milliways_bar | (no subject)

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"But musing what an easy thing it were to mix our opiates in a larger cup," Autor says, patting the counter in preparation to hop over it. "And drink, and not perceive"—and here he hops—"sleep deepening lead his truer kinsman up, like undistinguished Night, darkening the skirts of Eve.*"

After a few minutes of setting up his prior preparations, the boy reaches for the specials board. "Good night, Bar."

Bitter Chocolate Aria
Hot chocolate & one croissant

Submission Sonata
Virgin strawberry & wasabi daiquiri

Ode to Blood
Giga ant eggs, sour apple juice, seltzer water, flavored ice

Fiery Trigon
Grenadine, lemon juice, apple juice, passion fruit juice, & cinnamon

Silent Overture
Free coffee if you can prove that you’re knighted

Note: Virgin bar.

[This post is open forever.]

*Ode to Sleep , Richard Chenevix Trench

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"Huh," says Ellen, glancing up at the sign. "What constitutes proof?"

Autor smiles at Ellen's approach. It's a grin, really, one that says that 'it's been a while, hello, how are you?'

He presents her with a cup of coffee right away. "Oh, you've told me enough stories and you have the Paladin title anyway. Hello, Ellen. How are you?"

"Thank you," says Ellen. "I had to do a night's vigil before the eternal flame the Brotherhood maintains in honor of their fallen before they made me a Knight anyway, so that probably counts for something... I've been all right, though. And yourself?"

He nods, listening, and sampling his tea. "Fairly well. Bar tending, as you can see. Any other dangerous missions you've had to fight through, or have you been working with the Brahmin?"

Ellen scratches her head, thinking. "Nothing especially dangerous," she says, "although I've ridden a couple of caravan escort missions. Water up to Canterbury Commons, steel for robots down to the RobCo factory. There were yao guai along the way, but nothing particularly dangerous unless you count that one scorpion."

(It was the size of a Corvega. Pity they're not especially edible.)

"I can't imagine Karkat would want that?" he says, and starts on a fresh batch of hot cocoa for future patrons. "Are you in a rest period, now? In as much rest as you ever get."

"You'd be surprised how often the trolls go for that," Ellen says. "At the moment it's a bit on the quiet side. I think I'm going to be sent down to the factory for an inspection soon, though. Paladin Rama doesn't get along all that well with the Scribes on the project, from what I understand, and it's a little too important to let personality conflicts disrupt things."

Autor laughs quietly. He knew he should have dug up some scorpions for these drinks. "What factory, and what sort inspection?"

He steps forward to offer her a refill on her coffee, should she want it.

"The robot factory from before the War," Ellen says. "The one where I headed the project to get it back up to function, so we would be able to replace the slave labor used in the Pitt. I'll probably need to see what's going on there and how to set things right between Paladin Rama and the Scribes. We only have so many people to go around, and we can't afford to have production fall because of misunderstandings, or things will get much worse very quickly."

Autor nods. "How many robots can they make per day? And how many do you need to supplant the slave labor?"

He plants his elbows on the bar and rests his chin on his hands. Ellen's world is surreal; it always has been. "What's the issue between Rama and the Scribes?"

"Depending on how many parts they have, a decent number," Ellen says. "One robot can do the industrial work of four or five humans in good health, so we're trading them to the Pitt at a rate of one robot for the freedom of four humans, plus enough metal to build another robot and to make a profit. As far as the issue goes, I'm not sure. I suspect Rama just doesn't get along with the Scribes very well because he's very good at organizing soldiers for combat but doesn't really handle the non-combat orders very often. You can't push the Scribes around the same way as you can someone whose life depends on you keeping bullets off their back."

Autor wrinkles his brow at the exchange rate. One robot to four humans doesn't sound very good to him, but then again, he doesn't know the amount of scrap available for making these things.

"Why doesn't Rama just delegate someone to take care of the Scribes' issues for him? If they're speaking different languages, a translator would serve both parties," he says. "How many humans are left in the Pitt?"

"I honestly don't know. I haven't checked in at the factory since they took me off the project and sent me to check out Evergreen Mills," Ellen says. "All I have to go on is some commentary from a couple of Knights at the Citadel. We'll see what happens... and as far as the Pitt's population in general goes, I don't know that for sure either, but the Knights and Paladins who've escorted the robots there report that it's dropping like a brick, at least as far as the people born outside the Pitt go. Apparently a lot of the area natives want to stay in the region despite it being poisoned beyond the ability to grow food or sustain a healthy pregnancy."

Autor nods. That all makes sense.

"Are you at all concerned that the leaders in the Pitt will weaponize these robots?" he says, and then shakes his head. "Why would the natives possibly want to stay there? That's suicide."

"Oh, we built circuitry into them to overload their systems if an unauthorized person does any tinkering beyond the basics of repair," Ellen says. "Based on the work of a scientist who'd figured out how to implant chips in the heads of her victims so that their skulls would explode if they were badly wounded in combat- I'd found her experiments last year and put her down, but the data survived, and some good ought to come of it."

"Good idea," Autor says. "It seems that a lot of the technology used where you are tends to be re-purposed, either by you or others. It's interesting."

He purses his lips, thinking. "When do you have to speak to the Scribes? I hope you have some time to rest outside the bar before acting as an intermediary."

"Waste not, want not," Ellen says. "We can only afford to pass so much up, and if we leave out all the things that're truly too horrific to find a moral use for, we've got to make do with the tech that's left."

She sighs. "I haven't been assigned to speak to them yet, officially. This could come in a day or a week, or anywhere in between."

"No, it's very clever," Autor says. "It's what I would do. Goodness. There's nothing new under the sun; you'd better make use of what other people make. It also saves you the resources and the time spent banging your head against the wall to come up with that sort of solution.

"How long do you have to be an intermediary for them? Until the job is done?" he says, furrowing his brow. "I don't suppose they'll come to a compromise easily."

He holds up the coffee pot and offers to refill her cup. "Would you like a croissant?"

"Pretty much," Ellen says. "Part of being a chaplain is making sure that the members of the Brotherhood can deal with each other. Mental health and harmony is as important as spiritual health to a fighting and research organization like ours. So until things are back to normal, that's where I'll be, most likely."

She holds out the cup and adds, "Um. What's a croissant?"

Edited 2013-05-07 04:00 (UTC)

Autor nods. "I hope they receive you well, then, and that a compromise can be reached in short order."

He refills her coffee and blinks at her admission. "Oh, goodness," he says. He immediately calls out from his sylladex a regular pastry as opposed to the chocolate-filled ones, and presents it to her on a plate.

"A croissant is a yeast-leavened, flour-based pastry baked with butter," he says. "It might be too sweet for you? Obviously don't eat it if that's the case."

"Well, it's worth a try," Ellen says, "and I'm not about to waste food once I've started eating it. Sweet is easier for me to handle when it comes in the form of baked goods. We got cakes or sweet rolls every now and again in the Vault, if someone saved up enough ration coupons to get the sugar for a birthday cake or similar."

"I'm surprised people still had recipes for cakes and the like," Autor says, and then recants. "Well, no, that knowledge is easily recreated with small amounts of experimentation even in the unlikely chance it was lost."

He shakes his head. "If you don't want it once you've tried it, I'll eat the remainder."

"Vault 101 had a small library of books, although they were all originally approved by Vault-Tec inspectors, like all the personal possessions of the original Vault inhabitants," Ellen says. "Some of them were pretty heavily edited compared to the original editions, but the cookbooks made it through even though most of them weren't really all that useful. Plus the Vault stores had a number of sealed prepackaged mixes that lasted a long time. You didn't really need to know how to make a cake if you could pay for one of those with your ration coupons. You just added water and mixed it up and put it in the oven for the appropriate amount of time."

As for the croissant, it doesn't seem to be a problem sweetness-wise. There is, however, the small matter of golden flakiness. Ellen is not really used to food that flakes off all over your fingers on contact, and there is going to be a bit of a mess in a moment.

A mess is fine. Autor has plenty of napkins, some of them maternally-worded. He just hopes that the texture doesn't put her off.

Strangely enough, it seems important to him that Ellen try it, at least. He never thought it'd be fun to have people eat his croissants. Sunshine is on to something, and she's dragging me down with her. Augh!

"Oh, goodness," the boy says. "Those had to be incredibly old, then. Did you have to check them out, or were they available to anyone? I suspect they had to be well-preserved, though the Vault conditions would help with that. I guess the cookbooks could be looked at as a sort of history book. 'This is how they ate', and such."

The mixes are strange to him. He knows what they are, but they've always been odd.

"Oh, all the Vault's expendable resources got- oh, you meant the books, not the mixes," Ellen says. "Well- they were accessible to anyone, but there was a central registry for the books that had been Vault-Tec property instead of individual property. If a family brought Grognak the Barbarian comic books with them into the Vault, those weren't in the registry, but textbooks and things generally were. Damaging or losing Vault property was a big no-no."

The texture's not too bad once Ellen gets over the AUGH MY FOOD IS SHEDDING aspect of things. She'll probably wind up finishing the whole croissant, although it might take her a while.