Florin seemed somewhat grateful that she wasn’t going to call the police, though he seemed to falter. He stayed where he was, at least for now. “I..”
“..I can’t take it off. I apologize, but I have orders I need to follow, even if the people that make and enforce them aren’t here right now.” His voice had calmed considerably, although his eyes wandered around still, as if he was on edge. Which he was.
When you’d been taught to follow rules all of your life, it was hard to stray away from them, even if you weren’t being watched. “I’ll stay in the dark if I have to, it’s not..it’s not like the first time I’ve spent a night out in the dark.” He glances out into the forest where he exited out of, turning around.
“Can’t disobey orders.” He murmured.
Ellie turned all the way around with an amused smile, "Really? Even though you're in a completely different place with zero idea of where you really are and where your people are," She took a step towards him, "Unless you're the Mandalorian, take it off. I want to know who I'm talking to."
She knew she might be a little harsh on this guy. He'd turned up in an unknown location and now she was telling him to remove his mask. But, it was basic protocol. And maybe if he took off his mask, she might recognise his face from some of the files she'd looked at of criminals recently.
Florin turned back around to face her. “I am not taking it off.” He stated, this time managing to keep the nervousness from his voice. “I have orders, and one of those orders is to not reveal my face like this.”
“And I do believe you know who you’re speaking to. Florin Strotz, Operative 6734 of the Insurgency.” Perhaps he gave out a bit too much information at that point, but he had his reasons for saying what he said. And he was still unsure if she had a clue of what he just said.
For a brief few seconds, his demeanour seemed to change, and there was a distant, almost cold look in his eyes. It faded away quickly though when he spoke again, much more quietly. “Sorry.”
Ellie scoffed, "Sorry, none of what you said made any fucking sense." Her eyes narrowed and the smile faded, "Now, you're going to come inside, sit your ass down on the couch and explain to me who the hell the Insurgency is, understand?" She raised a brow, "As long as you're on my property you will do as I say from now on."
She was being too strict on the dude and yet she couldn't stop. It was slightly amusing and for someone who didn't have a lot of power in her own sanction of the government she couldn't help it. But it was true, he was trespassing and she was doing him a favor by not calling the cops. But if he didn't cooperate she would.
He lifted his head, backing up slightly. Florin wasn’t expecting that, quite frankly. But he was at a disadvantage right now, so he’d just need to compromise for now. “Fine. I’ll do everything else, but the mask stays on.” Although Florin was doing his best to keep his voice neutral, he couldn’t help but keep the faint displeasure from coming out in his voice.
Ellie wasn't please with the fact that the mask had to stay on but at leas he was complying with everything else, "Fine. Mask stays on. For now." She turned on her heel, heading back inside the house. She needed a glass of whisky. Or vodka. Or both. She left the door open as she headed into the kitchen to grab a drink, watching Florian through the windows.
Florin took a few moments before moving on and going in. It had been some time since he’d been in a house of this condition before. It was much better, compared to what he typically saw all of the time. Of course, he was on a completely different continent and even in a..different year. He still had to figure that part out.
He walked slowly, giving himself time to look at each and every detail in the home. As if he had never been in a house himself. Which, in a way, he hadn’t; at least, not in a while.
“What did you want me to explain..?”
The home was actually pretty nice. It was an open floor plan, the kitchen, dining room and living room all connected. There was a fireplace and a tv above it, long bookshelves bordering them. There were grey couches in front and a glass coffee table filled with notes and files. It felt a lot like a log cabin which is basically what it was. The kitchen and dining room were all oak with hanging lights and it felt very homely, like a place to relax after a stressful day at work.
Ellie pointed to the couch, "Sit." She downed a shot of whisky then poured herself a glass of wine before she went and sat down, "Who's Insurgency?"
Florin sat down on the couch. It had been some time since he’d sat down on a couch, but it definitely wasn’t a foreign thing to him.
Explaining things would be a decent task. Florin could do that. He stayed silent for a few seconds, considering things. Evaluating what he was going to say.
“Not who. What.” He started. “The Insurgency fights for..” he pauses. Sometimes, he wasn’t quite sure. He remembered the original goal of it, though. “The Insurgency fights for liberty. It’s kind of like an alliance of several countries, though there are other groups out there. The one I’m apart of is the largest, though.”
He paused again, thinking on what else to say. He thought back to when she told him it was 2020. Maybe he’d say something about that. But maybe she wouldn’t believe him when he said that he came from ‘2011,’ nearly ten years in the past from now.
He made his choice.
“It’s a bit hard to explain my situation right now, and chances are you won’t believe me. But I need to get this out of the way if I am to explain other things that you probably want to hear about.” He took a breath.
“Before I was here, I was in South America. And before I was in 2020, I was in 2011. As in, just a few hours ago, I was there, in that specific year. In a forest. With my squadmates, all of which I have no clue where they are anymore. We were all apart of the same Insurgency; same mission, etc.”
He stops speaking, giving himself time to think.
Ellie blinked once or twice. Then, she took a long sip of her wine.
"So, you time traveled?" She eventually said. It was the only logical explanation but time travel didn't exist yet. Well, not that she new of, "But, there is no such thing as the Insurgency. I'm pretty sure if it existed I'd know, I work with the government but I haven't heard anything about it."
She leaned back in her chair. Maybe this guy was just insane and he escaped from a mental institution. But that's not something you'd wear in a mental hospital.
"Okay, let's just say that this organisation you works for exists and I just don't know about it. What exactly do you do?" She gestured to his outfit, "That's a lot of armor."
“Well, it depends on what job you do in it. For people like me, you’re typically taken at a young age..like I was around 11 years old, when I was taken, and trained for a specific job for a long time, unless they’re running real low on people.”
Florin looked up. “I don’t know much about other people in the Insurgency, but I know what I do. I follow orders. I fight other people. I make sure my mission is completed..even if it requires the sacrifice of my own life. But that’s pretty normal for me.”
He considers the time travel. “maybe something of that sort. But something really tells me that it’s a bit different then that, given that it looks like some of the events that I know of aren’t affecting this place, even though they..should.”
11 years old. Same age as she was hen she moved to America from England. She shook the thought out of her head.
"What events do you means? Do you not have Trump where you come from or Brexit or what?" Elide was starting to get more and more confused and contemplated possible different scenarios. Maybe he was just from a lab and was in some virtual reality shit? Or something like the Maze Runner. Or… "Alternate universes." She mumbled.
“Sort of. Although there’s probably a few different places in my..world compared to your ‘world.’ Has the Third World War began yet?” Florin asked.
Alternate universe seemed like a possibility. He never thought too much of the idea himself, but he was aware of it.
Her eyes shot up to Florin, "World war three? No not yet. But it'll probably happen soon with the way things are going right now it probably will. But you're saying, that in your 'world', in 2011, you're having World War Three?"
“For quite a while, yes. It started out as a series of small conflicts, then developed into a larger one about a year ago.”
“I mean, in 2010,” he corrected himself.
She nodded a little, "Right so, let me get this straight. Ten years ago, world war three started. You're with some organisation called Insurgency and somehow you ended up in my back yard by with I'm assuming is time travel or something along those lines, correct?"
“Yup,” he leaned back. “That’s about it, what I told you. Alternate universe or something. I don’t know.”
She took another long sip of the wine, "There's no other explanation other then an alternative universe. The next question is how did you get here? If you managed to cross over maybe other people did."
“If other people got over, they weren’t near me. No clue how I got here, either. I wasn’t aware of any technology that could transport one to a different universe..although, the Sedorians may have something to do with that, given how secretive they are.” He sat back up again.
Ellie raised a brow, "The Sedorians? Who the hell are they?"
“Ah,” he recalled back to when he said certain events didn’t exist in this world. “Probably a group of people that don’t exist in this world. If they don’t exist, I’m guessing the world map looks different here too.”
“Sedorians are the people that allied with a bunch of countries, so that eventually, when tensions came up high and the war began, all of those alliances kicked into effect and made it into a world war. Sedorians live in a country called Sedori. It’s like this big..island, really hard to invade if you’ve never been on it, easy to defend if you live there.” Florin stated.
"Okay so, what I'm getting at is this country that your describing sounds a lot like Australia, a big island in the middle of no where but… the alliance stuff doesn't sound so different to some of the stuff that happens here. Countries ally with one another in case of war." Ellie shrugged, "We just don't have a country called Sedori."
“I mean, Sedori is smaller than Australia. And a lot more jungle like,” Florin recalled. “Yeah, I figured that, about the alliances.”
“Was there..anything else you wanted to know?”
Ellie rubbed at her forehead, "Not right now. I think I've got everything for the moment. But if I think of anything else I'll tell you in the morning."
“Right..” Florin glanced around, unsure of what to do now. He still seemed curious of his surroundings. And of course, still thinking of how did I get here, but his current focus was what was going on right now.
“..So what do I do now?” He turned towards her.
