Do you think I'm a good person, Brynn?
No.
Wow. Zero hesitation.
If even half the stuff you've told me is true, you're up there with Hitler, Stalin... Pol Pot.
Pol Pot, even!
You did ask.
I don't think I ever intentionally did any genocides, though.
That depends on what "intentionally" means. The fact that you have to qualify it at all isn't great, either.
I'm just saying, I never did anything with the express intent of killing a ton of people, not if I could avoid it.
But that's a lie. You said yourself, every time you mucked about with the timeline you were wiping whole civilizations out of existence. You're saying that's not genocide?
Not legally, no.
Once again, if you've got to split hairs about what is and isn't genocide, you're probably doing something wrong in the first place.
Everything has a lifecycle. For anything to live, something must die.
Sure, but that's nature. Nature has no will, no intention. You have the ability to make decisions.
What if I'm time's instrument? You don't know for sure that the things I did weren't meant to happen. Maybe time has a lifecycle, too, and I was just doing my part to cull the weak timelines.
Chrono-Darwinism? That's your argument?
Hey, I like that. I'm gonna steal that.
No, you leave that for me to put in my book.
What book?
Shh.
I'm supposed to be the one making the dismissive comments...
Hurts to have that shoe on the other foot, huh?
Why would it? My feet are the same size.
I bet they aren't. Did you know most people's feet actually aren't the same size? And I mean measurably different, not something measured in microns or whatever.
That sounds made up.
And yet.
What about boobs? Do they work like that?
You always find a way to sneak that shit in, don't you?
I'm just saying, I could check--
You'll need to get checked by a doctor if you finish that sentence.
Look, we gotta do this dance every time you come by, otherwise it just doesn't feel right.
That's cool, man. My whole life is background radiation of misogyny, but you need to make some clumsy passes and objectify me like our age gap isn't old enough to collect Social Security. I get it.
Now, see, how can I be a bad person if you saying that made me feel bad?
That just means you have a conscience, or at least an ego to wound.
I definitely have... one of those.
Not beating the allegations, that's for sure.
OK, so put aside whether I have or haven't extinguished whole civilizations by time-hopping, what about the rest? Is St. Peter letting me in or should I wear sunscreen? That's a little joke.
Who is that joke for?
Do you know who Baz Lurhmann is?
Somebody who'd kick your ass if he heard you talking about him?
Nah, he loves it. Anyway, look up his name and "wear sunscreen."
Why? Am I going to see something horrible?
Sometimes I feel like you don't trust me.
I could get my phone out and look it up right now.
Sure, why not?
...
What do you think?
Why didn't you go back in time and prevent this?
What do the kids say? Let him cook.
Every time you say something like that, I just want you to know, I die a little inside. A lot, even.
I know. That's my whole plan. Live forever by stealing life force from the Zoomers with their own slang.
It's working. Although it's not doing your looks any favors.
At my age, I'm lucky to have skin at all.
Thanks for making me visualize you as a skeleton.
Half of it would be more Terminator-looking.
Even better. And you don't think you're a bad person?
Oh, I didn't say that. I'm pretty clear on what kind of person I am. I just wondered if you were one of those people that believe in redemption or something.
Probably too late for you, dude.
And here I was told it's never too late!
Hey, maybe a deathbed conversion will work. Nobody's ever come back to say for sure, right?
What makes you think I don't already believe in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?
Besides the fact that you said those last 6 words like some kind of punch line?
Ah, I guess it is pretty obvious, huh?
Well, what about you? You religious?
I'm something. I'd hate to think all this exists for no reason.
Existing for no reason is kind of cool. We can make our own reasons.
That's easy for you to say, Mr. Time Machine Man.
I also believed it before I got access to time travel, mind you.
So, what would sway you to one particular belief or another? Do you think there's an afterlife?
Wasn't this about what kind of person you are?
Just trying to dig a little.
Your own grave?
Oh, I did that ages ago. Keep up. You're avoiding the question.
I don't know, maybe if I saw an actual miracle? But every "miracle" I've ever heard of was extremely ambiguous, at best. I know people have near-death experiences and say they saw things, but I also know the science there. The brain does weird things when it starts to die.
Had more of those than I'd care to count. They don't get more fun with repeat visits.
I was hoping it'd be like unlocking levels in a video game.
Maybe that's how you think it works. You earn Good Girl Credits here on Earth and redeem them in the afterlife for... wings and a halo?
I'd settle for a cool tattoo.
If the drawings I've seen online are anything to go by, tattoos are more of a demon thi--
LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA LA LA
You're so easy to wind up.
You're just a perverted old man.
Yeah, really reinforcing the "bad person" thing, I know.
If that was the standard, I could count on one hand the number of men I'd call good people.
Is it really that bad?
You're 900 years old and you don't know anything about women, huh?
We've been over this.
And I'm gonna slap you around with it again.
You do keep coming back.
I like the money.
So I'm paying you to let me sexually harass you?
No, that's just part of the hostile work environment, it's not the work, per se.
I'd try to dial it back, but I am who I am.
An asshole, yes.
Now who's making the work environment hostile?
It doesn't work that way. You're my boss. You have the power in this relationship, so things I say to you don't carry the same weight as things you say to me.
That's just because you're a woman. Don't hit me. I'm kidding.
Somehow, I don't think you are. You have a lot of regressive ideas about women. About people in general, I think. How the hell did you grow up in the future but you talk like some Boomer POS?
Social norms yo-yo back and forth, what can I say? My parents probably would have raised me different, but my brother was... not them. And then I got shoved into the military pretty young. Militaries are generally not bastions of politeness and tolerance.
Sucks to hear that doesn't get any better. But you also haven't been in any military in what, almost 40 years? You gotta stop using that excuse at some point.
I'll probably be dead before that happens.
If that's what it takes!
Meanie.
I don't know about this arrangement, sometimes. You really piss me off. But then you get vulnerable and even... sweet? In a grandpa kind of way. Could be the trauma bonding talking, though.
Interacting with me isn't that bad, come on.
Yeah, I guess all I have to worry about with you are creepy words and wandering eyes. It's almost a vacation from how some people at the cafe act.
I wouldn't last a day in customer service. I'd rather fight in another war.
I think we know what kind of hell you're getting sent to, then!