Week 76: Smeaking in Seoul

"Hmm, that is nice. I guess if you all have that much money then why not?" she replied, shuffling around in her seat. "So what do you do with your time if they won't put up with Una?" Dani asked as she hefted her thrower's case up onto her lap and scanned her chip to start unlocking it. "Much go on around here?"

Hugo smiled a little sadly at that. "Una spends a lot of time resting, but there is generally a mission once a week. Um.. I am opening some businesses, a close combat dojo and a gun.. uh.. playscape, might be the best way to put it. I travel a lot, I just got back form Eden spire,  mostly I meet with people and look up stuff to get ready for missions and things. I think.. What goes on around here is what you put effort into, er, going.. on.. around with." Hugo frowned as the sentence utterly failed to cohesively form. "Not many shooting ranges for Heavies, but that should be fixed soon. And you'll have enough money to travel where ever you want, soon."

Hugo looked Dani up and down, his eyes momentarily resting on what little was visible of her tattoos. Then he focused on her caustic thrower. It was just as important as her tattoos, really. "Why, what do you you like to do?"

"Apart from guns? I love weltball, seen every game since I was tiny. Thought about playing, but the pro rules banning guns just doesn't feel right. Other stuff... I read? Now I'm out of Fed territory I'll be able to get some good TV for a change, so there's that... And, y'know, going out and all." With a click, she opened her weapon case, revealing the caustic thrower. It looked very bulky, with a no-nonsense industrial design that made it seem larger than it was. It had a metallic blue finish which was slightly burnt away around the nozzle, and engraved into the handle was the name yinglong in traditional Chinese characters.

Dani took it gently out of the case, slipping the empty acid backpack on and letting the gun hang from the shoulder strap she'd added. "That's better," she sighed comfortably as she set the case down next to her new galvanic cannon. "She's a beauty, right? I have no idea why they don't make a version for just combat use, but that would take away part of what makes her so special. It's like... hidden potential. So many caustic throwers like her just get used for stripping stuff, but they can be so much more."

Hugo nodded sympathically. "Yeah, I played with some local teams after I left AMS, but I had to leave Una behind when I went on the field. Wasn't worth it after a while, even if the pay was okay..." He trailed off as he spoke. However much Dani had thought Hugo wanted to touch her, his desire to at least hold her caustic thrower was twice that, three times. "Oh, she's lovely. Lovely. I always wondered why they allowed flame throwers but not caustic throwers. Surely they make the same amount of mess for the UIG." He shook his head, putting his hand on the table to not reach out and touch another nuke's gun without permission. At that point, their drinks arrived, and Hugo jumped on his as if he was dying of thirst. It was amber colored and bubbling, but it didn't smell like beer, and there was ice in it. He barely looked at it as he took a sip, eyes still on Dani and her gun. "How acidic is the spray you use? And how acidic can it take?"

"It's a pretty strong talanic acid compound, it takes a lot to neutralise it," replied Dani*, who grabbed her beer and took a slow gulp before continuing. "Officially this is as strong as she's designed for, but now that I have the money I'll probably get another to test out harsher acids with. Wouldn't want to ruin her with the wrong food, after all," she said as she pressed her face against the gun affectionately. "So... Do you want to hold her?" she asked, holding the gun in front of him teasingly with a smile. "I might let you if you ask nicely."



*who might have gone into more detail if not for the fact that anything I wrote would be horrible bad science

Hugo only understood the very basics of science, but heavy weapons, well, they made sense. And Dani nuzzling it, well, that was just charming. His hands immediately raised to take the gun."Oh yes, yes please. I would love to hold her." He wasn't asking any more nicely than normal, but the affection for Dani's gun was already plain on his face with a slight, needy smile. "It's just a pity we can't fire her."

"Damn right it is," she said, slipping the strap off her shoulder and passing the gun to Hugo, leaning in towards him since it was still connected to her by a hose. Unsuprisingly, it was lighter than most heavy weapons, but still had a satisfying heft to it. "They do say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Not that that really fits... but you get what I'm saying, yeah? The waiting makes it sweeter to shoot."

"I dunno, I just feel bad when Una has to wait. She doesn't get to have any fun." Hugo took the gun reverently and examined it, admiring its weight. Functional, yes, but beautiful in its single-mindedness. And light, so light. He grinned at Dani. "If I don't get to shoot in too long I get all itchy. I guess hand-to-hand can help, but... ..Well, it's not even the shooting, it's the.. the giving in completely and letting go of everything else really." He looked at the characters on the handle, running his fingers over them. "I guess tired of holding back. It's harder than anything else I do. Wow. You can tell she's seen some things, huh?"
He didn't even bother to look at Dani, now, turning over the nozzles to inspect the spray elements.

Dani nodded as she took the opportunity to finish her drink. "Yeah. I'd... rather not talk about them with other people around, but we've been through a lot. And with her having a 'legitimate' use, it was easy to just head down to wherever we were working and let some steam off. I get the whole 'not holding back' thing, but to me it's more like just... screaming at the world, taking everything you have and putting it out there. Does that make sense? I dunno. But that's kind of how it is, I suppose, and..." She trailed off, losing track of her point. Instead, she watched quietly as Hugo examined her thrower, fascinated to see how another nuke approached the weapon she knew so well.

"Putting everything when you're fighting, or when you're not?" Hugo asked for clarification, voice gentle as he held the caustic thrower... And she could tell he was being tender in reverence to the gun. He held it and aimed for a moment, moving his wrist to get a feel for how it would be to wear. "Oh, not good, it's been along time since I used a gun without it being plugged in to my eye. Er, so to speak. Heh. Getting out of practice." Still, it was easy to see he was comfortable with it, the heavy weapon familiar in his hands. "It's like nothing nothing at all, really, and yet it'd destroy a Mag Tank. Almost like magic." He looked adjusted his grip and looked at it once more, not yet ready to hand it back.

"When I fight," Dani clarified, moving to stand right behind Hugo in reaction to the thrower's hose being pulled taut. "Or whenever I shoot, really. Magic is a good word for it," she said as she wrapped an arm around Hugo and reached over his shoulder for her gun with the other. "And a magician is nothing without her tricks, so can I have mine back? There'll be plenty of time to play with her later, when I can load her for you."

"Oh, uh, er, yeah, sorry." Hugo turned around to look at Dani--who was suddenly much closer--and gently handed back the caustic thrower. She was close. He couldn't help but smile a little wider. For someone who had a girlfriend, he was certainly happy to have her standing so close to him. "Does she have a name?" His face was still only a handful of inches away from hers, and he was still grinning... And with him sitting down, he wouldn't need to stand on tip-toes, at least.

And then their food arrived, on agent sized plates, with utensils to share.

"Magic?" Came a voice from nowhere, with North African accent and the slightly odd pronunciation of someone who only knew the word in isolation. "That is my area of expertise."

Then, like a photograph developing at high speed, Khalid appeared, a tall, thin Arabic man, one long-fingered hand pulling the brim of his hat down, either in deference or to cover his eyes. He wore a suit, sharp yet slightly faded, one leg crossed behind the other in a strange sort of bow.

"I do hope I'm not interrupting or jumping to the wrong conclusion, but may I presume that you are fellow agents of Oracle?" he asked, his pronunciation notable better now he was speaking Mandarin. "Khalid Nader, at your service."

"Sort of. I call her yinglong, it's a-" Before she could explain any further, she was interrupted by a man appearing out of nowhere. She immediately went from smiling to grumpy as she turned to face the newcomer, glaring up at him and poking him in the chest. "Yeah, you're interrupting. What do you want, bro? Have you been stalking me or something?"

Hugo turned in his chair to face the new guy, but said nothing. Instead he moved an arm behind Dani in a semi-protective kind of way, taking the new guy in. The suit, the hat, the weird little bow... His brow furrowed. He looked so familiar in a way that he couldn't place. Instead he opted for casually putting his other hand on Una and undoing some of the clasps that held her in place at his hip.

"Another goddamn one? New hires fallin' outta trees today, ain't they, amigo?" Stephen declared, from behind Khalid. He had evidently been walking up to Hugo and Dani's table when his path was suddenly obstructed by the appearance of the new agent. "Jus' hold on now, gotta make a li'l change here..."

He spun about in place and opened a briefcase he had been carrying by his side, broad shoulders obscuring the contents from the rest of the group, then balanced it in one hand as he pulled a little tube from his back pocket and waved it over the briefcase mysteriously. After a couple of seconds he snapped the briefcase closed and turned around again, holding it out to the others with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Alright! Y'all ready for a surprise? Don't go spoilin' it now, amigo."

"My apologies then, although it appears that it would have happened anyway." Said Khalid to Dani, although his tone made it difficult to tell if he was sincere. "I merely happened to arrive here after you two announced your intentions on the public channel...although it did take me some time to translate from English."

He moved aside as Stephen joined the group, still standing oddly, but seemed content to wait and see what the other agent was excited about.

"Oh yeah? Well how about you don't follow us around invisible next time, huh? Fuckin' creep..." She backed off, turning to Stephen and looking at the briefcase curiously. "I'm up for a surprise! So long as it's not another invisible freak."

Hugo gave Khalid a sort of distant smile, vaguely apologetic, and moved his hand off his gun. "Yeah, you're not gonna wanna sneak up on us, now. There was even a rumor we might get jumped by ninjas." He was a bit less smiley than normal though; there was a nice little moment there where Dani was looking a little like she would kiss him, or maybe playfully punch him, and either way, this new guy had ruined it. Oh well. He took his arm back from around Dani and grinned weakly at her. Privately, he continued, "We'll need to do this again with less people around, but Stephen's a good guy."

He turned to Stephen and was back to his usual, charming, happy self. "C'mon, don't leave 'em in suspense, compadre."

With a dramatic flourish, Stephen released the catches on the briefcase lid and it popped open with a soft click to reveal...

"Cake!" Stephen declared, still supporting the briefcase with one hand as he gestured at it with the other. He tilted it slightly to enable those seated to see the contents better. Whatever flavour it was, the top was iced over and decorated with a simple message: "Welcome to Oracle, Dani!" Underneath this was a much smaller message in a different colour, squeezed into the last available space: "Also, Kaleed."

"Just so happened to have this one on the go when you declared yourself, so I figured why not make it a welcome cake?" he chuckled. "And y'all should count yourself lucky, last time I delivered a cake to someone it involved cyberframes and explodin' cars."

"Ooh!" Cake wasn't exactly a galvanic cannon, but Dani was not the type to object to people giving her things to say hello. "For all the loyalty the Ai-Jinn get, I never saw them givin' anyone a welcome cake. You guys really know how to make a new agent feel appreciated, you know that?" As she leant back to let Khalid see, she muttered privately to Hugo through her smeaker. "Yeah, soon."

"So, Steve? Stevie? Stephen? What kind of cake is it?"

"Just a plain ol' sponge cake, ain't nothin' special," Stephen replied. "And if it's all the same with you, y'all can just call me Stephen. 'Steve' and 'Stevie' remind me of my parents." He made to set the briefcase down on the table, but paused. "... these fellas don't got a problem with bringin' food from outside in, right?"

"Yeah, I don't think they'll have a problem with it," ventured Hugo, trying to be inclusive to the potential stalker. The man hadn't used Oracle smeaker channels or anything, so he could be an enemy agent... All the better to try to figure him out. "Let's got a bigger table, though, it's not fair to be sitting at the bar, really, taking up a lot of space."

Hugo grabbed Dani's new galvanic cannon and gestured to one of the larger tables a few feet away. "Set it down there."

Dani grabbed her caustic thrower's case, balancing her plate on top of it, and carried it over to the table. "So what d'you do when you're not baking cakes, Stephen?" she asked, wolfing down a mouthful of noodles. "They're nice and all, but it's not like mission officers worry about not having a baker on the team."

Stephen stood towering above Dani, more than six feet tall with an obvious cybernetic arm and the bulk of augmented muscles rippling under his visible natural skin. He set down the briefcase and cake before interlocking his fingers and stretching his arms out, cracking the knuckles in his remaining original hand. "What, can't ya tell by lookin'?" he asked, with an amused smile. "It's obvious, ain't it amigo?" he went on, looking over his shoulder at Hugo before turn back to look down at Dani. "My speciality..." he leaned over, attempting to loom ominously but only really succeeding in looking like he was slightly off-balance and possibly a tad inebriated [fail Pres/Att by 7], "is in precision shooting at short to extreme ranges, with a subspeciality in kneecaps. Which is to say, I snipe."

He tilted back in the opposite direction and landed in a chair. "So what do you do, miss?"