(no subject)

[unthinkable]

[Immediately Pre-Milliways: Lunch hour at the Laundry.]

Eventually, the tentacle-dog-monster-creature eludes its pursuers by banking around a corner that wasn't there yesterday. The corner that wasn't there yesterday is in a basement hallway, though, so nobody actually realizes it wasn't there yesterday.

They're also not thinking too hard about what usually happens when items of architecture appear in the Laundry's archives, and since they're still trying to catch a Cthonian canine, Mo and Bob are both still running at a clip.

That is, until it banks around that corner, and they end up crashing into each other.

"What the --" says Mo, just as Bob is spluttering, and they both go falling through a portal that shouldn't have been there and certainly wasn't visible a moment before.

When they come to, they've ended up in a pile of tangled Laundry agents inside Milliways' front door.

"-- bloody fuck," Mo finishes, and doesn't even try to sit up just yet.

She knows interdimensional portals a little too well.

[ooc: two muns and two pups, and both of their first entrance; tag one or both or we'll pick for you!]

Comments

[laundered]

"It's just not fair, is what it is," Bob says glumly, staring blankly up at a ceiling that he is absolutely certain does not belong in the basement of the New Annexe. (For one thing, it doesn't have nearly enough dust, stains, or spiderwebs on it.) "The dog was the one running backward! How come we're the ones in a pile?"

The smartphone he's clutching beeps quietly at him. He stays down, but maybe – just maybe – his shoulders are relaxing a teensy little bit.

[unthinkable]

"I think our bigger problem," Mo says, as she starts to actually get up, leaning up on one arm, "is that we don't actually have a clue where we are."

Fairness isn't really her primary concern at the moment.

"The NecronomiPod is probably informing you of that fact. And possibly complaining about being out of network, because I don't think this is the same universe we were in a moment before --"

It's possible her skin has just gotten used to that special tingle of otherworldly transit.

She does have the tendency to do it more often than recommended.

[laundered]

"Actually," Bob says, sounding puzzled as he pulls himself more-or-less upright (for someone still sitting, anyway), "it seems to have a better signal than usual, especially for the... basement..."

He, after all, has made the mistake of looking up, and seeing the view outside the window.

"That's funny," he mumbles. "I always thought CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN was supposed to be, you know, localised."

[unthinkable]

"What's the readout actually --"

She spots the observation window.

She stops talking.

[laundered]

"Well, in theory at least, no immediate threats to our immediate survival," Bob tells her – sounding, still, a bit overwhelmed.

He is, at least, running several other apps at the same time. Just in case.

[unthinkable]

"Oh, well, if that's all it must be fine then, right?"

At least she's only raising one eyebrow at him.

[laundered]

"Pretty durable glass, too," he adds, peering down at his screen. "So in theory, at least, the place might last out the night, too."

He looks around again. There's something niggling at his memory, here.

[unthinkable]

After a moment of just watching the window, squint-eyed, Mo concludes, "I don't think there's anything we can do for it, anyway. I haven't got a song for 'reverse supernova.' Maybe this isn't Angleton's doing."

Not that she isn't always inclined to blame him.

[laundered]

"Mo?"

Bob sounds... preoccupied.

[scots_wolf]

And they probably didn't expect the very diverse population of the bar wherever they were originally going.

For example, the tall blond man in a black medieval cloak leaning by the fireplace? Do people look and dress like that habitually in their world?

He smiles at them.

[unthinkable]

Mo -- still on the ground, still holding a violin case in one hand -- waves.

(With the other hand, not the one wrapped around the case. Wait, how did it get back in its case? Damn tricky magical violin, must've been the portal.)

Answer: no, they don't, at least not habitually. That's not stopping her.

"Hello!" she calls out, polite as ever. It's not scanning to her as a particularly hostile gesture. "Pardon the entrance method!"

[scots_wolf]

"It's not the weirdest ever, rest assured," the medieval man says, wandering over and offering her a hand up. "People drop in here in strange ways from time to time."

[laundered]

Nothing strange with the chubby guy in the pile being the one to reach for that hand, is there? He is, after all, substantially less capable at getting himself up than his wife is.

(She's the one who's bendy, of the two of them, after all!)

"Any in particular that come to mind? And – care to tell me if I'm right about my guess about where 'here' is?" he tries.

[scots_wolf]

The medieval man helps him to his feet, even though he'd have preferred of it to be the woman.

"Oh, it's you!" he says, looking at the man.

Or is it?

[unthinkable]

Mo definitely has an easier time standing on her own, though; and that's when she's pulled to her full height of six-feet-plus-the-heels, which is more often than not a little disturbing or intimidating to people.

For about two minutes, because Mo's about as intimidating as fluff until you actually get to know her, at whcih point she goes back to being a little creepy. For now, though, she's all smiles.



And a little bit of surprise.


"Know each other, do you?"

[scots_wolf]

The blond man is still taller than she is, but not by all that much.

"We might," he says. "I can't tell right now, though. You're not Jools, and you're probably not Gus, so I guess you're Tim? Haven't seen you in a long time!"

[laundered]

"Er," says Bob, blinking, confused.

The voice says: this guy is Scottish, just like Mo! Therefore, Bob the very-London-or-Birmingham-voiced peers at Mo. Does she know this guy?

"No?" Bob tries. "I'm Bob, actually, who are... you? And where are we, again? End of the universe, maybe?"

[a1enzo]

"You guys," declares a tall, green teenager wearing a pair of even greener wireless earphones, "look new."

Not that tumbling through the Door in a confused heap is any guarantee of newness around here, but... usually.

[laundered]

Bob ... stares.

And then squints, and stares, and SQUINTS, and then says, very weakly:

"Did we just get rebooted?"

[a1enzo]

"Does that happen to humans where you come from?"

[unthinkable]

"It happens to him," Mo groans, and gives Bob a playful shove. "I'm not entirely sure he's not a computer."

She doesn't realize the person they're talking to could take this as a literal statement, though.

[a1enzo]

Enzo's eyes widen, then narrow. "Was that a joke or serious?"

It sounded like a joke, but it's safest to ask.

[unthinkable]

"-- oh, it was a joke, I promise," Mo recovers. "He spends most of his time attached to one, though, and forgets how the world outside computer games works often enough ..."

[a1enzo]

Enzo only just barely grimaces at the mention of computer games. Well, he'll get to that.

"Just checking. I mean, I'm a computer program, so..." Shrug. "We get all sorts here."

[laundered]

"I – you're my hero," Bob offers meekly, and goes digging through his pockets for a long moment before giving it up as a bad job and offering out his phone, instead, as soon as he's switched it to a note-taking-by-hand app.

"Can I have your autograph?"




At some point, it would probably help if he'd explain – anything – to Mo. Oops.