Home Is Where Your Work Is

"Said somethin' about meetin' down here in half an hour or so. She met up with an old friend or somethin' like that just a couple minutes ago, I figured I'd come down here t'get a drink 'n' kill some time."

"Huh, well thanks buddy, guess we both got some time ta kill". Jack had decided that he liked the other man, he semmed like quite a quiet guy, bit of a thinker. Other mercenaries had always made the best company in Jack's experience. They knew how the world really worked. To an experienced Merc, a town meant only a bed, some booze, a meal and maybe some pussy. You never go there for conversation. These townies may mean well but most will never leave, and have no idea what threats are lurking outside of their walls.

"And, yeah - that other guy seemed way to eager t'get somebody t'shoot stuff for him. You go down to Anacrostia, figure out what his deal was? Rubbed me wrong from the get-go."

Jack ordered a beer, and sipped before answering. He swivelled around in his seat to talk to the other man face to face. There was nothing a hired gun loved more than gossiping about clients.

"Nope. I got no more idea on what the creepy little shit wanted than when he strutted outta this bar. He just handed me and the other fella a grand in caps and pissed off to somewhere else. I said to myself 'Jack, you are breaking every rule in the book, you gotta back out now'. So here I am". Jack raised his beer to the other man.

"Don't think I caught your name before. I'm Jack, Jack Towers." He extended his robotic arm in a friendly handshake. He gestured towards the mans missing finger with his eyes. "I bet there's a story behind that"

Victoria sat on her bed, smiling to her friend as she took in the room. She fiddled with her glasses, noticing a scratch on them. This annoyed her slightly, deciding to use her spares for now. They looked somewhat different. Less bulky, closer to reading glasses in appearance. She noticed Kirra taking a seat at her coffee table, as she started to speak to her. She laughed at the comment about her height, bantering back with "Hey, you're barely taller than me!". She rose from her bed and took a seat on her coffee table while giggling to her friend.

Kirra was correct in the comment about her looking somewhat different, however. Besides her new glasses that she had only put on a couple of seconds ago, her hair had grown slightly longer, and this was one of the rare occasions when she wasn't wearing her lab outfit. "I've been good, although it's kind of been kind of lonely. I still talk to my parent sometimes, but I'm usually busy with the lab..." Victoria trailed off, sighing. "I wish you'd come around more." She told Kirra, diverting her eyes to the table.

A few seconds passed, Victoria thinking of another topic to discuss. "So what do you think of my 'new look'?" She asked, standing to give her a quick model-like twirl. She giggled and took another seat, not looking much different. Once she had gotten a response, she asked another question. "Anyway, what about you? I'm sure you've been on a lot of great adventures." She asked, bringing back her smile.

"Sander Kristiansen, at yer service." Sander gave a brief smile, introduced himself to Jack as he took the man's robot hand with only a brief moment of hesitation. Well, it was about as cold as he'd expected, but there wasn't quite as much pinching or crushing metal grip as he might have guessed. Relief though it was to not lose his hand or experience great discomfort, the handshake said a lot about how much fine control Jack had over what looked like a relatively clunky robotic arm. Not that he knew much about robot arms or their finer points, of course.

A cloud passed over Sander's face briefly as he raised his left hand, wiggled his fingers. "A story? Yeah, I guess you could say that." He paused to swallow and take another sip of his drink. "Tell you what, I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," Sander continued after a moment and a brief exhalation, gesturing at Jack's bionic arm. "'S only fair." Not that he didn't plan on telling Jack how he'd lost his pinky anyway; he was feeling amicable today, and fun stories about getting your pinky bitten off were good ways to at least continue conversation.

So he cleared his throat, launching into his story without all that much pause. "It's a bit of a long one, but here we go. S'once upon a time I was a scavenger with one o' them traveling band types. Just what I did to get outta here, spent a couple months at a time outside'a' Rivet City to bring in some caps. One night a buncha goddamn raiders decided t'come try and kill us in the night while I was on watch. Didn't have my guns on me, so I shouted t'wake everybody else up and then hid before those bastards could find me.

"I managed to sneak away after most o' the fighting died down, picked up a gun on my way outta camp--this one right here, as it'd happen," Sander continued, patting the submachine gun at his hip. Telling the story didn't bother him nearly as much as he would have expected. "Spent a coupla hours waiting for things to calm down, then I went back to our little camp right around sunrise. Most of the raiders took what they wanted and left, but five or six stuck around to eat the dead or somethin' fucked up like that. So I started shooting soon as I saw em."

He started pantomiming his moves as he narrated them a bit, obviously into his retelling. Maybe it was affecting him a little more than he was willing to admit. "Killed three right away, two of 'em ran for it, but not before I saw their faces, and the last one bullrushed me. Now as luck'd have it this little bastard jammed on me," Sander cursed idly, gesturing at the SMG again, "and the last guy was on me before I could clear the jam. So I whip out my sword here, slice off one arm, cut off half of his other hand, and then before I know it he's tryin' to bite my throat out. I stick my hand in 'is face, he bites off my pinky and spits it out, so I get my other arm wedged in my mouth and go for my little switchblade. Takes a chunk outta that and just misses my jugular when he tries a third time, goes in for a fourth and ends up eatin' knife."

Sander pulled his sleeve up to his elbow and his collar down past his neck, so that Jack could see the other scars if he was interested. Then he shrugged off the story as if it were nothing, trying not to make a big deal out of it as he tended to whenever he shared his history. "Nothin' too heroic, just me tryin' ta kill a guy who ate some of my friends and came after me. I'm still lookin' for his two friends, though. Might be they're dead, but I gotta pay 'em back my own way if they aren't."

"So what's your story?" Sander asked again, gesturing at Jack's metal arm before consuming the rest of his drink.

(Go ahead on without me, I have to leave for 3 days for work. I'll be back for my next turn hopefully)

((OOC: Skip me, nothing to do.))