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Walking towards the towering Ursine, Lemon extracted her knives and presented them handle first. She could always creep back and get them again if necessary, though that trick would likely only work once before she got banned from the premises. With a grunt from the Jiralhanae, she proceeded in. Striding towards the end of the bar, she took a stool and laid her head on the counter, soaking in the cacophony of static from all sides. Her head rose as she sensed one of the sources gaining intensity, a sure sign of someone coming closer, the tender had come for her order.
"What'll you have?" "Emeraldine, Melon, a bottle, please, I want ta not think fer a bit."
She looked about the room, measuring, making sure nobody was staring at her, then turned as the bartender thunked down a shot glass and a bottle of glistening green liquor. Nodding her thanks, she uncorked it and filled the shot-glass, swirling it in the light before taking a sip. She took a moment to appreciate the sweet melon and burn of the alcohol before downing the rest in a single gulp.
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Jul 18, 2023 0:50:49 GMT
Tycho and the Jiralhanae bouncer stared at each other a little too long. He really didn't want to give up what he was carrying, much as he understood the rules of the joint, and had been deliberating for just a little too long on whether or not it was worth trying to flirt with the guy. Ultimately he just shook his head and passed up the two handguns, grumbling a little in his native tongue as the handcannon in particular left his hand.
As opposed to Lemon, Tycho willfully drowned himself in just the auditory noise. Reaching up to adjust his ear implants and finding a nice little sweet-spot, the Vlaka stepped into the din and felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. The Outrider's Reach-- one of the "better" merc-bars on Daiban, or so he'd been told. Countless new faces to meet, countless stories to eavesdrop on, countless things to learn. The comfort of immersing himself in the social space outweighed any feelings of being overwhelmed; if he were to continue down this path, these were his people now, and this place was his Afterlife. That didn't sound so bad.
Ambitions could wait, though. He was tired, traumatized, and suddenly had more money than he'd seen in a long while. Alcohol was the natural remedy.
He recognized Lemon immediately. Somehow he wasn't surprised to see her here, it made enough sense... but it was a coincidence all the same, at least for how the timing worked out. What really gave him pause was wondering whether or not she even wanted to see him-- Tchernobog was a unique hell. If his face would be more of a reminder of all that, intentionally or not, he wouldn't want to put that on her.
... The hell was he thinking? It was an opportunity to strengthen a bond, more than anything else. Stars know he needed friends in this city.
"Surprised you can even handle it in here." He opened in jest, easting himself into the seat just next to hers. He turned around for a moment to put his back to the bartender, elbows on the counter, watching the goings-on. "Place is noisy enough for just a pair of ears..."
"Who the f- oh" Lemon started before glancing in the direction of the intruder to see a familiar face. Sniffing, she reached for the bottle of liquor and poured another shot, it was missing about a third now.
"Noise is tha point, can'a think with it, nice when ya dun wanna think." Knocking the shot back, she continued, a flush beginning to be apparent on her cheeks. "Sometimes, on particularly bad nights, ah skip tha shot glass... always spend too much though, gotta save up."
Between paying bills from doctors that keep their mouths shut, ammo, and her consumptive habits, It was a good thing she didn't pay anything for rent or all the associated taxes and fees. If it weren't for her squatting in the places she "liberated", saving up for actually nice shit would be a pipe dream.
"So what're you doin here anyway, facin tha wrong way ta get a drink."
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Jul 18, 2023 3:09:51 GMT
A mild shrug, more in the hands than the shoulders, palms turned to the ceiling for a moment or two. "I'll get to the drinks, just... taking the place in, I guess. First time in here." His eyes shifted from the crowd back to Lemon, unsure what to make of her 'thinking' comments. He couldn't imagine experiencing what he assumed she did on a daily basis. All that... noise, if noise was even the right way to describe it, would probably drive him insane. It was probably a little easier to deal with if you were as used to it all as she probably was, he guessed.
"Glad to see it's not as bad a night as is could be." He said, eyeing the shotglass for a second before spinning around and waving the bartender down, ordering an AMF and properly settling in.
"What're we drinking to?" A raised glass, and a propped elbow. Smiling was beyond the Vlaka, but it couldn't stop a level expression and a genuine tone. His tail held an idle sway. "Celebrating, or forgetting?"
"Forgettin, a shame there ain't enough drink on this rock ta forget it all." It was said with a grunt, Lemon raised the newly filled shotglass and gave the wolfman a nod before downing it and shaking her head a bit.
"'course, some shit's burned in ya, ain't no alcohol strong enough for those stains. You don't got the look o' someone with too many ghosts, mind you also got a face I ain't wired ta read yet." Her dead, slightly glazed stare would linger on the canine mercenary. No façade of professionalism or snark, the question behind the final statement left to hang as more pink slowly crept into the cheeks of a definitely drunk Lemon. The Bottle was half gone.
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Jul 18, 2023 6:36:56 GMT
"Eh... most people tell me I'm not easy to read. Blessing my whole species has-- or a curse, I guess. Body language isn't exactly a specialty, least not in the face." Knocking back a little bit of the drink in turn with his mercenary friend had a faint nostalgia to it, something only felt once the burn was in his throat. There was a moment where he paused and looked over his shoulder into the middle distance, like he was searching for something specific but didn't know where to look. Some laughter in the crowd sounded too much like old friends, even if they were ones he knew were long gone.
Funny of her to mention ghosts.
Tycho turned back to the bar and idly flicked around the straw in his drink, before plucking it out and setting it aside. His eyes said a lot more in that idle moment than the words to follow. "If it's a forgetting type of night, let's just say I'm a willing participant. Kinda the whole reason I'm out here... things I haven't made my peace with, anyway."
"Mmmm, yeah, you got ghosts. Won't pry further, but yap if ya want."
She began to pour another shot but stopped, looking at the half-full bottle she set it back down. The proof was high, an expensive import, saving it for another time would be better. Grumbling a little, she put the cork back in, she had a social obligation to not be incoherently drunk, it wasn't every day she had someone she recognized from a job showing up and not trying to kill her. She flagged down the tender.
"Somethin non-alcoholic, I need ta not be passed out in a half hour."
She laid her head down on her arms and 'listened' for the Wolfman's static while mustering a short message to throw at it, it took a bit more effort than normal since she was drunk, her thoughts sluggish but still purposeful at the moment.
She wasn't going back on any operating tables unless she knew exactly what was happening, better to get that statement/warning out of the way. Ordinarily she just killed the ones that learned of her psionics, or drove them to gibbering in terror thus making them far from reliable information sources; ordinarily she worked alone and was only dealing with gutter trash, squatters, and gang members.
She waved in thanks to the tender when she heard/felt the thunk of a large glass next to her.
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Jul 19, 2023 0:53:13 GMT
Tycho's static had a particular bite to it, noticeable enough above the din even for him sitting just next to her. Different trains of thought wrestled each other endlessly over the same topics; memories. Not particularly good ones. Cyclic warbles in tone like a constant shifting of moods, all but indiscernible on the Vlaka's face. Bittersweet feelings, for lack of a better way to put it, ones he was somewhat apprehensive to express. The topic of old ghosts seemed to make him remember the ones he still had, now that his mind could finally slow down just enough to not think about the present. Time to relax was also time to process, and the wolfman's mind seemed to be struggling with the balance.
The motion of Tycho's tail falling still was the sign he got her message. It broke his train of thought, but he was subtle enough to suppress and visible tells of being startled. His gaze shifted back to Lemon for the moment and remained there, which what expression he could show dancing between morbidly curious and somber. The Vlaka said nothing in response, only taking a longer draw of his drink and setting back down on the bar with a little more force than usual. He didn't know whether or not he could "talk" back to her, but he projected a concept of obliviousness into his own mind's eye. Maybe that was something she could see.
"I remember on Auriga you mentioned you used to work corporate security, same as me..." Finishing the drink, setting it aside, ordering another of the same from the bartender. "It's... related. Lemme ask, what made you finally decide to get out?"
"It was Hell. Ah'd signed on fresh outa Uni, Medical science an nursin'. Problem was, they weren't hirin' employees, they was hirin' guinea pigs."
Lifting her head she looked over to Tycho.
"You already saw a few snippets o' what it was like. Part o' tha project was seein' how adaptable folks could be, an' how far they could be bent afore snappin', shatterin'."
The answer to his question was so obvious she'd never even thought about it. Leave, or die on a table. Sure, it wasn't always a shitty action horror flick, but the corporation had proven that it didn't give a fuck about lives or laws, that was why it operated stations deep in the frontier away from regularly travelled space. No Oversight, no authorities powerful enough to hold them accountable. She was reasonably sure that the IMC was involved at some level, since they were the absolute biggest player out there, but the whole thing had to be so black that not even the sponsors had the whole picture.
"Most tha time Ah worked medical, usually a chemist synthesizing medications. But they had us work every position eventually."
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Jul 19, 2023 7:54:42 GMT
"I... yeah. I remember."
The spiders came to mind immediately, that memory of a memory. Trying to put himself fully in her shoes made some of the fur on his neck stand on end-- finally finding out you'd been hired to be a test subject would've been all sorts of traumatizing. He tried to think of anything in his own experiences that could relate at least partially to that kind of horror, and he just... couldn't.
"So you didn't quit, you... escaped? The fuck kinda place was this? This corp still out there somewhere?"
"Some series o' corporate blacksites, tha name they gave was obviously a front in retrospect. Probably a rogue branch of tha IMC if ya ask me. They're likely still out there, ain't heard nothin since I ditched tha shuttle I stole."
Would she like revenge? Certainly, but she was in no position to take it. A half-baked psion taking on a shadow corporation with the likely backing of one of the top dogs of the corporate world in the region was suicide. She'd need to be insanely capable, or gather a large group, to even have a glimmer of a chance, and she was/had neither. She'd heard about frontier worlds unifying to oppose the IMC, but odds of her being able to use them to get at the group she escaped were astronomically low even if her hunch regarding IMC involvement was true. Hell, her hunch was just based on how disgustingly exploitative and powerful the IMC was, meaning they could probably get away with it.
"An jus' ta be clear, if you happen to be workin for em, stop before you end up on tha vivisection table. I doubt that yer one o' them though, there'd be some kind of tell."
She stared at her corked, half full, bottle of liquor, then grumbled as she put it in her sweater pocket. Another sip would be nice, but then she'd end up not saving any for later.
"So, you quit your sec job. What was tha reason. Morals? Fear? Both? Somethin else?"
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Jul 20, 2023 7:15:47 GMT
Tycho paused midway through lifting his glass, as if the mentioned acronym froze him. Dots were connected. He set the glass down gingerly, resting his elbows up on the bar, lacing his fingers together.
"Little bit of everything. I was IMC, sorta. By the end, anyway. Wasn't in that gig for long, though..."
He shifted his glance to the bardtender for a moment, idly. The Vlaka's ears perked up for a moment, only mildly curious if anyone else was listening to them. He let out a small breath and lowered his hands, taking idle hold of the drink again, only to poke the little beads of condensation with a claw.
"Was born on Estero. Night City kid; some of the chrome probably gives that away. Was a street punk when I was young, but I grew up too fast... runnin' gigs for fixers became too dangerous; my sister and I had to keep looking for bigger scores just to make ends meet. Medical bills; dad was... sick." A pause to down a little too much of the drink at once, but he didn't much mind. Usually took 3 of these to make him feel anything anyway.
"Enlisted with one of the mil-corps. Arasaka. Good money, good gear, good training, good benefits, but... I dunno. Guess I just felt trapped, after a while. Especially after my old man eventually passed. Was nothin really for me in that city anymore, y'know? My sister and I were both kinda out of the street life for good, at that point-- she went to college, did something with her life. I couldn't figure out how to do anything but fight, but there was no crew for me to come back to. I was a corpo. A traitor."
The rest of the drink knocked back, thoughtlessly. His tail twitched.
"Transferred to the IMC just to get offworld, but get this-- they didn't want me. Wasn't human, wasn't 'Jiral. Would've been a pain in the ass to outfit... so, they threw me a merc contract instead-- er, sorry. "Contractor position." IMC service in anything but name, working for one of their little off-book subsidiaries... doing shit the IMC didn't wanna take credit for, for better or for worse."
A dejected eye-roll. The glass slid over to the edge of the bar, mindlessly shoved a little too hard. His arm snapped out to grab it, the motion instant. Reflex.
"Just couldn't do that kinda work anymore. Started to see the writing on the wall."
Post by Eliza Silvermantle on Jul 20, 2023 16:51:35 GMT
Eliza smiled sweetly as she handed her MARS and plasma saber over to the bouncer, partly in genuine amusement at the Jiralhanae's reaction to the melee weapon, and partly to hide her low-key panic response at being in such close proximity to the simian-ursine creature. The redheaded Ylf'in whose persona she was currently using was no stranger to the Outrider's Reach, and worked well to keep Eliza's true identity at least partially out of the limelight.
"Ya might want ta be careful with the blade, so ye're knowin'," she remarked before being waved on. More than happy to be out of the immediate proximity of the Jiralhanae, Eliza moved to the bar. Technically, she was off-duty, taking a short leave before her next assignment, yet there was an ulterior motive for her presence, which took the form of a pair of individuals currently chatting at the bar. Eresh hadn't been wrong in how unique the group of hunters he'd worked with in his last mission, she realized with a faint smile.
"Hey there, this seat taken?" the faux-Ylf'in asked in a friendly tone as she sat beside the lupine being. "My name's Aila, a pleasure ta meet ta both!"
As fate had it, Eresh decided to drop in a few minutes after Eliza(in disguise) did, leaving his weapons with the bouncer, exchanging a nod in greeting. Once he was inside the bar he quickly caught sight of Tycho and Lemon.. along with a red headed Yl’fn. Tilting his head, he would also come to their table.
“Ah, it’s good to see you two again. I trust that the night has been going well?” He asked, glancing at the red head curiously. On one hand, he was a little annoyed that she hadn’t told him that she was back.. but he was also amused that she was “incognito”.
“And who is this? A friend of yours Tycho?” He asked, deciding to play along.
Lemon's eyes narrowed to slits when the Elf-woman spoke to them, she smelled spook and this "Aila" person was probably actually named something like "Agent Delta" or "Operator Foxtrot". A Fed? A Corpo? It was hard to tell but anyone being that friendly with strangers before getting any drink in them was obviously after something. Lemon wasn't about to start paying property taxes or sign any non-bounty contracts any time soon. Her eyes drilled into the intruder's head as she took and listened past the static of their thoughts trying to gauge their threat.
Her gaze didn't waiver when the Birdman came over and spoke to them, especially when he addressed Tycho with a question. If the unknown didn't provide some satisfactory answers soon, she'd be bugging out and melting into the crowds in the city, ducking into some alleys to do a few deep searches of her person for any spy-gadgets, and then taking a roundabout route back to her lair. Spooks were not to be trusted, Spooks were not to be underestimated.
A single finger would be directed at the Too-friendly one, the overwhelming sense of being watched they'd likely be feeling hopefully lending impact to her next words. "Ya betta spit what yer after, Ah dun know ya, yer too friendly, an Ah smell a spook."
The Likelihood of them being a corpo agent that was listening in to their conversation was too high, damn her drinking habit and damn her for not casing the joint for another month before getting comfortable.
