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[ Reynir gives a solemn nod despite Qubit's reassurances. Plans go awry. People get lost and stuck and Reynir knows that. Even if Qubit doesn't think anything will go wrong, he might get surprised. Reynir has every intention of texting him that evening just to check, and if he doesn't respond........ well he'll come up with a plan then if he has to. ]

No, no trick to it.

[ He gives the small sheaf of runes over to Qubit and explains: ]

A few of these are just passive, they just - keep dangerous spirits or... hopefully the undead from wanting to get close to you. There are others that'll warn you if they are getting close to you despite the other ones - you'll just notice a, uh, a small amount of smoke coming off them. If that happens, get the hell out of there.

[ Then, curiously: ]

What is so important that you are hoping to bring back?

[ Qubit flips through the papers, nodding, but his mouth tightens slightly with concern. He hadn't expected them to be always on, and that complicates things with respect to Carlisle specifically. What effect might they have on him? At best, it could taint the experiment, and at worst they might actually harm him.

He might need to leave them behind today, after all. Find another companion and make a separate trip to test them properly. ]

Supplies, hopefully. Did you see the couple of lorries that just appeared? I'm hoping there'll be something useful inside - food, in particular. You and the lads are doing excellent work at the farm, but it'll still be a while before our food supply is really self-sustaining.

[ And until then, they need to take advantage of every opportunity they get. ]

[ Reynir gives a few solemn nods of understanding and approval; food is worth the risk. There had been famines, in Iceland, after the Old World collapsed, before the little island was set up to produce enough food to sustain its population without fishing the now-dangerous oceans. ]

If you've got room... even if there's spoiled food, it can be useful as fertilizer. But hopefully you'll find some things that are still good.

[ Most of the scavenging Reynir has done has been of places abandoned for almost 100 years; his brain just defaults to thinking most stuff will have long since gone bad.

But thinking about the famine has him thinking about Iceland, about what Qubit said about having been there. Quirking his head to the side, he says: ]

You never explained about why you went to Iceland. The story with the volcanoes?

Hm? - Oh, you're right. I didn't, did I?

[ He perks up a bit. As bittersweet as the memories are in hindsight, there's a lot about his time with the Paradigm that he doesn't regret, too. And this is a much better time to talk about it. ]

I might need to give you some context, first. Are you familiar with the concept of superheroes?

[ Since... he's already pretty sure Reynir's Earth doesn't have actual ones. ]

[ Reynir looks around the cluttered space but spots somewhere he thinks he can perch without doing any damage. If it's any kind of a story, he wants to be able to sit and enjoy it, not look like he's about to wander off at any moment.

Qubit's question surprises him and he tilts his head to one side, blinking a few times before hesitantly answering: ]

Um.... Do you mean, like, in legends and epics? That wrestle giant serpents or... talk to gods?

[ In other words, nope. He thinks Qubit is saying two separate words, there, and that he thinks the heroes from old myths are just really super duper. ]

[ Yeah, Reynir can just sit anywhere, tbh. There's nothing on the workbench that can't get shoved aside. Qubit leans against another part of the table. ]

Mm... not so much legends and epics as comic books and television. Although yes, wrestling giant serpents has happened a few times.

[ All right. So in Reynir's cultural context, the superhero "mythos" was either lost in the apocalypse, or never existed to begin with. He pauses for a moment to find a good starting point. ]

So. Superheroes are people, usually but not always possessed of extraordinary powers and abilities, who choose to put their gifts to use in service of the greater good. As a result, we can take on threats that ordinary people and institutions simply aren't equipped to handle. For instance, alien invasions, supervillains... volcanic eruptions.

[ It is entirely possible that some history of comic books existed and was even preserved past the collapse of the Old World. The trouble is that Reynir is... barely educated, to put it generously. He is, after all, a literal and actual peasant.

Qubit starting from the very beginning is, therefore, wise. Reynir listens, nodding along and doing his best to absorb it all. ]

What d'you mean, extraordinary powers and abilities? Like... magic?

[ He's... probably going to need some examples here, dude. Baby steps. He can tell that Qubit isn't just talking about mages, though. This is something more specific. Some mages did dedicate themselves to public service, whether in the military or by acting as a village's healer or protector, or by working as a sentinel or some such. But Qubit seems to be talking about something different. No mage would be able to stop a volcano from erupting. ]

Are you a superhero?

[ Qubit seems to know a lot about them, after all. ]

Magic's one possibility, yes. Whether that means traditional spellcasting, or some other ability with a magical source. But there's a wide variety of such sources - psionics, mutation, alien technology, and on and on.

[ He gradually starts talking with his hands the further into this he gets. ]

And the actual powers are as diverse as the people wielding them. Superhuman strength or speed. Energy constructs. Control over electricity, or fire, or weather. Flight, under one's own power.

Or, in my case: technokinesis.

[ Here, he'll demonstrate. He reaches into a junk bin and produces a fist-sized chunk of mangled electronics, which is suddenly surrounded by a bright blue-green light - and it morphs, over a second or two, into a sleek digital desk clock, displaying the current time. This he hands over to Reynir as the same eerie light fades from his eyes. ]

So to answer your question, yes. I am.

[ Kinda. Sorta. Close enough. ]

[ Reynir is honestly understanding about half of what Qubit is telling him; there are a lot of terms and concepts that Qubit races past that Reynir has never even heard of. He feels like he needs a dictionary for this conversation. What is psionics? What is an energy construct? He knows the word for energy, and what it is to construct something, but... put together what do they signify?

At least he is getting some sense of the scope of what Qubit is talking about. Rather than magic, which is vast and varied and can accomplish any number of things once you learn the right runes, Qubit is talking about people who have a specialized inherent skill. Many Finnish mages can control the weather, Reynir knows. But all of them have to use the same spells to do it. If someone existed who could do it without knowing that runo... that certainly would be an extraordinary power.

Before he can ask any follow-ups, however, Qubit is talking about his own abilities and then showing them off. Reynir watches in wide-eyed wonder, mouth dropping open as Qubit scoops up a handful of broken old trash and somehow lights it up and transmutes it into a working clock. Reynir gapes. He accepts the clock automatically, with numb hands, turning it over and over, rattling it, looking from it to Qubit and back.

Then he says, with almost comical wonder: ]

That. Is. The coolest thing. I've ever seen.

[ Qubit smiles, but it's not the self-satisfied preening he would do normally. Sure, this is astounding to Reynir, as he knew it would be - but by his own standards, it barely qualifies as a parlor trick. He hates so much that his powers are broken, you guys.

Still, he bites his tongue. As strong as the impulse is to bitch about his problems, it's a little more important to avoid broadcasting his weaknesses. (Not that anybody here currently has seen him at full strength, but...) ]

So. [ He folds his arms, getting back to the story. ] Back home, I worked with a team of like-minded individuals, called the Paradigm. This incident took place a few years ago. We'd been keeping an eye on seismic activity around... [ he clicks his tongue a few times, dissatisfied at his recall. ] The name escapes me. Eyja-something, I believe? It's one of the long ones.

[ Reynir was paying attention and curious before, of course, but now he is rapt. He nods along, green eyes intent as Qubit begins to tell the story properly. A like-minded superhero team? Doubly awesome. It's all he can do to stop himself from interrupting and insisting Qubit tell him who every single member of the team was, and what their abilities were. He's trying to be a good audience.

It takes a moment to realize what Qubit is even trying to say, and when he does piece it together he offers immediately: ]

Oh, Eyjafjallajökull?

[ You know, a memorable and easy to pronounce name, all around! ]

And there was something strange? About the activity?

Edited 2019-11-09 00:58 (UTC)

[ When Reynir fills in the name, Qubit snaps his fingers. ] That's the one!

Right. Icelandic meteorologists had noticed a marked increase in the frequency of earthquakes around Eyjafjallajökull, which led to concerns that an eruption could be imminent. Now - normally, we didn't try to avert natural disasters of this sort, because the systemic consequences of doing so could be wide-ranging, unpredictable, and many times worse than the disaster averted. Instead, we would focus our efforts on saving lives, preserving infrastructure, and so on.

In this case, however... Due to my own abilities, I had access to monitoring equipment and data that official forecasters didn't. And the longer the quakes went on without an eruption, the higher the pressure grew in the volcano's magma chamber, and before long my models were predicting an extreme likelihood of it triggering an eruption in Katla.

[ You know, the much larger volcano 25 km away. The one that's historically had eruptions triggered by Eyjafjallajökull. That Katla. ]

And further, that Katla's eruption would be much more severe than anyone was prepared for. Possibly on the order of Krakatoa, or even, God forbid, Tambora.

[ .... which, as he says it, he realizes Reynir has quite likely never heard of, so. ]

For reference - the sound of Krakatoa's eruption was heard almost five thousand kilometers away. And Tambora put so much ejecta into the atmosphere that it caused years of global cooling and crop failures worldwide - not to mention obliterated most of the island where it took place.

Edited (same icon twice in a row) 2019-11-09 16:39 (UTC)

[ 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. ]

Edited 2019-11-13 02:19 (UTC)

[ 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. ]

What...? How...?

[ Qubit, remember your audience here. ]

Edited 2019-11-13 19:30 (UTC)

[ 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: ]

And did it work?

[ 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?

That's right.

[ - 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.

Ah! Yes, I kept you too long, sorry.

[ 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.

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