milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Today was one long string of busts from a little before sunrise to just before the close of the financial markets, then a breather, then two more busts. Ray would say October is starting early except that October already started early, given some of the seismic readings coming out of the Pacific and the number of tourists in Caribbean hotels reporting nightmares and worse. It's really not Ray's day and won't be for some time.

Especially since the last bust was in Chinatown and left a more lingering residue than he would have liked.

"[[Bar, if you would please be so kind, give me anything you can think of that'll distract me from the fact I currently appear to be unable to speak anything but Cantonese,]]" he says. "[[Thank you.]]"

[tinytag: Alyx Vance]

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"Dr. Stantz! Hey!"

Alyx Vance, who has somehow managed to avoid being piratized, waves cheerfully at Ray and approaches his seat.

"I have a couple of questions for you, if you've got a minute..."

"[[Sure thing,]]" says Ray, and blinks. "[[I don't even want to know how the Bar's translation field is handling this. I can hear myself speaking the Cantonese, but I'm understanding it in English... anyway. You were saying?]]"

...Alyx has seen and heard some pretty weird things since she got to Milliways, but this'll definitely make her Top 5.

"Um. Maybe I should come back later?"

"[[No, go ahead,]]" Ray says with a sigh. "[[I've had stranger things happen before. It'll pass in a day or so if Egon's brain activity readings are correct. I can answer the questions in writing if you'd rather.]]"

"I'll manage," says Alyx. "Um..."

Ray just tilts his head, eyebrows up in what's meant to be an 'I'm listening- go on' expression. This is, however, Ray. There's more than a little Labrador retriever to the look instead.

What was she going to ask him again? Oh, right.

"Remember those photos you took while we were up on the Observation Deck? When I showed them to Gordon, he said there was a set of buildings missing, and we were wondering if they just never got built in your world or what."

Ray scratches his head a moment, then says, "[[What year is he from? We lost a couple of major buildings in 2001.]]"

Good Lord that's weird to listen to.

"Huh. Well, he came to my time from 2001, so maybe... what time of year did it happen?"

"[[September,]]" Ray says. "[[Dimensional incident. An airplane that had taken off in 1963 and disappeared flew back into normal space on September the eleventh, 2001. Trans-Ocean Flight 66's flight path took it over the southern end of Manhattan, but there were buildings there that hadn't even existed in 1963, and it hit one of them. The instrument disruption it caused knocked air traffic off course for a twenty-five mile radius, and an Eastern Airlines jet on autopilot spun out of control and crashed shortly thereafter, taking out the first building's twin.]]"

"How big of a plane are we talking about?"

Alyx doesn't have a lot of experience with aircraft that isn't alive, trying to kill her, or both.

"[[Trans-Ocean 66 had seating for a hundred and sixty people, but to my knowledge there were only about eighty on board at the time. The Eastern flight was carrying sixty people, but had capacity for close to two hundred.]]"

Alyx lets out a low whistle. "Yeah, that'd do a lot of damage if it hit something."

"[[Hasn't happened since, fortunately,]]" Ray says. "[[Although it sort of reminds me. I picked up a collection of pictures of the city for you, if you're interested.]]"

Edited 2008-09-20 00:06 (UTC)

Her eyes light up. "I'm very interested, thank you."

"[[Here you go.]]" He digs out the data solid from one of his pockets; the advantage to having those plans in the holocomputer is that he can produce similar designs on a recurring basis if need be. "[[There should be explanatory notes with each.]]"

Alyx beams. "Sweet." A beat. "Um, the notes are in English, right?"

"[[Yes, with options for four other languages. New York makes a lot of money selling pictures of itself to people from all over the world.]]"

"Huh. And there's really money in that?"

"[[Quite a bit, if you're a city that's known the world over as a place people want to visit. If they can't get there themselves, pictures and books and postcards are the next best thing. Or if they've visited and want better pictures to remember the place by, they buy these and take 'em home.]]"

Alyx nods. This makes sense; it's what she's doing right now, after all.

"So what do I owe you?"

"[[Nothing. It's a gift,]]" Ray says. "[[I do this kind of thing all the time for people, although usually it's books rather than just pictures.]]"

"Really?" She looks pleasantly surprised. "Well, thank you!"

"[[You're welcome,]]" Ray says with a smile. "[[Any time.]]"

"Ray!" Suzi beams at him and launches into her current usual spiel. Which, at this point, boils down to, "It wasn't nearly as long for us as it was for everyone here so you'll have to tell me what happened we got the job done and it was very interesting except the part where the government held guns on me but the guys got back with Liz then so I was alright and Whistler got them to say I could take the Citizenship test so I'm studying up on that and Zed said I can flashy thing the proctor if I need to except pretend I didn't say that because I'm not supposed to talk about the flashy thing."

"[[Believe me, I know better than to talk about any of the technology of the Men in Black,]]" Ray says wryly- in Cantonese, which is being heard despite being translated. "[[Congratulations, though. I'm glad to hear it, and to welcome you back.]]"

"Wow." Suzi says, resisting the urge to poke at his mouth. It wouldn't help anything, "Double-sounds, weird. How've you been, Ray?"

"[[Other than that pretty good,]]" Ray says. "[[My world just found out we've got another sentient race in the Pacific ocean. Octopi, as it happens. The little deep-sea kind.]]"

"I am not an octopus." Suzi says automatically, "I, um. Think they're kind of creepy, actually? Because of the suckers."

"[[These species are a little different from anything you've probably seen,]]" Ray says. "[[They're also reasonably pleasant once you manage to get a conversation going.]]"

"Probably." Suzi agrees, "I mean, I get along with most people? And they'd probably find my arms creepy."

"[[Possibly, yes,]]" Ray says. "[[The fact that you don't have webbing between the tentacles would be something of an issue for them first. Suckers come much much later, with this species.]]"

"That might be useful for swimmers." Suzi allows, "But I'm not a swimmer. It'd be weird. For everyone. Why are you speaking some other language?"

"[[We had a Class Seven phantasm cutting loose outside the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory store today,]]" Ray says ruefully. "[[The ghost managed to get off an effect of some kind that briefly scrambled my linguistic cortex. Egon says the lingering energies should disperse in a day or so and I'll be back to normal once that happens.]]"

"Ick." Suzi says, "Can you get a translaty-thingy from the Bar to take home?"

"[[Possibly, but Egon's going to want to study this one until it passes,]]" Ray says. "[[I'm going to let this peter out. And maybe spend some time freaking out my sword instructor, since he knows I normally only have enough Chinese to verify whether or not people are certain they want their uncle's ghost removed from the bathroom.]]"

"Your life is so weird." Suzi says fondly, "Has anything happened in the last couple of months that I should know about?"

"[[The Great Lemurian Empire made contact- that's the octopus people- and I adopted another daughter. This one's an alien named Jhalak, from a species where five separate organisms grow into one and operate as a single entity with five brains,]]" Ray says after some thought. "[[Looks a little like a very complicated starfish.]]"

"Wow." Suzi says, considering this for a while, "Congratulations on the new daughter, though. I wonder how she'd zlin."

"[[She's at home at the moment, very briefly,]]" Ray says. "[[The next time I bring her into Bar I'll introduce the two of you.]]"

"I'd like that!" Suzi beams at him, "Anything I should know about her?"

"[[She likes fruit,]]" Ray says instantly. "[[Especially kiwifruit. She'll play with hair, but she won't bite you, and she knows what 'please stop that' means. And she loves to learn new things.]]"

"Okay!" Suzi says, "Is there any fruit she can't have? Strawberries are poison to Sime, it's why I ask."

"[[So far every Earth fruit I've given her's been all right,]]" Ray says. "[[And some of the leafy vegetables, too.]]"

"I'll see how she feels about some of the ones from my time." Suzi says, "Baselines can eat them just fine."

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