PFSB: Milliways

[riddleofthebelow]

Tom needed his camera to take yet more pictures of his adorable children, and when he fetched it the evening before, he found something odd he can't explain. It's not a bad odd thing. It's just a puzzling odd thing.

Ingress has some explaining to do.  Or Wei Wuxian. Either one.

So Tom's at a table at Milliways, with an eyebrow raised, and wouldn't mind some company.

Comments

[hinotfuckingdead]

"Especially when you inherit it," he says. "Eh?"

He makes the universal fatuous expression associated with making a Dad joke.

[riddleofthebelow]

“I suppose. Did you inherit or are you a self made man?”

Tom likes to think he’s a self made man, and his blood was judged worthy by the House of Arch all those years ago. Now he’s absolutely a part of an inherited system, and he worries, sometimes, for Portico. Not that he thinks his little lad has failings, not in the least. Power and its trappings, even the limited power they exert in the Underside, can be worrisome when you think about what your child might one day face.

[hinotfuckingdead]

He frowns as his joke falls flat. Sad trombone.

"Another quotation -- some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust up on them. And boy, did I get thrusted upon." He makes a wry face, and investigates his drink, which is empty somehow.

[riddleofthebelow]

Tom is definitely too serious today to get dad joke right off the bat. Now he feels rather silly. Paranoid and silly, a strange combination, indeed.

“I beg your pardon. I didn’t catch your joke at first. I’ve matters on my mind that are keeping any sense of humor suppressed, it would seem.”

[hinotfuckingdead]

"Not at all," he says with a wave. "I'm afraid the more serious things are, the stupider my jokes get. My friend Joy has made a variety of creative threats on the subject."

Seriously: "To dispense with humor, I achieved my current position when all other possible candidates were dead."

[riddleofthebelow]

“Temple and Arch. That doesn’t seem ideal.”

[hinotfuckingdead]

"Far from it," he says. "It was a long time ago, though." A rat brings him a new drink, and he salutes casually. "Wars are like that."

[riddleofthebelow]

“I’m sorry to hear it. My experience with war is, thankfully, limited. Skirmishes and battles abound but rarely does all out war”

[hinotfuckingdead]

He nods. "How long have you belonged to the Underside?"

[riddleofthebelow]

Chronological time is getting trickier and trickier to calculate for Tom.

"Less than twenty years, more than fifteen. Not long at all, really."

[hinotfuckingdead]

"There's something I've often wondered about," he says. "War and the Underside. So much is lost or forgotten in war. If a city is scythed off the map--does the Undercity go with it? Or does it all become Underside? Could you have an Underplanet?"

"Often wondered it."

[riddleofthebelow]

"I think they become ghost cities. Even more so than an Undercity is already. And I don't see why there couldn't be an Underplanet."

[hinotfuckingdead]

"There can certainly be ghost planets," he says. It's not physically possible for his black eyes to look far away, or anything but placid shark black, but something in his expression suggests unhappy memory.

[riddleofthebelow]

The decimation of an entire planet would certainly fall under the category of unhappy memory.

"I've wondered, because I know that in the future of my world, the Earth must be abandoned. Some of the people of the Underside colonize the planets along with those of the Above. But I often wonder who gets left, and what it will be like for them. I mean to say, would there even be a noticeable difference if you never went up again?"

[hinotfuckingdead]

"Precisely. Precisely what I'd wondered. I'll never know, of course. But I can hope so."

He swirls his drink in the glass. "This abandoning... fast, or slow?"

[riddleofthebelow]

"I'm not recalling the details. It was a while ago that I learned it, and when one finds out about the doom of one's planet, well. It can be hard to take in the specifics."

[hinotfuckingdead]

John snorts, but says nothing, choosing to nod and take another drink instead.

[riddleofthebelow]

"I have to say that it's a relief it's far off. I've grown rather fond of the world now that I watch my children growing up in it. Do you have a family, John?"

[hinotfuckingdead]

He puts down his glass. "...in a way," he says, with the caginess of someone who is mildly drunk and thinks he's being more clever than he really is.

"We are," ahem ahem, "expecting our family to grow any day now."

[riddleofthebelow]

"Oh? Congratulations."

Tom's not going to ask for details. He learned that lesson the hard way long ago.

[hinotfuckingdead]

"I hope they are in order," he says. "I truly do."

He sighs and rubs his forehead. "I really don't have time for that, I'm afraid," he mutters to himself, and when he lifts his head the subtle muddledness has passed. He dabs beads of sweat from his forehead.

"Apologies, Tom. Lord Ostium."

[riddleofthebelow]

"Are you quite alright?"

[hinotfuckingdead]

"Yes, yes," he says. "But I'm afraid I don't have time to be drunk and maudlin tonight. I can have little a tipple... as a treat... but that will have to do."

"I've cleared the alcohol from my system and I'd better get back."

[riddleofthebelow]

"Ah, I understand," Tom says. "That's how I approach my visits here, as well. It was a pleasure meeting you."