2020-08-18: Intruder Alert Part 2
| Intruder Alert Part 2 | |
|---|---|
| An accident sends Vic into Prospect from a dystopian San Diego, right into Astra and Arumi's laps | |
| IC Date | August 18, 2020 |
| IC Time | 5 PM |
| Players | Arumi, Astra, Vic |
| Location | Arumi's Lab |
| Prp/Tp | N/A |
| Spheres | Traditions |
| Theme Song | Wake Up It's 1984 |
When we left off, Arumi and Astra had brought Vic into the tiny house on the desert, given her coffee, and let her rest. Whether she just freshened up, or took a nap for a few hours, Arumi and Astra will be there when she seems ready to talk.
Vic initially went to the powder room to just refresh herself but then felt unexpectedly tired and found herway to a sofa where she laid down for 'just a few minutes' and slept for exactly ninety minutes - as her subconscious mind (or her Avatar maybe) tapped her timekeeping implant to time a perfect nap. Thus, about a hundren minutes after she left the room she returns to where the coffee had been made available earlier.
"You think she's really from another Dimension?" Astra murmurs. She's pacing back and forth in the tiny kitchen. This place seems even smaller when you know it's secrets. "Oh Hi! you're awake!" She says with a rather nervous smile as Vic finds her way back to the kicthen, "Feeling any better? More coherent I hope?"
Arumi nods to Astra to answer while Vic is sleeping. "My readings suggest yes." She taps her goggles, and finishes her bottle of coffee. Cracking open another by the time Vic wakes up. "Good morning." she adds to Astra's greeting. "Vic. So you're here. Um. Getting you back may be tough. I have no equipment designed for travel between dimensions such as yours and ours. I haven't read any literature on such travel. Do you have anything with you? Or are you um, I hate to say it, stuck?"
Vic chuckles grimly. "I don't have any procedures or equipment for anything like that, no," she says as she sits down at the table. "I think the transition literally drained me, thanks for letting me catch a nap. So..." she pauses and looks back and forth between the two other women before asking, "What now?" with a sincerity showing that she knows she's an intruder and needs to defer to the naitives.
Astra looks at Arumi and makes little spinning motions with her fingers with a questioning look on her face. "I'm sure we can eventually find a way to get you home? in the mean time...?" She shrugs, "You could crash on my couch for a couple days while we figure something out?"
Arumi bites her lip, shakes her head to Astra, and takes a deep breath. Walking over to the day bed, standing in front of Vic. "Vic. I..." She pauses, and sighs. "I can't get you back. I actually just built a device to take us..." She points to herself and then back to Astra. "We're going to the Hollow Earth. The absolute best I could do is give to you to spin the wheel and go to random dimensions. With an infinite number of possible dimensions, the odds of you getting home would be zero."
"But listen to me. As far as dimensions to be stuck in, you might like this one. Y2k is a punch line. The Union took as much damage as we did in Avatar Storm 20 years ago. Tandy is dead, but Apple got Steve Jobs back and they're bigger than IBM or Microsoft." She makes a GUESS as to what didn't happen in Vic's universe.
"Alan Turing's disciples left the Union and joined the Traditions, forming the Virtual Adepts. I... I'm sorry, but welcome home."
"Thanks for the offer, a place to stay does remove my biggest concern," Vic replies to Astra. Then, addressing Arumi, she says, "A punchline? Wow. And yeah, the VA exist 'back home' also. Ours was one of the Traditions that survived the Storm best." She then asks, "So what version of the Lisa is he up to?" about Jobs and Apple.
Astra giggles, "Oh I think I've heard about that one! The predecessor to the Mac! It did about as well as you'd expect a computer named after your ex-girlfriend to do. Now they put I before everything for some reason, iOS version 14's in beta testing right now, but Apple technology burns my skin. it's a disability." She sighs dramatically.
Arumi nods. "If you didn't get it in your world, Vic, I need to show you the TV ad Apple did in January 1984." She drops her voice "Macintosh. So 1984 won't be like 1984." Then giggling. "Sorry, just hoping humor will... soften this. I'm so sorry Vic." She bites her lip. "I have money. I can help you... find a place while we connect you with the other Adepts and you can... well I assume you can invent a new identity for yourself. I'm also available just to have someone you can talk to. I'm glad Astra will to. So yeah we're on macOS 11, but they used 10.x as major releases for a decade or more. They abandoned Motorola when I was in kindergarten, and are now abandoning Intel for Acorn RISC." She hums. "I can drive you into town. Prospect. Not Diego Garcia or whatever.. I almost went there once."
"San Diego," Vic says almost idly to correct Arumi. She seems a bit in shock for a bit before shaking her head and saying to both of her new friends, "I've seen that commercial, that definately existed... although the Feds have forbidden it since taking over and yeah, I don't like Fruity Technology. Course you saw my Tandy," with the last she taps the bag hanging at her side.
Astra peers at Vic's bag, "I'd love to get a look at that thing up close. I promise I won't take it apart, I just wanna see what an OS from an alternate timeline looks like!" She says with a mischievous grin. "The couch offer is still open if we can't find you anything better." She glances to Arumi, "Is it okay to take her downstairs at Roasters?
Arumi nods to Astra. "I think so. Even if she's technically not a member of a tradition here, though I imagine we'll accept her after the local Adepts do their own security screening, she's still technically an independent." Then smiling to Vic. "We have decent electric cars in the future by the way. Come take a look at my Tesla, I'll take you into town, get you some pizza, and we'll rent you a room, or take you to Astra's, your choice. I have Dr. Sammi Robinson staying in my guest room, just asrrived from London, or I'd loan you my guest room."
Vic started to stand and then looked amazed and falls back into the seat. "There's a car named after Tesla here?," she asks before saying, "Okay, that makes this the best dimension I'm aware of." Recovering from the pleasant surprise she says, "The Feds supressed some knowledge so I only learned about him recently."
"I'd offer my guest room but I already turned it into a workshop." Astra says apologetically. "As cool as the Tesla is I think the actual Tesla would be disappointed in it. The car *he* built ran offf of was basically a battery, and an antenna that charged it off zero-point energy." She smirks.
