Shaboom: Potluck

[x-cypher.livejournal.com]

The X-Force crew meets up under the guise of a church potluck luncheon. More disturbing elements come to light.



It hadn't been difficult, rigging the 'random' seating of the potluck event her fake mother had arranged, 'to foster goodwill in the town', not when she'd spent some of her time on the streets of Brighton entertaining tourists by pulling pennies out of their ears. Ushering 'Mrs. Simons' to her seat with a smile, 'Mandy MacDonald' took her own seat at the table in the church hall, smoothing her skirts with a gesture that was coming all too naturally. "So," she said, looking around everyone. "Not exactly the usual greasy spoon diner we use for this sort of thing, but beggars can't be choosers, right?"

"The food is free, at least," Wanda offered, eyeing her very sparkling, very unalcoholic drink with some disappointment. "Though if you lot take any of the cookies, go for the slightly less brown ones. They're only slightly singed but the other ones are quite good. I suppose this could be worse -- I didn't come equipped with an ability to cook the last time I was possessed or anything like it. Just wanton destruction and chaos. Now it's church going and cookie time."

Marie-Ange sat down a seat away from Amanda with a disgusted look on her face. Anyone else would have taken it for disgust at the seating arrangement - even the fact that she was there was a little bit of a stretch, but she had thought if anyone questioned, she would suggest that free food meant she could tolerate some preaching-at. Once seated, she reached inside the sleeve of her blouse and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. And then almost immediately made them disappear, palming them and slipping them under the table to Amanda. "They seem to just keep showing up in my things. My entire flat smells of them."

"You're a godsend, tho' I've got the opposite thing going on - mine keep disappearing. I think Mum keeps flushing 'em or something." Amanda glanced over at her "mother", who was watching proceedings with a frosty expression. Apparently Christian charity didn't extend to welcoming Marie-Ange or Remy's sort.

"'Joe Crockett, Jr.' is a hockey letterman and engineering student at Michigan. How funny is that?" Doug asked with a grin. "I worked out at the ice rink for a while. Of course, protective equipment wasn't what it is in the twenty-first century." He rubbed his ribs and worked his jaw slightly. "Joe, Sr. works at the local factory, and they get out-of-town deliveries every day. I took a drive out to the edge of the effect, and semis turn into their 1950's counterparts. None of them seem to notice anything strange about it. When they go back out of town, they just head off like nothing is out of the ordinary."

"Haha, you're a 'Junior.'" Mark slipped in next to Doug, turning back briefly to wave and smile flirtatiously at a gaggle of giggling girls. "It should come as no surprise that I'm just as fabulous here as I am in the real world. I have some really hip suits at home. Oh my God, did I just say 'hip'?"

"You did. Remy 'preciate it if you don't again." LeBeau took a bite of potato salad. He felt a lot more comfortable than most of the others, having spent the better part of his life in foreign places operating under a cover; fake names and occupations came naturally to him. "Dere's something wrong wit' dis town. Been all over, under de cover of," he grimaced "-selling insurance. Parts of dis place don't fit. I copied a couple of papers for local events, took dem out to de shack past de effect limit. Dere was a murder-suicide on de military base on New Years Day, 1959. Not a word of it in de papers. Even Private Smith, Private Jones, and Private Andrews had no idea what I was talking 'bout."

"Funny you should say that." Amanda's voice dropped a little, but she kept the happy cheerful smile on her face, mimicking her 'mother's'. "Wanda suggested I check out the obituaries, going back a while. The only deaths? Old people, just slipping away in their sleep. If anyone under the age of seventy dies here, it doesn't make the papers."

"Well," Illyana said, "Mom keeps saying that -- uh. Pass the, uh, the things." She occupied herself with avoiding eyecontact with Sofia at all costs.

There was an awkward pause where Sofia attempted to reply with something appropriately scathing and found herself unable to and instead only blinked, once, twice. "It's..." she tried, taking a sip of her iced tea, collecting herself. "It's that movie. With the black and white children. It can't exist."

"Yes," Illyana said, clearly not understanding, but somewhat keen not to be murdered in her sleep that night. She pressed her lips together, trying to think of what to say next, and eventually came up with: "Also, I still think this is Amanda's fault. We should find out if she has annoyed anyone who would do this to us lately. I know it wasn't me because the only person I could have annoyed lately was the guy at Starbucks, and he could just have used a curse on my coffee."

"Anna, I keep telling you, call me Mandy." Amanda's accent drawled into Mid-west. "I mean, you go to school with my little sister. That makes us practically family, doesn't it?" She reached over and patted Illyana's hand.

Illyana slapped Amanda's hand. "No. No it doesn't. Also, you are being incredibly creepy right now, okay? Stop that."

"Ow!" Amanda snatched back her hand. "Stop what?"

"Shifting de table." Remy said, jostling the table with his own knee. "Think dat one of de legs is shorter den de other."

The Cajun was suddenly extremely alert. He'd been in the field so long that he watched people instinctively for hints in tone, posture, speech patterns; Remy 'saw' the people around him as an amalgamation of elements, and could see the change in Amanda went past her comment. She carried herself differently, used different speech inflections; this wasn't her acting. She wasn't that good.

"Sorry," Amanda muttered, rubbing her hand and giving Illyana a disgruntled look. "So, it's not magic as far as we can tell. No trace of the sort of power source you'd need to pull off a time switch or an alternate dimension, and nothing even vaguely resembling any kind of link to the supernatural in the town itself. It's all Mom and apple pie."

"Speaking of apple pie..." Marie-Ange leaned in, whispering. "Do not eat any. They made me make it. I do not think I can cook here any better then I can in New York." She shook her head ruefully. "I took a 'break' at work and... has anyone else been seeing airplanes? I do not think were that many commercial flights in ninteen-fifty-nine. I know I saw planes overhead though."

"Military?" suggested Mark. "We close enough to an Air Force base or somethin'? Haven't heard anything particularly suspicious from anyone yet. Really, I just keep expecting the Fonz to jump out in the malt shop and smack the jukebox. I'm really not readin' anything from anyone."

"That's another thing," Doug said, remembering an observation he'd made over the course of the day. "Have you guys noticed how half the people in town are...I dunno, kinda two-dimensional? Almost like caricatures." He ticked off on his fingers. "I mean, you've got the cheerful drug store owner, the good-natured cop who all the kids love..." He looked at Remy. "Privates Smith, Jones, and Andrews, huh? Anyone with a more 'real' last name?"

"It's bizarre. Like some of it has been half-formed. Maybe de whole place is only sketched out, 'cept for what dey focused on specifically. Good way to try and track dis. Look for dose who seem a little more elaborate, see if any of dem end up being linked somehow." Remy took a bite from a cookie, made a face, and put it back down immediately. "I'm going to head out to de laptop later on today. Anything you dig up, I'll run down."

Wanda frowned and tapped her plate a few times, thinking things through. "Some of the church ladies are like that," she added, nodding to herself. "A number of them feel genuine, like people I would have met in this time period. Others just feel off, though. I think I need to concentrate on the pastor here. Church seems to be a pretty big deal around these parts and the reverend does watch over his sheep, as it were. It cannot hurt and I am running out of ideas."

"I can keep going through the papers, maybe there's some kind of..." Amanda's voice trailled off and she blinked, before looking around. "Is everyone having a good time?" she asked, sliding back into the alter ego again. "Mother was so pleased when you accepted the invitation." She nodded at Marie-Ange. "It's never too late to find the right path, Mother says."

Marie-Ange stared at Amanda, raising an eyebrow. "I will have you know that I was raised Roman Catholic. And your mother gave me two dirty looks before I had even found my seat." She said stiffly. She waited, tapping her fingers against the table until Amanda's face lost the perky eager expression. "I think whatever is going on, we need to find it quickly. It is contagious."

"Well, you know what they say about Catholic girls." Sofia yawned delicately, closing the compact she had been using to dust her nose with a final snap and standing. "Come along Anna, let's go pry into people's private lives again, before Mandy here tries to throw holy water on us."