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[be_notorious]

August 22nd | Video

[Drifter's been keeping himself pretty well kept, lately. Decent clothes, clean, etc, because he doesn't have to sleep in Hydra corpses and live off Legionary meat in the far reaches of the solar system. But today Drifter is looking more like his true self, and he's covered in grease from working on his projects, wearing jeans and a denim jacket and a diamond print button-up shirt that almost looks like reptile scales.]

[He's not in his bar, he's in his rented room/lab space, where he has armor for five body types half-assembled and maps pinned on the wall and even a type chart bulletin board complete with deranged yarn patterns.]

[He makes a frantic motion at the camera when he turns it on.]

Alright! So, here's my plan.

Each month there'd be a 'disadvantage' type. The main combatants that gotta face all the challenges, right? Now, do people prefer races? Obstacle courses? Last man standing? Collect and conquer...

[His strangely blue-gray eyes go wide as he's thinking about that.]

Hunter-Prey. Just got it. Strong type advantage has to chase down three or four disadvantage types. Ninety percent stealth oriented.

[He shakes a finger.]

Alright, alright, alright. I can make that work.

Comments

Audio

[thedifferencebetween]

Making it happen, huh?

Nice to see you're not all talk there, buddy.

[be_notorious]

Everything takes forever when you're startin' from scratch. [He grabs a cloth to wipe his hands off with.]

Hey, you know where I can find out more info about this place's digitization tech? See, I got the armor worked out-

[He pulls the pokegear over to show one of the armors that would fit a dog-type.] I got these funnelin' tubes laid into it to better dispense potion protection, nice thick damage resistant mesh in there, too, for them hard knocks. But as you can see, I'm sorta set on size. I got models for each body type but it varies so much I need a way to resize it on a template basis.

[thedifferencebetween]

Preaching to the choir, buddy!

Oh it's...it's not good. The tech, I mean. I see what you're going for, though, lemme think on it a bit. Might have some suggestions for ya.

[be_notorious]

Yeah, I noticed. It's real specialized.

You been lookin' into it? 'Cause the smoothest way to work out some class armor adjustments has always been digital in my experience.

[But he doesn't have his ghost here, and his ghost has all his Dark Age armor reconstruction specs.]

[thedifferencebetween]

The whole friggin world is 'specialized', I swear to friggin space llama...

Little bit, yeah! I'm a computer guy, I use digi-tech a ton back home. But it's not the same here, it's a whole different tech system, I don't really have the best access to the equipment to get in and ha...

Figure out how it works.

[Totally not hack it, that's absolutely not what he was about to say on the public network.]

[be_notorious]

At least I figure that there's less to work out, if it's all on one sorta system.

Yeah? I got some ideas. How about we meet up on it. I'll let you in on a hunk of the cut if we can figure this mess out.

[Hey, he's making it for an honest business! Surely that should be acceptable, right? Right? Gambling aside...]

[thedifferencebetween]

Ehhh, kind of. Mostly it's a friggin headache, but I am a genius.

Literally, I was a computer prodigy.

But yeah, sure, been a while since we chilled. You still in the same place?

[be_notorious]

Well, there's no need to be modest. [He's gonna tease him for that, alright.]

But yeah, I am. Actually, I'm renting a place behind the bar, a spare room behind a ramen shop. [Unlike Jack, he doesn't live in a stylish place. He just picked something small that suits his needs. He's easy like that, but then again it's an upgrade from sleeping in the wilderness. Might as well be a palace.]

[thedifferencebetween]

Buddy, I am being modest.

Are you trying to be the main character in some weird novel or something? Cuz that's what it sounds like. Alright, room behind the ramen shop.

[be_notorious]

Main characters don't get to do card tricks or slight of hand. Gotta at least be a side character for that. [If not an outright villain.]

But yeah, I'll be waiting here at my stereotypical abode.

[thedifferencebetween]

Cool main characters do! I dunno what movies you're watching...

Want me to bring snacks or shit?

[be_notorious]

Nah, I'll run over to the bar and get some. You fine with nachos and whiskey?

[High-class hosting, right there.]

[thedifferencebetween]

You ask that like I haven't already accepted the fact I'm slumming it in a serious way here.

You're lucky you're cute.

[be_notorious]

Aww, it's the accent, ain't it. One of my better qualities.

Sure, head on over. Nachos and whiskey it is. Excuse the state of the place since I've been focusin' on makin' my armor.

[thedifferencebetween]

The accent doesn't exactly hurt.

Alright, I'll be by later. And that's why you hire a maid. I have three.

Unless another one quit.... I do not keep up with that too great.

[be_notorious]

Never would trust a stranger near my food stash. Old habits die hard.

[Nobody better steal his stockpiles, dammit.]

[In the meantime, Drifter goes to grab that whiskey and some Nacho fixings. A lot of fixings, and settles back down to keep fixing up that dispensary system in the armor. It's not a big place. Most of it is currently workshop. Only a small part of it is kitchenette, a small bathroom, and a cot in the area that'd usually be reserved for the couch. He needs space to work in.]

[It's not five-star accommodations, but he's doing fine.]

[When Jack gets there, Drifter is perched at the edge of his work table, jacket off, leather gloves on, and focusing intently on laying threads of tubing along the mesh he's designed. The moment Orin makes a soft "Meow" at Jack's arrival, before he even knocks, Drifter calls out-] Come on in! Door's unlocked.

[There's a Seviper laying along the floor, his big Persian, an Ariados on the ceiling, and Orin already ready to stare fixedly at Jack whenever he comes in.]

[thedifferencebetween]

[Jack would argue you just lock that stuff up, like he does, but whatever. He's got to haul his ass to some back-alley hell hole crash pad to hang out with what's probably his only friggin friend in this shitty, backwater world.]

[Awesome. Great.]

[How the shit did his life end up like this? Sure, he's got money. Like...a lot of money at this point. He's pretty sure he's officially rich again, and that's great, but...]

[It's not the same. The only power he has is middle-management Rocket power, and it's not like the whole friggin world knows his name or anything. He's really gotta fix that.]

Yo!

[Jack pushes the door open when he hears the invitation in, Miss Taylor Swift the Furfrou and Doxxi the Mightyena accompanying him. Dicknuts, he feels like a teenager again and that's not really a fun feeling for him.]

What's up, doc? You live in a shitty place.

[be_notorious]

This? This is a palace compared to some places I lived.

It's got a roof, space to work, I'm not cold [or freezing to literal death repeatedly over and over]. I bet you got a fancy place.

[He offers a half taken apart pokeball.]

You figure out anything about these things? [God he never thought he'd want his ghost around. But he wants his stupid ghost around.]

[thedifferencebetween]

That's not something you should admit to people.

[Like how Jack is not admitting to the fact that the same goes for him. It's just not something other people need to know.]

Honestly? Not much. I dunno, it's weird.

[He flops down and sprawls out as he's prone to, yoinking the half Pokeball.]

I mean it's digital based, absolutely, no question about that. But it's so friggin far off from the digi-tech I know that figuring it out... I can't backwards engineer it. I gotta learn a whole new coding language without a translation key. But I got some ideas on how to learn it, just gonna take time.

[Unfortunately, even Jack can't just learn an entirely new branch of computer science in a week. He was a genius, but even geniuses have limits.]

[be_notorious]

Why not? [Drifter asks.] There's somethin' to admittin' to small stuff an' then keepin' the big to yourself, you dig me?

[His age, for once. Something he definitely doesn't bring up a lot. He'd rather people just think he was in a world where there was a bunch of nutjobs that can't die. Not that he was one of them.]

[And those voices in his head? He's glad those things aren't bangin' around in there.]

Yeah, me too. I've been designin' armor for a long time. Problem is that once I've designed it, I always used digital tech to autofit it. Now? I might actually gotta use straps an' plates. Adds way too much weight.

[He snorts in disapproval at that.]

[thedifferencebetween]

Small stuff, sure. Not so much the shit you should be ashamed of.

[And other stuff, obviously, but that's what's relevant to the current conversation.]

Oh yeah, I'm all about digi-construction. Even designed robots just to do that, to digitally construct other robots. Called'em Constructors. But I dunno if we're gonna be able to do that here. Digital storage? Sure, that's doable. But constructing?

[He shakes his head with a frustrated sigh. He'd be able to do so friggin much of he could just make the local tech work for him, the way he wants it to! But it's not set up for that, he doesn't think. He still hasn't learned the language.]

But I bet we could figure out a way to keep weight down, at least. My company's main products were weapons and armor, I designed a shitton of the stuff.

[be_notorious]

Can't convince me to be ashamed of survivin' brother. Even if it's sometimes only by the skin of my teeth.

[He scoots off the table.]

It's how guardians wear their armor. It just builds up around 'em. Helps always keep 'em fitted to the right size. That's what I was hopin' to do but uh...

[At least the armor's interesting to hear about.] So tell me about what you make back home? Machine guns? Pulse rifles? Last I left I had a good solar-charged bow in the makin'.

[thedifferencebetween]

Eh.

[Jack just shrugs. He'd rather embellish that sort of thing, but whatever.]

If it shoots, we made it. Rifles, pistols, cryo-weapons, machine guns, sub-machine guns, rocket launchers, guns that fire elemental damage instead of bullets...

Did a lot of personal shielding and defense tech, too, and weaponized robots. I miss my pocket watch. Had a personal invisibility shield built into it. Then I had wrist mounted lasers and this little doohickey that'd make a dozen digital copies of me. That's the kind of stuff Hyperion makes.

Real cutting edge, top of the line tech.

[be_notorious]

I wish cryo-weapons were marketable to Guardians. The armor's too good! They're only useful against the stuff that cain't regen.

[He swivels so he's sitting on the table and facing Jack, grabbing one of the things of nachos he procured earlier.]

How are you on turrets? Nobody makes turrets no more. Just the Cabal, an' while those aren't bad, it leaves us in kinda a sore spot. Maybe people didn't like wastin' the parts over and over but the only place I saw 'em for any amount of time was the Prison of Elders. And they really shoulda upgraded by the end of it.

[thedifferencebetween]

You mean like mounted guns on walls and shit kind of turrets? I got'em everywhere. I've got turrets that shoot lasers, turrets that launch grenades, turrets that construct battle robots....

And we got a couple of options for mobile turrets, for the mercenary or treasure hunter on the go. Press a button, it digistructs a free standing turret gun right next to ya.

[Hyperion wasn't the only one offering that tech, and honestly didn't even have the widest selection, but whatever. Nobody here knows that. Except for a couple of assholes.]

Again, if it shoots, I make it. Or made it back home, I mean. Don't....don't make weapons here. Tried it, doesn't work.