[Mousen]

"Does this happen often, the shaking, I mean? I'm not a doctor by any means, but I did train as a nurse for awhile. You probably don't appreciate us barging in here, but if there's anything we can help with, its the least we could do." Horatio wasn't sure why he was so insistently trying to help this person. He was supposed observe rather than interact, he wasn't here to save the world, just to watch it go on. It didn't seem right, though.

"Anything you want to talk about," he said. "How long has the Overbody been in power? How does it keep control? Are there underground resistance movements? What are they like? Is the propaganda effective? Is there a need for propaganda? What is the day to day lives like of people in this era?" He moved to take a notepad from his pocket. "I mean, I know a little bit, but I'm not too familiar."

"Horatio, what about the non-disclosure section in our contracts?" Genevieve called over.

"We're hundreds of years further than when we're supposed to be in a forbidden sector of time. We can just report we had an accident, collected some useful data and got out."

[MythicDusk]

Chip kept their mouth stubbornly closed when the man asked about the shaking, and if it happened often. They didn't want to force these people to stay any longer than they had to.

"The Overbody has been in power for as long as I know. before my parent's parents were born." They shrugged slightly, looking at the burn marks in the metal of the desk. It was easier to look at them and talk about life than it was to look at the man who didn't have plastic for a soul.

"It keeps in control because there is no other option. It has all the food, all the weapons, all the land. Everything. It's in constant complete control. I'm not even in control here. They could just. Decide to squash me like an insect." They shrugged weakly, still looking at the burns. "There isn't any resistance. People tried, but they were wiped out with the wave of a hand." They shrugged weakly. "I'm the only one left of any kind of resistance. And I'm not really part of a resistance, as you can see."

They smiled, almost to themselves, tears spiking in their eyes. "Life is hell. You need permission to eat, in some places you need permission to breathe." A shudder ran down his spine at the thought of the oxygen pods in the cities. Clean air at a premium.

[Mousen]

Horatio started writing, but found it difficult to bear. He'd seen horrors before, of course. He was a time traveller, but never had been somewhere that was so without hope. There was normally something that could be done, some way for good to prevail, some hope. He knew that this era came to an end eventually, that where there was smoke and ash there would one day be spaceports and glimmering sky scrapers grown from neo-steel, but he hadn't stopped to think of the in between. The hell that the future he studied had clawed its way out from, the banned bits of history. He'd been training to be a teacher, in the 30's before he became a time traveller. He should have known.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know things were as bad."

Genevieve looked over to him. "We've got a problem," she said. "After the trouble in Herculaneum it looks like our watches got beat up. Their functional, but need a total calibration. From scratch. It's going to take me hours."

"Damn," he said under his breath. "Is there no way to get it done quicker than that?"

"Sure, if I wanna go blind from spending sixteen hours being able to see in four dimensions," she snapped.  

"Sorry."

"It's fine. I should have realised before we made the jump," she said.

"That was not your fault. Besides, its no good assigning blame now."

Genevieve sighed, rubbing at her eyes.

[MythicDusk]

Chip shrugged gently, giving a weak smile as they began to trace the lines in the metal before listening to the woman. Eventually, Chip squared their shoulders and sighed gently.

"If you're gonna be here for a while, I'll make something for you two to eat. I hope you like fruit and vegetables." They gave a sly smile, wondering if they knew how incriminating it was what they just said.

The creation of your own food, the ability to be at all independant from the Overbody was completely illegal. And as Chip pulled on a certain cord, a wall swung open, showing the rows upon rows of planters, filled with greenery and fruits and vegetables.

"Anything in particular you two are allergic to?"

[Mousen]

"We couldn't possibly-" Horatio began to say, and halted when he saw the hidden greenhouse.

Geneieve laughed. "You are amazing!" She grinned at Chip, closing up the watch she was working on and going to peer into the room "You've managed to keep this hidden? How?"

Horatio's expression was difficult to place as his eyes fell on them. It was something a little bit like wonder, but it faded into his usual seriousness as he answered Chip's question. "No allergies for either of us. Except I'm allergic to cats, but... that's besides the point."

"You don't have to offer your hospitality to us, Chip. It's very kind and we're grateful, but I wouldn't want to be a burden. Me and Horatio have been in worse scrapes before, you know? But, thank you for trusting us."

[MythicDusk]

Chip simply grinned at Geneieve's wonderment before motioning them into the greenhouse. They walked with ease through the planters, pushing away overhanging leaves and picking up a set of pruning shears. With that, they began to trim away dead branches and leaves, plucking fruits from overhanging branches, a tune on their lips. "You don't have to worry about being a burden. Most of this stuff would end up rotting down if I don't feed it to you. Too dangerous to have people coming and going, and everyone would rat me out." They shrugged lightly, plucking an apple off a branch. "I'm one of the most wanted people by the Overbody for this." They laughed, holding up the shining green apple.

After a short while, they came back to the main room, placing down a small armful of fresh fruits and vegetables, mostly harvested from vines. "I don't want to pull up the rooted stuff just yet. They're a bastard to synthesise the seeds for. I tend to let them grow as long as possible."

[Mousen]

"I actually think you're like, the most impressive person in the century. Not gonna lie." Genevieve turned to Horatio. "You're the historian, tell them."

Horatio looked a little bewildered at her intensity. "I mean, I don't know enough about this era to make a definitive judgement, per say, but from-"

"Just tell Chip that they're cool, Horatio. It's all I need."

"Well, uh, that, then."

She walked into the greenhouse, inspecting the plants carefully and eventually picking a couple of apples for herself and Horatio. "Wait, you synthesised the seeds? I mean, yeah, I don't think there's another way to do that, but like how do you- I suppose you could feasibly... but. Look. Anyway. I have to pick your brain. Like, ask me any tech questions, anything you've ever wanted to know about time mechanics, I will tell you. But there's so much I need to ask you before we leave. Please."

[MythicDusk]

Chip couldn't help their beaming smile at the compliments, their LEDs glittering brilliantly as they bit into the apple they had broght for themselves. "I don't need to know anything extra. Move too fast and the Overbody will take notice." They shrugged slightly, taking another bite of the apple.

Slowly, they moved across the workshop to the bank of screens, moving their finger across some of them and watching as the bank light up, streaming data and reports. A few taps, a few movments and the screens shifted and changed, each showing different diagrams and blueprints for weapons, for prosthetics, for planters and for plants that had been lost to time.

"I hope to try bringing back a pear tree, next."

[Mousen]

Genevieve walked over to the screens, her eyes widening as they flicked from one screen to the next. She reached up touch one of the screens and zoom in on a design, this one for a knee joint. She moved over to a pea plant, and then a design for a small handgun. She had a look at some of the more unfinished projects, biting her lip as she thought. She opened the code for one of the prosthetics, reading through it with surprising speed, and then checking the schematics themselves. "Can I have a look at your wrist joint?" she asked.

[MythicDusk]

Chip cocked an eyebrow before taking a few steps back, craning their head back and looking at the hanging body parts. After a moment, they reached up and pulled down a wrist joint before offering it to Genevieve with a slight slope of the shoulders, a movement which could be described as a shrug.

"I already let you see my secret garden, but letting you poke around in my prosthetics is a little bit too much of a jump. This is my spare, pretty much the exact same, just a little less worn."

They watched the woman with a intense fascination, wanting to see what she would do.

[Mousen]

Genevieve looked a little sheepish. "Sorry! I'm being a bit forward."

She took the wrist joint, twisting it round in her hands to get a good luck. "See, I'm no expert, but it looks like the way you've aligned some of the pins here," she showed them. "With where it then goes onto connect to the elbow and fingers could lead to the joint spasming, especially in certain movements." She moved the wrist in a quick see-sawing motion, then flicked it out, and the fingers locked. "See? But you've probably noticed. I mean, it's not a huge problem, but I imagine it's kinda painful and doesn't help long-term hand-eye co-ordination... right?"

She grabbed a couple of tools from her workbench and opened up the casing. It took her a minute or two to find what she was looking for. She made a few adjustments, biting the inside of her cheek in concentration. "This isn't my speciality," she confessed. "But, I think that should solve the problem." She put the casting back on and flicked the joint out a couple of times for good measure.

[MythicDusk]

Chip watched with interest. They had found that issue within the first few days, but had fixed it a much different and much more labor intensive way. They licked their lips gently, before reaching up and pulling down other joints, their eyes alight with interest.

"If you have the time, think you could show me some other tricks? I've never met someone as good at fixing things as, well, me." They laughed nervously, watching Genevieve's face with a peculiar mixture of hope and apprehension. They wrung their hands, looking over the casings of the spare parts. Some of them dusty, some rotted and dented, some as pristine as they would look on a workshop floor.

Chip carefully chewed on their bottom lip, slowly sitting down and looking over the selection they had gathered.

[Mousen]

Genevieve shrugged modestly. "Technically, the proper way to do it is to take the casing apart and drill new holes into it and realign all the pins, but... if you just knock one slightly out of place it does the exact same job, so. It uh, helps being lazy."

She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Thanks, and yeah, absolutely. If you don't mind us staying a little longer I can swap between fixing up our watches and exchanging tips. I mean, again, I don't wanna overstep my boundaries... but when was the last time someone else looked over your prosthetics? Like, I've just got my eye and I go to someone else twice a year just to make sure there's nothing I'm missing when I'm doing my maintenance. Especially when you're in a dangerous time, or times, I guess, looking after yourself is important."

[MythicDusk]

Chip felt themselves flush at the question. "Last time someone but me looked at my prosthetics, it was when mom and dad were alive, and that was at my skull pins." Their voice was low and soft, almost ashamed. They felt tears hanging on their eyelashes. The death of their parents still stung.

They wondered what their mother would say, seeing their little weed in such a state. A terrifying amalgamation of flesh, metel, electricity and plastic.

They licked their lips slowly, their hands trembling as they pulled off their shirt, revealing the swathes of plastic melding into the skin across their chest, thick scars across where the skin was. They shrugged their plastic shoulders with an almost shy smile.

0"My shoulders were giving me issues." They moved their hands, carefully peeling back some of the plastic with a wet sound and they winced at the hellish mish-mash of wires and veins. "This-uh this is my biggest issue right now." They pointed to where one of the wires and veins had become distressingly tangled.

They couldn't explain why they trusted this person so much, why they trusted them both so much, enough to show them their darkest secrets and to even bear their literal heart. They looked down, tilting themselves slightly to see the edge of a wire that had pressed against their heart thudding in time with their pulse.

[Mousen]

Genevieve tried to not look aghast at Chip's situation. Of course, they couldn't have anyone else check over their prosthetic if there was no one else around to do the job. A wave of feeling passed through her, something like sympathy, and affection, and grief. She watched Chip pull off their shirt, and tapped a small rhythm on her temple, cycling through some of the settings on her eye.

Horatio took a sharp breath and coughed slightly, trying to cover his surprise. Other than Horatio, there was only the sound of Chip's heart, sounding louder in Genevieve's ears than should be possible. She nodded at Chip's words, and from her bag pulled a packet with a set of fresh surgical gloves.

She flipped through the schematics until she landed on one that showed the wiring on Chip's chest, and then moved to examine the problem. If she found anything about Chip's situation unsettling, she didn't let it show in her face. "Okay, okay," she said. "I think I can do this. Would you like me to go ahead?"