trans_9 | Test Drive [quite open]

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Test Drive [quite open]

Once things had settled down somewhat from the pod pop, once she had been assigned to a cabin and once she'd had a few days to relax and shove all her sudden anxieties about the world ending to somewhere else in the back of her mind, Sylia took her hardsuit for a test drive around the many vast hallways of the ship. The digital readouts had one hell of a time trying to give her data about the ship's layout and the composition of the walls, but most importantly it seemed to be running well and however long she'd spent in podsleep hadn't affected her performance. It felt good to wear it again.

Even if Nigel and Henderson's warnings about her condition were echoing in the back of her mind the whole time.

Once she was finished she set her suit on a table in engineering and set to work performing basic maintenance on it as best she could with the advanced tools set before her. It was a shame this place was so humid-- she worried about the suit's long-term performance and wished more than ever that Nigel was here. Sylia may have looked a little clueless there, examining each tool carefully before testing it out.

Oh well. At least the skinsuit gave her something else to wear besides the creepy plantsuits. It was so much more visually appealing. And there was no good reason why the plantsuits couldn't provide the luxury of cleavage. Honestly.

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Maintaining a Mobile Suit is so tough. Especially when you don't know where the tools are. Wanting to fix that bit, Lowe made his way towards engineering. Or where he HOPED engineering was.

"God, this ship is freakin' huge!" Lowe complained.

[And there's no real usable map here.] 8 chimed in.

"We need to fix that..." Lowe said. "...one day." Reaching one of the rooms, he rapped on the door before entering. "Yo! Don't mind me! Need to grab some tools!" Before he could start looking, he noticed both Sylia and the Hardsuit on the table.

It was kinda hard to tell if he was gazing at the cyan-haired woman before him or the female-shaped piece of hardware she was working on.

Sylia set down the futuristic equivalent of what she was using as a socket wrench, then looked over her shoulder at the young man and smiled. Not at all upset by the staring of whichever sort. "Help yourself. I'm told they're the department's tools, so as long as you return them then nobody minds."

She punctuated it with a little sigh. "If you can tell what tools they are in the first place, anyway."

Lowe blinked a few times as he tried to pull himself away from the staring. "Um, right, right...!" he said, recovering. "Thanks!" Before he could mess with the tools, he couldn't help but move towards the two, now staring more at the suit.

"What is this? I've never seen something like this before..." he said, obviously in awe.

"It's called a hardsuit," Sylia explained, running her hand over the chestpiece fondly. "It's something like a suit of armor, as it appears. Perhaps a little more advanced than what a medieval knight would wear."

She reached for the socket wrench again and leaned over the shoulder joint, carefully tightening. "I took it for a test run to make sure it would still work on this ridiculous ship. Unfortunately, I'm not used to doing the maintenance myself."

Lowe let out a whistle at that. It was an impressive piece of equipment, that's for sure! Realizing that Sylia was having a bit of trouble trying to work fix it, he decided to jump in.

"Say, you wouldn't mind if I helped out, do you?" Lowe asked. "If it's anything like I've dealt with, this should be a cinch!"

Sylia regarded him curiously. "Are you a mechanic?" she asked. "If you are, I could certainly use the help-- as long as you're careful with it. It's one of my very favorite outfits."

She scooted aside at the bench to let him have some room. "Do you think you could do it?"

Lowe nodded slightly as he moved over to work on what was in front of him. "That's right - way it looks, though, it seems like it's like the Mobile Suits of my world, except much more compact! This should be a cinch!"

As he began his work, he added in "Don't worry, though - I'll treat this like it was one of my own!"

As he began his work, he couldn't help but noticed just how well it was built. He was certain something like this could be made - if the parties involved weren't trying to kill each other every few years.

Sylia watched him work curiously, and began to look noticeably more relaxed. He had a deft and practiced hand, just like when she watched Nigel work on the suits back home. "My usual mechanic is quite a genius. But it looks like you're something of a genius yourself," she said, putting a hand gently on his shoulder.

"My name is Sylia, by the way. And you are?"

Lowe didn't mind Sylia laying a hand on his shoulder. As long as it didn't bother him, he was cool with it. He stopped briefly to look back.

"Name's Lowe. Nice to meet you, Sylia!" Lowe said. "I'm not that great, though - I just know how to bring the most out of anything!"

Yeah, he was smart and adept at what he could do - he just wasn't one to outright admit it.

"It's better than I could do," she admitted with a little shrug, sticking her tongue out. "I'm more of an engineer than a mechanic. You'd think the two would go together, but a good mechanic can just look at the parts and know what has to be done. It takes me a few hours in front of a blueprint or computer specs before I can pick up a wrench."

Then she winced a bit. "Ah, be careful around the spinal sensors. They're very touchy."

"Woah...! Sorry!" Lowe yelped, easing away from the sensors. "A bit like Mobile Suits, but it's a whole new ballgame here..."

"But, yeah, you're right there!" he continued. "But, that's why they work better as a team - a mechanic knows what to do, but if he's dealing with something he hasn't worked with before, he might end up doing more bad than good... like what almost happened!"

"No, no, don't be so worried!" Sylia assured him quickly. "You just have to work gently around them, that's all. They provide feedback from the suit's body up to the battery pack, just like a spinal cord would do in a human, see?"

She leaned over the workbench to watch Lowe work his magic. "Where did you learn all this? So far many of the people I've talked to are far behind where I came from in terms of technology, but looks like you could even be ahead."

"Well, where I'm come from, we have machines known as Mobile Suits. It's pretty much taking an airplane and giving it the ability to act like a human instead of just flying around." Lowe said. "Even though we've only had them for a few years in my time, we've done plenty with them, especially since the older models become surplus and others can obtain them."

He took the time to easily work around the sensors as he spoke. "I have one myself - the Astray Red Frame. It was meant to be a military unit, but I've made it into something more. Like an extension of myself. I guess you can say that my Mobile Suit and I are one and the same!"

She listened, fascinated. "I had no idea you could build a suit like that on such a large scale." Of course, the AD Police had their K-Suits, but those things were unwieldy and hard to operate as it was.

"How does something that size maneuver?" she asked. "Hardsuits are custom fitted and designed to move perfectly in sync with the body-- but they're also quite form fitting, as you can see. How do you work such a heavy piece of equipment?"

"AMBIAC, vernier thrusters, special OS designed just to keep you on your feet and probably a few I'm forgetting. Mobile Suits work so much differently in Earth's gravity than they do in space. It's like having to relearn how to ride your bike at times." Lowe said.

"The thing is - Mobile Suits were designed for a group of people known as Coordinators. They had better reflexes thanks to their genetic alteration. Of course, some think that it makes them better - it doesn't. Not that I think so."

Sylia was nodding her head with interest right up until Lowe mentioned genetic alteration. She glanced at him suddenly as though to judge his reaction.

And when she spoke again, her voice was surprisingly cold. "Of course it doesn't. Genetic alteration is a disgusting attempt for people to play god."

Lowe looked back as he heard Sylia's voice as she responded. Woah, touched a nerve there...! he thought. "...that's what he said."

"He, being George Glenn. He was the first Coordinator... even though he never wanted it to be that way. He wanted it to lead into a new stage for humanity. Instead, it almost lead to its destruction."

He let out a sigh before continuing. "There was a group called Blue Cosmos, who thought the same way you said - but they wanted to play God their own way. They started a war just so they could wipe out every last Coordinator. And the Coordinators were willing to go to the extremes themselves near the end of it all. And if it wasn't for a friend of mine and a number of his friends? I don't think I would be here today."

Fortunately, she caught herself before her temper flew off the handle once more, carefully collecting herself while she listened to Lowe's explanation.

Then she sighed. "It's sad. There are children with fatal diseases that could be helped by such genetic technology, and instead people use it as an excuse for bloodshed and combat."

She brushed her hair out of her eyes and smiled a little worriedly. "I'm sorry if I snapped. I just... feel rather strongly about some things."

Wow... mood shifts in a heartbeat. Scary...! Lowe thought to himself, but he brushed it off.

"It's alright. I know how you feel..." Lowe said. "But, yeah, it's wrong that it would end up this way. I just hope one day things'll look up for the better. If we get the chance to see it, that is..."

"I know what you mean." Sylia sighed and idly picked up one of the tools alongside her suit-- she had used it as a ratchet, so she assumed that's what it was supposed to be.

"It's a lot to take, all of this. The world being gone, all of our loved ones stuck in eggs full of slime? If we can even believe what 'she' tells us."

Deunan was in search of a screwdriver small enough to adjust the sights on a pistol, since her kit was in her landmate and certain unreasonable computers wouldn't let her have nine-foot power armor aboard ship. One wouldn't have thought finding a screwdriver would be a problem, but most of the tools seemed to be nuclear or laser or sonic or quantum or whatever, and she really just wanted something that was a notched piece of steel with a grip.

Oh, hey. A woman in a datasuit, doing some kind of repairs on a set of power armor. It looked beefier than her own Garthim (http://www.gweep.net/~hyacinth/pics/appleseed/garthim.jpg), but a lot lighter than a landmate.

"Hi," Deunan said.

"Hello," Sylia said pleasantly over her shoulder. She stopped her work and turned around to smile at the new arrival. "Are you one of the engineers here? I haven't actually seen anyone from the department yet."

"No, I'm just looking for a screwdriver. My stuff's locked up in Special Weapons." Deunan rolled her eyes.

"Ah. Well, good luck finding anything that looks like one," she replied a bit teasingly. "I don't recognize any of these tools and I'm probably using most of them wrong. But you have to take what you can get, I suppose."

"Am I supposed to fix my sights by willing them into line?" she grumbled. If so, it was a problem because Deunan and willpower barely had a nodding acquaintance.

She started pawing through the tools. "I'm Deunan Knute, by the way. Nice armor."

"I've been finding something shaped like what I need and using it, personally."

She looked over her shoulder again and smiled. "Sylia Stingray. Thank you very much."

There was a bweeee noise and a flash of light as Deunan found (and turned on) something promising that proved not to be a screwdriver, and then a clatter as she tossed it back where it came from.

"What's it for?" she asked. Deunan was wondering what combat niche something too big for personal armor and too small for a landmate filled.

"Rogue Boomers," Sylia answered. The term seemed unfamiliar to most of the people here, so she elaborated. "Bio-organic robots with artificial intelligence. They have a tendency to break and mutate, so hardsuits are designed to wear in combat against them."

She tapped her helmet. "Though they're all custom built. The police doesn't have anything like them."

"Yeah, AI can be unpredictable," Deunan agreed, pointing at the ceiling to indicate Stacy. "Our central planning computer almost destroyed the city once because it interpreted its directives too rigidly." She shrugged. "Better than not having it, though."

She stopped her search for a screwdriver and leaned in over Sylia's hardsuit. "Civilian? You with a PMC*?" Deunan eyed her with a hint of suspicion. It didn't really matter here, but Deunan was a cop, and didn't trust guns for hire.

*Private Military Corporation, aka mercenaries.

Sylia might argue about the whole AI thing, but managed to keep from saying anything to suggest as much. Instead, she focused on Deunan's second question.

"A PMC? Goodness, no," Sylia almost laughed. "I am a civilian, yes, but I would best describe my organization as a privately funded community service."

Deunan trusted vigilantes even less. At least mercs were predictable. "Yeah, okay." She grimaced. "Doesn't matter here, I guess."

Ah. She must be law enforcement. Sylia smiled a bit sympathetically. There really was no need to worry about it here, but it might put her more at ease to know the facts.

"I pay and train women to wear my suits and destroy rogue Boomers that the police can't deal with, to keep them from hurting innocent people. That's all," she assured her. "I'm hardly an anarchist."

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Test Drive [quite open]

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