Room 229, Thursday Afternoon

[arsenicmauls]

"I know that your bureaucratic worldview can barely accept the notion of extenuating circumstances, but I'm telling you that's what I have," Gert snapped, switching her phone to her other ear. "The idea of a no-portal list is stupid, first of all, especially when I'm already outside of my home, and secondly, I'm almost seventeen, which is legally old enough to make decisions for myself in a third of known dimensions, according to your stupid manual."

She waited for a response to that. When one came, it wasn't anything helpful.

Gert snapped, "Yeah, well, so are you."

It wasn't her best comeback, but she slammed her phone closed and flopped down on the bed.

[[open, expecting one]]

Comments

[arsenicmauls]

"I'd probably give it a shot if I weren't half-convinced I'd wind up stranded on a freight spaceship listening to meta for Vogon poetry," Gert quipped with a sullen huff.

"Yeah, that Dom guy showing up was weird. Our fake kid was cute, though. Do you remember everything?"

[justbeingbay]

"You have no sense of adventure," Bay returned. "Vogon poetry is the best."

She went to sit in Gert's desk chair, thinking about the question. "I think I remember everything Dom did or said or thought about. But if I didn't, how would I know?"

[arsenicmauls]

"Good point," Gert noted. "Well... maybe if you don't have any weird memory gaps, we can give the island the benefit of the doubt. Which I am generally extremely hesitant to do, by the way."

[justbeingbay]

"I can't give it any benefit of the doubt," Bay conceded. "Seriously, if I wasn't five minutes from graduation, I would be saying screw this and taking off for Vegas. That went way, way beyond the cute type of island weirdness."

[arsenicmauls]

"There's a cute kind?" Gert snarked dryly. "But yeah, I'm with you. Seriously, all this is just one more reason I want so badly to get out of this place."

[justbeingbay]

"Like, when candy falls from the sky?" Bay suggested. "That's kind of cute."

She rested her chin on her fist. "Okay, is there any reason you can't drop out and get your GED?"

[arsenicmauls]

Gert sighed, putting her chin on her hands. "There's a reason, but it's not that compelling," she grumbled. "That guy Captain America, who sent my friends and me into boarding schools and foster care, said we have to all stay put until we graduate from high school, and then we'll be able to book portals again. Because forcibly restricting personal freedoms until we subscribe to his definition of adulthood is definitely hero behavior. And conveniently enough, I can't exactly get in touch with the world's most famous crime-fighter and ask him if a GED counts."