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[Rhys shows up on-camera, his brows furrowed slightly at the communications device. You're probably gonna notice pretty quickly that there's a mechanical port on the side of his head, and the corresponding eye is a bright, unnatural blue. And, of course, that he's sporting a yellow mechanical arm in place of an actual biological one.

But hey, nobody's perfect. Without much further ado, he turns the phone over so the camera is facing the floor, and there's definitely the sound of some buttons being pressed, some tampering that sounds like he's attempting to remove the back panel.]

Oh, for the love of- [The phone drops to the floor, the screen going dark. Rhys picks it up a minute later, flipping it back over so the camera is facing him again.] What kind of backwards tech is this? You have the technology to teleport us to different realities and you decide to give us an outdated ECHO recorder that my grandma could have built?

Look, is anyone on this junkheap versed with the network systems you've got going here? 'cause I've got the same functions in my arm and that's way more convenient for me. I've been trying to access it directly, but it'll probably take me awhile. If anyone knows how to cut corners, you know, now's the time to be helpful.

Also, hey. I'm Rhys: hero from Hyperion, new arrival, good with technology. [A pause, and then-] ...and if any of you are from Pandora, then you should know that I'm a totally laidback and innocent guy, and I didn't do it.

[[ooc: Forgot to post this earlier, but here is Rhys' Permissions post!]]

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If I was going to kill you over it, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because you would be dead. [her tone isn't bright, exactly, but it is matter-of-fact, utterly confident that she could kill him easily.] Instead, for some reason unbeknownst to even myself, I am trusting you with something that nearly no one else knows. It's a puzzle I'm still trying to figure out. What does your eye do, if it isn't a telescope?

[she goes quiet as they turn into the bar, until they're seated. it's a well-chosen spot, a corner booth where they can both see most of the room.]

Since I doubt very much you would like my entire life's story, perhaps starting with a question or two would help.

...right.

[That's not exactly confidence inspiring. Rhys shuffles a little awkwardly along the hallway then, trying not to think about how a girl half his size straight up just said she could murder him with no doubt in her mind. What's worse is that she probably could.]

Uh, my eye- lots of stuff. Mostly scanning and hacking. Not that I can get a ton of information without being linked to the Hyperion database.

[He frowns.]

You want me to ask you questions about yourself after you literally just said you could kill me.

[sophie's expression goes confused.]

I said I am capable of killing you, which is probably not that rare around here unless you also have weapons in that arm, given the softness of your hand. [she glances down at it. no obvious calluses, clean fingernails, soft skin. her own hands are calloused and knuckled, almost unfeminine. to sophie, it looks like the hand of someone who has never held a weapon.] It wasn't a threat; my preferences toward stabbing generally run to the front, not the back.

[she sets her chin on her hand, head tilted in that birdlike fashion. sophie understands the world of crosses and double-crosses and trusting no one in a fashion not entirely dissimilar to rhys, so it comes as a surprise that what she meant as a promise not to harm him ends up interpreted as a threat.]

I also said that you've seen something that almost no one else has seen, know something nearly no one on this ship knows, and have chosen to trust you with it. I even offered to help you learn to fight on your own. Any member of my family would have used what they'd just seen against me. You made a joke about...something. [not that she got it, but in retrospect it was definitely a joke.] Do you understand? So yes, you can ask me questions. I've no intention of harming you.

['No intention of harming you' sounds good in theory, but Rhys has said similar words enough in his past to really be able to trust them. Eh, still, what is he going to do about it? As far as Sophie is concerned, she was just stating the laughably obvious fact that she could easily kill him. As could... well, probably most of the people on this ship.

Rhys considers how lucky he was to get away from Pandora when he did, remembers something about frying pans and fires, and frowns.]

You barely even know me.

[she almost says 'i know enough', but stops. she really doesn't know enough, she just has a feeling. rhys wasn't scared of her until she mimicked his face, and given that they're still sitting at a table together, he can't be that scared of her now. so she revises her statement.]

I thought that was the greater part of why we were here.

Here on the ship or here in the bar?

[He finally manages a wry smile at that, setting his elbows on the table.]

I mean, if it's the former, I guess the powers that be are twisted enough to want to run a social experiment... but if that's why you met me here, then I guess I can't say no to twenty questions, right?

[Rhys rests his chin in his human palm, tilting his head at her.]

So, can you really look like anything you want to?

The latter, but I suppose we can't discount the former either.

[she smiles with one side of her mouth, which somehow looks genuine anyway.]

I can be anything I want to. It isn't a false image.

[she holds out her hand across the table as it begins to change. this time her choice is a bit better, and instead of copying rhys' appearance her hand becomes covered in interlocking golden scales, starting large across the back of her hand and growing finer toward the end of her fingers, which are tipped by fingernails that ought to be wicked claws but are instead just black and hard like a claw would be. no sense in making the skittishness worse.]

[There's still a little unease when she starts shifting, but now that Rhys is sort of expecting it, he only tenses away from her arm a little, rather than freaking out entirely. But yeah, on the whole, still creepy. People shouldn't be able to do that.]

If it's real then why doesn't it carry over into the pods?

[she raises an eyebrow quizzically.]

What you saw in the pod is what I really look like. [her hand changes from the golden scales to what he had seen in the pod. her tendons stand out from the thinness of her skin, her fingers are covered with scars in the process of turning a fully healed silvery sort of color, and her fingertips are healing burns. but they aren't the pink of burnt human skin, they look darker, almost bruisy.]

I can't control my shape that deeply unconscious. But I prefer not to be seen like that. Far too dangerous.

[then her hand is just her hand again.]

[He wants to continue to push it- that if this is real then how is that more real, or if that's more real then how can this also be real, but... Rhys is pretty sure that he wants to avoid the headache it'll cause. Instead, he just looks at her arm when she exposes it, eyebrow slightly raised.]

Looks like you went swimming in razor blades. Not exactly my first choice in hobby, but eh- to each their own.

[sophie has an easy answer to that, but rhys didn't ask. Instead she gives a bitter little chuckle.]

I had--and have again, but that's beside the point--a fingerbone of particular value to one of my brothers, and the easiest way to get it back and prevent me from breaking it was to remove all of the fingerbones in or on my person. He was kind enough to return them later.

[the kind of calm in her tone suggests that this is not the worst thing that's ever happened, though it's a bit too soon to look at it with any real humor.]

Edited (That extra] was going to bug me forever. ) 2015-03-20 02:06 (UTC)

Uh.

[He just. Is going to scoot away from her a little.]

...okay.

[she looks almost hurt by that, but it passes so quickly it would be easy to miss.]

...you live in a very safe world, don't you.

[Rhys kind of laughs at that. Well- no, there's no kind of about it. He's laughing.]

Haha, no, but we don't do binding contracts with fingerbones. I mean, a little blood on the paper here and there, sure, but the less fingers you have, the less fingers can pull triggers on guns.

[He catches his breath, lifting two of his chair legs up with his toes pressed against the ground.]

Triggers are pretty important. So are airlock controls.

Oh, it wasn't a contract. It was far more important than a contract. A piece of paper would have little meaning amongst my siblings.

[she doesn't explain further, but she does pause, head tilting the other way in another quizzical look.]

All right, what exactly is a gun? I know it's a weapon, but of what sort?

['What is a gun,' she asks the guy who works for the leading weapons company in the universe. Rhys almost hits his forehead against the table right there. But no, new and creepy friends, he's going to work with this.]

A gun. Well. It's like- uh, a modern bow and arrow. Except instead of needing both arms to shoot, you just aim it at someone- [He definitely makes a finger gun with his mechanical arm, pointing it toward her and crooking his thumb like he's firing.] -flex your finger a little on the trigger, and then pow. Metal bullet, the size of a quarter, going through their skull at fifteen hundred miles per hour. All you have to do is make sure you aim toward their general direction and move your finger like, half an inch.

So, in my universe, finger bones: important.

[she copies the movement, slower than he is, but boy does she have the sighting bit down.]

So it's a machine that shoots metal through people very quickly to kill them from far away? Or at least make holes in them. [she looks thoughtful.] Interesting. Something to look into, I suppose. I would prefer people not attempt to make holes in me.

Pretty much, yep. It's what made my company rich. Hyperion invented these stabilizers that makes your gun accurate the longer you fire it. Awesome, right?

[Actually, completely useless if you want to use anything but an SMG, but at least they make automatic shotguns too. Rhys mulls that over for a moment, as if he actually knows how to use a weapon, before resting his elbows back on the table.]

Don't worry, the feeling's mutual. You wouldn't not believe how many times I've been shot at in the twenty-four hours before coming here.

It would be quite helpful if you didn't know how to aim, yes. As long as you had a lot of...bullets, you said they were called?

[don't even try to explain an smg to sophie. not worth it.]

And yet you appear to be completely free of holes, so that's not entirely terrible. [take it from the girl with the big stabby scar through her middle.] Is that usual, or were you having a particularly exciting day?

[Or shotguns. But Rhys sighs, yes they're bullets, but doesn't bother explaining further.]

Bit of both. Actually- no, none of the former. Not usual. I went down to a planet that's basically hell incarnate to... well, to, uh, do something important. Everyone on that planet hates Hyperion. Everyone on that planet also has easy access to guns, no mental health facilities, and a lot of free time on their hands.

Edited 2015-03-20 04:41 (UTC)

I'm not sure if they bother with bullets in hell...

[oh come on, sophie, keep track of the actual matter at hand.]

So you went down to a planet full of people who sound like bandits and would hate you on sight without any ability to defend yourself at all to do something important? That...

...that sounds like it could have been thought through a little better.

Well- I- uh...

[Rhys dips his head, rubbing at the back of his neck awkwardly.]

-I had a Loader Bot that I could deploy... and I was only supposed to be down there for like, an hour, max. [A pause, and then he adds-] -and I was really pissed.

[there's a long moment where she's quiet, looking at him. of course she has no idea what a loader bot is, but obviously he thinks it's important. it's not a gun, though, since you shoot those and don't deploy them.

after said long moment, she smiles. she'd had a feeling. this kind of confirms it. for all the attitude and posturing, this guy is kind of hopeless, and that's kind of cute. not particularly helpful, but cute. and he understands this sort of world much better than she does, at least on all the levels that have to do with things powered by electricity.]

What were you angry about?

[The silence is kind of unnerving at first, but then she smiles and he's really confused. Still, whatever just happened, it seemed like Sophie has made up her mind on something, and the ease of the expression helps Rhys to relax a little.]

Someone screwed me, big time. As in, 'murdered someone who made me promises and took their place just to treat me like shit' kind of screwing. [It still makes him just burn to think about it. He glances off toward the drinks on the bar and stands to pour himself a glass.]

I worked too hard for that to happen to me and my friends.

[now that, that's something sophie can understand. murder and plotting and backstabbing, this is familiar ground. she stands as well, to inspect the bottles on the bar. it is very obvious she knows zip about alcohol. possibly he should pick her something.]

A very good reason to be angry. Your simple revenge got a bit complicated, I take it.

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