redshiftlogs | [OPEN]

Who: Poison & OPEN
What: messing about with robot corpses, some drawing, other things
When: Septemberish
Where: noted in-post
Warnings: none yet
Format: Prefer brackets but will match.

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i. robot things | Research & Development

[Best not to ask Poison just how she, a slim young woman of not much more than five feet in height, managed to pull not one but three mangled robot corpses into the R&D labs. She's made something of a nest for herself in one of the corners, almost entirely blocked in with tables and an acquired shelving unit full of tools and pieces of equipment that she's squirrelled away over her short time here.

If the Box taught her nothing else, it was how to hoard anything that you think you might need.

What she seems to be doing varies between making no noise at all (when she's taking things apart with a small screwdriver, peering into the insides, putting things in small piles based on what she thinks they do or what she knows they do), and making the kind of racket that makes it seem very much like she has no idea of what she's doing at all (usually some manner of cacophonous banging of metal). Occasionally, she'll decide that something is of no use at all and toss it to one side.

And she wonders, sometimes, if Ratchet would be proud of how much she'd learned from him.]

Mmmn, no, that's not it-- [She mutters to herself sometimes, and scribbles notes into a scruffy, ink-smudged notebook on one of the tables.] How is anybody supposed to figure out how these things are meant to work if they're all broken?

ii. doodles | Park

[In the Park - and in other places suited for such endeavours - she sits and fills her sketchbook with doodles and drawings of her surroundings. Sometimes she deviates, with little scribbles of things she remembers from places she's been before. People, buildings, even the occasional fuzzily-recalled landscape.

What seems to be featuring quite prominently in her mind right now, should someone come across her, is a certain someone that she has thus far done several drawings of without thinking about the implications of it.

But, around that, she takes the time to draw a few plants, an insect or two, and even a full-page sketch of the entire area in front of her, reaching up to the highest levels that she can see from where she's sitting. It's a break from taking robots apart, at least.]

iii. mushroom soup | Mess Hall

[The last few years haven't made her particularly picky about what she eats - you get what you can, and you eat it so you don't starve - but the supplies here are oddly plentiful and Poison is not a person to not see this and decide to not take advantage.

In the mess hall, she plants a large pot on one of the stove tops and cooks one of her favourite things - mushroom soup made with the smallest mushrooms she can possibly find. Once something she used to insist on being made how she liked it despite her stepmother's instructions as some small act of rebellion, now it acts as one of those reminders of home that you take because it's the only thing you can find to serve the purpose.]

Do you want some? [She asks when she hears someone walk into the room, making the offer without turning around.] It'll be ready soon.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Qubit frowns, confused. ] What do you mean? I wanted it green, that's all there is to it.

[ He sets the arm down on the table. She can keep that if she wants, he doesn't need it. ]

My power allows me to convert machines from one form to another. Just about anything I can imagine, I can create.

Oh.

[Less impressive, more amusing. And she will keep it, thank you very much. It takes a little huffing on her part, but she moves it to the side of the table and gives it a light pat without thinking about how peculiar she looks in doing so.]

Well, that sounds like it could come in useful here.

[ He lets out an unvoiced chuckle at her patting the arm - glad she likes it, at least. Whether she takes it apart or figures out how to program it, either's more than fine by him. ]

It does. Well - [ He shifts to his other foot, putting his hands in his pockets. ] Not as useful as it could be, I suppose. If it were operating at full capacity, I'd have had this whole place back up and running inside of a fortnight.

[ Which, yeah, he's bitter about, if his tone of voice says anything. ]

Really?

[She hears that bitterness. Her attention drifts momentarily back to the arm he made, and she gives it another look over, running her fingertips over some of the smaller moving parts in the joints.]

There's something wrong with your powers?

Mm. [ An vaguely affirmative vocalization. ]

[ He's not sure why he's telling her this. There are a handful of people who know, but they all found out by accident. He doesn't like to broadcast his weaknesses. Right now, though, he ... doesn't really feel threatened. (Because Poison's a technological novice, or because she's nice, or because she's a young woman? A: Yes.) ]

It's something to do with the world I was dragged to before this. Their Porter changes people. Gives them powers, or alters the ones they already have. Mine wasn't affected at the time, but since coming here...

[ He looks at the palm of his hand, dissatisfied. ]

[Perhaps he would find it strange to know that she wouldn't even register it as a weakness. It's something that is, and he isn't the only one who finds himself bereft of his natural abilities. If she could shape this world like she could her own, she could have them all home within an hour.

It's frustrating.]

Since coming here... it's like Anchor doesn't want you to be able to fix everything?

... Hm? Oh, no. Nothing so intentional.

[ There was intention involved when it came to the Porter on Earth-β. The government didn't want him near their precious toy, and whatever entity controlled the Porter didn't want anyone leaving that dimension. He doesn't have any evidence one way or the other, but his gut tells him Anchor doesn't have the same "will" behind it. The station is only a relic. ]

It's an unfortunate coincidence, that's all. An unforeseeable collision between three distinct teleportation wavefunctions. Or at least that's what my evidence suggests. I'm still looking into it.

Ah.

[She sways back slightly in her seat, then forwards, and lets out a sharp huff of breath through her nose.]

I can't do anything here that I can do at home. If I could... [A shrug.]

It would probably be useful.

[ Intrigued, he tips his head slightly to one side. ] What's your power there?

I'm the Hierophant.

[Internally, she's bracing herself for the same arguments she always gets into when she tells people about this. Her approach to it is the thought that it's as much a part of who she is as her name, as the colour of her eyes, and he's told her some interesting things about himself so why should she keep this a secret?]

I... write the laws of the world I live in. The natural laws. The destinies of the people. The world and its Realms are my story.

[ "Hierophant." A priest, an interpreter of sacred mysteries. But the more Poison says, the more Qubit's eyes gradually widen. If what she says is true, she's no mere interpreter, but a scribe - and her manuscript is reality itself.

For the most part, he can believe it - the only thing it takes him a second to get his head around is the scope of her claim. It would mean she controls everything from the interactions of elementary particles to the very underpinnings of causality. It would make her a reality warper on par with the Plutonian - or perhaps even stronger, since Tony never truly knew how to exploit that side of his abilities.

Qubit's quiet for a moment, parsing this information. ]

Poison, that's...

[ All of a sudden, his face lights up with unrestrained fascination. ]

That's incredible! How does that manifest? It's tied to the act of writing, somehow? What sort of things have you done with it?

[It's not the kind of reaction that she's used to. Even in her home world the only ones who know of the existence of the hierophant are the phaeries... as far as the Realm of Man is concerned, there's no such person.]

It's... writing, yes.

[It's funny, but she's never really given that much thought as to how it works. She knows that it does, and that if she wished she could change the direction of gravity or put entire cities under water.]

I haven't been in the position very long. The first thing I want to do is right some of the wrong that my predecessor accidentally did.

[OPEN]

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