(Untitled)

[keepurshirtonlt]

Trip was getting real tired of all this. They’d found the Xindi weapon and stopped the Spherebuilders from destroying Earth. He’d lost his sister and his best friend. Now, not only were they stuck in an alternate past, but he was trapped in a compound of time traveling alien Nazis thanks to the shapeshifter Silik tying him up in a closet to use

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[velation]

"We all were," Faye points out, even though she knows that it's the explanation that people always want first, something to help them orient themselves, figure out how they should feel or view the situation. Hell, it's the information that she went after first, herself, after landing her craft on the island's sandy shores. Wouldn't let herself rest until she'd scoped out the more helpful souls on the island, the ones with the patience to sit down with someone only a few hours in and lay it all to her straight. Unfortunately, that's not a service that she feels capable of handing off in kind. Bound to lose her patience, she might as keep this guy's expectations realistic, offering him no more than what would otherwise try her patience. "We were all in the middle of something, before winding up here without explanation and, more importantly, without a way of leaving."

Tugging her shades off and eying him more carefully, Faye brushed some hair out of her eyes, tucking it behind an ear.

"You're on an island called Tabula Rasa which, not sure if you know your Latin, means 'blank slate.' Because everyone who comes here gets a second chance, for better or worse. Yours truly was a bounty hunter back on Mars." With a soft sigh, she lays back down on the beach. "Here, just enough nameless face on the beach. Call me Faye."

[keepurshirtonlt]

He'd been listening, really, but Trip couldn't stay quiet at one point. "What do ya mean, no way to leave? How did we get here then?" He had to ask, even if he didn't like the explanation. Really, at this point he'd be lucky if there was one, as many things that had happened to Enterprise lately didn't have the most logical explanations.

Good god, he was starting to sound like T'Pol.

"Second chance huh? So this is some kinda purgatory?" What did he need a second chance for? Despite not getting home, and doing quite a few things he regretted, Enterprise had accomplished their mission and destroyed the Xindi weapon. If anyone needed a second chance...it was Lizzie.

"Well, guess it could be worse. Kinda reminds me of home." Trip looked around at the beach again, which did a lot for his nerves. It was almost like being back home in Florida. Almost. "Name's Trip. Nice ta meet ya, Faye. Though I didn't realize the Mars colonies needed bounty hunters. I though they were just mines."

[velation]

Although Faye wasn't really the type to roll out the welcome wagon in full, the thing she immediately appreciated about this man was the fact that his questions were pointed. Things that she had relatively concrete answers to. Faye quickly grew bored of people who liked to speculate, who enjoyed comparing apples to oranges, who used up too much of her rather limited time (or, more accurately, her limited patience). Since the newcomer was not only calm, but also had specific asks to air, she decided to sit up and help in whatever way she could.

"Should have been clearer- no way to leave by choice. People still disappear, but it's always unexpected and unplanned. Personally, I don't believe in purgatory, but feel free to think what you want," she added, ticking the points off her fingers. "And both Mars and Venus have had plenty of cities built on them, ever since the asteroids started raining down on Earth. You build cities, you have people. You have people, you have crime, but people over that much land? Police aren't going to be the best at catching them, so they need the occasional extra hand."

She grinned. "And it's nice to meet you, too."

[keepurshirtonlt]

Engineering was a black and white science. Sure, there was speculation in the developmental phase, but in application it either worked or it didn't. And when it didn't work, you moved on. So Trip was used to asking questions that would get him concrete answers and left the speculation to Jon and T'Pol.

"So, we're stuck here until the universe decides it's time to shove us back into the fray." Trip half shrugged to himself. In all honesty, despite not having the Enterprise and it's crew here, that didn't sound half bad. Selfish perhaps, but not bad. Still...he'd have preferred to get home first. "I think I can deal with that."

With that out of the way with a good enough explanation for him for the moment, Trip tried to digest what she was saying about Mars and Venus. "Ya must be from an alternate timeline or the future then 'cause I don't know anythin' about asteroids or cities on Mars 'n Venus. Neither is that habitable to being with though I heard there were plans to try terraformin' if we could weasel the technology from the Vulcans." It really was sad he could say things like alternate time lines with a straight face now. It wasn't something he ever thought would happen when he accepted his Starfleet commission.

[velation]

"That's another side to it," Faye admitted straight off the bat, seeing no reason to hide what she knew, at least on a grand scale, on the off-chance that the next arrival would be the great mind to figure it all out at last, break down the barrier which surrounded them and set each one of them free. "Everything seems to suggest some kind of multiverse centering here. People being pulled in from different realities, not all of which are subject to Newtownian physics, let me tell you that much." She yawned, just a touch, though her eyes remained close on Tripp.

"As for Mars and Venus, well of course, originally the atmosphere wasn't viable on either planet. That's when you get hundreds upon thousands of engineers to try and crunch a new technology that was capable of being shipped to Mars in short order. A few months and without any missteps, Venus only seemed to be the next logical step."

[keepurshirtonlt]

"Multiverse." Okay, that one was new. And already in the back of his head he could hear T'Pol saying how illogical it was but look how time travel had proved her and the Vulcans wrong? "Ain't dealt with that yet but I guess there is a first time fer everything. I know a fair bit 'bout physics but I doubt anythin' that would help us get out of here." Warp physics sure but time and space were more T'Pol's department.

"Ya got a point there. I guess I concentrated so much on getting out of our solar system that I didn't pay much attention to what was goin' on with the planets in it." It was the truth. Once Trip had attached himself to the Warp 5 project, alls he could think about was getting out there among the other stars.

But that was neither here nor there if he was truly stuck here. "So, while I never met a beach I didn't like, what else do people do around here for fun?"

[velation]

She raised a brow in light amusement. There was something so strange about the man's response to the island, to the circumstances which brought him there in the first place. Almost as though he'd seen far stranger things happen, as though this was hardly a blip on his radar at all, even if not something he'd directly encountered before. Naturally, with the worlds that the islanders were from spanning so wide in scope, there were bound to be some people who felt more greatly out of their league than others, but this was the first time she'd witnessed someone quite that calm on their very first day.

It was something that she might have commended, if it didn't also trigger her doubts. (Namely, about whether or not this young man was quite right in the head.)

"What does one usually do on a tropical island for fun?" she asked, shrugging lightly. "Sunbathe. Swim. Jump off the cliffs, the waterfalls, bury oneself in sand, roast pigs in stone pits. We've got a nice supply of books and reels to watch, if you're not into the recreational, but as far as tech goes, we're a little short."

[keepurshirtonlt]

Oh it was a blip. A might big blip. It was just one more blip then his mind could handle at the moment. Later it would probably all sink in, but right now, Trip was just going through the motions and really wishing Jon was here. He was better at dealing with these situations anyway.

"Sounds almost like paradise, minus the tech bit." This of course made him frown. He'd lived for three years on a star ship, the lack of tech was going to be disconcerting. But he could live with it.

Finally relaxing more, Tip checked the safety and stowed the gun in his belt. "Any local government I gotta see or do I set up shop wherever I find a spare bit of beach?" Thankfully, he hadn't screwed up to many first contacts to get the gist of how things worked.

[velation]

"You get used to the lack of tech. Or, if you don't, you go see Tony Stark about turning that around, if he's willing," Faye instructed, though she made no effort to help the newcomer with getting in touch with Stark. As far as she could tell about the man, he wasn't one who granted time and access to his technology to just anyone, and the last thing that Faye wanted to do, not being at all close to the man, was to give other people a false impression of what it was that Stark was willing to offer. One catered to people with resources and power, not the other way around.

"Anyway, follow me," Faye instructed with a small, faint smile, tilting her head in the direction of the Compound. "I've got just the building that probably has most of what you're be interested in. Food, clothes, clinic, shared dormitories if you'd like them. But most importantly, perhaps, the Council. The rule-setters."

[keepurshirtonlt]

"I hope Travis never shows up. I think this would be hell fer a Boomer." Though he did keep the tip about Tony Stark in the back of his mind. It would be an interesting personal experiment to see how long it was before he felt the urge to tinker with something. But he did appreciate the tip. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

Rule-setters. That was comforting to hear. While Trip wasn't quite the stickler for rules that Malcolm was, he'd become used to structure thanks to Starfleet. "I appreciate this. And I'm sorry for interrupting your beach time. If I knew how to make it up to you, I would." And perhaps once he figured out what was what around this island, he could.

[velation]

"Find me a way off the island," Faye suggested with a quirk of her brow, trying her best to smile off the remark, though she found herself falling slightly short, her lips tight at the very thought. And for a moment, she considered taking it back, a statement which only served to highlight her weaknesses, her fears, the thought that people might leave her even on a place where choice was so rarely a part of it. The thought that someday, she'd just be alone.

But what was the point? It didn't hold any less true. And somehow, Faye had the feeling that if she tried to take it back now, the weakness, falling short on her own, would only be made twice as clear.

"Seriously though," she added. "If you find a way to actually give people a choice of whether or not to leave, that... well, it'd be doing a whole lot more people favors than just me."

[keepurshirtonlt]

While he had his moments, Trip wasn’t as dense as his accent made him out to be and he felt the hidden meaning behind her suggestion. And while he might be content to be stuck for now, he had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before he was itching for a way off with everyone else. So he wasn’t about to fault her for it and didn’t indicate he’d noticed.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I helped get the Warp 5 engine off the ground, maybe I can do somethin’ about this here problem.” Trip didn’t have high expectations to his success but a little posturing never hurt anyone, especially when he wasn’t being serious.