Ida asks you to meet in the lounge [Friday Morning, Week 6]

Ida lounged on the couch, waiting for the others to arrive. Standing behind her what appeared at first glance to be two people.

To her left was a woman of about average agent height, with long blonde hair and an expressionless face behind her sunglasses. She wore a dark dress with loose sleeves that somewhat hid her clearly cybernetic arms ending in 6-fingered hands, and occasionally a silver shine could be seen where her pale skin caught the light.

To Ida's right was what appeared to be a handsome young man flicking through paperwork, whose appearance would be best described as essentially a male version of Ida. He was dressed in a smart black suit and had a cheerful smile on his face, which had visible cybernetics built in, apparently just for show.

Ida raised a hand in a casual wave when Darya and Sosie arrived, and glanced around. "Pinkie, you here?" she asked. "Well, I guess I can leave a note if you aren't, I guess.

"These are my new replicants. I thought I should introduce them to you guys now, so you don't get surprised seeing them around the place."
Ida gestured to the female replicant to her left. "This is Sylviane; she's a combat model and she'll be serving as my bodyguard. She'll also help the compund's defence if needed."
The replicant nodded formally; some may have noticed a white glow in her eyes behind the glasses. (Anyone with Cybernetics & Robotics 3+ can recognise this as a sign of simulated curiousity.)

"And this," Ida added as she gestured to her right, "is Rico, my personal assistant."

"Hello!" He spoke up enthusiastically, in perfect unaccented Mandarin. "Ms Terrahaute, Ms Demeter, Ms Brown, it's nice to meet you all! I hope we can get along well!"

"If they’re around not doing anything for me and you need help with something, feel free to ask,” Ida concluded. “But if you need them for something that could damage them or anything that could end up in you doing incriminating things, ask me first, ‘k?”

*Academically In her head, Pinkie knew this legally wasn't any different from her getting her cyberwolves, she had already begun working well with agents after all and they were not the only things that she had fought. And Ida was one up on her already as she had named both her replicants while Pinkie's Cat(s) remained unamned. The male unit... Rico spoke chripily in the local language which Pinkie was struggling to understand and so didn't even try. The female, Sylvaine. Bodyguard, her purpose. Pinkie was still unused to her cyberneticly enhanced limbs, but knew they packed a hell of a punch- I need to remember how much of one more often. Those arms were definetly augmented and not just for appearance. Pale skin- Ida and Pinkie had been around each other long enough to know they both had augmented skin, not a trick to miss. Pinkie resolved to wait and assess Sylvaine's particular abilites on the battlefield a mission. Pinkie glanced to Sosie and Darya, a frown forming in anticipation of their reactions. Mainly because Pinkie was unsure of what they would be*

There was work to do. She was busy. No matter how hard she tried, the rig, her womb, had resisted. Sosie felt like she was fighting herself, and it hurt. Her face was a mask of annoyance. And then.. Sosie had passed the freezer and stopped dead, staring at the backs of the two "people". Her breath caught in her throat, but only for a moment. A beautific look of calm crossed her face, and she walked next to Ida and the replicants to hear the small speech of welcome. She barely registered it.

The moment Ida was done talking, Sosie stalked across the room, over the couch, full of purpose, and gently shoved Rico back so she could stand in front of him, close, inches away. There was nothing hostile about her movements; Sosie, who normally seemed slightly distracted, was utterly, perfectly, calmly focused.

She pushed away the paperwork with a casual hand. "Rico? Yes, Rico is a good name. Rico, Let me move you at my will. I need to check something." Her voice sounded like it was coming from far away. Her delicate hands, which today were covered in a latticework of fine unhealed scars and burns, reached up and turned Rico's face left and right. "Euterpe, barely modified. Beautiful, just beautiful." The word, the name, was Greek.

Her hands ran possessively over the cybernetic arms, and pushed back the sleeves of Rico's fine suit of his left hand. Her own hands supported his arm like one would inspect a weapon. Sosie turned the wrist, eyes wide, her distant angelic smile widening. There was triumph on her face. "The fucking bastards, I knew it. You can't gild a lilly." She dragged her thumb triumphantly over the bones in his wrist, and slid her hand down into his. She looked into Rico's eyes for the first time, though her mind was still somewhere else. "Ida, I'd like to check his internals. It will only take a moment."

Ida was surprised briefly by just how strong Sosie's interest was. Wow, she's really forward to my prope- oh, I see, it's a sciencey thing. Eh, I'll never understand tech people.
"Sure, go ahead," she replied with a shrug. "Just be careful and bring him back in working order." She then turned slightly to speak to Rico. "Rico, go with Sosie and let her examine you for a little."
He nodded to his owner and smiled gently at Sosie. "I'm happy to be of help, Ms Terrahaute!"

Sosie scoffed a little. "Go? No. This will only take a moment." And then her hands were undoing Rico's suit as one would undress a doll--roughly, but with some enthusiasm. She was mercilessly fast, hands moving methodically.

When his chest and stomach--muscled, immaculate--was revealed, she stuck a hand into her beat up trouser pocket. Her hands held a piece of folded up soft plastic. She ripped off the top with a practised hand. Two long, full arm gloves unfolded, and slid them on. It was obvious now why Sosie didn't wear sleeves.

Ida looked on nonchalantly as Sosie worked away on Rico, whose cheerful manner was in no way affected by having his clothes ripped off by a woman with rubber gloves.

Darya, deciding that Sosie was busy and should probably not be disturbed, instead walked up to Sylviane. Outstretching her hand, she said "Hello, I'm Darya. Please to meet you."

Sylviane looked Darya up and down as if assessing her, then took her hand in a firm, stiff handshake. "Hello, Agent Demeter. It is interesting to meet you in person. If the information about you my mistress has provided me with is correct, your presence will make my job easier."

Sosie ran a gloved fingertip down Rico's ribcage, stopping at a point just like all the other points on his chest. With a small amount of effort, she dug her finger in a painlessly lifted a tiny flap of flesh. She pulled it back like a curtain, revealing a dark panel underneath. It was a plate of body armor, anchored over a modified ribcage. She lifted it with ease after loosening a few pins, and looked underneath.

The panel removed revealed a set of glistening organs, clean and bloodless. Her voice was loud, a sudden shout of screaming profanities in Mandarin that ended in "--HOLY FUCKING SHIT, GEMINI! Look at that!" She reached in, gently prodding with her hands, cupping Rico's stomach. "Digestion and egestion improvement, look at this organ complexity. Better than human. The strength of it. Every single one is reinforced." She was smiling, though she gritted her teeth, "You fucking bastards, you can improve some things. No wonder fucking scab-sucking cumrags you wanted exclusive rights to create."

Her voice was angry, her movements fluid and calm, her hands steady as possible. She reached in, deep, up the the elbow. Her hands moved through the body, organs slippery, lubricated, painless for poor Rico. "Oh wow, these lungs! Stripped down to elegance and sister-fucking functionality." Her eyes closed as her hand wiggled. "And the heart. So strong. Hard too. No longer completely organic, so hard, must be the new cybernetic heart those fuck maggots are rolling out this year." Her brows knitted as she searched. "No, it's gone. No way it could have made it."

Her eyes opened, and she withdrew her hand. She looked over the organs with pride, annoyance, awe. She replaced the plate. Her gloves were covered in a clear goo. She sighed, and the cloud of anger and focus seemed to dissipate. For the first time, she address Rico like a person. "Thank you, Rico."

Rico continued to smile serenely as he redressed. "You're welcome, Ms. Terrehaute."

Ida cocked her head in curiosity at Sosie's reactions to whatever gizmos in Rico's internals she found so interesting. "Do you have some history with Gemini, or is this just tech-geek stuff?"

Darya laughed nervously and scratched the back of her head with her free hand. "Yeah, well, given what happened recently, I hope you're more professional than me about it..." She looked around a bit, before pulling back her hand. "In case anyone wants any, I'm just about to make some lunch. Do you two prefer synthbeef or synthpork? I got both." she said, addressing the two replicants.

*Pinkie had watched Sosie work, with as close to fascination as she could muster. The mention of a no longer fully organic heart, alongside any improvments to cybernetics always interested her if only for their functionality. Wanted exclusive rights to create? So Gemini don't have that? or do? The body armour in particular piqued Pinkie's interest.*

Sosie peeled off the damp gloves, turning them inside out and balling them back in her pocket with unwarranted aggression. She turned around to Ida, her expression stormy. "History? I fucking designed the Muse. All nine of them."

With a huff, she flopped backwards over the back of the couch, curling up sideways next to Ida. "That's not completely true. I was only the head of Muse development at Krieger at the time they were released to the public. I designed most of the muscle-skeletal structure." Her jaw clenched, and she raised her voice and gestured rudely to the ceiling, "YOU BIOHUMPING SHITLICKERS COULDN'T DO THAT BETTER, COULD YOU?"

"Excuse me for a moment." said Darya, nodding to the others before heading towards the kitchen. The sound of the fridge opening and closing was heard, before she came back with a Smork smoothie which she handed over to Sosie before sitting down on a sofa herself, motioning for the others to do the same.

Sosie took the smoothie without looking and wrenched open the screw top, chugging half of it in one go. She frowned, took another gulp, and frowned harder, her lips pouting. She up-ended the bottle, finished it, and then threw the empty plastic container across the room. She looked down and mumbled as if it just occurred to her, "...I forgot to eat today. Ugh."

She uncurled from fetal position, sitting upright. Her eyes found Rico again, and watched him. There was gentleness there, but some anger, too. She sighed heavily again. "Fourty-three years. I worked for Krieger for fourty-underfuckingground-bunker-hiding-three years... ..No, I lie, I was only underground for thirty-fucking-three. Almost all of my life. I poured everything into my project. I excelled at cybernetics. I researched, designed, took apart corpses, BECAME A FUCKING DOCTOR, put corpses back together. All for fucking Muse. Everything that happened, after it all, and what it meant.."

The burns and scars on Sosie's hands were already healing. She ran her fingers over the marks. She mumbled, almost at the very edge of hearing. "Fucking Pygmalion, that lucky little sexist shit."

You were betrayed.

*This is why she is here, building from the ground up, instead of more than halfway up the ranks of Krieg. She knew his insides like the back for her hand.
Flick, twirl, twirl, Flick...*

"Those bastards," Ida growled. She reached out and put an arm around Sosie, trying to comfort her, followed by a moment of silence. "I'm not going to be stupid and say I know how you feel, because I haven't even been alive as long as you worked on that, but... I feel for you. If you ever decide to do something to get back at them, I'll give any help I can."

Sosie leaned into Ida, allowing herself to be comforted. The anger seemed to flow out of her. "The day they publicly announced the Muse as the new standard of social droid, unveiling them at EI3.. They closed my department. Fifty-eight of us. Krieger, the fucking German cunt, sold everything to Gemini for a tidy tidy sum. Originally contracted to make the biological internals, they now make the whole Muse line. Krieg cybernetics are used in the face, skin.. But Gemini actually fucking made the internals better." Her fists balled up, and then released. "Still my fuckings wrists though. Hmn."

"It was more than losing my job. Muse was my life. All I wanted was to make them. I knew that my research wasn't mine, but they didn't even ask. Didn't even consult. Back then, I would have moved to Gemini.. But Gemini didn't want me. Krieg saw no use for me. They took everything, and then put me on a cosmetics skin upgrade as a junior researcher... The pay was as good as it ever was, but the work was.. insulting.

"I know the location of the main Gemini research base, where the main stronghold for all their Muse information is. It took me five years to find out where it is. Five years of nail polish and mascara and finally living back in the Old City. The lab.. also has all the technology to make them.. But going there means being prepared for Gemini's full wrath." She gestured around. Five years was a long time to scheme. "It means being ready to take all the equipment I can. It means being ready to blow every fucking piece of faith damned research spire fucking high."

*Pinkie's face split into a grin [see left] and all pretense at fading evaporated.*

I think I can help in getting us in. And as for Gemini's wrath, most of what they make is suspectible to fire. And when its not fire, its a gas. Which is flammable. When we go in, can you mock us up as Replicants? I've seen one or two on security detail. We're after that equipment so what we need is time, and while we can buy some of that, we're going to need a very good actor to get the rest.

*Pinkie face returned to normal, with the addition of a frown*

Spire?

"Spires are higher than the sky." Sosie sighed, closing her eyes and continuing to use Ida as a pillow. She seemed thoughtful. "We do need careful planning, that's true. And since the replicants they use are combat droids, it would be hard for us to fake it. Especially since they have limited facial movement." Sosie opened one eye and looked at Pinkie. "For most of us, anyway.. No.."

"What I need is research, not equipment. I mean, I'd like to update my rig, since parts of it are ten years old now, and taking a new organ or limb would earn us a credit or two. No. What I need is information. I want to know the location of every plant, of every research lab. What they have upgraded. We need to plan. We need a good hacker, or three. Infiltration would be pretty impossible. The complex is just out of sight range from Eden spire, very heavily guarded. What we need to do is SAT blanket it, destroy the alarms, break in and take everything, blow it up and burn it down." She paused. "Preferably without killing the scientists. Some of them were lucky enough to be transferred, and we were.. friends."

Darya tapped her finger on her chin, leaning forwards. "As a long term goal, bringing down Gemini is pretty big, and we're not going to be able to do it any time soon..." She got up and walked over to Sosie and Ida and joined them on the sofa. "Still, for now, we'll just have to do what we usually do, break into their stuff and steal it." She tilted her head to the side, smiling slightly. "Though if I get any information on it I'll pass it onto you, kay?" she asked Sosie, resting her hand gently on the older agent's knee.

"I don't want to destroy Gemini.. I just want to cripple the Muse program and make them pay." She rested her hand companionably on Darya's. "Thanks, though. I've always had some help with this mission, but never.. anything I could rely on."

She looked up at Ida, giving her a momentary face full of admittedly soft and fluffy mohawk. "And of course, I'll help you with your replicants, repairing them. I don't hold any animosity toward them.. Not really. And especially as they learn, you'll need.. help. They need guidance to be.. people."

Ida smiled sheepishly. "Oh, thanks, that'll really be helpful. I guess the license exams and stuff hammered that into me, but it feels pretty weird to think about it actually happening and all."

She stared up at the ceiling for a moment, thoughtfully. "Why do all the most important things have to be so slow?" she wondered with a sigh. "We'll have to do a lot of planning, not just for the operation itself but how we'll get the help we need onboard... If we can find information big enough to the corps to justify doing this on the clock without CEO Lee killing us, then great, but this feels like under-the-radar stuff and I don't know who'd help us with that."

Sosie stiffened for a second against Ida, and pulled away a little bit, looking at Darya while she spoke. "Under the radar? At least five years of cutting edge replicant and cybernetics research will get us plenty of money. We've done about as much for... less, at least financially." She smiled a little, slowly taking her eyes off of Darya. "Lee didn't seem to mind then. Well, he minded the BOMB, but this time, we won't kill civilians, or sink a tower block."

"The money in Oracle is fine.. But everything until now.." She paused, not looking at anyone. "Everything until.. recently.. has been kind of like a game. Making things explode when I spent so long delicately putting things together..

"I joined Oracle so I could get what I wanted. Finally. Pure and simple. When this happens, and it will be, soon, I need to get enough information to make us shit tons of money. Sell everything except for the information we need to find even more Gemini labs. Rinse, repeat, until I get what I need. I have goals."

She smiled at Ida, her eyes shiny with amusement. "We can bring Keith. And you can fight combat replicants!"