trans_9 | Going Round in Circles (Open)

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Going Round in Circles (Open)

The trains still automatically circled their track through the City, piloted by the software of the absent Rock Light. Anwei sat in a seat on the Warren Zevon, and watched the City go by. Grand Central Station, the Drunken Dragon, Temple Row – she hadn't visited those places. She had been waiting to see them with someone else.

Horanckk still was not here.

She had looked in the face of every person at the podpop, and none of them had recognized her. She had sat in the gloom in front of a computer, feverishly combing through every possible frequency and code that he might use to tell her he was here. But he wasn't. Maybe he never would be.

So?

So she would go on, that was all. She would be happy, because there was nothing so stupid as being miserable when there were so many here who had lost more. There was food and water and shelter and meaningful work and people, beautiful people in all their varieties; what did she have to be unhappy about?

She let the wind of the train's passage ruffle her hair, smelled Stacy's air heavy with dust and damp, and measured her progress by the creeping shadows cast by the light of the not-sun. The train paused at its stations for five minutes, and then rolled on, tracks clicking under its wheels.

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Amidst his explorations of what was known of the city - might as well get to know what's safe before venturing out into the unknown, after all, Chase couldn't exactly miss the trains.

As he almost perpetually does, the big man looks to be in good spirits, just assessing the scenery - most particularly the train itself, and the people present at the station.

That figure on the other side of the car?

Ah. It was Anwei. He hesitated for a moment, then strode resolutely towards her. She looked as though she were lost in thought... about what? Horanckk, maybe.

Zouichi cleared his throat to alert her of his presence. "Anwei."

The train was just slowing as it pulled into the station, and Anwei amiably waved out the window at the extremely large man who looked like he might be waiting for it. She didn't recognize him - yes she did; he'd been at the podpop, so he might have just arrived.

"Hello!" she called. "Are you new? The train takes you to most of the interesting places in the City, if you're exploring."

She smiled up at him. "Hello, Zouichi. Did anyone you know arrive during this podpop?"

She'd been thinking of Horanckk, all right.

Well, he originally was just checking out the train, but, hey, blonde waving to him out the window? Now he's going for a ride. He ducks through the doors, responding once he reaches her, making no real attempt at subtlety in giving her the once over.

Subtlety is not his strength.

"Can't really call it exploring, most'a this is explored and mapped. But checking out the place and getting myself dug in. Then I'll do some proper exploring. Adam Chase... just go by Chase. And you are?"

"No, they didn't." And he hadn't really expected them to; it would have been far too much a coincidence.

"What about you?"

Anwei had no objection to being looked over, although this man would probably be disappointed at what was under her plantsuit if he ever could see. He was a fine specimen himself, rippling with muscle and with a definite air of what she called solid-with-self, entirely ~~edible~~ formidable - no doubt why Stacy chose him.

A pang of jealousy there, maybe?

"It's a big place, and the stuff that's not explored seems to have all sorts of nasty surprises. Anwei Ayles, Vizsnunishne Mercenaries," and then with a dip of her head, "clerical division."

She held out one hand for the Terran handshake; her grip was stronger than a human woman's, but hopefully this charming behemoth knew his own strength.

He's more than human strength himself, even for his frame, but its also obvious he's long since learned how to handle it without injuring anyone. Still, he notes the woman's grip. But then he's still looking her over and noticing these details in general. Not shy, anyway, even if he might be disappointed if he knew all the details.

"Ahhh, yeah. I think I heard your name mentioned over the comm thing." Yeah, heard. Her kind of attention to detail might note that he probably has his comm set from text-to-voice on the receiving end, or infer it anyway.

"With medical here, or something, right? I still need to get my ass up there one of these days soon and help the doc out. Mercenaries, huh? Sounds like quite a place if the mercs have their own accounting."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Several people seemed to be recognizing people they knew during the podpop." Including that rather alarming person who threw fire; with her and with Megamind, Anwei was now two for two for combustible events happening during pod release.

Maybe the pod slime had a secondary function as fire repellent.

"No sign of other mercenaries - which doesn't surprise me as much as it might. It's the entire organization that's famous, not any one particular person." She raised one hand and brushed fingertips to her cheekbone where the sign of the Eight Wings had been painted.

"No Horanckk," she added, her voice suddenly completely empty.

There isn't a lot to separate her from the human to the casual gaze, except for the neck that's too thick in the back, solid muscle running from the crown of her head down to her shoulders. But so long as she doesn't pull out THAT smile, she can pass.

"I'm Senior Medical Administrator, which just means I'm helping type things into the computers, and double-check that Stacy is storing the data correctly. And I help people book their appointments for physicals and such." She smiled more warmly. "The Vizsnunishne boasted they could put four hundred thousand sentients on the ground to fight - that's organics, robots, and artificial intelligences. And they were a trandimensional force, so I hope that some of them may have survived - whatever happened."

"I'm... very sorry to hear that," said Zouichi. Though Anwei often seemed happily busy with her tasks, sometimes even manically so, from her constant talking about Horanckk, he'd gathered that she missed her partner more than she let on.

"Horanckk may be there next time," he offered. "There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to who is released, and who remains in stasis. Or we may simply run into him during one of our missions. Do not give up hope, Anwei."

He's fairly certain there's something odd about her - despite appearances, sight isn't his primary sense. She doesn't smell quite human. But she's cute, she's blonde, and she's here - good enough. Not that he's been shying away from talking to a little bit of everyone anyhow. That whole 'not shy' thing.

"Don't 'just' mean anything. Back with the Knights, we had our own computer geek. He couldn't fight worth a damn, but he saved all our lives a time or two with good intel and monitoring shit. I'm no good with computers, but don't mean I don't know how useful the data managers can be, y'know? As for your... co-workers, friends, whatever... I'm sure some of them are out there."

"That is the one thing I can't do. He never gave up on me, after all. And who knows? If I don't find him, I may find another AI that he had had contact with, and pass the word along." She was visibly relaxing at that thought. "There's a lot of places he could be."

Including trapped inside Stacy, unable to reach her. Well then, she would have to reach him.

He nodded. "And if there is more than one of him, that may increase your chances of finding him." Only slightly, really, but hey. "The multiverse may be a large place, but I cannot believe that you will be separated from each other indefinitely."

Zouichi left a pause before he went on. "I... wanted to apologize for the other day."

Perceptive along with charming and strong. "Thanks for reminding me...but here the computers fight back. Stacy's been damaged, and is being repaired node by node, but sometimes things still go wrong. It's a huge amount of code to go through, and the good sentients of Neuropathy ought to be nominated for sainthood, in my opinion."

"They could be here now," she said, pointing downwards in the direction of the pod caverns. "And some of your - Knights - may be as well. That seems to be part of Stacy's pattern: she saves people and their friends and family, if she can. Or their enemies," she added, thinking of Zedd.

"No, not indefinitely." She gave a lopsided smile. "Remember how I told you that one of the reasons I left my culture was they believed that AIs could not have souls? Horanckk considered himself sworn to the Swift Death, even as I am. If I do not see him in this life, I will still see him again, after." She threw up her hands. "And oh, think of the stories we'll have to tell!"

"No, I think I earned your anger. It's not fair for me to bounce every idea that comes into my head off everyone around me. It's habit, of course...a bad habit. I should try to find a center and stay with it. Decide what is really real, what is questionable, and what is vacuum flowers - and go from there."

He nods. "Sadly, computers are the one thing I can't fix. Vehicles, fortifications, weapons, explosives, sure. Computers, no. Got to be a pain in all of your asses to put up with."

He glances back towards the pod caverns at her gesture, and shrugs. "If any of the Knights wake up, I'll know. Til then, I fight the good fight alone, and when we kick the Ohm's ass, we can fix shit, and I can get back to fighting a brutal war to save the world again. If she saves any of my enemies, we're all screwed, since their interest is just in destroying everything... wouldn't help us much."

"Ah, so your religion also accepts AIs into its fold. I wasn't aware of that, but I'm happy to hear it." He smiled faintly at Anwei's exuberance.

"It's... the fault isn't yours. I always seem to forget that you aren't human. You have your own way of dealing with situations like this, your own way of seeing things. There is nothing wrong with that, and yet I... I was expecting that you would react in the same way that I did: from the point of view of someone from Earth. It was an unreasonable expectation on my part."

"Oh believe me, we need people to repair everything else. What's here is - well, I don't know how the supplies were originally brought on board, but right now we seem to have one of each of everything. So no swapping parts between things. There's a forge here, and people scrounging for supplies, but repair skills are going to be very much in demand."

She touched her right ear with her fingertips, interested. "Your Knights are bonded with you, then? Or do you mean that they will communicate with you when they get here?" She'd certainly met enough aliens who bonded and self-shared in every sort of combination.

Few people look forward to their death with the sort of practical enthusiasm that Anwei does. It can be a little intimidating, especially in close quarters. But here on the nice shiny train? Nothing too ominous about it.

"Zouichi, the fault is mine as well. I spent one stressful year on Earth, and then I came back to space and I just expected to be surrounded by my fellow mercenaries. I need to stop," she gritted her teeth, "pretending that Horanckk is around every corner, listening to me talk. And I like talking to you, trying to see your point of view. If there's something I said that you found particularly upsetting, I'll try to avoid the subject going forward."

He taps the side of his head. "Spirit bonded. We can sense each others' presence and talk mentally. Made stealth ops a lot easier."

He glances about a moment more. "Yeah, kinda got the impression there wasn't a whole lot extra. I figure I can spend a while foraging the city. Maybe scrounge up some new wheels and materials and all, find some more weapons, spend some time in the repair bays and see where I can help there. At least til we get some chance to do some fighting."

"A wonderful talent," she said sincerely. "I've always had to rely on electronic communications to keep in touch with my partner."

"Well as you can see," she gestured out the window of the train to the sprawl of alien and Earthlike buildings stretching to the far distant walls, "there's plenty of room for foraging. I don't think anyone has gone as far as the walls of the City, not as far as I've heard. And from what I've seen already - and I've only been here maybe two months? - the fight may come to you."

"Honestly? Good. I'm fucking good at a lot of things, scouting, repair work, scrounging... had to be resourceful. But tell me we're at war, and then there's no fighting? Gonna bug me before long. Always been a warrior first, and the rest... just shit that's good to know. So if there's useful stuff out there in the city, I ain't gonna let some unknown whatevers get in the way. And if I need to get in a scrap or ten over it, so much the better."

That was the way of war, wasn't it? Hurry up and wait, and try to stay in training during the wait, and then fight, fight, fight.

"Well I expect you can handle most of what you come across," Anwei said, looking over Chase's muscles with a politely appreciative expression. "But if you come across something that might get past you, try to warn Security. There's been, let's see, killer bugs, zombies, pan-species diseases, giant smoky magic monsters - some things need a team to take them down."

He has never minded being looked at, even reflexively flexing a touch when he notices.
"I'm used to working with a group, prefer it. May have someone who wants to tag along for a lot of it, but I don't know how into fighting she is. I'll see who else might be game. Otherwise though, sounds like a party."

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Going Round in Circles (Open)

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