milliways_bar | (no subject)

Iago is somewhat taken aback by the tools and boxes the other man is laden with.

"Prithee, sir, dost thou require assistance?"

Ray looks up, blinking. He doesn't get prithee'd much.

"Well," he says hesitantly, "if you might carry this for me-" He hefts the toolkit. "I was going to modify this- um-"

Unless he's Leonardo da Vinci's heretofore unknown English apprentice, 'helicopter' isn't gonna cut it, he thinks.

"-flying machine a bit," he decides. "Only got two hands, though."

Iago takes the toolkit, looking at it curiously. The curiousity only increases with the man's next words.

"Flying machine? Is this a piece of magic thou hast made, or a mechanical contrivance of some kind?"

"Mechanical, I assure you," Ray says as he finds a likely table and sets the chopper down on it. "I have no skill for magic. The trapping and capture of ghosts, yes, but that's done with science. I have to call on other people for assistance if I need a spell or something-"

He glances over at the man. "Want to see it fly a little? I could show you. It wouldn't take very long."

"I would be glad to see what thy machine can do," Iago replies, "as thou must have labored long to build it."

He smiles slightly.

"I am always happy to learn more of a man's passions, and mayhap I could also learn thy name?"

He chuckles. "My name's Raymond Stantz," he says, "but most people just call me Ray. And might I inquire as to your own, my good sir?"

He takes a few things off the table and gestures to stand back a little. "All right," he says, "watch."

He flips a switch on the small box in his hand, and on top of the helicopter, the blades slowly start to rotate with a wum wum wum sound.

Iago watches closely.

"Most intriguing," he murmurs, before glancing back to Ray.

"I am called Iago, late of Venice and Cyprus, and I am honored to make thy acquaintance, Master Ray."

[ooc: He's been canon-punctured, if that's helpful.]

"It gets better," Ray says, sliding a lever upwards. The wum wum wum gets faster and faster; the helicopter wobbles, and then with an undignified lurch, it's airborne. Ray grins and fiddles with a few more levers to make the device tip just a little bit and move forward before circling back around to the table.

"Pleased to meet you too, sir," he says as he lands the helicopter. "The name sounds familiar, but I can't place- wait, were you by any chance assistant to a magician at some point? Or would that be someone else of your name?"

It should probably be mentioned that while Ray read all the works of both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Charles Fort before he turned nine years old, his Shakespeare education is largely limited to Hamlet, Macbeth, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. He's got more than a few gaps in his education, and most of them are smack where the humanities and liberal arts ought to be.

Iago watches the device fly with some interest before turning his attention back to Ray.

"Nay, I have been no magician's assistant but only a soldier," he replies, amused.

The visible amusement fades as he continues.

"But I have found, since I came to this place, that some patrons are familiar with a twisted telling of my life's tale that makes them wary of me. It is a sad irony that the very crime I attempted to revenge is the one this account doth accuse me of committing."

Ray winces as he shuts down the power and sets the 'copter's controls aside. "Oh, man, that's gotta be rough," he says. "A lot of people here knew about my life's story too when I turned up, but apparently I got a fairly complimentary treatment. I'm sorry to hear you got shafted."

Did we mention that Ray wasn't allt hat good at his anthropology classes either? Slang doesn't always carry across, but he forgets, sometimes.

"Shafted?"

Iago looks curiously at Ray.

"I am afraid thy meaning is unknown to me, but I am cheered to hear that others have suffered this same strange treatment of their life's story. Mayhap this will encourage those I meet to look beyond the villainy imputed to me, and discover the honest man I strive to be."

"Shafted- um..." Ray scrambles for a less-than-vulgar translation of the term. "It means when you've been treated as unfairly as someone who's been, say, given nothing of a spear but the shaft, and told to attack the enemy anyway. Or something very close to that."

He nods. "It's entirely possible that there'll be people willing to do that. There's a lot of people here who were genuine villains and found this place to be an opportunity for redemption- I figure a population like that will probably make folks more inclined to listen kindly to someone who was slandered, too."

Iago's smile is outwardly one of relief.

"Thou hast done much to ease my mind, Master Ray, and I thank thee for it. If I am to make a life here, I would not be hampered by convictions about my character from those I have not even met."

"Don't thank me, I'm just the messenger," Ray says. "Wait until your experience bears it out. NOt that this isn't a great place, but occasionally things go badly wrong and I'd hate for you to get the impression I gave you false information, you know?"

"Your candor is most refreshing," Iago says seriously.

"I myself do well understand your desire to avoid the imparting of false information or even the impression thereof, and am glad to see it."

Ray shrugs. "I'm a scientist," he says, "in a field that the general public views half the time as magic, and half the time as fraud. It doesn't sit well with me to give an inaccurate report. THat kind of thing builds bad habits."

"Thou speakest truth."

Iago smiles ruefully.

"Tis a very bad habit indeed to give false report, and may lead to troubles beyond telling."

Whether or not that's the point, of course, depends on the messenger.

Naturally.

"Oh, don't I know it," Ray mutters. "If I ever lay my hands on Walter Peck again, he's going to pay for lying about us to the Mayor..."

"Thou hast an enemy who deals in lies, then? I am sorry to hear it."

Iago's face is solemn.

Ray strikes him as an honest man. It would be a pity indeed for such a man to become entangled with one who gave false reports.

Yes. It would.

Of course, Ray has little ability to read body language- human body language, anyway- and all the survival instincts of an eggplant.

"It's not so much an enemy as a guy who thought we were frauds, and tried to convince the mayor of it, and nearly wrecked the whole city in the process," Ray mutters. "He got a couple hundred pounds of molten marshmallow dumped on his head in front of thousands of people, though. I'm going to take the humiliation as my revenge and call it even. It's just simpler."

Iago has no idea what molten marshmallow is, but it does not sound pleasant.

"Oh aye," he agrees. "Tis best to make thy revenge simple, if thou hast been wronged and thy tale makes it evident that thou wast."

Ray grins. "Nothing takes the sting off a slander like seeing the guy who spread it embarrassed in front of an entire city," he says. "Anyway. I definitely wish you luck in dealing with people around here, but I think you should do pretty well, all things considered."

"I thank thee, Master Ray," Iago says with a nod that somwhow suggest a bow.

"I will leave thee to thy flying machine, then, and mayhap we shall chance to speak again."

Because he has this habit of sneaking up on people, there is a Jedi smirking at a table near to Ray. "What are you working on now, Padawan? It seems like you are branching out into small flying machines."

Under other circumstances Ray would yelp and perform a feat known in the animal kingdom as 'stotting', albeit with two legs instead of four. Fortunately, he reins the impulse in in time. "What, this?" he says, twisting around in his seat and laying a hand on the helicopter. "Oh, this is a children's toy in my world- a model of larger means of transportation. Unlike winged craft, this little beauty can move straight up and down or hover in addition to horizontal flight, which is why I'm rigging it with a low-caliber laser for use as a substitute for a training drone. Can't really get those in my world, after all."

He raises an eyebrow and takes a look at the contraption. That is certainly a creative way to create a practice remote." A grin. "However, yet again, you seem to have solved a problem in a quite innovative manner." He pauses. "Does it work?"

"Don't know," Ray says. "Haven't tried yet. Although the 'copter flies, and I've got no reason to believe the laser doesn't work- hang on-"

He flips a switch on a handheld box and the machine's rotors start to spin. A moment later, the awkward dragonfly of a device lifts into the air. "See, there," Ray says, pointing to the thing's underbelly. "That's where I mounted the laser. It took me a little bit to reroute the power switch, since it's supposed to be handheld. Not a very strong laser, either. If I'm going to mark down a failure to deflect I have to either count on the person controlling the 'copter to see that the red dot's hit me, or I have to use that light-sensitive outfit I made."

Qui-Gon looks at it for a moment, seemingly pondering something in his head. "If you do not mind a comment of technological note, I might be able to re-calibrate your laser there to simulate more of what an actual remote does, which is create a beam of light which stings, but does not harm." He points out a couple bits on the laser. "It would take a small adjustment here and here." He grins, however. "Those are things, though, which you would not have known, from the technology of you world, from my understanding. I think you have done quite well."

Ray considers the innards of the laser for a while. "You know," he says at last, "I do believe you're right. And given that this laser is a model I bought at a pet store, intended for entertaining cats, that's a fairly impressive thing. What tools would be necessary to pull that off?" He nods towards his tool kit. "That was what I used to rework the chopper to begin with..."

He laughs a bit. "There was a challenge once in the Temple, where the Masters gave us various scrap parts and random devices, and we had to create a training remote out of the spare pieces. I re-calibrated what would look to you like a laser pointer, to make the laser part of my remote." He smirks and rummages around in the tool box, pulling out a couple tools. "I believe these would be all you would need."

"Remind me to tell you about the entertainment series 'MacGyver' sometime," Ray says. "Same sort of idea... okay, yeah, I think I can do that." He starts in on the work immediately. "This'll make it way easier. Thank you."

Now there's a term he hasn't heard afore. "Entertainment series? What sort of entertainment are you speaking of?" He raises an eyebrow but grins. "And there is certainly no need for thanks. It is part of my job, Padawan." Is that a wink? Perhaps.

"Uh... Television. Like holovids, but flat, and a new one every week." Ray frowns a little and makes a few adjustments. "It was the kind of thing I wanted to watch when I was a kid, but my parents didn't let me watch very much television. The main character used to go around the country for a group called the Phoenix Foundation, finding wrongs and cheats and stuff that needed to be put right, and he solved his problems with clever use of everyday objects and scientific principles instead of fancy technology and guns."

He picks up one of the other tools and gives the laser another tweak. "Does that look about right toyou?"

"I believe I have heard of television from Lady Valentine. She spoke of it as something historical from her world. My galaxy has something similar, on the holonets. Stories which are shown over a period of weeks and months." A pensive smile. "That sounds like an interesting concept for a story, or entertainment, or whatever you wish to call it. Certainly something which I wish more people would take into consideration. Problems do not need to be solved with technology or weapons. Simple things or simple people can solve problems just as effectively, if not moreso."

Qui-Gon peers at the laser apparatus and smiles. "Looks like it should work perfectly. You have done quite well, Padawan." Grin.

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Ray says. "She and I are from the same general part of the planet. We're just separated by time and a little distance.... and yeah, you're right about it not being necessarily necessary, but you gotta admit that sometimes the technology approach is just pretty darn cool." The size of his grin should make it fairly obvious what he means by the slang. He is, after all, an engineer.

One who still has to resist the urge to air-jog like a Labrador being scratched in just the right spot when he gets called 'padawan', we might add. The smile broadens a notch before he clears his throat and rivets his attention back on the device. "Thanks. Shall I test it and make sure?"

Qui-Gon just beams, shaking his head a bit. He is somehow reminded of the younglings in the Temple, when they heard that a certain famous person or another was coming to speak with them.

"Well, I have to agree with you there, Ray. It certainly is fun to use technology in different ways, and simply play with the technology." He pauses. "You remind me of a youngling I knew once, brilliant with technology, everything he touched or thought of worked. Created a protocol 'droid, even. That's something beyond difficult to actually accomplish."

Another grin. "And of course you should test it out. Perhaps we should go out back, so you can attempt to deflect the beams."

"Robotics isn't really my thing," Ray says absently. "I'd have to program it, which is a little beyond me. I could build the body, sure, but someone else would have to do all the languages and-"

Hear that screeching noise? That's Ray's brain pulling the brakes on Ray's tongue. Ray, it's saying, you've seen this movie.

"Oh," is all he says. Well, that and, "... thank you. I'll be careful-"

For possibly the first time in his life he brings the speech queue under control before he does himself any more damage.

"Yeah. Out back is good. That would be- yeah, let's do that."

Ray is learning. This is a good thing. Smiling, Qui-Gon gestures toward the door, and strides over to it, assuming he would be followed.

"Again, Padawan, you do not need to thank me for speaking the truth." With that, he opens the door, and walks out to the lake area.

Ray nods, grabbing the chopper and the controller and following as quickly as he can. Outside is a more congenial environment for the thing to fly in anyway. "This is the controller," he says, handing it over. "That one's the power switch, that one there is altitude, the other one is left/right- it's really pretty simple. Oh, and the big red button is the laser."

Lasers, in his estimation, should always have big red buttons. It is a thing.

Big red buttons seem to transcend universes, because Qui-Gon grins at it for a moment, before taking the controls, and letting the device fly around for a moment. "Alright. I believe I can handle this device." He steps back a few feet, letting it hover just about Ray's eye level, waiting for the other man to be ready.

Of course they do. Ace approved when he built one into the Casix cutting laser they used to test the Doctor's armor.

*ahem* Anyway.

Ray eyes the helicopter, which suddenly looks oddly menacing for a yellow and green children's toy. He allows himself a deep breath before pulling his 'sabre out (my god, I built this thing?- he still can't quite believe that) and switching it on. The initial stance he assumes would do a sifu's heart proud; his flashlight practice has all been after the Chinese pattern, after all.

Yep. Let's get-

"Ready," he says.

Switch me on.

Qui-Gon just beams at Ray for a moment, before turning his attention back to the device.

The helicopter hovers for a moment, before turning right, then up, then right again, and left, then firing a shot from the laser, somewhere around the area of the front of Ray's 'sabre. Qui-Gon is not going for the tricky just yet.

Which is good. Ray's a little bit twitchy right now. Fortunately, it manifests as slightly faster reflexes than usual rather than Egon's overenthusiastic use of whatever weapon comes to hand- the 'sabre flicks in the right direction in a guarding motion, and while Ray is pleased not to have been stung, he is secretly more pleased that it makes the proper whmmmm noise when it moves...

What? He's easily entertained, sometimes. See: firehouse pole, testing of.

Qui-Gon smiles, but remains silent, maneuvering the device in various ways, shooting bolts at seemingly random times. He's surprisingly good at simulating a remote. Perhaps he's spent a bit too much time with them.

On another level, though, he's grinning at Ray's almost childish manner towards it. He's reminded yet again of the younglings in the Temple.

This is not really a surprise. One day Ray will show Qui-Gon where he got that helicopter to begin with. And the toys he got for his nephews as, erm, camouflage. For now, however, Ray is doing his level best to keep up- and for someone who's never actually drilled against anything but what he sees with his eyes closed and the lights off, he's not doing too badly. Possibly it comes of several years spent fighting airborne, highly erratic opponents- with a different weapon, to be sure, but tracking the source is not so very different as all that.