trans_9 | Summertime [Open]

"...I dunno." The most overdone shrug ever followed. "I was walking by, I'd read the comm, and...I came in."

His brows tried to knit further, but reality wasn't allowing it. "So I'm just as confused as you are."

"Fair enough." Zouichi settled on the bank of the pond for a moment, feeling the cool air.

"I got these goldfish from shore leave," he said, looking down at the little fish. "I never really thought I'd have any pets, though."

Caz glanced down at the fish, at first debating if he cared to ask how Zou had gotten them, but he'd gotten a couple himself. Of course, one of those had been fed to his kitten, but.

"The scoop game." Cazali leaned down towards the pond, sticking a finger in and swirling the water. Damn, he missed Mezul's medals. Water powers had been nice. "Ah? Me either, actually." And a deeper, more obvious frown. "I guess the mansion's just emptier than I remembered, retarded as that sounds~"

"The scoop game," Zouichi ~~agreeed~~ agreed. "Wait, I thought this was a hypothetical cat. And what's this mansion?"

Did he just miss like a million cues or something.

If he had a deadpan icon, it'd go here.

"I don't usually find company in imaginary cats." Wow, Zou. He...didn't think he was getting any of this stuff by you. If he knew what 'feeling bad' was, he might.

"The mansion's where I'm staying, but it's...a bit too empty. Kind of a throwback- it was the Doctor's. Nothing there for me, it was just better than the...living membrane stuff." Bleughhghdhfdhajsdakg.

"Yeah, but I thought we were keeping up that 'hypothetical' pretense." Come on, Cazali, you have to tell people when the game was ending.

Zouichi tilted his head at Cazali. "You know, you could live in another building. It doesn't have to be that one."

He's, he's not used to people playing along. "Eh~ Why bother? I'm feeling weird, you already know~" Uncomfortable. Caz didn't like being outside his comfort zone, damnit.

"Maaan, I guess. But I have to keep an eye on it, in case any of the other Greeed ever show up. I can't let them have that building."

Well, make up your mind, Cazali!

"Why not? Is there something of value in the building?" Zouichi was assuming it was something the Greeed might care about in particular, since Cazali hadn't mentioned the rest of the crew.

Um um um...!!!

"Ehh, not so much value as magnet attraction~? We all ended up there at one point or another, and I found it by gut instinct when I got here. But there's...not good memories there. I pretty much trashed the place when I found it."

Well, that was bizarre.

"In that case, perhaps you did the other Greeed a favor. It doesn't sound like they'd like it any more than you did." Unless, of course, the other Greeed loooved being alchemical science experiments.

"So, now that you've destroyed the place, what now?"

"True. If Doctor ever shows up though, he's going to flip~ I wrecked his stupid painting~" And the worst of grins crossed his face. Oh, he'd enjoyed shredding that stupid thing. Then using the scraps for the kitten's litter...

"Good question~ I keep losing Alcyone Hanabi Lazybones Baird Benjamin Extra Schrodinger Entrée Lantis in all the garbage." ...yes, he did just say that series of word/names. You're not hearing things, Zou. "I miiight just go back to that little...nasty organic hole in the wall, bleugh. But I'm prooobably gonna keep all my...extra stuff at the mansion, so nobody gets their panties in a bunch~"

Zouichi wondered if he should even ask who the Doctor was. "Well, I hope you didn't wreck anything that might explode. That might be a little inconvenient. I don't think anyone's going to complain about you keeping your things in Crew Quarters, though."

Unless he meant the sleeping wall. And why would anyone sleep there?

"Half of it was burned out anyway~ The rest was full of holes and damage. Place's probably gonna fall apart, and I'm sure as fuck not going to repair it." Ooooohhhh, swearing, Cazali must have legitly been pissed or something, through his troll smile.

"Good~ I'm not real sure I can stay there too long- it's, it pulses. I dunno how organics can handle the...thump and the, ugh." Being the bastion of maturity he was, Caz stuck out his tongue. "So, leave stuff there, watch the mansion collapse, take the kitten and go hide in someone's basement and go 'boo'." A pause; "You don't happen to have a basement, do you~?"

"Well, I guess if the other Greeed feel as you do, no one else will repair it, either. A lot of the City has sustained some damage or other." Although that was no reason to further destroy it. Sheesh.

Zouichi shook his head. "I suspect there might be a cellar, but I haven't been able to find the access yet. And in any case, it wouldn't really be somewhere I'd recommend anyone live. This place is occasionally haunted."

Sorry, Cazali. You can't live here until you prove that you're not going to burn things down. And fix that potty mouth.

"From what? The ship get a sneezing fit one day, and..." He made a whoosh sort of motion with his hands, causing a little wind as he did so. "Actually, they'd probably like it. Familiar ground~ They're not like Ankh and me." A pause, and he seemed to grimace. "And Ankh's not like me, either." Caz actually...pouted his lip a bit. Hmph.

"Dig down? Break the floorboards~?" Oh geez Zou, curiosity got the cat kicked off the premises, didn't you hear that one? "Oh, spoo~oooky. Maybe you just need some holy water, or an offering~" And a thumb-gesture at the fish. See? Caz could totally be a non-pyromaniac ~~motherfucker~~ gentleman who is in no way a detriment to society.

"More like a series of battles. During the last attack, the Ohm got aboard the ship, but I don't think they did too much damage. At any rate, I'd prefer not to break this place. I'm sure there's a conventional means of getting in, but it's not a high priority right now."

He gave Cazali a Look at the suggestion of sacrificing the fish. "Somehow, I don't think that will help much. Besides, they're pets, not blood sacrifices."

Edited 2011-11-01 16:22 (UTC)

"Oh, so stuff DOES happen around here~? Maybe I'll feel better when I have something to actually fight." A pause, and he waved off Zou's concern completely. "I didn't expect you to anyway~ This is your place, who wants to damage their own things~? That'd be ridiculous."

Look? What look? "Oh, I thought they were food." He, actually seemed a bit awkward about that. "...they were supposed to be pets?"

"Unfortunately, it seems we don't get to pick the time and place of each battle," Zouichi said, smiling a little cynically. "The ship does that. We're just along for the ride."

He blinked. "No, I don't think anyone eats goldfish. They're ornamental, that's why they come in such bright colors. People eat carp, though, which is the fish they were bred out of."

"...well, I guess thats what happens when you fly through space in a giant sack of organs~" Seriously, if someone had told him he'd be doing this for an 'afterlife', he'd have scoffed forever.

And even more awk. "...oh." He wrinkled his nose, crouching down by the edge of the pool and staring at the fish. "I sooorta fed your sibling to my cat, sorry~" It was only common courtesy to apologize to the fish first.

"I suppose so. Though you'd think that sack of organs would have a steering mechanism."

"...Animals do eat other animals. That's just how things are." Zouichi paused. "But I don't think kittens are supposed to eat goldfish. If you'd like, I can ask Howard if he has any kitten food you can use. I know he's got a lot of cat food for Emergency Rations."

"Think of it this way- would you want a bunch of tiny things piloting your body through space~? Not that I'm defending the ship, but...been there, done that myself~ It's kinda lame." Someday, Caz will write Stacy/GLaDOS romance fic and post it to the comm. Someday.

"I never got to spend much time around animals~ I always wanted to, but no time." A pause. "Emergency Rations? Hn, I think that's the guy who suggested 'Entrée' for a name. I tried to feed the kitten slop, but...well, it didn't work out so well." Not that the kitten was starving- Caz had other means of getting dead things to it, but...steady, normal, non-bloody food would be pretty appreciated.

"I don't much care what the ship wants or doesn't want. It certainly doesn't give a damn what I want. Which would have been not being awakened by some thing delving into my thoughts to try and manipulate me into doing what it wants and convince me it loves and cares for me like a mother." Zouichi fairly spat the last word in his disgust. He had a mother, and the ship wasn't it.

"And let's not forget a little forewarning every time it dumps me on some mission that could kill all my crewmates. That would be nice. Instead, it ships us all off to clone caste planets to negotiate with a bunch of genocidal fascists for pointless medical technology. And how about that time it vivisected that one crewman in front of everyone else as a demonstration of why you shouldn't break the rules? Oh, and that time it spent all its precious energy waking up the people in the pods most important to us... but only for a day, and only for specific people? Who cares what all that energy could have been used for? Like protecting against the Ohm invasion? Or, I don't know, not storing flesh-eating, psychotic space zombies in a room anyone could find?"

Cry him a fucking river, in other words.

Zouichi did calm down a little at the mention of the kitten. "...Try going to the Sensoriums and imagining up some food for him. Or her. It's basically slop, but it won't taste like it in there."

...okay, Caz certainly hadn't known about any of that. And while he didn't put the same stress on some of it- he didn't care about mothers, and didn't have any 'important people' to stress over -but the vivisection thing sure seemed to spook him. Well, the zombies would have too if he was an organic life form.

"...since you're a pretty straightforward guy, I'm going to assume all that shit is real." Said for the sake of saying it. "They took someone apart? That's what happens if security nabs you?" Oh, fuck no. He wasn't being scattered around like a bunch of loose change again. Fuck that. Plus, if he factored in all the nonsense about the council... "So, people are free to go about their business even if they were genocidal freaks back on their world, but if they break a rule on the ship they get dissected?" Yeah, Cazali just doesn't understand.

Kittens tend to calm everyone down, unless they're soulless monsters. "...that place creeps me out~ People sit around and indulge in false images, egh. But if I gotta do it to keep the kitten from starving, fine. He's certainly given me something to do, instead of sitting on my ass and sulking all day~" He appreciates you, Besel. More than he can comprehend.

Edited 2011-11-02 19:15 (UTC)

Few new people did. And even among the crew who'd been around for a while, well... they just seemed to compartmentalize what happened, and move on. But Zouichi had a long memory for that sort of thing -- a long memory.

"The ship did, yes. That's what people are referring to when they talk about Punishment. It was only performed once, as far as anyone on the crew that's currently awake remembers, and since then, Punishment has supposedly been suspended -- not by the ship, but by people in Engineering overriding the ship's 'Warden' personality. Security doesn't have anything to do with Punishment, though. At most, I've seen people being confined in the Brig."

Come to think of it, Cazali didn't seem to understand how things worked here. "On the ship, there's the ship's rules, and there's the crew's rules. They don't always coincide. The departments, the Council, and the military command are all crew-created constructs, to help organize and govern the crew."

Zouichi nodded. "Understandable. But the Sensoriums might be one of the better options."

"...as far as anyone remembers." Caz latched on to that little tidbit, and his spooked face only grew in to one of disgust. "So, some ship can prod around in people's brains...and stuff like that~? I suuure feel rescued, all of a sudden!"

The fact that the damn thing had to be hacked by crewmates was even more awkward. It was a damn good thing Caz hadn't decided to just go full out evil mode when he popped, or...yeah best not to think about it. Hey, at least he only had to worry about jail.

He only grew more deadpan as the topic continued. "So there's at least three major bodies of government, not counting the departments, and two of them have separate sets of rules?" He had to laugh. It was the only way to get that weird feeling of concern off his chest. "Well, that's just dandy~ Why don't they publish this stuff in that stupid little newbie guide? Or did I miss that part, too~? Jesus."

Screw it. Even if he couldn't taste it, Caz took a piece of watermelon and chomped down on it. At the very least it made him feel better.

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