Act 1-1: Roger the Negotiator

[Roger Smith]

Memories...

Not the first time he'd been without them. Roger Smith was a man from a world that had lost its memories, after all. Forty years of confused cluelessness, barely getting by by uncovering fragments of past memories and intuiting how the world they had left worked. All locked inside a bunch of bubbles, and the lands surrounding them...Paradigm City. That had been an ugly, confusing mess. The ones in power, sometimes with no idea how they'd even gotten there, stayed there. The ones who were downtrodden, poor and broken, oftentimes with just as little idea how or why they were in such a state, remained that way.

A sad, miserable state of affairs...but at least one that everyone could unanimously enough agree on must have always been that way. The less questions that were asked, the less confusion and inevitable aches in both head and heart would come about. It was awful, but it was the way it was. The way the world worked, inside the domes of Paradigm City. It was stable, and steady enough. Almost no improvement, no real chance of returning to how things had been before whatever world-shaking event had robbed so many of their memories. Though at the same time, the downward spiral had been slowed, almost halted according to some sources.

It wasn't pretty, but it worked. It made sense.

...which was more than Roger Smith could say about this new sequence of events unfolding before his eyes.

A white expanse stretched out before his eyes, on into a distant horizon. He couldn't tell how far exactly, distances had never been his forte really. If he had to hazard a guess, maybe...half a dozen miles or so. Possible more. Probably more. It was featureless, making it even harder to make out any real details, which only added to his consternation. All he could see were small little things, which looked almost evenly spaced in some kind of circle.

"...all centered on you." Roger's voice was laced with a hefty dose of confusion and curiosity as he brought his stare to fixate on the one object he could see. "Middle of nowhere....no solid scenery around. Like being inside a cloud...or in a dream." He took a step forward, lifted a hand from his pocket and brought it to rest on the rim of the fountain. He frowned slightly, brushing his gloved fingers along and pulling them back, only to find a thick layer of dust as he turned them toward his eyes. "Old...probably long abandoned." He rubbed his fingers together, staring at the dust. "Can't even come up with nice scenery in a dream..." he finally muttered, pulling a handkerchief from a pocket with his free hand and cleaning the dust from his fingers.

As he stowed the cloth away again, he returned his hands to the pockets of his coat, craning his neck back to look up at the fountain. Tall; very much so. Maybe two stories, in its prime, when it was whole and complete. Now it was just a weathered, broken shadow of its original glory. A tall spire, with many layers and small basins and pools to collect water as it flowed down, spilling out into those below it. At its top, a humanoid figure, crouched and holding...something. What might have been an umbrella, before it had been broken off. Now it just sat there, hunkered down, the features on its face worn off and eroded. A wide, empty basin at the bottom, which had been its primary pool. Only a few loose sticks and leaves, dried and long dead to the point of crumbling and wilting to dust even under the weight of a passing stare, were all that lay in it now. No water; instead they just floated in dust and sadness.

Roger sighed and shook his head. Getting poetic in his wandering thoughts...

"Don't suppose you could tell me what's going on here, huh?" he spoke aloud again, his eyes resting on the worn face of the fountain's figurehead. No response came, of course. No sound at all came. Not even the usual whispering of wind that would have accompanied such a melancholy sight.

It managed to draw a sigh from him after a handful of seconds as his gaze dropped again. "Yeah...didn't think so." He turned around, his back to the fountain, and lowered himself down to sit on the rim. "Just what...is going on here...?"

[Roger Smith]

Behind his sunglasses, Roger Smith closed his eyes. And let his mind wander.

Something. There had to be something.

Something to explain just what was going on here. Where he was. How he had gotten here. What the hell this place was. Some kind of bizarre dream? Some strange...purgatory? He hadn't a clue.

Eventually his wandering mind stumbled upon something to answer his dilemma. Something which he had let slip in his initial confusion over simply waking up here, as his perceptions had told him. And that something provided answers to at least three of his questions.

"So...Omni, huh," he finally spoke again. "And this is the Omniverse." He shook his head. "Someone sure is full of themselves...naming a place in their own image." He pushed off from where he sat on the edge of the fountain. "At least he answered some questions before just dropping me off here..." Roger reached up to pull his sunglasses off, carefully folding and tucking them into a pocket of his suit. He then held out his hand, palm up, and let his eyes close. Anything he desired, the odd little child-thing had said, in his strange introduction...

He lost track of how long it took. Not more than a few minutes, he knew. But time was hard to judge when there was nothing to base it on. When he felt the weight in his hand, though...familiar and welcome. He knew it had worked. How it had worked, by what ridiculous notion short of this all being some crazy dream, he didn't know. But it had.

He opened his eyes again and stared at it. Large enough to fill his hand entirely. Bright red, faintly glistening in the strange sourceless light of this place. Firm in his grasp, yielding only slightly to a gentle squeeze. The weight he already knew was spot-on. And the smell... He brought it up, the bright green stem just a few inches from his nose and inhaled. Faint...but there. Sweet. Earthy. He lowered his hand again, looking down at the fruit it held. "Well... That's a pretty neat trick." And with a faintly amused smile, he brought the tomato back up and bit into it.

Small things. But sometimes they were nice.

[Roger Smith]

He took his time with the fruit. Several minutes of time, in fact. Because he enjoyed it, of course, but also to buy time to think of what he should do next. Sitting here was going to do nothing except get him nowhere fast. Which didn't leave him with terribly many options. There was nothing of interest to be seen here, aside from the ruined old fountain. All that he could see otherwise was...on that distant horizon, however many miles it was, and he couldn't even tell what they were. Well...he could see to figuring that dilemma out.

With the fruit consumed, Roger once more held his hand out, palm upraised, and let his eyes drift closed. He focused and turned his thoughts toward what he had in mind. Again, he noted, it took at least a few minutes, before he felt the weight settle into his hand.

He opened his eyes, and looked down at the object in his hands. "Not really my thing, usually...but when the situation calls for it..." He trailed off, raising the binoculars to his eyes. It took a moment to steady them, adjusting the zoom levels properly to get a clear picture, but after a minute of effort (he was not terribly skilled with the things; always relied on his own eyes) he managed it. "Some sort of...archway?" He lowered them from his now narrowed eyes, thoughts shifting into a higher gear. It was still hard to tell much from this distance, but definitely some kind of archway. He could only think of a handful of reasons why it was there. Decoration, someone's idea of a joke, or... Well, fitting in with all the other absurdity this place had displayed so far, it probably acted as some kind of door. Lead to somewhere else that wasn't this empty, blank expanse of nothing.

Which meant it was something worth looking into. But not on foot. With his closer, magnified look at it, he could tell it was indeed at least half a dozen miles away, and very probably more than that, as he had originally guessed, just judging by the size of what he could see were humanoid figures standing near to it. Assuming they were at least close to his own height, it provided a clear enough picture of not only the size of the archway they were standing near, but also the relative distance they were from him.

He carefully folded the binoculars, setting them aside on the rim of the fountain. "Anything I desire..." he reminded himself again as his eyes once again slowly closed. This one would be a little more complex...

[Roger Smith]

It took longer this time. Another few minutes, by his estimate, added onto what he had already started to call the 'normal' time.

Just like both times before, though, it had gone perfectly. "Going to wind up spoiling myself at this rate, if it's always this easy," he noted to himself with a wry grin, as he eased himself into the driver's seat and shut the door. He idly flipped the key in his fingers, before nodding to himself. Into the ignition it went, and with a twist...the engine of the Griffon rumbled and roared to life. And as it did, Roger Smith set it into proper gear with easy, well-practiced movements. Both hands on the wheel, and then gas applied...and without incident, the car rumbled into motion. Slowly at first, but gaining speed as Roger's certainty that it had worked out well increased and any remaining hesitation fled.

The radio didn't work here, of course, and so he drove in silence. It had been the same before, in Paradigm City. Driving in silence, over much longer distances than this one. That had always been fine by him. Norman had assured him that the radio itself worked perfectly, of course. But there was simply nothing for it to pick up. Nothing that was worth a gentleman such as himself listening to, at least.

Minutes passed in relative silence, only the constant, steady thrum of the car's engine providing any input. There wasn't even the typical jostling or minor change in texture, rolling from one section of road to another, paved at different times. Of course there wouldn't be any such thing...there weren't even any roads here.

"From a city without memories...to a world without scenery," he finally spoke aloud after several minutes of this. "Omni...you sure have a sense of humor."

[Roger Smith]

The relatively short drive ended as he neared the archway.

Slowly, he hit the brakes and rolled to a stop, turning aside from the archway and ending up idling for several seconds as he shut the vehicle off. Only some ten yards distant now, the archway and those standing beside it could be clearly made out. Definitely about human size. Covered head to toe in some kind of shiny white armor. And in their hands, some kind of...gun, probably. Like none he had ever seen before, even during his time with the Military Police so long ago, but...the way they held them, and the general design, spoke enough about that for him to make the assumption. Roger Smith had never much cared for guns himself. Just one reason he had eventually left the Military Police to pursue other work.

After a moment, he opened the door and stepped out, rising up to stand. He lifted a hand to adjust his tie, before pocketing the keys to the Griffon and shutting the door behind him. His hand slowly rose to pull his sunglasses free as he started to slowly pace forward, toward the archway. From this distance he could also tell something else. It was very well-maintained and constructed. Shiny and polished, made of metal -- steel, most likely. Connected smoothly, with only minor traces of where the pieces fit together. A work of architecture at stark odds with that decrepit, sad fountain he had woken up by. And through it, he could see...something else. It confirmed his initial fanciful theory that it was some kind of gateway leading to... Well, he'd just have to find out eventually.

As he tucked his sunglasses into a pocket of his suit, Roger offered a nod to the two standing by the arch. Guards, of some kind? Sentries, maybe. "Good afternoon," he said shortly.

"Hard to tell, in the Nexus," one of them replied. Voice was strange. Oddly muffled, with a hint of static. Not a normal speaking voice, but like one heard through some kind of radio or other transmitter. Like when he received a call while piloting Big O. But that didn't matter terribly much; he could be understood, and that would suffice. Plus, he had provided another detail to slot into the mystery of this place.

"The Nexus?" Roger blinked, turning to look back over his shoulder. Faintly, still, he could see the others in the distance. Arches, like this one, he had to guess. More gateways. "A connection..." He turned back, gesturing at all the emptiness of the Nexus's white expanse behind him. "So, then...this isn't all there is." And he offered a faint smile, shaking his head. "Good to know. Thought this was going to be a dull experience, with a reception like this."

"Yeah, Nexus is a pretty dull place," the other one of the guards agreed. A woman, by the voice. "Sounds like you're a newly arrived Prime. Welcome to the Omniverse."

Roger focused in on that. More details. "Well, not that I don't appreciate the welcome, but...'Prime'? You got the newly arrived part right, but what's that?"

"Someone brought here directly by Omni himself," the first one answered. "Strange little child-thing, like an all-white shadow, if stories are accurate."

"Listen, I'm sure you've got a lot of questions." The second one cut in. "If you head through the gate here, you'll end up in Coruscant. Shining city and jewel of the Omniverse." She indicated the gate of steel with a tilt of her head. "They can help get you filled in and set up properly somewhere you can put whatever skills you have to use."

"That so..." Roger Smith turned his eyes to the archway, and the strange patterns and images swirling within it. By his estimate, it would be a fairly slim margin, but the Griffon should manage to fit through. He nodded to the two guards. "Well, thanks for the direction. Be seeing you." And he turned to return to his car again. Fairly minor, but he had some idea of where to get started now.

Coruscant...boy. Names in this place were gonna be something to get used to.