[Snowpocalypse] Saints Preserve Us (H 4.3)

Rich

Hadden,

You enter the church past the opaque plastic sheet that serves as a door. The 'floor' is three feet of ice, with black shapes hidden, sometimes moving, underneath.

The place is empty, and cold. Some small candlelight once you've entered, not visible from outside. A man comes out of a side passage, hearing your arrival, it's Brother Signal:


"Hello, Brother Hadden," he says in his calm voice with a tired smile. "How may I help you?"

Mischa

From Hadden:

I don't look back exactly, but I make sure they drive off. Not going to think about the kind of night they're in for. Maybe next time I drop for a hot shower. Best put all that aside for now. I duck past the thick plastic sheet, and at least it's just cold instead of bitterly cold.

This place has a real majesty to it. Hard to see when it's not daylight. Candles make most of the place glitter quietly. Almost cozy. I yawn large. "Hello, Brother Signal. I seek a place to sleep tonight." Shrug into a readjustment of my go-bag wearily.

Rich

Brother Signal nods, like "of course, no problem". "You are welcome, Brother Hadden, as always. I'm up late working on the radios." He turns to head back towards them, beckoning you to follow. When you catch up, her peers at you, asking without accusing, "What keeps you up this late?"

You enter a side room of stone bricks, many electronic devices laying about, some of them appear functional, others opened up, gutted for use in other devices. There are a host of manuals in lots of languages, and one old TV set that is on, broadcasting some weird TV show you've seen before, Hadden. What is it?

Mischa

From Hadden:

"Thanks, Brother Signal. It's been a long day of labor with topsy-turvy emotional bookends." To say the least. I cut myself off from starting to ramble. Rub some gunk out my right eye.

The workroom seems to have grown since I was last here. But at least there's no longer piles of frosted electronics. Maybe they're better at sorting these days. I pick out a few texts in Russian, wonder if Lemma has been over here. Then a bit of music, strings and horns, catches my attention- admittedly not too hard when I'm this worn.

The TV's showing one of those, what do you call it, moving drawings. Bright colors and crazy situations. This one has robots and flying cars and too many white people and no sex or violence or disease. I don't even think they smoke or curse, like they took vows stricter than the Preservers. It's a wacky show and it's funny what they used to think we'd be like. The main guy's a doofus but has landed a hot wife and I don't know how he keeps a job. I'm not sure he even has any friends but a dog, and I know that our dogs don't talk. Sometimes it's hard to tell what's really real and what's just made up part of the show. But you can always tell when it's a joke because they used to have people to laugh along with the gags. Man, I really gotta try Jester on a stage without music, just standing and talking.

I mutter the words along to the song, "Meet George Jetson..."

Rich

Brother Signal lets you look over the stash of stuff before he asks quietly, "Would you like to talk? Or drink? Or sleep?" He puts on emphasis on any option, offering what you need.

Brother Signal motions towards a corner, darker than the rest of the room, "There is a mattress over there, I just need to move some batteries."

Mischa

From Hadden:

"I've talked so much today, Brother Signal. I'm tired. My heart's pulled in sixteen different directions and I would love a drink before sleep." I'll help move batteries, of course. "Sex and romance and girl troubles and enby troubles. I'm only one man, I can't do everything. I can't be everything for everyone. It's like she wants me but she doesn't want me me, and then she looks like she wants me, but doesn't act like it, but then offers like it's payment, and then tzir wants me but we're so bad for each other and I don't want to get sliced but then they go and fuck each other in my minitruck and think I can't smell it like flaunting what I used to have and what I can't have but then I gotta work to help put food on their table and then there's a big side project that will change the world and then I need to see by maybe-baby-momma and I don't even know." Maybe I do need to talk.

I take a breath, and then look over with a wan little smile. "How's by you?" I have a nagging feeling someone wanted me to introduce them to Brother Signal, but I can't connect it right now.

Rich

Brother Signal listens close as you both work to move the car batteries off the mattress. He's wired them in sequence, and it's careful work. He makes noises like he's listening close, "mn hmn" and all that.

You finish the story as you move the last battery. When you're asking how Signal might be, he walks over to pick up a couple blankets from a basket, then brings them over to drop onto the mattress. "I'm fine, Hadden. Not a care in the world. But you, my brother, need a drink or four."

He points over at a couple chairs set up by a large work bench, "Have a seat, I'll get a bottle for sharin." He heads down a set of icy stone steps into a cellar, comes back up a minute later with a bottle of wine and glasses. It's a red, probably priceless before the freeze. Pulls the cork open with his teeth and pours you a glass, then one for himself and sits.

If you want to unload the details of your recent weeks, he's an open ear. He's not much for advice, he doesn't live "in the world that is", being more concerned with "the world that was and could be", but hey, good wine.

What do you do?

Mischa

From Hadden:

Yes indeed, I enjoy some fine wine. But not too much, certainly not four glasses. but looking around at all this electronics, the Russian on the manuals, has me thinking about the site. (Manhandled Dame? Damn Me Headland? Me Handmade Land? I don't hate that one.) The Preservers are all about the world that could be, and why that's my second name, yeah?

How much can I trust him? I really feel like it's Lemma's call to bring Brother Signal on site, just in case we have a ideological war on our hands. So I'll unload a bit my worry from Soulja Volcano, trying to reunite friends and lovers.

Halfway through my second glass, I swirl the wine a bit, watching it catch the light and ripple and sparkle. Red, though, not green. I try to remember if he had to thaw the wine first, which if not means that there's more, or he's got some system down there.

I kind of toast the workspace, and ask, "What about all this? What are you working on? What sort of thing you look for?" Angling a bit from the scavenger's perspective, not the secret nuclear underwater boat new hold I'm sitting on. Trying to feel him out.

Rich

Brother Signal has been nursing his drink, still on the first glass. He listens, like he seems to enjoy doing, and enjoys your attention on the space. "I'm working on restoring some old picture books, mostly. A series of what they called comic books, about some young men and women who have these amazing mental powers in a world gone wrong. Except, in this story, it's a flood that broke the world."

He stands form his seat and walks over to his workbench, moving aside a bright light he has on a swivel arm type deal, brings you back the tattered pages of a book. The art is clean lines, most everyone in grays and light blues. Written in English, but odd accents, talking about sodding and other weird words. Signal hovers near, like he's a little interested in your reaction.

Mischa

From Hadden:

I know how to handle old Pre-Freeze stuff like this. Some of it is just so old it'd fall to bits if it wasn't frozen solid. So I hold it real gentle, like snowflakes, like sheets of frost, moving slow and breathing carefully. It's a little weird to wrap my brain around- they have so much liquid water, and they told this story for fun. Like the space show.

It's obvious Signal has a good hand with ink and color. I can tell where there's the original and where's the new. The wine and tired are muddled, and this crazy drawn world of water and brain powers. Like this one guy who can move things with his mind, or this other chick who can read thoughts.

"It's cool, but they were so strange, Brother Signal." And it should be obvious I mean the story, not his work. I move a finger over the page, following some lines of action. "I'm going to have some strange dreams tonight," but appreciatively. Might be nice to think about something not real.

Rich

"A toast. To strange dreams." He raises a glass, I assume you toast? He finishes his glass, doesn't pour another.

Brother Signal gives you a knowing smile, "Hadden, is there anything else you want to talk about? You look like you're about to pass out."

Mischa

From Hadden:

I match his toast, propose another, "To absent friends."

I start to head into that mattress, keep my go-bag and jacket as a pillow, move the pistol, pistols so's I'm not sleeping on live ammo, moving slow and yawning. "Lemma, get with Lemma... and Arbor! And love. And my girls, my boys, my peoples. And the future." I rub my eyes, mumbling tired and just a bit drunk but not too, "Later, later." Only two glasses of wine, but it's heady stuff.

I lie down, grab for the blankets with eyes closed. "Don't put me in a candle?" and I'm two breaths from asleep.

Rich

Brother Signal watches you, chuckles at your tangled mess of unwinding. He walks over to grab a couple more blankets, tosses them to you. "I'll see you in the morning, Brother Hadden."

--END SCENE--