trans_9 | The more things change...

Entry tags:

The more things change...

Zouichi had taken a few wounds during the mission, but nothing that he would deem serious enough to require medical treatment. He'd already begun to heal, and he estimated that by the time tomorrow rolled around, he'd once again be at full strength. This was not, of course, true of everyone who had fought on that moon -- those who had lost their lives, for instance.

But for him, intense combat was the norm. There was no sense dwelling on loss of life or regretting the past, and there were no nightmares about the dead or dying. There was only the future, and the battles to be found there.

So it was back to business as usual: maintenance on the HDC, clearing stray leaves off the front steps and caring for the flowers... and teaching his pet parrot some commands. Today, however, Alan seemed more intent on rolling onto his back and demanding to be picked up. So Zouichi settled back in the shade of a nearby tree instead, playing with the bird and occasionally wondering where he'd picked up all these new phrases that sounded suspiciously like Lash.

Maybe if Howard showed up, they could look for odds and ends in the City.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"We didn't run into ghosts on any missions. That's something."

"Maybe the ship picked up the house and left the fire extinguisher." He was actually surprised there weren't more fires in the City.

"Yeah, seriously. What the hell's with it not bringing any decent wardrobes? If I get blood on another t-shirt I'm going to stay shirtless until the next shore leave." Not that he actually would, for obvious reasons. The plant suit is creepy and he prefers it as a bracelet, but at least it looks regular at this point. "We didn't run into ghosts. We just ran into everything else."

Zouichi raised an eyebrow. "Well, for your sake, I hope the next shore leave comes sooner rather than later, or you'll catch a cold. We do seem to run into a lot of unusual situations on missions, though. I'm surprised there haven't been any brain-sucking starfish yet."

"By my reckoning, we got fairies, vampires, ballerinas, sea monsters, nuns, intelligent cows, parasites, talking marionettes, an army of rats, the Morlocks, tigers and werewolves to go before this whole thing's over. Maybe knights in Camelot."

One of these things is not like the other! One of these things just doesn't belong!

"...Ballerinas? Wait, what's so sinister about ballerinas?"

~~Someone's never seen Black Swan.~~

"They're freaky flexible. Have you seen the angles they put their backs at? It's like contortionists but frillier."

~~Or The Red Shoes~~

"You're afraid of flexible people? Remind me not to touch my toes in front of you."

"I'm not afraid of them, I just think they're freaky. Big difference. But yeah, if we go on a mission where ballerinas are trying to kill us, I'll bump them up to the 'scary' category."

Howard already thinks you're freaky, Zou. But in the good way!

Edited 2011-09-02 15:56 (UTC)

"Somehow, I think whether or not they have ray guns will be a bigger factor in how frightening they are than whether or not they can perform advanced stretches."

"It would be nice to visit an undersea planet sometime..." Zouichi said, almost to himself.

"Who knows? Maybe they're like, mechas who can come together and contort themselves into pieces and make one giant evil ballerina. With a ray gun!"

In a way, imagining all the craziness is sort of comforting. It's less scary when you joke about it. When you can pretend about riding the world's most ridiculous memoir and making millions off it.

"Oh, yeah, says the guy who doesn't breathe."

Zouichi stifled a laugh. "Right. I'd like to see that. Maybe they could have a special attack."

He glanced at Howard. "I think it would be interesting. On my Earth, the ocean wildlife population was fairly depleted. Not many coral reefs or the like left."

"Yeah, what you showed me in the Sensoriums looked kind of..." He looks for the right word and can't seem to pin it down. "Like there wasn't much in the way of life anymore. No rainforests, no reefs, no Gobi Desert."

"Post-apocalyptic?" Or at least that's what it would have been after the virus had torn through the population. "Before that, heavily industrialized. It's a shame, but I suppose that's what people decided they wanted."

"Nah, it started with a D." Desolate? Maybe. "Was that the guys who made up the zombie virus who industrialized everything?"

He finds a heavy piece of metal, maybe some abstract art doorstop, and walks up to one of the walls with it. He taps the wall and, satisfied it's hollow, starts knocking a small hole in it.

"Do you run around demolishing all these houses? No wonder they're in such bad shape."

Zouichi frowned. "No, the two are unrelated. Humanity as a whole was leaning towards building more and conserving less."

Howard punches enough of a hole into it that he can reach his arm in. He feels around blindly in there. "Nobody keeps their electrical wiring on the outside of their walls. I just need to find where it is. Mostly insulation in here, though."

Honestly, Howard's fine with totally getting rid of nature (nature is evil! It'll kill you!), but he's not about to tell Zouichi that. Given how Zou feels about animals and gardening, he's pretty sure it won't win him any points. "Conserving less? What about resources?"

Zouichi hoped no one had been planning to live in this house. "What are you doing with all this wiring, anyway?"

It would indeed not win him any points. He shrugged. "Farming. Tree farms, fish farms, zoos. There was enough to go around, but few large swaths of untouched wilderness."

"I give most of it to Engineering for free, and I use some of it when I try to fix stuff up." What, you think roller fridges make themselves? "And maybe next shore leave I can trade some of the leftover with people for like, maybe a new shirt or something."

Really, it just sounds like a more extreme version of what was already happening back on Earth. "No green movement where you're from, sounds like."

"You could always wear that shirt of wolves howling at the moon," Zouichi said, helpfully. Yes, Howard, you should wear that shirt.

"I think they did try, but..." He shrugged. That was progress.

"Yeah, when muumuus come back into style, I'll wear that shirt. Inside out." No, Zouichi, over his dead body. And if he dies, you are not allowed to bury him in that shirt.

He touches something inside the wall. "Oh, that feels like it." He retracts his arm, pulls his pocketknife out and starts carving a hole in the wall like a chisel.

Whatever, Howard, fine. You can be buried in your ratty old normal shirt. The wolf shirt can be your funeral blanket.

Zouichi looked curiously through the hole Howard was widening in the wall; he didn't think he'd ever seen what the insulation of a house looked like.

...what he saw instead was the death rictus of what looked like a man's face in the wall, his mouth stretched wide as if in a silent scream. If one were paying attention, rather than expecting MORE GHOSTS, one might realize that the man's face had an unusual bronze sheen... a statue.

He's so going to turn that shirt into a tea cozy. And he doesn't even much like tea!

Howard jumps about a foot when he pulls a piece of the wall back to be faced by that statue. And shrieks. And nearly trips over himself rushing behind Zuichi. "What the hell is that?!"

And then feels very stupid when he realizes it's a statue.

It's not even quite a statue, it's... it's...

...It's a life-size replica of Han Solo from that scene where he was encased in carbonite to be delivered to Jabba the Hutt.

...for some reason the owner of the house walled it up here.

Howard emerges from behind Zouichi. "Oh hell no. You've got to be kidding me."

He creeps forward and taps it. "Think it's real?"

And then, being the either freakishly observant or having the mindset of a hoarder, Howard drops to his knees and taps the floor beneath Han. "Hollow. Trap door. Can you move Snowcone up there off it?"

"Well... it's a real... something."

Zouichi reached for the statue, easily lifting it up off of the trap door and moving it aside. "I'm not sure which is weirder: that someone put this statue in their wall, or that they put it here to cover something else."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Let's find something silly in this house or something!

Re: Let's find something silly in this house or something!

Re: Let's find something silly in this house or something!

Teeheehee

Re: Teeheehee

no subject