walk_ins | [Santo - The Beach]

[Santo - The Beach]

[master post]

You have to walk down a ramp to get to the sand. The ramp stretches over sand dunes, with sea oats dotting them, blowing in the near-constant breeze. On the same level as the ramp: a boardwalk, dotted with places to get sketchy-looking fried food, to try your luck at a number of games of chance, to watch performers, to ride roller coasters of the future!!!!

When you walk down the ramp, it's all white sand and blue water. Down about half a mile is a pier that juts out several hundred feet.

It's a nice beach. Not too crowded.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah?"

Simon Tam doesn't ping as a con. And Charlie Crews can tell. Usually.

He takes off his sunglasses and stows them in a pocket, expression set. "Me too.

"From the other perspective. The non-cop one."

Simon pauses, and looks at Charlie.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You're not a con, though. I would have picked up on it. I think. Unless they do it different here. They might. I mean, if there's flying cars there are other different things. And languages. It's like L.A., but it's not. Not exactly. It's like everything's just a little off. So I guess that could be off too."

His speech has sped up, just a little. Noticeable, but apparently not to Charlie.

He's looking out at the ocean.

"No," Simon answers, hoping he's understood the term correctly, "I'm not a con."

Beat.

"I spent some time as a wanted fugitive, though."

"Yeah?" Simon gets half a sidelong look. "Not any more?"

"No," he agrees with a small smile, "not anymore. Or I wouldn't be out here in public."

Unconsciously, he turns his face toward the sun as he speaks.

"The matter finally came to a public hearing, and ... the charges were dropped. Both the completely fraudulent ones and the ones that weren't what they looked like."

"A public hearing with you present?"

That's generally how it works. Generally. At least where he comes from. This is a different system, he tells himself. Different.

"Yes," he says. "They'd ... finally caught up with us, some days before. But somebody leaked news of our capture, and certain groups made a rather loud outcry, and they were pretty much forced into the public hearing."

Otherwise we'd have just disappeared, he doesn't say. It's far too nice a day to think about that.

"You were mixed up in something they didn't like." Charlie is still looking out at the water. "You, plural. More than one of you."

Pause.

"My sister. She was ... part of a government-funded experiment. Masquerading as an Academy for the gifted."

It's been a long while since he's told this over.

"She managed to get word to me, in code, that they were hurting her, and ... I broke her out."

He shrugs. "That was the part they didn't like."

Charlie shakes his head.

"No, that doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would make you a lot of friends." He seems calmer now.

The water is the same. The water doesn't change. The water isn't imperceptibly... off.

Not on Santo it isn't; their moon is very close to the size of Earth's.

"So they charged me with kidnapping for that, and they charged us both with murder, later."

A beat. "Those were the fraudulent ones," he adds.

A moment's half-smile. "Good ones to be fraudulent about. Maybe the best ones."

Simon glances away.

"There were people murdered," he says, low and pensive. "Just, we weren't the ones who did it."

Charlie doesn't flinch.

Instead, he takes in a breath. In, and out.

He's connected here, too.

Another breath.

"It happens."

Simon's eyes flick to him.

"Murders?"

"Yeah." It's more quiet than before. "More often than you'd think. Where somebody gets blamed. And they shouldn't."

He pauses.

"That's what I'm gonna do. In a couple months. I'm gonna be working in the homicide division."

Me too, the man said. From the other perspective.

It's too soon to draw a conclusion from that, but speculation isn't conclusion.

"So, solving murders."

"Fighting crime," Charlie agrees, raising his head. He can feel the wind on his face.

"It's a good thing to do," Simon agrees.

Someone down on the beach is flying a kite; he can't see where the string ends, but the bright sail of the kite itself is dancing in the air eight or ten yards away.

"The public took notice."

Charlie says this after a long moment.

"So it -- you were kind of high-profile. You could say. You were famous."

A very small grimace.

"In a way, yes. Making it a high-profile case was the only way to be sure we wouldn't get swept under a rug somewhere."

"You worried somebody's gonna recognize you while we're out here?"

"Not ... especially. It could happen, but ... being recognized is a matter of a minor annoyance, not a threat to our lives."

He looks around at the sun and sand and water, and smiles a little.

"Which makes it very much an acceptable risk."

"Yeah."

Another half-smile. "It's worth it."

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