The Coming Thing

Brisco watched as the group stepped on that platform and left. Up and left, just because some contraption told them they could. Realizing that some people had to stick around - just in case - Brisco decided not to risk leaving the station as yet. Besides, Newt wasn't a part of that group and he had to keep an eye on the kid one way or another.

He wandered around for a while, at first looking for Newt but then just taking in the whole quiet of it all. It was a weird sorta quiet, too. It never went completely silent but somehow he could just about sense the machinations that kept this thing floating in space, kept it making the gravity and kept making the air they all needed to breathe. He'd never claim to be able to understand how it all worked, but he supposed that the small noises reminded him that the station was still trying to keep all of them alive.

More or less. He sure wasn't certain allowed the folks to leave once in a while constituted keeping 'em alive. He made his way to the observation deck, rapidly becoming his favorite place in the station, so that he could settle his mind by looking at the stars. He was starting to see patterns in the stars, now, similar to the constellations he knew back home. Maybe they oughtta create their own constellations and their own stories to go with 'em?

"Brisco. County. Jr." drawled a voice which set Brisco's teeth on edge.

"Can't be," Brisco muttered, rubbing at his eyes. "You're dead." He turned in the direction of the voice, to the familiar figure standing in the passageway. Tall, he was. Taller than Brisco, and lanky-thin, with a sharp, cunning face. Blond hair peeked from beneath the man's hat. Incredulously, Brisco wondered how the man was able to travel to the station and keep his clothes besides.

"You're dead," Brisco repeated, in a weary tone. "You're dead." As if saying it over and over would make it true.

In response, the figure drew his gun and fired.

Brisco slammed down to the floor, covering his head with his hands as shot after shot erupted from the other man's revolver. Once it was empty, Brisco dared to lift his head, scanning the room and noticing that the poor couches took some damage. The other man scurried away and Brisco leaped to his feet, eager to chase the man down.

"BLY!" he roared after the fleeing figure, rushing down the corridors in an attempt to grab the man. John Bly. Leader of the Gang of Twelve.

And the man responsible for murdering Brisco's father in cold blood.

Brisco had to stop him before he went after anyone else. If he didn't, the entire station would be in danger!

[[EP for anyone to tag Brisco, who is currently running through the station like the devil was after him.]]

This Proserpina is filled to the brim with Coming Things. Not surprising, considering its "home" era must be very far removed from my own. Or not so far removed after all. Many of the scattered belongings of the previous inhabitants of this station appear familiar: books, stuffed toys, the detritus of folks just trying to live their lives.

Toys. There were children here, once. It can't have been a bad place.

The "Communicator" is basically the oddest Coming Thing I'd ever encountered. And that's saying something. It's not much bigger than your average bar of soap. And yet it contains an ability that's the envy of Samuel Morse himself. A communicator can transfer messages, without wires - "wirelessly", I suppose - across some distance. I'm unsure if it's capable of traversing the hundreds of miles that a telegraph can traverse, so I think Wells Fargo can rest easy for now.

The device seems a natural progression of the typewriter, and it contains keys which resemble such. A valuable ally if you don't know much Morse code. It addressed me by name when I first picked it up, so it must have some way of recognizing me. There's a Scottish surgeon who, not long ago, published an interesting paper on the possibility of using a person's fingerprints to identify them. I imagine something similar is at play here.

Now if only I could teach it to make sarcastic remarks, then it'd feel a bit more like home.

A long time ago, a much younger Brisco County, Jr. made himself a promise: to never remain stationary. Oh, sometimes that promise got broken. Sometimes circumstances forced him to linger around for more than a day, but he usually made it up to himself afterwards by taking Comet and disappearing into the wilderness for weeks at a time.

And even then finding wilderness was getting difficult. True wilderness made way for progress, felling trees and building paths for railroads. He couldn't deny the excitement of his era, where you could cross the continent in a matter of weeks (sometimes even one!) instead of months. But sometimes he wondered whether he'd miss traversing through that wilderness, once it had gone.

Within the past 48 hours, Brisco had amassed a wealth of knowledge about the future which not even the likes of H.G. Wells could concoct. Sometimes he convinced himself that this place, this Proserpina, was simply an elaborate dream his mind created to give him a glimpse of possibilities for humanity.

He found a room without much hemming and hawing over choices, though he found it difficult to sleep in it. Forsaking cleaning out his room for now, he sought a connection with nature, any connection with nature. And he found it in the wide expanses of stars viewed from the observation deck. He hadn't planned on sitting there long, but soon he found himself mesmerized by the scattering of stars spread out before him.

So many stars.

He settled into one of the couches and made L shapes with the thumb and forefinger of each hand. Then he connected his fingers into a sort of rectangle, with which to peek through. At the very least, the makeshift frame gave his eyes a narrow view to focus on. And without it, he would be forced to contemplate infinity.

And that frightened him, though he wouldn't admit it aloud to anyone. Not sober, anyway.