001 - video

[tormado]

[The feed is of a Japanese man who looks to be in his late 20s. He has a pretty sour expression on his face - when he speaks in somewhat accented English, the tone isn't as angry as his expression and is mostly just really wry. From the background, he appears to be indoors at his government appointed residence.]

I don't want to sound ungrateful, really. I do enjoy the free trip to Florida and the place to stay and everything. But normally before I jump across worlds for a job, I have a strict "call my assistant, iron out the contract and write me the check first" policy. Or at least, ask politely. Or ask at all. Or just give me literally any kind of warning whatsoever.

[He sighs and looks around.] But, okay. You guys need heroes. That's cool. I can work with that. I guess since I did get some kinda welcome when I got here, I'll take the job and the house and pitch in with the hero stuff pro bono. Can anybody fill me in on what this "swear-in" stuff I heard about when I got here? Didn't get too many details on that?

[There's a beat. He considers disconnecting, then pauses, then speaks again in a somewhat more curious tone.]

So, this is Florida, right? You guys got Disney Land here? The one in my world kinda. Got blown up before I was born.

Comments

[ex_question191]

Actually, for some reason Disney World is in Alabama.

[tormado]

...how the.

How did that happen. Did they move it or something?

[ex_question191]

I actually read up on this. Apparently, Disney decided Orlando was too close to Cape Canevral — where the Porter is? So the reason it's not in Florida where it should be is the same reason most people aren't coming from worlds where everyone's being Ported in all the time.

[ the more you know. ]

[tormado]

What a rip. I was ready to go buy day passes and everything.

Well, how far away is Alabama?

[ex_question191]

About a nine hour drive. I dunno if they have a Porter near there, that might be faster.

text

[lyingheart]

The Swearing In Ceremonies are... events where we're generally showcased in some way, and convinced of registering with the government. Most have involved some outside occurrences that can make them dangerous to attend, but not all of them have been, and there's an action force of imPorts who specifically patrol those events along with local enforcement agents now to keep unwanted activity to a minimum.

text

[tormado]

I see.

Well I got no reason to believe you guys don't know how to keep your own stuff safe. What's registering with the government entail? Something to do with this thing on my wrist that says 'registered hero'?

permatext

[lyingheart]

Registering means you have more resources at your disposal from the military, with an attached cost of expected attendance to required events and activities. Those haven't been military in nature -when we've been involved with taking those sorts of actions were largely under our own choosing, not government pressure. It doesn't precisely mean we had a choice, but in the way most here consider important, we did.

[tormado]

Okay. Sounds pretty simple.

So what do most imPorts do? I'm usually a free agent, so am I gonna really bum somebody out if I just decide to do my own thing here?

voice.

[altercate]

Why would you be grateful to end up in Florida?

voice.

[tormado]

I was led to believe that under the right circumstances, it makes a good vacation spot.

Beaches and stuff. Although apparently Disney World ain't even here.

voice.

[altercate]

It's not in the state. You have to drive to it somewhere else.

[ clearly this is a reason why florida is terrible right ]

Does this happen to you a lot?

voice.

[tormado]

Gettin' dragged into other worlds? Yeah, a few times. Sometimes by choice, sometimes just as randomly as this Porter business.

Never to a different version of Earth or backwards in time though, so this is....definitely new.

[selfequipped]

So, you've done some dimension hopping, or is it just world hopping?

[One is Star Wars-y. The other is ... closer to what she is familiar with, though she did a little worldhopping with Noh-Varr and the others.]

[tormado]

They're kinda the same thing where I come from, but more of the former than the latter, I guess.

[selfequipped]

How so? If you don't mind me asking. A lot of my precursor talks with people means that I have to explain this stuff, so let me tell you: I can't help but wonder how it goes in places where it isn't new.

[tormado]

Hoo, geez.

I don't mind, but it's, uh, kinda complicated to explain if you're not used to it. Here, lemme just...

[He switches to text to make this a little easier.]

Okay, so there's our world, Earth, where humans live and stuff. And there's five other 'Earths' that we assume all started out the same when they were made but have changed a bunch since then and are basically totally different worlds by now. They all exist in different dimensions and they're all their own planets that are totally distinct from one another, but they're still connected, so travel between them is possible. Earth became separated from the other worlds like over 5,000 years ago, but it's sorta..reconnected in the past 60-70 years or so.

So it's like. The same thing. They're all different planets in different dimensions, but they're all still part of each other. And anyway, getting from one to another is really tricky. You gotta either find a gate, which is rare, since most of them are really old and have some super esoteric way to make 'em work or they just don't work at all, or have access to a ship or something that can just brute force its way through the fabric of space or have access to some real old magic type shit to open a temporary gate.

I use a mix of the latter two. There's also stuff like the Porter that can grab or send someone to another world, but the tech is pretty young so it's definitely still got kinks to work out. Honestly, I'm pretty impressed by the Porter. Seems to be way ahead of our stuff in a couple ways.

audio;

[dragony]

You have an assistant that schedules your jumps across worlds.

[ The most deadpan. ]

audio;

[tormado]

Also to help with all the paperwork that comes from jumping across worlds, yes.

[He does seem aware of how goofy it sounds.]

[dragony]

[ ...... She's honestly not sure if he's being serious. ]

... I suppose it's not the strangest thing I've heard of.

[tormado]

No? How about this:

Oingo-boingo whoopsie-knickers.

video;

[hoboagogo]

...Why in the hell would someone blow up Disneyworld? [OBVIOUSLY THE MOST PRESSING ISSUE HERE.]

video;

[tormado]

Because they wanted to kill a lot of people in a really short amount of time.

video;

[hoboagogo]

...yeah, guess so. Still, shit man. Plenty of other targets.

[IT'S DISNEYWORLD OKAY. WHY EVEN.] Like someone else said, it's still here. So you used to getting dragged to other worlds?

video;

[tormado]

I wouldn't worry about that. Whatever other targets you're thinking of probably got hit too.

And, yeah. I mean, it's hard to get used to something like being displaced from your home outta nowhere, but I've done it enough times that I get the gist of what's going on, at least.