paixaorpg | A Lost Dog [Complete]

Entry tags:

A Lost Dog [Complete]

Character(s): Mutt Jones, Saix, Fran, anyone.
Content: Gate entry.
Setting: Muspelheim.
Time: Afternoon.
Warnings: Mutt swearing.

Eyes glazed over, he stared into space.

"Sir?" The woman at the booth tried to coax some sign of life at the man with the chestnut brown hair and black leather jacket who was standing like a deer in headlights. Wherever he came from, he looked like he was dragged through dirt.

"....Sir?"

A small sign, an inaudible whisper.

"Excuse me?" The guard said, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.

"Where... where am I?" He said. He became animated suddenly, finally noticing the girl who was about his age. She wasn't really surprised, she was staring off into space herself and when she looked back to the gate... there he stood. Another traveler, she mused, completely lost. They usually were.

"You're standing at the gate into Paixao." She said, her words soft like velvet.

"Pai...Paixao?" He said. "Where am I?" He repeated himself. He meant to imply what part of the world he was in, but shock was inhibiting his mouth and his brain from being on the same page. "I'm... in China, right?"

The girl turned for a second and in offered a pamphlet. "Here, everything you could know about this place is in here.

"Now all I need is your name." She smiled simply.

Mutt stared at the pamphlet. It said nothing about where they were. Just 'The City of Paixao'. "So... this is China, right?" He repeated himself.

She smiled softly, and for a moment Mutt smiled back, noticing her. She was fair-skinned, blonde, and had bright blue eyes. He almost didn't catching her asking for his name.

"Mutt."

She made a hand gesture. "That's it? Just... Mutt?"

Something caught his eye within the city. "Mutt..." He looked in, past the gate, and in the crowd of people walking in the plaza. His heart dropped into his stomach. Through the crowd, two people walked: his mom and "--Jones..!" he exhaled the name sharply.

"Mutt... Jones." She noted. "Well, here's your journal, enjoy y--" She was cut off as the journal was torn from her hand and suddenly found herself speaking to empty space. She spun to see him tear off into the city, disappearing quickly through the crowd of commoners.

He knew he had seen them. His mom and Indiana. He didn't care where he was now, because they were here too. They were just going to find an air plane out of here, make this a funny little story. A side-trip. Go back to the states, and never leave his garage again. Maybe he could be filled in on how they got here, but it didn't matter. They were here and they could leave.

As he ran, he called their name, eliciting confused and startled glances by the people he subconsciously noted all looked alike and were wearing strange outfits...but he was really never one to mind other people's customs.

It soon became apparent to him he lost them in the crowd. He should have caught up to them, where did they go? He looked around at all the streets, the nooks, the crannies, they could have gone anywhere. He realized he had no idea what direction he had just come from, and they were nowhere to be found. He was lost. In a city of strangers. In a strange city.

He found an empty wall to lean on while he caught his breath, peering through the crowd.

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Though she had come into the effort too late to be of any actual help, the search for Rosette had inspired Fran. She was small and not particularly powerful, as Doctor McKay had disabled all of her combat and regenerative functions, and would not be particularly helpful against the sin-monster attacking the city. She perhaps could have made a decent decoy if it was needed, but with so many qualified heroes already facing the beast, it seemed that her services would be better put to use elsewhere.

She had decided that instead, she would be far better suited to finding the people that had gone missing around the city and protecting people on an individual basis. She was not really sure how to do something like that though, as she could find no kind of reference for it in her programing, and so she had taken to simply asking people. Crossing the city had taken quite a long time as she had stopped to address every person she passed along the way.

"Hello," she said with a cheerful smile to a man pushing a cart. "Do you need help?"

The man glanced at her with a suspicious look and then shook his head, and so Fran walked on to the next person. A woman pausing on the sidewalk to look through her bag. "Hello," Fran said to her with the same smile. "Do you need help?"

She continued in this manner as she walked down the street, getting refusals and strange looks from all of the blond-haired people she addressed as she went. She eventually came upon a young man with hair similar to her own in color and who appeared somewhat dirty and mussed. She smiled at him. "Hello. Do you need help?"

Fran wasn't the only one to stumble across the out-of-breath young man. Admittedly she was much more likely to genuinely care about the answer that he might give, but Saïx could hardly help that. He could pretend to care, but really he could no more care about anyone than he could care about the city's slow degradation.

Of course, not even he was so remiss as to shout his lack of care to the world, his black coat traded in for a simple pair of pants and a shirt, both in shades of blue. As for his hair, well... he couldn't change that and it had been left as it normally was.

"Looking for someone?"

The strangers caught him off guard for a moment. He looked side-long at the man with the blue hair, but at this point nothing was really out of the ordinary. The girl reminded him of the well-mannered girls at some of the prep schools he went to. And some of the boys.

He found it odd that either of them approached him at all. He was hopeful, but some gut instinct was warning him about something. He couldn't quite pin what it was. He couldn't care less at that moment, all that mattered was finding those two. Besides, he was having a hard enough time swallowing the concept of actually accepting another person's help. Not exactly something he's known for.

"Yeah, I'm looking for somebody." He said flatly, steeling his composure. "A lady a little shorter than me with brown hair, and a tall old guy in a fedora, walking together. Came this way a minute ago, did you happen to see them?"

The young man was clearly confused and there was no record of him in the journal database, and from that Fran was fairly confident that he had just arrived. The other man that had stepped forward, offering to help, gave her some pause. Aside from the obvious reversal of the usual hair/eye colors from the locals, he had a different facial structure, his eyes set a little farther apart, his nose a little longer, the distance from nose to lip slightly shorter, and Fran could surmise that he was not a part of the native population.

However, a search turned up no record of this man as ever having posted anywhere in the journals. That was puzzling. He did not seem to be disoriented, he was even offering assistance as though he was quite at home here, and yet he had never used his journal. Most of the newcomers seemed to use their journal quite quickly after arrival, if not simply confused experimenting with the journal function itself, then a post on the message board to find something or someone familiar.

She smiled at the blue-haired man and the younger brown-haired one. "My name is Fran," she offered politely. "You seem to be new to Paixao," she said to the younger man, "and I do not believe that we have met," she added, tilting her face towards the taller. She looked again back at the confused one. "What are the names of your friends? I can run a check on them."

Looking for someone. Such a familiar tune among those had recently (and not so recently) arrived to the city. He hadn't seen them, of course. He hadn't really been paying much attention to the city as a whole lately, apart from noted the oddness and general wear that had started to become apparent of late. Besides, who was and wasn't part of the city wasn't of much interest to him. At least not on a general basis.

"If they came this way I haven't seen them," he answered, schooling his face into an appropriately apologetic expression. "And you may call me Sirius."

Admittedly, that was nowhere near the name he usually went by, but he rather doubted anyone would be able to tell that simply from talking to him.

"Their names are Marion Williams and Indiana Jones." He said directly to Fran, almost ignoring everything else said. "Or Marion Ravenwood. I don't know what she would have gone by. Or the teacher for that matter..." he said to himself. "But yeah, I'm new to... this place." He said, feeling like it would be taboo to utter its name. To acknowledge that this was reality.

"And thanks anyway." He said to Sirius, starting to thumb the switchblade knife in his pocket out of nerves, though he had on his poker face. "If you see them, tell them Mutt's looking for 'em."

Fran closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating as she scanned through the network of active journals in Paixao. She opened her eyes, looking back up at Mutt Jones, journal activated 00:08:43 minutes previous. "No journals have been activated under the names Marion Williams, Marion Ravenwood or Indiana Jones," she said calmly. "I'm afraid that your family is not within Paixao at this time. It is however possible that they might arrive at a later time." She smiled encouragingly at him.

She also smiled at Sirius, although she still wasn't sure she liked the fact that he didn't seem to have a journal. "It is nice to meet you, Sirius."

Mutt's thumb stopped moving. He stared at Fran intently, skeptically. "What do you mean, 'they're not here'?" His voice was deep, "You didn't even do anything. Look lady," he bit out, "this was a fun bit, but if all you wanted to do was rattle my cage then cut out. I don't have time..." His voice trailed off as something suddenly occurred to him.

He reached into a few pockets, searching. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out the little square that the guard had called a "journal". Was this what Fran was referring to? He expected a little spiral-bound notebook, he hadn't even glanced at it before shoving it away. Instead, he was staring at a hard square made of some martial he wasn't entirely familiar with. To think he was about to toss it.

He saw the discrete hinge and little crease where the two halves met. He opened the cover, and the screen and keypad lit up. His name was already on it. It was a piece of technology he had never seen before, let alone heard of. It was a little piece of evidence pointing to what he didn't want to know. He quickly snapped it shut, which startled him slightly at first, thinking he broke it.

This place, with the sheer size of the city under the dome would have been the 8th wonder of the world, no doubt. The journals surpassed even the most advanced of government technology. And then, the people, who seemed to live in an era that was hundreds of years before Mutt's time. While differing in physical structures, they were all with blond hair and blue eyes--like the Arian race. He read all about the world--Earth, and this didn't exist in it.

He stared at Fran, speaking quietly. "What is Paixao?" He said, almost apologetically. He had a hard time saying 'sorry' for his behaviors, particularly the defensive ones. He avoided asking the bigger question looming in the back of his mind: was this even Earth. As if knowing, he dreaded finding out the answer.

Fran just smiled kindly as Mutt snapped at her and produced her own journal to show him. It appeared as though she was merely pulling the device from a pocket, but in reality, her smock was composed of the same nanites as the rest of her body, and the journal normally resided around where her stomach would have been, were she human. "I was checking the network," she explained. "It is fairly simple. It is my understanding that all visitors are given journals upon entry to Paixao and so I would be surprised if your family members would be here without being recorded."

She smiled again, soft and reassuring as Mutt seemed to loose steam and speak in a softer voice. "I am not aware of what planet we are currently on, I am not picking up any satellites in orbit that I would be able to interface with and so I can't ascertain our position in the galaxy, or even if this planet is in a galaxy that I am familiar with." She put her journal away again, continuing in a completely calm and friendly voice. "Paixao does, however, seem to be at a convergence between multiple dimensions and some of the visitors seem to come from parallel universes which are similar but not the same. A majority of the visitors seem to come from some version of the Earth, although there are many other home worlds claimed as well."

Anger. Disbelief. Confusion. Not too surprising for someone who had only just arrived. Why he'd thought he'd seen his ... friends? Relatives? ... when they clearly weren't here was a little strange, but the city was behaving strangely overall lately. One more oddity wouldn't be out of place.

"That is correct. Everyone here has one." Why the strange young woman could tell what journals were and weren't registered was a little bizarre, but again, when the city was a melting pot of everywhere it wasn't precisely out of the ordinary.

"Paixao is what you see. A domed city on a world possibly not your own, with very few known ways to return."

He had no idea what satellites were. Barely graced the pages of books on alternate dimensional theories, once thinking it was a bunch of pointless bullshit. He hardly understood anything Fran was referring to. And what he could understand, he refused to. His ears were hot, feeling suddenly cornered by the two strangers.

He almost didn't catch what Sirius was saying. After a moment of digesting, certain key words struck him. "What do you mean a few? People have gotten out of here before?" This dimension. This world. Whatever 'here' was.

He was sick with disbelief that he was here in the first place.

Mutt suddenly really needed a drink.

((please excuse deleted post, there are inconsistencies with message board/journals that are being addressed.))

"I would also be interested to hear about that," Fran said, looking at Sirius. "I was informed that no one was known to have left of their own volition." She turned back to Mutt. "People have been known to disappear, but it is not certain whether they returned to their own worlds, another world entirely or, as it has been theorized recently, whether they have in fact been assimilated into the local population."

"There are a number of options open to you for however long you are here, however. There are several levels of living accommodations that you can choose from and a variety of restaurants within the city. The economy defies any logic I am familiar with but very much works in the favor of travelers as pieces of the local flora will pass for currency." Fran smiled warmly at him. "May I help you find anything?"

"No one has," he explained simply. "They have left, or so I assume, but not by their own free will. They merely vanished." Where to and why he had no idea nor did he really care. They weren't in the city any longer and that was the only thing that he was concerned with at the moment.

Neither were they assimilating into the population, although he'd heard the rumors the same as anyone else. But he'd let the rumors stay rumors for the time being. It was more useful than harmful after all.

"Not like we're here because we want to be, either." He mumbled. "So you're basically saying, we're all stuck here? And if not here, if somebody were to disappear--they basically have no idea where they're going to end up? That's just... shit."

He didn't think Fran or Sirius knew much more than that, even though he knew Sirius was giving him very little rope to pull on. He would have called him out on it, but picking a fight in a strange area and not knowing what they're packing is always a bad idea, no matter what world you're in.

Fran on the other hand seemed too blunt to be trying to mislead him, and offered a lot of information. Almost... too much. He didn't want to know any more. He had his fill for one day, and just wanted a real personal perspective of the city.

"Thanks." He said to Fran, and almost shyly to Sirius. "For the help."

"But I'm just going to go see what this place is about for myself." You're free to tag along he would have added, but was inhibited by his introverted nature. Instead, he uttered, "Though you could tell me the nearest place to sleep is."

Fran smiled warmly. "You have entered in an expensive part of the city. The nearest hotel is the Morem o Lisboa, however closer than that are the Vocea Condominiums or the Palazzo Townhomes, if you wish to arrange for a more extended stay. If you would be comfortable at more economical accommodations, however, there are many other hotels and apartments along the train lines." Fran turned her head in the direction of the Muspelheim train station. "The Actua Are hotels are quite popular, there are three in the city, all located close to train stations. There are also two other hotels in the city called the Haja o Que Houver and O Pastor." She smiled back at Mutt again. "I can show you to any one that you would prefer."

For the most part, that was exactly what he was saying. "Presumably, they return to their point of origin, but they don't precisely leave any indication of where they leave to." Sure, there were theories and guesses and it made perfect sense for them return to where they'd come from, but that by itself wasn't much of a guarantee.

And with Fran offering to show the young man - Mutt, he'd said his name was, or at least implied it was (he honestly doubted it was; most parents wouldn't have been so cruel) - the city, it saved him the trouble or having to do so. His civility only stretched so far.

"As she says," he commented, "there are many options available."

"I think I'll be fine." He dismissed the proposal. Being on his own wasn't anything new. He preferred it, really. Being alone was much more comforting than being with shady individuals he held no real obligations to. "Thanks for the tip-offs, I'll be sure to check out some hotels.

"If you could just point me in the direction of the train station..." He said, eagerly looking past the building.

"It's just this way," Fran said with a cheerful smile and began to walk, gesturing for him to follow.

((Fran wants to get him away from Saix if she can before they part.))

And once again, it seemed that he would be saved the bother of having to show a complete stranger around the city. There were always better things he could be doing and it seemed that neither of the others particularly liked him.

Of course, he hadn't been trying to be nice. Leave that to others of the Organization; he wanted none of it. He was what he was. Why should he pretend to be otherwise?

"I shall leave you to it, then."

"See you around." He said to Sirius while beginning after Fran. He didn't say anything. He found no real reason to argue at this point, if she was so willing to help he couldn't really complain. He was to the very least not going to lie to himself, he was dead tired. He must have been up for 30 hours at that point.

His hands tucked into his jacket pockets, he people-watched and looked at the city, wondering why Fran seemed eager to go. "Something up?" He asked, wondering if she knew something he didn't. Which was probably a lot.

Fran waited until some distance had been put between them and 'Sirius' before answering Mutt's question. "There is no record of anyone by the name of Sirius living within the city at this time," she said in a quiet, calm tone. "It is possible that he might have given us a pseudonym or that he gave one to the guards when he entered the city, but there is also the fact that his face does not appear anywhere in the system either. He acts as though he has been here for some time, but there is no record of his existence." She looked up at Mutt, adding, "That is highly unusual. I hoped that you might keep this in mind if you have any future interactions with him."

There was a polite nod at Mutt's words, more of a courtesy than anything else - he might or might not see the young man later, after all. But for now he'd let it seem that he would at least not mind meeting him later.

But apart from that brief politeness, there was nothing as he turned and headed off towards other parts of the city.

Mutt made no nod, no utterance. He only gazed at the brown-haired beauty as she spoke. He understood what she was saying, but his mind was on a more direct matter. "So how do I know who I can trust?" He said. More to the point, he added: "How do I know I can trust you?"

To his own surprise, it wasn't with suspicious intent, but real curiosity. If he was ever going to survive in this city, he was going to have to be able to recognize those he could trust and people he couldn't. He could have never guessed one way or the other with Sirius, or whoever that man was, being in this city. It was obviously not going to be as straight-forward as picking out Socs in a bar.

Fran smiled softly at him. "I myself am incapable of forming the intention to hurt a human being, but I doubt that I can prove that to you. From your manner, I think that you are not familiar with computers?" she asked as they continued to walk. "I make it my own strategy to check with multiple sources in trying to determine what is true. Also, when I have found the information given to me by an acquaintance to be correct on multiple occasions, I am more likely to consider their opinion first." Fran pulled her journal out of her 'pocket' again and flipped it open to display the screen. "I believe that your best option is to read the information available to you on the journals. There are many conflicting reports, but there are also several sources whom tend to agree on things as well."

She hit a few buttons and popped up a message board entry (http://community.livejournal.com/paixaomb/77534.html). "The opinion that seems to be the most consistent is that a group known as Organization XIII is dangerous and has repeatedly attacked the people of this city. The best known member of the Organization, or the most talked about, is Larxene. Several individuals claim to have been taken hostage by her and endured various kinds of torture for her amusement." She offered the journal to Mutt, a chronicle of taunting and threats. "Such claims might sound somewhat radical, except that Larxene herself often makes light of them or, in one case, has even been known to post a photo of her victim."

The fact was, Mutt trusted her. He just didn't let her know that for fear of trusting somebody too soon in this city. Or maybe it wasn't the city--has he always been like this? Maybe he just didn't like trusting people at all.

When talking about the journal, or rather, computer, he shook his head. "No. The only complicated machinery I'm familiar with is a motor--" He stopped himself short. He tended to add little unnecessary comments when he was comfortable with somebody, so he dropped the sentence.

"No, I..." he fumbled with his words and his pocket. "I don't know what this... is." He said while removing his own journal from his jacket.

He didn't realize that this "journal" was going to be such a useful component to surviving the place. Something struck him as she was speaking. Maybe there was another reason why he already trusted her. "You remind me of somebody I knew." He said, while picking up her journal after shuffling away his own, letting that thought drift.

He read the entry.

"... Son of a bitch. What a nut job." He mumbled, staring at the guessing game this woman, Larxene, was playing with other members of the city. He stared across the boards, getting a feel for the complete strangers he had yet to encounter. Some made the Mayans who warped their skulls look relatively normal.

He sighed deeply and handed the journal back to Fran.

"So where's that hotel at?" It sounded like he was being short, but he had seen enough for the day and was becoming heavy with exhaustion. He wanted to sleep, then explore the features of the journals a bit further, perhaps get more information on all the citizens in the city.

He wanted to know what he was dealing with.

He paused. "And will you be okay?" He asked it aimlessly, she'd obviously been surviving fine so far. But he had to ask.

"There are often small motors in computers," Fran said with a smile. "To drive fans for cooling and such."

To his comment about Mutt being reminded of someone he knew by her, Fran offered another, small smile. "I hope that doesn't trouble you."

She was quiet and continued to walk beside him as he read Larxene's most recent entry in the message board, steering them slowly west. When he spoke again, she nodded with a troubled expression. "I have not born personal witness to an of the Organizations works, but the way the known members conduct themselves on the message board concerns me." She smiled again at his question and gestured with a hand. "That is the Morem o Lisboa," she said, reaching into her 'pocket' and pulling out a small branch of crystaline leaves. "You can use these to pay for a room."

She smiled warmly at him again, appreciating the concern. "I think that I will be fine. If nothing else, I'm very good at hiding."

"Well," Mutt said. He didn't know anything about computers, but "I work on motorcycles. I'm a mechanic." He explained. He didn't know the difference in the motors, all he knew was how a gas engine worked and how to pull it apart and put it together and make it run better and faster. He missed his motorcycle.

The reminder wasn't a bad one. "No, he was a good man. Very smart, knew everything about anything. He helped me through a lot as a kid, and was the kind of guy who would always give you the time of day." That was all he could say on the matter as he pressed back bittersweet memories. It still hurt too much, feeling like he just abandoned the man and his mom in the jungle to die, but at the same time, he trusted Indiana was capable enough to save them by himself.

Mutt took the vegetation Fran produced from her pocket and gazed at Morem o Lisboa. "Thanks. For all the info, and, you know..." He paused. "Take care." He said with a quick smile that faded almost instantly.

Fran smiled and nodded. "And you. Good luck."

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A Lost Dog [Complete]

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