001 // video, text // gotta make an entrance

[nicebluehat]

[The camera's propped up straight on a table and is pointed at an Asian kid with short black hair and a blue cabbie hat. The kid looks a little young to be on this ship of fools (fourteen? fifteen? sixteen?), but is sitting up politely and has a notepad out and a pen like this is going to be an Important Professional Conversation.]Good afternoon

Comments

[can_has_vodka]

Hiiiiiiiiiii Kait! I mean Naoto! I like your hat!

I came here to be a Warden too.

[nicebluehat]

[This one, though? That's embarrassing. She didn't know anyone could be more energetic than Rise, who was like a hummingbird taking human form, but...] Really? I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you yet.

And thank you.

[can_has_vodka]

I'm Arkady! I just came in um...um...just now actually! I like this communicator. It's so much nicer than the wind up radios.

[nicebluehat]

[Well now you've got her interest.] An old model here? Or something you used back home?

[can_has_vodka]

After the Flood we found a great lot of wind up lanterns, radios and other things, including a small transmitter we used up the Watchtower. They had been meant for the Third World but that was what Whitechapel became, so we needed them more.

It has a telephone receiver and a big box with the wind-up handle on it. We used them for public safety.

[nicebluehat]

I had heard of those, but hadn't known they were still in use. [Whitechapel. London, like in the stories. England.] I hadn't heard of any disasters in England, either.

...I've had a very busy year.

[can_has_vodka]

It depends on where you are, and when you are...and in which world you are. There are so many, an endless supply! In many worlds the Crash never happened.

[nicebluehat]

So this ship feeds on alternate histories. [She writes something down quickly.]

[can_has_vodka]

If you go on the deck and look over you can see the threads of possibilities flowing on by. Your world, my world, all worlds. It looks chaotic but that's because we can only perceive part of the pattern.

[nicebluehat]

[a little hushed; she feels freer to be publicly awed by cool things these days]So that's what that is. I had assumed this was some sort of literal interstellar cruise.

[can_has_vodka]

I see the stars in motion as we're moving, like we're all part of a great dance. I wonder, is this a linear journey or are we going in a great circle?

[nicebluehat]

... if you watch long enough, you might see.

[can_has_vodka]

I will tell you if I figure it out.

Perhaps the course is a spiral....

[nicebluehat]

... a spiral? [This is getting out of Rise territory and into just strange.]

[can_has_vodka]

The astrophysics types could tell us, I suppose. What the shape of spacetime is.

[nicebluehat]

[You're weird but it's interesting.] Isn't it like strings on a violin?