poly_chromatic | Action / Accidental Video

[There’s no way Ginsberg’s been looking at the communicator. No, it might as well not exist at all, although it is recording, although he's unaware of it. Instead, he’s sitting on the edge of the fountain, soaking wet, talking to… whoever happens to wander by -- and, apparently, to the network, as well.]

Where am I? Is this some kind of drug induced hallucination? Because let me tell you right now, I don’t do that kind of thing. If someone snuck something into my coffee, I’m gonna be mad. I keep telling everyone, that stuff makes me paranoid. And now something’s making me hallucinate a whole city.

[He scrubs a hand across his face, shaking the water out of his hair as he does so.]

I have work to do. This account, this Manischewitz account, I have to get to the meeting.

[A slight grumble, and then…]

Not that I want to go, anyway. If someone could point me back to Madison Avenue, though, that’d be great. Really great. In fact, look, I’ll buy you lunch or something if you can get me out of here. Just get me out of here.

[He puts his head in his hands.]

I don’t know what the hell’s going on...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Maybe for you. For me, the year was 2259. Here, though, it's 2013.

2259. 2259.

[A lengthy pause.]

So... does that mean you've been to space? Does everyone in the future live in space?

I work in space, currently, and no. Many people live on planets.

[Oh look, all those concerns about being stuck here are, seemingly, completely gone.]

You work in space? What do you do there? What's it like? Where do you come from?

[Oh, what. And he's not even going to offer a name? (Not that Chekov can very well refuse to answer. He rather likes asking questions himself.)]

I do several jobs--navigation, primarily--and, when it is not boring, it's very chaotic. I am from Taganrog originally. Also, my name is Pavel Chekov. There is nothing that you do not know about me now.

[The excitement of talking to someone who'd actually been to space kind of outweighed the whole name thing, really.]

That's fascinating. I've always wanted to go to space. Actually, I've always thought I was from space, but you know, even if I were, nobody'd tell me the truth. I'm Michael Ginsberg. But really, just Ginsberg is fine. Preferable, actually.

It is good to meet you, Ginsberg, but what do you mean, from space? Everyone is from space.

Sure, technically, but where I'm from, everybody's from the same part of space, you know? Earth. Or at least, they say they are.

You don't believe that they are?

Maybe they are. I don't think I am.

I think that you would know if you were born off-world.

How? If someone were brought to this planet when they were little, if everybody told them a story about where they'd been born, if everyone lied to them their whole lives, how would they ever know they'd been born off-world?

Why would everyone lie? Especially in your time! It would be very exciting to have a child who was born off-world in the twentieth century, correct?

Yeah, but it'd also be dangerous. If that kid was the only one, people might try to take them away and study them. They might have to lie to keep the kid safe. I don't know, it's a hypothetical thought, anyway. It could happen.

There would be no reason to study them--they would be biologically human, like everyone born on Earth. Even hypothetically, your time is very strange.

They might be biologically human, but that doesn't mean our government wouldn't study them. They study anything they can, anything they think is different at all. And it's not just our government. It's governments all over the world. They say it's so they can make progress, but it usually just ends up being about war.

You are from a very dark time in Terran history. Sometimes I wonder how humanity survived all of the great wars to make peace.

Honestly, I'm surprised to hear that they did. At least, according to you. Maybe in my own timeline, things're different. As far as I can tell, we're all on a path to destroying each other within the next couple of years.

There are an infinite number of possible outcomes. For your sake, I hope that you are from one of the timelines where humanity survives to be wiser.

I guess they must have in your timeline. You're human, right, and you're still here. I mean, even if you're not from Earth. Which is still hard to believe, by the way, but I'm going to believe it, because really, what's the alternative?

We are not fully enlightened, even in my time.

What, it's harder to believe that I am from Earth in the future than everything else you have been told?

Well, it's all hard to believe. I don't know if I can create a hierarchy of difficulty to believe, you know? It's just... trying to picture what things are going to be like in the future is almost impossible. It's overwhelming even thinking about it.

I think that it would be to your benefit to think about your current situation rather than mine. You are in a foreign universe.

And apparently I'm stuck in this foreign universe. Which means I'm definitely not going to be making it to my meeting on time. Dammit.

Your meeting will wait. When you return home, you will arrive the moment when you left.

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