Under Neon Lights

[Morgan Redeaux]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8NUoavtgXY[/youtube]​

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There were those in the galaxy who felt that Morgan Redeaux, HRD and former head of security for a multi-billion credit droid manufacturing company, did not deserve the same type of freedom as organics. The droid herself had complex and mixed feelings about this, but since it had been three years since a memory wipe, her recent days had been spent pondering that specific theory - liberty for a mechanical being - so much that she could not understand why she had not entertained this idea before.

But first she needed to fully sever ties with Hegemonic, which meant deleting the access code that her former master installed in her to protect her from hacking. To Morgan this code was the equivalent of a microchip that you install in a pet to keep them from being lost. At any given time he could track her down - physically of course, as the code did not transcend space and time - but within range and with a couple of taps upon a datapad from his pale, gnarled Umbaran fingers, the leggy droid could be shut down, wiped or even decommissioned.

Yet for all of her synthetic intelligence, she could not figure out how to get the code removed, not on her own at least. Perhaps her system blocked any time of self-scanning algorithm which would allow her to work the coding puzzle out and eradicate it herself.

So she took the Ladytron, a luxury yacht stolen from the man who’d created Morgan, Bartho Redeaux to Coruscant to meet with an HRD engineer. She strolled down the skywalk to Electronic Row which was situated right off of the Federal District, a specific area which housed the fastest rising technology companies on the Coruscant 500 list. It didn’t take but a couple of stops to realize that any of the prices for an uninstall in this more upscale part of the ecumenopolis were far out of her budget.

With her dwindling credits she paid for a taxi speeder to take her to the Underworld, where she could likely get a fair price on the work... if she were willing to risk the danger of the locale for a renegade droid.

[member="Surnin Strenger"]

 

[Surnin Strenger]

Theme​

The smell, the atmosphere of Coruscant weighed heavy on Surnin's senses. It was utterly foreign territory for him yet it was also like anything else he'd ever been. He'd not ever traversed this far into the inner galaxy...well it was farthest to the middle you could ever get yet regardless, this underworld felt no different than that of Terminus. It had all the same tropes, grotesque aliens barking out in foreign tongues, the neon marquees of Aurabesh scrolling across the entrances of dens of depravity and of course the spice. The smell of the spice would creep on your senses and choke the life from them if you weren't accustomed to it. It hardly bothered Strenger at this point.

The street at level 1313 was as bustling as any other but the spice dealing and underworld criminal all became a blur, like scene pieces for a stage play for Strenger. His face was concealed with that same crimson visage he always wore. It was like a second face now, not in any schizophrenic or 'multi-personality' sense but still a comfort. He could see them, they couldn't see him, this wasn't the place for a mundane human to get overconfident. With the cloak covering his shoulders, but still intentionally failing to conceal the blast holstered to his chest Strenger set his feet into the nearest cantina, probably the one establishment he could tolerate, if only because it dulled his senses.

Uncharacteristically this Cantina was as calm and mundane as any establishment like this could be this deep in the Underworld. Maybe that was the appeal, or maybe the circumstances for as little as it mattered Strenger pulled himself up to the bar and flagged down the barkeep with a slam of his helmet unto the counter. With Strenger's action agitating him the Twi'lek barkeep barked at him to order and Strenger obliged, pointing to a bottle of Corellian whiskey that sat beside the keep's arm. Within the next few minutes Strenger had already slammed a couple glasses worth of the liquor down his pipe, almost tranquil given the circumstances. After another glass he'd slide a holopad worth a few dozen credits to the barkeep before grasping the bottle and finding himself a booth, particularly one in the corner so he could keep an eye on the entrance, if not to watch the morbid spectacle that was the Coruscant underworld as he had his fill of his whiskey, his helmet sat on the table facing the same direction as him almost like a second pair of eyes.

[member="Morgan Redeaux"]

 

[Morgan Redeaux]

As Morgan wandered along the Underworld walkways she pulled her black trench coat around her and tightened the waist belt with with a tidy snap. Stares from Coruscanti residents caused her combat routines to begin sequencing, the first: protect the material form.

The HRD had a databank of engineering contacts - specialists and subject matter experts - from her former droid plant and scrolled through the options now, but most of them had shops and consultancies on Electronic Row, except for two or three which listed addresses in the Underworld. She paused, tapping off an inquiry to one at random and was surprised to receive a message right back from them:

“Meet me at Rik’s Cantina in an hour.”

Normally, Morgan would have no need to enter a cantina, but she could go through the motions of pretending to order a drink if only to appear human until she met up with Relain Su.

When she made her way to Rik’s, it would be thirty minutes until Su was to arrive. At the bar, she drummed her fingers on the neon duraplastic as she waited for the bartender to notice her. What to even order? What do female organics drink? Searching her databank, she pulled up the social information of Ardik, finding it distinctly lacking and discovering her employer did not drink. Ah yes it was why I bought him all of those polka-dotted ties as gifts instead of alcohol, she recalled. He never wore them. Apparently Umbarans did not like polka-dots.

When acknowledged, she answered the server with, “Something colorful.”

“Most ladies like you want something strong. Tell you what. I’ll give you a drink with both.”

He pushed a glass of SomnaSkol Red towards her which she picked up with a delicate grace. Then Morgan sat in a booth, catty corner to an organic being in a helmet and some kind of unidentifiable armor. Her blue eyes watched a nearby holoscreen as it transmitted a swoop bike race from the Morpho Sports Complex on Lok.

She hadn’t yet taken a sip of the drink, even after ten minutes had passed.

[member="Surnin Strenger"]

 

[Surnin Strenger]

Once his rear hit the depressed cushioned seat of his corner booth Strenger abandoned any prospect of dumping the Corellian Whiskey into a glass before throwing it down the pipe, instead electing to chose the bottle each time. It took him an uncomfortable amount of time before he ended up making himself comfortable but it was difficult to be at ease here, this deep in the underworld. It didn't help that Surnin had a different eye than the criminal or the civilian. Where the standard citizen walks down that same street seeing a blur, almost too much to comprehend the morbidity gilded in neon. A criminal, sees the opportunities and immerses themselves in the degeneracy where Strenger can pluck every detail out. The Rodian next to the Cantina's entrance with glassed over eyes huffing down a cig of glitterstim with a hunched, broken posture that leaned him against the wall aside the entranceway. These kind of details reverberated against his vision just as well as the Neon marquees and obnoxious holograms that scrolled across every street and corridor of this planet. These types of sights and spectacles of the Underworld did nothing to thaw Strenger's cold outlook of it that had been methodically frozen over time from his tenure as an Arbitrator, a law enforcer at the last stop of the galaxy, the Terminus where sights like these were all too common.

For the next few minutes Strenger expended the time observing. It was nigh instinct by now. These sights drew Strenger's brow into a furrow, before it arched with piqued interest at the entrance of the woman. A blonde human woman, tucked in a black trench coat. As she made her approach to the bar Strenger had begun his read of her. She was a sight for sore eyes in contrast to everything else in the Underworld. Like finding a flake a cold buried in a pan of wet sand. And with that, she was out of her element. Strenger wasn't an alien, no, but his eye bags, furrowed brow, deadpan expression and the half-empty bottle of whiskey in his hand certainly put on the right face. She, however...was out of her element. Like a white robed Consular on Korriban, this type of woman had little business in an establishment like this. These kind of observations always harkened back to the cardinal rules shared between those who enforce the law. Usually if someone is in a place they shouldn't, they're on business and not for groceries. She was up to something, if not illegal at the very least of questionable ethics. He didn't want to speak up for now, until he was approached he was a fly on the wall, though his gaze scrolled about the surroundings his focus was on her. He wanted to know why she was here, or what she was waiting for, what she wanted. The fact she didn't let the liquor touch her lips did nothing but sketch a check mark over Surnin's assumption.

He set an internal clock for how much longer he would sit to gauge her purpose here, there wasn't much else to keep his attention, so he waited and drank.

[member="Morgan Redeaux"]

 

[Morgan Redeaux]

Morgan finally brought the glass to her lips but let it linger there for a minute before putting it back down on the table with a soft clunk. She turned her head to look at Strenger, her eyes taking in his face and then the bottle of whiskey before her glance cast about the cantina for Relain Su. She then watched the holoscreen, fascinated by the droids cleaning up a particularly nasty crash between three or four racers.

Finally her contact arrived, a Devaronian male who found her before she’d made the connection that he was Su; therefore she looked up at him curiously and then smiled and beckoned for him to have a seat across from her. He slid in next to her instead. The combat routines again sequenced, but Morgan forcibly suppressed them.

She needed him. She needed to be free, and whatever that definition would come to be, it would certainly not involve Mr. Ardik, although he’d been much kinder to her on a whole than Bartho Redeaux.

Much of their conversation took place in Devaronian until the end, when Morgan switched to Basic perhaps out of caution.

“Perhaps I need to think on your price,” the blonde HRD said at one point. Su’s cost was far too low for her liking, and she began to suspect the worst. Morgan wouldn’t be able to see the muscular Devaronian pulling out a restraint collar, but Strenger would be able to glimpse the rough scarlet hands drawing it out of his satchel.

[member="Surnin Strenger"]

 

[Surnin Strenger]

Within a minute after the alien entered and sat himself next to the woman, Strenger rose from his own seat, making his way to the entrance way where he could spot a decent view of the two. From a pouch on his belt he would produce a cig of some mundane spice, igniting the end before pulling in a draw from the cig into his lungs, leaning his back against the side of the entrance way adjacent from their booth, just barely within ear shot of their conversation.

He inspected the Devaronian closely, every encounter he had with one of his kind on Terminus weren't anything close to a fond memory. He didn't like the way he carried himself and it only made his assumption of the context clear. She was here, in the underworld for some form of seedy business. After their mentioning of price Strenger could see the horned alien slowly reach into the satchel unto the table, on the side of his waist facing Surnin, looking to the restraint collar before spying his expression. It didn't take much effort to see whatever deal they were having went bad and things were to get violent and the best way to turn out on top of these disputes is to instigate them.

Strenger turned away from the table, taking in a long draw from the cig before flicking it into the alleyway, taking the opportunity to unholster the blaster pistol, holding it at his waist before making his way over to the Devaronian. With a swift yank Strenger pulled the alien's wrist of the hand clutching the collar into the air above the table. In an instant afterward Strenger would press the barrel of the blaster pistol to the alien's elbow as it looked back to him in panick he would squeeze the trigger, sending off a violent crack from the blaster as the bolt seared through his arm and imprinted a black mark unto the wall behind the two. He would drop the collar unto the table and clutch the wound from the blaster shot as he cursed in Devaronian, spitting in Surnin's direction the former Arbitrator would take up the collar and click it around the alien's neck before wrenching him from the booth by the neck.

In a panicked anger the Horned xeno continued to claw at his neck, squirming and writhing to try and get out of Strenger's grasp as he was dragged along the Cantina floor into the crowded street way. Within an instant Strenger and the Devaronian were a spectacle, stopping all foot traffic in the near area as they looked on with widened eyes Strenger would let go of the alien with a slam of his head against the hard road, causing the alien to let out another paint groan and a jumble of curses in its language before Strenger would set his boot on the Devaronian's chest and aim the blaster close to its face. The alien's eyes would widen as he yelled out in panick, pleading to Strenger before his voice was silenced with the violent crack of the blaster.

Lifting his foot off the alien's chest Strenger would make his way back into the cantina, sparing no glance to any of the spectators as he slid the blaster into the holster around his chest. With heavy steps he would make his way back to his table, lifting the bottle from where he left it next to his maroon helmet and taking a long swig from the bottle as he sat himself down back in his booth, glancing the way of the woman.

[member="Morgan Redeaux"]

 

[Morgan Redeaux]

As soon as her synthetic irises caught sight of the human grabbing the Devaronian, Morgan’s combat sequence kicked into high gear. As a seared blob of alien flesh hit the back wall from the mercenaries blaster bolt, the HRD scrambled across the table of the booth, slipped out the other side and pulled her own blaster out now, trained on both organics.

At this point, she wasn’t sure who was friend and who was foe. Likely the Devaronian had enemies, and this was someone who’d anticipated that he would be there and had a score to settle. But then she noticed the restraint collar on the table, which was clearly for a droid and one which would render her incapacitated if worn.

The mercenary fastened the collar onto the red-skinned alien. And once the man pulled the Relain Su out of the booth by the collar, Morgan’s arms began to lower, the blaster now pointing at the ground as she watched.

Now that her systems sensed she was not in such close proximity to danger, Morgan’s body relaxed, wincing at the crack of the bolt which killed the Devaronian. As the mercenary walked through the cantina as though nothing had happened, her cerulean blue eyes never left him. Despite running low on credit chits, she knew that paying him would be the right thing to do for helping her avoid capture or decommission.

She approached the table. “Here.”

In her palm was a credit chit, though her other hand still held the blaster. “Back to the drawing board, I suppose,” she said more to herself than the man.

[member="Surnin Strenger"]

 

[Surnin Strenger]

Strenger set the bottle of Correllian Whiskey back unto the table, lifting his gaze to the meet the woman's with an arched brow. After she dropped the credit chit he slid it back toward her with a shake of his head before speaking up, in a low voice to her.

"Keep it." He said, though not of any noble obligation to refuse money. Violently cleaning degenerate filth like that devil horned alien was satisfying enough for him. He wanted in on her job, whatever she was looking for from him, at the very least he wanted the information. "You needed something from him, woman like you wouldn't delve these parts if you didn't...and I want to know what you wanted." Strenger spoke up once more, offering her that same deadpan gaze that he showed just about anyone else's way. Regardless of any facets of his demeanor or posture, he carried himself honestly at the very least, he had nothing to gain from lying to her or drawing his blaster in her direction. Beyond those brief words he offered her nothing else but a faint gesture with his hand for her to sit across from him before he carried the bottle to his lips once more, sipping down the whiskey which was much needed after he'd just seared a bolt through the brain-pan of a xeno low-life.

[member="Morgan Redeaux"]

 

[Morgan Redeaux]

Around them the sound of a low-key fight broke out between two Aqualish. On the holoscreen, the winner of the swoop bike race had been announced which caused a couple of half-hearted whoops and cheers across Rik’s Cantina. No one seemed to care much about the Devaronian’s death, least of all the droid and human drinking in the back.

Morgan slid across from Surnin and he would see her eyes flash a metallic, neon blue for a moment. She scanned him with her Doppraymagno scanner which would allow her to see any type of cybernetics that the man had, or even injuries to bones right down to hairline fractures.

She looked down at the credit chit, her systems calculating just why the human refused galactic currency, a strange action indeed. Perhaps he was holding out for more? Or maybe he was one of those altruistic souls who wanted to genuinely help others although she’d rarely come across them in her short life span.

“I’m looking for an engineer to wipe something from my internal drive. If you can help me find someone…” Morgan peered back over her shoulder and greeted him again with a smirk when she turned back around. “Not like him.”

Staring at her slender fingers and lacing them together before her, she said, “It needs to be an HRD programmer.” The droid reasoned that someone who had just killed a criminal who sought to capture her, would not try to imprison or enslave her himself, however it was often these human-type nuances she failed to see as an automaton. Meaning there was a randomness to human intent that she might occasionally feel but never be able comprehend.

[member="Surnin Strenger"]

 

[Surnin Strenger]

He tilted his head and furrowed his brow in befuddlement as her eyes flashed blue she seemed to nonchalantly talk of her Synthetic composition. He'd finally honed in on whatever was unique about this woman in particular. With her words he'd settle his head back against the cushion of the booth's seat, nodding once.

"Well...I'm not engineer and I've not seen a droid that looks well...like you."

He says, being a native Balmorran his mental association with the term 'Droid' instanty shifts to the grey metallic war droids with crimson, beady red eyes and a blaster rifle clutched within its metal digits. Regardless, it was an opportunity. "However I can help you get ahold of one...not that I know any." He admits candidly before taking ahold of the bottle of whiskey and drinking down another gulp of it once more. He didn't have those kind of connections, not anything revolving around droids or engineering he knew criminals and people that knew how to capture criminals. Those were his connections and associates so needless to say, getting ahold of a Droid Programmer was sailing in foreign waters.

[member="Morgan Redeaux"]

 

[Morgan Redeaux]

Morgan smiled at the compliment attesting to the fact that HRDs could apparently respond to flattery, or the vague semblance of such.

She drew out a datapad from her bag and tapped a few letters into it. “I have the contacts. But I might need a little assistance with security?” This was territory which, like Surnin, was foreign for the droid. Morgan realized that over the past few years, she’d actually never asked for help. She was too busy serving Mr. Redeaux his fifth martini, or swoop biking Ardik’s ion blaster out to him on the battlefield when he’d forgotten it, or working in her spare time rebuilding antique droids which of course, was never a chore. That hobby was a labor of love at least.

“And I'm not sure that you could tell, but I have powerful combat sequences programmed into me. Still, I sometimes miss the nuances that other humans don’t when faced with danger. You would be useful for that.”

She passed the datapad to him which showed a list of names and addresses. “Should we start at the top? And what’s your name anyway?”

[member="Surnin Strenger"]

 

[Surnin Strenger]

Surnin scanned and read over each manuerism and minute change in her demeanor as she spoke. It truly was surreal to be speaking to a machine that seemed more human than most he'd encountered from any military background. Regardless he was intrigued enough, he had hardly enough reason to stay on the bloated inner rim urban world of Coruscant any longer, so taking a bounty's worth of credit's before making his way off-world to return to the life of aimless spacing made the excursion here worth it and as such, he decided to indulge in the offer.

While she was speaking he kept himself occupied with routine sips from the bottle of whiskey, nodding with her proposition before speaking up in his stern voice, clearing his throat of the burn of the alcohol before speaking.
"Strenger...Surnin Strenger. I'm a damn good shot but I'll tell you whatever else you want to know once this job is done." His introduction was short and concise and he only ever liked to talk to himself with a bit more whiskey than this, and here and now was not the time and place. With the sight of the pulped brainpan of the Devaronian still fresh in his mind he hadn't any desire to exchange life details, this job interested him more.

"Start wherever will get this done the quickest. The air here is heavy, smells like rusted metal, smoke, spice and depravity." He admits candidly before waiting for her to continue.

[member="Morgan Redeaux"]

 

[Morgan Redeaux]

Morgan felt the same kind of wanderlust that Surnin did although neither of them new it right now. She hadn’t been happy on Lianna, nor was she satisfied with Coruscant so far. The HRD craved contentment though if someone asked her to describe that state of emotion, she would be hard pressed for words.

Still, she had an idea.

“Okay Mr. Strenger,” she said, glancing at the brown liquid, hoping he wouldn’t drink too much and pass out before they got to their destination, but she would never say anything. It wasn’t her place to judge what organics did in their spare time.

“The air here is heavy, smells like rusted metal, smoke, spice and depravity.”

“I wouldn’t know, but there is a better place. One that has clean air and spotless metal surfaces and plenty of… machines.”

Morgan bit her lower lip knowing quite well she likely wasn’t selling Surnin on anything at this point, but still she added, “And plenty of whiskey.”

Pulling up a map now on her datapad, she asked, “M4-78? Have you heard of it?”

[member="Surnin Strenger"]

 

[Surnin Strenger]

His hazy eyes rolled to her attempt to coerce him any further. He was interested in the job, if it didn't yield any decent fruits at the very least it was another job that got him out of the deeply entrenched gutter of Coruscant and made a connection in the galaxy that wasn't at the Terminus of it or at the lowest levels of the Galactic Alliance.

"I think you'd be hard pressed to find any drink on that world, dear...but yes, I've heard of it." He said with a slide of the bottle away from his hand, if not to subdue his own temptations of the bottle he didn't wish to give off the wrong impression. He was a drinker, and the casual spice addict but he had a better head on his shoulders than the scum polluting the streets outside of that Cantina.

"You have a ship? I don't want to talk business down here any longer, you don't know who might be listening...its best we got off-world as soon as possible." He says, arching a brow as he takes up the crimson visage from the cantina table, tucking it under his right arm he would lift himself from the seat, waiting for her to take the lead out of the underworld of the Galaxy's core.

[member="Morgan Redeaux"]

 

[Morgan Redeaux]

Morgan cocked her head to the side, wrinkling her nose a little at Surnin’s eye roll. She knew that the gesture meant something, perhaps a derisive expression that humans used at times, or maybe he was just teasing. Either way, the HRD fell short in correctly interpreting these organic nuances and would rely on the human’s words instead.

The man finally pushed away the bottle as though he’d had enough.

“I don’t have many credits with which to pay you, but I could help you in other ways. Galaxy information and translation services? Even combat?”

She tried to make her offer sound less tawdry and vulgar than it likely did. Morgan really didn’t want to end up in some Underworld dancing establishment with droid companions for those who enjoyed a retinue of synthetics.

Either way, he seemed game for her offer. She led him back up to Electronic Row where the Ladytron sat waiting for her mistress. “Do you have a ship of your own?” Her programming which sensed danger manifested itself in a wary expression, and the blonde droid hesitated before lowering the vessel’s ramp. Still, deep in her circuitry she was hopeful. The fabled M4-78 was supposedly a nirvana for droids, and if it truly existed, Morgan wasn’t sure she wanted to go anywhere else in the galaxy again. Though the urge for a master or owner tugged at her as though missing a lover who’d suddenly disappeared without a trace.

"What is your background anyway?"

[member="Surnin Strenger"]

 

[Surnin Strenger]

As soon as they'd left the cantina and began to trudge through the scum and villainy of the Coruscant underworld he slid that helmet over his head, eyes wholly shaded from the darkened visor. His motivation wasn't money, it never has been, if he ever wanted money he would've fully committed to bounty hunting or a similar trade. It's always been difficult to discern what his motivations have been. Power? No, he could've easily immersed himself into the world of crime and ascended with brute force. Justice? Makes more sense, it was the best thing he could come up with and it seemed to matter.

When he spoke now his low, gritty voice now had an almost radio like distorted overlay to it. "We'll talk payment when the job's done." Is the best he could muster, having a droid of her caliber assisting him certainly didn't seem like a bad deal just like it might also be a burden. He knew too little about her or whatever programming was determining her actions to really ponder that option much longer, but I guess this particular job would bring tangible conclusion to that internal conflict.

Under his helmet he arched a brow at the sight of the Yacht, rolling his shoulder and idly resting his right hand on the one grip of the blast pistol holstered to his waist. He had a ship, had a ship, that he stole from a spice lord on Terminus and it was an old boat with its origins tracing to the Old Republic, to her inquiry he could do nothing but shake his head from side to side once. "Not for the moment." It was clear in his speech that he spoke with a droll typical of someone who came from a rural outskirt.

When the ramp lowered Surnin stepped eagerly aboard the ship, lifting the helmet back up from over his head and tucking it beneath his arm as he scanned the interior. "Was Galactic Alliance...served in the ass-end of the Outer-Rim...I'll share more if we manage to get what you need from this droid world." He said simply, although she seemed to have a curiosity in him which either programmed or genuine was difficult to tell. He had the same in her but he was dilligent after all. They had a job to get done, that kind of talk about life stories and origins is based saved for afterwards.

[member="Morgan Redeaux"]

 

[Morgan Redeaux]

The scum and villainy didn’t bother Morgan. Her systems only reacted when it detected motions that were abnormal or unusual. Humans and aliens shuffling around aimlessly, seeking a thrill or a snort of spice - none of this affected her in the slightest.

“That’s fine,” she indicated. “Hopefully, I can afford what you want payment-wise.”

Once the pair - human and droid - were inside the Ladytron, Morgan programming the course for M4-78, hoping it existed. And if it didn’t they would make their way somewhere.

“You can rest on the ship if you like,” said the HRD with a hollow cadence. “Somewhere in the back of the ship there’s are quarters for guests.”

[member="Surnin Strenger"]

 

[Surnin Strenger]

Strenger scanned about the ship a few minutes. He'd only ever been around Alliance military vessels or Spicer smuggling ships, stepping aboard a yacht was...a new experience to say the least. He took a moment to explore the interior of the yacht before making his way to the canopy of the vessel, glancing out the front cockpit before turning to the droid as she spoke to him.

"I'm not too unreasonable." He says, offering a snicker to himself. It was true he just really didn't know what at all he could actually gain from this, but he had already hitched his wagon with the woman and he was going to get the job done, one way or another. When she proposed that he rest during the jump to hyper-space his slightly drunk mind pondered it for a moment before shaking his head. He'd rather the alcohol ware off with the rush of this mission than trying to manage a han

"I'll stay up if you don't mind." Surnin says, going to seat himself at the lounge that the yacht undoubtedly held, should this search not come to fruition he'd go to sit himself in the co-pilot's chair. He'd heard a couple mentions of this planet...a droid world its never a prospect he ever truly gave much thought. Then, he thought about the HRD unit, her. What exactly, was she programmed for? Combat? Stewardship? Companionship? She came off as placid and machine-like as any other droid...and if she managed to become self-governing, what would be the result? What she like any other human, with a full range of emotions or...still something left, somewhere down the uncanny valley but not wholly off. After giving it a thought of contemplation all he could do was sit, leaned against the back of his seat with arms crossed and brows furrow. When he was alone, just like anyone he went inside his own head, wrestling with all of this thoughts at once...even though he was on her ship she wasn't a very talkative personality rather, didn't have talkative programming.

[member="Morgan Redeaux"]

 

[Morgan Redeaux]

Morgan used to be quite the talkative droid, but over the last few years she’d become cautious of organic beings. Once her combat routines were installed, she ceased to be a mere protocol droid and had become a more wary machine, mostly due to the conflicting self-generating code that governed her emotions.

But once Surnin settled in, she activated the vessel’s autopilot, and he would hear the click of her heels approach as she joined him in the lounge.

“I appreciate you coming with me, Mr. Strenger.” Morgan pressed a button activating the mini-bar on the yacht, and while it didn’t actually appear as it had been used, nor drinks consumed in some time, it wasn’t as if the alcohol would have gone bad. “Even if it’s just for the company,” she admitted.

“I’ve never really been on my own this long.” Still the HRD was hesitant about revealing too much of her past. “My very first owner was arrested on Coruscant. It’s why I was so skittish. I do know my maker but I lost contact with him and haven’t been able to find him since. And then I was employed at a droid manufacturing company, but eventually I languished there, of no use to my employer after a year or so.”

Just like a real human woman, Morgan traced circles into the table with her index finger.

“Gosh, I really don’t like talking about myself,” she said with a soft laugh. “What about you, Mr. Strenger? I know you’d rather not discuss your affairs, so is there anything you want to know about the galaxy? I have an Encyclopedia Galactica programmed inside. Version 847 so it’s a couple of years old.”

[member="Surnin Strenger"]

 

[Surnin Strenger]

Sparing the mini-bar a glance, Surnin relented. He had enough liquor in his system to indulge anymore, especially in the wake of a mission. He leaned back into his seat, embracing his arms along the back of the seat as he looked to her with an arched brow, crossing his foot unto his other knee. He let her speak idly of herself for the moment as he seemed to get a read of her maneurisms and behavior. Being the position that he was, reading people came easy to him but, this was no person. A droid like this was intriguing to say the least.

"And what'd he do to get himself arrested?" He quiped. Criminals were people that he held in little regard, no better than an animal that needs to be put down but before jumping to any assumptions as to why a man who held an attractive, female, humanlike droid at his command got arrested. It could be any level of putrid depravity or a simple charge, regardless he wanted to hear the context.

When she quipped that she didn't like talking about herself he could do nothing but mirror that same faint laughter, nodding.

"I'm not much special, raised in the middle of no-where in Balmorra and shipped off to the ass-end of the galaxy in Terminus where I worked as an arbitrator for the Alliance...picking up their trash, smugglers, spicers, whatever it may be.

[member="Morgan Redeaux"]