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[ersatzeverything]

[Deacon had arrived on Moira looking 50s greaser-chic, blue jeans, white shirt, and giant pompadour hairstyle. Now he's changed up his appearance entirely, looking rather stark with the pompadour wig gone, shaved head and a plain Moiran duty uniform. He's been itching to have surgery again, change his face entirely, but since that's not gonna happen soon he'll take what drastic changes he can make. If he cycles through looks enough, maybe he can keep the itch mostly away. ...if he can also get a pair of sunglasses to hide half of this face that he's had too long. There's a slight edge under his lackadaisical cadence as he speaks.]

Hey space pals, I really need a pair of shades. I've got this eye condition, the doc says that if I don't control the amount of light hitting my eyes I'm gonna be blind in five years. [Lie lie lie.] It would totally suck. The glowy portal thing took my pair, so it'd be really awesome if someone here could loan a pair out. I'm open to trade offers, too.

Comments

[vengeance_driven]

Sorry friend. But I've seen planets with pretty good things close to glasses.

Maybe they would have some goggles here?

[ersatzeverything]

Goggles would be fine. [He says quickly. Not his first choice, but if it covers his eyes, he'll take it, at least until he can find something better.]

And then, next planet we dock at, I get some alien shades. Hey, maybe they'll shoot lasers or come with built in 3d targeting systems or, or x-x-ray vision. That'd be awesome.

voice;

[kidjoy]

They got medical shit here. They might have somethin' for it.

[Her tone suggests she thinks going to the medbay for anything is a terrible idea, but blindness seems a big enough issue to warrant trying.]

Re: voice;

[ersatzeverything]

[Gggggggggg and this is the problem with lying.

It won't stop him, however.]

Yeeeeah, I don't trust doctors. Especially ones I don't know. You could go in for a rash and come out stripped to your underwear and missing a kidney.

voice;

[kidjoy]

[Her eyes go wide. She'd had no experience with doctors outside of what's happened here and a DJ using the title back home.]

They do that? They just go in and take your insides?

[ersatzeverything]

Not all of them, but some do, yeah. Anyone who's got a shitload of drugs and sharp objects as their professional tool set is someone you want to super careful about trusting.

[Fear the medbay.]

But some of them are just arrogant jackasses. They'll save your life all right, and then they'll, like, never let you forget about it. [And that describes his old colleague right there.]

[kidjoy]

Drugs? They drug people?

[Consider the child afraid. He experience with drugs tended to the brainwashing, do terrible things while you're out kind]

Mmm. That's dumb. Who hasn't saved someone from a dustin' or two? Can't hold that over someone, it'll just get old.

[ersatzeverything]

Oh yeah. If they're good it's only for, like, actual medical reasons. But the bad ones can just jab you with a needle as soon as you're in the chair and--BAM--you're out cold before you can draw your gun.

[Fear is good. Fear keeps you alive.]

Yeah, that's what I told Dr. Carrington--he's a not-evil doc back home. He didn't agree with me. Bastard.

[kidjoy]

How ya know the difference? Which are gonna be good and which are gonna hurt you?

[They'd checked her in the medbay when she'd arrived. She'd been too scared and confused to keep an eye on everything they'd done.]

Stupid. Stupid, stupid. Keepin' track of that kind of shit is just depressin' anyway. Who wants to know how many times ya keep someone alive?

[ersatzeverything]

Trust your instincts. Be suspicious. It's not like the bad ones wear signs, so you just look for things that seem off. And back away if they act like they're a little too eager to get you in their patient room.

[kidjoy]

Runnin' like hell sounds a lot better than backin' away.

[She's taking his words to heart, already rethinking the doctor she'd met only days before.]

[ersatzeverything]

Depends on the situation. Sometimes it's better to play dumb and let people think you don't suspect a damn thing, then find an excuse to slip away without them knowing that you're not coming back. It gives you more of a head start. But if that's not possible then, yeah, by all means just book it out of there fast as you can if things get creepy.

[kidjoy]

Can't argue with needin' a head start. Keepin' distance is the best way to run.

[But tactics don't come easy to a nervous child. She heaves a sigh.]

Anybody offer ya any eye-wear yet?

[ersatzeverything]

People have offered some ideas on how to maybe get some. But nah, no one's coughed up a pair yet. Sucks.

[kidjoy]

Maybe nobody has any. The supplies around here are all weird.

[ersatzeverything]

Yeah, life's rough when you can't just walk into a bombed out house, rifle through the drawers and stock up. [Back home, if he lost or broke his glasses, he'd be able to find a new pair in a day, easy.]

[kidjoy]

[The girl can agree with that, even if what she was used to taking was more along the lines of food.]

Mmm. But most of the good stuff's already gone by the time you get there.

[ersatzeverything]

Yeah, but sometimes you get lucky and find a safe that nobody's picked yet. That's always fun.

[kidjoy]

All safe's usually have in 'em is old money though.

[ersatzeverything]

Hey, a lot of people kept sweet treasure like guns and ammo in safes. And sometimes old tech or stimpaks or other trade valuables, or if you're really lucky, a stealth boy. Anyway, there's usually something in them that makes it worth a few second's effort to pick the thing. [Really he just likes picking locks. Something about getting into something someone else tried to keep people out of is very satisfying.]

[kidjoy]

Ammo? Ain't nobody keepin' chargers in a sa-Oh shit, are ya talkin' about bullets?

[She says it like she can hardly believe her ears, like he's said something outlandish. To her, he has.]

[ersatzeverything]

[The girl's reaction doesn't make sense to him.]

Yeaaaaah. I'm talking about bullets. Do they not have bullets back west?

[Apparently California is very very different from what he's heard.]

[kidjoy]

Nobody's used bullets since, like, before the wars. It's all laser guns. Battery powered everythin'.

I don't even know if there's any bullets left anymore.

[ersatzeverything]

That's a damn shame. I like a laser pistol for close quarters, but laser is shit for range, even the laser rifles. Have you ever shot one?

[kidjoy]

No. [She's reluctant to admit it. Her boys let her do a lot a child shouldn't, but that was the one rule they had.] Was gonna when I was bigger.

[ersatzeverything]

We've totally got to-- Wait, how old are you? [He should probably know that before he starts saying that they need to hit the firing range.]

[kidjoy]

[She thinks about it a moment; time's tricky without a routine. Eventually she lifts both hands and wiggles all ten figures.]

'bout that. I think.

[ersatzeverything]

[That's probably old enough to start learning on a pistol, right?]

Right, we need to get you to the firing range, have you start practicing the basics.

[kidjoy]

[She certainly thinks so.]

You're the second person tryin' to get me to learn to shoot. [And she's pleased by that.] You really wanna use a range? I only ever saw people practice with cans and the open road.

[ersatzeverything]

I heard there's a place here to practice shooting. Might as well use it. Not a lot of open road on a spaceship.

[kidjoy]

And I guess the air out on the planet ain't good for practice. Still feels a little fancy.

[ersatzeverything]

Heck yeah, it's fancy. I can't wait to try it out. Shooting practice Old World style.

[kidjoy]

Ewww. You like that nancy-fancy shit?

[She's teasing, giggling under her breath.]

Gonna have to call ya sir now?

[ersatzeverything]

Fuck yeah. The nancier the betterer. Just give me some useless Old World widgets and I'm a happy man.

But you probably shouldn't call me "sir." Like, I think people would pound me into the ground before we could explain it was a joke. Almost as bad as if you started calling me "uncle" so...don't do that, either. Yeah.

[He hopes she picks up on what he's getting at. Or just doesn't question it at all. He's not sure he's up to explaining why people might get out of joint if they hear a young girl calling an older man whom she's neither related to nor a student of "sir."]

[kidjoy]

You can tell you're old when you like all that kind of nonsense.

I'm not goin' to call you uncle. We ain't related. [Even without her disdain for normal family terms, if she was to try the word out the girl already has people who fit that role. Giving that level of affection outside that group was akin to betrayal.] Fine. I can take a hint, weirdo.

[ersatzeverything]

Yeah, it's the freakiest thing. Like, I turned thirty and then all of a sudden thought desk fans were the shit. Never cared about them before. Just wait, someday a long ways down the line you'll have a birthday and, bam, you'll be collecting typewriters and gold watches.

[kidjoy]

Everybody likes fans. That ain't just an old person thing. But what's anybody got the need for watches? And what's a typewriter?

[So many questions all the time.]

[ersatzeverything]

You must have a way more steady electrical supply back west. [There's only a few places where a person could actually power a desk fan and have it be useful and not just a large and ugly paperweight.]

Watches would be handy if you needed a precise time. Like, if you and a handful of pals wanted to set up a multi-pronged ambush attack on a group of enemies, watches could be useful.

Typewriters are a device where you stick your hand in a slot and it takes some readings and tells you what your types are. Your blood type, your weapon type, your romantic type, all of it. Lots of different settings and varieties.

[It probably makes him a terrible person, lying to a child like that, but the lie falls out before he even thinks about it.]

[kidjoy]

Not really. I don't think anybody in the zones has electricity. But sometimes you can jury rig a fan to work with a battery pack and get a whole fifteen minutes of air. [Her boys had been pretty smart, after all, even if impractical at times.] Maybe more if ya can find some batteries at full charge.

Ain't never had a need for that. If we were gonna do something, we just did it quick or used some signals. [And there was only the four of the boys, with Cherri coming around to help on occasion. With such a small and impatient group, multi-pronged anything was rather difficult to pull off.]

Why'd ya really care about romantic type? Or even blood type? That kind of stuff important in the east?

[She takes his word at face value. She'd spent her life around a handful of the same men who she believed had never lied to her. She half believed that everyone who showed her a little kindness was the same way.]

[ersatzeverything]

Knowing your blood type is super useful if you ever get knocked about or shot up a little. There's enough old medical gear lying around and people who know how to use it--sort of--that transfusions are pretty common. There's a merc group called the Gunners who even tattoo their blood type on their foreheads. Kinda weird, actually, but it makes for really handy targets to aim at while sniping so I'm not gotta lodge a complaint with them.

So, yeah, ask medbay what your blood type is. It could save your life some day.

[It'd rough if back home if no one else around her knows their blood type, but maybe she can start a trend.]

And knowing your romantic type is...uh...good for finding friends. [He'll just put it that way.]

[kidjoy]

I just don't get it. I thought blood was all just blood. Ya know, red and gross and supposed to stay on the inside. And what's a transfusion? How's that supposed to save my life?

[It's a lot of questions, but medical care wasn't always so advanced in the Zones. Most of the patching up she's seen Jet do for the other boys involved stitches and bandaging. Loosing too much blood was just a shit-out-of-luck scenario.]

Talkin' about the real kind of friends or the kind ya only see for a few hours in the back of a car? [She'd lived with teenagers for most of her life. She was aware of the different kinds of friends.] Cause I don't know what romantic stuff has to do with finding real friends.

[ersatzeverything]

Nah, blood types are like...it's like different gangs. Blood types only like to hang out with their own kind and bad things can happen when you force them to mix with types not like their own. So if you know your type, and other people's type, if you bleed out a lot, a whole lot, if there's someone else of the same type, they can share some of their blood with you.

[The west must be in really bad shape if they don't even have that relatively basic medical service available anywhere at all.

His eyebrows go up just above the rim of his sunglasses at the girl's comment on friends.]

Thaaaat depends on a person's idea of a good friendship, I guess. Or a good romance.

[kidjoy]

That's weird. [AKA she doesn't understand any of it.] Wouldn't you be in trouble if you gave up blood?

Everyone back home seems to think it's pretty good.

[ersatzeverything]

You can share a bit of blood and be okay. It's like sharing food when it's scarce. Each person gets a bit, no one dies, although you might be a little light-headed for a while.

[He rubs the back of his neck.]

Uh, friendship in the backseat of a car is totally overrated. Boring. It's like the nancy-fancy Old World widget stuff where it's massively uninteresting until you hit a certain age, so don't even bother with it until you're, like, twice as old as you are now. Maybe three times as old.

[kidjoy]

[That's a comparison she can understand, even if as the baby of the group she was used to being slipped more than a little bit of anything.]

Okay. I guess I get it. I might have to see it in action someday, if it's really that useful.

Like I'm even gonna bother then! There's a lot of better stuff to waste carbons on than the droids anyway, like bombs or food or markers. And why be gross with other runners when you could be doing something fun anyway? [She's still at that age where even kissing seems gross.]