action - open

[entertainaplanb]

Who: Becky and whoever wants to stop to chat!
What: It's a nice day to relax and read a book (and... mis-pronoun the author in conversation, most likely, thanks to an Echo).
Where: Starbucks, outside
When: Wednesday afternoon

It's a nice day, and Becky felt like getting out of her apartment for a while. Soon enough she's going to have to start classroom prep for the coming school year, but for now her time is still her own.

Today, she's spending it at Starbucks. What can she say, those berry things are pretty good. She's claimed one of the outdoor tables, since it's not oppressively hot, and she's reading.

(Time Machine, as it happens, and wondering if the one she kind of sort of remembers being unpacked is anything like the one in the book.)

But just because she's reading doesn't mean she'd mind an interruption.

Comments

[15minuteslate]

[Yeah, he spots her when she comes in, and on his break he goes outside.]

Hey. Saw you come through. How's it going?

[entertainaplanb]

[It's a second before the comment pulls her out of the book - Wells' prose is pretty dense like that - but Becky looks up and smiles in short order.]

Not too bad. But from the look of things, I've had a pretty quiet month compared to some. How have you been?

[15minuteslate]

[Mamoru blows out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck -- and glancing meaningfully at the recently-repaired window. He also checks around him, since a lot of cops come through his Starbucks for the free coffee, but the coast seems clear.]

God, it's been one thing after another. I can't even tell you how many creepy mutated animals I've killed over the past two weeks. I lost count after the hand-birds and spider-cats.

[entertainaplanb]

What, like Cousin It hanging out at the grocery? [That may have been a couple months ago, but that was a weird day.]

This is definitely going to get worse before it gets better, isn't it. If it gets better.

[15minuteslate]

Yeah, something like that.

[He keeps glancing around uncomfortably.]

Look, Becca, there have been two attacks here over the past two weeks. I don't know how but somehow those animals can track us, and I'm not the only one working here with numbers.

Not that it isn't cool to see you, but this might not be the best place to hang out.

[And yeah. He's got her name wrong.]

[entertainaplanb]

I can move faster than you'd think. I'm sure I can at least finish my drink with no problems.

[It says... something, though she's not sure what, that when she feels the vertigo coming on, all she does is sigh. What's it going to be this time?]

It's Rebecca. [and then she realises what she just said, and frowns.] God, how do I keep doing this when I talk to you? I haven't insisted on my full name since I was four.

[15minuteslate]

Whoa, okay, Rebecca. Sheesh.

[He blinks, confused. Wait, what is she talking about? He doesn't quite get that she just had an Echo.

A confused look?]

[entertainaplanb]

[Well, you know, first she accidentally zaps him and pulls the Tesla's name out of nowhere, now this? Seriously, what the hell.]

'Becky' is fine. Really. I didn't mean to snap like that. [She sighs.] This is getting really annoying.

[15minuteslate]

Oh. It was another one of those pulses, wasn't it?

Why do they always seem to happen around me?