...maybe he's used to it, but that doesn't make him feel any better.

[thegreatmachine]

It's a hell of a thing to have someone try to kill you.

You're standing there, you're talking, and some nutjob pulls a bow and arrow--a bow and arrow--and tries to pull a bad impression of William Tell. He was still grinning as he turned to Wylie... but that doesn't mean it isn't hitting him where it hurts

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[synapse_circuit]

Sitting at the Bar, drinking a far more morning-traditional coffee, is a man with circuits on his neck and temples, a silver-traced left hand, and eyes the glowing blue of gas flames. He's not wearing sunglasses to cover them, at the moment.

The man who's just arrived, J.C. figures, may not be on Milliways time. It's may be after five o'clock wherever he comes from. The saying "it's five o'clock somewhere" is not just an excuse in a place that opens on so many different wheres and whens.

Then again, perhaps it's not just cocktail hour where this guy comes from. He looks pretty shaken up. J.C. has seen that look on guys who've just seen some heavy action. The kind with guns and bullets and things exploding.

He's a bit curious, and a bit concerned, but decides not to ask.

[thegreatmachine]

Guns and bullets he can deal with. Guns and bullets he can yell at. It's the bow and arrow thing that got him.

And now---

Shit.

He gets his drink and winces as he begins to hear the little voices, each one distinct and piercing. The Jack gets tossed back and another is ordered. He might get the bottle.

PLEASE SHUT UP.

[synapse_circuit]

Like the cells in the human body they inhabit, the tiny machines that make J.C.'s nanoaugmentations are distinct and differentiated, yet they function as a single system. That system is almost seamlessly integrated into J.C.'s physiology - his bones, muscles, organs, nerves and brain.

So when Mitchell tells the busy little hive of nanobots to SHUT UP, J.C. hears it, the way he used to hear people speaking to him over the infolink nestled in the speech recognition center of his brain. That and he blacks out for about two seconds, because the nanobots did shut up, perhaps out of sheer surprise.

Next thing he knows, he's lying on the floor and a few bits of him are hurting. Especially his head, which he cracked on the edge of the bar on the way down.

[OOC: I am, for the record, totally okay with this.]

[thegreatmachine]

Shit.

WWSD...

ALL FUNCTIONS OPERATIONAL?

He puts his drink down and drops to his knees to check the guy over as he realizes what he'd done. Fricking advanced technology how was he supposed to know they didn't cover this shit when he was at school goddamn BOW AND ARROW mother--

"You okay, man? Shit, I'm sorry. I shoulda known better."

[slasherofprices]

Simon Skinner has had his fill of drunken patrons for one 24 hour unit. Extracting information from an intoxicated person is by far one of the most difficult and exhausting endeavors he's undertaken in recent memory. So when he catches Mitchell Hundred at the bar conferencing with Jack Daniels, he just lets it slide. He doesn't know the guy, shouldn't get involved, should just drink his morning cup of coffee and start the day's wondering of when the hell he was going to get out of here.

He does direct a salutary nod in Hundred's direction, but questions are unlikely this morning.

[thegreatmachine]

But Mitchell is friendly. More than that, Mitchell is a politician. So he gives the man a brittle smile.

[slasherofprices]

A politician, eh? Politicians can smile falsely, but they ain't got nothin' on Simon Skinner, who has the fakest smile of them all. It's so fake it makes you wonder if it's not really genuine.

"Morning. Or evening, by the looks of it." He points towards the bottle o' alcohol.

[thegreatmachine]

That would be the kind of politician that Mitchell became mayor for. The kind of politician he hates. There is, as far as he's concerned, putting on a good front and then there's...

Well, it's a murky murky land.

"Morning, for the most part."

That doesn't stop him from gulping at the drink. God, what he wouldn't do to be home. But going home means heading out and that means a mess before he can even thinking of getting back to Gracie Mansion.

[gone_byebye]

Ray's been busy outside for a while now; he's just coming in from saber practice. For him, this means emptying all his pockets of everything non-essential, so for once the only tech he's carrying is the lightsaber- which is, of course, powered off- and the training drone, which is in passive powered-down sleep mode. "Bar," he says when he gets in, "could I get something in the way of yerba mate for gringos, please?"

If tea smelled like freshly-cut grass, that's what the stuff in his cup would be.

"Thanks."

[thegreatmachine]

He gets a wave from Mitchell. A distracted one.

[gone_byebye]

Ray looks up and waves. "Hey," he says. "How's it going?"

Normally we'd leave it there and attribute the coming scene to Ray's general lack of cluefulness about body kinesics, but he does have the sense to look at people's drink selections once in a while.

"... oh, boy. Long day at work?"

[thegreatmachine]

"Assassination attempt."

...normally, he's much more chatty. It's a habit of the Office, always feeling the need to explain if he can as he'd always worked to keep a very transparent Gracie Mansion, so to speak. But right now, he's on word rations. And it's not from the booze.

[autocommander]

There is a robot at the bar.

The robot gives Mitchell a polite nod. It appears to be just crowdwatching.

Perhaps not 'it'. Mitchell's senses, should he poke slightly, gives him three sensations: 1) there's a very strong personality there, 2) there's a decidedly 'male' aspect to the personality, 3) there's a great deal of bemusement and curiosity going on inside the machine.

[thegreatmachine]

"...for fuck's sake..."

He gets up the effort to give a nod back before knocking back another glass. Christ.

[autocommander]

And there's a moment of... concern?

"Excuse me, sir," he says. "Are you all right? Is there a problem?"

The robot has turned to look at him now.

[thegreatmachine]

JUST FINE.

No, he hadn't intended to say it like that. It'd just kind of... come out that way.