Put Your Arm Down A Hole

Posted on Wed Mar 17th, 2021 @ 12:20am by Tristan & Chloe Waltz PhD
Edited on on Sat Apr 24th, 2021 @ 3:56pm

Mission: Six Days to Santo
Location: Fortune's Echo - Common Area
Timeline: Day 24 - Late Morning

Chloe groaned as she reached behind a panel that had been removed from the inside of the wall. What had started as simple, preventative, maintenance procedure had into a ten minute struggle of the woman trying to reach a screwdriver that had rolled in between the inner and outer hull. She silently cursed her arms that were just a touch too short to reach. To be honest, her cursing was almost not silent. And it took quite a bit to bring the formal, polite engineer out of her professional dictionary.

She sighed, leaning back. The woman wiped a small bead of sweat off her brow. She had considered, for a moment, taking off the panel in front of the screwdriver to try and reach it but nope - she'd need that screwdriver for that. How had she even dropped it in the first place!? Back on Londinium, this was where she'd get one of her workers or interns to get it for her. But here she had no people to boss around so it took considerably longer for her to concede to asking for help.

And she did. Only after about fifteen minutes. The pale haired woman stood up, wiping her mostly clean hands on her mostly clean pants, looking around for the first relatively tall person she could see. Finding someone would not be difficult, right? Other than Daiyu and Karen, everyone on the ship was at least a half foot taller than her, and she could almost reach it herself... Almost.

"Hey!" She called out to the first person she saw.

Tristan jumped as the woman's voice startled him. He'd just been walking past the area, his mind wandering, when he was shaken back to reality. "Me?" he asked, looking at her.

"Yeah," Chloe said, standing up and taking a couple steps towards him. "You. Can you help me real quick?" The woman walked back towards where she had been working, glancing into the hole in the hull. "Can you help me reach this screwdriver I dropped?" Other tools lay scattered around the floor, including what looked like some sort of lasso contraption she had been using to try to grab it.

Following the woman into the room, Tristan scanned the area and peered down the hole. "It's quite far down there," he stated. "How can I help?"

"I'm just a bit too short," Chloe said. "You can probably reach it. You're taller. How tall are you?" She asked without hesitation, stepping back as Tristan peered into the hole.

"I'm not that much taller than you," Tristan said, climbing down on his hands and knees. "If I can't reach it, there're quite a few others who are taller than I." He rolled up his sleeve and slid his hand down into the hole, trying to reach the instrument.

"Yeah, but they're not here right now." Chloe stepped behind Tristan to shine a flashlight in the hole. She was in fact just a bit too short to reach it. "And I've already been working on trying to get it out for longer than I'd care to admit."

Tristan waved his arm around, his fingers brushing against the cold metal of the screwdriver. "Almost have it," he said.

"Do you have it?" The engineer asked, as if he hadn't just addressed that question. The woman leaned in closer, flashlight in hand. "Don't get yourself stuck," she warned, as if that had been his intention, looking at the screwdriver.

"Almost..." he said, getting slightly annoyed at this woman. "I'm reaching as far as I can, but it's not quite enough. Can you push my shoulder further in?"

"Yeah, can do that," Chloe said, not catching on to his slight annoyance at all. With the flashlight in one hand, she used the other to try and push his shoulder in. She was not particularly strong, nor particularly graceful.

With the extra push, Tristan was able to flip his fingers around the cold, metallic rod of the screwdriver, gently pulling it up. He rolled over onto his back, holding out the instrument to the woman. "I believe you're looking for this?"

Chloe smiled, reaching for the screwdriver. "Thank you," she said, setting it back down in her tool box. "Um," she paused for a moment. She had tried to recall the man's name to include it after her "thank you," but couldn't quite remember it. Had she ever learnt it? Oh man, he mother would no be pleased, asking somebody for help without even an introduction. "What's your name, again?" She asked him, hoping she had just forgotten it. She did spent most her time working on stuff or hiding away in her room, after all.

Tristan moved into a sitting position. "I'm Tristan," he said. "I'm the ship's..." his voice trailed off. Honestly, Tristan wasn't exactly sure what his job was or his title. "Just Tristan," he settled on.

"Tristan. Ah." He was the ships... what? Chloe paused for a moment to try and figure out what his role was. She came up blank. "I'm not sure I introduced myself. I'm Chloe." Unfortunately Chloe was not great at avoiding awkward questions: "What is it you do here, on this ship?" She asked him.

The young man's cheeks blushed. He hoped she wouldn't press him further on that. Truth-be-told, he wasn't exactly sure what his official role was on this ship. Alden's lackey? Ship's maid? That boy who caused more trouble than he fixed? Tristan just shrugged at the woman. "I do whatever I'm told," he said, finally.

"Oh," Chloe said. Taciturn about his position, was he? Maybe he did something really important. After all, Chloe got some sketchy vibes from this ship's dealings. Maybe he was a part of that. Better not to question it. "I guess I just do what I'm told as well," she gave a weak chuckle. "Like, you know... 'Hey Chloe, go take that job on an old Firefly.' Ha ha. Just doing whatever I'm told." She scratched her neck, moving the toolbox a bit away from the open hole in the wall to maybe prevent something else from falling down it. And then the woman spoke with a bit more honesty, and a bit less nerves: "You're awfully young to be working out here in the black, on a ship like this." It wasn't a criticism; if anything she stated it with nothing more than curiosity.

Tristan just shrugged. "There's not much else to do," he simply said as he walked towards the door. While he didn't have anywhere important to go, he was starting to get uncomfortable with the woman's questions. "Anything else you need?"

"No," the woman said with a shrug. She wasn't quite sure whether Tristan's response was an answer or not... but she also supposed it didn't really concern her. After all, this was a wilder place than her homeworld. She couldn't expect all her associates to follow normal career paths now, after all, could she? "Thanks your help." She smiled as she began placing the section of the hull back over where the hole had been.

WIth a nod, Tristan walked out of the room, headed back to what he was doing.