RP: Taking It Back [Time-out!] New Players, New Problems

[Lamb]

Three weeks.

Alex had neglected to mention it to anyone, but everyone soon realised that the ship was under way for more than just the night. The submarine prowled around the Nepleslian coastline for three weeks, making its way to an abandoned municipal dock on the East Side. The others were forced to spend most of their time inside, excepting on the rare occasion when Alex surfaced the sub during an especially sunny day. On these few days, the crew mostly spent their time on lawn furniture on the deck of the submarine. Mobsters chatted and took potshots at birds and fish from their chairs and Sammy Dalton sat and played Chess with Angelo Barton over a closed up missile-tube. Alex never emerged from his room, except to make the occasional course correction at the nav-computer before returning to his solitude.

On the morning of the twenty-second day, the ship pulled into port on the East Side. The air was crisp, but dark clouds were rolling in from the North. The gangway was lowered and, just like before, a makeshit base set up on the dock. Vehicles were unloaded and mechanics went happily to work in the open air. Inside the sub, Alex sat patiently in the ship's conference room. He'd sent instructions to all the members of his team to show up for a briefing. It would be the first time he'd spoken to any of them, even Lucas, in those three weeks.

 

[Gallant]

An alarm sounded.

In her stateroom, Alexis Kimball-Styrling rolled over and smacked it neatly off the ledge where she’d put it. It bounced a few times, and came to a stop near the door. Then, she covered her silvery blonde head up, curled tighter into a ball with the covers nestled around her, and went back to sleep. On the table next to where the offending sounding thing had been, her mechanical arm, something she wore only during the daytime, didn’t even twitch.

This was how her days had gone: Initially, she had of course been up with the sun and down with the idea of having a regular underway schedule. She had happily sorted through seemingly miles of guns and ammunition, organized all of it by grade, and then picked out her own weapons and attachments and done her test-shoots right along with Art. Afterwards, however, she had become bored. It had taken two weeks or so, but yes, it had happened. If she stood on the bridge, she would get suggestive looks from the crew standing the helm and lee helmsman, the navigators and the other people who made ships do whatever they did; that was on a good day. On a bad day, they would simply ignore her, and after a while all the blue and red lights, the sound of sonar pinging and then the resulting silence, would get on Ally’s nerves. If she went aft, she could hear the ever-present whirring of the submarine’s atomic engines pounding away near-silently, but the people who worked back there had even less patience for her wandering. So eventually, she had simply gone back to her room to read or clean her guns.

Now, Ally’s sleep schedule was completely on its head, and it wasn’t going to be switched back quite so easily now that she’d gotten herself into it. Completely ignored, the alarm clock tick-tocked away in its corner, and Alexis remained in her bed, warm and comfortable and content, dreaming fuzzily.

This was as opposed to actually waking up.

 

[Lamb]

Alex sighed in the conference room. He could hear the alarm being shut off just a few rooms over and implied the shuffling of blankets with his mind. He sat in his chair for a few more moments before standing and trotting down the hallway with his arms crossed. He stood for a few more seconds in front of Ally's door before scanning his hand on the plate next to the door to override the lock and enter.

The door slid closed behind him. Alex found himself staring down at Alexis in the bed, unable to decide how to go about waking her without physically picking her up. He eventually decided to lie down next to her, in a way that suggested he was alone. Alex lie on the edge of the bed with his arms crossed over his chest and his eye fixated on the ceiling.

"Alexis." He said softly. There was a beat where the clock sat ticking a little longer in the corner before he continued. "Tell me more about your political views. You mentioned them in the med-bay last month. I would like to continue that conversation while everyone takes their time showing up to my briefing this morning."

 

[Gallant]

A few more soft tick-tick-ticking sounds filled the empty space between Alex's whisper and the mumbled result from beneath the covers. She shifted, moved. Shuffle-shuffle. The covers bobbed, and the girl curled up even tighter for a little second or two before finally relinquishing her sleep to wakefulness. Pushing the covers back, Alexis rose up on her one elbow. Without another arm to wipe the sleep from her eyes, she blinked through the messed veil of her hair, instead.

Fully awake and upright, one of the spaghetti straps on her tank already fallen off her stricken shoulder, she blearily regarded Alex, trying to focus on the body laying next to her instead of the overwhelming urge to roll back over.

"What?" she murmured, "Politics?"

 

[Lamb]

"Yes." Alex nodded, closing his eye to the ceiling and opening it to Ally. He looked down her face for a moment, focusing on her hair for a moment before lifting a finger to push it over behind her ear. Satisfied with the level of eye-contact at this point, he continued, "It was when I first explained to you my purpose in gathering our little team of dynamic individuals. You talked of the plight of our people. The young Nepleslians in the street-gangs, the way we have been used by the Empire and the... what was it, that phrase you used..."

He looked back to the ceiling. "Indentured servitude."

Tick, tick, tick.

Alex stuck another wandering finger underneath his eyepatch to scratch at the edges of the implant. "Tell me what you plan to do about it, Senator." He joked. Though the tone didn't indicate as much.

"Or you'll just be like Angelo Barton to me. A barking dog chained to a tree."

 

[ShotJon]

Alarm. Chrys was sure she could hear some nasty evil beeping. One of her eyes slowly opened and seen her communicator beeping at her quite loudly. She tried to reach it, but it was too far. Swear escaped her lips, as she got on one elbow and finally reached it giving it a good 'shut-up' punch. Communicator finally silent, she fell back in bed. She turned her head to see Lucas safely snoring next to her. One of her hand rested on his strong chest.

Chrys smiled looking at the naive man next to her. He might be somewhat naive in some way be he was good in bed. That was sure. She sighed and reached for communicator again finally reading what the alarm way all about. Alex was calling everyone. She sighed and turned back to Lucas, reaching to him and giving him a good morning kiss.

"Wake up, Hun." She told to, slightly cradling him into wakefulness. "Your mate Alex is calling us out. Time to leave the den and see the sunlight chief."

 

[Lamb]

Lucas rolled over, putting an arm around Chrys. He whispered something about 'hair support' before pushing himself up and squinting down at Chrys.

"G'morning." He moaned, "D'ya say somethin' about sunlight?"

Lucas sat up and moved to the edge of the bed. He grabbed a black t-shirt and a pair of kahkis from the dented up bedside table and strapped on his Gyro 500.

"Well," He started, "Let's get out and see what he wants."

His eyes wandered over to Chrys' chest. "Clothing optional, o' course."

-----

Sammy Dalton arrived in the empty conference room with some amount of confusion. He looked everywhere, even under the table before sitting down with a sideways look. After a minute, he sighed and straightened his tie.

 

[Frost]

Rennik Cage was a night owl. Years of running packages for Nepleslia's underworld had given him the habit, one he was finding impossible to break. He'd be up by late afternoon, and asleep by mid-morning.
Rennik was a skilled marksman, but had lost his favorite, homemade rifle in the group's last mission, and therefore had not much to look after when the sub began it's weeks long voyage.
So he spent some of his time lounging in the common area, flipping through what few books there were. He had also found a nice, somewhat spacious and quiet corner of the armory, where he had set up a couple of punching bag and mats, and so spent the majority of his time there, working out for a few hours a day. It was nothing too hardcore; situps, pushups and stretches mostly. It was the punching bags he was most proud of; had set them up on spring swivels so that when he hit one side or the other, the opposite end would come swinging rapidly at him.
It was a good reflex workout, and it kept him out of trouble, which he was desperately wanting to cause out of boredom. He liked the crew well enough, but he had a feeling his teammates weren't particularly fond of his presence, so he kept away. That was pretty easy to do, given his sleeping habits.
It was these sleeping habits he was cursing, however, as he made his way to the conference room. His meeting alarm had gone off moments after he had crawled into bed. It was going to be a long day...

 

[Gallant]

Alexis rubbed at her face, then dropped her hand and clutched a bit at the covers, looking off at one of the rifles placed up against the foot of the bed. There was another GP-1 there, with a scope and hardsights, along with several others - the most prominant addition was an AMR-1 Anti-Material Rifle. It was a paragon initiative item, but it sat right next to a bipod-modified Longbolt and an MB-901s 'Silencer'. If she'd had something against P.I., as a rival company, at least she seemed to be giving it some sort of a try.

"This crisis is the precise moment where any action could change this world," Alexis explained, having gained some sort of lucidity. "But still, it will be hard. The gangs, the black market, the trade in people needs to end. The Government - the Premier - the Senators and the representatives of the continents need to all be fired, and new ones elected without interferance, people who you know, have the people at heart. Basically we have to start all over, again. We're too corrupt, and too dependant on our corruption for survival."

She glanced back to Alex. "There needs to be a better option, in this world, than military service or gang affiliation. Until that happens, we should employ people to protect the businesses that are being strongarmed, which would give the youth something to do with themselves rather than joining the gangs. That's where it needs to start. The businesses. Making it so that they can produce, without interferance; so that it's like, profitable, again. We can't kill crime, but we can lower tariffs and make real trade better."

Then, she smiled. "Or we could just make everything legal, so we can tax it."

 

[Jimmy]

"Fold."

Archie threw his cards in in disgust a blew out a trail of smoke, the engineer across from him smiled and claimed the pot, almost winning back his losses. Archie stood from the table and gathered his things, including his refurbished rifle, its scratched body contrasting with the new barrel.

Despite the damage he quite liked it, it showed character. Besides, he was fond of its maker. He made his way through the cramped corridors of the ass-end of the submarine to the conference room, he passed Alexis's door and knocked on it loudly.

"Up, girly! It appears our master hast deigned to show himself once more." he called out before continuing down to the conference room.

"Mister Dalton." Archie greeted with a not of the head as he entered before casually taking a seat and dumping his feet on the table before lighting a new cigarette. "Smoke?"

 

[Lamb]

"Interesting viewpoint." Alex admitted, sitting up at Archie's knock to the door. He turned on the bed, twisting the sheets a little, and plucked Ally's arm from the nightstand. Then, in a swift movement, he grasped the hand on the arm and pushed it over his shoulder; dangling towards Alexis shoulder-first.

"In the vein of extremely widespread, yet regulated liberties..." Alex pondered, "What would you make of a Socialistic Libertarian government model that provided universal housing and healthcare, with a free market overlay for luxury goods and board supplies like food, water, and toiletries? In a sense, a 'do not kill, injure, or steal' government with free housing and little other public interference?"

-----

Sammy smiled at Archie and reached wriggling fingers towards the pack.

"Don't mind if I do, I guess." He said. His other hand straightened his glasses and dipped into his pocket for a small vial of pills. He offered them forward as he withdrew the cigarette.

"Pellets?"

 

[Gallant]

Alexis took her arm and lay it in her lap, idly running her real fingertips over the synthetic ones. The frown she gave was mild at best, half-hearted and waning.

“I didn’t say that,” Ally stated, “I think a government like that would be very ill equipped to provide for our interstellar relationship with other nations. Internally we would be fine; externally, our money would be worth next to nothing. Effectively speaking although we could hypothetically create a society like you’re talking about with technology, we might as well just go back to being Yamatai and wearing artificial bodies. Their economy is a joke.”

She fitted the arm back onto her shoulder with a deft motion she'd only just recently mastered. There was a brief whir, signifying the complex servo motors were running, and then complete silence. She flexed her fingers, balling her hand into a fist, and then one-by-one released them. Perfect motor control.

Then, further disturbing the bedsheets, she folded her hands in her lap and leaned forward over Alex. Her smile was both charming and girlish.

"Would you like me better with kitty ears, or like, elf ears?"

 

[Lamb]

Alex didn't have to try not to frown. Nevertheless, the temptation was there. After a moment of concentration, he finally said. "I think the feline ears would more aesthetically complement your smile. 'Kawaii' is the Yamataian notion, I believe. Elvish ears seem..." He finally frowned. "Pretentious."

Alex leaned back a little and fiddled with his empty implant some more at the thought of Ally's implant.

"Negating for a moment the intricacies of interstellar relations and entering a realm of the hypothetical; let's assume we can be self-sustaining. How does the government in this scenario work for the people?"

Alex looked back at his counterpart briefly with expectant eyes before hastily adding, "Yes, definitely the 'kitty-ears', Alexis Arms."

 

[Gallant]

"The responsibilities of government are simple," Alexis stated, "Because a government exists simply to govern fairly with the health and welfare of its people being a primary concern. A government should also exist purely in a supervisory capacity. Not to dictate, with their ears closed, but to guide and protect and nourish."

There were a few moments where she considered her own words, in their simplicity. Then she said, "I believe it is the right of all people to live equally and to have equal say in government. I also believe that a large percentage of the population would not know politics from gunfighting. In fact many of our politicians today are gunfighters, gang-leaders, and rich bastards who can afford to hire the other two. Crime supports their campaigns, and as a result, they are beholden to the people who placed them into power. That is why I say the government we have currently is corrupt, and the reason why, you know, I say that we should fire all of them."

She stopped, again. Looked, again, at Alex.

"You're like, gay, aren't you?"

 

[Lamb]

"Gay?" Alex cocked an eyebrow in response. The question had completely derailed his train of thought on political discussion. "You're asking if I am a homosexual?"

He twisted around on the bed and turned his head to one side. His eye peered around Ally's face, searching for evidence of humorous intent. After a few seconds, he leaned in closer to her with something close to a squint. He lifted his eyepatch for a moment, subconsciously preparing to take a picture of her face; forgetting for the moment that his cybernetic eye was missing. When the moment came that he realized what he was doing and finally put the patch back over the empty socket, Alex had finally decided that Alexis' question was sincere.

"I am a bisexual, by modern psychological standards." He said, slowly at first, "That is to say, I enjoy sex with both genders. However, I have no interest in creating children..."

For the first time in years, Alex was beginning to think he had discovered a new form of statistical analysis. Excitement bubbled in his mind over the idea of having a new little psychological puzzle to pull apart. Alex thought for a moment more before leaning back from Alexis and asking, "Does the choice of 'kitty-ears' over Elven ears somehow reflect any observable parallels to one's sexuality?"

 

[ShotJon]

"Hold your horses tiger," Chrys said as she shuffled through a little pilo of clothing she scavenged on the submarine. Lone white T-shir, jump-suit and few more things. In the end she chose simple black tank-top, pair of cargo pants and her boots. She raised an eyebrow when Lucas took a gun with him, but he was simply like that.

"Okay I am ready," she said, moving towards door. "Well I bet you would like if I went butt-naked wouldn't you?" She then asked with a giggle as she waited for him to move out with her.

 

[Gallant]

Lazily, casually, and completely unthreateningly, Alexis cocked back her good, human arm - the arm nearest to Alex. She slapped him once across the face with the same lazy redolence, which did not mean that it didn't have some weight behind it. It did.

"Get out," she stated, "If you're, like, not gay, I'm half fucking naked here, and people could get ideas. We can talk about politics when I've got like, pants or something."

She waited a few moments, cobalt eyes impossibly calm, before she raised her hand again.

 

[Lamb]

Alex's face held stiff against the slap. He narrowed his eye in response for a moment before looking down just to make sure Alexis was, indecent as advertised. His eye darted to her outstretched hand and his brow cocked.

"Do you intend to strike me again?" He asked, loosening the lapel of his jacket, "You'd better use your metal arm if you do, girl."

-----

Lucas laughed a little a Chrys before replying, "Lady, if we could go everywhere naked, I'd be just fine with that."

While she'd been getting dressed, Lucas pulled his arms through the sleeves on the shirt and threw on a simple sweater. Now, he lead the way out the door and into the conference room just two doors down, where Archie and Sammy had gathered already. Angelo slipped in behind them with a tea set and placed it on the table.

Lucas eyed the pill bottle Samuel was offering to Archie.

"You ain't gonna take any of that stuff, are ya, old man?" He asked, with a hint of nerves in his tone, "I ain't sure you should be poppin' Sammy's pills, as strong as he takes 'em."

 

[ShotJon]

Chrys chuckled as she walked with Lucas. She could not help herself as she caught his hand and smiled. She was really happy right now. Chrys still knew that if Alex called them out that soon she will have to supress this side of hers and bring out the hate again. She still wanted all of the NMX bastards dead.

"Morning," she said as they walked into the room with others. She dig a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lighted one with her left hand so she did not have to let go of Lucas. She also noticed Angelo with tea and smiled once more. "Oh good. Tea!"

 

[Gallant]

Alexis hesitated, making a start as if to use the same hand again, but with considerably less composure. It might have happened, still, except she did look in Alex's eyes, did see the impossible determination and the low kindling fire. It sent a vague shiver down her spine, and she lowered the hand a smidgen, rethinking.

If she got into a fight with this guy, Alexis knew she wouldn't win.

"If you don't leave right now," she warned, finally, "I'll scream."