Breathe In Half Stop (Ch. 3b: Day 1, pt. IV)

psikeout · Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 11:15 pm

The wounded white primate had also followed Ace's line of sight, slowly turning in his seat, and peering over the back of the sofa, his good arm draped across its top. He analyzed the unexpected visitor; his expression was hard to read, but he didn't seem hostile or worried—just discerning.

"... You act like you're lost," he probed very bluntly, presumably guessing from her bashful posturing and approach.

Tau · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:24 am

Uninterested in partaking of the shuttle's amenities and equally uninterested in the idle conversation that was likely to occur between the others in the common area, Tau had since made his way to whichever part of the shuttle was best for directly accessing the craft's sensory and communication equipment (which probably wasn't anywhere within view of the common area) by the time the others had boarded the craft and headed to their preferred areas. He had already gone to work with his miscellaneous intended tasks.

By the time he 'visitor' had arrived, Tau was already establishing an uplink with the shuttle's sensory and communication equipment, and was either unconcerned with or unaware of her arrival. By the time the others began to acknowledge her, he'd begun to resume his previous task of monitoring the assorted systems of the colony's he was capable of gaining access to at this time, in conjunction with making use of the shuttle's sensors for various reasons...

Kythe-X · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:37 am

Her ears perked up upon hearing the damaged simian voice his only thought in regards to her. She certainly didn't feel lost, but she couldn't exactly define when she was lost and when she wasn't. But still, she had to try her best to avoid punishment due to her curiosity. She looked up and gave a panicked smile, attempting to reassure the group that what she said was sincere.

"Oh no no no! I'm n-not lost, I just followed him b-because he was in-interesting and shiny! All the people down there are so boring and well... I couldn't stand it!" she stuttered and stumbled, waving her hands in front of her as though she were shielding herself from their words.

NPC · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:45 am

Tau would immediately begin recieving a glut of information from the system:

The hydroponics suite was reporting a list of horticultural problems that needed rectifying.
Someone was trying to manually open doors in the hallway outside the bay they were in. The personnel traffic daemon was mildly alarmed.
Due to as yet sub-optimal power output from the reactor, the fast transport rail was offline.
The third quadrant theta thermal package was reporting two small, very hot objects rising rapidly over the nightside horizon of the planet, directly ahead of the ARK.
The station gyroscope packages were reporting inter-system discrepancies of up to 9 micrometers and would need to be calibrated.
The station shields were suffering boundary errors, with small chunks of debris breaking through the shields. The shields were stripping them of momentum, however.
The third Nautilus station was unable to produce any water flow to the core regions of the ARK.
No medical, ration, uniform or linen supply tickets had been registered with the ARK's second quandrant distribution computer, and the obvious habitation of the area was making the sector's security daemon uneasy.

psikeout · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:58 am

Rock's brows furrowed and his lips pursed just a little, and he glanced back fleetingly at the others. His first assumptions were apparently shattered by their guest's... unveiled peculiarity.

He was really not the right one to be heading up this conversation. He had already spent most of his Compassion Points for the day in his interaction with Ace, and even then, he didn't do a very good job of it. When she mentioned the part about "shiny," he turned his gaze onto Badge, AKA the guy who dressed like a superhero.

"Yeeeahp," he drawled tiredly, "you are pretty shiny, Badge..."

He clicked his tongue once and looked bemused and utterly exhausted of dialogue options for a second, but, upon glancing back to the strange guest, it occurred to him to ask, "Did you hit your head?"

No, it wasn't the most polite question, but he was failing to reconcile her behavior with her apparent age for any other reason just yet.

Mie · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:21 pm

"Laz," whispered the simian girl, suddenly bending over the back of the sofa, so as to confer with the other monkey in a politely inaudible tone.

While not particularly ruffled by Rock's perceivably coarse handling of the child, Jam did recognize that perhaps the worse-for-wear primate was not in prime interrogation shape, and had crossed swiftly and silently to him.

"I don't think she's hurt, an' I don't think she's trouble, I get the feeling she just might be..."

Pursing her lips, she spared a pause to turn her head scrutinizingly towards Animus, before with some hesitation, added even more lowly, "'Differently abled.' Or something."

Clearing her throat, Jam stood up straight(er; she was still leaning against the back of the couch), and turned toward their visitor.

"Where're your folks, kid?"

Kythe-X · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:46 pm

Animus tilted her head at the question posed to her by Rock. She couldn't quite understand the implication behind it.

"No, I didn't hit myself.... but the bad man down there hit me earlier!" she recalled, growling once more with renewed anger. Then the pink one, after muttering something incoherent under her breath, finally spoke to her directly. Animus kept her head tilted still while listening, thinking hard on what she meant by the word 'folks'

She looked down to the floor again, but this name for the sake of thinking. Folks folks folks... She'd heard someone use that word before. Didn't it mean... parents? It took her a few seconds to reach this conclusion and look back up, her starry shaped pupils growing in size ever so slightly.
"I don't have 'folks'" she said with a surprising lack of concern or feeling. She stared blankly towards the center of the group, having no idea what they were aiming at in this conversation.

psikeout · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 3:42 pm

Though Rock heard everything Jam said, he didn't really reply. He just began to run a hand through his hair, only to remember (with some tenderness from his burns) that he was currently all bandaged up. He sufficed to let the palm of his glove rest on his head, and stare at nothing in particular for a few.

"..."

He gave one more glance back at their new guest, then decided he couldn't be bothered to... be bothered anymore, and deflated back into his couch with a flop and a sigh.

"Wake me up in a week or two," he jested wearily to Jam, and disengaged from the encounter.

Greens · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 5:22 pm

Ace seemed to sink deeper and deeper into his seat, his butt sliding dangerously far from the actual seat portion of his bench. He blew out a long puff of air like he'd just taken a long drag, and then blew a little more until his lungs were as empty as he'd be comfortable with them being. Then, with a few lonely blinks, he spoke, his eyes focused squarely on the ceiling.

"Mister Wild Badge, you know where the security is, don'chu? Can't you direct this young lady to the proper authorities?"

Seafarinhare · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 5:35 pm

To be honest, Hoji was quite proud of the description the girl made of him. He looked at Rock with a half-lidded look when he reiterated it, though. He wasn't the most mature in the group, but he knew when he was being made fun of.

"Thanks, uh... What's your name anyways?"

And then Ace approached him with asking about turning the girl in to the nearest authority. However, the only "authority" around were rent-a-cops. And they were not the proper authority on the mentally childish.

"There are no authorities on this particular kind of case anywhere on this colony." He replied bluntly to the alleycat.

Kythe-X · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 6:02 pm

Animus shot a defiant glare in the direction of Ace. She might've been sub-par on the intelligence level but she at least understood THAT particular implication, even if he used fancier language. In her mind, she hadn't caused much bother or harm yet, despite stepping on someone. So didn't she deserve at least a bit of exploration, rather than helping the masses below? Perhaps telling them her name would give them a little more thought into letting her hang around.

"My name's Animus! I came from the planet below to see that... Space... Race thing. But then all that crazy fun stuff happened and then the planet looked all different 'n stuff. And now all the people down there are being boring so I wanna go find out what happened!" she said with random intersperses of enthusiasm and excitement. Her eyes definitely had a spark of life in them now, her hands clenched tightly in front of her face - she had a feeling these people would be the fun she wanted now.

Mie · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 7:46 pm

"I'll wake ya in three," Jam muttered in reply to Rock with an endeared smirk and a puff of air out her nose. "You never give yourself long enough to heal."

Shaking her head, she mentally returned to the conversation, uncharacteristically abreast of the developments made during her banter with the mummified monkey head on the couch. She exchanged apprehensive glances with both raccoon and serval at the mention of "wanting to go find out what happened" and all its implications, and deftly evaded the topic for the moment.

"Animus's sorta clunky," complained the simian girl bluntly with a frown. "How 'bout Annie?"

Tau · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 11:43 pm

Several moments after Rock had commented about resting, right about the time a new nickname was assigned, several (if more than one existed) of the monitors in the common area flickered to life, momentarily remaining blank a few short seconds, and then printed up an information readout. The readout contained what information Tau felt was important enough to bring to the crews attention at the moment, but lacked mentioning of items related to the daemons for now.

Tau had also taken the time to attempt to imitate the proper channels and register the shuttle's crew, which depending on the individual, was either marked as security or research personnel, although there was unintended designation of one of the crew as a custodian. In all likeliness it probably wouldn't help much with the aging independent autonomous defense systems (which would probably still attack any one on sight), but it would probably make moving around the station a bit easier regardless.

NPC · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:20 am

The third quadrant theta thermal package passively continued to stream to the system the unlikely apparition of two, super-heated specks arcing up over the horizon of the planet. Travelling at somewhere between five and six kilometres a second, they rapidly reached the same orbital altitude of the ARK, and levelled out.

The fourth quadrant epsilon thermal package began to report another heat-spot, rising over the horizon out of the presumably southern hemisphere of the planet the ARK was orbiting around.

psikeout · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:36 am

Rock had barely closed his eyes when the monitors popped on. His newly-disturbed gaze met the largest one (which was presumably meant to double as a TV in front of the couch), and, with an almost newly wounded look, as if his efforts to rest had just suffered a direct blow, he began to absorb the information. ... Without getting up yet.

"Tau, those approaching heat signatures," he began (assuming that the robot was the source of the info, and that he'd be able to hear via intercom), "do they look like ships?"

Breathe In Half Stop (Ch. 3b: Day 1, pt. IV)

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