RP: 188604 Dead Metal Clubhouse

Corgan walked the streets of Osman City in his usual outfit, holding his CQBS-A2 casually. Ragna-dog followed beside him. He couldn't sleep and had decided to go see how the new Freespacer lady was settling in. It could also be a good chance to work out some sort of deal with her regarding the construction of Iron Butte. He didn't know exactly what he had to offer. Maybe some lubricant for her treads or something?

The streets were virtually empty this late. A few of the Brigadiers were out patrolling. He nodded at them as they walked by. They would recognize him by his half ID-SOL heritage. Only a few people on 188604 were that massive. Several minutes later he reached the building. He recognized Alex's mech sitting outside. Corgan walked up to the doors and holstered his shotgun, glancing nervously at the two tank drones guarding the place. Ragna-dog stuck close to him, ears flattened against his skull.

"Hello, Lyco ma'am. Could I come in?" He asked, looking up at the cameras on the tanks. "Those drones you have are amazing. I wonder if you could make some that can be piloted by a person? That's not why I'm here, though. I want to make a deal for some assistance with building a military outpost. I've got a few things you might be interested in to trade."

At Alex's annoyance, Arccos' virtual presence just turned and gave him a little flat stare. The entire concept of privacy was completely alien to most Freespacers, and this sort of thing was normal. And as Lycosidae rendered her presence visual, she just stood there looking at the pilot a little dumbfounded and was about to make some sarcastic remark about never talking to him if he'd be so snippy, before Lycosidae went to the trouble of explaining it to him. She just waved a hand in Lyco's direction, and switched her connection over to the junktastic node.

"Frankly it's not my idea. My idea was to get him to give up free supplies so I wouldn't have to pay for them." Her avatar indicated Akemi with a six-fingered hand, "He'll probably do it, too. I also figured that if he's harassing you, you'd either distrct him from me, or just take his head off with some form of artillery... At which stage you'd have more or less paid me for any supplies I'd need to send you at that junction."

The idea of Lycosidae killing Akemi being payment probably spoke volumes about her willingness to socially interact with the neko fellow. All at once she collapsed into a cross-legged sitting position, now at about eye level for her abnormal height. One hand started visibly on something only she could see, but it looked like typing as she started to silently debug Lyco's software remotely... She wasn't writing up new code, or giving over anything of her own. Instead just fixing what was broken, and giving detailed annotation so the little industrial spacer could replicate it herself next time, without Arccos' help.

And as Corgan appeared, the big-ass display just gave him a wave.

"Hey Corgan, you're just in time for... Dinner apparently?"

Akemi decided to let Arccos' hostility go as usual and instead gave Lyco some advice since he didn't really have anything he particularly wanted to say given his intimate time with her had been brought to an end by Alex.

"Just for the record if you're going to worry about someone I'd worry about Corgan. Jason 's pretty much only ever been nice to me meanwhile this guy lost his cool with me over trivial stuff, shook my hand like everything was fine after I was nice to him and he appeared to calm down, then went back on our agreement using a garbage excuse and lied to Uso to try to avoid honoring it. If you invest any time or care in him be ready to end up disappointed. I'd put any requests from him straight to the bottom of the pile if I even did any business with him at all. He has some mercenaries who could help guard things for you but you can make your own guards and other people can supply you with them."

Great, more capitalists. And internal politics.

Taking her time to respond to the huge newcomer, Lyco took a bottle of the MedicaGel herself, went outside into the searing sun, and immediately began dousing the guy. That sort of counted as an invitation, at least.

"You can already pilot them. That's what the little hatch behind the camera unit is for." Grunty sounds of exertion. She had difficulty reaching the top of the green-haired fellow, seeing as he was a full third taller than her. "Well, a normal sized person or a Type 4 brain can just about squeeze in..."

"I can build fortifications, sure, but what exactly did you have in mind to trade? It sounds like a big job."

Alex was next, followed by Akemi, and then herself. The stuff smelled like really strong alcohol, but evaporated quickly, at least. All the while, the junk drone was busy doing something or other, producing a native wooden shin-high table, and placing it before Arccos' ghostly non-form. Iron-dusted cushions soon appeared as seating placements for each and every one of them.

Disappearing behind the consoles, Lyco then began digging out food in the form of freeze-dried silver packages, taking special note of their chemical contents and radioactive potential. Putting some mushrooms, orka pods and white sauce in the wok would work, but she'd have to drown the whole thing in that weirdo automata's lemons to chelate out the heavy metal content... By the maker, these planetwalkers' food needs were prissy...

-"By the sounds of it, I'm not the one who could finish one of them off and get away with it."- A transmitted reply back to Arccos. They were staring at the MedicaGel bottle, deciding whether the solution to everything was just to dump it into the food, too. -"Of course, I'm not asking for that program for free either... Those gates are handy for your kind of business, no? It may not be the most up to date list in the world, but I do know where a bunch of the ultra-hidden ones were located. Ones not even the Locksmiths knew about, at least at the time. It's one favor a piece."-

Now, to deal with the message from Akemi...

-"Thank you for your concern, but I don't trust anybody."- A direct radio line. She sounded more cautious than ever, probably because of all the people around. -"I can take care of myself. You're sweet, Cat Boy, but don't get me wrong. I still want to leave, at the end of the day. This is still all just a means to an end for me."-

Akemi took his sprinkling of MedicaGel in good stride. "Wow, so is this part of our meal? That's cute. I don't wanna upstage your acts of hospitality but we could order food from my place and some Neko could fly it over here."

"Awww. But where would you leave to? Please give this place a try. I only just met you and you're really fun. Plus I've got lots of money and this place is super underdeveloped. You could think of yourself as an artist while we act as your patrons and muses and the planet is your canvas.

I don't wanna possibly contribute to overwhelming you with people but would you like me to invite Aashi or Jason? Jason is pals with Arccos and she's already here in Alex's head so that's something to consider even if he worries you. You could just get your introductions over with. We could get Vier and Uso in here too or I bet we could at least get them to appear on your monitors."

Alex politely stood still as he was sprayed. After being allowed in, he gratefully sat down on one of the cushions, and the action of doing so sent up a small dust cloud that cleared after a moment.

He looked over at Lyco's efforts to prepare a meal and commented. "Thank you for doing this. I assume it's be a lot of trouble to make something we can eat."

He then surveyed the room, noticing the many little figurines scattered about the area. As his eyes slid over the mess of manga pages and figures, one group of items in particular stood out to him.
It was a loose bundle of pages with what appeared to be a highly stylized mecha. There were also several figures of what appeared to be the same machine, in a variety of poses, placed down nearby.

Alex was fascinated by this. "What are these?" He asked, pointing to what he had spotted. "They look cool."

-"You mean Jason and Alex are different people?"- Was the first response transmitted back to Akemi. Her gaze was diverted sideways towards the strangers in turn, whilst she got the wok going. -"Man, I guess he really might be part of that project... Not that I ever saw that much, it was some secret nepleslian buggery going on, but... Well, do you think I should... You know, tell him what I saw?..."-

Junker M228 took care of jostling the pan after the ingredients were added. It wasn't hard to program when Lyco could just look at the food through the camera eye. This left her free to come back and sit at the head of the table.

"No offence Cat Boy, but I don't even know if your place is sterilized, let alone the food." Metal elbows hit the table with a distinct clunk, allowing her to rest her chin in parted hands. "So just relax. If I don't let people in at all, they'll want to know what is going on behind close doors at some point..."

The newfound calm didn't last long. Not after Alex had spotted her random collection of yammie toys.

"They're... erm... 3D printed..." She was doing her best to remain looking serene, but was going red in the face again, at the same time as showing her braces through the galaxy's least convincing smile. "I... erm... f-forgot to put them away, s-sorry..."

"The city outside is still coming to grips with the concept of indoor plumbing. Chances are if his cooks are locals they've only recently come to the conclusion that washing their hands is a good thing to do..." Arccos' overlarge projection said. Looking idly just off screen with her hands up, doing some typing on a phantom keyboard. A few odd glances were sent Lyco's way.

"And you can loosen up." Arccos said, sounding a little warm. Maybe even motherly. "I mean, I'm in your system correcting your programming right now. And I can tell you that none of your interests or proclivities are anywhere near as filthy as what I found in Akemi's system when I busted into his files... I approve of the 3D printing. At least you're not paying for the slush that oozes out of Yamatai."

Akemi turned to Arccos. "My files?" he asked with a big grin. He didn't really mind if the Spacer had gone through his stuff. He actually found the idea entertaining and potentially quite arousing. She'd have learned more about him without him having had to do anything which was quite nice considering how difficult she made talking to her. Plus she'd have done so of her own volition. "Then you know I totally wanna glass your ass harder than Halna."

He then addressed Lyco. "Buddy, I'll make sure you've got the boosters and treatment to handle anything my food throws at you."

"I dunno. I don't really know anything about them besides them just showing up. Neither of them have given me any trouble and Jason is friendly and relaxed, not just polite or something. He just likes being boastful. Anyway, I wanna know for sure, is it okay if I invite other people over?"

"Hey, don't look at that!" More red. More disgruntled eyebrows directed towards the Arccos through the monitors. "You're not my genetic predecessor!"

Most of the files were totally unlocked, not because she trusted them, or even because she was a spacer, but just a force of habit from living alone for so long. She was not very good at drawing. Attempts at creating VR scenarios were childishly haphazard. Her music taste was as weebo as possible. The taste in porn only got weirder the further along into their isolation it was, generally including tall dark bishies, and tall dark bishie vampire nekos. Things that would seem almost intentionally designed to annoy normal spacer sensibilities, for sure. Oh, and she had stray thoughts of making plush versions of the death crawlers.

-"Fine, just invite the whole planet over!"- The annoyance was palpable. Maybe Lyco started as a steam train and had the human bits added later. -"It's not like I live in a damn factory in the middle of nowhere with limited food supplies or anything!"-

Picking up one of the figurines, Alex examined it and was amazed by the level of detail in it.
"I'd love to hear more about these." He said.


As he heard the outburst,Alex winced and looked down in shame, afraid that he had done something wrong. "I-I'm sorry. Did I do something wrong? I didn't mean to upset anyone."

Akemi stayed cool and hoped that his new pal would too. "Buddy, I'll totally take care of all your food and medical needs free of charge. You just tell me what you want and need and I'll get it for you. If you insist on paying me back you can do so by hanging out with me and trying to chillax. I won't invite anyone if it'll bother you. I just wanted to hang with you alone but then these guys came around so now I wanna show you how nice people who aren't Alex, Arccos or Corgan are."

Reflexively, Lycosidae just plopped one of her oversized hands onto Alex's head, as if to calm his concerns.

"It's an underwater mecha. A Zelob from Armoured Crusader Glambos." A shrug accompanied the explanation, even through the squat blue robot was one of her favorites. Telling people this stuff in public was always going to sound really dumb. "I can send you the video files if you really want. Discount for a friend."

She didn't pay a penny herself. Even if she liked yammie stuff, money still seemed like a really dumb idea. Bootlegging was just plain in the blood.

-"It wouldn't make any difference, I know what people are really like... Especially people with power..."- Attempting to calm herself wasn't easy, so she kept to talking to Akemi through transmissions again. It was a really jaded tone. -"...Are... You really not afraid of me hurting you?... I mean, my treads weigh 100kg each... I drag tank parts around all day..."-

"So?" Akemi sent back. "You're cute and nice. I totally wanna bang a Mishhu Nightmare one day and they're bigger and scarier than you. You'll see. There are nice people. I also don't even really know if Aashi or Jason have much power. I know Jason has his mecha and I guess he's friends with Arccos. He and Alex really are different people. Aashi is just Aashi as far as I know. She has a ship. Whoo. Big deal. Vier is nice. She hugged me and also patted my head when I got worried about her perception of me. Uso is just really cheeky and tries to be all cool and aloof from what I've seen. She at least ordered Vier to hug me and that made her get all embarrassed. That was nice."

Alex put the figurine down.
"I think I'd enjoy that. I'd like to learn more about it some time."

Maybe this show and comic could even provide some ideas for new upgrades. His current mecha was always getting banged up, so there were plenty of opportunities to try new things.

The dog heard Alex and Akemi and charged past Corgan into the room. He jumped up and tried to lick the mech pilot's face. Corgan laughed until he was unexpectedly doused with some sort of medical gel. His smile faded for a second, then he shrugged. "Not the worst thing I've been covered in. One bank job I did we went in through the sewers." He explained as he walked in.

Corgan nodded while listening to Lyco's response. "I didn't know that. Haven't really had a chance to examine one up close. As for the trade, I do have a big barrel of motor oil and some mechanical lubricant. I have a small cargo shuttle as well, and 17,000 DA. I'll go to Nepleslia and buy whatever you want. Other than that I don't have much to offer right now. Maybe I could do some work for you if I can. Don't know what Akemi's said about me, but I'm reliable. I don't expect you to believe me or trust me yet."

He walked over to Alex, ignoring Akemi for now. "Hey, sorry about the thing with that lady after the volleyball game. She was a total bitch, though. You seem like a good kid from what I've heard about you. Can we start over? I'm Corgan." He offered Alex a hand. "I'm not great at first impressions."

Alex laughed as the dog licked him before standing up. He took the proffered hand and shook.
He remembered the man from the beach game.

"It's fine. I understand that you had a job to do. Besides, from what I've heard you got the short end of the stick anyways. It's nice to meet you. My name's Alex."

Lyco had ignored the furry creature at first because they just thought it was local wildlife, but having it barge in to an actual welcome by Alex just made her even more confused. And twice as germophobic.

"Well, there goes my living room." The gel pack was already empty. Looking out into the dusty landscape, she could only imagine more and more people coming. "...Akemi... How far away did you say your place was?... I think the only way I'm going to get rid of this now is with petrol and matches..."

"As for you..." Facing back to the tall green haired man. He said his name was Corgan to the young pilot. "I may ask for some specific imports from Nep space, but I need to make some contacts on the poly first... For now, can you please just get that... excited mammal thing... out of here?..."

Attention was pulled back to the streets. That old shoeless bearded man was still lurking around out there. She liked the cat boy, but disagreed with him about the space capitalist's lack of power, utterly.

"Not that far or at least not to us space people. I'll bring a car to take you there if you'd like. You could even live at my place or in my ship if you'd like. I live at the tavern. You could get whatever you want straight from me and it."

Akemi noticed the man outside had caught Lyco's attention. "Does the guy outside bother you somehow? I could take him with us. I'm giving out free food and medicine to the poor. I wanna employ lots of them. I'd love to have an orphan army like some spymaster or old thief king in a book."

"Didn't I already say I don't want your charity?" Their frustration was growing again, nearly to the point of hyperventilating now. This 'being nice' thing wasn't exactly working out all that well for her. At this rate getting sick was already inevitable. "Having all those cameras... All t-those other p-people around... It isn't... I c-couldn't..."

Prying her head from her hands, Lyco immediately yanked the portable hard drive from the computer console. At the same time, the assistant junker immediately took the wok of cooked vegetables and placed it before the homeless man. She didn't care about being nice, waste was waste. Or at least that was how she justified it internally.

Couldn't stay in the building any long, through. Trouble breathing. Voidwalker chest and helmet on. Out into the sands it was.