Week 78: A Gift

Hugo returned home, or at least, to the room he and Dani were sharing. The room, despite its utter class, was looking a bit.. beat up from the nukes' stay. Dani and Hugo were not the neatest people, and that plus often eating take away and using the floor as a hamper... Well, the room was looking very owned. Hugo didn't mind. A package from the WF had arrived at home-home when he had been out, and he returned to 6768 for only the briefest seconds to grab it and come back to the hotel.

He sat down on the couch and began unwrapping it, assembling a huge gun. Smiling, he admired components, and then placed it on the couch beside him, and began to rifle through the piles of clothes and equipment, looking for a bow, or some other way to wrap it.

Hugo didn't get the chance to finish wrapping the gun up before Dani walked into the room, not really paying attention to her surroundings as she looked into an eyescreen, occasionally tapping at her PDA. She was halfway towards the bed, stepping around a pile of her clothes, when she noticed Hugo and the gun. "Oh, what's that? You change your mind about the one-gun thing all of a sudden?"

For a moment Hugo looked so guilty that Dani might have believed he was cheating on Una, but the following grin erased that. "You're early. I thought you'd be our for a few more hours. Uh.. No. This is for you." He gestured to the WF-made EMP canon with a little flourish. "I could have sworn I had a pink ribbon somewhere. I was gonna.. er.. wrap it." He bent and picked up the gun before presenting it to Dani, still smiling with every sign of altruistic enjoyment.

"Oh, cool," Dani said as she grabbed the cannon and looked it over. "EMP, huh? Not really my style, but I can't say I don't love this thing. Always helps to have more options, and I'm not one to turn down a work of art like this. If only it had a pink ribbon..." Dani smiled in satisfaction, looking a little smug at being given another great gun. This was why Hugo stood out like he did, he knew respect. "Cool."

"Coraline took down a car with one of things," He pronounced every syllable of Coraline name, Cor-a-lee-na. "And she knocked me out cold. Put it up the the back one someone's head and even the biggest Cult bastard chimera will go down. They're great. And useful." He nodded, satisfied with his lecture, and then pointed to the gun. "Expanded clip bay too. You know, just in case."

"Yeah, I noticed," Dani said as she checked the clip bay to make sure the gun was unloaded. "I do appreciate what EMP does, don't get me wrong. It's just not all that visceral compared to other guns, yeah? It does a job that's worthwhile and does it well, but it's not as fun." As she spoke, Dani swung the cannon around, pointing it at things in the room and pulling the trigger experimentally.

Hugo reflexively ducked as she aimed the gun at him. Visceral or not, it was dangerous enough that Hugo dodged it involuntarily. "I dunno. Sure, there's no visible fire or sound, but you can get a lot of sparks and sometimes it even sets things on fire. Plus... I've been taken down by these things three times in combat. You need a cyberneticist to set everything up afterward, and, uh, you can feel pain afterward. It's not nice on other agents, or vehicles, or robots... Even Una does a little EMP damage." He patted her on his back, his fingers lingering over the butt of his gun for a second. "It has results, in ways you can't appreciate until you see it in combat... But I'll get you something flashier next time."