2022-02-21: Tire Tracks in the Sands of Time
- Log: 2022-02-21: Tire Tracks in the Sands of Time
- Cast: Riika Sheder, Alexis Kerib
- Where: UNAS Sighting Position
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-02-21
- Summary: Alexis Kerib makes an offer to a certain ZAFT pilot that will change the course of the war... at least, for her.
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Not that long ago, ZAFT successfully took a factory in UNAS, reforming their supply lines and once again giving them the ability to engage in military actions.
They haven't done much *blatant* since, but that doesn't mean they're not doing anything. They've contacted other cells in the area, set up those supply lines they needed, rebuilt and repaired some parts that had gone without maintenance for too long...
...and, in some cases, had an unpleasant week. Last week was the anniversary of Junius Seven. It put just about everybody in a subdued mood, except for the ones who got angrier or maudlin. But regardless, life goes on.
Currently out on a scouting deployment is Riika Sheder, who was picked due to her ability to drive a Jeep in the desert to check on a couple sighting positions. This is relevant because she is, in fact, driving a Jeep. GINNs draw Federation attention but someone in a battered old Jeep with camping supplies in the back does not.
Riika is on the road, currently. The Jeep she's in can hold four but currently has one, plus a bunch of camping supplies in the back seat. She has found out that she does not actually like driving on Earth because the horizon is doing funny things with her vision, and so she's pulling over at a rest stop station.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Riika pulls over at a rest stop. There's no one of consequence there -- one bored energy filler station attendant, mainly. Someone else is pulling out of the place as Riika pulls in. It's exactly what you'd expect from a rest stop.
Alexis makes the decision to relate to the person whose arrival in Tsutsujidai reminded Akane of the date as an observer.
And then he does!
The universe's camera starts at a wide angle on Riika pulling in. The back of her Jeep is empty, save for the camping supplies.
The camera pulls in close. Riika finishes pulling over.
The camera moves just slightly out. A black shape sits behind-and-to-the-opposite-side of Riika, in the passenger's-side rear seat. "Hmmm. It's been a long time since I saw a desert," comes the abrupt remark, voice low -- and probably too close for comfort.
Alexis remains, as always, an impassive figure some eight feet tall, presenting as nothing more than a highly technological mask and a cloak. (The mask -- or maybe its wearer's head? -- is on fire.) "There's something nostalgic about this... though the last such vehicle was a fair bit more accommodating."
Some camping equipment adjusts its placement and slides. It hits Alexis in the shoulder a tiny bit. He has nothing to say about that.
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Riika may not have been on Earth for very long, but she's already gotten the hang of long-distance driving (or, more accurately, she checked a bunch of maps before she left). She pulls in smoothly, had been about to get out -
Except there is someone in her vehicle with her. Someone she doesn't know and who certainly isn't supposed to be here.
Even though she's out of uniform and in casual clothes (albeit in the same style of skirt and tights, along with a layered top), Riika is still a soldier. She smacks her palm against the glove box, popping it open to retrieve a pistol, then turning in one smooth motion so she can look into the back seat.
Of all the things she expected to be there, a giant man (?) wearing (??) a flaming mask and a cloak was not one of them. To her credit, this doesn't mean she starts shooting at him; she doesn't, though she is still holding the pistol when the camping equipment slides and bounces off his shoulder.
"Who are you?" she asks. "...and what are you doing in my jeep? HOW are you in my jeep? I was driving in the middle of the desert!" She knows he wasn't there before. She would have noticed trying to pack around someone twice her size.
"...Also, could you please not light the roof on fire?"
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Hmmm? Oh, I assure you -- despite everything, I've never once set something ablaze," Alexis answers, genially. The good news is he seems to be right; he is not, in fact, passively setting the vehicle on fire. Despite the fire and the little bit of thin smoke around it, he is pretty much just vibing harmlessly.
"You may call me Alexis Kerib," he says, the words practiced, calm, relaxed. "I understand you're with..." He doesn't seem hurried or even very concerned, despite the fact that there's a gun pointed at him. After a moment's glance out of the vehicle, he says, "... Ah. Best to avoid saying it, for now. I can get out, if you'd rather. But I think you and I might like to discuss some things?"
Once he gets going, Alexis loves to exposit. So he does! "Ah -- this regards a moment in which you were... displaced in space and time, perhaps. Into a space I have an interest in, myself."
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Riika does lower the gun, slightly, after a few moments. More tellingly, she keeps her finger away from the trigger. She's faster than she expects Alexis (in a back seat, not apparently armed unless his head counts) to be - though given he put himself into the back seat, maybe she's wrong on that...
She frowns, just a slight amount. At least he really isn't lighting the roof on fire. Somehow. She has no idea how not.
"Say a Spacenoid," Riika says, after a few long moments. "I'm a colonist, and we'll leave it at that." She's still suspicious, and on edge, as one might be with being surprised in somewhere you considered safe (or at least safe in that way) by an unexpected threat.
Riika's expression looks particularly serious. She's shifted over into that mode, how she gets sometimes. But she's listening. "You mean Tsutsujidai," she says, and then: "OK, I'm listening, Mister Kerib." So she's stubborn, but not so much that she won't take in new information.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Every teal panel on the 'mouth' of Alexis's mask lights up in a big smile as Riika decides not to shoot him. He doesn't mind a little suspicion at first; it comes with the territory of being a very large alien in a mask. "Ah! Spacenoid it is. You really must forgive me -- I'm used to places where people can't tell the difference between what you'd call aliens, let alone Earthnoids and spacenoids."
Despite the extent to which his appearance inherently stances him as both looming and threatening, Alexis barely even moves. He presents the least threatening posture imaginable for someone of his size and... general stance. "And yes, I do." He waits for a moment before saying anything further.
After some thought, he offers: "What did you think of it? Strictly speaking, such a world ought to be totally separate from yours."
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
If Riika has a flaw in this kind of situation, it's that she can't stop thinking, even when it brings her down paths that aren't very useful right now. Alexis isn't used to places where they don't know the difference between Earthnoid and colonist? That certainly isn't here - just about any Federation citizen, or PLANTs citizen for that matter, is very clear that they're different groups.
She seems thoughtful, but she keeps the pistol in a less menacing position. If he's not going to threaten her, she can play ball.
Riika starts to speak just before Alexis continues, clams up, and only speaks once he's well and truly done. "It caught me by surprise," she says. "I think it's dangerous for a couple reasons - I went through by mistake, so what about other people? But beyond that... it's the first district I'd seen on Earth. I've never been to Japan otherwise. But the timeline there..."
It's weird. Different. But Alexis, apparently, knows this already.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"There are occasional mistakes, yes. It seems they orient on a handful of places; as I've talked to people in the ward..." a pause, before Alexis admits, "Well -- a few of them find it strange I'm asking. But guests seem to reliably come from your Nouvelle Tokyo to that one -- or, now and then, Junius Seven." Alexis doesn't volunteer who, exactly, he talks to about this sort of thing. It's better if he doesn't.
Besides, the empty space that could once have held a police-style shield badge, at his forehead -- it sort of suggests, well, police, does it not? Perhaps he is, in his own way, patrolling. Maybe he's even *good* at patrolling.
"Your first concern... I wouldn't be too worried. To all accounts, people have left and come back entirely without incident; at worst, it's a mildly annoying train trip, apparently." He laughs, voice still gentle. "As for the second... yes, I *do* keep hearing that! It diverges some time during your One Year War, yes?"
His tone is a little conspiratorial, now. "... I can tell you the difference, if you'd like. Between your PLANTs and that world's. Why they're free, and yours yet struggle. Ah -- it *was* the PLANTs you were from, yes? Not Zeon? These things repeat themselves." He breaks his usual cadence for an almost playful-sounding, "Regardless -- sounds like a good deal, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
"But what if people from inside Tsutsujidai can get out?" Riika says, repeating the same concern she had with Akane. "Junius Seven is - it's not safe to just walk out there, and it isn't as if I understand how it works. Maybe *you* do."
She doesn't read the empty space as a badge fixture. And even if she did, badges come in all sorts. The Titans had badges, and were officials.
Riika quiets for a moment, then: "Yes, I'm from the PLANTs. As I know you guessed, given what you said when you first spoke. And... I'm listening." She's not sure how relevant it is, but if Alexis wants to exposit at her she's going to let him - and honestly, it's that whole 'thinking' thing again; she's honestly more than a little curious.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Hm? Oh -- I assure you," Alexis answers, "that doesn't occur. Those of that world have no interest in crossing the barrier." True, at a certain level of misdirect. True enough that it ought to manage Riika's expectations, at least. "And -- yes, I'd thought so. I asked around about ZAFT intercession, and it led to you." Also... kiiiind of true. (The truth of the matter, of course, is that Akane just says things when she complains to Alexis about her day.)
He breezes along, now that he's got Riika's attention. "... A kaiju," Alexis answers, with those teal panels all lighting up again. They blink as he speaks; they suggest skeletal teeth; surely their upturn, their dazzling display then suggests a smile. "Now, I don't know the full of it myself -- but that world's kaiju wished the PLANTs were free, and so, they were."
He works his way around to the other half of the pitch. "That world gives rise to kaiju regularly, mind. Some of them, I've managed to take into my own custody. They're fascinating things, you know. Not like this world's, with their... meat, and bone, and sinew."
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
"If by 'ZAFT intercession' you mean me visiting Tsutsujidai, it was accidental. But I'd do it again." For all the reasons Riika said then, and some others. "Only one person seemed to notice I had a ZAFT pin, then, so I assume you spoke to her...?"
'No interest in crossing the barrier' is not the same as 'can't'. Riika didn't even know the barrier existed, so she didn't have an interest in crossing it, and yet she went.
But Akane seemed profoundly uninterested, and she'd said that most people don't even know that the outside existed. Or that the kaiju -
"The still kaiju that nobody can see?" Riika asks. "I could, when I went. So did one person I spoke to there, but... nobody else seemed to notice. Why would the kaiju wish that - if they even are kaiju, if you say they aren't like ours they should have a different name. They don't even seem to move around... do they even know what the PLANTs are?"
"Are the PLANTs even *there*? I couldn't get out of Tsutsujidai, except by going back home." And that world, of course, was unchanged. "Did they want something else, and the PLANTs only benefited by chance?" Riika realizes she's grilling Alexis, but, well... he started it. And she can't read his expression very well, so she can't tell what he's getting out of it. Enjoyment? The light looks *sort* of like a smile.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Alexis does a lot of misdirecting. Some of it is purposeful; some of it isn't. It seems to be drawing Riika into the conversation, though, so he's happy to remain comfortably seated and chatty. "In the end, all kaiju are is strange beasts. Some come up with other names for them -- but all it takes to be a kaiju is the strange and the inhuman," Alexis remarks. "Perhaps in time, that world will come to know your kaiju -- and yours will come to know its."
Maybe sooner than later, Alexis thinks, at this point. "As for whether they know... that would be up to God, I suppose. But the wish came, and so it was. A world where the PLANTs have been free for years -- and that much, at least, was a specific desire." A desire, but without knowing? What a strange configuration of things.
Hmm... Riika seems motivated by this. Maybe motivated enough that a more tangible lesson would be on the table. "If you'd like," Alexis says, "I could lend you such a kaiju. Allow you to see what such a creature can do. Surely you'd like the chance for the PLANTs to enjoy that same freedom here. You wouldn't even have to put in an appearance yourself -- or allow it to be traced to your ZAFT, or even to you."
There is a curious bit of sleight of hand, beneath the cloak -- fingers poke out for just a moment, and once they finish, what looks like... a clay model? sits in Alexis's lap, alongside a small, cell phone-shaped device.
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
In some ways, Riika is hard to misdirect, because she's smart, alert, and puts things together.
In other ways, not so much. Sometimes it's easier to fool the smart, if you let them fill in the gaps themselves. And there is a big gap in her knowledge where Earth is. She's simply never been before; she lacks first-hand experience with Earth, and a lot of things related to the planet.
A desire without knowing... what did they *really* want, Riika thinks. What made the PLANTs free? It occurs to her there's one easy way to have that happen, a desire without knowing: someone could have asked them. And what else did they change? She knows, from talking to Akane, that that isn't the only difference - that many things, from the One Year War on, are not the same. Or they believe them to not be the same; it did occur to her that there's no proof that those other places did exist in Tsutsujidai. It could *just* be the district...
"I want, with all my heart, the PLANTs to be free. I hate that we're at war with Earth when all we want is our independence, and to not be attacked, in our homes," Riika says, and with the anniversary of Bloody Valentine's *so* recent there's pain in her voice. "But I don't know what a kaiju would do for me. Or how you would lend me one. Or, more importantly, *why* you would lend me one. You just showed up in my jeep!" That implies more interest than she'd expect.
"...what are you?" Not who, this time, but what.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"What? Ah, that *is* a question," Alexis says, lighting first on what exactly he, himself is. "'Alien' is the simplest answer, and the one humans tend to prefer. As words for it go, 'seijin' has often suited -- someone I regard fondly once described all beings as children of the Big Bang, and 'star-person' has a certain shape to it, does it not...?" It's still a little evasive -- but Alexis doesn't like being nailed down in conversation.
"But you're a creature of practicals and particulars, yes? It's why you're out here with all this," he glances to his side, "... camping, equipment? Is this a scouting mission, then?" He nods slightly -- one of the few ways in which Alexis consistently breaks from his posture of stillness. "Ah -- at any rate." He shuffles the phone(?) and the model(??) off of his lap.
"What a kaiju would do for you? Why, the same as one of your highly-evolved mobile weapons... without the risk of a human pilot," Alexis answers. "As to why... A human I'm fond of once used her power to create a world at peace!" comes the follow-up. "I would see such a thing happen again. And as to *how*... well. Scanning the model with the device would bring its power to bear. It would follow simple instruction from you, at least. In the end, kaiju are their users -- at however many layers of remove."
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
"Seijin," Riika repeats, a little less quickly, because it's a term she's not familiar with - and, though she speaks Japanese, it isn't usually what she uses to describe people with. "Seijin, then. So there's a seijin in my back seat."
why me
Riika doesn't smile. "If this was a scouting mission, I couldn't tell you. And if it's not a scouting mission, then I just really like camping. Can you fault me for wanting to see Earth while I'm at it? I've never been to a natural beach." She might be joking. She might not be.
"...So you're offering me a weapon. We already have weapons, as you noticed," Riika says, slowly. But they do put humans at risk. Wouldn't it be better if none were? "That would put the kaiju at risk, wouldn't it? It could get killed in our place." While Riika doesn't put a kaiju life in the same category as a human life, it still seems faintly... wrong, in some way that she'd be hard-pressed to describe. It's not *their* fight.
But it's her duty to make sure as few people as die doing this, isn't it?
"I would like to see a world at peace." Riika picks her words carefully, because she's not entirely sure which way she wants to go with the (highly suspicious, really) Alexis. "But I don't know how you get there from here. And I don't know what you mean by 'kaiju are their users'." *That* sounds like something she should learn.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"It would, yes. But the kaiju of that world are hollow things. The one at my disposal -- and by extension, the one that would be at yours -- can return as many times as it likes, though you'd need to recharge the device and put a little effort into repairing the model. Do be careful with the neck, should you take it -- it's quite fragile." Alexis laughs at something -- a private joke, perhaps.
"Hm... as for the latter -- a kaiju like that dispenses with the pretension of levers and buttons and switches separating you from the action. You speak -- you will something into reality. The kaiju enacts it, and it becomes so, as if alternatives simply did not exist," Alexis offers, clarification by way of utter lack of clarification.
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
A hollow thing...
...It's not that much different than an automated machine, assuming Alexis is telling the truth. But on the other hand, those don't get handed out to anyone who wants one, usually. But on the third hand, if she had one, aliens - seijin - are not always playing by the same rules. She thinks.
"The world of peace someone made," Riika says, with a flash of insight. "Was that Tsutsujidai?" She glances at the model - she understands models, though kaiju are not what she normally makes on her own time. (Please don't ask about her own nerd kit, most of which is safely not on Earth because there's not a lot of room for that on a warship.)
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Hmmmm... would you call a world that your ZAFT has already seen kaiju attacks in 'at peace'?" Alexis counter-asks, in so doing revealing that, at the very least, *he* remembers the kaiju attacks, and *he* remembers the presence of a ZAFT unit at at least one such attack. Then again -- an alien would move by different rules, one would suppose.
He then gives a straight answer, though. "No -- the peace I saw has been swallowed by the changing of the aeons. The world Tsutsujidai sits at the heart of is still constructing its final shape." He then loops back. "I told you from the start, yes? The world I knew, where aliens, people of the stars, Coordinators, Naturals, Angels, and demons sat at an undifferentiated table -- that is much farther from here. It had its conflicts, of course -- the void does always swallow love. In the end, it was swallowed by zero, by the sum of negation, empty of intrinsic existence. Such things are eternal, and worlds are not."
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
"I would not, but I didn't know if that's what you were thinking of anyway." Especially if it was peaceful until the rest of the world ran into it. Tsutsujidai certainly seems to *want* to be peaceful...
Riika listens. And then, finally, she sets the gun back in the glove compartment. (Honestly, she probably needed to do it soon anyway, because now that she's parked, it's just about possible for someone to peek in and see her pointing it.)
"We've a word for that too; it's entropy," Riika says. "I don't want a new world. I don't want to pull apart the way Tsutsujidai seems to be. I just want to change this world, if I can. I'm just one pilot, but... if I can do something like that, to make people more equal... that's all I want. I want us Coordinators to be safe and secure, too. That's all..." Riika trails off.
It's all she ever fought for, really. To protect people like her. Some Coordinators hate Naturals, and want to put them in their place - but all she ever wanted was equality.
"I'll... think about it," she says. "If you want to lend me the model, I'll take it. If it doesn't work out... I can give it back."
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Certainly," Alexis agrees, scooting both clay model and phone(?) out of his lap and onto Riika's back seat. "Do as you will with it. If you decide it pleases you, there can of course be others. Or more of the same, if you'd rather." He glances out, now that the pistol is away. He seems to have made inroads enough, and pushing it further would be -- well -- pushing it.
"I think I'll leave you to your 'camping trip,' then. Do feel free to reach out. Messages aimed at me have a way of finding their mark -- regardless of where and whether they're typed or sent." He sounds like he's being utterly truthful -- and what reason would he have to lie? He seems to genuinely want to see Riika again, and is demonstrably perfectly happy to offer the power to make her dreams a reality.
"Ah," he realizes, after a moment. "... Where would the lever for the door be, anyway? I can see myself out, of course, past that." ... does he really not know how to get out of the Jeep?
<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.
Given Riika's best guess as to how to contact Alexis was to go to Tsutsujidai and stand around until he noticed, this... well, probably doesn't actually change a lot.
"Thank you... I think." She's still not entirely sure what Alexis gets out of it, but that's something she can think about. But this might be the only thing on her trip she *doesn't* report. How do you explain this to your boss?
"...didn't you get IN?" she asks. "There's a latch - " It ends up being easier for Riika to slide into the front passenger seat and just reach behind until she finds the damn thing to let Alexis out.
So much for an elegant escape.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Ah. We move differently from the way you move," is all Alexis has to say on that front. "It makes it -- difficult, to learn some common finer points of the experience." He has to lean back slightly to let Riika reach around and find the lever. Once the door opens, he offers a polite, "Thank you. I'm sure I'll hear from you again, in any event."
He steps out of the vehicle. Riika can see him go, for a fair amount of time -- the instant she looks away and then looks back, however, Alexis is gone. His very real device and his equally real clay figure remain in Riika's backseat.