Mid week 54: Smoking the Chambered Round.

Coraline traced the cyber-stylus across her face, ensuring that the swirl of dark green chromatophores lined up perfectly with the pulsing green strip running down her dress. The dress which showed off just enough to suggest without actually revealing and was a bright, solid green, contrasting her newly cut red hair. The green pulsating stripe ran down and across half of her body, in a split figure 8. This brought an element of asymmetry to the right side of her outfit and otherwise symmetrical dress, tapering off into the swirl on her cheek. For the first time she wore cut off sleeves accentuating her muscled arms, rather than downplaying them. Coraline lent in forwards pursing her lips. She drew a rich red lipstick across each one and her eyes glowed momentarily, matching the shade.

The ex plastic surgeon lent back from the mirror and took in a full view, twisting this way and that to appreciate herself from all angles. Her eyes settled before she sighed deeply. Shaking her head Coraline spoke to the empty room, "Oh sweetie you went way overboard this time. Its simply too much!" Shaking her head the plague doctor looked down at her phone and brought up the contacts menu. A smile played across her face, "At least they'll have you to look at handsome." Her fingers became little more than blurred motion lines as they danced across her phone.

Hugo my sweet! We're still on for tonight, I take it? Could I be just a tad cheeky and request a lift from HQ? If not, then I can certainly be cheekier! Looking forward to the pleasure of your company,
Coraline. xoxo

sure ting c u then

Not much longer later, a sleek four door sedan pulled up into the Oracle compound, so dark purple it could easily be mistaken for black in the gray-orange night. Hugo was driving and he felt.. good. The night was young, Coraline seemed fun, and while he wasn't really looking for a date, she kept calling it one regardless. And the Chambered Round was.. it felt like a kind of home. People understood him there. They understood Una.

Hugo sent another text ("here") and waited, half expecting Coraline to bounce out instantly in another fancy suit and top hat.

Coraline stepped out of HQ and began walking towards Hugo's car, the pacifier Han had given her slung across her back. She tapped on the window, waved and took in Hugo's new look with a grin, before slipping inside. "Hugo, you look absolutely fabulous! Most dapper and dashing," reaching across, the ex V.K. agent squeezed Hugo's upper forearm brifely. As if to punctuate her sentence. Belatedly it occurred to Coraline that she could have customised the pacifier's appearance too. Oh well, no use crying over spilt s-milk as it were.

Hugo rather obviously looked over Coraline, grin spreading across his face. "Thanks, I tried. And you, encantadora. You look lovely. And we almost match." The last statement was definitely not true, as his peacock colors didn't mess very well with her poison ivy green at all. However, they both looked pretty good, that was true.

"I like the red. Striking." He was already moving the car away from Oracle, in pretty high spirits. "Though the dress code isn't rigidly enforced. Hope you're ready for gunfire."

"Eagerly anticipating, even!" Coraline grinned wider, reasonably certain that if Hugo wasn't kidding then she wouldn't be in danger at least. "Flattery will only get you pretty far dear, but thank you. And it is kind of you to say but we really don't match sweetie. Still contrast can be striking too. Encantadora? Oh, thank you." The plague doctor's Spanish was very clearly synthetic, but sounded grateful nonetheless. Coraline wiggled absentmindedly clearly taken by the nickname. The ex V.K. agent laid her heavy weapon across her lap as she strapped herself in.

Hugo smiled a little wider at the Spanish, but continued speaking in English with Coraline. "Well, we're both green, right? We basically match," smiled Hugo, one of nature's own color experts. "But you know about striking. The red and the green, plus.. is your skin glowing?" Hugo cast Coral a look through the rear view mirror, keeping his eyes mostly on the road. "Never seen that before."

Coraline brought a hand to mouth in order to stifle her laughter, lest it become un-lady like. "Only a little dear. It is a Kreig cosmetic dear, doesn't take too long to install but they charge per square inch. I mean it's not like we can't afford it but I guess I like to be efficient." Coraline became aware of her outfit as she said this and had the decency to grin sheepishly at Hugo. "There was the one gentleman who wanted lines of it on his manhood, as it were. No where else, just there." Coraline hoped the change in topic would be distracting enough that Hugo wouldn't notice her hypocrisy and cast one furtive glance his way.

"Probably just be more efficient to get videoskin, if it wasn't just in a little spot, huh? I looked at it, thought it might be nice to get for when I do gigs, but it doesn't work with the stealthskin." Hugo nodded, confident in his knowledge on this little subject, at least. He let the conversation lapse for a long moment as his face contorted as he visibly considered what phallic racing stripes would be like.

He did not make eye contact as he asked.. "What color?"

"They were magneta. He was sweet, if misguided. And yes you're right, I simply didn't have time and sometimes well, sometimes the images glitch. Rather badly for me actually. The tattoos don't take as long to remove as they did to put in, fortunately. So if anything does go wrong I can have my face back to normal before the end of tonight. I'm actually hoping to improve the design if and when I get my company started." Coraline smiled over at Hugo, in a slightly predatory manner. The fact that he was looking away was very cute.

Hugo remained quiet, eyes focused on the road. He nodded to indicate he was listening, but mostly he looked.. thoughtful. He moved his hands along the wheel, and the radio came into life. It was playing softly, but the music itself was a discordant slam of guitars, drums, and machinery. The display said it was BRUTAL radio, playing Bludmud's newest, "Here and Now Longer". The display was in Spanish, but the music was definitely in Mandarin.

After about thirty or so seconds, he spoke softly. "Gold would have been better." He laughed quietly, and then shrugged. "How'd you make it better?"

"Really? Bling there? I don't know, somehow that seems tackier to me. I'm not sure dear, between Kreig and Gemini the chromatophores must be near to perfect. I'd link in the video skin to the specific tattoos so you could create more precise patterns in relation to one another but I don't really know what to do about the glitching. Oh, I'm getting distracted again!" Coraline seemed distressed as something occurred to her. "That poor girl, I'm sorry I didn't do more for her but well. You were there and I suppose at the time I didn't see what could have set someone more at ease. I did let myself get carried away."

Hugo opened his mouth to give his thoughts on gilded genitals when Coraline abruptly changed the subject. He blinked a little to try to change gears quickly in his head. "Uh.." He licked his lips, turning onto a main street. The music faded out, and a DJ began talking quickly in an aggressive Mandarin punctuated with occasional English "BRUTAL"s.

"She was a poor nice little thing, huh? But.. I don't blame normal people for bein' afraid of agents, and there was only so much you could do." He sighed a little, hands gripping the wheel. "No matter what you intend, strangers, people you detain, even you want to help them they just.. hate you on principle. Nothing for it, really." Another little shrug. "Only agents really get other agents, and even then not always."

Coraline's eyebrows raised and her eyes did a quick once over of the car. Music, fashion, nothing that far from normal. Then she glanced at the two visible heavy weapons and nodded to herself. "I haven't had much experience of that actually, between being a plastic surgeon and a doctor people treat those with respect. They don't really see an agent I suppose. And general relief when you're casual enough to flirt with them. I-I guess you have seen more fieldwork then me then sweetie? Is that always how it is? That really doesn't sound like fun for anyone.

"They didn't let me in the field much." Hugo gave Coraline a little look, hiding his smile behind his shoulder. "But I look like an agent all the time. Even before I was a full agent, really. And you, encantatora, don't. You're so cute and small." He grinned more openly, even chuckling a little to himself. Hugo was bigger than several Coralines, though strangely, only just as strong. Augments are killer. The car sped up as they sped across town, the fast machine obviously not under strain despite the higher speed.

Coraline looked at Hugo slyly as he tried to hide his smile and rolled her eyes as he called her cute, but couldn't quite hide her smile. "Why didn't they let you out into the field dear? You're so eager and you follow through on that pretty impressively. It's very endearing really. Is encantatora my new nick name? If so I'll have to come up with one of my own for you sweetie." Coraline smiled up at Hugo before bursting into laughter. Between laughs and sucking in great lunge-fulls of air the plague doctor managed to mutter about how she's, "sorry," and that it's, "not, not the name thing," but that she just, "couldn't." The ex V.K. agent didn't seem likely to stop anytime soon.

Glancing to the side, Hugo looked a little concerned as he drove. Coraline seemed to have broken, somehow, tittering as if she couldn't handle the hilarity of.. something that Hugo had said. He waited a moment, changed lanes, listened to the radio briefly, looked at traffic from the mirrors. He gave Coraline another long look, raising his brows. "Keep laughing for too long and I might get offended." He didn't sound offended, but some of his amused charm was gone, too.

Coraline brought a finger to her lips and looked slightly abashed as she tried to get her laughter under control. She only broke into laughter again once and it didn't last long. "Oh, I'm sorry dear, where did my manners go. I'm sorry it's just.... you called me small and cute. Which was very complimentary, but it was funny for me. For a lot of reasons. Mainly the size of certain cybernetics I have installed in others over the years, and could in myself relatively quickly. And then I thought of what would happen if I had taken offense to being called small and went ahead and installed it for myself. It was quite the mental picture. I also couldn't help seeing you with the most surprised expression on your face in response. Not that I think you would react like that it just popped into my head. I am sorry sweetie, it seems I'm pre-occupied today. I'll try to get my mind off it. I really didn't mean to let you think I was laughing at you." Coraline looked over at Hugo her expression a mix of apology and question, though amusement lingered around her eyes.

[[Passed pres+L&A by 4 by the way]]

Hugo listened, his face growing increasingly concerned. As Coraline finished talking, he shrugged a little, relaxing. "Don't worry, don't worry. I don't mind the laughing, really. I just wanted to be let in on the secret. You are small though. You can't deny that." He gave another shrug, smiling to himself.

He turned down an offramp, Interchange suddenly dominating the view of the sky. "Getting close to home again. It's nice living so close to everything fun here." He nodded along to the music, grinning, obviously getting a little excited. Suddenly his brow furrowed, and his voice dropped a little bit. "...Wait, were you just talking about dicks? ..Or guns? Say it was guns."

Coraline breathed a sigh of relief as Hugo relaxed, clearly concerned that she might have offended the nuke she had harangued into picking her up. The former plastic surgeon nodded as the 6'1" monster of a man called her short, biting down on her bottom lip just a little. Coraline's mouth opened as she saw the interchange, her eyebrows raising in her characteristic 'about to geek out over something' expression. But Hugo was already talking and the ex-V.K. agent closed her mouth, listening politely. The plague doctor had quite forgotten what she had been about to say when Hugo spoke again, and got a mischievous glance for his troubles.
.
"Well, a little from column A and a little from column B." Coraline's scarlet eyes twinkled as she grinned over at Hugo. Whatever his response was, it was sure to be delicious.

Hugo took her answer quietly, shaking his head. There were a few ways to interpret her words, but it was easier to imagine the two items distinct. Weaponized willies seemed.. horribly inappropriate. And dangerous. But then again, if you never wanted to use them with someone else, it could lend a certain appeal to, uh, visiting the firing range alone. So, not really an option for Hugo, but there probably were a few of his friends who would like it. But no, no, she's obviously talking about guns OR junk enhancement cybernetics. Obviously. Right? ...Right?

The Interchange got a lot closer while Hugo considered, the radio playing softly about some song that mostly involved the word blood. "Just a couple minutes now."

Coraline's grin faded slowly as she realised that Hugo clearly wasn't intending to share his thoughts. The words which Hugo did eventually say made Coraline realise that she didn't really know what to expect. "So what can I expect from this place? Gunfire aside of course. Similar music? big place/small place? Good drinks, agent level, I take it? Electric atmosphere?" Coraline struggled to contain the many, many questions which suddenly occurred to her.

"Uuuh, I think there was music." Hugo grinned, dismissing the thoughts of gun genitals. "You kinda can't hear it over the gunfire. There's a dance floor, too, but only a little dancing." He shrugged, amused, grinning at the thought of it already. "It's big though, but a lot of it is a shooting range. Well, lots of ranges. Drinks are good, food's okay,the people there are pretty great. Though, more interested in guns than almost anything else. My kinda people." He gave Coraline a little look as he pulled down a side street, a little worried about the tiny agent enjoying the place but definitely already getting excited.

"Good to hear. Ooooh, some food would go down very nicely. Especially if we can eat and shoot, at the same time! Actually that sounds positively decadent. Though I suppose most people will be using something a little more kinetic than me and you, eh sweetie? And a little dancing sounds very relaxing after the dancing I did last mission." Coraline giggled to herself. Something about an Ai-Jinn agent angrily shouting about how, 'Strippers don't need guns in their arms,' was quite amusing in hindsight. A follow up thought occurred to the plague doctor. "Say Hugo dear, would you mind my asking if you have a specific aim in mind for the end of tonight? You're perfectly alright not to tell me, but since you know what I'm up to....?" Coraline trailed off, letting her question hang in the air.

Hugo shrugged about ammo types; people tended to be diverse in their preferred weapon types, but maybe he just focused more on the new and exciting weapons. Una had been a hit for that reason. He laughed a little as Coraline asked of his intentions, giving her a little look as he parked his car in the SafPlas Parking Garage. "Do I know what you're up too, encantadora? Hmmm." He began to set up various security measures. "But I don't know what I want for tonight. The Round feels like home in a way, and I just wanna.. see what happens. Maybe someone fun will be there."

He grinned mostly to himself, beginning to get out of the car.

Coraline followed suit, unbuckling herself and slipping out of the car. She took a moment to take in the bar front and assess the cars parked nearby. It looked to be a sizeable crowd. The plague doctor walked round the front of the car. When Hugo stepped alongside her Coraline cheekily offered her arm to him. There was a rather amused look on her face as she spoke, "Here's to that idea. Shall we then, my dear?"