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[stand_unshaken]

 

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[dog_eat_dog]

"You ever seen someone take a picture from that low?" she replies, amused. "Or draw them from there, for that matter?"

[stand_unshaken]

"With all the damn tripods you gotta carry around, don't think you can even make that angle in my day," he points out, grumbling a little. Okay, she has a point.

[dog_eat_dog]

She chuckles.

"Not built for all this new-fangled technology, huh?"

[stand_unshaken]

He makes a face at her. "I like the washing machines and all that crap, but I don't know that I like the rest all that much."

[dog_eat_dog]

“Most of it, people don’t need,” she replies. “But once you’ve had it once, you miss it anyway.”

God knows she got by for eons without much of it, and it’s strange to think that her entire adult life has been more like 1899 than the future the Jetsons promised her when she was a kid.

[stand_unshaken]

"I'd miss bein' able to call friends," he admits, as he starts to clamber back down. He knows he can just ask for a door and get it, but it's more fun this way.

[dog_eat_dog]

“Yup,” she agrees, following. Climbing is just fine by her. “Don’t have to cross town just to see if anyone’s home, don’t have to wonder where someone is in the world, either.”

[stand_unshaken]

"And I bet you could call for help if you needed it, too. Mighty convenient."

But he knows what he's used to. He'll be okay.

[dog_eat_dog]

“That too.” A whole lot of people die because of it. “On the flip side, you can’t disappear with one. Phone companies can track where you are in the world.”

[stand_unshaken]

He looks over his shoulder at her and makes a disgruntled face. "Now that, I don't like. How?"

[dog_eat_dog]

She chuckles. Figured she’d get that reaction.

“Phones bounce signals off of radio towers and satellites, big ships in the sky kinda like this one. Every time you send a call, they can tell where you are based on where the closest tower is.“

Or something like that.

[stand_unshaken]

"I'm liable to throw this thing down this mountain right now," he warns her. That's what he thinks about that.

He really, really needs to be able to disappear when he wants to disappear for a while.

[dog_eat_dog]

“So chuck it,” she says. “What’s the worst that happens, you have to ask for a new one?”

[stand_unshaken]

Well, he's not going to say littering, considering the amount of cans and bottles he's left strewn across the country. "I'm still on the damn Barge, and I can't go anywhere else. But it ain't coming home with me."

[dog_eat_dog]

“Wouldn’t work unless you had the towers anyway,” she replies. “And you don’t need to worry about it showing up in 1899, either. Cell phones didn’t get common until after I was born.”

[stand_unshaken]

"Well, thank fuck for that," he says, incredibly heartfelt.

[dog_eat_dog]

"Makes being an outlaw much easier too, I'll bet."

[stand_unshaken]

"That's what made it hard lately. Law everywhere, people close enough to be callin' out to each other. Pinkertons ain't got much of a job left to do."

That is patently untrue, as they've evaded them for a while and America is a big place. But it's too easy for his liking. Too easy by far.

[dog_eat_dog]

"You're a man of your time, that's for sure," she replies. She can't imagine him walking free in the America of her childhood, not unless he had a whole lot of capital to his name. In her time, though, maybe. "I'm in closer quarters than you and I still get by, though. You just have to appreciate a challenge."

[stand_unshaken]

He clambers down a ledge that's easier to go down than climb up, scooting down the last part on his ass. No dignity in exploring.

"Don't think I'm a man of my time. A little behind, likely."

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess chuckles. She just skids the whole way down on her feet. Her reckless ass would rather just move with the momentum.

"Well, it gets that way when you're in your thirties but act fifty, huh?"

[stand_unshaken]

It surprises a laugh out of him, that he quickly covers up with a glower. "Am I or am I not slidin' down this damn mountain with you after goin' on a treasure hunt?"

[dog_eat_dog]

"Are you kidding me? You love this shit," she replies. Glower all day, she got that laugh. "You're not gonna convince me you'd pick sitting around over this, no matter how much of an old man you are."

[stand_unshaken]

"Hey, I coulda conjured up some old mansion with a porch. Some fake iced tea or a drink. Read a good book."

The options are endless! But while he's sliding down and getting back to his feet, he finds himself quietly pleased to have someone here who really knows him.

[dog_eat_dog]

"The only way you're sitting on a porch with a drink is after a long hard day of this."

She reaches to give him a hand up. Old man, and all.