Vending Choices [OTA]

[enthunder]

Who: Lightning, OTA
Where: Standard coach
When: Apple, day 16
What: Vending machine antics
Warnings: None

It had been a long shot to begin with, typing in a generic information book title and hoping that the vending machine would play nice, but it was the closest thing to an information source that they'd gotten yet. It was worth a try.

Thing was, she now had choices. Choices that she hadn't expected, which was actually kind of aggravating if she thought about it. Considering, she scanned each of the offered titles, and occasionally tapped the screen so it wouldn't time out. When someone entered the standard car behind her, she waved them over.

"Hey, what do you think?"

Comments

[enthunder]

"Hibiki is missing, so I guess we'll see," she points out, cynically. "Not to mention there's nothing in here from the last group of 'heroes'."

Not that she has any ideas how to find out more information. In a fit of irritation, she jabs in an order for the two books she'd marked, and checks her much-reduced point total.

[runs_on_batteries]

"She's not really missing. She left while we were on the platform. How she managed that, I have no idea."

Lightning did raise a very good question. He hadn't thought about whether they were the first on this train or simply the first new brood. Were their belongings gone or simply taken while the train had obviously been cleaned? There were far too many questions and too few answers for his liking.

It was her demeanor when she pushed the buttons that brought his attention back to her. "Having some sticker shock?"

[enthunder]

"Sticker shock? What's that?" She closed the roster with a swipe, and leaned back. "I'd say if we don't know why or how she left, it counts as missing. Did you try talking to her? Because it was like we weren't even there."

[runs_on_batteries]

"It's.. oh. It's what we call it when people buy something and then regret it when they see how much they've just spent. The sticker being the price tag." Tony nods at her description of the girl that they now knew had left.

"It was very strange. Do you suppose it was some kind of mind control? I'd say maybe that's how they got us here but I don't know if I would've gotten anywhere given my condition when I first arrived."

[enthunder]

"There's nothing else to buy right now, and at least this way I'll feel like I'm doing something," she considers, and her mouth twists wryly. "But I suppose sticker shock is part of it."

"As for what could've gotten us here? Beats me. Sometimes, you meet something so powerful or unfamiliar that your mind can't accept it... that's my theory."

[runs_on_batteries]

He chuckles, pleased she understood the humor in that silly term. "Whatever knowledge you can gain from the books would be useful. If nothing else, we could start a library to give us all something to do."

His humor dims at the idea anything could be too powerful he couldn't understand it. Had she met him? "I'm not sure what to make of them, but I doubt their so all powerful and omnipotent as that."