milliways_bar | (no subject)

Sarah eyes her. It's a bit of rather doubtful eying. "I don't believe thinking can be anything but healthy for you. It at least prevents you from jumping in to things too rashly."

Sarah Jane and James can use more thinking in their lives. Much more thinking.

"It's not always, 'cause there's different kinds," YT says. "there's the straight-on, smart kind, which most people don't do nearly enough of. And then there's the runaround thinking people do to avoid the straight-on kind, which everyone does way, way too much of." YT's had a lot of experience getting her friend Hiro out of the going-nowhere second kind.

"Oh, most peope certainly don't do enough of that first kind," Sarah murmurs dryly. "Far from it, in fact."

It's what gets her into situations like this, isn't it?

She shrugs, offering a hand. "Sarah Jane Smith."

Sarah Jane Smith? That name sounds so bland and normal that it loops around into weird from the opposite side.

"YT," she says, accepting the offered handshake. Since the kneeling position is getting uncomfortable, she scoots around so she's sitting next to (but not uncomfortably close to) Sarah Jane, with her back against the couch. But she's more relaxed about it, with only one leg drawn up and the other sticking out.

"How much of your name do I actually say? Like, is it just Sarah, or Sarah Jane?" She honestly doesn't think that the correct answer might be 'Miss Smith.'

"Sarah or Sarah Jane is fine," she answers. "I'll answer to either."

Just as long as it isn't SJ. She detests that name.

"What does YT stand for?"

Most people around here don't ask that. "It means Yours Truly," she says. "Like the way some people sign letters. But mostly it just stands for me." And she goes by it pretty much exclusively. Only two people in the bar know the name on her birth certificate and neither of them are allowed to use it.

"Yours Truly?" Sarah looks intrigued. "Well, that's certainly an interesting name."

Usually when YT hears that phrase, it's got a snide tone attached. But Sarah seems to be on the level, not trying to make fun of her. "It's a thrasher nickname," YT explains. Then, because she's not certain that British has the term 'thrasher' (and the bar doesn't seem to translate slang), she adds, "Thrasher. Skateboarder."

"Oh, all right," she says when she hears the word skateboarder. That one she understands. Sarah Jane chuckles, smiling a little more. "That makes a little more sense now. How'd you get the name?"

Almost nobody's ever asked YT that. "Kind of a long story. See, I don't just skateboard for fun. I'm a Kourier. It's like being a bicycle messenger except on a skateboard, and we use magnetic harpoons to surf the traffic. It's kind of like waterskiing.

"Anyhow, to be a Kourier, you have to go in knowing how to surf on a plank, of course. But they teach you other stuff, too, like what you do if the delivery address is wrong or how to get out of cuffs if you get popped by the cops." Skateboarders, as an oppressed ethnic group, are all escape artists to some degree. "When you finish your training, the teachers and the other students give you a nickname. I was always calling myself 'yours truly' instead of 'I,' so that's what I got."

This is one of the nice things about questions. You often get interesting stories in return.

"Is this an American thing?"

YT shrugs. "Only in mine, I think. If we still had real traffic laws - or laws saying you could only start working at, like, sixteen or something - being a Kourier wouldn't be legal and they'd shut the company down." She doesn't realize that, to someone who isn't from her world, the existence of cops does not seem to jive with the non-existence of laws.

"Ah, um. So what you're saying is that there aren't any more traffic laws in your world?" That seems rather dangerous. "Why not?"

"Not the whole world, just America," YT clarifies. "The government collapsed in the early 90's and everything the state used to do got privatized. Hell, there are privatized states. Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities. Cops and the military work on contract now, and even some religions are franchised, like Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates." YT frowns thoughtfully for a second. "Wait, that's not around anymore. People got kind of pissed when they found out Reverend Wayne's was brainwashing their customers, and not the way religions usually do either."

~~YT's canon is a cyberpunk novel, so of course her world is bizarre.~~

Sarah nods slowly, trying to take it all in. Definitely not like her world, or James' for that matter. Or any of the worlds she's ever visited.

Finally, she decides on: "It sounds like a unique place to grow up."

"I wouldn't know. Got no basis for comparison." YT says this rather sourly, because she's tired of people in Milliways thinking that there's something deeply, fundamentally wrong with her America just because it's got no government anymore. And anything that sounds like such an implication now gets her all defensive, even if such a reaction really isn't justified.

But, well, she has to give Sarah Jane credit for not totally wigging out over it, even if that's just because of some English stiff-upper-lip thing (YT only knows one Brit back home, a hacker, and hackers can't be taken as typical examples of anything except themselves). And the gal's obviously got her own problems, judging from the state in which YT found her. Bitching at her wasn't very nice, all things considered. "Sorry," YT mumbles. "It's just that a lot of people here seem to think that I come from the worst place ever, y'know? That kind of gets a person down."

"I'd imagine. But given some of the place I've been too, I certainly wouldn't call yours the worst place ever. Perhaps a little revolutionary, but then, that's Americans for you."

If Sarah Jane had to pick the worst place ever, it would be without a doubt Skaro. It's the planet that wiped itself out in never-ending war. It's also the planet that invented the Daleks.

She smiles slightly, hoping that YT realises she's being sincere.

YT makes a sort of half smile - sincere, but a little bashful. "Okay," she says. "But that's enough about me, I guess. It's your turn for story time." Sarah Jane can interpret this however she chooses to.

"Well, all my questions stem from being a journalist," she starts, grinning back a little more confidently. "Or maybe from having a rather inquisitive nature in general, but I'd prefer to think of it as keeping my skills in tact. Last time I was in my London, I was working with a paper by the name of Metropolitan. Lately, though, I've been travelling with my best friend, or starting a freelance career in James' world."

There. That's a good start, and completely ignorant from the problems at hand.

"Travelling where?" YT can be pretty good with the questions too. And besides, this is Milliways: travelling could very well mean visiting all kinds of worlds, or different versions of the same one.

"All over time and space," Sarah says, grinning.

This is a good thing to think about. The Doctor and the TARDIS and how amazing that part of her life is.

"The Doctor has a time-space machine called the TARDIS that looks very much like an old police box but really isn't. It's much better than that."

YT's only ever seen maybe two or three episodes of Doctor Who - and that was a long time ago - but on her world even people who've never seen the show at all know about the Doctor and his time-travelling phone box. Unless they live under a rock or something.

She can't say that, of course, because it's not nice to tell people that in your world, they're fictional.

"That's awesome." YT grins. "Dude, if I weren't Bound and only able to get to a digital world, I'd ask if I could take a spin in that thing. Maybe when I come back." Of course, that would be up to the Doctor himself.

And this is when Sarah's slightly possessive streak comes in to play. "He can be rather picky about who he chooses to take on a trip."

"I can imagine," YT says. Yes, she picked up on the posessive vibe, but for the sake of peace and harmony she's going to ignore it. "For that kind of thing, you'd want people who're real travelers, not just tourists." Big difference, there.

"I think he more so looks for people who share his sense of adventure. We don't exactly do trips by the book, you see."

Most of the time there's running and nearly dying involved.