Week 9: Getting Ready to Club

The kitchen table was set up with the clean elegance of a surgery. Ribbons and ties lay in discreet piles next to brushes, poofs, cleansers, fifteen different types of make-up in a dozen shades, and two boxes. One was white and plastic, and one was a dark synthwood.

Sosie wore nothing but a beat-up Smork tank top and underwear. There was a look of enjoyable concentration on her face. She looked from Pinkie's closed door to Ida, only a slight sadistic smile on her face. She held a small box of eyeliners, and she was arranging them on the table by brand and shade. "Which one is she trying on now, Ida? I know you guys bought a few. I think I have enough variation that will compliment most colors she could wear and her natural warm tones."

Pinkie didn't seem shy at all, but by insisting that she change in her windowless room, there was some small assurance that the oft invisible solider wouldn't try to run. They'd notice the door opening up. Sosie cleared her throat and raised her voice, sweet and affectionate. "How's it going in there?"

*Disaster didn't quite do what energed from that door justice. Pinkie's custom armour and Mule Tech clearly displayed that she did have a sense of style and a twisted, biting sense of humour, but this was quite clearly beyond her. Her shirt and skirt clashed horribly, the accessory... bangly things around her wrist were all wrong and the attempt at make up on her face, looked as though they had been applied whilst driving an articulated lorry. The entire thing would have been hilarious were it not for the fact that Pinkie was holding a single trailing ballon in one hand, clutching it very much as a small child would. She probably thought it was the kinda thing you take to a club*

I think I probably could use your help.

*Flick, twirl, Flick, twitch, twirl*

"...Oh, oh sweet archons." Sosie brought her hand to her mouth, and eyes widened. She looked to Ida. There was no way the stylish EI agent had a hand in that. It clashed with itself so hard it would have offended even the blind. "Polka dot and stripes AND bright floral print and yellow and purple ombre and the mule-tech and..." Sosie stopped. This wouldn't help. She took a chair and faced it toward the kitchen. "Pinkie, sweetie, sit down here. Um.. Bell, search the WDN for pictures of dancing clubs. Display them on the holowall."

She walked over and took the balloon from Pinkie's hand, gently. She took a step back and let it go and float into the rafters. Where the hell had she even gotten it?

Still dressed in her usual suit, Ida looked over Pinkie with the sort of pained compassion one might show to a dying animal that's just been run over by a truck (if animals still lived in places where trucks were allowed, of course). "I... thought I'd see if she could handle herself at all first. To see if she managed to make anything work, you know? I wasn't expecting much, but..." She trailed off without finishing her thought - she didn't really need to given the circumstances.

Ida turned to the several bags filled with clothes lined up by the table and began rummaging through. "The purple actually sort of almost worked with your hair... if I squinted really hard... so if we start from there and then... hmm..." She walked over to Pinkie. "Stand up. Hmm... with those legs and your posture... perhaps... I think the blue. Yes, that should work. Sit down again and watch the screen, Pinkie." Ida gently pushed Pinkie back into the seat. She held onto Pinkie's left arm and removed all the accessories, examining the arm from different angles while taking out four different blue shirts from the bags with an apparent focus on the sleeves.

*Apparently being puppeted around was standard for these situations so Pinkie let it pass without comment or expression. Her instinct was to just blank everything and zone out until this... process was complete, but it seemed she had to absorb some sort of archetypal behaviour before this disguise would work and so paid rapt attention to the holoscreens.

Pinkie reckoned she could just about manage the wild movements the participants seemed eager to make but even with the music in the background their motivation for doing so was entirely lost on her. After about a minute something in Pinkie's brain clicked that this was meant to be dancing. She had seen one kind of dancing before and this was not it. This wasn't even a shadow of it. Inspite of never having cared for culture Pinkie still found the tortured movements of the participants painful to watch in comparison.

She was aware of, and percieved the changes Ida was making to her appreral but failed to divine the purpose behind the many comparisons and what Ida was saying about complimenting and trade offs. Content that Ida knew what she was doing Pinkie returned her attention to the display screens.

After a further five minutes Pinkie was certain that she could perform these behaviours and had memorised enough of a dance 'routine' to perform it but.... she saw absolutely no reason for why anyone would do these things. And realised that she could not pull a convincing impression, of the people in these pictures and videos, off. Still she had watched a master at work and must have learnt something. Easy, if I can't convincingly pretend to be there for the nightlife then make it into a transparent cover- my actual reason for being there is mine to keep and I won't need to act the attitude I will give someone for trying to find it out.

To the outside world there was suddenly a one sided grin on Pinkie's face for no readily discernable reason. Then it faded in the wake of a frown forming, Then how will I gather any useful intelligence? My ears are good but if that music is loud then I'll get nothing that way... Not sure I could place tracer tags on them without them noticing. No wolves, no scent. What to do, what to do? Pinkie glanced at each of her housemates, they must have plans but there was no guarantee they would work for her... and the E.I. agents would probably recognise her if she tried to talk to them. Unless she swiped a pdf she was unlikely to get anything hackable. Killing them was most likely off the cards. Hell may as well ask*

This will get us in, I understand that. How are we then intending to acquire incriminating or valuable information?

Sosie clucked to Ida, "We need to look rich. EI level rich. Do you have a dress? ..A long one, for Pinkie. The nicer the better." As Ida compared colors and sleeves, Sosie gingerly removed the bangles from Pinkie's wrists. She smiled a little without malice as Pinkie's eyes stared at the screen, and worked on cleaning off the uneven and heavily applied make-up with deft movements. She mumbled something like, "And no Mule-tech."

After a few minutes, Pinkie asked what was a good question. She shrugged with a shoulder. "We go in and ask around. You can go see if you can walk around them and pick up any clues. Maybe we can steal something. Maybe we'll be able to find a better entrance. This is re-con. Maybe we can find out if they use any.. working girls or boys we can find. We won't know until we get in." She flicked her eyes over to Pinkie's, and grinned a little more. "And we can't go in until you're ready."

Pinkie's face was clean and free of any make-up OR dirt, and she only had to deal with several alcoholic and feminine poofs and balls of synthetic cottony stuff rubbed across her face. "Ida, I think I cleaned off the mes--mostly everything I need to. You found something for her to wear? In blue? I have LOTS of blue." Sosie smiled again. "My dress is blue too."

"Yeah, we got just the thing." Ida reached into one of the bags and pulled out a lengthy pale blue dress with billowing sleeves, embroidered with faint patterns, so fine and complex only a machine could have made them, in a slightly darker blue. She held it up next to Pinkie, and nodded. "This should look perfect. Worth every credit. Not the best for dancing in, but it'll give you an extra excuse for not being very good at it. Unless you've got some trick up your sleeve I'm not aware of, that is... Maybe we should have looked into getting you a process chip." Ida shrugged. "But where would the fun be in that, eh?"

(OOC: Unless GM Veto-powers deny my purchase, Pinkie's new dress is condition 14, meaning it crits on doubles up to 4/4 any time it's relevant, which I guess would be Looking Good rolls.)

(( OOC: BEN! O.o That is incredible! And dear god how much did that cost you!? ~I have a 1 in looking good, I suceed on a 9 or lower, I don't deserve that! ~Also the internet says I can't distinguish shades of blue very well/at all, so there is that too! ))

... Huh.
I can um, run well?

*Pinkie very carefully looked Ida in the eye*

Thank you.

*It seemed that Ida had pulled out all the stops, Pinkie considered that was probably because she needed it. Still Pinkie was appreciative.*

Pinkie wrote:(( OOC: BEN! O.o That is incredible! And dear god how much did that cost you!? ~I have a 1 in looking good, I suceed on a 9 or lower, I don't deserve that! ~Also the internet says I can't distinguish shades of blue very well/at all, so there is that too! ))

((OOC: It was 15k credits, which didn't feel too crazy after spending much more on shields last week. It seemed about the right amount to be spending, IC and OOC. Oracle money really does disconnect you from the costs of stuff in this game.))

(( OOC: Maybe for those of us who have been on excursions lately. 15k would all but clear me out
I mean well, I have bought so many guns... but still I'm allowed to be bitter (?) ))

Sosie made a soft appreciative 'oo!' noise. She reached out with a hand to touch the soft fabric. "Very nice. With those kind of sleeves it'll help hide your augments to the untrained eye... Which means you might want to show your arms if anyone threatens you." Sosie had never really touched Pinkie before, and she took a moment to examine pinkie's forearm and hold it. "A trained eye can see your guns, by the lines visible here and here." Warm fingers pointed out slight bulges that were visible under the skin. Pinkie was cute enough, but she looked very much like an agent. Sosie smiled a little and took the dress in her hands, and gestured happily to Pinkie's room.

"So.. Go put it on. Take everything else off." Sosie took a second to consider Pinkie's reactions. "Not your undergarments. You can keep those on in this dress." She thrust the dress into Pinkie's arms, and gently pushed her into her room.

Guns, plural?

*Having been pushed slightly into the room (shifting her weight so Sosie could actually push her) Pinkie slipped out of her clothes, sporting her black underwear. She didn't seem to mind the other agents presence/the open door and slipped into the, it had to be said, incredible dress. She shifted slightly and then tested the dress flexibility, it was not as constricting as Ida had suggested and Pinkie soon found how to move in it. Pinkie then recited the 'dance' she had learnt.

To both of the other agents and her pack, Pinkie was for some unkowable reason, as soon as she had put on her dress dancing the Maccarana.*

Sosie grinned by the door, watching with a thoughtful detached air, until Pinkie started dancing to the Macarena. She bit her lip moved forward, into the room. "No, no, no old classic folk dances. Um.. Just.. Just come back. We have hair and make up to do."

Urging Pinkie back to the chair, Sosie picked up an apron that lay next to the meticulous piles of ribbons and ties and brushes. It even smelled freshly laundered, but the white surface was marred by several brown, green, yellow, and faded bloody stains. She stuck a handful of assorted clips to the pockets, and began by picking up a large brush. "Hair, then make up. C'mon, sit down."

As Pinkie walked to the chair, Sosie sighed a little. "You really do look lovely. Ida, you did a wonderful job. And Pinkie, when was the last time you cut your hair?"

*Pinkie thought for a moment*

When I joined Gemini I think.

*It seemed this particular ritual behaviour was far from over and Pinkie could not help but consider that her housemates appeared to be putting in much more time into preperation for this than they had into most missions she had been on with them.*

Sosie gently touched Pinkie's hair, picking it up and dropping it. Knots. So many knots.. but, workable. The last six or so inches were nothing but dead ends and tangles. "And when was that, Pinkie? Five years ago?"

Taking the brush in one hand and holding the hair in the other, Sosie gently undid the tangles in Pinkie's hair. Pinkie couldn't feel pain, sure, but habit took over and the mother-to-be was careful not to pull too hard. It took a moment or two to undo the nests of knots, but they came undone easy enough. The main problem was the hair tangled around the hideous gold band that Sosie knew did something, somehow to something psychic powers. She unwound a few locks from the spikey, uneven protrusions, and sighed, making exhausted and bemused eye contact with Ida. "Can I take this off? Also, pick one of these shades of blue." The ersatz hair stylist gestured to some synthetic hair ranging from shades of pale cornflower to deep indigo. Pinkie was being asked to make a choice.

*Pinkie glanced up, confirming what Sosie meant*

Not unless its absolutely necessary.

*She looked down at the array of hair colours? They're going to give me different coloured hair? Pinkie focused on the different shades and allowed her anascan upgrades to compensate for her natural inability to distinguish shades of blue well, and selected one that stood out particularly afterwards. It was indigio apparently.*

This one.

Sosie took a few stripes of a deep indigo, and then selected to more shades; one the shade of the darker patterns of her dress, and medium blue in between the two. Pinkie could feel a moment of pressure as the cyberneticist gently pressed the hair into her head, where it latched on painlessly as if it were her own. She layered the blue among the pink, giving Pinkie's hair more volume, gloss, and made it made her fine new outfit.

Sosie brushed the hair again, and then removed a comb from her pocket. With all the delicacy of a surgeon--which she was--she began to section and clip parts of the pink hair into purposeful bunches. Without removing the weird gold crown.. thing, Sosie began to braid Pinkie's old and new hair into a band around her head, disguising the psychic booster as best she could, pulling blue and pink hair over her face as a fringe to hide the parts that touched her forehead. Remaining locks were curled, pressed, tweaked, creating an updo that was out of the way, a halo of soft colors and indigo that looked.. nothing like Pinkie. She was actually.. very fast at it.

A mirror appeared in front of Pinkie, offered handle first. "So you can see. I'll hold up one in the back so you can see that." Sosie held an angled mirror, showing Pinkie how the braids in the back mixed her new and old hair, and tucked away the frizzled edges of her burned out ends. "Later, we'll.. cut it, if you want. It'll be easier to take care of."

*Pinkie took the mirror from Sosie and focused on... the reflection. Someone looked back at her with Pink and Blue hair. There was a hint of a fine blue dress around her neck. Whoever was looking back at her... Pinkie knew she wouldn't do her justice. Pinkie didn't even know where she would fit in, perhaps a spire city? This mask barely acknowledged the extent to which Pinkie had gone to.... survive.*

Pink and blue?

*Sosie had noticed Pinkie flinch at one point while she was attaching hair and moving Pinkie's own*

"So it matches the dress. And makes you look a little less like yourself. Camouflage, remember?" Sosie's face appeared in the mirror, and smiled. Whatever manic edge had fuelled the make over at the start was gone now. She seemed almost gentle.

She put her mirror on the table, letting Pinkie keep the one in her hands. She selected a handful of blue and pinkie shades, tubes and pastes and creams. A large brush appeared from nowhere, and Sosie began brushing a light power over Pinkie's face and neck. The color was muted, but a definite pale pink of less augmented skin, smoothing and making Pinkie look.. more human. Another brush was procured, a darker pink dragged over cheek and collar bones. "This is just to add a base color. Hey Pinkie.. When I was braiding your hair, you flinched. ..Why?"

The brush disappeared, replaced with a small liquid vial of something blue. Sosie gently took Pinkie's face in her hands, not making eye contact even as she prepared to paint her lower eyelid. Her face was indifferent, seemingly ambivalent about the question she asked.

*Pinkie looked a little suprised, momentairly*

oh, I didn't notice.

*Pinkie concentrated on remaining visible, and met Sosie's eyes, resolutely not chaging her impasive expression, mainly so the cyberneticist could appply her makeup properly. And very much not looking away first*

Sosie didn't meet Pinkie's stare, instead lining her eyes in dark blue. She didn't speak either, except to give commands like, "Look up." or "Close your eyes." She did something with tiny sets of swabs and brushes, dipping them into little pots of blue and gold powder. It was a few moments of silence and what seemed like endless liquids and shades, before she spoke again. Her voice was quiet, and nonchalant. "You know, I'm a licensed medical doctor, a trained surgeon, a cyberneticist that worked to install and research, and I have a robotics license as well as being one of the first replicantsmiths, with my speciality being skeletal-muscular system."

Mascara was procured and applied, several layers of one and then another, the ends tipped in pale blue. She put the brush down, and finally met Pinkie's eye, if only for a second. "I just wanted to remind you."

Her hands went back to the table, pulling back another shade of blush. A small, very soft brush covered in pale pink powder touched Pinkie's cheeks. "I also spent five years in make-up development, too."

I don't need reminding. I need you to have a week free.

Sosie rolled her eyes, and moved onto Pinkie's lips. She held a small stick of pinkish pigment. "Pucker. Like this." Her lips demonstrated to appropriate movement. When Pinkie obliged, the lipstick touched Pinkie's lips with a buzz. It seemed to be vibrating slightly, or was maybe slightly electric. Sosie seemed so absorbed in putting on the make up that she wasn't making eye contact with her.. subject. "I won't have a week free unless someone, for example, asks me to have a week free. I am very good at keeping busy and unlike some of us here, I'm not psychic. Close your mouth."

She brought up another color in a darker pinkish shade, and began lining Pinkie's lips with a fine point. Like the lipstick, this too seemed to buzz just a little. "Almost done. Just finishing touches after this." She capped the tiny stick and brought up another and a tiny tube of powder. "I always have time for my friends, Pinkie."

*With nothing to respond with and no read on the situation, Pinkie sat and waited and wondered how a trip to Madrid had led to this.*

Sosie frowned a little at Pinkie's impassive face. She looked over the pink and blue braids at Ida, eyes conveying a slightly exasperated expression. She undid the tube of powder, which glittered slightly, and found another small brush. Her hands worked industriously. After a thoughtful moment, she spoke softly, "You're my friend, Pinkie. I can have time next week. You just need to ask me. I don't mind being asked." She thought about her phrasing and said, "I want you to ask me, if it helps you."

She put down the cosmetics in her hands, and brought up the mirror, and held it in front of Pinkie's face. The mere addition of pigments had changed it dramatically. Her blue eyes were highlighted a gradient of sapphire to sky, her cheeks a rosey blush, her lips a muted but wet looking pink. The layering of powder on her cheeks changed the shape of her face. She looked more mature, more social, softer, though her serious expression gave the impression of an aloof goddess instead of an intimidating agent. Her skin sparkled slightly, working with the dark and silvery undertones of her augmented flesh without hiding its true nature.

"It won't come off unless you really try to take if off, so don't worry about touching it or smudging it. You're still an agent, but you seem nothing like yourself. Camouflage." Sosie grinned. "Unless you smile. Those wolf teeth are a bit obvious."