Tyl Regor (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
biochemastery) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
maskormenacelogs2019-09-11 09:24 am
biochemastery) wrote in maskormenacelogs2019-09-11 09:24 am
What's this? What's this?!
WHO: Tyl Regor and YOU!
WHERE: Heropa, various Porter cities
WHEN: Immediately after Tyl's port-in
WHAT: Tyl tries to attack Porter base staff, gets sedated, then muddles his way through having a human body, his new powers, eating a food, and low doorways.
WARNINGS: None yet. Probable spoilers for Natah, once he gets talking to people.
[ooc: Tyl is a verbose lunatic, so for those coming in on a direct link to this page, I've provided some in-page navigation links here so y'all can jump around to find your fancy:
A. Heropa: Out on the street
B. Still Heropa: Testing out a new power
C. Any Porter city: Food is complicated
D. Outside Jeopardy 001: Ow.]
Introduction: Alien abduction!!
Ow. Owowow ow ow. Light. Light outside his eyelids was making a very spirited attempt to get in. No. Go away. He had a hangover. He had the worst hangover. The kind where you couldn't remember the party, but you had the vague suspicion that it hadn't been fun.
A shadow passed between him and the light, and dared to open his eyes just a little. He saw a fuzzy blob.
Well, that was helpful. It mumbled at him, and he gave it a suspicious squint.
"Ooeryoo," he demanded, and then frowned in annoyance. That hadn't come out right. Had it? Hadn't. Was he still drunk? High on something he'd made in the lab?
"Jusgenyoo chektofer," the blurr said, and that sounded wrong too. Ears weren't 'earing right, along with everything else. He felt far too tired to function.
Sedated. He was definitely sedated. More than usual. Couldn't entirely blame them, not after the last time he'd needed emergency care.
No, wait, he could blame them, because he was in charge, and he didn't want to be sedated right now.
"mdun," he said, trying to pick himself up, but that failed with a wave of dizziness as soon as he tried to lift his head. Whoof. Wasn't gonna stop him arguing the point, though. "Gemeeup, god wurg tdo." Also--wait, emergency care? Why'd he think that a minute ago?
"Yoor doongud," the slowly resolving blob said, in an unfamiliar voice. "Yuulbee baggon yor feep in notyme."
Wait. That voice was unfamiliar. Female, too smooth. Blob didn't look right either, had the proper number of parts but they weren't right. There was lots of hair, more than he'd ever allow on a med tech. And no full mask. And he didn't see the proper blue-n'-bloodstained working doctor getup either, that was teal. Teal! Who would ever wear teal!
He was just about to launch into a rant when a thought gave his brain a nudge. The eyes. The eyes were wrong. Definitely not on the yellow-orange-red spectrum he should be seeing. Whoever this was, she was not grineer. They had creepy blue eyes and--what were those stripes sitting over them? He'd seen those before. Right? Right. The over-eye stripes.
Corpus did tattoos there. Didn't they. Drew your attention to how ghastly they looked. That was it.
"Ai no, itz ver dizzoryentin," the horrible Corpus interloper said, leaning over to reach for something. Something felt wrong about that too, even though she didn't touch him. "Buttchor wakeng ub fass, an sommun will com into see yu soon."
Oh no. Nonono no no he figured out what'd felt wrong. He'd felt air move on his face when she'd reached by him. He shouldn't feel anything there. That was wrong. Really wrong. That meant his mask was off. And he'd been breathing through his nose, which meant they'd taken out the tubes that fed him air. He didn't need those to breathe outside the mask, but if his mask was gone, he was covered in germs. And if the tubes were gone, then they'd gone reaching inside of him, who knew what they'd done in there, and they'd probably taken his limbs too--
Wait. No. Yes? No. When he looked down (Whoof, more spinning head), he saw hands. They were in the right spot to be his. But they weren't. They were flesh hands. He didn't have those! He used to, back in the cloning lab, back when he was one of the bodies hanging in tubes rather than the one making them grow. But his had been cut off, just like everyone else, when the peripheral neuropathy set in.
And now there were hands here, curling into claws as he stared at them in confusion and mounting anger. The skin wasn't even grineer! "Waddav yo dun t my hams?" he demanded, trying to sit up again, cobwebs in his brain dissolving in the acid of rage. "Hoos hansre thees? Wire they om my arms? Where am I?" He was getting louder, voice clearer, maybe, maybe coordinated enough to flail one of those horrible meat hands towards the probably-Corpus and catch the front of her shirt, dragging her closer to him.
Yes. Definitely coordinated enough for that. Hello, ugly. You're gonna have a bad day.
"Think you can just steal my work and get away with it?" She was trying to cut in with some protest or another, but he wasn't gonna let her take anything else, not even words!
"Not gonna happen." He leaned in towards the almost-definitely-Corpus, and had another, horrible realization as he did so. "How dare you take my legs! Do you know how hard I worked on those?"
A couple of other someones were coming into the room. Well, bring them on! He was still mostly sedated and blurry-eyed and noodle-armed and maskless and there was so much meat, but he'd take them anyway! "Maybe I like yours better. Won't know 'til I try! Come 'ere and and give me your legs!"
Two pairs of big flesh hands grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back down, pinning him to the medical chair. That did not go as he'd planned. To be fair to him, though, he hadn't had a plan.
Something bit into his neck, and he swore extravagantly in Grineer. "How dare you, slimy eels! Trying t' steel my worg, my toob men, may shaeplee pards!"
The room was going blury again. "Can haffem! Therr mime. Mime."
And then he was out.
A. Heropa: Out on the street
Ow. Light. Again. And this time it was the sun.
Alright. Take stock of what he vaguely remembered. "Woke up. Got sedated. Woke up again, some little stern-faced twit lecturing me 'bout Earth, of all things." He was feeling better now, though, if he was talking to himself.
But now he was somewhere. "Warm. Still don't have a mask on, definitely covered in germs now. Probably gonna get sick. Ugh." Whowever'd taken him apart had known how to work on grineer bodies, why'd they know so little about the grineer immune system? Jerks.
"Sky--there's a sky, important to note that--sky is blue. Breathable. Only a few places where this could be." In the grander scheme of things, at least. "Mars would be too much to hope for. The gravity didn't feel right either. Venus? No. Not cold enough, not enough black rocks and robot fish."
Was this Earth? Really? Where were all the trees? Wait--why were there all these blocky buildings? And humans! why were they so tall?
Oh. Right. Thieves had stolen his legs, that was why.
Nothing felt right, actually. He stopped walking--where'd he been going?--and yanked up one of the cloth sleeves hiding his horrid new arms. He should be able to find the graft point, maybe it was just plugged into his somatics somehow, some sort of fake flesh arms--
No. There was no dividing line of a fresh graft, no skin from his own stumps to be seen on either arm. The alien skin went all the way up as far as he could see it, all his ports and plugs smoothed away to nothing. Couldn't even feel their attachment points against the muscle when he squeezed. "What kind of sick mind would do this? Alad? If this is Alad's work--gonna tear the little twitchies off that jellyfish, he's floated free for too long."
His tone was careening from distracted to curious to snarling rage, sending humans into wide arcs around him to avoid him. He tugged his sleeve back down with a sigh of frustration--then he saw a glow on his wrist. "What?"
Up went the sleeve again. There was a glowing tattoo on his wrist. That wasn't Corpus script, though. And it said one word, in big, bold letters: REGISTERED.
"Really." He sneered down at it contemptuously. "So. Part of some flesh-loving freak's collection, then. Got any more of these hiding on me?"
Couldn't see his shoulders very well, the straps of his backpack--wait, he was wearing a backpack?--got in the way. Legs were still too awful a proposition to think about. Instead he lifted up his shirt.
He should've known something was wrong already. His hips were an utter disaster, too thin and lacking the bombshell curves he'd engineered for himself. But his waist, too! They'd completely redone everything, made him blocky as the lowest trooper in a ditch somewhere, all wrapped up in that same skin.
This is intolerable!
"You!" He rounds on the closest person. If they're in grabbing range, they're absolutely grabbed. Hello. A rather muscular man with nerd-pale skin is now demanding your attention.
"What planet is this? Why am I here? Why have I been stuck in this ruinously unfashionable body? Tell me. Quickly."
B. Still Heropa: Testing out a new power
Wait. Backpack? Why'd he have a backpack?
He wrestled it off of himself, twisting his shirt around himself in the process. Ugh! He needed better clothes. A better body. A better universe that really appreciated him properly.
There wasn't much in the bag. A comm unit, a little folded pocket thing with some paper rectangles--fifteen of them, covered in "20"s and "10s" and pictures of human faces, ugh--and a folder of more paper. A slip with an address on it, a glossy little pamphlet that immediately made his eyes glaze over, and--that's a profile on himself. Why's that there? To intimidate him? Flattery? Try harder., sure, it acknowledged his skill with R&D, but--wait. What's this thing about powers?
He squinted at the page, trying to think through the remaining fluffy clouds of sedation. Custom Work. Wait. Was that saying he could--?
Oh thank the Queens, he wasn't stuck in this runty little body. Did that make sense? No. Did it raise many, many questions? Yes. But being short was an abomination that needed to stop. It worked for his darling little Manics, but he needed to feel tall.
Wait. What was that last one? 'Oldest Grineer'? Why would he ever--wait. Wait, did that mean--
Hold off on looking like himself for a minute, this he had to see. Take out the comm unit, record this, document, see the results on the screen--wait. How did these 'powers' work? Like with his augments? Just think about the function he wanted and--
He nearly drops the comm. In the space of a blink, he's taller, much taller, somewhere back up over 2 meters, the comm unit looking small and flimsy in his hand. And on the screen--His face has changed. It's not familiar, but he knows, he knows, he's the Empire's expert on themselves, he knows this is what their faces should look like, genes cleaned up and reset to how they used to be, with limbs that didn't fall apart and organs that didn't betray you, genetics he could take back as a new template--
He'd started to laugh, wild and crazed and triumphant. To someone watching, it might not look like much has happened: He was six feet tall, now he's grown about nine or ten inches. His face has changed, sure, his eyes are almost scarily blue now, but there's nothing immediately obvious that would make someone cackle like that.
C. Any Porter city: Food is complicated
He was slowly starting to become aware of a problem. You know, beyond being stuck on Earth, surrounded by humans, et cetera et cetera. This was something more fundamental even than that, a problem he should've seen coming, but always seemed to forget until it loomed its ugly head again:
He was getting hungry.
No, really, this was a problem. His usual diet? Protein slurry, not from the big batches the rest of everybody had to suffer through, his was higher grade stuff, sanitized and carefully balanced to match his unique needs.
Other grineer could kind of digest forage they found in the field--he certainly had back in the day, and he could tell anyone who'd listen that sand skate was not worth the effort. But now? He'd rearranged and abridged his organs to the point where that wasn't an option anymore. That's just the price of fashion!
And normally? Wasn't a price at all, it was a bonus. With the high-grade stuff he used, he could just send it straight into his digestive system through one of the ports he'd installed. Why bother with eating when you could just plug yourself into some nutrients? Eating was boring!
But now he was calculating, trying to figure out how soon he could mix an acceptable batch. He knew all the components that went into the solution, but could he get his hands on them before he started to starve? And with an all-organic body, he'd need more to--
Wait.
Oh right! He had a working digestive system now! Shove any old human food into his mouth and he'd be fine. Perfect! Now, to find a food or two.
Turned out, that was easier than he'd suspected. It seemed like every other building here was devoted to food. That felt almost sinful. How could you possibly manage to make a setup like that?
And then he ducked into a Moondoes Coffee Shop and found out. "...What?" is all he can manage for a moment.
But only for a moment.
"Lot of trouble for some nutrition. Guess you can't help it, though. Not standardized here. Oh, this is going to be such a pain." He cuts through the line--easy enough when you're two heads taller than everyone else--and bends down to examine the cooler full of all sorts of colored liquids, packets, and whatsits on plates.
"And all of it's human-sized. Tiny people, tiny portions, no concern for proper beings." Not that he looks much different from human right now. Details!
"You--" he straightens up to loom in the direction of whoever's closest. "What's 'coffee'?"
D. Outside Jeopardy 001: Ow.
So. Several hours later, he'd finally read the rest of his profile. They'd assigned him to an address in a region called Jeopardy. What presumption! He wasn't going to do what they told him to!
But he was going to go and check it out anyway.
Going to Jeopardy meant another trip through a Porter and another round of being aggressively dissuaded by tiny humans from taking a closer look at its workings. Hmph! Well, he'd need better tools to really make any headway, regardless. Time to strategize about that. Bash some theories together.
"Gotta work like Orokin portals. Obviously. Don't have many documented for real-to-real gates but it's the same principle 's teleportation. Know that part already, that's the easy part."
He's too engrossed in thinking about it all to remember one very important thing as he approaches Jeopardy #001.
"Gotta have a torsion device stashed away somewhere. Wonder how much they can reprogram them. How much I could."
He forgot that human doorways are tiny, horrible little things. Normally he'd be so tall that he'd remember. But in this new body he was a head shorter. Short enough to make the door look reasonable, but a couple of centimeters too tall to fit.
"But if they've cracked open routes through the Void, shouldn't there be--Hngh!"
Tyl Regor, chief researcher and pioneer in the fight against clone rot syndrome, bestowed his purpose by the Queens themselves, has just smacked his forehead directly into a doorframe.
He's still out on the street. People might've seen.
This is literally the worst thing that has ever happened, to anyone, ever.
WHERE: Heropa, various Porter cities
WHEN: Immediately after Tyl's port-in
WHAT: Tyl tries to attack Porter base staff, gets sedated, then muddles his way through having a human body, his new powers, eating a food, and low doorways.
WARNINGS: None yet. Probable spoilers for Natah, once he gets talking to people.
[ooc: Tyl is a verbose lunatic, so for those coming in on a direct link to this page, I've provided some in-page navigation links here so y'all can jump around to find your fancy:
A. Heropa: Out on the street
B. Still Heropa: Testing out a new power
C. Any Porter city: Food is complicated
D. Outside Jeopardy 001: Ow.]
Introduction: Alien abduction!!
Ow. Owowow ow ow. Light. Light outside his eyelids was making a very spirited attempt to get in. No. Go away. He had a hangover. He had the worst hangover. The kind where you couldn't remember the party, but you had the vague suspicion that it hadn't been fun.
A shadow passed between him and the light, and dared to open his eyes just a little. He saw a fuzzy blob.
Well, that was helpful. It mumbled at him, and he gave it a suspicious squint.
"Ooeryoo," he demanded, and then frowned in annoyance. That hadn't come out right. Had it? Hadn't. Was he still drunk? High on something he'd made in the lab?
"Jusgenyoo chektofer," the blurr said, and that sounded wrong too. Ears weren't 'earing right, along with everything else. He felt far too tired to function.
Sedated. He was definitely sedated. More than usual. Couldn't entirely blame them, not after the last time he'd needed emergency care.
No, wait, he could blame them, because he was in charge, and he didn't want to be sedated right now.
"mdun," he said, trying to pick himself up, but that failed with a wave of dizziness as soon as he tried to lift his head. Whoof. Wasn't gonna stop him arguing the point, though. "Gemeeup, god wurg tdo." Also--wait, emergency care? Why'd he think that a minute ago?
"Yoor doongud," the slowly resolving blob said, in an unfamiliar voice. "Yuulbee baggon yor feep in notyme."
Wait. That voice was unfamiliar. Female, too smooth. Blob didn't look right either, had the proper number of parts but they weren't right. There was lots of hair, more than he'd ever allow on a med tech. And no full mask. And he didn't see the proper blue-n'-bloodstained working doctor getup either, that was teal. Teal! Who would ever wear teal!
He was just about to launch into a rant when a thought gave his brain a nudge. The eyes. The eyes were wrong. Definitely not on the yellow-orange-red spectrum he should be seeing. Whoever this was, she was not grineer. They had creepy blue eyes and--what were those stripes sitting over them? He'd seen those before. Right? Right. The over-eye stripes.
Corpus did tattoos there. Didn't they. Drew your attention to how ghastly they looked. That was it.
"Ai no, itz ver dizzoryentin," the horrible Corpus interloper said, leaning over to reach for something. Something felt wrong about that too, even though she didn't touch him. "Buttchor wakeng ub fass, an sommun will com into see yu soon."
Oh no. Nonono no no he figured out what'd felt wrong. He'd felt air move on his face when she'd reached by him. He shouldn't feel anything there. That was wrong. Really wrong. That meant his mask was off. And he'd been breathing through his nose, which meant they'd taken out the tubes that fed him air. He didn't need those to breathe outside the mask, but if his mask was gone, he was covered in germs. And if the tubes were gone, then they'd gone reaching inside of him, who knew what they'd done in there, and they'd probably taken his limbs too--
Wait. No. Yes? No. When he looked down (Whoof, more spinning head), he saw hands. They were in the right spot to be his. But they weren't. They were flesh hands. He didn't have those! He used to, back in the cloning lab, back when he was one of the bodies hanging in tubes rather than the one making them grow. But his had been cut off, just like everyone else, when the peripheral neuropathy set in.
And now there were hands here, curling into claws as he stared at them in confusion and mounting anger. The skin wasn't even grineer! "Waddav yo dun t my hams?" he demanded, trying to sit up again, cobwebs in his brain dissolving in the acid of rage. "Hoos hansre thees? Wire they om my arms? Where am I?" He was getting louder, voice clearer, maybe, maybe coordinated enough to flail one of those horrible meat hands towards the probably-Corpus and catch the front of her shirt, dragging her closer to him.
Yes. Definitely coordinated enough for that. Hello, ugly. You're gonna have a bad day.
"Think you can just steal my work and get away with it?" She was trying to cut in with some protest or another, but he wasn't gonna let her take anything else, not even words!
"Not gonna happen." He leaned in towards the almost-definitely-Corpus, and had another, horrible realization as he did so. "How dare you take my legs! Do you know how hard I worked on those?"
A couple of other someones were coming into the room. Well, bring them on! He was still mostly sedated and blurry-eyed and noodle-armed and maskless and there was so much meat, but he'd take them anyway! "Maybe I like yours better. Won't know 'til I try! Come 'ere and and give me your legs!"
Two pairs of big flesh hands grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back down, pinning him to the medical chair. That did not go as he'd planned. To be fair to him, though, he hadn't had a plan.
Something bit into his neck, and he swore extravagantly in Grineer. "How dare you, slimy eels! Trying t' steel my worg, my toob men, may shaeplee pards!"
The room was going blury again. "Can haffem! Therr mime. Mime."
And then he was out.
A. Heropa: Out on the street
Ow. Light. Again. And this time it was the sun.
Alright. Take stock of what he vaguely remembered. "Woke up. Got sedated. Woke up again, some little stern-faced twit lecturing me 'bout Earth, of all things." He was feeling better now, though, if he was talking to himself.
But now he was somewhere. "Warm. Still don't have a mask on, definitely covered in germs now. Probably gonna get sick. Ugh." Whowever'd taken him apart had known how to work on grineer bodies, why'd they know so little about the grineer immune system? Jerks.
"Sky--there's a sky, important to note that--sky is blue. Breathable. Only a few places where this could be." In the grander scheme of things, at least. "Mars would be too much to hope for. The gravity didn't feel right either. Venus? No. Not cold enough, not enough black rocks and robot fish."
Was this Earth? Really? Where were all the trees? Wait--why were there all these blocky buildings? And humans! why were they so tall?
Oh. Right. Thieves had stolen his legs, that was why.
Nothing felt right, actually. He stopped walking--where'd he been going?--and yanked up one of the cloth sleeves hiding his horrid new arms. He should be able to find the graft point, maybe it was just plugged into his somatics somehow, some sort of fake flesh arms--
No. There was no dividing line of a fresh graft, no skin from his own stumps to be seen on either arm. The alien skin went all the way up as far as he could see it, all his ports and plugs smoothed away to nothing. Couldn't even feel their attachment points against the muscle when he squeezed. "What kind of sick mind would do this? Alad? If this is Alad's work--gonna tear the little twitchies off that jellyfish, he's floated free for too long."
His tone was careening from distracted to curious to snarling rage, sending humans into wide arcs around him to avoid him. He tugged his sleeve back down with a sigh of frustration--then he saw a glow on his wrist. "What?"
Up went the sleeve again. There was a glowing tattoo on his wrist. That wasn't Corpus script, though. And it said one word, in big, bold letters: REGISTERED.
"Really." He sneered down at it contemptuously. "So. Part of some flesh-loving freak's collection, then. Got any more of these hiding on me?"
Couldn't see his shoulders very well, the straps of his backpack--wait, he was wearing a backpack?--got in the way. Legs were still too awful a proposition to think about. Instead he lifted up his shirt.
He should've known something was wrong already. His hips were an utter disaster, too thin and lacking the bombshell curves he'd engineered for himself. But his waist, too! They'd completely redone everything, made him blocky as the lowest trooper in a ditch somewhere, all wrapped up in that same skin.
This is intolerable!
"You!" He rounds on the closest person. If they're in grabbing range, they're absolutely grabbed. Hello. A rather muscular man with nerd-pale skin is now demanding your attention.
"What planet is this? Why am I here? Why have I been stuck in this ruinously unfashionable body? Tell me. Quickly."
B. Still Heropa: Testing out a new power
Wait. Backpack? Why'd he have a backpack?
He wrestled it off of himself, twisting his shirt around himself in the process. Ugh! He needed better clothes. A better body. A better universe that really appreciated him properly.
There wasn't much in the bag. A comm unit, a little folded pocket thing with some paper rectangles--fifteen of them, covered in "20"s and "10s" and pictures of human faces, ugh--and a folder of more paper. A slip with an address on it, a glossy little pamphlet that immediately made his eyes glaze over, and--that's a profile on himself. Why's that there? To intimidate him? Flattery? Try harder., sure, it acknowledged his skill with R&D, but--wait. What's this thing about powers?
He squinted at the page, trying to think through the remaining fluffy clouds of sedation. Custom Work. Wait. Was that saying he could--?
Oh thank the Queens, he wasn't stuck in this runty little body. Did that make sense? No. Did it raise many, many questions? Yes. But being short was an abomination that needed to stop. It worked for his darling little Manics, but he needed to feel tall.
Wait. What was that last one? 'Oldest Grineer'? Why would he ever--wait. Wait, did that mean--
Hold off on looking like himself for a minute, this he had to see. Take out the comm unit, record this, document, see the results on the screen--wait. How did these 'powers' work? Like with his augments? Just think about the function he wanted and--
He nearly drops the comm. In the space of a blink, he's taller, much taller, somewhere back up over 2 meters, the comm unit looking small and flimsy in his hand. And on the screen--His face has changed. It's not familiar, but he knows, he knows, he's the Empire's expert on themselves, he knows this is what their faces should look like, genes cleaned up and reset to how they used to be, with limbs that didn't fall apart and organs that didn't betray you, genetics he could take back as a new template--
He'd started to laugh, wild and crazed and triumphant. To someone watching, it might not look like much has happened: He was six feet tall, now he's grown about nine or ten inches. His face has changed, sure, his eyes are almost scarily blue now, but there's nothing immediately obvious that would make someone cackle like that.
C. Any Porter city: Food is complicated
He was slowly starting to become aware of a problem. You know, beyond being stuck on Earth, surrounded by humans, et cetera et cetera. This was something more fundamental even than that, a problem he should've seen coming, but always seemed to forget until it loomed its ugly head again:
He was getting hungry.
No, really, this was a problem. His usual diet? Protein slurry, not from the big batches the rest of everybody had to suffer through, his was higher grade stuff, sanitized and carefully balanced to match his unique needs.
Other grineer could kind of digest forage they found in the field--he certainly had back in the day, and he could tell anyone who'd listen that sand skate was not worth the effort. But now? He'd rearranged and abridged his organs to the point where that wasn't an option anymore. That's just the price of fashion!
And normally? Wasn't a price at all, it was a bonus. With the high-grade stuff he used, he could just send it straight into his digestive system through one of the ports he'd installed. Why bother with eating when you could just plug yourself into some nutrients? Eating was boring!
But now he was calculating, trying to figure out how soon he could mix an acceptable batch. He knew all the components that went into the solution, but could he get his hands on them before he started to starve? And with an all-organic body, he'd need more to--
Wait.
Oh right! He had a working digestive system now! Shove any old human food into his mouth and he'd be fine. Perfect! Now, to find a food or two.
Turned out, that was easier than he'd suspected. It seemed like every other building here was devoted to food. That felt almost sinful. How could you possibly manage to make a setup like that?
And then he ducked into a Moondoes Coffee Shop and found out. "...What?" is all he can manage for a moment.
But only for a moment.
"Lot of trouble for some nutrition. Guess you can't help it, though. Not standardized here. Oh, this is going to be such a pain." He cuts through the line--easy enough when you're two heads taller than everyone else--and bends down to examine the cooler full of all sorts of colored liquids, packets, and whatsits on plates.
"And all of it's human-sized. Tiny people, tiny portions, no concern for proper beings." Not that he looks much different from human right now. Details!
"You--" he straightens up to loom in the direction of whoever's closest. "What's 'coffee'?"
D. Outside Jeopardy 001: Ow.
So. Several hours later, he'd finally read the rest of his profile. They'd assigned him to an address in a region called Jeopardy. What presumption! He wasn't going to do what they told him to!
But he was going to go and check it out anyway.
Going to Jeopardy meant another trip through a Porter and another round of being aggressively dissuaded by tiny humans from taking a closer look at its workings. Hmph! Well, he'd need better tools to really make any headway, regardless. Time to strategize about that. Bash some theories together.
"Gotta work like Orokin portals. Obviously. Don't have many documented for real-to-real gates but it's the same principle 's teleportation. Know that part already, that's the easy part."
He's too engrossed in thinking about it all to remember one very important thing as he approaches Jeopardy #001.
"Gotta have a torsion device stashed away somewhere. Wonder how much they can reprogram them. How much I could."
He forgot that human doorways are tiny, horrible little things. Normally he'd be so tall that he'd remember. But in this new body he was a head shorter. Short enough to make the door look reasonable, but a couple of centimeters too tall to fit.
"But if they've cracked open routes through the Void, shouldn't there be--Hngh!"
Tyl Regor, chief researcher and pioneer in the fight against clone rot syndrome, bestowed his purpose by the Queens themselves, has just smacked his forehead directly into a doorframe.
He's still out on the street. People might've seen.
This is literally the worst thing that has ever happened, to anyone, ever.
no subject
Wait. What was that other word in there? Oh! "Right, right, food has tastes, almost forgot." Look, it'd been a while since he bothered, alright? And it wasn't like protein slurry was worth thinking about that much.
Anyway! Stims. Wanted some. "You--" he shamelessly cut in line to point at the human behind the counter. "Coffee. Enough of it to be worth it."
no subject
"Are you new to this world?"
Conner nodded, peering at the guy, curious.
"You should wait in line. Everyone here is also waiting to buy some coffee." He sighed. Why?
no subject
"Haven't been to Earth in ages, 'n now I'm remembering why." Earth? Look, Earth was important to the Queens. That was fine. Earth was also terrible.
And he was expected to get in line here? Really? He glanced down at the nearest human. They glanced up at him from their little communicator, and shrugged, looking a bit lost.
A lot of them had their communicators pointed at him. Well, that was to be expected. "Seems fine to me."
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Conner waves a hand. "Being an Import makes you famous, but it doesn't mean you're better. And that means, you should treat others with respect, as in not cutting in front of them, or acting like you deserve things more than they do."
He'd make this one play, and if he guy didn't listen, Conner would back off. It was that guy's life to live, after all.
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"That'll be 3.25," said the coffee-human.
He squinted at them. "I have no idea what that means."
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And with that, he turns and walks away. He is so not up for this. Nope.
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Well, he had some of those. He rummaged around until he pulled out one of the "10"s, thrust it in the direction of the coffee-human, and then walked away with his drink without a second thought.
Coincidentally, in the same direction as the exposition-human. "So. You got stolen by this place too, right? Where'd they nab you?"
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He glanced sideways at the guy. "Where did you come from?
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"Somewhere that doesn't use your calendar," he drawled, before his brain started to catch up with the implication.
Wait. (He was thinking 'wait' far too often today.) He'd already heard time was strange here, but--No, no, hadn't there been a few weird reports out of the derelicts and old Orokin towers? It was theoretically possible.
Okay! Time travel. That was a thing now. The time it took to go from incredulousness to acceptance was about three seconds, and it played out openly on his face.
...Which he'd forgotten was not masked right now. Not that it mattered! How he felt about things wasn't just his own business, it was everybody's business.
"Can't pull the same trick here, send yourself back to whenever-that-is?"
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Conner has spent a lot of time on the network these last few days.
It's been depressing.
Very depressing.
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"Well, obviously. You don't steal somebody and then just let them wander back home, do you?" He doesn't!
"You've gotta work for it. Outsmart them! Take their secrets and make them yours." And he was absolutely going to do that. Humans and their weird time-bending portal thingies weren't gonna stop him!
He took a drink of the coffee, and instantly regretted it. "Hngkt!" Hot. Hot hothothothot.
He managed to swallow it down after a too-long, tongue-burning moment and sputtered slightly, wiping his mouth with his forearm. Now he had just one, very important question to ask, of the coffee, of the universe itself:
"Why."
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"Good luck. For now, I am relaxing." He isn't really, but he was also playing his cards close to the chest. He doesn't want to trust too many people with what he is doing.
"Are you okay?" Conner winces as he sees the man flail by expression.
"Some cream might help cool it down, but would change the taste. Maybe wait a few moments?"
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"Burning my taste buds off changed the taste already. Where's the--? Human--" He accosts another one. "Cream. Where is it?" He's pointed in the direction of a trio of pitchers. "Well done. You can go." He gives them a pat on the shoulder and proceeds off to dispense enough of the--what's Half & Half? Whatever! He pours in enough of it to turn his coffee beige. That's probably enough.
"Anyway--" He wanders back to the first human. "This place. Not enough tech to make this stuff happen. Too simple. Too slow. So--what's behind it? Anybody know?"
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He leads the way out of the cafe.
"Not that I know of. I just arrived and everyone on the network, where IMports like us talk to one another, seems to be just as mystified."
He'll keep an eye out, and look into it. But it will take time. He needs time.
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He follows, taking another, more careful sip of the coffee. Tastes like burnt tongue, and--oh, that is weird. What is that taste? That taste exists? Huh.
Anyway! "Figured as much. Found a--what was it?--an Exo. Here for a whole Earth year, nothing to show beyond a theory."
But there were other, more immediate, more distracting problems at hand. "But it can wait. This, though--" he gestures to himself with a satisfied smirk. "Gotta figure this out. Pick it apart. Just need the tools to do it.""
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He keeps walking with the other, listening. "Pick what apart?" Conner is even more confused. He has no idea what the other person is talking about.
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"No idea! Some kind of synthetic. Probably. Didn't get a close look." And his definition of 'close' was extremely intimate.
"This body! I love it. It's perfect. Apart from the waist and hips, but I can fix those." It was a basic model, he couldn't blame it, but he could make it more fashionable.
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He is so confused now. This person has to be from a completely different world. Or society. Or something.
Conner blinks. "Er, if you say so. I hope... you have good luck with that? Maybe someone ion the network could help with gtting the tools?"
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"Bold of you to think I need luck," he retorted, but with no particular venom. "I might. Gonna need a lab here anyway."
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"You can probably find backers, people to fund you, too, especially if you are willing to share your secrets."
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Okay. That? That was pushing it. "'Share' is a dirty word, you know. 'Specially about this. I'm not some Corpus credit drone, selling away the future for profit, I've got integrity."
Kind of.
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"There is nothing dishonorable about working for someone, getting resources from them, and sharing what you learn. It's a partnership."
At least Conner felt so. He had no idea, really.
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He'd never, ever cared about whether something was honorable or not, and he wasn't going to start now. He rolls his eyes, taking another drink of coffee before replying.
"Human. Look. You're trying. That's cute! History says you're dead wrong. Deadest."
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"For someone who knows nothing about this place, you sure make a lot of assumptions. That kind of thing can get you killed." Conner throws up his hands.
"Go research and ask questions, keep your mouth shut, and your ego in check, and maybe you will learn something. Maybe even enough to stay alive and do well here. Either way, good luck. I hope you find what you're looking for."
With that, Conner steps back, salutes with one hand, and then shoots away, at superspeed, into the sky. He has to get to work, and he really needs to leave before he loses his temper.
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And he would not keep his mouth shut! His voice was fantastic, and he was going to use it whenever he felt like it!
"Still don't need luck. You, though? Good luck." Sure, maybe-not-human, go off and--
Oh. Yeah. Humans couldn't do that.
...Wait, how had he done that?!