(Untitled)

[gone_byebye]

[OOM: Ray's sister contemplates the untenable situation with her boys, and gets one hell of a surprise.]

Ray went home last night. Sanity time in your room at Milliways is all very nice, but eventually you really want to get back to New York. That, unfortunately, has not quite happened yet. It takes a while to get back to the city from New Mexico

Comments

[hearthethoughts]

How about a Los Angeles Police Officer? Last time you saw him he was looking for a drink that didn't exist unless you thought about it. Today he's got a copy of variety, seemingly unimpressed by the daily hollywood activity.

He also seems decidedly irritated. Something to do with his cellular phone. He's practically banging it on the table.

[gone_byebye]

Waugh! Please to not be abusing the technology!

"Hey, hey, careful with that," Ray says. "Want me to have a look at it? What's it doing wrong?"

[hearthethoughts]

"Yeah?" Matt's tone can easily be conveyed as What, you can't see that it's wrong from sitting where you're sitting? "....It ate my text messages and my address book. I figure I'll maybe try and get some work done...and then it makes this...fizzt noise...and the screen goes like-dead."

He shakes his head, "...What's worse? The commercials. Cingular has the fewest dropped calls my ass."

[gone_byebye]

"I didn't know cops used cell phones," Ray comments. "Pass it over here. I'm no programmer, but if I can make a Hitchhiker's Guide come back to full functionality with nothing but two screwdrivers and a soldering iron, I can convince a cell phone to behave."

[hearthethoughts]

"....Oh dude." Matt rolls his eyes at Ray, "Dude. Dude. Everybody in California has like...a cell phone. It's essential. Especially if you live in Los Angeles. I'll swear on a stack of bibles that there was a bar of service this afternoon. How about that huh? A bar of service. Should've called my wife."

[gone_byebye]

"Ouch," says Ray. "I can see where that would make a ... wait a minute."

Something here is very much not right.

"Oh, I just know I"m going to regret this. What's your name, sir?"

[hearthethoughts]

Matt frowns, "...Oh! God, I did forget to introduce myself."

He is all smiles. Really. Some people might find it offputting, "-Matt Parkman, LAPD-but that's only temporary until the acting gig kicks in. um-"

He pats himself all over, "...I am totally totally strapped for a business card so I'll haveta swap info with you later, but-yeah."

He's still grinning, "..Something wrong Doctor Stanz? ...I totally didn't space right? you're Doctor Stanz?"

[gone_byebye]

Acting? ... huh.

Ray smiles back, even if it does look a little strained, and puts out one hand for the shaking. "No, no, you got it right," he says. "I'll, uh... I'll get you later for the card, don't worry about that. Um, I'm guessing you're new here?"

He's not thinking possessed. He's thinking alternate-universe version of the cop he knows. It's happened to him.

[hearthethoughts]

Matt's eyes narrow, "...No? I'd call this the vacation from hell except it's a hell of alot nicer then where I went last time. Disneyland. Ahah. Yeah. Brats and a giant mouse stalking my wife and I. No . Thankyou. I'll take a bar that keeps people prisoner over a baby on Ninjas of the Hanoi Region."

He leans back, before eyeing a waitrat, "-Hey, can I get a guatamala mocha with non-fat whipped creme venti sized? You might as well make it a frap too."

[gone_byebye]

.... very, very, very alternate universe version. ow.

"I suppose I can see that," Ray says. And then, because he does not know any better, he mutters something about 'ungrateful yuppie larvae'.

[hearthethoughts]

"Hey. Hey." Matt points a finger, "Regan did great things for this country. Great things. Nothing wrong with that. Yuppies what Democrats call people who're bold enough to take charge."

This is a very disturbing version of Matt.

He rolls his eyes, "Service always this slow?" The Rat isn't back yet, "...Oh! and uh.."

Matt frowns.

Deeply.

"..That thing? That uh-" He taps his temple, "...You know, the psychic thing? I'm thinking of going to see a shrink about that. I mean Doctor goldberg's fine, but when you start hearing voices that aren't coming from a phone there's something wrong with you."

[gone_byebye]

"Excuse me," says Ray. "Registered independent here. Politics is no place for a person with principles. Although in all fairness President Winston's not too bad."

He got to go into space on the man's insistence, after all.

"... uh."

[hearthethoughts]

Matt blinks, "...Hey. I'm down with the whole rebellion thing right? Make a stand" He wiggles his shoulders, "It's all good dude. Seriously. Life would be nothin' without people taking a stand and out on the forefront and saving the rainforest and all that crap."

"Of course you've got to have principals." Matt points a finger at him, "And? You gotta have the right ones. Although to tell you the truth I'm thinking of goin' back to voting Democrat. They promise, and promise, and promise, and then the Rich Taxcut? Uh NoThankyou. I'm not quite in that bracket. My portfolio's done by Woodward and Waterson, the second best. Not the first. Geeze, you'd think that if you weren't born into money you're less then a human being on wall street."

[gone_byebye]

How this intersects with 'Reagan was cool!' Ray isn't entirely sure, but oh, man is his hand ever itching for the PKE meter. "All I know for sure about Wall Street is that Shearson Lehman really should've asked us to check the site before they built that tower of theirs," he says. "The number of times they've had nineteenth-century specters disrupting the electricity to the fourteenth floor's just criminal. Seriously, Matt, I don't think I've ever seen you like this before..."

[hearthethoughts]

Matt frowns, "What do you mean?"

His eyes narrow, "What am I supposed to be like? What was I like before? I sure as hell don't feel any different-and WHERE the hell is my frap?"

The rat arrives and Matt mutters a quick 'thank god' before something very derrogatory out of the rat's hearing.

MM. Coffee.

"Alright. Okay. Maybe I'm not making sense, and for that I'm sorry." He doesn't sound sorry, "...I'm just a little upset because my phone decided to break after I wandered out in the snow trying to pick up on the signal. You have a cell phone Doctor Stanz? Isn't one without service like...having a limb removed?"

....Because to the mun it sure as hell feels like that.

[gone_byebye]

"Your speech patterns-"

Oh God.

Oh God.

"Um, look. Does the word 'Yith' mean anything to you? Anything at all?" he says warily.