(Untitled)

[gone_byebye]

Ray makes his way into the Bar with Francis the robot dog at his heels. He's humming something cheerful to himself, and he's got a New York Aquarium hat on. Once again, someone pulled him aside and had a word with him before he left; he does not, in fact, smell like fish. It's Francis' rapid head-swiveling and flashing of the yellow eye-light that

Comments

[q_in_training]

Mac definitely does.

Well, okay, first she takes interest in the robot dog, because that's just cool. After that is the sculpture.

If she tilts her head any further in an effort to decipher it, she's going to end up upside down.

[gone_byebye]

Ray looks up and grins. "If I'm lucky, this is going to turn out to be a working prototype of a box that's five times bigger ont he inside than on the outside," he says. "Hi there."

[q_in_training]

"Nice." Approving, if surprised. "I know I could use one of those right about now."

And a smile as she straightens back up. "Hey, Ray."

[gone_byebye]

"My fiancee says I'm going to need way more room to keep my stuff if I keep adding books to my collection, so I figured I'd give it a try," Ray says. "She's got her own dimensional pocket, but her species's had mastery of that kind of technology for longer than there's been humans, so no big surprise. Hi, Mac. Long time no see."

[q_in_training]

"Yeah, seriously. Since...April or something."

She gets up, moving closer to Ray and the sculpture.

With a small snort, as she folds her arms, "All my parents've been doing is suggest I give some of my books up. Like that's going to happen. So how's it work?"

[gone_byebye]

"Ouch. Best you can do in a situation like that is stash them out of sight." He looks at the structure and shakes his head a little. "There's some fairly complicated math involved, but mostly it begins with the assumption that I have to work in more than three dimensions. Four is Time, so for that to work I have to put pieces in 'two days ago', 'today', and 'a week and a half from now'. Only it looks as if several of the pieces are- well-" He points at one of the fuzzy ones. "I never put that one in yet. I think that might be one of the ones I have to put in when I reach the week and a half mark."

[q_in_training]

"Some people smuggle weed into their college packing, I smuggle Tolkien," she says, dryly amused.

Taking a seat, Mac leans her chin into one hand and peers at the fuzzier parts of the Magnetix.

"Weird," she adds after a while. Glancing at Ray, "At least it's eliminating some of the guesswork, though."

That tips upward slightly, into a half-question.

[gone_byebye]

"you could try shipping them to your dorm address when your parents aren't looking," Ray suggests. "So they arrive after you've already settled in."

Then he nods. "It does. Including the question of whether I'm going to complete this or not. There's really no way I'd be willing to mess up and not finish the project now."

[q_in_training]

"Seems kind of weird to do that when I'm moving all of thirty minutes away, tops," she says, but thoughtfully: it's definitely worth a try.

"How long've you been working on it?"

It's taking a fair bit of self control to not touch the future-bits of sculpture. Mac does not want to screw up the space-time continuum.

[gone_byebye]

"Oh, my parents didn't even want me to move at first, considering that school wasn't all that far from home," Ray says. "But I didn't really have a choice."

"The week and a half mark arrives in six days and two hours."

[q_in_training]

"Yeah, mine are all, 'yay, dorm life, it's half the experience!' And I'm not complaining."

Even if the idea of having a roommate still wigs her out a little.

She inches a hand closer. "Okay, not that I'm going to do it, but if I did touch this, would time, like, collapse in on itself or anything?"

[gone_byebye]

"No clue," Ray admits. "I don't, uh... I don't actually have official sanction from any of the dimensional agencies I know of for this. I mean, I did get an okay from the Doctor, but he never mentioned anything about parts dropping into existence or out of it, so I don't know if I'm even using the same system the Gallifreyans use to build their TARDISes."

[q_in_training]

That earns a slightly blank look.

One thing at a time:

"Which doctor?"

[gone_byebye]

"Ten," Ray says. "I haven't seen Nine or Four in here in a while."

[q_in_training]

Yeah. Uh. The blank look? Not getting any better.

"Is that supposed to have made sense?"

[gone_byebye]

"Gallifreyans regenerate instead of dying like humans, but they keep their same identity," Ray says cheerfully. "It's easier for humans to keep track of them by saying which regeneration they are sometimes. The Doctor doesn't actually give a name when he's talking to people, just his title- as opposed to my fiancee, whose name is Romanadvoratrelundar but everybody calls her Romana. The Doctor who currently comes to the Bar is the Tenth Doctor, because he had the original incarnation and nine regenerations. I met the Ninth Doctor when he first came in, and at one point the Fourth Doctor came in as well, but mostly it's just Ten."

To him, this does make sense.