revivalproject | Coruscant Catch-All

"I guess you are," she said with surprise. "Where in Jersey, then?"

She hadn't been to too many places in the state, but she was familiar with a few. Particularly anything near Atlantic City or closer to the Maryland border.

"Springfield Township. Not too far from Trenton," Tommy answered with a shrug. So yeah, he was not as familiar with Atlantic City, or most of South Jersey. "You know, the part of the state where effectively all you are happened to be was a suburb of New York City."

"Ahaa." She tried to gauge from his tone whether or not he considered that a good or a bad thing, then wondered if it really mattered. "You kinda gave me the idea you had some bad experiences with the Bureau... I can't apologize for them or anything, but ... I can at least promise you I won't give you a hard time. None of that has any place here."

"Not... the Bureau specifically, but feds back home have a lot of initials and they're all assholes," Tommy answered with a shrug.

Won't give him a hard time. Tommy can't help the bark of laughter here.

"Clarice, you can't. Not here. You don't have the equipment to catch a speedster."

"A lot of them where I'm from are assholes, too," she laughed in response. "Looking back, I was a pretty black sheep. ... How fast can you go?"

Black sheep. He snorts in amusement. Black sheep among the feds are just good people in his book. Or evil. He'd have to think about which she was.

"Last I bothered to check? Right conditions, Mach Four."

"Jesus," she marvels quietly, "that's faster than a got-damn Blackbird jet. And you can get that fast right off the bat?! You must go through sneakers like a hummingbird through sugar."

"Not off the back, it takes a bit of build up time. But my brother enchants my shoes and clothes to not burn up from friction," Tommy sighs, rolling his eyes. "And I haven't been up much past Mach One since hitting Temba. Not enough food."

Thus the shopping.

"So you really are like a hummingbird," she said with a light, teasing smile. "I'm sorry, though, but did you say he enchants your stuff? Don't tell me magic's real, too. Your version of the Earth seems a hell of a lot more interesting than mine."

"Well, I sleep rather than have some weird sorta hibernation, but I guess," Tommy answered, sounding less than pleased with the description. Even if it wasn't too bad of one.

"Dude, magic's completely real. Why wouldn't it be?"

Sorry your Earth is boring he guesses.

As strange as that question is, she can't argue with it. She can't say 'because it's not possible', since in his world, it very clearly is. As such, she shrugs a bit with a raise of her eyebrows that silently concedes the argument.

"Like I said, then: hell of a lot more interesting than mine. ... What else do you think you need for the diner? No, wait. Better question. What sort of things do you already have that we need to bulk up or work with?"

"We have a lot of vegetables and fruits and root things. I wanted a few new things with seeds so, if they're good, I can grow more stuff. But mostly, we need flour of all sorts. Noodles, grains, things like that."

Which is a LOT of stuff to need given it's more than he can work on his own planetside. Sure, the green house has some grains, but it taught him NOTHING about managing them. What he uses are things that are easy to cook.

"Hmm." She thought about that as she looked around the market. "Normally I'd suggest rice because that's a good staple, but it also needs a lot of water and I'm not sure what the state of that is, back there. You're right, though, grains are a real good idea. Especially something like a bean, so you can use it as a base and still get protein that tastes better than that slop on the ships."

She makes a face. She'd tried the cinnamon paste out of curiosity. It had been servicable for what it was meant to be - astronaut food - but it wouldn't do to live on permanently by any means.

"What about something like corn? That's versatile and you can make flour out of it." She picked up a vegetable that looked promising. There were multiple seeds or kernels sprouting from the center in pleasant Fibonacci spirals.

"The water is fine, we'll be okay with that, so I'll see about finding some of that. And beans."

Yeah, he sighs over beans. He's less excited. He likes bread, and pasta, and so many other things. That said, he looks at her horrified at the claim.

"Wow, you know the chili protein paste is amazing, right?"

Wait, he needs to pause.

"Corn meal really comes from corn?"

"I did not know that," she concedes graciously. "I only tried the cinnamon. I'll have to take your suggestion."

At his pause, she bites down on the laughter she feels bubbling up. "It sure does. Once it's shucked, it has to dry out, either in an oven or - you know, if we're going super rustic - in the sun. Then it's just a matter of grinding it up real fine... which I'm sure you could do in half a second with those speed powers of yours. Same with the rice. Rice flour's good too. It's what the Japanese use for tempura."

"Chocolate ain't bad either. Dad said you could turn it into something like ice cream, but we lack the liquid nitrogen."

And Tommy didn't know enough chemistry to experiment beyond that. Still, he's thoughtful at what she said. Was it really possible that he could do the grinding that was needed? Didn't seem like it was a good use of energy.

"There have to be tools, make it less energy intensive for me to do."

"I bet they'd have that here. Like in soft serve machines. Not like I've ever built or used on in my damn life, but ... someone here's gotta be good with machines, right?"

She shrugs, then goes back to the topic of the grain issue. "Well, mortar and pestle are a rough enough start, but even a food processor would be good if there's electricity. Or a blender. Both'd be good to have. What've you got in the kitchen right now? ... I'm no chef, but my beau ... well, that's another story."

"There are a few. Cal and Tony," he offers, because those are the two he knows and trusts.

Electricity, that's definitely something they have. Usually. "We don't have a lot there. Temba and the planet was abandoned for a while. We've been putting stuff together. So I guess I'll get both and ask someone to convert the electric running thing to the Agrii power grid."

"Maybe a laundry list of appliances to bring back is a good idea, too. I'm happy to help if you want. Not just with making the list, but picking things up. If we get a processor than there's no reason we can't try to grow other grains and make flour from those, too. Just have to get air-tight containers for it all so it doesn't spoil."

She's surprised, internally, at how eager she is to help him with this. As she pokes at the excitement carefully, she realizes it probably stems from an effort to stave off homesickness at all costs. If she can help in a kitchen, any kitchen, it's almost as good as helping prepare for a dinner party, even if the ingredients aren't nearly as expensive.

"What I'd put on the top of the laundry list would be a washer and dryer," Tommy answered with a sigh. Clothes, man, that was a thing. But he kept going anyway.

"You're a thinker," Tommy said, and his voice said he appreciated that. These were things he hasn't thought of before. "Alright then, we'll see if we can find things, but we'll have to message the engineers, see if they can convert them to power crystals or whatever."

"Ha, you know, I'd like those too." For more than just practical reasons, too: she couldn't count the number of times she'd come home from a long, hard day, thrown her sweaty (and sometimes otherwise soiled) shirts in the wash, and sat right down on the floor with her back against the machine, soothed by the swishing of the water and the hum of the motors.

"I'll let you take care of talking to the engineers, how's that? Since they're your friends and I'm pretty sure they'd do a double take at getting so many questions from a total stranger."

Tommy understood that mood about washers. Not that he really, you know, cared as much about being clean as other people. It's just that he couldn't reliably wash things by hand because it was easier for him to accidentally tear things with his powers.

"Yeah, I can hit up Caliente. Pretty sure he's still got that, and he was the one that fixed the replicator.

She's not sure if Caliente is what Cal is actually short for or it's a nickname, but it makes her smile regardless. However, the way Tommy puts it throws her off a little.

"Sorry, Tommy, but ... what do you mean? 'Got' what? The tools necessary?"

Of course it's not short for that, but Tommy made up names for people.

"The engineering datapoint."

"Thanks. I admit, I haven't heard much about the datapoints, I had about a day in Temba and then I woke up on the First Breath, here, the next morning. Sort of trial by fire in a sense, if you get what I mean. I'll have to do some more orientation and exploring when we get back. For now, though, if you're gonna reach out to Cal ... what can I do to help you best? You'd know better than me."

The market is growing a little busier now that the hour is changing, and while she keeps most of her attention on Tommy, she's still idly watching as some of the other shoppers peruse the fruits and vegetables.

Coruscant Catch-All

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We might be coming up on a good wrap point?

I was thinking the same!

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Calling it here on my side, then! TY! <3