Summary:Reviewing their heist from the other day, Ranna and Kian make plans Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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An entire suit of Cogmium armor, to say nothing of the recovered cogmium weaponry, is a lot of a fairly expensive alloy to have laying around. The metal itself is not much use to Kian because he doesn't have either the training to use it, the tech to program it or the psychic attunement to manipulate it in the way that Ranna does. Which is good news for her because it means she can keep all the cogmium.
One of Kian's safe 'houses' (it's really more a nicely sectioned off space in an abandoned industrial complex) has a basic work bench and tools. Nothing fancy but there's enough to do, say, maintenance on his armor, which is what he is presently doing.
"So what are you going to do with that suit?"
Ranna is healing but she still has to be careful. Doctor McCoy had told her several weeks before anything strenuous. It's been four or something - close enough, right?
The small ninja is looking over the armour carefully, there's almost an expression of worship on her face as she does. "What am I going to with it?" She looks at Kian in confusion "What do you think I'm going to with it? I'm going to use it. There's some really neat features on this version, I'll have to work them out but look …"
She shows Kian a 'bracelet' that forms the cuff of one of the arms. With some concentration, the suit retracts into it.
"You can pack the entire suit onto your arm?" That means the plates are, relatively speaking, fairly thin. But if the metal is sufficiently treated, that wouldn't matter. It would still work quite well as armor rather than as being wrapped in tin foil which he does admit would be sort of amusing.
"Oh yeah?" It's not clear exactly what he's doing to his armor but he's using precision tools as one might for electronics. "What manner of features would that be?"
"Apparently." The bracelet is fairly chunky so the plates aren't that thin, but they are thin enough. "Apparently. It means I can have it with me, just like my weapons."
"Hmmm? Oh well, packing into the bracelet to begin with." Ranna answers and expands the suit again. "Integrated comms, subvocal. Heads up display when the mask is active. I'm sure there's more things but I need to work through it. The first thing I need to do is disable the external control functions. Oh, yeah … it has a connection to the Order comms network."
"That's quite the suite. Where are they hiding the electronics on that?" It's probably in panels or something. It wouldn't be hard and circuits can actually be made quite small now.
"That seems like that could be a two edged sword. We wouldn't want them listening in on us. Can you isolate the suit so that they can't track it, by the way?" They're pretty sure the tracking is off now but there might be other ways to tag this thing and via the comms functions is one of those ways.
"Huh? How would I know? I don't make the stuff." Ranna answers, giving Kian a look. If he's not a tech, she's even less of one. Until recently she'd been a programmed killer. "But if you look at the underside of the plates, see the tracework?"
"That's a bit more tricky but I think so. I wish we had someone who could check this over and hack the programming. Given we don't, I'm going to set up the menu's so it doesn't broadcast." The small ninja sighs. "How effective that is, I don't know and we'll have to play trial and error."
"Yes but you were trained to use it, were you not?" Kian says patiently, putting down his armor so he can go look at hers. There are indeed etched and inlaid circuits on the bottom of the plates, along with what look like places it's supposed to contact skin.
"I'm guessing we might have a few mishaps along the way." Because lots of operating systems, especially custom designed ones, bury useful features in obscure menus.
"Why, out of curiosity, don't Shadow-Stalker and Midnight use stuff like this?"
Ranna looks at Kian curiously. "I was modified and trained to use the metal, yes. The suit? The tech that goes into it? It might as well be black magic. You know how to use your cell phone, right? But you don't really know how it works except for the broad brush concepts, yes?"
She pauses and thinks "You're not speaking about the tech though, are you? You mean the features and functions to make it go stealth and stuff? I was and I wasn't. This is a definite upgrade on the last suit I saw and don't you find it interesting we found it so easily?"
It's a good question that Kian asks though and Ranna can only shrug. "Why wasn't I given armour, given the assignment I was sent on? I'm good, Kian, as good as you - but I don't have the tech that you do, do I? Who's to say what Shadowstalker and Midnight do use? The shiny stuff isn't really in their bailiwick, is it?"
"Fair enough. I probably couldn't fix a cell phone…" Not if he had to do it by hand. His technopathy actually makes it so that Kian doesn't even have to understand broad brush concepts. If a machine is functional it'll do what he tells it to do. Well. If it's functional and fueled. Dead machines are no help.
"No, I suppose not. Martial arts is. As it is yours. Well that and telekinesis. So I'm going to guess you will need to practice with that thing. We should find a spot where we can do that without being observed." Beat. "And you should paint it. Or something. It's not subtle."
Ranna nods and gives Kian a bright smile. It's possibly one of the first he's seen from her in the time he's known her. The disabling of the kill switch, the operation … seems to be helping her become … more human. Or as human as she can be with the modifications that were done to her.
"You probably couldn't, no. So I know the tech works and can make some educated guesses as to how, but it's just guesses. Just like you can't fix a cell phone or hack a computer."
"Well, I meant the fact that's shiny, Kian. Not that it's armour. That stuff is designed to move with me - well the wearer, which is me now." Ranna is nearly bubbling over the find. "I'm surprised they left it so shiny, to be honest. And are you telling me that martial arts isn't your bailiwick?" That gets a curious look. The technopath has been very quiet about his abilities and Ranna isn't really aware of the implants in his spine.
"Shall I paint it black? Or make it decorative? Choose a persona that suits me and play to it?"
"Have you seen me fight?" It's a rhetorical question, Kian knows damn well that she has seen it up close and personal. "It is, but it's less about the martial arts themselves and more about a certain set of skills that makes me what I am." He might have done that on purpose.
"I'd say black but that's just me. If you want to go the vigilante route like so many of the people that we run into I suppose you could give it a motif of some kind. Though I'm not sure what it would be. The Flying Fox? The Bumblebee? Oh. Maybe the Jade Falcon."
Now he's just being a bit silly.
The Taken reference flies right over Ranna's head and she nods to Kian as if he's serious. Which he is. "I've experienced your fighting, remember? You have a little bit extra behind it, I suppose that's the certain set of skills you're referring to."
It might be worthwhile trying to educate her to a western way set of entertainment.
"Black is good. Matte, of course. I'm not a Fox or a Bee or a Falcon. I'm just … me."
More references that she just misses. "I'll get onto that. I need to get back to work soon, but I'll have some time before that."
"And then we can practice. Any idea where you might want to do that?" It will have to be safe and fairly robust. Kian and Ranna get serious about their sparring.
"Well Ryoshi is a fairly serviceable code name I suppose. That is what you've been using all this time after all." No need to go reinventing the wheel.
Kian goes back to his own armor and starts messing with what looks like a small control box. "Like you I have some psychic abilities that were brought out by my tech. Mine are a bit different. You've seen me use them before, though. The leap. The shield. The exploding dagger constructs." Also Kian didn't get 'extras' slipped into his surgery like Ranna did.
"Anyway the sparring ground will have to be some place people don't generally go and it would help if there were some structure about it. Maybe there's an abandoned train yard somewhere."
"I wasn't going to change my name, Kian …" Ranna sniffs, collapsing the suit back into the bracelet and leaving that on the workbench.
"What have you got there?" There's a hesitation in her voice like she's not sure she should be asking. Kian hasn't been … open … about himself much before now.
"I wondered about the leap - it looked assisted. Not just psychic. Or is the purple puff of air just an effect you use? Purple suits you, by the way."
Watching the other ninja as he works, Ranna stretches carefully - with the wound healing she's been getting back into shape.
"I … might know somewhere. A storage yard that doesn't seem to be used."
"That would be very convenient." Kian nods. He's thinking something with some verticality since both of them need that to get the best practice. He can leap and she can throw and climb and in a place like New York fights often depend on upward mobility.
"The effect is a very short lived barrier. That's how I block attacks that should kill me and that's how I can change direction midair. I just manifest a surface that I can jump off of." It's how he can double jump - or even triple jump as well.
"Mmm? Oh this is one of the control boxes for my armor. I'm just switching out some components. Combat use burns them out eventually." Which is why he needs to steal parts so often.
"Alright then." Ranna answers again, eyes moving between the box and Kian. After giving him the directions, she listens carefully. "I'm still not up to full speed and need to be carful for another few weeks." She says quietly.
Kian knows that but she doesn't think it hurts to point it out.
"The control box manages the shields and stuff? This is why you keep up the raids though, isn't it?"
"Well the control box manages the tech in the armor, which is nano-based. That's how I can hide it, similar to what your cogmium does but not as heavy. That's also how I can alter it's form to, say, expose my mouth to eat. And it regulates the bio-systems and communications."
Kian continues to work on the electronics. "But yes that's why I keep up the raids. The other things I do stress out the components and without replacing them I'd eventually be left with no armor at all. Some of my kinetic amplifiers are housed in the armor so… that'd leave me with far fewer tools to deal with threats. Which is just all around a bad idea."
He looks up. "We probably shouldn't do a full on sparring match until you're healed but we can at least look at the place."
"So …." Ranna thinks on that. "… that sounds way better than cogmium then. An you do that through your enhancements? Where's the power for the armour, though?" There has to be something doesn't there?
"Have you considered finding someone to fabricate bits for you? There's some people who might be able to do that." Of course that means trusting with a piece so they can reverse engineer it and also means a third party getting their hands on the tech. Ranna wouldn't blame Kian for saying no.
"We can spar a little - get me back into things, but you can't beat the shit out of me like you did."
"I was trying to kill you at the time, so I wouldn't do that again. Probably." And Kian HAD indeed been trying to kill her. It's just that he wasn't prepared to do so outside the context of a fight, which is why she is still alive.
"It's not as heavy as cogmium and in any case I'm still not sure where your people get that stuff. Maybe mine didn't have access to it. In any case, the power source is partly me. The suit catalyzes a chemical reaction in my blood and for that I need to make sure that I eat certain kinds of food." Kian makes a face. "In an emergency I can just drink pickle juice but… ugh."
"You could have …" Ranna says quietly. She'd been a mess by the time he'd finished with her. That he hadn't killed her had astounded her. She wouldn't have stopped if the tables had been flipped - she wouldn't have been able to.
"A chemical reaction in your blood? That … can't be good." She doesn't comment on the cogmium - mostly because she has no idea herself. "Pickle juice? You mean vinegar and sugar?"
"I could have yes. But I did not." Kian says, moving on from that topic. It's not nice to remind people who have become allies that you once tried to kill one another. And it's not something he especially likes thinking on.
"It's one of the food processing chemicals that they use in it, actually. People eat stuff with trace amounts of it all the time, but I need to make sure I have a higher level than usual of it." Which means he has to manage his diet somewhat.
"I don't even like pickles…" Kian mutters.
"I do …" Ranna offers, watching Kian. He has to know she'll be watching him, learning. Food processing chemicals - she'll check the jars the next time she's at the market.
Letting the topic drop of trying to kill each the small woman nods. "Sometimes we have to do things we don't like to be better and stay well. You will tell me if you need anything, yes?" It's telling she doesn't ask for many confidences but offers up some, at least.
"I need another hour or so to work with this armour, make sure the broadcasts and external access can't be restarted. Then I was going to get something eat." She stops, seeming like she isn't going to go any further. "Would you like to … join me?"
"Then you can have any pickles whose jars I need to break into to drink their juice." Kian snorts. He shakes his head and closes the small box he is working on. "Yes I'll let you know if I need anything." Anything that he thinks she can get him at any rate.
"Sure. There's a dim sum place not to far that's open all night. You like dim sum right?"
If she doesn't… well. Dishonor.
Ranna knows that tone that Kian uses. She sighs and turns back to the workbench.
"Dim Sum is fine. It's food." Perhaps it really is dishonor on her.