breakingmyheart | 2.5.5

[Spam for Megamind]

[Barge engine maintenance is reasonably straightforward when you know how, though the 'knowing how' can take months; like any regular task, after a while it becomes...not boring, but...routine. Clean parts, check valves, tighten screws, check readings, et cetera. It's a big job and has a lot of fiddly little tasks associated with it, but it doesn't change.

Sometimes Toshiko genuinely wonders if the engine serves any actual purpose besides giving a few more people something to do with their time, but the only way to test that would be by breaking it and seeing what happens and....no. No thank you. True, Kirk used it to take over the ship but for all she knows that could just be the Admiral propping up the illusion.

(And honestly, Kirk's brief benign dictatorship makes her feel better. Generally, the Admiral closes a path to the bridge after it's been used once. The engine room has now been officially neutralised as a way to hijack the ship.)

She looks over at Megamind from where she's sitting at the bank of monitoring screens, keeping half an eye on him and half an eye on the readings.]

How are you finding it?

[Open Spam]

[It's evening, and Tosh is sitting on a bench on the deck. Somewhere over her head there's a remote-controlled flying device (you can't really call it a model anything) moving in slow figures-of-eight around the length of the bench.

She's not holding a remote. Exactly. There's a cable plugged into the port in her neck, which is connected to a small transmitter device which was resting on her shoulder but has since slipped into her cleavage; never mind. Interfaced with the program that signals the little flying drone, it's not taking much more than a continuous awareness of its presence to keep it in a holding pattern.

She moved out here when Myfanwy started getting anxious (read: screechy) about another flying pet in her cabin.

Every so often she moves to do something else, picking up the cup of coffee next to her or turning a page in the book she's not-quite-reading, and it lurches or dips but that's fine. Practice makes perfect.]

[OOC: Because occasionally I step outside myself and remember that Tosh doesn't get out much: some time ago she had a dataport installed that allows her to interface with computer systems intuitively. And she keeps fiddling with it and probably won't stop until she's a Cyberman. And Myfanwy is a pteranodon. So that's where we are now.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

truth_is_cold

One can't be faulted for wanting to keep busy. Especially here. [Though he usually picks social projects, and she seems to not. He wonders if she's tired of people, or just generally prefers to avoid them.]

You didn't remember when you first returned, so I didn't greet you properly. I have difficulties with alternates, so I should apologize for that. [He killed his alternate self.]

From:

breakingmyheart

[It's a little of both, and a lot of the sort of self-loathing that makes you think that trying to make friends is an unfair burden on the people you want to be friends with. But it's not a self-destructive downward spiral if you don't let anyone notice. Right?]

There's no need to be sorry. I was...it took me a while to adjust to having my memories back. A lot to assimilate. I wouldn't have made good conversation for a while.

From:

truth_is_cold

[Self-destructive downward spirals always work best when no one is noticing them. He had friends with his, though. That was nice, as far as self-loathing goes.]

You vastly underestimate my ability to create a conversation out of nothing. Many a friend of mine has suffered by my hand because of it. It's one of the skills I'm most proud of. [Just a little cheeky.]

From:

breakingmyheart

[She smiles a little. The drone starts moving in wide, lazy circles, easier to maintain without paying much attention to it. It's like running on the spot while holding down a conversation.]

...you know, it's strange. We've both been here a long time, but I don't feel like we actually know each other. [Her smile takes a self-effacing slant.] My fault. I keep falling off the radar, I know.

From:

truth_is_cold

[The cheekiness fades and he looks out at the railing.]

It's not your fault. I avoided Harper for long time. [Including those he was in close proximity to.] I was the reason for the difficulties in his universe and nothing more, [he pauses, vaguely concerned about bringing him up] but the version I knew was different.

From:

breakingmyheart

[She doesn't respond visibly to hearing Harper's name. It hurts - like pressure on a scar that hasn't healed properly - but it's bearable.

Her head tilts slightly. Alternates again.]

Can you tell me more? About that situation. I've only ever encountered alternate universes while I've been here.

From:

truth_is_cold

[He knows how those moments go.]

The Nietzscheans originally were members of the Commonwealth. We usually colonized new worlds, we enjoyed the challenge. When the Magog invaded, the first systems they took were ones with predominately Nietzschean populations. Then the Commonwealth agreed to give those worlds up to the Magog- they didn't defend us.

That's how it was for both universes, and in both I secretly agreed to join the Nietzschean rebellion, but while trying to warn Dylan it was going to happen and prepare the ship. [He shook his head slightly.] In one, I ended up 300 years in the future, and I became Captain. Harper was the first of my new crew I met. [He might have hit him in the face for being flippant a little bit. Just a little.] He was the last to stay with me. Everyone else abandoned me, even Trance. So I went back to fix things- but the insurrection had to happen, because the Commonwealth had been lying when they made the treaty that gave away our worlds. It needed to be rebuilt on a better foundation and I wasn't the person to do it.

The Harper here only remembered me as the man that disassembled the Commonwealth and ruined his future. His only fondness was to tell me my genes were better off in the descendent he knew. I never told him I knew a version of him. He made it clear he didn't want to know me.

[He gives Tosh a sort of sad smile.] What was he like for you?

From:

breakingmyheart

[She doesn't answer, but the circling drone abruptly jerks out of orbit and smashes itself dramatically against the railing. Toshiko flinches.]

...I'd rather not talk about him.

From:

truth_is_cold

[He stands to go get the drone for her, and carries it back.] I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make things uncomfortable.

From:

breakingmyheart

It's fine.

[She reaches up to very carefully disconnect the dataport cable, stowing it away, and accepts the drone back from Rhade. She picks over the carcass: a few components have bent or warped on impact and a few connections have come loose, but nothing's irreparably damaged.

This is broadly why she likes machines more than people. More than herself. Because you can fix them, and it's easy.]

If you don't mind my asking a question I'm sure you've fielded a hundred times before, what makes someone a Nietzschean, exactly?

From:

truth_is_cold

The difference between domestic dogs and wild wolves. Our original stock was engineered to the ideals of Nietzsche- the actual ones, not the perverted ones. Though apparently it doesn't take much for a people to slip. [Resignation, because he knows it's not because they were Nietzscheans- they were peaceful for hundreds of years. But everyone says it was inevitable, and he doesn't know what to think himself sometimes.

He watches her fiddle with the machine as he has the seat again. He holds up his forearm so she can see the boneblades.] And these. For all of our culture and ceremony and selective breeding, I suppose these are what makes us Nietzscheans.

From:

breakingmyheart

[By now she's set down the drone and when he holds up his arm she reaches out like she's going to touch, but then pulls back, because curiosity is not a free pass into someone's personal space.]

They...certainly look like they'd be the most obvious trait.

[She's quiet for a moment.]

What's your world like, without the Commonwealth?

[Maybe 'what will be like' is a better question, but she's not sure of the chronology here. She and Harper talked precious little about their respective homes.]

From:

truth_is_cold

[He doesn't mind so much except that they're sharp.] Avoid the tips. [To indicate he's alright with it.]

According to Dylan, it got better. For me, it was lawless, my people were squabbling over worlds like scraps of land rather than settling new ones. There were slaves, and the Magog were still attacking.

But the people were vibrant, and could fight harder than the ones I knew. They were more determined. So... I suppose for Dylan's timeline, those are the people that finally band together to create the New Commonwealth. His deal is to make sure the timeline turns out better- another do-over, with some fore-knowledge of events.

From:

breakingmyheart

...He's getting his money's worth out of the Admiral, then. [A little blank, because she's still wrapping her head around the prospect of a deal which alters the course of history of an entire universe. But then again, don't they all?]

From:

truth_is_cold

Yes, he was angry with me when he found out I'd changed my deal to something that wouldn't necessarily help, but I think he's gotten over it. [She smiles a little bit again. Trance pretty much made it impossible to not contemplate the course of history.]

I don't know that I could have made another large deal anyway. I'm still not sure how to be a part of history, so I try not to be anymore.

From:

breakingmyheart

[She nods and half-smiles.]

So much of my time back home was spent making sure history stayed on the straight and narrow. I don't think I could make a deal that threw much of a spanner into the works, either.

From:

truth_is_cold

You should try knowing someone who knows possible futures. [He gives her a grump of a smile, still fond though. Because, despite everything, Trance was Trance, and even if she had to give up on him she still cared about him.]

From:

breakingmyheart

[Tosh lifts her eyebrows in interest.] Is that common where you're from?

From:

truth_is_cold

Just with one person. Purple, sparkly with a tail. At first. And then she was gold. It's funny, that was strange to me at the time but after being here, people changing bodies really seems like nothing new.

From:

breakingmyheart

[She laughs, not exactly in good humour but almost helplessly, and doesn't mention her own experience of changing bodies because that would require her to think about it.]

No. I think I've been here long enough that nothing is strange to me any more. Can't tell if that's a good or bad thing, in the end.

From:

truth_is_cold

I think when I started happening across wizards and cats I started ceasing to be surprised.

[Hey, cats are strange, extinct things. They're kind of a big deal.] I suppose it's an advantage, even if it's unusual it's not unexpected.

Edited Date: 2012-10-04 08:12 pm (UTC)

From:

breakingmyheart

I suppose. [A pause, and then a shot of unanticipated honesty as she looks up into the gleaming dark:] I think I miss surprises, though. Sometimes.

[Maybe 'surprise' is the wrong word, but she misses the thrill of discovery. The sense of newness every time something washed up out of the Rift that she'd never seen before. The puzzles. Now most of the time it feels like her mind is just ticking over, and the big puzzles she needs to address - Erik - aren't in any of her specialisms.]

From:

truth_is_cold

Well, let's say the Barge stopped somewhere. One place where the Admiral wouldn't turn us into subterranean moles or something else preposterous, where would you like to go? [He shifts to face her a little better in the chair, dangling his arm over the back of it.]