video + text + action

[mucked]

Who: Peggy Carter & YOU
Broadcast: Y, fleetwide.
Action: Aboard the Starstruck, if you like.
When: Today.

[ a video feed flickers to life, and fights for a moment to adequately focus on its subject. peggy carter sits in the kitchen aboard the starstruck, cup of tea and her elbow and half a biscuit in her hand. dabbing at crumbs, she sets her food aside and offers the network a bright smile. ]

That message -- the ominous one, in the bizarre language? It put me in mind of the sort of cryptograms and puzzles you might see in the Sunday paper. [ her expression is cheery enough, although she's not being wholly honest about her interest in such games. she won't be the one to say the words bletchley and park.] I loved them. Them, and crosswords. I thought maybe some of you might like them, too. [ ... ] We could do a few together. I'm not saying we all join a club, exactly, but back home they were always better solved in good company.

Let's start you off with one that's easy enough. But there's no shame in needing a hint, if needed. For what it's worth, the text I'm attaching is, in its deciphered form, English -- not yet certain how the augments' translation will handle it. We'll see.

BLSTKBC YLBSFKGISRX XL QIYT SL SFVBWIKAKJR STR QKBZ VX V XSRVZU EIFELXR — V ELKBS LB OTKYT STR XLIA QVU NKM KSX KBSRAARYSIVA RUR.

[ -- and then an afterthought: ]

...By chance, has anyone been brewing their own beer?

Comments

[mucked]

Next time, [ she promises on his behalf. ] I'll add it's not a sorrowful occasion -- we lost him to the Pathstone, those wankers.

[ and with that, she decides the tea is steeped. peggy ushers both mugs over to the table and takes a seat across from eugene. there's sugar and milk between them, but she uses neither. ]

[survivalistcookbook]

Man, Pathstone. [The agreement is a grinning thing, no attempt made to honestly sound as if he bears a grudge against the Pathstone, or even knows enough about them to form one. It's a quip to keep the rhythm of the conversation and to pass the time until the tea is in front of him, steaming and fragrant. He curls his hands around the mug, taking a cautious sip and humming in satisfaction. Plain, unadorned black tea - perfect.]

This is perfect, thanks. I don't think I've had a decent cup of tea since I was brought here. Let alone a good one.

[mucked]

[ it's good, really. to sit and enjoy tea with someone. half of her social circle have revealed themselves to be coffee-drinkers above all else. a pleasure, then, to sit with eugene. ]

Heavens, yes. [ another sip; another swallow. ] It took a damn long while to source anything worth drinking when I first arrived. All those insta-options taste like -- sawdust in water.

[survivalistcookbook]

[He gives an indelicate snort at that, casting a commiserating look over the rim of his mug.]

Yeah, useless for drinking. I guess you could use it to tan leather in a pinch, though?

[mucked]

[ a crinkle of her nose as the crasser notes of the joke are recognized. but even so, peggy laughs. ]

Tell me. Have you been with us long? [ the fleet. ]

[survivalistcookbook]

Sort of. I was here for a handful of months, disappeared for another handful, then showed up again about four months ago. [Weird. He knows. Like everything else around here.] You?

[mucked]

Just over a year, actually. [ a half-smile. ] We must have missed one another. How delightful it is to still be surprised by who else is in the fleet, even now.

[survivalistcookbook]

It is. I'm trying to peek my head out of the kitchen more these days. [Waiting it out had failed spectacularly as a strategy, so, however grudgingly, he's making the best of it that he can.] What's your position on the Starstruck, if you don't mind me asking?

[mucked]

Captain. [ she answers without missing a beat. once upon a time, the rank was strange to speak, but now it's second-nature. ] While still moonlighting as a comms officer, when needed.

So, all in all, far less useful than yours.

[ cooks own, as far as she's concerned. ]

[survivalistcookbook]

Until you actually need to get something done.

[He tips his mug in her direction, a gentle rebuttal of that much praise.]

At that point, even I would rather have a captain who knows what she's doing than perfectly-browned dinner rolls.

[mucked]

[ dinner rolls! perfectly browned or otherwise, there's a quiet delight that steals across her features. wouldn't dinner rolls be nice?

but as for the thrust of his argument: ] I'm afraid I'm mostly making it up as I go along. I don't come from a time with anywhere near the same level of technological advancement. But we make do, here, aboard the Starstruck.

[survivalistcookbook]

Understandable. But I'm pretty sure leadership skills weren't invented with space travel. [Could be wrong on that one. But he's pretty sure.] When did they nab you from?

[mucked]

1947. [ summer thereof, though she keeps that to herself. who would care, unless they too were from that year? ] By most accounts, I lag some seventy years behind most people who come here -- at least, I do if they come from Earth. Usually.

[survivalistcookbook]

Yeah. Guilty as charged. But, we had a pandemic that almost collapsed human civilisation in the early 2010s, so we're still relying on radio and other technologies around that level.

[He delivers the revelation in a tone of blithe faux-chipperness, because really, it's just a fact of life at this point. Plus, hey. England in 1947? That's at least a little common ground in the 'oh god everything is still busted up' department.]

[mucked]

Radio! Now, I can manage with radio. Handily. [ a crooked smile. if she's horrified by the idea of civilization collapsing -- and at a point prior, in his world, to any other she's heard of, then peggy hides it well. she follows his lead in blitheness. easier, that way. ] I swear, the wireless will manage to outlive us all.

[survivalistcookbook]

I know! [A few notes of laughter edge in with the words, a strange sort of gratitude meeting her recognition.] I swear, if you had told me in 2010 that in a few years, I'd be in northern England, living in a glorified shed and learning morse-

[mucked]

[ -- northern england! a crinkle of her nose. affectionate, despite how her accent tracks her to somewhere nearer the south. london suburb, likely.

or maybe she's excited over morse code. hard to say. ]

You know, you don't much sound British. An ex-pat of somewhere else, I presume?

[survivalistcookbook]

Canada. I was on a travel assignment in London at the start of the outbreak, but once everything started to break down it wasn't safe in the city anymore, and I made a break for the countryside.

[mucked]

[ the dominion! huh. ]

Never been to Canada. [ said with the kind of casual curiousity of someone who might have been many other places. ] Never had the chance. Not yet, at least. You must miss it -- [ considering she doesn't expect there are many flights or ships heading back in that direction. ]

[survivalistcookbook]

[He has a drink of his tea, then looks down into it thoughtfully, turning the cup and watching the liquid spin in lazy counterpoint.]

You know-? I miss my family. And I guess I miss Vancouver in a way. But at the same time-? I've seen what happened to London. [He meets her eyes and manages a suggestion of a smile, but it's more bravery than happiness, stubborn refusal to give in to the horror of the thing.] In my memories, I'll always have my home the way it was. I think it's better that way.

[mucked]

[ in the end, she can empathize with such distance. since michael's death, she's felt very little desire to return to hampstead. she'd rather remember home the way it once was; not as it grew to become. she's a new creature -- different from that girl who lived there. and a new creature deserves a new world.

peggy nods. ] I confess I've been feeling a little nostalgic for London. Lately. Hence the desire for marmite. I haven't actually lived there since during the war. I've been...elsewhere. [ a shrug. ] America, mostly.

[survivalistcookbook]

Oh, hey. Where in America?

[Now that, he's at least modestly travelled. Though he has to admit, he can't think of a place in the country that comes close to being the same creature as London, for good or for ill.]

[mucked]

New York, primarily. [ a beat. ] But I was in California when I was brought here. Los Angeles.

[survivalistcookbook]

[He gives a low whistle at that, lifting his eyebrows.]

Both coasts. I'm going to guess that either you're an ambitious traveller or you have a pretty impressive job.

[mucked]

Impressive? [ a snort. ] Not very. It involves a lot of grunt work, that's all. [ and she'd signed the official secrets act; it's not like she can go around gossiping about her work. not directly. instead, she happily lets other people draw their own careful conclusions. ]

But I was visiting a friend. Nothing too wild, I assure you.

[ just wild enough to mean that when she eventually does return home, it'll be to the days' recovery after falling on a bit of rebar. ]