mental link

[circumspector]

[ someone's up and awake again. Not so tired sounding, though. This time, she's remembered to go and eat before she reaches out to the rest of the hive. ]

( Is anyone in the Bearings that can give me an update on what I've... missed? As much detail as possible.

If it were safer, I might suggest we start keeping more accessible records for these... interludes. )

[ She's not fond of this not knowing everything all the time ever. Which on the note of: she sighs, little echoing tumbling thought that is edged with frustration. ]

( And... does anyone what kind of tricks lions should do? Are they meant to be predators? Are they meant to be tamed?

.... Actually, does anyone know what a lion is? I'm starting to realise I don't know very much about animals if they aren't trying to eat you. Which isn't particularly useful, right now. )

[ ... and for anyone looking for Angel, she will be with a strew of mechanical parts around her that is half in her room, half in the corridor for her shiny new, tackely bright gold performing robotic lion. ]

Comments

[circumspector]

[ and she giggles. ]

( Well, I did find a fail safe switch to make sure that they don't do that.


... But it is only a switch. )

[snaphiss]

( Anyone who programs killing instinct into a droid clearly deserves whatever they get. You should sic it on the manufacturer. )

[circumspector]

( Give me enough time, I might be able to set his whole factory floor on him. )

[snaphiss]

( Be sure to sell tickets. )

( Maybe that's the angle you should take. Betting on droid fights is an honored tradition in the Outer Rim, right after petty theft and tax evasion. )

[circumspector]

[ R u Mr. Torgue. ]

( Sounds like home. They tend to like the blood to be real and the explosions to be nuclear where I come from. Mad Moxxi's Circles of Slaughter got views in three galaxies. )

[snaphiss]

( It sounds like you're from an especially unknown region. )

( The important question is, will it work here? How much do you care about maintaining your cover? )

[circumspector]

( I'm from the border planets.

I've spent most of my life pretending I wasn't even human, just a high-end military grade AI. So faking for a cover isn't outside of anything I've done. Not that my cover is anything high profile to speak of. It's "robot lion tamer". I find it a little more difficult in person, however. I'm both physically distinctive and inexperienced in face to face human interaction, I suppose you could say. I am not sure how well that would work... )

[ This is strange, being managed rather than doing the managing. ]

( I suppose I could... I know the kind of people that run those sorts of things. It's more familiar to me than anything else, honestly.

The issue would be where you'd run something like that, I guess? You'd attract worse clientele than Bout It Out, say. )

[snaphiss]

( You're visually distinctive and inexperienced with people. That could work to your advantage, you know. Be silent and let people assume, come up with ridiculous stories to suit their imagination. Confirm nothing, deny less. )

[circumspector]

( Depending on what they're assuming - )

[ There's no surprise to the suggestion. Just the weight and measurement. She is oh so aware she's a small, cute girl. It works, for the most part. She has pulled the people she wants around her here. It's not cruelty, not like she has done, she isn't planning to betray them, or hurt them it's merely - prudence. Good planning. Protecting herself and placing herself to better protect them. ]

( I'd work better if there was someone more physically impressive than I am. I don't give that impression too readily, but I think that could work in my favour if they are making the wrong assumptions and had their gaze misdirected. )

[snaphiss]

[Someone's a regular snapdragon. Mara's interest is piqued.]

( What you're saying is, you want a bodyguard. )

[circumspector]

[ A hum. ]

( No, a distraction that can hold their own. )

[snaphiss]

( Isn't that what the kill droid is for? )

[circumspector]

( I can't always have it with me. Granted I suppose it's more controllable than people. )

[snaphiss]

( It sounds like you can't decide if you want an armed guard or a combat droid. )

[circumspector]

[ There's a sigh of a thought, tired, tired, tired. ]

( Can't I have both?

But... The vault hunters. They did things that you wouldn't believe. Nothing was ever too much of a task for them. )

[ They didn't have a choice, granted, it was that, or die. Is the feeling. She was steady with them, they sat in her palm and as she tugged, so they moved.

Everyone that suffered from Jack called them heroes, half of Pandora called them worse than bandits. She - she called them friends. ]

[snaphiss]

( A mercenary group? Mercenaries need payment, and they have a taste for betrayal. You're better off with droids. )

[circumspector]

[ Not if she's the one doing the betraying first! Oh wait she means - ]

( Oh no, just mercenaries die on Pandora. In fact, whole mercenary corporations have fallen because of Pandora. )

[ She thinks of Atlas, of Dahl, how many men had they sent to hold it, how many had they abandoned? ]

( I mean, don't get me wrong, vault hunters are - well, they'll do just about anything for money. I mean, pretty much anything, and they're some of the worst and most insane people you'll ever meet but...

... they're more than just that, I guess. They're more violent and more loyal than that. )

[ Pandora took them, and made them its own, it felt like. Bathed them in fire and blood and fire again, and they would come out the other side, or they wouldn't. Jack could never understand that - that old thing under ground, twisting inside the planet, bleeding out purple. Pandora couldn't be fixed, it couldn't be made better. It would destroy anything that tried. There was a fortune to made off it, true, but try and hold it? It destroyed and destroyed and destroyed.

( never mind that she had been the one to hold them into that kind of baptism, encouraging them always, become strong, become brutal, become worse than all of them. Nothing less than apocalypse kept in their form would do to survive what they had to - but that, that is something she keeps close into herself, not to be shared ) ]

[snaphiss]

( We usually just call them smugglers. )

[circumspector]

( Maybe. That might be the closest comparison. Somewhere between smugglers and treasure hunters.

Either way, I definitely could use one about now.

Sorry, we got off topic, didn't we? )

[snaphiss]

( I can think of worse conversations to have. Your problem is that these 'vault hunters' only exist on your home system, right? And you feel you're dependent on them? )

[circumspector]

( Kind of - ) [ A pause, a stillness in her thoughts, and the twist of something about in her stomach, ( You'll need me, Angel, you'll always need me, don't you get it, you won't survive out there without me ) ] ( I've always had to rely on someone, not just them. I've never been in a position to act out on my own. )

[snaphiss]

( I'd say now is as good a time as any to learn. )

[circumspector]

[ and her response is - bright, happy, pleased. Because there is one thing - one thing different that isn't the lack of murderous animals and even worse people that makes it all of it, worth it. ]

( I am. Lord, uhm, Ren, and Commander Lexa. They're teaching me to fight. To be stronger. Prince, back on the station, he helped me learn firearms as well. I practise with Ilde too, sometimes. )