taxonomites | [visual | location (whichever floats your boat): en route to the birdhouse]

Entry tags:

[visual | location (whichever floats your boat): en route to the birdhouse]

Cain is in a foul mood. Why? All will be revealed shortly.

In crisp, curt tones accompanied by a glare so lacking in amusement and good nature he might as well be possessed by an evil witch, Cain addresses the city at large while getting dressed.

"Does anyone know what is goin' on with the weather? And please, no smart-ass comments, I'm not in the fuckin' mood."

Wintertime means snow means cold weather means his entire body aches like it's stuck in a vise and someone keeps cranking up the pressure.

Not. Funny.

-
To Paul:

"I need to get stuff secured up top in case a storm's comin'. I'm heading over."

((Backdated to yesterday morning, for IC reasons. Cain has a green house project in progress what needs covering up because of the goddamned weather. <3<3<3))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'm certain one of those arseholes will pop up any moment now to--" And Fitz's accent went all posh. "--apologize for any inconvenience."

He sighed and reverted back to his usual voice. "And then encourage us to enjoy this latest enhancement to the Taxon experience. Beyond that? No idea, mate."

Cain grunts, rolling his eyes at the tablet and the mere thought of the hamsters and their cursed ideas of a public notice and the issuing thereof.

Dripping with sarcasm: "Don't you just love it here?"

"Best holiday ever," Fitz replied with a toothy grin and a thumbs-up.

Snark out of the way, he shrugged and ruffled his shaggy hair. "Seriously, though: first of the month, s'likely someone upstairs forgot how climate works again. Either that or they're setting the stage for us to be invaded by killer penguins or something equally ridiculous."

"Ugh, Ozma," he groans in response, arching both eyebrows at Fitz. "Don't give 'em ideas."

He wraps a thin scarf around his neck, then disappears off screen for a moment - hunting down a better pair of shoes. Boots, boots, he knows he got boots last time the weather got this bad.

"Do you know if this is a common occurrence? How long you been here, by the way? I don't think I ever got round to asking."

They'd have to start printing propaganda posters about loose lips soon enough, an image of a citizen being chased by a killer penguin with the caption SOMEONE TALKED!

Fitz waited, lit a cigarette, and pondered Cain's question. "This go? Six months or so. I was here before though, 'bout six months then too." He took a drag and casually blew a smoke ring. "From what I can tell, they don't really muck with the weather too much. Typically it just stays seasonal for the northern hemisphere." Pause. "Mayeb they decided to switch poles on us."

He lifts his head mid motion, wondering if he heard Fitz right. He comes back within view of the tablet, carrying a pair of sturdy winter boots.

"You been here before?" His tone of voice may be carefully casual, but inside his mind is racing, cogs turning at the thought of talking to someone who's 'gone home' and come back.

"Yeah." The goofiness of his own life was easier to work out than whatever the hell the hamsters were up to. "Left, remembered fuck-all about being here while I was home, then turned up and it all came back to me. Bit annoying, that."

Sometimes Wyatt wished he could be as easy going as the guy on the other end of the transmission - it would spare him a lot of grief for one, and maybe he'd get a nice, full night's sleep every once in a while. Unfortunately, he was anything but easy going when it came to being trapped in this enormous city with its barriers and artificial lightning and architecture and dummy people.

All this time he'd been telling himself 'going home' was a very bad euphemism for whatever the hamsters did to you when they'd lost interest in your aimless wandering in their gilded cage... And here's Fitz, telling him the opposite. Going home means exactly that, but it comes with a catch.

"Yeah..." he said, dazed and not entirely gratified by the revelation. "I can imagine."

And Fitz would say that he'd only come by this Zen-like acceptance of things through extensive desensitization via exposure to a relentless barrage of unending and ever-changing weirdness. Or that he'd been tweaked and refined by stupendously advanced alien technology into becoming someone who could cope with such shenanigans.

As the latter was an example of the former, he tended to go with all of the above.

In any event, he twigged onto Cain's discomfort with the information and gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry, I keep thinking things are common knowledge. Mine is a rare case, mind, but there's other people who experience the opposite. Wake up one day with more memories of home, only they never left here."

Wyatt shook his head, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He didn't need this added confusion, but he couldn't fault Fitz for being honest.

"Curiouser and curiouser, huh? If it ain't the one, it's the other."

Fitz nodded.

"Yeah, well, kind of reassuring to, inn'it?" Tap tap when the ciggie on the ash tray rim. "We get our lives back once we're out of this circus."

"No idea," Liz offers, unhelpfully.

Being from Roswell, she's not taking to this whole rapid climate change thing very well. While the temperatures in Taxon have been considerably cooler than what she's used to, especially for the summer, they've yet to get that cold. And today it was freezing.

"I wish it would stop."

"Me too, kid," Wyatt replies, something less aggravated shining through in his voice and the look he sends the tablet.

"I don't think we've talked before. I'm Cain. Wyatt Cain."

Liz smiles a bit, despite her displeasure with the cold. She must look so awkward, huddled in the chair under a thick blanket like she is.

"I'm Liz Parker. It's very nice to meet you."

If you're cold, you're cold. And if you have a blanket or a dozen, you might as well use them, is Cain's point of view.

"A pleasure." He gives the girl a smile, even going so far as to tip his hat. Being a grumpy, middle aged man doesn't mean you can forgo common courtesy.

"You haven't been around too long, have you?"

She nods her confirmation. "Only a few months. I think this is my first glitch, if that whole Sanctuary thing doesn't count... This is a glitch, right? The weather?"

"Every glitch counts, Miss Parker. And as far as I know, it's got to be. It's never happened before, to my knowledge. I've been here since October last year - which isn't all that long, I'll admit, compared to other people."

It's a crying shame, seeing all these people arrive, especially when it seems they just keep getting younger every time. They should be where they belong, wherever they come from, finding out where they're going. Figuring themselves out... Taxon isn't exactly the best place for it, in his own, humble opinion.

"How're you holding up with the change of season?"

"Since October? Wow, that's almost a full year."

Maybe it wasn't much in comparison to others, but a year was still a long time. Especially to Liz Parker. A year was a whole grade of schooling. An age you'd never get back. Time gone that can't be replaced. A lot could happen in a year, but it could also go by very quickly. Idly, she wondered if she'd end up stuck here for that long.

"It's different," she says. "Roswell's pretty much hot year round, so I'm not really used to the cold."

Long doesn't look quite as angry, but his expression is equally lacking in cheer and amusement, at least-- drawn lips, hooded eyes, his posture gone from his usual boneless slouch to a very Oxford stiffness and straightness of spine.

He is sitting behind the library information desk, a heavy coat around him with the collar turned up, a scarf; both hand wrapped around a steaming cup of tea.

"It is quite disgusting. I do not care for the cold at the best of times, but if we must have winter I would prefer it at least be consistent. I was late to the library today on account of needing to return to my room for suitable clothing."

So sour, his expression, despite the fact that nobody but him cares whether or not he is at the library at nine sharp or not.

Wyatt nods at the screen, wrapping a second scarf around his neck - folded in half, thread the ends through the hoop: done. "Consistency, yeah. And if you're gonna go through the trouble of setting up separate seasons, why mix it up?"

He stops himself, attaching the tablet to the wrist band he's come to begrudgingly accept as a constant addition to his arm. One deep breath later, he lifts his wrist to look at the small screen.

"Sorry to hear you were late for work," he says, commiserating. It would have to come from him to be so genuine a comment. "How've you been?"

The scarf looks warm. Long approves, and sips at his tea.

A little shrug at the question, the gesture almost swallowed up in the coat he is wearing. There are myriad answers he could give to that.

"Busy," is the one word summation he initially settles on. "The library, although I get very few actual customers and I refuse to humour the dolls when they ask me where encyclopedias are. I am not here to perform the same purposeless mechanics they can do on their own scripts."

Said with stuffy indignation. Long lets his eyes close nearly all the way, takes a sip of his (still steaming) tea, and exhales. "I have been working on translation, mostly. The messages from before."

"I'll be paying you a visit shortly," he says, glad that Long served as a reminder in his own special way. "I've been meaning to come look for some books on construction, some on gardening."

He pulls on the winter coat he acquired last winter - which looks more like a peacoat and is just as warm compared to his preferred leather coat - pops the collar around his scarves and does up the buttons.

Grabbing a pair of thick gloves on the way out, he again addresses the tablet. "I'm gonna switch to audio, hope you don't mind. How are you getting along with the translations? You mean of the radio broadcasts, right?"

Long visibly brightens at the idea he might have a proper customer. "Really? What sort of construction, I could attempt to have suggestions ready at your arrival..."

(Prepare for a twenty-book stack if you tell him, Cain.)

"No, I don't mind. The convenience of visual transmissions fascinates me, but it's not something we have the technology for in my world-- not at this level anyway-- so I'm quite accustomed to audio only.

"And yes-- the radio transmissions. I am fluent in all but one of the languages in which they attempted to address the city, so I am trying to piece together a... cross-translation, as it were, filling in the gaps that were covered by static by using the material from the others. And so forth."

Cain would rather have twenty books to choose from than one book that turns out to be horrendously unhelpful. He brightens at the offer of assistance, more than happy to make good use of it (and pleasantly surprised that anyone would go out of their way to help - though he might've suspected Long would be the right guy for it). "I'm building a green house on top of a concrete structure. I need to update my basic carpentry. And as for gardening, I'm more looking for a way to drain off excess water, maybe even recycle it. Engineering isn't exactly my thing. And you know what else? Coffee. Coffee drinks to be specific, if you have any material on that I'd really appreciate it."

He shrugs, grabbing his keys, switching to voice only as he heads out and into the dreadful weather.

"I didn't know you're multilingual. That's really something. So what're your findings so far? Does it make any sense?"

Long taps his chin thoughtfully, mind already pondering the various titles in 'his' library.

"Practical, small-scale construction- perhaps survival or self-sufficiency guides-- hmm, water pumps or purifiers-- coffee? Coffee."

There are a neat stack of index cards; Long takes one and starts to write down his ideas to himself in his painstakingly neat hand.

He shrugs away Cain's mention of it being something-- many people are multilingual, though admittedly not usually to his extent-- and taps the pen against his chin.

"It makes a manner of sense. I... have hesitated in relaying my findings to the city at large, because if my translation is correct then it is-- it is, what is the phrase, a 'game changer'? It will be a revelation that may make a large difference in our imprisonment. But I wish to cause neither false hope or unnecessary alarm."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[visual | location (whichever floats your boat): en route to the birdhouse]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[ visual ]

[ visual ]

[ visual ]

[ visual ]

[ visual ]

[ visual ]

[ visual ]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]