Library, Monday

[intotheout]

Tip came into the library after her workshop, still feeling all sunwarmed and chill. She plopped herself down behind the circulation desk and started idly scrolling through her email.

After about half an hour she started to realize how quiet the stacks were. Suspiciously quiet.

"Do I want to know, Bill?"

Bill gave a little bubbly shrug.

"Yeah. . . . Maybe in a little while."

She wanted to enjoy her chill a little longer, first.

[open!]

Comments

[intotheout]

The mole on the back of Tip's neck started flashing purple excitedly. If Shuri kept that up long enough, Tip was going to be able to tell what she was saying by more than just context and tone.

"Yeah. Pretty much."

[scoffs_at_tradition]

"HIM?!" Shuri spat. "This is completely unacceptable."

[intotheout]

"Yep," Tip said. "I am really glad this isn't actually my universe."

In her universe a recent president had straight up refused to come out of hiding and take the job back after the invasions. That -- and the fact that everyone had been moved to Arizona for the duration of the invasions -- had changed politics in Tip's America pretty thoroughly.

[scoffs_at_tradition]

"I am as well," Shuri admitted. "The American president got kidnapped once, but we all moved on from that pretty quickly."

[intotheout]

"That's kind of impressive, though," Tip said. "Do you know how they did it?"

[scoffs_at_tradition]

"I did some digging," Shuri said, "because it was all very hush-hush other than the part where he was on the news, and I believe it was because the president thought someone in the Iron Patriot suit was a friend when it was not."

She poked at her phone. "Do you have Iron Patriot? It's a stupid name, but the man is pretty cute for an old guy."

[intotheout]

“There’s probably at least one Boov who took a human name like that, but other than that, no.” Tip shrugged. “The Boov were our slightly-less-terrible invaders. They’re kind of cute but not in the way you mean.”

[scoffs_at_tradition]

"Well, he used to be called War Machine, which is really so much better," Shuri said. "I hope he goes back to it." She frowned. "He might have already, not that anyone was confusing him with Iron Man."

[intotheout]

"There is definitely a Boov named War Machine." The Boov were like that. "Sounds like you have a lot of iron people."

[scoffs_at_tradition]

"Well, it's just one rich guy but he likes to make iron suits, apparently," Shuri said. "I haven't seen one up close."

[intotheout]

"I'm assuming you don't mean, like, medieval armor," Tip said. "But hey, I suppose everyone has their hobbies."

She couldn't even really say anything about this one apparently leading to the president getting kidnapped. J.Lo's time travel had nearly broken time, and Funsize's death ray would potentially have taken out all of New Boovworld.

[scoffs_at_tradition]

"Like medieval armor plus jet boots that make him fly," Shuri said.

[intotheout]

“That seems...unstable. Does he have fins in the arms or something?”

[scoffs_at_tradition]

"Something like that," Shuri said, pulling up a photo that hovered in front of her phone screen.

You know, like normal phones. "This is one that's publicly available."

[intotheout]

“Holy crap, look at your phone.”

Tip was a little jealous, yes.

[scoffs_at_tradition]

"You like it?" Shuri asked, smiling proudly. "I made it."

[intotheout]

Tip nodded. “I definitely want one. My friend back home is an engineer, but he tends to work more on the larger scale. Flying cars, a telecloning booth.... He made a new community out of cornstarch once. It didn’t go well.”

[scoffs_at_tradition]

"Did it rain?" Shuri guessed, wincing.

[intotheout]

"Oh yeah," Tip said. "In his defense, he's not from Earth. But he was also trying to do it for making up for accidentally making a puppy really really large, so . . . it didn't go over super well."

Poor J.Lo. That had been right before they'd decided to visit his people's new homeworld and he ended up arrested for treason. And then elected president.

[scoffs_at_tradition]

"Poor guy," Shuri said sympathetically. "But if he took notes, it's still science! You can learn from errors, after all. I learn more from really big ones, myself."

[intotheout]

"I'm not sure if that's how the Boov scientific method works, but yeah, he's totally learned from his mistakes." Tip shrugged with a small smile. "Once he finishes panicking over them."

[scoffs_at_tradition]

"I would love to know how their scientific method works," Shuri said enthusiastically.

[intotheout]

"I'll check," Tip said, shooting off a quick text to J.Lo on her (much less impressive) phone. After a suspiciously short amount of time, considering she hadn't been texting with him already, she got a reply. "He says 'Sames asto humanscience. You tries, you fails, you tries again.'" She rolled her eyes. "And now he's demanding to know if I'm sciencing without him."

[scoffs_at_tradition]

Shuri laughed. "Tell him I would be delighted to science with him. Maybe not on an architecture project."