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Sep. 25th, 2007 10:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gone_byebyeThe law in New York City is that you can’t use a cellular phone inside a museum, but the law doesn’t say anything about wireless data connections made by robot dogs. The closest it gets is a ban on animals other than service animals, and Francis isn’t an animal under any real definition of the term. After some discussion the Museum security guards come back to Ray with their boss’s decision: he can bring Francis into most of the exhibit halls, but not any of the IMAX films or the Planetarium shows, and if anybody freaks out about him or otherwise causes a scene Ray’s going to have to leave.
This, thankfully, doesn’t appear to be a problem. Francis gets a few weird looks and a lot of pointing, but for the most part the Museum-going public is pretty polite today. It helps that there’s not a lot of them. There’s too much going on elsewhere in the city for people who’ve got free time during the work day to necessarily spend it in the Museum. Frankly, Ray’s pretty sure most of these people are here to get away from the oppressive heat for a few hours.
Not that it matters. He’s too busy making sure Ecto gets to see all the things she wants to see. The stibnite crystal she mentioned is huge to the point of looking like a movie prop, a thing that fascinates her intensely. The exhibit on exo-planets is a little too mass-market information for her tastes after all, as she’s been reading up on the subject on any database she can legally access (a prospect that makes Ray oddly proud- his daughter’s a space geek!). The special exhibit on predatory mammals, though, is incredible. There’s skulls and teeth and bones here from virtually every point in the history of Mammalia, including some truly spectacular creodont skeletal reconstructions topped off by actual fossil skulls. Andrewsarchus in particular is gorgeous, with the kind of jaws that would make anything in the Dinosaur Halls jealous, and some of the others-
Overhead the lights flicker. Several people flinch; Ray looks up warily. They come back on, nice and stable, but there was something in the sound of the ventilation that he didn’t like. “Ecto?” he says to the dog. “Have you gotten all this? I’ve got a bad feeling all of a sudden.” He’s not going to say the word aloud, but the city did issue a brownout warning this morning.
Francis tilts his ‘head’, apparently listening to Ecto’s remote signal. Then that head bobs up and down. “Okay,” says Ray. “I hate to cut a visit like this short, but we can come back later in the week.”
The dog obediently falls into line as Ray heads for the main entrance. They’re three quarters of the way down the Museum steps when the traffic light at the corner of Central Park West and 81st winks out. The one at CPW and 77th is the next to go, and then 76th, 75th, 74th. . .
“Looks like a good day for a walk,” Ray says to Francis. He’s not about to make a try for the subway if power’s cutting out.
“WHURF,” Francis agrees.
This, thankfully, doesn’t appear to be a problem. Francis gets a few weird looks and a lot of pointing, but for the most part the Museum-going public is pretty polite today. It helps that there’s not a lot of them. There’s too much going on elsewhere in the city for people who’ve got free time during the work day to necessarily spend it in the Museum. Frankly, Ray’s pretty sure most of these people are here to get away from the oppressive heat for a few hours.
Not that it matters. He’s too busy making sure Ecto gets to see all the things she wants to see. The stibnite crystal she mentioned is huge to the point of looking like a movie prop, a thing that fascinates her intensely. The exhibit on exo-planets is a little too mass-market information for her tastes after all, as she’s been reading up on the subject on any database she can legally access (a prospect that makes Ray oddly proud- his daughter’s a space geek!). The special exhibit on predatory mammals, though, is incredible. There’s skulls and teeth and bones here from virtually every point in the history of Mammalia, including some truly spectacular creodont skeletal reconstructions topped off by actual fossil skulls. Andrewsarchus in particular is gorgeous, with the kind of jaws that would make anything in the Dinosaur Halls jealous, and some of the others-
Overhead the lights flicker. Several people flinch; Ray looks up warily. They come back on, nice and stable, but there was something in the sound of the ventilation that he didn’t like. “Ecto?” he says to the dog. “Have you gotten all this? I’ve got a bad feeling all of a sudden.” He’s not going to say the word aloud, but the city did issue a brownout warning this morning.
Francis tilts his ‘head’, apparently listening to Ecto’s remote signal. Then that head bobs up and down. “Okay,” says Ray. “I hate to cut a visit like this short, but we can come back later in the week.”
The dog obediently falls into line as Ray heads for the main entrance. They’re three quarters of the way down the Museum steps when the traffic light at the corner of Central Park West and 81st winks out. The one at CPW and 77th is the next to go, and then 76th, 75th, 74th. . .
“Looks like a good day for a walk,” Ray says to Francis. He’s not about to make a try for the subway if power’s cutting out.
“WHURF,” Francis agrees.
