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[text: everyone] ch-ch-ch-changes

My flat was on a tram line before. -SH

Late at night, not long after 3AM or so, everyone in Taxon receives a text message notification. It seems someone's come out of his pause-glitch-induced reverie. But it's not his sense of time he's worried about or the foggy memories of disturbing, frog-on-the-dissection-table dreams, apparently: at least, not right now and not that he feels like broadcasting to Taxon. No. What Sherlock Holmes is spamming the rest of Taxon with right now is:

It was at the juncture of two tram lines, as a matter of fact. -SH

It's moved. -SH

Not showing any signs of letting up.

I'm not anywhere near any tram lines. -SH

I would never have chosen this flat. -SH

This is ridiculous. -SH

Consider this a letter of complaint. -SH

Nope.

A STRONGLY WORDED letter. -SH

Do the tablets have a block setting?

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There's a delay of a few minutes before Long answers either text. In his stone-walled suite at the Kelebek, Mayland Long is sighing deeply to himself, his strange eyes gleaming in the darkness, reflecting the tablet's glow, or perhaps glowing themselves.

He would rather like to go back to sleep. His bed is very comfortable, and he likes sleep.

However, it is probable that Sherlock will carry on texting unless he specifically asks him not to. Specifically asking him not to somewhat offends Long's sense of courtesies; or, at least, of subtleties.

Besides that, he feels the usual irritation he feels whenever their captors see fit to suspend one of the inhabitants. The alteration extends not merely to the one affected, but to everybody; so that despite his ability to realize now that he has not seen or heard from Holmes in a month, he thought nothing strange of it during the time.

He dislikes the aliens meddling in his mind and perception, and can recognize that Holmes probably feels it more acutely, in the moment.

Long punches a pillow into position and sits halfway up, bareskinned in the darkness of the room, then types.

The city has been rearranged, it seems; it's been this way for some several weeks. You appear to have been... suspended; not only you but several others. I myself was not among them.

These hibernations, or whatever one would like to call them, have happened before. No ill effects that I recall. I do not think the city's rearrangement and your own suspension are necessarily connected.

Sherlock furrows his brow at the concept of suspension, but as much as it bothers him as well, it doesn't snag at his mind as much as the concept of the city simply being... rearranged. That's got a disturbing, vast, somewhat impressive dreamlike quality to it; a physical prison is one thing, but this is more like a simulation that the programmers can change with a keystroke. He tabs to his city map, then gets up from his bed (still in his blue housecoat) and looks out the window.

The pattern of lights looks decidedly different than he remembers it. He recalls cold light again and the shadows of uncertain, amorphous shapes.

There's something new to the north, I see. -SH

Already he's pulling on trousers and a shirt.

Edited 2013-02-09 09:41 (UTC)

Yes, it appears to be some sort of medieval landscape-- at least, I perceived a castle.

Long yawns massively in his room, shrugging his shoulders down into the pillow and drifting 1/4 of the way back to sleep. He'd been having a rather good dream when the tablet had rung; he tries to recapture details. Something about buzzing a herd of bison.

After thirty seconds he sits bolt upright again, eyes wide in his face. Quick typing:

Mr. Holmes, you had really ought to wait until morning.

He'll blame the sleepiness that it took him that long to realize what Holmes was likely doing.

The tablet sends off its little ping text alert while Sherlock's pulling a comb a few times through his hair (these things matter, after all) and shrugging on his coat. He grins at the message. If Long bore witness to the grin he'd probably have more reason to worry.

However, he does stop to make himself a cup of instant coffee. Would I? -SH

Yes.

In the first place, daylight creates conditions more conducive to observation, unless you can see in the dark.

In the second place, I trust you remember the dinosaurs, and that things off in that castle-landscape might be dangerous, and that going among them might result in injury while one is alone.

In the third place, it is three-twelve in the morning and it is damned cold outside.

I'm just going to go look. -SH

Long mutters something uncomplimentary in the privacy of his room and flops back onto the bed, forearm flung up over his eyes.

Sigh. He lifts the tablet and types again after a few seconds.

If you can restrain your curiosity until, at least, sunrise, I should be willing to go with you and bring along appropriate supplies, Mr. Holmes. An expedition is always better served by a hamper. Steamed pork buns within, perhaps.

The microwave beeps and Sherlock lifts the mug to his mouth, downing half the coffee with a wrinkled nose: just because he can't afford to indulge his standards on a street musician's "salary" doesn't indicate he doesn't have them.

Speaking of which, pork buns. Pork buns are admittedly tempting. Tomorrow at the Kelebek, 1100? -SH

Splendid. Sherlock will wait until a reasonable hour. Well, that's all nicely solved then, and he can go back to sleep.

Excellent. I shall see you then. Good night for now, Mr. Holmes.

...In many respects, Mayland Long is a very intelligent and perceptive person. That said, picking up falsehoods, or omissions, is something better left to one with more experience of human nature. And someone more awake, for that matter.

He puts his tablet back on the nightstand, mutes it, and happily rolls back over onto his massive and sinfully comfortable bed.

It's probably good for their relationship, such as it is, that neither of them is all that interested in what the other one is doing when they have something more appealing going on. In Long's case, it's sleep. In Sherlock's it is quite literally adventuring.

Sherlock pockets his own tablet and sets off for some preliminary bad decisionmaking.

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[text: everyone] ch-ch-ch-changes

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