ic Field Test (IC)

[Fox]

"Getting yourself thrown in prison would be a very effective way to see her, Cricket," said Nocturne, arching an eyebrow, "except they're going to hide her down a deep dark hole so that her client - who is not getting his or her robots - doesn't show up to set an example. You have an orchid mantis...whatever that is. They have assassins, and corrupt guards, and probably a prison full of easily-paid goons. Turning on her client is the only leverage she has, and if I were her I'd think very hard about whether using it, or not using it, would have better odds."

 

She took another long sip of her smoothie. She was no longer tying to pretend that the taste didn't please her. "Or, maybe not. Maybe she's lucky and got a client who knows that the risk is the cost of doing business and won't miss a few million dollars of investment. Maybe she got a client too incompetent to manage it. You don't believe in safety tests and didn't kill yourself the moment you built that armor, so I suppose miracles are possible."

[Gizmo]

Ryder laughed brightly. "See? You don't want anything bad to happen to me~!" he singsonged, sticking out his tongue at Nocturne. "But that's what I'm talking about! They've got all those people and what does that get them? Worried about who's going to sell them out or betray them. Sounds like a nightmare! Me? I've got friends and dreams." He put the rest of the brownie in his mouth and shrugged with his palms turned upward. "Friends are better! And you've got a new friend now, too. Deal with it!"

[Fox]

"I don't have friends, Cricket, I have assets. You are an....acceptably competent fighter, and I assume an incompetent liar, all the better. I simply think it would be unfortunate if something happened to you before I decide what you can offer to pay off the significant debt you owe me."

 

More smoothie. "And it is a significant debt. You cost me proper vengeance." She was running out of smoothie. She was going to have to figure out where this 'Smoothie Shack' was, and when she could get smoothies without giving Ryder the satisfaction of finding out about it. "What they have is power, Cricket, and nobody with power lasts long if they don't watch their back for knives. That, I think, is why you're going to get yourself killed."

[Gizmo]

Ryder stood up straight and gave an exaggerated salute, jutting his chin forward in mock seriousness. "Yes ma'am, Nocturne ma'am! Reporting for asset duty! I'm a tough guy who makes tough decisions in tough situations! Grr!" He held the pose and scowl for a moment then winked and relaxed. "You know what's great for dealing with back knives? Bug themed power armour. Also? Friends. Or 'assets' if you're more comfortable with that. I know you like giving things nicknames. Now have a brownie. It's much harder to be pessimistic when you have a brownie."

[Fox]

The brownie looked good. "No, my stomach's much too full of smoothie," she said, setting the empty cup down, "and pessimism."

 

She folded her hands behind her back again, sizing Ryder up. She'd have liked to be taller, but in her short heels he had half an inch on her at most, and she could always get taller heels. "They can always make sharper knives, Cricket. Friends are good at helping with knives, supposedly," she allowed, reluctantly, "unless it's the friend doing the stabbing. Not everyone is a fountain of optimism."

[Gizmo]

Ryder looked back at her with big, bright eyes that up close looked like they had flecks of hazel amidst the toffee brown. "How about this: you can trust that I'll never stab you in the back because then I'd be losing this debate. Or because I'm big naive dumb-dumb. And if I decide to trust you, that's just my problem." His grin was warm and sincere, a little too wide to be calculatedly photogenic, bringing back the subtle dimples and crinkling the corners of his eyes. "Also I deal with hungry people like everyday at the Smoothie Shack and I'm trying to think of a way to suggest you at least eat something after all the fighting and gravity stuff but without it sounding condescending or like I'm trying to poison you or anything."

[Fox]

"I ate a smoothie," Nocturne pointed out, gesturing at the empty cup as if she needed some kind of proof. Sharp golden eyes flicked down to follow the gesture; they'd have been warm, if she smiled, which she didn't as a general policy. "You can't be so optimistic that there's nothing you wouldn't backstab for? To save enough lives? The recipe for the perfect brownie or smoothie?" She cocked her head, trying to size him up. "I assume you wouldn't do it for power, you don't seem to respect it much. Knowledge, maybe, you seem to like that well enough."

[Gizmo]

“‘I ate a smoothie’ she says. And I’m the one who can’t take care of myself,” Ryder scoffed good-naturedly. “I dunno, knowledge as like an abstract concept is like power or money or whatever. It’s all good but it’s just a way to reach your actual dream. I just don’t really get people who want that stuff for its own sake.” He tilted his chin upward and considered, trying to give her question serious thought. “I don’t really spend a lot of time trying come up with some nightmare scenario. Also pretty sure this is already the perfect brownie! Hint, hint.”

[Fox]

"Yes, I'm sure you'll enjoy it." Nocturne did not look at the brownie; that would be too close to losing, and she did not lose. She looked at Ryder instead, studying his face. "For some people power is the dream, Cricket. Power over yourself, power or someone else, power over many people. And I think you're dodging the question either way."

 

"Of course power's not always the real goal, even if someone thinks that it is. Power gives you control, money gives you luxury, knowledge lets you build better, stronger bug suits." She was waving her finger again, but never toward the brownie. "People will do terrible things just to enable their dreams, and sometimes one person's dream hurts someone else. There's really nothing you wouldn't hurt someone else to achieve?"

[Gizmo]

"Hey, it's not like I don't know that. There's Mikes and Mays out there who are dead set on doing things that hurt other people and need a four colour concussive reason to stop," Ryder admitted, punching a fist into an open palm. "But you really think her dream is making robot gorillas for somebody else in an unfinished basement? Whatever she really wants she doesn't think she can ever get it, so she's settling." He cracked his knuckles and a bit of that edge came back into his smile. "I'm not big on settling and my dream is making a world where nobody else has to, either. People can do amazing, impossible things when they know somebody has their back, even if it's just one guy. That's what Chitin's for."

 

He dropped his hands to his hips and laughed. "I never really put it into words like that before. I like that! Thanks, Nocturne! You're really good at this!"

[Fox]

"That wasn't..." Nocturne moved to pinch the bridge of her nose, stopped partway, and opted to fold her arms instead. "....yes. I am excellent, and it was good of you to notice."

 

She took a deep breath, trying to figure out where this conversation had gone so far off its rails. "So. In summary," she said, narrowing her eyes at him like she still expected him to spring some kind of trap, "You're a distressingly optimistic mad scientist martyr who thinks everyone can achieve their dreams, except the ones whose dreams you don't like, but you're just petty enough to want to win arguments and you think brownies are a healthy exercise food."

[Gizmo]

"Lotta protein 'cause they use black beans instead of flour. There's also a fancy grilled cheese with apple slices in it or a flatbread with spicy falafel?" He met Nocturne's narrowed gaze and gave her a helpless shrug. "I agree with like two-thirds of that? I don't know if anything I say is actually going to convince you though so probably we're just going to have to hang out again so you can decide for yourself. You know, like potentially useful assets do." He reached for his own smoothie without breaking eye contact and took an intentionally noisy drink through the straw.

[Fox]

Nocturne, eyes still narrowed, raised her eyebrows a fraction of an inch and then turned her head back and to the side. "Cricket! That's very forward of you, I wouldn't have expected it."

 

She relaxed again - in as much as she ever had - turning the pros and cons and lines of play over in her head. It didn't take too long, even with Ryder's deliberately obnoxious sipping. "I think I'll need to ponder your debt anyway, so that I can decide how you repay me. It is such a terrible debt." She carefully, gracefully, nabbed the brownie off the newspaper dispenser but didn't move to eat it - wagging it at Ryder instead. "How fortunate that I know where you work. I imagine I'll find you, when it's convenient."

[Gizmo]

Ryder stopped drinking, straw still in his mouth and blinked several times. "It was? Wait, which part? Because you seem less annoyed but also sort of like the time I told my dad I'd do anything for a new bike and he invented entirely new chores." On his shoulder Black clacked his mandibles together and poked Ryder in the face with his horn. "Ow, okay, okay! Don't look a gift beetle in the mouth, I get it!" The robug's little huff suggested his creator did not, in fact, get it but went unheeded. "Obviously if you need help with something, let me know! Or if you just want another smoothie."

[Fox]

Nocturne was less certain of where she stood, now, but she didn't let it show past a hitch of hesitation. Hesitation was weakness. "I don't need anything, Cricket. But maybe if it amuses me, or I can use you to make my life a little easier."

 

She turned away, made it two steps, stopped, and turned back around. "If you were the delivery boy," she mused, tapping the brownie against her chin - and not taking a bite, which she considered nothing less than a masterful use of willpower - and pursing her lips in thought, "wouldn't someone at your Shack be wondering where you've been all this time?"

 

She held the pose, deep in pointed thought, as she silently accelerated up and off into the sky.

[Gizmo]

"So does she just reverse the direction of gravity and fall upward?" Ryder wondered aloud. Then Nocturne's question sunk in and he jumped with a start, nearly throwing his smoothie cup. "Ah crud, she's right!" He pulled his phone out and tried to make a call with one hand while scooping up the remaining food with the other. "Hi! Sorry! Yeah, I know, but-- No, I didn't get distracted! Well, I mean, technically I did. Aw, c'mon!" He raced across the street to where his bicycle was still chained up and started trying to juggle unlocking it with his hard already full. "No, listen, it was important! It was! I made a new friend!"