pidge_out | Victory Road IC Inbox

I've been here for a year and a few months with my team.

[Well, okay, part of her team. A very small part. But the 104th is still a team and a family, so who cares about the details.

What matters the most is Sasha has time served on this weird demanding stranger and that means this island is her turf, so respect is due.]

Jean, Armin, Mr. Shiro, Mr. Matt, Keith, Lance, Hunk, Mr. Krieg, and sometimes Mr. Ford when he wants to come out of the hole.

[Ha. Beat that, dude!]

[Pidge blinks once or twice. Hard. Because what the hell? What the hell? This girl knows the rest of her team and somehow no one's ever once so much as mentioned her?

...Or did someone mention a Sasha and she just waved it off absently.

Either way, some of the tension in her shoulders seems to melt slightly, and instead of suspicion there's a genuine confusion in Pidge's eyes. Does she really suck at people this much??]

...Okay. [Of course, it doesn't let Sasha entirely off the hook just yet. But at least she's stopped looking like she's trying to find something to hit the other girl with.] Fine, I believe you. But that doesn't explain why I've never seen you here before.

[Honestly, with some many people passing in and out of this house, it's a wonder Sasha's remembered who lives here long enough to get mail here and who doesn't. That said, she really doesn't recognize the name Pidge, aside from it being ridiculosly close to Pidgey and Pidgeotto.]

Well, I've never seen you before and I don't know why either.

[Granted, Sasha goes out onto the mainland a fair bit and stays there for days at a time, but man, she really thinks she would have seen this person at least once or twice. Not even at the barbecue party Sasha can recall this face.]

I mean... if you live here, where's your room? The garage?

[Do they even have a garage?]

I stay in the basement. [Because one exists, dammit.

...And now Pidge may have answered her own question of "Why have I never seen you before". Realizing that makes her cheeks color a bit in shame.]

I don't... really go out a lot.

[Sasha frowns, though it's more out of confusion than disapproval. Yes, there is a basement, but with the future being brightly filled with the light of the refrigerator, Sasha never saw a need to go down there. After all, for her, cellars were for storage of food for winter. Why bother using the basement to stash smoked meats when the fridge does a much better job of it?

Speaking of fridges, Sasha takes another bite off the cold chicken leg, and chews thoughtfully, coming up with a single word response:]

Why?

[That's something that definitely sounds unusual to Sasha. Maybe it's just her and never really feeling a true sense of safety when going outside until she got here (and for good reason), but never leaving the house, much less your bedroom, is mind-boggling. What does Pidge do for food? Do they take a bath? And Pokemon, what about Pokemon? If they don't ever go out, how do they catch them?]

[Pidge shrugs, finally realizing that yes, Sasha snuck into the kitchen in the middle of the night to snack on cold meat. No wonder she knows Hunk.]

I work on a lot of tech projects down there, that's all. It keeps me busy.

[Something in her expression pinches, bracing herself for the inevitable teasing. It would be far from the first time it's ever happened, just the first in a while.]

[Cold meat is still meat. Putting it in the beeping hot box to warm it up is a waste of time. It'll get warm in her belly.

As for teasing, there isn't any. Not from Sasha who doesn't know what the word tech means to begin with. Can't make fun of something she has no clue about.]

Tech projects? What are tech projects?

[Pidge has... so many questions about you, Sasha. And she's getting the very distinct feeling that she's going to have a lot more the more she asks.]

Tech. Like, computers? Robots? Television..?

[Her head tilts slightly, brows furrowing just a bit.]

Do you.. have anything like that where you're from?

[Luckily for Pidge, Sasha's been here long enough to know what television is. She's seen a computer once or twice in the Pokecenter, but it's too scary and new that she hesitates to touch it and asks someone else to get her Pokemon out of it. Robots? Ha. Where to start on how unfamiliar that concept is to her?

Sasha, complete with the half-eaten chicken leg gripped between her lips, shakes her head side to side, removing it to answer around a mouthful of meat. Even during conversations, she doesn't stop eating.]

We don't have any of the stuff we have here. Like lights in the house and water that comes from the wall that you don't have to boil to get hot first.

[If that doesn't give Pidge a clue on how far behind the times Sasha's world is, well, she can start explaining how miserable it is having to use an outhouse in the dead of winter.]

[Oh.]

Oh. Wow.

[Pidge is openly staring now, a hand carding back through her hair. Because yikes. This isn't unfamiliar territory to her anymore - she's friends with Armin, she's guessing Sasha's from a similar world or timeline - but it's still a shock to hear.]

Well, I'm really good with that stuff. So that's kind of what I keep messing with in the basement.

[Pidge is in luck. Sasha and Armin are from the same exact world.]

Good how?

[She's curious. Imagining how that stuff works still eludes her. She only recently learned that the light in the fridge doesn't stay one when the door is closed. How a computer makes beeps and boops and knows what someone wants from it is something Sasha can't begin to guess on.]

Are you messing with the television? Is that why it makes that cshhhhhh noise and nothing comes on?

[No, Sasha, that's called static and it means you pressed a button for a channel you don't have.]

[Don't ask her that, Sasha. It's almost enough to get Pidge into cocky bragging mode. She's already got the barest hint of a smirk.]

I build a lot of those kinds of things myself. [An easy shrug.] From scratch.

[Of course, the comment about the TV makes her pause. Has she been messing with it? No. No, she's pretty sure she hasn't.] No, I'm not. Are you talking about the static you get when the channel isn't available?

Why?

[Now she sounds like a toddler with all the why questions. Why would Pidge build them from scratch when the stores in town sell perfectly good TVs? If they didn't have any available or they didn't have the money for one, Sasha would understand building their own, much like how she sewed her own clothes from scraps of fabric because there were no shops in her little village and even less money to buy new clothes.

Static, Pidge says. Sasha shrugs because gods only know what static means to her.]

It's just a funny sound, I don't know. No one is talking or on the screen anymore. I thought I broke it or something.

[Pidge is in for a long and troubling ride on explaining how technology actually works to Sasha.]

[Another shrug. The questions don't bother her; it likely just means that Sasha's curious about things she's never heard of before. Which isn't such a bad thing.

And she's endured worse lines of questioning.]

I enjoy it. And I like personalizing things for my specific needs.

[And with Pidge's guard officially lowered a significant amount, she goes to pull a chair over to the pantry. Because she needs to reach something high up.]

That sound and the lack of picture is called 'static.' It doesn't always mean the TV's broken, it usually means it's just not getting a signal.

[For some people it is a bad thing. Some people don't have the patience or kindness to deal with Sasha and her curiosity. Some people just would rather not bother with someone who didn't know about the simple existences of indoor plumbing and electricity. Luckily it seems Pidge has nothing but time to waste.]

What kind of needs?

[Sasha follows Pidge around the kitchen wit her eyes, not really wanting this conversation to end anytime soon. It's nice. She hasn't really talked this much to someone in a while. She's missed it.]

Like a smoke signal? [That's the only signal Sasha's familiar with.]

[Pidge shrugs as she sets the chair into position, making sure it's not going to wobble under her once she starts to climb on top of it.]

Depends. Sometimes I just need to build a bigger version, or a more powerful one, or one that can just do something that regular ones can't.

[And then she's hefted herself up onto the chair, reaching for the higher cabinets of the pantry and pulling the doors open to search for wherever Hunk has stashed his latest batch of cookies.]

Mm.. Not quite like that... Do you know what a radio is?

That thing that plays music inside the Pokegear.

[She nods because that's as much as she knows about the concept of radios. Never heard or seen one before the Mom lady shoved the 'gear in her hand.]

It's not a TV, though, right?
[As for those cookies, Sasha gets the idea that Pidge is looking for them and points to another cabinet on the other side of the kitchen. She may or may not have samples a few. Or a lot of them.]

[Pidge glances back in time to see where Sasha's pointing, then sighs and goes about the business of resetting herself. Close the cabinet. Climb down from the chair. Take everything to the indicated Correct Cabinet.]

It's not, but it works similarly. A TV picks up pictures and audio in the same way a radio does. They're all transmitted to TVs and radios by- [What's the easiest way to put this.] -by something called a "signal." If they can't find that signal, then nothing comes out of it but static.

[And now that Pidge has set herself up where the cookies should be, she's giving that search another go.]

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