keeping this simple

[staystraught]

feel free to change to first lol

As bored as he got, at least the arrivals arrived like clockwork. The holographic "FREE HUGS TO START YOUR STAY OFF RIGHT" spun lazily above his head, and he was seated underneath it, polishing birdarangs.

Couldn't really risk target practice, after all.

Comments

[darlingmonster]

This was wholly and completely ridiculous, had to be a side-effect of the cryonic stasis, because Julian refused to believe he'd been drawn through worlds for the sole purpose of saving this one via something as ridiculous as physical contact.

It was wonderful to feel the sun, though, after resigning oneself to being frozen near solid for at least a hundred years. If he was dreaming, he supposed it could be worse.

The holographic sign catches his attention moreso than the busy city around him--it's an illusion he's not familiar with, and is curious about. The fact that it's offering something as banal as 'free hugs' is ignored.

"What sort of technology is that?"

[staystraught]

"Trade secret," he answers, largely by default, but the question causes him to look up and set aside his polishing rag.

Close up, a trained eye can see a beam of faint light connecting the sign above to Robin's glove, which he fiddles with. The sign comes to a halt.

"Holograms aren't common, but most people usually guess 'em when they see 'em."

[darlingmonster]

A trained eye, or a superhuman one. Julian tilts his head curiously, as if that will help him get a better look at it.

"They're only theoretical, where I'm from." A few of them had been working on advanced technology like that, but everything had been set aside to work on the Botany Bay, or the attempts at curing the biological weapon that had been used to attack them. "I've never seen one in actuality before."

[staystraught]

"Computer generated ones are more difficult." Most people are familiar with stored holograms, he supposes. Unchanging.

"I guess you're from some prehistoric backwater, hm?" He smirks a little. The level of holographic sophistication he has isn't available for public consumption.

"You do have computers, right? They make this stuff that much easier."

[darlingmonster]

"I don't know, would you consider the year 1996 to be a prehistoric backwater?" Julian asks mildly, refusing to be offended. After all, a good part of the world was a blasted mess due to the wars.

"Yes, we do have computers. We're not savages beating rocks together." Julian's sure that in some regards, the technology his kin have perfected would certainly astonish.

[staystraught]

"Barely passes," he admits reluctantly. "That's the year I was born."

Is he biased? Yes, he is.

"Still stuck on physical consoles, I'm guessing," he says. Which isn't fair; if he wasn't Batman's protege, he would be just as much so. But that is still pre-touchscreen, so this place might throw him for a loop.

"I'm also guessing they're pretty big. This is a whole thing right here in my glove."

[darlingmonster]

Julian considers, then. The boy appears to be in his mid-teens--younger than he was when they escaped the control of the scientists that created them, certainly. So it may be...late 2000s, 2012 at most, he thought.

"Not entirely." They had created handheld devices, tablets--and even if they hadn't, Julian adapted quickly. They all did.

"More powerful computers, certainly are a bit larger. But it's hardly stone and chisels."

[staystraught]

"But it got your attention," he answers. "But I guess, so would a stone and chisel."

He stands, shaking out his cape and brushing off any dirt.

"Before we continue, do you have superpowers?"

[darlingmonster]

"No."

Yes. Maybe. What exactly constitutes superpowers, in your definition of the term? Julian's abilities are perfectly average--for his kind, which happens to be genetically-enhanced human.

"Why, do you?"

[staystraught]

"No, just a lot of specialized training," he says, but he flares up the hologram sign and its offer.

"But this place punishes you for not donating to their energy efforts. And having powers complicates that."

[darlingmonster]

That admission is enough to pique his curiosity--after all, the compound had been designed for nearly exactly that, aside from creating them in the first place. Training them to be soldiers.

"And what exactly are we expected to do to 'donate'?"

After a moment of consideration, he also asks:

"And what complications would those be, out of curiosity?"

[staystraught]

"Preface: this doesn't make sense," he warned, "but apparently you just have to touch people. Touch. You don't have to, like, generate any kind of kinetic energy. Just the act of touch is the answer to their prayers or something, it's simple and I can't figure it out and I don't like that."

He can't help throwing his hands in the air to illustrate the frustration. It is a pain.

"And your powers go haywire if you don't, on top of the sickness that normal people like me get."

[darlingmonster]

He was right--that made no kind of sense. It was ridiculous, and his face said exactly what he thought about it without him needing to. But he did anyway.

"...you're right. That doesn't make sense at all."

He would need to outline, exactly, what constituted 'powers.' And if his natural skill--granted to him as it was by unnatural means, but part of his genetic code nonetheless--counted.

"Wonderful."

[staystraught]

"Isn't it, though?" Granted, Dick had no powers. He got the sickness, when he didn't touch anyone in time, but M'gann was such a hugger, he rarely fell into that trap.

"What gets me is how they harvest the energy. I mean, it is transferable, but if it's, say, heat, it's just transferring between the two people. What harvests it? This should be a measurable phenomenon."