang, if you're interested?"

[Mad Scientist]

Eileen passed off the tray to Vicki, then squatted down to retrieve her phone.

"Nope, looks all good," she told her roommate cheerfully, popping back up again and displaying the undamaged phone.  Its skin appeared to be some sort of blue window frames labelled 'POLICE BOX', and the screen was, indeed, unmarred.

Tucking the phone away under her bra strap, she took the tray back from Vicki and followed her back to their table where introductions started.

"Good to meet ya, Sakurako.  I'm Eileen," she introduced herself in return, maneuvering herself to a seat and setting down her equally-laden tray.  Based on the amounts of food onhand, it was Sakurako whose portions looked to be out of place -- meagre, even.

Her eyes flicked to the suit carefully laid aside, and her brain obligingly brought up the relevant details.  She knew who to go to if she, for whatever reason, had problem with her science homework, check.

"An idea?" she repeated, intrigued.   Not that she let that stop her from starting in on her lunch.

 

Gather Information (Well Informed): 1d20+10 18

[TheAbsurdist]

 

And there Elias was there.  Also known as Errant.  Or the Creepy Telepath (seriously, what is his deal?).  As per usual his appearance was abrupt, and even in the cafeteria it was lacking food (did he even eat?  Ohmygawd!  Probably thoughts, that's what Jerry said).  Of course the closed mouth kid could be a breatharian for all anyone else knew.  Also per normal Elias looked beat up, a healing split lip on his face, and some bruises on a cheek and around any eye.

His head was cocked, and he was looking at Vicki almost curiously, and then it seemed to connect that he was being off, or creepy, or whatever.  "Hm, surry f'lookin' a'funny.  M'name's Elias."  And it was that moment of focus being lost that his voice slipped back to the accented New Freedonian way of speaking, and then he paused, and cleared his throat.  "Sorry, my name is Elias."  And it settled back to dry, dispassionate tone he had, in a startlingly deep voice for not a big guy.

[Hestina]

Vicki was typing a response to Sakurako as she started to sense someone was watching her.  Duh!  After the stupid teleporting thing, nearly scaring Casey half to death, they probably were.  One thing she had noticed over the years was that she was very sensitive to people who were watching her, or especially when something was about to happen.  Still in the middle of a cafeteria of super powered teens what could go wrong.  Actually, that thought wasn't nearly as comforting as she thought it might have been.  Looking around she saw a boy, perhaps Greek or Italian?, standing staring at her.  It was a little creepy, but she decided to just let him look.

She hit play on the phone, "That would be cool Sake-Rake!  It's hard when there is a lot of people to get them to hear the phone.  Volume doesn't go to 11 on it."  Hearing the phone's rendition of Sakurako's name she cringed, but there was little to do and she offered a smile in appeasement.  

Then as Eileen made introductions, Vicki smiled and included in her phone transmitted voice, "Eileen is my roommate, I think it's going to be a pretty awesome year.  Or what's left of it.  So what's this idea?"

Before she could answer, there was a deep voice behind her talking in some kind of Geordie accent.  Before she could ask him what he had said, he announced himself and she had finally figured out that he was apologizing for staring.  Considering that it was kind of creepy, she figured that was understandable.  As he was too far away to actually touch and her phone wasn't loud enough to communicate over the dim in the cafeteria to anyone not standing close, she gave him two thumbs up and waved him to come over.

[Heritage]

Casey nearly spat out her food when Vicki popped next to the new girl and nearly scared her pants off; she really didn't have a mean bone in her body, but real life slapstick sometimes caught her off-guard. Choking back laughter and lasagna, the blonde powerhouse was red in the face by the time she recovered.

"Yeah, maybe less...blinking around,  at least while people are eating. Oh God, that was funny! Nice to meet you, Eileen, by the way! I'm Casey."

When Errant did his version of the sudden appearance act, she sighed and shook her head slightly; she still didn't know what to make of him. Part of her was sympathetic and part of her was deeply annoyed by him.

"Oh yeah, that's Elias; he's a telepath, too...I.think." She frowned slightly;  she was kind of unclear as to what Errant actually did.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Heritage

[TheAbsurdist]

 

Elias, for his part, wasn't keen on sympathy.  Blah, blah, tragic backstory.  He was nominally at peace with it.  Of course unfortunately it informed a lot of his interactions, which he was aware of it.  But being aware of how you acted and being able to conscious change that behavior were not automatics.  "And an empath.  And other things."  He shrugged a little bit as he looked to Casey, and then he stopped looking at any of them, as he was apt to do.   That telekinetic web meant he felt where they were, it was not something he advertised too much, truth be told.

"Something like that."  He didn't really approach too much closer, a repeat of the last intro was not something he wanted.  And he didn't really have a charming turn of phrase.

[Hestina]

Reaching over to touch Casey she flashed her a quick message, <"okay, for the record, I totally didn't mean to do that.  The scaring part at least...">

Then she turned in her seat again and waved Elias over.  To emphasize, she pointed to her mouth and then shook her head.  However, it didn't even look like he was looking at them, so any attempts she was making were pretty much doomed to fail.  Not quite sure what to make of it all, she paused, tilting her head and wondering if she should just walk over and stand in front of him.  However, that would be rude to the girls at her table.  Well... she had waved him over, and she hoped that he understood her meaning.  Other than that, if he wasn't going to look there was little she could do to communicate with him short of goin up and touching him.

Besides that, she really did want to hear what Sakurako's idea was.

[Mad Scientist]

Eileen's smile didn't fade a notch.

"Good t'meetcha, Casey," she told other girl, and noted the contents of both her tray and that of Vicki.  "Glad to see I'm not the only one who enjoys her food," she added with a laugh, although she couldn't help but note that neither of the pair of them seemed to have any trouble staying thin even with eating all of that.

Bitches.

"And hi, Elias," she went on, waving to the new guy.  Still kinda short, he looked to be -- where were they hiding all of the tall guys?  "Don't know if you heard, I'm Eileen," she reintroduced herself, just in case he'd missed it.  She kinda wanted to ask him about being a telepath and an empath, but since he was keeping his distance she had to conclude he was either shy, didn't want to intrude, or just didn't want to hang out with them.  She wasn't going to worry too much over it, though -- she had a whole school of people to get to know, she wasn't going to cry if not everyone immediately wanted to be her best friend.

[TheAbsurdist]

 

Elias started to move closer, until Eileen spoke...  Casey saw it coming, as she had met and interacted with the stoic, and oftentimes reticent, psychic of the senior class.  His head snapped at them, as he approached the table, and he looked at the two new faces, and he took them in.  He was taking them in and dissecting them with a bit overzealous intensity.  Weighing their actions, expressions, tone, all of it.  And then as soon as it started, it was done.  And he was no longer really making eye contact, and he seemed unfocused, as he tugged at the gloves he was wearing, before sitting down, giving himself some space between them, as he started to go through his messenger bag that he set down on the table.  It would seem, that he was making greater efforts to be less... Elias-y?  Still no food.  And looking battered and harried as always.  Stubble on his face, and head, and like he hadn't slept in days?  A week?  Hard to say.

"Having to plan a trip.  Or something like that.  For science cred."  As he was going through his things, some books scattered out along with a notebook, and he frowns, moving to gather up the textbook, and Catcher in the Rye.

[Hestina]

With Elias sitting down along with Eileen, Vicki could at least user her phone to say hi.  She hated being rude, although if the guy wasn't going to look at her, there wasn't much she could do about it.  Actually, he seemed kind of stoned, or perhaps with that bruising, concussed.  She punched into her phone and held it towards him, hoping that the small speaker was loud enough to get his attention.

The canned British voice translated her text, "Hi.  I'm Vicki.  Just so you know I'm mute, so if you're not looking at me or close enough to hear this thing, I can't really communicate with you.  Are you okay?"

Looking back at Eileen, she nodded and got an embarassed look on her face, furriously typing on the phone, she let it speak for her, "Oh.  Mm.  Gee.  You have no idea.  I eat all the time.  It's the most horrible thing.  I think I've scared some dates away with them thinking that I'd eat them next.  I end up going hungry on most dates now."

[The Sailor]

Seeing the group had lost interest in her conversation, she continued eating her meal quietly.

It seemed when it came to social things, she wasn't very good at holding the conversation for long. She knew soon she'd be done and could return to the lab. Then again that's probably why they don't talk to her... maybe nothing really interests them. Although Casey does show interest it might just be because they're roommates. And Elias knew how to steal the conversation.

She wiped some dust off her suit. She was going to take it in later to install the final life support upgrades she needed.

[Hestina]

Far from the case, after greeting Elias and letting him know that she wasn't intentionally being rude she turned back to the Sailor suited technological wizard.  She had some kind of idea, and while there were lots of people who had all descended on them, Vicki wanted to hear what it was.  Or at the least get to know all the people here better.  She reached out ot touch her, then realized that private channels were going to be rude.  Thankfully her text speed was pretty amazing with all the practice she'd had over the years.

I should totally enter some kind of texting contest, she thought to herself even as her phone chirped, "Sake Rake.  ...and I know the phone is going to kill your name.  I'm so sorry, I'll enter a phonetic spelling later.  What was your idea?"

[Heritage]

By now, Casey knew her roommate pretty well; she could see that sort of deflated look she got when one of her attempts at building camaraderie didn't pan out quite the way she wanted, so like Vicki she wanted to encourage her. She nodded in agreement as she finished off her lasagna and prepared to dig into her huge slice of chocolate cake.

"Yeah, if you have a mad scheme of some kind bouncing around your head, Saku, let's hear it; they tend to be a pretty good time, and the new kids really should see just how crazy things can get around here."

 

[Mad Scientist]

Chewing a mouthful of...something that involved slippery noodles, sauce, and possibly chicken -- she wasn't entirely certain what the dish was, other than tasty -- Eileen waved her fork in agreement.

"I'm down with crazy," she told the table cheerfully, brushing an errant strand of blonde hair behind one ear with her free hand.  "That's usually the fun stuff, and this entire school has had absolutely zero exposure to any of my crazy antics so far; and the year is almost over!" she exclaimed with mock horror.  Sure, she'd only been here for a very short amount of time herself so far, but that was hardly an acceptable excuse.

She lowered her voice, leaning conspiratorially across the table.

"Does it involve relocating the Dean's car?  That's always a classic," she told them solemnly.

[The Sailor]

"I... It was an idea for the summer. My parents have been telling me they had a surprise for me in a few days, and they want to have me head to the marina to take a look. But I was thinking even if I have to rent one, I wanted to do a boating trip this summer. Maybe some opportunities for some SCUBA diving, or just relaxing. I was thinking of a trip to a Island my folks know in the Pacific. It's a bit tropical, quiet, untouched. My folks own it, but they've built nothing on it. They like using it to get away, but there hasn't been any opportunity to go there this year, what with the alien invasion flaring up my Dad's bad back and my mom constantly busy getting things back in working order with any assets damaged by the attack."

Sakurako smiled. "We would usually go there every summer, but this time the folks are letting me go there solo."

"What'cha guys think? Island getaway, a nice yachting trip, tons of sun and shenanigans away from the adults? I was thinking July, we could set off as the fireworks are going off on the fourth, and get back around the end of the month."

[Mad Scientist]

Eileen didn't look whether she knew to be excited or distressed.

"A Pacific island sounds awesome," she replied enthusiastically.  "Beaches, palm trees, lots of sun -- that'd be amazing!"  Her smile crumbled a bit around the corners as her brain continued to process everything.

"SCUBA diving, oh hell no," she said flatly.  "I'm not really good with boats, either -- is there another way of getting there?" she asked hopefully.  She could handle sunning on the beach, exploring tropical jungles, and lots and lots of tasty food -- but up and down and up and down in a little boat in the middle of the ocean?

Whales jumped and landed on boats, killing people.  That was a thing.  She didn't like boats....

[TheAbsurdist]

 

"I'd be graduated, so it wouldn't be right for me to go...  Not to assume I was invited, but I hope you have fun.   Stay out of the South China Sea. iunless you want to hunt pirates."  Like the Sea of Aden, it was a source of piracy.  Though it got less publicity.  It was a memory he had.  Of course Elias tend to show minimal interest in female classmates in that way.  Though the same could be true about the male classmates.  And nonhuman classmates.  Or really anyone, outside of directly working with them.

Right now he wasn't paying too much attention to their conversation, rather on organizing the mess of things back into the bag.

[Hestina]

Owned a whole island?  Okay, she had thought it amazing that her parents had a used RV.  That had seemed like a luxurious extravagance for anyone to possess.  I mean a home with wheels?  How cool was that.  Yet if that was extravagant, what did that make a whole island.

Her fingers danced atop the screen on her phone, "your parents own an island?"

[The Sailor]

"Well, it's a small island, something caused it to come out of the ocean, my parents like looking on the island to see if there is any evidence as to why a non-volcanic island just well... appeared. It came up when I was just a little kid... about 5 or 6. It's kept out of the news because it's not interrupted any trade routes and nothign disastrous or unusual happened after it surfaced. A island like that turned into a first come, first served, and when the question came up as to who owned the island... they got it for a steal. So... a private, mysterious island smack dab in the middle of the pacific."

Sakurako scratched her head. "Eileen, you really don't like boats... I could ask a teleporter nicely then to set up our vacation... Or charter a aircraft. Just have to get a seaplane that can go the distance. I gotta remember some of us aren't as happy around a boat as others."

She sighed disappointingly. "Well, this is open to all here... I... well, I don't consider walking off in a cap and gown a disqualifier to a trip... but I'm not going to force the matter either."

[Hestina]

Okay, Saku's parents were in a very different league than she had guessed.  When you talk about buying islands for a steal, then you had real money.  It was cool though that she hadn't guessed it already.  Most rich people tended to flaunt their wealth as some kind of divine right.  It made her appreciate the girl even if she had just met her.  Of course, that might also be due to the fact of just getting invited to a tropical island over the summer!

She tapped a response, "Sorry.  I didn't mean it like that.  That sounds very cool, and I'd love too!  I mean, I have to check and all, but that sounds like about the coolest summer ever."

 

[TheAbsurdist]

 

"I understand, but I didn't want to assume.  And I might be in college, or being deported, or detained.  Or just having to do things to go to this whole college thing...  I technically am legal non-entity from a listed rogue state."  He shrugged and glanced to Sakurako, looking apologetic.  Planning for social gettogethers can be dicey with the whole spandex thing.

He didn't want to gut her efforts to have fun and do a get together.  He sniffed a bit, and then blinked, seeming to realize his faus pax.  "Oh... right.  I am Elias.  Though someone said that.  Hello Eileen... Vickie."

 

[Heritage]

Casey finished off her cake and washed it down with the rest of her Coke, which led to a rather unladylike burp that she tried to cover with her hand. "Oh goodness, excuse me! God, I'm such a pig!" Her cheeks went a bit pink. "Damn voracious appetite!" Then she turned to Saku, clearly excited by what she was hearing. "A private Island? That is so cool!" Then she frowned with thought. "So wait, if you go by yacht from here, how would you go? Down south through the Panama Canal?" Her eyes rolled. "Wow, that in itself would be super-cool! How long does a cruise like that even take? It must be months!"

[The Sailor]

"It's a motorized yacht... it can get to the canal in a week, and to the island a week later. It's not like, near Japan or anything. Just a bit past the Galapagos in international waters."

She smiled. "My folks planted a few appropriate trees for the biome, and set up autonomous observation cameras to see if any life starts to colonize there. Although when we get there, there is a nice beach we can use that won't bother anything. That and my folks did build a boathouse and a long dock."

She smiled. "Might leave in late June. Just to add some time."

Adjusting herself in her seat, she continued her meal. "It'll be fun. Maybe I can look at my budget and see if we can't shop for some yachting kit to take along. Whatever anyone needs." She looked to Eileen. "And Eileen, Casey can attest to this, I'm a little obsessed about safety, redundancies, and plan B's. Strangely enough for a "mad scientist" like myself I tend to be compulsively careful."

[Hestina]

Rogue state?  Vicki wasn't sure of a definitive list, but he didn't look North Korean, or one of the several Middle Eastern nations that would qualify for that status.  That was something she would have to ask him about later.  However, in the mean time, plans were being made that had her nearly doing mental cartwheels being so excited!  Would her mom let her go for several weeks this summer?  She paused her thoughts, she had a friend who owned an island.  This school was definately different than any base school she had gone to before.

She clapped her hands excitedly before rembering that she needed to actually type into her phone for people to understand her, "So this is for real?  I can talk to my parents about this?"  As the monotone British voice echoed her text, she wanted to throttle the phone.  Didn't it know that she was about to get an offer to go on the trip of a lifetime?

Then forcing the giddyness down a bit she turned back to Elias, tapping in another message, "Rogue State?  Which one?  You don't look like you come from one of them."