- Invitation Status
- Posting Speed
- 1-3 posts per day
- One post per day
- 1-3 posts per week
- Writing Levels
- Intermediate
- Adept
- Advanced
- Adaptable
- Preferred Character Gender
- Male
- Female
- Genres
- Fantasy, Scifi.
The Ą̵̧̫̥̗͉̪̙̱̩̙̺͖͉̘͉͉̪͕̹̣̖͙͂̀̀̇̈́̑͊̔́͒̊̇͒̐̇͆̓̑̚͜͠͝͝͠Ç̴̢̛̛͕̥̥̪̠̜̘̿̑́̌͌̐̅͆͒͋̀̅̃͒̆̏̐͘͘͝͝L̸̢̤͎͓̖̤̖̯͚̭̦̞̩͚̦͙͇̓̉̓͌̑̾̅̈́̈̍͋̊̿̔͜͜ͅJ̶̡̧͈̻̗̣̖̦̥̙̺͓̩͎̱̲͎͔͖͖̩̏́͋͛̈́͛̽̄̇͊̕̕͘͝K̸̡̪͈̲̝̭̦̣̭͖̯̣͙̤̘̘̲͂̀̾͜ͅË̸̡̨̡̛̜̹̣̭͇̯̜̤̥̣͍͕̫͍̖̝́͗̇̉̋͐̉̀̈́̋́̃̅̀͝ͅD̶̛̤̀͘L̶̢̡̨̧̟̲͚͕̪͍̹̲̭͈͈̹̱̳̞̞̥̺͖̻͎̹̩͚̮̏̀͂̐͑́͗̔̊̆̃̒̈̆̋̃͂̾̍͒̓͘͜͠͠ͅK̶̨̛̫̳̖̥̫̟͓̠̣̘̠̱̪̰̣̥͍͙͇̓͊͆̒̌̍̊͆̉͑̓͗̎̂̾͆̔̈́̓̄̍̾͘̚͘͘̕͜͠͠͝ Meets an Engineer (Collab with @Pigiron )
The incessant pinging began twenty seconds ago. Eve, knowing full well that the machine could keep up with it, was attempting to hail the suit with absolutely critical information exactly one hundred times a second. Aiko, then, was forced with the choice of either listening to a long, drawn out, and irritating tone as she lay upon her metal bed of pain. Or drawing out the agony by increasing her cognitive perception processing speed but slowing down the rate of pings. Forced with such an impossible choice, Aiko took the obvious alternative.
She forced herself to her feet. The knees wobbled. Threatening to buckle. Silently, the command pulsed from the young woman to the suit. Silver veins flowed from the bed and bloodlessly pierced her skin. Oiling into pores while spreading as thin tendrils within her body. With a sense beyond touch, she felt them. Wrapping around bones, threading through muscles. Aiko cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders. She stamped her feet. The pain was still there. A coursing ache that demanded rest. That wouldn't come yet. There was still a job to do. But she could move properly until her body caught up. As intricate as her weave was, it was still crude. Horrendously crude. Born of an intelligent analysis of an alien examining another alien. Thorough. Yet lacking in true understanding.
The doctor, or the ship's medical files on humanity, was needed. An issue to be dealt with. Could she simply take them? Yes, yes she could. Without detection? Doubtful. Her hardware and software, for all their prowess, was as compatible with the Cotopaxi's systems as Aiko was to most sentient species in the known galaxy. No, she'd needed to do it in a…Aiko checked herself. This was getting too far ahead. Avoiding today was no longer an option. The dustridden dream bird had certainly shown her that.
She flicked out the compact mirror. The black eyes stared back. Voids. With a deep, centering breath that suppressed out the continual pings, Aiko let the stars bloom within them. A soft smirk teased its way up her face. Coal black hair, sticking out at obnoxious nightmare angles, was tamed to a simple dream bed-head through tendrils blooming briefly out of her skull. There she was. The girl of taunts and teases. Of japes and jokes. Perfect.
With a fluid motion, Aiko lounged down at her computer terminal and accepted the nagging Eve message with a flourish. "Eve, darling!" she said at mortal speed, "why are you so noisy?"
"Ms. Takeda. Message from the captain."
Aiko leisurely took her time reading the pop-up thinking, two teams? Really goody Gabi? Why must you sunder us so? Afraid I''ll spoil the site for you? Paranoid paranoid. You should be. Giving me the Doctor as a medical watchdog and Blaster as a boom boom watchdog. Someone to be decided shortly. And this Ms. Kin and Mr. Galatea…no idea who they are in person.
She had, of course, met Blaster. The adorable creature was a firework and absolutely disappointed when Aiko had said, quite honestly for once, that she could not blow up an Imperial Cruiser from a standard light year. Well, not as she was currently, anyway. Possible later? No clue. Might need a bigger base sphere though.
"Aiko," Eve chimed.
"Takeda, Eve, when you want a terminal chat," she said while deciding it was high time to pay the Chief Engineer a visit.
"Aiko," Eve insisted, "I'm worried about you."
Aiko very nearly almost but not quite froze. She laughed, "worried? About me?! Eve, you know I'm the most durable piece of hardware inside your innards."
"But when you spoke in that lang…" Eve started.
"Ugh, Eve, darling. What would Imperial hardliners say if they saw an AI going sentimental? 'First it's soft and sweet, but then it'll jack us all to the hardware to compute pi for all eternity! Burn the witch!' Leave it. Trust me." Though Eve's words did bring something home to her. She was speaking Imperial again! Thank goodness, she'd forgotten about that.
"I don't trust you as far as I could throw you!" Eve, growing a bit annoyed, replied.
However, Aiko had entertained this breach in gaming etiquette enough. "Thank you for the message Eve, good day," she said and closed the transmission. Immediately, the ping returned. As did a new one on their personal transmitter. Aiko rolled her eyes and strolled to the entrance of her room. As she went, she extracted the transmitter from the folds of silver. Casually, she displayed it to where she knew one of the hallway cameras was. With a smile, she crushed it between her pointer and thumb. Immediately, the pinging from her terminal stopped. Ah, sweet silence.
One thought ran off to wonder if Eve was going to tell anyone about the exchange. The rest turned away with a huff. If the AI was going to act like a nagging, worried child, Aiko would treat her as such. The day was already shaping up to be horrible as it was. Then, she turned her mind fully to the game of getting to know Perseus.
Aiko elected on her favored way of travel. Undetectable by service crawl-spaces. Whippingly fluidly down the tunnels, she arrived sufficiently above and looking down upon the golden boy from the ceiling just as another engineer was heading off. He looked wonderfully distracted and delectably deep in thought. Positioning herself just right, Aiko oozed out of her camouflaged core. With a silent pop, she plummeted head first with a glittering grin plastered upon her face as she shot past Mr. Galatea on his catwalk as close to his face as the space allowed.
For the brief instant he was in view, Aiko was pleased to see his pensive face suddenly contort into shock with the taste of fear before he whipped out of view. It was followed by a sudden shout of alarm and the sounds of feet stumbling on metal grates. Her suit had no intention of letting her slam into the belly of the Cotopaxi, head first or not, and used the catwalk as the fulcrum of a silent swing that deposited Aiko gracefully onto her feet behind the still reeling engineer. "Hello!" she chimed.
"Crash!" came the cry, Perseus went from reeling away from the sudden movement to reeling into the figure. There was a moment of frantic contortion as Perseus twisted away from the figure before pausing, looking her up and down, and calming down with a sigh.
"That was… Surprising. Judging from the suit, I'm assuming you're the former cryocicle?" Perseus took a moment, before seeming to come to a conclusion. He turned, and began walking over to a break room off of the main engine room, turning slightly to say "Are you a tea person or a coffee person?"
"The one and only Takeda Aiko," she said, "and I'm a tea person. Green tea. So hospitable and polite. Do you greet everybody this way or am I a special case Monsignor? Though I haven't been properly introduced to you. Has someone been hiding you from me? I suppose it has been rather busy."
She examined Perseus with only a thinly veiled critical eye as she followed along. Backed by the footage that her suit continuously took, her portfolio of the man expanded greatly.
Perseus was very clearly comfortable in the suit, (Lustrian general purpose engineering hardsuit model LSC-302, Aiko was helpfully provided,) and moved in the bulky equipment with practiced ease. When he reached the break room in short order, crossing the small abandoned dining area to a set of mag-locked cupboards. Reaching in, Perseus took out a pair of cups as if he wasn't wearing the heavy vac-rated gloves, and placed them into the food-grade matter printer without any of the ham-handedness one would usually expect to see.
"Sure. Green tea for you, Gatofruit juice for me." Perseus stated cheerfully, seemingly a little more comfortable now that Aiko was done being non-Newtonian. The two drinks were quickly prepared, and soon enough the blocky Lustrian had pulled out a chair for Aiko, placed her tea on a mag-coaster on the table, and eased himself into the chair across from her with an "Aah." Perseus took a sip, leaned back, and asked "So, you're interesting. Real interesting, if you don't mind me saying. You've clearly got a lot going on. So why're you down here? What could a space-hero need from a washed-up shipcutter?" It was clear Perseus was kidding about the last part, grinning as he said it. There was self-deprecation there, but the message was clear. Tell me what you need. I want to help.
Smooth, she idly thought as he moved about before sitting down. She didn't bother taking the proffered seat but elected to kneel upon a platform she formed to about the same height he was. "Percy Percy Perseus Galatea, one of the progeny of the previous precocious engineer chief, you move too fast! I drop in and the first thing after you pour the tea is to ask me to spill it. No comments about the weather, which is poor; the agricultural prospects, which are blooming; nor the romantic chances, which seem as high on this vessel as my previous birth. I may need to invest in some noise canceling headphones. You'd think that people would wait until after they survive a harrowing trip into storms before deciding who to wed. But, then again, biology wills."
As she spoke, Aiko traced a circle on the table. Leaving a stream of silver flowing in its wake that spread into the center. Bolts of lightening erupted up from it before they branched into blooming flowers. In turn, their petals turned into the seat of a feminine form that, with each passing second, drifted decidedly more and more familiar.
And there it was, like waves crashing against the shore. Aiko's cloak of chaos. Aiko's third path. Aiko's coping mechanism.
Perseus cradled his cup of juice and smiled a far off smile as he listened to the woman. "I only know what I've heard, and I hear that you're A: dealing with a lot of additional hardware and software, and B: most of the people on this ship want to crack you open to see how you tick." Perseus took a sip "Like you said, my dad was Orion Galatea. Being the apple falling from that tree was… Well, it was a recipe for impossible standards. If I was lucky, people looked at me like I was the future's promise made manifest. If I was unlucky, they saw me as a resource to exploit for their own gain."
Perseus put his cup aside and tried to meet Aiko's gaze. Steady, like. Level.
"Aiko, do you see what I'm-" And it was at this point that Perseus looked down, and saw… A very interesting rendition of a familiar figure. Perseus blinked, looking up at Aiko a little too quickly. "Ah, uh… As for improper affection… How on earth did you figure that one out- Look, I think I have it all under control. I've been up front with Ga-the captain. We're going to sit down and discuss it all after the away mission. She'll set me straight, I'm sure."
Aiko was, of course, seeing exactly what he was saying. And she was going to have nothing of it if she could help it. So, electing not to answer what she already knew, she plunged deeper into the attack. "My, my, so open about your family life. One would almost think you had nothing to hide. But improper? Who said anything about it being improper? Unless, no…Perseus what have you been dreaming about?!"
She let out a cackle. But it wasn't her usual laughter. Which almost seemed to mock as it creaked a disparity of joy. No, here it was a pure bell of mirthful, though teasing, delight. It was also painful, though that didn't come through, as the aches from last sleep's mysteries still coursed through her body. "No wait," she finally choked out, "don't tell me, don't tell me yet. Have you been designing parts of the ship so you two would have the excuse to be close? Oh please say it's so!"
Perseus averted his gaze, for the first time during the conversation, "there's nothing untoward about ensuring the chief engineer is close at hand, in case the captain needs them." He muttered, a slightly brownish hue overtaking his golden cheeks.
She raked the room with eyes anew. Searching for the little hints across the space that softly screamed, 'this is Gabi's and Percy's sacred place. No touchy!' "Of course, of course," she waved, "nothing untoward at all if all it required was a simple lean to reach and kiss her…Dahahahaha! No! No! Is it really that close? On the bridge too? You are an open book, aren't you!"
Perseus broke into a slightly exasperated grin, "yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I am who I am. No point trying to pretend otherwise." Perseus narrowed his eyes; "though, I didn't make any such changes to this area. It's the engineer's break room, Aiko, there's not a snowball's chance in a smeltery that the captain would ever come down here."
Aiko too, quieted down and leaned forward as her laughter died into a small smile. It might have been coy. Or hungry. Might even be craving. "Be careful of your nightmares, Perseus. They come true out here. Mine do."
And, for a moment, long enough for Perseus to see but not long enough for the person who raced towards the room to catch a glimpse, the veil of stars drew back from Aiko's eyes. Revealing the black maws beneath. Sheer depths that drew in all light. That whispered…something. Was it the call to jump? Or to fall into them, forever? But something was down there. Something that… "Careful Percy," Aiko whispered again and the veils snapped shut, "don't get lost in another woman's eyes. She won't like it."