2013.06.04 - Sandwich Thief

Sitting at a commissary table, Garth takes a swig of coffee as he studies his omnicom, a list of various time-manipulators and time-travelers displaying on his screen.
He'd teased his sister about talking to Booster and Skeets, but it was looking more and more like he might have to do so, if only for ideas on where to go.
But the motivation to do so was low - hell, his sister was probably in better position to talk up Booster while Garth could sneak a Skeets-talk, perhaps.
Typing once more at the omnicom, Garth glances up. "Oh, hey! Marya! Got a minute?" he calls out to the arriving Legionnaire.
Having been something of a recluse lately, at least to her fellow Legion members, Marya Pai had actually ventured into the commissary when other people were present. Of course, one of those people was apparently Garth, but Marya's anger had faded by now, and she gives the man a nod. "Garth. Sure," she says. She'd been spending a lot of her time venturing out into the city and just trying to get an idea of what the culture was like. Being from Earth natively, she had certain advantages that some of the others did not. Of course, it led to certain disadvantages, but she'd adapted reasonably well.
"What do you need?" she asks as she approaches Garth. "And can it wait long enough for me to get something to eat, or is this too important for food?" the fire breather asks.
Speaking of Booster and Skeets, the pair are entering the commissary. There is a small, translucent screen hovering along as Booster walks, vaguely like an omnicom that must be projected by Skeets. Booster is clearly engrossed in whatever it is he is doing, some kind of data entry or editing, but as he walks by Garth and Marya he says in a distant but friendly manner, "Hey there, Garth. Hey there..." He trails off, and looks up from the holo projection with a faint, puzzled frown. Turning, he looks back and says, "Uh, sorry. I guess we haven't met, but hey there anyway."
"Oh... no, actually, I just wanted to talk to you. Both to apologize, and to ask you a few things, but... go ahead, get some food. It'll keep," Garth replies, before glancing up at Booster and his companion. "Skeets! Perfect, I need to talk to you and Booster..." he says, before glancing towards the man. "Ah, Booster. This is Marya Pai. She's Dragonwing. Marya, this is Booster Gold and Skeets."
"Thanks. Don't worry about it. I'm over it," Marya responds. She'd had plenty of time to cool off by now. If she was still upset, it'd be more of a reflection on her character than Garth's at this point. Now, if it happened again, that'd be a different story, but the girl didn't expect it to.
"Hi there," she says, offering her hand to Booster. "Good to meet you. And I've been busy running around outside the base a lot. I'm from Earth, so I find that I have an easier time blending in, so to speak". When she wasn't in costume.
"I'll be right back". And Marya heads over to get herself some tea. Mostly she wanted something to drink right now, and tea sounded good to her. Was it stereotypical? Sure. But she did like her tea.
"Nice to meet you, too!" Booster shakes Marya's hand, and then gestures to dismiss the holo projection he was working with. As Marya goes to get herself some tea, he pulls a chair at Garth's table and sits down, saying, "What'd you want, Garth? Skeets, could you get me a sandwich, please?"
"Certainly, sir!" the little golden droid darts off towards the automat array.
"I've been a little busy for the past day or two I guess, I didn't mean to leave you wondering, if you needed me for something," Booster adds, to Garth.
"Actually, I was going to talk to Skeets too, but I guess you'll do. I just wanted to ask about how you time-traveled to this century, maybe, get an idea what might be keeping us here, and whether you ran into anything to..." Garth comments as Marya heads off. Leaning forward, Garth whispers conspiratorially, "Did you, like, run into a time curtain or anything?"
Returning with tea, Marya finds herself a spot to sit and settles in. She does pass the droid on her way, which gets a little bit of an odd look. She wasn't worried about robots or anything like that, but she didn't really know a lot of people with personal robot assistants, so that was maybe a little odd to her.
Settling in, she falls quiet, and waits for Booster and Garth to finish their conversation, not butting in immediately.
"'I'll do'? Well gee, thanks Garth," Booster smirks, leaning back in his seat. "You'd have to explain what you mean, though. I saw a lot of interesting things on my way here, and I'm not sure I have the words in my vocabulary to explain them... so if that's a term for something specific, I don't know it." Looking to Mayra, his grin broadens and he shrugs a little theatrically.
"Well, I was just wondering if there was anything like a barrier or something," Garth replies, frowning. "If you can, give it a shot at trying to describe it."
A nod towards Marya. "You too, actually... come to think of it, if you remember anything about, well..." He motions with a hand randomly, not wanting to refer directly to the death of the Legion.
"The circumstances of my arrival? I'm afraid I don't have much that's useful," Marya responds. "I was moving to join the fight, and then I found myself falling through a portal and ended up in Gotham," Marya responds. "Far as I know, I'm the only one from my time who fell through one". Dragonwing takes a sip of her tea and lightly shrugs. "I didn't notice any barrier, but I was a little focused on other things at the time," she admits.
"Oh, I see. Hmm." Booster rubs his chin, gazing into the middle distance. "I'm not sure I'd call anything I saw a barrier, so much as... there were areas that were easier, and areas that were tougher. You know, it was all sort of..." he moves one hand slowly, as if he were trying to shape something only he can see. "Very colorful and bright, and some areas were very dense and felt difficult to navigate. And some areas that were very open, like a channel." He perks up as Skeets returns, with a plate grasped in one extended claw-arm. "Ah, food! Thank you."
Once the sandwich and plate is taken, Skeets' arm retracts and folds up, the little hatch closing and making his body look seamless again. He hovers benignly by Booster's shoulder.
"A portal," frowns Garth, as he prods at his omnicom. "And... areas of different elasticity." Or something. Oh god, Brainy's vocabulary was rubbing off on him. "Ahhh well." He glances up towards Skeets, eyebrows arching. "Hey Skeets. Do you have any records of time travel besides yourself? Is there anything you know that's not in the omnicom?"
"That sounds a little bit like what I saw, but it was all wavy and disorienting," Marya responds as she continues to sip her tea. Yeah, she didn't pay that close of attention. She was focused on other things at the time. "Sorry I can't be more helpful". She doesn't have a whole lot of information on time travel that isn't already in the system, however, so she stays quiet.
"I'm afraid my records on time travel are minimal, sir," Skeets tells Garth. "Time travel was unlawful in our native era, and in fact, is punishable by death."
Booster gives a quiet grunt at that, then says, "Skeets, this is Marya Pai. Marya, this is Skeets."
Skeets turns, saying to Marya, "It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am!"
Swallowing the bite of sandwich he was chewing, Booster tells Garth, "We have some footage of the time stream, if that'd help. It's not continuous, though. When we were testing things out while I was fixing up my power suit, we'd record it just to help us refine stuff."
"Ah well," Garth sighs, putting the omnicom down. "If you have any records of time travel, I'd appreciate it if you put it onto the omnicom. Maybe Brainy'll get some ideas."
Glancing at the food, Garth grimaces. "I'm going to get something to eat. Be right back."
"Seems like there would be a lot of research into it then, if it was punishable by death," Marya responds. "I mean, if it was considered that bad where you were from, then there had to be a reason, unless it was just fear". That's what made sense to Marya, at least. But it was possible they didn't have that data available to them. "It is good to meet you," she adds to Skeets with a polite nod. Garth also gets a nod as he goes to get food.
"You have put your finger right on it," Booster tells Marya, brushing some crumbs from his hands. "Time travel was a known quantity, but they did not want anyone utilizing it. I would say that our government did not like anyone nosing around in stuff they considered dangerous. So it's funny that they allowed a time machine to be displayed at the museum where we worked." He gestures to Skeets and himself. Skeets, at the moment, is going through his onboard database. "But they never denied that time travel was possible. The machine was supposed to be inert, though. Pretty much everything on display was supposed to be inert."
Returning with food, Garth settles in, looking towards Skeets and Booster. "So if everything was supposed to be inert," the Winathian says, "how did you get here?"
"Yeah, if it was supposed to be non-functional, seems odd that you'd manage to get here," Marya points out. It also meant that Booster must be, technically, a criminal in his time, given that he time traveled, but Marya wasn't going to hold that against him. That seemed like a somewhat silly law, if the government was doing the entire keep-it-silent game. Usually meant that the government wanted to control it themselves more than anything else.
"I know, it was weird." Booster shrugs a little. "I never really planned to time-travel, not initially. Well..." He puts down the uneaten half of his sandwich, resting his loosely folded arms on the table top. "The thing is, as a night watchman, I was able to get a good look at all the exhibits. I was having a look at the time machine one night and when I put my hands on it so I could lean in to see the controls, it started humming and powering up. So, I jumped back and its lights flickered out and I thought I was going a little nuts. It was a couple months later that I actually used it."
"So basically, you're saying you're a magnet for things just happening to jump in and out of your hands?" Garth replies, one eyebrow arched. "That's just... crazy luck."
"Crazy," Marya responds. "Anyway, I've got to get going. I'll see you later," Marya explains. And then she takes her tea and makes her way out.
Booster lifts a hand in farewell to Marya, then he says to Garth, "It was only the ring... and the time machine. The other stuff," he points at himself, or to be more accurate, at the suit he is wearing. "I had to re-engineer this stuff to work together, on me. Which I did during our trip. I'm telling the truth, I mean why would I need to lie about stuff like this? It's not like it really matters to anyone."
"Bye, Marya," Garth replies, as he settles in, munching on a falafel-like thing.
Leaning back as he chews, the Winathian looks at Booster, eyebrows arched. "You're a hell of an re-engineer, then..." Garth eyes, before looking towards Skeets. "Let me guess, you helped?"
"Yes, sir. Some of the technology was unfamiliar, even to myself," Skeets explains, always happy to pipe up.
"Eh, I'm okay with it, I took nanotech engineering in high school like a lot of people did," Booster shrugs a little, grinning faintly. "It would've been great if I could've gotten the whole suit ready-made, but they didn't have anything like that on hand. This is..." He sits up, gesturing at himself as he takes a mental tally. "Four separate things, not counting the ring. Or the power cells I'm using, but I didn't do anything to those, I use them as-is. But I made sure the whole thing has a bio-genetic and cyberpathic interface. Makes it tough for someone else to use it, if they manage to get it off of me."
"Nice. And the goggles?" Garth asks, as he glances up at Skeets. "I seem to remember you went along with him willingly, which surprises me... why did you go with him, if it was illegal?"
"The goggles are mostly stock military-issue, although we improved them a little." Booster and Skeets then exchange a glance. Booster then gestures a little, as if to indicate that Skeets should go ahead and speak.
"Admittedly, initially I attempted to talk Booster out of doing this. It worked for a while," says the little droid. "But one night, he was particularly agitated and deactivated me in order to get a hold of me, and take me into the vehicle with him."
Booster resumes eating his sandwich, muttering, "It wasn't a good day for me."
"However, once we started underway, I forgave him," Skeets continues. "He offered to let me return with the time machine, but I felt it would be interesting and instructive to accompany him into this era."
"Hah! I always wondered if you knew it was some kind of predestination thing, like Brainy said," Garth exclaims, slapping his knee.
Bringing more falafel-things to his mouth, the Winathian glances back at Booster. "Hey, what happened with that agency?"
"Mm," Skeets says, noncommittally.
"Oh, Looker Inc.?" Booster looks up from eating his sandwich. He brushes away crumbs. "I have a contract that I've signed, so hopefully I'll get some jobs lined up. If you're interested in modeling, I can take you there sometime. If you think you're tough enough." He grins, dusting his hands off. "Oh, and... by the way. I also signed on to do an internship at Stark Industries."
"What's so tough about modeling?" Garth replies, waving a hand in the air. "Just walk down the sidewalk wearing next to nothing. That's not a problem. Winath's a clothing-optional planet."
"That's the easy part." Booster actually laughs a little. "The tough part is having someone point out and criticize every tiny flaw on your body, yell at you because you gained an ounce of flesh in the wrong place, and so on. Telling you how to move and stand and then yelling at you if you don't get it perfect the first time. If you talk back, you'll probably lose that gig."
Regarding Booster and what he'd just said, Garth looks at his food, then at him, before calmly reaching out, grabbing Booster's sandwich, and his own plate of food, and then walking off to the recycler.
"Okay, Booster," Garth says. "Time to hit the gym."
Category:Log