Bad Reputation [Closed] - Printable Version
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Bad Reputation [Closed] - Tindome - 02-10-2015
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Bad Reputation [Closed] - Tindome - 02-10-2015
Ixaaliot's apartment was probably the safest place for Kreska to be. So, inevitably, she did not stay there.
He was a neat freak, anyway, and he clearly wanted to get his mack on with strippergirl. And she'd already finished off all his gelato.
It wasn't that dangerous, all told. She knew the underground well enough to navigate it backwards and one-handed, and right now she was only one of those things. Grilka had hidey-holes all over the place, and she knew how to get into most of them. She'd be safe enough there, hiding metaphorically behind a giant tentacle monster. And she'd be alone. That'd be real nice, considering the shape she was in.
She hadn't had a good night's sleep in days. Wouldn't, until she managed to get back into her apartment. Under ordinary circumstances, she liked to think, she would be much less thrown off by all these attempted murders. But she was tired and irritable, and still not over the loss of her leather jacket. She'd managed to find a suit jacket that wasn't too big and had the right number of arms, but that just wasn't the same.
Cranky Kreska, and she couldn't even listen to music until she got somewhere safe, because someone might try to sneak up on her.
She walked along a length of pipe fitted to a wall, not quite wide enough to accommodate her boots, just wide enough to balance her weight on. Not many people in maintenance areas, fewer people looking this high upward. And a good deal of advance warning if any gangsters or ill-humored cyborgs decided to try punching her in the face.
He was a neat freak, anyway, and he clearly wanted to get his mack on with strippergirl. And she'd already finished off all his gelato.
It wasn't that dangerous, all told. She knew the underground well enough to navigate it backwards and one-handed, and right now she was only one of those things. Grilka had hidey-holes all over the place, and she knew how to get into most of them. She'd be safe enough there, hiding metaphorically behind a giant tentacle monster. And she'd be alone. That'd be real nice, considering the shape she was in.
She hadn't had a good night's sleep in days. Wouldn't, until she managed to get back into her apartment. Under ordinary circumstances, she liked to think, she would be much less thrown off by all these attempted murders. But she was tired and irritable, and still not over the loss of her leather jacket. She'd managed to find a suit jacket that wasn't too big and had the right number of arms, but that just wasn't the same.
Cranky Kreska, and she couldn't even listen to music until she got somewhere safe, because someone might try to sneak up on her.
She walked along a length of pipe fitted to a wall, not quite wide enough to accommodate her boots, just wide enough to balance her weight on. Not many people in maintenance areas, fewer people looking this high upward. And a good deal of advance warning if any gangsters or ill-humored cyborgs decided to try punching her in the face.
Bad Reputation [Closed] - danixiewrites - 02-10-2015
Fate chewed on the end of a stylus as he studied the three monitors to his right. Still no Sass, though he'd word that his friend yet lived. A miracle, given her proclivities for falling into the seventh circle of bounty hunter hell no matter what planet she wound up on. He felt a disconnect; strange not to be watching her back. For now, she was in someone else's hands. Capable ones. He didn't trust often, but the stakes were right. He'd done what he could for that high profile job and any missteps from the launch were his. It was annoying though, to have had to dump his servers. Painful, to move his ass to a new den of iniquity. Er. Technology. Den of. That. There'd be little room for iniquity since he'd reconfigged his favorite sexbot vids to fuck with the corporations in his stead. And since he had to wait for that drek to settle, there were no missions to toss to his contacts. So he couldn't worry, couldn't play, couldn't work."Welp. This is boring as fuck," Fate mumbled around the piece of copper-colored metal. "Oh. Oh! Hello, green girl." Somewhere, he'd picked up a feed of the high-wire balance act he'd enjoyed the night before. Toggling a button, he split the monitors to zoom in. Security risk. Flight risk. Danger risk. (Sass would accuse him of having a type.) Flexible as hell, though. And although he usually liked his, um. Flexible dancing. INSIDE the showcages...on-screen, anyway, since Fate had never seen one in person...he couldn't deny he'd enjoyed the fuck out of watching her bounce around on top of them while more of Radius got bashed up by proxy.
Tiny women and their capacity to draw lasers.
Maybe he did have a type.
He grimaced. The monitors weren't even, which made the pipe she walked on look like a series of steps. Fate tapped a few keys, the beastly tattoo of a great earth-cat across his right hand seeming to glide across his flesh like the hunter it portrayed. The stylus dipped with his frown. When he leaned close, the uneven cut of his burnt orange hair rocked forward over one shoulder and the opposite ear. He'd found another angle. A short distance down and across from the route she took. Not a standard connection. Had a bit of a wobble to it.
Drone.
Illegal. Check. High-end. Check. Armed? He slammed code through the transmission and felt a cold chill. Well armed. Check. Tagged by a bounty hunter. That was like, a default check.
The target could be anybody.
Hazel eyes jerked to the left, where he threw the small green woman's image up on the bigger, far monitor. He could backtrace the drone, find its target to be sure, but based on the station activity and boards he'd been monitoring where Sass dropped out of his orbit, it was a given that even if it didn't have a specific target in mind it would recognize her as a contender for some spending money. Then it would tattle.
...he could backtrace, sure. He could also blind the thing, change its target list, blow it up, and otherwise make it addled until she was out of range.
Fate did none of that.
Instead, he dropped the stylus to his oversized desk and sent a volley of signals toward her. What kind of tech did a tiny green woman have laying about? They were all about to light up, and it would be noisy, and much, much more entertaining than simply nudging things out of the way.
< RUN class convo-console.PRIVATE >
>>Hey toots.
>>Riddle for you:
>>What's small & light & likes to pick fights?
>>It's about to be looking at you & it's not a mirror.
He waited a moment, watching the screen with a massive grin as the messages hit around her.
>>When you get to the alley
>>drop that sexy ass of yours down about
He eyeballed the screen directly ahead.
>>3 feet.
>>& go straight.
Fate laced his fingers and flipped his hands around to pop his knuckles. There. Playdates were never boring.
Bad Reputation [Closed] - Tindome - 02-10-2015
Being already on high alert, having her tablet and bracelet and earpiece all go off at once was unwelcome. It set her teeth all on edge, and she yanked the obnoxiously chiming hunk of metal out of one delicately pointed ear as she pulled her tablet out of her back pocket. Kreska did not usually get pinged like that unless Grilka decided there was an emergency, and ey was surprisingly good about not abusing the definition of the word.
She narrowed her eyes at the messages she was getting – not from Grilka, no name or traceable information. That wasn't suspicious at all.
Toots. For fuck's sake. Presumably that was intended as a noun.
This had a familiar tone, this sort of quickly, there's no time, this come with me if you want to live tone. Not familiar to most people, but familiar to her, a feint or a bluff that ended with her exactly where someone wanted her. They weren't necessarily lying, but that didn't mean they had her safety at heart. There was a saying somewhere, she was sure, about being saved from a bounty by a slaver.
Since the advice she was being fed was theoretically valid based on her own knowledge, that left her with two confirmable facts: someone was watching her, and they could get in touch at will. Tricky tricky.
☠» lol no
It was hard to be articulate one-handed. She turned the volume down on her earpiece before putting it back in, shoved her tablet back in her pocket and got to strategizing. Sort of.
If she was being watched anyway, there was no point staying out of view of security cameras. Too many squatters around here for them to bother throwing up alarms for unauthorized access. Now, if someone was watching her with the intent of shooting her in the face – which would not be unheard of – then that was another problem altogether.
One that she would solve by falling and catching the pipe with her good hand, falling to one lower, repeating the process, until she was low enough to jump off and to the floor without breaking both her legs. And then, with security cameras to act as her witness, she half-slid and half-rolled beneath something tank-like that looked important.
Maybe it was part of the life support system. Maybe it was fuel storage. Maybe it was sewage. She wasn't part of the maintenance crew, so she didn't know what the fuck. It looked like something a person wouldn't want to risk shooting at. Or would get in great-big trouble for shooting at. There wasn't supposed to be enough room underneath it for a person, but as persons went, she was on the lower end of the Terran bell curve.
On her stomach on the floor like a child hiding beneath their bed, she pulled out her tablet again
☠» sup
She narrowed her eyes at the messages she was getting – not from Grilka, no name or traceable information. That wasn't suspicious at all.
Toots. For fuck's sake. Presumably that was intended as a noun.
This had a familiar tone, this sort of quickly, there's no time, this come with me if you want to live tone. Not familiar to most people, but familiar to her, a feint or a bluff that ended with her exactly where someone wanted her. They weren't necessarily lying, but that didn't mean they had her safety at heart. There was a saying somewhere, she was sure, about being saved from a bounty by a slaver.
Since the advice she was being fed was theoretically valid based on her own knowledge, that left her with two confirmable facts: someone was watching her, and they could get in touch at will. Tricky tricky.
☠» lol no
It was hard to be articulate one-handed. She turned the volume down on her earpiece before putting it back in, shoved her tablet back in her pocket and got to strategizing. Sort of.
If she was being watched anyway, there was no point staying out of view of security cameras. Too many squatters around here for them to bother throwing up alarms for unauthorized access. Now, if someone was watching her with the intent of shooting her in the face – which would not be unheard of – then that was another problem altogether.
One that she would solve by falling and catching the pipe with her good hand, falling to one lower, repeating the process, until she was low enough to jump off and to the floor without breaking both her legs. And then, with security cameras to act as her witness, she half-slid and half-rolled beneath something tank-like that looked important.
Maybe it was part of the life support system. Maybe it was fuel storage. Maybe it was sewage. She wasn't part of the maintenance crew, so she didn't know what the fuck. It looked like something a person wouldn't want to risk shooting at. Or would get in great-big trouble for shooting at. There wasn't supposed to be enough room underneath it for a person, but as persons went, she was on the lower end of the Terran bell curve.
On her stomach on the floor like a child hiding beneath their bed, she pulled out her tablet again
☠» sup
Bad Reputation [Closed] - danixiewrites - 02-10-2015
"...No?" Fate blinked at the letters. He rolled the copper-plated stylus under his fingers. Fine then. He'd let the drone see her, then clean up the mess. Screwing with Enforcement was just as fun. "This'll be a short-ass--Oh." It looked as though she intended to follow along. His smile quirked in one corner, then quickly flattened, because she'd dropped the three feet. Then kept right on going.
With a flurry of eye movements and finger-jabbing, the latter gesturing in the air and rapping commands, he piggybacked on several different cameras to keep an eye on her controlled fall. A strange spiral of hops and twists straight down and then to the side, where she disappeared under a refuse-control barrel. Mostly. The heat from the waste processor obscured her body heat, so it was really just the one little thing. Since absolute obscurity was probably her goal--and a wise one, he grudgingly admitted, for if she could hide from him, she was hidden from likely everybody except psionics and critters bred for the hunt--and since she initiated contact once more, Fate decided to roll with it. He tightened the comm focus to the tablet she'd used.
>>Sup, yourself.
>>I can see your toes.
>>In case that's important.
The end of the stylus was in his mouth again and he couldn't remember how it'd gotten there. Why would she encourage him? If she was trying to dodge him, she wouldn't. He chewed and pondered, watching the motionless bin on the screen.
To his right, the drone hadn't moved.
>>Drone didn't see you.
>>Gold star.
She'd taken him seriously, maybe, at least on the threat to her person. Just didn't take orders. That could be tricky, but it wasn't a surprise. She wasn't one of the contractors under his wing, wouldn't trust him worth piss, and she certainly hadn't asked for his help. Keen on hiding and skulking about the underbelly of Osiris told him she knew a bit about survival, maybe had contacts of her own. He started a background check to find out.
Fate grimaced at an explosion of text. He'd have to break into the records later. Right now...
>>You were like a little green Earth monkey.
>>Playing hide and seek?
Hiding from the kind of roughs who put creds on and lasers through heads was not a game, not really. Especially not a game of "I tell you this and instead you do that other thing that is probably a monumentally stupid idea". Suddenly he smiled and straightened in his chair, the coil of wire jacked into the side of his neck tumbling off its arm. Aw, hells. He hadn't had a real challenge in what, a week?
>>I will help.
Fate never asked for permission. It gave people a chance to say no. Not that she hadn't already. Aaaand he was all-out grinning again. Sheer glee at a chance to break some laws of his own volition, not at someone else's behest. Or because he'd plotted a way out using the dark spots his visual piggybacking couldn't see. Or...anticipation.
At some point, he was going to have to stop simply bothering the crap out of her. The notion made him chuckle. "Now what? Oh, introductions. Right."
>>Name's Fate.
>>If that's too hard to type, you can go with F.
>>Not everyone's this skilled with a keyboard.
Bad Reputation [Closed] - Tindome - 02-11-2015
☠» bs
Despite this assertion, she pulled her knees a little nearer to her chest, which wasn't very comfortable but got the job done.
☠» drone huh
☠» ty for the star
☠» will add to my collection
☠» ★★★★☆★★✡
Kreska hadn't decided if she believed them about the drone. It was plausible. They weren't trying to coax her back into their hidey-hole of choice, so that was a thing. She was operating with a stunning lack of information.
☠» ur p def a human dude tho
☠» always hung up on the green thing
☠» chill bruh
☠» not real interested in being sought fyi
She was grasping at straws, but those were all she really had at the moment. Hiding under a whatever-the-fuck talking to whoever-the-fuck about things that may or may not have been out to get her was far from an ideal circumstance. For all she knew she was being fucked with by a nerd. That was an irritating thought.
☠» that's a real nice decision you just made w/o me being involved at all
☠» not that i got any room to talk
☠» but that name sux
☠» maybe brag less about all the practice you get typing w/one hand
☠» doing ok under the circumstances
It was probably a bad idea to persist in chatting up a mystery person who was as likely to be the source of her problems as the solution. Still, she had a hunch. People who were bad news were usually much better at pretending to be nice. She didn't return the favor of an introduction, because she was going to guess that he already knew it. And if he didn't, well. Her name came with baggage that she didn't care to deal with at the moment. Let him have that epiphany on his own time.
If there was any evidence that he wasn't just fucking with her, it was probably that. People trying to fuck with her usually involved her parents. Especially nerds. Nerds always brought her dad into it.
A hunch wasn't much, but she'd done more dangerous things with less justification. And laying on the floor like this was uncomfortable. So that gave her two reasons to try and get herself gone. Two was a good amount of reasons.
☠» if you really wanted to be helpful you'd reprogram the drone to bring me a beer
Despite this assertion, she pulled her knees a little nearer to her chest, which wasn't very comfortable but got the job done.
☠» drone huh
☠» ty for the star
☠» will add to my collection
☠» ★★★★☆★★✡
Kreska hadn't decided if she believed them about the drone. It was plausible. They weren't trying to coax her back into their hidey-hole of choice, so that was a thing. She was operating with a stunning lack of information.
☠» ur p def a human dude tho
☠» always hung up on the green thing
☠» chill bruh
☠» not real interested in being sought fyi
She was grasping at straws, but those were all she really had at the moment. Hiding under a whatever-the-fuck talking to whoever-the-fuck about things that may or may not have been out to get her was far from an ideal circumstance. For all she knew she was being fucked with by a nerd. That was an irritating thought.
☠» that's a real nice decision you just made w/o me being involved at all
☠» not that i got any room to talk
☠» but that name sux
☠» maybe brag less about all the practice you get typing w/one hand
☠» doing ok under the circumstances
It was probably a bad idea to persist in chatting up a mystery person who was as likely to be the source of her problems as the solution. Still, she had a hunch. People who were bad news were usually much better at pretending to be nice. She didn't return the favor of an introduction, because she was going to guess that he already knew it. And if he didn't, well. Her name came with baggage that she didn't care to deal with at the moment. Let him have that epiphany on his own time.
If there was any evidence that he wasn't just fucking with her, it was probably that. People trying to fuck with her usually involved her parents. Especially nerds. Nerds always brought her dad into it.
A hunch wasn't much, but she'd done more dangerous things with less justification. And laying on the floor like this was uncomfortable. So that gave her two reasons to try and get herself gone. Two was a good amount of reasons.
☠» if you really wanted to be helpful you'd reprogram the drone to bring me a beer
Bad Reputation [Closed] - danixiewrites - 02-11-2015
Shorthand. Fate groaned at the collections of letters, so lonely and sparse without the correct number of consonants. Not that he was was perfect. And he was a damned good translator of mistypes and faux-words. There were worse things. Hard-linkers used a mix of whole words and coding lingo. Soft ones like Sascha, just the code. Hells, some of his contacts typed in nothing but acronyms. There was just...something to be said for speed and eloquence.He punched a few keys.
>>Drone.
>>It doesn't surprise me you have a collection.
>>I know it's not your first circus.
The background check and a skim through some personal files would tell him a lot on that score. On all scores, including what she went by. First things first, though; get his charge to where she was going without drawing lasers. He'd found another drone on the move, and this time he ran a tracer.
>>Human dude.
>>I'd give you another star
>>but you already have SO MANY.
>>Where you headed? I've got eyes on safe passage.
"Or what passes for it." No need to tell her that since he didn't want to risk reprogramming the drone to keep eyes on her--his eyes--she'd be out of sight as she passed through those safe zones; she might choose to stay there. So long as she kept moving, he'd catch her, and any surprises, coming and going. Probably. If anything had been lying in wait for longer than when he'd opened the dozens of vid feeds crowding his monitors, that was a different story.
Her next string of messages made him laugh. A real laugh, the kind that echoed amid his equipment, not the kind that got stuck in one's nose or clamped behind teeth.
>>Thank you, Fate.
>>Oh, you are most welcome, green girl.
>>Also
>>Jacking off and jacking in don't play well together.
>>Why? Are you typing with one hand?
The innuendo buried itself behind another thought. She'd dropped to her present position with one hand, too. Fate tossed his stylus and it hit the wall before rolling out of earshot. Retracting the last message, he re-sent, morphing its presentation on her screen.
>>Why are you typing with one hand?
>>What's wrong with the other one?
It helped to know limitations. Limitations meant some routes were out of the question.
Maybe her lack of consonants stemmed from these limitations, too. A man could hope.
He rolled his eyes as the drone feed panned through a high-stakes list for marks. This one wasn't armed with anything but top-of-the-line facial recognition. Easily hacked, no one the wiser. He'd just overlay her cheeky little presence with someone else. That prepped, Fate leaned back in his chair and reached behind him for a button atop his beverage unit. A cylinder sprang into his hand and he popped the top off with his thumb before bringing the drink to his lips. Cold green tea. He shuddered. "Who fucked with my fridge?"
No one answered, of course. "My energy drinks best not be boiling." Moving house sucked. It helped now though, that he had someone other than himself, his feeds, and asshole appliances to talk to.
>>I'm not your barwench.
>>Don't know how you'd drink one under that trash bin, anyway.
>>Which reminds me: There's another drone.
>>You should leave now
>>In case I'm too busy tracking down booze to make sure it doesn't see you.
Bad Reputation [Closed] - Tindome - 02-11-2015
☠» awestruck by these observational powers
☠» a real conan doyle and all
☠» this ain't even a circus
☠» this is just
☠» a lone tilt-a-whirl
☠» kinda melancholy and artsy with the right lighting but mostly an eyesore
If she kept up being so chatty she was going to give herself a headache. She was unaware of Fate's opinions regarding her conversational style, but she wouldn't have much cared if she did. She probably would have made it worse. Goodness knows what he would have thought about all the comic sans. There was a reason Ix didn't like it when she used his tech. She debated over whether to tell him where she was going or to lie.
☠» never enuff
☠» gimme gimme
☠» i crave validation from randos
☠» it is my lifeblood
☠» goin to an old
☠» fuck idk what it was
☠» maybe a storage room
☠» got closed for hazardous w/e
☠» supposed to be like
☠» five pipes and a vent from here
It wasn't the most convenient of Grilka's hideaways, but it was the one full of weird blue plants that ey kept sun-spectrum florescent lighting around for. It wasn't an actual solution to her problems, but it was a decent stopgap measure. Somewhere to hole up and hide under sunlamps until someone she didn't like died or gave up in the face of futility.
☠» don't put words in my mouth
☠» or anything else
☠» punched a guy so hard my hand exploded
☠» p much
☠» should see the other guy
☠» and then tell me where you saw him
☠» so i can be not there
That was as good an explanation as any for the mangled mess of broken bone that her right hand had become. That had been a real bitch to set, and if it hadn't been for her jacket's noble sacrifice it would have been far worse. The flippant response raised fewer questions than 'a slaver's collar exploded'.
It didn't feel safe to light up a cigarette under the circumstances, although it was tempting. She'd nearly poked a hole through her bandages just to act as a cigarette holder. Not that tar in her lungs was going to do a whole hell of a lot for her healing process, but being half-poison did funny things to a person.
☠» w/e wench
☠» that's a better name btw
☠» calling you that now
☠» but yeh sure
☠» i'll just fuck right off then
Sneaking out of a drone's crosshairs didn't work well with trying to stare at a tablet screen and type one-handed, so that got stuck back into her pocket. Then she stretched out her legs and braced her hands as best she could against the floor, prepared to make a good old-fashioned run for it.
She could have sworn she used to be able to go outside without it turning into a massive clusterfuck.
☠» a real conan doyle and all
☠» this ain't even a circus
☠» this is just
☠» a lone tilt-a-whirl
☠» kinda melancholy and artsy with the right lighting but mostly an eyesore
If she kept up being so chatty she was going to give herself a headache. She was unaware of Fate's opinions regarding her conversational style, but she wouldn't have much cared if she did. She probably would have made it worse. Goodness knows what he would have thought about all the comic sans. There was a reason Ix didn't like it when she used his tech. She debated over whether to tell him where she was going or to lie.
☠» never enuff
☠» gimme gimme
☠» i crave validation from randos
☠» it is my lifeblood
☠» goin to an old
☠» fuck idk what it was
☠» maybe a storage room
☠» got closed for hazardous w/e
☠» supposed to be like
☠» five pipes and a vent from here
It wasn't the most convenient of Grilka's hideaways, but it was the one full of weird blue plants that ey kept sun-spectrum florescent lighting around for. It wasn't an actual solution to her problems, but it was a decent stopgap measure. Somewhere to hole up and hide under sunlamps until someone she didn't like died or gave up in the face of futility.
☠» don't put words in my mouth
☠» or anything else
☠» punched a guy so hard my hand exploded
☠» p much
☠» should see the other guy
☠» and then tell me where you saw him
☠» so i can be not there
That was as good an explanation as any for the mangled mess of broken bone that her right hand had become. That had been a real bitch to set, and if it hadn't been for her jacket's noble sacrifice it would have been far worse. The flippant response raised fewer questions than 'a slaver's collar exploded'.
It didn't feel safe to light up a cigarette under the circumstances, although it was tempting. She'd nearly poked a hole through her bandages just to act as a cigarette holder. Not that tar in her lungs was going to do a whole hell of a lot for her healing process, but being half-poison did funny things to a person.
☠» w/e wench
☠» that's a better name btw
☠» calling you that now
☠» but yeh sure
☠» i'll just fuck right off then
Sneaking out of a drone's crosshairs didn't work well with trying to stare at a tablet screen and type one-handed, so that got stuck back into her pocket. Then she stretched out her legs and braced her hands as best she could against the floor, prepared to make a good old-fashioned run for it.
She could have sworn she used to be able to go outside without it turning into a massive clusterfuck.
Bad Reputation [Closed] - danixiewrites - 02-11-2015
>>Too late.>>Gave it to a blue dude.
>>He's on screen four; just started going at it with this hot not-so-little piece...
"Oh hell. That's twisted." Fate wished he'd been kidding, actually, and was really glad he hadn't been monitoring the audio trans on that level. There was no way the tooth and claw and horn action wasn't audible. And really, really painful.
He didn't have to adjust any of his monitors to get a 50,000 foot view, but he did anyway, as the sex show was off-route. Five pipes and a vent. Clearly this was not going to be an instance of "go north/south".
>>Sounds charming.
>>Know what else is charming?
>>The vagrants around pipe four.
>>You want to go around?
>>Or through?
>>I should warn you
>>I'm not much good in a fistfight.
A lie. Not that he had much cause to prove otherwise when he was locked in a hole.
>>From here.
Technically. Depending on what was available, that was a lie, too.
>>Suppose you could throw the tablet
>>if they stop pretending to be drugged out of their minds.
>>I could type in all caps.
With a twitch of his left pinky, he laid out two routes, just in case. The cameras rearranged in order, one a straight shot, the other a winding road that came back out to the vent she'd mentioned. There were a couple of blind spots, but he was reasonably certain the only life in either direction was bundled in dirty blankets and smoking something heavy that mingled with the already murky Duat air.
A huff left him at her casual play-by-play. "Exploded" sounded...as painful as that romp he'd kicked off the air.
>>I'm sorry I missed that show.
>>Must've been after the Radius tango.
>>That I did see.
>>Where was it?
>>I'll roll back footage.
>>Helps to know who else's on the leaderboard for your bounty.
>>With the whole /hiding/ thing.
>>Plus, when you tell me you don't need me to track a medic, I'll know if you're a liar.
"No, no." Fate stared as she crawled out from under the bin. A public camera; no shot of locking it down. Hope no one else is watching that particular feed. "You can't just..."
Sighing, he slid the mic down from his headset and pinged her earpiece. "Come on greenie, pick up," he groused. "You gonna pick up so I can steer you through, or just run blind?" He grimaced as she leaned full-view into the vid link. If she didn't pick up, he'd be jumping through hoops to keep her off the air. That wasn't unusual, or even hard, but no, instead of rolling with it, for some reason, he'd gone for the voice comm.
He couldn't explain why. Text was so much faster. More comfortable, because who knew when you'd learn the person on the other end of the comm had some hideous high-pitched screeching excuse for a voice? Probably he just took issue with the way everyone else communicated, period. At least his voice wasn't all whispery and crackling like some tech-heads. On account of him talking to himself too much.
He pinged again. Repeatedly. Like a proper good wench.
Bad Reputation [Closed] - Tindome - 02-12-2015
Avoiding hobos was not, in her mind, a difficult task. Certainly not something she needed Hot Tipz to manage, though she was sure he'd have a few. She was going to have to assume that the blue dude he was spying on was a different one than the primary blue dude of her acquaintance, because the alternative was weird and gross.
Even at face value it was weird and gross.
Kreska was not terribly pleased by the thought that she'd picked up a stalker. Even if he was a theoretically helpful stalker. Made it all seem a little less friendly and a little more… creepy. Not that it wasn't creepy before, but still. She preferred a bit more randomness in her randos.
Although offering to find her a doctor was sort of… no, still creepy. She didn't think she'd be hunting down any timestamps to help him watch her get almost-mutilated.
It didn't take a genius to figure out who was pinging her for a voicechat just as soon as she'd poked her head out. She slid behind and then between another set of tanks, fitting herself half-upside-down in a gap in the machinery like a very inefficient mechanism. She clicked to answer the very persistent call, not pleased either that she was going to have to try and be quiet. She much preferred being able to squawk at whatever volume and pitch she saw fit.
"I'mma assume this's th'wench callin' t'lemme know'm doin' it wrong," she said, pitched low with a wry curve to her mouth. It'd be one hell of a coincidence if Ix had managed to call right then and there. Probably would have been difficult to explain why she was expecting calls from wenches, since that was not a word in her usual vocabulary. Or anyone's, except apparently the wench in question. "'Cept'm still not seein' a beer'n m'hand so ball's bein' dropped all 'round."
Even at face value it was weird and gross.
Kreska was not terribly pleased by the thought that she'd picked up a stalker. Even if he was a theoretically helpful stalker. Made it all seem a little less friendly and a little more… creepy. Not that it wasn't creepy before, but still. She preferred a bit more randomness in her randos.
Although offering to find her a doctor was sort of… no, still creepy. She didn't think she'd be hunting down any timestamps to help him watch her get almost-mutilated.
It didn't take a genius to figure out who was pinging her for a voicechat just as soon as she'd poked her head out. She slid behind and then between another set of tanks, fitting herself half-upside-down in a gap in the machinery like a very inefficient mechanism. She clicked to answer the very persistent call, not pleased either that she was going to have to try and be quiet. She much preferred being able to squawk at whatever volume and pitch she saw fit.
"I'mma assume this's th'wench callin' t'lemme know'm doin' it wrong," she said, pitched low with a wry curve to her mouth. It'd be one hell of a coincidence if Ix had managed to call right then and there. Probably would have been difficult to explain why she was expecting calls from wenches, since that was not a word in her usual vocabulary. Or anyone's, except apparently the wench in question. "'Cept'm still not seein' a beer'n m'hand so ball's bein' dropped all 'round."
Bad Reputation [Closed] - danixiewrites - 02-12-2015
A tablet across the room pinged. He sent it the task of circling backwards on feeds. Assuming that marked the start, at Radius, Fate let it continue from there with a chuckle. Were she to discover he was ostensibly making a montage, he could just imagine the lost consonants that would befall him. Fate cut off that thread of multitasking and focused on the monitors. Clear save the mobile view that drew nearer to the level his adopted charge was on. Despite his hails, she was on the move, and he lost sight of her behind a bank of metal. He flipped up an infrared overlay. Nothing. Then she answered him. He only stopped himself from violently rolling his eyes because doing so while jacked would have reset about thirty tasks on his flatscreens.She talked like she typed. Fate lamented that even as he reached for his stylus, only to remember it'd fallen off the desk. "What a voice, though. And here I was worried about some screechy dame. I could lissss--" He cut of the string of tenor monologue off with a hiss. The other problem with voice comms. He was too used to talking to himself; multitasking text and monologue here wasn't an option.
Ah well. Since he was bound to let a few slip, he might as well own it.
"Touche." The drone dropped suddenly, hovering near the trash bin she'd been underneath, and Fate narrowed his eyes. "Actually, sugar, I was calling to compliment your ass."
"Don'thangup." His left hand prepared to ping her again, just in case. His right hand curled into a fist and a fuckload of bells and whistles hit the drone, digging behind its surface trace. "Should've done that first. Ah. Not the ass-complimenting; prying at this drone a bit. It's more curious than it should be."
Less preprogrammed route, more sniffer. Or...being piloted.
Bad Reputation [Closed] - Tindome - 02-12-2015
Kreska made a face, though he couldn't see it, brow furrowing and nose wrinkling and sticking out her tongue. As first impressions went, sudden monologuing was not the best way to go. He was, at least, not as nasal as she had anticipated. Dames, now, as if toots and wench weren't bad enough. Who needed that many synonyms for women?
She nearly hung up at sugar, and she was definitely going to hang up at the comment about her ass. Though he seemed to realize immediately that this had been a terrible idea, and she had a hunch he'd just keep pestering her if she did. Very persistent, this one.
"Keep th'compliments," she said, "'less you're curious 'bout th' wonders o' nonconsensual autofellatio." If that was a few too many syllables for station scum, it was probably worth it to get her point across. It was tricky, finding ways to threaten to feed someone their own genitals that couldn't be turned into flirtation. She liked to think she'd turned non-flirtatious threats of bodily harm into an art form.
Kreska was small and she was flexible, but that did not make loitering amidst machinery any more comfortable than it sounded. She waited, anyway, even if it would have served him right to have her fuck up his poorly-planned plans. Maybe she was being generous in assuming he actually had a plan.
"Allis time an' y'ain't made'tcher bitch yet?" she asked, biting at a ragged corner of her thumbnail. "'m startin' t'doubtcher prowess an' all, Mister Bossypants."
She nearly hung up at sugar, and she was definitely going to hang up at the comment about her ass. Though he seemed to realize immediately that this had been a terrible idea, and she had a hunch he'd just keep pestering her if she did. Very persistent, this one.
"Keep th'compliments," she said, "'less you're curious 'bout th' wonders o' nonconsensual autofellatio." If that was a few too many syllables for station scum, it was probably worth it to get her point across. It was tricky, finding ways to threaten to feed someone their own genitals that couldn't be turned into flirtation. She liked to think she'd turned non-flirtatious threats of bodily harm into an art form.
Kreska was small and she was flexible, but that did not make loitering amidst machinery any more comfortable than it sounded. She waited, anyway, even if it would have served him right to have her fuck up his poorly-planned plans. Maybe she was being generous in assuming he actually had a plan.
"Allis time an' y'ain't made'tcher bitch yet?" she asked, biting at a ragged corner of her thumbnail. "'m startin' t'doubtcher prowess an' all, Mister Bossypants."
Bad Reputation [Closed] - danixiewrites - 02-12-2015
"You'd have to find me to do something that kinky." Despite his words, Fate winced. Exploding hands and penis-ripping? Well hadn't he just found a classy, non-violent one. "And I'm a way better hider than you."He paused briefly at that, wondering if the non-compliment had instead come out in a creepy, 'I can see you, but you can't see me muhaha' kind of way. He shrugged. "Your boundless patience must be why you're such a mark."
He sighed. "Okay, you bump into anything, you'll need to know where to go. I can do that, but only if you've got a comm open, capisce?" Whoever her drone-pal was had firewalls the breadth of a planet, looped and routed a hundred dozen ways. But they were already lurking on her heels; no point playing coy. He released the code he'd prepped for tricking the facial recog sensors and instead proceeded to nudge a virus directly toward its nerve-center. Nothing fancy, just some code to make it a bit aimless. A nice rest would do it some good. "Look, I don't have all my gear set up so I'm not fully integrated today. If I were, you could be hanging out in Radius right now with no one the wiser. Unless they saw you in person....not much a guy can do about that. Legendary prowess or not."
"Who runs through Duat, princess?" he asked, and didn't wait for an answer. "People with problems, that's who. So we'll do this nice and casual. Make your way under the pipes like you belong. Head up or down, whatever. I can make you not look like you so long as you're not darting out of frame." Recalling the code he'd pushed aside, Fate made a few revisions and prepped to park the overlay as soon as she emerged. At the very least, she needed not to be green. "Running makes people stare at their vidlinks and wonder how much your problems might be worth. Running's bad."
On the whole, people didn't care about random strangers wandering about the bowels of Osiris. But he'd seen her, and he'd merely been bored. Someone actively looking for her would be running filters, and moving slow enough, he could tamper with each feed. Too fast, and she could slip free of the program's grip; one frame was all it would take.
The drone wobbled in a circle. Its vidlink skewed. Fate reached back for his drink and chugged some of the tea, less disgusting now that it was tepid. Fuck prowess. He was a god. "Right. So, I've hobbled his eyes for the moment--"
Bad Reputation [Closed] - Tindome - 02-13-2015
His determination to flirt in the face of graphic threats was almost as impressive as it was irritating. "Pretty good't findin' shit," she said, "an' you're pretty fulla't. 'Course bein' on th'small side works'n your favor here." It may have been a creepier statement on his part if she were harder to find. It was never a matter of not getting found, where Kreska was concerned. It was more a matter of who she was found hiding behind, and how fast she could get behind her shield of choice.
She snorted, a hum that wasn't a laugh. "Yeah," she said, "thassit f'sure." Hits were rare, as these things went, vague things that never used her name to avoid setting off any alarms. She almost preferred those, because she'd earned them. Not so much the other things that went bump during the night shifts.
"'ll try not t'hang up'f ya try not t'gimme reasons to," she said, which was suspiciously close to using her own safety as a threat. Don't make me endanger myself, and really, it wasn't as if she was above stating that directly. But she was not yet at the stage where she trusted him not to call that particular bluff. "Mmm – lotta excuses y'got there. Tell me more 'bout how you're usually way better't this an' all'is disappointment's just a fluke. Try'n make't sound like y'ain't said't before."
She'd been upgraded from dame to princess, which was a far cry from toots. Her rank was increasing exponentially. Soon she'd be an empress, conversationally. Unless he decided which one he liked well enough to stick with.
Kreska disliked this plan for any number of reasons. Disliked slow and disliked feeling watched and disliked that this plan left her at the mercy of someone else's competence. She grumbled as she wiggled sideways and backward and upside-down out of her spot, because gratuitous and unnecessary floor gymnastics ran in the family. "Great," she muttered, "just blend right in. Great plan. Fukken' flawless." Bandaged hand jammed in her pocket as she ambled and slouched in an aimless-looking way, she ran the other over the unbraided portions of her hair back to rights.
She snorted, a hum that wasn't a laugh. "Yeah," she said, "thassit f'sure." Hits were rare, as these things went, vague things that never used her name to avoid setting off any alarms. She almost preferred those, because she'd earned them. Not so much the other things that went bump during the night shifts.
"'ll try not t'hang up'f ya try not t'gimme reasons to," she said, which was suspiciously close to using her own safety as a threat. Don't make me endanger myself, and really, it wasn't as if she was above stating that directly. But she was not yet at the stage where she trusted him not to call that particular bluff. "Mmm – lotta excuses y'got there. Tell me more 'bout how you're usually way better't this an' all'is disappointment's just a fluke. Try'n make't sound like y'ain't said't before."
She'd been upgraded from dame to princess, which was a far cry from toots. Her rank was increasing exponentially. Soon she'd be an empress, conversationally. Unless he decided which one he liked well enough to stick with.
Kreska disliked this plan for any number of reasons. Disliked slow and disliked feeling watched and disliked that this plan left her at the mercy of someone else's competence. She grumbled as she wiggled sideways and backward and upside-down out of her spot, because gratuitous and unnecessary floor gymnastics ran in the family. "Great," she muttered, "just blend right in. Great plan. Fukken' flawless." Bandaged hand jammed in her pocket as she ambled and slouched in an aimless-looking way, she ran the other over the unbraided portions of her hair back to rights.
Bad Reputation [Closed] - danixiewrites - 02-13-2015
"What kind of reasons? Or is this about the compliments again?" Fate slid a HUD over his eyes and the screens flowed onto it, tiny beams of light that filtered through the implant and gave him a much closer view of the action. It was also much better in terms of multitaskability. "I will absolutely avoid those. Very soon, your face will have extremely unattractive tusks. Many of them. And you'll be bald. Ugh. I'll leave your ass unedited though, because it's already gross. Better?"As per usual for Fate, it was likely "better" when he stopped before finishing the rest of his thoughts aloud, a feat rendered impossible by the fact his brain was wired to process far too many of them simultaneously. The act of typing was often an intermediary filter. Considering this, he began looping the hookup cable over his right arm. Having more things to do would keep him from rambling, he was sure.
"I was going for the sympathy plea. You're not the only one who knows when to get gone." He lifted the cord and stood, the chair rolling back from the desk. "Things happen. Not often, but it's a load of drek when they do."
"Absolute drek," he murmured as she popped back into the street with only a mild complaint. The cable unraveled as he walked around the back of the beverage unit. Pulling off the back of the unit was a cinch, but the real work would come from the circuits. "Let's see what's wrong with you, pretty thing." It took a frozen moment for him to continue with, "Not you, you. My kitchen. Sorry. You're presently hideous and I already know what's wrong in your case, so...ah. Carry on."
Had he really thought poking at a shamble of circuits would help him filter? Fate grumbled at the mess in front of him. Both of them. At least the drones hadn't moved on her position, and she was putting some distance between her ass--which wasn't actually hideous at all, and he probably would best stop focusing on it, really, before his mouth took that thought and rolled with it--and the bounty hunters' tech. "Flawless," he agreed aloud, and not about the plan. Mercifully reduced to the single word as he ripped out a fried board and tossed it in a pile of similarly damaged crap across the room.
Huzzah for thought-filters. Maybe.
And then, because instead of looking casual she looked damned uncomfortable, he added, "Loosen up, green girl. Even your overlay looks shifty. Tell you what. You get to your little haz-mat hole in one--okay, the exact number of pieces you're in now--and I'll deliver that beer."