InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Do you rent downstairs?"

Tobias (Animorphs) (ex_birdboy908) wrote in utr_logs,
@ 2009-01-19 21:07:00

Entry tags:

marco, timey wimey plot, tobias

Who: Tobias and Marco
What: Jailbreaking, then who knows
When/Where: Backdated to Sunday night, a jail in Hollywood, then who knows
Warnings: Language, talk of intense situations.

Tobias had to work to keep the smile off his face when the officer ran down the charges, hmming and hawing at the right points to insist he knew how serious it all was. He assured the man Marco was just an eccentric- Hollywood seemed to breed them, didn't it?- and that they would have a talk about just what was appropriate when wandering the streets.

He finally gave into the smile when he saw his friend behind bars- again, by his reckoning, nodding.

"Yeah, that's him."

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ex_birdboy908
2009-01-21 10:41 pm UTC (link)

They managed to make it to X-Factor's stoop before Marco spoke again, and Tobias half-turned over his shoulder to listen to the question, while he considered the door. No keypad, no scanner. Just a lock. Right. Welcome to the past. Unfortunately, when he tried it, it swung open, so he was left without the distraction.

"The first rule," He grunted as he put a shoulder into the door to get it to open fully- one of the metas must have disagreed with it earlier. "Is that this place can change them whenever it wants. It's like Cosmic Calvinball. Usually? No going in the past to see yourself or loved ones. No altering major historical events. No breaking the fourth wall and telling someone from a contemporary that you're from the future. And above all else, no dimension hopping. However, those are never all upheld at the same time, and the vortex- generally accepted phenomena that brings you here, or the 'big fuck-off tornado'- can disregard whichever ones it wants. Has already done so, just by us having this conversation. So if I was worried about that? I would have left you to handle shit yourself.

"Yeah, there's a 50/50 shot either you or Coop are not going to remember any of this in a few days. Just as good a shot neither of you will. Then there's the chance that you'll just... go away when it's over, as if you served some purpose here. You could go back to being younger, you could stay the same age. You could turn into an Asian woman named Frieda, it's really kind of up in the air," He was leading them down a hallway as he spoke, glancing in doors and glad that the place was mostly empty. He received a few weird loogs, but most everyone knew that if you looked like you belonged there, you probably did.

"But to the best of my knowledge, if time was going to unravel? This is what it would look like. So I highly doubt you're going to have the honor of destroying this place, by talking to a woman you slept with." Probably not the most succinct answer, but it bought him time to find the old storage room, resembling something like a police evidence locker, or probably more appropriately, a sci-fi movie prop room. He started examining shelves, turning over various devices, assumedly with purpose.

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imthecuteone
2009-01-21 10:57 pm UTC (link)

Marco's eye widened at that. "An Asian chick-okay, Tobias, if I ever turn into a woman you have my permission to knock me the fuck out and lock me in a closet 'til you figure out how to fix it." Some people may have enjoyed gender-swapping. Marco? Not so much. "And I thought the wasteland was weird," he muttered under his breath.

He glanced around what he was already thinking of as the 'prop closet' but didn't touch anything. He was nowhere near that stupid. "What if I didn't talk to her once things got back to normal," he questioned, brow furrowing. "I'm not saying I plan on it. I'm just examining every possibility." It was true. He had no idea what he was going to do if he remembered everything after normality set back in. Right now, he was just trying to gather all the information he could. "What if I start talking to someone else instead? Is this a predestination thing, or-" He paused in thought. "Wait, hold on, I think I have the answer to that one already. I'm from an alternate reality, so I suppose the 'one stream with no branches' theory is proven wrong just by me existing."

After a moment, he nodded. "Okay. I've got what I need for now." He stepped back a little bit, giving Tobias room to search for whatever it was he was intending to use. "So what levels are safe for a developing baby? I didn't much care about the numbers, myself. So long as I got anti-rads into my system regularly, and wasn't sweating and puking up my guts, I was okay." He had suffered from slight radiation sickness before. It sucked, but it was part of where he'd been.

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ex_birdboy908
2009-01-21 11:13 pm UTC (link)

"The genderswaps are few and far between, unless that's your thing. Pepsi cornered the market on Gender-Swap Pop a little before our time." He let that hang for a minute. "No, you've never. Neither have I," By choice. And hey, it was a relatively safe, if slightly embarassing, break from the heavy discussion. He'd take it.

Tobias turned, about to warn Marco not to touch anything, when he noticed the restraint, just nodding slightly and going back to what he was doing. The next question didn't even merit him turning around- he had a good Back to the Future reference on hold, when Marco stepped back. Oh, well.

As for the radiation. "To be honest? No idea. It's not like I had the time to study nuclear physics. I just need the- ah," He pulled a dusty toolbox-shaped device off the back of one of the shelves, using the heel of one hand to wipe off the display.

"Geiger counter to see if this'll work." He went back to one of the shelves, picking up a relatively large amulet-looking thing, which he held out to Marco. "Around your neck, than turn the front piece to your right." To prove a point, he turned on the geiger counter before Marco had a chance to digest the request, wincing at the loud whine of the machine, actually paling a little when the needle jumped right to red. At this rate, he was going to need some sort of drugs, for exposure.

"I have no idea who we got those from. But they block out UV radiation, gamma waves, some psychic frequencies. Play hell with your cell phone signal, but it might keep you from killing her." Had he mentioned this place was like a sci-fi geek's toybox?

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imthecuteone
2009-01-21 11:32 pm UTC (link)

"Gender-Swap Pop?" Marco stared at him for a second. "You're serious, aren't you? They made a soda that changes your fucking gender? My god. I'm surprised plastic surgeons everywhere didn't try to kill them!" He had to just shake his head at that. "I've seen some fucked up mutated things in my time, and that is still far weirder."

When the thing jumped straight to red and began the most annoying whine Marco had ever heard, he immediately activated the shield. He hadn't realized he was that bad. "Might?" He glanced down at the Geiger counter again. "How certain are you?" This was definitely not something he wanted to take his chances on. "I've killed people, some of them young. But I've never killed a baby, and I don't plan on today being the day that changes." He sounded just a little more serious now, and any thoughts of 'ooh, shiny' had been pushed from his mind.

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ex_birdboy908
2009-01-22 12:00 am UTC (link)

"I'm serious. It's only temporary, though. Few hours, at the best. Sell it in sex shops, mostly. As for fucked up, you might want to drop the 'mutated' part of that. Have a little sensitivity, man. They're fucking X-men." He couldn't help but laugh a little incredulously himself, at that; every once and a while, when he stepped back, the oddity of this place hit him full force. Thankfully, he was able to bounce back from it quickly, now.

The talk of killing made Tobias give him a Look, as the high-pitched whine abruptly dropped down to a click here or there, the needle sedately bouncing just near the baseline. "It's not a median thing. If they work, they work. I just wasn't sure it would keep things in, as well as out." He might not be the best of friends with Cooper, but he wouldn't risk her life, or that of Marco's kid. Thank God for science fiction logic. "Now like I said, cell phones, wifi, things like that are probably going to fuck up with it on, so it's not exactly a permanent solution. But it'll do, for now."

And, in a show of good office policy, he even turned to pull the clipboard off the shelf, scribbling down the information about who was taking the device, and where it was going. Pissing off your boss was bad form. Pissing off your boss who could make infinite, sometimes-less-moral copies of themselves to 'handle the situation' was just stupid.

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imthecuteone
2009-01-22 08:33 pm UTC (link)

Marco just gave him an incredulous chuckle. "Okay, let me rephrase. Rad-mutants. Think those fucked up people from that terrible terrible movie with the people living in the hill." He'd grown relatively used to such things pretty quickly. It helped that he saw most of them from the barrel of one of his guns. He didn't hate them, by any means. He just recognized them for what they were: Dangerous psychotics.

This had no bearing on his feelings for the X-Men. He had a fondness for them. Especially the women. "I'm going to need to stay away from X-women for the duration of this weird pseudo-marriage thing." He thought about it for a moment, and then amended, "I'm going to need to stay away from any other woman during this thing." He knew he wouldn't be able to keep himself from flirting, and with a pregnant wife here, that...didn't seem like a good idea.

He noted the look, but didn't say anything. If Tobias wanted to know, he'd tell him. It wasn't really something he intended to volunteer. Instead, he focused on the amulet thing. "Man. Why does this universe get all the good shit? We could've used some of this stuff." He didn't clarify when. He really doubted he needed to.

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ex_birdboy908
2009-01-22 09:16 pm UTC (link)

Tobias might have made a slight face at the description of the rad-mutants, but he didn't say anything. He'd seen some awful things in his time, but the one thing he knew about a pissing contest like that was how dubious an honor it was to really win. Not to mention, it wasn't really something he enjoyed thinking about, surprise surprise.

He couldn't stop a low chuckle at the comment about keeping away from women, shaking his head a little to himself. "Probably for the best. Even if she can't kick your ass, she's got about two dozen siblings and cousins who would. You're married to the mob, in a way."

The Look, in Tobias' opinion, had actually served its purpose- he didn't want to know about the killing Marco'd done. He knew enough about the both of them to know that Marco could take care of himself by whatever means necessary, he didn't need it charted out. The shield was as good a diversion as any, and he nodded, having to scoff another sort of laugh. "One of the best things about knowing comic book heroes, is getting to use the toys. There's truth rays, telepathy-inducing amulets, hoverboards, at least one sonic screwdriver. It almost makes me pity them a little, that they need all the hardware, you know?" That, obviously, was sarcasm, but really- they'd managed to save the planet with just a little intuition, and a few painful hours as animals. If they'd had lightsabers and their own spacecraft, well, things probably would have gone a lot faster.

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imthecuteone
2009-01-24 10:58 am UTC (link)

Marco, on the other hand, had come to enjoy pissing contests like that. It was the kind of thing he did in bars with other guns-for-hire. Or on jobs. Or getting patched up. The fucked up things you'd seen during your time in the wastes were badges of honor, and the guy with the most fucked up story won a little more respect, at least until the next meeting, when new stories would be exchanged. It was dark humor, but in a world that had been nuked to hell and back, that was about the only kind there was left. Still, he wasn't there anymore, and that meant a return to more civilized talk, so he didn't continue.

"Somehow," he chuckled, shaking his head ruefully, "that doesn't surprise me. Always good to have a bunch of allies that feel varying degrees of obligation towards you." He didn't really stop to think about how cold that sounded. He didn't think he'd have married her for that, unless there was a war on. All bets were off in war.

"Hoverboards?" His eyes lit up at that. Oh yes, Tobias had just said a magic word. "Please tell me I can buy one somewhere." He still didn't touch anything, although he did look around again. Restraint was always a good idea when they might have some kind of supernuke in here.

He hesitated before commenting on how much faster the war would have gone with supertech like this. "It would've been more efficient, but all the whiny, bleeding heart idiots that got off on calling Jake a war criminal would've just been even whinier." It was pretty clear that Marco had a very distinct disgust for those sorts of people.

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ex_birdboy908
2009-01-24 12:27 pm UTC (link)

"In that case, you sure know how to pick 'em. 'A bunch' in this case is about four dozen," Tobias busied himself with putting the geiger counter back, used to Marco's rationale by now. He just didn't let it get to him. Or, in a more fair rationale, he didn't stop Marco on the off chance that someone else would teach him that lesson.

When Marco gave him the kid-at-Christmas eyes, his eyes just rolled. "I can talk to a time-traveler for you, but I wouldn't know where to get one. And I don't see the ones we had." Not that he'd sell those, no. But if one just so happened to go missing for a while. Well, he couldn't be held accountable any more than anyone else in the office.

His face sobered at the comment about Jake's naysayers, knowing he'd been considered in that camp for the longest time. Still, he nodded. "Yeah, well, they would have had even less of an idea what they were talking about." Turning back to face Marco, he ran a hand through his hair. "Besides, the good/evil dichotomy is too convoluted here for people to have any room to talk. So long as they stay relatively safe, they don't ask questions.

"Speaking of risking bodily harm- you ready to face Ceridwen, yet?"

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