milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The door opens, and a buzzing of electricity can be heard before Helena falls through, surrounded for a bare moment by dissipating blue lightning.

A couple seconds later, Joshua runs in, shutting the door behind him, before kneeling down next to her. "Shit. Helena... I'm so sorry...."

A couple minutes pass before Helena sits up. "Would you stop worrying, Joshua? I've had worse. You're as bad as Wooley was. Gave him the thing to test, and he was all 'well, I can't shoot you! You're a woman!'"

Joshua laughs, and sighs. "I really need some lessons on that thing."

"Yes, darling, you sincerely do."

He helps Helena up. "I think it's time for a drink."

[ooc: Two characters! Tag either Helena or Joshua or both! Also, feel free to just react, if you want. Teslas are weiiird.]

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Autor blinks at the fallen Helena from his spot at the bar, and waits to see if someone follows to consume or capture or--apologize? Huh.

"Not intentional, then?" he asks Joshua, who is not exactly who he expected to see.

"Definitely not." Joshua makes a face. "I'm learning to work a weapon, and I guess I'm a terrible shot."

Autor checks his hands or his hips for a holster, looking for the weapon in question. His lips quirk. "Apparently," he says. "What manner of gun is it?"

He turns to Helena, and inclines his head. "You really are all right, then?" he says. "It was just a temporary effect?"

Joshua pulls it from the back of his pants. "It's called a Tesla. It's, well, I guess it's a combination of a ray gun and a stun gun. Completely harmless." Or so he's been told.

"Oh, I'm fine, darling." Helena smiles, waving a hand idly. "It just stuns someone for a few moments. No lasting effects. It's happened to me before, and I'm certain it will happen again."

"Completely harmless?" Autor says, glancing from the gun to Helena. Right. "A weapon that can easily incapacitate someone, even without residual effects, seems like it has the capacity for great harm--depending on the intent of the wielder."

Then he blinks. "A Tesla?" he asks, hopping off his seat to get a better look at the gun. "As in Nikola Tesla?"

"As in. He invented the thing, actually." Joshua shrugs. "She'd know more about it than I would, she met the guy."

"He was a rather fascinating man, actually. And it was mostly invented by Mr. Tesla. I have made some improvements, as has Claudia, but it is mostly his design."

She pauses. "Harm could come from it, one might say, however, it is only a device to incapacitate. It does not, nor does it intend harm." There is a bit of a harsh tone to her voice. "If we intended harm to others, we would use a different device."

"Fascinating," the boy says to Helena, adjusting his glasses. "Did you meet him in the bar?"

He nods at the explanation of the improvements--of course Claudia would have a hand in these--and then raises a brow at her statement of the other devices. "May they stay in your hands, then."

Helena laughs. "Oh, darling, I didn't meet him here, I met him back home. It was at the World's Fair in 1893." She smirks a little. "It was a fascinating day, both Mr. Tesla and Mr. Twain were quite charming." A pause. "Or at least as charming as they can be."

"We don't have any of the devices. She was just saying that we'd find other ones if we wanted to harm people." Joshua puts the Tesla back in his belt.

"Ooh!" Autor says, grinning at Helena. "That must have been quite the experience. I must say, I do envy you."

He blinks at Joshua. "Wait, really?" he says. "The baton was fairly harmful for some people. I bet there are plenty others back where you're keeping them contained--but I figured that was the point."

"There's a difference between the things we use and the things we don't." Joshua leans against the bar. "Yes, we have things that make even the baton look harmless, but they are never used. They're just contained." He pauses for a moment. "Also, we do not use weapons. The weapons are even more locked up than the rest of the Artifacts."

"He was a fascinating man." Helena smiles, trying to pull the conversation back from being too serious. "The gentleman who was my partner at the time was tasked with shooting me to test the device, and he was much worse at it than Joshua. He tried to say that he couldn't shoot a woman." Eyeroll.

"Wooley, right?" Autor says, recognizing Helena's attempt to steer the conversation. If he wants to grill Joshua about Artifacts later, he can; the man seems less likely to be tight-lipped than she does. "That's a serious handicap."

Following Joshua's actions, he lays a hand on the bar. "Why are you learning to use them? I thought you were working on anti-matter."

"Yes. He was a dear, dear man." And then accidents happened. "He tried to be ever-so-proper in a part of the world that was anything but."

"I was. I had a bit of a job change about a month ago." Joshua shrugs. "I'm working with Artifacts now. Studying them instead of the antimatter."

"My condolences," Autor says, because that's what people say. He turns to Joshua again. "I assume Claudia asked for your help with the Artifacts, then? It's a bit of a switch from anti-matter to those."

"Actually, not at all." Joshua shrugs. "The people who run the organization asked me to help. Claudia had no hand in it."

"I thank you, darling. He is missed." Helena just shrugs.

Autor nods at their shrugs--first Helena's and then Joshua's. "The 'organization' sounds huge," he says. "The Artifacts sound incredibly dangerous, so I doubt it's public?"

"It's actually not that large of an organization. We have less than a score of people who work with us, both in a supervisory and more... active capacity." Joshua sounds a bit more official as he describes it. "No one knows about us, or about Artifacts, frankly, unless they're a part of our Organization. Sure our Warehouse is huge, but not the organization."

Helena just takes a sip of the drink she ordered and nods.

"'Active' being going to get the things?" Autor guesses, not even remotely official. "I assume your security is watertight. It's good that the organization is small, but still."

"Water-tight, air-tight, and electronic-tight." Claudia is good. "We have firewalls on our firewalls. Basically, it's almost impossible to get in unless she wants you in."

Helena raises an eyebrow at Joshua, but remains silent.

"And yes. We have, at the moment, four agents who find and return Artifacts that are causing trouble in the world."

Autor glances at Helena and takes a sip of his tea. "Almost impossible still means possible," he says. "I assume you're a member of the supervisory squad, Joshua, given that you're to study the Artifacts?"

And because you can't shoot with a damn yet.