Following A Lunch

[st_abilitylost]

Connor stared at the swinging doors leading to the diner and through the ocular conjoined windows where glossy red stools and patches of sunlight were visible through. Contemplating a decision mid-execution wasn't something he usually did. Routes were planned in advance and adjusted on the fly based on new information, but he'd run across no one since his first morning at the inn. Instead, he was stuck in a self-defeating loop. All attempts to communicate with Cyberlife or even access the world wide net were unsuccessful each and every time. Even entering stasis resulted in nothing--Amanda wasn't even present in the virtual garden. Connor had opened his eyes to his designated room of pastels from a lifeless, frozen hellscape and felt no better for it. But while he still functioned, he could still investigate on foot. Gather testimonials. Seek other residents for advice.

Really, that was the only thing left.

Finally passing through the threshold, Connor took a quick stock of the diner and deemed it no different from any other--no hidden cameras or bugs. At the sight of the first body--a cook and presumably a human (though he'd learned not to assume)--Connor approached the counter. "Hello."

Comments

[st_illkindalost]

Hurley sets the pen down in the crease at the middle of his crossword book and looks up. He'd been lucky enough to find it sitting in the Madonna Inn gift shop. One or two of the crosswords had been done already, but Hurley wasn't going to question his luck. It was something to do during the slow parts of his shift between lunch and dinner.

"Hey." The person on the other side of the counter's unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. "I'm Hurley. You hungry? I can basically cook anything on the menu now."

He reaches for a menu behind the counter and sets it down in front of Connor. Most people knew the menu by heart now, but it's probably safe to assume he doesn't yet.

[st_abilitylost]

"Connor." He replied, taking a seat. The stool made an odd, squealing noise as he did. "Thank you, but I don't eat. I was hoping to ask some questions."

[st_illkindalost]

Back home, Hurley might have questioned the don't eat declaration, but he doesn't now. There was a lot of crazy stuff that happened here on the regular. Someone who doesn't eat doesn't seem that wild.

Hurley slides the menu back behind the counter. "Sure. What's up?"

[st_abilitylost]

He hesitated, but still Connor asked, even knowing the answer. If Amanda were present, she would have doubtlessly chided him. "Has a Hank Anderson passed through here?"

[st_illkindalost]

"Here?" Hurley doesn't know of a Hank and this guy's the only unfamiliar dude he's seen lately. "Haven't seen him if he's here. He a friend of yours?"

[st_abilitylost]

"I'm his partner." Connor clarified, giving one resigned glance downward as his LED flickered before carrying on. "If he's not here, it's unlikely he'd be anywhere else. Sans the bar." And he'd checked the bar.

[st_illkindalost]

"You check both bars?" Hurley asks, eyeing the LED embedded in the side of Connor's head. "There's one inside the inn, but there's another outside by the pool. It's not really getting much use in this weather, though. It's mostly a summer thing."

[st_abilitylost]

"I did." Without needing to sleep, it freed up his time to double up on investigation. "It's alright. You needn't worry on my behalf." Like Xavin, Hurley seemed like an empathetic individual, which meant Connor had to exert some effort into managing their responses.

[st_illkindalost]

Hurley reaches for a cup.

"Most of the time, when people show up here, they show up solo," he says, scooping some ice into the glass. "Sometimes people get lucky and their friends'll show up later. If he shows up, it'll be on the 1st or the 15th, so you'll probably want to wait until then to do some more searching."

[st_abilitylost]

"It's probably best he doesn't." While a departure from the job he was so intensely disillusioned with may have done him some favors, there was no telling how the Lieutenant would take to being trapped. Rather than let that hang, Connor turned his curious brown eyes on Hurley.

"Did you arrive on your own?"

[st_illkindalost]

"Yeah," he says. "Still alone. I miss everyone back home, but it's not so bad here. The people are nice. There's food. There's shelter, medicine..."

It was more than what he had back on the island, anyway. The only thing he was really missing was his friends back there. And he really wished one of them were here. Especially Charlie.

[st_abilitylost]

A shade of something foreign came over Connor as Hurley spoke, and he gently touched his temple to ease it. "Where are you from?"

[st_illkindalost]

"Me? Originally or more recently?"

[st_abilitylost]

"I'm from Detroit." Connor began, electing to set the example. "2038. I'm an android designed for criminal investigations by Cyberlife."

[st_illkindalost]

"Dude." Connor wasn't the first android he met, but he still found himself eyeing Connor with interest anyway. It was weird how much they looked like humans. Probably felt like humans, too. Not that he was going to touch him.

"I'm from Miami, but I was living in Santa Monica before I wound up on the island." A beat and then: "I'm from 2004."

[st_abilitylost]

"'The island'...Hawaii?" Connor glanced to the side as a waiter brought out an order of eggs and hashbrowns to someone further back.

[st_illkindalost]

Hurley leans over the counter.

"You ever hear about Oceanic Flight 815?"

[st_abilitylost]

"No. There's no airline by that name in my world, to my knowledge." Connor mirrored Hurley's body language, leaning in on his elbows.

[st_illkindalost]

"Basically it crashed in the Pacific. A bunch of us survived. We were there for about three months before I wound up here."

Hurley straightens, picks up his glass, still full of ice, and fills the glass with water.

[st_abilitylost]

"Most who experience a plane crash survive, thanks to the marvels of engineering. Still, that's quite a harrowing experience. I'm surprised no one traced your group within a week." Connor tilted his head slightly. Hurley seemed like he came from roughly the same sort of world that he did.

[st_illkindalost]

"Yeah, well, this was a weird island." Hurley takes a long sip of his cool water. "There was this smoke monster and this other paranormal stuff and there were these people called The Others and the Dharma Initiative with all these weird bases all over the island."

For a second, it looks as though that might be the end of it, but then Hurley continues: "And there was this French chick, Rousseaux, who was there for like 20 years and some guy stole her baby before all of the people on her plane died. A lot of stuff crashed on the island. Boats and hot air balloons and planes and stuff."

[st_abilitylost]

Halfway through Hurley's exposition, Connor's LED began blinking yellow as he tried to keep up. Going from point A to Z repeatedly was stretching his pattern recognition capacities to their limits.

"That..." The sympathetic approach? "Sounds tragic."

[st_illkindalost]

"We found her," he says, "But then she died." Then, as if suddenly remembering something, Hurley shifts where he stands, and eyes Connor with that same curious look he gave him when he first told him he was an android.

"Do you need to be plugged in?" he asks, thinking of the island and its lack of electricity -- at least outside of the creepy Dharma facilities and the Other encampment. "Or are you solar powered or something?"

[st_abilitylost]

"I have an internal power supply that will last one-hundred and thirty-seven years. No external charge needed." That did bring an unsettling prospect to mind--assuming time flowed as normal within their pocket dimension, Connor did have a time limit on escape. A longer-than-average time limit, but a limit. At home, there were numerous ways to avoid the limit so it never factored into his decision making.

"Pardon me for asking, but you're human, correct?"

[st_illkindalost]

"Yeah," Hurley says. "Just an ordinary guy."