(Untitled)

[goodoldnick]

The meeting of the Boulder Free Zone Committee had been going smoothly up to the point that everything went to hell.  It came on suddenly, the feeling that something -everything was wrong.  Fran jumped up from her seat and was saying something, her wild gaze flitting from face to face.  "We have to get out of here.  Right...now."

That was sure

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[waltsnothereman]

Wanda was relaxing on the beach, sprawled out on a blanket wearing the red leotard-esque uniform she still busted out on occasion, when some guy hauled his bedraggled butt out of the water a few meters away. She was there mostly just to kill a couple hours, since she'd been in the near-constant sunshine for five months already with still no hint of a freaking tan, so it was was a fairly welcome distraction.

Shielding her eyes with one hand as she sat up to get a better look at him, she called out. "Heya sailor. You coming or going?"

[goodoldnick]

For about thirty seconds after gaining the shore, Nick could only lie there on his stomach and suck in great lungfuls of gritty air. Funny though, between the explosion and the long hard swim, and the confusion, this didn't nearly qualify as his worst day ever. Made the top ten, though, for sure.

Eventually Nick turned over onto his back. He got the feeling that he might be stuck there, too, like a turtle. He caught sight of someone out of the corner of his good eye, and tried, defensively, to scramble to his feet, but only got as far as his knees, staring at the lady with eyes [well, eye] like saucers.

[waltsnothereman]

Even by 'probably just turned up here' standards, this guy didn't look so hot. Noticing how he was suddenly on the defensive, Wanda put her hands up slightly before climbing quickly to her feet. "You alright there, buddy?" she asked, eying him curiously.

[goodoldnick]

Nick was more confused than he'd been in his whole life. Which seemed unfair, since his life was over. Here he was, in what seemed to be a very alternative version of the afterlife, but here was a stunning young woman with long white hair, holding up the traditional view of heaven if ever anyone could. And she just called him buddy. Nick nodded, hoping that would convey his ok-ness. Then he reached for the pad f paper habitually kept in his right back pocket. Of course it was soaked and totally useless to him. Great, can't even ask her to take me to her leader.

[waltsnothereman]

Wanda relaxed a little when he nodded, but he certainly didn't exactly strike her as entirely at ease just yet. "You look confused," she said wryly, walking over to him with a slight smirk. Not that it wasn't an understandable sentiment. "Let me guess, you just showed up in the water over there?" Of course, there was always the chance he had swam in from another part of the beach and had just fought off a squid or something and she hadn't noticed, but she liked to think she was a little bit more observant than that.

[goodoldnick]

Nick nodded more enthusiastically. Boy, did I ever, ma'am. She made it sound like this happened all the time, which, he guessed, was a good sign. Maybe she was just the comforting figure that ushered a person into the sweet hereafter. Which really left one question: why the dramatics with the water and the near drowning? One last test from God?

[waltsnothereman]

If she'd known she was being mistaken for some sort of angel, she would have laughed. Paying more attention now, Wanda finally took note of the way he seemed to be watching her mouth when she talked. Maybe it was nothing and he just wasn't the chatty type, but this seemed to be the type of situation that people would speak up at. Keeping that thought in mind, she continued.

"Might as well just barrel on, then, sweetie. I don't know where you were or what you were doing a few minutes ago, but you just got zapped here. This may or may not seem a little weird, but it's an island. Middle of nowhere, and there's no way back. You with me so far?" This sort of thing hadn't been too out of the ordinary for her, but she'd long known that most people weren't quite as used to happenings like this as she'd been.

[goodoldnick]

She really did look like an angel, or at least more like one than any woman Nick had ever met. Her matter-of-fact explanation of his arrival didn't really give him much indication of where he really was.

Maybe angels had adopted a more modern vernacular since biblical times, or maybe everyone hear -ha them in the language they were most comfortable with.

At any rate, yeah, Nick was with her so far, and nodded in agreement, sitting back and finally feeling his heart rate coming down.

[waltsnothereman]

"Great," she said brightly. Maybe he wasn't entirely clueless about matters like this, that made things easier. Either that or he was just really mellow, which did much the same thing. "While I still haven't been able to work out the precise mechanics of it all, people come here from all over creation. Different times, whole different universes, it's actually pretty cool, if you can get past the part where the only way people ever leave is by disappearing into the ether. Place doesn't skimp on the creature comforts, either, at least compared to your typical islands existing outside of space and time." Wanda knew this firsthand.

[goodoldnick]

Well, that all sounded about right. The bit about other universes and times was particularly interesting to Nick, who had always had sort of a thing for Ray Bradbury. The bit about disappearing into the ether was sort of alarming, though. Was that a reference to reincarnation, or could you really get kicked out of heaven? He wished like hell his notepad had been waterproof, so he could ask more detailed questions.

Instead, he pointed to himself, then to her, then gestured broadly around. Where's everybody else? Working out at the Divine Y?

[waltsnothereman]

Wanda grasped his meaning easily enough and smiled. "There's a few hundred people here altogether, you're sure to bump into someone if you just stick to a spot. If you want, I can show you to the Compound, there's never a shortage of people hanging around there. Beds, food, the works. Good place to start if you plan on sticking around." Not that he really had a say in the matter, of course. Then, mostly just to have confirmation of her suspicions, she added "You can't hear me, can you?"

[goodoldnick]

Nick shook his head with a rueful grin and made the lock-the-lips and throw-away-the-key motions just to drive the point home.

But why would there be only a few hundred people here? If this is where the good people went, there should be a lot more than that. God couldn't be that cynical, right? And the fact that there were beds and food struck Nick as strange, too. I mean, it stood to reason that if there was Heavenly Dinner and Heavenly Bedtime, there would also be Heavenly Outhouses and Heavenly Morning Breath. Not what he'd pictured, when he'd bothered to picture at all.

He gestured the young woman to lead on, then stopped, and turned to her, pointing as politely as he could at her and making the twirling elaborate-please gesture with his other hand. I hope you get that I'm trying to ask your name and not something creepy.

[waltsnothereman]

"Me?" Wanda raised an eyebrow briefly before cluing in. "Oh, me! I," she said, drawing out the word slightly, "am Dr. Wanda Langkowski, Ph.D., and this," she gestured around them slightly, "is Tabula Rasa." She started walking slowly towards the path, making it a point to stay facing him. "I'd ask the same, but my sign language is rudimentary at best, so unless your name is Beach or something, it might be tricky."

[goodoldnick]

A polish angel with a doctorate? Until this summer, that would have for sure been the strangest thing Nick had ever heard of. But then Captain Tripps had rolled into town, erasing all comparisons of strange or unbelievable forever.

But as to his name, it seemed like every first grader was learning finger spelling these days, so he formed an 'n' and showed it to her. Just a little test, mostly just a game to amuse them both as they walked.

[waltsnothereman]

Wanda grinned and laughed slightly at the gesture. Well, that was certainly one way to do things. It was too bad she hadn't brought one of her makeshift notebooks with her so he'd have something to write on. "Starts with an N, got it. Shall I start guessing now or do I get more to work with?"

[goodoldnick]

Fantastic. The 'n' was the part Nick had been worried about, since the rest of the letters in his name looked like what they meant when finger spelling. Really, he only got to the 'c' before she guessed anyway, and he touched the end of his nose charades-style to let her know she's won. Full points awarded or whatever. Ironically, Nick had never actually played charades.