Post by Christian Moynahan on Feb 3, 2014 21:56:56 GMT -5
I memorized all the words for you
But if you only knew
how much that’s just not like me
-Crossfade, “Invincible”
From where they stood, they could see almost the entire city. He might have chosen the U.S. Bank Tower, but since that building had been destroyed some years earlier and was still being rebuilt, he had opted for a different one. It was for the best at any rate; this one had a restaurant on one of its highest floors. In case the lack of patrons -though the serving and cooking staff remained - did not make it obvious, he had bought out the restaurant for the evening, in the interest of privacy and because it seemed neater. The staff had anything at hand that she might wish for, including a small cake and a couple of bottles of Pastis, at his instruction. This would be a test of how well he had read her and how much he had learned about her, although he supposed he was making too much of something simple, as he often did.
Once Maurelle entered, Christian turned and walked toward her, smiling. “Bonsoir, Mademoiselle Lacroix,” he said. “Et un joyeux anniversaire.” Taking both of her hands, he added, “Tu es belle.”
Normally, Christian had a way of choosing odd outfits, with unconventional colors that did not necessarily match; this evening, he wore a black dinner jacket with black pants, along with a white dress shirt and a purple tie dark enough to be considered black. He lowered one of her hands and, still holding the other, gave her a sly smile. “Viens ici.”
He led her to the windows. They looked out on the sunset beyond the other buildings, just clear and visible enough to possibly be considered beautiful. “Bien sûr, je vous suis un présent.” He removed something from his pocket and opened it quickly, such that she would see its contents first. “I thought we might start with that.”
What she was looking at was a compass. “I don’t know enough French for this part,” he admitted. “It’s a compass. Well, in part. That’s its main function. See here, this is black titanium, and this is platinum, if anyone asks. The rest of the compass’ mechanics are under it. There’s nothing fantastic there, I just took an ordinary compass and made a few modifications to it.” He glanced at her to see what she might be thinking so far. After all, for Christmas, he had designed (though not built) a beautiful necklace. He’d had to outdo himself.
“Obviously, the compass points magnetic north. If for some reason it craps out, gets dropped or anything like that, there’s a tiny GPS chip that will connect to Ark’s satellites and set the needle back to magnetic north. Or, you know, if that doesn’t work, there’s always….”
He closed the lid. The entire compass was smooth and comfortably fit into Maurelle’s palm. But it was the sleek feel of the lid that was most noticeable. The lid was black, with a clear dome, and small dots and faint lines traced along it. The dots and lines were luminous, giving off a barely noticeable light. The lights moved when she did.
“Constellations. Specifically, the night sky, right over your head. Of course, you’ll see Polaris is right here.” He gestured toward the brightest dot, the only one that was clearly marked. “It’ll work just as well in a city as it would in the wild. So, compass or stars, whichever works best. And besides, it’s pretty.” He tapped on the glass. “That’s the hardest I could make the glass. It’s harder than gorilla glass. You’d have to drop it off the very top of the Empire State building five times before you see a dent. I know, I had Alain try it.” He tilted his head and grinned. “On a dummy, of course. Failsafe on failsafe on failsafe.
“But none of this helps if you don’t have the compass. So… it has a limited form of teleportation. You can call it to yourself and it will appear in your hand. Well, should. It’s attracted to your right palm.” He chuckled. “Alain let me do some testing on him. If I could figure out how to teleport anything to another place without using a Special, I’d be the richest man in the world. But this seems to work, and that’s enough.”
He removed his hands from hers. “I didn’t design it to be a necklace, but it’s small enough that it might work. You could always loop a chain through that small loop. Since you like to accessorize.” This time, he grinned, like a child who has done something big for the first time, or a man who has taken joy in a project and is hoping for a positive response.
What did one get a woman who had everything?
Something she could not have had before.
Christian exhaled and looked at Maurelle. This time, his gaze was earnest for a long moment. Then his expression broke into its usual amusement. “Of course, there’s also cake and wine and all the usual things.”
