Icefall, New Belfast
Arccos's datajockey would begin beeping and vibrating, and a known contact on her list began popping up. 'Dr. Rip D. Torr: "Doc Hardbody"' was trying to call her right now. The image showed the square jawed face of an ID-SOL, one obviously fairly aged, though probably clipping the years off with Rejuv meds. The picture was obviously not of him at his best, dressed in a bath robe with a doctor's coat over it, bags under his eyes, and holding up a cup of coffee to try and interpose it between him and the picture taking device. Hot brown liquid was already arcing out of the cup in the image, and would no doubt have been utterly hilarious to the picture taker at the time.
The good doctor was standing infront of the shot up bar, a rippling mass of muscles in a too tight sweater, having not realized quite how inadequate his large, 'knit from whatever yarn he had left over' scarf he had wrapped around his neck, and shoulders, and tucked under his arms, making him look utterly ridiculous. They just didn't get ID-SOL issue stuff out here that often, when he got back to the motel room he had yet to properly check into he'd have to swap it out for the cold weather clothing he'd brought with him. The shuttle down from the ship had been late, and had gotten the largest size of sweater he could from the starport gift shop. The unfortunate specimen in question read "Staying Cool In New Belfast" without any apparent irony, and bore a picture of a white kodian giving a thumbs up
The moment Arccos picked up he exclaimed "Arccos? You alright? The bar you said we'd meet up at is shot to hell and the local security are already all over it. Where are you?"
Arccos' display lazily hovered on Rip's datajockey for a few bare seconds, the small image of the Freespacer standing somewhat askew against a bench in his old clinic; some serious expression on her face as she wore his massively over-proportioned coat and stethoscope. He could remember her fussing over the image for nearly an hour to edit out tiny imperfections, and identifying marks from it. Silence reigned in as he caught the tail end of her saying something about the local police forces.
"...Sorry." Her voice came through flatly, with a total absence of background noise indicating that she was thinking the reply rather than speaking it. "I'm fine. The guys who came there got out worse than I did by far. Authorities arrived you said?"
"Good to hear. And yeah, didn't hear them say anything about or send anybody out in persuit, they're just carting away the bodies and survivors into some ambulances. I'm here with a rental though? Do you need me to pick you up?" His voice was less worried, though still concerned. He was speaking quietly from inside of his own car, the sound of the engine running drowning out most noise from outside. For his part, a video was piping through, and the red and blue flashes of light coming through the windows told the truth about the arrival of the authorities.
Arccos' response was prefaced with a small alert on his screen, as Arccos made a move in the game of electronic Go they'd been playing off and on for the last standard month or so now: Clearly she wasn't so worry-ridden that this was a panic call. "Mind pointing that thing to show who they have in the back there?"
He held up the datapad as if he was trying to get the light to stop reflecting on it's surface, giving the camera on it a clear view of the area of the bar, and behind his car, showing off the various security assets that had turned up after the shootout. A few prods from Arccos had him staring at a man with a wounded knee; handcuffed to his stretcher. This yielded a small sound of relief halfway between a sigh and modulator static, whoever it was, Arccos was happy seeing him in this state.
"See what you need? Where are you? I'll come pick you up, I doubt you want to be anywhere within a few dozen blocks of this place when they start searching?" As he asked, he leaned forward in the cramped little car, the data pad tumbling into the slot between passenger and driver's seat, the camera showing that the massive ID-SOL was all scrunched up in the small rental as he started the car moving again, heading down the street the way he was facing and waiting for her to feed him the data. He fumbled with the catch on the side of the data pad, unspooling the connector wire to slot it into the car's navigation system, something he normally didn't like doing, as it was theoretically possible to hijack that sorta thing, but for the moment needs outweighted paranoia.
"Might not want to bring the car." Arccos' voice drifted quietly as the datajockey was nudged and fussed across the car's dashboard; becoming suddenly louder as he jacked the pad into the car itself. "The shootout was me. Well, us. The job I was here to apply for came stumbling in the bar, and decided to have a shootout with the local gang."
Outside, Rip found himself slammed into an unusual amount of traffic, the kind you didn't find in the city at this time of day. Many were blaring horns and flashing lights as the streetlights seemed to be going haywire. Where the local authorities where, they had come out to direct by hand, but past the perimeter around this bar he found himself deadlocked: Something strange obviously going on.
Rip began grumbling as the traffic slowed to an absolute crawl, gritting his teeth as he started moving in 5 foot jerks and spurts in about as many minutes. "Is something going on besides that shoot up Arccos?" His voice was slightly muffled by the distance now, "I mean Funky City isn't this bad in rush hour and it gets bad there."
"I'm jumping up and down on traffic control's NV comptroller if that's what you're on about. Wanted to keep the Junkers' backup from getting to us, and any civilian traffic from getting caught in the firefight. We're about to storm the base or something like that." Arccos voice filled the vehicle, just a little too loud for comfort, "Also you picked a rental with pretty plusbad audio. Speaks ill of a discerning gent."
"Oh come on, I had to pick while still in orbit to not be even later to our meet up!" He said, the fact that there was a fire fight didn't seem to concern him overly much, after all, she was doing well, or her mental concentration was far stronger than anything he'd thought possible for someone who still had simulated glands for emotions and a biological brain. "You need another gun hand? I've got my travel gear," By which he meant his m2 and combat axe from his days in SMiDIoN, probably some of the nastier rounds for his HHG. "If I can help get the car within a block or two of where you are and talk me in the rest of the way."
"I can, but I haven't exactly negotiated my own payday in this. Let alone yours." Arccos' projected voice managed to sound frustrated, "About half this company's already gone off half cocked to try and infiltrate in a way that'll get them killed."
Rip cut her off, "Then just bring me there, when it all goes pear-shaped you know you'll want a medic on the field, and it's not like I came here for a big pay day anyway."
He jinked his car into a crevice, cutting off the person trying to move into that space, to a furious set of honks and shouts from the folks behind him as he worked his way towards an as yet unoccupied alley way to try and break out of the gridlock.
"Oh good doctor. Where would I be without you?" Rip could practically feel the forced sweetness in her voice, possibly covering some measure of concern. Out of the general silence of the alleyway he could hear layered chimes from his datajockey's security software, each one signalling a failed external intrusion attempt. This all followed by a small voice stating simply 'remote desktop sharing active', followed by his own security clearing up approximately 2600 intrusive programs. Apparently Arccos cleared up after herself.
Ahead of him, the opposite end of the alleyway would show traffic starting to move again; his navigation system chiming to continue down the alleyway and turn left.
"Probably in a body that needed much more frequent tuning." He said jovially, moving at speed along the alley way and swinging the turn, knocking over some trash cans as he went, feeling slightly guilt at it more than at the very light cosmetic damage done to the rental by it. "What's my ETA?"
"We walked about an hour. Maybe... Fifteen minutes." Arccos approximated, as Rip could see from just the corner of his eye a small animated symbol of two fists bumping together. Apparently Arccos was saying hello to his assistant AI.
"See you soon, try to keep anyone from bleeding out before I get there."
"I promise nothing." Arccos replied, an edge of frustration in her voice as his Datajockey chimed an end to the remote desktop sharing.
