[Fateverse Side Story: DR Bundle] Movie Night
A snippet I forgot I had.
Warnings: AU - Fateverse. Sci-fi. Movie geekery. Language: PG-13 (primetime TV plus s*** and f***).
Pairing: none/gen.
Timeline: Later in the same year as Priscilla.
Disclaimer: Recognizable characters and terms belong to respective owners. I just made the AU.
Notes: See postscript; linked footnotes may open in a new tab.
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Movie Night
Wade expected to hate Nate (or at least get really, really sick of him).
Familiarity breeds contempt, or so the saying goes, so he figured that spending pretty much every waking moment around the kid would drive him nuts.
Nate, however, has several factors in his favor. First, Nate is extremely well-educated in a good way-he can talk at least a little bit about almost any subject. Second, Nate is willing to be educated about his extreme dearth of pop-culture exposure-Wade is allowed to rant and rave about all his favorite shows and movies (of which he has a lot, since TV’s been around for six hundred years and movies’ve been around for another fifty) with only minor complaints or interruptions. And third, Nate seems to be easily impressed by Wade-a nice change from the outright disdain of most people or the blasé acceptance of people in the biz[ 1].
There’s probably more than that, but those are the important ones, the reasons Wade and Nate and Neena are walking out to the parking lot together.
“No, no, I think you’ll like it,” Neena says. “Everybody should go to a movie theater at least once, and there’s something cozy and relaxing about the old two-dee stuff. Three-dee holo can be a little motion-sickness-inducing. Me, I get migraines if I go see a holo on the big screen.”
Wade and Neena move automatically to different sides of her car. She pops the hood and trunk. He checks the undercarriage.
“Takes some people that way,” he says as he looks. Then he stands and gives the interior a once-over.
“Why do you always do that?” Nate asks.
“Rule thirty-one[ 2],” says Neena.
“Because your last set of bodyguards were pasted by a guy who hid in the trunk,” says Wade, since he knows Nate has no idea what Neena means (because Nate has so far refused to watch Zombieland).
Nate says nothing, but waits for Neena and Wade to get in the car first.
Wade rides in the back with Nate (because what good’s a bodyguard who can’t reach to shove your head between your knees before the bullets fly through at head-height?). It’s a weird thing, the difference between who you’ll let drive you and who you’ll let drive the people who are important to you.
Wade doesn’t give a shit about cabs, no matter how crazy the drivers are. He’s ridden in New Yorkese cabs and Parisian cabs and Muscovite cabs (Russians are the fastest and most dangerous[ 3]), he’s ridden with new drivers and elderly drivers and carjackers (carjackers are the worst, because they’re always distracted). He’ll let pretty much anybody drive him.
But Wade only trusts two people in the world to drive Nate: himself and Neena. Maybe that’ll change, if new security gets assigned and they’re not morons. Temple’s never crashed, but she’s kind of a scary driver…if she tones it down a little, Wade will consider letting her drive Nate.
“I don’t watch many recreational holos,” Nate says awkwardly, while they’re cruising down Sunset.
“I guessed,” Neena says dryly.
“What kind of etiquette is there? I suppose I shouldn’t talk during…”
Wade shrugs. “I do.”
“Don’t listen to him,” says Neena. “He ends up getting stuff thrown at him and having people threaten to beat him up.”
And Wade lets Neena watch the other cars, because that’s what security driving is. He talks to Nate, because that’s what he does, what his life is. He talks, and he listens, and he occasionally shoots somebody who’s about to pull a weapon.
“What was that you were studying yesterday, when you were hogging the holo all evening?”
“Quantum physics,” Nate tells him. “I’m working on another Masters.” Because Nate collects degrees like little old men collect stamps, but he gets distracted long before he can get to doctorate level.
Wade makes a face. “Quantum?”
Nate shrugs asymmetrically, awkward and sheepish. “Well,” he says in a special tone that means he’s trying to figure out just how far down to talk to someone. “Down at the sub-atomic level, physics gets a little weird. The rules that we know work on a larger level, with atoms and molecules and composite substances…momentum, inertia, gravity, friction…those kinds of things don’t work the same way on sub-atomic particles.”
“So…why don’t you call it ‘sub-atomic physics,’ then?”
Nate winces. “Uh. Well, you see, a quantum is the smallest amount of something you can have in any sort of interaction. Like…the smallest number of mice it takes to screw in a lightbulb would be a quantum of mice.”
“Two, but hell if I know how they got in there,” chortles Neena.
They park, they pick up their tickets (pre-ordered), they buy bad movie popcorn with bad fake butter (the best kind to have at a movie[ 4]).
It’s an older movie, practically ancient-from the twenty-fourth century, when the States were collapsing and scientists everywhere were desperately looking for the next big breakthrough-based on a twentieth-century book that Wade saw labeled ‘classical cyberpunk literature’ on the digital library site. Super-urban post-collapse-economy parallel-world sci-fi with car chases, sword fights, and some pretty fanciful notions of the Internet (fanciful at the time, childishly simplistic these days).
Wade keeps quiet, just because so much of the movie’s sound design is so effing perfect.
Nate watches with a serious, slightly perplexed expression on his face. After Hiro Protagonist fades from view[ 5] and the credits start to roll, Nate frowns over at Wade. “That’s really what they thought the future would be like?”
“Sci-fi isn’t about the future, or whatever cool shit they thought we’d have,” Neena sighs. “The conjectural technology is just a vehicle for examining ethics, society, and human nature.”
“Then…” Nate says slowly, considering the movie. “The real subjects are the economic instability surrounding a widening gap of rich and poor, the departure and delinquency of teenage youth, and the danger of complacent blind faith in the establishment? Those were all extremely pertinent during the formation of the United Federation…I’m sure that was a factor in the vid’s creation. It’s interesting that traditional roles of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ were so skewed that it was necessary to make the protagonist an eponym.”
“Epi-what?” Wade asks.
“Um. Something’s eponymous if it gives its name to something associated with it…I guess the easiest example is the city of Rome, which was named after Romulus. The eponym itself can be either the basis or one of the words based on it-Romulus is the eponym of Rome, Rome is one of the eponyms of Romulus.”
And so on, out to the car (the same routine of checking hood, trunk, undercarriage, and seats) and the whole drive to their apartment. Neena walks them up, helps sweep the place (rule three[ 6]). As she leaves, she dawdles in the doorway.
“So. El Paso said that yesterday you said Nate was your best friend,” she hedges in a tone of minor offense.
Wade blinks at her. “Well, yeah. I mean, my best guy friend… And it’s not like you really count, anyway, since you’re more like a sister. And Temple has a fuckin’ big mouth. Hope she grows outta that if the company decides to spring for life extensions, because I ain’t puttin’ up with her gossip for the next forty years or more.[ 7]”
Neena looks unimpressed. “He doesn’t drink, he watches educational holos for fun, and he’s barely aware of the existence of professional sports. As guy friends go, he’s made of considerable amounts of fail.”
“Don’t say that. You like him.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s because I’m a straight female. I mean, have you seen him? He rocks the nerd thing well, if you’re interested in dating him, but it’s pretty lame in a guypal. I thought the point of hetero guys making friends with each other was to have somebody to be a Neanderthal with[ 8].”
It does and doesn’t make sense.
Wade shrugs. “He knows cool shit and he lets me ramble. He’s only, like, the third person ever to not tell me to shut up every five minutes[ 9].”
That seems to appease her. She purses her lips. “Okay. But if anybody’s got the title of your BFF, it’s totally me. I earned my Twinkies, dammit.[ 10]”
.End.
Notes:
1 Wade means the world of mercenaries/private military.
2 Zombieland Rule 31: Check the Back Seat.
3 The cab drivers of Moscow are world-(in)famous.
4 You can’t have a true cinema experience without horrible popcorn slathered in butter-substitute. A pack of Twizzlers will enhance the experience, but isn’t strictly necessary.
5 Snow Crash is an amazing cyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. So far, nobody’s made it into a movie (although the premise of Gamer was remarkably similar in places). DEAR HOLLYWOOD, PLZ FIX.
6 Zombieland Rule 3: Beware of Bathrooms.
7 At this point, their world has low-level life extension tech, probably a nanite boost to cellular replication or something. Each treatment has to be tailored to the patient (to avoid genetic mutation) and lasts thirty to forty years before needing to be re-calibrated and re-administered. Hell, maybe Wade’s cancer was the result of a faulty life extension calibration.
8 That’s a horrible stereotype, Neena.
9 The first two people not to tell Wade to shut up every five minutes were Mike (his stepdad) and Neena. Clint probably didn’t, but Wade’s memories of his dad are fuzzy, since he was always shipped out.
10 Because she’s Wade’s Tallahassee.
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