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oneidjitatatime · 7 years

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Curiosity in a Junkyard

The Clever Magenta Box faded and trembled into existence, throomed to a stop next to a black Dodge Avenger that had seen better days and an orange Charger with a Confederate flag on the roof that had seen better decades. The door creaked open in its distinctive way, and The Second Anomaly-- Jenny, The Doctor's Daughter-- stepped out. She tugged a business card out of her pocket, glanced up at the sign-- "Singer Auto Self-Service Salvage Yard," she muttered. "I wonder if he knows it spells 'sassy?' The extra 's' is for extra 'sass.'" "Doesn't look like much," the cat muttered in his telepathic Tasmanian accent as he trotted out of the magenta TARDIS Police Box behind Jenny, wove between her legs and sat down in the dirt. Jenny smirked faintly, tugged the door shut behind Jack, and moved towards the main building. "Don't sell it short. Some pretty wonderful things have happened in junkyards." Jack's upper lip twitched pensively, dubiously, showing one side of his teeth for a moment before he languidly wheeled about to pad after her. "In my experience, they usually have way too many very big, very hungry dogs for that to be true." Jenny reached up and rapped gently on the house's front door, sliding her hands into the pockets of her green coat as she waited. "From what that adorable skinny werewolf boy told me, with this yard the big dog's actually the proprietor."

"Dammit, Frank, I don't give two shits! Just haul ass over there and get them damn blades ASAP!" Bobby slammed the phone down on the desk cradle and took a long pull on his beer. He grimaced and mumbled something about how can that idjit still be alive. Sitting back down at the desk he was about to start translating a piece of text someone needed for a case in Missoula when a sound that was decidedly not automotive kicked up at the front gate of the yard. "Balls." Reaching behind him he grabbed the sawed off shotgun always kept loaded and walked quietly across the living room, staying well away from the windows. He saw a youngish looking redhead walking up the porch with a yellow cat, not stopping to think that was in any way odd, and stood to the side of the door. She knocked and seemed content to wait, which narrowed the possibilities of who the hell she was and what the hell she was doing on his porch. He cracked the door just enough to get the curled bill of his hat out. "I ain't got no interest in yer relationship with Jesus and I don't need any encyclopedias, so unless you got a box a Thin Mints in that coat, take a hike." Then promptly slammed the door in her face and crossed his arms to wait.

Jenny arched a red eyebrow at the slammed door, an expression subconsciously very much like her father. Jack glanced up at her, squinching his eyes. "Rude. Stroppy, even. And what's a Thin Mint, when it's at home?" Glancing back down at him, Jenny replied: "Girl Scouts of America. I'm programmed with the tactics of every military and paramilitary organization in human history, and their door-to-door fundraising campaigns were quite effective. They proved useful couriers for The Blue States Faction in The Culture War of the mid-21st Century." Jack snuffled dubiously. "Get you, Digger. A regular Encyclopedia Ginger." Turning her attention back to the door, keeping her hands in her pockets the whole time, utterly unflapped, Jenny announced. "I don't have any cookies, Mister Singer, and I don't know Jesus personally, though I bivouacked with some Anglican Marines once so you might call Him a friend of a friend." "...I need help learning to fight monsters, Mister Singer. Aliens I can handle, monsters are a very different thing. And a lad named Garth told me you were the best in history at training Hunters."

Son of a bitch. Bobby looked out the window again at the oh so very young girl and swore to put a silver bullet in Garth himself. He cracked the door just enough to make himself clear. "Garth ain't right in the head, darlin. That boy's mamma dropped him on his head one too many times. And I ain't too sure about your mamma either. Monsters are a load a bullshit, so you just go back in yer spaceship an go fight little green men. I'm just an old grease monkey who ain't got time fer yer teenage delusions." Bobby had a sinking feeling she wasn't as crazy as he thought she was, but he'd be damned if he'd be responsible for another young kid goin' off and gettin herself killed because a him.

"I don't, ah," Jenny smiled a tiny, tiny smile, "have a mother. I never did." Unless you count Donna. She named me. Not to mention, am I even a teenager yet? But he says it like he'd say child, and I've never been one of those, either. "If I'm delusional, sir," she suggested, "then I'm no more delusional than you. And it's the same delusion. The same... 'family business.' 'Saving people, hunting things,' or 'saving worlds, rescuing civilizations, and defeating terrible creatures.' Either way, it involves an awful lot of running. ...love the running." She reached down and she picked up the cat, slung him over her shoulder. He widened his eyes in surprise at first, but then stretched and arched happily, reaching a paw out to grasp at the air. Then she turned to walk away, and glanced back over her other shoulder at that part-open door. "And, being delusional, I'm going to keep pursuing this. Going to keep looking 'till I find someone else to teach me, whatever it takes. But that'll be a shame, won't it? Because that means whoever teaches me won't do nearly as good a job as you would have, and a little lycanthrope told me there's nothing that bothers you more than Hunters who half-arse The Job." Jack jumped down almost immediately, trotting along beside her, he never did like to be picked up for very long-- and he glanced up at her as they went. "We're giving up?" he murmured. "Just like that?" "Either the conversation's at a South Dakotan stand-off," The Anomaly replied, wryly, "or..."

'Family Business'. Either Garth was runnin his mouth more than usual or she had at least run in the same circles as the boys for some time. He listened to that tone in her voice, watched her turn and walk off, saw blond wavy hair and a dinky little heirloom pigsticker twirling in her hand. Tucking the sawed off in the crook of his elbow, mumbling to himself that he was too fuckin old for this shit, he stepped out on the porch. "What're you after?"

Garth had been running his mouth, in a sense. Preaching the gospel of The Brothers Winchester and their "real" father, Bobby Singer, over a campfire while he held hands with his pretty young bride. Perhaps he had been waxing nostalgic for his days in the field, but he spared no gushes about his heroes. Jenny had not yet met those brothers herself. She was still learning how to pilot her TARDIS, and indeed, her TARDIS was still learning how to fly-- the fact that they were learning together actually helped matters more often than not, making their errors a little bit less of a trial. Running with Samuel Colt and Wade Wilson in The Old, Wild West was still in her future. But by damn, she'd be ready for it when the time came. "What're you after?" She smirked to herself and then down at Jack as Bobby called after them. Jack squinted at her. "...you weren't nearly so chessmastery when you were blonde." "Maybe I'm just taking after my dad," Jenny drawled in reply, and turned to face Bobby, speaking up to call across the near distance: "I have military training, sir. Pretty extensive training. I've fought in trenches even you might have trouble imagining. But it's come to my attention that there's creatures out there I'm not trained to fight. Creatures that don't necessarily follow the rules of warfare I've come to know, ones that pose a threat to people who just want to live in peace. And what sort of soldier would I be if I went into battle unprepared against things like that?"

Bobby stood and looked...looked at the little slip of a girl standing there talking to a cat. Yeah, she probably had done everything she said she'd done. John Winchester was a fuckin Marine and look where it got him. And then he laughed. A full bellied laugh that eased into a chuckle as he ambled down the stairs and set the shotgun down on the trunk of the junker in front of the porch and leaned an elbow next to it. "Look, sweetheart, I don't know what Garth told you, but there ain't no Monster College, or Monster 101 course I can teach you. I've been doin this shit fer 30 odd years and I still don't know half a what I don't know. Hunters get into the business for mostly the same reason. Someone close to em got took or killed or both by some supernatural bastard or other. If you got somethin' specific you need to know how to kill, I might and I mean MIGHT be able to help ya out. But if yer just here for Monster Boot Camp it don't exist. Now haul on outta here cause yer waistin time I need ta be spendin translatin Aramaic so some dumbass can try not ta get hisself killed."

She took a moment to respect the fine care that had been taken of that shotgun. Was that Boeing oil she smelled? But then he answered. Jenny's eyes narrowed slightly and, hands coming out of her coat pockets, she crossed her arms over her stomach-- the same classic posture she'd taken when standing off against her father. This was not the reply she'd been hoping for. "I suppose I didn't know what I was asking. This is a new theater of war for me." "New species hiding under the fabric of reality that each obey their own rules of physics. Sufficiently advanced biology is indistinguishable from magic." "I fought a strain of werewolves inhabiting an isolated corner of The Appalachians in Vermont, but they were resistant to the weapons described in The Torchwood Archive, mistletoe and concentrated moonlight, and realized that this species was terrestrial in origin, not extraterrestrial." Jack shuddered and cleaned himself intently, gnawing on one of his front paws. "(Bad dogs. Scary bad dogs.)" "We lost track of them, but picked up rumors of another pack-- which was how we met your friend Garth," Jenny continued. "I know better than to commit genocide, over-my-dead-body-- werewolves can be people too, just like The Hath-- but if I come up against dangerous ones, I need to know how to protect people. I've inherited my father's drive to fight the good fight-- while I try and find him, I want to honor his code." She hesitated. "And then there's these-- black smoke entities. They jump from body to body like The Gelth. How can I fight something like that?"

Bobby closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He could feel a whopper of a headache coming on. She was already just running around out there with some cracked up intel from some group over in Britain. Torchwood had come up in conversation and none of it was good, and if she was misidentifying aliens and demons she was about two steps from being hell hound chow if she stayed on her own. "I don't know what the hell a Gelth is, but that black smoke is a demon, a damned soul possessing a live human body. Werewolves can only be killed with a silver bullet to the heart. This is what I was tellin ya sweetheart, you don't even know what you don't know." he sighed. Looking over her shoulder he saw the pinkish looking box. It was the same design as the blue one that alien fella the boys ran around with drove. "If yer gonna stay, ya might as well park that box out back where it ain't gonna draw attention. And that cat had better be trained cause I ain't got no litter boxes or flaps in the doors, and I definitely got no patience for animals shreddin my books and furniture." He picked up the shotgun and turned back to the house. "Come on in when ya get settled and we'll see how ya are with translatin languages."

Jenny's brow furrowed more than a little at the you don't even know what you don't know. God, this was-- this must be what it had been like for members of the conventional military to transition into black ops spy work. They'd gotten so good at swimming in their depth of the pond that they had no Earthly (or exoplanetary) concept of how deep it really went once the continental shelf dropped out from under you. And then he namedropped dark spirits, and she felt the jarring impact of a new floor dropping out from under her. "A demon. An actual demon. The choirboys I bivouacked with would talk about them in the metaphorical sense--" --a chill raced up her spine, and, continuing the analogy about the ground dropping out from under her feet, right now she felt a bit like her father had, perched and poised over that yawning pit on Krop Tor, that dark urge to jump to fall-- She shook her head, her red red hair washing about as she did so. Managed to find her proverbial footing. For now. "That Box as you call it," she smirked faintly, "actually draws precious little attention, considering her color. But if it's throwing off your feng shui, I can move her. She's got this perception filter thing, usually the only people who register that she really doesn't blend in are the astutely observant-- those attuned to the oddities of The Universe-- and some slightly psychic people." "Can't be that astute, or that psychic," Jack squinted. "...I don't think he can hear me." Jenny shot her Cat an odd look. "Don't be ridiculous," she murmured, "of course he can." But then Bobby was going on about cat flaps and scratching posts and training, and it dawned on Jenny that no-one who'd actually heard Jack carry on a telepathic conversation, sentient as could be, could doubt his ability to self-regulate. She opened her mouth. And shut it again. How curious. Did he have some kind of psychic training, then? Defenses? She wagered psychic paper wouldn't work on him either. "He'll be fine. He can keep his claws to himself, and he has a rather Heinleinian way of not needing cat flaps." Jack harrumphed. "I can keep my claws to myself if he keeps those big stompy boots away from my tail. And his rocking chairs, he looks like a rocking chair sort of bloke." Jenny simultaneously ignored Jack, and watched Bobby for any hint or clue that he was hearing Jack and pretending not to. Now might not be the best time to insist that your housepet could deliver telepathic one-liners in a Hobart accent, you know, on top of showing up on an old soldier's doorstep demanding he dust off the old drill sergeant uniform. "I might be more help with those languages than you'd think. One of the perks of my particular mode of transportation. It's still hit or miss, though. She's still learning how to be a time machine, I'm still learning how to be a time traveler, it's an odd dynamic but it works surprisingly well."

He stopped with his hand on the door. "I don't know about any a that perception bullshit, I just know there's a big damn pink box sitting in the front a my salvage yard. Ya'd have ta be blind NOT ta see it." He watched how she moved, listened to how she talked, lamented at how young she was. It was too late to protect her from knowing about the bad things, even too late to keep her from fighting bad things. He looked back at himself and a much younger Dean, heading out to play catch in the park. The look on the kid's face when he realized they weren't going to be drilling anything, just...playing, like any other normal kid. The way she moved, the way she spoke, told him she'd never even had days like that. Wouldn't know a baseball from a hand grenade. And now she wanted him to fill her head full of more evil shit and how to kill it. He sighed and dipped his head. Pulling the door open he shouted over his shoulder. "Well park it out back, ask it how much Aramaic it knows, then get yer ass in here."

"Well," Jenny smiled faintly. "Blindness is in the eye of the beholder. It's like you just said, 'I don't even know what I don't know.' I'd imagine that's true of a lot of people and a lot of things. A lot of people don't know how to look and don't know how to see and don't know how to observe. So they can't see her." "And she's magenta, not pink," she corrected after another heartsbeat. "She's very particular about that." Then she turned and walked back to her ship, vanishing inside-- at which point it vanished in a slow, fading VWORRP. VWORRP. VWORRP. with the light atop strobing white white light. As Bobby had opened the door, Captain Jack had bounded over and slithered in through the gap, trotting in and squinting his eyes as he looked about, tail furling and unfurling. "Mate, you weren't joking about the books, hey? Well. I promise not to sharpen my claws on any first editions if you promise not to use my teleporting arse as target practice." Making himself at home, Jack spotted an old wheelchair in the corner that had gathered some quantity of dust, and immediately bounded into it like it was a Captain's Chair-- and started cleaning himself, very studiously licking down his own back. It was a few minutes later that Jenny walked back in, looking annoyed but trying to be Zen. She'd been gone about a week, and had had to lead a cell of Ogron mercenaries in rebellion against their Dalek employers and that had really taken some convincing. But eventually she'd made it back to Bobby's backyard not so very much the worse for wear and with very little observable time having passed. "Right then, sorry, she's sorted." "And, ah, she says Aramaic is easy, it's Enochian that's hard. And something called Krop Torese, but honestly that just sounds made up."

He watched the ginger furball streak passed his boots and grumbled, closing the door behind. He walked over to the desk, put the shotgun back in easy reach, sat down, pulled open the drawer, took out the scotch and poured it into the nearest drinking vessel. This just happened to be a yunomi which was fine since it wasn't a formal occasion. He knocked the drink back and looked across the room to see the cat sitting in his old wheelchair. Pouring another snort, he raised his cup. "Better you than me, pal." Bobby had just set his cup down, preparing to get back into his books when the girl strode in. He squinted at her, something was decidedly...off...about her, but he couldn't tell what. He indicated the chair in front of his desk for her to sit. "Before we get all mixed up in business, you need to give me some background. I'm guessin' yer the same kinda alien that Doctor fella is. We ain't met, but my boys have run with him some. Secretive. Enigmatic. That shit don't fly here. There are at LEAST three things I can name off the top of my head that can make themselves look so much like you yer mamma....well...folks who saw you everyday couldn't tell the difference." He poured another shot and sat back, looking at her over the cup. "Also, there's something damned peculiar about that cat. So give me as much as you can about who you are and what you're really doin' here. I need to be able to get a feel for you, see if I can trust you before we start formalizin' any arrangements."

"Better you than me, pal," Singer drawled. Captain Jack the Cat glanced up from his throne upon the wheelchair, and squinted his eyes at the older human. "At least if I'm sitting in it, you can't roll over my tail with it. Brrrr, and I thought rocking chairs were bad." Then Jenny came back, and despite himself, The Captain started purrrrrring again, purring not unlike a certain Impala, a rrrrrrumble deep in his orange belly. Unlike his telepathic dialogue, Bobby should be able to hear that plain as day. And he resumed cleaning himself, this time picking the claws of a hind-paw with his teeth. "Yes," Jenny nodded, smirking appreciatively at the fact that he caught himself with the reference to a hypothetical mother. "Some intel would not go amiss. I'll... try to be brief. But it's complicated." She draped her blue-green coat over the back of a chair and leaned against a table, arms over her tummy, standard at-rest posture for her. "I'm... similar to The Doctor. I seem to have most of his abilities and a wild, instinctive, hit-or-miss ability to use them, especially since my first regeneration. But I wasn't born naturally of his species and none of us are quite sure how exactly like him I really am. I was-- progenated off of him, it's sort of like cloning-- in the middle of a war zone on a distant planet in the year 6012. Part of that progenation process was to fill my mind with the kind of training and indoctrination that would make me a perfect soldier in our war against The Hath." "But my Dad was rather fed up with wars. And he taught me a better way." "He thought I died, and we got separated. I went looking for him through time, riding a shuttlecraft back through Rifts and Time Eddies and wormholes until I got to the early 21st Century. Picked that cat up along the way-- he's a funny story in and of himself." "I managed to find my Dad almost by accident. We both got roped into a conflict that almost unwrote all of reality-- and I got killed. Again. And we were separated. Again. And now I'm looking for him. Again." "Except this time when I came back I think I got a little more of my Dad in the bargain, a little cooler a little cleverer, and this time-- this time I have Magenta. So I'll find Dad again. It's only a matter of time." "But until then, I try to do what he would do. Fight the good fight, the only way I know how. And it looks like that includes fighting magical monsters, not just alien ones." "That's why I'm here, Mr. Singer." "It's my Family Business too."

He tipped the cup back in one knock and placed it gently on the desk. "Yep, that was pretty much as weird as I'd expected." He waved at the chair. "Sit down, yer makin' me edgy. Well, edgier." He arranged the research he was doing into a coherent pile and sat back in his chair. "I don't do a whole lot of field work anymore. I'm gettin' older and I'm sorta the only one who keeps track of the lore." He indicated the overflowing bookshelves and bookfurniture. "The hunters on the road who run into somethin' they don't recognize, or don't know how to get rid of, they call me. I reckon I'm the Spooky Shit Database." Bobby sighed and poured himself another shot, still debating whether to empty the bottle and send this girl packing or not. "I get that you've seen battle. I even get that you've fought some of the evil bastards we deal with. I understand the whole Family Business thing, lord knows. Half the hunters who do this have that particular baggage attached. What I want you to understand is that if I do take you on as an...apprentice, I guess you'd call it, there'd be more book learnin' to start with than actual monster killin'." Taking a sip of his drink he eyed her for microreactions. "If yer not stayin', if yer gonna run off in that pink box of yours more than you're here, there's not much point in this exercise either. You were gone a bit longer than the 5 minutes I didn't see you, which means whatever I teach you is gonna be gone just through diminished retention and intermediate distraction." He chuckled. "Yeah, I'm self taught, but I know the big words." "Here's what it boils down to. If I agree to this, I am accepting responsibility for your ass, no matter how much you tell me I'm not, so don't even start. Just cause you can't physically die don't mean there ain't a thousand other ways you can get damaged, possibly permanently, and if I start trainin' you then you run off and get pureed by a Hellhound, that's on me." He downed the rest of his drink. "That's it. That's the speech. If we can come to an accord, fine. But then I get the scoop on what the hell is goin on with that cat."

That was... quite a speech. Her microreactions had been-- perhaps infuriatingly steady, though there had been a furrowing of brow near-infinitesimal when he had mentioned book learning. She sat for a moment, in the chair he'd indicated, and dwelt in the moment. Weighed and measured. Considered all the angles. And when she spoke, she spoke from the heart, and her eyes didn't flicker upward at such an angle as suggested deceit or prevarication. "Your autodidacticism is impressive," Jenny replied, after a period of silence, see, I can do big words too. "I concede that I don't have a lot... of experience... with actual book learning. With protracted study. It's been programming and muscle memory and fieldwork all the way. So this will be an... adjustment. But it's an adjustment I'm willing to make, if you're willing to put up with the fact that it is an adjustment. An operation is useless without good intel-- even more so, an operative." "Mr. Singer, I have a brain like a sponge and I have near-eidetic physical memory. Whatever skills I learn, I retain. But I can promise you-- when I'm here, I'm here. I only went away for-- an unexpected interval-- because parking my machine isn't an exact science. (At least not for me.) But now my boots are on this ground and unless I'm called away suddenly by unexpected cosmic events-- it's been known to happen --I expect to carry out my tour with you without going AWOL or MIA or getting KIA... or worse." "A superior officer is always responsible for those under his command, whether he likes it or not, whether they like it or not. But I, in turn, will fulfill my responsibility to you. I'm reporting for duty. And that means something. I won't derelict that duty. I won't disgrace your leadership or your teachings." "An accord?" She glanced at Captain Jack, who didn't say anything, but he did that slow-blink thing cats do when they trust you. Jenny nodded to him gratefully, then looked back to Bobby. "That's affirm, if you'll have me." "But. Two things." "One:" she grinned softly, wrly. "She's Magenta. Not pink. She's very particular about that. It's her name and it's her color." "Two: Captain Jack is a really long story. And you might need a bigger glass."

"Alrighty then." Bobby reached behind him and pulled out a smallish, oldish tome; his most reliable book of exorcism incantations. He handed it across the desk to Jenny. "You take a look at that. Tell me what language it's in and based on the contents what you think its purpose is. If you need that box to help you translate, you'd either better start learning earth languages, or make sure it's with you every single time you go anywhere." He smirked and refilled his cup. "I recommend option one."

Jenny warily took the book from him-- but she pointedly didn't glance at the cover immediately. "Well. She is with me every time I go anywhere. She's how I go everywhere." "But I do see your point. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say." She stared to nowhere for a moment. And sort of-- conferred-- with that psychic presence always at the back of her mind. Well, sometimes at the front. And Magenta was... surprised by the question. She'd been programmed with just the scantest source-code for a Matrixian OS, and a lot of the things she did she sort of did just on... instinct. Jungian default settings, so to speak. So she really didn't know a lot of what... wasn't possible. So when Jenny asked if Magenta could temporarily disable the autotranslate function of the telepathic circuit formed by Jenny's ersatz "Time Lady" brain and Magenta's learning psychic interface-- Magenta had no idea. But she didn't see why not. All of this communicated in a couple of heartsbeats with just-- the vaguest impressions. Like holding a conversation with just your eyebrows. But then Jenny felt a certain neuropsychic sensation-- that was, itself, completely untranslatable if you didn't already know what it felt like --just sort of fade away. And then she nodded. "Okay, I'll give it a go." She glanced down at the book, and frowned. "...actually. I think I do know this one. Sort of." Jenny opened the book and began to page through it. "Okay, definitely only sort of. My programming includes the entire military history of humankind, including the martial philosophies of Ancient Romans, and this is... Latin? It doesn't read like military rhetoric, though. For one thing, Cicero was funnier. There's a lot of names and epithets I don't recognize." Her eyes narrowed to laser thin lines as she concentrated. "It's for... removing something. Uninstalling? ...something?"

Bobby nodded and put down his glass. "I'll have to take your word on Cicero's wit, but yeah, that's Latin. The fact that they didn't put anything in your programmin' about any of the 13 crusades leads me to suggest you get your money back on that Roman History section. "Those other words are religious in nature. I don't know how things work out there in the rest of the universe but down here on good ol terra firma, there's gods, demons, angels, demigods, all that bullshit. And there's different pantheons that follow different rules and different hierarchies. What you got there is the Roman Catholic Church's Greatest Hits for exorcisin a demon from a human host. Takin the black smoke out and sendin it back where it came from." He leaned back in his chair and rested his elbows on the arms. "You've got a good basic understandin of readin a second language and takin cues from context. That's important. It's a skill I'd like you to keep workin on a little while every day, without the box." He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Right now, I sure as hell ain't gonna turn down something that can read Aramaic, and I'm hungry." He grabbed his research pile, stood up and walked toward the kitchen. "So you and the box can take up this translation I've been workin on all mornin, and I'll make lunch." He plopped the pile on the kitchen table. "You got a food preference? I don't serve safety pin soufflé or anythin weird like that."

"27 Crusades," Jenny corrected automatically, and then paused. "Oh, right. 21st Century. No, right, just 13 at this point. Well, most of the historical files embedded in my head were translated into 61st Century English, not a lot of the original Latin text was preserved. Just... bits and pieces. Cicero. A bit of Marcus Aurelius. That bit about coming, seeing, and conquering, that's in there a lot." "Suffice it to say that the better part of my real-world religious education is Anglican in nature. Not much call for Latin in the 51st Century Anglican Marines. And so far-- most of? --the deities and celestials I've encountered were just aliens posing as gods, or misinterpreted as gods, sufficiently advanced biology is indistinguishable from godhood. But I suppose all myths have an element of truth. Some more than others, it would seem." Her eyes widened and glittered almost animalistically as she processed what he was saying about the black smoke. These creatures were mental in nature! Psychospiritual, neuropsychic, of course their Achilles heel was conceptual in nature, spoken aloud instead of fired as a projectile! This book was an arsenal! "You're an arms dealer," she murmured, not realizing the lyrics she was paraphrasing. "Filling us with weapons in the form of words." "Yes," she nodded, as Bobby described his intentions as regards her lesson plan. "That sounds like a good way to arm myself." She smirked at the idea of fair exchanged he suggested, and gently mentally asked Magenta to re-furnish the translation protocols. Magenta only hesitated a little while she scrambled to figure out how, bless her, and Jenny felt that untranslatable sensation reinitialize in her limbic system. "Aramaic back online. And food sounds lovely, thank you." "Safety... pin... no, I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that recipe." "I've... I've developed sort of an affection for late 1950s diner food. D'you have anything like that? Chili?"

Bobby only understood about every third word she said, but he got the gist. "All I know for sure is that all the critters of a deific persuasion here are indigenous. And all the things that you need to kill, maim, or trap 'em are also indigenous. Either incantations, spells, weapons, they'll all be found on Planet Earth." Hearing her request, he went to the fridge to see what he had in stock. "You're in luck. I ate my way through childhood on late 1950s diner food and I do indeed have the makins for chili." He started pulling things from shelves and putting pots and pans on the stove. "With beans or without?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Fascinating." Jenny frowned. She didn't have nearly the experience or the education necessary to conceptualize this. But there were beginnings. Beginnings of learning and moving beyond just the soldiery indoctrination embedded in her brains and her genes. "The whole of The Universe to choose from, and all these... 'gods' emerge here? Their whole food chain evolves... here? No wonder aliens are always trying to invade this planet, no wonder my Dad can't stay away for more than a little while. It's like some sort of... spiritual junction-point for the whole of Reality..." She trailed off, lost in thought, trying to wrap her head around the theory... but a moment later, she realized he'd asked her something. "Oh! Um. Beans, please. And five alarms minimum. I'm fairly red-blooded." She paused. "Well, a tinge of orange." "It's a good color," Captain Jack approved, curled up in a ball and mostly asleep on Bobby's wheelchair.

Opening the cupboard and taking out the Scotch Bonnets he looked at her and mumbled, "On your head be it.". Bobby started frying, chopping, boiling, and reducing while glancing at the table to see if his 'student' was making any progress on the text. He had two fellas tryin not to get killed by a particularly nasty Tunannu living in the Clark Fork River. "You and the box getting anywhere with that text?" Then he remembered the cat, for some reason and asked if that critter needed feedin too.

Jenny had never gotten to fight a lupine-wavelength haemovariform with her dad. (Family business, indeed.) So she had never gotten to see him pore over tomes and find the weakness of a monster hidden between the lines of ancient poetry or prose. The greatest weapons in the world were books, he'd be the first to say-- and without even realizing it, Jenny was just now realizing how true that was. She squinted down at the page, mouthing words to herself. She turned one page forward and back and forward again, trying to get the flow of the text, and then nodding to herself. It took her a moment or two before she realized Bobby had asked her anything, so intent was she on her search. Though of course Jack had sat up instantly at the mention of critter-feedin' time. "Oh, um-- what?" she glanced up and blinked. "Ah-- tuna? He's not supposed to have too much of it, but once in a while as a treat is fine, if you've got it. Or any of that tinned chicken. Just put a plate down, he'll go mad for it." Captain Jack didn't need the plate to be down for him to go a bit mad, he bounded down from the wheelchair and padded as close as he dared to Robert Singer's clompy booted feet, and the glass-pack that was his purr rumbled like he was carrying the storm in his wake. His eyes were wide and his tail expressive and he kept saying "Food please? Food? Please?" instinctively excitedly even though he knew for whatever reason Bobby couldn't hear him. Speaking a little louder over the cat's perseverations, Jenny continued: "As for your-- ah-- Tunannu--" she paused to reflect wryly on the false-cognate similarities between Tunannu and Tuna "--it seems here like it's related to The Leviathan, and can take many forms, whale, fire-breathing sea serpent, hydra... crocodile... not much is said about how to kill it, something about Ba'al killing them, or-- Ba'al's sister binding them-- in one version, God Himself shatters the heads of the beast. In another, he slaughters Leviathan to feed the faithful in Heaven." She hesitated and she frowned. "Oh, hang on a tick. It's afraid of a... parasite? A 'kilbit' worm? Gets in the gills? ...Does that help? I don't know if you can find that at the local bait shop."

Bobby looked down at the ginger furball, who appeared as if called, purring and emanating Did Someone Say Food? vibes. Feeling a bit silly he indicated the stove. "Delicate cookin goin on here, cat. Gimme ten minutes and I'll see what kinda white meat I have on hand." Rolling his eyes he added "Please." He figured he should get his head examined for talking to a damn cat, but it just seemed the thing to do. As he was combining things to put on the simmer, he heard about the worm. "Ok, Antediluvian fauna." He tapped the wooden spoon on the pot handle rhythmically. "Back in the living room, over in the wall shelves in the corner there are some scrolls. Should be on the third shelf down." Then he turned to the cabinet looking for tuna.

"Ten whole minutes?" Jack squeaked disappointedly. "But I could be starved by then! Utter cactus!" Jenny rolled her eyes, and muttered. "Drama queen. I haven't seen a Captain this hysterical since we ended up on that starship that was a mock-up of The HMS Pinafore and were beset by robots that thought they were The Pirates of Penzance. Besides, ten's a good number. Ten's my favorite." "Yeah, yeah," Jack grumped, wandering back away from Bobby again so the busy kitchen boss wouldn't clomp a boot down on his tail as previously discussed. "Living room, wall shelves, corner, third shelf down," Jenny nodded at Bobby's instruction, and whisked off to investigate, the orange cat trotting on after her, gazing up at her like she was the sun and he was Copernicus. "Now, when you say 'antediluvian,'" Jenny called out loudly as she examined the scrolls on the shelf to find the ones he meant, "do you mean strictly in a metaphorical sense? Because while my files are strictly military based, I happen to know that there was never any literal Flood--" She stopped talking. She had opened one of the scrolls and was staring at it bewilderedly. Then she returned to the kitchen, gazing bewilderedly from the scroll to Bobby and back again as she walked, Jack wandering in a lazy zig-zag ahead of her like he'd gotten into some rum as an apertif for the impending victuals. "...I don't understand. I know for a fact that the fossil and the geological record give an accurate representation of historical progression, but according to this... according to this there was a Biblical Deluge, and before it, Enoch, and Nod, and Eden... how can... how can this be possible? Two histories simultaneously true and completely contradictory, parallel lines nested into each other like a double helix? This is... this is making my head hurt."

Holding the can of Chicken of the Sea and now digging through a drawer for a can opener, he listened to her walking back into the kitchen and probably got one out of five words this time. Improvement. "I think that intel you got grafted on your gray matter was shoddy at best, young'un. Cause as long as I've been alive on this earth the fossil record has shown evidence of the Flood. Not sayin it was Biblical in nature cause all the religions that I know of have a myth related to it, but it definitely happened." He found the can opener, scooped the tuna on a ceramic dish and put it down outside his cooking area. Then he got a bowl and put some water in it and decided that was about as hospitable as he was going to be to a cat. "Alright, cat. Come and get it." He walked over and examined the scroll over her shoulder. Yep. Biblical flood. He pulled his wallet out and got Kimber Mac's cell number out. "Here's my contact on all things alien, and timey. And really good Scotch. Give her a call if you want to discuss the whole layered thing. That shit doesn't even stick in my brain long enough to make it hurt. Or ask your box. I gather they understand that nonsense better than any of us."

Jenny frowned. "How perplexing. I'll need to talk to Magenta about this. She has a better multidimensional perspective than I do. But no, the creation myth where I came from was a little... different. Had more of a feminine touch, for one thing. But more focus on the mission at hand." Of course then Jack basically galloped over to the bowls that Bobby put down, skidding to a stop on the floor and diving his orange face deep into the bowl of the tuna. Immediately he started rumble-purring as he chewed, creating a fantastic combination of noises-- rumblechewing-- --all the while crowing telepathically about it. "Strewth, I haven't had proper albacore in aaaaaaages, this is brilliant--" Jenny squinted down at the scroll as she spread it out over the table. "Don't talk with your mouth full, it's rude." Captain Jack chuckled and kept making a sound as close to the onomatopoeia OMNOMNOM as humanly imaginable. Jenny glanced up from the scroll and took the number Bobby offered her. And she blinked. "Wait. I know this one? I met her! We fought The Knell together! Oh, I loved her hair!"

"Never met her in person. Seems nice enough though." He sat down while the chili simmered and tapped the tabletop. "Ok. The chili's gotta simmer an hour. That's plenty of time to consult with your box. Now, you can tell me what the story is with that cat."

"She's a peach," Jenny informed him in no uncertain tones. Not to mention-- maybe she could get in contact with my dad? All this fruitless searching... She snapped back out of her reverie when she realized he'd asked her that question again, and it still wasn't any easier an answer than the last time he'd asked. "That's a funny story." "I actually picked up Jack when I was stranded on a spaceship fighting xenomorphs in 2179, as cliche as that sounds." "And you know? He's never actually given me a straight answer as to where he comes from. He thinks it's hilarious to give a different answer every time someone asks him for a backstory, like it adds to his 'feline mystique.'" "In one story, he's descended from an orange cat that got ionically manipulated by an empathic Isolus, that it left a permanent impact on his genetic structure and future descendants had a latent gene involving teleportation and psychic communication, which Jack manifested as a kitten." "In another story, he's descended from a Cheetah World kitling who crossbred with a local feline while hunting for prey on Earth." "In yet another story, he's the immortal spirit of a small town in Lowell County, Kansas." "He once tried to tell me he was a Whifferdill who copied a psychokinetic alien cat too closely and got stuck. Or that he was a ship's cat for a certain Pirate of The Caribbean that got lost in The Bermuda Triangle. Or that he's from a planet with superheroes and he just happens to have a metagene. Or that he was the result of genetic experimentation gone wrong by The Bureau Tygon in the latter half of The 24th Century." Jack scoffed. "Not gone wrong, it went perfectly, it just had unexpected results. They were trying to make some wishing thing, but I think I came out much nicer." Jenny rolled her eyes, and kept going. "He could also have been the Earth's memory of Tasmanian Tigers once they'd gone extinct, living on in the Aboriginal Dreamtime, but he managed to escape to the material world by taking the form of an extant species." "Doesn't have to be Earth's Tasmania," Jack pointed out. "Lots of planets have a Tasmania." Ignoring him, Jenny continued: "But my favorite is this, because it seems to be the one he mentions the least often and I think that's likely to make it the truest: he's the son of a rogue Time Agent with one of The Catkind from New Earth shortly after The Year 5 Billion. How he got from The Year 5 Billion to The 22nd Century, I don't know, but still-- I think he's named after his dad, not after that Caribbean Pirate as he claims." Jack got a bit grumpier at that one, his tail rattlesnaking, and he sullenly began lapping up the water in the bowl next to the tuna. "They named the monkey Jack. Why not me too?"

"So, boiled down, that's an alien cat that can appear and disappear, and can talk with it's brain." Bobby sat there a minute, then got up to stir the chili. That kind of made sense of the weird feelings he got around the cat sometimes, like it was person-ish. Well, more person-ish than most cats thought they were. "I reckon the reason I can't hear him is one of the amulets or charms I carry around. I tend to be paranoid about things that ain't me getting inside my body." He looked down at the cat taking a drink and looking slightly moody. "Alright, Jack. I apologize if I've been rude. You're a guest in my house. If there's anything you need, just tell Miss Jenny and she can tell me. That work for everyone involved?"

"Well, he might not be alien," Jenny clarified. "Unless he is." Not really much of a clarification, but that was Captain Jack for you. "That makes sense," she then nodded. "I've encountered amulets that enable latent telepathy in humans. Makes sense there would be artifacts that instill the opposite effect. Psychospiritual firewall. Smart precaution. Where can I get one?" Jack paused in his drinking, and glanced up at Bobby. He squinched his golden eyes at the man, and his tail curled and unfurled and swayed back and forth behind him. "Cheers, mate. No worries, she'll be apples." And then he started cleaning himself again, happily full-bellied.

"I'm gonna take that as a yes since your not currently tryin' to shred me or my belongins." He went back to the table and sat. "I can probably dig somethin up for you, but for one thing, you couldn't talk to your pal there, and for another I seem to remember your clan can do your own internal warding. "Now. What does that say about aquatic parasites?"

"Don't count your chickens, mate," Jack chuckled, gleefully enjoying being able to prattle on incognito. "I show affection by sharpenin' me claws on your best leather furniture." "Rethink it," Jenny chided. Captain Jack scoffed. "My 'clan' usually has some pretty substantial training, or so I'm told," Jenny admitted, "and I'm at best a self-taught amateur. It would be great to have a back-up option in case of mental incursion." She paused. "And a little peace and quiet during my sleep cycles wouldn't hurt." Jack snorted. "If you just made my food dish bigger on the inside, I wouldn't have to come wake you up when you lie there for hours and let me starve." Jenny rolled her eyes, and then refocused on the matter at hand. "Right. Well. So we've got the cranial breach option-- the shattering of heads-- but since it's God described as doing it in the, ah, 'lore,' you'll probably need something with some serious kick. Man-portable, your options would probably be a Carl Gustaf 84-milimeter recoilless rifle, or a Kinetic Energy Penetrator if you know someone with access to that level of ordnance. My old sonic shotgun might have done it on full blast but somebody planted bananas where they used to sell fresh batteries." "As for the bioweapon option," she gestured to the scroll, frowning, "I mean, from the sound of things they've been extinct for--" She trailed off, stared to nowhere for a second. "I could get some. I could go back and get some."

Watching the girl talk to the cat and knowing it was talking back was a little unnerving, he had to admit. She had a point about the ordinance. It was very rare that they'd had to physically blow some shit up, so he back burnered that one for a while. He knew where he could get some military grade stuff, but getting it to those boys out there could take time and still might not work. He pondered what she'd said about going back and getting some. Not completely dismissing the idea. "Can you steer that thing to exactly where and when those things lived? Does that thing have a close enough illustration of what they looked like, so you'd know one when you saw it? Hell, can you even swim?"

"I beg your pardon!" Jenny arched both eyebrows. "I can swim like a seal! Well, a Navy SEAL, maybe not a seal seal." "Not to mention, the first Time Lady ability that I managed to teach myself-- completely by accident --is a thing called the respiratory bypass system that lets me hold my breath for ages. Came in handy when I was blowing a Queen Alien out through an airlock..." "Cheers for that, by the way," Jack piped up. "As for finding them..." Jenny shook her head. "Maybe I can convince Magenta to tune into their position-- to home in on them? Like what we were talking about earlier, asking her to figure out the timelines..." "It's more negotiating than steering at the best of times. I'll just have to negotiate... harder?"

Bobby chuckled. "Alright, you won't drown. But my more important point is, these are millennia old illustrations of critters that have never actually been sampled for DNA cause they're extinct. How're you gonna know if you found one when we can't even be a hundred percent sure this is what they actually look like?!"

"Yes," Jenny grimaced. "I suppose there is sort of an element of Here There Be Monsters mapmaking about this. Not exactly a 68T manual." She tilted her head and squinted at him. "Guess I'll have to bring a trained, experienced monster hunter with me. I mean, you use this lore all the time to figure out how to catch things with undocumented or poorly documented appearances, right? I mean-- you've fought invisible things!"

TBC

#thesecondanomaly #Curiosity in a Junkyard #Carryover post

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