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[lifetothefullest]

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[lifetothefullest]

[Lance fixes Nate with a look at that horrible, horrible remark, glances toward Ian to make sure he's not dying, and then looks back at Nate again.]

Six months or so, and that's what you've come up with?

[At least it's very clear from that comment that Nate isn't trying to hide anything, so Lance knows he doesn't need to be so cautious, but still. Still. What even was that?]

[nonscriptum]

[ Nate, who is snickering to himself into his drink, does a poor job of making it look like his shoulders aren't shaking with laughter. This is in part due to Lance's deep, abiding disappointment in him, and Ian's spit-take, which has made a hysterical mess of his shirt.

Nothing quite like getting somebody to choke on their liquor. ]

Tough crowd. Well, I think I'm humerus.

[wittingly]

[ Oh Lance, they suffereth together. Ian sits up slowly from his slouch, ambles over to the kitchen to find a dish towel or something. When he finds one, he points it at Nate to kindly inform him: ]

You're the worst.

[ And then Lance, much more companionably: ]

We don't need an empathy bond to share this deep, deep pain. This is the trenches. You deserve better. I think we'll come out of this stronger having endured.

[ And now he's just gonna clean up the sea world show. ]

[lifetothefullest]

[Lance rolls his eyes at Nate's reaction and additional comment, but he's having to hide a small smile behind his drink as he sinks lower into the chair. At Ian's show of solidarity, he raises his glass in a salute.]

We're in this together, bond forged in fire, etc.

[Though that said--]

Though you may want to take that back when you hear I got in trouble with Gaby again, and she sent Stephen to tell Nate to tell me to stop causing trouble.

[Does that sound ridiculous? It sounds ridiculous to him.]

[nonscriptum]

Apparently I'm Lance's keeper.

[ Nate declares conversationally, smoothly transitioning from his role as jester of japes and japery to grizzled handler of the local problem child. Still ironic, he thinks, given their respective personalities. What goes around comes around.

He swirls his tequila and makeshift orange beverage around speculatively, puffing his cheeks out with an exhausted exhale. ]

Guess I gotta put one of those child leashes on him, like the ones you see at Disney World.

[wittingly]

[ He falters, pausing with the towel pressed against his chest, flicking eyes between Lance and Nate again. His brow furrows slowly, uncomprehending — not in that he doesn't understand what he's hearing, but rather— what?

Let him repeat for the sake of reinforcing the absurdity. ]

So Gaby... told Stephen... to tell Nate-

[ Pause right there to let that one sink in; of all the people. ]

To tell you to behave.

[ Another beat, and then a long stupid snort that never fully blooms into a laugh. Game of telephone aside; ]

Boy did they peg that one wrong.

[ It's on the tip of his tongue to say I guess they don't know you work for the mob, right except he's not positive Lance knows that yet. Odds are extremely likely, but Ian's not much of a gambler. ]

[lifetothefullest]

Hey, I already told you that I had a leather jacket once.

[Obviously Lance is a rebel. Too cool for school and all that.

He won't quite mention just yet that he does actually occasionally do things to earn that title, because no need for that just yet, and overall Ian's right; the whole situation is pretty funny when it comes down to it.

As for what Nate said, Lance fixes him with another look, commenting--]

Probably not a bad idea, since it'd be harder for you to go climb the nearest building if you'd have to drag me with you.

[nonscriptum]

You're hilarious. I'm gonna sign you up for the open mic night at Red Wings.

[ A threat that ought not be taken lightly. Nate flashes Lance a thin smile of egregiously feigned amusement, because his daredevil tendencies are well-known to all parties here and his fatal fall was through no real fault of his own.

He reaches for the tequila, topping his drink off with proportions that should call his talents as a bartender into question.

Ruminating on the circumstances that brought them here, cognizant of the fact that neither of them probably want to go into detail about their circumstances and reasons for imbibing - or why Kyna is sleeping over at Casa de Drake - Nate chews his lip for a long moment before leaning on the one thing that's really started to nag at him lately.

To those who are familiar with him, present company accounted for, it's suddenly very apparent that Nate is wrestling with whether or not he should dive headfirst into a subject that has a more effective hold on his attention than talk of formal reprimands from Morningstar agents. It's getting harder to keep from popping like an overextended balloon, which is a habit he's had for decades. ]

So...I've been thinking-

[wittingly]

[ Another short breath of laughter at Lance -- yeah, that leather jacket's really starting to prove itself, isn't it?

The towel gets tossed to the small kitchenette sink, and he resumes his throne on the couch. Pauses topping off his drink to shoot Nate a wary look. ]

Oh, no.

[ He's imagining nothing good can follow it. ]

[lifetothefullest]

[The semi-serious threat almost earns one of its own--does anyone really want to be subjected to that, especially when it would be giving Lance an opportunity to torment Stephen with plausible deniability--but the change in tone catches his attention. He furrows his eyebrows a little, trying to figure out what might've caused it, but then Nate makes that comment and hm, this is doubtlessly going to be interesting.

He glances at Ian, then back to Nate, and goes ahead and asks--]

What about?

[nonscriptum]

I've been thinking about Henries.

[ Nate's lips press together tightly, gaze flicking from table, to bottle, to the space on the wall behind Lance's shoulder, to the window. It's determining where to start that stymies him, because there's so much he can say and after spending the previous evening online for way longer than he should have, it feels as though certain things have finally settled into a respectable place.

Or a place that makes some significant amount of sense to him. ]

Okay...okay, so- hear me out. New Displaced get dropped off by mercenaries. We don't know which organization they affiliate with or why. We go on a handful of expeditions to find the old gates, we get a mercenary escort. We find out this escort is called Global Spiral. Now, all mercs are subcontractors for corporations, they don't work independently anymore, or for the mob. Easy conclusion is that a corporation hired them to do the job, Occam's Razor says the same source that contracted the expedition goons is the one contracting them to deliver us to Morningstar every couple weeks. So, first critical point: someone very high up in a corporation is invested in us. That's been confirmed by Morningstar.

[ Nate downs half his drink with increasingly intent purpose and leans forward, feet on the floor, elbows braced on his knees, talking with his hands. It's half-conversational, half-rhetorical, all thrumming with restrained things he can't say all at once. ]

What do the corporations do? Pulsar does space exploration, Vyonation does data security, it and Riverside and Giles-Bell all have a hand in implant manufacturing. What's the first thing we get shoved in our heads when we show up here? Be really easy to track people you've got a vested interest in, especially if you're the one producing the tracker.

Over here, we've got James Henries. John Henries. Whoever. Henries was the CEO of Giles-Bell. In 2266 he shifts all his time and money into studying quantum physics, birds, and cloning using Giles-Bell resources. We've already talked about the cloning theories, the body-hopping, brain-switching theories, so for the purposes of this say he faked his own death and he's actually still alive in some way, shape or form. What else could drive someone to re-invest everything but an obsession they couldn't possibly achieve in their own lifetime?

[ At this point, Nate has already gotten to his feet, alcohol long-abandoned. The energetic fervor of working himself up forces him to begin pacing, attention span completely distracted from the fact that there are other people still existing in the same room. Talking to himself more than talking to them. ]

Maybe...maybe he anticipated a huge project he couldn't complete in decades. Maybe not even centuries. So he stretches his own lifespan long enough to 2510 to get pinged in the Mariana Trench with Project Spinetail. We know from records that JPG and JH were there, and that they were trying to "awaken a life form," but the project was a catastrophic failure and either scared away the life form, or destroyed it, or...something. That part's a little vague, but whatever it was, Henries clearly believed it could help him with the goal of his obsession. Displaced who experienced Zerzura have said that not only was Henries a leader there, but a Project Spinetail was there, too. They saw-

[ He does a brief little hop-skip to his bag, pulling out his journal from home and flipping to some of the new pages he's filled on the subject to clarify the excerpts he took down. ]

...They saw visions of ghosts that talked about "playing God" and being promised "a better life," and...and if that's the case, Zerzura could have been a real place. Like here. Like Hadriel, or El Nysa. Not a shared dream, like the time I was married to Doctor Brennan- [ Very briefly, he turns to Lance with a small nod to confirm and snaps the little book shut. ] -but a memory? His memory? Because we can already do that with each other. And if Henries was there, and then he was here, maybe he's like us. Being in our own worlds and then being in another- I don't know, look, I spent like six hours reading about the MWI last night because I thought I should do some research on quantum mechanics to see if I could parse out this guy's motive- [ Hands up, washing himself of the subject for the time being: ] Anyway. That's another thing, we can get to that later.

I'm getting ahead of myself, so- okay. There were no Project Spinetail survivors, that we know of, but if our esteemed colleagues JPG and JH have the ability to live this long, they either used different bodies or survived the cataclysm somehow, or...both. Now, back to the main thing.

[ It's at this point that Nate spins back to face them both, alight with that familiar spike of adrenaline and a look that anticipates an answer as he begins to list off points on one hand with his fingers. ]

If you were an absurdly wealthy person who still had some kind of silent partner ties to the corporation you were the CEO of two-hundred and forty-six years ago, and other corporations were potentially complicit in keeping your secret because they're incentivized for financial reasons or power or whatever, and the company you ran developed and manufactured implants that could keep track of persons of interest that you brought here, and you potentially have some secret archive full of information on the people you brought here or the cult that worships them, and you didn't want the public to know where you were because you were supposed to have died two and a half centuries ago, where would you hide?

[wittingly]

[ If this were an early 2000's movie, music would start playing in the background around the time Occam's Razor comes up. There would be a whole taking off the glasses and undoing the ponytail moment, except... you know, the reverse of that. It's a testament to just how unflappable his permanent chill is that his expression stays at vaguely amused but mainly interested throughout most of the monologue.

Things to bring up later: wait, you were married?

Things that distract him again immediately: the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Focus, Fowler.

Really quick mental replay of it all, and while he has several Thoughts and Opinions, none of them are an answer to that leading question at the end. ]

Where would you hide, Professor Drake?

[ Dutifully, as though scripted. ]

[lifetothefullest]

[...Nate. Lance isn't drunk enough not to be able to follow this, but he is drunk enough--and has been for like the past 24 hours straight--that it takes more processing time than usual, and so his head's kind of spinning by the end of that.

But it does fit, at least what he's piecing together, even if he'd prefer to consider each step of this connection a bit more carefully. But he can do that later, glancing at Ian again as he asks the obvious question, and Lance turns his attention back toward Nate as well to wait for the answer.]

[nonscriptum]

That is a wonderful question, Ian, thank you so much for asking. If I could just direct your attention over here, I would like to show you the answer.

[ Clearly relishing the opportunity to share his theory Nate strides across the room, past the little coffee table and chairs. With the entirety of his right arm he gestures to the window, from which the wide, swollen and pale expanse of the moon can be seen. The lunar colony, UNC1, is just visible on its pitted surface.

Wearing an expression that can only be described as slightly manic and flirting with the idea of being unhinged, Nate turns his grin upon them and says: ]

Right there.

[wittingly]

[ The stupid praise brings a sideways smile to his face, clearly entertained as all hell — to the point that it's grappling with his otherwise earnest curiosity. The theory tracks, it absolutely makes sense even if it isn't currently provable. Ian follows the logic sequences all the way up until Nate gestures grandly at— ]

The moon.

[ He states it without inflection, deliberately tonelessly, almost like he wants to make sure he didn't mishear something Nate didn't actually say out loud.

It may just be a product of his 21st century brain having a hard time immediately digesting it as a viable possibility, you'll have to forgive him Nate. ]

You think there's a secret knowledge archive... on the moon.

[ Somebody pause the Cranberries. ]

[lifetothefullest]

[Lance watches Nate move with purpose toward the window, wondering what he's getting at, but then--

The moon. Huh.

...Oh. The moon.

Lance sits up straight suddenly, pieces clicking together, not just Nate's theory but some of his own as well; he won't mention them just yet, but he's suddenly very interested.]

Space tourism exists, but it's limited. I'm pretty sure the colonies have had problems recently, at least on Mars, and there's information in the documents about redirecting funding from projects on Pluto toward Spinetail instead.

[So space--whether the moon specifically or not, though it's a perfectly reasonable place--makes perfect sense to be connected to this whole mystery. And even without that, the logic tracks; if you could hide information on the moon, why wouldn't you?]

[nonscriptum]

Space tourism is limited, and- [ Nate snaps his fingers, pointing at Lance in recognition. ] Exactly that, with the funding. But. But-

[ He finally sits again, moving to the empty space he'd previously vacated, flipping open his journal again. Maybe it would be easier to type everything in the future equivalent of Apple Notes, but having it in front of him, tangible, somehow makes it that much more understandable to him. ]

The thing about Lunar is that it's not just an off-Earth colony. Even the most basic resources all say the same thing: it's remote, it's mostly private, it's occupied by terraformers working on colonization and the extremely, ridiculously rich.

[ Nate explains, mostly to Ian, because the look on his face is Skeptical with a capital S. ]

It's a work in progress prepping for future development. Close enough to home to keep tabs on people, just far enough away to maintain some distance for plausible deniability.

[wittingly]

[ Jesus, it takes him a second to wrap his head around the fact that this is a viable possibility. A likely one, even, and he goes through the acceptance stage visibly in the form of scrubbing a hand over his face. ]

The magic immortal knowledge-hoarding mega-rich super-villain is hiding on a moon base.

[ Muttered more to himself than either of them, and it's followed by a nice long drink of too-much-tequila-D'Ian. He's still clicking through a swallow when the next round of incredulity strikes him. ]

You know, I remember when aliens were, like, the weirdest fucking thing ever. But--

[ Dr. Evil Moon Base is taking the cake. ]

My question is-- if all he's hiding from is just, like, people... why not, I don't know, dye his hair and get a little facial reconstruction instead of moving to the fucking moon? I mean, I know he didn't, I'm not trying to debunk that part so much as... it just seems like an awful lot of uprooting your life to get off the planet for something you could fix way more easily. There'd have to be more to it, right? Unless he's just a huge... moonthusiast.

[lifetothefullest]

Because it isn't about being practical, at least not entirely.

[Lance offers the explanation in response to Ian's questions, though he's half distracted now; he's thinking about what Nate said and also scanning through the information he's compiled from the network, so his gaze is fixed at that distinctive distance that indicates he's using the implant.]

It's about doing something because he can, and because other people can't. We don't know for sure how similar or different Johann and Henries are, but from what I know about Johann, practicality--and working with the potential of consequences--aren't issues he's concerned with if they would come before doing whatever it is he wants to do. Hiding on the moon wouldn't just be about keeping information or himself safe, but about being somewhere no one else could even get to.

[So, basically, the same explanation as for everything else related to magic immortal knowledge-hoarding mega-rich super-villains: because they have egos.]

[nonscriptum]

[ Ian makes a valid point about the fact that it seems unnecessarily roundabout to go to the moon just to hide a face and whatever else Henries has percolating in his plans. But being surreptitious isn't the strategy, it's being so outrageous as to be easily dismissed - or to Lance's suggestion, being so outrageous as to hide in plain sight.

Nate glances back to the window, seeing half the moon just beneath the lintel, and squints a little before looking back to both of them. ]

Changing your hair and growing a beard probably loses its novelty after the first twenty years. If you'd lived that long, wouldn't you think you'd have developed a little flair for the dramatic?

[wittingly]

Nope.

[ Declared confidently, while carding his fingers through his hair — mostly, until they get stuck about halfway through because that's just how curly hair works sometimes. The point is he committed to his hair and beard decisions like twenty years ago and he's pretty content without bedazzling it or moving to the goddamn moon.

But anyway. ]

I guess the next question is... what do we even do with that theory? How do we prove it without going--

[ Vague gesture. To the moon. ]

And if it turns out you're right, then what?

[lifetothefullest]

He probably already had it, and the time just made it worse.

[Johann certainly seemed like the type from what Lance saw, and although he's still hesitant to conflate Johann and Henries too much, he thinks it's probably safe enough to presume they're similar for now. Especially if they've been working together for so long, or if--and it's a distinct possibility--there is no Henries anymore, and it's just Johann posing as him when convenient.

As for Ian's question--]

We could just go to the moon. It would take some planning and resources, but I bet we could manage it.

[But that said--]

However, I'm not sure that it would be necessary to go that route. It's possible we have a method available to us that isn't an option for the general public.

[Might as well throw his own theories into the mix here, while they're on the subject.]

[nonscriptum]

[ Nate nods along thoughtfully, because honestly, he hadn't gotten to the part where he should think about space travel as difficult. They're already in another world, and while he doesn't have a chit to call in with Morningstar he could always ask Gaby her thoughts on facilitating that kind of trip without having to pay a literal arm and a leg.

One ankle hooked up over his opposite knee, fingers drumming his thigh in nervous energy, Nate searches the empty air in front of him for a moment as what Lance says clicks.

A slow smile creeps across his face, the distinctive air of you sly dog making itself known when he eyes him. Accusatory, but only in the nicest of ways: ]

...you think there's a gate.

[wittingly]

Like a gate--

⧼ It comes out almost in tandem with Nate, just a little off-sync but close enough that he has to glance over faintly amused.

He's not so sure about space travel being feasible for them the normal way, at least not any time soon. From what he understands it's ridiculously expensive, and while he makes a decent salary it isn't take a weeks-long vacation to space decent. It would probably be a two-person minimum because going solo is stupid, and the financial logistics...

A gate would solve it in a fucking instant. ⧽

I wasn't here when they discovered them. Don't you have to... I don't know, go there first to turn it on or something? If not, if you just think and go... I mean, we could test the theory pretty easily.

[nonscriptum]

[ A funny little dual conclusion, for which Ian earns a flash of a smile. A gate would solve most of their problems and probably raise a few others, but now that he's thinking about it Nate has to wonder whether they need to activate the thing from its factory settings at all. ]

It might not need to be turned on.

[ He points out, sitting up a little straighter. It occurs to him that the goon-hiring entity had a purpose for hiring the goons in the first place, beyond wanting the Displaced to be relatively safe in their endeavor - kidnapping part not included. ]

The person who hired a mercenary escort for us wanted us to find and activate those gates here on Earth. They were ensuring our success. Assuming that person is Henries - which it's gotta be - then he had a reason for doing so. Maybe he wants us to find him. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that any gate on the moon is ready to go, probably in some kind of private, secure biome.