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See, here's the thing- as far as Shephard is concerned it's still early spring and he's on board the Borealis along with Maripyaipok, Jan ten Boom, and several other people who all had different reasons for wanting to accompany the teleporting boat to Brazil. He's got absolutely no reason to suspect anything about the-

"Mother pus bucket!"

-calendar on the Milliways side being set to Cubefall. Oh well.

At least he got some decently interesting choices this year. GERTY isn't really his style, but it's still kind of interesting; he might be scared of flying but it's probably different if you're actually built to do it; the wearable NBC response robot has its own kind of appeal; and-

Huh. Well, why not:

"This ain't as bad as that thing with the hooves'n mandibles, that's for damn sure."

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"Not a goddamn one," says Shephard. "We got all kinds of work to do. And yeah. It has."

The direct pressure seems to have worked. Shephard starts carefully picking the napkin away from where it's tacked to his hand. As far as he's concerned he didn't cut nearly deep enough nor hard enough to necessitate any more wound care beyond washing it out and letting it dry again. It's a slash, it'll heal.

Autor shakes his head. "But you can't--" he starts, and then shuts the hell up. Shephard is well aware of what his world can and cannot do, and just like his attitude towards the cut on his hand, any fussing is useless.

"Good luck," the boy says, without ceremony. "I hope you all manage to have children soon."

One corner of Shephard's mouth makes its way upward. "Just so's you know, kid," he says without taking his eyes off the bit of napkin he's working free, "I ain't exactly what you'd call the best man in the world to say 'you can't' anything to. Might be we really are that fucked. I dunno. Ask the eggheads, they'll give you a better picture'n anything I could come up with. Me? I'm the jarhead skin-banger hillbilly kid from the ass end of nowhere. Reckon folks'd generally agree I'm too goddamn stupid to know when I'm up against something too big for me."

Autor laughs with him.

"I figured you weren't. That's why I stopped myself," he says. "Best of luck destroying the odds with grit alone."

Like something out of a Story, of course. But Autor believes in those.

"Man's got to start somewhere," Shephard says. "Far as grit goes we gon' see just how much I actually got once I go back home. I got me a tribe to join before I c'n start recruiting new Marines and the Satere-Mawe do not fuck around on the admissions exam."

Autor tilts his head and asks the obvious follow-up questions. "So who are the Satere-Mawe?" he asks. "And why do you have to join them first?"

"South American tribe," says Shephard. "They live far enough back in the jungle down around the Amazon that the fuckin' maggots didn't give two shits about 'em. Lotta folks who got the hell out of the cities'n ran from the Combine only lived on account of those jungle tribes. Combine wound up rounding 'em up anyways, only some of 'em survived when we killed the Gene Worm they had fuckin' up the air down there. One of 'em said he'd join the Marine Corps'n bring a bunch of his people with him long as I went through the same shit he did when they made him a man in his tribe. And those bastards are fucking amazing warriors once they learn how to use the right shit. I ain't about to pass that up just because the manhood ritual means getting my meat arm'n one of my legs bitten clear to kingdom come by goddamn bullet ants."

Autor blinks. "That's excellent. I hope you make it through the initiation intact," he says, as he does actually know about dangerous first rites. "What are you going to do with them once your Corps is outfitted with men?"

"World's still a dangerous place," Shephard says. "We got a shitload of alien wildlife out there that'd just as soon eat your face as look at you, and as long as there's human beings alive, there's gonna be shitheads who won't stop bein' shitheads to everybody else less'n there's a gun in their face or a bullet in their gut. Somebody's got to keep the assholes away from everybody else."

He might be one of the nastier kinds of troll right now, but as he's told people in the past, what he is deep down is a disciplined man. The nasty goes where it can best be used, and it's kept there under lock and key until he needs it.

"It sounds like you have to go beat civility into people again," Autor says. "I understand intellectually why the 'grab-all-you-can-get' mentality crops up in times like yours, but it's still difficult to wrap my head around. You'd think they'd band together."

"Human nature," says Shephard with a shrug. "Someone's always gon' be an asshole."

Ladies and general, let's have a big hand for today's attempt at the world record for summarizing the philosophical problem of evil.

Autor can't help a grin. "True, but sometimes people can be the right kind."

Or at least working for a cause that benefits the greatest amount of people at the time.

"Didn't say they couldn't," says Shephard, unperturbed. "You just deal with a whole lot of assholes in my line of work, that's all."

Hell, most of 'em're on the same side as him. Somebody's got to atone for what HECU did.

Hm. A foul-mouthed, fairly honorable 'jarhead' who doesn't back down from anything, especially a fight.

"You make a fine troll, Shephard," he says. "But you're well suited to dealing with human nature, such as it is."

"You're how old, kid?" Shephard says, glancing up from his hand at Autor. "Anybody come 'round lookin' to git you workin' in the Nachricten-Abteilung yet? Reckon you're about the same time frame as Gustav Steinhauer..."

He's a Marine, and thanks to the status of the rest of the Corps he's History Division by default. Of course he's studied the military and intelligence history of other countries- just in case.

The intelligence network? Really?

Autor pales a bit. He has heard of Steinhauer, of course, but only through his history reading here, of both past and future.

"Ah, no," he says. "My town is somewhat isolated, so no one has come around from that, yet."

He does, however, have his notice of, "missing, presumed dead," from WWI in his pocket. Not as a spy, but canon fodder.

"We still have a bit of peace, thankfully."

Edited 2013-06-06 18:17 (UTC)

Shephard grunts. "Just wonderin', that's all," he says. "Got some of that kind of vibe off you. Ain't my kind of job, spook work, but shit, somebody's got to do it."

Shocked, Autor laughs at him.

"How do you do that?" he says. "You pick up more about me in eight minutes than most people in the bar do in a week. Or ever."

Normally the kid doesn't confirm or deny anything, natch. But Shephard's guesswork intrigues him. "It may not be your kind of work, but I suspect you'd be good at it if you had to be."

Shephard laughs, pokes at his ungloved hand again, and wipes it on his trouser leg. "I'm a scout sniper and a hunter," he says. "Uncle took me out huntin' when I was six years old. Didn't git to hold a gun, though. Just got to sit'n watch'n observe the fuck out of him. Same thing when he took me fishin'. Sit'n watch'n pay attention. I got old enough to git a license for huntin' on my own, I had to pay some serious fuckin' attention to what I was doin' the whole goddamn time. And to everything that everything else was doin'. You go out on a hunt, you see signs of how a critter behaves, you either learn what that means 'bout what's goin' through that son of a bitch's head and what makes 'em do what they do, or you go home real fuckin' hungry. I don't much like goin' home hungry. I learned to add up that kind of shit right quick. People ain't so different from critters, it comes right down to it. They just got a fuckload more options you got to take into account."

Autor nods. "That makes a terrifying amount of sense," he says, as a person who tries to pay attention himself.

But Shephard is better, and the kid knows it.

May I never go up against you, he thinks, realizing the only counter-measure for Shephard would be to shoot him many times from a distance--and even that might not be enough.

"How many years did you have to work with a rifle before you were proficient enough not to shoot your own eye out?"

It's a question he's been wondering since that paper in his pocket burned his fingers.

"Didn't start off with a rifle. Started off with a BB gun," says Shephard. "After 'nother one of my uncles made goddamn fuckin' sure I knew all the parts of a proper gun and reckoned I respected the things proper. You want to git to a point where you're any good with a rifle at all, you start with somethin' smaller'n lighter'n work your way up nice'n slow. Takes longer, but it pays the fuck off."

Well, good. He'll start with that, then. Bar might give him a BB gun.

Whatever that is.

In any case, Shephard's words are sound, and they make Autor think he should probably discard that specific project for Cubefall.

"It certainly did in your case," he murmurs. "Those uncles of yours did you a great service."

"Damn straight they did," says Shephard. "You plannin' on tryin' out hunting yourself? They got a range out back for practice, I'm on it all the time."

People who ask 'how long/hard/often did you train' for something related to combat, in Shephard's experience, ask for one of three reasons. One is because they have a personal, usually completely wrongheaded, idea of what military men or hunters do and want it confirmed or corrected. He's answered that sort honestly a few times to put the record straight, but there've been a few folks he's just plain deliberately strung along to fuck with their heads for the hell of it- usually they're the ones who've pissed him off. The second is a personal interest, perhaps one they've harbored for a long time, perhaps one they've only recently conceived- either way. And the third, generally, is that they know jack fucking shit about weapons and are trying to relate the skills involved with using one to something they themselves have actually done in whatever way they can manage. This being Milliways, people tend to fall into the second category more often than the others, but you never really know.

Autor is easily all three.

"I've trapped demon bunnies in cages--they taste terrible--but I've never handled a gun," he says. "It's fairly difficult to get them where I'm from, and the Bar obviously won't hand out weapons."

The poisonous blow darts and grenades he made to try to destroy Punie don't count.

I've become rather violent since coming here, haven't I? Hm.

On that somewhat concerning thought, orders more tea.

Shephard makes an indelicate noise. "Only thing those fuckin' rabbits're fit for is hides and bones," he says. "Can't even git my fuckin' dog to touch the meat. Damn fine hides, though, if you tan 'em proper and leave the fur on. Saves the trouble of dyeing, that's for damn sure."

"You ever want a couple lessons from someone who knows his shit, you find me when I ain't busy on somethin' else, I might be willing to show you a few things. Last thing I want's some kid who ain't got a proper teacher tryin' to git himself schooled up with a weapon. That don't end well for nobody." After a moment's thought he adds, "Same deal if you plan on learnin' to drive a car. Car's more dangerous for most folks anyways."