trans_9 | What's Alan? [Open]

Deep in the bowels of the ship, he waited. Below him, the groundbound bipeds milled back and forth, their movements without rhyme or reason. Some were holding slabs of metal, some stared out at the strange, hypnotizing space outside, and still others merely stood, endlessly chattering to each other in their countless inexplicable alien languages, waiting for the ship to translate for them what they could not understand for themselves.

He watched all with his keen, avian intelligence. Alien intelligence.

With no master about to end the boredom of his inquisitive mind, he had been forced to improvise. And now he was free. Free to wreak havoc as he would amongst the silly, slow-witted groundlings. ~~FREEEEEEEEEE~~

Zouichi wandered from location to location on the ship, but so far, not a single brightly-colored feather to serve as a sign of Alan Turing's presence. The parrot had been acting a little sulky ever since Zouichi had left on that last mission, so he'd decided to leave Alan some space. But this morning, the bird was nowhere to be found.

He was beginning to suspect Howard's cat (Emergency Rations was a terrible name) had something to do with this.

[ooc: Post is open! Please feel free to chase the parrot, try to lure him out, reason with him, call him names, try and cooperate with Zouichi to catch him, whatever! He can be run into anywhere on the ship, just let me know where. The person who will eventually corner him, though, is Shoutarou.]

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Zouichi was still inside the building, and was thus unable to see Emergency Rations and the activity in which she was engaged. "It depends. If I had to, I suppose I... what are you looking at?"

"Nothing. Just curious," he says quickly, standing on tip toe to try and get a better view (and hopefully not see any tiny bird bones up there).

"Get down from there!" he hisses at the cat, who, of course, doesn't listen and continues to bat a long feather between her paws.

Now Zouichi came outside. He looked at Emergency Rations.

He stared.

"You are not killing my cat," Howard says firmly. "...Birds molt, right?"

"Alan's not molting," Zouichi said grimly. He leapt onto the roof, moving towards Emergency Rations and looking around. He didn't see any other traces of the bird around, although he supposed Alan's... Alan's body could be elsewhere.

Alan was so trusting! So guileless! Sob.

"I'll suspend any judgment for now," he said. "But if it turns out your cat ate Alan..."

Then the cat would just have to leave. Go. Get out. Poor little Alan.

"That cat's declawed," he reminds Zouichi. Not that he should care. It's not even his cat, technically, but for some reason he feels protective of it. It's his meals-on-feet, not anyone else's, at least while Albert's gone.

"If it turns out Emergency Rations ate Alan, it'll be because Alan sucks at self-defense."

That gets Howard a nice, long glare. "She still has teeth. And Alan's not stupid, he's just very trusting."

Yeah, if that cat ate his bird, she's definitely getting the boot.

"He doesn't trust me. He gives me the evil eye all the time." Good to hear that Zou's still speaking about Alan in the present tense, at least.

Kicking the kitty out won't bring Alan back, Zou!

"You're just being paranoid." Zouichi dropped back down from the roof, brushing off some of the dust. "Alan doesn't give anyone the evil eye; he's a bird."

The sweetest, best bird ever. Duh, Howard.

Kicking the cat out won't bring Alan back... but it will make him feel better. Justice must be served.

"Yeah, ever notice that a bird's default state is like, hateful glaring? Heeeeere, kit-kit-kitty, here meow-cat!" Yes, there are meow-cats and moo-cows, WHATEVER ZOU.

Emergency Rations stares at Howard for a second, vaguely perplexed, and then is distracted by the option to lick her privates. Howard's apparently batting oh-for-two with animals.

"Doesn't Superboy have a dog? I bet the dog ate Alan. Dogs are better at just attacking with their teeth anyway."

"Superboy's dog doesn't live here," Zouichi said, disappearing back inside. He'd already looked for Alan throughout the rest of the Inn, so he needed to widen his search area, obviously. "And I didn't see the dog chewing on one of Alan's feathers."

Alan never glared at Zouichi. Although sometimes he'd do that cute thing where he rolled over onto his back and chirped and demanded to be held. Or he'd take a bath in a bowl of water. Or fluff up all his feathers so Zouichi could scratch him. Aww.

"Yeah, but his dog is named 'Bitey', I hear. That's way more threatening than Emergency Rations."

Why can't Emergency Rations ever do cute things? All she does is hiss and snarl and scowl and not cover up her business in the litterbox.

Whatever, at least she doesn't do a birdy death-glare all the time.

"You mean you haven't taught Alan how to come when he's called?"

Zouichi gave Howard a look. "That's the first thing I taught him. He's either out of earshot, or he's unable to answer."

Because he was eaten.

"Maybe he's rebelling. Maybe you smother him and he needs to stretch his wings a little." There's got to be an empty-nesting pun in there somewhere.

"Maybe you need to keep better track of who your cat's eating."

Zouichi was done with this conversation. He made his way downstairs, stalking out through the front doorway. "Alan!"

"I feed my cat plenty, just so you know!" he yells after Zouichi, before spending about twenty minutes coaxing Emergency Rations to come down with a small cat treat. And then another twenty minutes rinsing out fresh bite marks on his arms after he tries to pick her up and hustle her inside the Inn.

What's Alan? [Open]

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