Casey prowled the building called the compound, getting the lay of the land. If no one was going to tell him straight out what his mission was, he was just going to have to figure it out for himself
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Dale, as was often the case, was in the kitchen refreshing his own cup of coffee when he was joined by another man. While there were many similarities, Dale had spent most of a lifetime observing and there were more than a few subtle and not-so-subtle clues that he was not, in fact, Jayne Cobb.
"Just arrived?" he asked him, sipping his coffee black and leaning back against the kitchen counter, venturing what seemed to be a pretty safe guess.
Casey imagined that it was pretty easy when people appeared in front of you without having been there a second before, but maybe trickier when they just walked into a room like normal.
"Well, I haven't seen you before," said Dale, "which either means you're relatively new, or you've been hiding out in the jungle for quite some time." He looked him up and down for a moment. "You don't look like you've been hiding out in the jungle." Nevermind that the jungle was now rife with ice and snow.
"Nope. No jungle." Weird girl had mentioned that it was usually warmer in these parts, but she hadn't mentioned jungle. "Haven't been hiding, either. Seems like an interesting enough place, I guess."
"If I had to choose just one adjective to describe this place, it would have to be 'interesting'," agreed Dale, though there was no lack of other options that were more suited to particular circumstances. "When did you arrive?"
"Two years, one month and six days," said Dale, only needing a moment to calculate it. "You will get used to it, in time. Just be thankful you arrived after we discovered coffee; not all of us were so fortunate."
"Just barely," said Dale with a grimace. "I was not pleasant to be around for a while there." Finally he offered his hand. "Dale Cooper. So where'd you arrive from?"
"John Casey. One minute I'm washing my car in southern California, and the next I'm windexing the side of a spaceship." He shook his head. "Freakiest thing I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of freaks."
"I thought I wasn't going to be surprised by much anymore, but I guess I was wrong." Who knew a nerd with a computer for a brain wasn't going to be the weirdest thing ever. "Lotta crazy stuff happens here, I take it. First person I met here told me this place is usually a lot warmer."
"It is, in theory, a tropical island," said Dale, nodding his head. "All current evidence to the contrary. But suddenly turning into a winter wonderland is hardly the strangest thing that's happened either. If I hadn't experienced some of the others personally, I would never have believed them."
"What kind of other stuff?" Casey would have been more specific and asked about the space ships and aliens, but he didn't know about this Cooper's security clearance. "Besides people showing up out of nowhere, I guess."
"Adults turning into children, men turning into women, personalities switching bodies... things I never would have believed possible before I arrived on this island. Now I almost see them as commonplace. If a stretch of time ever went by when something strange didn't happen, that's what I could consider out of the ordinary."
"Just arrived?" he asked him, sipping his coffee black and leaning back against the kitchen counter, venturing what seemed to be a pretty safe guess.
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Casey imagined that it was pretty easy when people appeared in front of you without having been there a second before, but maybe trickier when they just walked into a room like normal.
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"No coffee?" That, on the other hand, was downright inhumane. "And people survived?"
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"Huh," he said finally. "I guess it's not boring, then. That's something."
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