john the prophet (johnprophet) wrote in gen_m_logs, @ 2008-07-10 10:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | jack murdock, john summers |
log: Jack and John
WHO: Jack and John
WHAT: Last of the spam, I swear! A little talk about religion, time and history Look out, kids: you might learn a little something!
WHERE: Outside on the lawn far enough for firearms
WHEN: LONG LONG AGO, last month, pre-Mojo
And true to his word, in a few moments John is an easy sight to see: standing off a good distance from the grounds at several paces from a little pyramid of cans on a bit of fencing is the man himself, dressed in a pair of combat boots, heavy fatigue pants and an old sleeveless undershirt. On his left bicep (man, does he workout?) is a very clear tattoo of a semi-stylized cross.
Time distortions smell... funny. Hard to place, but it's a sticky sort of smell, the kind you can taste in your mouth afterward. But there it is as John reaches behind him to pull from the reaches of time and space a smoothbore longgun, complete with bayonet. Measuring it appraisingly, he sets it down on the lawn to wiggle his fingers and reach back to find a cartridge case and tool kit as well. Hard to tell what era the gun is from, but it certainly seems to be a Brown Bess at a distance, placing it somewhere around the 18th century.
The 18th century smells different than this one.
John sits on the lawn and gets to work.
It's the smell, really, that gets to Jack first, because... he's never smelled it before. It gets caught in his nostrils and in his mouth and it's jarring. Actually stops him in his tracks. He'd intended on seeing John while he walked Elizabeth today, sure. But he didn't think he'd ... smell something like that. It kind of chokes him for a moment, and he tries to place it. He doesn't... know what the hell it is, which means he follows it----
Right straight to John.
Jack's a history teacher. He's a scholar. He really, really likes to study weapons. Even though his specialty is Medieval Europe, he's got an annoying habit of remembering some random tidbits about other eras. "Dare I ask where you got one of those without three hundred years of wear and tear on it?"
John looks up from his kit inspection. "Oh," he notes with surprise over a variety of thing, like Jack showing up, the fact he's going to have to come up with some answers and oh yes, the musket. Pointing at the gun, he explains, "1775. March." He takes up the stock in one hand and sniffs it. "A Wednesday." Setting it back down, he continues the inspection. "With a surplus of parts from British manufacturers, American revolutionaries just remounted most of the bits, filed down some length and created a handier gun to fire back with." He smiled fondly. "Gotta admire that."
The same sort of smile is turned towards Elizabeth, as well as a friendly, "Hey."
Elizabeth wags her tail and then she's going over to John like he's the most interesting thing in the world. She wants to figure out that weird smell, too, though her nose invariably ends up right in John's crotch. Jack gives her leash a little tug and gets close enough to turn her head away. "You're going to tell me that you went back and got it, aren't you," he says. It's the kind of thing that really blows his mind. Time travel is one of those things that... Jack's still convinced it doesn't exist. A part of him just thinks that John is batshit crazy.
Elizabeth gets that sort of manhandly doggie lovin' that they do so adore, scratching behind the ears, ruffing up the fur, pats to the back even with the nose in the crotch before she's pulled away and Jack has to get back to what he said he was going to do.
"In a way," he admits, unscrewing the bayonet and setting it in the little kit for later. He looks inside the barrel with a jeweler's eye. "But that's temporal physics and you didn't come to ask me about that." He blows and listens for the sound. "You came to ask me about belief."
Jack hesitates, and then he kneels down, makes himself comfortable on the grass. "I did," he says, though he sounds unsure of whether he wants to hear the answer. "I don't know how much you'll tell me, but..."
John nods along with the hesitation as it was entirely expected. His eyes on the musket however, turning it this was and that. He's impressed, clear to see and he finally looks over at Jack and holds it out to him. "Check this out," he notes. "It's ten pounds. This was revolutionary at the time, all these little tricks and twists to get it more efficient and it's like a club!"
It's fascinating. Really. But Jack blurts out: "You said you'd never heard of a Christian." He can just see Phil smirking and saying Told you so. Atheist bastard. This is making Catholic Jackie a little nervous. It's reassuring in the sense that maybe he won't go to Hell, though.
Question denied. "Take it, Jack," John says again, looking for that one moment to meet Jack's eyes, the musket still held out in offering.
Jack slowly takes the weapon into both hands, testing the weight of it. "You did say that."
There! John seems a little more satisfied now that the weapon is in the other man's hands. "No, really." He points. "Take a look at it. Take a good hard look because they will never make another one of these again. Never." He leans back on his hands, taking a bit of a stretch. "This technology will never return, even when it comes to this again, when plasma coils go out and electricity is carried in jars. This concept, this musket will never be replicated. We go on to something else."
Reaching back behind his waistband where it was always kept, John pulls out a small, plastic looking handgun. The barrel is long and some sort of circuitware traces along the outer finish with faintly glowing lines. "When I'm from, this is the equivalent of that musket right there." He offers it also to Jack, putting it on the ground between them as it might take him a bit to try something new. Or at least John surmises.
Yeah. It takes Jack a bit to try something new. He holds the musket for a long while and then sets it down. Goes to pick up the other weapon. His fingers twitch a little. It's a running joke ---Jack deals with the past, Phil deals with the future. This is out of Jack's element. "But it's not a musket," he says, holding it tentatively. "This here is a musket. This, what this is... it's not a musket. If you wanted to replicate a musket I'm sure you could." Though why, Jack's not sure.
John shakes his head. "Nope. Never could. Never will. What it took to make that, the minds behind it, the technology of the time, they will never come again." He points to the handgun, weightless in Jack's hands. "And I didn't say that was a musket, I said it was the equivalent. It too will never come again, no matter what the universal purpose both of these weapons have in common."
Jack licks his lips because they're feeling dry, and after a long silence:
"There's a metaphor in here, isn't there."
"Yeah," John admits, leaning up to hold his hands out in peaceful surrender. Smile, you're on religious metaphor!
"So... it's..." Jack gets it, he really does, but he's trying to put it into words. Instead, he hesitates. Just lets it lie. Kind of peaceful. "I see."
And it seems like it's as simple and satisfactory as that before Jack shifts, wincing as he moves his right leg. He's out for a walk without his crutches! He limps like an idiot, but he's proud of himself anyway. He's grateful to be sitting. "Can you tell me about... belief in your time? Or is that against the rules?" Fuck, what are the rules?
John looks from his arsenal back to Jack. "Sort of just did," he explains. "And yes. There are rules."
"Sort of isn't really," says Jack, reaching out to absently pet Elizabeth and keep her from wandering. "What are the rules? Can you tell me the rules?"
"What do you mean, 'sort of isn't really'?," John comes back. "You asked about belief. Now, if you get specific... that's another story." He checks out the little kit for the official musket, taking out the pellets and power. "Same thing goes for the rules."
"You can't be specific about the rules?!" What! Jack grimaces. "Doesn't that drive you insane?"
"First few times, sure," John admits. "But after awhile, you get used to it." And it's out of his mouth before he even knows he's saying it, the proverb like breathing, like thought itself, like heartbeat. "What is, is."
"It's got to be a pain in the ass to talk to people but not be able to talk about where you come from, or anyone or anything that's familiar to you," says Jack, leaning back on his hands. Well, one of his hands. The other has been bandaged up and looks a bit mummified. Thanks, Phil. Apparently Jack was washing the wound compulsively and was keeping it from healing.
John shakes his head. "Not really, I'm far more interested in the rest of you than you are in me." Oh, like John's vain enough people to want to pry into his dystopian future. "Think about it from your point of view: traveling a thousand years back to meet people who make history and living along next to them? Would you really want to tell them about the future?" John has never heard of a renaissance faire.
"I see your point," Jack says, biting his lip. "It would fuck things up here. Or something. But that doesn't necessarily make it any easier on you. I mean, I know if I traveled back in time, I would be intensely fascinated and wouldn't want to screw up the time-space continuum, but... at the same time I'd find it horrifyingly lonely with a bunch of people who don't know my life experience. Who can't know. Are you lonely?"
"I get by," John acknowledges, tough guy front clearly in place. It comes with the soldier's gig. "And enough of this 'messing things up'," he chides, "it really doesn't work that way. A thousand years from now, the world is an entirely different place. I can tell you things, they simply wouldn't make sense. I can save someone from death and it wouldn't matter. Time's not this... breakable thing, all fragile like glass or something. It lives."
"Huh..." Jack never really thought of it that way. It's reassuring to think that timespace isn't going to break. He starts to grin a little. "Go on, tell me something and I'll tell you if it doesn't make sense." Like a game!
"Tell you something about what? Details, man," John shakes his head, apparently pleased with the inspection. "And only if you come fire this thing off with me and tell me about the Jesus guy."
"Tell me something about... okay. Tell me something about the food you eat," says Jack. Yeah! Because he'll understand food, John. You can't stump him on food. "And of course I will." Is that creepy? Does he sound like a Jehovah's Witness? He doesn't mean to.
"Great," John smiles and hops back up to his feet. Slinging the kit over his shoulder, he checks to see if he needs to reholster his side arm or if Jack wants to play around with it some. He would in his place. "Because an internet search turned up way more than I thought it would. Sometimes, I have no idea about written record." Oh books, you are so strange.
"Right, food. Well, there's really nothing to tell. You can count fresh vegetables out, maybe had one or two growing up. Mostly stimpaks and rations." A shrug. All the things the future has to offer and he chooses food.
"...Huh." Jack tilts his head. "No vegetables? Why not?" Oh, my God, oh my God. "Do you eat Soylent Green or what." He doesn't think John will get that reference once it's out of his mouth.
"Pestilence," John explains ominously. Once he's at the distance he likes, he makes a loose and casual turn to the right, bringing the weapon up to clear the pan out of habit and getting ready to prime and load the musket. "What's Soylent Green?"
"Uh." Jack watches him, fascinated by the weapon, but he's snickering a little. "So, Soylent Green was this movie made, like, a million years ago and it's set in the future, where there are no fresh vegetables or anything... resources are mostly dried up, most food is so expensive you can't get it unless you're a millionaire or you get it on the black market... and everyone has to eat these square green wafers called----yeah, Soylent Green. And..." Yeah, he's getting excited. He loves this movie, it's so ridiculous. "And Charlton Heston is running around doing something important, screwing a couple women and beating in a few faces on the way, and he discovers that----" He stops. "Oh, I don't want to ruin it for you."
John smirks. "Welcome to my world." Attention back on the gun, his actions are rote and might be possible blindfolded and in his sleep. Fishing about for the cartridge, he tears off the paper wrapping and pulled the dogshead hammer back to put just a pinch of the powder into the priming pan.
"But eh, sounds similar. Can't say there's any sort of avarice where I come from. The concept of money kind of goes out the window at a certain point." The details of which are difficult to recount. Maybe there's another reason John doesn't like talking about home. "But I gotta admit, your concepts of the future are absolutely amazing."
Jack's getting the impression that John's time isn't a good time. It's fascinating to him, and he's watching John very closely indeed. "Yeah...?" He grins a little. "Are they accurate? At all? Probably not. Our minds, in this time, can only conceive so much... it's like looking at people from a couple hundred years ago trying to imagine this time. Or, hell, even fifty years ago. Thirty years ago." He's watching John with the musket now. Huh. Jack's fascinated by weaponry, he really is, but guns? Beyond him. Totally. He can use a sword like nobody's business, though. Operate a quarterstaff with ease. Can he use his dad's billy club? ---No. But he's working on it. Guns... you load it, you aim it, you shoot. There's no real artwork or technique involved, in Jack's opinion. Oh, yeah. And firing a gun makes a really fucking loud noise.
"Oh, yeah," John notes idly as he dropped the gun to the ground, letting the stock hit with a thump as he pours the rest of the powder from the cartridge down the barrel, wadding up the paper and pellet afterwards to follow. "Not accurate at all," John jokes back. Lie. "Not a flying car or rocket pack in sight." Lie, lie. "Thousand years from now, the world is drastically different, so .. well." He looks back at Jack with a somewhat curious expression, sad and... something else. The way people look at old photographs of better times, like your grandma when she was a swinger.
"Enjoy now while you can."
"Well, I won't..." Jack hesitates. "I won't be around a thousand years in the future. So." Gosh, that's weird. Thinking about his death, thinking that he'll have to die. He doesn't think about it all that much. "I won't be around a hundred years in the future. Oh, God."
With a practiced hand, John slipped the ramrod from under the barrel and shoved it down the barrel to tamp everything down. "Hey, hey," he says as if to soothe. "What is, is. Sure time goes on with out you but what does it say about now if someone like me is here, right?"
"I guess it'd be pretty stupid to ask you if the Murdock family becomes legendary and famous," Jack asks with a sly grin, leaning a little in order to scratch behind Elizabeth's ears.
"What would you do if it was?," John asked. "... Will be. Tenses." he shook his head ruefully.
Jack pauses for a second and then shrugs. "I... don't know," he says. "I mean, I would guess that whatever happens in my life will be worth something. But then again, that kind of puts the pressure on, doesn't it. On second thought, don't tell me. It's just weird to think you were born in a time----will be... will be born in a time when I'm ... dust. When we're all dust."
"What is, is," John repeats, chuckling to himself. It's weird to see people catch on to this from now. Like seeing some sci-fi show from the 1960's wax poetic about the distant future of 1990... The ramrod slips back into it's little slim slot along the barrel and for a moment, he admires the gun again. Looking at it where it is, where it came from, and what lies ahead. He checks with Jack. "Wanna? It's ready to go. One solid shot of history right here..."
Jack's fingers twitch a little. Ohhh. Oh, it's so tempting. "Can I---?!"
"Of course," John notes and once again hold it out (this time a little more carefully) to Jack. "Ever fired a musket before?"
Jack gingerly takes the weapon in both hands, looks it over. Wow. Oh, wow. "No. No, I haven't... it's... y'know. They tend to be in museums."
John is quick and careful to explain, "Keep it at the angle I presented it to you..." With all the care and consideration of a little league coach, John steps into place to show Jack how to lift it, how high, where the stock should rest against his shoulder. "Now, you want to look down the barrel, but don't sight, just watch. Also, it's gonna kick like a kangaroo, so I'm going to brace behind you. Be ready and just relax."
Jack is trying to keep steady on both feet, but with the injured leg that isn't easy. Lift the gun. Aim, but don't be a freak about aiming. Right? Jack would actually close his eyes if that didn't freak John out. He tends to close his eyes when it's important. "Okay... okay." He's preparing himself to shoot, preparing himself for the noise and for the kick. Anticipating it, so he's pretty much scared to pull the trigger.
John sighs. "Relax, Jack. The barrel is pointing the other direction, remember?" He's standing close to him, as if they had been boarding a bus and someone ahead stepped backwards. If Jack moved his head back, he could hit John in the nose. "Close your eyes if you have to. Just enjoy the moment." Welcome to history, Jack. Live in it. Roll around in it, get your hands dirty and fire that musket.
"Right. I can do that." This is a moment to enjoy! Jack rolls his shoulders, shakes them out a little. Hoo. All right. Relax. He's not actually going to shoot anyone. John's heartbeat is strong and steady and the vibrations can be felt through Jack's back, and that's... actually quite reassuring. He laughs to himself----come on, he's being a pansy. Laughs to himself, brushes his finger against the trigger, and fires.
---There's the noise, sure, but the kick is what really startles him, jamming his shoulder and throwing him back against John. Oh, remember that bit where if Jack jerked his head back he'd hit John in the nose? Yeah. That's what he does.
Ah, just as he expected. As the kick jars Jack's body, John is there to guide his shoulders to lessen the impact, a human shock absorber, a gymnastics spotter. When Jack's head jerks back, John's reflexes are acting on technology as he jerks his head to the side, taking the bump to the forehead instead of his nose. The noise and flash is exciting, the smoke lingering in the air after as a grapefruit sized clot of dirt kicks up about three feet short of the cans. "Hoo!," cheers John, clapping Jack on the opposite shoulder of the musket and grinning proudly.
"Ah!" Jack lets out a shocked little gasp, opening his eyes again and looking down at the musket. "Oh, my God!" Wow. He's reeling a little, but he's looking to see where he hit----he's not sure quite where, he thinks he knows. "That was incredible... I don't know how anyone used these in a practical manner, but... oh, wow." Excited? Yes.
John's proud, oh yes. Who doesn't love the smell of gunpowder, come on?
"Regimented loading, like that," he explains, "could produce up to three rounds a minute. Loosen up the order some, take some shortcuts, you could get up to four. Absolutely amazing." His eyes narrow slightly, looking ahead of them. "And I'm sure that clot of dirt is never going to trouble you again," he grins.
Jack grins, taking in the thrill of the gunpowder scent----though, er. His face screws up, he can feel that gunpowder lining his nostrils, and he cringes as he lets out a massive sneeze. Really, he was going to continue the conversation but now he's in the middle of a sneezing fit. Elizabeth responds with a bark----and chasing off after that dirt clot.
John pats him on the back, watching the dog give chase. "My first time I cracked myself in the nose. I've seen guys burn fingers, bust shoulders, crack neck muscles, tear their hands on the ramrod, but... sneezing. Sneezing is new." Gently, he maneuvers Jack away from the cloud and into fresher air, certainly giving off the impression that he's done this before. Teach someone how to fire a musket, not exactly common work for a soldier from the future.
"You've s----" Jack sneezes again. "Fff...nn----you've seen..." He rubs at his watering eyes. Wow, what a pansy he is. "What were you doing teaching people to fire muskets---?"
"Easy there, deep breaths," John recommends. "Well, you know. People ask me about belief and i gotta get out my demonstration tools..." A chuckle. "And sometimes... desperation makes you innovative. Any weapon is more effective when you understand the principles it's based on, right?" A grin. "Now I can show you how to fire a high intensity energy cannon."
Jack looks back up at John and grins, kind of sheepishly. "Maybe I'll be better with that one."
Elizabeth trots back over to them and drops a mouthful of dirt onto John's feet. As if Jack had actually shot something and she was retrieving it.
"After this? It's simple. All we need is about oh, 439 years and the necessity to bring it about." A shrug, John watches Elizabeth trot up and greets her on his knees. "Hey! Look what you have!" More rough lovin', pets, pats and scratching. "What a good girl you are!"
Ooooh, Elizabeth likes that. She barks and nuzzles and roughhouses with John while Jack looks on with a chuckle. "You wanna reach into spacetime or timespace or whatever and pull one of those back?"
"Timespace," John corrects once he's got Elizabeth on her back and delivers some belly rubs. Patting her, he lets her romp off. "And pulling things back is a lot harder than pulling things forward. It's your future-" He points. "-My past." Back to him.
"So..." Okay, Jack is trying to work his brain around this. "But, all right, let me see if I ... But if it's your past, then technically you're still kind of pulling things back. Unless when you're physically in a different time and that really messes with things. Oh, hey. Hey. Hey." A thought just struck him! And that's better than breaking his brain on this. "Why this time, John? Why here, why with us? We're a bunch of boring schmucks, aren't we?"
John nods along as Jack works this out; he collects up all the musketry and tosses it behind him in one go, the air rippling and turning a little blue as they fade from this time to their original period. Just when he's about to explain String Theory, Jack hits on the million dollar question, the one thing he's only really discussed with Charles Xavier and a secret that went with him to the grave.
The change in demeanor is subtle, but not subtle enough for someone with superior sensory. John's tone of voice changes as he dusts off his hands from the elements of time. "Well, we'll just have to find that out, won't we?"
Oh. Oh-ho. Jack shifts to put all of his weight on his good leg, and then folds his arms. He's hit something. There's a heartbeat shift. A slight change in pulse, in breathing. Jack can pretty much hear John's muscles tense up a little. "That's an important one, isn't it. I asked the right question, didn't I. Let me guess: it's one you can't answer."
John slides a look to Jack as he toys with the sidearm with the running lights from the demonstration earlier. "Actually... I can't." No lie.
"It's that important..?" Jack fidgets a little. "Wow. Way to sound like the savior of mankind."
John smirks ruefully. "That ain't the half of it, Jack," he sighs with a shake of his head. "And not due for another some odd century or so but really, I can't tell you. No one told me. I just have a vague idea of time and an alarm." Lie? He pats at his wrist and it turns out that wasn't just a really big survivalist's wristwatch after all.
Jack frowns. "And I thought I had a lot of pressure on me." He shakes his head, rubs the back of his neck. Tries not to sneeze again. Pollen this time, not gunpowder. "I don't envy you, man."
"Pressure nothing!," laughs John in more of a 'laugh with me' way than an 'at you' fashion. "Like a walk in the park! I get to be here instead of there, live a little history, listen to music and eventually time will catch up with me. Nothing to it." He holds out his hands as if all of time was between them.
Jack watches him, chuckling because he's prompted to. "...Listen to music? Don't tell me that you don't have music."
"Then I won't tell you that," John smirks.
Jack snorts. "That's nothing new; you've told me a lot of nothing. I'm used to it." He smiles, gives John a little nudge. "But thanks." He doesn't think the religion question's been answered, but he's not quite as confused as he was. Sort of. Yeah.
John shrugs, the nudge a weird little gesture from the past that he just takes in stride. "Glad to be of absolutely no help," he chuckles, putting away his sidearm. He'll get to those cans later. Maybe with a rocket launcher. Yeah.