Twentieth Theory [Voice]

[i_speak_softly]

To all of you from post-1776 America, happy Fourth of July. [Thoughtful pause.] Well, I suppose it's the fourth of July for everyone else too... I hope you're all having a nice day.

Um. [A throat-clearing, a clanking of metal.] If anyone is interested in current events from - October 9, 2006... I found a newspaper.

[Long pause.] I'm not the only one - seeing things, am I? I thought I was just hallucinating, but the newspaper seems pretty real...

Filtered to the Genius Pirate || Not Really Sure This Is Going To Work

Captain - Might I have a word with you?

Filtered to Winry || Unhackable

Winry, do you have a minute?

Comments

[voice] ((caution: tagging after multiple mimosas. Hence----Hamlet.))

[all7seas]

[Jack Sparrow is currently in some cave in the desert, but he's sort of lucid enough to be pinged by "pirate" and "genius."]

Words words words.

[voice]

[i_speak_softly]

[Er... okay.]

Captain - I wanted to thank you for the other week.

[voice]

[all7seas]

Thank me? What for, lad? Seeing you through the forest? It were nuthin'.

[voice]

[i_speak_softly]

For not taking advantage of me. I wasn't exactly in my right mind.

[voice]

[all7seas]

[There's a snorting sort of chuckle.]

Lad, right mind or no, I'd never behave that way with you. For one? You're a turtle. Two---you're not a woman. I like the wenches, savvy?

[voice] 1/... something

[i_speak_softly]

What?

[voice] 2

[i_speak_softly]

[Oh.] That's not what I meant by - [Yeah, you've just lost whatever points you had gained with him.]

[voice] 3/yeah 3

[i_speak_softly]

Never mind. I don't think we'll ever be any kind of friends, Captain.

WHAT WHAT WHAT!!???? HE'S A PIRATE AND A GENTLEMAN

[all7seas]

...

You don't remember our conversation, do you.

[i_speak_softly]

I remember something, but I don't think it can possibly be what we really talked about.

[all7seas]

You tell me what YOU remember and I'll tell you what I'LL remember and we'll crash headlong into reality. Whaddaya say?

[i_speak_softly]

Um... I told you that the Malnosso were upstanding members of the scientific community, you doubted my identity, we agreed that our differing life philosophies ought to make us enemies, and then we decided to be civil to one another anyway.

What's your side of the story?

[all7seas]

I recall telling you that the Malnosso were fiends. Do you still worship the ground on which they walk, then?

[i_speak_softly]

No, I definitely do not. I still can't recall them doing anything particularly awful to me, but I don't appreciate being kidnapped and held hostage for someone else's experiments.

[all7seas]

Good lad! Now, what if you were kidnapped and held hostage for ransom, then?

[i_speak_softly]

Ransom? None of my friends have much money...

[all7seas]

So you haven't formed an opinion on it, then.

...

What if you were kidnapped and your soul held for eternity in a desert prison?

[i_speak_softly]

That's strangely hypothetical, Captain.

[all7seas]

Funny how the hypothetical can become the thetical. In a manner of speaking.

[i_speak_softly]

Captain, that's not a word.

[all7seas]

Listen close, lad--I've a secret:

...

Words don't matter in hell.

[i_speak_softly]

What?

[all7seas]

[But Jack's journal clicks off suddenly; if Don wants an explanation for that, he'll have to save his questions for another day.

That is, if there IS an explanation that makes any sense to sane people.]