Caveship

7 || Abnormal Activity

Slowly, Vincent pulls his car into the driveway of a run-down mobile home, the headlights illuminating the trash cans near it as he turns in. Raccoons, some perched atop one of the old rusty metal trash cans, scatter in all different directions. Many make for the safety of the underbelly of the home, where old, rotten wooden planks serve as insufficient deterrents, but provides plenty of shelter for animals seeking to avoid view of humans. Turning the key and thus the vehicle off, Vincent opens the door and climbs out, the groaning of the vehicle's aging shocks more than sufficient to announce his arrival.

The porch light flickers on about the same time Vincent shuts the door to his vehicle, but the mobile home's door doesn't open. Vincent grumbles loudly. He climbs the rotten wooden ramp, clearly much newer in comparison to the rest of the home, up onto the porch. The poorly maintained wood of the porch groans in protest, almost as loud as his vehicle. Not wanting to test the rusty nails, Vincent opens the screen door and the door behind it.

"It amazes me you haven't been robbed yet..." Vincent closes the door behind him, peering about the home. While the outside looks awful, the inside is evidently much cleaner: the floor is easily navigable, with faux wooden walls almost completely hidden by maps and diagrams. Whatever windows haven't been covered by boards and posters have met a similar fate, and light cannot hope to shine inside. A bed lies on the wrong side of the home, though it seems more like a bunk that's had several layers of blankets piled on for cushioning. The kitchen is the only place of the home so far that's been left largely untouched, with a stove, fridge, and various cupboards and drawers.

On the other side, the bedroom part of this small home has been refurbished to hold a battle station of computers that would put NASA to shame: monitors, all of varying sizes and quality. The blue and white glow of it is more than enough to properly light the room. A few air conditioners chug desperately in their own secluded corners, trying their best to keep the room cool enough for someone to inhabit it. Smack in the middle of it all sits a balding man in a computer chair, dressed only in shorts and a white t-shirt, both having seen better, cleaner days. What few wisps of brown hair are left on his head frame dull blue eyes, accentuated by the eye bags of someone who clearly gets less sleep than is healthy.

"Jesus, Donny, you look like hell. What happened?" Vincent grumbles, cautiously stepping into what was once the bedroom. He peers about at all the monitors, but there's so much going on that it's impossible to look at any one monitor and tell what's going on. Information moves much too fast for him to catch more than bits and pieces, and none of it really makes sense to him without context. "How long has it been since you last slept?"

"Only about thirty six hours," Don chuckles. "Though, that's off a two hour nap... after a seventy two hour movie binge watch." He extends a hand out to Vincent, who politely declines. With a shrug, Don turns his chair back toward the monitors opposite the door. Several keyboards lay on flat surfaces that have been screwed to the wall, all in a circle so he can easily maneuver his chair between it all and turn as needed. "What brings you to my humble abode?"

Turning back to the kitchen, Vincent begins to dig around in the cupboards, only stopping when he finds coffee. "Instant coffee? Is this really all you have? Why not just boil dog poop and pour creamer in it?" He sighs, digging around some more. "Knew I should've stopped to get coffee."

"Surely you didn't come out all this way just to judge my poor choice of caffeine. You only come out here when you need something from me. Who died this time?" Don says, turning the chair around to face what little of Vincent he could see from the doorframe.

"You've heard about the Buckhorn Mountain incident? Been on the news all week," Vincent offers, surrendering and pouring some instant coffee into a cup of water, tossing it into the microwave to heat it all up.