Fifth floor common room, Saturday evening

[kenselvren]

Jalian could be doing this in her room, especially as she now had no roommate. She probably should be doing it in her room. But she was trying to be more social and learn more about the people around her, and she couldn't do that in her room.

So, she was sitting on the floor cross-legged, with bits of wire and circuitry and a scattering of small vacuum tubes around her, attempting to put something together.

The television was on in the background - she wasn't watching it, but hadn't bothered to turn it off. It seemed to be two groups of males on ice hitting each other with sticks, which was occasionally amusing.


[Open room and post!]

Comments

[flickofthewrist]

"Well, that's a mess," Flick noted when he strolled into the common room. There wasn't anywhere else to be so why not visit? "Something break?"

[kenselvren]

Jalian made a disgusted noise. "My temper, occasionally." She wasn't particularly angry at the moment, though; more resigned. She held up a vacuum tube. "I'm trying to build at least a part of a Doorway, but these don't seem to come any smaller than this."

[flickofthewrist]

"Doorway?" Flick tilted his head on the way to the kitchen. "Don't those usually involve wood and frames? Don't tend to see tubes in a doorway."

He didn't get that it was a different kind of doorway.

[kenselvren]

Jalian actually laughed at that. "Not that sort. A...hm. A sort of portal. The way that I traveled to get here."

[flickofthewrist]

"You can build those?" Flick asked, taking a bottle of water from the fridge and glancing over. "There's enough tech around here for you to do that?"

[kenselvren]

"When you touch on other timelines, the physics often change, so the moleculo-," she stopped herself. "It's best to keep it simple. So, vacuum tubes. But with ones this large, a full Doorway would probably have to be far too big and take too much power."

She glanced at Flick. "Are you from a very different timeline, or one similar to this?" He looked comfortable in these surroundings, but some of the other students were very good at blending in.

[flickofthewrist]

"Pretty similar," Flick told her, shrugging. "I'm from New York from a similar time. Maybe a few years in the past but not too far. Guessing you're from...well, maybe the future if you're building a portal?"

[kenselvren]

"The future of a different timeline," Jalian agreed. "New York - that is the city with all the very big buildings and streets, yes?" Cities were pretty fascinating. Not as much fun as freeways, but interesting.

[flickofthewrist]

"One of them, yeah, but probably the most well known in this country," Flick answered. "You ever been?"

[kenselvren]

"No." Jalian shook her head. "Only to Baltimore. And to D.C. There were museums."

[flickofthewrist]

"Yeah, there are a lot of those on the east coast," Flick agreed. "You like them? Museums? If you do, you should get up to New York sometime. Lots of those there."

[kenselvren]

Jalian shrugged. "They have some interesting things, I suppose. I don't understand a lot of it. Have you been to many?"

[flickofthewrist]

"Not lately but I've been to a few when I get back there," Flick told her, shrugging. "Walking around, looking at old stuff or art isn't my favorite thing to do. I get bored easily."

[kenselvren]

"The art I definitely don't understand." Jalian rolled her eyes. "It doesn't seem useful at all."

[flickofthewrist]

"I'm sure it has some use if you're into art and art history but for everything else?" Flick shook his head. "It's just a bunch of colors and pictures of flowers. Really boring."

[kenselvren]

"Some of it was just squares, or splashes!" It was really sort of funny. "The ones with history were probably better, but they talked about too many things I don't know." She was getting better, but all the changing country names and monarchs and things were confusing, okay?

[flickofthewrist]

"So, are you from a place that isn't this country so the history is totally invalid?" he asked curiously.

[kenselvren]

"Armageddon happened in my timeline 800 years before me." Jalian shrugged. "None of these countries were there anymore. We didn't save much history, and I mostly studied other things."

[flickofthewrist]

"Ah." That made a little more sense. "Well, here's a crash course on American history. We can never agree, we like to hate people for their skin color, sexual orientation, gender, etc. We fight wars, we go into debt. Wash, rinse, repeat."

[kenselvren]

Jalian laughed. "Very accurate, from what I've seen. Also, you have money." Which would never not be funny! "And males in charge." Which would never not be annoying. Sorry.

[flickofthewrist]

"Males in charge is a different thing?" he wondered. "Huh. That's actually interesting. The dudes that run this country haven't always done well."

[kenselvren]

"They are better than the ones that ran it in my timeline," Jalian grudgingly admitted. "There were no bombs."