Recruiting

[truth_is_the_enemy]

Who: Una and Niles
What: Una travelling to other universes, recruiting guests
When: Outside the space-time of the game universe (but nowish)
Where: The Dakota Reaches, North America, 2047
Notes & Warnings: Will add if any come up



Coming from New York, Defiance had seemed a small town, precariously perched on the edge of civilization. But compared the Dakota Reaches, Defiance had been the bloody cultural capital of the Americas and Niles rather desperately wished he could be back there. Or practically anywhere but here, really. The one bar in town (if it could even deserved the word "town") was more a shack, listing unnervingly to one side, ill-lit, wooden walls creaking as the winds swept over the Dakota plains.

Niles sat at the bar nursing a truly terrible whiskey, avoiding returning to the barracks and the drab rooms with empty walls and an uncomfortable bed. As far as punishments went, exile to this place was a very effective one. Two weeks here and Niles was wondering why E-Rep bothered to keep an outpost here. There were few resources, no trade...he couldn't imagine any reason someone would willingly want to come to the Dakota Reaches. There was nothing but raiders and bad weather.

Comments

[truth_is_the_enemy]

Niles kept his best poker face on as Una gave her explanation, but both interest and suspicion lurked in his eyes. He paused to consider his words before he answered her question.

"I'm trying to decide if you're for real, or if this ends with the gullible mark who follows you getting jabbed with a narcotic and waking up three days later and two hundred miles away naked in a shack and devoid of all valuable possessions and possible an organ or two.

"In your favour is that a predatory con artist would probably come up with a slightly less insane story. But do you have any proof that this place exists, something you can show me, like an object, or a picture even?"

[una_persson]

She had to laugh at that. "Believe me, if I were conning you, I would have found an infinitely more plausible way to do so. And since you asked—"

She took a small handheld tablet—slightly bigger than a large smartphone—from her pocket and swiped and tapped a few times across its surface. She laid it down in front of him as a series of images of Quadratus—the town, the surrounding countryside, even a bit of the ruins—began to play in a slideshow. At the end, a short advertisement for the resort began to play, with Jeffers's plummy voice narrating the attractions and pleasures to be found in his...inimitable fashion.

"The advert's slightly out of date," she added with a slight eye roll. "It leaves off the skeleton archers and the exploding creatures."

Well, never let it be said that she didn't warn people.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

He leaned forward to see the proof she was presenting. The technology alone was strange. Similar to devices he remembered from his childhood, not seen on this planet for decades. And not like Votan tech either.

The advertisement could be faked, but it would have been difficult, and would require the sort of resources that petty criminals usually didn't have. This was looking more and more like the real deal by the minute.

"So, assuming I agree to go, how does it work? Do you take me to a spaceship shaped like blue box, we get in and fly away, or what?"

[una_persson]

He must really want to get out of here if the bit about the skeletons and creepers didn't really faze him, she thought.

"Blue—? No, no, nothing so crude." She smirked. "No, what happens is that I trigger a matter transporter, we vanish from here, and reappear there. Like an old science fiction movie. A certain amount of luggage is permitted; anything really large requires special arrangements. Once you're there, you're free to do as you wish, but you won't be able to come back here for a few months. Not because you aren't free to go, but because the transporters have power limitations and can't do multiple trips to the same temporal-spatial zone in quick succession. But once they've cycled around, you don't have to stay if you decide you've had enough. On the other hand, if you like it there—" she shrugged, "you may stay as long as you wish."

[truth_is_the_enemy]

Niles leaned back in his chair, considering the proposition. It wasn't a perfect solution to his problems, but it was a way out of this dead end position, and more than that a way out of this fractured world that didn't involve swallowing the wrong end of a pistol. There was nothing for him in the Dakota Reaches, no reason to stay.

And skeleton archers and exploding wildlife didn't sound very much worse than raiders and hellbugs.

"I don't want to go down in the records as a deserter. Can you give me twenty-four hours for me to arrange a plausible explanation for my absence?" An explanation that might involve preemptively planting fake evidence for a kidnapping that wasn't happening. People vanish out in the frontier; it happened and typically no one wasted too much time investigating such disappearances.

[una_persson]

"Of course. For what it's worth, should you decide to return, you will be returned to a point in time shortly after your point of departure, thus appearing to have been only briefly unavailable. That being said, I appreciate the desire for further contingency planning." She took the tablet back and put it away and then set about holstering her guns. "I'm happy to help in that regard, of course."

[truth_is_the_enemy]

"I like to keep my bases covered."

He was starting to put together a plan.

"If you aren't planning to come back here again, I might want to frame you for my tragic kidnapping and possible murder. But if, for some unfathomable reason you might want to come back to this place, I'll think of something less likely to get you arrested."

[una_persson]

She gave him a look. "At least you're honest," she said, deadpan, and then grinned. "Very well. I doubt I'll be back in these parts for long later, if at all. But I also like to keep my bases covered, and would prefer at least to have murder off my ledger."

Not that she hadn't killed people in cold blood before. But there was no need to make things excessively complicated or dangerous.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

"I have always said that honesty is the best policy." A pause. "Actually, I can honestly say that I've never said honesty is the best policy before, but it does sounds good, doesn't it."

He scratched lightly at his jaw. It was getting late and his stubble was starting to itch.

"You have a deal. No murder, and I'll make sure all the evidence of kidnapping is ambiguous enough that a half-decent lawyer could shred it if you found yourself in court."

[una_persson]

"Honesty is the best policy except when it's not," Una said with a laugh. "Very well; I'm in agreement on this plan of yours." She checked her watch—it might look to him like a particularly elaborate men's chronograph watch, being as it was a rather complex temporal instrument in addition to simply telling the local time. "I'll meet you at your residence in twenty-four hours, then? Or is there somewhere else you'd rather meet?"

[truth_is_the_enemy]

He pushed his chair back but didn't stand up just yet. As soon as they finished up here, he would need to get to work implementing his departure.

"No, my quarters are fine. Should I even ask if you know where they are or just assume that you already do?"

[una_persson]

"I'm hardly omniscient. You'd better give me directions." She stood and offered her hand. "I look forward to bringing you to Blackstaff."

[truth_is_the_enemy]

"Not omniscient, perhaps, but I wouldn't want to underestimate your ability to gather intel."

He rose and clasped his gloved hand in hers, giving a firm and businesslike handshake as he rattled off directions to his quarters. It wasn't a very large outpost so the directions were fairly simple and didn't take long to run through.

[una_persson]

Easy enough. (She noted the gloves, that he hadn't removed them; perhaps a quirk or affectation—or something more ominous. Not that now was them time to ask.) She nodded. "All right. See you in twenty-four hours, Pottinger."

All in all, she thought, this had been a very successful trip.