Wolf In The City:

[pepperspray]

WHO: Pepper and Lyall
WHAT: Pepper makes good on a promise to a trans-dimensional friend.
WHERE: 21st century Manhattan, post-Outer Divide.


At first, there's not all that much unusual to be seen. The room deep in the interior of Stark Tower that's been set aside as a sort of portal chamber (unnecessary though it may be for Salvation to have a fixed location for pick-up) is styled in the sort of clean white lines and futuristic brushed metal that Lyall's seen before, on Verdana and off of it. The Pepper Potts that's standing by the door to welcome him seems a natural extension of those lines, albeit one with an openly friendly smile.

It's not until she's ushered him out and into an elevator that deposits them in the penthouse suite in dizzying time that truly unfamiliar sights start to unfurl: through the wide sheet windows that wrap the suite, beyond the doors out onto the upper level atrium, the buildings of Manhattan rise like a forest of metal and glass, lit by a late afternoon that seems like it's never heard of coal smoke. "I'm thinking lunch out," says Pepper from near his elbow. "But I thought you might like to see the view first."

Comments

[professorwolf]

If she was looking to get a reaction out of the normally mild werewolf, she's going to get exactly what she wants. While he'd been delighted, in his polite way, to see her upon his "landing", so to speak, on her world, he hadn't been effusive or improper in any way. But at that sight, he stops short to stare at the view, completely taken aback. He even takes off his glasses to make sure he's seeing it all properly. "Good God, those buildings... they're huge! How does that even work!"

[pepperspray]

"Mostly concrete, internally reinforced with steel," Pepper explains, with a tone that's all helpful informativeness and an expression of mild delight at his reaction: it is, apparently, what she was hoping to get. "Although the Chrysler building, which is our neighbour over to the south west there, and is an absolutely gorgeous example of the Art Deco movement, is actually the tallest brick building in the world. Still steel-reinforced, though."

Not being Tony (Who is conspicuously Off Doing Something Somewhere Else, or at least ought to be) there's a limit to just how nerdy and technical she can get. Aesthetics are more her style, although even that's reined in a bit, as she lets the man out of time drink in the stretching of the city around him. "We're on the 90th floor here, but I'll make sure you get a chance to explore at ground level -- it's not a proper visit to New York if you don't spend some time craning your neck upwards at where you were looking down from before."

[professorwolf]

"The ninetieth floor," Lyall repeats in wonder, and he moves to the window to peer down-- and down, and down. "I have never in all my life been so high off the ground. And yet I'm not flying, so I'm not airsick. I may be the only werewolf to be able to say that."

[pepperspray]

"Or at least the only werewolf so far," Pepper rejoins, with a speculative air about her. Crossing over to one of the doors out to the terrace, she waves a hand in front of a sensor pad. The door obligingly slides open. At once, the quiet of the Stark-Potts private apartments is replaced with the rush of wind at altitude and, drifting up from far below, the vibrant, alien cacophony of the Manhattan streetscape. "Want to be the first werewolf to see what New York looks like from this height?"

[professorwolf]

"That sounds both exhilarating and terrifying," Lyall says, but he does head over to the doorway, head up and obviously taking in some of those scents coming in with that wind.

He pauses before braving the out of doors, nose wrinkling at the most powerful of those scents. "What is that horrible smell? Like smoke, except-- dirtier."

[pepperspray]

It takes a moment for Pepper to process this, glancing down at the streets as if she might tangibly see what Lyall's nose is telling him about. When it clicks -- right, Verdana's magnetic spin-drives were green tech -- she laughs briefly and wags an exaggerated finger in his direction. "People who are living through the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, in London and all its' coal smoke, don't get to complain about engine exhaust, which is the bulk of what you're smelling. But we're working on that," she says, with a CEO of Stark Industries smile. "Electric cars are going to be a growing market share, for one. We'd offer Tesla a challenger with arc technology -- that's what's powering the suits" she explains, with a wave of a hand back towards the doors leading in. "But it's still too easy to weaponize."