Re: Intense Struggle Season 2! (Round 2: Infinity Express)
11-07-2010, 11:43 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.
[color=#804000]Wandering through the cars, Lloyd found himself sinking into his old routine. He was quite happy for anything to distract him from the gun he couldn't bring himself to dispose of, and looking for the plots sitting just below the surface was a welcome distraction. There were the grey-skinned humanoids who were frozen in a heated argument over a napkin with an indecipherable script on it- he took the napkin, copied the symbols (with a few errors) onto another, and switched that with the original. There was the squat, brown being playing some sort of chess-variant with a large insectoid being- he picked the largest, most ornate piece and moved it onto the brown being's lap. The artist in the corner would find his drawings covered in barbecue sauce, and the travelling salesman in the corner would find his filters full of fork-holes.
And yet Lloyd was not satisfied. These were fun things, to be sure, and he had no doubt that these people would be inconvenienced, but they were just... missing something. They weren't enough, really- they didn't take the entire plot of the story and turn it on its head. That would be practically impossible- these beings were from a multitude of universes, and there could hardly be said to be a single overarching plot to any of them. These were massive places, and even if he could take down a plot of that size, there would have to be one to take down in the first place.
No, he thought. There's still an overarching plot here. The Monitor wanted things on the train to go a certain way, and messing up that plot would certainly take some work.
Lloyd grinned. "Oh yes," he said, speaking to the frozen, unaware people as he passed by. "That Monitor's plot is going off the rails..."
-
Several minutes later, one of the train's technicians flickered out of stasis, blinking a bit as the field wore off. After a moment, he focused his eyes, finding a gaunt-looking man in a brightly-coloured shirt looking concernedly at him. Still a bit woozy from coming out of the field, he asked, "what, uh... what's going on?"
"The stasis-lock's been failing intermittently all along the train," he said, words tumbling out in a panicked tone. "Someone needs to check the diagnostics, but all the other techs are still frozen!"
Frowning, the still-groggy technician turned to a nearby terminal and clumsily punched in a keycode, unlocking it. A few keypresses later, he said, "I don't see-"
The bottle of cheap champagne smashed open as Lloyd brought it down on his head, splashing everything in the service alcove with sticky, fizzy liquid. Lloyd sputtered a bit, wiping it out of his eyes. In retrospect, he thought, [i]maybe the champagne bottle was a bit clich
[color=#804000]Wandering through the cars, Lloyd found himself sinking into his old routine. He was quite happy for anything to distract him from the gun he couldn't bring himself to dispose of, and looking for the plots sitting just below the surface was a welcome distraction. There were the grey-skinned humanoids who were frozen in a heated argument over a napkin with an indecipherable script on it- he took the napkin, copied the symbols (with a few errors) onto another, and switched that with the original. There was the squat, brown being playing some sort of chess-variant with a large insectoid being- he picked the largest, most ornate piece and moved it onto the brown being's lap. The artist in the corner would find his drawings covered in barbecue sauce, and the travelling salesman in the corner would find his filters full of fork-holes.
And yet Lloyd was not satisfied. These were fun things, to be sure, and he had no doubt that these people would be inconvenienced, but they were just... missing something. They weren't enough, really- they didn't take the entire plot of the story and turn it on its head. That would be practically impossible- these beings were from a multitude of universes, and there could hardly be said to be a single overarching plot to any of them. These were massive places, and even if he could take down a plot of that size, there would have to be one to take down in the first place.
No, he thought. There's still an overarching plot here. The Monitor wanted things on the train to go a certain way, and messing up that plot would certainly take some work.
Lloyd grinned. "Oh yes," he said, speaking to the frozen, unaware people as he passed by. "That Monitor's plot is going off the rails..."
-
Several minutes later, one of the train's technicians flickered out of stasis, blinking a bit as the field wore off. After a moment, he focused his eyes, finding a gaunt-looking man in a brightly-coloured shirt looking concernedly at him. Still a bit woozy from coming out of the field, he asked, "what, uh... what's going on?"
"The stasis-lock's been failing intermittently all along the train," he said, words tumbling out in a panicked tone. "Someone needs to check the diagnostics, but all the other techs are still frozen!"
Frowning, the still-groggy technician turned to a nearby terminal and clumsily punched in a keycode, unlocking it. A few keypresses later, he said, "I don't see-"
The bottle of cheap champagne smashed open as Lloyd brought it down on his head, splashing everything in the service alcove with sticky, fizzy liquid. Lloyd sputtered a bit, wiping it out of his eyes. In retrospect, he thought, [i]maybe the champagne bottle was a bit clich