nexus_sages | Enter the (Ex-)Imperator.

*Icon notwithstanding, Samus is in her "zero suit" at present. The introduction is met with a slight nod, and an extended, open hand.*

Samus Aran. Looks like you've seen some interesting times.

She knows a handshake when she sees one, at least, although her inclination is more toward clasping arms. She closes the gap between them enough to grasp Samus' hand with surprising, wiry strength.

"Heh. I get the impression I'm an oddity here." Everyone else looks so pristine, clean and healthy. She's been people-watching. "My world is mostly desert. This much green is...mm."

It's beautiful, is what it is, in a way that makes her unutterably sad.

*Samus usually favors a forearm-clasp, herself, but she's keeping her approach low-pressure, letting the newcomer find the interactions she's comfortable with. Her own introduction to the Nexus had been much more manic, and her nerves had suffered as a result. As for her grip, she matches Furiosa strength for strength, but no further.*

We're all oddities, here. It's perhaps the one common trait.

*Samus can recognize sorrow, and hazards a guess at its source.*

It wasn't always all desert, was it?

"That's almost reassuring," Furiosa says dryly. "When do I stop feeling out of my depth?"

Her lips press into a thin line at the question, and she glances over her shoulder again, at the stretch of bloom behind her. "No. I even grew up in a Green Place, but it's gone now. All we can do is try to rebuild."

And she'll be damned if their efforts fail.

It took me a few months. Part of the question is how much you want to adapt to it.

*Samus nods thoughtfully.*

I've seen ruined ecologies restored, it's not impossible. What kind of technical base do you have to work with?

*She glances down to the metal hand, and back up.*

I can make a few educated guesses, of course.

Furiosa's eyebrows go up; that glance at her arm and back feels vaguely offensive. Not enough to call out, particularly not after having just promised not to start any fights. Still, she's ruffled.

"Variable." She answers tersely. "And dependent on what materials we can scavenge."

Actually, the technology they have is painfully rudimentary, but Furiosa has nothing to compare it to. She's telling the truth, though. The Citadel is wealthy. They have wind turbines and water pumps. Villages out in the wastes are far more medieval.

*Samus overlooks the possibility of offense until it's too late; her mind was on the question of tech capacity and determining what advice would be useful to Furiosa. Well and good to describe the finer points of asteroidal ice-mining, it doesn't help anyone without post-orbital capability. Furiosa's description does prompt a thoughtful nod.*

Workable. I can think of some things you might want to look up; an unpowered sewage treatment method that gets you water, soil, and fish?

*She adds a nod in the direction of the arm.*

Is that your work?

The exchange of ideas is a good way to soothe her bruised ego. Furiosa nods mildly, calming, mollified. "We're on top of an aquifer, with pumps to draw up the water, but the supply can't be endless. We're already using greywater in the gardens, but I won't turn down suggestions."

"The problem with sewage composting is that so much of the population is sickly..." Fish? Fish. Furiosa knows what fish are, but she can't recall seeing any for some time. The mention of them, though, makes her think of the pool in the Vault. Space enough for a trial run, perhaps.

She flexes the metal arm grimly, and nods. "Not the first version I made. It's not pretty, but it functions."

Sickly as in carrying disease, or sickly as in unable to do physical labor? The former is less of a problem than the latter; the method I'm thinking of deals with disease, but there's a year or more's turnaround on the soil, and some manual labor involved in processing it, but you won't be dumping waste products back into your aquifer. There's a library, I could show you the notes on it.

*The explanation of the arm gets an appreciative nod.*

It's sound work. Is it wired in, or...?

"Both. But I meant the former. There's...fallout. Everywhere, but some places worse than others. I'd say a good three-fourths of my people suffer from it in some fashion."

Library? Library sounds good. For all that she's a war leader, not an intellectual, Furiosa can read, and likes to. "I'd like to see that. Thank you."

Glancing down at her arm again, she shrugs. "Hasn't let me down yet. It's not...wired in, no. How would that work?" Sounds like a bad idea to her, but then surgery is rudimentary where she comes from, and disinfectants are in short supply.

Fallout? Ah. Ah. You'll want scrubber caps.

*Samus answers Furiosa's thanks with a smile and starts walking, trusting the other woman to keep pace on the trek through the Nexus.*

Well, I've seen simple versions that detect the nerve impulses through your skin, and move the limb as your natural limb would move, or actual implants that also give sensory feedback.

*The multiverse is your buffet, Furiosa, and apparently the future has an amazing dessert bar.*

She raises an eyebrow at that statement, hoping there's something in the library to explain some of this lingo. The way Samus is coming out with solutions makes it all sound so simple, and Furiosa can't imagine the logistics would be that easy, even if the solutions are elementary on other worlds, even if they're offered to her freely and generously.

She'd still have to explain to her people what the hell is going on.

But that can wait, for now. "I wish I could explain more fully, but even our history is garbled these days. All I know for certain is there were Oil Wars, then Water Wars, and then the nuclear exchanges that poisoned most of what the other wars hadn't already."

Maybe her next priority should be to find a History Man. How can they know where they're going if they're not sure where they've been?

Her brows knit, and she rubs the brace of the prosthetic uncertainly. 'Implants' sounds unsettling, but...worth it? Maybe. "I can't use anything too delicate. It would have to be very, very strong."

Ah, sorry, scrubber caps are something we have where I'm from--mushrooms that eat radiation. Stations and larger ships grow them in the outer hull and around the power core, as a supplemental food source and an early warning sign for leaks.

*Inspired by a real thing. At the description of societal collapse, Samus nods. She's heard stories like that before.*

I wish I could say stories like that aren't common.

*The expression of desire for a "strong" prosthetic sends a twitch of amusement tugging at Samus' lips before she locks it down.*

I don't imagine strength will be a problem. Or there are people who can grow your arm back, if you'd rather.

*By this time, they've reached the Nexus Library. A humble, unassuming brick building (at least, this side of it is), its doors open on a sheltered foyer, which in turn opens on... far too large a space, packed with orderly shelves, to fit in the building outside. An enormous owl sits at a desk, reading, and gives the pair only a brief glance at their entry.*

Furiosa shrugs grimly. "Everthing dies in time. Worlds included. I'm not surprised."

Her gaze on Samus is deadpan, analyzing rather than emoting, for the moment. Furiosa doesn't like being out of her depth, but that seems to be inevitable here. So she'll just focus on perfecting her poker face.

"I wouldn't rather," she answers quietly. "I lost it when I was a child, along with other things more valuable that I'll never get back. I'll stick with a prosthesis."

She follows the other woman calmly into the building, then pauses, regarding the owl without expression, then scanning the overlarge internal structure of the room around her. Her right hand comes up, rubs the back of her neck, and she turns and steps back outside.

Pardon her while she scans the edifice a second time, squinting, then comes back in and resigns herself to the strangeness. "Hm. All right."

*Samus gives a slight nod at Furiosa's explanation of her preference, and makes a small admission of her own. Perhaps some sense of kinship will help the newcomer understand her motives.*

I lost my family when I was four.

*It's a brief admission, a moment of vulnerability, and then she's back to her cool, cosmopolitan self.*

I've seen mil-spec prosthetics that could peel the hull plates off a Federation cruiser bare-handed, but for something like that you'd need a few other body-mods so it didn't tear off the first time you flexed too hard.

*Samus remembers her own adjustment to the geometric impossibilities of the Nexus, so there's neither scorn nor amusement in her expression when Furiosa returns. Straight to business.*

Water treatment, first?

Something softens subtly, tension easing at least momentarily in the rigid line of Furiosa's shoulders and spine, and her gaze flicks groundward. She gives a neutral hum, acknowledging the confession--it puts a better spin on things, that show of mutual humanity. And after brief consideration, she raises her right hand, curls it in the air as if clasping something invisible (memory? sorrow? empathy?), then brings it to her sternum.

She says nothing further of it, but she seems slightly less prickly when she does resume the conversation. "...I think I caught most of that. I'd prefer as few body mods as possible, but I'll keep it in mind."

She's already a terror with just her bare left elbow to punch with; she doesn't think she needs the additional intimidation factor of being able to peel back plate metal. On the other hand, the Blackthumbs might benefit from some help of that nature. She doesn't have to decide now.

If Samus had an explanation to offer in regards to the library, Furiosa wouldn't understand it, so she's just as glad to have the moment of confusion passed gently over. This time, she flashes a small smile. "Yes. Thank you."

As an afterthought, she adds: "I can read some Latin, a little Greek, and a very little Japanese, but I'm mostly just good for English. If that makes a difference."

*If pressed, Samus would have told more of the story. As it is, though, she's much happier not having to. The moment of shared understanding is enough. There are other, easier topics to discuss.*

Probably a good idea. Body mods can be a slippery slope; to get the performance you want out of one thing, you need half a dozen others, and for all of them to work right, and if you want to perform just a little bit better, one more, and one more, and so on. Better to know when to stop.

*The stacks of shelves through which they walk are an eclectic collection of neatly-ordered documents. Bundles of scrolls share space with leatherbound books, etched tablets of stone casting shadows on slabs of crystal in whose depths layers of letters faintly glow. And "stacks" is very much the right term, as the walkway echoes hollowly beneath their feet, while glimpses of the cracks around its edges afford views of more layers of shelves below and above. Periodically, they pass a spiral staircase descending and ascending, usually decorated with a fern or piece of art. There's an odd feeling of pulsing as they walk, as well, as if the shelves were rearranging themselves while not being watched, a rhythmic clench-and-relax that is felt in the gut and glimpsed in the edges of the eye.*

That's good to know. The Nexus translates while you're here, usually, but for anything you're going to bring home... oh, if anything with tentacles or a bunch of yellow clothes offers you something to read, don't take it.

*The Hunter moves with purpose through the stacks, and some degree of familiarity. She seems to know where to find what she's looking for, and before too terribly long (how does one even mark the passage of time in that strange place?) stops to pull a thick book from a shelf. The title reads, "Reed Bed Construction and Waste Management." She offers it to Furiosa.*

I think this might have a few ideas for you.

If their acquaintanceship continues on this same track, they may have the opportunity to swap stories later on. Even painful stories. Time will tell.

"I feel like the scars and tattoos are modification enough for me," she says, distracted as her gaze sweeps the stacks around them. "Given I didn't ask for most of them."

She breathes a sigh of fascination, looking around avidly. On the one hand, it's a little unsettling, this scent of paper and cool quiet. A bit too much like the Vault. On the other hand...books. The vastness of knowledge here is incredible. Miss Giddy would have loved a place like this.

"...tentacles?" It's a delayed response, and she gives Samus a quizzical look. "I'll keep that in mind."

She accepts the book gratefully, pausing to study the pictures of some of the wildlife on the jacket. "Yes. I'll read this. I don't think I've seen any bird for ages, other than vultures and crows. I suppose they must be eating something, but animals are few and far between."

*Indeed. Time reveals as many secrets as it keeps.*

Can't fault your thinking, there.

*The bit about tentacle-things was meant as friendly warning. The Nexus is mostly safe, but it can't protect people from the things they do to themselves, and some Things like to lay out bait for just that reason.*

Get something like that going, you might start attracting the ones that're left. The smell of water carries a long way.

"Mostly rats and lizards around. Some bugs, spiders..." her voice trails off as she flips through the pages of the book. There's a softer smile on her lips now, but the further she scans, the more alert and bright her eyes grow.

After only a couple minutes of this, she sits suddenly, holding the book in her lap carefully. "This would be a lot of effort. But if we could make it work, it would work on a larger scale than just the Towers."

"The place I was born was like this once. Clean water, trees, animals. Something poisoned it, but if it could be restored..." That would be worth more than she has the words for, and she's a little dazed just by the possibility.

*Samus smiles as well, watching Furiosa's reaction, and remains quiet to let her read.*

I've got no doubt you can make it work. If the rest of your people are even half as determined as you?

It won't be an easy project. For one thing, there's a lot of distance between the bog that was the Green Place and the Citadel. A lot of opportunity for fighting and injury and death just traveling to and from. It'll take political savvy, not just engineering know how. But they can practice the technique on their own ground, maybe, and proceed from there.

There's no doubt in her mind the other Vuvalini will be interested.

Furiosa breaks into a thoughtful smile and refocuses on Samus slowly. "Thank you."

Might be thanks for the compliment or for the information. Probably both.

*Samus didn't promise easy, and Furiosa didn't ask for it. But hope, and a way forward, however hard? She answers the former Imperator's smile with one of your own.*

You're welcome.

*She indicates the book.*

So. Think that's enough new ideas to drop on your people at once?

"Definitely a start. I can take it with me? Bring it back later?"

She seems to recall libraries working that way, once upon a time, but the owl at the front desk had a very sharp beak. She's not interested in picking a fight.

*She nods.*

You'll have to stop by the desk, tell whoever's there that you're taking it, who you are, and broadly where you're from, but that's it.

Enter the (Ex-)Imperator.

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