(no subject)

[hecu_marine]

"Hey, Bar?" says Shephard when he makes his way in with three or four of his fleet of houndeyes at his heels. "I got a parts list here. You reckon you could gimme some E85 compatible versions of all this shit?"

He drops the list on the Bar top, and a good many gaskets, filters, engine tubes, and the like appear in return. On the tab board, a number flips considerably upwards.

"Judas fuck." He shakes his head. "You still takin' furs'n hides for payment, right?"

There's a napkin.

"All right. Looks like I'mma be a little bit busier'n I thought," he says, and gathers up the engine parts. He's got work to do and he can't get it done in the main Bar, so it's down to the garage for a while; he'll be out back again soon enough with the eyeball dogs. Catch him in or down or out, up to you- he's good for any of the three.

Comments

[fairy_fixit]

Hold on Adrian, before you head to the garage...

Fairy Fixit, who is at the Bar, comments, "Remind me not to buy E85 compatible shit from Bar. That is some very unshit-like shit, though. Odd. What kind of creature defecates such precisely machined parts?"

"I could pay off part of that tab if you have those luminescent fungi with you," with a hopeful smile. She then walks to the edge of the bar counter to look down at the houndeyes. "Hello!"

She might be slightly drunk.

[hecu_marine]

"Well, hey there," says Shephard, looking up at the sound of the familiar voice. "Yeah, I got a couple samples iffen you want 'em just now. Been carryin' the things in my sylladex just in case. Bull, Fran, Chester, you make nice and say hello now."

The houndeyes line up next to each other and come up on their one hind leg each to paw at the air with one forehoof... ish... paw thing. Look, they're not really designed for waving hello, okay?

[fairy_fixit]

"Yes, that would be excellent," Fixit says while waving back at the houndeyes. "Hi you three! --- Is that natural behavior for them?"

[hecu_marine]

"The standing up?" says Shephard. "Yeah, that's natural. The wavin'? I taught 'em that myself, they don't do it on their own."

The creatures drop back to all threes, and Shephard bends over to give each of them a rewarding scritch along the first blue stripe.

"Had to wrap the samples in butcher paper. Ain't got proper plastic back home just at the moment," Shephard admits as he starts producing bundles that're much too big from jacket pockets that're much too small. Seriously, those pockets weren't even bulging a few minutes ago.

[fairy_fixit]

Yeah, she's giving him a weird look. "Do you have a portal to an abyssal space or a pocket dimension in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

"Wait, no, that doesn't work..."

[hecu_marine]

"Naw, it's a semi-abstracted inventory storage system I got off an Alternian troll," says Shephard, unfazed. "Christmas present. Comes in mighty handy sometimes."

[fairy_fixit]

"Wow, Alternian trolls must be way smarter than the Gielnorian trolls I am familiar with. Abstracting physical objects... I wonder how that works."

She unwraps one of the bundles and takes a look. "These are a colors I have never seen in fungus. Well, some are close but breeding for a specific color is hard. But even then, they are from a totally alien biome," she says grinning from ear to ear.

[hecu_marine]

"There's a couple of 'em show up here every so often," Shephard says. "Gray skin, black hair, orange'n yellow horns. Can't miss 'em. You ever see one of those signs go up about a chat system or somethin', that's one of their inventions. Only kind of trolls I ever met, myself, so I can't say how they compare to anybody."

He nods. "I been tryin' to grab good-size samples from as many kinds as I c'n track down," he says. "Took some notes on how I found 'em growin', if those'd help."

[fairy_fixit]

"The chat system. T-Minus, right? Trolls did that? Wow... actually I saw the server for that service actually running around the forest once. You would think that such an advanced level of technology would give them big heads but to be honest the one I talked to over the T-minus service just seemed like the most crabby person ever. Not pompous at all," Fixit says sounding very impressed.

"You are the bestest human ever; how did you know I wanted to try growing them my self? Can I buy you a beer?"

[runningred]

Jay's busy in the garage, tuning and retuning his bike. He nods to Shephard and salutes with a spanner. "How goes it, mate?"

[hecu_marine]

Shephard sets the box of parts aside and returns the gesture. "Goin' all right," he says. "Reckoned I'd git started on somethin' I'd been plannin' on doin' for a while now. Time to switch my old Buell over to runnin' on ethanol. How 'bout yourself?"

[runningred]

"Just getting the bike ready. I'm heading back in a while and I'll need her running smooth as I can get her." He nods toward the big tool chests. "Yell if you need anything, hey? The tools are here from everyone." As long as they're returned.

[hecu_marine]

"Will do," Shephard promises. He hasn't remembered yet that there's another drive system coming soon, but he'll deal with that when it happens in the other thread. "Got somethin' planned back home?"

[runningred]

"Not really. Need to go back to America. Got family stuff I need to deal with." Even if he clearly doesn't want to. "What about you? How are things for you and yours?"

[hecu_marine]

"Well, we got ourselves up to Svalbard and back all right," Shephard says. "Wanted to thank you for the gear, by the by. Came in mighty handy. Turned out there were a couple folks alive up there, so we brought 'em back with us along with the seeds. Stopped in Brazil to warm up comin' back-"

He pauses,t hinking.

"Shit. Fuck. I forget, I ever tell you 'bout my ship?"

[runningred]

"Sounds like you had a hell of a run! Glad the gear helped."

He shakes his head. "Don't think so."

[hecu_marine]

"Yeah, well, her name's Borealis," Shephard says, rocking back on his heels a moment. "Icebreaker. High latitude research vessel. Used to belong to a company name of Aperture, only Aperture don't exist no more. She was bein' used as a test bed for long-range teleportation research when they fucked some shit up and lost track of her, some years back."

[dejah_thoris]

Dejah had been working on the redesign, off and on, for a few weeks, and she thought she finally had something that would work. She'd run it through a few simulations back home, using specs that Bar had helped her with, and she was finally ready to show Adrian her final result.

Bar told her that he was already down in the garage and gave her a napkin with the number of the bike's slot. She headed down, carrying a silver case in one hand, and the reconfigured frame in the other.

"Fancy meeting you here," she called.

[hecu_marine]

Shephard was already down next to his Buell and had loosened several critical bolts by this point. At the sound of Dejah's voice, he called back, "Wanted to git some work done! I ain't-"

Then it occurred to him that he was not speaking to his commander in chief in their mutual off-duty hours. Neither was he addressing any of the women from Greenbrier or Rowlesburg, who in any case would not have found their way here.

He looked up. He spotted Dejah. He remembered last time.

He leaned his head against the side of the bike.

"D'aaaaaaaawwwwfuck," he said, and wished for a convenient car to kick the E85 parts under.

[dejah_thoris]

Dejah's lips curled in a deeply amused smirk.

"You'd forgotten, hadn't you? And before you start, that's entirely my fault for not keeping you apprised of my progress."

She set the new frame down, and then laid the case on the ground next to him.

"Go on. Open it."

[hecu_marine]

"Little bit," Shephard confessed, wiggling his hand in midair. "Sorry 'bout that, ma- Dejah. Got myself distracted with a shit-ton of other things'n the radium drive slipped my mind."

He set his wrench down anyway and reached for the case instead.

[dejah_thoris]

"It happens," she says, grinning at the use of her first name. He remembered that much.

"It still requires fitting to your power train, but I believe that should be simple enough. I put together a little book of diagrams to assist with that, and you'll find -- yes, beneath the --"

Glowing blue aluminum clad cylinder nestled in red velvet like a fine bottle of Scotch. It looks like aluminum at first glance, but the metal is a much finer grain, with a pale gold tinge to it.

[hecu_marine]

Shephard whistles almost reverently as he lifts the cylinder out for examination. "I know y'all use mighty fine shielding and whatnot," he says, "but I sure do hope you'll forgive me for sayin' I feel like I ought to be wearin' some protective gear'n handling this with tongs."

[dejah_thoris]

She chuckles at that. "This is merely the light from the reaction that's occurring deep within the nested chambers. You could wear this against your skin for a century and still get more radiation from normal daily exposure than from this."

[hecu_marine]

"Fair 'nough," says Shephard. "I c'n live with that."

If everything that glowed unusual colors were radioactive, he'd be in ever so much more trouble by now that one more thing wouldn't make a difference. See: Kanaya.

"Gonna be interesting, though," he says as he returns the cylinder to its place. "I may have to do some weight additions to the bike, 'cause unless I'm full on out of my skull, this here rig'n this here power source're a fair little piece smaller'n lighter than the engine as is."