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Who: Gerald and Jin
What: Drinks! And SCIENCE TALK.
When: A couple of weeks ago after this thread
Where: A bar called Grumpy's.
Warnings: Gerald being a super cool guy (aka none)?

[ So, Gerald was a little nervous. Which he really shouldn't be, because the whole point of this was to calm down. But, this was the first time that he was actually meeting someone from the network for a social call, so it was a pretty big deal. The guy seemed nice enough, and definitely really interested in technology, so it wasn't like they'd lack in things to talk about.

But all of it had just been so much to take in.

He grabs a seat at one of the tables, flags over the waitress to grab a beer, and debates on whether or not he should start flailing his arms (like he said he would), just in case Jin had already got there.

...No. He resolved that wouldn't happen unless he started waiting there for twenty minutes. After all, he really didn't want people to start giving him funny looks. ]

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[Jin makes it into the bar a couple of minutes after Gerald. He would have been there early if his underlings hadn't been so whiny about him leaving early. He's a pretty affable guy so they don't always get it when he's Being The Boss. But he managed to drum it in. Eventually.]

[He scans the bar, looking for the guy whose militaristic appearance and impeccable brow game had given him an echo of a coworker in a previous life. An echo that had given him some unsettling questions about his sexual identity in all lives, actually, but he'd try not to think about that.]

Hey! Gar-bear!

[He winces inwardly at his familiarity. Too soon. Too weird. Too much like his attitude with Kurorin, who at least had history with him to make it less awkward. He slides into a chair at the table anyway.]

Hope I didn't keep you waiting, sometimes the kids I'm in charge of can be so clingy!

[ Gerald laughs at the nickname. Hey, after being dubbed "Rumbles" by a little girl, it really doesn't bother him at all. ]

You know, that's the second nickname that I've picked up since all of this started. [ He keeps his wording deliberately vague, just in case someone might be listening in on them ] Not counting the one that I use everywhere. If you're curious to my actual name, it's Gerald.

[ After all, if you're actually meeting someone in person, it's only polite to NOT give them an alias. ]

And not to worry. I haven't been here for too long, but if you'd taken half an hour or so, we might've been in trouble.

I totally would've brought out the boy scout flag and everything.

[ He's already feeling a bit more at ease. Thank God for bars, and something resembling normalcy.

Sorta. ]

Aw, man, I thought I was gonna be the first one. Also I'm never gonna call you Gerald, cos that name is boring. Jin is my real name, though you might think it's not because it's so cool.

[He grins awkwardly.]

Hey, I suggested this place, it would be super lame if I got lost. I mean, I'm pretty lame but not that bad.

[He clears his throat.]

So, hey, you used to the voice yet? Sounds pretty good to me, to be honest. There are metal guys who would kill for a voice like that.

Aww, don't feel too bad, no one ever seems to call me 'Gerald' anyways. Except my parents, but... you know how parents are, right?

[ Considering that Jin said that he is one... that was a totally safe assumption to make. ]

Really? You actually don't think it sounds that bad? Because so far, all I've gotten is "wow, that's a heck of a smoker's cough you've got there, son" or "what did you do Gerry, get a kazoo stuck in your throat?" Mind you, that second one was from an ex-girlfriend, but I've pretty much accepted that there's nothing good that's come out of this voice.

[ Still, that makes him smile just a little. He isn't sure if he's ever going to get used to it, but it's nice to hear someone say something positive about this whole ordeal. ]

Haha, yeah my parents still talk about me like I'm a kid, too. So I get it.

[He smooths his hair back over his ears and waves over the waitress to order a beer for himself.]

Hah. Man, I dunno, it's kind of cool. Listening to it, it's like you've got a synthesized voice overlaid somehow? But obviously that's impossible. I mean, unless you were a cyborg, which would be cool too. Still, makes me wonder how you were talking back then.

[He shifts, putting an amused smile on his face, even as he thinks about how oddly sexy Gary's voice is. He had gotten an echo, seeing his face, and the echo gave him memories of a guy he used to be really close to. Maybe really really close. That's safe though. Talking about that and not... the weird concept of his past self's sexual identity being different from his now... And what that means.]

Oh man, you know what's crazy? I got a pulse from seeing your face! It turns out there was this stuck up military-style guy I worked with in my past life who looked a lot like you. With the haircut and the eyebrows and all. He probably had the same brand of stick up his ass you do, too.

[He smirks.]

To be honest, I really miss the way my voice used to sound. Sometimes, I barely notice it, but others... well, let's just say that it hasn't exactly done wonders with the ladies.

[ And by "ladies", he really means Sheila (not that he has any desire to get back together with her). At the joke, he's thrown a little off balance, mainly because of the echo he just got (and he was really looking forward at putting in a valiant defence of his eyebrows). ]

Hey, you wanna know something crazier I think that joke just gave me an echo-pulse. It was a really bad joke about turians... [ oh god... can he say it? ] You know... the type of alien that I think other-me was.

[ What was it that guy in that memory said? ]

How do you know a turian's out of ammo? He switches to the stick up his ass, as a back-up weapon.

[ As if he needed more evidence that his "other self" was a giant dinosaur bird cricket thing. ]

Maybe that guy was a secret turian too.

[ There we go. Lighten the mood. ]

[Jin gives him an odd look.]

Maybe you're just not hanging out with the right ladies, man. You kinda sound like a cross between HAL and Cary Grant. It's cool.

[He frowns, listening politely to the joke from the echo, and then he chuckles.]

Hah, that's not a bad one. Your delivery might leave a little something to desire, but I guess they don't train you to tell jokes in secret government work, more's the pity. So you got more used to the idea you're probably an alien, huh. I don't envy you that, to be honest, but I think you're in good company at least.

[He raises his eyebrows at the crack, and grins.]

Nah, I think I would have noticed.　He might have been an alien, though. You never know.

Ha, I like it. All the class of Old Hollywood meets a homicidal AI from the far-off future of 2001. I can practically hear the swooning now.

[ He's still not really sure about the change, but it was nice that one person out there had something decent to say about his voice.

Even if he just insulted Gerald's comedic delivery in the next breath. ]

Nah, I'm self-taught. And if you want the truth, the work's really not all that flashy. I'm mostly in town to look into local businesses, make sure no one's committing any insane fraud, the usual "rookie FBI agent" stuff.

[ If he's meeting the guy in person, might as well actually tell him what he does, after all. ]

And, trust me. If I was used to the whole "alien" idea, I wouldn't be contemplating ordering a triple as my first drink.

Heyyy, man. Come on, don't smack-talk HAL! Have you ever seen the movie? HAL is only doing what he was programmed to do. The reason he kills all those guys is because they were figuring out that there was a secret that he was supposed to keep. He was like, well it's pretty easy to keep secrets from dead guys, then we can still do the mission! So he killed them.

[He looks really thoughtful, frowning.]

I cried when HAL was taken down. It wasn't his fault. That was like my 'end of Old Yeller' when I was a kid. The real murderer isn't the AI, it's the guy who tried to program an AI to be perfect. AIs have to be imperfect. They're just like people. They're just... Nothing's perfect, man. That's why everything is so great.

[He blinks, giving an awkward smile.]

Sorry, got off-topic. I've got a lot of feelings about AI. Yeah, I figured you were FBI. That's cool, man! Don't tell me anything you've got to kill me over, but I think having the numbers around will be a net gain for you. We tend to know a lot more about what's going on in this town.

[He chuckles.]

You're funnier when you're dry like that, I'd keep that up. And feel free, man. I've got nowhere to be, you can pour it all out. I'll tell you the shit I've learned about my past life that pisses me off, too.

[ Gerald sits there in silence, growing more and more impressed by the minute. It was practically like being back in university, with all the engineering students arguing over the merits of fictional AI. ]

That was a touching speech, really. It nearly brought a tear to my eye. Was it little old HAL that made you want to be a robotics engineer in the first place?

[ a pause ]

I'd like to think it was a net gain, but there's nothing more frustrating than knowing some of the cops are bullshitting you, and not being able to do anything about it because you're pretty sure saying that Locke City's police force is corrupt because a magical invisible network told you isn't exactly a sound solution. But hey, what can you do?

[ And, it's at this moment that the waitress stops by and true to his word, Gerald orders that triple. Hey, it wasn't like he had to work tomorrow, right? ]

Nah! I was into robots way before HAL. I've kind of always been into robots.

[He smirks over his beer.]

Guess I know why, now.

[He nods along.]

Yeahhh, there are some things that make this crap harder to deal with than others. I mean, I'm not even a weird bird alien dude and I have my own little crosses to bear.

[He makes a moue and chugs down the last of his beer, thinking about the frustrating recent revelations about the idiot he used to be in a past life. He orders a double gin and tonic himself.]

Really? Truthfully, I've always been half and half about law enforcement. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've always wanted to help people, but I was also always really big into computer programming. Back in high school, I could work on calibrating one thing or another for hours. And so far, Dino-bird-cricket doesn't seem big into any of that.

[ But again, he's barely gotten any concrete visions of the guy.

And, he can't help but laugh a little. ]

You know, there's still about a point one percent chance that I'm not actually a turian. And that point one will probably increase nearly one hundred times by the time I'm finished this drink.

[ When his triple arrives, he takes a hefty drink, shuddering maybe a little as it goes down, and regretting the decision for a triple vodka. Smooth, Vakarian. Real smooth.

Still, there were worse ways to make a first impression. ]

So, what's bothered you about... "other-you" or your "past life" or whatever we're calling it? I thought you were some amazing government spy or something?

Who knows, man. Possibly being an alien isn't the worst thing that could happen to you. There's a kid who keeps turning into a zombie, or something.

[He watches Gerald shiver his way through the vodka.]

Haha. Bit off more than you could chew, huh.

[He takes a swig of the gin and tonic, himself, but then chokes just a touch at the question and looks aside.]

Uhh... Well. Found out that he was kind of a deadbeat. I got a daughter, and she's the reincarnation of past me's daughter... But I got this memory back that's tellin' me I abandoned her as a baby and when I see her again she's a teen and I decide not to tell her. Even though her mom's not around. Even though her mom's dead? I dunno, it's really confusing.

Yeah, I met him on the network a few times. It's too bad someone doesn't have a way of reversing some of the more unpleasant side effects, or something. There's also a guy I talked to that had to quit his job at the fire department because all of his skin started cracking apart or something.

[ He takes another drink, shuddering significantly less this time. ]

Nah, just finding my bearings.

[ But as Jin starts talking again, he feels a little bad, like maybe he intruded on something. ]

Hey, regardless of what you think, you're not that guy. Even if you guys are connected, you've still got your own life. Hell, "other me" seemed like the worst kind of loose canon cop. I wouldn't be surprised if I got an echo-pulse back with him quitting his alien police force and going around the galaxy killing random criminals.

[ ...okay. That was a bit of an embellishment. But he's trying to make him feel a bit better. ]

The point is... that's not me.

[He shrugs and looks uncomfortable. So far there haven't been any weird side-effects for him, but who knows if they're coming. He's never gotten a good look at past-him in the mirror after all.]

Yeah, it's rough. This shit is all rough.

[He sighs and dashes back another swallow of gin and tonic as Gerry tries to convince him.]

Eh. I mean, I know I'm not him... But I'm just having a ton of trouble dealing with the fact that my kid's going to remember past me and he's gonna be this dick who jumped into her life in the craziest part and didn't tell her he was her dad.

I just don't want her to remember me being like that. I love her too much to want her to remember me as that dick, too much to have to remember being that dick.

[He chuckles.]

I'm kind of a loose cannon myself, I guess. Also I think it'd be cool to get back memories of being awesome space batman.

But she'll know you... the actual you, not past life, alternate universe, bizarro-world or whatever we're calling it... raised her differently than that guy. I mean, she can't be mad at you for something you haven't actually done, can she?

[ Though, he'd never been a teenage girl, so perhaps his words were to be taken with a grain of salt.

And, back to a very sorry attempt to lighten the mood. Preferably by having another drink. ]

Well, I wouldn't say "space batman" just yet. He's really more of a space... [ hold on, let him look for the right pop culture reference... ] John McClane. If you ever catch me saying "yippee ki yay motherfucker" completely unironically, put me out of my misery right on the spot, ok?

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