Confusing Circuit Diagrams

Posted on Fri May 29th, 2020 @ 7:22am by Noah-Jade True & Tristan
Edited on on Fri May 29th, 2020 @ 9:46pm

Mission: The Milk Run
Location: Engine Room - Fortune's Echo
Timeline: Day 2 - Newhall to Hera

Tristan bolted through the bowels of the Fortune's Echo, using the railings to propel himself forward as best he could. While he wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of doing work on the Engine, having a strong disdain for getting dirty, he certainly didn't want to be late on his first day on duty. He already set a bad impression from yesterday and the last thing he needed was to compound the issue.

As he reached the back hall, Tristan caught the toe of his shoe on the doorway and slammed to the ground with a thud.

Noah looked up at the sudden noise. He wasn't quite in the middle of some difficult work - he was half-sitting on a metal box that was probably part of the structure of the ship, with a small manual open in his hand. Wiring diagrams. He was neutral to the diagrams at best, but he hadn't really worked on a Firefly before so he still had to reference them to see where the electronics for everything went. He didn't even close the booklet as Tristan arrived. If it were any consolation to Tristan, the engineer himself didn't seem very dirty; he was wearing a relatively formal button down shirt, clean as if just washed and ironed.

"You're Justin, yes?" Noah's meeting with the stowaway had been short, at best, yesterday, and in all the drama of empty threats and a stupid display of disagreement between the crew, he wasn't quite sure he had caught the boy's name.

"Tristan," the boy said as he lifted himself from the ground. Brushing his pants and shirt off, he walked forward, making careful of his steps as he walked into the engine room. "Sorry I'm late. I had..." he glanced behind him to the proverbial past, but shook it off. "Won't happen again."

Noah shrugged. "Tristan," he said, repeating the name, stowing it away in his memory. He didn't comment on the fact that the boy had tripped. What an awful first impression. Noah wasn't exactly one to follow "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," but he also wasn't the most graceful person and he just knew that if he mentioned it, he himself would eat that karma and trip a few moments later. "Just don't be late again." Noah finally closed the notebook. His comment didn't seem like chastisement - merely disinterested. "I'm Noah-Jade," he introduced himself, standing up. For a man of his size, he was surprisingly tall, standing over half a foot above Tristan.

"So - what's your 'thing' here? Do you even care for engines in the slightest?" The engineer asked, his tone still neutral, slightly more formal than you'd expect for a mechanic.

Tristan shrugged slightly before shaking his head. "No, not really," he said. "But I'm ready and able to do anything you need from me, Noah-Jade." It sounded odd in his head, though he'd never say it out loud. Tristan had never met anyone with two first names before, and he began to wonder what sort of culture produced that custom. But perhaps now was not a good time to ask.

"Well, thanks for being honest." As Noah spoke he turned around, setting the booklet back with the others in a little metal holder that had been hastily attached to the wall of the engine room. "And that doesn't matter. Everyone has their own passions. At least now I won't waste my time trying to explain to you about what I'm doing, if you never plan to use it." If he were to be honest, his sister was the one with a passion for engineering, not him. Sure, he found all the modern technology amazing, but he was easily amazed and he found many other things just as amazing, if not more.

As much as Noah should be more curious about the boy's past, the fact he was randomly on this ship made seem less... interesting... than all the other folk they came across in their travels. Like it was too easy to figure out about him. But even diminished curiosity was still curiosity. He didn't care about the practical information about the boy. Not where he came from, not what his plans were, not how much stuff he owned or who might be after him. He cared about emotions, experiences. After all, wasn't that all that mattered in life.

"Say - what do you think the strongest emotion is?" Noah asked with a disinterested tone that didn't match the excited gleam in his eyes, as he grabbed a sponge and bucket and handed them towards Tristan.

"Um-" Tristan was taken aback, looking confused at the man standing in front of him. He took the sponge and bucket as his mind began to wander. "I haven't really ever thought about that before," he said. "But I think jealousy is probably the strongest emotion. Not because of the emotion itself, but because it's a gateway emotion." Tristan looked back up at Noah. "Sadness makes you cry, happiness makes you laugh, anger makes you destructive. But jealousy." The young man shook his head as he tossed the sponge into the bucket. "Jealousy is the root of so many things. It can put you on a road that leads you through so many emotions, especially emotions you don't expect to feel. The power that has over the mind is...incredible."

"Interesting, interesting..." Noah talked as he walked towards the other side of the engine room. He pointed to a stain on the floor, that was slightly wet and had the metallic sheen of oil about it. "How about you clean that up? It's mostly water, but there's soap in that bin to get what isn't." Noah wondered what sort of life Tristan had lived that made him think so of jealousy. Had he been jealous? He was of course running from something, or to something, to stow away on a ship. And if he didn't bring much with him, Noah doubted he had too much to leave behind. Probably just a poor kid, trying to make a life for himself. He didn't seem to have thought about the reasoning for all of it, which made him a bit less interesting to talk to than somebody older, more self-aware. In fact, Noah realized right then he was still thinking of Tristan as a boy, rather than a man. He wondered what the kid viewed himself as. How naive did he think he was?

"When you were a little kid - what did you want to accomplish in life?" He had to put the little kid part in there. After all, kids seemed so much more willing to accept their dreams. They hadn't yet been pulled down to Earth by fear and disappoint and life. Those were true dreams, untainted ones... and truly, didn't Noah spend his whole life trying to find that same excitement he had as a kid? Of course he'd value a kids dreams more. As the engineer thought, he stepped back towards the other side of the engine room, picking up the booklet again.

"I don't know," Tristan said. It was a lie. He bent down to the floor and dropped the sponge onto the wet area. "Most of my life my father chose what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be when I grew up." The young man stopped scrubbing for a few minutes as he began to think back to a time long past. A different time where Tristan was a much different person. His eyes gazed down as he released a long breath. "Sometimes I think I don't exactly know who I am at all. Every decision was made for me, every thought was influenced. And once you cut yourself from the strings that make you dance, where exactly do you end up? Do you just...fall?"

Tristan wiped his sleeve over his face, drying the tears that started to form in the corners of his eyes. "Sorry, I don't think that's what you were asking," he said as he started scrubbing the floor again.

"It doesn't matter what I was asking," Noah shrugged. "The only thing that matters was the answer. And GOD, does that sound familiar. My father wanted me to an engineer. All my life, I grew up just trying to make him proud, to work in the family business." He needn't mention that said business was a multi-billion credit corporation. "Even now, now that we haven't talked in years, I wonder if this is really what I want to do," the man said. Despite the uncertain words, he spoke with a level voice, as if he had practiced this same conversation in his head. Interesting that this had sparked such a reaction to the boy. He found himself revising his assumptions about the boy's past. Probably not poor, a family influential enough to think they could do better. The truth is, Noah had asked himself that same question many times. He was just glad he had his sisters to share in his father's grand plans for them, and however annoying it might that he overlooked him for his sister... it was almost a bit liberating that he overlooked him for his sister. After all, he doubted he could've hid his relationship for Paul for as long as he did if his father had watched him as closely and he'd watched Sibyl. "But that doesn't matter. I think I'm content." Was that true? Yeah. Sure. He wasn't not content. "Life's just so exciting," Noah added. "I never know where it will take me." That same glimmer was back in his eye.

The engineer resumed his seat on the metal box, and opened the booklet to read but that didn't stop him from talking. He could multitask. "And when you cut yourself from those puppet strings, you don't fall. You fly. Like a balloon. But also quite literally. Because you're in a ship now." He chuckled. "And a ship flies." At that Noah laughed. It was a stupid, unguarded kind of laugh, the kind where he didn't care what sort of ugly noise he might just make - he was laughing for his own sake, nobody else's.

For the first time since he'd come on board, Tristan laughed. And the two of them sat there for a few moments, laughing at the silliest thing. "I suppose I could think of it that way," Tristan said as he continued the scrubbing. "So if you aren't sure you want to be an engineer, what did you want to be?" he asked, looking up at Noah.

"I wanted to be an adventurer. Like, from those old stories. Charting the uncharted corners of the 'verse, discovering new planets, interesting people, all that. Of course, that's not a real job, but don't tell five year old me that." Maybe the reason he had decided to work on a ship, and even work on a ship that was going around the outskirts of known space, not the well-mapped Core, was because some of that desire for adventure was still there. It wasn't a bravery; he had no want to be seen a folk hero, or any of that. He just wanted to finally discover something, contribute to something, that hadn't been seen before. "Sadly that doesn't pay a living wage." Noah gave that one last chuckle before looking back towards his booklet. He must've looked up when they were laughing.

"In a way, aren't you doing exactly what you wanted?" Tristan asked, not looking up from the spot he was scrubbing. "While yes, you do have a specific job on the ship, you're still an adventurer. I'm sure this ship has seen it's fair share of new things."

"The problem there - there are no 'new things'." Noah's grip on the booklet tightened. He said he could multitask, sure, he had picked up that skill in college, but he had been reading the same wiring diagram over for the third time. "Everything has been seen. Everything has been done. There's nothing left to discover." Then he paused. No need to get so pessimistic. "Buuuut anyway," he decided to change the subject. Less about him. 'Them' wasn't interesting. He already knew enough about himself to fill a book, whereas he only had maybe a chapter on Tristan. "Out of the ships in the docks, why did you pick the absolutely sketchiest Firefly to try to stowaway in?" Not only was the ship itself still a work in a progress, and an older model at that, he had wound up with a crew whose first reaction was to pull guns. Tough luck.

"It was the closest," Tristan simply stated in response.

Noah laughed, loosening his group on the booklet. It fell back open, but to a different page. The mechanic didn't even seem to notice. He wasn't one to try to act stoic - after all, stoicism was a masculine trait, in his mind. He had no desire to hide his amusement. He wasn't sure the kid was being honest, but he sure hoped so. It would be more funny that way. If life is hard, it might as well be funny as well. In fact, that logic reminded him of his own logic when he was about that age. "How's that stain going?" He asked, trying to get them back on the task at hand.

Tristan stood, "It's almost out, but I do need a bit of soap," he said as he walked to the bin that Noah mentioned earlier. He pulled out the bottle and squirted a little of the pink liquid into the bucket before returning the container to the bin. "Can I ask you something?" He looked up at Noah but didn't wait for a response. "Why do you have two first names? I've never met anyone like that before."

"Well," Noah said, that same bright gleam in his eye as he thought about the past. He had only fond memories of his time with Paul. "I was going to change my name to Jade, but I never could really commit. So I'm just Noah-Jade now." Noah had met a few people with multiple names, but true, it wasn't the same... Mary Ann, Gracie Mae... Those sort of names. He wondered, for a moment, whether Tristan hadn't met anybody with names like that, or whether or not he viewed Noah's name as different, in a way. "Maybe I should change it into one name though. No-ade? Jadeoah? Noahjade; that sounds the same but it's spelled as one word." He shrugged. "Honestly, I don't care what people call me any more. Call me Noah, or Jade, if that's too long for you.

"No, not at all," Tristan replied, suddenly feeling like he may have offended the man. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't pry. I apologize if I was being too pushy."

"Don't worry about. I've got nothing to hide, and you're a much better conversationalist than my bird is." It took all of Noah's self control to not try to sound a touch condescending on that second fact. He had nothing to hide; but did Tristan? Noah might appear to be trusting, but he wasn't. Acting suspicious never helped anyone, though, and was more difficult than it was worth. Why ruin it now? The engineer absentmindedly flipped back to the original wiring diagram in the book.

Tristan sat there for a moment, looking at the engineer. While he said he didn't offend him, he didn't believe him. The young man stood, tossing the sponge back into the bucket. "What're you reading?" he asked as he slid the bucket towards the bin with the soap and walked over to where Noah was sitting with the book.

"Circuit diagrams. They're probably of no interest to you, as you don't care much for engines." At that, the engineer looked up, his gaze moving silently over towards where the stain had been, trying to appraise the young man's efforts. He himself wasn't a huge fan of circuit diagrams. He loved them in concept but they were needlessly complex and tedious, especially in a system of this size. He was trying to find out where this one specific fuse went - he had found a spare of it in the back of a closet and was determined to know which it was.

Leaning over, Tristan looked at the picture. "That...looks confusing," he said, glancing up at the large cylindrical engine, then back to the picture.

"I think that's the point," Noah said with an amused smile. "Electrical engineers practicing have a pissing contest over who can make theirs the most needlessly complex and tangled." Then the engineer stood, folding the booklet closed but this time putting it in his pocket instead of in the holder. "Now that the stain's cleaned, let's see... oh, I wanted to sand the edge of this new part before I installed it, let me show you how." Noah began explaining some other tasks, perfectly casual about the fact that the man he was dealing with a suspicious stowaway.