Strange Fruits

Log Title: Strange Fruits Characters: Ar-gent Silverfinger, Poise Location: Pripyat, Ukraine Date: August 21, 2018 TP: Evil Junkion TP Summary: Evil Inc is gardening! Ar-Gent expounds on their plans a bit to Poise. As logged by  Ar-Gent Silverfinger Log session starting at 19:00:25 on Tuesday, 21 August 2018.

Pripyat and the Red Forest are covered in vines. They climb up the trees, over the buildings, and even all over the giant cement cap on the old Chernobyl reactor. Many of them bear metallic flowers in various colors. Others have shiny, striped fruits that sort of resemble tomatoes colored by a three year old.

Ar-Gent stands amid the greenery, smoking an enercig and watching other Junkions at work. A few are broad-shouldered, with very little neck, and resemble gangsters. One is a bent over, hunch-baked Junkion with a green face and mismatched optics. All of them have gardening tools- aprons, clippers, and watering cans. They move among the vines, harvesting fruit and dropping them into metal-lined baskets.

This time, Poise had a reason to be in the area, in addition to her world-travelling livestreaming, but that was a secret for now. The Nebulan's cycle is a bit hard to miss, skimming over the ground quietly. Dust kicks up in her wake as she approaches the site. She doesn't head straight towards the tending garden itself. First, she turns on her sensor system, which uploads the video to that Earth Internet she's been playing around with. "Poise here...at what you guys call Chernobyl. Looks like you had a fissable mishap here a while ago. That's going to be fun. Hope you figure out grav-knack tech before you try to live here again!" She zooms in as she gets closer, "Check this out. Vines. Looks like they're producing some sort of fruit. Isn't that something? Its shiny"

Ar-Gent Silverfinger notes a guest! Finally, a break from all this drudgery! He strolls in Poise's direction, waving the hand with the enercig. "Ah, welcome to the garden! Magnificent, isn't it?"

Poise continues her running commentary as Ar-Gent approaches. "Oh hello there." She pauses for a moment, before her cycle comes closer. "Hmmm you look familiar. I was in this area before and I think I saw you then. So all of this flora is yours?" She pans her camera over the vines, "It is very shiny. What made you decide to come here and plant a bunch of fruit vines?"

Ar-Gent Silverfinger beams at Poise. "This is all part of our project to detoxify this little patch of ground. The soil and trees were just loaded with radioactive dust, and these plants just love that sort of thing. They gather it all up into a nice, tidy package." He pauses, leaning a little closer to say, sotto voce, "Don't touch the fruit with your bare hands."

Poise gives Ar-Gent a skeptical look, "Pfft. I'm not human. 40% of Galactic Standard races don't have problems with fissile radiation. But I won't." She touches her keypad, turning her sensor suite. "So these plants soak up the radiation. That's good. I'm sure Earthers will be pretty happy with that. So how long will it take to get this area back up to proper safety limites for Earthlings?" She eyes one of the wild hogs a bit out, then shifts her camera's focus to it for a bit as Ar-Gent talks.

Ar-Gent Silverfinger hmms. "I'm told it'll be at least two weeks for the first run to finish fruiting. After that, it'll likely be fine, but we'll have to run a few tests to be sure."

One of the 'gangster' Junkions fills his basket and trudges over to Spaceball-1, which doesn't have any greenery on it past a couple of vines around the legs. The junk stumps up a little set of stairs and goes inside briefly, returning with an empty basket to get back to work.

"How about you, my dear? What brings you to our little project?"

Poise seems pleased enough with the answer for now, "Oh. I learned about Earth culture's enjoyment of exploration and documentation. I thought I'd show off lots of my travels here since not the culture here isn't world-centric yet. I've got twelve million 'likes' I am told." She gestures to the large ship itself, "So......where's the radioactive fruit going to go? You selling it off world? Because if you just need radiation for it I am sure that I've got a world or two in my database that can help."

Ar-Gent Silverfinger shakes his head. "While that would be an attractive avenue if I didn't already have plans for it, we're going to take it with us to Mars. We're going to build a habitat there, and solar is an unreliable source of power at best." He blows a bit of smoke thoughtfully. "So.. a travelogue, then? See the world, tell everybody how charming the villages are, that sort of thing?"

"Mars....oh that's the designation for the fourth planet in this system. I see. You're colonizing it. Well its good that Earth is finally starting to move to Stage 2." She tilts her head, "Wait. Are any Earthers going with you or is this a Junk-only colony?" She adds after a thoughtful moment, but before Ar-Gent can reply, "Interesting. Your goal here is well outside Junkion standard. Not to be insulting of course."

Ar-Gent Silverfinger chuckles. "Oh, not insulted at all. Limits are made to be surpassed." He turns the full wattage of his winning smile on Poise. "There'll be places for us, of course, but the big attraction will be a luxury human habitat. We'll sell apartments and time shares. A condo on Mars! Get away from the humdrum, ordinary life and go into space!" Ar-Gent spreads his hands as if gesturing at a marquee. "A getaway beyond all others! For a suitable ticket price, of course."

Poise looks a little impressed. "A vacation spot. Alright that could be fun for the civ." She looks to the vines, then back to Ar-Gent, "so these plants are part of a terraforming process? Okay that explains a lot. How long do you think it'll be before it starts accepting patrons?"

Ar-Gent Silverfinger hmms. "Well, we -do- manage some impressive feats of infrastructure. We'll have the basics up in a month or two, but the real luxury suites won't be available until well after that. Six months to a year, I'm afraid." He waves at the shiny plants growing across the area. "The native life here can’t eat -these-, so we'll have to get some proper Earth agriculture installed there."

Poise nods, "A year isn't bad. Considering its all new for the Earthers." She turns to her sensor suite, and remarks, "Did you guys hear that? Mars colony resorts in the year! That'll be nice to get away from all the fighting and city-burning!" She points to the overall site as she addresses Ar-Gent, "I think I'll get moving. Do you mind if explore the site a bit more if I don't disrupt any of the plants?"

Ar-Gent Silverfinger nods, taking a thoughtful drag from his enercig. "So long as you look and don't touch, it should be fine. I'll have a word with the labor. We've been shooing curious onlookers away because of the radiation, you see." He gives Poise a half-wave, half-salute and strolls over to speak with the gangsters. There's a lot of hand waving involved from both Ar-Gent and the other Junkions before they seem satisfied and go back to their work.

Log session ending at 20:32:15 on Tuesday, 21 August 2018.