Summary:Toni and Posse have some time to get to know about each other's backgrounds over old kung fu movies and pizza, and a mutual dislike of a certain technologist…. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The door to Toni's lab reopens and Posse steps inside. Like a vampire, the cyborg's current state is mythical - talked about at a hush but never seen in daylight, and rarely ever beyond the confines of her castle, RESCUE HQ. Flattops, a t-shirt, and a very short pair of gym shorts - that's it. The green-eyed, hard charging veteran is actually out of her cybernetic suit and the undersuit beneath.
What's left is most of a woman, and thanks to Roni's expert craft a recognizable homage to the remainder. Sand-hued skin transitions above one knee to a protective metal socket and three composite limbs stretch out from her clothes each with flawless musculature woven from carbon fibers and super-alloys to mimic their predecessors. The former soldier's natural arm is decorated in counterpoint, with a hearty sprinkling of tattoos from mid-forearm up, and spanning the whole circumference of her bicep with a sprawling tribal pattern.
Over away from the working area of the lab, of course, is an area that's a bit more relaxed, intended for when Toni wants to think and consider or just take her mind off something that's balking her for a bit in order to give her mind a bit to reset and think of new ideas. Also perfect for movies and video games, as it's basically a couch, a batterec coffee table, some overstuffed recliners, and the huge TV itself on the wall. Which is currently playing some sort of kung fu action comed
Not finding the purple-haired scientist in her usual spot among her workbenches, it takes Posse a moment to reorient and notice her off to the side. The cyborg's left pupil dilates as it zooms in on the screen and the white-haired woman lifts her brow curiously before marching over. "And what is this?" she barks, her tone and footfalls both meant to be heard - although the crooked smile on her face might hint that she's joking. "You're not at your bench - did you catch the flu?"
Toni shrugs. "I finished what I was working on, so I figured I'd take a mental break for a little bit. And maybe pizza." she adds. "I'm waiting for the delivery." On the screen, there are…well, a pair of Chinese men apparently beating the snot out of some punk bikers in the middle of a square in front of some sort of food truck. It looks…old? Maybe 80s, from the leg warmers some girls are wearing in the crowd.
"Pizza's good. What kind did you get?" Posse asks, thinking with her stomach before anything else as she reaches the couch and sets a hand on its back, glancing idly back to the bright screen.
While it's obviously being played for comedy, the pair are very skilled gymnastics and martial artists…a much younger Jackie Chan is one of the pair, depending how well Posse knows movies. She's just in time to watch them do a double takedown of passing bikers, Jackie with a jump kick and the other guy with a flying tackle. "Sausage and pepperoni, regular crust." Toni says simply. "I wasn't feeling like anything too fancy…"
"Hey there's nothing wrong with the classic. You've got ya' bread, meat, and cheese food groups," Posse dismisses casually, returning her attention to Toni without any special spark of recognition in her eyes. "Have enough for two people? I'll split the bill."
"Eh, my treat." Toni says, watching Posse watch the movie. "You don't know this one?" she wonders after a moment. "Not a kung fu movie person?" She shifts, pulling her legs up under her as she rests an arm on the back of the couch. "I mean this one is kinda an old school one, Wheels on Meals. One of Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung's earlier ones, when they were at their peak."
"Not a huge one but I've seen them. Rush Hour was a f***ing riot," Posse responds as she moves from the couch and makes herself comfortable in one of the overstuffed chairs nearby, sinking in gratefully and propped up one leg.
"Rush Hour's not bad…though the sidekick kinda annoyed me." Toni admits, wrinkling her nose. "This is way before that though…here, wait, I'll rewind it a bit, I just started." She stops and restarts the movie…which opens, obviously because it's a Chinese kung fu movie…in Spain. So lots of shots of neat looking Spanish manuscripts and we're introduced to the brothers who are the main characters, who seem like nice guys. They let their Italian neighbor hide from his wife after he's caught coming back after not coming home the night before due to being out with his girlfriend…instead of his wife. Because he's Italian! And then they drive off to set up their nifty foot truck, which has a computer! Witht he latest in vector graphics that show when various panels pop up and extend for the eating coutnera nd the front and back and the entrance at the back. Jackie goes off on a skate board to take orders while his cousin cooks food. There is much juggling of food and such as Jackie then hands it out to the people who run the various stalls int he square.
"You mean Chris Tucker? He's half the fun!" Posse refutes incredulously, but otherwise settles in for the film. She squishes the plush cushions around noisily as she shifts to get more comfortable and the cyborg's eyes, real and artificial, settle onto the television screen. "Heh, this is Jackie Chan at work alright. Always juggling a million things…"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, just his persona is a bit too irritating for me." Toni admits. "I mean, he's okay in some things. 5th Element, for example, isn't too bad." She pauses as there's a chime from the door, then after a moment a robot comes rolling in holding a pizza box that it sets down on the coffee table with plates and little packets of red pepper balanced on top.
Soon the scene with the punks on dirt bikes return, where they're basically being assholes and driving around like crazies, bugging people, then park in front of the foot truck where their exhaust and the noise makes people leave. The cousin comes out to complain and gets laughed off. Jackie nearly gets run over and falls off his skate board. So they decide to teach them a lesson. Cue ass beating, which ends when the lead biker, after seeing his buddies get beat up, insists his mommy told him he couldn't fight and that he was going to go home now, so he's laughed out of the square.
Posse smirks with enjoyment at the comeuppance, and is visibly surprised when a robot enters through the door - her head whipping around to watch it before the veteran laughs incredulously. "So that's how you get pizza in a secure facility. Have you got one to brush your teeth now? Change your socks?" she teases.
"I was testing pathing programming." Toni says virtuously. "But also I can't always stop what I'm doing to answer the door." she points out, leaning down to snag a table and transfer a few slices to the plate. "I do have a toothbrush that keeps track of how long I brush for though." she admits.
On screen, the pair go to visit the bespectacled cousin's father, who's in an insane asylum, and find out he's got a date with a girl their age…who turns out to actually be there to let him know her mom, who he's actulaly going to date, is coming, as she's also in the asylum. Both of them of course fall for her. But then later that night, see her standing out with the prostitutes out in the square and walking off with a cowboy guy, which breaks the bespectacled cousin's heart a little, though Jackie is more cynical. Though it turns out she's actually totally stealing the cowboy's wallet then she runs out after a brief fight an dhides in the food car while the cops and robbed guy go looking.
"Pfft! Amateur," Posse snickers at the screen as the young woman runs off, wallet in tow. Serving a plate for herself as well, the officer stacks two pieces one on the other then glances around. "Does your robot do drink service too?"
Toni eyes her. "….yes, what do you want?" she says after a moment, her lips twitching. She whistles and the robot come sback over, pausing in front of Posse. It's on a pair of treads with a main claw arm and a little tray to carry stuff on currently, with a sensor over the camera that lets it look around.
Posse pauses and lifts her metal arm, looking for a moment between it and the tread-borne butler. The design differences are naturally striking.
"I'll take a Powerade," she instructs to the machine before tilting her head to Toni. "You?"
The claw gives a little nod, then off it rolls as Toni holds up the Brisk tea she's sipping on. "I'm good. And yes, it's not quite the same. For some reason having a disembodied human arm on it seemed…weird." She furrows her brow, as the serving droid comes back and carefully sets down a bottle of Powerade in front of Posse.
On screen, the boys take the girl back to their place. Jackie is suspicious so he has them hide most of their money out of their wallets just in case, then they try to one up each other giving her blankets and pillows and water and such, as the girl watches amusedly, before just asking which of them is going first. At which point they decide to say no and walk back to their bedrooms. The next morning the italian husband, this time in tighty whites with a lipsstick kiss on them hides out in the boys room again as they're outside trying to hold off his wife, who has a shotgun…and of course he hits otn eh girl, who pickpockets his keys from the jacket he's wearing. And of cours ethe wife bursts in sobbing that she didn't mean it just in time to find him embracing her and, well, hilarity. Then she steals the guy's car. The cousin poitns out she didn't steal the few bills in his wallet! Then finds out that she stole the money from where boht of them hid it before running off.
"Maybe if you want to make it weird," Posse considers as she uncaps her drink and takes a few gulps before returning to her pizza. The older woman largely shuts up in order to eat, filling her mouth well before flushing it with a sip.
"I'm good with not being weird." Toni says dryly as she leans back at the couch, pausing to take a bite of her pizza as she does the same. "Mmmph, I mean, it'd be good for testing purposes for some things, but not as much as you'd think. Balancing and such like that would be completely off since it's not on a body with humanoid locomotion. I mean, I've considered building an android drone design, maybe…" Toni notes.
"So give it two arms," Posse answers back between bites, letting Toni fill the conversation while she focuses on eating. The two pizza slices won't last long at this rate.
"Well…I could give it a torso, I guess." Toni says, wrinkling her nose. "I mean, I'd have to build something special to accomodate the power systems and to keep it stablized…I guess I could put it on treads, though that might seem…like I said, weird." she comments.
Meanwhile, on screen, Sammo Hung is playing a junior detective who unexpectedly gets put in charge of a detective agency when the head detective has to flee due to debtors hunting him down. He takes a case from a mysterious man in a bowler to find a woman who went missing years ago. His search leads him to the mysterious thief girl, just as strange men are attempting to kidnap her from her apartment. He breaks int and attacks the men, giving her time to get away, after which they beat the crap out of him then run out chasing her.
Posse takes a long drink of bright blue Powerade and smacks her lips from the mingled nectar of pizza grease, marinara, and sugar smeared between them. "Everything's better with treads. All-terrain robot," she opines before chuckling at the screen. "So much for mister great martial artist. She has ed with some of the wrong people…"
"She has, yes…" Toni agrees. "And really, that's the preference…humanoid drones are a pain in the ass. They require specialized gyroscopes to move like a human would, and by default they're not as stable as treads or like, spider legs would be." She frowns. "I mean. the latter make it look creepier because it's a human looking part on a very nonhuman looking part, mind."
"If it works better go for it, weird's cool," the cyborg responds. "'sides give it five years and we'll have MRAPs with tits and a Stark Industries tramp stamp anyway. If Roni can do this I'm surprised no one's gone full Terminator yet," Posse adds, giving a half-wave with her left arm.
"Well, they say SHIELD have lifelike androids, actually, that they use for doubles for people. It's just rumors though." Toni says thoughfully. "I mean, if they could actually pull off life like skin and all the little things that go into avoiding an uncanny valley moment, it's criminal if they're not making it available for medical prostheses too. But, it's SHIELD." From her tone, Toni doesn't have the highest respect for SHIELD.
On the screen, the girl escapes. She hides out with Jackie and his cousin, and admits that she's grown up on the streets and is a bit desperate, but not desperate enought hat she sells her body, she just steals. But that she wouldn't even do that if she had a chance to make money another way, so of course they hire her as their waitress. Sammo confronts her while she's working, incompetently, by covering her mouth and dragging her off then trying to convince her he's the good guy by saying he's going to take her to meet the guy who hired him, which earns a knee to the groin and her running off again…only to promptly get captured by the bad guys and dragged off, which Sammo reports to Jackie and cousin who give pursuit.
"They used to say SHILL was hiding aliens too, but I guess that's an open secret now. They're ing SAC/SOG Illuminati. If someone said I'd be shootin' a phaser for a living I'd have laughed them out a' the room, and I bet they had them twenty years earlier," Posse quips before ripping apart her last piece of crust, chewing through the crunchy shell and soft interior.
"So wait, this girl lives off stealing pocket change from food service but she's too pure to turn a trick? Nice moral compass on this one," the cyborg smirks mirthfully, glancing over at Toni to gauge her audience.
Toni hmms. "Well, I guess it's more a self respect thing…to be fair, the TExan guy was skeevy." she notes. "And she's a pretty good thief thus far." She shrugs her shoulders. "I guess she figures if they were going to spend the money on buying her body, they won't miss it if she just takes it directly?"
Jackie and cousin run into two of the bad guy's flunkies, who turn out to be REALLY good, enough to fight them to a standstill and to where they decided discretion is the better part of valor and flee in their van while the thugs steal cabs to pursue them.By the end they're throwing out stuff from the van, spraying condiments on windshields, and generally disabling pursuers as the bad guys crash…but Sammo gets knocked out of the truck and take sa tumble off the side of the road as they flee back to their apartment.
"That's a really~ good way to get knifed. Good on her, respecting herself more than other people, and without even keeping a weapon," the white-haired woman mocks casually. "These days I guess she'd go for their cellphones." As the action sequences pick back up, Posse watches with an idle, crooked smile.
"You ever have someone try to rob you in this city?" she asks casually.
"Well, she did seem okay with knowing to run like hell…that's what they tell you in self defense classes, not to fight but to get the heck away to somewhere more populated as quickly as you can, or find a cop." Toni notes, then hmms. "No, not as of yet. I mean, I've gotten beaten up but not because of money." she adds after a moment.
"Sure, but step one of 'run away' is 'get away' - that's what the weapon's for." Posse turns to look at the purple-haired doctor with something approaching curiosity. "Oh? That's a story."
Toni purses her lips. "Well, it's usually preceded with 'go for their eyes with your keys or kick them in the balls', admittedly." She tilts her head, then mms. "…let's just say being a Chinese kid who liked girls, had a single mom raising her, and was really smart for her age didn't go over well in school." She sips from her drink.
On screen, the group goes back to their house, and promptly get ambushed byt he thugs and have to flee out a balcony for another getaway, then decide they're going to get to the bottom fo this by threatening the guy they think is in charge of the bad guys, the one who hired Sammo. So they dangle him form the top of a cathedral. It turns out he's actually the butler of a recently deceased Spanish count, who is searching for a maid with which the count had a illegitimate child, who has 14 days to present themselves tot he lawyers to inherit. Of course, the count's evil brother is out to kill her and her mother first…and the girl is the child. So they come up with a plan to get into the Asylum to break out her mother, by Sammo acting crazy and running around with a butcher knife in a square, with the rest stealing an ambulance and pretending to be there to take him to the asylum.
Posse smirks and takes a drink of her own while Toni responds, diverting her eyes back to the screen until it's her turn to respond. "This should be good," she murmurs of the movie before raising her voice to irreverently ask, "And let me guess, your mom was rich too?"
Toni snorts. "No." she says simply. "She wasn't. My father gave us some money to keep things going after the divorce, but he was in another country and didn't make much to begin with, even as a medical researcher. She did the best with what she had. Part of the reason I started applying for scholarships early was to help her, because I knew what a burden I was on what little she was making."
On screen, the plan is initially to suggest that the cousin is going to marry the thief daughter…but then they decide to instead talk the cousin's father into proposing to the thief's mother in the asylum and convince them to try and escape. Unfortuantely, this doesn't go well as the bad guys ambush them and captures the mother and daughter then whisk them away to the evil brother's castle, meaning the heros have to find a way to get inside. There are several plans for this that are excuted simultaneously and individually that don't…go over great in most cases and eventaully end up in some bad guys getting knocked out but the good guys being captured save for Sammo.
"D*** you're lucky he gave you anything from out of country. Too smart to enlist, huh?" Posse wagers with a grin, seeming to devote more attention now to Toni than their movie - although the tattooed woman does glance back now and then when the music picks up.
The Chinese engineer frowns faintly. "…after my father died I had no desire to be involved with weapons. He died because of that kind of violence. So Tony Stark," and her voice is filled with distain. "could live."
Posse pauses with her drink halfway to her lips and turns to Toni with a raised eyebrow. "I didn't know your family was involved with Stark." The cyborg stops for a moment, choosing her next words. A gentle tone might be in order but what comes out is another question in the same dry, flippant timber - but perhaps just a little softer. "What happened to him?"
Toni shrugs slightly, as if it's nothing. Even if if it isn't nothing. "…he's the man everyone forgets in the Stark story. Ho Yinsen. The medical researcher that helped Stark build his first suit in the desert, when they were being held by terrorists."
"That's some bullshit," Posse opines frankly. "Was he there as an aid worker?"
Toni shakes her head. "He was a bit like Roni…Dr. Kelsey. He worked with primarily medical implants and cybernetics, but he knew a lot about electronics and such." Her brow furrows. "He was kidnapped from him home next door, in Timbetpal. They wanted him to build weapons too."
Posse sets her empty plate off to the side and leans back in her chair, letting out a heavy breath and fanning her legs. "So that makes you a second generation genius then?"
Toni snorts. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess so." she says simply. "I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps. Be the sort of person he was, create the things he wanted to make. He was an ideas man. An advanced idea mechanic, he used to say…" She snags another piece of pizza, nibbling on it. "And now, no one remembers him. It's all Tony Stark and how heroic and brilliant he is, and how powerful IRon Man is and what new death ray he's welded onto the damn thing."
"He'd suck a news anchor's left nut for publicity, of course the world knows about Stark," the white-haired veteran dismisses. "And he is real damn lucky he's been allowed to joyride this long."
Toni's eyes widen as a snort of a giggle bursts out of her before she covers her mouth, coughing. "Yes. I mean…he hasn't stopped being a millionaire playboy. Sure, he's done some heroic things, but…he hasn't shown any sign that he's really changed, or that he's not a weapons manufacturer. He just justifies it by saying it's for the Avengers now.
"We do live in a pretty ed up world," Posse admits. "Not everyone gets a change of heart when a bullet flies past their ear into someone else."
The purple-haired engineer leans back, taking another bite from her pizza as she nods in agreement. "Yeah. Anyway…my dad is why I don't want to be like Stark. I don't want to build weapons. I want to build things that help people. Sure, some of them can be misused…but they didn't start off as weapons." She sighs. "I mean, other than the nonlethal ones I had to build to have some way of stopping people without hurting them too badly."
Posse fishes in her pocket before pulling out a tan-patterned scarf and dabbing her lips. "Did you have a hand in that phaser tech we've got in armory?"
"Uh…you mean the stun lasers? They're not really phasers, they don't break down material. They just fire a laser that ablates a small amount of the target's surface into plasma, providing a concussive explosion as well as a short lived EMP that disrupts neural function. Or electrical equipment that's not shielded." Toni explains.
The cyborg chuckles. "Phaser, stun laser, same thing. Was that some of your handiwork?"
There's a slight nod to the head. "Yes. I wanted to make something safer than beanbag rounds or tasers. I mean, it'll stil deliver a slight burn if you shoots someone in the same spot, but it's much more adaptable than some of the other countermeasures I've come up with. Those are more crowd control items."
"Well for someone who doesn't like weapons you did a good job with those. There are a lot of bodies still breathing because they got shot with that instead of bullets," Posse notes. "Weird as hell to shoot, but effective."
"Well…I suppose." Toni says, frowning. "I don't like building them though. It feems like I'm not living up to what my father wanted to do, to heal people. I originally didn't have any weapons at all, but after a few bad moments it seemed wise to have at least something that could take someone down relatively harmlessly.
"You know I've seen a chaplain carry an M-4 before," the cyborg beside her points out while sparing another brief glance at their movie. "Sometimes stopping people from getting hurt works better than a band-aid after." Posse's green eyes, faintly mismatched in their hues, rest casually on Toni. The older woman is still relaxed even if she's fallen into lecturing a little.
"This city would have been a real shitshow with live ammo too. Twenty-fifteen would have filled three cemeteries."
By this point, the movie has reached the climax, with the heroes split between fighting different bad guys one on one. Sammo is dueling the count himself with two blades to the counts one; Jackie is fighting Benny the Jet in a brutal hand to hand fight. The cousin is fighting the unnamed other main bad guy. Lots of combat!
"Yeah. I know. Logically, I know." Toni says with a sigh. "It doesnt' help make me feel better about knowing I built something to attack people sometimes. And sometimes, I feel like…I enjoy the fight too much. Or just..pushing how powerful I can make the things I build. To where I'm…I lose track of why I was building them originally."
"You're not going to get any complaints from me - upgrade away," Posse offers gamely as she tucks her hands behind her head. "And what's wrong with having a little fun? You'll go nuts if you don't enjoy yourself a little."
"Well, there's fun, building new and interesting designs and seeing how far I can push them….annnnnd there's fun where I lose sight and make something I deeply regret afterwards when I see how it could be used." Toni says with a frown. "I like being creative, I don't want to…I don't want to be Tony Stark." she says, throwing up her handsa little. "You know?"
Posse untucks her hands and sets them in her lap as she sits up straight, staring Toni down with a lightly furrowed brow. "I've never met the man myself but there's a hell of a lot more separating you two than his weapons. Besides his saggy ass and your button nose, he's a show-boating miser who keeps all his toys for himself." The exposed mechanisms of the cyborg's left arm shift and actuate as they adjust themselves in little ways that in a natural arm might go unnoticed. "Me, I wouldn't mind putting more H.T.-brand experiments to good use."
Toni wiggles said button nose as she's reminded of it. "H.T.?" shes ays after a moment, though she nods. "Yeah. I don't think holding onto his toys is going to work forever. Evetnually someone will steal it, or copy it, or reverse engineer it."
"Ho, Toni," Posse expands before cracking her bearing to scoff. "Or just tell him to. The man has bank accounts, a US passport, property, and a whole company. It's one name on a piece of paper for Uncle Sam to shut him the down and no super-suit bitch fit could stop him. He must have greased the right palms for that not to happen already."
Toni sighs. "Well, he did sort of help form the Avengers. Bad publicity considering all they've done to save people in the world to try and nab his tech. Not to mention he's smart enough that he probably boobytrapped it to destroy it if it looked like they might be trying to take it?"
"You're living proof he's not *that* special. Russians, Chinese… everyone's gonna' crack that code eventually, just like the atom bomb," Posse comments. "Except they won't hide the formula in a penthouse basement; you'll have a whole squad of them minimum."
On screen, the heroes are all together, fighting the Count as one…and force him to surrender. The thief and her mother are saved and get the inheritance, the mother and the cousin's father marry, and the two continue to compete over who might end up wit the thief. The end! Lighthearted and really…both aren't paying attention to the screen much any more as they get sidetracked….