milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

Sheppard is seated at a booth with a beer and the deck of cards the Bar gave him. He frowns at the cards he has set out in front of him, biting his lip a bit as he thinks. It seems that the game of solitare has got him stuck.

Who wants to offer ~~not so~~ helpful suggestions?

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Sheppard smirks at Grommit, moving the card. "Looks like only one of us is actually observant today."

Gromit wags his tail once, then hops up onto a seat convenient for watching. He rests his elbows on the table and lifts his ears at Sheppard. How's life?

He can guess at the meaning of the ear perk easily enough. "Well, I'm Bound, but I'm in one piece. How're you?"

Join the club! Gromit shrugs. Things have been quiet. He hasn't had much to do with his hands, though: he's hit a dry spell thinking of things to invent. Anything Sheppard needs?

"Boring, huh? Yeah, that's how things here've mostly been. I need to go ask Eddie if he wants to go fly or something, and if I could tag along."

Flying is always enjoyable. Gromit hasn't done much of it in planes, although there was that rocket ship he and Wallace took on holiday to the moon. He tilts his head. Where does this Eddie person keep his plane?

Sheppard chuckles a bit. "Eddie's a plane. Sometimes, anyway. He's an AI that can turn into a human. He's still learning about human stuff, but he's likeable."

Gromit's ears shoot up!

Fascinating!

"He's usually in here as a human, but you might see him out by the lake or in the air as a big bronze jet. He's kinda hard to miss when he's not going fast."

Gromit would love to meet this Eddie person-- er, character? Being? What does he look like in the Bar? It might be a bit difficult to talk to him when he's flying fast.

"If you see him in here, he'll probably be in a Navy flightsuit. He seems to like being human a lot."

He'll remember that. Many thanks indeed, to quote Wallace.

Gromit peers at the cards again. Jack goes on the queen? (He does a double-take. That's a slightly unorthodox deck, isn't it?)

He sighs at the look. "Yeah, the Bar gave me these. Apparently she has a really weird sense of humor."

"I'll second that," says a tired voice from behind. "Hi, Sheppard -- can we talk?"

Gromit looks up at the new arrival and sighs. He really hopes he won't be asked to balance biscuits on his nose or some other extremely doggy trick.

He turns, looking at Lincoln and frowning. But he nods, scooting over to make room for Lincoln. "You look...well, kinda like hell. What's wrong?"

He sinks down, feeling both on edge and heavy. "Do you remember that guy who runs the place where I come from? Dr. Merrick?"

The frown deepens. "A little. Did he do something?"

"He's here. In the Bar. I spoke with him the other day. He didn't know it was me, and I don't think he knows me and Jordan are missing. But shit, Sheppard, he's here. And we're still Bound. What do we do?"

"Uh..." He tries to think fast. Sounding too discouraging won't help Lincoln at all, and he looks and sounds bad enough already. "Okay, the first thing we do is we don't panic. Panicking'll just get you into trouble. Does he usually have any weapons-guns, knives, whatever?"

"None that I've seen. But I've only ever seen him in his office. He'll bring me in and talk to me, but that's all. He was getting a little drunk when we spoke," he added. "He offered me a job."

"...To do what?" Judging from Lincoln's description of his universe, it probably wasn't anything pleasant.

"Well, I said I was in real estate in London, because I was pretending to be this character from Trainspotting, right? And he asked me if I knew of any good opportunities." Lincoln's knuckles are becoming a bit white at this point. "He's already got another facility somewhere else, and he wants to build a third in Russia. Do you have any idea how many people he'd be killing then?"

Sheppard lets out a breath slowly. Okay. So this has gone from bad to worse fast. "I kinda have an idea. But I don't think you could get away with doing anything to him here unless he did something to you first. The whole no violence rule. And outside the bar...I don't know how you'd find him, unless maybe you followed him out."

"What are you thinking?"

Lincoln doesn't want to hurt Merrick. Not yet. His first concern is taking care of the Institute. But he's always open to ideas.

"Honestly? I don't know yet. I don't know enough about him or your world."