Faction Ready Player Cresh

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

His analysis of protein re-sequencing and the importance of the end-state organic cellular structure as a direct corollary of the food preparation or storage medium seem to sail entirely over both girls heads.

Did no one appreciate chemistry?

Also, maybe he should look at entering the protein re-sequencer market. If people were still using dehydrator modules on their starships, that it seemed that might be an area of the market ripe for further innovation.

"Sure," the boy said, when Juniper asked about the space port.

"I can have a shuttle take you there if you want."

 

[Daiya]

Daiya grinned back at Juniper, happy to have found another being with her dislike of space travel. The cramped quarters, the bad food, the dangerous equipment, the girl really had no idea how spacers functioned in those conditions.

Maybe they just suffered them in order to tell good stories at the bar.

She took another bite of her burger as Juniper asked about the area. Daiya didn't come up to these levels all that often, but it wasn't hard to figure out. The walkways ran between buildings in a clear pattern, and there were maps every hundred meters or so in case someone actually got lost in all that. Even an offworlder could find their way.

"Spaceport?" Daiya asked through a mouthful of food. She down her burger quickly to bring up a hand in front of her mouth, suddenly feeling self-conscious in front of the two. SJ seemed like a rich kid, if not a budding Corpo, and the girl was suspecting that Juniper was from off-world. Definitely, given her proclamation about being a Jedi. Somehow she decided that her lower level Denon upbringing was probably showing a bit too much.

As she chewed and swallowed, SJ made an offer to the other girl. Daiya shook her head, forgoing the napkin to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. That was an offer that must be refused. "You don't need to jump in a shuttle," the girl pointed out. "The trains go all over, they're much safer!"

Even if someone was just going to climb aboard a starship anyway, she figured, they might as well make the journey there survivable.

Sor-Jan Xantha Juniper​

 

[Juniper]

"T-trains?" Juniper repeated, her eyes lighting up. "Like in the flicks? Cooooool. Oh, we have to go on them. Do they go up and back down? Like a ride?" That was a roller coster, but it was all the same to her. She crinkled up her trash, shoving packets of jelly in her pocket as she prepared.

"Can we all go together?" Truth was she didn't know if Jamie would be there waiting for her. There were errands to run and Juniper's stunt would get in the way of things. She didn't want to be left alone, not if woman was never to be found again.

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

"Train?"

The skepticism in his voice was unmistakable. Commuter travel? How uncivilized. Was Daiya uncomfortable with air flight? It just seemed so... inefficient.

Plus, his shuttle was comfortable and had holo-games all throughout it. Not to mention the mini autochef with soda in it. No commuter train could match that.

However, it seemed that Juniper was convinced. "As you wish," the boy remarked finally.

 

[Daiya]

"Train," Daiya repeated. It was as if her two companions had never heard of such a thing. Well, it seemed as though she had a duty to introduce Juniper and SJ to the wonders of city life, and wrest them from their pitiful ignorance.

"Oh yeah, it's like the best way to see the city. You can't see anything from up there, you know, and you find all sorts of astral things on the trains," the girl pointed out matter-of-factly. She glanced at SJ, who seemed to have the most resistance to the idea. Maybe someone who loved technical details just needed a concrete example of what she meant. "Like the holo-games tournament. Some of the beings you were competing against probably saw the poster, same as me."

At Juniper's request, Daiya glanced down at her plate. Her burger was still only half eaten, but her milkshake had just a little bit left. She shrugged, deciding to find something else to eat later. "Sure, if that makes you feel better, Juni," the teen said to her new —friend? acquaintance?— with an affinity for jelly packets. She indicated them with her eyes as Juniper shoveled the booth's complement into her pockets. "You want more of those? I'll bet they wouldn't miss one or two more table's worth if we grabbed some on the way out."

She reached for her milkshake as she started to slide out of the booth, holding up the straw to her lips to finish it off. The slurping sounds told Daiya that she was at the end, as the last of the chocolately goodness slipped down her throat. The girl let out a small groan, then put down the shake glass and licked off a spot of shake that had gotten on her hands. "Ready when you guys are."

Sor-Jan Xantha Juniper​

 

[Juniper]

Juniper's expression lit up, the girl pausing as they walked to grab another handful of jelly packets and shove them into Daiya's pockets.

The attempt was repeated with Sor-Jan Xantha too.

"You guys are the best." She burst through the doors, a skip to her step as she --she stopped short, the swirling crowd and tall buildings giving her a massive sense of vertigo all over again.

"...You ever wonder what happens if one of those fall down?" She murmured warily, gaze shifting up and down a skyscraper. She pulled her gaze off it, looking sharply at the other two.

"You live there?" Despite the countless buildings around them, it had to be so. There was no way this city had more people than could fit in that building.

Right?

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The boy gave a giggling laugh as he pulled out his identicard and paid for the meal at the waitress droid, before turning to catch up with the other two..

"Oh, no," he remarked at the question of if he lived here. Though, honestly, he had considered a second residence. "I'm from the Corellian System. My home's on Drall," Sor-Jan recalled aloud.

It seemed they were headed for a train. With pockets laiden with illicit packets of jelly. For reasons.

Continuing on with the conversation, he idly noted, "But when I travel, I live aboard a star..."

He'd almost said star destroyer. That probably wouldn't land well.

"...cruiser."

 

[Daiya]

Daiya was all too happy to be a vessel for Juniper's jelly hoarding. She had been there once, scrounging for food and credits, never looking too closely at the things she had to do for it. In a way, the young shadowrunner was still doing that, she just had a name and reputation along with it now.

"You guys are the best."

"We really are!" the girl remarked, grinning at Juniper's compliment. She wasn't too upset anymore by the other girl's earlier antics, if experience was any judge for Daiya then Juniper had just been hungry.

Daiya listened to the little Jedi girl talk, and shook her head. "Nope, never really wondered. They're just always there, you know?"

She'd grown up in and around cloudcutters and high-rises all her life, the girl had found little reason to question their permanence. The notion of a building falling down, on its own, was like wondering if the sky would fall down, too. "Sometimes parts get deconstructed, but they just go floor by floor. Billions of beings live around these, you can't just blow them up and you definitely can't let them fall."

The train station was ahead, just a couple blocks from the diner and the entertainment center. The girl wondered idly if SJ was missing the rest of his tournament to accompany them, but she quickly moved on as the boy mentioned his homeworld. "You're Corellian? Does anyone actually live there for real? I swear everyone that isn't from here is either from Coruscant or Corellia, there can't be many people left on your homeworld now."

Daiya giggled to herself. With the amount of spacers she'd met from Corellia, the only vision she could conceive of that world was a deserted landscape where ships were only ever leaving.

Sor-Jan Xantha Juniper​

 

[Juniper]

Where was Corellia? Juniper was starting to feel stupid.

"Do you guys know everything about like, everywhere?" Came the rhetorical question. Her shoulders turned in, the girl less confident on the busy streets with them than she was with Jamie on their arrival. She had never seen so many people before, the chaos alone was enough to make her feel mildly panicked.

She walked with quick and tight steps next to the two, afraid of losing them too.

Never mind that she had given Jamie the slip.

It was an accident.

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

"No one knows everything about everywhere," Sor-Jan opined aloud as they walked to the train station.

Though it was probably accurate that Sor-Jan knew more than most. He'd traveled from the Core Worlds to the Mara-Perlemian Trade Corridor and then spent a decade in the Kathol Outback.

There were planets serviced by Corellia Digital that didn't appear on some star charts, such as Exocron. Or the safehouse located on Binaros. "There's, like, a billion planets in the galaxy," the boy uttered, using his hands in a large motion to demonstrate just how huge this concept was.

"And then there's other galaxies!"

 

[Daiya]

Daiya's giggle became a full laugh as Juniper suggested she knew everything. The blonde-haired girl shook her head, there was a lot she didn't know. The other girl was just lucky she was on Denon, instead of someplace where Daiya would have been just as lost.

"Hold the comlink! There's other galaxies?" the girl asked, throwing an askance glance at the boy walking alongside.

They reached the train station, and Daiya paused at the turnstile to tap her pass for all three of them before going through last. The station was a bustle of activity, as always, but the girl didn't have any trouble navigating it. She glanced at the map as they passed, but it wasn't hard to find the right train. They all went to the spaceport at some point, anyway.

An imposing Gotal approached her as she boarded, his tall figure looking less imposing once she noticed his gaunt build and off-colored face. The whiskers of his mane were frayed and mussed, as if he hadn't been caring for himself in a while. He stepped close, pulling out a packet from his sleeve, just enough for her to see its contents.

"Wanna slumm it? Puts you at peak performance, keeps you going for days!"

The furry being's sales pitch was not exactly convincing given his disheveled state, but that wasn't why Daiya pushed past him with a firm, "Chit, no."

Slumm was a dangerous gateway drug, no one needed to slumm it. She grabbed her two new friends, pulling them along before either of them could consider what their peak performance would look like.

Daiya pointed to some of the seats, her other hand reaching for a handle as the train started moving. "Those are easier for first timers, if you want."

Sor-Jan Xantha Juniper​

 

[Juniper]

"More Galaxies," she echoed in subtle awe, wondering just what that meant.

Juniper took cautious steps onto the train, her attention lingering on the gap between the platforms. What if she fell in? The train felt steady under her feet, the opposite of what she expected after watching it arrive in such a chaotic swirl while they waited on the platform.

"What was that about?" She leveled at Daiya, subtle shock flickering through her as she watched the girl push the stranger to the side for simply talking to her. She wasn't use to solicitors, but surely he just wanted to offer her something nice.

She was so caught up in this brisk exchange she didn't take Daiya's advice. She didn't reach for the handrail, nor did she sit down. The doors hissed closed. The train jolted forward. She bashed into Jor and the pole alike, groping wildly for purchase.

Small town girl was having a moment.

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

All right, so stellar cartography was about as hot a topic as rehydrated meat.

Sor-Jan might have preferred to have played more with the pusher, but it seemed that Daiya preferred to keep it moving. Hurried along, the boy casually boarded the train. Like Juniper, he also didn't reach for a pole or take a seat.

As the train -- and Juniper -- took off, it was a subtle manipulation to keep his balance and also help guide the young woman over toward the pole so that she could get a handle on things. Primarily a handle on the handle.

"It takes a bit of getting used to," the boy noted simply.

 

[Daiya]

Daiya watched as Juniper demonstrated her offworld naiveté in a blusterous fashion, almost careening into SJ, and yet somehow managed to make a recovery. The girl gave a nervous chuckle, it was Juniper who was weirding her out now. For his part, the boy seemed to manage the train's rhythm pretty well without the need of a handhold.

"Show-off," Daiya tossed his way, but she didn't really mean it. In truth, she wasn't used to these upper level trains. They were quieter and had a smoother ride than those on lower levels, where not gripping a handhold meant likely injury. Assuming there was thin enough of a crowd to be close to one, anyway, otherwise the weight of other beings was all that stopped anyone from falling.

After seeing that Juniper got settled, Daiya finally explained the earlier exchange, "That was about slumm, a street drug. It's not like the fun stuff they use on the party floor, it'll feth you up hard."

Plus, the Gotal had smelled strongly of spice. There was no telling what he was actually dealing.

The talk of parties gave Daiya a better idea. She faced Juniper, "You sure you need to go straight to the spaceport? I know this chic club on the way. Great music, good dance floor, and better drinks than a diner milkshake."

Daiya probably couldn't actually afford a club up here, but they were with SJ. He could probably cover the entrance fee. After all, what was the point of having high-rollers for friends if they couldn't be useful?

Sor-Jan Xantha Juniper​

 

[Kyra Perl]

"Better than a milkshake?" She echoed, her attention half torn by the setting swirling around her. "I dunno, I-" She really was worried about losing Jamie. Then again she was missing her school dance to be a jedi.

"I'm not dressed right!" She protested, gesturing down to her simple gotten dress, a white collar tucked at the neckline. It was little more than lower class school girl outfit. But it was clean and it fit her, so it was all the same to her. Still, it wasn't something for dancing.

She clung tightly to the pole, rubbing the forming bump on her forehead.

"Thanks," she murmured to SJ, standing a few inches taller than him shoulder to shoulder. "How old are you anyway? They won't let him in!"

 

[Juniper]

"Better than a milkshake?" She echoed, her attention half torn by the setting swirling around her. "I dunno, I-" She really was worried about losing Jamie. Then again she was missing her school dance to be a jedi.

"I'm not dressed right!" She protested, gesturing down to her simple cotton dress, a white collar tucked at the neckline. It was little more than lower class school girl outfit. But it was clean and it fit her, so it was all the same to her. Still, it wasn't something for dancing.

She clung tightly to the pole, rubbing the forming bump on her forehead.

"Thanks," she murmured to SJ, standing a few inches taller than him shoulder to shoulder. "How old are you anyway? They won't let him in!"

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

"What's better than a milkshake?"

Seriously, this question was still dwelling on his mind, even though Juniper seemed to have already moved on. "An ice cream float?" the boy mused aloud, trying to run through his own idea of competitors for the best milkshake award. "One of those soft serve things mixed with crumbled cookies?"

Those things were seriously amazing. Except the mixing machine at the Biscuit Baron always seemed to be broken when they hit the drive through.

"How old are you anyway? They won't let him in!"

"Huh?" the boy uttered, brought back from his beverage reverie by the question. Looking her square in the eye, he said, "Sixty-four and a half."

Yes. Half.

"How old do I look?" he inquired. "I'm not human, but I'd be surprised if you hadn't already figured that part out," he added, shifting his gaze over toward Daiya as he said the last part.

 

[Daiya]

"I know we're not dressed right, but that's half the fun!" Daiya reassured, pressing the point rather aggressively. Juniper was such a fragile, little thing, and she needed someone to pull her out of that brittle shell. Someone like Daiya! "What better way to wog everyone out than by showing up in street clothes? It'll be a-mazing, trust me."

Juniper seemed to ignore her suggestion, instead focusing on SJ. The other girl even thanked the boy for something. What did she have to thank him for, besides being weird?

And then he proved just how weird he was. Daiya laughed out loud at his answer to Juniper's innocent question, saying, "You can't get us that easily, SJ. There's no way you're older than twelve!"

He looked at her intently as he offered another explanation, and the girl frowned. She knew he was weird, alright, and there were a lot of weird species in the galaxy. Denon was, by no means, a monolith. But the way SJ insinuated that he wasn't Human, it was as if he expected her to be the one to sniff it out.

"Oh yeah, I know you Corellians like to be special. You're Human with special flyboy skills and taste for making big claims, right?" Daiya offered. She giggled a little, "It's okay, I won't tell anybody your secret."

Sor-Jan Xantha Juniper​

 

[Juniper]

Juniper snorted. "Yeah, no way. You're like. Twelve. Like she said." She gave Daiya a flickering smile, the once enemies find common ground. What. It was his fault for bringing them together.

Juniper rested her cheek on the pole, paying no mind to the germs or the yuck as she eyeing SJ up. "You sure look human to me," she commented, her head tilting. "Like you got the ears and the nose and the-" she gestured loosely around her head.

"Doesn't he look human, Daiya?" She chirped, letting herself swing back on the pole.

Weeee.

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The tow headed boy just gave a knowing smile. "You rely too much on what your eyes alone can see," the boy cautioned lightly. Then turned to glance over at Juniper as he added, "I imagine your master may have said something similar at one point or another."

The train was starting to pull in to its next stop.

"In any event, we should decide where we're going before we miss our stop."