towerofanimus | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Characters: Marty, Open
Setting: Library
Format: either I'm good
Summary: Marty has a lot of thoughts on his mind
Warnings: n/a

This is Marty.

This is Marty with arms folded and head bowed.

He appears to be thinking very hard.

He's sitting on a chair next to a table with a book on time theory in front of him.

He is also mumbling to himself.

There is a piece of white paper with math scribbles and dates on it.

Bother, pester, ignore?

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[Sorry, attracted by the math.]

[Equius stops, looking over Marty's shoulder -- from the scribbles to the posture to the book on temporal theory. Oh boy.]

...Having trouble with something?

I'm trying to figure out if I'm 18 or still 17.

[Marty looks up.]

It was October when I left home.

[Although not really. He's discounting the fact last thing he remembered was being in 1885. But it was October when he left 1985.]

And now it's October again. I got here in May. My birthday was in June, but it hasn't been a year yet for me... My head's kinda hurting.

Hm.

[Equius pulls up a chair and sits down next to Marty, looking over his work. He sits there for a moment, thinking.]

Well, a wriggling day -- oh, birthday, sorry -- only serves to measure how long it's been since the day you were born, seventeen or eighteen or whatever sweeps or years ago.

[Looks like Marty went to the trouble of writing down the names of all the human months. How convenient!]

It's all physical. Your body won't grow at a different rate just to keep in sync with your birthday according to whatever temporal anomaly you've fallen through.

[Equius digs out a pencil and a small notepad from his pocket. As he flips through the pages, Marty will notice that they're all filled with mathematical problems of some kind, though he moves them too fast to identify which ones. Eventually, he reaches a blank one.]

Your wriggling day was in June, and you left in October. June to July, July to August, August to September, September to October; that's four months. [He scribbles down a symbol that doesn't look like anything Marty will have seen on Earth; really, though, it just means 'four' in Alternian written language.] Now, because you've arrived in... May, your body has to start counting again from there.

Do you follow so far?

Yeah. I think I get it. It might've been late April, but doesn't really matter. It was close enough to May. So I've been here about six months...

[He's totally staring at that math, slightly fascinated. Was that a different mathematical system?]

So in two months it'll be another year for me. It's sort of weird thinking about it being in December.

That's right.

[Hey, it's written differently, but the math is all the same. At least he's using the Earth calendar and not solar sweeps or something.]

Of course, I suppose you could still celebrate it in October, but you wouldn't really be the proper age until two months after.

Yeah. I wonder how long they kept us in the revival area before they let us out here.

...Who knows.

[He keeps scribbling. It's simple logic, but habit forces him to check their work anyway.]

If we had that information, the answer might be wildly different. But I suppose you can look into that more when we get the information.

[Equius reaches over for Marty's book and flips it to the front cover, keeping his place with one finger.] Yeah, it... time doesn't really factor into it when you're looking for biological things like aging or sleep cycles. They would still work exactly the same way if we had no measurement of time -- assuming, of course, that nothing's tampered with the flow of time. But again. We have no way of knowing.

[Marty thinks on that for a few seconds, then shrugs.]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say these assholes can manipulate time, too... hell, they've weird physics and entire forests on some of the floors.

Maybe we should call it Tower Time or something.

Tower time.

[He looks thoughtful.]

...You know, there are several people here who can manipulate time, too. Maybe you could ask one of them.

What? If the admins can manipulate it?

[Marty's looking thoughtful too, but also slightly confused.]

No, they're not admins... they've been taken here just like everyone else.

If time was being tampered with, they would feel it.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

[Hmm.]

Nobody's really said anything on the network yet... if the admins can, maybe they can mask it.

Well, if they can... haven't their equipment and things been acting up lately? Someone might notice it soon.

Of course, whether they'd tell anyone about it is a different story. [He's pretty sure at that least one, maybe two, of those time manipulators mentioned before would try to keep their mouths shut about it and fix the problem themselves.]

It might be something to watch out for. Maybe Doc could make a time interference monitor device...

[Marty's just pulling crap out, naturally.]

This place doesn't get any easier to figure out.

...Doc?

Doctor Brown, you mean?

[Yes. Doctor Brown.]

[He just seriously called him Doctor Brown.]

[Someone smack this boy around the head, please.]

[Marty gave him an odd look, but nodded.]

Yeah, but he doesn't mind just plain old Doc.

No, I... he told me. I know.

I just don't feel that someone like him ought to be called just 'Doc'.

[Have another odd look.]

Doc's a great guy and my best friend. It'd feel kinda weird calling him that...

I don't know, he... [Equius leans on the table, unsure of how to continue.] ...he's brilliant. I mean, you know, some of his knowledge is out of date compared to what I know from my world, but even so, I feel he deserves more... respect than that. You know?

Uh... I'm sure he appreciates it.

[The most awkward shrug on the planet. Right here.]

[So much awkwardness.]

So uh... sorry if my memory's a bit whacked, but I'm Marty.

[Have a Jack noisily peering over Marty's shoulder.]

Whatcha doin' mate?

[Whoa. Way to spook the kid. Wait... was this guy an old time sailor?]

Uh... I was doing some math to figure out something.

[Jack arches an eyebrow, sashaying a little around to see more clearly what Marty's working on.]

And what'd that be, lad?

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