No Exit: Chaos Theory [James+Nina]

[Event !]

BRIIIIING! BRIIIIING! BRIIIIING!

The emergency alarm was blaring. A lock down drill. The staff had known it was coming, but they didn’t know when. It didn’t help that people had been in and out of the obviously stressed head of recruitment’ office all day. It really didn’t help that the alarm had gone off while a graduate was there, taking a survey given to various alumnus in the school.

[Nina Levitra]

Nina was happy to be back at Hammel (with official written permission and as a human) and had already danced through the hallways twice and then tried to cartwheel into her old dorm room. That fail when she discovered that she had never learned how to properly cartwheel and ended up just hitting the door frame with her feet, which kind of hurt. However, she had managed to get all the way to the very fancy office of Dr. James Campbell for the survey she was supposed to be taking. But really, she wasn't so much an alumni as a student who no longer had to take classes. Actually, maybe she could get a trainer again. She wanted to see if she could get any further shapeshifting, or maybe just a quick refresher course on focus. Also see if she could hang out more often. Hammel was just so fun...

As soon as the bell when off, Nina covered her ears with her hands. The bell was loud and obnoxious and when was the last time she had been anywhere with fire drill or whatever this was? Just because it was school didn't mean there had to be normal awful school stuff. It was almost superhero school, couldn't they just get a student to put it out? Oh, unless a student had started the fire. In which case, that could be bad. Quite bad. But wait, wasn't some kind of adult in charge of making sure no one burned anything down? What kind of drill was this anyways?

"What kind of alarm is this?" Nina asked, a bit louder than she really needed to be, knowing that it would definitely get her point across, just in case the one and only Doctor James Campbell was also slightly deafened by the very loud blaring alarm. "Is this a fire drill or something?" She didn't hear trampling feet though, so maybe she didn't need to run outside and find a nice tree to hang out in until the noise stopped. "This is a drill, right?"

And then the alarm stopped, and Nina put her hands down, looking around. Either that was the world's shortest fire drill or a completely different loud noise of drillingfulness stuff. He survey was entirely forgotten as she tried to think of what kind of alarm that had been, giving up very quickly to just go the easy route and just ask James. She could trust him. He's a doctor.

"So, what was that?" Nina asked cheerfully, smiling. Maybe this was a tornado drill and she could just turn into something incredibly dense and not get swept away. Though she wasn't really sure if they had tornadoes in Vermont. There was wind around here, but not tornado wind. Didn't tornadoes involve an ocean or birds or something dealing with weather patterns? "Hey, how do tornadoes form? If you know... Because I don't." Nina wrinkled her nose slightly, thinking, the alarm now edging towards the back of her mind.

[Dr. James Campbell]

James wasn't quite sure what to make of Nina Levitra. He didn't recall anyone quite so...quirky from his time at Hammel. But his first few years were spent trying to get the hell out of there and avoiding the other students as much as possible. (Skinny, gangly, strange James had always been a target, particularly when he was twice as old as the average age of the other students in his training classes.) But he was quirky enough on his own, and he could handle her, for a while.

But then the alarm went off. He knew it was supposed to be the security drill, but he hated it anyway. They bothered him. Though the drills came often enough that he had his routine down--into the corner, away from the door, one of the anti-anxiety pills he was prescribed a few years ago--but having the strange woman there sort of (completely) threw him off. But he stood up and drew the blinds over the window on the door, and another over the window anyway. What James didn't do was take the anti-anxiety meds. From his point of view, it would be bad for anyone to see an official of the school popping pills in the middle of the day.

He heard her questions, asked rather shrilly and loudly. (Almost as if she was trying to match the sound of the actual alarm.) But he was doing his preparations for the drill, so he wasn't able to answer it quite yet. Once he turned off the light and locked the door, he's done all he can, so he turned back to Nina.

"It's a security drill. The school is in lockdown." It had to be a drill. If it wasn't, then they would be rounding up all the teachers with "offensive" powers and would be bringing them to wherever they needed to be to protect the students. Which was fine with him, except his power was distinctly not offensive. So he was useless. While, for all he knew, Chase was out there, trying to protect the school. So he had to think of it as "only a drill" or he was going to start really freaking out. "It's just a drill."

See, this was why he took the anti-anxiety meds sometimes.

Though, talking to Ms. Levitra was proving to be a suitable enough distraction from the panic he felt rising in his throat, the fear that it wasn't just a drill. "Tornadoes?" He looked at her quizzically. "No, I really don't. Something to do with air pressure systems colliding and being somewhere flat, I think. You should ask Eli, the librarian." Oh, great, now he would be worrying about tornadoes too. (Because they didn't have them in Vermont, they didn't have detection stations or warning sirens. So if they did have one, there was no way they could be ready for it.

[Nina Levitra]

When Nina heard that the school was in lockdown, her eyes widened slightly and she felt inexplicably giddy. Lockdowns were fun drills, no tornado position needed and no need to turn into an elephant. As her eyes widened, she also started paying just a bit more attention to The Doctor and noticed that something about him had changed. Nina knew she was an airhead, but she was a considerate airhead, and she knew when people were uncomfortable or nervous. And if there was one thing that Nina hated other than her hair being messed up or getting lost after leaving a bathroom through the wrong door, it was people who were obviously uncomfortable.

"Cool, so tornadoes are like exclusively Midwest, right?" Nina asked, watching Doctor James Campbell even as she said his name in her head with a British accent. At least, she thought it was a British accent. "I'll avoid large flat areas in the future... So, how long does this drill last? Is it like when the lights go down in a grocery store and you just have no idea when its going to be over, or is there like a set time?" A set time... What time was it? Nina was almost kinda hungry, and she pulled her purse out, unzipping it and then beginning to root through it, looking for a snack or Slinky or nail file or stress Texas.

"Tissues, nail polish, not toast, prom photo, lipstick..." Nina muttered, calling out everything she touched just to remind herself. "Leopluradon bouncy ball, bubbles" She pulled those out, holding the green plastic container in her hand. "Jellybeans Texas! Score!" A quick fist pump, and Nina turned to face Doctor James Campbell - still mentally British - and held out the items.

"I have a bunch of assorted jellybeans if you want, they're Jelly Belly, so, they're legit and not like ambiguously groady." Nina said, holding out the bag. "I also have a stress Texas, if you want. I think its from an election year or something, its cool... Oh, and bubbles. Am I allowed to blow bubbles in here? I won't let them land on stuff and get sticky, I'll just eat them." This had stopped being a survey, and was now Operation Have Fun During Lockdown. Or, in its abbreviated for, OHFDL. And OHFDL was about to commence.

[Dr. James Campbell]

"Not exclusively, but there certainly aren't that many around here. The most severe weather we get are blizzards. But you went to Hammel, you know what those are like." On occasion, they would be amplified by students with weather control abilities who didn't want to go to classes. Actually, if it wasn't for the security guard who was very well-trained in weather manipulation and the teachers who could negate powers, they would probably have snow days more often than not.

James was trying very hard not to show how anxious he was. Really, if there had been a problem, someone would have gotten word to him telepathically. He was consciously aware of how irrational his worries were. But that didn't stop them. Maybe he should have taken the anti-anxiety meds, no matter what Nina thought of him.

He shrugged, checking his watch. It hadn't been very long at all yet. "They can last up to an hour or so, but are usually over in half that. The security detail has to make sure everyone is out of sight before they give the all-clear, and they usually do a run of evacuating students from one of the areas of the school." Then he compared his watch to the digital clock on his desk, yes, they were accurate to each other. No way to kill time by setting one against the other, and he wasn't allowed to turn his computer screen back on to set either to the atomic clock. This was going to be a long drill. "Usually it's just a little longer than hair-pullingly mind-numbing."

The thin man watched in perplexed awe as the redhead rummaged through her bag. Why in the world would she carry all that stuff around with her? At most, all he ever had on hand was his wallet, his cell phone, and a pen. Granted, now he spent a lot more time in his office than he did when he was actively recruiting, but it still amazed him that people didn't have assigned pockets for whatever they carried.

Jelly beans? The offer was a little surprising, but altogether unnecessary. James didn't eat food that other people carried around, or touched. He kept a dish of candy on his desk, yes, but they were all individually wrapped and protected from others' hands or--shudder--fingers. And he had his mini-fridge behind his desk, well-stocked with water and the lunch he had packed that morning. "No, thank you, I'm good. I do have water if you would like, though. It's cold." He pulled out a bottle and offered it to her, trying not to show how unappealing he found the idea of blowing bubbles in his office. "I'd rather you didn't. I do have a deck of cards though, and a chess set, if you know how to play."

[Nina Levitra]

"Blizzards?" Nina echoed with a goofy smile. "I used to love snow days! I bet the kids have tons of fun." She fondly remembered some of her more eventful snow days, including one in which she had turned into a badger and failed to turn back into herself until after dark, at which point she had somehow ended up spending the night in the hallway with a jacket that she had only somewhat stolen from the lost and found as a blanket. Good times. "But, its good, you know? That its snow and not twisters. Snow is way more fun, and fluffy." In fact, fluffy pretty much triumphed over all other possible factors, especially when it came to things like animals. Like bunnies. Fluffy bunnies were so much better than less fluffy ones.

"No jellybeans?" Nina asked, popping one in her mouth and tucking it under her tongue. "I'm good now, I'm not thirsty but thanks." She tried to smile, hoping that she wasn't scaring the good doctor. She was aware that some people found her personality more than they could handle - though she had no idea as to why - and tried not to be too much of a... well, a herself. Only that was awful grammar, wasn't it?

"Cards?" It wasn't anything big, but Nina was a bit... bad at cards. She could learn the games quickly and it wasn't the rules, it was sort of the cards themselves. She had a tendency to drop cards or flip them the wrong way, or rip them, or have rigged decks through no fault of her own. Once, in a truly spectacular game of Egyptian slapjack, Nina had managed to lose three different times before the game was actually started. That had actually been because she was still distracted by a song she had heard the night before but still! Normal card players lost after at least seven cards had moved around. Or after betting, but she didn't bet. "Uhm... I'm not the best at cards." Nina said, scratching the back of her head and laughing softly. "Oh, but normally I'm not too awful at Go Fish! If you're okay with winning, I'm fine with playing."

[Dr. James Campbell]

He really didn't want to admit it, but being locked in the same room as Nina was making him feel a little claustrophobic. At the moment, in this case, it seemed like her overzealous enthusiasm was smothering. Vaguely, he wondered if he would feel the same if they were to invite her over around Christmastime, when the tree was up and James was just as excitable. "I always liked snow too, except when it gets muddy and slushy. Or when we don't shovel in time and our driveway gets frozen over." That had happened to him more than once, though notably less often since he was no longer the only one shoveling. He was also significantly less likely to perfectly happy with the smooth snow and just decided to leave it as it was. "Yeah, fluffy is good."

Strangely, thinking about fluffy actually did make him a little calmer. Milo, the cat Chase had bought for him, was fluffy. And sometimes Chase called his hair fluffy, when it was particularly tousled.

James was glad she didn't press the jellybeans issue. It was a kind offer, but he really didn't like eating food other people touched, particularly when it was the type that was liable to get sticky.

Sticky things almost always had stuff stuck to them.

Cards was usually his go-to activity when someone was in his office and he didn't actually have paperwork for them to fill out or other stuff to do. And kids didn't come in all that often, mostly with their parents in cases where the parents choose to move into Pilot Ridge so their kids could still live at home. Actually, half the time the deck of cards that was supposed to be tucked away in his desk drawer was stolen by Chase, when he wanted to work with kids one-on-one. "I'm good with Go Fish. But if you know chess, like I said, we could play that too." James was good at it, both with the strategy of seeing the patterns of moves on the board, and telling when someone was going to do an offensive or defensive play. He reached into the drawer and pulled out the deck though, one with pictures of various New England leaves and their identifying names. (Yes, the good doctor was quite the nerd.) He began to shuffle it, but then thought of something else instead. "Unless, you want to build a card castle? No losing that way."

And it was fifty-four cards, counting jokers. Not a hard clean-up at all.

[Event !]

Thank you for your participation! No Exit is now closed.

The alarm went off again, just once, giving the all-clear. Within two minutes, a security guard poked her head in, nodding at the people inside. "Thanks. Lockdown's been lifted. You can go now."