[ May 18, 2091. Currently, the time is 8:30am. Soma has already left to return to CEC and get busy looking for more intelligence to help you. The next four hours or so were spent for some in conversation, sleep, anxiety, or some combination of the above. The sky outside is starting to brighten, and it's looking like it'll be a nice clear day for travel. ] [ Other than that, nothing is out of the ordinary... except perhaps the little flashing thing on the TVNet that indicates Kat's got email. Will she read it?! OH GOD THE SUSPENSE! HEAVEN OR HELL? LET'S ROCK! ] * Rochelle ruins the suspenseful rocking by sleeping. On the couch. With the throw pillow. * Yue is similarly leaning against the foot of the couch, as it winds up being, with one leg crossed over another and her arms on her stomach in a dreamless sleep. * Katherine moves around Roch and Zak and Yue to close in on the TV, before saying softly, "Display mail." Yes, ATCverse has house audio controls! Another long forgotten truth. * Zak is on the floor, his back against a coffee table which has been turned over as a guard against Eck. He's swathed in all available pillows and blankets to guard against avenues of attack. [ It's video mail! The future has that! You can see Soma sitting comfortably in a first class seat on a spaceplane, proving that he is cavalier with his expense account. The sky behind him out the window is pre-dawn but post-dark, meaning it must have been sent en-route to Japan. "Can't talk long. I've attached your tickets to Sweden. Flight leaves at 10:30. Send me a mail when you get there." ] [ The sound and visual blink out. Attached are four tickets on Dunno Airlines from New York to Red Stockholm, first class. ] (The bastard told me to stay and cram in someone else's studio apartment while he flies first class? I'm quitting!) (Hey, you could have stayed at a hotel. Blame Kat, it's easier.) (;_;) (That would've been prissy.) * Katherine looks at them funny, before chuckling and murmuring, "Well, if they're watching they'll know we're coming, it's their damn airline." She then sighs and adds, "Yes, I know it's the biggest servicer of Red Stockholm." She rubs her face and heads over to one of her cabinets before pulling out two pill bottles and taking something from each. [ The boarding passes, you notice, are made out to four members of the d'Tortuga family: Donatella, Rafaela, Leonard, and Michael Angelo. ] (Fired.) (Out of a cannon.) (Into the sun!) (I laughed.) (Sorry, "Mikaela Angela") * Yue wakes up at the sound of conversation, and stirs as she sits up and eventually orients herself to stand. Gaspu! She's up just in time to hear Katherine snark, which prompts the usual Yue method of asking questions: Raised eyebrow. (Does it make a noise?0 (Your eyebrow should go *piku*) * Katherine finishes taking her pills and shakes her head, before turning around and seeing Yue giving her a look. She crosses back to her and replies, "What?" * Yue just asks softly afterwards, "Our tickets, or?" as she departs for coffee. * Katherine nods and says back, "Yeah. Fake names, d'Tortuga. Favorite of his?" * Rochelle rolls over so she's on her other side! And sleeps some more. (Make up whatever answer pleases you, Yue.) (I love that the Krogstads are brick-sleepers.) (Gotta sleep like a rock in TC.) (The city that won't shut the fuck up.) (Hey, Zak and Rochelle have to have more in common than just their last names!) * Yue 's favorite answer is a shrug. It's not like she knows Spanish or whatever moon language it is. It's also coffee time, so she drinks. * Katherine lets her drink her coffee. Kat looks tired, for her part. She asks after some coffee, "So now that the game's up, you gonna get more talkative? 'Cause I gotta say if I have to talk to nobody but Zak all damn day, I'm gonna go crazier." * Zak stirs under the pile of padding. "Ngghf. Chrfmrs." * Yue responds with practiced flatness, "I don't have much to talk about," She pulls her hand and gestures in count for a moment, before saying, "Think I manage to shoot more bullets than sentences sometimes." * Katherine chuckles. "You're a sniper, that means either I just used up your talking budget for the year, or you suck at sniping." * Yue gestures with what positively looks like sign language for a moment, before saying, "I'm kidding." (thank you abdominal pain for distracting me from pain elsewhere, that's very generous of you) * Zak pokes his head out of the pile. "Mnhg. What year's it?" * Katherine rubs her face before murmuring, "So was I, Yue." She looks over at Zak and says, "2091 still." * Zak pulls his head back in. "Then's too early." * Yue looks down for a moment and goes, "Oh." And then sips more coffee. * Katherine looks over at Yue, then says quietly, "You're as bad as a TC kid." She then says, "You wanna take a shower? Otherwise, I'm gonna toss Zak in." * Yue murmurs, "I was a TC kid." and swallows the rest of her coffee, and nods slowly, before heading off to shower. Here's hoping there are no cams. * Katherine blinks after her walking, then chuckles weakly to herself, falls down into one of her chairs, and murmurs, "Well, shit." (IT'S FATE.) (Which ATC2 established is a giant tank.) (Probably with those penis mines from Dominion Tank Police.) (PENIS MIGHTIER) * Zak begins snoring. * Katherine exhales noisily with annoyance, "Again? Space Jesus." She crooks a claw. "Eck, c'mere." She waits for the cat to cross to her, and then pets it for a few moments before saying quietly, "Zak's still under the pillows, you know." [ Eck's eyes flash. Ominous organ music plays in the background. ] [ Okay not really. ] * Katherine pets her cat a little more before releasing her to perhaps kill Zak, or perhaps go chew on her bed, who knows. She leans her head back in her chair and lets out a soft sigh as she waits for Yue to come out, so the shower cycle can continue with Zak. * Rochelle snoozes, but she doesn't snore. That's Zak's job. * Zak presumably spends a few blissful moments sleeping before the devil cat burrows into his den and delivers a claw-filled wake-up call. Zak shoots out of the pile. "OW! FUCK! Why'n you bug Roch! Goddamn, need a fuckin' taserprod..." He stumbles to his feet. [ The clock strikes 9am. ] * Katherine says, without looking towards him, "You're next in the shower rotation. Flight's at 10:30. Roch, wake up." * Rochelle wakes up at Zak's screaming and then Kat's prompting. "Wha? Okay." She sits up and rubs at her eyes for a while before seeing the cat and Zak. "Hi Eck." * Zak glares at the devil beast. * Yue exits, looking ... well, not entirely different, but certainly more rejuvenated. Future technology is fun, even if you have to put on the same clothes. "Might've, uh, melted a bit of your shower. Unavoidable. Sorry," she says, a little nonplussed as she sits down on the couch. * Katherine looks very confused at that, before saying, "As long as it still works." * Yue looks to the TV to mutters, "Used to all-metal showers." * Zak stumbles into the shower. * Katherine licks her lips. "Ooo-kaaay." She glances to Roch, before asking, "You, uh, sleep well, Roch?" * Rochelle blinks at Kat groggily before stretching. "I guess." (Argh, AFK for just a sec.) * Zak stumbles back out of the bathroom, hair iced upwards like usual. "Showered. Next." * Katherine nods a little and says, "Good. Yesterday... kinda rough." * Katherine glances to Zak and says, "You're up, Roch." * Rochelle nrgs. "Arright," she mumbles as she stumbles off for the shower. * Zak procures "coffee". "What's the hapsitude? Why so morntime?" * Katherine looks over at Zak. "Soma got us tickets for 10:30, so I'm running with it." Space Christ, more warning woulda been tres ups. * Zak chugs hot liquid. Yeah, well, corps. * Katherine stretches and stands up, heading over to reach under her bed and pull out a box of nanopacks. It's good to be prepared! "Full of people who don't have to give a shit." [ Somewhere, Soma sneezes. ] * Yue is getting prepared on the couch, rifling through her items and making sure she's ready to roll. It isn't much. * Zak grabs his small bag from wherever he's stashed it, and pulls a hardcopy book from it. "Guess I got scanfood for the flight." (I have no idea how long the flight to Sweden should take.) (Handwave it to "afternoon"?) * Katherine glances to him and chuckles. "Yeah, sure, work on your great novel." She picks up the nanopacks and puts them in the pack she's been slinging around too. (Probably.) * Rochelle comes stumbling out of the shower about now, not looking much more with it (but at least cleaner), and mutters a she passes by, "Some of your shower's melted." She goes about checking her stuff for travel and fixing her hair. * Katherine steps into the bathroom, saying, "Jesus, what'd you do, Yue?" She goes in to check the damage, then peeks her head out. "For a sniper, you got a weird 24 power." * Yue just maybe accidentally touched a bit of the wall where it's plastic and therefore melted and has an acidic side hand print on it, and maybe her bottle of shampoo! That's all, honest! "... yeah," is all she can say. * Zak gets a second cup of coffee. "Wait, the shower got heat-treated?" * Katherine shakes her head. "No, just some serious touch damage." A faint smirk. "Never grapple with Yue, got it. Just like Marie. She was always a cheater." * Katherine licks her lips. "Alright, everyone pack up." She gets her datapad and makes sure to grab the Super-E-Tickets off her mail before leaving. * Yue mmphs for a moment, and lets out some noise. Her eye does the whole 24 thing where it shrinks and expands as a warm-up exercise, before pulling everything back into her coat to leave. * Zak looks in the bathroom. "... huh." He downs a second cup of coffee. (We ready to move on to a foreign country?) (Yes, let's go to the land of invasive and annoying holoads.) (HOORAY) (I figure if anyone wants to have any non-plot convos on the flight to Sweden you can mini them, but you're working on 4 hours sleep so I also assumed universal Z on the plane.) (Roch is very Z.) (No kidding.) (Well make some poses about leaving the building and we'll get on with the show.) (It seems somewhat likely.) * Katherine gets in her suit, helmet going in her bag for walking purposes, and then heads out of the apartment, holding the door for the others. To Sveden! (I am going to destroy that suit.) (Somehow, before the end of this game.) (I don't know how. Rust monster, maybe. Meteor strike. Industrial accident. SOMETHING.) (OH there we go. Kat will be attacked by a Like-Like.) (Give it to me.) (Which takes the suit and wanders off to a different part of the dungeon.) (Leaving Zero Suit Katus.) (Don't make her shoot you.) (How the fuck are you taking that on a plane?_ (It's not a carry-on!) (That's a good question, Mikaela Angela.) (I was gonna put it in as luggage, like she did to TC.) (ANYHOW. Suddenly: Sweden.) (ZOOM) (Were we flying first class? +_+) [ Presuming that nobody suddenly volunteers to stay behind, you make the trip to the airport. The boarding passes work fine, Soma having made sure to keep them usable but without identifying you. He also blew CEC's money on first class tickets, so you get a champagne brunch during the flight. ] (Yes! Suck on that, corporate!) [ The in-flight movie is a documentary about the Brain Flu, because this week hasn't been depressing ENOUGH. ] ( :( ) (Yeah, just what I need, lies on the TV.) (LIIIES) (Drown it out with champagne.) * Zak is absorbed in his book! * Katherine is definitely taking advantage of the brunch: Thren told her to enjoy herself, so fuck it! [ The hours pass! Champagne and documentaries both make you sleepy! By 3:10pm you are flying overhead Red Stockholm on the landing vector. The city below sparkles because at this height, all that's visible is the 'shine' of the city's major hoload problem. Forward-thinking DunnoCorp makes hoload decoys available to you before you even get off the plane. ] ( Man, we can't stop them, they're BREEDING.) [ The weather in Stockholm is surprisingly balmy, with a slight breeze; soon you are stepping toward the exit of the terminal with your luggage. Outside, tourists and travellers throw tiny balls of light into the air that attract the constant, semi-transparent, brightly-colored barrage of holographic advertisements. ] [ The vastness of the human experience lies before you! ] (The AC can't kick on! You're outside!) (It's already on! It's called the ATMOSPHERE.) * Katherine has her suit broken down in a large case now, from being on the plane, playing it low-key. Hooray. She says, "Let's find a place to flop and work on tracking down Xavier, Platina..." she glances at Roch, then adds, "... and that hospital kid, or dad, or whatever." (I totally forgot all relevant names.) * Yue is luggage-free, obviously. Well. If they allow sniper rifles onboard, although passing through the metal detector *as Yue* is going to be a problem all by itself. But she passed through, somehow, so it's all good. She's eating pudding out of a plastic cup. "Ferrion?" she says, mouth half-full. [ There's a nearby desk for info on lodgings. One desk in particular -- a terribly shiny one for a very obviously high class hotel -- stands out as familiar to Roch. ] (Sorry, busy doing five hundred things at once.) * Rochelle looks around, still somehow tired despite sleeping the entire trip there. Upon looking around, she points out the shiny desk. "Thren and I stayed there," she comments, seemingly out of nowhere. * Katherine blinks, then chuckles weakly and says, "Right, right, when you ran off yourselves." A moment, then, "Good as any, right?" * Yue glances at the desk, but it isn't her appointment to be taking from the concierge/receptionist, so she waits for Kat. She's a good party member. (Kat does not constantly swing her arms while she stands still.) * Katherine , barring Roch mentioning how the place is awful, walks over to the desk and says, "Do you have a room for four for tonight, maybe longer?" (... oh jesus) (Is this the place with the Nordic kick) (Yes!) (FUCK) * Zak wanders over after Kat, nose stuck in the book. [ The clerk -- a pretty blonde in a blue and silver tweed suit and wearing a horned Viking hat -- smiles and glances down at her terminal. "Let's see... well, we have a four bed suite available..." She glances behind Kat to Ye Olde Motley Crew. "Are you all together?" ] * Yue spends time with Rochelle, but it isn't more than staring at her, and at the desk she points out. * Rochelle shrugs at the girl and looks at Kat. * Katherine nods and says, "Yeah, us four." * Yue slowly asks, "Bad memory? Or?" [ Typeity typeity. "I'd be happy to reserve this for you, Ms. ...?" ] (Miss Tortuga!) (Hey, it's d'Tortuga, thank you.) * Katherine sighs before replying, "d'Tortuga." [ Blank stare. A blank stare from someone in a Wagnerian valkyrie hat. "...alright then, you can handle the financials at the hotel. We'll have them be expecting you. The shuttle stops outside." Bright! Shiny! Service Indsutry! Smile! "Have a pleasant stay!" ] * Katherine nods and says, "Alright." She glances back to the others, before heading to the shuttle. * Rochelle nods at the service industry lady and heads after Kat. [ You head outside! Holoads immediately swarm toward you. Shuriken may or may not suddenly fly into a few. A digital sign on the Borken's shuttle stop indicates the next one should be here in roughly 5 minutes. ] * Zak pulls his nose out of the book and looks around. "Che, definitely need a new analogy. Trippy, like gremlins done digital." [ One hoload takes umbrage at this and moves to bodyslam Zak. Roll init! ] [ I kid. FOR NOW. ] * Yue gets ignored. How sad. She cares not, however. She also doesn't care about the holoads... at least on the surface. Did they have an address? * Katherine pulls out her pad and says, "Just ignore them." She types the place into the pad to get a map, and then starts looking up Dunno locations, as well as Xavier or Platina or random other names' in indices/addresses/whatever. (I don't think we have anything.) (You have some things! You have DRAUPNIR's phone number. You know Ferrion's kid is in a hospital.) (Right.) (It's just that neither of those things is necessarily useful. The best is the kid, though, except that hospitals don't give out info. Either way, it's Kat (or someons) is a hacker time!) (Hands me.) (You got hack skeelz?) * Rochelle weaves through the holoads like they may as well not be there. She certainly doesn't seem to be paying any attention to them. (Um... yep!) (Hooray!) (Nnnyeah. (I think we'll get you to the hotel, start making your immediate plans, and let people go with minispace.) (I know Cham and Ard are doubleplaying, and I am too actually, so.) (Well, our immediate plans is datagathering, as Kat's pad work implied.) (We gotta find places to hit before we hit the streets.) [ Soon, the ground shuttle arrives! Blissful relief. The holoads can't get you in there, no matter how stoic you are. The driver helps you with your luggage and all, but you're the only ones here. Looks like tourism is not big for Stockholm right now. ] [ Kat's pad, on the drive to the Borken, produces any number of available maps of Red Stockholm. Dunno's corporate offices are in the center of town, away from the Old City's more retro-European style, but there's no listing for DRAUPNIR in the public directories. ] (So, to room?) (I'm WORKING on it. e_e I have to re-check an ATC2 log for the desc.) (Nod.) (Wasn't sure.) [ Soon, you arrive at the Borken, which is more toward the edge of town, near the honest-to-god lake... a rarity on Mars. The outside has a distinctively Olde World Scandinavian look; on the inside ALL the employees are painfully blonde and smiling and wearing Viking helmets. The decor is actually quite nice, with a combo of wood panelling and gold. ] [ The statue of Thor has been replaced with a state of Hodr, guarding a Bifrost of stained glass. He appears to be doing The Robot. ] * Yue is not here to blow Hodr's horn, so she pays the statue no mind as she stares at this bizarre slice of retro life. "... it's something else, I suppose." * Rochelle glances around and comments, "The statue's different." She's actually looking fairly relieved to be there and not attacked by holowhatsits. Tres classy-cist. (Har.) * Katherine mms and then heads to the desk to do the sign-in stuff. And stuff. (You planning on getting the keys, Katarina, or are you going to just blow open a door and hope it's unoccupied?) (Also you'll be sorry, Yue. You need shoulder enchants for this boss! e_e) (Yes, hence the desk!) (Where we can get keys! Keys are awesome.) (I inscribe things for a living. Into your face.) [ The counterviking smiles OH SO BRIGHTLY at Kat. "Velcome to ze Borken!" she intones, in a way-too-thick-to-be-real accent. "Do you have ze reservation? Or are you needing ze room?" ] * Katherine replies, "We reserved at the spaceport. d'Tortuga?" [ Clickety clickety! "Ah, yes, I see... here you are," she says, handing over your keys. Rather curiously, she doesn't ask for really important things, like identification or your thumbprint. "You are up on ze sixty-fifth floor... ze view is qvite stunning." ] * Yue stares at the viking flatly from a distance. Her job doesn't seem so bad other times. * Katherine lets out a little sigh of relief as she takes the keys before nodding and saying, "Thanks," before turning and heading up! * Zak has become absorbed in what looks astonishingly like a taxidermy beaver. "Wow. This place has got some kinda style." [ Beam! Then a blink. "Oh, I am forgetting! Please, vun moment." She reaches under the counter, then comes back up with a fan of... somethings... on a stick, which she proffers to Kat. "Your complimentary Otter Pops," is the explanation. "And please tell Ms. Levinvorth ve are alvways happy for her custom!" What? ] [ The otter pops, by the way, are chocolate otters. On a steeck. There are four of them. ] (HA) * Katherine blinks, then takes them and nods slowly, managing to successfully hide her seething rage. * Yue raises her eyebrows as she starts to ask... but then questions could be incriminating, so she more eyebrows at Kat. (I was like, "how to avoid having her 'print... OH RIGHT the one customer who they'd go out of their way not to piss off.") [ On cue, Roch's cell phone, of all of them, beeps. ] * Katherine then offers the pops around, saying, "Gift from a crazy broad." (Yue would probably catch 'Levinworth''s meaning, yes?) * Rochelle she takes out her phone and takes a look, grabbing a pop with her other hand. (-she) (... drawing a blank.) * Zak bites the head off an otter! "Thisch place gets better'n'better." (CEO of ATC.) (The CEO of ATC.) (A recognizable public figure.) (Right, I realized _Saka_ wouldn't recognize it.) (Which is why I mentioned it. ^^;) (I am dum no getty world history.) (I was answering her!) (It's a big name!) (I forget her first name but R. Levinworth is a young businesswoman and the public head of ATC. That's in-game info Yue would have.) (Right.) (Rondure, Ronnie...) (She doesn't use Rondure.) (Remember, using 'Rondure' sets off crazy alarm bells, that's how she found Kat/Roch/Thren one ATC2 mini.) * Rochelle puts her phone away. "Let's go to the room." (Right.) * Zak follows, munching on an otter. * Katherine looks over at Roch, then sighs and murmurs, "I'm... getting the feeling she got a bite." She chews on her otter snack as well, letting Yue walk in front of her. [ The otters are, expectedly, chocolate with that unidentifiable green mint stuff on the back, because this is a hotel and it's traditional. ] * Yue takes the snack, but since she had flan earlier, she keeps the otter safe. She looks back at Kat and raises her eyebrow again, but walks to the room. * Katherine says quietly, "Need to know, Yue, trust me." [ There is a viking in the elevator, with a spear. On the way up to the 65th floor, he serenades you with something from the Ring cycle. Since it's Wagner, you exit the elevators wishing to kill yourselves. ] (No need, or need?) (This place was awesome.) * Rochelle tags along, nibbling on chocolate mint goodness. ('Need to know' is a common phrase WRT military stuff, basically meaning Kat's saying that the implied question is 'need to know', and Yue apparently doesn't have the need.) (OH SNAP, YOU GOT TOLD) * Yue sighs, and by the time she gets out, she's got her otter stuck in her mouth and slowly using her lower jaw to ease it in to eat handlessly. (SHE'S A SNAKE EATING AN OTTER, NOT A TREE FROG.) (*shoves Kat out the window*) * Zak exits the elevator wiggling his finger in his ear, since he was next to the guy. "Man, what the shit language was that even? Fuckin' spacetrip decivocal explosion." * Rochelle shrugs. "Heard it on the 'net once. I think. Or maybe that was last time I was here." * Katherine smirks and walks to the room, opening it for the others as she replies, "Old German." [ The 65th floor! Your room is 6509, conveniently between the elevator and the ice machine. The inside looks familiar to Roch, since it's the same style of suite from before. To everyone else: it's ridiculously expansive for a hotel room and in a corner besides; two walls are entirely transparisteel windows looking out over Stockholm. ] [ Two beds in here, and a door leading to the other room, as well as a couch and TVNet, a small fridge, and the bathrooms. The dominant color scheme is midnight and very faint powder blue. ] Sounds like he's got a glottal problem. (...) (That wasn't a Zak sentence.) (Hence the humor.) (Probably not but I'm like 5m away from having nightmares about fjords again, so we need to move.) (Settle in, we'll wrap it up.) * Katherine waits for everyone to get in before she follows in and sighs. "Well, nothing in the open, which doesn't surprise me. I hate having to think like a hacker." * Zak takes the nearest bed, and flops down on it hard, testing the mattress. [ It is amazingly comfortable. The kind of comfort that only amazingly large amounts of money can buy. ] * Rochelle goes in, flops on one of the beds (not the same as Zak's) without any fanfare, and pulls out her phone. She starts slowly typing something in. The fact that she's still nibbling on an otter pop probably doesn't help. Fuckin' east-side, this is cushytastic. Gonna sleep like a rock tonight. * Katherine half-smiles. "Yeah, that's different from any other night how?" * Zak points in the air with his finger, emphasizing words. "NO. CATS." * Rochelle snickers. * Yue pockets her hands for a moment as she's inside, and then glances to Kat as she remarks, "... I'll help take care of gathering." * Katherine replies, smirking a bit more, "'cept your sister and I?" * Katherine then looks over at Yue and says, "You hack? Thank Space Jesus." * Yue glances at her for a moment, and then says, "It's touch and go." Ha ha, personal joke. She walks over to a bed to claim it, and puts her coat down on it. (Feel free to knock off whenever, Cham. Also: Are people okay with playing again next Wed. since we had two weeks off?) Yeah well y'all don't count. (I'm fine with that.) (Alright.) (I'm good.) (Um let me check my schedule.) [ And so, everyone settled in to Sweden! What adventures await them? That depends on many things. Will Soma come through with help? Did Ronnie really pay for everyone's room? What will Yue's hacking skills reveal? Find out... next time!]