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[02:02] <Dinah> "Oh come on, really?" Double-checking her phone again, Dinah sighed as she looked around and then straight ahead to the shed that no doubt had to be what she was looking for. This couldn't have been any sketchier if she tried to make it seem that way. Still, with a sigh, she pocketed her phone and walked up to the door, knocking on it with the back of her knuckles, rapping a few times.
[02:02] <Dinah> "Wally, it's Dinah." She'd sent a good few people his way recently, or at least recommended they come by, so she figured it was best to see if anyone had taken her up on that. Or him up on that, more accurately. If all went well, maybe she could start scoping out a few freebies for the future.
[02:19] <Minaplo> The door cracked open a spare inch; Dinah would see the door chain keeping it linked to the frame. Wallace's face appeared out from behind it, hidden by goggles.
[02:19] <Minaplo> "Oh hey, Dinah. Make yourself at home." He said, grinning; he unchained the door and swung it open.
[02:19] <Minaplo> Wallace's workshop was the sort of place where the substance was in itself a style. It was studiously clean and tidy, with every tool, nut and bolt having its own space. Along the walls hung tools from shelves and hooks, whilst chests full of different nuts, bolts, screws and other bits sat beneath them, each little shelf laboriously labelled with the appropriate name. It was efficient, but there was a kind of aesthetic pleasure to just how tidy everything was. Everything had its place.
[02:19] <Minaplo> Which wasn't to say the place was free of disorder. Lying in a corner, arms across his barrel chest, was Terry, asleep, surrounded by plastic sundae containers. Every time he snored, his head pulled back, only to drop back down with a thud against his chest as he exhaled.
[03:37] <Dinah> "Yeah, hi."
[03:37] <Dinah> Walking in, she glanced around with a little bit of a frown and crossed her arms over her chest. For some reason, she expected a mess and the fact that there wasn't one bothered her on some level. Though looking at the big lug that called this place his workshop, she should have expected it. And that only seemed to annoy her a little more. Of course, she'd neglected to have a smoke on the way over, so perhaps that contributed. It was only when she looked over at Terry that she cocked her head to the side and then glanced back at Wally, making a little gesture as if to say, 'What the hell?'.
[04:23] <Minaplo> Wallace shrugged. The contrast between him and the gargantuan Terry was stark- Wallace was practically lean, gamine, tidy and sharp; Terry was… Not. "Boy sleeps wherever he wants. He once slept on a rollercoaster, but I think that was him fucking with me."
[04:58] <Dinah> "That's…." For a few moments, she very clearly didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything at all. And with just a shake of her head and a hand moving into her blue hair, she simply seemed to move on from it. "Anyway. I came by to see how business is doin'. Sent a few people your way, or told 'em about ya anyway."
[05:01] <Minaplo> "I noticed. That's deadly cool." Said Wallace. "Yeah, things have been taking off! I figure you're good for something free, huh?"
[05:06] <Dinah> "I dunno. Might bank it all for somethin' real fancy in the future." With a shrug, she started moving around then to look at what he had, not particularly trying to look interested in any one thing. "How long ya been in this little shed?"
[05:10] <Minaplo> "Two months. Although I had a different shed last year."
[05:29] <Dinah> "A…different shed?"
[05:31] <Minaplo> "Yeah. Bigger, too."
[05:34] <Dinah> "I feel like you're missing my tone here so, and I cannot stress this enough: why?"
[05:34] <Minaplo> "Oh, well. That fella's subletting his shed to his daughter now."
[05:34] <Minaplo> "S'why I'm here."
[06:02] <Dinah> For a long few minutes, she just stared at him, wondering if he was fucking with her on purpose or if this was just a by-product of being him. It was almost impossible to not be intentional, right? But in the end, she erred on the side of the latter since it was….equally understandable for him. Moving to take a seat, a few questions rolled around in her head and suddenly, it didn't make sense to pull on the same thread anymore. "What's she doing with a shed?"
[06:03] <Minaplo> "Beauty therapy."
[06:04] <Dinah> "Like, treatments? Nails, that sort of thing?"
[06:05] <Minaplo> "Like nails and that sort of thing, yeah."
[06:07] <Dinah> "….where is this place?"
[06:08] <Minaplo> "Ume Road. There's this old Japanese-style house with this giant ugly shed next to it. Total fuckin' clash of aesthetics."
[06:43] <Dinah> "Okay." She cleared her throat, seeming like she wasn't that interested, though keeping it in mind. It wasn't like her hair was going to stay blue forever, even if she would prefer it that way. She could do the touching up easily enough but it needed to be really dealt with every now and then. A little professional help with that never hurt.
[06:43] <Dinah> With that out of the way, though, she gestured around and brought the focus back to the matter at hand. "So, what's your inventory like right about now?"
[12:53] <Minaplo> "Organised." Said Wallace. "Up tick in hardware requests recently, which is good. Had to fix a Switch yesterday. Irritants in the joycons." He chuckled.
[12:53] <Minaplo> "I've been taking some of the money and buying broken or old machines and tuning them up to sell for a profit, some of them out of my area of expertise. Been working on some watches and compasses recently. The watches are a bit out of my league but the compasses are good."
[12:53] <Minaplo> He reached beneath his bench and took out a paper bag, out of which he pulled a bowl of incredibly spicy-looking tofu soup. "You want some?"
[05:31] <Dinah> "That's good. Long as you keep fixin' shit, eventually you'll have somethin' I want. And then it's freebie for me." She grinned a little at that, though it didn't last before her face went back to her usual uninterested facade. Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she just shook her head at the offer of random soup. "Nah, that's….that's fine. I think I'm good."
[05:31] <Dinah> "Anyway, start throwing things out. Wow me. if I had a request, you'd already know it."
[09:54] <Minaplo> "Got a compass here that when you click it, swaps to an accurate star chart, showing all the constellations relative to your location."
[12:52] <Dinah> "That….sounds kinda cool. I dunno how I'd use it but might be neat to have." The truth was, she absolutely did know how she would use it if she took it. But that wasn't something she was going to get into with him even in the slightest. Still, she had to hold her interest in check. "What else you got?"
[01:02] <Minaplo> "Portable stove?"
[01:40] <Dinah> "That could be useful. Still not sure that I'm all that wowed yet, though."
[02:01] <Minaplo> "Time machine?"
[02:29] <Dinah> "Very funny."
[02:30] <Minaplo> "It'd be useful, though. Imagine all the interactions you could skip with it. Like this one, for instance."
[02:36] <Dinah> "It would be useful. I could go back in time and stop myself from beating someone nearly to death." She sniffed, smirking a little dangerously. "I could. Not sure that I would, though."
[02:37] <Minaplo> "Hardcore." Said Wallace drily. "I'm not entirely joking about the time machine thing, though."
[02:42] <Dinah> "I'm not entirely joking about almost beating someone to death." Fixing him with a gaze after, crossing her arms over her chest, she inclined her chin his way to tell him he had her interest. "Explain."
[02:50] <Minaplo> "You big into urban legends and conspiracy theories? Yeti, Mothman, Bloody Mary?"
[02:54] <Dinah> Prickling a bit at the mention of the Mothman, she nonetheless rolled her shoulders. "Yeah, I guess."
[02:56] <Minaplo> "Oh, no shit?" His eyes widened a little. "Deadly."
[02:56] <Minaplo> "Around the 2000s, there was an uptick in urban legends about time travellers. Almost always dummos posting on messageboards claiming to be from the future."
[03:05] <Dinah> "Alright." Her interest was conditional and she made that known with her gaze, leaning back in her seat somewhat.
[03:26] <Minaplo> "You know about the Y2K bug? Well, it has a sequel: the Year 2038 problem. Many computer systems record time by counting the seconds passed from January 1, 1970. But on 32-bit primary integers, there's a maximum value of seconds that can be recorded, and that value is in January 2038. After that, the system fucks up and begins counting anything past that as being in 1901. It'd cause total chaos for all kinds of machines."
[03:26] <Minaplo> He uncapped his soup and took a spoonful, savouring the spicy taste. The rising steam curled in front of his face for a moment. "Mm. Yummo."
[03:26] <Minaplo> Wallace swallowed. "So around the early 2000s, a guy began posting on bulletin boards, claiming to be from the year 2036. He said he'd been sent back in time to find one of the earliest portable computers: an IBM 5100, claiming that they needed one to debug and emulate code between different computer languages to keep their technology going on the brink of the 2038 problem."
[03:29] <Dinah> "That sounds like a bunch of bullshit."
[03:42] <Minaplo> "It's an urban legend on the cusp of the internet becoming big, of course it's bullshit. There's as much chance of it becoming true as there is you punching Mothman." Said Wallace, snorting. "Time travel is probably impossible. Besides, the guy made a bunch of bullshit predictions that didn't come true."
[03:42] <Minaplo> "His statements about the IBM 5100 were pretty interesting, though. The thing was already a big ticket collector's item in the 2000s and it's only gotten bigger over time. If you're a computer hobbyist, saying you have a working IBM 5100 is like having a crown jewel."
[03:47] <Dinah> "That's….look, if we were to say that I came across a Mothman, you can bet I would punch it. So that's not a great analogy. But I get it. Does that mean you have one of those IBM….whatevers, then?"
[03:51] <Minaplo> "I… Don't. Have a working one." Said Wallace. "I found a guy the other month who asked me if I could take a look at his machine. Found it in the ol' family storehouse. Didn't even know what it was and was planning to sell it off. Apparently? IBM 5100, but it doesn't work. I told him I'd fix it up for him, if he gave me 10% of the cut when he sold it."
[03:57] <Dinah> "What?" She lifted a brow, cocking her head to the side a bit. "You come across this super rare thing and you're just gonna…fix it and let him sell it?"
[03:59] <Minaplo> "What else should I do with it? I don't need it." Said Wallace. "The guy's old, he's probably looking for a comfortable retirement. He can probably get $100,000 for it if he pushes his luck."
[04:03] <Dinah> "Fix it up and do…time…travel stuff. Obviously." With a little snort, she rolled her neck some, flicking her hand dismissively. "You tell him what it was worth?"
[04:03] <Minaplo> "Of course."
[04:06] <Dinah> "And he still let you work on it?"
[04:08] <Minaplo> "He was real old."
[04:16] <Dinah> "Well, that's pretty cool. Maybe with the money you get out of it, you can afford to work out of an actual building."
[04:23] <Minaplo> "Or… A bigger shed."
[04:31] <Dinah> "Or a building. That isn't a shed."
[04:34] <Minaplo> "A shed is just a building that has to grow up. That's why they're called sheds; they have to shed their skin to grow into their true selves."
[04:38] <Dinah> She reached her hand up to pinch at the bridge of her nose, sighing. "Stop."
[04:39] <Minaplo> "Maybe you're right. Forget sheds. I hear garages are all da-rages today."
[04:39] <Dinah> "Just give me the compass,"
[04:40] <Minaplo> He grinned. "Can do."
[04:40] <Minaplo> A moment later he handed Dinah a nice black box.
[04:46] <Dinah> She took the box with a glance his way and then to it, lifting it open. "Little fancy, isn't it?"
[04:56] <Minaplo> "All Wallaceship is of the highest quality." He said. "Soon everyone's gonna call me Mr. Bishop."
[05:15] <Dinah> "I guess so." Clearly, she didn't understand any of that but she had learned her lesson against asking questions. Instead, closing it back up, she slipped it under one arm, presenting her other hand up for a fist bump. "Thanks."
[05:17] <Minaplo> He bumped. "My pleasure."
[05:17] <Minaplo> "Anything I should keep an eye out for in the future?"
[05:28] <Dinah> "Game systems. Movie players. That one you gave me, I'm letting some of the others in the Dorm borrow it here and there. Would be nice to get them their own. Nothin' that'll put you outta business, though. Can't rely on that payday before you get it. If I think of something more specific, I'll shoot a text your way."
[05:29] <Minaplo> "Deadly."
[05:29] <Dinah> "You're not gonna make that a thing."
[05:31] <Minaplo> "It's… common slang where I'm from."
[05:34] <Dinah> "I know what I said." Gesturing around as if to suggest that they were not, in fact, where he was from, she held up her arms in a shrug then. It wasn't like she had a lot of room to talk, though she wasn't trying to bring things into the culture here. She just did what she wanted, whether they liked it or not. With a tap of the box again, she headed out the door, pulling out her pack of smokes and flicking one out the top enough to pull it out with her lips. "You come across a cigarette case, I'll take that, too. You won't even have to work on it or anything."
[05:35] <Minaplo> "Ah, can't do that."
[05:36] <Dinah> "Why not?"
[05:36] <Minaplo> "Giving a cigarette case to a minor isn't the done thing here in Japan, you know."
[05:37] <Dinah> "You're not givin' me cigarettes. Just a case. I could use it for anything."
[05:41] <Minaplo> Wallace smirked. "I guess it could be a gift for an old mate."
[05:43] <Dinah> Giving a little bit of a grin, she shrugged. "I ain't gonna bust yer balls on it or anything. If you're not into it, don't worry. I'll keep tryin' to send people your way." Tapping the box once more, she started backing up with a little wave. "Thanks again. See ya later."
[05:45] <Minaplo> The Temperance Arcana deepens…

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