Aiesu had parted ways with Merril, going through what posessions she had in other cases in the cargobay to change into something more appropriate - peeling what she did have to squeeze into a formal shirt of a sickly white that seemed to emphasize her paleness. Her fingertips were soon weaving a maroon tie with a silvery clip about one side of it into place, tucking a Consortium security card into her left breast pocket that hung on a chain from the clip and a registered guest identity card into a holder, which hung on silvery metal and a long bright red ribbon that hung about her neck, repeating the words "VISITOR" in much the same way police crime-scene tape tried to clue you in about what you were looking at, despite the fact you'd already spotted the body, chalk-outline and all.
She soon had her clothes in a heap, stood nude once more in the cargo-bay. Aiesu held bicycle shorts out, stepping into them, pulling the tight black shiny spandex up along her legs, ellated by the expression of limbs she'd almost forgotten. She had brought pants but she decided feeling the air against her legs was a sensation to be savored.
Bare feet padded over the textured grill floor of the cargo-bay. She pried through her other boxes, noting one with a number of computer parts and another with a pile of clothes. She fished out a box she'd been saving for herself. Like a child on christmas day, she slowly pulled and nagged at the brown paper-bag wrapping it then lifted the lid of the aged box inside.
Within sat a pair of white Nepleslian converse style sneakers, elongated to grip the calves up to the knees. The rubber that would usually be white against black fabric was inverted, giving a look that inspired images of early space-suits and shuttle-craft from before the Lorath had mastered leaving their own solar-system - the black rubber remmenicent of the tiles that struck the atmosphere. To this end, they were quite rare and vacuum-sealed in plastic that glistened. In her mind, they shined like diamonds, a personal private treasure granted by the original Aiesu to show she really did care.
Such wonders were secured with YSEBay, the same place she'd managed to find a genuine Yamataian Star Army uniform, apparently once worn by Ketsuri Hanako herself - a treasure far far too valuable to bring on an excursion like this.
She slipped her toes in, socks disregarded and soon began zipping the white material up over her calves, biting her lip in an ambivalent cocktail of fustration and ellation, feeling her dense toned calves squeeze into the canvas.
Sat below her knees, she took a few steps about the cargo-bay, the long messy assembly of laces already fed through the golden rings about the front of the boots.
It was heaven just to look at and not for reasons she could explain rationally.
Finally, she adorned a dark gray parker coat - fluff about the neckline the same wispy white she typically preferred.
She would then pause, eyeing the ID card that hung from the ribbon. Her hair color didn't match the one in the photo. It was a nuisance but if she didn't match, it could get her in hot water at a later date if she had ti identify herself.
Soon, Aiesu fumbled through several boxes, taking a small white moist square cloth and running it through her hair. The dye fell away as the cloth greedily absorbed it - stripping the darkness from her hair in individual lengths quite effortlessly. She then folded the square back up, folding it back into a ziploc bag bathed in numbers and bar-codes and then that into a box with a number of other bags. The colors were like some 8-bit approximation of visible light arranged in rainbow pattern, presumably applied or removed in much the same way, to be mixed and matched.
Her messy mane of hair was now striking white as it had been before, a very plain color for a Lorath to posess.
She took several steps about the cargo-bay, her smile warmer than she wanted to admit as she quite enjoyed herself before neatly packing her posessions away, finally taking a long parker coat, holding it up infront of her.
It was heavy and much too thick, a drab gray color with thick fluff about the hood thta hung behind it. She slipped the thing on, feeling her arms coarse through the thick metawool. She soon found her hands tucking the long trailing part of the coat up into its body, clipping it closed, giving her back a turtle-like impression. Adjusting a dial nested somewhere inside the pocket, the thing would soon thin and tighten as the electrolytic metawool shifted. The thing had shifted from a thick winter parker to a thin and light hooded sweater, the fluff about the hood retracted. The name of the consortium and its lagrange figure of eight insignia impressed upon with black microdot ink remmenicent of a squid over the left breast pocket, making it look more like a blazer.
Final tweaks would shift the gray sweater into a silvery white matching her hair and another about her shirt would tweak the color of its own fabric into something much darker, approaching black that helped break up her form.
Allowing a pair of glasses to hang from a golden chain about her neck which matched the ring buckles on her boots would be the final touch. The lenses were just barely a blue tint that only became obvious when the edges were seen through the lenses themselves, belying the displays built into them.
Softly, she began humming to herself. A simple song she'd heard her father play on his guitar.
These were expensive gifts. None she'd be able to afford if she were still at the dormatory where a link between her real self and the money could be made. Of course, for the sake of things out here, Aiesu Kalopsia was as common as John Smith on Lor so she could use her real name. The Lorath usually took to using their granted names or nicknames to identify and distinguish themselves from a small battery of relatively common names, even legally from one another. Aiesu however, had never taken a granted name, which allowed luxuries such as these when beyond her real body. Real.
She recounted her artificial nature for a moment. The feeling wasn't quite fond. Even if she wasn't real, it felt real. She wanted it to be real.
She even wanted to believe that these memories were her own, not belonging to some broken mess somewhere in a dormatory worlds away.
She wondered for a moment, pondering how many had come before her and how many more would come after her. What their individual thoughts and stories had been and how many had a complete picture of what was happening to them.
How much of her was Aiesu Kalopsia, really?
The humming came to a stop.
Behavioral inhibitors had robbed her of this line of thought. She had been left a few seconds to herself but never enough for it to get her down and never enough to be remembered after more than a few minutes.
But even if they weren't remembered, they did exist.
She didn't usually pay a lot of attention to her appearance unless it was mandated by mission - and usually no special attention beyond her first impression - which she'd blown. But for some reason, today she really cared.
Content with her appearance, she wrinkled her nose and packed her things up, proceeding with the mess-hall. Her look was strangely professional despite the very casual components that made it up, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. It made her resemble some curious mixture of both teacher and student.
The construct took a peek at the occupants and at the lunch menu. A few things caught her fancy but her attention was soon on the clock. She'd have to be quick if she wanted to get what she wanted, having arrived late.
She soon shuffled into line, eyeing Keib dangerously before forcing her attentions to return to the luch menu, taking a tray for herself.
Maybe if she did donate some CPU cycles, she'd be sufficiently lobotomized as to not feel gravity luring her gaze back to him. She wondered how he'd react if she ever told him this, the thought making her smile before the inhibitors would do their job once more. She couldn't work out why she was smiling and soon the expression left her palette.
Never melencholy on the job.
Not even once.
--
♫ Thin Lizzy - "
Whisky in a Jar"