"You have a top-flight crew." "They're good. A little undisciplined."

[leverageintceo]

Who| Parker and YOU
What| Parker crawling around in the vents and working out
Where| Around Legion World
When| post-missions
Warnings/Notes| N/A

Half the time people assume Parker is crawling around in the ventilation system, she's actually working out. It isn't that she doesn't spend a lot of time in the vents, just that it takes a lot of time and effort to stay in shape for the things she needs to be able to do for her job, and that on top of the training she's getting for being a super hero. A lot of it is pure body-weight training, which she tends to take care of in places where people won't stumble across her. When she's working out, she doesn't generally want to be interrupted by people asking how she got that strong or that flexible. Today is a training day that requires more equipment, so anyone who pokes their head into the Sim Room will find it full of moving laser grids and a blond in dark clothes ducking, spinning, bending, and rolling her way through them like someone dancing between raindrops in a storm.



Which isn't to say that Parker doesn't spend a lot of time in the vents. Legion World is a space station the size of a moon, and unlike a moon its livable area is not limited to its surface. Someone with a flight ring and a good mental map of the vents can travel between point A and point B with a great deal more efficiency than someone limiting themselves to approved areas and the lifts.

Parker isn't patrolling them, per se, but now that people have decided to curry favor by leaving things in the vents for her, she does tend to stop by the places that are easier for people who don't travel the vents to get to. Plus, sometimes she sees people doing things that look interesting from the vents, and it's a good way to keep people on their toes. They're super heroes now, they need to start remembering to keep an eye on all the ways people might enter a room. Especially everyone who's joined the Espionage Squad.

Comments

[tenzero]

The Sim Room has always been a place of great intrigue; Tenno isn't used to the sheer amount of downtime between missions, and frankly just knowing that there's a place where he can go to work off any excess energy is fantastic.

Privacy has never been a huge concern in his life, and so while he's certainly expecting things to be quiet the sight of bright lasers and flashes of movement isn't disconcerting in the slightest. In fact, as far as he's concerned it looks fun, and if Nezha had a mouth he would be grinning wryly as he takes the sight in.

"Uh. So," he starts, shifting from foot to foot, "is this uh. Open to everyone?"

[leverageintceo]

Parker pauses for a brief moment before reversing direction and extracting herself from the web of moving light.

"Sure," she answers before she even finishes the final back-handspring. "How much experience do you have with laser grids?"

She grabs a towel off of a wall rack and scrubs it across her face. She's been at this for awhile, long enough to build up a sweat.

[tenzero]

"Uhh," he pauses for a moment, because how does one even begin to explain, "I mean, I've broken into places before. A lot. Some of them had lasers."

Spy vaults were one hell of a thing.

He watches as she extracts from the training, head cocked to the side with interest, "what happens when you touch these? Evisceration? Stunning? Fire? Freezing?"

[leverageintceo]

She gives him a measuring sort of look before her face splits into a grin.

"Mild electric shock," she says. "But I like your style. Remind me to tell you about the burn room in the freezer on the Potato Job."

She hangs the towel back up and gestures at a control panel on a wall. "You can set a grid up however you like. I don't know what your skill level is, but they've got a pretty good randomization program here, and it adapts to your skill level. I'd suggest you start your own profile, mine isn't in warm-up mode anymore."

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief doesn't spend a lot of time in his quarters, but it's a quiet space with walls. Sometimes, that's what he needs to sit down and focus on something. He's been trying to take in more UP history. Not his best subject (things tend to blur together for him around major conflicts), but it's important, so he's trying.

Part of the reason for the quiet is he has very good hearing and a lifetime of needing to be alert to small sounds.

Like someone moving around in the walls.

Without looking up from his reading, he reaches over to the vent next to where he's sitting and gives it three taps with his knuckles.

Hi, Parker.

[leverageintceo]

He receives an answering three taps in return.

"Hi Chief," Parker says though the vent, folding her hands and resting her chin on them. She hasn't been able to sneak up on him (or past him) yet, but it took special circumstances for her to surprise her hitter back home too, and she's not sure if Chief would ever perform a country song on stage. Or whatever Chief's equivalent would be to what that had been. "Interesting reading?"

[prettycoolguy]

"Some," he replies. He's honest.

"Almost got me that time."

Okay, maybe not almost, but it's a friendly gesture. She has been getting better at it, she got closer before he noticed than the first time anyway.

[leverageintceo]

"Not interesting enough to keep you from catching me." Parker flashes him a grin.

"If I ever sneak up on you, I'll be able to sneak up on anybody. Or you'll have unconsciously recognized me by the little sounds and classified me as non-hostile, but I'm not sure how likely that prospect is."

They're friendly, but their respective skills and abilities tend to keep them in different roles in the super hero fights. It would take a lot of dedicated time and effort to get to that point, time and effort that could probably be used on other things.

[prettycoolguy]

"If I'm in the suit, I have a motion tracker," he reminds. It's saved his life often enough.

"But here? Yes."

He doesn't showboat, but the Chief appreciates the recognition of his ability. He likes to feel sharp, sometimes he worries about if he's keeping his edge. If he can keep track of Parker moving around in a wall, it's a reassurance.

[leverageintceo]

"You have a fancy future motion tracker in the suit," Parker counters. "I have to make an effort to set off motion sensors back home. Stealing badly is more difficult than you might think."

She's not sure if he's ever been asked to pretend to fight badly. Probably not, she doubts anyone would ever buy Chief as someone who didn't know his way around (or through or over) a fight.

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief eyes Parker, speculative.

"What century?" he asks. It's finally occurred to him that he never has asked, it's not a question most people ever have to consider in conversation.

[leverageintceo]

"Early twenty-first," Parker answers. "I was born in the twentieth."

There's a reason she's been referring to this place as the vegan spacefuture. She mostly assumes anyone here with more advanced technology than she's familiar with is from some other future. When there's a lot of time and space to be from in a thousand year gap.

[prettycoolguy]

"Twenty-sixth," the Chief replies in kind. "Go easy on yourself."

It's future tech, Parker can be excused for not automatically having the chops to beat his tracker.

[leverageintceo]

"So if I can avoid triggering your motion sensor, I will be unstoppable back home."

Parker grins. Chief, being the sort of person he is, who grew up with the people he did, probably recognizes it as the facial equivalent of 'challenge accepted'.

[prettycoolguy]

In some was, Parker reminds him intensely of other Spartans. For a moment he's just a little homesick.

In response to her assertion, he just nods a cocky, hell-yeah-26th-century nod.

Go for it, Parker. Be the best sneak there ever was.

[bachido]

Kubo has to suppress laughter when he leaves gyoza for the woman who roams the vents, who's reputed to gift children with Useful Knowledge in exchange for conveniently placed food. It's just such a charming idea, the seed of a story.

This afternoon, upon setting his offering at the vent, he remains to play a little song for the woman in the vents, who may or may not appreciate music. He has no way of knowing yet.

[leverageintceo]

Parker's not sure why she wasn't expecting to find dumplings and musical accompaniment during her climb through the vents, but she wasn't and here they are. It's not an unpleasant surprise, and she's pleased to have stumbled across it before the dumplings went cold or Kubo (because really, who else could be the source of that music?) got bored or distracted. She slides the vent cover open and rests her chin on her hands.

"That's pretty," she says. "Does it have a name?"

[bachido]

"It's called Old Man," Kubo says, having opted as he always does not to sing the song he's covering. Converting old guitar songs to the shamisen leaves them recognizable, if one is familiar with old Earth music, but Kubo's own flair takes the tune in its own charming direction. "It's an old song here, but when I'm from, it won't be written for a long, long time."

It never fails to amaze him how far from each other even humans come from in this place.

"Do you like gyoza?" he asks, looking up into the open vent cover with a smile.

[leverageintceo]

"I don't know," Parker answers, eeling out of the vent and sitting down cross-legged on the floor. "I don't think I've had them before. Do you want to share them with me?"

She remembers Kubo's early questions. She also remembers what it's like to be a small, hungry child.

[bachido]

"Thank you, but I'm not hungry. I just ate."

The refusal is pure politeness. Kubo did eat, recently, but the gyoza still smell delicious, and as a 14 year old boy, he can always eat. But he brought them as a gift, and it's impolite to eat a gift you've brought for someone else.

"Would you like some music while you eat, though? Maybe I know your favorite song," he suggests, fingers dancing on the strings.

[leverageintceo]

Parker blinks, her brow creasing briefly in confusion.

"I don't think I have a favorite song," she says. "And I'd feel weird eating in front of you without sharing."

Food-that-is-a-gift is a thing she does with people. Food-as-fuel is one thing, but gift-food is a thing people do because they want to spend time with someone, and Kubo doesn't seem to be in any hurry to leave.

[bachido]

Kubo nods sagely. "There are too many good songs for me to pick just one," he agrees, or, at least, thinks he's agreeing.

He considers her perspective, and frankly, it isn't hard to make him come around to a polite position where he can also eat delicious fried foods.

"I wouldn't want you to feel weird," he says, taking a dumpling, but waiting for her to eat one first before actually stuffing his face.