09 ☆ You want to leave but you don't want don't want don't want to take me
If anyone suddenly hears a song about an outlaw named Picasso calling his lover on a cellular phone, please do not be alarmed. It might just mean I am ★Magical in the vicinity.
Lockon-san, can I have a talk with you? Gene-san, [a rather long pause] it may be of purpose if you are present too ( Read more... )
Lockon-san, can I have a talk with you? Gene-san, [a rather long pause] it may be of purpose if you are present too ( Read more... )
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Hello, Ai..Lockon. Please come in and have a seat.
[She pointed towards the dining table. Three chairs were beside it, two belonging in a set with the table and the other pulled from her room.]
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Thank you very much. How are you?
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[There was the matter about Gene and Fred, but it was not his business (or hers, even). There was also the matter of embarrassing costumes, but outside working hours it was a non-issue.]
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I've been alright. [There was no reason to be honest in small talk, and no reason not to spare her his troubles. It was mutual.]
I would love some tea, thank you.
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Here you go. [She took a seat opposite him, at the same time a tune started playing, "Ma-ia hii Ma-ia huu Ma-ia hoo Ma-ia haha!". Her smile turned apologetic.] And from both my entry and that, you might have an idea what I want to talk about.
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Or he could quite possibly make it worse. That seemed to be his luck with this sort of thing, as of late.
Still, he had agreed to come and he was here now. No sense in turning back. Gene let out a breath and reached forward to knock on the door. He stood up straight and did his level best not to betray any of the anxiety he was currently feeling.
His brow creased slightly when he thought he heard... high-pitched singing? Huh.]
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I do have an idea, yes.
[He had nearly missed the sound of the knocking over the music and his own desire to deny that he was going to see Gene...but it had registered none the less. He just smiled through his dread and took a sip of his tea.]
Suspect that's the rest of your company?
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Hearing the knock, she stiffened for a second.]
Yes, that should be.
[Be sensible. Stellaris opened the door, smiling like a receptionist at the man behind it.]
Hey.
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While Gene wasn't going to pretend he didn't know something was up, he couldn't see much point in making things more tense, so he raised a hand in greeting and gave her what he hoped was an easy smile.]
Hey there, hope I'm not too late.
[He stepped inside and there was Neil sitting in a chair not far away. Gene raised a hand in greeting but... didn't say anything. Not yet. Might be better to gauge the mood of the room, after all.]
So it seems there are some interesting things going on, hm?
[It could be an opener to discussion or a rhetorical statement, but it wasn't addressed to anyone in particular so it was... safe. At the moment.]
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As he gave Gene a little nod, Target's words rang in his ears, but that would have to be brought up some other time. The half smile he gave to his brother was turned into a full fledged one, wrought with intrigue, when he looked to Stellaris. He nodded to her, as if to silently reiterate Gene's words.]
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[She quickly turned away from Gene, walked towards a rucksack slumped near one of the table's corner and took out a thick ring-notebook before taking a seat herself. Placing the notebook on the table, she flipped to a page showing a diagram and a few notes.]
I found a memory crystal yesterday. Like someone informed be before, the experience was not with full sense. I was only able to hear and touch, so what I write here may have inaccuracies. So... I think I was steering something, maybe a spaceship. We were in some kind of mission, and your name was mentioned, [point at Lockon] Lockon Stratos. We aren't in the same room, and your task was to shoot something.
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[Gene pulled up the one unoccupied chair and leaned forward to peer over at the page Stellaris had turned to.]
A mission in a spaceship? That seems to sync decently enough with everything else we've found. [He pointed toward the diagram she drew and the notes.] I was told once that our crew at full capacity was eleven. That means there are two unaccounted for, but this does give a some idea of who was involved at the time of your memory.
[His brow creased as he tried to piece together what he was being told now with what he had learned before. He had witnessed a dream once that showed eleven people and a Haro. Five of them were people proven to be from his world, so he assumed them to be that crew. It was strange, there was one more woman in Stellaris's diagram than in that picture and Stellaris herself wasn't featured... but there was no telling how old the picture was. If the pink-haired girl in his memory was the same in the picture (barring the idea that the two were sisters, which he still hadn't ruled out) it was a ( ... )
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He studied the diagram as well while the other two spoke. He ran over what little he knew about the crew in his head. The other pilots he knew, but other than that there was only Cheers and the young girl from his memory. All he could do was speculate over which was which on the diagram.]
Well, from what I know it's fairly rare for my task to be anything other than to shoot something. But I can certainly confirm that it was a spaceship. This is the exact layout of the main bridge of the ship I was on when I was stuck on the 4th floor.
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[She addressed him, but still couldn't look in his eyes.]
There weren't much sound from outside, and no feeling of touching ground either, so if not spaceship I would guess a submarine. Based on your 4th floor, it's confirmed a spaceship, then? The consensus around here is that we retain our skills, so... that explains your markmanship, if you hadn't known it already.
[But something still didn't add up, she thought. Even though the facts did. She turned facing Lockon.]
You really didn't... remember me at all?
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I think I had told you I met someone from our world in a strange version of the Wilderness, right? He gave me that number and said that there were four Gundam pilots in the mix. I suppose I could be included in the mix there. Though... that clashes with the idea that my brother and I might not have worked at the same place at the same time. I could be wrong about that, though.
[It's true, Tieria had said that some people weren't around later on and the largely staticky response to why he had thought that had contained the word brother. But hell, maybe he hadn't even meant Gene's brother. The more they spoke, the more it seemed like a lot of what Gene thought he might know were just weak assumptions ( ... )
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