strangetrip | [GP/EP] We are programmed to receive

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Fifteen days into this particular strange trip, Kitty had redistributed alcohol supplies between the cafe, restaurant, and night club to make it possible to easily tend bar wherever people decided to gather. Today, as most days, she settled into the lobby cafe after chivvying the cook into chicken tenders and french fries (after convincing him it was a single plate meal). It was the closest she could get to "bar food" from him and someone would probably arrive sooner rather than later to make something else.

A few people trickled in after awhile, but none of them demanding. Like her, they drank coffee from the samovar she'd put out. And also like her, most of them had something else to keep them occupied. At the moment, Kitty had a notebook open (from the gift shop; she kept her school notebooks separate in case she made it home during the term) and was sketching plans to upgrade the hotel's computer technology. She needed more raw computing power to work out the energy requirements to do what Illyana did with a thought.

She lifted her head periodically to check for new customers, and had just seated herself at the end of the bar after refilling the samovar when the first new new customer arrived. Immediately, she flipped to a fresh page in the notebook and headed it "Day 15" and made a hash mark for one new arrival. Then she looked up from her notebook and offered one and all her best bartending smile.

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Waking up in the desert was not an unusual occurrence for Alex, but what had bothered him was that he'd not been anywhere near a desert when he'd fallen asleep. He'd tried his cell and his earbud communications to reach Cassandra and nothing. That had bothered him more. Something was definitely going on and he had a feeling it was connected to Ginny's storage locker where he'd been just moments before. Or what to him was moments.

The weight of his gun at the small of his back had been comforting as he'd done some recon of the landscape. When he saw the hotel in the distance, he'd made his way there to get some answers. It was very tempting to try to beat responses out of the man behind the front desk when all he gave were one word responses and a room card. That alone told him he was probably on the pay of Mr. Johnson. Yeah, he was going to kick his ass when he got back.

Always hyper-aware of his surroundings, Alex didn't perceive any threats, at least not in the vicinity, but he did notice voices from the cafe. Voices meant answers, even if it was, where was the parking lot for the hotel and where could he steal a car?

So you know, that wasn't for all the people that you killed, or the millions you would enslave, if you got another chance. I am not a hero, I just loved her."

That moment played over and over in John's mind as he walked out of the alley and through the streets of Old Town toward Lucy. After a while when he realized that the sounds that he should be hearing were gone, his focus sharpened. "What the hells?" He tapped his neck, "Lucy?" Silence. Had the Company come after him and drugged him? No, they wouldn't have discovered that bitch that quickly and if they had he would have been dead.

He turned slowly looking around. While it was as hot as hells would be, Johnny was pretty sure that he wasn't in the after life. He saw building in the distance, through the shimmering light of the heat of the day. If nothing else there would be answers. Hopefully.

For a brief moment, he thought about going to the first person he saw, but then thought better of it. He might be connected to the Company. Besides, everyone knew you got better answers in the bar so he headed in that direction.

Abby was sitting in the cafe with a 14.4k modem that she'd 'found', there were definite finger air quotes around found, but she didn't think the office behind the desk would miss it. Much. The circuit board was on the table in front of her while the rest of the modem was to the side. "There has to be a way to make this into a wifi instead of a dial up." If she were back in her lab it would have been easy. But then, if she'd been back in her lab she wouldn't have the antiquated modem ... unless she'd been doing something for Gibbs.

Wyatt strained his ears to hear the sounds of the fighting back at the Alamo. He owed them that, to commit it all to memory, their last heroic moments. Everything inside of him had wanted to stay, to make the last stand that he hadn't made with his comrades. It would have been as much of an honor to die beside Jim Bowie as it would have been with his other brothers. Lucy was right,though, he couldn't abandon his team, not during this situation and he had to make sure that the women and children survived.

When there was silence and only Spanish voices, Wyatt turned his focus back to getting back to the ship alive, except there weren't any familiar voices. There wasn't even the sound of Rufus or the machine in the distance. Had he been abandoned? It was unlikely but Wyatt couldn't say that he cared if he had been trapped in the past.

Only this past was not Alamo or Texas past. It looked closer to California and he had no idea what was going on, but the building in the distance didn't look too far off of the architecture he was used to. "Well the best way to figure this out is to go get answers."

He stepped inside what was now obviously the lobby of a hotel but instead of going to the front desk, Wyatt went to the cafe. There were more people and more ways to get what he was looking for in there. He glanced down at his dusty clothes with Jim Bowie's knife in the waist of his buckskins and two six shooters on his hips. "Well so much for not standing out."

John's eyes skimmed the room and it wasn't any surprise that his gaze lit on the one piece of tech that he was familiar with. Well at this distance, he was familiar with it. A circuit board was a circuit board. The best place to get answers in his mind was someone that spoke his language. Technology. Either that or gun or alcohol. John was fluent in all three languages.

"Hey, what are you working on?" He asked as he approached the table.

"Stupid modem. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm really glad that they at least have this technology here, but it's hard to go back to dial up when you're used to wifi. Know what I mean?" Abby looked up from what she was doing for the first time to see cute guy. Cute, sad guy. Cute, sad, new guy.

"Hey, you're new here aren't you? Well it's not like I know everyone except with just a few of us here, you kind of do at least see everyone if not know them. Wow, you're probably freaking out about now, huh? I'm Abby by the way and welcome."

John's brain wasn't in the best place to try to plow through everything that the other person had just said except a few things. Apparently there weren't that many people here, wherever here is. She obviously didn't recognize him so there wasn't a warrant out for him - yet. And her name was Abby.

"Uh, yeah just a little bit." John held up his two fingers about an inch apart. "So, Abby where is here? And what do you mean by new?"

She pushed away the circuit board and motioned for him to take a seat opposite her. "I'll explain it as best as I can. I mean I don't have a lot of answers, yet, but I can at least answer some of your questions. Here is the Madonna Inn. I can't tell you how you got here, because we all were like you, one place one minute and here the next. Uh, at least I guess that's how you came here. If you came differently that would give us a new theory to work on."

Madonna Inn? That was new. What planet was he on and how were they blocking communication?

"That's how I came. I was in Old Town and then in the desert. Where is this? This isn't Westerly." He had no idea if he was on an uncharted planet or moon or wherever the hells.

"Nope, not Westerly." Abby shook her head. "We're all guessing that it's California. At least that's what it looks like out there, but I guess it can be any place that looks familiar." She was aware that there were a lot of different realities at this nexus.

"My working theory is that it's a nexus of time and space. Though I'll admit that doesn't explain the kind of kidnapping part. Not that there's ransom or anything which is why I said kind of, but it does sort of feel like a kidnapping or I guess a yanking."

A nexus he could understand, though the time part of time and space not a lot. Neither did California but he put it down to an area of the Quad he didn't know about. "Yanking is a pretty good description." He didn't notice a containment fence but that didn't mean the people here weren't infected by the mood control technology. Maybe here at Madonna Inn it was some kind of poisoning in the food or water.

"So no one here is a native? Everyone got - yanked?"

"No." Abby started and then paused, "well actually, I don't know. The front desk clerk and the chicken cook aren't very talkative. I just assumed that they'd been here always. The longest anyone has been here, besides the few staff, is about three weeks. We all came from different places. I'm from the DC area. They'll have a room for you and there's food." She motioned over to where some people were eating and back toward the kitchen area. "Though, it's alot of chicken. There's beer and other alcohol if you want it." She smiled slightly, "trust me, that helps a little when you're trying to first adjust here."

Jedi philosophy regarded violence and killing as a waste to be avoided at all costs, but as he regarded the Sith lord through the red force field separating them, Qui-Gon Jinn reflect that like many Jedi philosophies, it was incomplete. Certain things and situations could only be truly opposed through violence - thoughtfully and precisely, but treating a situation as peacefully resolvable when it was not was an excellent way to move everything closer to the darkness. Whether that was your goal or not.

So he made no effort to speak or negotiate with the Sith while the field was up, and the second the field dropped he was already in motion to attack, thumbing his lightsaber on as he did.

Just as quickly, he stopped, because he was no longer in the lower recesses of a Naboo power plant facing a Sith. He was on what appeared to be a constructed road, in a desert. Mercifully less barren than Tatooine, it hummed with life around him. And in the distance, there was the more-complicated sense of sentient life. And a set of buildings, oddly but clearly constructed.

How interesting. Qui-Gon spared a thought as he deactivated his saber and walked towards it that Obi-Wan would have to deal with the Sith alone, and train the boy Anakin... but he was ready, surely. Obi-Wan was a fine Knight no matter what the Council said, and the Force would guide him.

As it would continue to guide his Master.

When he greeted the man behind the apparent reception desk of the main building, he was treated to a lecture that began, "Welcome, Master Jinn. You will be in the Highway Suite, room 145..." and continued into an informative lecture that Qui-Gon barely listened to. He accepted the keycard, 'listened' politely for about a minute, then left and let the man keep talking if he felt like it.

There were more people in the cafe. All human, it seemed, which was unusual, but peaceful enough.

"Alcohol always helps." Johnny agreed with a slight smile. He wasn't sure if it would help him at the moment, beyond analyzing it. Which brought his mind back to the circuit board she'd been working on. "I don't suppose you have any more equipment like that around here, do you?" He could build something to communicate to Lucy with it. Though on closer inspection, maybe not.

When Kitty saw the outfit, she immediately thought, "shit, where's Snow White?" because whether she was anti-Semitic or not, Kitty didn't want some buckskin wearing white man from the 1800s shooting her on sight. She didn't see Snow, so she set down her notes and smiled at the guy.

What he said surprised her, though. It sounded more modern than she'd have expected. She tilted her head a little, curious at how calm he seemed to be. "You'd be surprised. One guy showed up in a trench coat and nothing else. Another was bleeding from claw wounds. Buckskin's a new one on me, but not that weird. I'm Kitty."

Lydia Martin was slow to walk into the hotel after her arrival. In fact, it took her quite awhile to actually walk inside and see what was going on because she had spent a bit of time trying to walk away. It hadn't mattered that she didn't really know where she was or how to get back home. She had thought that walking down the road away from the hotel would give her some kind of answer that she could work with and it did. Unfortunately, it just wasn't an answer that she wanted.

Being informed that she had a room waiting for her, in her name, certainly hadn't helped. Of course, she went to check out the room just to see if there was anything more there that could help her. She had only spent twenty minutes searching the room before she decided to head back out, really hoping that whoever owned the hotel would let her do some kind of renovations if they expected her to stay around for awhile. Which, she hoped, wasn't the case.

Finally, after freshing up a bit and making sure her outfit was clean, the pretty redhead made her way back down to where everyone seemed to be gathering. She searched for any familiar faces or looks of recognition. She was also poking around for anything that she could read, half listening to people around her as she did.

Dot was making herself useful. The samovar of coffee and the fully stocked bar were all well and good. But she firmly believed tea would be needed and had taken it upon herself - after some negotiation with the man making chicken in the kitchen - to make a pot (or three) of tea.

She had a little cart, with the tea and milk, lemon and sugar and cups. In case anyone wanted it. The man in the robes made her pause, it was an odd sight outside the church.

Dot could clock a priest at twenty paces but he didn't look like a normal priest.

Still, there was something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Would you like some tea sir?" She asked approaching with her little cart.

Vax'ildan hadn't meant to stare at her. He'd only caught sight of her long red hair, a flirt of flame at the corner of his vision, heart stopping in his chest for the moment that it took to get a good look at the girl that was definitely not Keyleth. But then he was staring at her, whether or not he'd meant to. And since he'd managed to catch her eye while she scanned the room, he may as well approach her and engage rather than try to slink away like a sheepish boy.

"You're new." The lean fellow in his black leather armor and feathered cloak started with the obvious as he moved closer, the hint of an unusual accent on the words. He tried a rueful smile on for her. "If you've got questions, I'm afraid there aren't many answers to be had. But I can tell you what the rest of us know."

Tea? Ah, a local hot drink, it appeared. Like caf, perhaps, but even if not it was often a bad idea to refuse hospitality. The Force had no warnings regarding the woman, her cart, or the items on it, so Qui-Gon smiled easily. "I believe I would. Thank you, miss...?"

Ignis had found working around the insane chicken-man to be much easier than working or negotiating with him past making sure that the man wouldn't randomly add chicken to things Ignis was cooking. (The amount of time that understanding had taken was still very nearly appalling.)

As a result, the sandwiches and pastries and other finger foods he started bringing to the cafe as soon as it became clear that new-new people were arriving had only the amount of chicken they were supposed to have. None, in many cases.

The tentative motions of someone near him told him that he was probably standing near one such new person. He transferred two of the lemon bars from the small tray he'd just set down onto a plate and offered the plate in the tentative person's general direction. "Here. I find a plate of food is good cover, if you're trying to look inconspicuous.'

"Williams sir, Dorothy Williams." She deftly plucked a cup, placed it on a saucer and poured steaming Earl Grey into it before asking. "Milk? Sugar?"

She indicated the additives and smiled. She hadn't seen him before and assumed he was a new arrival.

"And any questions I may be able to answer?"

"Miss Williams." Or perhaps Miss Dorothy, time would tell on that score. Qui-Gon regarded the tea additives, then bowed his head slightly. "Surprise me, I think. I am curious about where here is."

She added a bit of milk and one lump of sugar, not consciously aware that, that was how Hugh took his, and offered it to him.

"This is the Madonna Inn, sir." She didn't know his name yet but was sure he'd tell her in due course.

"Anything else I'm still a bit fuzzy on myself. I've only been here two weeks, and there were only a few people here before that which is when most of us arrived. I don't know," she hesitated and then pushed through obviously not comfortable with the topic. "When you're from, or where exactly, but most of us are from different times and places."

Privately she couldn't help wonder if this wasn't some sort of afterlife but, if it was it wasn't like anything she'd been taught to expect.

"I see." Qui-Gon took a sip of the tea, then held the cup away and looked at it. Not bad! A fresh point in this new adventure's favor, even. Another point, whether Miss Williams realized it or not, was the fact that it seemed almost no one in this inn was local to it. "My name is Qui-Gon Jinn. I come most recently from Naboo," no need to mention the difficulties there, given that 'when' was a question and those troubles might either be ended or not yet begun, "but I've traveled the galaxy quite extensively. I've not heard of the Madonna Inn before, though."

"The galaxy," she didn't quite gape at him, but she was obviously shocked. If a little curious. She lighted, embarrassed. "I'd barely left Melbourne before coming here, and then just to go to the seaside."

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