Generator Maint. with Blaze & Ghost

[notalldead]

A meeting of the gang was called the second Jesse was back underground. He then filled them all in on what was up there; some weird new place full of grass, electricity and running businesses. They nearly had a harder time believing that than Jesse's next story about how he met a robot and she was going to come down with another robot to take a look at their generators.

But other scouts soon went topside to confirm the same and came back, mute with disbelief. Granted, few of them wandered far from the subway, just like back home; habits die hard, especially ones that keep you from dying hard. But they all the saw the same thing; a place with no zed, bright and clean and like some kind of park or mall from the times before things fell apart.

When the day finally arrives for Blaze to visit, Jesse's waiting for her topside, using his tongue to wet down a fresh cigar. Well, fresh at least that it hasn't been lit yet. It looks a little crumpled, but these things are hard to get, darn it.

Comments

[notalldead]

"Heh. Yeah..." He can't even think of what to say; just thinking that they'll even have proper working lights is almost too staggering and wonderful to imagine. And they'll go even further on their fuel than before? It's crazy.

"I'm not gonna mess with you; if I could, I might be cryin' right now." Jesse swipes a fingertip at one corner of his eye regardless. "Ain't no shame in that," he mutters, almost defensively. He just gets emotional when a good turn comes for his folks, that's all.

[rekindledtitan]

"Hey, I'm not gonna judge," Blaze assures him, sealing up the panel her Ghost had open. "Think you can fund a use for the extra power?"

[notalldead]

"Darn tootin'. Better livin' through electricity. More movie nights, fer starters. Which y'all are both still invited to, of course. Not havin' to live in the dark like the usual zed is enough to make us happy; anythin' to remind us we're different, ya hear?"

He adjusts his hat and sniffs once, looking over the generators again. "...I mean it. We're in deep with y'all now. You want somethin', you just name it. It's yours."

[rekindledtitan]

"I understand. And we'll have to stop by for those movie nights: don't know about my Ghost, but I've got a lot of stories to catch up on."

As to the rest, Blaze gives him a steady look, like she's figuring this out for a moment. She's not going to blow off a sincere promise, but she wants to be honest too. "Sure. You help us and we help you. You didn't pull us out of our way, though, don't think you owe us so much."

[notalldead]

"Movie night might have to wait for another day, of course; I reckon I'm gonna have my hands full dealin' with our local engineer nerd lookin' over this thing and tellin' everyone what happened and how we're gonna be seein' a lot more light these days."

He scratches the back of neck, musing partly to himself, "Doesn't seem right to pull fuel from the Nexus, but. You think they sell it there?"

[rekindledtitan]

"Suits me fine. Plenty of other places to go 'light up' in the meantime." There's that grin in her voice again.

"No reason they shouldn't. Plenty of places selling organic food there, last I saw. And with some of the fancy components Ghost was looking at there, they ought to be able to sell you some old-school gasoline."

[notalldead]

"That might...become a thing. It's dang hard to find these days. Especially with the likes of the Last Judgement snatchin' it up at every chance to fuel their hogs. And now that we got a good reason to have it..." He looks at the generators again, watching Ghost do his work on the remaining ones. This truly is a game-changer for him.

"'Course, we don't wanna get so flagrant with our havin' it that they start to wonder where we're gettin' it all and raid us to find out."

[rekindledtitan]

"So they're not invited to movie night, huh?" Kidding aside, she thinks and nods. "You could store most of it in the Nexus, if you reckon the place is stable enough."

[notalldead]

"Also a good idea. Dang, but you're full of 'em." He gives her another smile, genuine and gap-toothed. "I'm considerin' myself real lucky to have found this place and meet a lady like you."

But then he blinks several times and looks away quickly, laughing nervously and feeling a little sheepish that he keeps getting so sincere. "Sorry, it's just been...You know, a long streak of bad luck finally comin' to an end."

[rekindledtitan]

Blaze looks down for a moment, taken off-guard by his kind words. Even the crack about being the one with the smart ideas for once gets sort of lost in her vocal circuits. It's his last words that get a chuckle out of her.

"I'm getting that." She gives him a reassuring look. By and large, Titans don't do sentimentality - but honest feeling is another matter. "I just wish we had the answers you really need already."

She pauses. "You know, before we fell into the Nexus I'd never really talked to anyone outside the Tower. You're one of the first people I know who isn't another Guardian. I'd say we both got lucky. And I'm pretty sure Ghost thinks the same."

[notalldead]

"How'd y'all find the Nexus? You didn't literally fall, did you? Cuz I've seen that happen to some folks and I'm wonderin' why that's a thing. Guess we can't all just find a weird hallway what leads to it, I guess."

[rekindledtitan]

"Aw, it wasn't really a fall. More like a-"

"Crash," the Ghost chips in as it picks up some more spinmetal.

"Landing, was what I'd call it." Blaze snorts at her companion and explains to Jesse. "Can't speak for anyone else, but we were up on the moon checking out a region called the Hellmouth. There's a species called the Hive who've taken over old Luna, burrowed deep into the crust and filled it with their caverns and pits. We tracked down a shrine they were building and destroyed it.

"Only it, uh, turns out when you smash one of those things there's a small risk of getting thrown through an inter-dimensional vortex." She shrugs. "I thought the others were kidding about that."

"If I'd known you were going to punch it, I would have warned you."

[notalldead]

"Wait, aliens hollowed out yer moon? Tarnation. Ain't that just a kick in the pants." Well, bit of an understatement, really. "Yer world sounds kinda scarier than mine in just stuff bein' so...out there. Though I figure plenty of folks would say the same about mine. Ain't a bed of roses, but it's ours. You feel the same about yours, I'd reckon."

He also chuckles at Ghost's input.

[rekindledtitan]

"Yeah. I'd have thought things would be stranger for you, seeing as you remember them being differently. It's simpler if you don't. Seems like every day the world gets a little stranger and deeper and bigger than I knew it was, and I just enjoy it. Although I'm not so sure how I ought to feel about worlds where they don't have self-aware robots."

She chuckles to show she's joking. If she were the type for existential reflections, the existence of such variant time-lines could be cause for serious brooding. Blaze is happy to have no such tendency.

[notalldead]

"Things bein' grim at least make you learn to appreciate the little things. Like workin' lights." He winks. "And yeah; no self-aware bots here. Just that vacuum one I talked about. Think it was named Roomba. Japan made some too, I guess. Our engineer talks about 'em back when he saw 'em on the internet. Don't believe they were thinkin' and talkin' sort like you, though."

[rekindledtitan]

"'Roomba'. Heh, that sounds cute. Maybe I'll check back in a hundred years and see how far you've gotten..." She looks up as the Ghost flits away from the last generator.

"All done! If you'd like to test them, I can make sure they're all running properly."

[notalldead]

The century check-in comment gets him to blink a little. Huh, didn't even occur to him, that being a robot means you live for a damn long time. Just keep going and going for ages, so long as you can repair and replace parts. Sometimes he worries that's how they'll end up...

Thankfully, Ghost shows up and distracts from that distressing line of thought. Jesse dusts off his hands and kneels to prime and start the other generators. "Awrite, let's see what we got." He's got nothing but full faith that these are going to work just as beautifully as the first. Man, they might even be able to have refrigerators again.