PE canon: Enter Maeda

[mitochondriaaya]

It was reassuring to see so many police around! Except they seemed to be...cordoning off the epicenter and that was really where he needed to be. He'd left his phrase book on the plane, and under question from three earnest officers he really couldn't remember the words for 'scientist' and 'biologic disaster zone'. They turned him away at the barricade.

He felt truly bad about one of the young officers catching on fire then, but even bad luck was lucky for him because he truly did need to be there. It was...very easy to sneak past the officers as they tried to douse their companion. Even for him. He was not a sneaky person, really, despite making it out of Japan.

Nor did he have any idea where he was going. The streets weren't laid out properly...

And was that a corpse? Oh...that was not good...though...it looked very unburned.

Okay...not it. Her. Ah, and she was breathing! Good pulse! Just...unconscious. What to do? This wasn't a safe place, no, not at all. He couldn't tell the police of course, they'd send him away. It took him a few minutes of fretting before he decided he should at least get her indoors. She would rest easier on a bed right? Yes, a bed...

Ah, well, the daily exercises certainly came in handy. She was small, well, mostly small, but he'd never carried a person before. It was awkward enough that he found himself apologizing every few steps. No one answered at the first apartment he found. Nor the second.

Oh...perhaps it'd been evacuated?

It seemed so much easier to kick in doors when it was seen on television. Americans made...very sturdy doors.

Eventually he found a door that had no lock. Or...doorknob. A real hovel. It seemed that it was heated with the large trash can in the middle of the first room. Fire. The second room had a bed though. A ratty nest of a thing but still much better than the pavement outdoors. Well...now...he'd wait? If she woke up she might know where he needed to go! After all, she had a gun! That meant an authority figure!

Comments

[sliceitwithwind]

Dilan didn't just panic. Dilan panicked with style. He panicked with the kind of style that ended up with three police officers nursing bit fingers when they tried to get him out of the first aid tent, and a sober kind of grace that eventually lead to him getting around everyone and into the city.

His woman was in there, and he was GOING TO GET HER BACK. Or her body. Whichever. He's a bright boy, our Dilan, and he quite shamelessly loots first aid supplies from in the city. He's calling Aya's phone repeatedly, and he starts at the park.

[mitochondriaaya]

The city wasn't entirely evacuated, not yet...but it was getting there. Manhattan at least? On the testimony of a child who said people melted and the Eve lady was floating. Sometimes that was all it took. Especially after Carnegie Hall.

Maeda was clueless to the police evacuation efforts though, his area of Soho was already clear. The first time a phone rang, he answered his reflexively. The second time had him searching the meager 'apartment' for the proper device.

By about twenty calls he'd decided that his rescuee must have a phone.

By twenty five he'd deduced it was in one of her pockets. That was a problem. A big problem. He could certainly be forgiven the fifty or so more calls before he nerved himself up to riffle her jeans, apologizing and blushing all at once.

One more call then "Moshi moshi? Oh...aaahhhmmm...ah! Hello?"

[sliceitwithwind]

"..."

What.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU AND WHERE IS MY GIRLFRIEND?!"

It would be charitable to call it a roar.

[mitochondriaaya]

There was a small yip from the other end of the line and the definite sounds of a phone being dropped. It'd be charitable to say Maeda had been surprised and not scared?

He looked from the phone on the floor to the bed, hoping that the girl had been woken up and could handle the very angry person on the other end but...no luck. That meant he picked cell back up gingerly, holding it several inches from his ear "Ahhhm...hello? You am...are...American?" yes, that was a good start to his first American phone conversation right?

[sliceitwithwind]

"YES I AM AMERICAN AND WHERE THE FUCK IS MY GIRLFRIEND AND WHY THE HELL ARE YOU ON HER TELEPHONE?!"

[mitochondriaaya]

He was very glad he'd had the foresight to hold the phone away from his ear! The caller was very upset! It was very hard to parse the words when being yelled at! Oh he should have taken more English and less Biology! "Sorry! Sorry...ahm..." words. Words...there were words?

"This...phone not me? This phone for woman, yes! She...sleep? Sleeping?"

[sliceitwithwind]

"WHERE IS SHE? WHERE ARE YOU? DIRECTIONS NOW."

[mitochondriaaya]

"Me?" he offered, confirming the word. "Ahm, Maeda, konichiwa!" he offered, totally missing that one. Yep.

"Girl...not...hurt? No hospital! Just sleep. In...place. Ahm. No map?"

[sliceitwithwind]

"FIND OUT AND TELL ME." before I find you and kill you.

[mitochondriaaya]

Maeda actually yanked the phone further from his ear at that rolling roar. Yes, there had been definite menace in that. Was the woman he'd picked up married? He did not think so, she had no ring and was far too young but...

...but he double checked, looking at each of her fingers carefully!

"Ahm...bad door? No...key?" he offered finally, after assuring himself he hadn't rescued some treasured bride. "Out the door...out sides? Yes, out sides. Yes..." yes, he was rambling, repeating the English he could remember as he looked for anything that he could translate into a location!

[sliceitwithwind]

Dilan growls often enough to keep him talking, but is stuck until he has directions.

[mitochondriaaya]

"Oh..." Maeda blinked and peered closer into the window of the store next to the hovel "That is gun! Gun? Many gun. Ah, yes, add an S! Guns is right!" that was really disconcerting.

"And shop...rex? No, no, ...Rx? That is word?" it just didn't make any sense! "Ah! Sign!" he brightened as he passed the pharmacy and came to a street corner. "Ahm..."

...

...

Those were distressingly large words.

After several mangled attempts he ended up spelling out the intersection roads. He was clear across the park and out the other side. In Soho.

[sliceitwithwind]

"I'll be there. Soon."

He's running as he speaks, as fast as he can, to get to his Aya.

[mitochondriaaya]

"Ahm...yes?" was Maeda's still baffled and hesitant response. The scientist was going to...stay outside. T be helpful and flag down who ever was coming?

It was slightly less scary than being in a small room when he met the angry person!

[sliceitwithwind]

Mmmmmmaybe you will regret that, Maeda. About the time the very, very large, very, very angry, somewhat familiar because how many people really have that hairstyle anyway? man comes pounding down the road. This is the right road.

That is a Japanese man with Aya's cellphone.

Japanese men dangle very well, and Dilan's roar could take off car paint at fifty paces, "WHERE IS MY WOMAN?"

[mitochondriaaya]

Maeda didn't get a chance to recognize his assailant. Nope, he got to almost turn around and drop the cellphone as the world skewed sideways. And those kneecaps? Nope, not familiar, though he could identify the pant style! His first, brilliant response was "Hakima!" it was a word he knew!!

Forgive him. Tall Japanese scientists didn't get dangled much. it never even occurred to him to try to fight, he just kind of...hung. "Ahm..." yep, the words just weren't coming.

[sliceitwithwind]

SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE! "WHERE IS AYA?" he's going to ignore the commentary on his pants.

[mitochondriaaya]

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" THAT WAS THE GROUND THERE ABOVE HIS HEAD AND IT WAS MOVING BECAUSE HE WAS BEING SHAKEN AND "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Aya?" that was a proper Japanese name! "door door door DOOR!"

[sliceitwithwind]

Dilan heads into the door and looks for Aya. He passes through the first room and there is Aya.

Passed out.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?"

[mitochondriaaya]

Maeda refrained from mentioning how scary terrifying being rapidly dragged up stairs and through a room upside down was. He hoped to never experience it again. Though...he also hoped to survive this, his first day in America, and that just wasn't looking so probable. "Ehhh?!" yep, losing the English even more now. "K...C? C A...car? No no...cari? Carry?"

[sliceitwithwind]

That ISN'T HELPING Dilan. At all.

Which is why it makes perfect sense that he starts, um.

Duct taping Maeda to the wall.

[mitochondriaaya]

"Wha...what...huh? Ahm...ahhhh!" THIS MAKES NO SENSE TO MAEDA AT ALL! "Ahm, no, no..." it was the wrong word wasn't it? CURSED ENGLISH WHY WAS IT SO HARD?! "Jest carry girl. Half ee! Sleep all way!"

[sliceitwithwind]

"She's not waking up." the overprotective OCD boyfriend says in a terribly reasonable tone. "She needs to wake up."

[mitochondriaaya]

Crazy people sounding so reasonable was bad. sacrificing Japanese men upside down was not a cure for anything! And it'd stain the walls! And carpet! "Sick? I will, wick? In lab! Can...go...chick?"

[sliceitwithwind]

"You will wait right here."