savetheearth | (no subject)

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WHO; Elian & ~~Aaron~~ PEOPLE
WHERE; LET'S SAY a park. Because.
WHAT; Elian wants more information about the whole losing-remembering Echos thing. Some folks are willing to help. Together, THEY DO SCIENCE. ~~Sort of.~~

He'd contacted the others again, with a suggestion that they meet at a public place; as it was a clear day, the park seemed like a good place. To start, if nothing else, and discuss what Elian had in mind. And considering he'd needed something to occupy his mind as of late...

...well, drafting a proper procedure was easy enough. Even if it was along the lines of 'go that direction until you forget things'. Elian was rather glad he wasn't submitting this to a board of any sort, but he privately thought any such board he'd been before never had such an odd mystery on their hands.

He sat on one of the benches, watching the young people stroll by as he waited for his new friends. Partners. Subjects. Whatever their relationship was, or would be, at least if nothing else he was getting some fresh air.

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Okay. So this sounded about as crazy as a guy talking to fish and breathing underwater. But, in all honesty, if this got him out of these numbers for a while, why not try? Why not let things feel normal again? And while part of him screamed that losing the memory of familiarity, the feeling of closeness with that guy, was far from normal, the rest of him stubbornly overruled it.

He had to take a bus to the park. Driving would have been simpler, but that would require actually owning a vehicle. He was on time, though, limping slowly through the park in hopes of spotting the man he was here to meet. The ex-soldier was hard to miss, given his sheer mass and distinct half-limping, half-marching strides.

And, with any luck, this meeting wouldn't trigger anything bizarre.

For what it was worth, Elian had walked. And now he watched another man walk, frowning a bit - what had he been told...?

Well, if he was wrong, he could always be dismissed as a half-senile old man. There were perks to being his age.

Elian waited until he managed to make eye contact, then raised a hand and waved. Over here.

As promised, Banagher shows at the park promptly, more or less, being tailed by something green and spherical and miraculously quiet. (For now.) He has a road atlas in hand, one that he's already marked down a few prominent places on just to give them somewhere to start. The park's a familiar place to him thanks to hobbies he's long since run out of time for — shooting hoops, and the like — so he makes his way through it with little incident.

Now he realizes that he's never actually met Elian face to face, but one bench in particular does harbor a familiar face, if only in passing. He's sure he's seen this person around the university, before...

"Excuse me?"

Well, the least he could do was say hello regardless.

They'd find each other eventually...right? If all else failed, he'd pull out his notebook, and perhaps could track down one of his new acquaintances that way.

Or he could just turn towards those that approached him. He offered a smile in greeting. "Can I help you, young ma...n..."

Oh. That's an odd floating thing next to the young man.

... Well, there probably wasn't going to be any other old man waving at him in the middle of a park. That, and coupled with the description he had, this had to be the one.

He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, and headed over, broad shoulders hunching ever so slightly.

A few feet away, he paused, giving the man a slow nod of greeting.

Friendly-looking fellow, wasn't he.

Elian eased himself up, briefly using a hand on the back of the bench to brace himself. Ever since his outing with Christobel, he'd still felt weak, but...

He'd recover. He had to.

"I don't believe I ever caught your name?" he asked politely, extending his hand. "I'm Elian."

First impressions were often lasting ones, and luckily, his intuition had some help along the way. Next to him, the robot lands in the grass, flaps once, and pings back up of its own accord, rattling off a tinny, "Hello! Meeting time?" in the process.

"Sorry," Banagher starts, tapping the folded atlas against one of his open palms. "I was supposed to meet someone here, and he gets a little ahead of himself."

The scar across one side of his face probably didn't help matters, did it?

His hands stayed in his pockets, watching the man rise. What was the matter there? Old age? Or something else? He didn't know, he wasn't a doctor.

"Harding," he all but grunted. A calloused hand slid out of his pocket, and gripped the other's. It was a clipped, precise introduction, as he'd always been drilled to give.

Elian's eyes widened just a bit. He's never seen anything like it before, and is clearly enchanted by the small robot. Complete with chuckling at its eagerness, even as he reaches to touch his chin. "What a curious little thing! Though it has a rather good sense, I think. I'm meeting someone as well."

Coincidence? Perhaps not. Now Elian moves his gaze to Banagher, then to what he's holding, this time a bit of recognition creeping in.

"That wouldn't happen to be a map of the surrounding area, now, would it?"

Elian arched his eyebrow at the shortness. Well, he was trying to be friendly; perhaps this Harding fellow simply was the closed off sort. Or, he thought, as he returned the grip...

"Military?" he ventured. If nothing else, it could be a compliment.

He nodded, again, and the gesture all but screamed "sir".

"Yeah, years ago." He shrugged, as if the matter were of no consequence. It shouldn't still be a sore subject, after so long, but. You felt how you felt, he supposed.

"That obvious?"

"You carry it with you," Elian observed, a sad sort of smile on his face. He'd distanced himself from it so quickly...exhaustion, they called it. But Harding was still every inch a warrior.

So he'd treat him as one.

"I'll get straight down to business, then." Easing himself back down, Elian reached for the notebook next to him, pulling the pen out from its spine. "First is knowing how far you're able and willing to go, and how quickly."

He grunted again, his hand sliding back into his pocket. It wasn't self-consciousness. He wasn't really sure what to call what he felt. Tacit embarrassment, maybe, for not still being part of the organization he still felt such ties to. "Hard habit to break," he said, by way of explanation.

And then it was business. Right. His posture shifted, and he all but stood at attention, suddenly more open than before.

"Take a train out, far as it'll go," he said. "Don't have a car, or I'd drive it." He frowned, slightly. "No planes. I draw the line at planes."

A brief glance up, a nod of understanding, and Elian was beginning to write on the page. H; train, walk(?)

"With that in mind - and I don't mean to pry, this is so I understand the situation better - have you the resources to procure multiple tickets, or would you require some funds? I doubt I could get a grant for this," he added with a quirk of his lips, "so we're on our own, financially. If you have responsibilities in the city, as well, if you could leave them for a time."

He had to think that one over. One hand rubbed at his chin, in thought. Funds wouldn't be too much of a problem, if he stuck to trains. At least, he didn't think so. If it went on for a while, he'd probably have to cut a few expenses...

... like cable.

As for time off... well. He had sick-days he'd never taken. Vacation he'd never cashed in. It should work out, maybe. After a while, he nodded.

"I can manage. Long as no one tries to put me on a plane."

Rolling off and belting out a mechanical chorus of, "Map! Map!", the pet robot leaves him to pick up the slack left by the impromptu greeting. A bit of a smile touches him anyway, knowing that he wasn't wrong.

"Got it in one. Elian, right? Um, if it's okay to call you that."

Because he's really feeling like it ought to be 'Mr.'-something...

"No planes," Elian confirmed, glancing up again. "I plan to start slowly, at any rate. Planes cover too much ground, too fast; as well as negating contact, which is essential to my idea."

He paused, then leaned forwards slightly.

"If you're willing to do this, it will be long, tedious, and repetitive. I've some others who have offered their help, but the more I can work with, the more accurate information I can obtain. What I propose is thus;

Take your train - any direction, so long as we can follow the route. Contact me every half hour to hour, with as close to your current location as you can manage, and we'll trade some words to affirm you're still connected to whatever it is affecting us. Once you lose that connection, I'll let you know to head back, and - assuming you still have any trust for me - you'll return so that we can do so in another direction. Than a third, to where we can triangulate as close to a center as we can.

"If, after a day, you're not disconnected...well, then I'll have to adjust my procedure," he mused with a quirk of his lips.

"Elian will be fine. You're not one of my students, after all," he said with a brief dismissive gesture. "A partner, if anything. Though I do have a few peers who call me 'that doddering old man', but I would appreciate you not calling me that."

Humor aside...

"May I see it?"

"Good. I can do that."

He stayed silent, listening. His hands returned to their position behind his back, as he absorbed it. It didn't sound too hard. Maybe if he wrote on his hand, or something -- some way to tell himself to listen to the phone calls. Weird as they were going to be.

He'd believe himself, if no one else.

"Do all that in one day?" he asked, not complaining, exactly. It sounded like a lot of work, but, honestly, there wasn't much else he had to do in his spare time. He just wanted confirmation. "Sounds easy enough."

"The map, or Haro?" he responds in kind, though honestly he looked a little abhorred by the thought of calling anyone something like that to their face, joke or not. Despite himself, he offers up the map first regardless. On it, the Dead District is marked off, along with the locations of the Hugh P. Thadson gallery of fine art, Fort Turner, the police station, and on the outskirts, Meadowland Amusement Park.

"Students... then I really have seen you around the university. I'm Banagher, by the way."

One day? Elian's first response was to say heavens, no!, but Harding seemed willing. Still...

"If you can manage it, all the better. If you can't, then I expect three days - not necessarily one right after another - will be enough."

"The map. I think that - Haro, you called it? - would be a bit too much for me." And whatever happened to having a dog or cat? Pets these days...

And oh. This was useful. "Good to meet you, Banagher, and very good to see you've taken the initiative. Though I'm afraid I was only visiting the university; I teach back in Colorado." Spreading the map out on his legs, Elian studies it for a few moments, considering...

"If this is man-made, than one of these buildings...but if it's an uncontrolled tear...well." They'd find that out given time. He then looked up, studying the young man for a moment...then continuing. "I've already one who's volunteered to help, and I'll tell you the same thing I told him. If you're willing to help with this, it will be repetitive and tedious, and may take some days."

Edited 2013-09-20 21:39 (UTC)

He was willing. Willing to feel normal again. Willing to be useful again. To put himself to work beyond patrolling a white-collar data storage complex. That was not what he lived for.

And while this wasn't either, not really, he at least felt as if he were doing something again.

"I'll do what I can."

"Very well," said Elian with a thin smile. "That is all I can ask. Now, then...is there something tied to all this that you think we could use as a subject? An object, or...memory," he finished, after a brief moment of hesitation. Not all memories were benign...hopefully Harding had something not overly sensitive he wouldn't mind sharing.

Colorado... talk about being in Locke at the wrong time, getting caught up in all this. Or maybe the right time, in the scale of things as he sees it, but he doesn't linger on the thought for long. Instead he moves to take a seat on the bench while Elian pores over the map, taking a momentary interest in the word 'tear' but otherwise not commenting.

"I can do it," he responds. Quickly, but evenly. "Things got dangerous fast, but there's... still so much about fighting that I just can't stand behind, when we don't know enough about anything. So I was trying to think of things I could do right now, and it seemed like knowledge would help us out."

He clasps and unclasps his hands once from the space between his knees where he's set them. Then he glances over again, nodding at the map.

"You know about the statues, right? The first ones appeared at the Dead District, then the police station. Then the art gallery. The amusement park was where two of us started to forget."

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I MISREAD PART OF YOUR TAG herp

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no worries!