Karavan (Between Runs)

Ace couldn't help but smirk at the way the girl fawned over the doctor. "Careful doc, or you'll wake up to find the little puppy humping your leg."

She casually walked past Nalan, and plopped down on the bed she had designated as her own. She took her time relaxing, and adjusting her position till she was comfortable. With her feet propped up against the railing she turned her attention to the doctor, and his job proposal. "Generous reward you say? Yea I think I feel my 'conscious' speaking to me as well. Surely somebody must help these forlorn people in need." A grin spread across her lips as she leaned back in her bed, her hat resting over her face.

This would do nicely. She had already gotten her first job opportunity. With any luck she would be able to pay the Triads off in no time. Assuming the found her of course. No sense going and looking for them, when she could keep the dough hers for as long as possible. As she mused the possibilities, she sent a message through her comm to Jack. She needed a place to stash her bike, until the RV could be renovated to suit the task, and Jack had plenty of space to spare.

"You're more than welcome to do so, Nalan. Feel free to choose your own bunk."

States the 'generous' Doctor, even as he once again glances quite calmly over towards Ace; The puppy comment gets no return refrain from Kraft! Instead, he's just pondering. Where two guns was better than one, three might be even more so. Especially if one of them had survived a bleed out during a high speed chase and still had enough energy to strut naked. At last, he merely nods his head.

"Very well."

And then catches his hands behind his back, moving towards the back of the RV again. "I've a few things I must attend too, in as moderate of privacy as our current conditions will allow. You'll find a stand-in scrub stall near the micro-kitchen. I'm certain you both can find your way around. The Buffalo may be a bit tight, but it has been well designed to maximize the space available, and water is recycled but sterilized constantly. You'll find built in bins beneath your bunks; Those of the other beds are yours to utilize as well, save for my own." A gesture towards one of the bunks - the one with the shotgun mounted in a safety cage. "I'm not expecting any further company."

The Doctor considers a moment longer; A young, stalwart bachelor such as he bunking with two lascivious females, one quite gung-ho and the other inevitably fallen for his status? It sounds like something right out of a horrible pulp comedy. He quietly reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose, and take a deep breath.

"Well. Remember that we leave early in the morning. Nalan, in a few hours, I can still tend to your cybernetics if you're willing. I've some recently applied dry-lubricants that should do wonders for keeping the dust aside. Ace?... let me know if you feel any repeating, stabbing sensations in your side." Another pause. "It means you're dying. Feel free to interrupt me if that is the case."

And then he pulls the curtain to close off the medical section. Congratulations, both have effectively moved into a middle-life apartment on wheels!

The Doctor's offer was met with a series of expressions of gratitude, and Nalan also ignored Ace's snide comment, at least until the Doctor left the two of them alone together. Then Nalan turned to Ace, her nervousness gone, replaced with a coolly calculating demeanor. "Okay, you don't like me and I assure you the feeling's mutual. But perhaps we merely got off on the wrong foot, and if we're going to be living in such close quarters we're going to have to come to some sort of agreement. Here's my proposal: I'll rig you a storage rack for your bike on the back of the RV and you'll accept my gift as a token of good will." She remained leaning against a cabinet on the opposite side of the RV from where Ace was lying. Right now she was in bartering mode, and her voice was all business as she kept her gaze on Ace, not backing down.

Ace casually pushed the brim of cowboy hat up using her finger, until her calm green eyes appeared from beneath. She had no real interest in being friends with the girl, but she had raised a valid point. Her father had always told her, you don't dreck where you eat. Having to sleep with one eye open, was never a very appealing notion.

She sat up, and turned in her bed to face Nalan. "I suppose you are right. For good or ill, it looks like we are going to be partners at least temporarily. I accept your truce." She gave Nalan a small bow of her head. Who knows, she thought to herself, maybe she would rub off on the girl. It was obvious she lacked a proper female influence in her life, stuttering after the doctor like some love lorn schoolgirl. Yes. Aces tutelage would improve the young girls life. Ace mused at her own benevolence. Damn I am generous.

Ace hopped up and made her way to the door. Jack should be getting there soon to pick up the bike. Ace would leave it at her shop, until Nalan could finish the storage rack.

There is a science behind every 'compulsion', no matter how curious it may seem. The Doctor, once seperated from his lavish and violent cohabitors, had turned his attention towards unpacking the various boxes that lay strewn about the back of the medical bay. But, of course, first he must stack them correctly - by rank of importance, in the event that another emergency rolls in -while- he's unpacking and preparing for an emergency. It didn't have to make sense. Kraft had long ago fallen into the groove of professional medical care-givers world over, who think in terms of triage.

. o O (If I'm busy -here- during this particular staging, where will my tools be? My sutures? My drugs? If I am caught unawares at -this- point of unpacking, where can I turn for my scalpel and extractors?) O o .

After a moment of deciding the rank of each package's exposure once the box above it is removed and neatly broken down, Kraft begins tallying a memo, whispering into the sub-mic for his commlink to verbally translate into written text. The tiny green letters floating, ghostlike, in front of his monocle as he gives half a mind to it.

<< BEGIN TRANSIT::
Immodesty,

I have arrived at the Karavan, and - despite my initial hesitancy - I must say the locals are as welcoming of my profession as I have ever seen. A cultural uniqueness brought about by the harsh conditions in which they survive, I would imagine, roaming from place to place in a menagerie of colors, loyalties, and violence. You would like it here, were it not for the lack of a true matrix connection save in the most prosperous of towns.

I have meet a Karavanli of some taste, who seems to be quite enamored with my person. Whether it is simple status envy, or whether she truly has some deeper affection for the man behind the cloth is yet to be seen. I also seemed to have picked up room-mates in my first day, a swarthy young gunslinger who prefers her flesh bared to the world, and said young Karavanli with her pretty purple hair.

Don't think the worse for me, my dear, it was hardly of my own vindiction. A Gobe as well, by the name of Father Val, has come to see me, along with an 'Archivist' of the tribes. Making nuyen here is unusual in the extreme; There are no 'Mister Johnsons', no cops, no criminals. Everyone seems to be a mix of all three at once, with a reliance on self-discipline and inter-tribe punishements. It's a bizaare place, but fascinating. But for all its wonder, I still miss a few things from the 'new' world.

I think, most of all, I miss your impertinent grin, or the light from my old apartment along your cheek. Try not to get shot while I'm away.

-K

::END TRANSIT >>



The Doctor pauses for a moment, after sending his message off to the nether. And then continues to neatly lay packages of syringes into their respective bins, by weight and capacity...

Ace heard Jack coming before she ever saw her. The rumbling of the massive engine that powered Jack’s 18-wheeler was kind of hard to miss. The candy red truck pulled up next to the doc’s RV.

A figure hopped down from the cabin. Jack was not what one would expect when they pictured a truck driver. The young girl stood at barely 5’4’’. Her freckled face was hidden by a mat of curly strawberry blond hair. She had inherited her father’s stocky build. Many people joked that Jack’s mother must have been a dwarf, but none had the balls to do it in her face.

Ace greeted the girl with an affectionate hug of her head “It’s been awhile aye.” Jack’s voice was deep and had a heavy German accent, another inheritance from her father. “Years. Sorry to hear about your da.” Ace waved her hand nonchalantly. Jack nodded her head, understanding completely, and decided it was time to get to business. “So where’s this bike that needs a place to rest?”

Ace lead Jack around to where her precious bike was settled. Jack didn’t share the same reaction to the bike that most did. She had watched her father help Ace’s build it after all. She ran a finger over the dust covered frame. It was just as she had remembered it. With a fond smile of remembrance, she helped Ace load it into her trailer.
When they were finished, Ace gave Jack another hug and prepared to return to the RV. As Jack climbed back into the 18-wheeler’s cabin, she paused and called out to Ace. “O yea. There was one other thing. That would be your storage fee.” Ace groaned loudly, and spun around to see if she could negotiate. She opened her mouth to speak, but before her protest could come out her face was met with the hard steel of some kind of cage. The collision knocked Ace flat on her dreck. As she stood, rubbing her face, she heard the roar of an engine and the screech of tires. A cloud of dust obscured her vision, and by the time it had cleared Jack was well on her way.

Ace looked down at the object that Jack had unceremoniously introduced to her face. There was a dark hemp canvas over what Ace could see was a caged frame beneath. She could make out a furious fluttering, and the cage rocked back and forth on the ground. Cautiously, she lifted the cage, and slowly removed the canvas. She was greeted by a pair of large intelligent grey eyes. Inside the cage was a beautiful hawk. The perplexed look on Ace’s face explained her thoughts perfectly. “The frag?”

Their negotiations concluded, Nalan nodded respectfully to Ace and then excused herself from the RV without another word. The dried earth crunched satisfyingly underneath her boots as she landed, opting to not use the little step ladder. Her goggles compensated automatically to the sudden change in light, keeping the sun's rays from becoming overly obnoxious. Nalan stretched her body luxuriously, both arms reaching up and metal fingers clasping above her head. First to the right, then the left, she winced slightly at the simultaneously disturbed and satisfied by the sensation. Every time she stretched now, her back clicked and popped loudly, different than it used to before she had wired reflexes and the reaction enhancers implanted. Perhaps the Doctor might know how to fix her up once he got her on the table.

The thought made her blush, so she covered it up by setting off toward the common area. The crowded room contained her only luxuries in real life, shoved under her wire-frame bed in the hopes that no one else would make off with them. She reached over and quickly grabbed both of her personal belongings, and her spare clothes, and left the building. She glanced down at the objects in her arms as she headed for Vuslat's shop next. He still hadn't noticed her absence, eliciting a concerned frown from Nalan. The poor old guy was taking longer naps every day, she was beginning to wonder if he was going to retire some time soon. Good excuse to find another source of income if she ever heard one. But until he did, she still had free reign over the shop, and the contents therein. Just so long as she reimbursed Vuslat... or made sure he didn't find out, anyway.

The clothes and personal items were left in a pile in the corner; luckily Nalan kept her workspace clean enough to have an empty corner available. Then she switched into work mode, pulling a new file into view on her goggles as she tallied the raw materials she had at her disposal. This was her favorite part, almost as favorite as all her other favorite parts. The initial stages of every project when it was just her and a blank slate, with nothing but her creativity limiting her. Naturally, the hardest part was always narrowing it down to something feasible, each concession to practicality a painful blow against the ideal. The spring-loaded horizontal bike-launcher would have to wait, for now she just had to create something that would work. Using the specifications of a normal Thunderbird Contrail, with a few modifications to accommodate the modifications Ace's version had undergone, Nalan settled on a sturdy but simple design that would allow the bike to leave straight up, or pull out of the rack to the right of the RV. Operating on the premise that the fewer moving parts, the better, Nalan made it so that the whole thing was one sturdy piece, building in triangles for structural strength. It might be a bit difficult for Ace to land on it at first, so she made sure to add a rounded railing to the top for safety. Then it was on to the simulation stage, testing how the rig would react to the weight of the rocket bike under several circumstances, including hard turns by the RV. The results were mostly satisfactory, requiring only a few additional reinforcing braces, and then it worked like a charm. Nalan beamed as she dragged metal beams out of the scrap pile, inspecting each piece for quality before nodding and placing it on the work table. There was cutting and sanding to do here at the shop, and then hauling all these pieces to the RV. Hopefully there was a spare cart somewhere nearby...


Six hours after she began, Nalan stood back, admiring her work. The jutting metal structure could hardly be considered 'beautiful' by any strech of the word, but the sight filled her with pride as she admired her handiwork. She could hang from any single piece of this thing without so much as a groan from the makeshift storage rack, and she was confident it could hold Ace's bike without problem. She regretted having to cover up the RV's rear window with a metal sheet, but there wasn't any other option. She would have to break the news to the Doctor diplomatically, and hopefully he wouldn't be too angry about it. Thinking of the Doctor, Nalan wondered if she should go get him to show off her work. He probably wouldn't care, after all, his work was with flesh and bone, not paltry metal like hers. Most likely best just to not tell anyone as see if they said anything to her. Wiping the dust off her forehead, Nalan headed off to workshop to pick up her clothes and personal belongings, forgotten in the corner where she had left them, too focused on the project to bring them over at the same time as the materials. Then again, she had to drop off the cart anyway, so it was hardly a loss. After this she would need a good shower and some sleep. The sky was already dark and they would have a rough day tomorrow. But for now, she felt good knowing she had accomplished something, and she held on to that feeling all the way to the shop and back.