29 Chimera Court, Saturday Afternoon

[firstofitskind]

Well, the past week had been... something, that was for sure. He'd settled in to his new job at the Trooper Station with very little hiccups (there was the one day with all the llamas, which had resulted in a lot of phone calls, but no lasting damages, so he was calling that one a win). He'd even managed to get ahold of Street over on the mainland and have her send over what was left of his things: a few pictures, those little Taelon sculptures, and his favorite leather jacket. Not much, but then he'd never actually had much in the way of possessions to start with.

He'd taken to going out for walks around the island, just to familiarize himself with the place, and today had been business as usual... until he passed by the bakery. It was, after all, his birthday today. His entire knowledge of birthdays was secondhand, memories inherited from his human parents; there always seemed to be one crisis or another on his actual birthday, and the people he associated with for the most part considered themselves 'too old' or were otherwise unconcerned with celebrating their own. But here he was, June 24th, no crisis to speak of, and there was a bakery right here. So yeah, he bought himself a cake, because why the heck not?

He'd brought the cake back to the house, found the tea kettle, and was now sitting down at the table for tea and chocolate cake because it was his birthday and he could.

[ooc: for those what are in the house too.]

Comments

[firstofitskind]

"I've never had a duck try and make off with an entire hamburger, though."

[shiroi_tiger]

"Clearly we have not been talking to the same ducks," Nathan decided.

[firstofitskind]

"To be entirely fair, I haven't been talking to any ducks," Liam admitted. "But I've never been duck-burgled either. Is that a problem here?" You'd think he would have read about it in the Trooper Station files.

[shiroi_tiger]

"With all of the other things that have happened here over the years, it's probably only a matter of time," Nathan decided. "Everything else has happened already."

[firstofitskind]

"I've spent the past few days going over the records at the Trooper Station and, yeah, I can see your point."

[shiroi_tiger]

"I suppose if nothing else, the ducks would have to be trying pretty hard to be more horrifying than the zombies were."

Low bar there.

[firstofitskind]

Yeah, Liam hadn't gotten to the zombies yet.

"Zombies like... from the movies? Eating brains?"

[shiroi_tiger]

"I come from a time before movies, Liam," Nathan pointed out. "... But yes. Eating brains."

And dancing Thriller. But mostly the eating brains thing.

[firstofitskind]

"Ah, right..." Liam said with a sheepish grin. To be fair, Liam had only existed himself for five years. Even when talking to people from "modern" times, there were things that most people his apparent age had grown up with that for him, had always been there. "I've seen- a few things that have been described as 'zombies' back home? But there was never any actual brain eating."

[shiroi_tiger]

"I can't imagine a lack of actually eating brains would make them much less horrifying," Nathan said after a pause. "Were they inherently violent, as well?"

[firstofitskind]

Liam couldn't help the bitter chuckle at Nathan's question. "That depends on your definition of inherent, I suppose. They were artificial humanoid constructs called Bio-Surrogates, genetically manipulated to be the perfect disposable soldier." He kept his voice carefully measured and controlled as he spoke, but his distaste for the project was clearly evident.

[shiroi_tiger]

Yeah, the look on Nathan's face wasn't that of somebody who was terribly impressed, either. He went silent for a few seconds, trying to come up with words that summed up what he thought of that.

"Ah," he said, finally. "A more convenient means of killing people."

[firstofitskind]

"Exactly," Liam confirmed. "They were designed to be operated by a human consciousness, but a big enough energy surge and they could... wake up on their own. sort of. No thoughts, just... instinct."

[shiroi_tiger]

"And humanity has never exactly had the most pleasant of instincts."

Hell, humanity had never really had the most pleasant of conscious decisions, either. Not overall.

[firstofitskind]

"Hmm," Liam mumbled non-committally. He wasn't naive, exactly, but he had spent the better part of three years championing humanity's right to survive. "Maybe so. But then, this function of the Bio-Surrogates wasn't exactly dreamed up by humans. You remember those aliens I mentioned, the Taelons? This was one of their projects."

[shiroi_tiger]

"Ah," Nathan replied, nodding, frowning a little more in thought. "Then I suppose if those things were their creation, they probably wouldn't mind, exactly, if when they went rogue they happened to draw upon the most destructive of their instincts. Just so long as they were pointed in the right direction."

Sorry, Liam. Nathan was never going to think the best of humanity in general, even if he was absolutely willing to entertain the thought that there were other things out there that were worse.

[firstofitskind]

"That much is true," Liam admitted. "As long as the collateral damage was counted only in human lives, most of them didn't see much cause for concern."

[shiroi_tiger]

Nathan sighed at that. Of course they didn't. Anything that made their job easier, of course. Point the disease in the right direction and let it do all the murdering for you...

He frowned a little.

"I feel like I owe you an apology," he noted. "It's your birthday, and this is the direction the conversation turns."

[firstofitskind]

Liam shrugged. "I'm somewhat at fault here too," he pointed out. "The Taelons were... an important part of my life, for a long time. It would be difficult for me to think of anything back home that didn't involve them in some way."

[shiroi_tiger]

"Fair enough," Nathan agreed. "I've had things like that, I'm pretty sure I can understand."

He didn't have flashbacks to the things he'd done under Bagley's orders often, anymore, but when he did, they were still fairly debilitating.

[firstofitskind]

"In any case," Liam continued. "The closest thing I have to a crisis today is Magnus there thinking I'm not supposed to be here. So it's certainly going better than most other birthdays I've had."

[shiroi_tiger]

"... I'll talk to Magnus about that," Nathan replied, grimacing a little. "He has moments where he manages to make marginally less sense than anything else around here."

It was those low perception rolls.