(Untitled)

[prydeful]

Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to not be able to have caffeinated coffee, not be able to phase, and to have your center of balance thrown to hell, all at once, throwing in the fact that for some reason you're getting morning sickness in the last month or so of pregnancy instead of the first

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[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The computer is getting a curious look from a youngish woman in a dark green set of fatigues- they look like something out of White Christmas or similar. The only marking on the fatigues is a small embroidered emblem on the left breast area. As for the woman herself, she's... maybe nineteen or so, with steel-grey hair and a couple of scars that look like she maybe should have paid more attention in a very bad part of town.

The computer's got most of her attention. She'll apologize for the rudeness when she realizes she's being looked at.

[prydeful]

Eyebrow raised, then!

"Um. Hi? Can I help you?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Eeep!" She jumps a little and blushes, turning away from the computer. "I'm sorry- I've never seen one quite that... portable before. Not with a screen that big- and in color, too. I got caught up there- I didn't mean to stare."

[prydeful]

"No, it's okay," she soothes, instantly. "Do you want to look at it? Really, I don't mind." She offers her hand. "I'm Kate, by the way."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Sure," says Ellen, and leans over to shake the offered hand. "My name's Ellen. It's good to meet you, Kate. Um- can I ask what year you're from?"

[prydeful]

"2011," she says, while pulling here own hand back. "Earth, currently off the coast of California. You?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"2278," says Ellen, "also from Earth. But if I say anything else I kinda have to ask you something first to make sure you're not from my past, because I don't want to start telling you about your world's future. Can I ask who the first man on the moon was?"

[prydeful]

"Um. Neil Armstrong, last time I checked."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Okay. It wasn't like that in my history," Ellen says. "In which case I can tell you I grew up in a sealed underground fallout shelter outside where Arlington, Virginia used to be before the Great War, two hundred years ago."

Beat.

"I don't like people getting upset because that kind of thing might be in their future."

[prydeful]

"Ah." She only blinks once. "That's extremely thoughtful of you." She mentally shakes herself and then shrugs. "Anyway--if you want to see the laptop, Ellen, you're welcome to. Though this one is full of its share of problems at the moment."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

She also has some lingering worries about some of the stuff she read in her old Drake Tungsten, Chrono-Cowboy! comics, but she doesn't think about those as much these days as she used to.

"That's okay, it's still kind of fascinating," Ellen says. "The only computer I've seen at home with a color display was this huge old pre-War virtual reality simulation pod thing. All the others were- well, black screen, green lit elements."

[prydeful]

She grins slightly. "Sounds kinda like my first one." Kinda--hers was a bit more advanced than that, but she did get her first one at a very young age, too.

"So...I'm guessing Milliways is a lot different than a underground shelter?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh yes," Ellen says. "I spent nineteen years seeing only the same people all the time, day in, day out- I've been out for the better part of a year now on my side of the door, and it's all still a little overwhelming at times."

[prydeful]

"I can imagine."

And she can, actually; she's never had anywhere near the same experience, but she's lived for years at a time in isolated places with the same group of people, only going out when, you might say, duty called.

"What's the best part?" she asks with a smile.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Weather, I think," says Ellen. "Even though most of it's hot and the rains are usually on the dangerous side, it's... every day is something different. Sun, or clouds, or sometimes the rains, or dust storms- and there's always wind from some direction, too. The lights were always the same in Vault 101, and the temperature was pretty much always the same, too. Even in my house in Megaton you can always tell there's something different each time you wake up."

[prydeful]

"I lived in space for a while. A couple different times," she adds, as an afterthought. "And that was one of the things I missed the most. It was...something that made life seem more sterile, somehow. It wasn't, really, but sometimes it felt that way."