Castle Gulch

[Ashlie Minamida]

Ashlie is 95% certain that Vinny was flirting with her, but there's at least the possibility that it was just pretense and she's about to embarrass herself horrifically. So she splits the difference and only takes off her duster and vest to neatly fold over the back of a chair. She glances around to see if there's anything lieing out in the open or perhaps a suitcase that's quick enough to open (and close again) to take a quick look.

[Vincent LaRue]

Ashlie is 95% certain that Vinny was flirting with her, but there's at least the possibility that it was just pretense and she's about to embarrass herself horrifically. So she splits the difference and only takes off her duster and vest to neatly fold over the back of a chair. She glances around to see if there's anything lieing out in the open or perhaps a suitcase that's quick enough to open (and close again) to take a quick look.

One of the suitcases could be quickly opened to reveal a pile of books, papers, maps and charts. She didn't have time to get into all of them, but Vinnie, at first blush, appeared to be telling the truth about tracking down this 'immortal man'. There were lithographs and sketches of people, with circled ear lobes and bridges of noses and chins. Phrenological data, some archival documents which clearly had been ripped out or otherwise pilfered -- a whole mess of things. This would be a crazy person's bulletin board had he had time to set it up -- or had bulletin boards existed in the Old West.

Before she could read too much into it, however, the door opened behind her, and Vincent walked in, straightening his own tie.

[Ashlie Minamida]

Ashlie closes the suitcase, a little awkward to have been caught snooping but he did invite her in and leave her with his luggage. She didn't do much rifling past seeing the obvious signs of Vinny having been forthright, though she can't help but chuckle slightly at the phrenology. It's, of course, bunk, but when tracking the same person? If that is Will, depending on their mastery over their shapeshifting they might well be carrying identifiable traits between identities.

"You weren't kidding about the amount of work you've put into this." Ashlie says, tapping her fingers on the outside of the suitcase and turning around to look at Vinny.

[Vincent LaRue]

"You peeked," Vince said, walking over to a second suitcase.

"Dedicated a good portion of my life to it, ma'am. A search which, I hope, is very nearly at its end."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Guilty as charged. And please, you can call me Ashlie. After all, in a strange way we're colleagues." she says as she finds a chair on which to sit.

"So you think you've finally cornered your immortal man? Metaphorically speaking, I'd imagine if they knew they're being actively tracked your search would look a little different."

[Vincent LaRue]

"I suppose that's why they came out here to begin with, isn't it? Isolated, on it's own. The frontier, where no one will blink twice at strangers showing up."

Vinnie pulled a bottle of...well, something green, with a fancy French label on it from his second bag. "Something a little nicer than the rotgut they sell downstairs, yes?" he smiled, pouring a couple glasses and handing one to Ashlie.

"I don't want to pretend I'm the only one who's ever tracked them down. That would be very arrogant of me, non? I am sure they believe they have learned all the tricks of the trade by now. But the modern world, she is making new tricks all the time."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Like you wouldn't believe." Ashlie says before she can think better of it. She kind of wants blow his mind, just a little bit, but she knows that's a terrible idea. Still, maybe some nudging here and there would be fine. In exchange for hopefully helping her find Will. Or something. And she had to be careful because she doubted her alcohol tolerance had gotten much better since her definitely-not-a-date with Lisette. Still, she takes the offered glass and takes a careful sip.

[Vincent LaRue]

"Oh, I think I'd believe most of what you'd have to tell me, were you willing," Vinnie smiled, setting his own drink down on the table.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"What if I told you I've build a metal bird that flies fast enough to chase the sun around the earth?" she says with what's almost a halfway competent teasing smile.

[Vincent LaRue]

"If you told me that right now? I'd think you were showing off. Try me again in a few minutes," Vinny smiled.

The room was getting a little...lighter? Hazy? Blurry, certainly...

[Ashlie Minamida]

"What do you m--ooh." she says, swaying slightly in the chair. This wasn't what she had expected from the alcohol at all. Certainly not after one sip. Her thoughts were disconnected. Something was wrong. Instinctively she reaches for the back of her neck to switch her neural interface to a full read-out from her nanite sub-consciousness. Except there's nothing there. For a moment she frantically traces her cervical vertebrae in search of the implant. It's gone - of course - along with the rest of her artificiality, concentrated into her brass arm by whatever strange transposition Conduit had inserted into the portal.

She shoots to her feet except everything feels sluggish, her body lagging behind and for a moment she's back in her original body, steering a puppet with a layer of disconnect like a thick diving suit wrapped around her. Except there's no auto-proprioception steering or sub-routines so when her body does respond it does so awkwardly, disconnected, swaying. "Buh why...?" she manages to slur out as her balance crumbles. The room is spinning and then she is, crumpling to the ground, the glass with whatever Vincent had drugged her with rolling from her fingers.

[Vincent LaRue]

The lack of an internal chronometer means that Ashlie had no idea how long she was out for, though the fading light from the window indicated that it was nearly nightfall -- so maybe an hour or so? Hard to judge, precisely. Music and noise downstairs indicated that more people had arrived, at any rate

Easier to judge? The lack of movement, as Ashlie found herself securely tied to the chair she had sat down in, arms and legs bound by cord, a handkerchief tied 'round her mouth as a gag. Vinny had taken his jacket off and was down in his vest, rummaging around in his second suitcase, with syringes and little glass vials.

"Ah, Ashlie. Welcome back to the world of the living," he said, noticing her beginning to move again.

[Ashlie Minamida]

Ashlie blinks her eyes as reality slowly comes back into focus in a muddle of sensations. It does not take her nearly as long to piece together what happened as soon as her head clears. Maybe she'd been reckless, but her first instinct is to put the blame firmly where it belongs. She glares at him and tries to talk despite the gag. "Bwhachtahrt." Biting down on the handkerchief tells her that there's a slim chance to bite through this in any reasonable amount of time. Similarly there's little give in the ropes. She might be able to disconnected her prosthetic arm but there's not a hell of a lot she can accomplish with half a foot of arm. Her rifle's propped up next to the door where she'd left it, thoroughly out of reach.

"{What do you want?]" she demands in a quiet tone, but it mostly comes out as garbled non-sense. Maybe it'll at least encourage him to remove the gag if she seems calm enough to not scream? That shouldn't be too hard, emotional sub-routines or not, she's always been a rational, grounded person. Sure, her transition into a more biological body had added some... wrinkles to that, but still. Why then does it feel like a struggle to keep unhelpful ice from crawling into her mind at the edges? To struggle, to move and do something to flee a sensation she'd only come close to feeling once. When Conduit had trapped her in a recursive loop. But even then she'd been in her element with a tiny bit of wriggle room and while it terrifies her retroactively, the very nature of it meant she only ever felt it once as a dreadful realization. This was mounting somehow and not going to reset. It suddenly made a lot of the irrational choices and standpoints of both mutant- and mankind make a lot more sense if this was how they were being driven towards survival.

And so, despite her view of herself as the sensible scientist in control, she finds herself pulling on her restraints and muttering into the gag, as if it somehow could produce a different outcome.

[Vincent LaRue]

Vinny smiled, as he leaned back against his bed.

"Calm yourself, Ashlie. If that is your real name. We're all friends here -- colleagues, remember? We're just going to have a nice little chat, you and I. You're going to tell me all about this magical bird, and about what really bring you to Castle Gulch, and how long you've been planning to come here for your... 'friend'. And then you're going to tell me where I can find Arch Stanton. And if you're very good about all this, you may be able to leave town."

He walked over, behind Ashlie, and placed both hands on the tie to the hankerchief.

"If you're thinking about screaming, first off, I don't think anyone downstairs would hear you. And even if they could, I'd be surprised if they gave two thoughts about it. Loud noises from upstairs can be explained away so easily. If handled properly. And I'd hate to handle it properly," he said, pausing for a moment longer, before loosing the gag.

[Ashlie Minamida]

Ashlie lets out a laugh, though it's tinged with a bit of distress. "You and me are colleagues as much as you and a caveman knapping stone knifes would be, Vinny." she says, hoping that putting some venom in her voice will ease the anxiety. It doesn't. "But sure, let me explain to you how a ramjet works." She probably would have, in terms that Vincent could have understood but she's not exactly feeling charitable right now.

"You need a static wing shaped so it's drag in the air causes it to be forced downwards, creating lift from the negative pressure created above it. Then you move at sufficient speed to create enough lift to counteract the weight of your plane, so your flying machine's limited by the weight of your materials, the efficiency of your engine and the energy density of your fuel. Coal and a steel steam engine isn't going to cut it by a mile. But once you sort that out and your fuel burns so hot that your limiting factor is the air it needs you can start designing an engine that takes in the headwinds and lets the speed compress it down into your fuel chamber. Optimize your adjustable airflow and fuel injection and your speed and efficiency feed into each other until you hit the limit of your engine geometry or fuel refinement. Of course for any of this to work you need better metals and materials you've yet to devise, though I imagine there's at least enough oil in the ground here, so that's a start." she starts rambling falling short of listing out any actual calculations. If this world is following a similar trajectory as her own then they're at least close to discovering flight and none of what she told him beyond that is actionable in any reasonable way.

"As for Arch Stanton, I have no idea where he is or what he currently looks like but I will tell you that he's the reason I'm here. Didn't know the name he goes by, so thanks. I've been planning on coming here for about a week, though the exact destination wasn't clear until some time this morning when my machine ripped open a tear between realities and I stepped from my world to yours. You want more? Because I doubt you'll believe any of it. I run a school that teaches 'skinwalkers' and 'immortal men' and mind readers. I was born as an automatic abacus so complex it started to think. Back home flying machines are so common, people use them to travel for fun. We made electricity light our cities and our carriages run fed by the light of the sun. We've send humans to set foot on the moon and return safe and sound. And if I don't do the same, more people will come looking for me. That's not a threat, just the truth." she goes on and while she'd like to pretend she's grandstanding, she is simply nervous, scared. What can she do? Lie and be caught out or tell the truth and not be believed. She's stuck once again. She'll never not be, it's like a snare waiting to entrap her, always have to struggle or be pulled under... Her breath is coming fast and ragged, ice-cold dread is crawling up her neck and for the first time in her life Ashlie's rational thoughts fray.

[Vincent LaRue]

"Your flying bird sounds amazing, impractical, and utterly impossible. And it's a bold strategy to just spit out as much nonsense as you can to try to stall. For backup, perhaps? A rescue?

You think your babbling can confuse me and keep me away from the treasure you and your friend are hiding? Well, let me show you some actual science," he said, pulling out a vial. "This is Devil's Breath -- or scopolamine, since you're a fellow patron of the scientific arts. You get it from mandrake and angel's trumpets and, in the right doses, renders the subject unable to create a lie. Having studied with Dr. House, I am, of course, quite well versed in it's use," he said, drawing a syringe and injecting Ashlie's upper arm -- the non-metallic one, of course.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Of course!" Ashlie laughs but there's no mirth in her voice, only a tremble of fear. "Truth serum." She can only hope that he believes in his psychedelic neurotoxin more than he questions her claims. There is, of course, no such thing as a truth serum, but she doubts she'll be able to spin a coherent story Vincent would be willing to believe under the influence of it. And she dreads how he will react while she is deprived of the only way she currently has of defending herself: her mind.

And of course, the frantic beating of her heart only washes the drug into her head all the faster. The little give in her bounds feels exaggerated and incongruous, making her think the chair is wobbly, melting. Maybe she has found Will, she just has to pull the rope through the shifter's body and -- she jerks in the chair and, of course, doesn't go anywhere, much to her confusion. Was she wrong? That doesn't seem right. Right. Right right right. She turns her head to her right, expecting to see something... important, revelatory. Just a wooden wall. She blinks and the striations in the wood move, making her tilt her head in search of... something?

"Did'ya know..." she starts, momentarily taken aback by the way her voice seems to fall over itself as it tumbles out of her mouth. "That everything is made out of strings? Tiny little one-dimensional strings and they're playing a song called... uh... conformal field correspondence perturbation." she laughs, then frowns. "Perturbed. I'm perturbed. I'm very perturbed. I don't like this." she says, tugging on her bonds again. "I don't like being restricted and perturbed. I want my real body back!"

[Vincent LaRue]

"Well, we can't have you feeling perturbed, can we? That wouldn't be good for anyone. Answer my questions, and we can get you out of here, right as rain, I'm sure.

How did you know to come here looking for Arch Stanton?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

I'm so fucked.

"I told you, the field strings. They vibrate and I got a pattern that's... you just oscillate it. It's... it's like a compass! Like the magnetic field. Just takes triangulating." she stumbles her way through a frantic reframing of creating a quantum resonance through a stable false vacuum pattern to infer a probability field of qualia. Even other quantum physicists would call bullshit on that before spending months combing through her data.

"I don't have it here, it's too big to move, it's back home in my dimension." Well that was probably a mistake.

[Vincent LaRue]

"Your....dimension." Vinnie said, flatly. The concept was...extremely foreign to him, Ashlie could tell, from the lack of understanding in his eyes. A small mind, in a small place -- a damn provincial Cowboy more interested in gold than science. If the whole 'tied her up and injected her with truth serum' bit hadn't convinced her this wasn't Will, the lack of...interest probably did? As little as her Will understood science, they always seemed game to at least experiment more with it. Vinny seemed more...focused. And small.

"So, you had some kind of...tool, then, to track him. And you zeroed in on Castle Gulch because?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Might as well claim it's making dousing rods for all he's going to understand any of it..." she thought, belatedly realizing that it had slipped right out her mouth. She should be worried about antagonizing him but a strange calm has settled over her. She's dimly aware that's the drug at work but she almost welcomes it over the unfamiliar panic.

"Because the whole world is made of energy." she answers his actual question with a sing-song voice. "And the whole world is synchronicity." she adds though she's not entirely sure where that thought came from. It's wrong, obviously, the whole term exists to describe an erroneous perception, but what else is her quantum-qualia hypothesis if not an acausal correlation of probability field resonance in a zero-dimensional space. She tries to jump out of her chair, the ropes momentarily forgotten, though they turn it into more of an abortive hop. "Topological resonance!" she exclaims to an audience of one that is unlikely to follow her drug-induced jump of reasoning.

"I solved it!" The actual formulas escape her but there's a strange holistic feeling to it. Either she's made a psychedelic-induced breakthrough or reasoned her way into a schizoid delusion. "Sympathetic resonance from our Will Stanton took us here because by synchronizing the dimensional manifold we..." she waves her hand, though mostly just ends up rotating it at the wrist as if to hurry her thoughts along. "Submerged to a pre-wave-collapse energy state and let it condensate along Will's qualia into the closest matching frequency."

"Damn I'm smart!" says the woman tied to a chair after having accepted a drink from a sketchy man in a bar.

[Vincent LaRue]

Ashlie was 'rewarded' with a backhanded slap across her face.

"A smart mouth, is more like it. You babble more than Hattie did in the asylum, and make only half as much sense.

If you have been searching for someone, you must have notes, or diagrams, or a map, or something. Where are they? I'll decipher them myself if I have to."

[Ashlie Minamida]

The sudden burst of pain snapping across her face pierces through the almost euphoric drug haze, sending her slumping back into the chair and the lurking ice of anxiety looming behind her.

"They're back home and in my head!" she shoots back, reaching for angry with her voice and only finding scared. "I can't give you what you want if you refuse to accept the existence of something beyond your limited understanding!" she goes on and for some reason she really doesn't have time to explore right now, this thought grips her with even more dread.

"There are no maps as you know them, only calculations and probability matrices. The way it works can't pin-point something because the more you narrow what it is the less certain the where becomes. There's a Stanton somewhere in this town. Or maybe within a hundred miles, I don't know for sure because I've never done this before." Somewhere a part of her is disgusted at how pleading her voice has become. She doesn't get this emotional but then even her disdain for that has a depth to it she's not used to.

[Vincent LaRue]

"A hundred miles..." Vinny said, musing. "That doesn't leave much..." he said, turning away from Ashlie and going over to his own notes and maps, giving Ashlie at least a brief respite from the barrage of questions.

[Ashlie Minamida]

That is what he's satisfied with? She's not going to question it too much, she might just have bought herself some time to try and think her way out of this. She flexes her artificial arm but Vincent had been smart enough not to put any rope where she might be able to pinch it in a joint. There's the window but she not sure she'd be able to hoist herself and the chair high enough to not just get caught on the sill. Plus an uncontrolled fall from a high second story has the potential to go very poorly. Her rifle, then? Or just shouting for help? Better but not great. Pretend she's calling out to warn 'Arch Stanton'? Might make Vincent hurry out of the room at the chance to catch his quarry right then and there. Or hell, draw Will's attention to her. Would he be inclined to help a stranger? Her Will certainly would and they tried to find one with similar qualia. How then to make sure she's heard?

An plan begins to take shape in her head and she puts all her shaky mental capacity towards the sequence of steps so she can go through them fast enough for Vincent to not be able to stop her.

She leans forward to put more weight on her feet, then twists herself and the chair backwards and sideways. At the same time she yanks her stump free of her prosthetic and swipes at the bottle of who knows what on the dresser beside her, sweeping it into the window with a loud crick. Not enough to shatter it but enough to put a spiderwebbing crack into the glass. One more awkward lunge backwards, this time throwing her weight against the backrest to make it topple, her head snapping back hard to crack the back of her head against the weakened window.

"HELP!" she screams at the top of her lungs, followed by "Arch Stanton!"

[Vincent LaRue]

The first person to react, of course, was Vinny, angrily. "You little bitch," he growled. "I guess we're going to need to get the gag back, aren't we?" he said, beginning to cross the room towards her.

The door handle started rattling a moment later. "Y'all OK in there?" a woman's voice called.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Not particularly, no!" Ashlie shouts in response, trying her best to move her head and make it harder for Vincent to gag her again. "I'm tied to a chair!" she says and then, just to be abundantly clear adds "Non-consensually!"

[Vincent LaRue]

The door handle rattled more, though it being locked, it didn't immediately swing open. Vinny pulled a pistol out of his bag and aimed at the door.

"I believe I requested the private room, thank you.." he said, taking aim.

[Ashlie Minamida]

Shit!

She should shout a warning but there's no time to think through a plan, not with her brain still only loosely hanging on to itself. Instead she throws herself forward to crash into Vincent and hopefully knock him to the ground. Or at least foul his aim.

[Genevieve Fontaine]

Vinny was not expecting that from his drugged-up captive, nor was he a particularly trained fighter or combatant, and so Ashlie's...flop, for lack of a better word, was enough to send him sprawling for the ground.

At the same time, with a couple of kicks, the door's lock gave, and Genevieve stood there, half-dressed with her hair disheveled. And with a pearl-handled revolver in her own hands! Did everyone pack guns around here?

...Right, cowboy times. Understood.

"Alright, frenchie. Keep your hands where I can see 'em," she said, carefully (and with a little bit of a tremor) training her own pistol on Vinnie.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Hello again." Ashlie smiles awkwardly, trying hard not to think about the crunch she felt underneath the chair when she'd toppled onto her prosthetic arm.

[Genevieve Fontaine]

"You alright there, darlin?" Genevieve said, making her way gradually over towards Ashlie. "Excuse me for saying so, but you look like three pounds of sick in a one-pound bag."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"About how I feel. Academia's cut-throat but this is a bit much." she groans.

[Genevieve Fontaine]

"Speakin' of cut-throat...what do we do with him?" Genevieve said, her nerves causing the gun to shake in her hand.

Vinnie was down on the ground, crouched on one knee, his hands up and spread apart as he looked up at Genevieve.

[Ashlie Minamida]

Between her free stump of an arm and the fall cracking parts of the chair Ashlie manages to free herself and stumble to her feet.

"We'll tie him to the bed for now." Ashlie says as she very slowly and deliberately kneels down to pick up Vincent's pistol. "Thank you very much for coming to my aid, by the way. Most wouldn't have."

[Genevieve Fontaine]

"Yes, well, it's a hard world out there, isn't it? It's good to help someone else out every now and again."

"You won't get away with this!" Vinnie said, as if he was the wronged one. "I'll get out of this and track you and your lot down, even if it takes me 20 more years"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"To do what? Expose the world to how narrow-minded you are?" she says as she finishes tieing Vincent's hands to the bed-posts. She's still a little wobbly and her artificial arm isn't working entirely right but it doesn't have to be the most secure knots in the world. Finally she goes to close the door to retrieve her rifle that's still propped up against the wall next to it.

"But I do wonder." she says, turning towards him and using it as an excuse to cast her eyes on Genevieve for a moment. "How'd you come across the name Arch Stanton?"

[Vincent LaRue]

"To do what? Expose the world to how narrow-minded you are?" she says as she finishes tieing Vincent's hands to the bed-posts. She's still a little wobbly and her artificial arm isn't working entirely right but it doesn't have to be the most secure knots in the world. Finally she goes to close the door to retrieve her rifle that's still propped up against the wall next to it.

"But I do wonder." she says, turning towards him and using it as an excuse to cast her eyes on Genevieve for a moment. "How'd you come across the name Arch Stanton?"

Dropping the name didn't seem to provoke any immediate reaction from Genevieve.

"He isn't as clever as he thinks he is. Everything leaves tracks and traces, if you know where to look and know who to talk to. And pay them enough to look the other way. You'd be surprised what sorts of friends money can buy.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Yes, the bad kind that make you think you get more information by coercion than honesty. But you're not a scientist, just an opportunistic scoundrel with a chip on your shoulder." she says, and because she's still a little loopy and feeling a little vindictive she adds, "And you will never find me. Or Arch Stanton, should they decide to come with me."

With that she goes to grab Vincent's suitcase full of 'research' and heads for the door.

[Genevieve Fontaine]

"What's all this about, then?" Genevieve said, following behind Ashlie. "I told you he was shifty, but I wasn't expecting...well, all of that."