RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 1] Welcome to Cloud Nine

"But but BUT!" Dream protested. She was looking really miserable, like a kicked puppy or a cat in a cardboard box near the corner of the street with "for a good owner" scribbled over it.
Under the rain.

"I just hope this Montreal person will be fun. We've been here for, what, five minutes and counting, and nothing fun has happened yet!"

Dream's questions and protests were drawing more attention than Tweak wanted. She glanced around, hunching down on Kied's shoulder, almost being swallowed in her large jacket. Hopefully everyone would not notice her, and just focus on Dream.

A big lug of a figure trailed the group as they walked, his eyes flickering from each piece of metal within the big station as he went. Metal and Machinery were his things. Well that and of course Martial Arts and Gymnastics and pocket picking but he'd picked them up from his rough and tough days in the slums of Funky City. The Marine was a little disgruntled being here where he supposed he wasn't going to get much action done except for maybe some tinkering and updates on some technology or something.

Then his mind wandered and he thought about maybe having a damaged ship dock here and having them let him fix all the broken down and destroyed machines fixed and everything. He gave his head a shake. 'Quit dreaming... You're a Marine, marines don't complain...' he told himself mentally and nearly bumped into Dream as they stopped. He managed to halt his forward movement with several inches separating them from touching. Taking a side step so he could adjust the pack on his back he looked from Dream to the Lady and back. Then his eyes traveled to Tweak and Kied and then to the big mismatched others of the group. With a soft grunt He put a hand on Dream's shoulder and murmured a soft "Hey, if you be quiet for the next twenty five minutes I'll see to it you get some fun okay? Just leave the lady alone. Babble to me if you have to..." and then he ruffled her hair and lifted his eyes to meet the lady's, Daring her to say something.

Of course being who he was he was sure he could find some form of entertainment for Dream. She was after all female and he had a few places in min she might like to see or maybe he could just distract her with some ice cream and a soda. But the point was the same. She was just holding them up instead of letting them get on with it. He hoped his offer would be enough to get her to be quiet for a bit. To the lady his daring was reinforced by the fact he was nearly seven feet tall and his tight shirt showed off the tightly packed muscle stretched across his big boned frame. He wasn't in the mind for purring up with this kind of crap, no, he just wanted a drink and good old bar fight to hold him over till he had something to do with his hands.

Dream turned around to face the nepleslian. Her cybernetic eye made some funny noises, sliding him into focus.
"Twen- TWENTY-FIVE?!" She was shocked, nay, amazed at the sole mention of such a span of time in that dismissive manner. "But twenty five minutes is, like, forever! I can't waste my time like this!" She whined, bobbing back and forth from her perch on Keid's left shoulder and, finally, jumped down the massive automata.

She was getting restless. Not just "restless"... more like "ADHD restless".

Then, she stopped suddenly, staring intensely at Lorcan. "...Who're you, anyway? I can't find you on the Cirrus' roster- HOLY CRAP." She winced in surprise. "You have, like, a ton of stuff in your head-" Short, embarrassed pause. "...Uhm, nevermind. I guess you know already."
She scratched the back of her head, making her light blue hair even more of an unruly mess than it already was.
"So, Dream. Druidess Dream Zero Zero Zero Zero One Eight Two Four Seven Five. 'T's' me, straight from the Free State." She said, pointing to herself with a huge grinning smile on her face. "And, since this looks like it's gonna take forever, at least let me add you to my database."

He watched her silently as she babbled on about being silent for twenty five minutes straight. He watched passively as she leapt off Keid's shoulder and got really restless. He took a deep breath and watched, tilting his head slightly so that his long hair slid down over his left eye. He was just about to answer her question about him not being on the roster and then closed his mouth as she burst out about him having a lot in his head, whatever that meant.

Then after her introduction he nodded, she was weird and being a free spacer explained it all. With another deep breath and a mental reminder not to squish his new found friend... or leech as he thought of her... He spoke in a soft, neutral monotone "Lorcan 'Al Ale, Marine maintenance mechanic..." and then with a hint of a smile flickering at the edge of his lips. "And yes I've got a skull lined with titanium plates from when I was thrown off a third floor balcony and cracked my skull on the pavement. His eyes remaining on her, he reached up and pulled his hair up into a messy top knot so she could see the white scar that traveled across his forehead. He left his hair up in the topknot so he could acctually see where he was going.

After a minute of indecision he asked her. "You look light enough, want to sit on my shoulders and maybe we can keep up this conversation and move at the same time?" He asked, holding out his hand. He had about sixty to eighty pounds of gear on his back and could easily accommodate her on his shoulders as long as she didn't move around too much. His ID-SOL heritage allowed for his carrying capacity to be around his own weight... which was heavy anyway so her hundred or so pounds wouldn't do much to phase him. She might end up hitting her head on something but some feeling deep inside him told him she probably wouldn't care in the least.

"So Lorcan 'Al Ale... Lorcan... Mechanic... let's see..." Dream thought about it for a moment, then decided his new nickname: "Ok, Gearhead Lore!" Her smile was so bright she was practically shining.

Following his offer, she climbed over his shoulders. Se was light, as expected for a little girl of her age and body type, but her clothes felt strangely thick and heavy, almost as if they were metallic.

"Ah, yes, introductions!" She said then from up there, pointing to the massive automata full of blinking LED lights and sporting an afro: "This is Keid, Warmonger Keid Five Seven. He's awesome." She proclaimed proudly, like it was some kind of incontrovertible scientific fact. Well, it was, for her. "Oh, remember to give him a bit of your hair later. It's for a good cause." She added.
Then, to Tweak: "And she's Tweak Three Seven. She's a Gearhead, just like you! She's a bit shy, so please be her friend and take good care of her." She said with all the concern a mother could have for her daughter.

She made a short pause. "Um. Now that I think about it. Remember taking your anti-rad meds." She said, looking down to Lorcan, or Lore as she had nicknamed him. "Woah, this skull plating is really good!" She noted then, almost as an aside to the main conversation, knocking on it nonchalantly.

He blinked and nodded to her choice of a nick name for him. Of course it had been used before…well except for the gearhead part… Pausing, he put a foot back behind him to keep from falling over as she climbed up on him.

Of course he gave her a hand so that she was settled evenly across his shoulders, one leg to either side of his head. That left her nethers a heads turn away, his cheeks glowing a bright red at the thoughts that flashed across his entertainment deprived mind.

His training kept him from acting on all the naughty thoughts in his mind. He was pretty sure that he could hit it off later if this station had a brothel, which he doubted it didn’t, so he was good and set to go in that area or so he hoped.

He got sidetracked and distracted as she knocked on his skull. Frowning and looking up at her without tilting his head back he told her “Yeah, it’s saved my brain from being smashed in several times when I was a kid. You can break my skull and the skin but it takes a little more to break through the plating. Certainly stops shards of cartilage from a broken nose from reaching my brain…whooo….broken noses…” He had to give a soft, dry chuckle at that.

With another breath he answered her earlier commentary in kind. “It’d be better to call me Metalhead don’t you think?” Then his eyes flickered from Tweak to Kied again and he gave a slight nod. “I’ll make sure to like you all then…” This might be harder than it sounded but he was sure he could pull it off eventually without too much help.

As for the anti-radiation medication… He pulled the pill bottle from his pocket and took off the cap, popping a pill into his mouth and swallowing as he put the lid back on. He stuck the bottle back into his pocket and then pulled his canteen off his belt. He unscrewed the cap and took a drink of water to wash it down with. Then remembering the leech sitting atop his head he lifted the canteen above his head to offer it to her.

“You thirsty Dream?” he asked and then added “When I get some free time I’ll cut off some of my hair and give it to you so you can give it to your friend okay?” He didn’t see anything wrong with giving away the hairs off the back of his neck if it made Dream and the other free spacers happy. Of course he was determined to put himself on good terms with everybody he was going to be around just to make things easier in the future.

"Nah." Said Dream. "Tradenames are supposed to be about yourself, not your body. You repair stuff and work on machines, so you're a Gearhead, like Tweak." It made sense, although the way she nonchalantly distinguished "one's self" from "one's body" felt somewhat creepy. "Keid stomps the bad guys, so he's a Warmonger. And I'm a Druidess because... well, because I'm a Druidess." Her rate of words per minute was almost too high to catch everything she said. She was visibly excited.

"...uh?" She took in hand the canteen by reflex, but didn't drink from it. Examining it like it were a weird little animal, she inspected it from every angle, shook it a bit to listen at the sound it made, and looked inside it (with her normal eye). "...what's this? WATER?! All of it?" She was amazed. "This much water? You're giving it to me? I don't mean to take your part of water... wait, what I mean is, if this is yours... ahem, everyone should have their ration and..." She fumbled for words while holding the canteen in hand like it was some kind of holy relic.
Her skin color had changed from her usual greenish-yellowish to a more orange tone. Finally, she managed to explain herself (more or less), mumbling: "...are you really sure you want to give this water to me?"

He caught every other word, mostly about trade names, warmonger, druidess and gearheads. Of course he was mostly ignoring her like only a disinterested marine could. He took a deep breath when she started shaking his canteen and murmuring about rations and this and that, asking him if he was sure she could have the water in the canteen. When she was finally quiet he caught her mumbled “You sure you want to give this water to me?” and took a deep breath and let it out, only wanting to something nasty to her concerning the water bottle.

For now he contented himself with a short, three letter reply. “Yes…” and then in a more monotone tone of voice “If you want it…” Of course he had another in his pack along with some field meals and stuff he always carried with him wherever he went so he wasn’t going to go hungry or thirsty anytime soon, which seemed like a good thing to do with her here. From now on he vowed to carry around several canteens just to keep her occupied and assured that she wasn’t taking his water ‘ration’. Then there was the fact he had had his fill of water to drink on the way over so he wasn’t in any danger of getting dehydrated anytime soon. He could stand to loose a few ponds in excess water though now that his mind was on the subject. There was the problem of dumping Dream and wandering off to find the head though, so that was yet another thing he’d have to put on a temporary hold until he could get rid of the little leech.

Leech…Naw he was starting to think of her as more of a very talkative, over excited friend from another planet… one radiating radiation like no other, but a friend nonetheless.

Cyril was about to respond to Kaziah when the... she had to be a freespacer. There was no way that the brass would let a marine, or even one of those nutjobs from IPG, dress like that on active duty. The fact that she was sitting on the shoulders of a giant death-bot was also a good indication.

Anyway, Cyril was about to respond to Kaziah when the freespacer spoke up about being 'bored' already. That alone was enough to visibly boggle him. She actually had the gall to say she was bored. Hell, if Cyril was any judge, he'd say that she was they type to be looking for excitement, which was tempting the Great Demon Finagle if anything was. Where Cyril was from, 'exciting' was a blown airlock, or the gravity failing, or an air scrubber catching on fire. And if what he had heard about the freespacers was anything to go on, their ships made Hampton High look like, well, Cirrus.

It took him a moment to regain his equilibrium before he turned back to Kaziah.

"Did'ja 'ear that Kaz? Bored she says! This is the kind o' job I don't just like uninteresting, I like actively boring. Can you believe that?"

James observed the marines in the hallway with mild interest, not particularly attracted to anyone or anything. It wasn't like the hallway wasn't filled to the brim with interesting people/aliens, it was that James really didn't care about any of it.

The whole idea of Cirrus Station had suddenly become extremely boring. After seeing the different shiny things and the blandness of the eternally white walls, James lost all interest in the station. The different assortment of characters might prove to be more entertaining, but he was definitely not going to find out anytime soon. He was naturally shy and ill-disposed to get acquainted with others, so it wasn't likely that he would be making any intimate friends right away.

James' eye enhancements allowed him to get a closer look at everybody, without having to get physically close. Most of the marines and ID-Sols were the usual rank and file Neplesians. The caucasian, mostly organic Neplesians and the over-sized ID-Sols weren't of importance though. It was the 'Spacers that made him stare.

Their motly assortment of clothes and gear made Jame's think of especially weird children's toys. They seemed sane enough, except the big one. James was positive anyone that big couldn't be good.

There was an unnoticeable-at-a-glance twitch under Tweak's head-scarf as her name was mentioned when Dream introduced her to "Gearhead Lore". She turned and gave Lorcan a half-smile and wave.

Looking around again, Tweak didn't see anything particularly interesting (she had already nearly memorized the faces in the crowd...too bad she wouldn't recognize them later) and decided that she would rather be on the ground than perched up on Keid's shoulder. Except that everyone else was, on average, quite a bit taller than she was, which would either leave her with nothing but backs to look at or potentially trampled. So she stayed where she was and pretended to be invisible but making sure she didn't actually do it.

I wish this would hurry up.

In the back of her mind, her TOS continued whispering information and scrolling it in ghostly, mostly transparent letters and symbols at the corners of her vision. There were more people tagged "Unknown" than it 'liked', and it was becoming agitated. This, in turn, was making Tweak more nervous than she was already. She needed to either hide or...something. She wasn't sure what her tactical mind wanted, but she knew she didn't want to hurt anyone, which seemed to annoy it.

Wasn't there any way to turn it off? Tweak closed her eyes and poked at the TOS with her mind. But it wasn't a physical construct, so poking at it wouldn't do any good, she realized. Maybe talking to it would?

It wasn't hard to spot the 'Spacer--the blue swarm sitting on top of the automata. Their peculiar style, so at odds with anything Keziah considered remotely pleasing, at least made them impossible to miss. She watched as the 'Spacer hopped down from the automata, then climbed up onto the shoulders of a marine, apparently quite happy with her new perch.

But, then, what Cyril said... maybe there was a reason the Cirrus had so many security positions open. A dead-end posting? Backwater?

Though boring wouldn't be bad. Boring was ordinary. Boring was okay.

"Maybe this is the first time she's been on a normal spacestation. I mean, imagine how faulty their ships must be. Maybe ordinary for her is, I don't know, a massive hull breach." Keziah grinned playfully.

Dream slowly brought the canteen, which she was holding like some kind of holy relic or priceless treasure, to her face, staring into it and ogling the precious fluid it contained for a while.

Then, she drank from it, slowly, savoring every drop.

She closed it almost religiously, and kept it in her right hand, looking at it proudly from time to time or shaking it just to hear the sound the water inside made, all while sporting a large grinning smile on her face.

She was happy. The kind of "happy" normal people would be if they found a thousand bucks note just lying on the ground.

She reached into one of her disproportionately large sleeves, and pulled out of it a small metallic item with her other hand, practically thrusting it into Lorcan's hands.

It was a small metallic wrench, completely carved. On its surface were artistically etched countless spinning, wawing, spiraling lines, drawing an almost hypnotic scribble all over its surface. Here and there the lines formed small Free State emblems (the characteristic "gearwheel, sun and moon" logo), but most of it was abstract.

Also, it looked old. Very old. Like, decades, maybe centuries, hard to tell. Countless days of work had smoothed it all over, countless hands and countless bolts had eroded its surface, and as a matter of fact it was probably of no practical use at all except as a decorative item. It had probably been carved fairly recently: after outliving is usefulness as a tool, it was promoted to some kind of lucky charm or talisman, apparently.

"Here, take this! Gift exchange!" She proclaimed. "This is the Wrench of the Past and Present! It has seen service aboard my mothership, the Brilliant Unwritten Future Amidst The Neverending Heavens, for almost a hundred years, and now is a talisman consecrated to Fabricator, god of engineering and tenth component soul of the Great Maker!" Dream explained joyously. "Keep it with you in exchange for the water vessel! It'll bring you good luck, since you're a Gearhead."

She brought the canteen up, near to her ear, and shook it again, listening to the sound of water. "Mhh, I know, I must put this at the temple! Oh, say!" She called out to the lady who was showing them the way to wherevertheyweresupposedtogo (she already forgot, probably). "Does the Cirrus have a temple on board? A shrine or a sanctuary?" She paused for a split second, then jumped at the opportunity: "If not, can I take care of making and administering one? I'm a certified Type Three mechadruidic priestess!"

Cyril chuckled and shook his head at Kaziah's suggestion.

"Don't go tempting Finagle like that. He's a spiteful old bastard, and I don't know about you, but I don't breath vacuum so well."

Cyril pulled out the pack of cigarettes and fished one out, as well as a battered old lighter. Putting the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he reached up with his mechendrite and snipped a good two and a half inches off the end of the cigarette with the manipulators. Stuffing the filterless end of the cig back into the pack, he lit up. The whole thing was done almost without thought, Cyril's attention clearly elsewhere.

Throughout this well practiced ritual, he had been watching the byplay between the blue-haired freespacer and her new marine friend. At the moment, she was offering him what appeared to be a... wrench, maybe? Some sort of small metallic doodad. And this after treating a canteen like the sort of small brown package you could find in certain back alleys dirtside. So the woman was definitely an eccentric. Maybe it was all the rads she must be taking.

Tearing his attention away from the freespacer, he extended the cigarettes to Kaziah.

"If'n don't mind me asking, how'd you get sent to a post like this?"

Keziah gratefully took the cigarette, leaning down to share in the gift of fire. She took a few quick puffs as she straightened back up, her eyes wandering across the crowd, less interested in the antics of the 'Spacers than others nearby, Cyril included.

They were odd, sure, of course. And making lots of noise. Well, the one was, anyway, the blue-haired girl. Sitting on people's shoulders like it was the most natural thing to do. She deliberately decided not to pay the 'Spacer any attention.

"Bad luck I guess," she muttered, glancing down at the deck plates. At her legs. "Lost my legs, and that put me behind on training. So I just got what was left over. This didn't look as bad as serving on another cargo hauler."

The uniformed woman smiled sweetly at Dream and her offer, but slowly shook her head as she slowed to a stop in front of a smaller, less-than-extravagant bulkhead door.

“I’m sorry, but we do not have a…temple of that sort currently on the station. You will have to inquire about setting up one on your own time, with Miss Montreal’s permission, of course. And since we are on the subject…we have arrived at our destination!” The honey-blond lady clapped his hands shortly and excitedly, very much over-enthused about this particular turn of events.

The doorway was open to the hallway at the moment, and to the immediate right of the entranceway, stamped clearly on a off-white plate, stood the words “Multipurpose Storage #253”. Inside, roughly twenty or so other uniformed Nepleslian marines and an odd mismatched Freespacer Automata or unfortunate random Joe sat placidly amongst the number of storage crates cluttering the floor and walls. Up in the corner of the room, a small blackened glass globe watched the room silently…

They were in a closet. The ever-smiling skirt-wearing woman beckoned them to take their own seats, and took position next to the doorway back into the hallway.

---

She wouldn’t have to wait long, however. A minute or so after the new crew had seated themselves, Head Administrator Cassefin Montreal appeared through the bulkhead in a confidant stride.

“How was my presentation, Mimi?” she asked.
“It was positively incredible, Miss Montre-.”
“I know.”

Cassefin was clad in what seemed to be a regular assortment of professional work clothes…dark brown slacks under a white, long-sleeved collared shirt, complete with a matching vest and pristine white laboratory coat over her entire self. Her hair, crimson red and done up in a too-tight ponytail, and across her impossibly-perfect face sat perhaps the single most smug grin in the history of smug grinning. As she took place at the head of the storage closet, Cassefin adjusted the spectacles on her face and cleared her throat loudly to garner the attention of the room.

“Greetings men, women and other, and welcome to the Cirrus Research Station. I am your Head Administrator, Cassefin Montreal, and I would like to thank each and every one of you for accepting this exciting position aboard this station.” Cassefin spoke in a tone bordering on the droll side, as if she were reading this introduction from a cue card rather than from the heart…which was what she was, in fact, doing at that very moment as she read word for word a previously-prepared orientation through her volumetric bifocals. She sighed before continuing.

“This wonderful opportunity will charge you with protecting the assets of the station, including the valuable personnel and equipment. Yes indeed; each of you has been assigned as active security aboard this amazing step towards the future of our universe. For the next half-hour or so, I will be explaining your exciting new career in detail, from your sleeping quarters, security equipment, meals…starting with our newest installment to the station; our Pneumatic Delivery System!”

Cassefin made a slight hand motion towards Mimi, who promptly stepped aside with an endearing smile. Mimi had been hiding a large, clear tube with a sliding panel near the front which opened to a capsule, suspended in place. Next to the tube was a small keypad, no doubt used to control the destination of objects placed inside the capsule.

“I had these installed myself,” Cassefin noted smugly, quite obviously swelling with pride. “The Pneumatic Delivery System can attend to many needs personnel of the Cirrus Station…transportation of laundry, security equipment, ordered meals…all sorts of things. I, in one of my many fits of beneficence, have also installed a vast storage system I allow personnel to store personal items of their choice and access them throughout the Cirrus at their own convenience! Observe.”

Cassefin turned away from the tube system and strode straight for Cyril, hands planted on her waist. “Mr. Sevyn, yes? I saw earlier in the hallway that you have a pack of cigarettes on your person. May I please borrow them for a moment, to demonstrate the convenience of the Pneumatic Delivery System?”

Arguing with herself didn't do any good, so Tweak just let whatever-it-was babble, but resolved to keep it in check until she figured something out.

When the doors at the end of the trek through the halls opened, the wording of the name "Multipurpose Storage" did little to throw her off...why were they getting their greeting in there? Shouldn't they be in a place that wasn't the station equivalent of a closet?

Tweak narrowed her eyes at Miss Montreal as the haughty woman began her slightly-patronizing-and-not-at-all-enthusiastic greeting. Then Cassefin got to the job description, at which Tweak tilted her head in confusion.

"Pst, Dream? I thought we were engineers, not security...did we miss our stop?" the neko whispered from where she sat on Keid's shoulder to where her friend was riding on Lorcan's shoulders.

Dream was still on Lorcan's shoulders, and her eye was... glazed, staring into nothingness. As for the cybernetic eye, it was apparently offline, or on standby or something like that. She was...

...sleeping with her eyes open? No, probably the situation had become so boring, so quickly, that Dream was probably playing around in some virtual realm within Polysentience to keep herself from slipping into insanity.

However, in hearing her name, some sort of priority interrupt mechanic slowly brought her mind back into the here-and-now. "...uh...eh?" She asked.

They were a funny pair, each sitting on the shoulder of someone else, talking to one another in a whisper during a conference.

"Um, I dunno. But who cares. If there's something important we need to know, they'll make us know." She dismissed the whole issue, once again showing her reliance on the Freespacers' "communistic hivemind".

"Besides, the missie there is the grand poobah here, right? If she's the one I have to ask to if I want to put a shrine on this space station, I'll just wait for her to finish." She turned to her. "What is she talking about now? Pneumatic... Delivery... System?" She said, probably reviewing the logs her unconscious mind protocols took of Cassefin's rambling about. "Oh! Pneumatic tubes! Nice, we have them on the Brilliant Unwritten Future, too, even though we couldn't fit a very large network in the hull." She said, her interest reawakened.

James listened as Montreal went on about some pneumatic deli cycle or something like that. He didn't really care. Montreal had that sort of "I'm better than you, and I know it" aura. It wasn't at all attractive. Physically she was beautiful, but personality tends to get in the way on occasion.

What James really wanted to know about was the smokes a couple marines were sharing. One of them was PC3 Dells, the other was PC3 Sevyn. He could tell by the uniform markings and their nametags, but beyond that, he didn't know either of them.

James hated to go out and introduce himself, he wasn't very good at introductions, but his craving for some smokes was overpowering his fear of new people. While Montreal continued to banter on about rooms and meals and whatnot, James slowly made his way to the other marines, he stopped a few feet from where they stood.

"Do you have any more cigs?"