“Can I ask you a question?” Hobie inquired as he rummaged through a case of barely used tools that were incredibly advanced.
They had made their way upstairs and found one of the old tech labs Lotte spoke about. Hobie was sitting at a dusty table, attempting to repair a damaged monitor that might help him run a diagnostic on his watch. Lotte sat on the floor, her legs criss-crossed as she unraveled various cables and tested working batteries.
They had been scouring the room for supplies in relative silence. It hadn’t been uncomfortable but Hobie was always someone who preferred to make conversation over dead air. Besides, he was curious about this world and about Lotte, so there seemed no better opportunity to get to know her better than while they were combing over what was left of this place.
“You just did,” Lotte teased.
She sat with her head bowed as she studied the content in front of her. They had both taken off their masks a while ago, Lotte’s long bouncy curls now covering her face.
From this angle Hobie couldn't see her expression, but he could still hear the small smile on her lips.
Hobie playfully threw a rubber guard at her head for that cheeky response, but Lotte’s hand came up and caught it without even having to look up.
“What's up with your skies?” Hobie asked anyway despite Lotte’s non-answer, "I've never seen a universe with so many stars before.”
“Most worlds can’t see their night sky because of all the bloody light pollution, but yours is different.”
“Oh.” Lotte said slowly, her eyes coming up to meet him for a brief moment before focusing back on the battery. “Our climate scientists just got ahead of it I guess. Policies were passed way before my grandparents were even born.”
Hobie nodded with a quiet hum, “but radioactive bio hazards like this lab are still allowed to exist?”
“Didn’t take you for someone who actually believes in systems” Lotte’s eyes gave him a mischievous look, her hands connecting the last circuits back in place, “There are policies but people in power will always find loopholes or bribes. We have managed to preserve our skies but that doesn’t stop greedy capitalists from trying to find their way around them.”
The Generator in Lotte’s hand finally beeped to life, she held it up, gesturing around the room.
“Though I suppose karma really is a bitch, considering this happened to someone’s foolish attempt.” She chuckled.
Hobie couldn't help but agree. He supposed nature would always correct itself in the end one way or another. And it seemed the natural world in this universe had pretty strong resistance to change.
“Sounds like you guys got lucky then”
Lotte shrugged her shoulders, “I wouldn’t call it luck. We have our own problems,” She stated calmly as she made her way to the table Hobie was sitting at, placing the little generator in front of him., “maybe they just look differently than where you’re from.”
Hobie nodded, His eyes not leaving the broken screen he was attempting to reassemble. In his experience no universe was perfect, and while it would be nice to think there's something close to paradise out there, Hobie’s realistic side wins in telling him the chances of a world that has it all figured out is incredibly low.
“What about you? What does your universe look like?” Lotte asked from where she now sat in a stool directly across the table from Hobie. She had grabbed a pair of electrical tweezers and began recoupling a set of wires.
Hobie looked down at the table, fiddling with the spanner in his hand, unsure of how to answer and how much he was willing to share.
“My home looks…very different.” he tries to give her a small smile but it doesn't reach his eyes, “I knew nothing all my life except grey skies, mud, fascism, and hunger. The people make it worth it for me to fight, but it ain’t exactly rainbows and butterflies.”
The monitor he had been working on finally blinks back to life, letting him know he could now take the watch off his wrist to see what was wrong with it. “It’s still my home though, I’d never abandon it. I know it can become something more.”
Hobie had a hopeful look in his eyes, holding so much vulnerability and trust that Lotte wouldn't scoff at his beliefs. Despite his rough appearance and exterior, he had this unfounded optimism in him and a fiery passion that matched Lotte’s own in a lot of ways. She admired him. They may not be able to relate to everything, but Lotte could relate to that need to do more, that defiant nature in them that opposed immoral authority. Hope was a driving factor in her own work, she had to believe things could be better otherwise she'd spend her whole life driving herself crazy fighting. She had herown reasons to want to change unjust systems.
