Free ice cream! [open]

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

 Alex sat beneath the shade of a large tree in a decent sized park. Those familiar with New York might recognize the sky scrapers in the distance, even if they didn't recognize the park itself.  Parked on a small service road was an ice cream truck with a merry vendor, who claimed that it was customer appreciation day, and was thus giving ice cream away for free.

Alex was already enjoying a chocolate and strawberry cone covered in sprinkles and caramel syrup, wondering if anyone would bother showing up to spend time with him, or even be interested in sensorium ice cream in the first place.

Either way, Alice seemed thrilled, as she pulled what appeared to be pink chocolate chips from a jar labelled "Yogis".  Reaching out to pet Alice, Alex laughed a bit, "Don't get used to eating s-so many." sensorium food might not mess with her health, but once they got home, it would be the real thing once again. He figured that she deserved the treat as much as he deserved the ice cream anyway.

[OOC: Post to Alex or to other people if you'd like.]

Comments

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi looked around at the buildings, curious; it looked just like the old pictures of New York he'd read about in books, a mass of tall buildings and sidewalks (no one had yet to yell at him to stop standing around blocking traffic, though). Alex was fairly easy to find, resting in the shade eating his ice cream.

As he approached, he didn't call out, but rather began tapping rapidly on his Omnicomm, presenting Alex with the screen after he was finished.

You must tell me how to beat the boss, it said. My units simply do not have the offensive power to destroy him and his minions.

He paused, then typed an additional, Nice park, by the way.

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

Alex read it and laughed, "You t-tell me. I think the AI m-might be a b-bit too intuitive. It l-learns your m-methods a b-bit too well. T-try doing something t-totally unlike y-your normal methods."

He looked around at the park, "I-it's a f-few blocks from my h-home. It's n-not quite as nice as Central P-Park, but... Is there a r-reason you're ty-typing on your o-omnicomm?"

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Totally unlike my normal methods? He thought for a minute, then typed, I always attempt to finish the levels in the most efficient manner possible. Are you saying that I must try to be less efficient?

What park is this? Bryant? It is still quite nice.

I seem to be under some sort of magical effect that randomly activates when I speak aloud. I am trying not to cause any more incidents until I can get this issue resolved.

[ronnae.livejournal.com]

Ronnae was looking forward to hanging with her friend again. She took in the city with curiosity and wanderlust, taking a bit of time to just admire and take note of the architecture.

After a bit she spotted the man giving out the ice cream and she couldn't help but smile wide. Sure it wasn't the ice cream shop in Silvermoon but it might be just as good!

She fidgeted a bit before getting close, forgetting for a moment that it was a sensorium person. Walking up she offered a cheery smile, "Double scoop strawberry with white fudge dipped strawberries, strawberry syrup, mint chips and sprinkles please!" She blushed a bit doing the order herself, it was usually one of her siblings ordering it for her and she just realized how ridiculous she sounded saying it. Though to be fair, their own choices were even more outrageous.

After acquiring her icecream she looked around for Alex. After noticing him she gave a shy wave and approached timidly his way.

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

Alex waved at Ronnae, "H-hey! How're you? T-that looks good!"

He was glad that other people were taking advantage of the park and the ice cream truck.

[ronnae.livejournal.com]

She grinned wide, having already learned to feel a bit more comfortable around Alex. "It's my all time favorite from back home!" She took a lick and settled besides him.

[morphitudinous]

Billy had been pleased to find Alex's message---perfect! He was checking off the list one by one, and here was an opportunity to boost his friend's confidence. He could hardly wait.

"Alex!" Billy called happily, sitting beside him and Alice. Ice cream could wait. There were other matters to attend to. "How have you been?"

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

Alex had felt weird making that post openly, but he had realized the list of people he wouldn't mind seeing had extended beyond the number that it would make any sense locking the message to.

Seeing Billy he waved with a big smile on his face, "Good! H-how about you, B-Billy?"

[morphitudinous]

"Same here," Billy answered, smiling down at Alice for a moment before turning back to her owner. "I'm finally making progress on some projects that have been waiting for a while: specifically, we're getting the department organized. We'll have infrastructure specialists, programmers, mechanics, and a number of other crews, but people can belong to more than one."

That was the first thing to get out of the way. "Your best area is programming, right?"

[8wings.livejournal.com]

Anwei stepped into the Sensorium a little less gingerly than the last time - she was still going to have to ask Stacy about setting a telltale. She was wearing her usual denim shirt shrugged over her plantsuit, and there was a distinct bounce in her step as she moved. She had good news to share.

"Hello, Alex," she said, coming to stand beside him. "What do you recommend for ice cream? I don't think I've ever had it before."

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

"Anwei! I-it's good ta see you! I'm a b-bit partial ta Birthday C-Cake, but I d-decided ta g-go with ch-choc-colate strawberry sprinkle c-caramel c-cone."

He offered his cone to her, "Y-you c-can try if you'd like!"

[8wings.livejournal.com]

"Oh, may I?" With a squinch of mental effort she called up a spoon, neatly took a bit off the top of the cone, and tasted it.

"It amazes me what your cultures do with animal milk," she said, rolling the taste of the ice cream over in her tongue. "I think I like the chocolate best, out of this combination. Oh, I did look for chocolate on Gondepetil, but I couldn't find any. I did find some hard candy, would you or Alice like some?" She took a small metal box out of her pocket and rattled its contents invitingly.

[alwaysamoirail.livejournal.com]

Kanaya was curious about the ice cream, but even more than that, she'd decided the company would help. She walked slowly towards the ice cream truck, still taking in the nature and the skyline behind it; it was all disarmingly human, or at least disarmingly highblood. That wasn't to say it was a bad thing, though.

Once she got closer to the ice cream truck and the gathering, she decided to approach Alex and the others first. "Hello, Alex. It was quite generous of you to extend the invitation." She tried for an authentically human smile, trying not to let her frayed nerves show as much as she was feeling them.

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

The only thing Alex considered himself any good at when it came to inter-personal relations was knowing when someone wasn't feeling good. He literally would need to be blind to not be able to tell when someone was upset.

But one thing he learned from his friend Mikel was that you didn't always need to address something directly in order to help it get better. As such, he pretended he didn't see the small shadow and smiled brightly at Kanaya. "I f-figured, th-this was always a p-public p-place at home, wh-where even p-people with nothing else c-could enjoy something nice. It f-feels odd when I r-recreate the place with no people. Why n-not let r-real people enjoy it too?"

[alwaysamoirail.livejournal.com]

"I suppose I can understand," replied Kanaya. "If it was a communal place in the real world, it ought to be a communal place here. Nonetheless, I appreciate you sharing it with us all." With all her recent wandering in the city, Kanaya's curiosity about human life had only grown, and it was a pleasure to see a little of it firsthand -- and, of course, it was a pleasure to see Alex again.

As if suddenly remembering just why she'd come, Kanaya glanced towards the ice cream truck. "Do you have any recommendations, by the way? This will be my first time with ice cream." Well, it was true; with the exception of certain wicked elixirs, sugarcraft was a rather limited art form on Alternia.

[srsbiznez.livejournal.com]

Albert seemed to acquire a habit of wandering into the sensoriums, if two times counted as a habit...but so far he only encountered pleasant things. He thought he recognized some buildings in the distant from the textbooks back in school, seems like he was in New York City. Albert saw someone eating ice cream as his eyes dragged down from the city skyline. "Hello! My name is Albert, it is nice to meet you..."

If the stutter bothers you to read, we can just pretend it's there.

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

Alex looked around a bit nervously, as if he was looking for someone else that Albert could be talking to. Finding no other possible target, he laughed at himself a bit and said, "H-hi, I'm Alex. N-nice ta meet you!"

Nah, the stutter doesn't bother me

[srsbiznez.livejournal.com]

"Nice to meet you Alex, mind if I join you for some ice cream?" Albert asked, while reaching his hand out to shake Alex's hand. He hadn't see many people that looked about his age since The FAYZ, most were adults that he passed in Stacy's corridors.

"Oh, by the way, here is my card." He pulled out his cardboard business card with his other hand.

[sniping-meister.livejournal.com]

It didn't hurt to explore the Sensoriums every so often, just to see what everyone else was thinking about. This looked interesting - quiet, peaceful, sunny - so he and Haro sauntered over to see what was going on.

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

Alex felt like his mind was enough of a war ground without him re-creating scenes to train in like so many other people liked to, so more often than not he brought a more pleasant scene into the sensoriums.

Seeing someone new, Alice rushed over to the new-comer, sniffing at him curiously. Alex just laughed a bit and brought his hand to his face, having essentially given up on keeping Alice from hassling people.

[sniping-meister.livejournal.com]

"Rat! Rat!" Haro chirped happily, breaking free from Lockon's hip to hover near Alice.

[allnaturalseed.livejournal.com]

Having basically had zero breaks since she'd finally decided to get back into shape and tag along with the Blade Squadron - what free time she had was occupied with catching up in other areas - this seemed like as good an excuse to take a little time out for herself as any.

Cagalli didn't know much about NYC in particular, but she'd grown up on a highly populated island, so vertical was familiar to her. Parks were as well, though, and she was glad for the vendor's location as she approached the truck. "How about a beach next time?" she opened conversationally.

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

"Y-you know... I live in a p-port city, and I've n-never been ta a beach. I'd l-like to sometime though!" He still felt weird talking to someone that he didn't know too well, and he was doing a very poor job of hiding that awkwardness. Despite the awkward shifting, he was doing his best to be friendly and open.

A beach party did sound fun, even if he thought the idea of being in just swim trunks around a bunch of strangers. Maybe if it was just him and a few closer friends.

[thewunderkind]

Lash didn't recognize anything. Well alright, the town she had seen from other people's minds (it seemed to be pretty popular for some reason, even if it kept changing around). Ice cream vendors? Nope, a total and complete mystery to her. And despite the fact it wasn't real and just her mind playing tricks, hey free food was free food and these strange little swirly things all the children around seemed to be liking looked good enough for her.

Just one problem.

"That's a lot of flavors and options." Yes. Lash was seriously pondering toppings as options.

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

"J-just p-pick one a-at random. F-first one your eye lands on. That's how I f-found my favourite."

Alex had just finished getting his favourite again, making this his third double scoop. He smiled, but was looking decidedly at the side of the ice cream truck, even if there was no one else he could really be addressing.