Searching Far and Wide

[intricate_engineer]

Glen was creating a prototype for a new gate design. It was meant to be affordable and provide quick transport between individual homes. She tests several objects and a rat and everything seems to be working.

She steps through. Instead of finding herself in the room next door, she finds herself standing on a sidewalk in an empty city. The buildings are tall and perfect, colorless with doorways far too tall for any human. The roads have no straight lines and twist in on themselves. There is no life or sound.
Glen tries to stay calm. She begins to walk along the road, randomly opening doors and exploring buildings that are as silent as the rest of the world.

She opens a door that she hopes will lead onto a roof and is instead met with warmth, and soft noise, and color.

Comments

[intricate_engineer]

"Me too. I'll show you around."

[the_very_best]

"Maybe I too can find something that wants to give me dodgy immortality!"

[intricate_engineer]

"Yes, or someone who kills you for the presumption of asking."

[the_very_best]

"...I will be cautious in my search for immortality!"

[intricate_engineer]

"Good. If I can connect us, at the very least I can get you more time to search."

[the_very_best]

"Life extension tech?"

[intricate_engineer]

"Yep, and we can make accidents less deadly."

[the_very_best]

"Like how?"

[intricate_engineer]

"Pretty much, if we get to someone while they are still alive, we can save them. Sometimes even after. We can create blood and skin from the person's own. We have machines that can temporarily function as a heart or stomach or liver or whatever is needed while a new one is grown."

[the_very_best]

"We've got some of that but yours might be better."

[intricate_engineer]

"Maybe. The big breakthrough was learning to grow stem cells."

[the_very_best]

"That I'm not sure we have, at least for humans, I vaguely think it might be involved in reviving fossil mon."

[intricate_engineer]

"I should get a book about that."

[the_very_best]

"I'm not sure it's been written up that accessibly if you want anything technical and not, like, 'A Boy And His Fossil', but sure."

[intricate_engineer]

"Is there a way to instantly send large messages?"

[the_very_best]

"Define 'instantly' and 'large'."

[intricate_engineer]

"Um, virtual letters with a document attached that arrives as fast as a phone call?"

[the_very_best]

"Yeah we have that."

[intricate_engineer]

"Great. I want to send messages to a bunch of random researchers. Can I do that?"

[the_very_best]

"If they have public addresses."

[intricate_engineer]

"I'm sure I can find at least a couple who do, and maybe a couple of those will take it seriously. Do you have a computer I could borrow?"

[the_very_best]

"Just this," Bella says, indicating her computer-watch. "Not really ideal for the purpose."

[intricate_engineer]

"Do they have public ones at libraries?"

[the_very_best]

"And Pokécenters," nods Bella.

[intricate_engineer]

"Would you mind helping me use one?"