exsiliumlogs | [closed] and what we wear is vintage clothes

Date & Time: Backdated to early on the morning of the 4th.
Location: The apartments, en route to the Hold
Characters: Artie Nielsen and Admiral Jim Kirk
Summary: Grouchy old dude bonding on the way to the comm device testing.
Warnings: Possible bitching about Them Youngins? IDEK.

Early mornings were not always Artie's forte. Back in South Dakota, he'd kept his own hours, for the most part - sometimes the Warehouse woke him at the crack of dawn with an alarm, sometimes a task had kept him up until it, the night before, and he slept until noon. Here, they apparently expected you to go and train at the Hold - which he wasn't really having any of, either. Not yet, anyway, not after what had happened on his first time out. He'd devoted his days since the disastrous mission to Elmer's world to learning the lay of the land, going out and wandering, reading the tablet logs, soaking up as much knowledge as he could. That didn't exactly require any pressing need to be up with the birds, either.

But he'd volunteered to help Edward with his new device, and one of the new arrivals had asked if he'd like company - one of the new arrivals that he seemed to have clicked rather well with as a colleague. So at 6 AM sharp, Artie's tablet buzzed with a recording he'd made of his Farnsworth's ringtone ... a sound he'd known would wake him from even the deepest sleep after years of conditioning. There was only a moment's disorientation as he reminded himself he wasn't home anymore, and then he was going through the usual morning rituals of getting up, dressed, and ready. By the time he made his way down to the lobby, he'd managed to rub most of the glue from his eyes, and found something sufficient for breakfast. Now he waited patiently, his ever-present bag hooked over his arm, and kept his eyes peeled for Kirk.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Unlike Artie, Kirk was more than accustomed to getting up at what would be perceived as the crack of dawn. The hour didn't matter so much as your internal clock, and it was pure luck that his had aligned with this place. But part of it may have just been his own trouble with sleeping, because every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was the chamber on the ship and Spock behind the glass. This morning is no different, and it takes him a few minutes of compartmentalizing after waking from a nightmare before he can get himself together.

Signing up for a test project as soon as he'd arrived would probably look foolish to most, but getting intel was the quickest way of figuring out a problem. This would not only force him to explore, but see how some of the people here operated— what this science facility was like, and compare the attitudes of the more long-staying residents. Sixty thirty AM has him trekking down to the lobby in the jacket in his admiral's outfit, but wearing the jacket he'd purchased the day before. The only thing he was missing was the book, which was under his pillow in his room.

"Good morning," He says it as he approaches, tucking his hands into his pockets.

"I think it is, so far, yes." Artie smiled. "Settling in well enough?"

Jim's smile doesn't really waver, and he lets that be his answer without saying anything. Settling in was one way to put it, as far as being completely alone in a foreign landscape, drafted to fight in a war that violated the Prime Directive and rooming with a young alien went.

"Have you been out this way before?" He redirects as he heads out of the lobby, glancing up and down the crumbling street. "If we find a cafe, I'll give my left hand for a coffee."

The lack of answer was answer enough, and Artie bobbed his head from side to side a little. "Eehhh, sounds about right. I know I'm still not completely settled in, especially after the -- well -- the thing I already told you about." As he talked, he pulled his tablet out, unrolled it, and started searching the map for coffee shops. "Y'know, in retrospect, that sounded like a good conversation starter in my head, but now that I've actually asked you, I'm realizing that was a really, really stupid question - and yes, there's a cafe on the way, actually. I am going to have to warn you that there's only powdered milk here, due to the decided lack of cows."

He rolled the tablet back up, stuffed it in his pocket, and gestured down the street as though he hadn't just been entirely socially awkward.

"Shall we?"

Edited 2013-06-05 21:38 (UTC)

"No harm done," Jim offers him a sideways, forgiving smile. It had been an innocent question, after all, and would have been normal in any other situation. Either way, he nods and falls into step with Artie as he had the first day they'd met. He was trusting the man to point him in the direction of the cafe, taking in their surroundings as they went.

"Is it true, there aren't any farm animals anymore?" He asks, his gaze sliding over a woman coughing into a neckerchief on the side of the street as they go. It reminds him of his own itchy throat, and he clears it, out of reflex.

"There aren't, no - from what I've read and heard, the conflict with the United Earth ruined most of the land. This city's about as good as it gets... outside, they call it the Outlands."

He glances skyward, and almost immediately regrets it as his glasses get rained on.

"... I haven't seen a clear, sunny day since I got here, either. The ecosystem's completely wrecked."

"The result of not learning from your mistakes," He says quietly, and he finds that he isn't so much sad as he is— disappointed. The human race had so much potential, it was horrifying to see how they had tanked like this. Part of him wonders if it has to do with First Contact, that if this was the result of the small fluctuation in reality that resulted in this world not meeting Vulcan.

He expected more, from a place a thousand years into his future.

"Everything must be replicated, in that case."

He senses Kirk's disappointment ... in all honesty, it's pretty hard to miss. But they have a mission to get to, and he'd rather they not arrive too far down in the dumps. The best thing he can manage right now is to turn the Admiral's thoughts to something else.

"Replicated?" Artie's unfamiliar with the term, but he can make a pretty educated guess at what it means. "I'm not sure how they do it, honestly. Though I did meet a young man in one of the bakeries around here who told me that the Initiative's able to use its travel technology to get some things from other worlds and ration it."

"It's— a technology we have on the Enterprise. We replicate our food, it takes up much less space. Anything the computer can put together, it can make. It's never been able to make a decent cup of coffee, though." And he pauses, his mind going back to days on the bridge and the dry, too bitter taste of the coffee. Thinking of it now, what he wouldn't give for one.

But his gaze narrows, casting sidelong to Artie. "I don't know if I like the sound of that, after the story you told me."

"I know, it's - somewhat of a Catch-22. We need the supplies in order to fight, to help rebuild this world and correct everything that's been done ... but it's hard to tell where the line is between taking enough and taking too much from the past." He scowls, having spent a lot of time and thought on that, himself.

"I haven't dealt too much with time or dimensional travel, but the few experiences I did have all had very, very strong bad sides."

But ah - there's the cafe, or what passes for it, and he pulls the door open for Kirk. "Almost as strong as the coffee here. Eheh heh."

"It's dangerous, that kind of thing," Jim says, and from the gravity that sneaks into his voice he's speaking from some manner of experience. "I understand why, I even agree that in order to save this planet, it needs to be done— but a butterfly beating it's wings in the United States of Africa can start a tsunami on the other side of the world. Thank you." He adds as Artie holds the door, stepping into the cafe.

If nothing else, it smells familiar and that's more than enough to make Jim a little homesick. He smiles, the smallest quirk to his mouth, despite himself.

"United States of Africa," he echoes, stepping in behind Kirk and shaking the rain off his hat. "That's one I haven't heard here, yet."

[closed] and what we wear is vintage clothes

no subject

haha you said trekking /shot

teehee

Re: teehee

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject