milliways_bar | (no subject)

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"You're quite sure it was Brooke who altered your register?" Guppy is asking on his phone as he reaches the door to the bar.

He pauses, knowing the signal will fade when he steps in here.

"Yes, well, I'm very sorry Miss Brimstone, I will tell her she must not do that... or put play dough in other kids' lunch boxes... she did what to your keys? Oh, I'm sorry, you're breaking up." he steps into the bar, then hits End Call and heads over to the bar.

"Don't know what she expects me to do about it from work." he says to Bar as he sits down.

Bar obligingly provides him with tea, just the way he likes it, and a cupcake.

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'You're a doctor, aren't you?'

Jim's seen him around. And he has a question.

"Hm? Yes, I'm Guppy, what can I do for you?" Guppy asks, smiling slightly.

Jim sits next to him, looking entirely benign and normal, but also distracted like his mind's somewhere entirely else.

'Has the infirmary got an MRI machine?'

"Kind of an equivalent of." Guppy says. "As in we have a scanner and I can set it to come out looking like an MRI."

'Or better yet,' he says, as if Guppy hadn't spoken at all, 'one of those 3D isotropic imaging things. Are they the ones they use to take 3D ultrasounds for women? One of those.'

"We have a highly technologically advanced scanner from the future which basically does whatever you need it to." Guppy says.

'Great. Can I use it?'

Jim is nothing if not straight to the point in matters of business.

"Potentially. What's your name and what for?"

For once, it's not even for nefarious purposes!

'I want a picture of my heart, from as many angles as it can give me. From the inside out, if it can.'

Then he appears to remember makers, and offers a hand to shake even though, ugh, touching normal people.

'Jim Moriarty.'

"Nice to meet you Jim." Guppy shakes the hand, though senses some hesitation and notes this.

"And sure, but let me help you? It's not the most easy machine to work or interpret."

'Yeah, fine, whatever. That's not a problem.'

He stands up, all repressed energy.

'Now, if you don't mind?'

"Ten seconds."

Guppy finishes the cupcake, and gets up, leading the way.

"So." he says, once they're in the infirmary. "What's your concern with your heart?"

'I don't have one. Concern, that is. I assume I have a heart.'

Probably? In the literal sense, at least.

'I'm dead, so it doesn't matter anyway. Do you need my shirt off?'

"Nah, not for this." Guppy says.

"Let me rephrase - why do you want your heart scanning? Just so I can see if there's anything specific you want me to comment on."

'You don't need to comment. Assuming things are the same as before I died, I'm in perfect health.'

He looks around the infirmary with a very slight air of impatience. He doesn't like explaining himself.

'I don't want to tell you. It's for my boyfriend's benefit, and he knows your son. I don't want to spoil it.'

"You don't seriously think I tell my seven-year-old son people's medical details?" Guppy says. "He wouldn't be interested anyway, he's extremely squeamish."

He gets the scanner out. "The reason I'm asking is because some cardiac issues won't show up on a scan of the heart's structure. Arrhythmias, for example."

Jim gives him a Look.

'I just told you, I'm dead.'

Or maybe not, but he's not about to get into that.

'If it's falling to pieces, it doesn't matter.'

Beat.

'Also, I have no idea what you'd tell your seven-year-old son.'

"A lot of the dead people here have an essentially normal body." Guppy says. "You're not a corpse. So it's not impossible for you to get medical symptoms."

Man, this guy has an Attitude for someone that wants a favour.

He runs the scanner over him, then gets the computer to produce an MRI style result.

This is him at his most polite. His behaviour gets no better than this, at least without adopting a persona.

'Great. I can still get ill?'

Ugh. Really? Boring.

'Can I stick that onto a USB? I need to be able to take it away.'

"Sure, what operating system are you using?"

'Any of them.'

Another Look. But fiiiiiine, he supposes he doesn't have 'computer genius' tattooed on his forehead.

'I've got a lot of computers.'

"What year?"

God, why is this happening.

'2012.'

Patience patience he can have patience.

Guppy plugs the USB into the computer, and with painstaking amateurism saves the file in a 2012 compatible format. Sure, Jim can do eyebrows at him, like this guy has a thousand years of compatibility with his technology...

"Okay, that's just downloading... no I do not want to install updates..."

Oh, good God.

'Did this thing come out of the ark?'

He leans down to peer at it.

'It's a pile of crap.'

"No, no, the machine is really advanced, I just asked it to set up to the level of technology I'm used to." Guppy says. "I fear it may have taken me literally."

An infirmary waitrat in scrubs climbs down onto the machine, presses a button, and gets a setup that looks quite a few hundred years further forward than Guppy's. It completes the download and hands it to Jim.

"Er, yeah, that's better, thanks Work Experience." Guppy says, nodding to the waitrat.

'A rat is better with computers than you are?'

Wow. Embarrassing. He raises his eyebrows at Guppy again, and sticks the USB in his pocket. No part of him shows unnatural interest in the sudden few-hundred-years advancement, but you can bet your ass he'll find an excuse to come back and play with it.

'Did it come with the place?'

"I'm a doctor, not a computer geek." Guppy says.

"And no, one of my colleagues brought it here when he helped set up the infirmary. Before then we used to just treat people on the bar floor."

'Geek. Really.'

No, he will not allow his temper to rise today. He's too tired, and there are better things to storm at.

'How's your boy? I met him once.'

"Oh, I just meant me, I'm not calling you a geek." Guppy says.

"And he's good, thanks." he's not sure how much Jim knows about Fry. "Are you the guy who told him to learn the dictionary off by heart?"

'Yeah. Well no, I didn't tell him. I suggested he learn words.'

Words are generally helpful, he finds. He's a fan of them.

"Ah, yes. Well, he does tend to take things literally." Guppy says.

'It's a thing about Aspergers, isn't it?'

Which yes, fine, means Jim knows he was fully aware that it would probably happen, but not definitely.

He looks around the room again, a little fidgety but not unusually so.

"Did he tell you about that? Or your boyfriend?"

'He did.'

Jim turns his eyes on him.

'In fact, he told me off for 'outing' Sherlock, as he put it. You might tell him that Sherlock didn't mind, though I think they spoke about it afterwards.'

He doesn't need any more lectures from kids, even smart ones.

Guppy blinks, then laughs.

"I'll have to tell my wife that one, she'll be very proud."

'You're raising a social justice warrior.'

He gives something approximating a smile, though it doesn't last long. Wife, kids, boring boring.

"Not so much that." Guppy says. "Though we do try to teach all our kids good values, especially Fry because he doesn't re-learn well. But I'm just impressed that he was able to think about something from someone else's point of view, because that's hard for him."

Jim blinks at this. That's hard for...ohhh okay, no, this is a Normal Person thing. And an Asperger's thing, which is not something Jim has as an excuse. He's just a dick.

'Maybe? He might have just been thinking about how he wouldn't have liked someone talking about him that way, though I wasn't insulting Sherlock, or anything. Just pointing out that he's probably somewhere on the spectrum, whether he realises it or not. It's obviously something Fry cares about, but it's not necessarily about another person.'

"Well, maybe you're right." Guppy says. "Though most people who know Fry do know. It's pretty obvious. I'm still glad he stuck up for his friend in any case."

'Yeah. Good. Learning that stuff is helpful, I expect.'

Probably? Whatever. He gestures to the pocket with the USB stick in.

'Thanks for this. I'll see you around, I expect.'

Guppy nods.

"Take care."

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