milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

enzo matrix,
voodoo

(no subject)

We won't lie - Voodoo looks like he passed out on his couch last night, and he smells like it, too.

(The former is because he did, and the latter is - well, you try passing out on your couch in the middle of a midsummer heatwave, see if you don't sweat a little.)

But he looks to be in okay spirits as he pauses in the doorway.

"Well, fuck-a-doodle-doo. Thought I'd lost this place."

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Well, if he's looking for familiar faces, Enzo is present. He has his nieces with him, and the three are currently singing silly songs.

Might want to watch the language.

And, you know, Voodoo'll join them!

Right after he showers and puts on something presentable. He won't join them in song so much as in presence; all the "silly" songs he knows are not so much silly as - incredibly profane.

He ambles on over, his hands in his pockets, and looks to Enzo's nieces, then to the sprite himself.

"You got sisters?"

Yes, it seems unlikely that he knows the words to 'I'm a Little Source Code'.

"Hey, Voodoo! I have a sister. She's this one's mother."

"Hi!" chirps Mairi.

"Hi!" Voodoo chirps back, squatting down so as to see eye-to-eye with the little sprite. "My name's Brian. What's yours?"

Enzo, who wasn't actually aware of this, raises an eyebrow.

"I'm Mairi. That's Analog. She's my cousin."

"C'n I climb you?" the smaller one asks without ceremony.

"Sure y'can!" Voodoo says, holding out an arm. All aboard the Southie Express!

Yay! The pointy-eared toddler happily starts to clamber up him.

"Ana likes to climb," Mairi informs Voodoo.

"Yeah, no kiddin'," Voodoo says as Ana does her thing. "How old is she?"

(There's a moment of half-panic, quickly squashed, as he remembers he's still carrying in his waistband holster.)

"00.1. I'm 00.11."

"They're three and four in human age," Enzo explains.

"No kiddin'? I got some nephews 'round your age."

(Ana's movements tug up his shirtsleeve, revealing the bottom half of a black tattoo on his bicep.)

"...might have some nieces, too. It's been a while."

Mairi is intrigued. "Ana, he's gotta tattoo!"

Ana oohs and pulls the sleeve up further. She shrieks happily. "Mommy an' Daddy!"

And that's when Voodoo raises an eyebrow in Enzo's direction.

"'Mommy and Daddy'?"

Clarification plz.

"Let me see." He leans over to inspect the tattoo. "Oh! The trident and the gun. Is that what you mean, Ana?"

"Yeah!"

"So these," he says to Ana, tapping the trident and the gun, "remind you of your folks?"

This's gotta be a Sprite Thing. Or a Toddler Thing. Both are areas in which Voodoo is clueless.

It's not all that mysterious, actually:

"Those're their weapons of choice. Not exactly like those, obviously, but…"

"Ohhhh. They're - watchamacallit - Guardians?"

"Her dad is. Except he never got to attend the Academy, so technically he's still a v1 cadet. He's self-taught, calls himself a Renegade. AndrAIa's a Game sprite who left her Game, so she's a natural warrior. She doesn't have the Guardian protocol, but she's part of the team."

"So they ain't technically Guardians, but they still do Guardian stuff. So they're like..."

He racks his brain for a human equivalent.

"...freelancers?"

"Kinda, yeah. I mean, he is a Guardian, but he also isn't." He grins. "Since he's not a full Guardian, and she's not one at all, the Collective can't reassign them to another system, so between them and Mairi's dad, who is one, and some of our other friends, Mainframe's one of the best protected systems per byte in the Net."

Edited 2013-05-18 03:43 (UTC)

Voodoo smiles. "Well, I dunno about you," he says, gently poking Ana's stomach, "but I say that's a pretty good deal."

Ana squeaks and scrambles the rest of the way up onto Voodoo's shoulders. Mairi flies up to join her.

And, of course, Voodoo plays the part of the hapless uncle as Ana settles in on his shoulder. Then he turns to Enzo, mouth set in a not bad expression.

"Man, I didn't know you guys could fly."

"Most of us can't, not under our own power. Mairi and her dad are special."

"I'm part keytool," says Mairi, because of course that explains everything.

Voodoo quirks an eyebrow at Mairi again, then looks at Enzo. "This is one'a those parts where you gotta explain your world to me again - you got sprites, Guardians, cadets, and - 'keytools'?"

Edited 2013-05-18 04:39 (UTC)

"A keytool's a kind of smart machine some Guardians have. Just a few. It's got a lot of functions. Bob merged his code with his in an emergency, so he ended up with superpowers, and Mairi inherited some of them."

"Ohhhh," Voodoo says. "So it's a kinda...a kinda..."

...okay, he doesn't know an equivalent in his world, but anyway.

"Seems like that'd come in handy. The powers."

"Yeah. They're not the only sprites ever with powers, some formats come with them, but most of us just have to make do."

...says the ripped kid standing six foot three.

~~6' 3"? Damn, Voodoo's got competition.~~

A shrug. "You look like you've done alright for yourself," Voodoo says. "So what're you doing bringing 'em here, showing them around or just getting in some bonding time?"

"All of the above. I'm on vacation, we get a lot of bonding time then. My last vacation from the Academy."

Up go the eyebrows. "Your last vacation? You graduating?"

"In six months."

Voodoo nods. "Six months? Hell, that ain't so bad. Come to me when you get out and I'll buy you a round."

(Drinking laws smchinking laws.)

"I'm only gonna be sixteen, dude."

"Okay, a round of - sprite root beer or somethin'."

(Technicality schmecnicality.)

"We get root dir?"

"I dunno, kiddo," Voodoo says, ruffling Ana's hair. "That depends on what your uncle Enzo says."

He ends this with a look at Enzo, as if to say your call, kid.

She has indeed inherited the Matrix hair, which is far too rufflable despite looking and feeling like flaps of foam rubber.

Well, great. Now they're giving him puppy eyes.

"Do you think you can share one?"

They agree to this, and he orders one soda with two straws.

"Dot keeps telling me not to get them too many treats," he explains to Voodoo. "But it's mostly easier to just make the treats smaller."

"Makes sense. If she ever gets picky about it you can just switch over to presents or trips or something."

That...is probably best not mentioned so close to the young'uns ears, but what're you gonna do.

"This counts as a trip," Enzo says quickly, before the girls can jump on it. "And no racing to try to drink all the soda first. If you make yourselves sick, you're cleaning it up."

"Yeah, seriously," Voodoo says, re: getting sick. "Don't rush it."

Edited 2013-05-29 05:02 (UTC)

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