[oo1: video]

[drowning_dog]

His first thought, blooming in the back of his mind as he pushes out his first breath of stale air, goes to the Retinal Resorts. Some matrix bullshit, hypnosis. Something. Fun Ghoul stands on the raised platform, perfectly still aside from the involuntarily twitch of his fingers as they hang at his sides. It's so cold. It's a long few minutes of stillness as he listens and looks.

Finally, his hand twitches up to thumb the gun in his double-breasted holster. In an environment like this, he can't believe his hosts let him keep his--

"Fuck." The familiar hum of building charge--there's nothing there. The gun is dead. Fun Ghoul's gaze snaps back over his shoulder. It scrapes around the round room, almost sharp enough to squeal against the metal walls. His gun hand drops, and he absently tugs at the bracelet they locked around his wrist. His lips purse, and he whistles a few loud, clear bars of a classic song--normally a signal to his friends, but just here it's a comfort noise, something to soothe his nerves. They're on fire.

The tablet. His heart jolts in his chest when his attention settles on it. Monitoring. "Shit." The steps toward it are clipped, body cable tense till he gets his hands on it to turn it around--

But before he actually turns it, before he can figure out how to disable this nasty little motherfuck, the door opens and there's light. It doesn't take too long to figure out that he needs to device to keep the door open, so he finally just grabs it, keeping it painfully tight in his palm. The sun. The sun. The sun.

There isn't any sun. More dead lights down clean hallways. Maybe he's home after all--or at least maybe here is somewhere unfortunately similar. Fun Ghoul's steps out of the arrival room are slow, deliberate, paced to a raise of his hands in surrender. Who is watching? "Don't fire." He hollers down the corridor for anyone (anything) detaining him, watching him.

"I'm a friend."

Comments

[electro_girl]

"Maybe," Miss Thing answers with a small shrug. "But you don't know me well enough to be taking me for my word." She goes without saying even if he did know her well enough, he probably shouldn't take her for her word.

[drowning_dog]

"Don't worry, pigeon, your word means, uh--no offense, but about jackall. To me. Right now." He does a bit of a second take at the device though, squinting at it. Is he broadcasting the same way she is? Fucking fuck. He begins to fiddle with the tablet... "How faraway, exactly, wouldja say?"

[electro_girl]

Smart boy. She holds up her hands. No offense taken.

"Pretty far. As far as luxury prison's go, it's pretty legit. Complete with the invisible barrier they totally lifted from a lame science fiction novel."

She looks at him, like no, she's not kidding.

[drowning_dog]

"Who totally lifted?" He demands quickly, scuttling into the nearest door he can find--stairwell. Well that's something. "How do you--am I broadcasting?"

[electro_girl]

"Aliens," she replies, matter-of-factly. Better to get the hard truths out fast, like ripping off a band-aid. "And yeah. That's the tablet." She rolls her eyes; no need explaining how she feels about that handy piece of equipment. "Kind of your own personal candid camera. You can set it to private, if the fishbowl thing isn't your cup of tea."

[-->audio]

[drowning_dog]

"I don't drink tea." He grouches in a mumble, tucking himself neatly under a flight of stairs like it's going to hide him from scrutiny. Give him a second, and--

Ah!

The holo feed shuts down abruptly. There's a quiet on his end, aside from his breathing. Then, just on the aural line: "Now?"

[audio --> locked/audio]

[electro_girl]

Neither does she, but that's another story. The feed flips to audio.

"Now you're on audio, sweet cakes. And you can't see my beautiful face. Your loss."

She sets her own tablet to private, as fun as playing Tablet For Dummies with the new guy is. "See? Now it's locked. Just the two of us."

[same filter FOREVA]

[drowning_dog]

He takes another moment of quiet to note the lock and what it looks like on the interface for later--and sighs, relieved. "I'll find your beautiful face later. You got a name?"

[electro_girl]

"Gwen," she answers with a smile that he can't see. She can already tell he's Party's friend. There's just something about the killjoys. And with his brother gone...

"I'd give you a hand...figuratively speaking, but I'm guessing Party's already on his way. Don't let him spook you too much about this place. We've...had a rough couple weeks."

[drowning_dog]

"You talking about Party Poison? Or're you talkin about someone fun?"

[electro_girl]

"The one and only," she answers. "He'll take care of you."

[drowning_dog]

Tetchily: "Maybe I'm getting nosy, but forgive me if I ask you to prove it." That you know him, of course. Who knows who you are.

[electro_girl]

A beat. "You don't believe me?"

[drowning_dog]

"No offense, sugarshot, but I gotta cover my bases."

[electro_girl]

She laughs softly, but its clear even in her voice that she's not offended. After all, she paved her way through life as a professional thief. She didn't expect people to trust her, and she returned that in kind. It was just common sense.

"Well I guess you'll see for yourself. I don't think any of us are going anywhere any time soon."

[drowning_dog]

She takes it in stride, and that's a point in her favor. He knows zonerunners who'd have at him for considerably lesser infractions. He takes a note of it. "Sounds like I got a good time to look forward to. Any parting advice, Gwengirl?"

[electro_girl]

Oh, what can she say? Don't trust anything good that might happen to you, because it's probably just a cruel joke? Don't bother dying, because you'll probably still come back and things here will still suck? Sometimes you turn evil, or into animals, or someone you don't even know?

Instead, she smiles vaguely, deciding to leave him with something juicy to stew over. "Watch out for hamsters."

And with that: off goes the tablet.