(Untitled)

[gone_byebye]

The front door flies open. There's a brief glimpse of a New York alleyway, and the sound of quite a few people, but that doesn't last long. This is because Ray fairly leaps through the door and slams it shut behind him

Comments

[guppy_sandhu]

Ray's question earns him an eying from the other side of the room.

"What's up Ray? Someone sue you for taking the wrong ghost?"

[gone_byebye]

"Fanboys," Ray says. "My lightsaber showed up on the evening news and now there's a bunch of fanboys on my doorstep."

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy winces.

"Ouch. I see the problem. Is Lucas suing you?"

[gone_byebye]

"I wish," Ray says. "Then maybe they'd accept that I'm not going to show them how I did it, and go away."

[guppy_sandhu]

"They believe it's real then?"

Guppy looks quite surprised. "I wouldn't have if it wasn't for this place.

[gone_byebye]

"Film footage on the seven o'clock news," Ray says. "I had to cut my way out of a major ghost snot bubble and there were security cameras..."

[guppy_sandhu]

There is a pause.

"Have you confirmed it? How good are the pictures?"

[gone_byebye]

"Good enough to identify a pickpocket in a crowd of four thousand people at a distance of a hundred and fifty feet," Ray says. "There's no way around it. Anyway, I'm not a very good liar. I don't plan to start for this."

[guppy_sandhu]

"Pity. You could have had it as a publicity stunt. And I know what you mean, I'm an appallingly bad liar as you know. But if people know the tech's available it'll only be a matter of time before someone else manages to work it out. And if they aren't a responsible person like you, it'll be a new age of severed limbs."

[gone_byebye]

"Well, it's not as if we didn't have that spread in Omni about our proton pack technology a few years back, either," Ray says a bit defensively. "But this? Yeah. Not cool. Of course, it's not so much a severed limb issue as a blow-your-frickin'-hand-off issue. Aligning a saber's central crystal generally takes the use of the Force to do exactly right. The only reason I still have both my hands is because I built the crystal from the molecular level up- I knew exactly how it would react, so I aligned it properly. It's got a new crystal now, but Master Qui-Gon taught me about that. Most people? If they ever figure out the power routing, they're gonna have to figure out how to make the crystals first, and then how to install them, and then they'll switch the sabre on and BOOM there goes the hand that held it."

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy winces at that.

"Sorry Ray, didn't mean to have a go at you or anything. But you can see why a lightsabre's going to have more desirability than a proton pack. For a start I'm guessing they're heavy. Secondly Star Wars has the most gigantic fan base."

He sips his tea and passes the biscuits. "What are you going to do?"

[gone_byebye]

Without looking up, Ray picks out one of the biscuits. "I was thinking of running in circles and going "augh" for a while, actually," he says. "And then hunting down a lawyer and groveling at his or her feet."

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy racks his brains to think of some lawyers.

"That little guy who got turned into a dog, isn't he a lawyer?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray looks up, blinking. "You're going to have to be more specific."

[guppy_sandhu]

"No wait maybe he was an accountant. The guy who lived opposite Dana in the movie. I can't remember his name."

[gone_byebye]

"Oh. Tully." Ray shakes his head. "No, he's an accountant. In the local Peter's version of things he got a law degree, but I'd rather not trust my legal fortunes to him. As a lawyer he's a brilliant accountant."