revivalproject | Someone Didn't Pay the Electric Bill

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Someone Didn't Pay the Electric Bill

WHO: Cal Kestis, Kaz Brekker, Asterope Glass, Merrin and whoever might want to drop by
WHERE: Not-Temba/Sh'Ka's Power Station and related areas
WHAT: Cal's assembled a team to work on restoring the power and maybe establish communication from the other city
WHEN: End of August to mid-September ~~OMG WHY IS IT SEPTEMBER ALREADY~~
WARNINGS: ~~Kaz~~ N/A

Basecamp was set up within some of the offices of the power station, with a space for a rudimentary campfire outside if people wanted to heat up food or water to drink or use in general, or just enjoy the fresh air at night. Cal had brought along a couple of portable space heaters he'd cobbled together in case things got too cool inside at night, free for anyone's use.

The first day had mainly consisted of setting up a space for them to stay in and unloading whatever they'd managed to bring by way of equipment and rations, and a bit of territory scouting to see what was available for them. While the water plant, wherever that was, would have to be another project entirely, at least water itself was available, if requiring a bit of a walk from the station. Kyle's buddy system would be recommended, mainly out of concern for the large creatures that have been known to dwell within the wooded areas not far from there.

The power plant itself would be the next thing to look at to see what might need repairs, and if parts would be needed from the other city. Cal had Reeve's notes to share as well as previous experience in working on power restoration for Temba, and the similarities between the cities would make things at least a little easier. The most tedious part would be inspecting the connecting lines to make sure there wouldn't be any damaged areas that might cause problems if they went ahead and turned everything on. This would take the longest time, so the inspections would be divided up in sections, and they'd check back in after each one. The option to swap out between engineers would also be there so no one would be stuck with any one task, and Merrin would be able to bring them back and forth as she got more familiar with the layout of things.

It would be a lot of work and effort, but if there were things worth learning here, getting this done would be a key part to it.

((OOC: Feel free to treat this as a mingle and task sort of thing! Working on stuff? Taking a break? Getting chased by bunnyboars? Dropping off care packages for your hard-working engineers and friends? Do it do it do it! I will post an update on progress once I get some infos~))

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Asterope doesn't know what to do with the flirtation, blinking uncertainly at him. People usually don't look at her, and certainly no one finds the time to twirl her. But his words are kind, kinder than she's heard in a long time.

It's easier when his attention turns to the sky. She's in her element there. "You're from an urban area or one of the domed cities, then? Lots of light pollution?"

Enough of that question was normal that it made the abnormal so much more glaring, bringing Tony's focus back down to raise an eyebrow at the girl like that might help contextualize 'domed' better for him. "Ah--urban, light pollution, yeah. Domes, no, no domes. You have domes?" he asked. To get a better sense of where they might differ, to offered with a hand to his heart, "New York City. Most of the time. We keep our stars in penthouses."

"Domes--only certain cities have them, to protect from the air pollution. It's also written into war treaties that the domed cities can't be attacked. Only the really rich people live there, though. Never actually even seen one of them them in person. Stars--celebrities? Most of them live in the domes and never see real stars at all. But they might be happier, having safety, instead."

It's a bit of a bleak future, if you read between the lines there. Only the domes cities are explicitly protected from the effects of war? The air pollution is bad enough that this is a solution, but only for the affluent and famous?

It wasn't clear yet if this was a future for a place like Tony's Earth, or a parallel time where something had gone wrong, or a sister planet with enough commonalities that it felt like it could have been Earth yet. In any case, Tony narrowed his eyes, lips parted and ready to express some irritation with the casual way she explained herself not rich enough to have earned breathable air, only that irritation would have been misplaced. Some of it still leaked out as he declared, "It is not easier to build domes than it is to stop polluting." The treaty thing sounded more complex, and maybe just a little bit of a way to hold back the revolution, but pollution was a readily solvable problem. Not a problem for one girl without the capital, though, so Tony did raise his hands apologetically for the tone.

"Next you'll say that it's easier to grow food for everyone than to send those who are desperate on colony ships to terraform other worlds." And the way she touches her chest when she says the words 'foolish and desperate', that's context too.

"The world's a mess, but history seems to say it's always been one, steadily growing worse until a point of rupture. Those who have the means remain on Earth. Some go to the Moon or Mars, stay in-system, try to stick to their roots. Others...well, there's a whole universe out there. Maybe some colony will manage to establish itself in time. Maybe someone will succeed elsewhere. It's not like there's a lack of people who're willing to take the chance."

If this really was a possible future for Tony's Earth, and something happened, whether they all went back to fossil fuels for some godforsaken reason, or Galactus won the fight, that was already a painful enough possibility without this further implication that they would then be on their own. Surely, there were enough civilizations in the system to take in some refugees. What happened to them? Tony held that inquisitive, open mouthed expression again for a moment, then announced, "Listen, you really blindsided me with the violin, I wasn't expecting you to be so depressing." On the bright side, because it really felt like they needed one, Tony spread his hands to encompass the flourishing, breathable, farmable, planet around them, and tried, "Hey, you made it. Ready to rock and everything."

"Deepest apologies for being depressing." She looks away from him. "But...you're right. Maybe being brought here counts as making it. Maybe this is where a life can be built. It's still daunting and scary and lonely, though."

Her apology must have been amusing, because Tony was back to considering her intently with a hand on his hip, and he breathed a chuckle that left him watching her with a wry smile. It was probably going to be a challenge to get her angry. "There's where you're wrong," was not meant to do that just yet, Tony didn't know what his angle was still, and he held out a hand for her to take again with evident impatience so he could lead her back to the edge of the roof, where she had been able to peer down at him and the glow of the campfire. "I mean, daunting and scary, yes, I don't have a great argument and, sweetheart, you are not doing yourself any favours by heading all the way out here, of course it's scary out here, it's a ghost town. But lonely? Uh-uh," he said as he dropped down to sit where he could kick his feet against the side of the building. "Of course I've got--there's people back home that if I think too hard about them, it's like my heart's--" he started, and didn't have the proper words or confidence to finish exposing a wound like that, so clutched a hand over his chest like he might drill his nails into the skin. "But I've been way more lonely there than I have been here in a long time. Even out here in the middle of a--black hole." He waved at the dark edge of the forest then, like a wall cutting them off from the rest of the city. "I know Cal's down there somewhere. And I got you up here, keeping me on my toes, but I know what you're here to do, what we're all here to do, and it's hard to be lonely knowing we're all on the same team."

Lonely for her isn't a function of missing people back home. She's never really had people she's been attached to, not since she was taken away from the lab she was raised in. But she sees how he's struggling with it and nods, anyway, moving to sit down beside him.

"Sweetheart?" No, that's not the most confusing part of what he said, but it's the part that made something deep in her heart ache in a way she doesn't have words for.

The petname came out easily enough that Tony wasn't entirely sure where it had happened between all of the other words he had in him, or what about it had been striking enough to take precedence over anything else he was trying to say if her question didn't come with a more familiar tone of irritation. There was a lot she could have picked to be irritated by. Tony was getting a sense of her baseline now, though, which was sad, and easily sadder, so as he turned a raised eyebrow on her, the impulsive tease that curled wickedly at the corner of his mouth eased and he did his best to lick it away. She did make it sound like she had never heard the phrase before.

"It means..." he started slowly, watching her out of the corner of his eye to give her the opportunity to stop him if she didn't actually need a definition, only to rush on ahead before she could actually intervene, the smirk not entirely gone, "the most beautiful girl in the room. Roof." He flicked a hand out behind him with a roll of his eyes, you know what I mean.

"Only girl on the roof, but okay." She's smiling though. It's small and faint and uncertain, but she's smiling, because he called her beautiful, and that's something that's never really mattered about her before. Beauty isn't useful, not to those who created her. But this guy thinks she's beautiful, and that's nice.

"What's your name?"

It was a relief that she wasn't so cautious that she wasn't in on the joke, and Tony briefly gave her a private smile in return to try to encourage that one she was working on before frowning and giving a dramatic double-take over his shoulder. Pointing his thumb back, he hissed, "You don't see her?," only for the smile to return just as easily.

"Call me Tony. Whatever you've heard, it's all true," he replied, tipping forward to peer down between his feet like he might spot Cal from here. He was only one of the perpetrators of Tony's reputation.

Well, of course she looks over her shoulder, then back at him, wrinkling her nose slightly at his joke, but the smile doesn't disappear and slowly settles onto her face like it actually belongs there.

"No one's said anything about you, good or bad. But you seem nice enough. Kind, you seem very kind. It's definitely pretty different."

Tony's mercurial performance returned, this time to gasp with shock, delicate hand to his heart, at the bold cruelty of telling him he wasn't being talked about. Which didn't seem quite as funny as she just as boldly started throwing around 'nice' and 'kind'; not the kind of reputation he was used to making. So he let his hand drop quickly to the edge of the roof again, considering the fire below with a shrug before she got herself too set up for disappointment. "Now I know you haven't been making any friends yet," he said. "You haven't been here long, have you? Stick with Cal, he's got a good sense for people. Rumours are he'll kill a bear for you, too."

"Been here only a couple of weeks not, yeah. Also, are there bears that need to be killed? For anyone?" This is clearly a very important question, and not just a distraction from his (entirely valid) point about not making friends yet.

"Depends on who you ask," Tony grinned. "Couple weeks? Did you even find the ships yet? Never mind, you're doing great. His girlfriend, is who you ask. Is she here, too? She told me she was looking out for him. Don't ask her about bears, though, I don't think she has...those." This all came very quickly, and still yet only enjoyed the briefest intermission as Tony gestured loosely toward the forest to continue, "Certainly something out there that's been chasing people."

Her smile dims somewhat as she follows his gesture with her pale gaze. "It almost seems like you're trying to confuse. Don't tease, Tony. Please?"

"I'm not--" Tony started to interrupt, only that wasn't strictly true and her plea did sound like she might be hurt. Not that it was intentional, just a natural barrier that came easily for Tony to stay behind as he tried to talk as fast as he could think, and while it was very much intended to confuse, it wasn't usually meant to harm. Feeling a bit like she had taken a shield away from him, Tony tensed, shoulders up and gripping the ledge that they sat on. If she were older, he might have taken that as a challenge. "Sorry," he muttered instead, and kept his focus on the forest, avoiding any more damaging insight that might come with eye contact.

It was only completely excruciating trying not to talk, so it didn't take Tony long before he was blurting the most innocuous thing that came to him, "You sounded happy. Before. With the violin."

"Used to play as a kid. It was a test, everything was at the la--as a kid. But it wasn't a painful one, wasn't too hard to be successful at. And it's nice to try again now, not on their terms. To play without it being for someone else, trying to meet standards. To pick what to play."

She can't pinpoint why she didn't tell him about the lab. Maybe because she didn't want to see how it made his face look, if she did.

Even with the careful omission, this was particular enough phrasing for Tony to raise his eyebrows curiously. Particular, but Tony thought he might have understood what she meant, in a way, to be tested under severe scrutiny when you were still expected to hold hands when crossing the road. "It was languages, for me, that came easy," he tried to feel out, watching her out of the corner of his eye as he gestured loosely like he was just listening to his own voice again. "I mean, listen, everything comes easy for me, I'm a genius, that's the whole shtick. But my old man didn't expect me to speak Mandarin or whatever to him at home, and he wasn't checking my code when I built something, either it worked or it didn't, or it was a waste of time in the first place, you know, dad stuff. They weren't really things he could drill down with me about, they were--binary. I could do it, pat on the head. Metaphorically. Scotch on the rocks if he was feeling generous."

"It makes you want to work harder, to push yourself more, to do anything just to get that pat on the head." She lets out a sound that isn't really a laugh, even if it's shaped like one. "Were you ever in competition with anyone? Trying to be one of the worthy ones out of many?"

That was a little more revealing, and Tony nodded slowly in encouragement, like she could speak freely here with someone who understood the same pressure. External motivation for Tony more typically took the form of the threat of the stick, rather than the promise of the carrot--and whether he was trying to avoid that stick or provoking it changed rapidly. This girl didn't make it sound like she would be putting her feet up on the dean's desk any time soon.

Tony's worth was a different performance altogether, and he hesitated then, openly studying her this time as he considered how to get her to tell him more. "When I was your age..." he guessed, head tilted slightly with the question, how old was she anyway?, but continuing nonetheless, "I thought I was untouchable. It wasn't a competition, I had already won with the opening move. I was a complete asshole, of course. Now I know better, I've seen more past my own dick, and I spend most of my time trying to keep up. It's still not really a competition, I don't--...I'm buying my way into the game, every day. I know that's not going to end well for me."

"Maybe if you'd been back there, you would have been one of the successful ones. Usually, it was the strong or fast ones. People wanted them as soldiers, as infiltrators. To serve in the wars. The smart ones, too. Strategists."

She doesn't place herself in any of those categories, though.

"Were you engineered, too, Tony?"

If all it took to succeed in this place the girl was talking about was an inflated ego, then Tony grinned and nodded, sure, maybe he would have. It wasn't lost on him how she hadn't included herself in either party as she spoke, either the product or the buyers, and his plastic grin faded as he considered where that left her with 'too'. All of the pieces she had offered of this puzzle so far were producing a hollow dread in his stomach that made his shrug heavier and less casual than he intended as he replied, "Nah. Baseline. This face was the luck of the draw," with a flourish and renewed, dazzling smile. It took on a distinctly predatory cast, eyes coldly intent as he asked, "What were you supposed to be?"

"Enhanced senses. Better ability for math. A failed experiment. It leads to getting overwhelmed, in crowded or loud or bright places. Deficient, unwanted. Stayed until the lab was taken down by American special forces. The irony is, at least one person on that team had grown up there. Good enough for the Americans."

She doesn't look at him as she speaks, instead glancing down over the edge of the building. So she misses that predatory smile, that frost in his gaze.

Someone Didn't Pay the Electric Bill

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