X marks the spot

[zen_navigator]

Who: Dirk and OPEN
What: Productivity is the enemy of something or other. Map making.
Where: Out and about
When: Day 95

In an effort to get a better idea of the lay of the land, Dirk has made a rough map of the town, complete with all buildings, pathways, and obtrusive foliage. Like most of his projects, however, Dirk's map has quickly transformed into something obtuse and oddly managed. His current project is cameras. If he can mark down where every camera is, he hopes it will reveal where there aren't any cameras.

He's assuming for the moment that all of the buildings are wired, so he's starting outside.

Starting in the early afternoon, Dirk works his way across the town starting near the lighthouse and eventually working his way back through the town. He's trying to be systematic about his recording, but it's hard to be systematic when some of the cameras are so easy to miss. He climbs a few trees with his red pen tucked behind his ear, he peers up into the eaves of buildings, he checks under benches and around shrubbery, and he's filling up his map with small red triangles.

Comments

[recognize_an_opportunity]

There's a long pause as he opens the door to the church and immediately starts heading towards the basement, bypassing any areas that might be used for religious purposes. As much as neither he nor Charlie particularly cared about the religious functions of the church, he knows people in town who do, and they'd had no interest in alienating them. The card games, then, are all done downstairs, away from any potential worship.

The pause comes from trying to understand what Dirk's saying. All of the words make sense, and it's an easy enough concept, but he can't possibly understand the appeal of such a thing. "Why?" he finally asks, sounding somewhere between amused and befuddled. "Is it meant to be entertaining? How could it be? It's just people going about their daily lives."

[zen_navigator]

"It's meant to be entertaining." Dirk shrugs. He hasn't been in possession of a television in quite a while, so he's probably not the best person to ask for information on reality TV, but that doesn't mean he can't expound on the subject. "People watch it. I assume they like it, because they keep making new ones. Later on they started giving the casts tasks, things to accomplish, challenges to overcome- presumably to add more variety to the viewing experience."

Dirk takes a quick look around the interior of the church before following Meyer downstairs. "They've still got ones following around young people doing nothing in particular. I assume the appeal is a mix of voyeurism and the smug sense of superiority one gets from watching those less advantaged than oneself. Oh, and the sex."

[recognize_an_opportunity]

He opens up the door to the small room they've been using for the poker game, and gestures around. "Feel free to take a look." It's a small room, sparsely furnished with tables and chairs, nothing special. It serves as a useful space, nothing more, but he's glad that they'd found it. The church has some of the better construction in the town, it seems; at the very least, it hadn't been crumbling, like the diner and a couple of other buildings.

Then he realizes what Dirk's saying, and his brow furrows. "You don't mean they actually show... sex on television?"

There's plenty of suggestive things in his day, of course, but it isn't as though there are television programs at all, much less ones that show that kind of thing. Maybe Dirk's speaking more metaphorically, like perhaps the sex is implied, but if the people on these reality shows are filmed at all times... he shakes his head, suddenly finding the future even more baffling.

[zen_navigator]

"No uh...penetration, but just about everything else." Meyer's question strikes Dirk as oddly phrased, like Meyer has only recently heard of television or even that it doesn't exist in his universe. It doesn't really occur to Dirk that this man could be from the past.

The camera in this room is easy enough to spot. It's situated in the upper corner of the room, not unlike the ones in the houses. He points up to it, for Meyer's sake. "They don't show sex on TV in your universe?"

[recognize_an_opportunity]

It's probably for the best that Dirk's involved in looking for the cameras and not looking at Meyer's face, because it goes just a little bit pinker when Dirk expands upon his statement and actually says the word penetration. He's always been a bit shy about that kind of thing. The little blush passes quickly, though, when Dirk asks the next question.

"They don't show anything on television in my universe," he says, almost amusedly, before he realizes that perhaps that statement doesn't explain things as well as it possibly could. "We don't have television," he says, expanding upon his answer, "We don't even have sound in movies yet, although I've been told that'll happen soon."

[zen_navigator]

"Talkies. How exciting," Dirk answers flippantly before he realizes that Meyer is more or less serious. He looks over at him finally, eyebrows raised. "You're serious." That either means that Meyer is from the past, or an alternate dimension that is quite similar to his own universe's past. Either option is quite interesting.

"What year was it when you were taken?" In his head, he tries to remember when The Jazz Singer came out. "Sometime in the nineteen-twenties?"

[recognize_an_opportunity]

"1923," he responds, aware of the fact that for most people here, that's long before they were born -- in many cases, long before their parents were born. "And yeah, I'm serious. We didn't have movies at all, when I was growing up."

He imagines that that's hard to fathom, for some of the people here, but then, their technology is just as confusing to him as his lack of technology is to them. Even getting used to the communication devices they're all stuck with has been an uphill battle; when he'd realized it had a video function, he'd been baffled for some time.

[zen_navigator]

"I was taken in twenty-twelve. AD," he adds, helpfully. Dirk is more open minded than most people about strange and out of the ordinary upbringings. Living in the twenties doesn't seem all that strange at all, compared to some things he could imagine.

Satisfied that there's only the one camera in this room, he leans against a table and sets his map aside. "There are worse places than here you could have shown up, if you were trying to avoid culture-shock."

[recognize_an_opportunity]

"Well, sure. I could have shown up even further in the future."

That does remind him, of course, that it's remarkably unclear as to what year it actually is here. While the people may mostly be from what strikes him as the future, and the technology levels are more advanced than he's used to, that doesn't mean that the exact year is at all obvious. That makes him curious to know whether anyone's figured out, at least vaguely, where in a general timeline they might be.

"What year do you think it is, here?"

[zen_navigator]

Now, that's not a bad question. He crosses his arms over his chest, considering it for a moment. "The houses suggest...late twentieth century, maybe. But the cameras are more advanced than that. Our mysterious captor's ability to control the surrounding area suggest something even after my time."

[recognize_an_opportunity]

"Then you think it's technology they're using to control the surrounding area, and not... magic?"

The very word sounds ridiculous, and so does the suggestion, but he's seen enough bizarre and unexpected things here to realize that there may be alternate explanations for them being trapped. Magic, however, isn't a very comfortable explanation, even if some people find it plausible.

[zen_navigator]

"Magic?" Dirk scoffs at the idea. It may be for the best that he hasn't seen any of the angel's talents on display yet. "The more advanced the tech gets, the more likely it is that nobody knows how it really works. If you want to call that magic, sure."

[recognize_an_opportunity]

"Some people would. Other people would say that some of what happens here can't be explained by anything but magic. I'm skeptical of the idea myself."

But then, given some of what he's seen, he's not sure how he can deny that there's something beyond clear-cut science at work here. Needless to say, it makes him very uneasy.

[zen_navigator]

"What have you seen?" As much as 'other people' sounds like a reliable source, Dirk would much rather have first-hand accounts.

[recognize_an_opportunity]

"Well..."

It all sounds crazy, and he's well aware of it, but Dirk wants to know, and there's a certain benefit to information being shared freely in a town like this one. "There was the week where we all were capable of... entering each other's dreams. There was also the week where we all became what some might term... supernatural beings. I, myself, had an unfortunate run of being stuck as a vampire."

[zen_navigator]

"Oh, right, the dreams." Dirk has a history with weird dreams. Somehow that everyone else had had them for a little while hadn't even been something that he took into consideration as particularly unusual. "I had a couple of those."

The second part, though, that gets his attention. "You were a vampire."

[recognize_an_opportunity]

"Yes, temporarily. Complete with fangs, bloodlust, the apparent ability to climb up walls, and an obsession with counting. It was... unpleasant, to say the least."

Unpleasant was really putting it mildly, all things considered. He could go into detail on how Charlie had been turned into some kind of quasi-dragon, and how he himself had attacked several people, but he doesn't feel the need to make himself sound like an uncontrollable monster.

"Other people were plagued with similar difficulties."

[zen_navigator]

The corner of his mouth lifts into a poorly contained smirk at this information. "Could you turn into a bat as well? I've always wondered about that." Yeah, that's right. His question isn't 'why transformations', it's 'could you turn into a bat". Dirk has his priorities, and he's willing to accept the idea of something like that happening so that he can ask about details.

[recognize_an_opportunity]

He has to laugh at that. It might not have been amusing at the time, when he'd actually been stuck as a vampire, but now, thankfully, he can see the humor in it. "No, I couldn't turn into a bat, although I was led to believe that there are different kind of vampires, and that the kind I was simply didn't have that particular talent."