sixthiterationlogs | July Arrivals

Entry tags:

July Arrivals

WHO: Arrivals
WHERE: The fountain park
WHEN: July 1, 12:00 PM
OPEN TO: ALL
WARNINGS: N/A
STATUS: CLOSED

In the snug circle of an old park, a fountain sits burbling beneath a broad, midday sky.

Once-neat paving stones have buckled and cracked from the slow nudge of wayward roots. Benches stand covered in lichen and rust. Three paths push into the underbrush like the spokes on a wheel, the encroaching forest creating lush tunnels through the dark.

But the fountain stands singular and pristine, brightly splashing in open rebellion of the deep, muffled sounds of a place long ago gone to seed. A vibration hums through the ground, there and quickly gone, and the water in the fountain trembles, lapping against the high walls of its cool, pale reservoir.

It is the first of July.

It is precisely twelve o'clock in the afternoon.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The others are an unknown element that Peggy is still trying to process. Yes, she will absolutely have to deal with them at some point, but right now she can only handle one at a time and this is the peak of what she can do, as far as she's concerned. "Soon," she says, hoping she doesn't seem standoffish, given the fact that she's trying to keep control of the situation. "I'm sure we'll all be in need of shelter soon enough."

Something in Nerys understood Peggy's reluctance. More people meant difficulty in consensus, meant indecision. If they got things in order first, then they could take stock and come at the situation from a better vantage point.

Also, if she was being honest, she wasn't sure she wanted to (or could, if she was being really honest) deal with a good dozen confused, scared people, all of whom had arrived in the same traumatic way, if the dripping clothes had anything to indicate it. She wasn't sure if she could even fully deal with herself yet without time to process. It'd been one of the biggest lessons to learn, in the Resistance, to make time to think, feel, react, whenever you could.

"I follow you," she said, pushing herself up to her feet. "Shall we?"

She nods, grateful that this woman seems to be in agreement. Even if they don't really know each other, the last thing Peggy wants to worry about right now is betrayal. "I still can't believe you're from out of this world," she admits, mostly speaking out loud to fill the silence. "And here I thought Los Angeles was the most foreign place I'd ever encounter people from."

Deception wasn't exactly one of Nerys' top skills at the best of times, though she certainly could use it. She preferred to keep all cards on the table whenever possible, though; it kept things honest. Having lived for two and a half decades under the thumb of a people whose very social paradigm was built on mind games and subterfuge, she was sick to death of lies.

"Los Angeles?" she asked, trying to place the somewhat familiar name, and kept herself from getting irritated at the 'out of this world' sapiocentrism--Peggy seemed to be from somewhere far from the Federation, so she couldn't help it. This could very well not be your world either, she thought, but figured now wasn't the best time to point that out, nor the fact that she wasn't human either.

"California," she says, though she thinks that it still might not be enough information if they're talking about space and other things to do with places Peggy's never even considered. "Earth?" she offers, thinking that while it might be strange, she has to at least offer that out. "I never thought I'd have to identify myself by my planet."

"Oh, like San Francisco," Nerys said, because that she knew about. Ensign Morales wouldn't shut up about it, ze being from that part of Earth. "And I know Earth," she added, nodding a little bit. "I haven't ever had a chance to go there, but friends of mine come from there. My, uh, boss, for starters."

"Yes!" Peggy rushes to agree, so pleased to hear some familiarity. It's so strange speaking to someone like this and having them know about Earth, but so relieving at the same time. Good to know that it's still kicking around, even if in a manner of speaking. "I haven't had time to go up to San Francisco yet," she admits. "I had been thinking about it, but...well, the job does get to you, sometimes."

"I know the feeling. I'm...pretty sure I don't remember the last time I stopped working." And that was when she'd had what could be classified as a job, as compared to a way of life that never, ever stopped, but Nerys had learned that you didn't just go around telling people you were a terrorist in a past life when they had no sense of the context.

She shifted her pack over her shoulders and back, trying to make it more comfortable.

Does that mean this is the forced vacation that she's being meant to take? All that time in Los Angeles working on her vacation had been so good to have purpose and to not have to deal with Jack and his cronies. It doesn't seem like they're here, but what's Peggy to do with a deserted town?

"We should figure out why it seems that we're the first residents here in some time," she says absently. "That can't be natural."

"I don't know what bothers me more, that we're the first people here in some time or that we're not the first people who've ever been here," Nerys replied, frowning in thought. "I mean, it's a relief that there's shelter, but..."

Shelter definitely wasn't everything, wouldn't feed people or keep water clean.

"Yes, I know what you mean," Peggy agrees, that chilling sensation down her spine not helping her in the least. If they're not the first people here, that does beg the question of what happened to the last group.

And why isn't there a single one of them left? "Maybe we're just not looking in the right places. Maybe there are other people in another part of the settlement."

"Maybe," said Nerys, but she sounded incredibly doubtful. It was rare that people kept living in a place in this condition, in her experience, but maybe they didn't have the right kind of resources--something in her gut said everyone was gone.

"Or maybe there's a reason that they're not so easily found," Peggy adds, a wariness in her words. If there's some natural predator or some possibility of something that could harm them, she can imagine that people might go underground or hide away.

"We'll need to do a thorough investigation, I think. Only then can we know if we're truly here alone or whether the civilization has simply evolved to something else."

Thorough investigation sounded enough like Odo that Nerys nearly smiled, though she stopped herself easily enough by remembering the gravity of the situation. "Once we have the resources to do it," she said, agreeing with reservations. "Gotta get enough food to keep ourselves able to do more than, well, just finding food."

"Yes, I would rather avoid the part where we all starve trying to be neighbourly," she tries to joke, but she'd much rather simply not return to rationing if at all possible. Those are years of her life that she'd like to avoid.

"Still, I would rather not have to worry about sleeping with one eye open. A thorough investigation to see who else is here would help with that."

The joke felt to Nerys a bit like a rebuke, but her interpretation was that it was a joke of a kind she was used to from Odo, so there wasn't much sting. What bothered her more was the fact that she hadn't thought that there might be danger from others, had assumed they were alone, but Peggy was right.

Clearly, she was getting soft. "It's a good point," she agreed. "A surprise attack...those are the worst."

"Yes, especially if we're the ones thinking that everyone will be friendly," Peggy admits, trying not to think about those long nights in the war, not sure she wanted to sleep because of what might come over their lines in the middle of the night. "Then again, I know from experience that it's no way to live. Maybe we can set up alarms. Traps?"

"Me too," Nerys agreed, looking at Peggy's face as she mentioned experience. Her own was written into her bones. "Alarms, maybe, though everyone here will need to know exactly where they are. Traps if they're needed, but until we know..."

It wasn't really worth the effort until they knew they were trapping someone malicious.

"Alarms, then," Peggy says, because she wouldn't want to lose her leg on a perfectly normal walk just because someone's paranoia drove them to setting up something with a great deal of sharp edges. "Maybe something that won't harm anyone if they come across it without knowing. I'd hate to limit our already apparently small population."

She nudges the door to the structure they've arrived at open, having to use her shoulder to give it a bit of a push.

"What do you think this is?" she asks, of the large building.

Nerys squinted into the dim light as Peggy tried to get the door open a little further. Clearly someone hadn't been there in some time--but the room they could see from this entrance had a number of tables and chairs, plus what looked like a bar off to one side.

Funny, how bars looked the same on nearly every world Nerys had ever been to.

"A cafe," she said, thoughtfully, stepping gingerly inside and checking her corners with a quick glance or two, just in case. "Or some kind of bar or something. But not for a long time."

Peggy's only seen this sort of thing in history books the likes of which stretched past the first world war, to homes that her grandparents might have lived in. It's very odd for her to be standing in one of them, unsure what to make of it.

"We should check for food," is her first instinct. "Maybe someone's left something?"

"Yeah," Nerys said, as she realized that losing the contents of her stomach (a very nice dinner with Riker, who had then fucking shot her) was likely a really bad survival technique in the long run. "Though I don't know how old it will be. I...is this Earth, do you think? I don't recognize any of the trees."

"I've never seen any other planets," Peggy says with an apology heavy in her words. She feels like she's missing information to be useful, but unfortunately she can only offer what she knows and she knows that this looks like Earth, but she also hasn't travelled all over. "The oxygen levels are clearly suited to life," she says.

"So Earth or something else like it."

What if this were some sort of alien planet? Maybe it would explain the somewhat abandoned state? The time period, even, to a degree? Or maybe she's just reaching.

"It's okay, don't worry about it," Nerys says, looking around them at the mysterious trees. "Humans didn't have interstellar travel for ages, so if we're from different places in time..." She shrugs and chews on her lower lip, realizing that maybe, just maybe, this might be breaking some kind of rules about temporal interactions. Not that she's subject to Starfleet regs about the Temporal Prime Directive around here.

"Earth or not, it's definitely a Class M world, or we wouldn't be breathing, and a pretty comfortable one at that, so that's a benefit, I guess."

Peggy keeps looking around her at the strange little structure they've come to, like a holdover of time gone by. "What do you supposed we're meant to do in this place? There must be some reason we're here," Peggy says, not believing that this is all just a coincidence. "Perhaps we all have some function, some purpose."

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