Prologue: Waking up to a new day
Action, 1490 Kramden Road, earlyish:
[ Ilsa snuggles in her sleep. Sleeping late after a great party counted as two luxuries she’d done without for years, and the capper was the party was to celebrate getting her medical degree. ]
[ No hangover, she’d been content to play Stump The DJ and mix drinks for everyone else at the bash. Of course, it ( Read more... )
[ Ilsa snuggles in her sleep. Sleeping late after a great party counted as two luxuries she’d done without for years, and the capper was the party was to celebrate getting her medical degree. ]
[ No hangover, she’d been content to play Stump The DJ and mix drinks for everyone else at the bash. Of course, it ( Read more... )
Hello? Madame Higa?
[When you open the door you will find a young man in his early 20s, dressed in a well-cut sport-suit: russet camel pants and a lighter jacket, with Italian loafers and a jauntily cocked fedora. He's wearing a white shirt beneath, with the neck unbuttoned and no tie: he doesn't know any better, and he's a bit puzzled by all the "scarves" available in his closet. His red forelock and pony-tail actually look pretty darned good with the hat and suit, and he knows it. But he hates the glasses. Hates them.]
[He's got one hand in his pocket and a stack of slightly battered purple mimeographed pamphlets under his other arm. Honestly, if you were a teeny-bopper and he turned out to be your English teacher you'd either be scandalized by him, or you'd swoon, depending on how you felt about a few non-conformist elements. He'd made a superior jazz-man -- then, now, and forevermore. But he has no clue about jazz, and won't until Mayfield introduces him to the genre.]
[He holds out the stack of mimeos.]
I'm Tarvek. Prince Tarvek Sturmvoraus. Well -- I have a few more names, too, but really, they're mainly an embarrassment. I don't use them if I can help it.
I brought these. I think they'll help you some.
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I-I... Thank you, er... Your highness? Would you like to come in?
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You have no idea how long it's been since anyone I actually wanted to impress acted impressed by that! It was a rather big deal as a child, but since then...
I assure you, I don't demand very much groveling as a common thing. Only from the odd armed enemy, and then usually only when the armed enemy is in my castle acting as through the roles are reversed.
[So dry he makes the Sahara look like a rain forest.]
Somehow I doubt that's going to matter, here. No castle, no caste, and, to judge from a few comments I've already received, exiled royalty is already spread rather thick on the ground in Mayfield.
"Tarvek" will do just fine. [Mischief flashes, and eyelashes flutter just a bit.] We can discuss nicknames later, when we've gotten more intimate. [An eyebrow arches, and he's grinning and waiting for you to scold him...ideally you will scold him kindly. Right now it's just social flirtation, you see....]
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[ Ilsa gives him a slight eyebrow lift and smile at the mention of later intimacy, and holds out her hand to shake. ]
Ilsa, then. Madame Higa is my mother, and I was still getting used to being called Doctor when I went to bed last night.
[ She gestures towards the kitchen ]
Would you like to come in for coffee?
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[He gestures to the mimeos.]
I'm afraid they're of only limited use. The one from Mr. Rose is apparently common, but there's also a pamphlet from a Captain Loken, who has been quite gracious, and a map from Princess-Captain Hoshino.
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[ Leading him to the kitchen ]
I'd offer you cream, but the pamphlet says not to drink the milk. Sugar?
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[Oh, the puppy-dog eyes!]
[Valiant boy is valiant.]
Sugar will be superb, Mada-- er,Ilsa. I have the sense we come from very different worlds. Where I come from scholarship is a matter of who you know, more than of paperwork and bureaucracy. Know the right noble or a ranking spark, or have the ear of a university administrator, and much can be done for you. Lacking that? Very little.
Is psychiatry that talking-cure thing that medical Spark in Vienna has been talking about? The one that involves strapping your patient to a properly padded slab and encouraging frank speech with high voltage?
Hmm. Assuming your world has a Vienna, a Freud, and frank speech....I'm sure slabs and high voltage can be taken as universals...
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Nnnoo... well, shock treatments were used in the era this town depicts... but we only cover it as a historical aspect, and as for physical restraints, that's only in cases where the patient is a danger to themselves and others... chemical restraints usually work better.
[ She shakes her head, pouring the coffee and adding sugar to his mug. ]
We have a Vienna, and a Freud, and I suppose frank speech, so there are parallels.
As far as academics goes, who you know is not as important as what you know, and can you pay. Pass the entrance exams and pay the fees, you're in. Or, in my case, agree to work in a clinic in a low-income area after passing the boards, and get sponsors to pay your fees.
[ She hands him his mug and sits at the kitchen table, focusing on the paperwork ]
So, Mr Rose's pamphlet was in the morning mail, but these others are new to me.
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Your world definitely seems to have parallels to mine, but I suspect that you're on both a different track, and forward in time. I've met several people on the phone who simply would not exist in my world, even in the future.
But you seem to be on a very similar track to this "Mayfield," though, if your comments about "historical aspects" and "The era this town depicts" mean what I think they mean.
[He coils himself into a kitchen chair, and picks up his coffee mug.] Good. Better than I can make certainly.
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It's like... looking at a show from my grandparents' time, only it is reflected in a warped mirror.
[ Her voice has a slightly distracted tone for the next bit ]
Mm, some of the street names are familiar, but not all of them. The layout is a simple grid, with little imagination, and not a lot of allowances made for nature.
[ She looks up at him, with an intense gaze ]
Are these your only copies?
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[He shrugs, and looks a little forlorn.]
I'm afraid it's second nature -- and possibly actually bred in the bone. I'm afraid my family tends toward the Byzantine. One doesn't survive without a lot of forethought and planning.
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{*!*}
[ Then she suddenly winces and drops her gaze ]
Ng.
Oh, forethought and planning counts for a lot, even without relatives that gleefully leave you holding the bag.
[ She's back to studying the map, absently rubbing her temple ]
D'ye know where the rec center might be?
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There, I think. But we can always ask directions.
[Yes, he is that unheard of subspecies of male who asks directions: does research, investigates options, gathers data. He's all into the homework aspect of planning, he is, he is...]
[His glance flickers to you, and he scowls harder, this time in concern.]
Are you all right?
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Just a twinge.
Trying to see something without eyes...
[ She stares into her coffee-cup. Her next words are quiet, hesitant. ]
You mentioned on the telephone that you were "head-blind". What... what sort of things were you able to do, before?
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Mmmm. Yes. I think I see. I get the headaches, too, though the sensory hallucinations are worse, at least to me. Pain's just pain, but ghost-sensations are dangerous.
I'm a Spark. In my world that means I've got a special talent for science: the ability to take it where science alone can't go, and make it do things that exceed the bounds of logic. We have engineers, biologists, medical doctors. Most of them are doomed to serve as minions, because a Spark can leap hurdles and re-write the rules in ways most people simply can't match.
My specialties were Muses -- sentient machines in human forms -- and biology. The second rather as a default option -- while almost all Sparks have at least some fondness for the slab, the scalpel and the lighting rod, events in my life rather refined the interest in my case.
The Muses are... my love. The medicine a combination of talent and obligation. Needs-must when the Madboys hold the reins, as they say in my part of Europa.
I'm... reasonably good at headrubs. I learned when....
Sometimes even Madboy medicine isn't enough to deal with pain, you see.
[He looks down at his hands as though he's honestly not sure they're his, or that he wants to remember everything they've had to do. He sighs a little.]
And your talent? What were you trying to see with your own world's spark?
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[ She's let down her guard, and you might see more pain reactions ]
You were... burying a memory, I think, and I was... trying to help blunt the edge of it.
[ Ilsa sighs and shrugs ]
I'm not supposed to show the talent to those who aren't burdened with it, or something similar. But that ability is gone.
[ She makes a complex gesture in the air in front of her, and a heartbeat later, sighs again. ]
All of them are gone.
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