Audio; UN: evan

[evantuality]

Hey, uh...

[Just Evan's voice comes through the network, and quietly at that. It's some terrible wee hour of the morning, that liminal time when no one should really be awake. The moon has set, not that Evan has his curtains open to let the stars interrupt his small bubble of quiet.

At home he'd pop on a tablet, see if any of his friends from other timezones were online, shoot the shit before sleep took him again. Here, there's no such such luck for an easy distraction, but perhaps the ALASTAIR recruits can make use of the same principles.]

Anyone else awake?

[Insomniacs unite: surely there's got to be one or two other night-birds out there.]

Comments

video ; [un: ironman]

[hyperverbose]

Taking a survey?

[ sleep is for the weak. and/or well-adjusted. tony being neither, he's up and ... tinkering, as he does. if he's going to a new planet, he's planning to at least be mildly prepared. ]

[evantuality]

Huh. I suppose you could say that.

[There's a shade of humor in Evan's voice. Tony certainly is too new to know it, but Evan's very first use of the mass messaging system had been to take a survey.]

I'll mark you down for a yes, shall I.

[hyperverbose]

Maybe I'm nocturnal. Thousands of realities, untold number of different species for ALASTAIR to choose from. You gotta figure some of these guys are.

[evantuality]

Oh, I'll still count that as a yes. I don't care if you're up naturally or if you'd rather be sleeping, I just want to know how many of us are part of the four a.m. club.

So, are you nocturnal? Not that that really rules out you being potentially from an Earth I'm used to. I have a good couple friends back home who'd be nocturnal if school let them.

[hyperverbose]

I suppose I'm just more of a "I'll sleep when I'm dead" kinda guy.

[evantuality]

I always thought that phrase rather sounded as if it was tempting fate.

[hyperverbose]

When it comes to facing death? Fate and I are sort of on a first name basis.

[evantuality]

[Boy howdy, but is this fellow full of one-liners. He can't help it; sass is natural to his own family of drama-mongers, and he falls into it naturally here.]

Well if we're going to push this metaphor to the breaking point, doesn't that put you one step closer to tempting it? Her? What gender is Fate in this ill-advised personification?

[hyperverbose]

I mean, if I get to vote, I'm going to say leggy redhead.

[evantuality]

That still doesn't answer the question of gender. I suppose would you rather be tempting a leggy redheaded man or a leggy redheaded woman?

Or, rather, as 'Fate' rarely seems a good thing to be tempting, would you rather risk being suplexed by a leggy redheaded woman or etc etc?

[hyperverbose]

I'd definitely prefer it be a she being doing the suplexing.

[evantuality]

Because you're statistically more likely to be closer to the ground that way already, or because you prefer a pleasant view before major head trauma?

[hyperverbose]

Why not both?

[evantuality]

[Something about that makes the young man laugh, but he concedes,] Why not both, indeed.

I don't recognize your username, although granted that might not say much other than I haven't been paying attention. Are you new with the last batch?

[hyperverbose]

Fresh off the boat, as they say. And how many... tours of duty or whatnot have you been on for ol' AL?

[evantuality]

Only the one, but then, apparently our branch has only been in operation for two full missions. I suppose you could say I've been here half of the functional lifespan of the team.

Actually, you chose a good time to fall through a hole in reality. You get to get your sea legs a little before they inevitably thrust us into another sociopolitical quagmire.

[hyperverbose]

So this whole outfit is pretty new? Or just our branch of it?

[evantuality]

Just this branch. I think less than a year for us. The whole organization? Much, much older.

[hyperverbose]

Makes you wonder if they've had a hand in shaping our worlds before.

[evantuality]

Actually, that's a theory that bounces around now and then. I assume you stumbled through a rift like the rest of us? Wouldn't it make sense if those rifts were just, like, bad clean-up jobs from previous ALASTAIR missions? They've got all the time in the universe, after all; they've probably been most places.

[hyperverbose]

So you think the only reason we're here is because they're not great at what they do.

[evantuality]

I think it's not a possibility we can rule out.

Ugh. I mean... don't get me wrong. I think we do important work here. But there are some pretty well proven managerial problems down the line. Have you heard much about what happened in Nalawi?

[hyperverbose]

Just what I noticed on the network. Nobody's really filled me in on the meaty bits.