Kovacs kicks the door back before he opens it, old habit born of living in a neighborhood squirming with skulljump streetpunks and sticky-fingered kobun. It's Ortega, though, it has to be Ortega.
Fuck, she looks amazing.
He focuses on the food. She's right, if she thinks he's trying to avoid the dining hall, the dinner crowds, the smiling cooks and scent of sizzling meat. Fuck, he hates that place sometimes. Mostly when he's not there, and doesn't want to return.
He gestures to a straw mat near the door. "Shoes off." He's in socks, thanks for noticing.
She looks slightly less pissed off than she was twenty minutes ago, her hair falling out of a messy ponytail, a plate in each hand. And she's trying not to let herself do more than glance up his face for a moment or two. Did he come in with new scars, the same way she did, or did his wounds stay open? (Something with the Reaper, maybe, but the cut in her hand left a thin, raised line, slicing through all the natural wrinkles in her palm.)
"Here." The boots are staying on until he takes the plates so she can unlace them. And while she does, she takes a look around the room. "Just the one room?"
Kristin follows him over, once she's in her stocking feet, and sits across him at the little oval table. Everything's low to the ground in here, a room designed for life to happen at floor level. It's not bad by any means, but it's different.
"An apartment," she corrects, pulling a pair of forks from her jacket pocket and setting one near Kovacs. The night's meal (does it count as night, if you're in space?) appears to be some kind of fish doused in a creamy sauce that turns out to be lemon-flavored. There's rice to go with, and vegetables. "Enough room. You don't seem too surprised by this."
Gesturing with a fork, encompassing the room but meaning the whole thing, the part where we just came back from pretending to be pirates.
"You weren't awake for it in Millsport." Not that this is a bad room: enough space to sit and to sleep, a door that presumably leads to a bathroom, every fixture clean and good-quality. Plenty of people in Bay City have far less to their name.
She stabs another bite of fish with her fork at the word blender. For the most part, she goes about her dinner like she's expecting it to last a little while - not quite as leisurely as she'd be at a family dinner, but not the Kristin-has-five-minutes-to-eat wolfing her mother despairs of. "And you didn't?"
He shrugs, one-shouldered. "A little less than a month."
Kovacs looks at his food, looks at her. She's the shining fucking beacon she always is, beautifully infuriating, and he's... "Death doesn't stick, here. Watch your ass."
She's muttering an oh my God under her breath when he starts again - and the warning feels almost inane. Death doesn't stick anywhere, if you have enough money. "Real death?"
"Head smashed in by a bowling ball." Do they have those on Earth? They've got them here, and this place is very Earth-y. Kovacs reaches up, taps the scar over Elias' eye. "This isn't a clone."
"Jesus Christ." She has to know for herself, reaching across the table so she can run her thumb across the scar herself. It feels exactly how it always does, and she feels like a doubting Thomas as she draws her hand back. "How?"
(Head smashed in. She's not going to think about that. The facts come first.)
"Somebody talked to you about getting turned into animals," he says, and it's not a question. He read all your conversations, Ortega. You're welcome. "It wasn't just animals. Some people turned into... aliens. Monsters. I don't fucking know."
More complicated than that, but he doesn't want to talk about it. There's no point in bragging if she'll believe he could be killed so easily. Being underestimated is almost restive, at this point.
"My guess is some kind of subconscious empathetic neural nanotech, but maybe it's magic."
His voice twists toward unsurprisingly sarcastic.
"Or the place is all virtual." A possibility, except for how he hasn't been able to break the simulation yet, or change his shape. The program is clearly more advanced than an Envoy was trained for.
"You think someone took our stacks from Fightdrome?" It has possibility, but it seems complicated. The serious VR simulations she's been in, the ones they use at work - primarily training, all admittedly years ago now - haven't been group experiences like this. Most commercial stuff doesn't look like this, either; when a sim hosts dozens of people at a time, it doesn't tend to look this realistic.
Or maybe she's just looking for reasons her cortical stack's still in her spine.
Her eyes are drawn to Elias' scar again. "This is insane."
Kovacs shakes his head. His fingers tap idly on the table as he thinks. "I don't think this has to do with physical stacks," he says. "A lot of people here are from pre-stack eras."
If they're really there. If they're not just spun up code-- but they seem too complex for that.
"This is starting to sound metaphysical." And that's not a compliment. She can nearly hear her mother in her ear, es el purgatorio.
What does she even remember from Fightdrome? Mostly dying of Reaper. Her fingertips brush over the surface of her palm, feeling the healed cut there. After a moment, she shakes her head like she's trying to clear it. "Whatever. We won't figure that out tonight. What else have you learned about this place?"
He's got a month's worth of observation on her, and she's determined to catch up fast.
"Nobody gives a shit about organic damage," he says while picking at his food. With his too-starched shirt, one shrug of a broad shoulder makes him look momentarily like a wrinkled giant. "You die here, you pop right back. It's like they're all meths, but... they're not. Bad teeth, bad hair..."
He shakes his head before he remembers possibly the strangest thing he's come across. "Watch out for a guy calling himself... Warren Kepler."
It takes a moment to remember. The personality left a stronger impression than the name.
"Only motherfucker I ever known not to flinch at being called a jackboot. Took it in fucking stride. Some kind of military recruiter, private sector specialist. I've known motherfuckers like that. Nothing behind their goddamn eyes."
"Faces that need to be punched," she mutters, adding to his list. So far, she hasn't seen most of the people she's argued with, but she's willing to believe the bad teeth and hair.
As he describes this Kepler of his, Kristin tries to remember if she's talked to anyone calling himself either name. None of the conversations match, but it doesn't matter; she'll take the warning anyway, off description alone.
"Easy to see why he's here." The kinds of people who decide they want to be soldiers of fortune, making their dream one of being some meth's favourite criminal, the ones who do that on purpose? Ninety times out of a hundred, they're worthless scum. (Fucking scum.) She pushes her plate aside, leaning an arm on the tabletop. "Anyone useful?"
Or decent, but right now, she's not holding her breath. It's a prison ship - if they're surrounded by bastards, that's not surprising.
"I think he's on your side," he says, pointing a fork in her direction.
"A lady named Misty helped me out first day. There's a guy named William-- little freak, but harmless. Tess is solid, but she's not here to make friends."
Which would have hurt his feelings, 270 years ago. He considers mentioning Carol, but it feels like a betrayal, so he lets himself lapse into silence as he lights a cigarette.
"Of course he is." One thing that's becoming clear: wardens seem more an ideal than a reality. The reality seems to be useless bastards, if the inmates are to be believed.
(She doesn't entirely believe what she's heard. But she's seen plenty of crooked cops - the really crooked ones, out for themselves alone - and in this isolated little corner of the universe, it'd be easy for one of them to do worse.)
The other names get filed away. Misty, she hasn't met. William, she talked to on the network. Tess, the same. Not here to make friends seems right.
Kristin gives him a look as he flicks his lighter. "Really?"
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Fuck, she looks amazing.
He focuses on the food. She's right, if she thinks he's trying to avoid the dining hall, the dinner crowds, the smiling cooks and scent of sizzling meat. Fuck, he hates that place sometimes. Mostly when he's not there, and doesn't want to return.
He gestures to a straw mat near the door. "Shoes off." He's in socks, thanks for noticing.
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"Here." The boots are staying on until he takes the plates so she can unlace them. And while she does, she takes a look around the room. "Just the one room?"
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"Yeah, inmates got it rough," he says, poking at the food. "You got a palace?"
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"An apartment," she corrects, pulling a pair of forks from her jacket pocket and setting one near Kovacs. The night's meal (does it count as night, if you're in space?) appears to be some kind of fish doused in a creamy sauce that turns out to be lemon-flavored. There's rice to go with, and vegetables. "Enough room. You don't seem too surprised by this."
Gesturing with a fork, encompassing the room but meaning the whole thing, the part where we just came back from pretending to be pirates.
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He eats his food with little thought to its substance-- eat to live, to sustain, it's all the same.
"You got sent right into the blender, huh."
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She stabs another bite of fish with her fork at the word blender. For the most part, she goes about her dinner like she's expecting it to last a little while - not quite as leisurely as she'd be at a family dinner, but not the Kristin-has-five-minutes-to-eat wolfing her mother despairs of. "And you didn't?"
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"I showed up here when everyone was... different. Changed. Nearly got torn apart."
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Kovacs looks at his food, looks at her. She's the shining fucking beacon she always is, beautifully infuriating, and he's... "Death doesn't stick, here. Watch your ass."
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(Head smashed in. She's not going to think about that. The facts come first.)
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A little gesture toward his eye, toward the scar.
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"My guess is some kind of subconscious empathetic neural nanotech, but maybe it's magic."
His voice twists toward unsurprisingly sarcastic.
"Or the place is all virtual." A possibility, except for how he hasn't been able to break the simulation yet, or change his shape. The program is clearly more advanced than an Envoy was trained for.
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Or maybe she's just looking for reasons her cortical stack's still in her spine.
Her eyes are drawn to Elias' scar again. "This is insane."
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If they're really there. If they're not just spun up code-- but they seem too complex for that.
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What does she even remember from Fightdrome? Mostly dying of Reaper. Her fingertips brush over the surface of her palm, feeling the healed cut there. After a moment, she shakes her head like she's trying to clear it. "Whatever. We won't figure that out tonight. What else have you learned about this place?"
He's got a month's worth of observation on her, and she's determined to catch up fast.
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He shakes his head before he remembers possibly the strangest thing he's come across. "Watch out for a guy calling himself... Warren Kepler."
It takes a moment to remember. The personality left a stronger impression than the name.
"Only motherfucker I ever known not to flinch at being called a jackboot. Took it in fucking stride. Some kind of military recruiter, private sector specialist. I've known motherfuckers like that. Nothing behind their goddamn eyes."
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As he describes this Kepler of his, Kristin tries to remember if she's talked to anyone calling himself either name. None of the conversations match, but it doesn't matter; she'll take the warning anyway, off description alone.
"Easy to see why he's here." The kinds of people who decide they want to be soldiers of fortune, making their dream one of being some meth's favourite criminal, the ones who do that on purpose? Ninety times out of a hundred, they're worthless scum. (Fucking scum.) She pushes her plate aside, leaning an arm on the tabletop. "Anyone useful?"
Or decent, but right now, she's not holding her breath. It's a prison ship - if they're surrounded by bastards, that's not surprising.
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"A lady named Misty helped me out first day. There's a guy named William-- little freak, but harmless. Tess is solid, but she's not here to make friends."
Which would have hurt his feelings, 270 years ago. He considers mentioning Carol, but it feels like a betrayal, so he lets himself lapse into silence as he lights a cigarette.
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(She doesn't entirely believe what she's heard. But she's seen plenty of crooked cops - the really crooked ones, out for themselves alone - and in this isolated little corner of the universe, it'd be easy for one of them to do worse.)
The other names get filed away. Misty, she hasn't met. William, she talked to on the network. Tess, the same. Not here to make friends seems right.
Kristin gives him a look as he flicks his lighter. "Really?"
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He stands. "You staying the night?"
Ah, romance.
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