paixaorpg | Can't Hear the Circulation Bell From Here [COMPLETE]

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Can't Hear the Circulation Bell From Here [COMPLETE]

Character: Spot and Beat
Content: Spot arrives at Paixao and meets Beat.
Setting:Niflheim Gate
Time: Say late afternoon-ish
Warnings: No idea yet

Newsies all over New York City were celebrating the success of the strike. On every street corner, you could hear them calling out the headlines even louder than normal and when they'd sold off their last paper of the day, Spot Conlon and his fellow Brooklyn newsies had taken to the East River, congratulating Spot and each other. It was a hot summer day in the city, and even the pink suspendered newsie himself couldn't keep out of the water, especially after the morning they'd had. He stripped down to his skivvies and jumped in, relishing the cool water of the river until his lungs started burning for air.

There was something definitely wrong with the scenery when he came back up, though. No skyscrapers, no docks, no newsies cheering each other on, just . . . nothing. Or, well, there was plant life and such, and what looked like a giant building, but Spot didn't recognize any of it. So where was he? He'd jumped into the East River from the Brooklyn side. But he wasn't in Brooklyn anymore. The nearest Spot could tell, he must have gotten caught in a current without realizing it and been dragged down-river towards the Bay and the ocean. He'd gotten lucky and hit land, though, which meant one thing: "Oh great. I must be in Joisey."

The fact that his clothes were waiting for him on the shore turned off an alarm in Spot's head, but he ignored it for the moment, getting dressed and following the building around until he found a line of people who seemed to be waiting to get into the building. Spot bypassed them all, heading towards the man at the gate to ask him where he was but before he could say anything the man asked him his name, gave him some sort of . . . he didn't even know how to describe it, and welcomed him to "Pie Show."

"Must be some kinda bakin' convention or sumpin'," Spot muttered to himself as he headed inside the building and looking around for someone that looked like they knew what was going on.

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Once the initial distress of being in a weird otherworldly city all alone and with no clue how or why he'd come here had worn off, Beat had taken to wandering the streets just to see what was here. The stupid little journal thing had been absolutely no help-- all it did was alert him to the presence of Pinky and Lollipop, and who knew what other Reaper scumbags were here? Beat wasn't used to being alone. Even in the dark days of the Game he'd had at least a little pin to keep him company. But there were no psyches to be had in this place and he was left to the power of his own two fists and feet.

At least he had his skateboard. And hey, this place looked pretty awesome for skateboarding. Wide open streets, lots of alleys and sweet places to grind and jump. If he hadn't been so annoyed with the situation he would have jumped on his deck and gone for a spin. In the meantime though, he had stopped to try checking the journals again-- this time with a little something extra. If Rhyme, Phones or Shiki were out there, this plan would definitely work...

Spot's attention immediately locked onto the kid fiddling around with the Thing as if he knew what it was and how to use it, so he made a beeline for him. Even if the kid didn't know anything about this place, at least he could tell the paperboy what the Thing was, and maybe it could help him.

"You look like a fella dat knows what he's doin'," Spot said, smirking confidently and offering his hand. "Spot Conlon's da name. I's just wonderin' if ya might gimme a hand, gimme some info'mation. If it's not too much trouble, o'course." Of course if it was then Spot would either have to find someone else to give him a hand or make it not too much trouble, depending on Beat's reply.

Beat jumped about six feet in the air when Spot approached him-- he'd been concentrating very hard on drawing a picture with some program on his little computer journal thingy, and it was difficult for him to remember all the details of Neku and Shiki's outfits. Rhyme's was easy since she was his sister and all, but if he was gonna put out the effort for a drawing it might as well look good.

"Aaaahh-- yo, man, don't sneak up on a guy like dat!" Beat muttered, shaking off his unsteady nerves. Then he met Spot's handshake with a firm one of his own, though he added on a sweet slide and pound at the end (and ended up having to guide Spot's hand through it). "Spot, eh? Good t' meetcha, bro. You can call me Beat. An' info's easy-" he paused, "If I know what you dig, you dig? Cuz I ain't real big on what's shakin' round these parts so I'm prolly just as clueless as you, man."

Spot gave the new handshake an uncertain eyebrow, but just played along and . . . tried to follow what Beat was saying. It just figured that he'd managed to find probably the one person in the place that spoke strange slang and apparently didn't know that much about where they were anyway. "A'right, no problem," Spot said, shaking his head encouragingly, "t'be honest, I ain't lookin' t'get attached t'dis place, if y'know what I mean. Alls I wanna know is where's here an' how do I get from here back t'Brooklyn. I got important bus'ness t'take care of, y'know?"

"Yeah man, I hear ya," Beat said with a distant sigh. "I mean, scenery's aight an' all, but I got stuff t' do back home. 'Cept," he sighed yet again, even deeper and a little more distant. "I can't go yet, wit'out makin' sure my little sis ain't here too. Cuz whenever I go home, I sure as hell ain't leavin' her behind!" As though the very thought shook him, Beat spun around and slammed a fist against the wall behind him.

Then muttered a quiet "ow."

Rubbing his fist, he turned back to Spot. "You seem aight, bro, how 'bout we take a look around togetha? If I ain't learned anythin' else so far, I know it ain't smart to try an' work alone in a sicheeayshun like this, you dig? I got yer back, you got mine?"

"Sure thing," Spot replied. "What's dis sista look like, I'll help ya look for her. An', in da spirit o'fair trade, you can tell me whatcha know about dis place in retoin. Startin' wit' what dese things is." He gestured to Beat's Thing with his Thing, assuming he'd get a better explanation about those since Beat had been using his when Spot had approached him at first.

"I scratch your back, you scratch mine, an' no one messes wit' neithah of us or dey mess wit' both." He switched the Thing to his other hand, spit into his right, and held it out to Beat again, "Deal?"

Beat grinned and enthusiastically spit in his hand to return the handshake. "Deal! You got my fist at yer service, bro."

He clapped his hands in a businesslike fashion. "Aight, yo, so my sister's name is Raimu Bito, but she goes by Rhyme. She's yey high," he motioned a little shorter than chest level on himself, "Blonde, she's got an orange shirt an' a black hat. An' I'm hopin' she ain't here, but I ain't goin' anyplace 'til I make damn sure." Then he turned to the subject of the journal.

"An' dis thing's sorta like a cell phone, see?" Beat pulled out his own cell phone (non-functional, in this place) and flipped it open to show Spot the buttons and the display. "Far as I can tell it's sorta a portable computer thingy. You can put up messages an' stuff on it, an' read stuff other people wrote. I been tryin' to put out a notice f'r my sis on here since everybody seems to got one, yo. See?"

Well, Spot was able to follow him through the description of his sister (and an orange shirt wasn't generally too hard to spot in a crowd), but once Beat got to the explanation of the Thing, he was lost. Cell phone? Computer? The functionality of it at least made sense in the "what" category, but it sounded more to Spot like a a sort of community bulletin page from a newspaper, only there was nowhere to see them. And, besides, why not just put out a regular newspaper if you were going to do that instead of making that Thing, which had to be more expensive.

"Hold on a second dere," Spot said, waving his hand. "Foist of all, what's a 'cell phone'? Second, what's a computah?"

Huh? This guy didn't even know what a cell phone was? Beat made a very confused expression and stared Spot down for a few seconds. Sure, he was dressed weird... but he figured that was just the style wherever he came from. Some kind of retro fashion statement. He couldn't really be THAT retro, though.... could he?

Maybe he just lived under a rock.

Well, Beat was no technology expert, but he could explain well enough about such ordinary things. "Uh... you know, a cell phone? Like a telephone 'cept it goes in yo pocket an' you can call people wherever y'are?" He handed his over to Spot for him to look at. "And you know, a computer? Sorta like a..." Huh. This one would take some thought. "It's like a box an' you can write messages on it an' send 'em to other boxes so other people can read 'em, you dig?"

Spot took the phone, though he didn't appreciate the fact that Beat was looking at him like he was the one apparently making things up. But he had to admit that the phone he was holding seemed very real, even if it didn't look like any phone he'd seen (though to be fair he hadn't seen too many). "Dere's no wires," he pointed out, as if poking holes in an obviously fake story. "How's a guy s'posed t'call anyone wit'out wires? An' yeah, most of us call dat the U.S. postal system. Nice try," he handed Beat back his phone and turned to leave, "but I gotta nice deal no da Brooklyn Bridge if ya ever in da area."

Beat looked rather unnerved to have his story deflated. "H-hey!" he snapped at Spot, and rushed up next to him, gesturing wildly with his phone. "Come on, bro, don't you believe me? It don't need wires! That's why they call it a wireless phone, you dig? An' a computer's SORTA like the mail, 'cept it works like-" he snapped his fingers, "-dat! Like, instant, man. Look, come on, I'll show ya-- I'll send ya a message wit' mine, aight? Check it."

He took a moment to type a message to Spot on his journal and clicked to send it over. "Now open it up an' see, yo-- I ain't joshin' ya, this shit's totally real back in Shibuya."

Spot sighed and stopped, giving Beat a Look that clearly said this was his last chance and he was lucky he was getting another one. A wireless phone. Sure, and next month they were coming out with a new waterless bath! And after that? A mintless peppermint. He watched Beat click away at the buttons on his "computer," though, and did as he was told. Or, at least, he tried to. He tried to pry it open at the seam he could clearly see, bu it just wasn't budging, and after a few seconds he just held it up in front of Beat and said, "It ain't openin'."

Beat watched in awe as Spot proceeded to attempt to tear his journal in half. Opening...?

"Oh," Beat muttered, then took the thing from him and very delicately turned it on. "It's, uh... sorta like openin' a letter, 'cept you don't actually open anythin'-- just a sayin', y'know what I'm sayin'?" He opened up the message for Spot and handed the journal back. "Look right dere, man, see?"

Spot let him take it and watched him fiddle with the buttons again. Only when he got the "computer" back there was something new. The picture had changed and there was a message there. So . . . maybe Beat had been telling the truth.

"You wrote dat?" he asked, looking up at the other kid and pointing at the message. "'Ey, show me how t'do dat."

"Yeah, man!" Beat said, grinning at the success of his awesome plan. He hurried back to Spot's side and leaned over to show him what he was doing on his own journal. "It's real easy-- you just... see, dis button here--" he pointed, "Shows ya everybody else's messages. An' dis one here goes to your page, an' you can write messages t' other people there. Like... dis!"

He walked Spot through it a few times (mostly because he messed up a few times or forgot what button did what a few times. "See? It ain't hard. Pretty tight, though, eh?"

Spot watched and listened, following Beat's directions and trying to keep in mind what did what and how to make it do it again so he didn't have to have Beat standing over his shoulder every time he wanted to use it. Besides, he had to be able to show the guys back home. "What's tight?" he asked off-handedly, trying to make his way through the journal without Beat's help.

Boy, this guy really did live under a rock or come from some backwater place if he didn't even understand basic slang. He'd have to be patient, he reminded himself mentally. Even if he had to hold Spot's hand and show him how to do everything until he got used to the place, it'd be worth it when they got in a scrape and the kid got to show his skills at brawling. "Y'know. Tight. It means like... cool," Beat explained. "Like... awesome or good. But instead y'say 'That's tight'!"

Okay, so now things were starting to slowly make a little bit more sense than before and Spot decided that it had been worth it to give Beat that second chance. "Nevah hoid it b'fore," he said, looking back up at the other kid. "Must be a Joisey thing, huh? So where was da last place ya saw ya sista anyway?"

"Joisey?" Beat repeated, looking baffled. "'Sat what dey call it? I dunno, man, in Shibuya everybody talks like dis." It was a slight exaggeration. "An', well, last place I saw 'er was at our house. It was 'er bedtime an' she was comin' in my room t'say goodnight, so I said goodnight back an' crashed... den, well, I woke up in dis lousy place."

At first, Spot was just going to write Beat off as a tourist (where was Shibby-uh anyway?), even though he didn't know why anyone would want to spend recreational time in New Jersey. But as he listened to the kid talk, there was something disturbingly familiar about his story. "Whoa, whoa, hold on dere. A'you tryin' t'tell me datchoo just showed up here? Outta nowhere. You was someplace else den you was here an' you dunno how it happened?"

"Yeah, tha's exactly what happened!" Beat said excitedly, pounding a fist into his palm. "I was at home, den suddenly I wake up an' outta nowhere-- I'm in dis joint an' I got no clue how it happened! An' let's face it, bro, I don't usually got a clue, but dis time I'm really confused, man."

He let out a tremendous sigh. "This ain't the first time somethin' like dis's happened t' me, y'know? 'Cept last time..." he hesitated. "I was sorta dead. But I don't think thas what's goin' on dis time, cuz' I sure as hell wouldn't forget dyin' again, y'know?"

Maybe that second chance thing had been a little premature. "Most people don' remembah dyin' da foist time," Spot pointed out slowly, "bein' dead an' all. Is dis kinda joke? Did Jacky putchoo up t'dis? You go back dere an' tell 'im dat Spot Conlon ain't laughin'."

Beat was dumbstruck. Man, this guy was really a skeptic. "H-hey man!" he gaped, and more or less spazzed out in Spot's general direction. "I ain't messin' wit' ya! It's true!" Not that Beat didn't understand the hesitation. It did sound pretty wild when he thought about it... and man, you should have seen the look on his parents' faces when their presumed deceased son and daughter came home one night good as new.

"A-anyway, that don't matter! I was tryin' to say we AIN'T dead. See?" He pounded a fist against his chest. "Good as new, aight? C'mon, man, let's get t' work. I dunno much more'n you when ya get right down to it. Le's go take a look around, yo."

Maybe "dead" was more of that weird slang that Beat had been using throughout the conversation, because that was the only explanation Spot could come up with to make any of that make sense. There was obviously just some other meaning of the word "dead" that Beat was intending that Spot just didn't know about.

"A'right," he said, "butchoo tell me what's really goin' on here in plain English, got it?"

"Plain English?" Beat murmured, as though it was difficult for him to contemplate the meaning of the phrase. "Well, uh... like I said, yo, I don't got a clue what's goin' on. That's why we gonna go check it out, aight?" Maybe he'd just keep the whole deal with the Game to himself for now, if Spot's reaction was any indication.

He retrieved his skateboard from where he'd set it and put the straps on, slinging it over his shoulder. "C'mon, yo, let's go look around, see if we can find out wassup 'round here."

"Sure." Spot just followed Beat, wondering what the thing on his back was but not sure he really wanted to ask either. Instead, he fiddled around with his journal, answering a couple of messages left there and looking around for a blonde girl in an orange shirt at the same time. One of the messages worried him a bit, though, and he looked back up at his new companion, "'Ey, you hoid anythin' about da guys 'at run dis place?"

Beat had been looking around every corner and scanning every crowd for any sign of his sister or his friends-- or anybody who looked like they knew what they were doing, for that matter.

"Guys 'at run th' place?" Beat repeated. "Nah, man, I ain't heard anythin' 'bout 'em." He knew all about Pinky and Lollipop, of course, but Lollipop had claimed they had nothing to do with this place. And he really had no reason to lie, even if he was a Reaper. "What you heard?"

"Here." Spot handed his journal over to Beat so he could read Reno's comment about the kidnappings, torture, and killings. "Guess dis ain't much of a vacation spot," he said, looking around much more attentively now, watching for suspicious looking people, which was much harder since there were plenty of people walking around that were dressed strangely to him. "Dis Reno says we oughtta meet 'im at Central Station."

Beat hadn't heard anything about kidnappings, torturings and killings-- and the second he did, an alarm went off in his head and his desperation to find his sister went up about a hundredfold.

"Wh-WHAT?! Scumbags like dat's in 'dis place?! Oh man, Rhyme, I swear I'll beat the ass've anybody stupid 'nough to mess wit' her! Grrrr!" He very narrowly avoided throwing Spot's journal against the ground. "What're we gonna do?! Who's dis Reno guy?"

Spot took the journal back and looked through the comments on his entry again. "Says he knows people dat're gettin' t'gedda t'stop 'em. Can't say I know 'em poisonal, could be scammin' us, or he could be one o'dem. No way t'know without lookin' into it but if you don't go, I don't go, so whaddaya say?"

Well, if the people who ran this place really were dangerous, it'd be best to get together in a big group to stop them. Especially if, as Beat feared above all other things at the moment, Rhyme was here and had somehow fallen into their clutches.

Finally he took a deep breath and nodded. "I'm up for it. S'a start, right? Le's book it an' meet dis guy."

Spot nodded and took a quick look around before turning back to Beat. "So . . . you know where Central Station is?"

"Abs'lutely no clue!" Beat replied with a huge grin. "Betta find a map, yo."

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Can't Hear the Circulation Bell From Here [COMPLETE]

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