maskormenace | 1. ➟ video

[ The video starts with Marty holding the communicator really, really awkwardly. Behind him you can probably see a line of freestyle soda machines behind him. Marty has a dollar in his hand, but apparently something's not working for him. ]

Okay. So...ah, I'm Marty. I guess I'm new? I don't know if you gotta introduce yourselves or anything when you make a new one of these, but...

[ He gives the communicator a sheepish kind of shrug, unsure of whether he wants to feel stupid holding a camera like this, or feeling uncomfortable because people were looking at him weird. ] ...right. So I got a question. I guess.

So these touch vendor-things are everywhere, right? How the hell do you get your soda?

[ Marty turns the video to the machine, where he presses his finger against 'diet coke' on the main screen and then mashing it against the PUSH button. ] I press diet coke on the menu and it takes me to this thing where it shows me all kinda of flavors, but it won't give me my soda!

[ joke's on you marty, you have to select the big fat diet coke button before you can get your soda, duh. that's probably why people are looking at you weird.

Eventually he just lightly taps the toe of his shoe against the bottom of the machine. ]

This thing sucks. I don't even like coke.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Tobias? Jesus, that was a mouthful. ] Yeah, pleasure to, ah, meet you too. [ Did this count as meeting? Marty honestly can't tell. But he won't linger on that, because he's gotta try and cover some ground here because something isn't right. ]

I, I mean, sure? [ As long as it wasn't Calvin. Marty was so done with that name. ] Call me whatever you want, I guess?

[ Can you tell how nervous he sounds over the audio? ]

[Yes, Toby can tell how nervous... Michael or Marty or whatever is on audio. And he doesn't see any reason for it since, well...

He just doesn't see any reason for it. Yeah.]

Well, it'll stand out if everyone else calls you "Marty" and I don't. So Marty it is.

[Toby sounds cool and casual enough and hopes that will get Marty to relax.]

So, have you read your file about your powers yet? Do you have a power preventing you from getting your coke?

Wait, files? We have files?

[ If they have a way for him to actually control this power of his, he'll cry. ] I know I sneezed and fire came out my mouth once. I think someone said it's fire manipulation. Which doesn't make any sense.

None of this makes sense. [ To be honest... ]

[Musing:] Fire manipulation. Ha! Isn't that something...

Yeah, maybe they have something about that in the folder the government workers jammed into your hands before sending you along to, well, wherever. But it's easy to overlook that in all the commotion of arriving here.

[Still, Toby can sympathise. Arriving is confusing at best, after all.

So, in a gentler tone,] Which you're right about—nothing about this place makes any sense. To think this Porter that the United States government has got their hands on can take people and deities and whatever out of worlds they exist in and simply drop them into this one. All imPorts, as we're so affectionately called, have superhuman powers of some sort—doesn't matter if those things don't exist where someone's from, because we're all stuck with them now.

[A small enough pause for a shrug.]

Can you believe you're talking with a vampire right now? I might as well get that out there.

Yup. That's it.

[ a pause. ] Wait, what? I couldn't hear ya.

Right. So we all got powers. I mean, I always thought being a superhero or whatever was cool, but actually being one's kinda pushin' it. [ He rubs the back of his neck. ] There's gotta be a way to get rid of this stuff, right? There's no way we can be stuck with these powers forever. I can barely deal with grades, let alone saving the world or whatever!

[ He would keep going, but that vampire thing... ]

Wait, you're a what?

—A vampire. [Said very, very casually. Like he could be cleaning and buffing his nails on his end of this.] You heard me right. It's my "power" from back home, and it's still my power here.

[An unseen shrug on his end probably comes through in the nonchalance in his voice.]

Even if the government wants or expects people to become superheroes, it's not as if everyone's powers are conducive to it. So I wouldn't worry too much about expectations to save the world—better off focusing your energies on whatever you like.

[ This guy sounded so...normal about it. Like being a vampire wasn't completely weird or anything. ] So you're tellin' me that you suck blood and everything? And I'm supposed to believe that this is normal? [ When you're in a world where a bunch of different people come around and somehow acquire superpowers, Marty still finds it hard to believe that vampires actually exist. ]

I like music. I can focus on that without the government tryin' to recruit me or whatever, right? [ This all kind of sucks. ] If I can just stick around with Doc and not go trying to be Superman, I'll be fine.

You'll be fine, really. It's not as if I go around secretly wearing a change of tights in case a kitten is caught in a tree. [Still as blasé as ever.] Besides, I turn to ashes in sunlight—again, not all powers are conducive to the superhero business.

So yes, what I am telling you is that I do "suck blood" and everything, as it were. Though that very much depends on what "everything" you believe it is that vampires do, because it turns out vampire attributes and capabilities aren't consistent between worlds.

Jesus! That sucks! [ Very considerate, Marty. ] You could do night work, right? It'd give the other hero's a break if they need to sleep at night or whatever. Unless the graveyard shift's not your thing.

...Okay. The vampires I see on tv sleep in coffins. They're really pale and have fangs, I guess? And, ah, they're allergic to garlic.

Is that all right?

[Toby's used to worse reactions to his vampirism, really. But he laughs a bit at Marty's description of TV vampires.]

Oh, vampires on the telly. Well, maybe they're right on some points, but I'll leave that up to the imagination. Getting back to night work and such, I do work nights. From home. As a phone sex operator, which I doubt anyone considers super heroic.

[Oh Toby, S T O P. It wasn't all that long ago when he didn't know what a cell phone or the Internet was, either. But this is the first he's actually enjoying the shock factor.]

You're a what?

[ That's exactly what Marty is thinking: how heroic! And awkward. Marty couldn't imagine having a job like that. Suddenly, being a model isn't such a bad job after all. ] They have those? Jesus Christ, man. Seriously.

That's a shitty job.

[He laughs, amused. Because being a phone sex operator is more glamourous than other jobs he'd once taken up for survival.]

Oh, it's not all that bad. I used to be a Vegemite model—that's what they assigned me, anyway. But what good is that without an image, a reflection?

[Not to mention the smell of Vegemite. Ick.]

1. ➟ video

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