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tony foster

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[The camera points at a man in his mid twenties who'd be utterly unremarkable if he weren't so thin and tired-looking. He's dressed like your average slacker from the early 'oughts on Earth in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt and seems mildly annoyed and a bit nervous.]

So. Uh. Hello, fellow strangers from elsewhere. I hope you're all settling in well to the dulcet tones of unidentifiable women declaring that they aren't going to be helpful. This strikes me as a great way to wind up with a bad situation turning much worse in easily avoidable ways, but we'll just assume certain people are playing dumb.

Anyway. I've explained this individually a few times, but I figured I'd put the record out there. I've run into gates that open into different realities before. I don't know much about them, I don't really know what defines a world, and I haven't totally ruled out some kind of time travel instead, because why would I? But this is a thing that happens. What I've never heard of it it happening on this scale or to no purpose. Even opening a gate the regular way, in a specific time and place, takes a lot of power. So that's weird.

And, uh, don't worry if this sounds nuts. It is. And I don't know about you guys, but where I come from I'm one of three practicing wizards in the world. There's a good chance it's not common knowledge that you missed out on.

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Ah, good morning, Mister Foster. Or perhaps good afternoon. It is a bit difficult to tell, here, just what time of day or night it is.

Regardless. This is Professor Lyall, we spoke upon our arrival. Have you found more evidence that there are demons and the like involved?

No. I really wouldn't expect demons, to tell you the truth. They live by pretty elaborate rules and when they get away from them they usually try to kill everything or rule stuff, depending on how smart they are. I'm not sure how this would help with either. I'm leaning more toward human magic, but on a crazy scale.

Oh. That's almost harder to imagine. I suppose because "demons" is so far outside my range of experience that it seems more likely to have caused such disruption. It is hard to believe mortals could be capable of such a great mess as this.

[He pauses, then adds, a bit apologetically,]

I don't suppose I could prevail upon you to explain some of this... rather confounding technology, could I? No one else has been remotely helpful.

[And Tony seems an upstanding sort, or at the very least, a helpful one. Even if he does have a shocking lack of cravat and proper trousers. Lyall is, slowly, getting used to such things here.]

People are a lot less predictable than demons is all.

[Kind of an odd request, but he can see where it comes from. Henry has had the luxury of learning new things as he goes along, but this guy's apparently been plucked right out of another century.]

Uh, sure? I'm not really a tech guy, and a lot of this is beyond what we have at home. I can tell you a lot about cameras, but everything else I just poke until it works.

You know more than I do, at the least, and no one else appears to be remotely helpful. Even if were merely poke at things together, we may learn something.

[Besides, having a talk with someone outside this infernal wrist-aethographer sounds much more pleasant than having another one within it.]

[He can't help hearing that as bad innuendo. He barely suppresses a snicker and resists a "that's what she said" quip by the barest shred of dignity.]

Sure, why not?

[And for once, Lyall isn't even trying, y'all. He merely smiles-- mostly to himself, since this is still audio on his end-- and says,]

Excellent. Thank you. Where shall I meet you? And when would be convenient?

[There werewolf is hungry, man, and food here he can eat is expensive. So getting some lay of the land for a means of actually working is rather necessary.]

Oh, I don't know where anything is in this dump. Where are you? My roommates are personified countries. Probably don't wanna bother them. And whenever, really.

[And back to crabby Tony after a brief interlude.]

[Lyall decides, after a pause, not to actually speak to any of that bit about roommates. Surely he heard wrong, or he is merely lacking in certain understanding....]

I could meet you at the north end of the market, in an hour or so?

[He doesn't know what to do about that, either.]

Cool. See you then.

[Lyall is there early, bartering what little he has for more of those terrible ration things. He has to eat, even if those awful bars of protein don't satisfy like good, red meat does. Even the people are starting to look tasty, around here, which is anathema to a werewolf like him.

He's easy enough to find. After all, he may have managed to barter a little more for a different set of clothes, but he tried to make it as close to what he's used to as possible. He still looks anachronistic, particularly with his spectacles balanced on his nose as he watches credits change hands impatiently.]

[Tony's not actually a particularly small man, but he has a way of seeming that way, and big crowds mean getting bumped a lot. He's feeling slightly claustrophobic by the time he arrives, and that takes some doing for someone who winds up crammed into corners in the studio all the time. He's entirely too tempted to throw up a mean little spell or two, but that would be attracting attention.

When he spots the polite British guy from a hundred years ago, he ducks under some big alien's arm and hurries over, glad to get out of this mess.]

Hey.

[After three centuries of living in and around London, Lyall is good at ignoring crowds. It's perhaps a little harder than usual when one is hungry, but he's doing fine so far. It does mean he doesn't notice Tony immediately, until he speaks, though.]

Good day.

[Apparently he's settled on that as the only possible greeting, since it's not terrible time-specific. He takes his purchases and snaps them into his dispatch case, then turns to Tony with a small smile.]

Thank you for meeting me. I have been feeling... decidedly unprepared for this place, these past days.

[Tony shrugs. He's a little uncomfortable at being seen as an expert here. While he probably knows more about sci-fi tropes than the other poor idiots around, he has no more sense of what to do than anybody.]

I don't know how much I can help.

You have made it this far without looking lost. I imagine we can at least puzzle a few things out together. Such as just what a Vee Aye would be, or what being terminal has to do with it.

[He sounds a bit frustrated with it all. Then again, that might be because he's feeling grimy and hungry, and no one has been remotely helpful here at all. It most certainly isn't because of Tony, so he sighs a bit.]

My apologies. I am usually much more amenable.

Oh, ah, I'm not.

[He's not nearly as surly most of the time, actually, but he likes to project an air of snarky aggressiveness anyway. It's easily mistaken for competence.]

VI? Virtual intelligence, would be my first guess. Just based on paging through futurism articles over lunch.

Virtual intelligence.

[Lyall mulls over that a moment, beckoning Tony to come along so they can leave the merchant in peace.]

Though I cannot imagine how intelligence can be virtual, I suppose it must merely be something I do not yet understand. What about terminal? Any guesses there?

Well, it means it's not a brain, it's a computer, if I'm guessing right. Which I can't emphasize enough I might not be. And terminals are for computers, too. They're, uh, adding machines? Do you have those yet? Babbage engines? Only moreso.

[He's not a tech. Unfortunately.]

[None of that is familiar-- though he can infer "computer" as something that computes, and "adding machine" as something that adds-- until he comes up with "Babbage engine", at which point Lyall brightens.]

Oh, yes, I have read the papers no those! The design is genius, and I believe the local vampire hive actually has one on display. It really was a shame he never took to the bite. Keeping a mind like that around would have been fascinating. You mean those become a more functional device?

[He pauses and looks around, realizing suddenly that all of this might have come from Babbage engines. He's a quick study.]

Oh my.

Edited 2013-02-19 05:34 (UTC)

Really? Wow, uh, that was a shot in the dark.

[Tony only knows what they are because they turn up in alternate history a lot. He's not awesome at the real stuff.]

In my universe he never got the thing working. I don't think we really had computers until the second world war...

World war?

[Lyall looks back at Tony with some surprise and some dismay.]

This must be after my time, as well. We have had various wars, but they were all smaller, regional things. The concept of a whole world at war is a bit daunting, I must admit.

Mostly Europe, the Middle East and parts of North America the first time. Asia got in on it second go-round.

[Being glib about it is one way to cope with incredibly strange pieces of history concluded long before he was born.]

That still seems like quite a bit of the world... how horrible.

[Lyall shakes his head a bit, then pulls his attention back to the subject at hand.]

Well, I have located a... terminal. Commander Shepard finally responded to my query and pointed them out to me. I still do not feel remotely comfortable operating it, or operating the equipment necessary for doing repairs to the walls in here.

Well, I can't make my phone work half the time, but I'll give it a look. I'm not excited about repairs either, but at least I've backed up set crews often enough that I kind of know what tools are.

[There are advantages to being a PA on a cheap show.]

Perhaps I had best have you show me how to handle those, as well, then... that is probably most important, finding some means of procuring funds. There is not much to hunt here, and meat is regrettably dear. I have to subsist on these things.

[He pulls one of the protein ration bars from his pocket with an expression disgust.]

It cannot be healthy for me.

Werewolf thing?

[It makes sense to him. He just wasn't aware of the restriction before.]

That must be a pain. Honestly, the food's not much worse here than what I ate at school... Or, well, a few days before payday if Lee's not around to pay attention to the groceries.

[He never did quite civilize entirely.]

Indeed. A werewolf thing. We are not cursed like vampires to drink blood from the living, but living things are still our prey. Up to and including humans, though we do not indulge in that particular hunger.

[He's still a bit concerned about the potential for a full moon rampage here, but he hasn't felt any kind of pull, and his shapeshifting, when he's tried it, has been... strange. So he's not sure what to make of it all.]

So I do need to have some form of income, if just to afford to feed myself and stay healthy.

Yeah, if you were a vampire you'd probably be easier to feed... Well, yeah, better fix that, then.

[He can't help it. Supporting the weirdness of a trouble-prone, powerful supernatural being has been a knack of his since he was a teenager.]

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