ArchivedLogs:Tribbles and Teleportation
| Tribbles and Teleportation | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
|
2014-12-06 ' |
| Location
<NYC> Harbor Commons - Commonhaus - Lower East Side | |
Accessible to all residents of the Commons via electronic keycard, this three-story building holds a number of facilities freely available for the shared use of all Commons residents. The stone-floored foyer is high ceilinged -- balconies on the two upper floors look down into this entrance, leaving just the wide skylit ceiling three stories up to trickle light down through the whole of the house. Through wide wood-and-glass doors the spacious dining area is visible on the left; on the right, heavier doors beside the elevator lead to the similarly large kitchens. There are four single-user toilets on this floor, two apiece by the foyer and the dining room. Though a wide staircase runs all the way up, there is also an elevator tucked to one side. For the adventurous, though, there's another way up through the house -- through the center of the house where the balconies look down, an enormous climbing structure has been erected, solid wood platforms softened with carpeting, held together with strong spiderwebbed steel cables. Interlaced in an intricate maze that spirals up through the whole of the house and down to the basement, it provides a crazily winding path to duck and wriggle and worm through, with exits -- if you can /find/ them -- dispensed out onto each upper balcony and into the basement below. It's pretty gross outside. Maybe it's not /freezing/ but it's miserable and rainy and it's pushed a good deal of the Commons indoors, this Saturday evening. Too late for lunch, too early for dinner, /way/ too early for nightlife, it's just kind of a -- wet dark stretch of useless. At the moment, though, there's color being added to the dank in the form of a bunch of bright /fluffy/ -- balls? They're about softball-sized and covered in FLOOF of various colors, rolling-thunking their way down-down-down-down along the giant steel-and-wood climbing maze that stretches up through the center of the entire Common House. Thump thump thump! Probably they're not stuffed toys, for all the fluffball look they sound heavier than that. An entire armload of these things has just been dropped in from the third floor by a small freckle-faced boy, maybe eight or so years old, in baggy Batman hoodie and jeans, who appears to be jumping... straight off the third-floor balcony now in his eagerness to watch the descent of the pile of floofy ball... things. Far down at the bottom, B is not overly concerned about Spencer's imminent doom. Jump away, small eager child. B is perched at the /bottom/ of the maze, on the lip of one of the tunnels that exits at its base. Hir bare webbed feet are resting on a plank that -- looks a lot like a skateboard, though it has no wheels. Just sitting flat and evidently uselessly no-wheeled on the ground. It /does/ have very /shiny/ metallic silver-and-blue grip tape at its top surface, though. There's a (also metallic blue!) dragonfly perched on hir shoulder, large (for a dragonfly) and made out of metal. Sculpture, maybe? B is dressed as casually as Spencer, jeans and a black sweatshirt that reads HERBIVORE in a yellow cross over the right breast. There's a tablet in hir hands that hir eyes are focused down on, just now. Jack's been hanging around the Harbor Commons for a few days now, brought here by Micah and Peter and staying as a guest. The invisible teen has mostly been (not)seen doing chores around the place. Of course last night he'd gone to the Fight Club and mostly stood back and watched. He talked to some of the healers just to make sure they could heal him too but no real fighty stuff from him. Today he's been pretty scarce and quiet, pacing and deep in thought when not handling whatever chores he can find. He's just coming in from the miserableness outside when the sounds of the thunking draws his attention upwards. He arches an unseen brow at all the fuzzy things and is debating investigating when he sees that small child jumping. A strangled little noise of shock escapes him and he throws an unseen hand forward, reaching out with his telekinetic powers to try to catch Spencer before he can fall. The rain drives Rasa to the inside, too. Ze is damp and a little shivery, covered from head to bare foot in precipitation. Ze is dressed in running clothes, form fitting black pants that have a hole cut in the backside for a long (currently) muddy, green color. Hir jacket is navy blue and designed to keep moisture out, but the sleeves and cuffs of hir robins egg blue shirt are darker for all the moisture. Hir dark brown hair is stringy and wet. Ze shakes it out as ze enters, pausing to look toward the blur of a boy falling from the third floor, then down to the shirt and pants running after him. "Shit, that's Spence, right? I hope it's Spence." Ze jogs over, concerned. It's only when TK arrests his fall in midair that /Spencer/ develops any alarm, a sudden startled /squeak/ coming from the child, an unhappy wriggle, a sudden indignant, "Hey!" that precedes him promptly disappearing altogether. He doesn't actually /re/appear. Just vanishes. It's only at this point that B looks up, nose twitching in time with a rather owlish blink. "Wh--" Her fingers swipe against the screen, tapping at some of the colorful balls that are on it. In the structure, the sounds of rolling and thumping taper off as the balls start to freeze on /their/ downward paths as well. "Uh --" B stands, toes wiggling against the flat not-a-skateboard sitting on the ground. A little disconcerted by the sudden influx of people (/alarmed/ people, no less!) rushing all concerned into her previously relaxed playtime, for a moment her eyes just -- blink. One set of lids and then another. "... Yeah, that was. Spence, what. What?" Her gills start to flutter along the sides of her neck. Jack can't really look over to see Rasa right now, too focused on not dropping Spencer. When the child just disappears, Jack yelps. That's going to be a headache. He stumbles slightly and puts a hand to his head as his hood falls back. He looks up after a moment, finally registering B. "What just happened?" he asks with a frown. "Where did that kid go?" "He's being dramatic again. Or was. He was jumping from the top." Rasa gestures as ze slows down to a stroll, that stroll coming to a stop soon after. Ze seems all the more relieved when the kid disappears, despite the twist of hir lips. "Ah... Um. He does that. Probably should explain. Hi, Jack. Oh, hey," Ze meanders now over to hir former roommate's side, hir attention locked on the not-skateboard at first. "Whatcha up to? Anything interesting? And what are these ball things. Did you make tribbles?" Ze stoops to pick one up. "I don't -- what did you do to him?" B is still a little /puzzled/ over what is happening, but lacks much by way of evident alarm. Her brows furrow as she settles back down on the lip of the tunnel, toes still perched on the board. "That's my little brother. He teleports. /Sometimes/," her lips twitch just a little bit, "as a startle reflex. He could be halfway to China now for all I know. -- I think I made tribbles, accidentally. They don't clone themselves -- well, not physically. They do clone their -- knowledge? Into each other? That's sort of like cloning themselves, I guess. And they purr if you pet them. So that's tribble... y." The fluffy thing in Rasa's hands is already thrumming. /Just/ a little bit. Tinytiny purr. Her fingers are tapping at the screen -- this time it's pulling up a map, a GPS tracker currently zeroing in on it. Her brows furrow deeply. "... Huh. Bristol. Do you think my dads will be mad? At least they speak English there. That's, um, that's way better than. Some places he's landed." "Wait, he does that? More than once?" Jack asks, more worried now. The fluffy thrumming things get an odd look before Jack flails a little. "I saw him falling and tried to catch him and he just disappeared," he's worried now. "China? Bristol? I...oh man..." he glances to Rasa quickly and then B. "Can he get back on his own? Should we go get someone?" yeah, he's confused at the calm and wondering why he's the only one worried about a little kid teleporting themselves across the world. "Neat. The fun of a tribble without the mass producing." Rasa begins stroking the fuzz ball in hir hands, hir skin lightening to a soft blue. Hir hair grows short so it dries quicker. "Ah, Bristol. From one rainy climate to another. I, um, don't know if your dads'll be mad. I mean, you couldn't really do anything. It's kind of all on him. And someone trying to catch a falling kid," ze turns toward Jack, brows rising, "is also a perfectly natural response, so. Um. I think they'd be madder if you callously stood by and watched, you know, not knowing who and why it was okay." Ze licks hir lips and glances over at B. "Um, He should come back on his own when he's calmed... down?" "Ohhh, okay. I didn't -- okay." The puzzlement clears up in B's expression, though the small frown remains. She chews at her lip slowly. "He -- teleports. I mean, he can teleport back. On his own. It just, it can be tiring? Long jumps. So it might, um. Might take..." She trails off with a deeper frown. "Why would I have been mad if he stood by? Spence would have been fine. He was just excited to see which one made it out first this time. They were learning -- My dads -- I'll. Text them." Which she's doing right now, pulling her phone out of a pocket of her cargo jeans. "This happens a lot," she explains a little uncomfortably to Jack. "I mean, yeah, he does that. More than once." "He jumped from way up there, how would that be fine?" Jack asks. He's still worried he screwed up and put Spence in danger. "Oh man..." he trails off, trying to calm himself down. "Where is Bristol anyway?" "Well, okay, you might not be mad. But that's only because you know Spencer. If it was some other kid, Jack here'd be cool, you know, saving a kid?" Rasa attempts an explanation then frowns hirself. "But never mind. It's just. Well, no one is to blame here. It's just... what happens with Spence." Hir skin color darkens despite the soothing purring from the little tribble ze found. "Bristol is a port city in England. It's where a lot of sea stories start out - like Treasure Island."
"Yeah. Yeah." B is still frowning, though, looking down at her phone. "He /teleports/," she repeats to Jack, a little bit more patiently this time. "You jump from up there, teleport two feet from where you left, reappear a foot from the ground? Then it's like you jumped three feet instead of three stories." Her head tilts to one side curiously. "I've never read Treasure Island. Huh." The frown is finally clearing up; she sets her phone back down in her lap. "He's coming home. He found some skaters and wanted to stay but he left his board." One foot taps at the wheel-less board beneath her feet. "No skating for him. I wonder how long it'd take to swim to England." "That's...possible?" Jack just looks up. He's got no clue how teleportation works. He takes a few deep breaths and then sighs. "I'm an idiot," he mutters. Shaking it off, the invisible teen shrugs. "Never read Treasure Island either. I saw the one with the puppets on TV once though." "Ah. Well, I was a reader, back when I didn't leave my room." Rasa shrugs and gnaws on hir lip. "You're pretty hard on yourself," ze is looking to Jack now, hir brow wrinkling up in concern. "You're not an idiot for not knowing the ins and outs of teleportation. You were unfamiliar with the whole thing." Ze takes a deep breath and continues in an encouraging tone. "Now you know. You've learned and are smarter, so even less of an idiot than before. Keep learning things and you'll get even smarter. It's a great thing." Ze gives a little smile and keeps it going before turning back to B. "Oh. Well, how long can you swim in a day? You'd probably need a waterproof navigation device, if you haven't done it before. And it's probably cold, so some time to bulk up when you start." "Oh -- I already have a -- actually a couple different things that can navigate underwater." B looks thoughtful for a moment, before rolling one of the furballs into her lap. Her claws scritch at it; it purrs, a small quiet vibratey-thrumming. "I don't think the physics of teleportation is something they teach in --" A small crooked twitch of smile tugs at her lips. "Well, not /most/ schools anyway. It doesn't make you an idiot not knowing. I think most people probably don't know. But most people also don't have nine year old little brothers that they need to plant a GPS chip on just to keep track of." Now the puzzled is returning to her expression, though. "... there's a Treasure Island with puppets?" "I started reading a lot too when I used to umm...sneak into the library after hours. Just never got around to a lot of books," Jack shrugs again. The reassurances and encouraging tone helps him relax a bit and he nods. B gets a slightly curious...not that anyone would know...look though. "Does that mean the school Micah teaches at does have teleporting classes?" he asks. "Yeah, I saw it when I was like twelve I think. Wait...Muppets, not puppets...but I guess they're still puppets." "Micah doesn't teach teleportation," Rasa responds, looking away. "He teaches classes in basic life, like banking." Ze offers up a smile and looks back to B. "Muppet Treasure Island is amazing. There's singing and muppets and Tim Curry. Tim Curry is fantastic." Ze turns toward watches another few tribbles fall down the maze, hir head turned to the side. "And there are so many books, it's actually impossible to read them all, no matter how hard a person tries. It sounds like a glorious pursuit though." "Huh? No, you can't -- you can't /have/ teleporting classes, that would be silly. I mean, you /could/ but there'd be like two people in it," B says with a small wrinkle of nose. "Like if you tried to teach /me/ a teleporting class or /Rasa/ that would do us no good. No point in teleporting class. It doesn't work for anyone except teleporters. But you could teach the physics of teleportation in your regular physics classes." B's fingers curl into the fur on her tribble. "One day," she sounds so very wistful, "I'll just be able to implant knowledge straight into my brain like I do with them?" Her fingers flutter towards the tribbles. Towards the dragonfly on her shoulder. "And then I'll read /all/ the books. /All/ of them. Though I guess once I've done that people will just write more." Which she sounds more excited about than grudging. Jack stares for a moment, head tilting slowly to the side as he listens to B and Rasa. "Okay...so that school teaches about physics of all the stuff we can do too? And normal...schooly stuff?" he asks. "I just...when him and Peter brought me here they were sort of talking about it and I was thinking about...actually going. And I'm probably being dumb again and overthinking and...I was just wondering what the place was like," he rambles a little. He looks at the dragonfly on B's shoulder, finally noticing it and blinks. Quietly wondering what it actually is, the invisible teen shrugs once more. "Wouldn't just...beaming every book into your head take the fun out of reading?" "I don't know about the implantation of knowledge. I mean, you'd just know the ending of the book at the same time as learning the beginning. Don't you like that little bit of suspense? That surge of curiosity and desire to /know/ how it ends, but there's not enough time to read it all in one sitting, so you have to wait and anticipate and guess, it's intoxicating." Rasa grips the tribble a little tighter, then realizes it and releases. "But it'd be good for more informational texts, things you want memorized." Ze considers, lost in thought. Ze focuses a moment later, giving B an uncomfortable glance. "And people will always write more. It's the best thing." There's a pause. "So, you met Peter?" B shakes her head firmly. "I don't like surprises. I read the last chapters of books first half the time. And totally look up spoilers online all the time. Life has enough suspense." After this she quiets, fidgeting a little uncomfortably as well at the mention of school. She taps at the phone in her lap again, teeth scraping against her lower lip. "Everyone's met Peter, seems like." It's only when the phone buzzes again that she speaks once more. "-- It's school. It's like school." This is a little bit flat; it comes with a small ripple-flutter of gills. She shifts a little bit uncomfortably where she sits, eventually rising to teeter back and forth on the board under her feet. "You learn things. Normal... schooly. Stuff."
Jack nods a bit. "Yeah, he's cool," he replies to Rasa. The invisible teen frowns at all the uncomfortable reactions and rubs the back of his neck. "Thanks. I um...uh...I'll shut up about it now," he says, eyes flicking down towards the floor. "It's just. It's a good school. It's a boarding school, so there's a place to stay. I like the dorms. Do you like school, you know, in general? I know you said you like reading, but it doesn't necessarily mean you like school." Rasa brightens a little and offers a tribble to Jack. "Here, try this. It's nice. School is great. There's a lot to learn. I'm taking computer programming soon and a bunch of other things. I think I'm mostly excited about the programming right now is all. Plus, graduation in the spring, but that's going to be - well. The end." "Okay." B doesn't argue with Jack's decision to shut up, expression very faintly puzzled but tone kind of closed off. Body language kind of closed-off, shoulders tightening slightly, eyes shifting downwards towards her tablet. The tribble-things still left /in/ the maze are waking back up, starting to navigate downwards again and line themselves neatly up atop B's board. B seems content, for a time, to /stay/ quiet -- but after a moment of hesitation once Rasa has finished speaking she looks back up. "It's /not/ a good school. It's not great. Or nice. Or any of that. It's just -- the /only/ school. I feel like we've all got Stockholm syndrome about it." Jack considers for a moment before taking the tribble with an unseen hand. He's careful with the creature, not wanting to accidentally hurt it. "I don't know. I mean I guess I liked school as much as a kid can," he shrugs. "But I haven't been to one since I...disappeared," he says, lightly petting the tribble. B's words produce some confusion from Jack. "It's...what's wrong with the place?" Rasa turns and studies B's face and then exhales. "Ah. I don't know. I don't think there's nothing specifically wrong with it." Ze frowns and shakes hir head. "I don't know though. Maybe all high schools suck." In Jack's hands the furthing is oddly heavy, a round and somewhat jointed metal body beneath its coating of fluff. It must have some sort of motor in it; it starts to purr, too. Or vibrate, anyway, a tiny thrumming purr-noises as it is held. "Maybe they all do. I don't know. I haven't been to any other schools. I guess I hold this one to a high standard? I mean, maybe all schools suck, but as far as I can /see/, not all schools are -- /pretending/ to not suck, you know? It's got to be /better/. And it's not better. Don't get me wrong, it's -- /school/. You'll go and there's classes and teachers and you'll, you know, learn things." Her shoulders lift in a quick shrug. "But there's still people who'll pick on you for being freaki/er/ than they are and teachers who'll call you an animal if you don't fit /their/ idea of what being human should be and adults who'll condescend and bully you into doing things their way whether they're right or wrong just because they're /older/ and I can get all those things anywhere. And I can learn anywhere, too." Jack gives the odd creature he's holding a look, the invisible man trying to figure out just what it is. He doesn't linger long on that question and turns his attention back to the talk of school. He frowns as he listens to B, still petting the tribble creature. "Yeah...sounds like school alright..." he trails off, filing the information away. He's still planning on asking more people about the place, wanting as much info as he can get. "Well, I feel like most schools in this country don't... really try. Like public schools? Lots of them are soulless and full of people who wanted to make a difference at some point and then had that driven out of them by the relentless procession of years and students that had to go to school and finish because it's expected." Rasa wets hir lips. "Most teachers are underpaid and definitely under appreciated. But. yeah. I should probably go - change my clothes. My knees are getting really cold." Ze lifts a hand and gives a little wave, only to find hirself still holding a tribble. "Oh. This is yours? I should probably give it back." Ze steps forward and offers it to B. "Sure, it sounds like school, but a school like ours is /supposed/ to be different. Like the whole /point/ is that I'm supposed to be able to go there and /not/ have people call me an animal. If all it's doing is teaching us math, whatever, the internet can do that. I didn't spend years living in cages to --" B shakes her head, tapping a foot lightly against the board beneath her feet. It rises up off the ground with a quiet humming sound, stopping when it's hovering about half a foot from the ground. Many of the tribbles roll off it, thumping down to the floor. "Oh, it's alright, leave it. Leave it -- wherever. Somewhere around the Common House. /Hide/ it, actually. But not somewhere with a lock, it can't -- like, open locks. I want to see if it can find its way back. And then teach one of the others to find its hiding place." Tucking her tablet beneath an arm, she starts veering off on the hoverboard (which she may or may not be /supposed/ to use indoors, who knows!) towards the door. The fluffball tribbles tumble into a pile together. Falling silent, Jack pulls his hood back on with one hand. He listens to the other mutants and lets out a little contemplative noise. This all has added to what he has to think about. "I should go too," he murmurs. The hoverboard gets some shocked staring and Jack's jaw drops. He watches the hovering exit and then looks down at the creature in hand. "Let's um...find a place to hide you then..." he trails off, not particularly focused on that task. | |
