maskormenacelogs | they're out there

Entry tags:

they're out there

WHO: Jonathan Walsh, Manabu Yuuki: resident aliens
WHERE: an observatory in Florida, maybe a bus ride or two away from Heropa
WHEN: this coming week
WHAT: starsearching, planetseeking, friendmaking
WARNINGS: naw

"It would be...around here."

Manabu traced his finger along the wall, toward a cluster of stars plotted on it. The room was round, ringed with a panoramic image of the stars in and around the Milky Way. The telescope was crowded by young people and their parents, and hardly his point of interest. He'd walked along the perimeter, making the trail from the 'YOU ARE HERE' where Earth was to where he thought Tobito would be.

The tour guide with him looked rather put-upon and uncomfortable. "Like I said," she began, "I'm not really an astronomer, so I couldn't tell you one way or another..."

"A--oh..." Manabu ducked his head, smiling weakly. "Right. Sorry. But--" He looked back up, hopeful. "Maybe there's an astronomer on duty I could talk to? To be sure?"

"That's...not really what we do here on school days..."

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At first, Jonathan tried waiting until some of the crowd around the telescope might clear out. He already knew where his planet should be in relationship to Earth, and from the charts he'd already determined that there was indeed a star where his sun would be, but he really needed a closer look to determine if the solar system he knew orbited that star.

And, unfortunately, the device he wanted to use to try and determine that was already being operated by a swarm of children. He decided to approach them.

Pasting a huge grin on his face, eager to project the idea of being friendly, he approached the children.

"Hello, I'm sorry to disturb you, but since I already know what I'm looking for I was wondering if you'd mind letting me use the telescope? I'll only be a minute."

They stared at him for a moment, and he heard one of them make a comment about how they were here first. Despite feeling frustrated at the fact that they were actually resisting this, Jonathan forced the grin to stay planted firmly on his face, even if it was looking more artificial by the minute.

"And that is why I'll be giving it right back to you as soon as I'm done. I just want to see if something's there."

He...supposed it made sense, not bothering scientists with outsider questions, but he wasn't exactly there to be just a mere tourist. Manabu frowned, thinking about how to rephrase his remarks to convince her to at least try and help him out, but she had already abandoned him, motivated by the little commotion by the telescope.

Manabu did a double-take and stared, watching the confrontation.

"Sir," the tour guide called, addressing the man in the swarm of children. "Sir, please wait until the school group has had their turn."

He sighed. "Okay, fine."

He turned, heading over to the side of the room to lean against the curved wall. They would probably just take even longer if he stood there arguing with them, after all.

"They're taking forever," he muttered.

He didn't really have any problem with children, and usually he rather liked them, but usually they weren't in the way of what he wanted. Actually, most of his experience with children were the ones he and his people abducted for their experiments, but they had been remarkably compliant. A bit scared at first, but compliant.

"Eheh..."

Manabu couldn't help chuckling, hearing the complaint rather clearly. He was standing nearby, his arms behind his back. Even the slightest flicker of acknowledgement was enough to prompt him to follow-up.

"It's not surprising," he said, smiling. "Even though mankind is still grounded to one planet here, people still want to see what else is out there. That much seems to be always the same."

At the sound of the chuckling, Jonathan looked over.

"Yeah, I've noticed that. It's almost impressive how bad they are at reaching space when they seem so eager to see it." From that statement, Jonathan assumed this man was an import. "I'm assuming humans have actually managed space travel where you're from?"

He looked back over toward the children.

"I wonder why he's pointing it in that direction? There's nothing worth seeing in that direction."

Sure, there were some stars and things, but there were other parts of space that were far more interesting to look at in Jonathan's opinion. Then again, he didn't know how good or bad their space seeing technology was, so he wasn't even certain whether they could see any of the things he thought they should want to look at.

The assumption caught Manabu by surprise; here he was making pleasant small talk, and all of a sudden...ImPort detected. Wow. There really were a lot around, even this far out from the cities.

His mouth twitched -- the start of the surprised look ebbing off -- and he nodded. Before he could say anything, though, the ImPort stranger was already continuing on; he blinked and followed the gaze over and upward at the giant telescope.

"You don't think so?" he wondered. "I mean, it must all be pretty interesting and mysterious if you've never been out there...Even I forget sometimes how even the remote parts have a special way about them."

"I guess. I prefer the more populated areas, myself. Although, I suppose we don't really know which areas of the galaxy are more populated in this universe, do we? We don't even know that all the planets are even in the same place, do we?"

They knew that Earth's solar system was arranged in the same way, and that the stars were, at least. It would make sense to assume that the other planets were in the same place, but then, it would also make sense to assume all the alien races were where they were since humans inhabited the Earth, the same as they did in Jonathan's world, and yet if that was true, why had none of them come to Earth? And could he be entirely certain they hadn't?

He chuckled, his shoulders shrugging up. "I know I don't. I actually hadn't made the time to check out any star charts while I was here before."

He gestured toward the telescope. "Today's open enough for that, so I figure...it can't hurt to see if home is out there in this universe. Even if...it's not actually inhabited. Ha."

"That's exactly what I'm here for. Although, I have no reason to think mine isn't inhabited."

Where this person, being presumably human, could reasonably assume his planet was not inhabited or at least not inhabited by his species since these humans didn't have that technology, Jonathan had no idea going in if his planet was inhabited or not. Of course, if it wasn't, then that would mean his species likely didn't even exist in this universe. Although, if it did turn out that was the case, Jonathan wasn't sure if that would be a bad thing. After all, it would mean they wouldn't have to worry about his species invading Earth.

"Eh, really?" Manabu blinked, eyebrows raised. He looked a little harder at this guy, trying to spot some telltale difference that would be an alien giveaway. He didn't see one, though. "So you're not human originally?"

"I've never been human, and I'm not human now. I just have a human face at the moment."

But under that he was what he always was. It was a disguise and nothing more.

"Well, you fooled me!" he laughed. Sure, he's not a kid anymore, but there's still some childlike delight in knowing he gets to talk to aliens; that's one thing he never kicked, even when he was finally out in space.

"Ah--" Realization strikes, and he pushed away from the wall, extending a hand. "I'm Manabu. Manabu Yuuki. It's always nice to meet other people from..." He tilts his head, shrugging. "Well, not Earth. Ha."

Edited (TENSES ) 2017-06-24 12:48 (UTC)

Jonathan smiled and shook the man's hand. "Jonathan Walsh. Also glad to meet people not from Earth, even if your ancestors are from it. And I have a bit of experience fooling people. I've spent a lot of time on Earth, so I'm not surprised you didn't catch it."

He wondered if that name was official, or if it was the part of the whole human disguise. Maybe his real name was hard to pronounce? It was always hard to know with aliens.

Maybe not the most tactful question to follow up with, though.

"Is that because you've been here for a long time?" he asked instead. "Or because back where you're from you dealt with Earth there?"

"I was stranded on Earth back home. Which I have to say, definitely makes this situation easier to adjust to."

It would be difficult to adjust to being abducted from home. It was a lot easier to adjust being abducted from a planet where he had to avoid discovery, because from his perspective, it was a huge improvement.

"Oh."

He frowned, thinking on how stressful that would've been. But if it were him, he'd have worked a bit for some money, then taken the next train to...

"Wait," he looked back up, concerned. "The Earth in your universe didn't have interplanetary travel either? Is that why you were stuck?"

"It does not, no. I mean, there's a big long complicated mess that goes well beyond that, but...well, let's just say that I don't think human technology will be getting me back."

Not that he'd be able to get back even with a ship. He'd betrayed the invasion, so it wasn't like his people wanted him back.

Manabu's eyes winced, sympathetic to the notion. He was definitely surprised and disappointed to learn this Earth's current state of spacefaring; the idea of being grounded for good, far from home was hard to accept. Imagining that spanning more than one universe, though? That seemed...cruel.

"I'm sorry," he said, his head dipping a little. "It must've been lonely...I hope you found some friends you could talk to. Here and there, I mean. It's no good being by yourself for very long."

At least, for him it was. Maybe there were creatures and peoples out there who delighted in solitude? Probably.

He plastered on a smile, trying to reinforce a general idea of everything being fine and great, and why wouldn't it be?

"Of course I found friends! I have plenty of friends. I'm charming and good looking, who wouldn't want to be friends with me?"

Even back home, with half his human disguise blown off, he was still charming, right? Besides, he had Don. And Officer Glimmer. And once he reprogrammed the Nancy android back to not being a murderous machine, he'd have Nancy, too.

"Ha..." He grinned back at that remark. "The default around here is folks being really stressed out and unhappy about winding up here, I guess I just figured that'd apply somewhere else, being stuck on another Earth."

He stuffed his hands into his pockets, bobbing his head up in the same moment he rolled back on his heels, bumping back against the wall.

"If you find it, can I see?" He looked back over to the telescope; the line of kids taking their turn was getting close to the end. "The planet you're looking for, I mean."

"Nope!" he said, offering a huge grin. "Actually, everything about me ending up here is kind of great. Back on my version of Earth, I needed to pass as human, and I had no way of fixing my disguise, and my own government was really, extremely displeased with me. Here, none of those things are true. It's great!"

Sure, he might want to know if his species was still around, and there were some things about his people he missed, but his government was not one of them.

"Sure, you can see. I don't see any reason why not."

Manabu gave a kind of you first gesture and slight bow, offering him dibs to go over and try that telescope out. He scratched at his nose idly while he watched, mouth puckered in thought while he considered that remark about a really, extremely displeased government out there being really, extremely displeased with him. Jonathan seemed pleasant as far as first impressions went; he wondered what kind of planet didn't find that sort of thing great...

He hardly considered a facade, despite the fact he was talking to an alien who was disguised as a human. That was just a technicality of being stuck here! And Manabu was not prone to being suspicious at the get-go.

Jonathan nodded, and took the lead, starting to look through and adjust the telescope, first trying to locate his star. It took a little searching, since the night sky always looked so much different when it was as enlarged as this, but while this device was more primitive than what they had on their ships, he knew what part of space his star should be in well, and he was able to work with it. After a bit, he located his star. Once he did that, he spent a few minutes trying to adjust and readjust the focus but...

He sighed. "I can't tell. I found the correct star, but it's too far away and their technology isn't advanced enough. I can't tell if anything's orbiting it."

While Jonathan scoured the heavens, Manabu drifted off wondering about aliens from his own universe. They'd snuck into HQ and caused a tremendous mess -- one that nearly cost him and his partner's lives...were those people still out here, too? Wreaking havoc somewhere else, maybe?

"Aa-?" The remark shook him out of his thoughts. He glanced up, frowning. "Really...?"

He scratched the back of his head. "Jeez...technology on this planet is so all over the place, isn't it..."

Inter-dimensional teleporters, flying cars...bad telescopes and guns still using metal slugs.

"Yeah, I've noticed. It makes me wonder if there is some sort of alien intervention causing this. Although, it does make sense with the rest of their space technology being so primitive that they wouldn't have developed anything to better see what's out there."

Either they weren't that interested so didn't put the effort into the tech in the first place, or they couldn't figure out how to make a better telescope, so didn't have the means of determining what places they'd even want to go to outside of their solar system.

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