RP: 188604 Dead Metal Clubhouse

"It's not personal." They lowered the gun, but it was still attached to their arm. "I'm just suspicious of strangers saying they've saved my life for not outright killing me."

"What would you do, if some big fleet appeared in orbit covered in guns?"

"What a bullygoat," Akemi said as he floated over to Lyco's side to strike a disapproving pose beside her, "trying to lord over you his supposed magnanimity when his buddies steal your stuff. They bombard, invade and steal part of your home and kill many of its residents but they let you live so you're supposed to be gushing with thanks. If he isn't from Nepleslia I guess he's Yamataian."

Alex turned toward Akemi before sighing. "Do you have to make me out as the bad guy? Can't I just be nice? Also, I'm not even sure where I'm from, but that's a long story."

Alex then considered the spacer's question for a moment before responding. "I'd probably either run or surrender. I'm all for being the underdog, but there's a point at which I'm able to recognize that I'd be better served by not fighting."

He paused again. "Of course, if other people were counting on me, I'd probably fight anyway, if only to buy them some time to run."

Alex shook his head, his frumpy hair waving about. "Anyways how about we do some introductions." He held his hand out before continuing to speak. "My name's Alex. What's yours?"

"I... well... I thought I was done with surrendering to this imperial bullshit." A jaded expression. Lyco didn't look like they were willing to fight anymore, but their body language was remaining cagey even towards Akemi. "Three years... Three years of building that place up... Gate system got destroyed, so I couldn't even run if I wanted to."

A shrug. Wasn't really dignified expecting a former enemy to feel sorry for them.

"Hello, Alex. Just Alex?" They held out their left arm and shook his, taking care not to break anything with their plier head-like industrial fingers. "My name is Steelrender Lycosidae Nine Two 4561-8893."

"If it's not too personal a question... Well, if you're not a Spacer or Nep, what made you get Mindware like that? No offence, but you look a little young to be the worldly type. Hell, you look a little young to be a Mecha pilot, to be honest."

Alex sighed. "Yeah. It's just Alex until I'm able to even find out my last name. As for how I got the cybernetics and the mecha, it's a long story. But from what I can make of it, a company called Psychopomp was working on something, and my father was part of their research team. I think he discovered something and fled with my mother. I was born on the run. We were safe for I think six years before they caught up. I remember they shot my parents and took me to some training facility where I learned to pilot for ten years. They gave me this implant, along with some other ones,to help me pilot. This one links me to my mecha. It's kind of like having two bodies. Anyways, somehow I got lost while being shipped as a slave pilot, and I ended up here."

"But you are the bad guy," Akemi said nonchalantly feeling pretty amused and self-satisfied. "I only ever attacked any spider tanks to defend Arccos and Truffleclub thus I was only defending Spacers from Spacers. You needlessly killed two."

Lycosidae listened to Alex's story blankly. They weren't happy enough with Arccos to believe in Akemi's point of view, but had no flesh-and-blood parents to relate to, either. Half of their own life had been lost to the services of others, sure, and her body had dozens of cyborgisations and genetic modifications that she had little say in, so she saw his qualms with that. But the difference was that the Free State still considered it all fair game whereas Type Twos were concerned.

"He feels more responsible because he directly risked his life." The tank-shaped girl briskly turned around, shaking out some bad memories of their own. They didn't really want to get involved in a three-way argument. They didn't really want to put their past on display to two complete strangers. Running on automatic, the crab assistant moved in to offer the both of them more of the charcoal-smelling candy bars, but Lyco busied herself looking up at the half-completed Junker hulls once more. "Sorry, but I don't do friends, Alex. That's just the way it is. If you want payment, that's fair enough, but you'll have to be specific. I could take a crack at removing that cyberware, but it's been a long time since I worked on an organic spacer, let alone some unknown humanoid..."

Arms were crossed. She was feeling ambivalent because of how easily Akemi had manipulated her, for sure, but his approach did come across less demanding. If only the bishie playboy wasn't a Nekovalkyrja...

"You don't do friends? Awww. Come on." Akemi crouched down and leaned over to rub his face up and down Lyco's while purring loudly. "Will you do lovers?" She could feel his impish smile growing as his cheeks drew back.

Alex shook his head. "I don't want payment, and I don't want this removed. I just want to help people wherever I can, and I can do that better with these implants. I just felt like I should introduce myself. It was nice to meet you Lycosidae."

Tracks clinked slightly, facing her body towards Alex, whilst Akemi was met with a wave of ginger braided hair to the face. She opened her mouth with a look of concern, but simply couldn't understand the younger man's emotions enough to make a fair comment. These people were strange even by planetwalker capitalist standards. They didn't act like empire builders, that was for sure...

"Are... Are you making fun of me? Is that what this is all about?" The gun was suddenly raised again, now nuzzled directly against the Cat Boy's man parts. Rather than taking aim, however, the left hand was covering her face from view. Hiding her own expression? "This... T-This doesn't make any sense!..."

Three years in a hole hiding from the outside world, and now the very invaders that dragged her out were all over her, searching for some kind of sympathetic reaction that Lyco just couldn't parse. It was enough to drive someone to madness. They must want something. Nobody was this powerful for no reason.

Alex was puzzled. "Why would I be making fun of you? Did I say something wrong?"

Alex became aprehensive. He hadn't meant to offend anyone.

"I'm sorry if I did something wrong. If I did, could you explain it to me so that I don't make the same mistake again?"

"Whoa, careful, that thing might not be able to put as many rounds into me as I can into you but it's still dangerous." Akemi moved to once more bring himself cheek to cheek with Lyco and continued to rub away.

"Please, please, just... stop..." Lyco's voice was shaky, and her hands froze in place. The lumbering crab drone put it's hands on Akemi's shoulders, ushering him backwards, but didn't put any real force into it. "This... just... T-This j-just isn't... right..."

Splitting from the Nekovalkyrja and rolling to a point around the side of the consoles, she bundled her arms and continued to face away, physically shaking.

"I'll make you a d-dinner, to m-make up for it, okay? Will that d-do? Then we can b-be even." She didn't want to turn back around, but the assistant Junker's camera was swiveling to face Alex, too. "Don't worry, the p-polysentience has plenty of n-nutritional information... all sorts of races... I can make it less poisonous, for sure..."

Logically, it was the only way out of this. They could take her charity, or lump it.

Alex was taken aback by this latest development.

"I, I mean if you want to, but there's really no need to do anything like that."

This was something he didn't know how to handle. What was he supposed to do?

Alex began to stammer incoherently.

"Awww," Akemi said before trying to get out of the junker's grasp and float over to the Spacer. "What are you going to cook in? Nothing but an apron? I don't want dinner or a bath, I just want you." Naturally after delivering the last line his face broke into a massive goofy grin.

Alex's adventures with Mindware Trickery, or Arccos checks on the home front on a long trip:

As the full scene unfolded in the warehouse, Alex would manage to hear a slight throaty sound of disdain. Almost a whispered groan, coming from behind him like someone or something else was in here. What it was seemed both clear and unclear, as the thing stepped out from behind the pilot and walked about the room in a few long strides. A towering feminine figure, shrouded in white robes and slightly transparent like a ghost, three of its limbs constructed of a hollow latticework with details like baroque lace, and most strangely it seemed to be wearing the burning yellow dawning sun like a mantle though it cast no shadows whatsoever.

It looked impossible.

And the only one who could see Arccos' polysentience avatar for sure was Alex. While Lycosidae might have been able to see it, should she keep her mindware open to random transmissions; this sort of thing happens if one leaves their mindware open to chatter like Alex, but it was more likely that a hermit would shut off such things.

"What a disgusting display..." It hissed, using Arccos' voice. "You should do her a favor and peel him off... We still haven't done biological sampling on this planet: Akemi works with meat and flesh, he could be carrying something local that broad spectrum antibiotics and immune boosters don't account for... If she's even received any from him yet. This sure as shit looks like his first visit if she's not used to this yet, and I'd put money on him hand delivering anything he sends her."

"I'm not on the menu." Lyco gave Akemi that typical disgruntled glare, but suddenly turned to stare off into space for a moment without reason. "Not even in... your... weirdo... restaurant..."

Tracks rotated, bumbling over the mess of heavy-duty wires, pillows and empty food containers strewn about the floor. The tank spacer ejected the gun arm by pulling the release latch with her teeth, and then fumbled a new actual hand back into the socket, at the same time as keying several more monitors back into operation. It might not have been a strat-ops, but the trashy pile of computers was still more than adequate for proxying a basic mindware connection. The camera feed from the assistant junker gave the room a VR-capable perspective, and a couple of keystrokes later, some strange white-robbed goddess was overlayed before them, facing towards Alex.

"...Codebreaker..." She said simply, in greeting. "This isn't your idea, is it? I already agreed to help you. It's not like I can go anywhere just yet."

Another suspicious look towards Alex. The kid could be used as a physical tool for a hacker with ease, even if his body was organic.

Alex was surprised by the apparition, stumbling backward a few steps before he caught himself.
Giving Arccos's avatar an annoyed glance, Alex said,

"If you're going to appear in front of me or in my head, at least ask first, or teach me how to block people out."

Turning back towards Lyco, Alex spoke again. "What do you mean this is her idea?"
He was puzzled by that statement, but was unsettled, reluctant as he was to become anyone's pawn.

Akemi crossed his arms again as he floated to put himself in front of Lyco. "I'm here a hundred percent because I want to hang out with a cute Spacer and learn about her. I don't need to establish a work relationship to find being here worthwhile. I still wanna hang with you too Arccos."

"You block people out by just turning your mindware off." Lyco glanced at Alex, giving him an odd look. It was a bit like telling a spacer child how to breath. His naivety was a little astonishing, but if there was nobody around to tell him these things, she couldn't exactly blame him. "And only handshake with connections that you trust."

Dealing with Akemi was a rather different matter, however. She basically just stared into his alluring little smile whilst considering her options.

"...Okay, Codebreaker, I have a favour to ask..." Missmatched green-red eyes looked back at the screens, then into the empty space which the junker perceived Arccos standing. "I have dozen packs of MedicaGel in the back, but the last time I tried to program my drones to spray it, they tried to burn my entire food supply down..."

"You're the genius software expert." Arcing her tracks both inward, their metal behind hit a cushion with a distinct 'fwumpf' whilst they attempted in vain to look haughty. "You think you could make a program for our friend junker M228-4-91 here, to spray people when they come in? Supposedly the stuff is edible, so it should work on most humanoids."