Logs:Of Cubes and Commerce (Or, Sidestepping the Rules)

Of Cubes and Commerce (Or, Sidestepping the Rules)
Dramatis Personae Kavalam, Rocket
In Absentia	2024-07-13 "Geez. How common is it for people to be able to teleport?!"
Location <NYC> The Bazaar - Flushing
This was once a Flushing office building that rented to startups, rapid growth industries, and fly-by-night operations who don't want any questions asked. After a change of ownership and abandoned plans to convert it into luxury condos, it has lain largely empty, and as of late the local community has reclaimed the space to convert it into an immense indoor marketplace. The lobbies are packed with food vendors and the hallways lined with kiosks selling a dizzying variety of goods, flea-market fashion. Various offices are given over to groups of merchants selling similar wares: one dedicated to books, another to computer components, and a rather popular one selling (perfectly legal) weapons...at least during the day. Rumor has it that the Bazaar's night market is becoming the go-to place for trade in illicit goods. But night or day, the place is bustling with activity, noisy and raucous commerce in many languages (though predominantly Mandarin and Spanish). Chances are, you can find anything your heart desires here...if you're willing to pay the price. Rocket's arrival in front of the abandoned office building was not particularly subtle, as he zoomed down the street on a little vehicle that is kind of reminiscent of a beetle if squinted at, with the handlebars as the antennae. And perfectly sized for a raccoon. With not much in the way of sound or emissions, one might forgive the design having gone through many iterations of tinkering. After having parked it at the bike rack, he's now exploring the bazaar, not paying much mind to the attention that he seems to be drawing. He moves his mouth a bit to some of the words that he is hearing in other languages once he has stopped in front of a kiosk with various toys and gadgets on it. "Little boy, do not be afraid, you can take a closer look! I will sell even to little mutants!" says a smiling man with an indistinct eastern European accent, an unkempt salt and pepper moustache, laugh lines etched permanently into his face. "I'm not--" Rocket starts and then he pinches the bridge of his nose, then concedes, "Maybe later." Has there always been a wiry bespectacled brown-skinned young human standing beside Rocket? It didn't seem like it a minute ago but now that he's here it is hard to say how he could have been ignored, in his vivid orange and purple knee-length kurta (over much plainer jeans and brown leather sandals). He's got some kind of weighty metal puzzle cube in his hands -- probably from the stall, did he pay for that? Who knows, the owner isn't paying him any mind -- and is fidgeting with its intricately interlocking pieces. "You should have this one," he says seriously to Rocket, "it feels good in the hands." Rocket looks around at Kavalam's sudden appearance, and then he tilts his head back and forth, as if trying to detect any more secret young humans nearby. "What is that for?" he asks once his scan of the environment has completed, though already he is reaching out his hands for it. "It's a nice looking thingamajig though, you've got a good eye for whatever it is." "I think it is for nothing." Kavalam is lifting the metal cube higher to squint at it intently, but lowers it readily enough to turn it over when Rocket reaches for it. "Smooth. Good weight. Some people just like that kind of thing. I think," he sounds less sure on this front than on Some People's potential appreciation of comfortably solid matte fidget cubes, "that you can take the pieces apart and puzzle them kind of back together. If you like puzzlings." "I do like puzzlings," admits Rocket, as he starts fiddling with the metal cube, leaning an ear towards it as he shakes it. "You hang out in the market giving out cubes to anyone you see, or is this a special occasion? Not to say I'm against it, being the mystery cube giving guy is a great sort of guy to be, but my experience is that most things here tend to be pretty..." He starts to just turn it over in his hands, eyes moving up and away from it. "Transactional." "Not always cubes. Cubes for people who look like they would appreciate the cubes, no? You seem like a cubes-appreciater." Kavalam is freely plucking another toy from the stand, a squiggly interlocking hanayama puzzle that he's jiggling in his hands. The actual proprietor is giving neither him nor Rocket any continued attention. "This is a market, I think most people are here to do transactions. I just think it has many interesting people coming by. What are you shopping for?" "Oh yeah, you read me right, I really appreciate cubes. You wouldn't even believe some of the cubes I've enjoyed," says Rocket, his hands having figured out the interlocking parts faster than listening to it. "I meant here in the general sense and not in the market sense. As in--" He waves his hands around in large circles. "The planet Dirt. I'm mostly looking for anything that has vacuum tubes in 'em, today. Or music players." "I am an excellent judger of character." Kavalam has just slightly puffed up his skinny chest on this, unimpressive though this is. He's pinching his brows in a tiny frown and amending his boast slightly: "About the important things, at least. -- what is the most unbelievable cube. From your history." He returns his latest puzzle-tangle where he got it from, and gestures down the hall. "Vacuum tubes I'm not knowing about but down this way there are several people selling electronics, I'm sure a number of music players down there. One person he even has such very old ones, small discs and such you put in them." "Hee hee!" Rocket is clearly amused by the cube slotting apart so smoothly in his hands, and he continues to fiddle with it. "I've come across a cube that can punch holes in reality, if you can believe it. Plus it glows. Though my favourite cube was just a huge crystalline cube! It didn't do anything but exist in space, some kind of art piece? Too big to take with me..." The regret in his voice at this last part is palpable. "Have you seen any with the magnetic tape?" he says as he follows Kavalam's gesture. "Can what." Kavalam was starting to walk down the hallway but he stops short here, loo kind down at Rocket wide-eyed. "What is hole in reality even mean. What is on the other side. Unreality. A different real..." His mouth thins. "Maybe I can believe in that." He lifts his hand and unnecessarily pushes at the bridge of his glasses, though they're already squarely in place. "Magnetic... I have not looked." He's pulling out of his curious surprise enough to remember to walk again. "We could look." "Oh yeah, a different reality. Probably you could end up in the void? I've heard of people using that sorta thing to teleport, break the light barrier, you know. Sidestep the rules," says Rocket, the disassembled puzzle cupped in his hands as he follows in Kavalam's footsteps. "I've seen some mutants doing the same kind of thing... kinda strange to just have that built in." He shrugs helplessly on this concept of mutants. Kavalam looks down at Rocket with a perplexed pinch of brows. Then removes his glasses, wiping them absently with the edge of his kurta, and puts them back on his face. "Y...yes," he allows, slowly, "some mutants can be very-very odd. A couple teleporters I have known. How do you make one cube do that only? I think my friends they had to have a lot of practice, and still teleporting it can be riskier. Is it more or less safe teleporting from a cube, I don't know." He's side-eying Rocket just a little more as he weaves them through the Bazaar crowd. "You are not from one other reality, are you?" Rocket shakes his head, "Nope, this is my reality, at least as far as I know. Maybe I got slurped through at some point and didn't even realize it? It'd be pretty hard to figure it out." He opens one of the pouches in his flight suit and stuffs the pieces of cube into it. "As for the cube, I think that anyone who operates it would also have had to had some kind of practice or preparation for the main event-- You've known a couple of teleporters? Geez. How common is it for people to be able to teleport?!" "Last time I was slurped through into another reality it was not immediately obvious," Kavalam agrees ruefully. "But my friends they visited one that had helpful signposts. So maybe these things have a lot of variation." His eyes are following the cube as it vanishes, and he looks a bit pleased, though at what he doesn't mention. "I don't think it is very common, I just like to be friends with all the best people only. It's too much work to waste on boring people, you know?" He's stopping outside the first of a cluster of electronics vendors -- one specializing in vintage products has set up directly across from one whose items look (by earth standards, anyway) pretty futuristic. "Okay. I think surely there will be some kind of music players in here. Good luck, yah? And enjoy your cube." And then Rocket is -- well. Not quite alone, the bustle of the Bazaar is still hectic around him, but if he had company, even the memory of it is vanishing. After a moment, Rocket looks around himself with a confused expression. "That's what I get for getting distracted by cubes again..." he grumbles to himself. As he looks between the two opposing electronics vendors. "Like different realities," he says, though without seeming to understand why the words came so readily to his mouth, before he veers towards the vintage items for initial perusal.