video | un: desdemona

[maritorious]

[Nancy's looking a lot better since her arrival. Her black eye has faded, the cut on her lip has healed, and the damned headache is at long last gone. She sits with a straight back, and occasionally glances off-screen to make sure she's doing it right. Not like she'd really know. But it's fun, to be a part of something new like this, these video messages. These videos.

In the background, The Smiths play quietly. She takes a drink of what could be anything. It's not. It's tea. And gin.

Mostly gin.]

Hello, I'm trying this for the first time. It's all so incredibly new and exciting. [Her accent remains unchanged.]

Which is why I'd like to ask everyone something: How many of you are out of place? And how many are out of time?

I was speaking at the roller rink with Captain Bonnet and we were wondering if there were others like us here, not just dragged from a few years or across the country, but across the ocean, hundreds of years out of the past, into this ridiculous future and have no idea what cars or neon or arcades are let alone jeans.

If so, I propose we have a meeting of sorts. Try to learn all these new things together. Or if anyone is willing to explain the last two hundred years in history, I'm really curious. I know some of you are from the future future from here, but I imagine that'd be easier. [Now she feels like shes' excluding a huge chunk of the population, but come on. People like her and Stede were at a distinct disadvantage.]

Er-- My name is Nancy, and I'm from 1838 London.

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[bodyoftheseus]

[ As Nancy spoke and explained a little about herself, V's eyebrows raised a little. He hadn't expected to have anything in common with her but the world was hard all over, no matter the time. ]

Grew up homeless in a poorer part of Night City. Not the poorest thanks to one'f the gangs there, but it doesn't really matter when you don't got a home. Lot of gang violence - the Valentinos and 6th Street would have a lot'f late-night fire fights with each other over turf. Lot'f people were... collateral damage.

Um, I worked a lot. Got what're called Fixers in Night City. They're middlemen for jobs. I've done a lot - breaking and entering, stealing items, stealing data, makin' sure people stay quiet... Pretty much anything that'd get me eddies. I generally didn't take jobs that took me to the City Center, though - that's where the megacorps are most concentrated and secure, and I don't really like tempting fate like that. [ If only he'd listened to his gut on his last big heist. He might not be here. ]

Far as tech... I don't really know where to begin. To me, this place we're at now doesn't have any technology. It can be the middle'f night and the city's lit up with lights and neon, I used to have a phone that could do a ton more'n these implanted in my head - it would manage my day-to-day for me. That's, um, the start of it. There's a lot more but I wouldn't know how to really explain it without us havin' to sit down and start from square one.

[maritorious]

[It's good to know she's not the only lowly street urchin around here that's all grown up and still up to no good. She breathes an audible sigh of relief, letting her shoulders drop.] I see- sounds a lot like London. What you do, Fixing, sounds a bit like what my- [Fuck it. She's going with the word Bill would have at the very least scowled heavily in her direction for. The conversation had come up a thousand times, and each time he'd ended it. Despite his love for his name, he didn't want sharing that name to mar his reputation.

Well. Bill fucking Sikes wasn't here today, and last time she'd checked, he'd at the very least brutally beaten her so she can be a little petty. Besides, there isn't a good word for what they are, anyway. Were. Are.] -my husband did. He'd work at the docks, too. Best known as a house breaker. [And murderer. And occasional secret teddy bear who liked to be the little spoon.] Whatever needed t'be done.

Wait, so you've a telephone planted in your head? [That's all she's understanding.] Alright, we can take 'em as they come. To me this whole place is incredibly advanced.

[bodyoftheseus]

Well, always gotta be someone around t'get their hands dirty for others. [ He kept a carefully neutral tone as he said it. He recognized that it was generally not someone's first choice of a job - it was dangerous and the better you were at it the more often you spent time killing rather than thieving. Or, well, that's what it felt like to V. The jump from petty thievery to leaving trails of corpses behind him was a short one. ] Everyone always wants something and is willing to pay to get it. [ He'd often reflected how surprisingly stable the job was (if one was willing to ignore all of the danger). ]

[ V smiled at the way she was trying to wrangle with the idea of the tech from V's home. It was a kind smile but it very much alluded to the fact that it was much more than that. It still would require sitting down to talk about in a much deeper conversation - something he'd be willing and happy to do even if he wasn't sure how to explain computers - that maybe wasn't best done over a video chat. ] I used to but I guess somethin' about comin' here took it out. I don't know how happened. [ More like he had no clue and he didn't want to talk about the low-grade panic he was currently existing in. ]

[maritorious]

[Bill would probably agree.] Exactly. Glad someone around here understands how it really is. So long as there's a market, there's a price.

[She frowns though, at the thought. Of course, her idea of a telephone was probably a lot different than his. She was thinking of the big boxy ones around here.] Strange. All of this, it's so... strange. But it's nice to know we're not all alone in it.