trans_9 | Strength train with bowflex! [open]

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the guv

Strength train with bowflex! [open]

One, two, three pull. Pull.

Grunting, the Guv pulled himself out of his chair, and then further up the chain. Hand over hand over hand, the chain attaching the wheelchair to him quickly growing taut, and then pulling it up after him. He'd spent a great deal of time hidden away, altering and customizing that contraption until it was itself a weapon, an extension of his needs, and he wasn't going to leave it behind. Not even in the supposed safety of the Sensoriums. The Guv didn't trust his shipmates that far, any more than he trusted convicts in a prison. Code or no code, law or no law, everyone was looking for a leg up.

Reaching midway up his current length of chain, the Guv looked out over the chamber. It bore a certain resemblance to Crematoria; harsh, unfriendly rock going up and up to a ceiling he could barely make out, chains hanging here, there, and everywhere in a heavy, unforgiving forest. The perfect place to make sure he was still at the peak of his game.

And as a reward, on the far side of the room bubbled and simmered away a genuine, non-holographic pot of slam tea. He just had to get there.

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Alessa began to follow him up, rising slowly until she was hovering a little over him, watching him trying to get where he needed to go. She said nothing for a moment, then finally spoke up.

"What are you doing?"

To say that the Guv was startled was an understatement. Quickly grabbing hold of his current chain with both hands, he swayed to a jerking stop.

A little girl. There was a little girl floating in the air, and... Actually, no, he'd rather just not know. This place was just weird.

"Just hanging. What're you doing?"

"Watching you," Alessa said, staring at him quizzically. "I'm wondering why you want to hang about like that, to be honest. It seems so..."

She wasn't sure what it seemed like, honestly.

"Do you need that wheelchair?" She asked. "What happened to you?"

Heh. Smart kid, huh? Shifting his grip, the Guv looked around for options. "Nah, it's just good ballast. Nothing to do with getting my back broke."

"I wanted to make sure," Alessa said. "You are very agile for your disability. I've seen humans that can't move that nimbly. I assume that's why you're doing this: to keep yourself strong?"

Alessa approached some things with childlike wonderment...if only because most humans acted similarly.

"Not exactly in friendly territory, are we," the Guv agreed. Reaching for a close chain, he caught hold of it. Dropped, swung, caught another.

Well at least he was practical. It wasn't a thing she saw most people practice: not when it came to the dangers they were facing anyway.

"You mean you haven't caught the disease of eternal optimism that the fates are with us in anything we do?" Alessa said, half mockingly. "In that case, I think I prefer your company already. I say make do before deciding whether karma will favor you or not."

Letting the chain twist back and forth, the Guv adjusted the chain holding his wheelchair to him. "No such thing, kid. Luck's what you make it." Just a new word for skill, instinct, and having half a brain all being in one ball with timing.

"Better words were never spoken by a human," Alessa said. She levitated a moment, then lightly touched down.

"So tell me: what happened that made you dependent on this wheelchair? Were you born this way?"

"Misjudged a jump." Technically entirely true. He changed chains, grunting as he grabbed the next and all that weight slammed back onto his arms. The 'human' assumption was something that the Guv was amused by, and he filed it away for later. If the girl thought species was the strongest denominator of division, she had a lot to learn. But hey, kids.

Just a few more hops before he could get down and have some tea.

"An accident then?" Alessa watched him, then matched his height in the air again, watching him. If he had actually called her a girl, she would have laughed, but he hadn't asked what she was anyway, so no point in mentioning about it. She just watched as he strove toward the liquid.

"What is that?" She asked.

The Guv neatly ignored her first question with a series of jumps and grabs, ending swinging and spinning on the chain closest to his destination. Next came the hard part. Gone were the days he could just jump, after all; now he had to lower himself hand over hand until the chair touched down and could be set right.

As for the second, well. "Acquired taste. You wouldn't like it."

Alessa watched him maneuver himself, and for a moment she was impressed by his dedication. She could have corrected herself in the reminder that human beings would run any maze you wanted as long as you put the right kind of cheese at the end of it, but what the hell. Alessa figured she could just take in his feat of strength as a way of bettering himself.

Some humans were like that, though rare were the ones that did so without some selfish vanity or alterior motive to their way of living.

"I would be the judge of that," Alessa said, "unless you are really that unwilling to share."

Clumsily, the Guv maneuvered the chair to sit under him, hanging one-armed from the chain. Then, satisfied with its position, he carefully dropped into it.

His attention went back to the girl in front of him as he unclipped and coiled the connector chain. "It's got shoe leather," he warned her, figuring there wasn't any harm. She wasn't a guard, was probably another inmate in this hellhole. She had the right to try it if she wanted. "And other stuff." Anything he could find, with a healthy dose of tobacco.

"Strange ingredients," Alessa commented. "You said it was an acquired taste, so I believed it was merely that. You didn't mention that the things that are in this concoction are not the types of things human beings can consume. I have never heard of shoe leather being a source of tea."

It sounded more like the type of thing you would feed a human to kill them. Really, the people on the ship continued to baffle Alessa in the ways of actual self preservation, but she supposed that made sense. None of the things they ever seemed to do worked toward their benefit.

Nonetheless, she raised the cup and drank deeply. Cocking her head a moment, she slowly put the tea cup down. "Horrible."

"Told you." The Guv dipped out another tin full for himself and drank deeply before grinning. "Tastes like the sweet nectar o' life to me."

Slam tea was slam tea, and he was too old to explain it to anyone without an instinct. Boiling the water made it safe, you flavored it with whatever you could find. Never let the guards have it, because it was yours. Even if you lost the pot as the price.

"I didn't see how that could be," Alessa said, shaking her head. "And anyway, I'm sure you could find better things to season your tea with in the hydroponics bay. It's the only place where things grow."

She shrugged. "If you like that sort of thing with the tea anyway. But I suppose its a good motivator."

The Guv looked at her, then shook his head. What could he say to that? Matter of fact-ly draining the liquid from his pot, he dumped the bits of brewed odds and ends into a rough-sewn cloth bag. The bag went back in the pot, which was stowed away under his seat. As far as the Guv was concerned, it was time to go do something else.

Alessa tilted her head. This man was perplexing to her, but what he did came out of something in him that moved him, and it was an admirable quality. In a way, perhaps that was one of the few small human aspects that were tolerable: provided they were in the right human.

Rose came to mind...and she brought herself back to the man again.

"It was interesting meeting you."

The Guv waved vaguely back in her direction. "Yeah," he agreed, continuing to wheel away. Maybe he was too used to not being expected to finish conversations, but it wasn't a weakness that he'd noticed yet.

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Strength train with bowflex! [open]

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