Open Log

[timesbureaucrat]

Who: Narvin and OPEN
What: Narvin at work and off work (Also, Gallifreyan food is mostly terrible.)
When: Month 11, Day 14
Where: Museum Laboratory and Xyma's House Restaurant
Notes & Warnings:



The lab was different with Dr. Bishop gone. (Quieter and tidier for one thing.) But he'd been hoping to exchange notes with his colleague on the spawner technology. Now that was impossible. So he was on his own with the spawner. He'd borrowed one of the original spawners from the museum collections--an ancient relic excavated from the ruined city, not one of the new commercial spawners created by reverse engineering the old alien tech--and was carefully hooking up a Gallifreyan interface screen to a few of the spawner's diodes.

So far, people have just mimicked the technology. But Narvin wanted to know how it works, and know it well enough to start making significant alterations of his own to the tech.





Xyma’s House didn't have the homey restaurant atmosphere of F'nayalip and Joe's All Day Eats, but Narvin didn't care about homey. What Xmya's House had that brought Narvin there was an extensive menu off off-world cuisine, including Gallifreyan nutritional disks: tasteless round bites with the texture of styrofoam coated in plastic. The colourful shells made them appear almost interesting, but it was all a lie. The colours were coding to indicate what assortment of minerals and nutrients were in which disk.

It was a little taste of home, and Narvin came at least once a week. The server didn't bother to give him a menu any more, just placed the order as soon as Narvin sat down. They didn't take any preparation, so a plate of colourful disks reminiscent of oversized skittles was placed in front of him. He delicately stabbed a green one with a fork and contemplated it before sticking it in his mouth.

Comments

[timesbureaucrat]

Narvin raised an eyebrow. "I do believe this is the first time an employer of mine has encouraged me to be [a douche] prickly. Usually it's entirely the opposite."

He thought of Chief Kay explaining things to him, wondered if he should mention any of it to Mr. Chau. After a moment, decided not to. It wasn't as if Kay really opened up anyway. The man was like an Alvarrixian oyster. He didn't open up easily or readily.

"Wynter is a Time Lord, yes, with all that implies. And very eager in his work."

[kaiju_cinderella]

"Moderately."

His food came finally, and he held his lips carefully with his gratitude, not looking fully at the waiter so they couldn't see the scar- there were several reasons that Hannibal Chau didn't like appearing in public.

"Be polite to your superiors in this business because the only way you maintain obedience among criminals is to remind them that disobedience is worse than prison. Obedience gets you a lot of fringe benefits. When you're out there, a little bit of assiness gets you anger, and then sympathy for your uncertainty.

"Be careful with that sympathy, though. You start believing in it too much, you lose your advantage. The fact of the matter is they give it to you because they think you're an idiot and an asshole and it feels just so good for them to think they're changing the world." Chau knew. Chau was an asshole, and he knew that people liked to have their ego stroked by thinking that they chipped away from his protective veneer.

[timesbureaucrat]

"Oh, I know all about bleeding-heart do-gooders who want to change the world." He'd never thought about it working on a personal level, however. Romana saw a civilization that was, in her view, "bad" and she felt positively compelled to fix it. But she'd never bothered turning any attention to "fixing" him or any other person. He could postulate, however, how a similar sort of impulse could drive someone to put in the same sort of time and effort to change a person as Romana put in to change a society. And probably with about as much effect, too.

"I disagree that impoliteness is the same as disobedience, however." Even now he couldn't stop arguing a little. "Well, maybe to someone like Jabba, and if I ever find myself face-to-jowl with him I'll use all the appropriate obsequities, but wouldn't you rather have an employee who was competent and loyal than one who was falsely polite?"

[kaiju_cinderella]

Rather than using the steak knife given to him, Hannibal Chau flicked out a golden balisong, flipping it around his gloved fingers with ease and experience. And then he cut through that meat as if it were scissors through paper- he kept the edge of that intimidatingly sharp.

"Your disagreement is noted," he said with a serious expression, taking a single, thinly sliced bite.

While he would put up with a small level of banter- he was who he was. A boss who had to maintain impressions. Talked back too much, and someone might start disobeying. They'd side with the other party, and he couldn't have that. He knew about Narvin's friendships, too. Allies were allies, and unless they became a problem for him directly, he wasn't going to act on it.

[timesbureaucrat]

Narvin scooted back in his chair a few inches, his eyebrows popping up at the rapidly flick of the knife and the ease with which it cut through the meat. The leg chairs squeak a little on the floor at the movement. His dour mindset being what it was, he couldn't help but imagine what sort of damage that knife could do on living muscle, not just dead and cooked flesh.

He cleared his throat and let his hands rest in his lap to reestablish a calm and unconcerned demeanour.

"Thank you. ...sir." He hadn't called anyone sir since Coordinator Vansell had died. The word felt strange on his tongue.