RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 2] - Choke

The car that Mr. Stapleton and his spritely assistant Reeves was sitting in was a car. Most 'cars' on Yamatai were more like personal conveyances, boats upon different currents where you simply chose which current to take you somewhere then sat back and let it happen. Even before Mr. Stapleton's fingers worked their magic to make this car even less safe, he had some modicum of control. At least now, he could replicate things he saw in the action movies - fly between traffic lanes, swap lanes and use the turn signals to tell people that he was driving, not just riding along.

Luca found himself walking alone with his since-Delsauria ever present taut face, watching the faces of the Yamataian people in the heart of their beehive either going about their businesses or watching him back. Try as he might, a man in a bright purple armoured jacket with a gigantic revolver (no rounds loaded) and a quasi-bionic arm (unpowered) just stood out like a sore thumb where even fashions that could change by the hour and even one's bare skin was fashionable enough when bodies could be changed like under-underwear.

Sometimes, the faces in the crowd would either hang agape with wonder that someone so lofty was capable of mundane activities like walking, breathing, watching where they step so they didn't step on cracks. Maybe they were thinking of everything he'd done to be so memorable even before his brand extolled fictionalised deeds - one person's warmonger was another's saviour when you peeled the veneers back. Some faces in the crowd were smiling at him - perhaps they were on Drift or Nepleslia or they'd been inspired or touched them in some way Luca couldn't fathom. Hit by the right ripples when Luca cast his stones into the pond those many years ago.

For some of those smiles given amongst the questioning looks or wonderment, his stony face could break into a smile back to them. Something that transcended the brand and the marketing was the deeds that inspired it all, and maybe that's what they believed in - or perhaps not; a lot of people are happy just to say they've seen someone famous. It could be the most interesting thing that happened to them all week.

When he looked back ahead, he could see that cafe Echelon talked about at first. From the outside, it appeared to have an extra amount of fenced outdoor space delegated to letting customers bathe in the morning sunlight or stay under the cover of the vine-intertwined balcony where even more people could sit to admire the cityscape view. The barrier that separated the outdoor part of the restaurant from the rest of the street was adorned with flowering bushes and hedges.

He looked at the people eating - the food itself looked consistently Yamataian and very Yamataianised if it was supposed to be from elsewhere. The wedges in that bowl looked like they'd been machined from potatos rather than just cut. The people eating there seemed to be the bookish sorts, the salarymen, the clerks, the casual workers and people just trying to get on with their lives. However, like a half-person half machine would be easy to spot and so would a man in a bright purple jacket and huge sideburns. He decided to stand aside and watch the area from a distance.

"Ally, Ech," Luca whispered into his earpiece. "I see the place. No sign of the Spacer from outside. You two go in, I'll stick out. How are you two dressed?"

"Er," Allison looked down at herself and realised that she was wearing a cream white summer dress, a white wide brimmed hat beneath her orange hair and sandals, while Echelon appeared to be rocking the Elegant Gothic Lolita look with high boots, a puffy skirt and a bodice, as well as a clearly unnatural eye colour and makeup. "Speak for yourself Captain, Echelon here's all jazzed to the nines."

"They came from your wardrobe," Echelon replied back lazily as she carried her parasol ever so elegantly. "They fit me nicely too."
"Sh-shutup, that was a simpler time..." Allison retorted meekly as he continued walking along towards the restaurant, walking past the little pedestal that had the menu on it and some kind words said about the restaurant. The beef sashimi looked particularly nice. "You wear that even better than I did,"
"You know it~"

"Oh pack it in you two - head inside, get something to eat and keep an eye out for any freespacers."
"Wakarimasu. We'll ping you if we see anything. Otherwise, quiet from now on- oh-" the two were about to move inside when they saw a familiar face - rather, a familiar body nearby, "hey Luca?"
"What?"

"It's that giant Nekovalkyrja. Shayla, I think her name was."
Luca's eyebrow raised and he nodded, remembering the distinct figure from the hotel lobby. He'd given her his card in case she needed anything, and Allison and Echelon were present. They could be recognised. "Er, no biggie," he shrugged, "small world. Proceed."
"Roger. Going quiet."

Soruk arrived shortly after, rooftop escapades tended to avoid traffic, but occasionally required short detours. He had received a few odd looks from anyone who saw him running along, acting as if it was completely normal to do as he did, but ultimately he ignored them. They'd forget he was ever there in moments, getting back to their oh-so-busy lives. It was only when he came into sight of the cafe that he started to take care to stick to the shadows, whereever he could find them.

He ended up on a building to the right of Luca, offering a nice field of view over the cafe. He settled in the shadow cast by a rooftop ventilation system, and looked around the area. "I am watching." was all he said. While he scanned for entrances, exits, and possible targets, a hand popped the top off a small vial, while the other reached for the blue-tailed arrows. He carefully coated the arrowheads with a thin film of the blue liquid, taking great care to not get any on his skin. He didn't want to be sleeping when he was needed.

Outside the Cafe

Shayla had been looking up the street, just missing the pair as they slipped inside ahead of her. Honestly, she'd eaten here a few too many times since returning to Yamatai. It was close to the hotel, close to the gardens, and the food was good enough. She'd been trying to wander a little further every week, but had wound up eating here - or ordering room service - often enough. She sighed, giving up and turning towards the entrance again, before suddenly tensing up. Was she being watched?

The giantess stopped and slowly turned in place, frowning. She had this nagging feeling that someone was staring at her. McBelle had gotten plenty of that at first, either because of her size or her famous face, but the gawking had died down recently. Ronnie had been used to people joking about his size, but it had taken a while to become comfortable with it once returning as Shayla. Shaking her head, she continued in. Breaking the paranoia of always being on alert for five years or so had been difficult, too.

Once inside, she grinned at the familiar faces, heading for one of the sections she knew was equipped to more comfortably seat visiting Nepleslians and even ID-SOL patrons. The Neko caught a glimpse of lace and ruffles ahead of her, but didn't pay it much attention. Fashion was always weird on Yamatai.

Makari had quietly tailed Luca from what little shadows there were on Yamatai. Or at least as quietly as a Nepleslian in a leather duster and a cowboy hat on the Yamataian homeworld can. Once he spotted the Cafe, Makari walked one block away and snuck though a few alleyways in order to remain hidden from the hubbub of the bustling people of the city. He stayed in the shadows in an alley across from the Cafe and waited, Peashooter hidden beneath his duster. Unfortunately, he arrived to late to announce over comms that he was in position so he maintained radio silence.

Kyoto CBD, An upmarket Cafe
As Allison and Echelon were seated in the middle of the cafe waiting for their order, they were watching the the entrances and the exits for any sign of the Freespacer. Where ever they were eating here, they were making themselves hard to spot. Did they even look like a Freespacer after being harmonised by Yamataian society? Was their fighting spirit against the transgressors still there or hammered flat? "Ech," Allison asked.
"What?" The Freespacer replied as she fiddled with a salt shaker, twirling the bottom of it in circles around the table.
"What do they look like?"

Echelon's back straightened. "Oh, I know what they look like."
Allison tilted her head back at her Spacer companion. "You sure?"
"Yeah, pics or it didn't happen right?" Echelon nodded as she transferred the team two photographs of the two Freespacers they were after. One of them seemed to be bald with moss replacing their hair and a cybernetic right eye, and a nerve pattern tattooed into their face, while the other had their lower jaw replaced with cybernetics - and their upper teeth were visible too - they didn't appear to have lips. Both of them appeared to be pale and sickly sorts, with clear complexions otherwise.

-

As Shayla was getting seated, she found herself facing the outside and close to the entrance. Funnily enough, this cafe didn't try to hide its non-Yamataian, non-conforming customers over in the back seats where it was easier to install a bench. A menu was passed to her by a perky waitress with pigtails. As she received the menu, she looked outside and saw a sickly bald humanoid outside, with odd green hair that looked a bit like moss. They were heavy in cybernetics - half man and half machine in a more literal sense with a tattoo snaking across their visible body like a nervous system.

From the outside too, Makari and Soruk had spotted them too. They were an obvious Freespacer, and their face seemed to match one of the pictures Echelon had sent them.
Luca could have acted upon this to send out orders and coordinate but it appeared as though someone was pestering him - fangirls had spotted him and they were begging for an autograph. "Please, yes, thank you, no worries, no I do not accept panties as currency, please I'm busy," he tried to cool the small crowd that'd recognised him and descended upon him but resistance only made them harder.

Makari and Soruk could see this too - at the very least, all the public attention was stuck on him rather than their operation.

Shayla smiled at the waitress before turning to the menu, flipping right to the section she was interested in. She'd quickly learned which meals featured real, actual food. The kind that involved killing something. There was nothing wrong with the stuff that was grown scientifically, even the meat, but plenty of people could tell the difference. Sure, she could have probably eaten the tablecloth if she had to now, but she still had cravings. Glancing up from the list of steaks, she paused for a moment after spotting something green outside. It looked like one of the other customers had dumped his salad onto his head.

She grunted a laugh at the thought, shaking her head before making a selection. The giant Neko at least had something to look at while she waited for her food, sipping a thick, dark beer that had arrived without her even needing to ask. What was one of those types doing off his ship, much less in the middle of Yamatai? The way she wanted it cooked, it wouldn't take long at all for that steak to arrive, but it still gave her plenty of time to ponder what might have brought the Freespacer here.

Since the boss was busy with fangirls who possibly wanted to jump his bones or at the very least smother him in their panties, Makari sent a quiet message to Echelon notifying her that the Freespacers were outside of the cafe. He double-checked his gun and re-holstered it for the possible confrontation in the near future. Time to play the waiting game, thought Makari.

Soruk chuckled to himself at Luca's predicament, Nice job keeping your head down . That's when he looked up and spotted his targets. Double-checking the picture, he confirmed it, though he didn't move, just continuing to carefully apply the blue liquid to the arrowheads, They aren't going anywhere...

When he finished the last arrow, he unslung the bow, clicking it open, and stringing a blue-tailed arrow, testing the draw weight. He could make the shot from up here, no problems. Of course that would be a fool's move, and Soruk was no fool.

Seiren, in the time it took for the party to disperse, had dumped his backpack's contents all over the coffee table and was now sorting out the parts, mumbling to himself as he counted what went where.

Rebeka made her way past the coffee table, taking what appeared to be a rubick's cube in her hands. Upon closer inspection, the colours had all been peeled off and different patterns engraved into the varying faces -- her gaze set blankly upon the window as she continually fiddled with the thing.

"Are you sure they are gone?" her voice sounded, the clicking of her cube coming to a pause.

"Oh-huh?" Seiren asked, picking up his head from his work. He took a minute to think.

"Um, letsee. . . Allison and Ech are out. . . the superneko is out. . . the Funky City native and the new guy are out. . . And Luca's out. . . That's just about everybody, I think!"

"I don't like the way Allison has been looking at me" she resumed, eyeing Seiren before resuming work with her cube. "How are you settling in?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm almost settled. Just got a few more things to pick out and count. Pretty sure I lost a few screws, but nothing that I didn't prepare for. . . and why's that? Is Allison being mean?" Seiren asked, picking out a ball-bearing and setting it in a complementary piece of dishware.

"No, I just don't understand what her eyes are trying to say. Do you have anything sweet?"

The inventor rummaged through his pockets, finally coming up with a small handful of different candies. "Let's see. . . I have a Phoenix - really, REALLY spicy. Um. . . Oh, and um. . ."

Rebeka wrinkled her nose, her cube coming to a stop once more.

Seiren slipped a coaster from the table into his hand, noticing how it was made of a nice marble - suitable for the suite they were in. "And uh, one of these."

"One of what?"

"Here-"
Seiren tossed the small pile of candies and the coaster to Rebeka.

The candies met the wall behind her: her hand swiftly moving to catch the coaster. Without a second thought, she took a bite.

"... ... What's this?"

"Um. . . A biscuit!" He said, returning to his work nonchalantly. "Is it, uh. . . good?"

"Surprisingly" she said, mulling over what was presumably equal parts fibre to cork. "Why did we come after everybody else left?"

"What do you mean? We were here for the briefing. . ."

"But we're still here. After everybody else has left. This is really good, by the way. Do you have another?"

"Um," he mumbled palming another coaster from the table. "Catch!"
He tossed the second one to her, and continued explaining, "And it's because I need to make distractionary grenades. Kinda like chaff, except. . . more Yamatai specific."

Still chewing on the first, she reached, a hand snatching it out of the air.
"What upsets Yamataians?"

"Surprisingly enough, it's tobacco. You'd think that with all of our advanced synthetic bodies that it'd be okay for those kinda things, especially since we can weather all sorts of disease."

Seiren attached a tiny spring to two pieces of metal, flexing the thing.

"Tobacco.. Always makes my skin itch. My eyes water" Rebeka grumbled, eyeing her coaster suspiciously. Carefully she peeled a label off, eyeing it and then stuffing it into her mouth.

Seiren shrugged. "I don't really have much of an opinion on it. It's just there, yanno?"

"What do you like? I mean.. Other than 'colours' and sugar?" she said, still not convinced the former existed.

"I like makin' stuff!" The Yamataian-native cheerily said, holding up the mid-progress contraption he was working on with a beaming smile. He set it back down on the table to continue fiddling with it properly. "And my shows."

"...Shows? Oh, on the..." she glanced toward the television, not remembering the word for it as she pointed idly, trying to recall. "The thing you look at?"

"Television. But, you know. . ." he mumbled pulling out his datapad and making some swipes across the screen. "There's other types of shows too. Liiiiiiiiiike this!"

He pressed the screen, causing what was the beginning of a Nepleslian radio drama to echo from the speakers.

Rebeka's yet abridged ears gave a subtle twitch as her eyes searched for the source of the sound, listening carefully to each word as it came.

"Ah, they're saying what's happening? A story? This is a story, right?"

"Mmmyep! It's about a haaaaahd-boirudo-" Seiren began, slipping into his Yamataian, but then looking nervous about it. "A-ah, hard-boiled detective who solves crimes and stuff."

"Hard boiled?" Rebeka took another bite of her coaster, chewing in what she thought best aped thoughtfulness. "Like eggs? Wouldn't that be painful?"

"Um, it's an expression they have. Kind of having to do with eggs. Because, y'know, eggs are fragile and all goeey on the inside. But, a hard-boiled egg is solid on the inside. That's what the expression means. It's a metaphor."

"Doesn't this mean if you over-boil them to make them harder, they expand and break their own shells?"

Seiren raised a finger to respond in some intelligent manner, but came up short. "Um. . . maybe? I guess there is a thing as being too hard boiled, then. . ."

"Hardo-boildü" she repeated several times. "What is 'the trail'? And why is it 'hot'? Is he leaking? Bleeding?"

"Detectives use a lot of metaphors. Most of the things they say involve a comparison to something or another. Just another trait of being a hard boiled detective, I guess!"

"Strange... What's a dopant? And what's a rider? Henshin?"

"Riders are heroes. . . kinda like Luca! And dopants are. . . well, you'll see, but they're the bad guys. Antagonists," Seiren explained, screwing together an assembly of parts. He flicked a the switch mechanism on it experimentally, testing the device.

"And I'm to understand this is a Yamataian classic?"

"Yeah, but Nepleslians loved the idea so much that they adapted it into their own series."

"Huh..." Rebeka said, still a bit unsure about all of this -- not yet entirely convinced. "Am I missing out?"

"I wouldn't say you're missing out. Just late to the show!" Seiren cheerfully beamed, taking a glass of water that he inexplicably had on hand and pouring it into the device.

"I mean..." she drew a slow breath. "Its a primarily visual thing, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah. That's why radio dramas rely more on sound effects of action and narration to tell their stories more."

"Isn't water supposed to bad for machines?"

"Only if it's not supposed to be there. This is. . . kind of like a tea kettle. You know what a kettle is?"

"A container?"

"Yeah, sort of. This device has a container in it. That specifically interacts with the water. And, if I press the button. . ."

Seiren clicked it once. Nothing happened. Confused, he pressed it again. And again. And a third time. That third time, it squirted water in his face.

"It does that!" she pointed. She should have been excited but her expression and even her voice were deadpan despite the quickness of her words.

"W-well, not what I wanted it to do. . . Which means that the battery is disconnected, and I may have not put the diffuser in properly. . ." he mumbled dejectedly, wiping his face off with his sleeve.

"Diffusar?"

"Er, it's a thing that does the thing that didn't do the thing. I guess this isn't quite ready yet, but by the time Luca is ready, I'll be."

"How long until he's ready? and what are we supposed to be ready for?"

"Well, I'm not actually sure when he'll be ready, but what I'm making are a bunch of, well, lures. Distractions. To pull the feds' attention while we deal with the guys responsible for poisoning a whole town. You remember that guy that um. . . interrogation. . ."

"You mean that head I was asked to eat?"

"Y-yeah. . ."

Silence fell upon the room.

"Are we going to kill them?"

"Probably."

"I forget what poison means."

"It means a corruptive, dangerous substance that messes up your body in a specific way."

"So if we kill the people who did this..." Rebeka was thinking quite hard now "...That would be a good thing?"

"If I get us killed, you'll love every minute of it, I promise." Enzo assured Reeves with a confident smirk. The unspoken promise of 'or your money back' was dishonest-- but unspoken and therefore irrelevant. Of course, paying attention to the chatter in his earpiece gave Enzo the skinny on the Freespacers who were apparently right next to where he brought the sedan into park. Without the benefit of super-cool Yamataian brain communication, however; he was left only to identify them as being Freespacers on the way into the cafe. Dismissing it as a coincidence, he just shot them with the same broad, artificially smoothed by make-up grin. Then, he motioned to Reeves to follow along, and if motions could communicate such a thing; look natrual.

Inside, he made note of Luca's fan entanglement and brushed off the shoulders of his suit-- hopeful that he'd go unnoticed by Luca or the cadre of pantie-wielding schoolgirls. Finding a proper table in the corner which could overlook the cafe, he pressed his hand into his earpiece and muttered, "Looks like a regular Freespacer hangout-- saw a couple of 'em outside on my way in."

Kyoto CBD, An upmarket Cafe
Outside, the small crowd of about twenty people that'd gathered around the attempting-to-be-discreet Luca was still badgering and harassing him. He was being pushed into a corner, forced down and beaten verbally by all of their inane demands for a celebrity.
"Could you sign this?" "I wanna hug you!" "Can I touch your face?" "I wanna tie you down, slather you in chocolate and-"

He stood back up and pushed the entire crowd over. "Go away! I'm a bit busy right now!" he protested with a roar in Yamatai-go. The crowd tried to crawl back onto their legs and stand up, stumbling and getting in the way of each other while Luca stood there, unable to be anything but supreme. What the crowd around him hadn't realised was that his experiences had changed him. The man who welcomed women, wine and song now seemed to be a galactic ascetic after Delsauria, risen anew.

The voices in his ear were clearer than ever now, without the chaff of the crowd interfering. "Excellent. Move in, Stapleton," he whispered into his earpiece.

-

Meanwhile, inside the cafe, Allison and Echelon were watching the new arrival, "I think that's them!" Allison whispered, still waiting for her meal. She was genuinely hungry. Echelon however couldn't necessarily be hungry; the Mimicom body she was able to digest food as a courtesy, and derive power from that - the exact process was a mystery to her. Ech figured that it absorbed the moisture and compacted the rest.

"That's one yeah," she nodded and whispered back. The Freespacer they were examining moved into the cafe, and it was difficult to ignore them too, some of the diners had stopped eating, signalled by the lack of clinking cutlery and banter.
The Freespacer just asked for "The Usual." The waitresses, waiters and Matre'd knew what they wanted and seemed to zip into action. Their esteemed guest meanwhile walked past Allison and Echelon. Echelon made eye contact with the Freespacer, who returned the look and didn't break their ponderous stride to walk further into the back of the restaurant.

It was almost like they were looking directly into each other, instinctually knowing what they both were, that mutual understanding. Then Echelon tensed, she could feel the Freespacer's gaze penetrating her and a digital transaction occurring. It only took three seconds of eye contact to send these messages. Allison blinked a little, she felt like she needed some radiation pills after brushing past them, feeling a bit queasy. Shortly after, the waitress arrived with their meals. "Oh, thank you," Allison curtseyed before chowing down. Echelon looked at her food and frowned.

"I have confirmation and they're getting a seat in the back of the restaurant, second floor at the mezzanine. I think they know," Echelon said over radio. Allison was about to ravage her food when she paused.
"What?" Luca replied, tapping his earpiece, turning his back on the. "What do you mean 'they know'?"
"They seemed anxious. Maybe they were in a hurry."

Luca seemed worried, exhaling slowly. The was the jig up without any moves made? How did they just 'know'? Was it a Freespacer thing? Were they just digitally illuminated in the sense that they had an underlying foundation of how all electronics worked, able to see through Echelon's Mimicom body? Or did Echelon make the first move from that proxy?

He had to trust his gut and push on. "Stapleton, proceed as planned. Makari, Soruk, keep watch outside," he directed. "I'll join you if the situation goes hot."

Allison meanwhile looked at Echelon. "Hang on," some logic gears turned in her hungry brain, keeping her next words out of the earpiece, "how'd you know where they were going to sit?" Echelon grinned back at her. Allison tilted her head at her, suspicion rising.
"I would too if I didn't want to be seen, no matter how egalitarian this restaurant is," she lied.

And it seemed reasonable.

Shayla noticed the Freespacer moving inside, but wasn't really concerned. She enjoyed the show while she waited, more amused by the reactions of the rest of the patrons, really. Their silence made it easy for her sharp Neko ears to pick up his request, and that was what finally caught her interest. He had a usual? She hadn't seen him here since she'd starting eating at this place. From the way everyone had stopped eating to stare, she didn't think any of the other customers had seen him before, either.

The giantess was curious enough to watch him walk through the restaurant, twisting to look over and around her seat and into the main area. He continued on, but now something else had caught her eye. That lace, and who it belonged to. She squinted at the pair, digital memory helpfully matching them up to members of that stranger's posse. If it was a coincidence, at least it was an interesting one. Her drink reappeared as she took a sip, looking right at the girls, and the path into the back of the establishment.

Enzo stood up and slicked back his fake, oily blonde hair, strolling the length of the ground floor with ease-- and making sure to indicate his route to Reeves. He navigated the table with the efficiency of a well-trained businessman because he was a well-trained acrobat pretending to be a well-trained businessman. Ascending the stairs to the second floor, Enzo put on his biggest Glenn Stapleton smile and took one more hit from his e-cigarette before stepping out onto the mezzanine to face the Freespacers.

At their table, he pulled out two chairs and seated himself at one-- indicating the other for his partner in crime (or at least in business attire).

"Roger that boss. Setting up for the long haul," replied Makari as he made himself a bit more comfortable on the least smelly trashbin. He double checked his gun again and adjusted his wide-brimmed hat. Let's hope nothing bad happens, thought Makari, I'm not sure these Yamataians are going to like what we do with the place if it hits the fan.

Soruk would hear a soft churp from behind him. 'Why don't you ever take the cars?"

Sura was sitting on her haunches next to him having obviously tailed him. "I mean it is fun roof hopping, But a man leaping from roof top to roof top is pretty noticeable."

'Yamatai has camera looking in every direction. This world is like ours...but with a better paint job."

Kyoto CBD, An upmarket Cafe
The freespacer was waiting at the table and appeared to be in a trance before Stapleton and his aide approached. They seemed to be examining something within, maybe wirelessly communicating. From what interactions Nepleslians had with Freespacers face to face, it wasn't uncommon for some to have ... brief lapses in their speech as they access information or get distracted by something on Polysentience.

It was however incredibly difficult to be distracted on a watered-down Polysentience that was in name only, created by those whose understanding of it started and ended at the barrel of a gun, followed by hasty reparations. Lingering dissent was still prowling on the real thing in the Nepleslias. The most tragic thing about the Freespacer's plight was that it was something preventable, but completely out of the hands of people like Stapleton and Luca.

"Who're you?" they asked. Their arms were on the table, hands clasped together against the napkin and their eyes were scanning Stapleton and his assistant. They leaned back and kept a distance from them, reluctant to push forward. "I don't recall..." a brief lapse in thought as he checked his schedule. His eyes seemed to dart inwards for a moment before focussing back on them, "having guests for lunch."

After sitting with the Freespacer for a few more moments, Stapleton could've sworn that the oil in his hair was reacting poorly with the Freespacer's radiant being. An overpowering smell disrupting his sinuses and making his toes curl in his shoes - even more overpowering than a hot Summer's day on Funky City.

Meanwhile outside, Luca was still watching the cafe from afar. He heard a voice in his earpiece - as did the others. "Stapleton's in place," from Allison.
"Understood," he replied curtly. He felt a tug on the coattails of his jacket and turned around. There was a boy there, looking no more than ten years of age holding a comic book. The kid's eyes were definitely Yamataian, their eyes looked so big, like they were in the Yamataian cartoons. They definitely had some growing to do.

In his other hand was a marker, and further inspection showed the comic to be the first issue of the Adventures of Captain Phoenix. The kid didn't have to say another word before Luca took the book gently in his right hand and the pen in his left. He opened the first page and looked at the back of the cover, where there were some advertisements for Phoenix related merchandise - including a smiling action figure of himself. The pen leapt and darted across the advertisements and when he was done, there was a signature: 'L.PAVO!'. He closed the book and returned the items to the kid.

"You look sad, is something wrong?" the kid asked in Yamatai-go.
Luca's lips pursed as he went over everything wrong with him. "Yeah," he admitted, "but I don't mind."

"My dad says you're a menace," the boy said, and he seemed upset with knowing that. Luca didn't seem to devastated to be reminded of this fact.
"Tell your dad I'm only human," he replied. "Run along now," He looked left and right before squatting down and reaching eye level with the kid, "I'm in the middle of something, okay?" he winked and touched his earpiece. "Very important hero stuff."

The boy nodded enthusiastically, "Yes Captain!" and they ran back, presumably back to school. Kids these days at Yamatai got so much freedom since they had all the skills downloaded into them - but not the experience. That was something they had to get by being out and about.

"I heard all-a that!" Allison remarked over the line, followed by a giggle. Luca realised that he hadn't turned off his earpiece, and made it transmit on voice. He blushed furiously and turned his attention back to the cafe.
The services I do for fans... he sighed internally before making another call. "Seiren, status report please? How's that distraction coming along?"

"You didn't have any guests for lunch. This meeting is entirely by chance-- as if assigned by a random seed." Ah, corporate diplomacy. Even if the corporation (and the diplomacy) were fake, it was one of the acts Enzo loved the most. He smiled broadly and settled into one of the chairs, that sort of self-invite that you're not supposed to turn down. "My name is Glenn Stapleton, Chief of Security for a Nepleslian firm. We don't do business here in Yamataian space, not even on their networks-- mainly because we deal in tobacco. Yet, for some reason they just can't leave us alone-- these Yamataian cyber-pirates just wanna push their way of life on us. I thought I'd bring my tech guy along with me--"

Enzo jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to indicate Reeves, "-- to see if we could track them down and convince them to back down, in person. But then!"

His eyes widened, an expression of mock surprise, "We happen to see you over here-- a real, honest-to-space Freespacer. I thought maybe we could sit down and talk about cyber-security with one of the greatest races in the industry; if you've got time, of course!"

And then, to drive it home, Enzo punctuated it with Glenn Stapleton's throaty corporate laugh. To be honest, it was disgusting.

The inventor's voice crackled over the radio.

"Uh, just about finished. I'm testing it with lavender oil at the moment, just to make sure everything's working, and-"

A noise like a bag of flour exploding could be heard.

"Y-yeah, it's definitely working!" Seiren said before decending into a fit of coughs.

Whether he loved the process of dying horribly in a car crash or not did not negate the fact that he felt like he had so much more to do in life. Most times he felt like he had hardly lived at all. Sighing to himself he forced himself to relax as he followed after Enzo. For the most part he decided to be silent. He didn't want to mess this up for everyone else. He had this horrible feeling that if he talked too much they would see right through his ill fitting suit and see the socially isolated nerd behind it all. Following after Enzo he took his seat next to him at the cafe.

He gave the freespacers a small but reassuring smile as they asked who they were. He nodded wordlessly as the fake Mister Glenn Stapleton mentioned him. He interjected his own input into the conversation quietly but firmly for once right after Enzo gave a nice fake laugh. "As Mister Stapleton said, any insight on the matter would be invaluable. "

The two from the hotel didn't seem to notice her, even as she stared at them. They were too busy chatting with each other, it seemed. Probably just a coincidence, then. Shayla turned back to her table as her steak was delivered, the giantess grinning at her waitress and thanking her before she began to dig in. The large slab of rather rare meat wasn't going to last long. She wasn't so enthralled with her meal that she didn't notice the pair of businessmen heading after the weirdo a few minutes later. They'd made their way past her before she realized she'd also recognized one of them. She wasn't sure if he'd been associated with those guys, but he'd definitely been in the hotel lobby. This wasn't just a funny coincidence any more.

Shayla mechanically worked on her steak, not really tasting it any longer. What was going on here? If these guys were some sort of mercenaries, this could be serious. Dangerous. Should she approach them? Get out while she could? For now, she stayed put, feeling a bit tense.