(Untitled)

[findaconstant]

[Info about this version of Dan is HERE.]

So, a Nobel laureate walks in to a bar...

Or have you heard this one before?

Anyway, the bar is now +1 Dr. Daniel Faraday, who's standing in the doorway with a slightly confused look on his face. He stays in place for a few seconds, fingers twitching absently at his side as he tries to figure out what the hell

Comments

[doyouhearthem]

Something about this new arrival piqued the Master's attention. He glanced in the man's direction as he sipped his whiskey. There was something about him... in fact, quite literally, there was a sort of radiation around him.

This man was time-active.

He bit back a smile and signaled to Faraday, raising his glass in a toast.

"Come here often, then?"

[findaconstant]

Dan glances over in the direction of the voice, one eyebrow slightly arched. "Can't say that I do," he says, pursing his lips. "Do you?"

[doyouhearthem]

He chuckled softly. "No. Was being a bit ironic, actually; a baffled face is hard to miss."

The Master finished his glass and licked his teeth. He expected more like this man - but he was, paradoxically, the first one he'd met since he arrived. If this was some kind of dimensional tear, how enormous must it be to draw in those who didn't enter by choice?

He thought for a moment, then stood and ambled up to Faraday, flashing a winning smile.

"I'm afraid I may know little more than you in this case. There is one, a boy who claims to have been here before, but doesn't know anything about it. Do you, erm, mind if I sit?"

[findaconstant]

Dan's eyes narrow just slightly in a quick, fleeting display of hostility. There's something off about this guy - he's friendly, sure, but he's friendly in that... uncomfortable way.

"No," he says after a moment, motioning to the stool beside him. "Go ahead."

[doyouhearthem]

He pretends he didn't notice that. Instead he sits with a sigh, resting his elbows on the counter.

"You've a bit of British in your voice. D'you live there now, or is it only incidental?"

[findaconstant]

"I've lived there all my life," he says, taking a quick sip from his bottle. "Around London when I was a boy, now Oxford. I teach at the university."

There really isn't any point in trying to avoid talking to this guy, he can tell.

"What about you?"

[doyouhearthem]

"Ooh, a professor then? I should've known. Though you look far too young for it. I had a stint in politics, myself..."

He purses his lips in thought, as if he had come to some realization. "Though I suppose you'd know that the moment you met me. The fact that you didn't, now, that's something."

He leaned a little closer. "You know, I wonder... what year is it, for you?"

[findaconstant]

"I graduated Oxford's doctoral program at seventeen. So I am, technically, too young." If he's going to be forced into having a conversation he doesn't want in the first place, he's going to go ahead and do a bit of bragging. "It was 2005 when I stepped in here - I have no idea if that'll be the case when I leave. If I leave."

[doyouhearthem]

The Master studies Dan's face, his eyes. In a place like this, he muses, there's little need for pretense. The man's mind was only thinly veiled anyhow, though the reason why was still beyond him. Perhaps it was madness.

"How did you manage temporal travel?"

[findaconstant]

Dan tenses up for a moment, taken slightly aback by the question. This man is asking him one of two things, and he doesn't see how it could possibly be the latter. "I think this place is what's sitting at the other end of a wormhole, but... the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. I mean, the odds that more than one person would fall through the exact same - "

He stops, brows knitting together. "That's..." He swallows; there's something unnerving about this man's presence. "That's not what you mean, though, is it?"

[doyouhearthem]

His lips quirked into a faint smile. Smart boy.

"Indeed not. You're a professor, hm? Of physics, no doubt, so you can tell me - when something is displaced in time it gains a sort of charge, releases radiation, does it not? What if I told you I could see that radiation, and that I can tell it is coming from you?"

He laced his fingers together. "In fact, you're the first one I've encounted here that has it. 2005 is far too early for this to be normal, so tell me... how did you do it?"

[findaconstant]

It's no secret that Dan's about as radioactive as the people who still live in Chernobyl, but it's not really something people feel the need to point out to him... though that's mostly because normal people don't notice it. Whoever this man is, if he's even a man at all, is very obviously not normal.

Dan can't help the look of panic that flashes across his face. "Um. I - it's really complicated. The research is all public, though, so it wouldn't be hard to get your hands on a copy of it..."

[doyouhearthem]

It's that look of panic the Master lives for. That slow primal fear welling up in someone's chest, their minds racing, grasping for any hope that what was happening really wasn't. It was all he could do not to break into a predatory grin. No, he thought, it would be better to wait.

"I don't think you understand. I was on every television news program in the country during your time; had you been from that timestream, you would've recognized me on sight. The fact that you didn't tells me you are from someplace very different. I can't get a copy of your research, you see, because it does not exist for me."

He pointed to a door at the far end of the bar. "You see that door? That is where I entered from. I don't need to tell you how very dangerous it is that we can interact, but that this place has not been annihilated yet tells me it is currently stable. You are the only person I have met so far to be time-active. So am I. I believe we can help each other

[findaconstant]

Dan listens, very carefully, to the Master's words.

And then he starts to think. He's very good at that, and he's wiggled his way out of situations like this before. As long as he keeps his cool...

"Parallel universes," he says, setting his bottle down atop the bar. "It's entirely possible that this wormhole -€” if that's what this even is - led us both here coincidentally. And... I really don't see how I can help you. If you're already 'time active', then you've also obviously dealt with time travel. Why do you need to know about my research?"

[doyouhearthem]

He scowls then, and looks away from Dan for a moment.

"I don't need yours, don't be ridiculous. What I need is fuel, or at least an environment in which to synthesize it. Well, fuel and parts."

He pinches the bridge of his nose. This is so humiliating.

"This was a test flight," he muttered. "It was my specifications, but they built the bloody thing, so of course it has to fry some circuits on the de-matting and dump the fuel load."

[findaconstant]

"Fuel and parts," he repeats, mental gears turning. He can't help his natural curiosity, which... is not such a good thing, sometimes. "What kind?"