milliways_bar | (no subject)

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There are ups and downs to having a new project to work on.
The up side at the moment: If this pans out - and with Sameth's help, there's a very good chance it will - Claudia will have herself a car. Assuming she can get it home, but she's planning to worry about that part later.
The downside: It needs cleaning, and along with the car, she's inherited a tie-dye graveyard.
She's brought the graveyard in question up from the garage, in a big box; she's currently taken over one of the couches by the fire in an effort to determine what's good enough to stick in the Lost and Found and what's... just gross. (At least from what she could determine in the garage, none of it's Artifact-y, but... there are still 40-year-old undergarments in this morass. So she'll stick with the gloves anyway.)
Anyone want some probably-vintage hippie gear?

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Studying Claudia's stuff from the end of the coffee table is a Kida; studying Kida from about a foot behind her is what amounts to her housecat (http://i644.photobucket.com/albums/uu170/wingyding_88/atlanteanpet.jpg?t=1298868846) that came in with her last time. (It might be a bit of a shock to realize that the thing with claws and pincers--or are they tusks?--that is the size of a small tiger is making a wet whuffling sound like a purr as it rubs its head on Kida and nearly knocks her over.)

"What's that stuff?"

"Clothes, mostly. They were in the back of a car I'm working-- whoa."
The sudden change of sentence comes when she looks up from the pile of clothes and sees the... no srsly what the hell is that? Some kind of crab... walrus...
Yeah, Claudia's got no idea.

Crab-Walrus thing appears tame at least, tail gently coiled as it continued making that same noise while Kida hangs on its neck.

"They don't look like normal clothes." Then again these people--all surface dwellers, they had to be--wore a lot more clothes than people in Atlantis did.

...Well, long as it's not causing any trouble, that's all right. (But still. o_O)
"It was a popular style around the time the car was made. I'm not sure if someone was living out of the thing or what, but the Bar said the car's fair game now, so..."

There's a long pause.

Kida understands clothes and old and most of the things coming out of the box, except one. "What's a car?"

"In a nutshell, a faster way to get from Point A to Point B than walking."
There's a lot more to it than that, but that cuts to the chase.

"Oh."

Kida moves around the cat-thing as well as it will let her to be nearer the couch and Claudia. "Is the car yours?"

"Right now, I'm just fixing it, but the Bar said whoever left it here isn't around anymore, so. If I can get it working again, I'm hoping I can take it home, assuming I can get it through the door."
It's a drawback to having a door that stays put that Claudia never saw coming.

"It's too big?"

"Probably. My door here stays in one place, and it probably also stays one size."
(She'd rather not be able to get the car home than have Artie going 'wait, it changes sizes now too?' and really finding a way to keep her out.)
Claudia shrugs. "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."

"Mine doesn't change size," she confirms. "But it's not really a door like the ones here. There's not a wood thing in the way."

"Wood thing or not, the big problem's gonna be the fact that the door's people-sized."
And an El Camino is sliiiiiightly wider than your average human.

"Maybe you could take it apart and put it together on the other side. Like a bed."

"Not a bad idea in theory, but in practice, that might make it unusable once I get it there. Cars are pretty complicated."

"Oh. So how did it get in here?"

Claudia shrugs. "Probably had a bigger door. Or it took 'em to the garage, I mean, if the thing can show up anywhere..."
In theory, anyway. It's not a theory she's had the chance or inclination to test.

The sight of tie dye stops Clemmie right in her tracks. She could always use more gear for the next time she goes undercover as Tarragon. "Nice stuff. I think you're more of an autumn, though."

"It's not a question of autumn or not so much as 'surprise, there's a tie-dye graveyard in the car you're working on.' And I don't have much use for it."
Especially the underwear. That's just gross - hence the garbage bag (and the purple rubber gloves).

"I've seen worse," Clem offers. "I had to hose out the evidence locker after a body exploded once." She comes a little closer. "Is there anything usable in there?"

...Now she's really glad Jack's body was well past the point of exploding, when they found him.
"Don't see why not. I've mainly been throwing out the 40-year-old undergarments on principle, but if you want something else, be my guest. I was just gonna toss it in the Lost and Found when I finished."

To be fair, the body Clem was confronted with had been packed full of M80s.

"All right," she starts digging through the pile of vaguely moldy detritus and finds several possible items. "I'm Clementine, by the way. But I like Clemmie better."

"Claudia. Good to meetcha."
Most of the clothes aren't that badly off; they've spent most of their lives in the garage here, as far as Claudia can tell. She just has the gloves out because it's better to be safe than sorry when you have no idea what you're sticking your hands in.
(And, okay, mostly because of the 40-year-old underwear.)

The forty-year-old underwear doesn't phase Clemmie. She's put her hands in things that are way, wayyy grosser than that and digs about in the box.

"Ooh, this isn't too bad." She plucks out a blue tie-dyed teeshirt...and a bright green matching bikini. The previous owner was a live one, it appears. Clementine doesn't blink, though. "How much?"

"You can have it if you want. I was just gonna dump this stuff in the Lost and Found once I got rid of anything that's not salvageable."

"Really?" Clem's shocked there isn't a catch. And she doesn't have to apply the five-finger-for-law-enforcement-only-discount.

"Okay then." She pulls out a pair of shorts that match the shirt, too. "I'm taking these, then. They'll work for my cover ID."

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