001 | Dirk Gently | Early, Day 75

[zen_navigator]

[This particular detective has been rather quick to notice the new bit of tech strapped to his wrist. It's not long after he arrives then, that a man with a messy mop of brown hair comes into picture on the video screen. The view is directly up his nose for a moment before the shot raises to encompass his face instead. He looks a bit confused, but otherwise unperturbed and uninjured.]

Hello? [A set of fingers taps against the screen, resounding roughly against the microphone.] Hello? Anyone on the other end of this listening? [The view drops to a crooked view of a bright mustard tie and a shirt that looks like it's been in his wardrobe since nineteen seventy-four. The voice continues to speak as the man turns around.] I seem to have been kidnapped and transported. There are far reaching implications. A number of alarming possibilities readily spring to mind... [The face returns and two bushy eyebrows raise over wide eyes.] This is Dirk Gently. I have woken up in a gazebo. A GAZEBO.

[He looks away from the camera, scanning his environment. The inside of the gazebo and a view of the park can be seen behind him for a moment before his face returns. It's just occurred to him that his kidnappers could be the ones on the other end of the line, so it might be in his interest to move somewhere other than where they'd left him.] If this is about any of my outstanding debts, I can assure you that I will be fully capable of paying in full upon my whole and healthy return to London.

Comments

( video )

[enchangement]

[ Unimpressed teenager is unimpressed-looking. ]

In need of a tissue, several maybe. [ What? ] There is no monetary system in place, so no, this is unlikely about debt. Just experimentation.

[zen_navigator]

[He grins when the image shows up on the screen and leans in to get a better look. Her first comment makes him sniff self-consciously. Look, his handkerchief is at home, that's the best he can do. Her second comment however, that's more interesting.] No monetary system? What is this, some sort of freaky hoodoo cult?

[He raises the watch closer to his face, so just his eyes show.] I don't want to be an experiment. Or take part in any sort of experiment. I am not usually anti-experimentation, but in this case, yes, I am definitely anti experimentation. Especially if said experiments involve me being drugged and left in a gazebo like some sort of wild animal. So if you could kindly connect me with [Don't say show me to your leader, that's so cliche] ...the director? Grand hoodoo priestess? Someone. I'd be monumentally grateful.

[enchangement]

Angels, yes. Organized religion? Questionable.

No one wants to be, even those who have done this rat's maze before. Wild animals usually wake in cages if they are to wake at all; imagine a fish in the glass and the little castle and there is the gazebo. A decoration of relative fondness.

Come across a green woman, don't bother her.

If I could kindly connect you with anyone I'd kindly connect my fist to spinal cord for the affront of being held here nearly ten and ten and ten days again.

Our captors don't really talk to the lab rats.

[zen_navigator]

[Okay, he missed some of that, and this girl is definitely some sort of insane, but he got the message. The captors aren't talking, and he's now a lab rat. Not promising, to say the least. That is, if he can trust this girl at all.]

Who are you?

[enchangement]

River Tam. [ She sticks out her tongue. ] Your parents named you after a short knife?

[zen_navigator]

A dagger. [He raises an eyebrow] My parents named me Svlad Cjelli. The change was an apposite one, to say the least.

[enchangement]

Should've made the strangers suffer through it. Sounds more like song than Dirk.

Supooooose a dagger isn't all that bad. There are houses, unless you want to sleep in the gazebo..

[zen_navigator]

[He's not sure if he's being complimented or insulted here, so he's just going to press on.] Of course I don't want to sleep in the gazebo.

[And yes, he can see a house from where he's standing.] Most of them occupied, then? With people like you?

[enchangement]

[ Best idea, Dirk. ] You never know.

Occupied, with rooms empty in most, in most. People like me? Yes, and no. People who speak and sound more like you.

[hung_garian]

Beats waking up in a gazelle.

[Less insane than River, but perhaps even less inclined to make sense.]

Good luck getting back to London. Wouldn't get my hopes up, though, if I were you.

[ video ]

[foundacause]

Break the gazebo and I break you, that clear, sweetcheeks?

[ And this is why Meg will never be Chair of the Welcoming Committee. ]

Just be glad it was 'kidnapped and transported' not 'kidnapped and tortured' though there is plenty of time for the torturing later.

Enjoy your stay.

[thezerothlaw]

If your arrival here has anything to do with outstanding debts, it would be the first arrival that has any reason at all behind it.

[He's gentle, if not exactly sympathetic; this is a terrible situation but he rattles off this theory calmly.]

Do you require assistance?

[intelligently]

If only I'd thought of that.

[bluesrat]

I... don't think it's got anything to do with debts, just bad luck. You okay man? No injuries? [So many of them seem to show up here bloody and battered.]

[magnets]

Ain't no debts that got ya landed here. Sorry, pal. Looks like you're joinin' us in the land'a the hostages.

[zen_navigator]

Oh thank God.

[Don't anger the natives, Dirk. He catches himself belatedly.] Not that you aren't...lovely.

[zen_navigator]

Why would anyone...[Okay, he's just not even going to go there. Clearly everyone here has gone insane. Maybe something in the water.]

You seem to have a very negative view of things, my friend.

[zen_navigator]

[Torture? That doesn't sound good, to say the least.] Is torture a common occurrence around here? Or is it something of a specialty for you?

[zen_navigator]

I believe you will find that everything has reasons, if only the right connections can be found.

[He looks around himself and sighs with great zest.]

I require information. And tea. And a large pepperoni pizza, if possible. [Hey, he can ask.]

[thezerothlaw]

Tea is certainly obtainable. Pepperoni pizza might be more difficult, as our food supply is limited.

[Information is the easiest, if perhaps the least reassuring.]

This place is called Cape Kore. Those here have been brought here against their will and represent a wide variety of time periods, species, and it seems realities as well. No apparent escape route has been found, and a number of things that defy what one would think of as the nature of reality have occured.

My name is Daneel Olivaw. I myself am from he year 3740, and I am a humaniform robot.

[nedofpies]

[ It's always a little bit depressing, greeting the new arrivals, but at least this one seems to be handling it relatively well. He's bargaining rather than passing go and moving on to immediate panic attacks, in the way that he had when he'd first woken up here ]

Getting out of here isn't going to be that easy, I'm afraid. [ Unless the Doctor's plan later that day works and gets them all out, in which case this is the luckiest of the lot of them, Ned thinks it is best that Dirk realizes as soon as possible that he's not going anywhere anytime soon ]

Have you gotten the welcome speech from anyone else, or should I do the honors?

[zen_navigator]

[Yeah yeah, robots, a confluence of people from all over space and time, flouted laws of reality. That he can deal with. Limited food supply is a another issue entirely.]

How limited?

[zen_navigator]

[He's just going to assume she's complimenting him here.] I have been known to reach many conclusions which the average man will discount entirely.

[zen_navigator]

As hale and whole as I can be, given the circumstances. I take it that is not always the case?

[zen_navigator]

Hostages? Or lab rats? [He huffs out a breath] I've had quite the rag tag welcoming committee. Don't the people here have anything in common?