A Warm Welcome
Characters: James and Susanna Setting: Block B, mid afternoon
Nobody said anything to James during his transfer, not where he was going or why it was happening - literally not one word was said within earshot to the point where he was convinced he was being transported by a group of highly trained, possibly deadly, mutes. So he of course had endeavoured to fill the silence himself talking aimlessly about whatever thought happened to enter his mind. His efforts were clearly wasted though if the sigh of relief he heard just before the doors shut was any indication and he shook his head. “That was a really great conversation guys, lets do it again sometime yeah?” he called, blinking to try and clear the spots in his vision that had appeared with the removal of his blindfold. When they did, he had enough time to see he was in an elevator before the doors pinged and slid open to reveal an empty room. “So this isn’t unsettling in the slightest,” he murmured, grabbing the bag by his feet and stepping out. Still there wasn’t anyone with a gun pointing at his face so it wasn’t the worst arrival he’d had to a new place.
Opening the bag, the first thing he saw was a key which he was quick to fish out and pocket. The rest of it seemed to be clothes and the few pictures he had up on his cell wall back at Lovelock, the later of which brought a small smile to face before he pulled the string on the duffel closed and slung it over his shoulder, heading for the room’s only door beside the elevator. There he was confronted with...a farm?
“Did I get hit on the head really hard?” he said slightly bewildered but mostly amused as he took in the trees and greenhouse and the rows of what look like vegetable beds. “‘Cause normally it ain’t this pleasant or agriculturally inclined.”
It had been surprisingly pleasant to have Ryan spend the entire night with her, not that Susanna admitted as much. She enjoyed his company far more than she probably ought to let show in a place like this, where their every move was being watched, aside from the electrical mishap last night, of course. And it had been quite nice to be able to relax, to not have to watch her every word last night. But that was done and over. The electricity had returned sometime during the night, which meant the cameras were back on.
Susanna had been less than pleased by the message on the computer this morning. If the administration were trying to reassure them that things were under control or that there was a deeper, altruistic purpose here, that ridiculous game wasn't helping things at all. At least if they did decide to make their choices public, she’d managed to make the most obvious, politically correct choices she could think of.
After getting a light breakfast and spending a bit of time in the gym, Susanna had showered before heading over to the other block. She hadn’t been over here yet, which was slightly unfortunate, as the music room really was lovely. She entertained herself for a little while at the piano, though she truly wasn’t all that skilled at it. Perhaps she would spend a little time every day at it. It couldn’t hurt to pick up a new skill or two, and the arts had always been particularly able to hold her attention. It was mid-afternoon by the time she left the music room with the intention of returning to A Block.
There was a man holding a bag -ah, he must be new, then- standing in the doorway looking utterly bewildered. She might not have paid him any mind, but he was blocking her way to the elevator, so she figured she must interact with him. “Hello,” she greeted him with a small but friendly smile. She knew how to play the game. “You must have just arrived. Welcome to our little convict community,” she said with a wry little twist to her smile.
James had just been on the verge of going over to one of the fruit trees to see if was real or just some kind of screwy set dressing when out of seemingly nowhere, a person appeared in front of him. A female shaped person in fact which was enough of a surprise to actually shut him up for a few moments as his brain caught up with the fact that wherever he was not only had a farm but at least one woman who was pretty in a pointy kind of way. The silence didn’t last long though and he held out his hand as he walked towards her. “Yeah, literally like five seconds. Well not five seconds ago, more like twenty something seconds ago but still, pretty damn new. My name’s James but people call me Jim or Glitch or the Fucker I’m gonna Kill If You Don’t Shut Up but that last one was mostly just my cellmate.” He paused to breathe and flashed her a grin. “You are?”
It was like an onslaught of chatter, which took Susanna a bit by surprise. She hadn’t met everyone here by far, she knew, but she didn’t think she’d met anyone who talked quite as much as the past twenty seconds had implied this man talked. When he reached her, she shook his outstretched hand in a light, distinctly feminine grip. “I’m Susanna,” she answered when he finally stopped speaking long enough for her to get a word in. “I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but I’m not quite certain of that,” she added in a slightly teasing tone.
“No-one can be certain of anything about anyone, especially not so soon after meeting them for the first time,” James pointed out, not losing his grin as he returned the hand shake, his grip only a touch firmer than hers though slightly marred by the calluses on his hands. “I have no problem informing you though that already this is far more pleasurable than the last meeting I had. All blindfolds and shackles and not even an offer of a drink first. No offer of anything, nobody said a word, kinda disconcerting really...”
“Hmm, touché,” she agreed with a slight nod of her head. It was a reasonable statement to make. The calluses on his hands were rough against her smooth palm, and she couldn’t help but think about men from her past with similar hands. She’d had a type before prison, after all. Not that it mattered, because she was doing her best to not get sexually involved with anyone else after the mini-drama with Reece once she’d slept with Ryan. “Ahh, our friendly guards. I didn’t get such treatment, as I awoke in my room the first day this facility was open, presumably. There is a map of the facility on the back of your bedroom door, though, should you wish to find the kitchen for a drink or a meal,” she informed him, pleasant and helpful.
“Clearly you’re a woman in the know,” he commented, pleased to have found someone so willing to fill him in a little. “Course I’ll have to find my room first if I’m gonna be consulting a map, hopefully it won’t be too far away.” Not that his bag was heavy, he just didn’t like to be lugging anything unnecessary around if he didn’t have to - he drew quite enough attention to himself as it was.
Susanna merely smirked slightly at that comment. In the know? Hardly. More she was just as aware of their situation here as she could be given how secretive the administration seemed to be. “Ahh, well, as far as I can tell, only the first floor is accessible on this block, so you ought to be able to find it easy enough. Which room are you in?” she asked, not that she was familiar with this block, but it never hurt to make a new friend, and it tended to be much easier with men who weren’t as astute or suspicious as some here seemed to be.
“An excellent question, I have no idea,” James said, looking utterly unfazed by the fact. He hadn’t forgotten the key he’d found in his bag however and it was hardly a great intuitive leap to assume that it might be for his room. Fishing his hand into his pocket, he pulled out the key with flourish and deftly flicked it over to reveal a number on the fob. “Number 42, Douglas would approve.”
Staying silent while he fished in his pocket, she took a moment to look him over. He was a little older, but definitely not as old as Wu - if he was, he was in ridiculously good shape and must have amazing genetics. Her mental assessment was interrupted by his announcing which room was his. “Douglas?” she questioned curiously. “And forty-two, hmm.” She glanced at the doors of the rooms next to the empty elevator room. “The numbers appear to be increasing in that direction, so I would guess yours is just across the way,” she told him, motioning in the direction of the greenhouse.
“Adams,” he clarified. “Wrote Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, said 42 was the meaning of life. It’s good.” Following her line of sight she looked around, he nodded at Susanna’s reasoning before glancing in the direction she’d pointed. “Sound logic there Susanna, I may make it there alive after all.” He flashed her another grin.
“Ah, well, I can’t say I’ve read that book,” she admitted, though she filed it away. Perhaps she would look it up; one could never have too much reading material in a place like this. “Oh, well, I do hope that you will. It would be such a shame if you didn’t. Would you like company on your journey?” she asked, an expression of amusement on her face though the offer was genuine.
At her offer, James switched his bag to the other shoulder and offered her his now vacant arm; three years in prison it would seem had done little to dampen his ideas about how to treat a lady. “I would be delighted,” he told her, grin softening into something less manic but still friendly.
Susanna would be lying if she said she wasn’t the tiniest bit charmed by the gesture. It was nice to be around an apparent gentleman again, she thought as she took his offered arm. “Now, James,” she began as they started walking. “Tell me something interesting about yourself,” she suggested.
Heading towards the greenhouse, James hummed thoughtfully. “Well Susanna, that kind of depends on what you find interesting doesn’t it?” he pointed out, slowly taking in his new surroundings as they watch. Oh sure, there were plenty of interesting things he could tell her but a lot of them he preferred keeping to himself for one reason or another.
For as much as he’d chattered when she’d first approached him, he sure wasn’t doing as much of it now. She gave him a sideways glance, vaguely amused. “Not at all. I would prefer to know what you find interesting about yourself. As for me, there is quite a lot I find interesting. If you’d like, I could go first,” she offered. “I was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet Company.” It wasn’t anything he couldn’t have found out himself with a little research on the computer.
He chuckled at that and shook his head. “You might regret saying that, I have been known to go on long and what I’m assured are incredibly boring tangents if given an opening.” He turned to look at her, smiling again. “But the New York Ballet huh, colour me impressed. You must have a lotta drive to get somewhere like that.” Talent too but that went without saying. “I guess you could call me an inventor of sorts though I prefer quartermaster, like the guy in the Bond movies. I studied engineering at CalTech as a younger man before ‘going rogue’.”
“It would be foolish to regret something which would give me greater insight into someone. And I am an excellent listener,” she replied, and it wasn’t quite a lie. When it could benefit her, she was an excellent listener, and she was becoming increasingly aware that she needed to become more active within the community, as unpleasant a thought as that was. “Absolutely, yes. It was my goal as soon as I discovered ballet, and I worked diligently toward it.” She’d never had a Plan B because she’d known she wouldn’t need one. She’d decided at a young age that she would be a dancer with the NYC Ballet Company and that was precisely what she’d done. “Quartermaster? Now that is interesting. And ‘going rogue’, is that what has brought you here?” she asked curiously, since he’d brought it up.
Despite his own inability to focus on one thing for a given amount of time, James admired the kind of dedication Susanna was talking about, to aim for a singular goal and achieve it. Yes, that kind of thinking was a complete anathema to the way he liked to do things but he couldn’t deny that it yielded results. “Arguably it’s not the correct term, actual quartermasters are a military position in charge of supplying the troops but in Bond its the Q branch who give him all his gadgets so I like it,” he elaborated, oddly pleased that she, for the time being at least, was genuinely interested in what he was saying. Her question had him shaking his head though, and the fingers of the hand holding onto his bag began to tap an irregular pattern against his palm. “No, going rogue is just my fancy way of saying I worked for myself out of a workshop in Reno instead of what my professors had hoped I would do. I wound up here because I’m a sucker for a card game.”
“I am aware,” Susanna commented with a small smirk at his elaboration. Certainly, she’d known both the military and Bond references quartermaster entailed, so she’d had a mental reference for what he was speaking of. Her husband had been particularly fond of the Bond franchise, so even though it wasn’t a personal interest, she’d picked up a few things over the course of their short courting and marriage. She glanced at him with a quirked brow when he shook his head, waiting quietly for the answer she fully expected to follow it. “Ahh, well that would certainly be a more reasonable meaning for ‘going rogue.’ So, you are a gambler? I must admit, I’m rather fond of card games, though I’ve not managed to get in a good game of poker here yet.” Perhaps if she and Reece hadn’t been drinking the other night, they might have played it, but it would have required too much thought and neither one, apparently, hadn’t wanted to think overly much.
“My apologies,” James replied, his expression turning vaguely sheepish. “I’ve clearly spent a bit too much time around people who can’t tell their ass from their elbow, I’ll have to get used to being around people who can actually hold down an intelligent conversation again.” The talk of gambling and cards wasn’t as easy to shrug off however and he found his hands itching for a deck, pulse quickening at just the notion of playing. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t,” he told her, which wasn’t nearly of much of an admission as it could’ve been. “And you say there’s been no poker yet, what kind of a prison is this? Clearly we’ll have to correct the situation.”
"No apologies necessary," she assured him. She wasn't bent out of shape about it. "Though yes, you will have to readjust. Though this is still a prison of sorts, we have been encouraged to have original thoughts and to come together as a community. Although, as I'm sure you'll learn when you catch up on the messages from the administration, there are quite a few things that have me questioning just how much they truly want us to come together. Just this morning they asked us to privately post two people we would keep and one we would have removed from this program. Hardly a community-building exercise." And it would seem that now she'd begun talking, she had quite a bit to say on the matter.
She let out a soft laugh at the question, amused by it, though she shook her head. “Well, I’m uncertain of whether or not there has been poker at all, just that I have not witnessed it. But I do agree, it is a situation that truly ought to be rectified. I do believe that they have decks of cards in the activity room, which is on the other block, along with the kitchen, gym, and pool.”
Proving he was capable of keeping his mouth closed if provided with the right incentive, James listened with interest as she spoke about the apparent weirdness he now found himself bang smack in the middle of. “Sounds kinda like the Stanford experiment if you ask me,” he offered, scratching his chin and dimly noticing how much stubble was there. “Though of course in this case, they’re using actual prisoners so...” Then there was more talk of poker and his brain switched back to that only for his thoughts to stumble on the mention of a pool. “They have a pool here? Christ, they really know how to mess with a guy’s expectations don’t they.”
Glancing up at him with raised brows, Susanna considered that. “Hmm, the Stanford experiment? I suppose I could see the parallels, and there have been some thoughts on whether or not this is just one elaborate psychological experiment. I could see it, sadly, however I’m opting to remain optimistic that their proposed endgame is true. Which, you’ll discover when you read their welcoming message, is to provide us each with a new life: identity, home, bank account, etcetera,” she explained as they rounded the greenhouse. She laughed lightly at his reaction to the mention of a pool. “They certainly do! It was not open to use right away; I believe it was the fourth or fifth day that they made it available. It all rather runs together even though it’s only been about a week and a half.”
“And what if you aren’t interested in all that? Sounds a little witness protection-y to me.” Something he had purposely avoided getting involved with even though it could have stopped him going to jail, not willing to give up on the fragile ties he still had to his daughter. Still he couldn’t argue that it sounded like a pretty sweet deal if the people running things were in fact on the level, something he’d have to determine for himself as time went on.
Although she understood on some level why someone wouldn’t be interested in giving up their identity as it meant she would never be able to dance with the NYCBC again, Susanna was actually all for gaining her freedom and being able to live her life without the stigma of a murder conviction following her around. “Hmm, I’m not certain. I suppose you could request to be returned to the regular prison population to serve your sentence, however I believe their purpose, as they’ve advertised it, is to give convicts a chance at rehabilitation and then start over without their conviction following them and excluding them from opportunities. It is a wonderful idea in theory,” she posed, considering it as she had many times in the past ten days.
“Oh I don’t question that for a second,” James said, smile turning a little lopsided. “Mind you, communism as an idea looks pretty damn on paper whereas real life...not so much.” He wasn’t looking to pick a fight though, even if it just one of ideals, especially not with the first person he’d met in this new place. “I can’t fault the idealism behind it though, all of this.” He waved a hand around for emphasis. “And I’m not gonna ask them to put me back just yet, not until I know more about this place.” He turned to her and his smile grew a little wider. “Get to know the people here a little.”
Susanna laughed very lightly at that, nodding her head. “And that was precisely the point I was working toward. It would be an ideal setup aside from the human element. Who can be rehabilitated, and who will be good enough actors to convince the administration that they have been? It is a dangerous game they are playing,” she mused speculatively. And where she stood on that scale she wasn’t entirely certain. Would she be a risk on the outside? Well, only time would tell. She felt in complete control of her urges, though. “I think it is wise to do so. There are many people here - not as much as a normal prison population, of course, but even so, there are a lot for the scope of this project.”
The more Susanna spoke, the more he was convinced he was dealing with someone incredibly on the ball and counted his blessings he’d managed to run into her. “What kinds of people we talking about?” he asked curiously. It had been a pretty mixed batch at Lovelock but this place already kind of blew it out of the water by the fact it clearly had women there. “Anyone particularly worth talking to or avoiding?”
“Oh, there is quite a wide variety of people here,” Susanna answered first. “As for who to talk to or who to avoid, I think it wouldn’t hurt to talk to everyone you encounter who seems open to conversation, at least until you form your own opinions of them. We come from different perspectives, so somehow I doubt those who I might prefer to avoid would be the same as those you would. However, there is an older gentleman here, Wu, who is self-admittedly a very dangerous man. He is restrained and eloquent - we had a perfectly civilized conversation just the other day, however he is one not to be crossed. And then there is Carmel, who does a lot of cooking here; she’s very friendly and easy to talk to,” she told him, opting to ignore the first names that had popped into her head in favor of those she thought telling about wouldn’t reflect poorly on her.
As answers went, hers was about ten different kinds of vague and a little on the evasive side but James couldn’t fault her logic and bobbed his head in understanding. “Fair play,” he told her, making a mental note of the names she actually had given to him. “I always like to get my own read on people anyway, just thought it might be useful to get a head start.”
“Oh, but of course, and I don’t mind giving some of the impressions I’ve got of people, I just didn’t want to say whether or not you should avoid them. It would be a shame if you missed out on a positive interaction because of a colored opinion I’ve given you,” she pointed out with a wry grin. There were the remnants of smashed tomatoes on the ground as they walked past one of the doors, and she frowned at it, stepping around it. “Well, isn’t that just lovely,” she murmured sarcastically.
“How anthropologically sound of you,” he said, returning her grin with one of his own only for it to falter at the sight of the ruined food, looking up at the wall to see that, whoever the room’s occupant was who had seemingly got on the wrong side of someone, they were going to be his next door neighbour. “You know who lives here by any chance?” he asked, indicating to the door.
Any quip she might have given in response to that was pushed aside by the question, and she looked at the door in thought. “I do not, no. This is actually the first time I’ve been to this block,” she admitted. With the kitchen, gym, and pool all on the block she lived on, she hadn’t been in the biggest hurry to get to this one. “Whomever it is will likely be displeased that someone has thrown tomatoes at their door, though.”
“That or upset,” he pointed out, frowning a little. “Seems a pretty petty thing to do to someone though doesn’t it? I mean who throws food in this day in age except teenagers and college students in hideously cliched movie food fights. What a waste.”
“It is incredibly petty,” she agreed with a small nod. “And quite a waste. It makes one wonder if they’ve ever had to work for the necessities, food, shelter, clothes on their back.” She’d heard the phrase enough in the past that she thought it fit this situation well enough. “While they have provided us with food here so far, who knows at which point they’ll stop and force us to become vegetarians with the only food source being this farm.” And that was just getting a bit too cynical even for her. It would be atrocious if they did stop providing them with food, though she knew she would survive even with just the food from the farm.
There was something about Susanna’s choice of words and the way she said them that sounded a little odd to James’ ears but his mind quickly moved away from the thought at her talk of the farm and he twisted round to look at it. “Well vegetarianism isn’t too bad, did it for almost six years myself but this doesn’t look like enough to be the only food source for over forty people.”
When twisted to look at the farm, Susanna glanced over at it as well. “No, it doesn’t. So I suppose we’ll just have to hope that our keepers continue to provide us with other sustenance. And now, it seems we’ve reached our destination. I’ll leave you to get settled in, but I am in room twelve if you wish for company another time, or you can always message me on the computer.” Socializing, right. She needed to do more of it, and so far James seemed tolerable enough.
“Susanna in room 12, I may just hold you to that,” he said, pulling back a little so he could take her hand in his and plant a brief kiss across her knuckles - he’d been away from women for over three years, he considered himself a little entitled to play the charming rogue a little. “Thanks for showing me the way.”
Susanna gave him a smile at the gesture, willing to admit to herself that she was a little charmed by it. It had been far too long since she’d been around respectable men. “You’re quite welcome,” she assured him. And then, because she couldn’t help it, as she turned and walked away, she put a little extra sway to her hips.
Proving just how far from respectable he actually was, James eyes went exactly where Susanna invited them, unable to stop himself from grinning a little. Then he turned to his door and letting himself in, dropped his bag and headed straight for the computer, the sight of it even more pleasing than Susanna’s exit had been.