nexus_crossings | Ghosts in the Machine

Ghosts in the Machine

There’s a young woman reading through one of the pamphlets in the plaza. She’s dressed head to toe in a rather odd black garment like a padded wetsuit - it looks like it’s all one piece, soft, elastic and form-fitting. Her hair’s a little disheveled and she has a frown of concentration as she reads, but her location doesn’t seem to worry her.

As far as she’s concerned, it’s obvious where she is. The last few weeks have been nothing but tests and interviews and assessment exercises of one form or another. More than a few have taken place using increasingly sophisticated simulation tech. This is just another program, and presumably somewhere above is the AI overseeing her progress.

Still, this is definitely a new one.

“Who comes up with these scenarios?” she wonders aloud in amusement. Then shoots a look at the tiny silver robot floating at a cautious distance. “No offense meant- and that wasn’t my question, sorry.” The Ghost bobs noncommittally, and she looks around, taking in the strange mix of people and aliens, the unrealistic architecture. “So does it matter what I ask?” The answer is murmured quietly, but presumably boils down to ‘no’. She rolls her shoulders and shifts on her feet, making thoughtful sounds for a minute. She really wants to ask something good. Insightful. Practical. Soldierly.

“Is there something around here you really need weapons for?” She had two when she started here - not to mention the ridiculous armor. The assisting ‘Ghost’ AI removed them for her, but that still leaves the question of why this simulation included them...

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She can't get too distracted with the already-lively drink: she has to look up to murmur her own thanks to the server, because good manners. She's hardly an expert on the facial cues of a species she's just met, but she gets the vague impression that the woman rather likes the way Han addresses her. Or maybe that's irritation, she can't be sure. But surely he's too smart to annoy the staff, right?

That question will bear further observation, if she remembers by the time the food arrives. For the moment, she feels confirmed in her suspicion that Captain Solo has a peculiarly familiar manner with people in general. At least it seems peculiar to her. Sort of old-timey. She's still not sure how to take it, but at least now she can put it down to 'a culture thing'.

The idea that it's specific to women does not at this point occur to her. After all, that would just be too strange.

And speaking of strange things? Better do something about that drink before it eats the glass. Actually, she's inclined to assume all the froth and sizzle is just for show. But it is an impressively ominous show, and after lifting it for a second's inspection she has to ask, "So... have you actually finished one of these before?"

Ah, Bryn. Sweet Bryn. If he only knew your thoughts, he'd love knowing that you want to give him the benefit of the doubt most of the time. If only everyone else did too, it would be a far kinder multiverse and him, likely, in a lot less trouble.

As it is, Han knows what that look was for. His dropping of a pet name on that Rodain chick was not appreciated. Since she seemed to have notes of irritation with him before, he probably should have known better. On the other hand, she works in a busy diner in a Nexus, no doubt she'll run into plenty of people who actually give her a reason to have that stick up her ass.

It's true that Han treat's women differently than he treats men. He something of a helpless (or is it hapless) flirt. On the other hand, men are the victims of his familiarity too. Pal. Friend. Kid. All frequently dropped on men he hardly knows.

"I have." He says with a slow nod. Han selects his next words carefully, not wanting to accidently goad her into trying to pound such a strong drink. "I took it real slow, Bryn."

"Hmm." Easy to see how she could take any answer as a dare, but this time, luckily, her whim doesn't take that turn. It helps that the hint is coming from Han. The Ghost? Is keeping its big vocal unit deactivated and just eyeing ~~Bryn's vital signs~~ the situation carefully.

Bryn tilts her head, considering Han for a moment. "Well, you seem to have turned out just fine." She gives him a wink: yes, she's had enough people give her ever-so-careful warnings that she recognizes what he's about, and if anything she's amused by it. "All right, slowly then. If we have to."

She might think their concern a little silly, but she's not so foolish or unkind as to disregard it. So when she nods to Han and takes a sip, it really is just a sip.

Which is a really, really good call judging by how hard she blinks. Coughs. Shakes her head a little. Then rubs the side of her head to check her skull is still in place. Miraculously, this appears to be so.

Hey. Why is it a bad thing to enjoy the company of a young cadet in a similarly militaristic situation as he once was? If it's wrong to enjoy pretty and interesting company, than fine. He's wrong. And he doesn't want to be right.

You have to be careful with encouraging him, though. Make him feel like his advances are wanted and you might never be rid of him, Bryn. The wink is answered by that characteristic lopsided smile of his.

"To your head." Han murmurs as he takes a first, extremely shallow sip. It still makes him feel like he was getting a slap to the face as he tries to be cautious.

But perhaps she wants to get him to smile again. She likes his smile. Flushing it out of hiding is a win in her book.

"You really weren't kidding," she remarks. Nor was the description. Nor the ominous foam- okay, so the signs were there. "Didn't think it would be stronger than the baijiu back home, but..." Lesson learned, right? And on balance... "I kind of like it."

The Ghost is less perturbed than resigned at this verdict. On reflection, its Guardian always has regarded blunt force trauma as the key to having a good time.

For how nice of a smile it is, it doesn't make it's appearances often enough. It's the kind of thing you start to notice when you spend an extended amount of time with him. Even more rare are the smiles that don't come with that sarcastic look in his eyes or don't come at another person's expense. It's a fine thing to celebrate, making Han really, smile.

"Like it, huh?" He says. Speaking of his eyes, they look amused right now. "I suppose it's a more cost efficient way to get drunk. When you're drinking one that's got enough to put you on your ass."

Han takes another shallow sip. "So you're enlisted. Do you contract for a few years and then try something else or is it your plan to be a lifer?"

Edited 2016-08-03 12:51 (UTC)

"People tell me efficiency is a virtue." Funny thing, they sometimes backtrack on that real fast when she tries to put it into practice...

"Ah." She shakes her head at his question, resting her elbows on the table and leaning forward a little. She has a plan, you see, and she's keen to share. "No, I figure I'll be in the service about sixty, seventy years." Golden Age lifespans being what they are, this is typically long enough to graduate from being 'the new kid'. She assumes that things will be much the same in Han's galaxy; he might just think her world has a really short year.

"I'll do my part, pick up all the skills and experience I can. And by the end of that I'll be qualified for the really interesting work with Clovis Bray or some other corporation out on Mars. Working on security for whatever weird and exciting projects they have sealed away."

It's not a complicated plan, but it involves getting from A to Somewhere Interesting and that's what counts. Having laid it all out, she takes a victory sip of her drink and tries to analyze the flavor before it hits her this time. Somewhere in the mildly stunned moment that follows she makes an absent amendment: "Unless the frontier turns out to be more exciting, I suppose."

He likes seeing her perk up and lean in to share about herself. It's ... not that there aren't people where he comes from who are optimists, but it's not really the mentality of most of the sentients around him. His associates back home, apart from Chewie, are all different shades of crooked. They greedy. They're mean. And they don't talk about the future like it's full of promise and opportunity.

It's kind of ... refreshing in a way. But it also vaguely reminds him of Bria, which has him reaching for his drink and taking too much of a sip at once. For a few seconds he feels nothing, but an overwhelming pain in his temple that has him wincing. Ugh. This drink.

"So for now you see the military thing as a ... wait, did you say seventy years? How long is a standard year where you come from?"

Bryn can't help her amusement when he breaks his own rule and drinks too fast, though it's a look tinged with concern until she's sure he's all right. Looks like the captain needs to be a little more careful. Maybe she'll keep an eye on him.

"Uh... we're standardized to Earth units. I'm not sure how you can compare across universes." She frowns to herself, not sure why he finds it so interesting but automatically caught up in the problem.

Ghost interjects quietly, "

From my analysis, a year by Earth standard usually corresponds well to a year for most people here. I'm not sure if that's an interesting coincidence or another translation effect.

"

"Oh. Well, there you go, I suppose." There seems to be no issue with that estimate to her.

Her little droid is suddenly oddly helpful for something other than keeping something Bryn from having 'fun'. He wasn't entirely sure that he could manage. Han flicks a cursitory glance at Ghost before settling his eyes back to Bryn.

"So you guys can remain in good health for more than seventy years where you come from?" He says with a with quite a look on his face. Hard to say if it's exactly envious, slightly disbelieving or concerned because it's probably all of them rolled into one 'thoughtful' look.

"I can't imagine I'm ever going to have to worry about what I'm gonna be doing at that age."

Believe it or not, Han, the little bot is here to help. Well, depending on your definition of help. But providing helpful translations is something they can both agree on, right?

"Well, yeah, a bit more-" Wait. Her chuckle fades as she blinks at him, concerned and about equally disbelieving. "You can't? I mean, I thought your technology had to be at least a couple of steps ahead of ours..."

"I mean, people where I come from can maybe get to a hundred alright? If they live a peaceful kinda life. Even if they do they're kinda wearing down at that point."

He's gonna let Brynn take all the details she knows about him and his world and let that shake around in her head. On some level, despite a concerted effort for Han to gloss over the more unsavory elements of his work, she must know it's not safe. Why would he be walking around with a firearm if it was?

There's what technology can do and there's what's realistic for a man surrounded by situations where he's likely die can expect.

And that's ignoring another important consideration. Accessibility. Even if the tech exists, it doesn't mean a freighter bum is going to get access to it. The cost of bacta ain't cheap after all.

Edited 2016-08-09 18:22 (UTC)

“…And you don’t expect to.” Which says a disconcerting amount about his galaxy, to her. She’s quiet for a long minute. Has another sip of her drink as if that’s going to help her think. It doesn’t, except in the way of briefly and forcefully clearing her head.

There are still people who carry out dangerous jobs back home. Still a select few who carry firearms in the course of their work. It’s rarely that they need to use them; rarer still for them to actually die violently. And it’s becoming more common to use explorer proxies for seriously hazardous tasks. Aside from accident or an ever-dwindling pool of medical conditions, people under two hundred just don’t die where Bryn’s from. Not since long before her birth.

It’s one thing to know that people lived shorter, harsher lives before the Traveler intervened. It’s entirely different to try and apply that to the man sitting across from her. No hiding how much that bothers her. The Ghost spins, peers at her curiously: measuring, recording, analyzing. He thinks – though perhaps it’s wishful - there’s a familiar sort of discontent beneath her ruminations.

“Heh.” The almost-laugh is directed at herself, from the rueful twist of her mouth. “Well, that’s…” she hesitates, seeking something that doesn’t suddenly sound arrogant or pitying or plain silly, and finishes inadequately, “a lot to take in.”

She looks back up at Han finally, tilting her head a little bit, her eyes intent on his face. “It doesn’t make you want to find a safer line of work?”

Han will take another sip of his own drink. He keeps it brief this time, lest he repeat another painful episode like he did a moment ago. This one he takes much better, but no matter how careful you are, the gargleblaster still packs a punch. Each and every time.

Anyway, Bryn might not be saying that the details of the galaxy and the details of his life are bothering her, but she's not really trying to hide it with any of the non-verbal cues. Or her body language in the last few moments.

Pity and similar sorts of emotion have always struck strange chord with Han. On the one hand, there's some deeply buried loneliness that is assuaged by the fact that someone cares. On the other hand, his pride wants to tell anyone who would offer that kind of empathy to shove it, because he doesn't it. He doesn't need anything. Or anybody. ~~So he's convinced himself, anyway.~~

"No." He says after a moment. "It doesn't."

If his blonde companion is especially empathic, she might detect a hint of a man who sees himself resigned to die young and violently. It's not the kind of thing he'd say out loud, but considering his life and all the things he's been through, it's kind of surprising to him that it happened already.

Bryn's not gifted at hiding how she feels and she's downright incapable of not giving a damn. It's doubtful she could help her reaction even if she really wanted to.

For that matter, she can't hare off this moment and upturn the way Han's galaxy works, even if there's a little part of her brain which needs a few minutes to be convinced of that.

She watches him for another moment, trying to make sense of the impression she's getting. Trying to figure him out a little. He's not quite like anyone she's met before and honestly she's kind of intrigued along with the concern.

"You must really love hauling freight around," she remarks, skepticism just below her bemused tone. You must get something out of it that's worth the danger, but I don't understand what it is. "Suppose I don't get to throw stones, but... a galaxy's a big place. It seems like you'd be almost on your own out there."

Not that she doubts his nerve. He is ex-military after all. But there's more to his attitude than steely nerves. She can sense that much.

He's not particularly keen on explaining why the only way for him to make any kind of living as a pilot is through smuggling. He'd have to start revising a lot of the things he's told her already about himself that, weren't exactly untrue, but were definitely misrepresentative. As it is, he's noticing that trying to come off as an 'upstanding guy' is taking more effort than he figured that it would.

'What does that say about him,' he has to wonder. Before he can really come up with an answer to his own question, or to Bryn's statement, they have their Rodain server coming back with two steaming bowls of a hearty looking brown stew. All the components are vegetables of many colors and yet, the smells of it register more in the profile that most people associate with meat. Accompanying the two dishes is a hearty looking round loaf of a golden bread.

When all the food is placed upon the table, the woman asks if there will be anything else in her native tongue. When the translation matrix catches Bryn up, she'll notice that Han was being extra polite and he managed not to let a familiarity slip out this time while he was talking to her.

She departs.

"I suppose we've come to the moment of truth." He says looking over at his company. It's not as if he needs to look down at the stew and take it in. He's eaten Sticki Root plenty of times and will no doubt eat it many more. "You'll get to see if putting up with me was worth the advice I ended up giving you."

Edited 2016-08-13 12:55 (UTC)

Okay, that? Looks interesting and smells incredible, especially after spending all day in a place that feels pretty cold to her. It almost distracts her from Han's exchange with the server, but not quite, and his sudden politeness elicits a curious look. That's odd.

Her interest is a pretty intense thing once kindled, and she's all too aware that he's taken the chance to avoid giving her a satisfactory answer. It's not like he owes her one, of course. Maybe it's an awkward subject for personal reasons; maybe just too morbid a line of inquiry for his taste. Perhaps she's prying too deep and too fast again; she's a poor judge of boundaries sometimes. Bryn's aware of that, she just... honestly wants to know.

Fortunately her stomach has much more insistent demands. Her curiosity is, if not quenched, deflected for the time being.

"Like I really doubted you." She flashes a grin, reaches for the bread although she'll offer it to him first. "It smells fantastic already." And now she actually has food in front of her, Light is she ever hungry.

Han is an odd human. She probably ought not to read into the fact that suddenly was being nice, though. He recognized that the Rodian was getting frustrated and he adjusted his behavior accordingly. This scoundrel recognizes that generally, it's not the best idea to upset the people bringing your food in and out of the kitchen - even though he does think that she was being a little uptight.

As for the questions she wished he might have answered? She can always try again. There are only so many answers for 'why are you putting yourself in harms way' though, and many of them common refrains of a similar theme. For what it's worth, there's a part of him that's touched that she seems concerned at all.

Accepting the bread from Bryn, Han goes right for a dunk into the stew. He words surprise him a little bit and he'll address it by pointing his stew soaked piece of bread at her and asking, "really? Didn't doubt me at all, huh?"

He's not a 100% convinced of that, but he's still smiling anyway. Even as he takes his first bite.

Edited 2016-08-15 18:15 (UTC)

Who's doubting who now? She shakes her head as she tears off some bread for herself and dips it in. Honestly, if she did have any doubts they'd be well and truly forgotten by now.

"Hmm, no. That would have just spoiled things. Besides," she nods at his bowl, "we're in this together." He's going first, even. She can't be far behind. Besides he's smiling again and that means she can tuck in already feeling satisfied with herself. She's finding plenty to appreciate about this meal, and that's before she even gets to savor the flavor of the stew.

Han's got this feeling that if this dinner is good enough for him, it will be good enough for her. He doesn't get the sense that Bryn is spoiled or even used to being surrounded by the finer things. And he's pretty sure that military food being terrible is a multiversal constant, so if she can't deal with a humble stew, she might end up washing out pretty quickly.

If he's being honest with himself, whenever this lady has to head back from wherever she came, he's going to miss her.

"Captain Solo wouldn't lead you wrong." He says between a few more bites and a cautious sip of that drink. "Not on purpose, anyway."

On the one hand, her period of history will be known as a time of miracles to those who follow. On the other, her military probably let an AI design the menus. In this case, the odds are pretty favorable to Han.

He's not wrong about Bryn, either. The life she knows may have been infinitely kinder to her, but it's not necessarily much fancier. Comfortable, safe and convenient, yes: not so much with the frills. Other than an appreciative hum here and there, she's quiet for a few moments while she eats, giving herself time to appreciate the taste and vegetable textures before she risks her short-term memory with another sip of her Gargleblaster.

"Nice to know we're in good hands." There's a touch of humor there, but she sounds like she means it. "You're doing much better than the last guide I met, so far. But then he got into an argument with a giant lizard halfway through the trip."

"See the argument with a giant, presumably talking, lizard doesn't surprise me. Not around here anyway." He says with a lopsided smile. "What would surprise me is if he got so involved he stopped acting as a guide entirely."

That's particularly flighty, but there are all kinds of folks in the nexus. Some of them are that easy to distract. He probably could have made a small fortune hustling (and stealing from) people around here in his teenaged days. He used to be real good at it.

Han doesn't seem concerned about standing on ceremony for the sake of his company. His dinner manners are passable, but not all that formal. Besides, they're in a diner. It's not an especially formal kind of place. He's eating. His body language suggests that he's comfortable.

"Got family? I mean, everybody has family somewhere but are you close with them?"

Bryn blinks at him over her stew before she laughs. "I really need to remember where we are. But I meant back on my homeworld, and, uh, unfortunately our reptilians can only do the hissing and biting kind of argument. Luckily everyone came out fine. More-or-less. Definitely gave the tourists something to talk about."

Her shoulders tense a little when he asks about her family. Not a whole lot, and her expression doesn't darken or anything, so hopefully the subject isn't actually painful. She just pauses in taking a mouthful of stew, drawing the spoon out a little slower while she decides what to say.

"Sure," she replies once she's swallowed, "I mean, we have loads of relatives back on Earth. Cousins, grandparents - great-great-great... great-grandparents," she adds wryly. "But I haven't met most of them properly since I was a kid. My parents came out to the colony before I was born, so it's really just been the three of us as far as close family goes."

She has another spoonful before she adds, a little more quietly, "I have to admit I'll miss them out there, but I'll be back eventually. It's not like I can't call, either."

He lets there be silence for a moment. People are afraid of silence and sometimes, Han himself can be a bit of a talker, but if there's one thing he's learned being in space as often as he has ... it's how to deal with quiet. This just feels like the kind of moment where an understanding silence can say more than he can think anything else would.

Particularly on the subject of family, which despite being the one bringing it up, he doesn't have much to say about it.

"I imagine that part of it is hard for most people."

If Bryn is observant and he's judged that she is, he expects her to pick up the fact that he's conjecturing that part.

She appreciates the silence in this instance. She doesn't think there's much to be said. Things are unusually awkward with her parents at the last point she remembers, and it's too close to the surface for Bryn to ignore right now.

That's partly why she's so ready and willing to look up again, catching onto the implications of his words. He's given her an easy cue to turn the inquiry back around.

"You don't- uh, don't have family?"

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