milliways_bar | (no subject)

Sky wanders over to the bar and orders his extra large coffee.
He looks over to Hank and smiles a bit,
"It's been a while."
The ranger is in his everyday SPD uniform.

Hank smiles.

"Indeed it has been. Greetings, Sky. How oes life for you?"

"Busy as ever, but I guess it's more satisfying than not."
Sky shrugs and takes a sip of his coffee.
"Thank you, Bar. Wonderful as always."
He laughs a bit.

He grins.

"Coffee here is never bad. Which is a grand thing."

he nods.

"I hope your job stays satisfying. Things have a tendency to get strange when you are least expecting them."

"And law enforcement with aliens is always interesting."
Sky shakes his head. He leans over bar and thinks for a moment.
"I'm thinking of just enjoying the summer here for a little bit. I've found that time has indeed stopped back home. I just need a vacation."

"I think it is a good idea. I have taken a day or so off ehre and there. We all need a break some time and this place does seem to be willing to accomodate for such things."

"A break without really taking the time from yo ur real world. It's still a little confusing. I wish I could bring them here and show them this place."

"I know how you mean. A number of my teammates have made their way here, but even so, it would be nice to show all of them."

Coming in from the lake door, Paul goes up to the Bar beside the Beast and sits. He orders a glass of warm, fruity Caladan wine and inwardly takes note of the creature's thought-Path. This one resembles something very close to human, perhaps a genetic experiment like those from the laboratories of the Bene Tleilax? Although he cannot see far along it either forward or back, Paul senses in him a seeker of truth and justice. Another possible ally, should one be needed.

"Pardon me, is that a communication device?" He asks nonchalantly, curious of the keypad as well as its user.

Hank blinks.

X-Men's timelines tend to be twisted far more than most.

He raises and eyebrow then shakes his head.

"Not exactly. It is a data storage and calculation device capable of processing information."

"I see." A whole keypad for what a data-ring or earwig could do? Some cultures have an odd love for manual data entry. At least this probably isn't an AI. That might be discomforting, to say the least.

"I have smaller devices in my quarters that do not require digital use; you are welcome to one of them. I would understand if you have an aversion to a direct mental inferface, however."

He raises an eyebrow.

"While I might enjoy investigating such a device, I porefer my own tech... even though I have a tendency of incorporating tech from all times and places into my own."

"Of course. If you don't mind my asking, what world from which do you come? I have seen... chimeras that somewhat resembled you, but you seem as if this is your natural state. I mean no offense, none of us are responsible for our natures." Except for those who alter them, of course.

"I am a mutant. A subspecies of human from the particular Earth I inhabit. Mutants are born from the rection of an X-factor in human genetics causing an altered human baseline. It manifests as anything from green hair to my own feline form."

He smiles.

"No offense is taken."

This is new. It was genetic mutations and the careful manipulation of breeding them that gave Paul his Inner Sight. Might this be a thousand-times great grandfather or uncle?

"I too carry mutated genes, although many generations removed from the original 'mutants'. Long since, the fact of continued human evolution was hidden in my world, but with my appearance it was hidden no longer. We may share a history." Considering the sheer number of Earths represented here, that's unlikely, but the probability is higher than for some he's heard of.

He shakes his head.

"I dont know, unless the more obvious mutants died off before your time, there would be more mutants than normal humans, by the dint of the fact that the x-factor is a dominant gene..."

"By my time, such genes were held only to a few bloodlines that were strictly controlled," by the Bene Gesserit, curse them forever.

"But I see your reasoning. If this x-factor has many different manifestations, I doubt it is what I carry. My people bred for very specific traits carried by many different genes. Simply speaking, I am the first male to carry them all."

"If the future of your Earth held more evolved humans as differentiated as you, I cannot see it returning to a former state unless the mutation was culled from the population by force." And that would have shown up in the minds of the memory-lives inside him.