CH3: Step One (Cain + Wren)
Feb 21, 2019 16:33:28 GMT -6
Post by fen on Feb 21, 2019 16:33:28 GMT -6
Tap tap tap.
The walk to the aquarium wasn’t as bad as he thought. It was built in the center of Shanghai, right next to Huangpu River. It was close to the location of Beta Team- a fact that only marginally concerned him. They had to preoccupy themselves in a tower, surrounded by criminals- they didn’t have any time to be on the lookout for a snake.
That didn’t sit well with him.
At the entrance of the aquarium he was directed by a staff member to put out his cigarette, to which he quickly trashed nearby, letting out a frustrated sigh as he ruffled his hair.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t agree with the Liberators. It was the opposite. For once, he found something he could agree with. The cause was just and no action was impossible. Still, to backstab his comrades… What did that say about him? Was that just- was that right? Steel Hawk thought so, he knew that. You can crack a few eggs, you know. He’d probably say. Yet Steel Hawk wasn’t here right now.
He stepped through the crowd, muttering apologies and ‘excuse me’s in broken Mandarin. Someone would occasionally bump into his backpack, and he’d flinch ever so slightly. The rifle wasn’t loaded or even formed, but with every bump he feared someone would realize that he was smuggling something dangerous.
‘Being sneaky’ only worked for him when he was several meters away from everyone else. At the bare minimum, in the double digits. Anything else? That was asking for trouble.
Cain felt himself tense up as he entered the walkway that led under a hefty shark exhibit tank. There were a few people walking down the path as well, but it was wide enough that stopping and staring worked well enough. He picked a point halfway through, stopping by a collection of zebra sharks that had found a nearby spot of aquarium ground to be interesting. He too, in turn, found that to be interesting.
He let himself detense, and leaned forward onto the railing, his arms supporting himself now. In and out.
The water looked pretty.
---
She’d never been underwater before.
Or, well, hm. Maybe that wasn’t quite right. She’d showered, and bathed. A more finicky person would correct her, then. She had, in fact, been under water molecules in her short memory of life.
More accurately, she’d never been surrounded by so many thousands of gallons of water before.
That’s part of the reason Wren chose this place for their meeting, though one would never be able to get her to openly admit it. No, this place perfectly fit all of the perimeters that Steel Hawk had given her in regards to choosing a suitable location for information sharing. It was low lit, especially in certain areas like the shark tank, where light only trickled from above the water to illuminate the walkway below. It was public, so they wouldn’t garner any extra attention by talking to one another. And it was easy to get into, and get out of.
(The fish were just… an added benefit. Yes, surely! Not a deciding factor. She was much too professional to let such a thing influence her decisions!)
Still, one thing did take her off guard, and that was the aquariums policy on wearing her hood. Having stuck to open areas or going to places without being scene before, it was an non issue. Until this moment. APPARENTLY wearing a hood makes you look “sketchy” and could “frighten the children”! (And that explanation took about 5 minutes and three very frustrated security guards to get to her and her next to non-existent Mandarin.) ((She had tried to learn, she really did, but she only had the trip here and… well… an entire language.))
That set her off, and a nervous, sheepish adjustment of her headband over her ears later she was in. Much… much too early.
(She found her way to the gift shop, because of course. This place was built to lead you there, and she knew no better. And it was no time at all before a rather large whale shark plush was in her possession-- thanks Steel Hawk!) ((She didn’t think how that might appear… unprofessional. It was good for the nerves to casually hug onto something.))
By the time Cain would have found himself in the shark tunnel, Wren would have spent a good portion of time there, flitting back and forth between sides to follow sharks as they passed overhead. The indulging in the childlike wonder for a short while had calmed her down, but it didn’t make her forget the reason she was here… and as soon as she saw the man matching the description there, she paused. She took a breath through her nose. She quietly walked over, footsteps as light as ever.
(She looked at how he was standing, and rather consciously found herself trying to match it. She didn’t want to appear daft.) ((Thinks the girl with the whale shark plushie.))
“...do you think they realize they’re swimming in circles, over and over and over again?” Speaking of the fish was probably their cue, but also a legitimate question from Wren. She squinted up. “I’ve seen that one fish--” She said, staring at a shark. “--pass by nearly three times now. Do you think it starts to get monotonous for them? Or is water just… water?”
---
How long had it been? Five minutes? Ten? Thirty? He couldn’t tell- for one reason or another, he found himself transfixed by the gentle breeze that seemed to tease coral and anemone alike. The Zebra sharks hadn’t budged an inch, something that only seemed to make his attention all the more caught.
A memory. It was the two of them, the water seemed to move, constantly. The grass hid his figure until he bumped into his leg, nearly knocking over their cooler in the process. A laugh, a splash. They had caught something- dinner.
The pilot gently tapped his forehead, a deathknell to his mind, as if erupting him from his daydreaming all at once. That’s a memory I hadn’t thought of in a while. Why now? Was it the job that was concerning him? His mind dredging up old memories like junk a dog might bring its master, wagging its tail and oozing the feeling of ‘Look, look! Look at what I found!’.
You should be feeling bad about this. Was what his mind was trying to tell him.
There was, of course, no point to this. Unnecessary bickering. Back to the job.
In the time spent daydreaming, he had begun to lean onto the aquarium railing, but open hearing an unfamiliar voice directing him to the sharks- he found himself standing straight again. His gaze remained affixed in front of him, Cain at most tossing a sidelong glance at the person who had gotten near- a quick check of their features, and it seemed to be the one.
He had only met Steel Hawk a handful of times while he was stationed on the moon; loud, passionate- these were the traits he picked up on. For a man in what amounted to power armor, he had a method of expressing himself that seemed to be infectious. Cain was by no means immune to his charms, and through the short time the two had traveled together, he had learned much of the man.
Likewise, while he had never met Wren, he had heard rumors.
They had extended anywhere from her being Hawk’s illegitimate child, to her being a rescued ESU super soldier reject. Past- history, these were things deathly important to the Liberators. Your past defines you. Your future is what you make of it. While they all had their reasons, they all tied together by their pasts.
He understood what that meant- at least on a shallow, surface level. Yet he was a Bernard, an heir, a good-for-nothing, a leech. His past was one of many things he wished wouldn’t define him. In that same vein, he took it all in stride and accepted his cohorts for what they were then and there, in the present.
Wren was no different.
“I don’t know,” Were the first words that came out of his mouth. “We get tired of walking, and birds get tired of flying. They rest at some point.” His hands fell to his pockets, the pilot digging into his jacket, before pulling out a USB drive. He slipped it along the railing towards Wren, his gaze still affixed towards the water.
It was the perfect blend of quiet and conspicuous to allow them to speak freely- only having to hush as the occasional tourist or aquarium goer passed. It might have been for the best, as he was trying to seem like he knew what he was doing, and his cover was blowing every minute.
“You’re Wren, right?”
“Hmmmm.”
Wren squinted up, head tipping back to follow the shark as it made its way up and over the clear tunnel above them. It was hard to tell if she was unhappy with that answer, or just thinking. Deeply. Too deeply, it would seem, for such a simple concept.
“I thought I read somewhere that some species can’t stop swimming, or it prevents water from passing through their gills.” She reached up, unconsciously touching at their throat as she looked back down. Her brows knitted. “I wonder if they get frustrated, then…”
She was done musing by the time Cain’s hand moved towards her, and she found her eyes looking down to the railing, despite herself… but the moment she realized, she quickly glanced back up, mimicking Cain’s casual demeanor. She reached over, fingers gently touching onto the top of the USB, and taking it from him.
“I am. And you’re… Cain.” It wasn’t so much a question than a statement, like she was still going over the logistics of the situation in her head.
Speaking of logistics… the USB. She now had that in her hand. And she needed to get it out of her hand. Out of sight, but not out of mind. Sure, she had a pocket prepared, in her jacket, but… the whale shark. It’s gaping mouth and plush pouch… It was fate.
She casually fed the drive to her shark friend without a word.
…
…..
But now what?
“...uh.” She looks up at the glass again. “Do you know much about them? I’ve never been able to find the time to learn… but I’ve wanted to.”
There were a few things he could comment on, mainly, how she was using a giant plushie to hide away military information that could see him locked away for the rest of his life. Actually, it might have been worse? Yeah, no, he could see the firing squad now, lined up across a field. This was information, that, to his knowledge- Mars was paying for directly. The kind of information that could only be traced back to someone on a ship, that ship being the Menaulion.
But yeah, he could talk about sharks.
“Chondrichthyes, which means that they’re boneless. Their skeletons are made mostly of cartilage, which makes them lighter than they look. They’re missing swim bladders, though, so they have to use their fins to stay afloat or else they sink. I guess… They’re kind of similar to birds, like that.”
He had neglected to mention that they had, for the most part, been critically endangered around the world. It was only recently that they had been making a comeback.
“Pre-colony, these things were the stuff of legends. People thought they were maneaters, huge, scary monsters that would pull you under if you went swimming. Now? Not so much. People make,” He turned to look at her, or more specifically- that doll in her hands. “...Cute plushies, out of them now.”
It was weird to casually be talking about sharks when he was supposed to be set up on a roof, iron sights set on mostly harmless dock workers while Kara and Stepan got to work. It wasn’t a bad thing, per se. To be able to enjoy an aquarium, at least partially, did lift his spirits. Though it did make him question if handing off the information to Wren was a good idea. Hawk’s favorite or not, she seemed to be…
“I don’t mean to pry, if The Sky trusts you, then I do too, but…” His fingers tapped along the railing. For someone who was considerably more forward, dealing with someone he had hardly known and was an important cohort in making their plans a reality was beginning to be…
Difficult.
“Are you sure you can do this? Get it back in one piece, and all that? The ESU have Shanghai on lock because of MR movement, getting back into space might be…”
The questioning her abilities was something Wren wasn’t expecting to hear, but in the end, something that didn’t really surprise her. She was behaving rather flighty, wasn’t she? Or, uhm.
What was the word…
Incompetent.
It frustrated her, for Cain to be able to read her uncertainty like he was. She was still learning how to properly shield her motives and emotions (funny, how much harder that was that weilding a sword or piloting a Theos machine!) This was especially frustrating given the fact she couldn’t read him.
Note to self, pick up a book on body language before heading back to base.
At the very least, she could still cover her own ass.
“Oh? Does my ignorance of marine life speak directly upon my abilities? Remind me to thoroughly read up on these chondrichthyes before our next meeting. I would like to ease your uncertainties!”
She sounded formal, but boy, was she sweating.
“Irregardless, I can assure you, there is nothing stopping this trinket from getting home. Locks can always be picked, and I was trained to do just that!” She smiled, patting the belly of the whale shark ever so slightly.
She was confident enough in herself, and Cain’s disbelief wouldn’t make her believe otherwise, though it didn’t make it any less embarrassing!
“Though, certainly, if you heard anything else you believe I might not have been aware of… I would be happy to listen.”
If he felt some type of way to Wren’s response, his face sure didn’t show it. Cain somehow stayed looking calm, normal- not too stern, angry, embarrassed…
“Sorry, rest assured whether you know what a shark is or not doesn’t have anything to do with your skills.”
A quiet chuckle escaped his lips, followed by what seemed to be an amused smile. It was true he knew basically nothing about her, and for now that was fine- after all, he had more pressing matters to attend to. Hawk was always right, at least, mostly always right. If he put his trust in her, then he would too.
Cain shuffled the duffle bag along his back, hoping that the rifle case wouldn’t make too much noise. Rather than simply staring at the aquarium some more, he turned to Wren, giving her one of those old two finger salutes he always did back when he flew.
“You’ll do fine then, give them my regards.”
He took a step back, satisfied with himself. He didn’t know if Wren really had the chops for it, but he had completed his part- he left the rest to his companions.
Companions.
The irony of that certainly didn’t escape him, and though he was already on his way out, he could feel a twinge of uncertainty pinch his heart. Trust was all he had left, and yet still what he was to lose. Adjusting the strap of his bag one last time, he turned to give Wren one final look.
“If there’s something wrong, you have my contact, but, well… ‘Till the next time we meet.”
The walk to the aquarium wasn’t as bad as he thought. It was built in the center of Shanghai, right next to Huangpu River. It was close to the location of Beta Team- a fact that only marginally concerned him. They had to preoccupy themselves in a tower, surrounded by criminals- they didn’t have any time to be on the lookout for a snake.
That didn’t sit well with him.
At the entrance of the aquarium he was directed by a staff member to put out his cigarette, to which he quickly trashed nearby, letting out a frustrated sigh as he ruffled his hair.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t agree with the Liberators. It was the opposite. For once, he found something he could agree with. The cause was just and no action was impossible. Still, to backstab his comrades… What did that say about him? Was that just- was that right? Steel Hawk thought so, he knew that. You can crack a few eggs, you know. He’d probably say. Yet Steel Hawk wasn’t here right now.
He stepped through the crowd, muttering apologies and ‘excuse me’s in broken Mandarin. Someone would occasionally bump into his backpack, and he’d flinch ever so slightly. The rifle wasn’t loaded or even formed, but with every bump he feared someone would realize that he was smuggling something dangerous.
‘Being sneaky’ only worked for him when he was several meters away from everyone else. At the bare minimum, in the double digits. Anything else? That was asking for trouble.
Cain felt himself tense up as he entered the walkway that led under a hefty shark exhibit tank. There were a few people walking down the path as well, but it was wide enough that stopping and staring worked well enough. He picked a point halfway through, stopping by a collection of zebra sharks that had found a nearby spot of aquarium ground to be interesting. He too, in turn, found that to be interesting.
He let himself detense, and leaned forward onto the railing, his arms supporting himself now. In and out.
The water looked pretty.
---
She’d never been underwater before.
Or, well, hm. Maybe that wasn’t quite right. She’d showered, and bathed. A more finicky person would correct her, then. She had, in fact, been under water molecules in her short memory of life.
More accurately, she’d never been surrounded by so many thousands of gallons of water before.
That’s part of the reason Wren chose this place for their meeting, though one would never be able to get her to openly admit it. No, this place perfectly fit all of the perimeters that Steel Hawk had given her in regards to choosing a suitable location for information sharing. It was low lit, especially in certain areas like the shark tank, where light only trickled from above the water to illuminate the walkway below. It was public, so they wouldn’t garner any extra attention by talking to one another. And it was easy to get into, and get out of.
(The fish were just… an added benefit. Yes, surely! Not a deciding factor. She was much too professional to let such a thing influence her decisions!)
Still, one thing did take her off guard, and that was the aquariums policy on wearing her hood. Having stuck to open areas or going to places without being scene before, it was an non issue. Until this moment. APPARENTLY wearing a hood makes you look “sketchy” and could “frighten the children”! (And that explanation took about 5 minutes and three very frustrated security guards to get to her and her next to non-existent Mandarin.) ((She had tried to learn, she really did, but she only had the trip here and… well… an entire language.))
That set her off, and a nervous, sheepish adjustment of her headband over her ears later she was in. Much… much too early.
(She found her way to the gift shop, because of course. This place was built to lead you there, and she knew no better. And it was no time at all before a rather large whale shark plush was in her possession-- thanks Steel Hawk!) ((She didn’t think how that might appear… unprofessional. It was good for the nerves to casually hug onto something.))
By the time Cain would have found himself in the shark tunnel, Wren would have spent a good portion of time there, flitting back and forth between sides to follow sharks as they passed overhead. The indulging in the childlike wonder for a short while had calmed her down, but it didn’t make her forget the reason she was here… and as soon as she saw the man matching the description there, she paused. She took a breath through her nose. She quietly walked over, footsteps as light as ever.
(She looked at how he was standing, and rather consciously found herself trying to match it. She didn’t want to appear daft.) ((Thinks the girl with the whale shark plushie.))
“...do you think they realize they’re swimming in circles, over and over and over again?” Speaking of the fish was probably their cue, but also a legitimate question from Wren. She squinted up. “I’ve seen that one fish--” She said, staring at a shark. “--pass by nearly three times now. Do you think it starts to get monotonous for them? Or is water just… water?”
---
How long had it been? Five minutes? Ten? Thirty? He couldn’t tell- for one reason or another, he found himself transfixed by the gentle breeze that seemed to tease coral and anemone alike. The Zebra sharks hadn’t budged an inch, something that only seemed to make his attention all the more caught.
A memory. It was the two of them, the water seemed to move, constantly. The grass hid his figure until he bumped into his leg, nearly knocking over their cooler in the process. A laugh, a splash. They had caught something- dinner.
The pilot gently tapped his forehead, a deathknell to his mind, as if erupting him from his daydreaming all at once. That’s a memory I hadn’t thought of in a while. Why now? Was it the job that was concerning him? His mind dredging up old memories like junk a dog might bring its master, wagging its tail and oozing the feeling of ‘Look, look! Look at what I found!’.
You should be feeling bad about this. Was what his mind was trying to tell him.
There was, of course, no point to this. Unnecessary bickering. Back to the job.
In the time spent daydreaming, he had begun to lean onto the aquarium railing, but open hearing an unfamiliar voice directing him to the sharks- he found himself standing straight again. His gaze remained affixed in front of him, Cain at most tossing a sidelong glance at the person who had gotten near- a quick check of their features, and it seemed to be the one.
He had only met Steel Hawk a handful of times while he was stationed on the moon; loud, passionate- these were the traits he picked up on. For a man in what amounted to power armor, he had a method of expressing himself that seemed to be infectious. Cain was by no means immune to his charms, and through the short time the two had traveled together, he had learned much of the man.
Likewise, while he had never met Wren, he had heard rumors.
They had extended anywhere from her being Hawk’s illegitimate child, to her being a rescued ESU super soldier reject. Past- history, these were things deathly important to the Liberators. Your past defines you. Your future is what you make of it. While they all had their reasons, they all tied together by their pasts.
He understood what that meant- at least on a shallow, surface level. Yet he was a Bernard, an heir, a good-for-nothing, a leech. His past was one of many things he wished wouldn’t define him. In that same vein, he took it all in stride and accepted his cohorts for what they were then and there, in the present.
Wren was no different.
“I don’t know,” Were the first words that came out of his mouth. “We get tired of walking, and birds get tired of flying. They rest at some point.” His hands fell to his pockets, the pilot digging into his jacket, before pulling out a USB drive. He slipped it along the railing towards Wren, his gaze still affixed towards the water.
It was the perfect blend of quiet and conspicuous to allow them to speak freely- only having to hush as the occasional tourist or aquarium goer passed. It might have been for the best, as he was trying to seem like he knew what he was doing, and his cover was blowing every minute.
“You’re Wren, right?”
“Hmmmm.”
Wren squinted up, head tipping back to follow the shark as it made its way up and over the clear tunnel above them. It was hard to tell if she was unhappy with that answer, or just thinking. Deeply. Too deeply, it would seem, for such a simple concept.
“I thought I read somewhere that some species can’t stop swimming, or it prevents water from passing through their gills.” She reached up, unconsciously touching at their throat as she looked back down. Her brows knitted. “I wonder if they get frustrated, then…”
She was done musing by the time Cain’s hand moved towards her, and she found her eyes looking down to the railing, despite herself… but the moment she realized, she quickly glanced back up, mimicking Cain’s casual demeanor. She reached over, fingers gently touching onto the top of the USB, and taking it from him.
“I am. And you’re… Cain.” It wasn’t so much a question than a statement, like she was still going over the logistics of the situation in her head.
Speaking of logistics… the USB. She now had that in her hand. And she needed to get it out of her hand. Out of sight, but not out of mind. Sure, she had a pocket prepared, in her jacket, but… the whale shark. It’s gaping mouth and plush pouch… It was fate.
She casually fed the drive to her shark friend without a word.
…
…..
But now what?
“...uh.” She looks up at the glass again. “Do you know much about them? I’ve never been able to find the time to learn… but I’ve wanted to.”
There were a few things he could comment on, mainly, how she was using a giant plushie to hide away military information that could see him locked away for the rest of his life. Actually, it might have been worse? Yeah, no, he could see the firing squad now, lined up across a field. This was information, that, to his knowledge- Mars was paying for directly. The kind of information that could only be traced back to someone on a ship, that ship being the Menaulion.
But yeah, he could talk about sharks.
“Chondrichthyes, which means that they’re boneless. Their skeletons are made mostly of cartilage, which makes them lighter than they look. They’re missing swim bladders, though, so they have to use their fins to stay afloat or else they sink. I guess… They’re kind of similar to birds, like that.”
He had neglected to mention that they had, for the most part, been critically endangered around the world. It was only recently that they had been making a comeback.
“Pre-colony, these things were the stuff of legends. People thought they were maneaters, huge, scary monsters that would pull you under if you went swimming. Now? Not so much. People make,” He turned to look at her, or more specifically- that doll in her hands. “...Cute plushies, out of them now.”
It was weird to casually be talking about sharks when he was supposed to be set up on a roof, iron sights set on mostly harmless dock workers while Kara and Stepan got to work. It wasn’t a bad thing, per se. To be able to enjoy an aquarium, at least partially, did lift his spirits. Though it did make him question if handing off the information to Wren was a good idea. Hawk’s favorite or not, she seemed to be…
“I don’t mean to pry, if The Sky trusts you, then I do too, but…” His fingers tapped along the railing. For someone who was considerably more forward, dealing with someone he had hardly known and was an important cohort in making their plans a reality was beginning to be…
Difficult.
“Are you sure you can do this? Get it back in one piece, and all that? The ESU have Shanghai on lock because of MR movement, getting back into space might be…”
The questioning her abilities was something Wren wasn’t expecting to hear, but in the end, something that didn’t really surprise her. She was behaving rather flighty, wasn’t she? Or, uhm.
What was the word…
Incompetent.
It frustrated her, for Cain to be able to read her uncertainty like he was. She was still learning how to properly shield her motives and emotions (funny, how much harder that was that weilding a sword or piloting a Theos machine!) This was especially frustrating given the fact she couldn’t read him.
Note to self, pick up a book on body language before heading back to base.
At the very least, she could still cover her own ass.
“Oh? Does my ignorance of marine life speak directly upon my abilities? Remind me to thoroughly read up on these chondrichthyes before our next meeting. I would like to ease your uncertainties!”
She sounded formal, but boy, was she sweating.
“Irregardless, I can assure you, there is nothing stopping this trinket from getting home. Locks can always be picked, and I was trained to do just that!” She smiled, patting the belly of the whale shark ever so slightly.
She was confident enough in herself, and Cain’s disbelief wouldn’t make her believe otherwise, though it didn’t make it any less embarrassing!
“Though, certainly, if you heard anything else you believe I might not have been aware of… I would be happy to listen.”
If he felt some type of way to Wren’s response, his face sure didn’t show it. Cain somehow stayed looking calm, normal- not too stern, angry, embarrassed…
“Sorry, rest assured whether you know what a shark is or not doesn’t have anything to do with your skills.”
A quiet chuckle escaped his lips, followed by what seemed to be an amused smile. It was true he knew basically nothing about her, and for now that was fine- after all, he had more pressing matters to attend to. Hawk was always right, at least, mostly always right. If he put his trust in her, then he would too.
Cain shuffled the duffle bag along his back, hoping that the rifle case wouldn’t make too much noise. Rather than simply staring at the aquarium some more, he turned to Wren, giving her one of those old two finger salutes he always did back when he flew.
“You’ll do fine then, give them my regards.”
He took a step back, satisfied with himself. He didn’t know if Wren really had the chops for it, but he had completed his part- he left the rest to his companions.
Companions.
The irony of that certainly didn’t escape him, and though he was already on his way out, he could feel a twinge of uncertainty pinch his heart. Trust was all he had left, and yet still what he was to lose. Adjusting the strap of his bag one last time, he turned to give Wren one final look.
“If there’s something wrong, you have my contact, but, well… ‘Till the next time we meet.”