(no subject)

[gone_byebye]

[OOM: Ray will fill everybody in on his current mortality situation later. Today, he's going to the museum for his daughter.]

... only, y'know, not.

The door opens and Ray walks in with a robot dog the size of a Rhodesian Ridgeback at his heels. "Whoops," says Ray, looking around. "I forgot that could happen by accident. Francis? Pause recording? This isn't the Museum."

"WHURF," the robot dog announces. Ray nods. "Thank you," he says, and heads for the Bar. He's hungry, and the AMNH cafeteria- while nice- is a little on the expensive side. Plus they always have a line.

Comments

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

Prime is playing his guitar when Ray comes in. He's also singing quietly, so as not to disturb too many people. (Other than those who would be disturbed about Optimus Prime expressing the desire to look for his lost shaker of salt, as he informs them that some people might state a female is responsible for his issues, but he is aware that the only source of his problems is himself.)

He sees Ray and Francis, and the faceplate shifts.

"Ray!" he says, giving a wave. "Good to see you."

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They don't make Hawaiian shirts big enough, otherwise it would really be kind of entertaining to see the big guy at a Jimmy Buffett concert. One gets the feeling the Parrotheads would be more accepting than most.

Ray looks up and waves back. "Hi, Optimus," he says. "Wow, it's been a long time- how've you been? Still working on the guitar, I see."

"WHURF," says Francis, takka-takka-takkaing forward to get a better sniff at the new entity on his sensors.

"Oh- this is Ecto's pet Francis. Francis, be nice."

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it, though? He's sort of pondering getting clearance to attend covertly. Park nearby... anyway.

"A long time... only a few weeks. I assumed you were busy with a project. And yes, still working on it. A little blue character called Stitch showed me some tricks, and that sent me to Hawaiian slack-key, which is really fascinating in how they use guitars. I seem to be more interested in music like this than, as humans put it, 'heavy metal'. Ironic, isn't it?"

He reaches down to gently pat Francis like he's seen humans pet dogs. "Hello, Francis."

Then he regards Ray. "What have you been up to?"

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"No, I mean a long time by human standards," says Ray. "I got expelled from the Bar by forces or entities unknown when I tripped during a lightsaber demonstration and hit my head. When I opened my eyes I was on my good friend Garion's world, only it was two hundred years before Garion was born. I sort of spent forty-seven years there before anyone managed to find me and bring me back."

Francis would wag his tail at the patting if he had a tail. An enthusiastic but polite "WHURF" and a blinking of the yellow light that takes up the space where a regular dog would have eyes and forehead will have to suffice instead.

"So, uh, that's more or less what I've been up to. I mean, I got switched back into my own body, obviously, that happened before I got sent to Garion's world- Ecto says 'thank you thank you thank you thank you' for the hands, too."

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

"Interesting," Prime says thoughtfully. "I had the same thing happen to me. I was out back, and suddenly I was somewhere else. It turned out to be Sergeant Wells' world, but about four hundred years before, well, now. I found a cave, went into stasis lock to wait for some kind of civilization to arise, and was woken up when he drove a plow into my foot. I wonder if these are connected."

He nods. "Ratchet remains pleased at his work - he said it was a pleasure to see human handiwork that showed such care. I think he found the core design very attractive, but he wouldn't say that out loud. I'm glad I was able to help, and equally glad to see that you are yourself again."

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"Really? Huh," says Ray. "I didn't have the stasis lock option myself, but I was lucky enough to arrive at a university, so I at least had a place to work and try to figure out what was going on. I suppose it's possible that they're connected- it really looks too similar a set of events to be much of a coincidence, especially given that I'm told one of the other patrons got disappeared from out back and found himself translocated to Earth during the Bronze Age."

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

Optimus frowns. "That is troubling. We should gather up the other person, then find if other people are missing. If we can find a common thread, a similiarty, we can determine what's going on, and then stop it." He sounds firm, determined. He sounds like Optimus Prime.

"Who was the person who was sent that far back in time?"

[gone_byebye]

"His name's Ronald Witherspoon," says Ray. "He's a werewolf from England in the early twenty-first century. Mostly he goes by 'Spoon', though." Then he frowns a little as the rest of the conversation with Donighal comes back to him. "Oh, man. Uh, you said Harry Wells found you? Because Michael Donighal said that he's disappeared too."

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I know Spoon. He was with Sergeant Wells when the Sergeant found me. He had some fascinating trophies - if I understood the biology properly, some of them would be a challenge for a Cybertronian to take down, and I complemented him on his skill."

Oh, that's more of a frown.

"I owe a favor to Sergeant Wells for helping me get back. I think it is time I took action, now that I know there's something going on." He lays down the guitar. "Perhaps it might be best to start with where we each disappeared; we can ask Spoon where he was when he disappeared later. That together may start to give us a clue as to what is going on."

[gone_byebye]

Ray nods. "I have my PKE meter with me, and a couple of other scanning devices that we use in detecting spirits and extradimensional entities," he says. "I'll show you the spot outside where it happened. I've been meaning to examine it more closely anyway."

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

Optimus stands up. "All right. Let's go." He turns to the door, then stops.

"You should go first - you know where you're going and I don't."

His right arm clicks, and then plates fold and unfold, parts shift, and the entire right hand is replaced by a fairly sizable gun. No point being unprepared, after all.

[gone_byebye]

"Right," Ray says.

He doesn't light up his 'saber until they're out the door. A, he remembers that there's a general agreement among the Jedi in the bar that they're not to ignite their sabers inside, and b, six and a half years in Salmissra's palace would be enough to make anybody of the squishy persuasion want their own protection available as swiftly as possible.

"Over here,' he says, heading in the general direction of where he'd shown his form off to Glorfindel. "I started by demonstrating what the saber could do against rocks, and then I started up the training drone. I fell when I put my foot wrong trying to back away from the drone. Wonder if Glorfindel picked it up..."

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

Optimus follows, sensors alert in the way that only someone who was a partisan for an amount of time measured in Earth by centuries could. Sometimes he swings around, to see if something is coming up behind.

It's a time like this that may show to Ray that the friendly, guitar-playing robot who resembles the robot of his childhood dreams may, in fact, actually BE that Optimus Prime.

"All right. Look around - see if you see anything that might be unusual." Because a lot of things in an Earth-like environment remain unusual to Prime, and they might ping as unusual to Ray.

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

Before too long, Ray has a seer sitting down next to him. "We could have a problem," he says without any preamble.

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"How bad?" Is Ray's immediate response. Only then does he go on to, "hi, Dominic."

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

"It's hard to say," Dominic replies. "I was trying to use my second sight to observe your disappearance, but it's not working."

[gone_byebye]

"And considering that you were able to scry me with it over a difference of several universes and a considerable temporal gradient, that's kind of scary," Ray says. "Yike. In what manner is it not working- total failure, false images, headache, nosebleed, what?"

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

"It's just sort of... skipped over. I can see you and the elf-lord, and you trip and fall, but before you hit the ground the vision jumps ahead a moment and you're not there anymore."

If he were living in modern-day Earth, Dominic might compare it to a skipping DVD, or a film that's had a couple of frames chopped out.

[gone_byebye]

"Okay, that's exceptionally weird," Ray says. "Has that ever happened before?"

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

"Not precisely, but I've seen something similar before," says Dominic. "Your abductor is either resistant to magic or has a very good anti-scrying ward in place."

(Or they could just be unable to move unless they're not being seen, and Dominic seeing them retroactively would cause a temporal paradox. But we'll get to that theory later.)

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"Or possibly both," Ray says. "Regardless, it's a disquieting prospect. Second sight is magical, though, right? As opposed to a pure psychic ability?"

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

"There's a difference?"

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"It has to do with the specific energies involved," Ray says. "I'd been studying that kind of thing from a purely scientific point of view for several years before I got yoinked into Garion's world."

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

"Ah. Well, second sight is accomplished through the deliberate use of spells, yes. I also get random visions sometimes, but it's the same basic magic at work."

[gone_byebye]

Ray nods. "One day I'd like a chance to study how that works, assuming that would be permissible."