Chapter Text
For being so close to the city, the retirement home was pretty out of the way. Luke found himself going in circles for several minutes trying to find the exact side street that led to the cul-de-sac the home was situated within. He could already sense he was going to be wasting more time here than he had planned, but he told himself that thinking of his time as “wasted” wasn’t the most charitable decision. Luke was just making a delivery, yes, but it was still technically a visit to his grandfather.
Luke parked his car in the small but nearly empty lot, and heaved a sizable cardboard box out of the back seat. He hadn’t seen his grandfather in several years now, but he had an idea as to why the box’s contents might still be of value to him: one of Luke’s strongest memories of his grandfather was his apparent allergy to retirement. Still, he’d since stopped working as far as Luke knew, and he’d never really seemed like the sentimental type. Every year the family got together, he’d show up for about one, maybe two mandated dinners or gatherings, then he would disappear as quickly as he’d arrived, making it a point to escape before pictures were taken.
The front door proved a problem. There was a button to open them automatically, but Luke was terrified to break the delicate equilibrium that was keeping this heavy box up in his arms. He was wondering if it would be rude to knock by kicking when he heard someone approaching up the short staircase behind him.
“Oh, hey, I’ll get the door for you.” It was a strangely deep voice for the sturdy, yet slight-framed individual who came into Luke’s view. They wore a cloth scarf over their nose and mouth, and a strange headpiece of some kind that looked like it might be made of wood. Luke supposed he had seen stranger people, but he’d be lying if he said none of this threw him for a loop. The weather was warm enough, and try as he might, he couldn't come up with a professional or recreational reason for such an odd head accessory.
“Are you coming in or not? That box looks heavy,” they prompted, snapping Luke out of his thoughts.
“Oh, uh, yeah, thanks.” He staggered through the door awkwardly, noting that this person also seemed to have some kind of box under their arm. Maybe they were delivering something to a relative, too. They approached the front desk, and muttered something to the bored-looking receptionist that Luke couldn’t quite make out.
“Yeah, he’s in the rec room. All was well last I checked, but don’t be surprised if you’ve got to uh, break up something in there,” the receptionist replied. If Luke wasn’t so anticipant to put down the heavy-ass box in his arms he’d probably have some questions about that, but as soon as the strange person nodded and walked off he booked it to the receptionist desk.
“Afternoon…sir,” the receptionist greeted in a dull tone, pausing to get a look at Luke on the other side of the box. “What can I do for you today.”
“I’m…making a delivery,” Luke huffed, propping the edge of the box on the desk to give himself a break.
“Uhuh. I can see that. Who are you delivering to.”
“Oh, uhm… mister Poe Carder. I’m his grandson,” Luke added, figuring that he looked somewhat suspicious just coming in with such a big box.
The receptionist blinked a couple times, as if appraising Luke anew. “You’re Poe’s grandson.”
“Uh…yeah? This is just some stuff he wanted dropped off. You can look at it if you want…”
The receptionist quirked an eyebrow. “Huh. Can’t say I’m not curious as to what kind of junk Poe wanted so badly he asked for a delivery boy, but it’s his stuff. As long as there’s not any weapons in there you’re good.”
Luke chuckled shortly. “Yeah, no, nothing like that. Um, so where can I find him?”
“Probably just in his room. He comes out for food and not much else.”
“...Okay then.” Luke heaved the box back up, and followed the receptionist’s finger to a hall at the right of the desk. On his way past, he just managed to catch a snippet of the receptionist muttering fastidiously to herself.
“Poe Carder’s grandson… It’s hard enough to believe the guy has a family at all…Woof.”
===
Luke was grateful for the nameplates on the doors. Most of them were closed, and he’d walked way too far before realizing he’d forgotten to ask for a room number. Some of the names were suspect enough to raise an eyebrow (Luke couldn’t help but be concerned about exactly what kind of guy had “Magnificus” on his nameplate) but as soon as his eyes fell on “Poe Carder” Luke felt a flood of relief. He hadn’t even made the delivery yet and it already felt like he’d been in the home for hours. He lightly kicked a few times at the bottom of the door.
“Who is it?” Though muffled by the door, the voice on the other side was just as curt as Luke remembered. Maybe it had been optimistic to assume he’d mellowed with age.
“Uh, it’s Luke! Luke Carder? I’ve got your old stuff you wanted…”
After an agonizingly long moment, the door swung inwards, and Luke was surprised to not see anyone directly on the other side.
Poe Carder was sitting across the room, illuminated by a single lamp with his nose deep in some book Luke couldn’t make out in the dim light. “Get in so I can close the door, it’s too bright,” he muttered.
Luke hastily obliged. He heard a small beep as the door started slowly shutting behind him. “Uh, where do you want the -”
“On the bed,” he interrupted, snapping the book closed with a soft thump. As Luke finally set the box down, he took a moment to look over his grandfather, for the first time in probably several years.
For being nearly 80, Poe didn’t really look it. His skin was still fairly tight on his stocky face, and his dark graying hair only boasted a few designated chunks of lighter gray. But once he turned away from the light and the reflection on the lenses of his rectangular glasses disappeared, it became very clear where exactly all the aging had taken place. His eyes were dark and narrow, as if worn down from squinting through his glasses so many years. They were framed by numerous lines and creases, traced and deepened by a long career of late nights at work staring down bright monitors and piles of paperwork.
Poe had always been without his left arm. Luke remembered asking about it when he was very young, and getting an answer somewhere along the lines of “I dunno, one of the machines at the factory went nuts or something, use your imagination.” Luke still couldn’t admit to himself that he’d believed that story for an entire year. The chair, though, was new. From what Luke remembered Poe had always walked with a purpose, the purpose usually being to get away from whoever was trying to talk to him, but something had apparently happened over the past few years, and now Poe was rolling over to the side of the bed in a powered wheelchair. He seemed comfortable enough moving around with it, though Luke had to quickly jump out of the way to avoid getting his foot crushed under the wheels.
“Hm.” Poe opened one flap on top of the box, then the other, and adjusted his glasses. The heavy technology inside hadn’t jostled around much, thankfully. “Haven’t seen this stuff in awhile. Take out the computer for me, will you?”
Luke nodded, and carefully lifted the old monitor out of the box. It was a pretty old computer, at least late 90’s old. “Couldn’t tell you if it still works…” he warned aloud, setting it on the bed beside the box.
“Oh, it’ll work. I’ve fixed up machines older than this guy.”
“You’re gonna…fix it?” Luke couldn’t help sounding incredulous. Poe had worked in engineering, sure, but Luke hadn’t guessed someone so old would be into computers.
Poe raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? It’s got important data on it. You think I just want a broken hunk of junk in my room?”
“Uh… Well, I didn’t…”
“Hm. You haven’t changed, still don’t think before you say something stupid,” Poe remarked offhandly, reaching in to take the other machine in the box.
Luke blinked, doing a quick double take. “You… You remember me?” he asked, quickly taking the machine in his own hands before Poe dropped it.
“Try as I might to forget. You always had so many dumb questions for me… Stuff slips my mind, sure, but I never forget a face. Even one as forgettable as yours,” he added, examining the strange device.
“Gee, thanks.” Luke rolled his eyes, then turned his attention to the large device in Poe’s hand as well. “What is that thing, anyway? No one back home could tell me.”
Poe scoffed, his small thin mouth pursing into the beginnings of a sneer. “It’s a scanner, obviously. You can scan pictures, or writing, or whatever. I used it for code.”
“For code? Like, computer code?”
Poe set the scanner in his lap and drove himself over to the desk across the room. “Duh. I’d write up the code, then scan it in. Not always, hand-writing code takes a while, but whenever the power went out, and it went out a lot, I had the code saved on paper to scan back in.”
Luke blinked. Hand-writing code?! “And you never just…printed out what you typed up?”
Another scoff. “As if the printer ever worked. Now that thing was an abomination. Factory full of engineers and no one knew how to fix it. Upper management never sprang for a better one.” He lifted the scanner onto the table. “Bring the computer over here too, huh?”
Luke jumped into action. “Ah, yeah… You could say please, y’know?” It was good to respect one’s elders and all, but Luke was getting a little sick of being bossed around.
“For what? My health?”
Well, it was worth a try. Luke heaved the computer onto the desk as Poe went back over to the box, seemingly looking for something else.
“Mhm, here’s the cords, of course they’re tangled…” He rooted around in the box a little, then stopped. “Huh. And what’s this?”
He swerved around, holding up a very familiar shiny rectangular packet. Luke’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “U-Uh, that’s nothing, must have left one of my things in there by accident.” He quickly took the packet out of Poe’s hand, carefully storing it into his back pocket.
“Left what? Some kind of illegal thing?” asked Poe, his already narrow eyes squinting in suspicious curiosity. “You don’t seem like the type.”
“No, no, nothing like that. Just uh, something for my…job.” Like that was any less suspicious. “You wouldn’t be that interested…”
“Actually, I think I would be that interested, if you’re gonna be so coy about it,” Poe returned, leaning onto the chair’s armrest as if trying to get another look at what Luke had hidden. Luke sighed and took it back out.
“It’s just a card pack. I went out to an estate sale the other day to pick up a bunch for my channel.” He held it up, but didn’t hold it far out enough for Poe to reach.
The old man adjusted his glasses again. “For your channel? Like an online channel? What does that even have to do with cards?”
“Well, I uh, open the cards. On camera,” Luke explained. “I react to what’s inside, and people watch my reaction videos.”
Poe gave Luke an incredulous, unimpressed look. “You react to cards. And upload it to the Internet.”
Luke crossed his arms, feeling defensive. This certainly wasn’t the first time he’d had to explain his choice in career. “Yeah! There’s a pretty big subculture of old card game fans, y’know? And it is kind of exciting, seeing what’s inside… Some cards are really rare nowadays!”
“Wow, rare cards. Sounds riveting.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “Look, I’ll show you, alright? I already went through the haul that this pack came with, so I’ll just open it right here.” He walked over to the bedside lamp, and turned it towards him and the card pack.
“Oh, what a momentous opportunity…” Poe muttered, rolling over to meet him. Luke ignored him.
“Okay, so the game this pack is from is called Inscryption,” Luke started, pointing out the title on the foil. “It’s a pretty unknown entry, big in the 90’s -”
“Hm, I do remember this one. Lot of interns at the factory played it,” Poe remarked offhandedly.
Luke nodded. “So then, you might know the game has a few different types of cards. Four, to be exact. There’s a couple different kinds in every pack, and there’s always one rare card. This one’s a tech pack, so it’s probably gonna be mostly tech cards.” Carefully he opened the shiny plastic, a technique he’d long since perfected.
“A tech pack?” Poe repeated, sounding a surprising amount less bored than before.
“Yeah, the tech stuff is all robot-themed. They’re not super popular, ‘cause they’re kind of confusing, but they’re pretty good if you know how to use them.” Luke slid out the five cards in the pack, then looked at the top one. “Ah, see, here we go: an automaton.” He pointed to the blueish graphic on the card.
Poe leaned in close. “What does it do?”
“This one just attacks opposing cards. It’s pretty decent, but not super rare.” He put it on the bottom. “This one’s pretty standard too, it’s an energy bot.”
“Energy? For what?”
“Oh, energy is one of the cost methods,” Luke explained, pointing to a blue cell at the card’s top right. “All the tech cards cost energy to put down, so this guy is helpful because he’ll give you a free energy cell when you put him down.”
Poe nodded in understanding, seemingly too deep in thought to say anything. Luke revealed two more cards. “Ah yeah, just as I thought, the two random ones in here are magick-based.”
“There’s magic in this game too?” Poe asked, sounding incredulous again.
“Yeah, but I’m not gonna go into all that. Magick’s even more confusing than tech. And finally…” Luke revealed the final card. “Huh! Not bad! Mrs. Bomb’s pretty rare… If you play this one, all the spaces around it fill up with bots that’ll explode if they get hit.”
“Hm. So you play this game…with other people, then. It’s like a competition or something.”
“Sure! Most people don’t play it these days, though. Just collect the cards.” Luke straightened up. “Well, that’s that. Tens of thousands of people watch me do that online every week…”
“...I see. So you’re taking the cards?” asked Poe.
“Huh? I mean, I guess so… Why?” It was Luke’s turn to throw Poe an incredulous look.
Poe averted his eyes. “Hm, no reason. If you’re gonna make your living opening cards on the internet, seems like a pretty…solid game to go with, at least…”
Luke couldn’t help but smirk a little. “Did you want the cards?”
Poe got tense. “Uh, did it sound like I said that?! No! Just… go on your way, huh? I don’t need any more help with the computer…”
And Luke thought he was a bad actor. “...Y’know what, I’ll just leave them here. Tech cards don’t go for much online, and I’ve already got all of these in my collection. I’ll come back like, next week, and if you still don’t want ‘em, you can give ‘em back then, alright?”
Poe scoffed. “Assuming I don’t just toss them?”
Luke held back a chuckle. ‘Yeah, sure. Let’s say I trust you.”
“Uh huh. Bad choice, kid.”
“Right.” Luke headed to the door. “See you in a week, then?”
Poe shrugged. “Sure, whatever. You’re more decent company than the nutjobs I share this building with, at least.”