anwei: PB is Cynthia Rothrock (Anwei look left)
Anwei Ayles ([personal profile] anwei) wrote in [community profile] trans_92012-04-20 11:38 am

A Tisket, A Tasket, A Mystery Casket [closed & bendytimed]

The City looked like a cake that was starting to crumble around the edges; the dust of ruined buildings drifting in the streets like sand. Anwei coughed as she walked, and tried not to imagine what would happen if the City lost gravity. How many of these houses and temples and castles were being held together only by their own weight right now?

She'd been searching in a desultory fashion for a potential place to live, but so far every building that had looked promising either had no electricity or had been tagged by Maintenance for demolition. With no firm goal in mind, she let her feet steer her to Howard's warehouse. He might know what areas had electricity and which didn't, from his scavenging.

"Hello!" she called as she walked up. She didn't want to startle him. "Anyone home?"
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Basic - Background)

and bendied liekwhoa!

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-20 08:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Howard's in the Warehouse doing his 'spring cleaning', and by that he means removing all the explosives Zouichi told him how to identify from his stacks and stacks of things. He unlocks the five locks of the front door and opens up.

"Hey, Maw."

Since Anwei left, the Warehouse has evolved from cluttered to dangerously stuffed with things, now less a product of preparation than the symptom of a burgeoning hoarding disorder. Towers of newspapers and furniture and labeled boxes reach up to the ceiling. A dismantled TV is strewn on the floor. At some points it's not even possible to walk on the floor, but on plastic boxes. Thankfully Howard doesn't live here anymore. It's solely for storage.

"Come on in." He likes Anwei, so she gets exclusive invites into his lair. "You looking for something?"
Edited 2012-04-20 20:27 (UTC)
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Scared - Uh Oh)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-20 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Most of the piles are stable. Most.

"Yeah, well, I'm spring cleaning right now. It's kind of hectic right now." He moves a screwdriver from one box over to another and just looks a bit exhausted, like he's taking on a task he's not prepared to do. "I have a map in here somewhere with all that information. If you can help me find it..."

He looks through some papers on the couch. "Oh, by the way, I found something you might like."
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Basic - Bored)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-21 01:22 am (UTC)(link)
"You're going to be waiting a hella long time, then."

He did get a golf cart at one point. Unfortunately it broke down.

"Well, it's not bloodstain-resistant toothpaste." He gestures for her to clamber over the couch and into the kitchen with him (equally stuffed with 'treasure'.
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Default)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-21 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh, god, you don't mean people seriously make that? Gross." Howard's pulls his best 'icked out' face, which is pretty icked out.

"Anyway, it's this thing." He undoes the lock on his pantry and opens it up to reveal a black box. A morbid mind, like Howard's, would think it could easily fit a human head. "I got it running for like a minute, and it told me I wasn't qualified to open it and called me names. I think you asked me about something like this once."
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Scared - Uh No)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-21 06:51 am (UTC)(link)
"Maw, have you ever learned when to drop a subject? Because when I make this face," he repeats his earlier icked expression, "that generally means drop the subject of getting blood off your teeth."

Howard was hoping for a flicker of recognition on Anwei's face, and is rather taken aback at the glee. He looks for an instant like he isn't sure how to respond.

"It's all yours, Maw. We should probably take it outside, though. It threatened to blow me to kingdom come for being a dirty alien." He curls his lip a bit. "I'm not even dirty."
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Happy - Smirk)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-22 05:51 am (UTC)(link)
"Think of it as your welcome home gift."

Howard gives Anwei a skeptical look, but it's tempered by a smile. Anyone else would just get scorn for such giddiness, but this is the alien lady who gave him candy and pens, so he can cut her a little slack. "That's right. I shower every day. Sometimes twice."

Still, he doesn't feel comfortable tampering with the thing in his kitchen. "So what are you going to do with it?"
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Basic - Bored)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-23 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
He is glad she likes it, really. In a way it makes him feel as if he's paying back the gift of the pens she left him, and the candies before he went to Galilee.

"A while like a few minutes, or a while like a few hours? Because if it's going to be a few hours I'm drafting you into helping me clean this place up." He finds a pen and starts chewing on it, watching her intently, wondering how to mimic what she's doing if it's something clearly based on species.

"What do you think's in it?"
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Basic - Observing)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-23 06:51 pm (UTC)(link)
"So that's an AI, right? I mean, I'm guessing that's not what I'm looking for when I'm looking for Horanckk for you."

He finds a hammer, trying with minimal success to study Anwei's face. She isn't telling him everything, but that's typical. No one ever does. He's alright with that, because it means people expect him to know less than he does, but Anwei knows him well enough to know that he's generally more aware of things than he lets on.

He follows her outside to the backyard, still scorched by a few experiments gone wrong (oh hai roller fridge). "Better question. What are you hoping is in there, and what's the hammer for?"
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[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-24 06:11 am (UTC)(link)
"Uh, big difference. Rats can't threaten to blow people up, whether they mean it or not." He makes a mental note to second-guess any Iron Mans he sees.

"The Ohm aren't our problem. Me and a few other people got in contact with them and it turns out they're just idiots. The Daligig are the ones you need to watch out for." He figures Anwei's a good enough person to trust with this information. "We used a dead Ohm shrike in the medical bay to build a rapport, but it's too strong to do for too long. They don't even understand that we're in a war."

Great. Mustached monkeys. Howard clenches the hammer and takes a seat.
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Basic - Interested)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-25 12:19 am (UTC)(link)
"I think their general idea is that a war is something that happens between people. What they're doing now is more of..." He bites his lip and folds his arms, staring at the hammer's head. "Pest control, I guess. The same way we'd feel about killing off too many feral animals that were dangerous."

He leans in a bit closer to the box. "You're sure you're still able to make out what it's saying like that?"
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Sad - Sadface)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-25 07:43 am (UTC)(link)
"Pretty much. I mean, Sakura was my partner in crime for doing most of this, or we'd have tried to make contact again. She got repodded, though." There's a note of genuine sadness in Howard's voice. Sakura was, oddly enough, someone he actually connected with.

And as such, with that on his mind he makes no mention of Anwei's temporary overflow of emotion. He gets it. He doesn't like that he gets it, but he understands.

He clutches the hammer close. "Ready when you are."
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Basic - Observing)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-25 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
"She was the last good part of med bay. After you left, that is. And after Rory turned out to be a backstabbing fuckhead." Not that that was Rory's fault, but Howard refuses to believe he's being unreasonable about someone being repodded against their will. It's clearly a betrayal of the highest order and no amount of logic will stand up to the absolute tidal wave of hurt it caused.

"I have a journal, you know. If I drop dead one day you have my permission to find it, read everything written in orange pen, and burn it. And then don't read anything else." If Anwei can find it, that is. It's hidden in his room at the Inn. "Everything I know about the ship and the war is in orange."

He does not, however, let go of the hammer, watching the letters. Wow, way to trigger a massive headache, looking at those. He switches to looking at Anwei instead.
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Happy - Snicker)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-26 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
"He came back. And that douchebag Dr. Beckett joined up for the sole sake of harassing me and calling Security on me whenever he's having a bad day." And this clearly has nothing to do with Howard stealing from the Medical Bay and hoarding things away.

He holds his breath at the opening of the box, and then pauses. And then leans in. And then, due to either the hat, the removal of any visible threat, or Anwei's crestfallen face, bursts into laughter so hard that he doubles over and holds his ribs. Good luck trying to talk about anything serious with him now.
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Happy - Success!)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-27 08:39 am (UTC)(link)
"I'd rather she didn't." And that's as close as Anwei will get to an admission of guilt.

Howard keeps laughing so hard he can hardly breathe, all doubled up on himself with the hammer still in hand. He's fairly certain at this point that Anwei's dead serious, which makes it all the more entertaining. That she'd worry this much about it when it's a glorified hatbox is unbelievably amusing to him. Finally he manages to stop laughing long enough to get a word in.

"Happy birthday, dear Maw." Then he starts laughing again.
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Happy - Ooh)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-28 06:26 am (UTC)(link)
"It's not like I'm going to be entering myself in any beauty pageants, don't worry. Maybe if someone in the City starts putting on drag shows I can sell this thing." He pokes at it. Precious gems don't have much use on Stacy, but on shore leaves they can probably fetch a handsome sum.

In a flight of whimsy, he puts the hat on his head. It's so big that it covers most of his face. "It's like a helmet designed for Elton John."

He takes it back off. "What're you going to use the box for? It'd be a nifty talking gargoyle."
Edited 2012-04-28 06:26 (UTC)
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Basic - Run?)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-29 01:01 am (UTC)(link)
"Unfortunately, I don't look like much of an antiques dealer. No one's going to take my word on that, but you can tell a ruby when you see it. I mean, if you're a jeweler, at least."

He chews his fingernail. "Isn't there like...moral dilemmas, to that?" Not like Howard will try and stop Anwei even if there are, but it seems like someone as into AI philosophy as Anwei is - at least by the standards of the crew - might have some reason to object to that. "I mean, are you ready for your brand new baby boy to be a box?"

Even a box that can help them get control of Stacy.
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Happy - Neutral Happy)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-29 03:17 am (UTC)(link)
"No, I don't know him. I guess I'll have to find him as soon as ID what most of these gems are." He takes the hat off, walks in and sets it on the kitchen table, on top of a bunch of newspapers and a dismantled blender, before he comes back out.

"Oh, God. You with a robot. This is only going to end in tears, isn't it?"
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Basic - Raised Eyebrow)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-29 07:01 pm (UTC)(link)
He finds a trashbag for the hat. Something nice and innocuous to hide it in, so that whomever stealing his stuff won't notice it and take it. He really needs to set up another trap for that person, they've somehow evaded the last few and he's been losing countless hours of sleep fretting over his food supplies.

"Like I said, the idea of you with a robot. It just sort of rings my alarm bells. Are you sure you're not just trying to rewrite yourself a Horanckk?"

He raises an eyebrow at her. It's not like he wouldn't understand the impulse. He'd try, if he were her, disingenuous as it may be. He grabs a stick off the ground and chews on it.
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Sad - Uncertain)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-30 01:00 am (UTC)(link)
He nods. In a way it's comforting to know that Anwei has that sort of perspective on things, and he has to agree - friendship is not a set of personality traits that happen to be compatible, but a shared history. Like what he has with Orc, or Zouichi, that could not be replicated without the circumstances that led to them. Or even what he has with Anwei herself.

He pauses, as if caught in the act of doing something wrong. "They must have gotten lost when the Terminators tore up the Med Bay."

It's a lie. He ate them all, once he was certain Anwei wasn't coming back. Once that sense of loss was replaced with a sense of opportunity, once his emotion was once again laid low by his self-centeredness.

"I should probably go."
iselldrugstothecommunity: (Happy - Neutral Happy)

[personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity 2012-04-30 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
"Hope it works too. For your sake, so you don't spend too many late nights staring at your computer screen. That's super bad for your eyes." He gives Anwei a little mock salute and disappears into the house.