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It’s a fairly quiet afternoon in the Comorro Station tradeport. Merchants hawk their wares from stalls arrayed throughout the great chamber. Customers from a broad spectrum of races, both within and without Hiverspace, move amongst the stalls perusing the goods. Above it all, the Yaralu’s sensor nodes observe the activity.
Akamatsu seems to have taken back to his habits of wandering about the station again at least for today. The ronin is walking about the tradeport and eyeing a fruit stall. He begins making his way over to said fruit stall.
The light clink of robotic feet are heard as Dean and two Helots, a somewhat basic model of bipedal Phyrrian, enter the area. He glances over his shoulder at them, and without verbal communication they seem to follow some sort of order. Either that or they veer away for no reason. The two bots turn and go into the Multiverse Relief Organization. Dean looks back and spots Akamatsu at the fruit stall, and decides to pace over to him.
A humanoid made entirely of grays finds herself approaching the same fruit stall. Rysenna looks over the food there with a longing frown. Her wings twitch, but when the stall’s merchant comes to see if she’s interested in anything there, she just shakes her head and steps aside to avoid blocking traffic.
“You want zuzu!” proclaims the Lotorian in charge of the fruit stall as Akamatsu wanders up. He picks up a prickly purple fruit swirled with pink and green. “Very tasty, real thing! Grown in best Tupai guano!” His gaze then drifts toward Dean and his mouth falls open, whiskers flaring. He pulls the zuzu into his fist, clasping it behind his back, and then says, “Closed for biznezz. Many zorriezz.”
Akamatsu frowns at the fruit offered and then shrugs about to pay for it when Dean walks up and the Lotorian pulls the fruit back. The ronin raises an eyebrow at the Lotorian and asks “Why?”
“Whats going on,” Dean greets Akamatsu, as he nears the stall, slipping past the dove-like wing of Rysenna. When the Lotorian withdraws his product, the Overmind studies him hard for a second, but says nothing more.
Rysenna looks between Akamatsu, Dean, and the Lotorian. Since the human already asked her question, she simply waits to see what the answer is rather than adding anything to the conversation.
“Don’t want to see clanky-clanky big brain,” the Lotorian merchant replies, nudging his snout toward Dean. “Other eyes want to see. Not these eyes. Less I see is good, yezzyezz. Other eyes say they’ll pay to know. Don’t want that kind of biznezz.” He tosses the zuzu fruit to Akamatsu. “You take, no charge this time.” He looks back toward Dean. “You better keep head down. Bad thingzzz maybe come.”
“…oh I should hope so, very much.” Dement merges into the bazaar while he talks, rather louder than is necessary, into a communicator device. “She didn’t say that, did she?” He questions, in shock and horror, before barking a little laugh and falling back to making strangled “Mm.” and “Okay.” responses for a while.
Akamatsu catches the fruit and shrugs replying “Fine.” The ronin takes a bite and greets Dean “Hello. Not much right now.” Then his attention is turned to the Riftwalker and his eyes reach levels on his head not even he knew they could reach as he tilts his head slightly and says to her “Hello miss…” He trails off implying he’d like a name.
“Tell me what you know,” Dean responds to the merchant, eyes glancing over his shoulder a moment. “And I’ll leave you and your stall alone…Who’s looking for me.” In a few moments, those two same Helots that had went into the MRO come back out, stopping outside the entrance of it. Their single flashlight-like ocular’s look around.
“Other eyes?” Rysenna asks of the Lotorian curiously, before she looks to Akamatsu. “Call me what you like, I’m in the market for a new name anyway,” she says to the ronin lightly, before steel-toned eyes look him over, “And you are?”
“Other clanky-clanks,” the Lotorian informs Dean. His fangs clack together. “They come around, asking about big brain. Impozzzter big brain. They talk about redundanzzzy. Deactivation. Dominance of real big brain.” He points at Dean. “Gonna blazzzt you, yezzyezz.”
“…well he needs to come to Comorro for a while, as do you, it’s been too long and I get lonely with just Speeder.” Dement replies, a glance falling sideways as the two Phyrrian move out of the nearby MRO. It’s a wary glance.
Akamatsu extends a hand to the Riftwalker and and replies “Akamatsu. Confederacy spacer at your service.” The ronin then hmms at the looking for a new name comment and suggest “Perhaps Megumi? You look similar to the people of my homeland and it is a name used there.” The ronin then eyes the Lotorian after finishing processing what had been said and replies “Dean I don’t suppose you’ll be wanting a bodyguard around will you?”
“Shit,” Dean speaks after a second, withdrawing some credits and setting them on the stall for the Lotorian to grab. “How many? Do you know where they are? Do you have any other information?” A few more credits tossed down, his gaze shifting to the Ronin beside him. “This is a bit of a bigger problem than one bodyguard to handle. Contact Razorback now, tell him to get in touch with me as soon as possible.”
“‘Blessing’. How ironic,” Rysenna smirks, “I’ll give it some thought.” She looks between the men again, settling on Dean. “I’m sorry for prying, but what’s going on, exactly? Who wants to blast you?”
“Four big ones, like those,” the Lotorian says, gesturing to Dean’s escort Helots. “They asked and asked many merchants. This was about six dayzzz ago. Think they left station. Heard them mention something about Confedthingy. Not sure, though. Might still be here. I didn’t follow to make sure, nono. Not good biznezz.”
“Yeah, whi-OH /HEY/!” Dement spots himself a Ronin, giving Akamatsu an eager wave and grinning, “I’ll ring you back, bumped into someone entertaining.” The call is dropped and, regardless of company, Dement shimmies over to say hello.
Akamatsu nods and gives a small wave of greeting when Dement arrives. The ronin then glaces at Ry and answers “It seems like there are some Phyrrians challenging his authority.” The ronin looks back to Dean and adds “You know if there are only four then can’t you take them with me and a few of those other guys you have following you about? I mean I assume you being the leader means you can take a few at least and if I were using proper weapons I’d have killed you in our recent spar so I could take just as many. Shouldn’t we be fine?”
Possible threat nearby… Analyzing… Full visual scan in progress… Brightening HUD for better display… ...... No immediate threats detected. Scanning area for traces of known Normalspace Phyrrian metal… Scanning local networks for Normalspace Phyrrian presence… ......
Dean nods to the Lotorian, “Thank you for the information.” He sets down a few more credits and grabs a fruit, keeping his back to the ‘walls’ of Comorro and taking a bite of the food, trying to be inconspicuous. He shakes his head at Akamatsu, putting a finger to his lips. “Were not talking about this any further here.” He looks towards Rysenna, “I must owe money to somebody and they’re hiring bounty hunters to collect. Who knows.” Even Dement gets a wary glance as he approaches. Munch. Another bite of that fruit as the Overmind’s eyes scan the area.
“Well then you should be more careful who you gamble with,” Rysenna replies, peering at Dean with a look that suggest she’s not buying it, but doesn’t care enough to say so. Back to Akamatsu, then, “What is a Phyrrian, can I know that at least?” She eyes Dement, but doesn’t address him.
Dean’s scan of the local network triggers the display of a previously dormant message: “End of reign imminent.” This transmission ends with a sigil that shows a green triangle embedded within a red circle and the initials TMC – most likely standing for Task Matrix Central, the core city on Phyrria. It is followed by the initiation of a worm program that starts digging toward the Overmind’s vital programming.
The worm successfully bypasses Dean’s observation, but does nothing malicious at the moment. Instead, it remains dormant within the Overmind. Waiting.
“How are you Aku?” Dement frowns, “Aki?” Headshakes. “Aka?” That’s the one! “What’s going on? Who’s this?” His frown deepens with, “Why are you always with shifty people?”
Akamatsu raises an eyebrow at Demant and replies “Why do you always ask so many questions?” He then looks to Ry and tells Dee “This is Megumi. I just met her a few minutes ago so that’s all I can really tell you.” Then he tilts his head to Dean “This is Dean. He’s with the Confederacy too.” The ronin takes the sake off his belt and takes a quick sip before asking the group “Anybody else care for some?”
Dean takes another bite of the fruit and kicks off the wall, looking around the area. He doesn’t seem nervous or have much show of emotion at all, stoic. He gives a small nod to Dement but besides for that he remains looking around the area. He cuts off his connection right after seeing the symbol of Task Matrix Central, and gives Akamatsu his attention for a split second. “You sent a message to Razor, yeah?”
“I’d love some, but it won’t do me any good,” Rysenna-Megumi replies with a sigh, “Can’t taste it. Can’t get drunk off of it, either. Pretty sure it would just end up on the floor if I tried, anyway.” She waves to Dement a bit, fluffing her wings a little as she asks, “Who’re you calling shifty?”
The Lotorian merchant moves on to helping the next customer. Meanwhile, the worm program resides patiently within Dean’s cortex as a pre-set timer commences the inevitable countdown.