Part Two: The Dinner

[lestercraft]

Who: Arthur & Helly Lester and anyone who actually goes for the invite
When: Evening of Jan 29th
Where: The Lester Household
Open/Closed: Open! Come one and all from Haven Street.
Applicable Warnings: Discussion of January events, mass conspiracy (it's us, we're the conspirators)


It's even odds, he thinks, whether people thought he was off his rocker in making a post like that, or if people would believe he's actually trying to contact people the only reasonable way he knew how. It was certainly much faster than trying to contact people individually, especially in this weather, and hopefully between himself and Helly that they've met enough people to get a decent turn-out.

The more they can learn about this place, the more they can trust each other, the better. Right now, trust is all they have.

The lower floor of the house is well lit, even if all the windows are curtained and shut, and there's a record playing in the lounge, audible from outside - something jazzy and dated by the standards of the time, but a bit of Hoagy Carmichael and Billie Holiday is settling his nerves, if nothing else - and the kitchen is... sparse, clearly underused but for the stack of mugs by the sink, but with some effort the blind leading the blind he and Helly have at least put together a salad for people. Theoretically they'll be bringing their own food too, make it at least ostensibly a potluck.

Comments

[regulararmybrat]

AHA!

[She points at Maureen with a vindicated look, grinning wildly. Seems that Maureen has become an unwitting participant in Margaret's efforts to Prove Something to Vasiliy. Even if she does have a point that there's no promise that it'll happen this town's version of 1969.]

I knew it! The US won, after all! [She withdraws her hand, looking smug.] My so-called "husband" insists upon the USSR's superiority, but--

[She stops herself again, realizing she's making a bit of a scene. Margaret tries to tone down her energy, clearing her throat and withdrawing slightly.]

So--ah. Sorry. What is it like, living in the future?

[coefficiently]

[If Maureen's eyebrows rise toward the combed back edge of her hairline—well, she has a narrow, mobile face prone to expressiveness. And after a few weeks of what feels very much like isolation punctuated by little more than stretches of desperation, Margaret's clear enthusiasm is a little contagious.]

A little more complicated than we probably want to get into tonight, [has the tenor of humoring the other woman rather than an outright refusal to elaborate. No one came here tonight to hear stories about spaceships and self-driving cars and a comet taking a chunk out of the planet, right?]

But less different than you're probably thinking.

[A flicked glance around the room becomes—] Sorry, which one's your 'husband?'

[regulararmybrat]

[Margaret scans the room, then gestures in the direction of a severe-looking man--Vasiliy Ardankin. She leans in closer to Maureen and speaks in a disgruntled tone:]

Between you and me? The man couldn't be any more insufferable. [She lets out a huff.] To think, of all the rotten luck in the world, I had to get paired up with some--some loud, proud... [She stops just short.] ...well, just...an absolute pig.

[She hisses the word out like venom on her tongue.]

[coefficiently]

[Maureen's attention flits away, landing on the man in question—pausing there in clear recognition; she knows Ardankin—and then swivels back to Margaret. Some rapid math occurs between Maureen's ears. The no-nonsense Russian and the Korean war nurse under one roof. Got it.

(Is it a relief to know her and Jupe's accommodations aren't the most strained in the neighborhood? Maybe a little.)]

Mine just watches a lot of tv. [A swipe at humor turns briskly toward—] But you said you were a nurse, right? This is probably a weird question, but do you know of anything that could cause hallucinations? Something airborne, maybe.

[regulararmybrat]

[Margaret thinks for a moment, twisting her mouth to the side.]

There's ether and other anesthetics, but it seems unlikely that they would only affect a select numbers of people. Plenty of other things can induce hallucinations--the influence of certain drugs, perhaps, but those are mostly ingested.

[She pauses, frowning.]

I could probably administer a blood test to detect the presence of certain drugs, but I'm not sure if I would be allowed to use the equipment at the hospital like that. It'd certainly be suspicious.

[coefficiently]

[Maureen wrinkles her nose at the prospect of 'suspicious.' So not exactly the ideal option, then.]

I doubt whatever it was would still be in the system anyway—[Here, a pause. A calculation occurs somewhere between Maureen's ears; the resulting shift prompts a slight change in tack.] On New Years Eve. Did anything strange happen to you?

[She hasn't actually asked that question yet, has she?]

[regulararmybrat]

[Margaret blinks, caught off guard by the question.]

Um--actually, yes, I--

[She opens her mouth, then closes it again, seemingly unsure of what to say. Frustrated at her inability to state what happened with any logical explanation. She lets out a small, nervous laugh, placing a hand over her mouth.]

I experienced...some sort of vision. Or dream. But it was far too...too real to be a dream, it was like I was actually there. [She runs a hand through her hair, looking away from Maureen.] There was a battlefield, and then there was someone...on the ground? Someone calling for Ms. Ruby.

[A pause. A troubled expression crosses over her face.]

The head nurse at the hospital--her name is Ruby Jones. Surely it can't be a coincidence...right?

[coefficiently]

[Something about this last part seems to catch at Maureen's attention, tugging against the direction her thoughts were already trending in. If there's someone at the hospital who shares a name with some part of what Margaret had seen—

That might rule environmental factors out, right? Or at least the normal ones.

(Normal. Maureen, she thinks to herself, you're standing in allegedly 1961. Normal is maybe already out the window.)]

Maybe not. [Hedging her bets.] But I've seen something like this before. Where were you? When it happened.

[regulararmybrat]

I was…in the town square, celebrating New Year’s Eve with the townspeople. And we were counting down to midnight, and then it just—everything faded away, and I—well, it just…happened. [She feels a bit embarrassed recounting this—as if there was something that she could’ve done to prevent it from happening.] And then when I came to, I was on the ground. I guess I must’ve fallen over.

[Margaret then frowns.]

What do you mean you’ve seen something like this before?

[coefficiently]

[She could have explained it in virtually the same way if Margaret had been the one asking the questions instead. 'I was in the town square, and I don't know how it happened just that it did—'

Is it a relief to hear her own experience spoken aloud by someone else? Maybe. Maybe not. It's definitely more complicated than having had her new years drink dosed with some kind of drug. But it makes more sense, right? In the context of all of them here in this room, from disparate places and time.]

Metaphorically. My son—while we were traveling, we had an accident. We landed somewhere we weren't meant to, and he found something that made him see things that had happened [to a seven foot tall alien robot] there before. It was just a piece of a machine. It could be we're dealing with similar tech.

[regulararmybrat]

A machine that makes you see things that already happened....

[She says, slowly, allowing herself to absorb the information. Already, she can see the applications such technology might have--allowing those who have lost their memories to relive certain moments in their lives, historians being able to view important events, and so on and so forth.

It is also entirely possible that something like that could be abused if it fell into the wrong hands.]

If they do have their hands on a sort of...machine, thing, whatever, it could be that we weren't meant to see what we saw. What would be the point, otherwise?

[coefficiently]

The one we found was broken. I don't know that it was really designed to do what it did. [Sounds like agreement by way of extrapolation.] It could be that what they have here is malfunctioning somehow.

[Alien tech going wrong—or interacting with something it wasn't ever meant to interact with—is the most explicable answer for all this, to her mind. But the prospect of saying so out loud before she's confirmed it to a bunch of people who don't know what a smart phone is makes her feel like she's in the verge of growing a second head. So:]

I'd be curious about the range. I was at the square too.