Week 76: Smeaking in Seoul

"Better make sure this frequency works," said a female voice with a strong WF territory accent. "Anyone hear me? Hey!"

"..wnnffg?" Hugo woke up with a snort, looking around his room before he realized the strange new voice was in his head. "...This's a private channel. An' why'd you go smeakerin' to everyone so early in the mornin'?"

The massive agent put his head under his pillow to muffle the sound coming from inside his head, blocking out the sunlight that was streaming into his window.

"'snot that early," she replied, looking down at her watch to check. "You should be up by now, try working nights more. Anyway, I know this is a private channel. That's the point, yeah? I'm a new hire, wanted to make sure you could hear me sooner than later. Name's Dani, I'm in heavy weapons."

Hugo went from hiding his head under the pillow to sitting upright, a grin spreading on his face. His enhanced brain, with its internal computer and quickened reflexes, put together the facts. Fed Accent. New Hire. Heavy. Heavy heavy weapons. "No shit! Me too! What's your gun of choice?" He reached out a hand to stroke Una, and then relaxed back into the covers. Her name, this new woman's existence, how she got the smeaker channel, all took a back seat to the important questions. Still... "I'm Hugo, and a Fed too. When'd you join us?"

Dani felt offended at the assumption she'd worked for the WF (regardless of whether Hugo was actually making that assumption), which was probably why her midwestern accent started drifting towards "mafia stereotype". More importantly though, she had someone to talk to about what really mattered. "Just the last couple days, finally had the chance to tell the Ai-Jinn to fuck off. Right now I'm really into the Tracer Li CT05, it's a caustic thrower. Bit of a licensing pain, but damn does it get results. Sprays all over, and as soon as it hits it gets sizzlin' away... For some reason, nobody ever seems to carry alkili to stop the burning, but that's not my problem. What about you?"

"Oooooh, aaaacid." There was something slightly lustful in Hugo's voice that carried even over smeaker. Despite the distance and never having even seen of this new person, or of hearing about her until a handful of moments ago, Hugo found himself feeling dumb and happy just to hear about her... And her gun. "I know I never carry anything that could get rid of acid.. ...I just got a galvanic cannon, and some people have grounding. But.. we work around it." He was still proud of Una, and that was audible. "Quiet weapons work better for us, but a little bit of sizzling never hurt anyone.. ..I mean, you know, hurt them finding out about us, not.. them. They get hurt. Heh." Aaaaaand he was dumb again.

"Oh, galvanic? Nice, I always wanted to try one of those but they're way too expensive to buy one just to play with. I mean, they do so much, it sounds amazing. You think you could show me sometime? In downtime, I mean." In her office, Dani was grinning like an idiot at the thought. She'd never really had the chance to show off and make a big deal out of nuke stuff before - apparently it was "bad for business" if she was that blatant about using company equipment to fuck people up - but now that was all different. "Yeah, I love my own gear, wouldn't change it for the world, but I wanna see a galvanic cannon in action with my own eyes."

Hugo jumped at the change to talk about Una, excitement and pride growing in his voice. "Oh, she's great, but she isn't some little paltry Jupiter range weakling. I never would have been able to afford her, either, but she was prototype model I tested. They said she caused unacceptable levels of collateral damage and were going to destroy her when they stopped developing the line, so we left. But the damage output on her model is way higher, more efficient capacitors... You'll love her, I promise." Hugo was practically gushing at this point. "We can hang out at any point. I got some free time this week... well, most of my time is free time, really." A thought occurred to him, delayed. "We can get everyone else too. ...I'm sure some of them are listening."

"I'd love to, but I'm afraid I'm really busy with personal matters," Shinobu chimed in. If you were to spy on his bedroom at that moment, you might wonder whether levelling up 3 MMO characters at once really counted as 'personal matters', but it gave him a better excuse than being uncomfortable when Hugo got gushing about how he loved his gun like it were a person.

"Oh er, well.. Is anyone else around? We could meet at the Chambered Round in an hour, if you want." His voice was a little awkward but warm, and he began to get out of bed. Something nice? Yes, he should look good. "I can show you around, maybe? Han, you listening? Is Fenrir back yet? Well, they can, they can meet us there. Where are you?"

He began to look through his closet, shaking his head at various shirts. None of this was any good.

"Oh, I'm at HQ," Dani replied, just ignoring the colleague who was too busy to have fun. She stood up from her desk and stretched, rummaging a bit through her pile of clothes before deciding that her Murder 21 jersey was good enough to go out in and grabbing a bottle of water. "Where's the Chambered Round, then?"

"Is your phone hooked in to your smeaker channel? I can send you a map from HQ.. ..No, I could just pick you up, if you want? It's not even a five minute drive from HQ, the way I drive." He sounded amused even as his physical actions were more frustrated. No no, none of this would do. Maybe something he brought from Eden Spire? He turned to his Muletech, and began looking for the Una-restraints to match his new clothes.

"Sure, sounds good to me. See you in... however long it takes you to drive here?" That was a point, Dani realised as she made sure her caustic thrower was sealed in its case properly - she should really get licensed to drive once she got paid...

"Uuuh.." Hugo looked at his exhausted face in the mirror, holding up a shirt to his body. His hair, was, as always, perfect... But he hadn't showered since the parties in Eden Spire, and clothes, and.. and.. "Give me like.. half an hour. Maybe a little more. I.. I did just wake up, after all. He sounded embarrassed, and grabbed an armload of clothes as he walked into the toilet. He could decide on something there.

"Huh, okay." Dani shrugged to nobody and sat back down at her desk to browse shopping websites and stare at guns she couldn't afford until Hugo showed up.

Slightly less than half an hour later, Hugo pulled up in his brand new and astoundingly beautiful blood red Lombrati 520 VU. It was a beautiful machine and he parked it happily right out front. "I'm here.. You still inside looking at your welcome pack?" There was a fondness and amusement in his voice as he mentioned that; the memory of El Chulo giving him his was seared into his mind. The look on picara's face... He snickered, opening the door to his car and stepping out, leaning on the side of it in a way that made him look like a model. (Pass pres+lg by 7.)

Dani jerked up from her spreadsheets, suddenly pulled out of the reverie of calculating what guns to buy now against how much money she should invest for more guns in future. "Yeah, it arrived just after we stopped talking. If only every dead rich guy was that generous, eh? 'll be right there." She grabbed the large storage case containing her caustic thrower, hefting it up with both hands, and headed to the front of the building.

The sight of Hugo dressed as well as he was leaning against such a flashy car was not what Dani had expected, she had to admit. She knew the pay was going to be good and all but seeing the results of it was another thing, and she'd just kind of assumed he wasn't the type to spend lots of money on things like that. And, she had to admit to herself, the look certainly suited him. "Hi, what's up?" she asked, but only after a pause that made her thoughts pretty obvious while she sized up Hugo. (Failed Pres+L&A by 6)

"El Jefe gave me some when I was new. It's kind of a tradition. See you in a bit." Hugo relaxed until the doors opened, and the new agent appeared.

"Oh." Hugo took a second to take in Dani, but his response was instant and unmasked. He took a step forward, grinning and extending his hand. "Murder 21, huh? Their win against Full Auto two years ago, man, I lost a hundred credits and Santos was bragging about it for weeks. When an AMS scientist bests against his own team... I should have known better." Hugo laughed again. She was shorter than your average nuke, maybe.. a little stocky instead of strong, but none of that had any real effect on Hugo or his attitude. Another Oracle nuke!.. Or at least another heavy. Absentmindedly, his other hand drifted to Una who was holstered to his side.

"Heh, yeah. That was a hell of a bloodbath, left us guessin' it was a fix," Dani replied, about to launch into a longer spiel about Full Auto's sudden decline in the '47/'48 season before realising that Hugo probably wasn't that interested. It was then that the weapon at Hugo's side caught her eye, and her face lit up. Now this was what made him really catch her eye. "Ooh! Is that her? Sweet!" Dani exclaimed. "So this is the kind of thing they don't sell, huh? Can I.... have a closer look?" she asked, looking up at Hugo hopefully.

Hugo, well-dressed and lovely, seemed reasonably interested in discussing weltball, but all thoughts were forgotten when Dani asked about Una. "Of course! Though uh.. don't fire her out here, you'll hurt the lawn. The CEO doesn't like that, I hear." In a few seconds, Una was out of her many restrains and in Hugo's hands, her shell hard and iridescent like an oil-slicked black pearl. She had an underslung heavy crossbow, a scope, a bayonet attachment, and a series of expensive upgrades that made her worth as much as Hugo's car. He handed her over to Dani without a second thought, moving the massive gun as easily as if she was made of paper.

If one squinted, they may just have been able to make out a shimmer just outside the Oracle gate. It was difficult to make out, but it was there.

Khalid, having returned from an exploration of the nearby area, took this time to observe his new fellow operatives without them noticing him. He rarely worked with heavy weapons users, due to both the budget of Comoros agents and the nature of his work. He frowned as they continued to talk, and wondered if choosing to learn Mandarin instead of English was a mistake.

"Ye-ugh," Dani grunted as she took the massive gun, further weighed down by all the upgrades attached to it. It didn't take that much effort to lift it, but holding it to actually use would be another task altogether. "Wow," she mumbled in wonder as she examined Una. "So she causes 'unacceptable' collateral damage, you say? Kickass!" She hefted Una up into firing position for a moment before having to learn the cannon back down against the ground. "What kind of range does she get?"

Seeing Una touch the ground, Hugo moved behind Dani and reached around her to help support his massive girlfriend. His body pressed gently into the other agent. He was a big man, with a lot of muscles, and he was being so gentle with his gun. He smelled nice, too. Clean. "Forty meters? She can go farther if you push her, a lot farther, but you can lose power or hurt people. Ideally it's a little less, and super ideally, ha, well, you want to be in close range for her. Because of her.. collateral damage." Dani couldn't see his face, but he sounded happy, and smug. "We can fire her at the Chambered Round, in a bit, but you're gonna want me to uh.. support you, unless that jersey is grounded."

Dani grinned at the thought of having a chance to try out Una. Well, certain other things were helping too. "Yeah. No. I mean, I'm not grounded, so... yeah. Sounds great." Inwardly she cursed, all too familiar with tripping over her words like this. At least this time she wasn't threatening to kill someone, but it was awkward all the same. "If you want to try my caustic thrower, you can? I mean, now's not a good time 'cus you have to be in an industrial zone to be legal and, but, yeah."

"An industrial zone, eh? I know just the place. Oh, there's a point? Compadre, you wanna get a drink?" Hugo smeakered the last bit to Stephen, grinning down at Dani. "No use going now, but Stephen, you'll meet him, he's great, he has an industrial.. estate I guess? On the outside of Seoul. Just for practicing in, and he'll gonna build.. something, anyway, we could do whatever we wanted there." He looked around, but failed to see anyone else. "...You wanna give Una back?" He chuckled a little at that last bit, his massive body still crouching a little to help Dani support his gun.