[ Reynir listens without interrupting, nodding along now and then; he understands, at least in part, why Qubit and his team normally didn't interfere in natural disasters. The fact is that interfering in the natural world too much can lead to catastrophe. It is an accepted attitude in Reynir's world, where plenty of people blamed the reckless interference of the Old World for ushering in the Illness, one way or another. You can't fix everything, and trying can make situations a great deal worse.
He has no reason to doubt anything about how Qubit is telling the story, and so he believes him, that his power over technology gave him more information than others had. Is it really all that different than Reynir being the only one who could see the ghosts that his expedition encountered, and warning them all that they should flee? Qubit had been able to see disaster brewing, in a way no one else could yet.
From the sound of it, that disaster could be of truly epic proportions. ]
So - what did you do? Did your team believe you?
[ That question itself perhaps says a little bit more about Reynir than he realizes, that his first assumption is that Qubit would need to go out of his way to prove that he should be listened to, his abilities respected. ]
[ Qubit looks perplexed by that question. It's sort of an odd point to start with. ]
... Of course. Well - Volt thought I was being melodramatic, I suppose, but he was still fairly new at the time. He soon came round.
[ The rest of them had been working together for years at that point, and they'd all proven their individual worth many times over even before the Paradigm officially came into being. By then, they had some major victories under their belt. They trusted each other implicitly. They were a cohesive unit. A superteam. ]
We presented my findings to the Prime Minister, she agreed with my assessment as well, and we got to work.
[ And yeah, it really was that easy. If the Paradigm wanted to talk to a world leader, they generally got to. Sometimes they'd even have their security details leave the room. Because if you weren't safe with Earth's protectors, where were you safe?
Nowhere on Earth, apparently. ]
By that time, we had only hours to reduce the pressure in the magma chamber. So we conceived of a sort of relief well - [ he pauses a moment and starts poking at his watch. ] Hang on, I may still have a visual. Ah - here.
[ He holds out his wrist, and a holographic projection pops up above it - a 3D rendering, in miniature, of Eyjafjallajökull, its surroundings, and its interior, magma and all. ]
[ Reynir listens, reading between the lines and absorbing the fact that Qubit's team must really trust and respect him. He must have been pretty high-ranking, too, to talk to a Prime Minister so easily. He doesn't even make a big deal of it when he mentions it! The leader of a whole country!
His eyes widen, round with awe when Qubit reveals how close they came to disaster. Only hours to solve the problem? How could anybody work in conditions like that? How is it even possible?
That awe is only amplified when Qubit summons an image in the air, of the volcano, only it is not just the exterior, but inside of it, like some kind of map or schematic. Reynir gets up from his chair and takes several steps back, reeling, startled. He thinks for one disoriented second that it is an omen, that he's the only one seeing this..
...but he sees the beams coming from Qubit's wrist and connecting to the image in the air, and he had just said something about a visual, so he is making this appear in the air. Reynir comes back, a little embarrassed, and reaches out, running his hand through the hologram. There is nothing there to touch, just light. ]
[ OOPS. Reynir fairly jumps out of his seat, and Qubit raises his other hand to calm him. ]
It's all right, it's all right! Just a hologram.
[ He holds his arm so Reynir can easily inspect the thing. Yup, just light! But he doesn't really want to go through and explain holograms right now - he does have to go meet Carlisle eventually - so he just proceeds with the story. ]
You can see the internal topography here -
[ The hologram didn't respond to Reynir's gestures, but it does to Qubit's; he reaches in and zooms and rotates it, then pokes a bulbous area a ways underground, which lights up a little brighter than its surroundings. ]
This is the volcano's magma chamber, about a kilometer down. We decided what we'd do was drill a relief well of sorts, from here -
[ He indicates a point in the chamber, which remains lit as he zooms the diagram back out, further than before, such that it now shows part of Iceland's southern coastline as well. Katla's visible too, now, though it isn't marked. Qubit pokes a second spot a little ways offshore, which also lights up, and a slightly curved line draws itself between the two. ]
- to here, giving the magma someplace else to vent.
[ Reynir really is the ideal audience; he stares wide-eyed and impressed, in hushed silence, hanging on every detail. When Qubit gestures to a particular part of the hologram, Reynir's gaze quickly follows. He doesn't interrupt with any more questions (even if he's still a little lost how the projected images are possible) and just listens to Qubit's explanation of their plan and how it would relieve the pressure.
That, at least, is a level of science that Reynir can understand. He knows a little bit of basic veterinary medicine and he is familiar with the need to vent pressure when there is bad swelling, or risk catastrophic damage. A little breathlessly, he asks: ]
[ Qubit smiles proudly, which is probably answer enough on its own. ]
It did.
[ And the next question is going to be "how," right? How did you drill a hole 20 to 30 kilometers long, underwater, into molten magma, in a matter of hours? He's not going to wait for Reynir to ask it, details of implementation are his favorite thing. ]
Obviously, there was still some risk involved - if seawater got into the magma chamber, we'd have run the risk of a phreatic explosion, which would have been much worse. So while Plutonian was digging the channel, we positioned Scylla and Charybdis here, at the entrance - working together, their force shields could withstand a lot worse than twenty atmospheres of water pressure - while I monitored the data and stood by to extract.
[ He might have glossed it over accidentally, but yes, Reynir, you did hear correctly - all the actual digging was done by one guy. ]
But in the end, all went according to plan. The quakes subsided, and Eyjafjallajökull quietly went back to sleep.
[ Reynir gets the general idea of it, saving his questions until the very end. Some of the questions he has he holds back, partly because he's probably already given the impression of being naive and uneducated. He'll just ask Onni later if he knows what a phreatic explosion is (except he's definitely going to forget to do that.
Other questions though, where he's mostly just seeking confirmation, he doesn't mind asking: ]
Plutonian is a person?
[ After a beat. ]
And so are... Scylla and Charybdis?
[ Damn but people from other worlds have got some WEIRD-ASS NAMES, not that Reynir is exactly going to say that explicitly, but it's sort of implied in his tone of voice.
A tiny part of Reynir wonders, in a brief but painful flash, if the Illness could have been prevented it his world had had superheroes like Qubit. But it's best not to dwell on the might have beens. Instead, he just lets himself be happy that in this other Iceland, the day was saved. ]
It sounds like you're a really excellent team. I hope - everyone was very grateful, and recognized how hard you'd worked and how bad it could've been?
[ - regarding the names. Deceased, now, but people nonetheless. It's easier to talk about them now, separated from the loss by a year and change, but he still can't help feeling a certain pang of regret that's not unlike homesickness. They were an excellent team, and he misses that. There's a lot he misses about those days.
It's interesting that Reynir should ask that question, though. He isn't simply taking the public's reaction for granted. Qubit nods, but his expression isn't entirely affirmative. ]
... For the most part, yes. But ... [ he sighs. how to phrase this. ] In the ensuing weeks, the vent we'd opened did cause a local die-off of marine life. Not catastrophic, but more pronounced than I'd anticipated. Moreover, not everyone did recognize how bad it could have been. The data we were working from disagreed with existing vulcanological models, after all.
So we did take some criticism for it. Most of it boiled down to, "Was the response really proportionate to the threat?" Essentially, the scientific community demanded that I show my work.
[ He smiles wryly and shrugs. ] So I did. Wrote up my findings and submitted them for peer review. Which is always a headache and a half, let me tell you. I'm fairly certain they hate reviewing my papers at least as much as I hate writing them.
[ Somehow, every single reviewer thinks his writing sounds defensive! Can't imagine why. ]
[ Reynir closes his eyes and gives a slow nod. It makes sense to him, that there would be consequences. If there weren't, it would seem too much like a myth, something not real. In the real world, trying to make things better sometimes only makes them worse, and sometimes it is necessary but there are still shitty unintended ripple effects. In a way, more than the holograms and more than all the facts and explanation, this detail seals it for Reynir, that all of this story is real. Qubit had done good work, but there's always some exchange.
But as for the scientific community, and showing work and findings and everything, all that is over his head. Please don't quiz him on what peer review means, Qubit. He's just nodding along to some of this. ]
Well, I'm grateful for your work, even if it wasn't my Iceland that you ended up saving.
[ That remark dims Qubit's smile somewhat. It is technically true that it's not the same Iceland, and... there's a strong possibility that superheroes could have stopped the Illness. Momentarily, it feels unfair. Why did his world get to survive so many existential threats when Reynir's didn't?
... But then again, there are always tradeoffs, aren't there. Trusting the fate of the world to superheroes is a big risk. His own world learned that the hard way. ]
Well, thank you. [ He taps his watch to put the hologram away, and checks the time while he's at it. ] Ah. I'd better get going. Carlisle's a stickler for punctuality, I'm afraid.
[ He pushes off from the lab table he's leaning against, does a final last-second tweak to his gun, and closes it up. ]
I'll tell you about the second incident some other time, if you like.
[ That's Reynir for you - he'd forgotten all about why he was here in the first place and the pressing business that Qubit has, and had just been enjoying chatting away without a care in the world. But he takes the hint quickly and gets up as well, getting himself all ready to leave along with Qubit.
When he offers to tell him another story again in the future, Reynir replies, with complete honesty and earnestness: ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
He has no reason to doubt anything about how Qubit is telling the story, and so he believes him, that his power over technology gave him more information than others had. Is it really all that different than Reynir being the only one who could see the ghosts that his expedition encountered, and warning them all that they should flee? Qubit had been able to see disaster brewing, in a way no one else could yet.
From the sound of it, that disaster could be of truly epic proportions. ]
So - what did you do? Did your team believe you?
[ That question itself perhaps says a little bit more about Reynir than he realizes, that his first assumption is that Qubit would need to go out of his way to prove that he should be listened to, his abilities respected. ]
no subject
... Of course. Well - Volt thought I was being melodramatic, I suppose, but he was still fairly new at the time. He soon came round.
[ The rest of them had been working together for years at that point, and they'd all proven their individual worth many times over even before the Paradigm officially came into being. By then, they had some major victories under their belt. They trusted each other implicitly. They were a cohesive unit. A superteam. ]
We presented my findings to the Prime Minister, she agreed with my assessment as well, and we got to work.
[ And yeah, it really was that easy. If the Paradigm wanted to talk to a world leader, they generally got to. Sometimes they'd even have their security details leave the room. Because if you weren't safe with Earth's protectors, where were you safe?
Nowhere on Earth, apparently. ]
By that time, we had only hours to reduce the pressure in the magma chamber. So we conceived of a sort of relief well - [ he pauses a moment and starts poking at his watch. ] Hang on, I may still have a visual. Ah - here.
[ He holds out his wrist, and a holographic projection pops up above it - a 3D rendering, in miniature, of Eyjafjallajökull, its surroundings, and its interior, magma and all. ]
no subject
His eyes widen, round with awe when Qubit reveals how close they came to disaster. Only hours to solve the problem? How could anybody work in conditions like that? How is it even possible?
That awe is only amplified when Qubit summons an image in the air, of the volcano, only it is not just the exterior, but inside of it, like some kind of map or schematic. Reynir gets up from his chair and takes several steps back, reeling, startled. He thinks for one disoriented second that it is an omen, that he's the only one seeing this..
...but he sees the beams coming from Qubit's wrist and connecting to the image in the air, and he had just said something about a visual, so he is making this appear in the air. Reynir comes back, a little embarrassed, and reaches out, running his hand through the hologram. There is nothing there to touch, just light. ]
What...? How...?
[ Qubit, remember your audience here. ]
no subject
It's all right, it's all right! Just a hologram.
[ He holds his arm so Reynir can easily inspect the thing. Yup, just light! But he doesn't really want to go through and explain holograms right now - he does have to go meet Carlisle eventually - so he just proceeds with the story. ]
You can see the internal topography here -
[ The hologram didn't respond to Reynir's gestures, but it does to Qubit's; he reaches in and zooms and rotates it, then pokes a bulbous area a ways underground, which lights up a little brighter than its surroundings. ]
This is the volcano's magma chamber, about a kilometer down. We decided what we'd do was drill a relief well of sorts, from here -
[ He indicates a point in the chamber, which remains lit as he zooms the diagram back out, further than before, such that it now shows part of Iceland's southern coastline as well. Katla's visible too, now, though it isn't marked. Qubit pokes a second spot a little ways offshore, which also lights up, and a slightly curved line draws itself between the two. ]
- to here, giving the magma someplace else to vent.
no subject
That, at least, is a level of science that Reynir can understand. He knows a little bit of basic veterinary medicine and he is familiar with the need to vent pressure when there is bad swelling, or risk catastrophic damage. A little breathlessly, he asks: ]
And did it work?
no subject
It did.
[ And the next question is going to be "how," right? How did you drill a hole 20 to 30 kilometers long, underwater, into molten magma, in a matter of hours? He's not going to wait for Reynir to ask it, details of implementation are his favorite thing. ]
Obviously, there was still some risk involved - if seawater got into the magma chamber, we'd have run the risk of a phreatic explosion, which would have been much worse. So while Plutonian was digging the channel, we positioned Scylla and Charybdis here, at the entrance - working together, their force shields could withstand a lot worse than twenty atmospheres of water pressure - while I monitored the data and stood by to extract.
[ He might have glossed it over accidentally, but yes, Reynir, you did hear correctly - all the actual digging was done by one guy. ]
But in the end, all went according to plan. The quakes subsided, and Eyjafjallajökull quietly went back to sleep.
no subject
Other questions though, where he's mostly just seeking confirmation, he doesn't mind asking: ]
Plutonian is a person?
[ After a beat. ]
And so are... Scylla and Charybdis?
[ Damn but people from other worlds have got some WEIRD-ASS NAMES, not that Reynir is exactly going to say that explicitly, but it's sort of implied in his tone of voice.
A tiny part of Reynir wonders, in a brief but painful flash, if the Illness could have been prevented it his world had had superheroes like Qubit. But it's best not to dwell on the might have beens. Instead, he just lets himself be happy that in this other Iceland, the day was saved. ]
It sounds like you're a really excellent team. I hope - everyone was very grateful, and recognized how hard you'd worked and how bad it could've been?
no subject
[ - regarding the names. Deceased, now, but people nonetheless. It's easier to talk about them now, separated from the loss by a year and change, but he still can't help feeling a certain pang of regret that's not unlike homesickness. They were an excellent team, and he misses that. There's a lot he misses about those days.
It's interesting that Reynir should ask that question, though. He isn't simply taking the public's reaction for granted. Qubit nods, but his expression isn't entirely affirmative. ]
... For the most part, yes. But ... [ he sighs. how to phrase this. ] In the ensuing weeks, the vent we'd opened did cause a local die-off of marine life. Not catastrophic, but more pronounced than I'd anticipated. Moreover, not everyone did recognize how bad it could have been. The data we were working from disagreed with existing vulcanological models, after all.
So we did take some criticism for it. Most of it boiled down to, "Was the response really proportionate to the threat?" Essentially, the scientific community demanded that I show my work.
[ He smiles wryly and shrugs. ] So I did. Wrote up my findings and submitted them for peer review. Which is always a headache and a half, let me tell you. I'm fairly certain they hate reviewing my papers at least as much as I hate writing them.
[ Somehow, every single reviewer thinks his writing sounds defensive! Can't imagine why. ]
no subject
But as for the scientific community, and showing work and findings and everything, all that is over his head. Please don't quiz him on what peer review means, Qubit. He's just nodding along to some of this. ]
Well, I'm grateful for your work, even if it wasn't my Iceland that you ended up saving.
no subject
... But then again, there are always tradeoffs, aren't there. Trusting the fate of the world to superheroes is a big risk. His own world learned that the hard way. ]
Well, thank you. [ He taps his watch to put the hologram away, and checks the time while he's at it. ] Ah. I'd better get going. Carlisle's a stickler for punctuality, I'm afraid.
[ He pushes off from the lab table he's leaning against, does a final last-second tweak to his gun, and closes it up. ]
I'll tell you about the second incident some other time, if you like.
no subject
[ That's Reynir for you - he'd forgotten all about why he was here in the first place and the pressing business that Qubit has, and had just been enjoying chatting away without a care in the world. But he takes the hint quickly and gets up as well, getting himself all ready to leave along with Qubit.
When he offers to tell him another story again in the future, Reynir replies, with complete honesty and earnestness: ]
I'd really like that.