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Post by Jace on Apr 30, 2020 19:40:14 GMT -5
Chronos conducted himself in such a way that people presumed he was slow, or dull-witted. That was an illusion, or a deception, or an outright mistake. There were layers, of course: a surface layer of simplicity that he didn't often push beyond; a layer of fog beyond that, a barrier between him and the kinds of memories that might remind him of who he was, or allow him to effortlessly formulate a plan to break out of this hellhole and get back to doing whatever it was he couldn't quite remember that he was supposed to be doing. But behind that, tucked away in his subconscious and instincts, there was intelligence there. Protocols. Training. Strategy. Enough ancillary wisdom to make him just acutely aware enough of his situation to make the right choices, or there abouts.
His weathered features split into a tight smile. "There's only so much that I can take, Haircut."
Chronos carefully contemplated his situation and circumstances. Formidable as the cocky chrome meta was, he had no doubt that his programming would kick in and make short work of him, powers or no: but what then? What good did it do him, aside from the short term satisfaction of putting the man in his place? Of staking his claim over the refrigerator, and all that lay within it? Were this an ordinary prison, Chronos might have been more inclined to throw his weight around. Prove his strength, his dominance. What was it they always said: find the toughest guy in the yard, and knock him the hell out? Taking Haircut down a peg or two might do that, with the other inmates; except they were all sequestered away in their personalised boxes, all cloistered away from each other outside of highly controlled circumstances. No one cared who was king of the petting zoo, and the zookeepers didn't need his help finding excuses to make his cage any smaller and less comfortable. Not that comfort mattered, of course, but room to breathe did, especially if he ever planned on getting out of here.
The sandwich drew away from Mick's mouth for a moment, but not far: just far enough for a tongue to run enthusiastically across the crusty surface, one last taste of the forbidden foodstuff entangled in a gesture of the utmost childishness. The thin smile persisted on his lips as his eyes lingered on Haircut for a few moments longer, before they finally fell away and turned to his companion. "Sorry, Princess," Chronos offered, although it was more greeting than apology. His arm extended, holding the now-tainted sandwich towards her. "Was this for you?"
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Post by Kori Anders on Apr 30, 2020 22:13:09 GMT -5
Mister Rory or Mister Chronos. She didn't like calling the man who offered the kind of offensive sammich to her as Mick. It didn't seem right, mostly because Kori always caught how he kinda bristled whenever he was called it. She could get that, Kori didn't really like it when people called her Girlie, or Troq, after all.
Her feet were firmly on the ground now as she looked up at the very intimidating man - Maybe not so quite as intimidating as when Nate of Earth became Citizen Steel - nor did she get the kinda same giddy feeling about it - but that was another matter all sorts of together.
"Urhm..."
Kori glanced between Chronos and Nate, quick like, barely there in the tryings of figuring out of their very human expressions and what they meant and the nuances she just couldn't grasp...
"I think it was maybe meant to be, but then you found it as so the fate things have said it's yours now? Yes."
She smiled, not confused or in-genuine or anything like that.
"Yes. Fingers keepers, right?"
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Post by Jace on May 1, 2020 5:07:32 GMT -5
Chronos looked at her with a calculating glare that lasted an eternity. He liked to pretend that he didn't know people. His refusal to use anyone's name was part of it: a deliberate disrespect of and disinterest in their individuality, coupled with a streak of rebellion against the institution's fondness for enforcing names. But there was more. Nothing pushed people away more effectively than a demonstration that you didn't know or care who they were; that any shared experiences, trivial or otherwise, weren't even worth a few fragments of your memory. Whether it came off as forgetful, or just asshole, wasn't of much consequence to Chronos; though both was better. Both kept people further away. More of that breathing room, and less of that problematic baggage that crept in when you started to give a shit about people.
The truth though was that while it was true that he didn't necessarily care about any of the people trapped in here with him, he most certainly didn't know nothing about them. The Princess was called Koriand'r, or Kori Anders, as the flying pigs had humanized. She was from Tamaran, a world that Chronos knew was located in the Vega system, Alpha Lyrae, a mere twenty-five lightyears from Earth - though that wasn't information that Chronos had wanted or asked for, just knowledge that had risen to the surface of his cognitive fog unbidden. He'd also heard her mention Okaara, another of the worlds in the densely habitable and populated star system, one populated by brutal Warlords whose gladiatorial combat practices formed the basis of some of his own training and programming. He knew when she'd arrived on Earth, knew what had befallen her since, what preferences and habits she had displayed since coming here. He even knew that calling her Princess was particularly appropriate, though he wasn't sure how, or how he knew that. It was the same thing he knew about anyone he hunted, and it filled him with complicated questions. Had he encountered her before? Hunted her before? Was he supposed to be hunting her now? Or was this just how it was to be him, was she just one of those people of whom he possessed a certain level of awareness, and he just hadn't spent enough time between hunts before to come to terms with - or re-remember - the specifics of that?
It made him angry. He hated knowing about people. Knowing was when you started to like people, or despise people, and that changed the way you thought; the way you acted. Chronos hated that. He hated anything that forced him to function with anything other than the efficient detachment he was programmed for. He was a great white shark, not a great dane. To care was to be compromised.
Yet the Princess made it difficult. She was from another world, but she astutely understood the simple philosophy that Chronos lived his life by. He didn't even want to correct her fingers keepers, because she'd succeeded in getting the rest of it right. If you took it, it was yours. It was the oldest concept, the oldest truth in all of nature, and one that humanity was hellbent on deluding itself into ignoring. Charity? Sharing? Ownership? All fabrications. All illusions. All constructs. The universe was separated into have, and have not; haves, and have nots. Want a sandwich? Take a sandwich. Want that diamond? Take that diamond. Want to feel the bones of a walking Haircut in military fatigues splinter and crack beneath your fists? Reach out and take it.
Chronos grunted out a laugh, the corner of his this smile tugging up in appreciation, eyebrows climbing in a way that didn't make his expression any less flattering, but perhaps was supposed to. "I hate you slightly less than the others, Cornflower," he announced, before taking another triumphant bite out of his commandeered sandwich. He didn't even chew before his attention and his muffled words turned back to the still partially metallic man in his way. "If you'll excuse me," he mumbled; a few chomps, a swallow, another eager bite torn from the side of the stolen sub, "I'll be heading back to my cell."
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Post by Nate Heywood on May 1, 2020 6:18:40 GMT -5
Nate Heywood was not a man who liked to back down. It didn't agree with him. It had happened too much throughout his younger days, and the overdose had become an allergy. Spend an entire lifetime proving yourself - to your family, your father, your friends, peers, comrades, whoever - and it became almost impossible to stop. You almost craved it, hungered for it, that opportunity to prove yourself again, that chance to let someone else give you the excuse to show just what you were capable of, just what you were made of.
But there were different ways of proving yourself. For the dorky, scrawny, sports-impaired Nathaniel Heywood of his pre-teens, it had been learning to throw a ball, and throw a punch. In his teens, it had been academia: find a class, conquer the class, get the grades and the accolades and the military academy acceptances that Hank the Third hadn't bothered with. Even then it hadn't been enough for the family, not enough for them to see past the fact that he wasn't the Hank Heywood of his generation. The Air Force had made it better and worse: more opportunities to prove yourself, more avenues, more options; but more chances to fail as well, more superiors to disappoint or just leave indifferent. The grades and aptitudes for pilot training hadn't been enough. The skill and dedication for active combat duty hadn't been enough. Everywhere he went, every new facet of life he moved into, his best became the new benchmark for normalcy, and for obscurity. So he'd crashed and burned. Literally. Shot out of the air, smashed into the ground at high speed, and bam. Then came the attention. The pity. The opportunity. There came the introduction and induction into the family legacy, steel injected into his veins this time rather than grafted onto his bones as it had been with his father. We can rebuild him, we have the technology. Nate had never tried to find out how much it cost the military to rebuild him; not ready for the disappointment if it proved to be anything other than exactly six million dollars, he supposed. It didn't matter though: he had what he needed. His family's approval. His family's name.
With that name came a responsibility. A reputation. An expectation. Steel wasn't some brainless thug, some hot-headed brawler. That was the whole reason why Hank the Third had been wrong for it, and why Nathaniel had always, always been right. Steel was a hero. Steel was a symbol. Steel was an example. Nate Heywood getting dressed down by his commanding officer was one thing, but Citizen Steel? That couldn't happen. The name deserved better.
Nate's arm shimmered again, returning to more normal, more human tones. It lingered for just a moment before peeling away, the gesture of restraint transformed into one of invitation, beckoning for Mick to depart down the now empty corridor. "Enjoy your sandwich," Nate replied, with a tight smile of his own. A grunt was all he received, before the vaguely animate slab of meat trudged it's way off into the distance. As Chronos departed, Nate could swear he felt a few inches shorter. Or maybe that was just Kori floating again.
A sigh escaped, and Nate's hands found their way into the pocket of his fatigues. "It was from the deli out at Scotty's Junction," he offered, a now redundant explanation for the culinary gift he'd invested so much effort in negotiating past the guards at the surface entrance that morning. "We had that conversation yesterday about how you wanted to try more Earth cuisine, and I was telling you about how the deli makes a BLT that tastes exactly like the ones my mom used to make? You seemed excited to try one, so -"
Another sigh, another slight slump, another shrinking of Nathaniel Heywood into a smaller, defeated person. "I suppose I can't fault Mick for his choices. It is a sandwich worth stealing."
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Post by Kori Anders on May 2, 2020 14:55:58 GMT -5
“Oh, that does sound oh so fantastic. Any time a mother’s meal can be replicated it is a joyous thing. I am sorry that your plans were ruined but it does seem as though Mr. Chronos enjoyed the recreation.”
Kori hummed in thought, one of her hands rising to place a single fingertip against her lips as she did so. It was to remind her to think with her mind and not her voice, and it worked every time. Well, mostly.
This time was one of the mostlies. Her concentrated downward gaze lifted and her usual smile returned, only this time it was filled with triumph.
”Do not be sad, Nate of Earth! Do we not have the makings and ingredients of this the BLT here in the stocks of the commissary? Surely if not we can procure the items with help of those who work in your coworker’s cafeteria? It can be a quest if necessary! Surely you can replicate your mother’s BLT far better than Scotty of the Junction!”
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Post by Nate Heywood on May 2, 2020 15:15:25 GMT -5
There was a thing on the internet: an animated image from a television show about space cowboys, of a Captain who contemplated the idea of correcting someone and then had his thoughts slowly unravel before your very eyes. It was, most likely, Nate's favourite of the animated images that were frequently cast back and forth between web users. It was certainly his most frequently used, as far as the predictive analytics on his social media accounts were concerned. Nate didn't quite know how to describe the emotional state that one watched the space cowboy Captain contend with, but if there was a word for such a thing, it would have described him in that moment.
Part of him wanted to explain that technically it wasn't Scotty of the Junction, but rather Scotty of the Castle, and that the Junction was the site of a former railroad interchange that had been used to deliver the supplies and materials to construct said castle, until it had fallen into disuse and the railroad had been closed, diverted, or whatever it was that happened to railroads that weren't there anymore. Part of him wanted to explain that it wasn't just the memory that the sandwich inspired, it was the imaginary notion that in some roundabout way the sandwich was affiliated with an infamous pop culture engineer, and that alone made the BLT far better than anything mere mortals could ever have created. Part of him wanted - and at the same time also didn't want - to point out that it wasn't even about the sandwich at all, it was about the gesture, the idea of Nate smuggling in delicious contraband from the world Kori was currently sequestered away from, a sentiment that was completely lost if they constructed it for themselves within the confines of the prison. Parts of him wanted to do all of those things. But then Kori Kori'd, and he just couldn't bring himself to.
When you said that someone lit up a room, then let's be honest, you were probably in the middle of hitting on them, or at least doing that friendship thing where you heaped compliments onto a person so that they curled up into a ball of flattered embarrassment. But when it came to Kori, she really did. Quite literally in fact, when her powers came into play, but her personality too. The Tamaranian was an infinite, unstoppable source of radiant positivity. Nate Heywood? He was a positive guy. He was a good vibes radiator all of his own. But Kori? She made him look like a space heater, and her a nuclear frickin' reactor. Nate had heard people described as 'the sort of someone a happy person goes to for cheering up'. Kori was a whole order of magnitude beyond that, a happy person's happy person's happy person. Happy person cubed? Something like that. Point was, she was Little Miss Positivity, and damn if it wasn't infectious, especially when you didn't want it to be.
"I don't know," Nate said with faux caution, narrowing his eyes, playing into the act. "There's a whole lot of knives involved in making a sandwich of that magnitude. How do I know you won't take me hostage with a butter knife and try to make some sort of reckless escape?"
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Post by Kori Anders on May 3, 2020 15:36:41 GMT -5
"Oh, do not be concerned, Nate of Earth," Kori replied, echoing his look of consideration before letting her narrowed eyes take on an entirely different and far more mischievous quality. From there her lips tugged up, not quite a smile, but somehow uncannily bordering on not-quite-malicious. It wasn't cruelty that the overall affect had, oh no, but it was clear that she was Up To No Good.
"Should I ever wish to make such a daring attempt at the escape, I would not be in need a butter knife."
Kori held on to the purely - if not entirely unbelievable and quite ridiculous- nefarious gaze for just a few more moments before she dropped the act with a laugh.
"But I do think I like it here, it is not so bad and there is at least one good of the friends here." She practically beamed at Nick - Because actually beaming would have been very very bad. This sort just meant she smiled at him in a way that there was no question of who she meant.
"Now come and you can teach me how to assemble the BLT!"
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Post by Nate Heywood on May 3, 2020 16:34:13 GMT -5
Friends. The word hit him in the chest like an AMRAAM. He thought about what his peers would say. His CO. His father. His grandfather. Never befriend the enemy, that was the kind of gruff and dismissive thing that the imaginary versions of them in his head would probably say. Because of course Kori was the enemy to them. For starters she was an alien, and boy howdy, if you thought folks getting up in arms about foreign nationals was bad, just wait until you heard the kind of uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinner racist uncle rhetoric when the topic turned to extraterrestrials.
But more than that, the enemy for soldier-to-the-core types was pretty much anyone or anything that presented you with any sort of minor to moderate inconvenience or obstacle. Every opponent was the enemy. Every rival was the enemy. Failure was the enemy. Laziness. Procrastination. Doubt. Uncertainty. Insecurity. Communism. Liberalism. Hell, let them talk long enough, and they'd be declaring hyperbolic war on carbs, gluten, and vegans. Otherness was the enemy, and compliance was the only way to win.
Nate liked to think he was a little more nuanced, evolved, and open-minded than that. Sure, he wasn't some bleeding heart social justice warrior or anything like that. There really were enemies out there in the world that needed dealing with in effective and decisive ways. Caution was a fine line, and the only sensible thing to do was to err on the side of too careful rather than careful enough. The world was filling up with dangerous people with dangerous powers, and if a few Nates or Kori's had to suck it up and suffer some inconvenience or discomfort to help ensure that a disgruntled and undocumented Vuldarian couldn't stroll into an unsuspecting school and explode, then so be it. Sacrifices for the greater good. Needs of the many. All that juicy scifi stuff.
But at the same time, these inconvenienced people were still people. That was perhaps the biggest sticking point between him and some of his peers. They'd have had a field day hearing Kori refer to the two of them as good friends. They'd probably have said more too, more than likely well across the line into inappropriate territory, and then Nate would find himself having to explain to General Adam how the two of them had managed to accidentally colide their faces with a set of metal knuckles several times in quick succession. It made it feel illicit, forbidden, like it shouldn't have been allowed or encouraged. But it wasn't being encouraged, was it? And if someone planned on trying to disallow Kori from liking things or people, then good luck to them with that.
"You realise that I could totally stop you from escaping if I wanted to," Nate countered, almost with enough sincerity that he almost even believed it. He walked backwards for a few strides as he led the way down the corridor towards the commissary, arms settling into a slightly defensive fold across his chest. "Not even a Martian could escape from this place. Trust me - we checked. You're hot stuff, Kori Anders, but you're not that hot."
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