withtheoldbreed | d-day + 187 through 193 ✯ spam

[Open Spam, throughout Port]

[Gene doesn't regret joining the Marines - God help him, it's true - but there's no doubt that the Army, Air Force and Navy guys over in Europe have the better deal when it comes to leave. There's no Paris or Rome to liberate in the Pacific, no London to be shipped back to for R&R, just the shitty shacks and tents on Pavuvu, overrun with land crabs and rats and still reeking of rotting coconuts.

So the idea of actually getting to explore the city - especially now that there's no war on, no Nazis running the place or snipers to look out for - is kind of neat, even if Gene's not so sure it's enough to really make up for the ship seeming like it was falling apart. Or the last port.

But he still hits the town - in civvies, probably for the first time since getting on board the ship - and does his best to enjoy himself. He doesn't speak French well enough to really communicate with anyone, but Snafu does, and they're so used to being in each other's company that it just makes sense to team up anyway... even if Snaf nearly gets them kicked out of at least one museum.

Because Gene's that kind of tourist - he gets up as close as people are still allowed to be to the Eiffel Tower and goes to the Arc de Triomphe, visits the Louvre and eats at some of the more modestly priced restaurants, walks along the Seine and finds himself oddly drawn to war memorials and places he recognizes from pictures when the city had fallen to the Nazis.

He can also be found in book shops and staring with mild confusion at the Apple Store. This Paris is very different from the one he imagines his brother had seen. Everyone's on their phones and looks different from what he's used to, and it's not bad, but he feels out of place. He has no idea with how Steve coped with waking up seventy or so years in the future, because even just this is very, very eerie.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ain't you from the past? This is modern day; my modern day.

Guess seventy years really does make a difference.

Oh, yeah. Y'all didn't even have computers back then.

Wanna go in and look? Or you wanna see my iPad?

Is that different from an iPhone?

[Yes, he's curious!!]

Yeah. It's a tablet, not a smartphone.

[She pulls it out and shows him. Her background is set as a picture of her and Merlin, her dear departed warden.]

See? It's got photos, music, games, a calendar...

[It's not as foreign a concept as it could have been - he's aware of the iPhone, and the comms aren't exactly entirely dissimilar, in some ways - but it's still weird. Portable radios are heavy and awkward in his time, and there's no such thing as a portable phone.]

And almost everyone has one?

No way. I never had one before this month. They're expensive.

Feel like I keep seein' people with them. Or other phones.

And stuff from Starbucks.

[It's just weird.]

This is a city. There's lots of rich people here.

[She slides the iPad back into her purse.]

You could get a phone or tablet if you wanted.

What would I use it for? Don't know if it'll be any good on the ship.

A tablet's like a computer. Why wouldn't that be any good?

I can call people with my comm. And I didn't think we had internet on board.

[He's learned what that is thanks to some of his modern friends, but having never really seen it in action, he's still not really sure the visual he's got for it is accurate.]

We don't, but there's lots of stuff you can use a computer for besides internet.

I've seen some of the games. [He's very not sure what to make of Call of Duty.] Guess it's a way to kill some time.

You can watch movies on it, too. It don't play DVDs, but you can download 'em. Or ask for 'em to be added, since we're on the Barge.

Nice to be able to watch those whenever you want. We'd just hafta try and watch a movie as often as you could while it was out - never knew when you were gonna see it around again.

They got movie theaters back in your time period?

Yeah, we got movie theaters.

What's your favorite movie?

Gone With the Wind. You?

I don't really got one, I don't think.

Hold on.

[She makes a silent wish, then starts fiddling around with her iPad. After a moment, she holds it up for Sledge to see - Gone with the Wind is playing on its screen.]

Cool, huh?

[Gene brightens - it's been a long, long time since he's seen the movie.]

Could you show me how you did that?

Yeah. I just wished for it, and then--

[She scrolls out of the movie.]

-- it showed up in iTunes right here. See?

[It's on a lost of other, more modern movies that she'd added weeks ago.]

That's incredible. That many reels of film'd probably take up a whole room by themselves.

Everything's smaller since we moved to digital. It ain't about physical space anymore.

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