Of Boys and Barriers [closed]

[standaloneshell.livejournal.com]

The Obs deck was as always, the bleed, the flesh-chairs and the endless meandering of those without an occupational specialty, which was most of them. That they felt obligated to lounge about in public was beyond annoying, but it made enough of a casual atmosphere of the place that anyone idly standing around wouldn't seem out of place.

And then there was Grif; he was more like furniture. Annoying furniture.

Motoko sat calmly on one of the fleshy couches, one of the few things on board that easily held her weight, with two mugs of steaming, fresh coffee beside her. One was ostensibly hers, but she had no real need for it. She was waiting for someone.

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[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

Alex had hovered outside the actual room for a few moments, building up the courage to actually go in. He wondered what the sort of person was behind that encryption.

He took a deep breath and zipped his sweatshirt up as if it could help guard him as he turned and walked into the door with purpose. Purpose that was quickly lost when he saw the various people hanging around the deck.

He looked around for his mysterious hacker friend. Seeing a woman sitting with two cups of coffee, he figured it must have been her.

He really wanted to turn around and leave, to send her an omnicomm message that he was sick or something, but something told him she wouldn't take to kindly to that. Besides, it was unfair to her. She had come out here. Even gotten him coffee. Hesitantly, he stepped forward, putting one foot behind the other until he was standing by Motoko. "I... uh, y-you wanted to see me?"

[standaloneshell.livejournal.com]

Oh. It was a kid, wasn't that just charming? Motoko looked up at him silently, then shifted to hand him his cup.

"As promised. I'm Major Kusanagi," she informed him, and gestured for him to take a seat, "I'd like to ask you a few questions."

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

Alex kept his breathing even, which was a chore for him really. Especially hearing her title. Major. Was it possible she was from his home world? From his government? It would be easy to figure out that he was one of their precious experiments if she had hacked the part he had locked to the med bay. He realized late that he shouldn't have left it to just the system's normal lock function. He should have added at least a layer of encryption himself.

He swallowed, sitting down. He ignored the coffee for now at least. If she was from his government, he wouldn't put it past her to have poisoned it to keep him silent. He didn't say anything back to her, just nodded. A strong layer of distrust with a little bit of anger was hidden just below the heavy layer of fear that almost always surrounded Alex.

[standaloneshell.livejournal.com]

The change in demeanor was more subtle than a tank coming through the wall, but only barely. If the Major wanted to kill you, boy, you wouldn't have been invited to know about it, beforehand.

"Where did you learn to encrypt like that?" she asked, mildly, betraying not a hint of her amusement in voice or face, only continuing as if he had taken the coffee, as if nothing at all were wrong, "It's obvious you're a hacker. That's not something an ordinary user or programmer would do."

She took a sip and regarded him over the edge of her cup. Motoko's eyes were very red, "It's in our nature to peek."

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

He really wasn't sure how much he should tell her about himself, though he couldn't imagine how the way he learned could help her all that much.

He seemed to relax a bit as she spoke about the hacker's nature. It wasn't really because of what she said, but her eyes. They were red. A deep red, and they didn't look artificial the way contacts did. Still, he kept his guard up. If she arrived before him, for all he knew she had gotten the contacts since then.

"I-I taught m'self. Always been g-good with n-numbers. I-internet h-helped a lot."