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Author Topic: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]  (Read 1191 times)

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Offline Zero Undead

Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« on: September 14, 2017, 02:15:32 pm »
The garage bay was saturated in a tangled chorus of odors: grease, oil, chemicals, fuel, metal, and rich tobacco. A thin haze of smoke probably should have been alarming when encountered inside a building housing so many flammable materials. Good thing the business was located on The Cancer and regulations were pretty lax. Most of the mechanics would have probably walked out if they couldn’t smoke while working.

Zed's Body and Engine Shop

The place was run, up front, as a legitimate shop. The fact that most of the parts that passed through were not registered on any list, because they were stolen from stripped ships, was only known to people that were in that very business. Things were kept discreet, and nobody questioned where the used parts came from. Zed was in the business of don't ask and don't tell.

Of course, according to Zed, the man in charge, their garage could fix anything you brought to them – guaranteed.

Wolf had landed a job there at first because Zed had pitied him. Just another wayward kid, orphaned by war, and lost in the universe with nowhere to turn. By the end of the first day, Zed had reformed his opinion of the quiet, scrawny young man. Fairly puny-looking, yes, but the kid knew his shit, and he worked without bitching and without questioning. Zed could appreciate those qualities.

After a month, Wolf was still hanging around, not even an official, on the books, employee, but he was semi-content with their arrangement. The shop was noisy that day. There were saws and drills running. Zed's three mechanics were dismantling a small courier vessel, and he was helping. Right now he had on a thick jumpsuit, welder's gloves, and a mask as he cut through a stubborn piece of piping that was in his way to some valuable parts.

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Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #1 on: September 29, 2017, 08:09:50 pm »
Yeah, but could that garage fix people, though?


Kirkley let out a rather loud yawn, stretching his arms over his head before dropping one hand back to rest at his hip and the other to scratch at the back of his neck.

He usually never spent too long on the Cancer, because his luck only ran so far before some jackass inevitably pickpocketed him, which was a real pain in the ass; buuut he'd run into an rather haphazard asteroid field when he'd been running some cargo for some customers, and while he made the delivery just fine, his ship? Not so much. So it was with no excess amounts of joy that he took the poor thing in to his friends at Galley La, handing Reva the keys with a pout on his face while Belliel patted his shoulder and told him it'd be a week, mostly to get all those dents out.

Man. This sucked.

The faint scent of cigarette smoke wafted through the air, picked up by his delicate nose, and he sneezed. Coincidentally, he did so right as the sound of hoverbike engines revving echoed through the ramshackle streets, and a group of rowdy young adults wrapped up in the wrong crowd burst around a corner, gunshots echoing as they panged off of the siding on the buildings.

Kirkley started a little, as did many of the other innocent bystanders on the street, who screamed and ran for cover while the gang members shot at each other, having some kind of terf war or something. He'd been about to duck into a bar himself when he happened to notice an open garage door, and the bikers were speeding right up to it, guns drawn at each other. If they missed, the bullets might go inside, where he saw one mechanic with a mask on in the middle of cutting through some thickass pipe, he probably couldn't even hear what was going on!

"LOOK OUT!"

Without a second thought he just moved, jumping in front of the garage door and the mechanic right as the shots were fired. One bullet bounced off of a piece of scrap metal inside before embedding itself in the wall; two others hit Kirkley in the shoulder and lower back.

He grit his teeth at the sharp pain and the familiarity of the metal piercing his skin, and he turned to watch as the kids went roaring around another corner and were gone in the blink of an eye. Jeese, little shitheads, they could've killed someone, if they hadn't already.

He looked back at the mechanic he'd shielded, who he noticed now was kind of on the scrawny side.

"Hey, you alright?"

Offline Zero Undead

Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #2 on: September 29, 2017, 08:48:45 pm »
Crime was always a problem in the seedy parts of The Cancer; even their garage ran on a lot of illegal business. Catching snippets of gang violence was nothing new to the workers at Zed’s place, but usually the bullets stayed outside the garage where they belonged.

When it was outside the building, Wolf and his AI didn’t care. He could hear the commotion but it had nothing to do with his work, so he didn’t so much as raise his head at the distant buzzing of hover bike engines, or the whoops and hollers of the young people riding them, even the sounds of gunfire didn’t really make him flinch. Although he couldn’t help but notice the other guys had scrambled for cover, but he was still cutting away without a care in the world. It didn’t matter to him if bullets were flying outside – they weren’t a danger to him currently, so the AI remained idle.

It wasn’t until someone yelled to watch out that his head finally snapped up, just in time for a bullet to ricochet into a wall. Wolf would have been up in an instant normally, but a wall of what appeared to be muscle had jumped in front of the bay door, shielding him from two more errant shots.

The AI could process information very quickly, but his biological brain was much slower and prone to being shocked. Fortunately the danger was already past and the AI did nothing at all. Wolf simply froze there, staring at the man that had taken two bullets for him in a sort of stunned silence through his wielding mask. It was a puzzle that the man was still standing, and seemed relatively un-phased by the fact that he’d just been shot.

Twice.

Really, social convention suggested he should be the one asking this strange man was alright. Wolf killed his torch and easily slipped his hands out of the big leather gloves that had been protecting his delicate hands from the heat and sparks, then pulled off the heavy mask and dropped it on the floor. Without the AI directing him he felt more than a little lost, but with no danger the AI simply no longer cared.

“Yes. Are you?” He stood slowly and took a step towards Kirkley before stopping with a very confused look on his face, but it was replaced with a fare blanker expression a moment later. “Do you need me to call the emergency line?”

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Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #3 on: September 29, 2017, 09:00:36 pm »
A few moments passed between him and this mechanic, as the little guy (presumably) just stared up at him without responding to his question. He waited patiently, figuring hey, kid was probably shocked, he would've been too if he'd been in his shoes.

Finally, the mechanic seemed to snap out of it and took off the gloves; Kirkley blinked, watching him closely as he noticed how unscathed and dainty the hands were underneath. Unsurprisingly, they matched this kid's face quite well when the mask came off. He could have been anywhere between the ages of 15 and 23 and Kirkley would have believed it.

He was eerily pretty, he'd definitely give the kid that.

He said that he was alright, and Kirkley visibly relaxed a little, smiling down at him with relief clear on his face.

"That's good, for a moment there I was worried I'd been too late!"

For a moment the kid tried to step towards him, and he saw a bit of confusion before it was replaced by a blank stare. Huh, this one was definitely a strange one, but so was Kirkley so he wasn't gonna say anything about it--that'd be rude.

"Oh, me? No, no need for that. This kinda happens all the time, I'll heal within 24 hours. Besides, hospitals are too much trouble when the legal records don't match up." He moved to try and touch the gunshot in his back, using the arm with the shot shoulder and winced; that had definitely been stupid. "Although, would it be too much trouble if I asked you to help get the bullets out? I hate healing with those in, they're an even worse nightmare to dig out later."

He said it with a kind of embarrassed chuckle; if it had been on his frontside he probably could have dug them out himself, but like an idiot he'd shielded the kid with his back and now he was kind of up shit creek without a paddle. Well, Reva could probably help him get them out but he wouldn't look forward to the walk all the way from here to Galley La while getting suspicious looks for having obvious bloodstains on his clothing. That wouldn't really be much fun at all.

Offline Zero Undead

Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #4 on: September 29, 2017, 09:47:54 pm »
The longer he was removed from the fleeting danger in time, the harder it was for Wolf to focus on the very tall, broad man in front of him. With the threat gone the AI simply wished to resume its designated task of breaking down the ship he had previously been working on. The computer didn’t care about complex human emotions or interactions. All it cared about was fulfilling its purpose; if you could even call it caring.

Human Wolf was concerned with why this stranger had jumped in front of him. People didn’t do things like that in his experience. Also, a person that shrugged off two bullets like nothing was alarming. The fact that he would have done the same only made it that much more alarming to him. What was this guy?

“I was never in danger.” Well, not of any serious bodily harm. If he couldn’t dodge the bullets his body would have repaired the damage. It seemed that this man’s body would do the same. Wolf’s inflection fell pretty flat, his voice didn’t hint at the fact that not moments before he’d had bullets fly towards him or that he’d just seen someone shot. It creeped people out, how lifeless his voice sounded with the emotion drained from him.

His teal eyes moved over the man, watching his movements, but lacking the expression of interest or curiosity. He was simply observing.

“Yes, I can do that, but I need tweezers and a sanitizing agent.” The AI had switched gears, there was a function to be performed and bullet wound care information was already being downloaded. Wolf gestured slightly for him to follow and began heading for the back. All the grease and chemicals in the garage wouldn’t be good for any kind of wound care, and he needed to get the tweezers from the bathroom. He pointed to a cot tucked inside what looked like an unused office space. “You can sit here. I don’t think I can reach properly with you standing up.”

The man was very, very tall.

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Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #5 on: September 29, 2017, 10:13:35 pm »
Never in danger, huh..? Well, maybe there was more to this kid than just the pretty hair and face. No matter, he was safe and nobody was dead and that was the important part.

The complete lack of emotion in the kid's voice though had him wondering if he'd done something wrong; it was completely impossible to tell what he was thinking, even when Kirkley looked him directly in the eyes, which wasn't something he'd encountered very often. It mostly only occurred in droids--oh, maybe... This wasn't a kid at all?

Regardless, he followed him when he was gestured to, watching the way the kid walked and moved. He seemed human enough, but now Kirkley was curious, even if it wasn't any of his business. He hadn't really met anyone quite like this.

He sat where he was told like a good catdog and put his hands in his lap, snorting a little when the kid indirectly mentioned how tall he was, finding it funny even though it wasn't meant to be a joke.

"Ah, yeah sorry about that. Hope I'm not prying, but it sounds like you already know how to take care of this kind of thing. I thought you looked too pretty to be a normal mechanic. Are you from here?" He kept his tone of voice friendly and kind, making it all too obvious that he was curious but not for any malicious reasons.

Besides, might as well make conversation for the short amount of time they were together, right? There was no point in letting it be awkward between the two of them.

Offline Zero Undead

Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #6 on: October 01, 2017, 07:26:39 am »
“Does perceived prettiness have anything to do with mechanical skill?” As far as he was aware there was zero correlation between attractiveness and being able to perform a dirty, manual job like his. Even the AI was unaware of such a connection. It did know that his greasy jumpsuit wasn’t optimal for wound care. He unzipped the stop of the suit and shrugged out of it, tying it around his waist and leaving the bottom half on. Wolf was wearing a simple black tank top under it. “I am not from The Cancer. I have only lived here for a few months. Please wait here a moment.”

Wolf stepped from the office to into the bathroom, it only took a moment to wash his hands and get tweezers and rubbing alcohol from the medicine cabinet. The tweezers were sanitized with the alcohol before he stepped towards his patient. “Please face away from me and it will probably sting while I do this, I apologize.”

His speech was stiff and formal, people had told him that. They also said he sounded like a robot, which he just shrugged off and assured them he still bled like any other human would. It was a lot of the other stuff that dehumanized him, but his blood and flesh was still blood and flesh.

“Why did you jump in front of those bullets? There was no reason for you to do that.” It was what had been bothering him from the start, might as well hear what he had to say on the matter.

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Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #7 on: October 01, 2017, 10:54:02 am »
Kirkley fell kinda quiet at his response. He hadn't said that he was too pretty to be a mechanic, just that he was too pretty to only be a mechanic. Reva and Belliel were both engineers and both of them were certainly a sight for sore eyes. But he said nothing of it and just nodded when the kid went off who knows where to do or retrieve who knows what.

His cadence was definitely strange, and it certainly did remind him of a robot. If he was a robot though, that was fine, Kirkley didn't mind. He was one of those that liked to consider droids as people too; anything that was sentient deserved its fair respect in his eyes.

He sat up a little straighter when the mechanic returned and obediently did as he was told, shrugging out of his vest and pulling his shirt so the stranger would have easier access to the wounds.

Any sane person would've preferred a hospital than entrusting their wounds to a stranger, let alone someone who wasn't even a medic of some sort, but Kirkley didn't really have much of a care in the world. His body naturally rejected things like diseases and poisons, such things working their way out of his system within two days at most. Anything this kid might screw up was easily fixable; his only concern was just getting the pesky shells out.

"You're fine, don't worry about it. Thanks for helping me out." He said, smiling at the kid over his shoulder.

The question about why he took the bullets wasn't something that surprised him; most people apparently wouldn't jump to save a stranger and Kirkley couldn't blame most people for that. He looked away, humming thoughtfully as he let the mechanic work.

"Hmm, well. Those kids were being irresponsible, and I'd hate to see an innocent bystander get hurt or die because of someone else's stupidity. Besides, it's not like they'd kill me; I guess for me the better question is why wouldn't I jump in front of those bullets?" He smiled at the kid again. "You've got a whole life to live, it'd be a shame if it was wasted cuz of something stupid like that."

He was old, he'd been in this solar system far longer than he should've been as it was.

"You said you've only been here a few months though right? How're you liking things so far?"

Offline Zero Undead

Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #8 on: October 02, 2017, 05:07:11 am »
The AI didn’t make those kinds of distinctions, and so Wolf didn’t either. Commenting that he was too pretty to be a normal mechanic simply meant that this person thought he was too pretty to do his job in his barely functioning biological neuro processes. Luckily his emotional responses were so muted that he couldn’t care enough to feel insulted by anything, or maybe unluckily enough.

Wolf didn’t blend in great and he knew that.

This garage was a safe haven away from everything and everyone that might want to poke and prod him out of some morbid curiosity to understand just how he worked. Zed didn’t ask questions as long as he did his work well, which he always did. Wolf wasn’t going to be anyone’s lab rat ever again. It was the only thing he had any sort of strong feelings towards.

“You allowed yourself to be shot for my benefit, an expression of gratitude seems appropriate, even if it is digging metal out of your back.” It seemed simple enough to him.

The AI hummed contently through his mind as he moved to place a hand against the heavily decorated shoulder in front of him. He used his thumb and first finger to frame the wound as his other hand brought the tweezers up to begin the unpleasant task at hand. Well, unpleasant for the person shot, Wolf barely noticed the gore, it didn’t bother him.

He did try to be gentle and cause the least amount of pain he could. Talking was a good distraction, so he was a little relieved that this strange giant man seemed intent on carrying on a conversation.

“You have no reason to care if my life was wasted or not.” Even Zed who had taken him in had no reason to care about his life. No one had a reason to care about him. It was something that he understood to his very core.

“I don’t understand the question. Zed gives me work, which gives me a function, and the exchange of money for my services allows me to sustain my existence with adequate nutrition. If that is what you mean, then yes, I like it here.” Wolf wasn’t being a smartass; the statement was delivered with the same dull inflection as any of his others. He wouldn’t know if he liked it here or didn’t like it here. It was questionable if he liked anything at all.

“Are you a pirate?” It might have seemed a random question as he fished the bit of metal from his shoulder, carefully pulling it from the wound and dropping it carelessly to the floor, but Wolf had a perfectly logical reason for asking. He’d said something about documents not matching.

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Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2017, 02:31:46 pm »
Kirkley  appreciated  the gesture, both of this stranger pulling the bullets out and trying to do it as gently as he was. Even though he was a tough cookie, the less pain the better.

He frowned, glancing at the kid over his shoulder at his answer. It was a strange answer indeed, and it kind of seemed to cement the assumption that  this kid was a droid or at least a cyborg with some pretty solid evidence. Either that, or he was raised with little to no contact with the outside world.

Kirkley had seen some of those before; he'd seen and done lots of things in his life, and there was always kind of a telltale look and feel to kids who had been raised as lab rats, or in abusive situations, or to be weapons or cannon fodder. They lacked personality or didn't know how to properly display their personalities, probably because they'd never been given the individual care and attention a creature needs in order to flourish.

Man, Bifrost had been dead for 3000 years and he was still thinking about things and people like they were plants.

The pirate question made him raise his eyebrows and he let out a sudden laugh, quickly stifling it to a chuckle so he didn't offend his current doctor but it was funny! He didn't connect it with the reasons he'd mentioned earlier, he just assumed it was because of the scars and tattoos, or something.

"I mean, I've been a pirate before, a long long time ago. But not anymore." He said, still grinning as he looked back at the kid.

"I guess I can't fault you for being confused at my question. It doesn't sound like you grew up like most other kids--that's alright. I mean are you enjoying it here? You know, enjoying--doing something for yourself and no other reason, and liking it. Not for a function or a purpose. You're not just a machine, you know."

He said it all still with a smile, looking away to examine the room he was in with curiosity.

"Also, I don't think I asked your name--I'm Kirkley."

Offline Zero Undead

Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #10 on: October 02, 2017, 03:07:27 pm »
It was actually a little startling when the man started laughing, and Wolfgang quickly raised his hands away from what he was doing so he wouldn’t accidentally hurt him with the movements of his own body as he chuckled. He had no idea what was funny, and he didn’t particularly care if the man was laughing at him or not.

“Oh, I thought you might be when you didn’t want me to call emergency services for you. Usually when papers don’t match up for that it is because someone is a pirate or criminal of some kind, but it doesn’t matter to me if you are.” A lot of Zed’s customers were pirates or criminals.

Wolfgang frowned softly as he moved down to the second wound and began gently prying the second bullet out.

That he didn’t blend or fit in well wasn’t news to him. It didn’t surprise him to have his background or childhood brought into question. Honestly Wolfgang wouldn’t even know how regular children were brought up; he had no basis for comparison. Maybe if he studied it more, or watched films or something it would all make more sense to him, but he wasn’t eager to assault himself with the knowledge of everything he had missed out on growing up the way he had.

“All I know how to do is perform a function. Enjoyment isn’t necessary as long as life is sustained, and I am not a machine.” Or was he? He didn’t know anymore – if he ever did. “My father named me Wolfgang Burke, but Zed just calls me Wolf.”

The second bullet was slowly pulled out and discarded on the floor, the same as the first one. Wolf dropped the tweezers carelessly onto the bed and looked at the two small holes still in Kirkley’s back with a frown. “The foreign material is out, but should I sanitize or bandage the wounds in any way? I know you said they would heal rapidly on their own, but convention dictates I offer further assistance.”

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Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #11 on: October 02, 2017, 07:09:50 pm »
Ah, so that had been why he'd asked. He was a smart kid, that was for damn sure.

Kirkley raised his eyebrows a little when the kid--Wolf--said he didn't need enjoyment, and that essentially the only thing he knew how to do was work. What an awful way to live. His hands slowly clenched into fists as the second bullet was worked out, but any pain or stress he felt was completely absent in his voice.

"You know, it's never too late to learn new things. Joy and fun make life worth living, I'd say. Working all the time with no play must be so taxing, I don't know how you could do it." Actually, if it was all Wolf knew then that was how he could do it; he didn't know what he was missing out on, and Kirkley knew that.

"But that's a good name, sounds strong. And it's very memorable, Wolf."

He looked back at the presumed kid then, rubbernecking around to check out his shoulder. Like it or not there was still a lot of blood.

"Cleaning it ain't necessary but bandages might help my shirt get less gross?" He suggested with a half shrug, smiling at the stranger. "What else do you do, other than work here?" For that Zed person, he supposed. He'd never been here before.

"And what kind of food do you like? If you eat regular food that is."

With all the aliens in this galaxy he'd met it was always safe to keep options open; sometimes humanoid creatures lived off of particles in the air, or sunlight, or some other thing that wasn't conventional by his standards, so it was always better not to assume, just in case!

Offline Zero Undead

Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #12 on: October 03, 2017, 04:53:48 am »
Worth living.

How many times had Wolf heard those very words uttered? A surprising amount for the relatively short duration of his stay on The Cancer, and he still had no idea what the phrase really meant. This or that wasn’t a life worth living. Who decided which lives were worth living and what made them worth living in the first place?

If there was some magic formula for determining such things, Wolf didn’t know it. All he knew was that apparently his life was worthless despite his best attempts to perform a useful function.

“I didn’t know names were strong or weak, it is just what I am called.” He had looked his name up before, when he first escaped. Wolfgang had been some famous musician a very long time ago, and the shorthand Wolf was some kind of predatory mammal. Neither seemed particularly important, but he supposed a predator would have been considered fairly strong.

“I will grab a towel to wipe the blood away and the bandages.” If he didn’t want it cleaned properly that would be fine, as his healing should take care of any contaminants, but he’d have to clear the blood away enough to apply the bandages. Wolf stepped back into the attached bathroom and pulled down a clean towel and grabbed first aid kit from under the sink. He didn’t need the kit, but Zed insisted that it be there. This was the first time it had proved a useful item in the room.

Stepping back to Kirkley he had heard the questions, but wasn’t sure what answers the man wanted, or why he wanted them. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what idle conversation was, but nobody ever tried to engage him in it. He gently wiped the blood away, his fingers were tinged with red already from working on the giant man, but he didn’t mind the blood.

“I don’t do anything else. Working here is my function.” The AI was uninterested in the conversation and therefore no help at all. It left the human thoughts to scramble for things to output. “I eat what most people on The Cancer eat, the nutrition bars. Real food is very expensive, and I can’t afford it. Before I came here they fed me the nutrition bars as well. The bars hold all the vitamin and mineral requirements to keep the human body functioning, so nothing else seemed necessary.

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Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #13 on: October 05, 2017, 10:32:58 pm »
“I didn’t know names were strong or weak, it is just what I am called.”

Kirkley smiled softly, finding that statement a little amusing. It was funny Wolf said it like that because it made Kirkley realize that the idea of names having a hidden meaning as strong or weak really was pretty silly. He wondered where it had come from.

"So... You don't have any hobbies. And you don't seem to understand the meaning of joy." He hummed thoughtfully, moving as directed so Wolf could get around him to wrap up those wounds properly.

He looked at the kid over his shoulder, friendly smile evident.

"So I take it that means I just have to take you to dinner and show you some more of the world, yeah?"

After all, it was the least he could do, take this kid to dinner for being kind, putting up with his constant questioning and chattering, and fixing him up as good as he was. He didn't have to do any of that, even if Kirkley had taken a bullet for him. He still could have had every right to turn him down and get back to work; it wasn't like he'd asked Kirkley to protect him from anything.

"I finished a job not too long ago so if you'd like to experience some real food, I'd be more than happy to take you." He said, flexing once the bandages were all in place, testing how easily he could move in them even though he winced at the pain of the wounds.

He found his shirt again and pulled it on, facing Wolf now as he stood up and threw his vest on. "Are you off work soon?"

Offline Zero Undead

Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #14 on: October 06, 2017, 03:25:02 pm »
A hobby was just something you did to take up time, wasn’t it? Working was far more productive, and since he had no concept of enjoyment, he didn’t even mind living to do little more than work. Productivity was the key to keeping his AI content. Not having some task to perform, some command to execute, made his components restless, if you could call a program restless. Regardless it was a very unpleasant sensation for the rest of him, so he did his best to appease the microscopic network that had dictated his life since he was a baby.

It was the first thing to visibly take him by surprise since meeting Kirkley, Wolf’s hands stopped their work of wrapping the bandages for a moment as he blinked up at him with a slightly wide-eyed look, quite obviously having no idea how to respond to the invitation.

“Why would you do that?” Wolf’s hands began moving again, finishing the bandage job steadily. Whatever shock he had experienced was recovered from, at least outwardly. Thankfully he was almost finished as he listened to Kirkley just keep right on talking in ways that he just couldn’t comprehend. He had been the one to take bullets for him. Why would that make him feel like he needed to do anything at all for Wolf? Let alone something so nice.

It made him suspicious.

“You already saved me some trouble; I cannot accept such a gift.” Dinner sounded like a gift, and nobody gave things away for free in his limited experience in dealing with other people. It just made him wonder what Kirkley wanted from him.

Did he somehow know about him? Was he sent here to take him back? Was this all some elaborate trick to capture him?

There was definitely a hunted look on his face now, he took a nervous step back as Kirkley stood up and pulled his shirt and vest back on. Wolf’s fist clenched at his side as he eyed the very large man up and down. There was a distinct size disadvantage, but he thought he could fight the guy off and run for it if he had to. After all, he was much, much stronger than he looked. But what if the other guy was too? He already looked strong.

“What…what do you really want?” It was the first real emotion Wolf had displayed since the gunfire: fear. He had shuffled away from Kirkley until his back hit the wall of the small room.

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Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #15 on: October 07, 2017, 07:27:35 am »
In all of his thousands of years of being alive in this universe, dealing with creatures and people, he would be an idiot to not understand body languahe or how to deal with people who were nervous, scared, or abused. He noticed right away when Wolf's expression changed that things could go south very quickly if he didn't play his cards right, and they'd have every reason to if he was an idiot about it.

He watched the kid back up to the wall and he stayed where he was, raising his hands to show surrender, and that he didn't carry any weapons. He almost never did and thank the gods today hadn't been one of the exceptions.

He shrugged a little bit, looking away and not maintaining eye contact so he didn't come off as aggressive or intimidating. "I'd want to because I feel like it?"

He glanced over at the kid and gave him a smile. "You don't really seem like you've gotten to experience a whole lot of kindness in this world, and I've got time to kill until my ship's repairs are done. You don't have to come if you don't want to, I'd completely understand if you said no."

He lowered his hands, hooking a thumb in one of his belt loops, facing Wolf openly. "If I was gonna harm you I've had plenty of chances up until this point. Besides, don't think of it as a gift, more of a friendly gesture. I mean you totally could have kicked me out of this garage instead of helping me get those bullets out if you wanted."

Why not repay kindness with more kindness? He seemed like a nice enough kid, so why not treat him to something he kight not've experienced before? It could be fun, interesting at the least.

Offline Zero Undead

Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #16 on: October 07, 2017, 03:51:50 pm »
Teal eyes were superglued to Kirkley, following every movement the large man made as the AI scanned and assessed threat levels. It was a placating gesture, trying to show Wolf that there wasn’t any weapons in his hands, but that meant much less to him than his own systems not detecting any outward weaponry.

Of course that didn’t mean much. Wolf didn’t need a weapon to be dangerous, after all, so why should this stranger?

The lack of eye contact was almost frustrating. It could have been a sign of being non-threatening, or it could mean that Kirkley had something to hide. Expressions and the eyes could give all kinds of things away if you knew what to look for. Not that Wolf was an expert with any form of social construct or human emotion.

For instance, he had no comprehension of the idea of doing something solely because you felt like it. When had ever done something just because he felt like it? Never. The AI didn’t deal with actions that had no purpose other than pleasure, and Wolf didn’t know anything but the AI whirling about in the back of his mind. Freedom from the lab he had been born in had still left him a slave to the programs that were comfortingly familiar but completely devoid of human concepts.

“The universe isn’t a nice place.” Zed giving him this unused office to crash in was about the extent of kindness he had witnessed, and the old dog made up for it by paying him next to nothing for the work since the room was included.

At least that arrangement made sense to him.

There was something disarming about the guy’s smile. It was genuine and warm; not that Wolf really understood why the expression should seem comforting in an odd sort of way. How was a gesture that often involved showing your teeth supposed to be friendly? Somehow it was, though.

Kirkley was right about one thing, and the logic of it did ease Wolf slightly. If this giant man wanted to harm him or capture, he had plenty of opportunity already. He could still be plotting something. What if he didn’t want to make a scene here in the garage and hence the invitation to lure him out of his hiding?

“I don’t have any friends.” That might have bothered someone else, but Wolf honestly didn’t know any better. How can you be lonely when you’d always been alone? He wasn’t a person to the scientists, not even his father.

Wolf didn’t understand any of it, but his gut feeling ( a strange sensation all on its own ) told him that he should trust Kirkley. The AI couldn’t detect any immediate threats, and something that had nothing to do with the AI wanted to believe that this odd giant man that had protected him from gunfire really meant him no ill will.

“Where would we go?” His body had relaxed again, for the most part. The fear had leeched out of his expression too, taking the life with it. Wolf had that mostly blank look on his face again.

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Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #17 on: October 22, 2017, 01:33:50 am »
Alright, alright! Kirkley smiled a little, relaxing a bit further as it seemed like the major crisis had been averted. The fear had left the kid's body and the two of them were talking like civilized adults, as if nothing had happened.

Literally, as if nothing had happened. The fear left him and Wolf went right back to that monotone blank face. Hey, yknow what, Kirkley would settle for that. That was fine.

"You're right, it isn't, but that don't mean there aren't nice people in it." He said with a shrug and a smile, watching Wolf ease up and step closer again so he wasn't smushed up against the wall.

"Don't have any friends?" He echoed, raising an eyebrow. Either this was an unfortunate soul who  really sucked with social skills, or this was an unfortunate soul who was still new to life outside of whatever hellhole he'd crawled out of and Kirkley was the first nice person they met.

Kirkley could see either being accurate.

"Well, you don't have to say that anymore. I'd be happy to be friends with ya if you want." He said with a bit of a cheesy grin, before nodding to the doorway leading back out to the main garage. "I mean there's a sushi place I've been craving lately, which I'm assuming you've never had before but it's pretty good."

Expensive as hell, but Kirkley had the money. Why not treat the both of them? Screw it, it'd be fun. He ducked out of the room, waiting to see if Wolf would tag along before heading back out the way they came in, waiting if necessary for Wolf to speak to the owner of this place before taking any kind of a meal break or something.

It wasn't that far away to be honest, a good fifteen minute walk or so. Roughly the direction he'd been heading in when those hooligans showed up in the first place.

"I mean unless if there's something else you've been curious about, I'm sure I can think of a place to go so just speak up." Kirkley offered with a smile, hands in his pockets as he led the way down the street, keeping the pace leisurely as he ignored the pain from the wounds bound up on his backside and shoulder.

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Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #18 on: October 22, 2017, 03:18:23 pm »
There were people who were not bad, maybe Wolf was even one of them, but he didn’t really see nice people that did kind things for no reason. Of course his experiences all stemmed from the isolated lab and now The Cancer – neither was a place filled with good people. This space station was a glorified crime den, despite those red coated patrollers.

Those people made him nervous. They were the closest thing to a real authority on The Cancer. Wolf didn’t go out because what if someone was looking for him? He had killed a lot of people in that lab, and surely someone had poured a lot of money into his research…

“Why would want to be friends?” It was a better focus of his attention than worrying himself over being hunted like some trophy animal.

Wolf had nothing to offer in the way of friendship. There was nothing for Kirkley to gain from being friends with him. He had no money, barely a job or home, and no other intrinsic value that the big man could have determined. His company was even terrible and boring with his lack of understanding in normal human behaviors and interactions.

Still, he was following Kirkley much as a stray puppy might follow a stranger that had stopped to pat its head. Wolf did pause in the garage bay to slip the rest of the way out of his jumpsuit. His jeans and shirt were a bit ratty and worn, but they had considerably less grease and oil stains on them than the coveralls he wore to protect him while he was scraping entire ships. Hopefully it was fine for him to be dressed that way wherever they were going.

The other mechanics were already working again, but they didn’t really pay any attention to them as they left, and Zed didn’t even make an appearance from his office.

“What’s sushi?” Wolf managed to come up with the question, because he honestly didn’t know. Sure, he could have looked up the information quickly over wifi, but as soon as they had stepped out of the garage he’d withdrawn his internet connection cautiously. Wolf didn’t want to stir up suspicions against him and who or what he was.

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Re: Recycling Fixes Everything [Open]
« Reply #19 on: November 07, 2017, 03:10:26 pm »
Why would he want to be friends?

Honestly that question in and of itself was kind of a mixed bag. For someone as old as Kirkley, Wolf had every right to assume that he was looking for something to gain out of everything, and he'd have been lying if he said he wasn't. He learned long ago that it was better to have friends in all places, never know when or where you might need them. But that also wasn't the singular reason he offered--he liked to consider himself a largely friendly and amicable guy, and friends were always nice things to have.

People to lean on, to care about. He felt pretty damn lonely himself right now, so why not?

"I mean it's better to have friends than enemies, wouldn't you say?" He answered the question with another question and a simple smile before he shrugged. "You seem like a nice kid, so why not? Can't hurt. And if you really don't have any friends, then you don't know what you're missing out on, so I'll help!"

All things considered, other than the minor trouble caused by those kids earlier today really wasn't that bad a day. The temperature on the Cancer felt just right and heck there was even a bit of a breeze, though whether or not it was natural or simulated was up for debate.

"Sushi? Uh," He paused for a moment, frowning as he realized he didn't know the best way of describing it or really even what it was. He wasn't a connoisseur and he didn't know the first thing about making any kind of gourmet food so how in the hell would he describe it?

"I mean. It's raw fish paired with certain sauces and rice usually, with other mixins in it. Eat it with chopsticks," He made a... Chop-sticky motion with his hand like that would help any, it probably didn't. "And it's usually really really good! And fun, for your first time--I ain't gonna tell you what it is you're eating, just gotta try it without judgments and THEN I'll tell you what it is."

He said it with a smirk, because it was all too often that people heard what it was first and refused to try it based on that. Yknow, like that sushi with fish eggs on it. People would freak out over that one but it was really good! If they went into it with those preconceptions then of course they wouldn't like it, and if this was Wolf's first time trying it he might as well try to make sure it was a positive experience.

When they arrived, the sushi place itself was rather small and indiscreet, with a neon sign out front that informed them it was called "Blue Fin" with a swordfish under the swooping blue letters. The interior was geometric in design, edgy and clean with blue accent lighting running along the baseboards of the walls, and along the bar counter. It was a nice place but also not so high-class that you had to show up in a tux; the clothes both Kirkley and Wolf currently wore on their backs were mostly fine.

They were seated and handed menus and Kirkley took the opportunity once the waiter was gone to switch sides and sit next to Wolf to help him look everything over.

"So, okay, have you eaten ANY real food at all other than those nutrition bars everywhere? Do ya like spicy things, sweet? Sour?" He asked, glancing everything over and already getting ideas.

 

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