Milliways' guide for first-time patrons

[herr_bookman]

Autor's been a bit busy recently. He posts his Milliways' Guide for First-time Patrons up on the bulletin board, spreading out the maps.

He also posts the following note:

Attention: I, Autor, am writing this guide for first-time patrons, and require help finishing it. If you see anything missing, please let me know either via note or in person. I'll be sitting by the bulletin board until I finish a pot of tea.

The boy acquires his libation and seats himself at the table nearest the board to wait.

Comments

[herr_bookman]

"Scare the stuffing out of you, hopefully," Autor says, taking a playful swing at him. "Or turn it on and spend some time reading without anyone bothering me. What sorts of missions do you use it for?"

[runningred]

Jay chuckles and parries Autor's fist with the obvious gentleness of someone who could break an arm in exactly any spot he wanted to. "Ah but why would I design something that could be used against me without having countermeasures."

He offers the helmet, tilted forward to Autor can see the heads up display in the visor.

He considers the answer to that with some care, his voice soft and slightly sad. "I use to be a vigilante but that got me killed. Took up with a group of assassins to work off my debt for bring brought back but that didn't works out so well. Now... I don't know. Sometimes things just need to be done and I'm someone who can do it so I do." He shrugs.

[herr_bookman]

Autor's fully aware that Jay could snap him like a twig. "Ooh, point. And that display tells you everything you need to know? Heat signatures and everything? Why is the helmet red?" Well, shoot. Ah, well, he'll startle Jay someday. Somehow.

He nods when Jay's tone changes. "I see. Well, I hope you find productive, challenging work. In the meantime, you've acquired some ridiculous skills and gear."

[runningred]

"One of the sensors tracks movement via air displacement. It's useless in a crowd but it's great for spotting something that is there even when it can't be seen. Other settings track heat, light through the spectrum, things like that. I'm still working on biometrics to track a single target by their face shape or height and gait."

He turns the helmet in his hand and looks at the skull like faceplate. "Red Hood was the name I took for myself when I can back. Partly to distance myself from who I had been but partly because it's a name that has history with me. It was an alias used by someone else a long time ago. Someone who became a monster because of other people's choices. I use it to remind me of the line in need to walk."

He snorts and looks up. "Fuck, you've got me talking serious today. What else did you want to know about the suit?"

[herr_bookman]

"That's pretty incredible," Autor says, blinking. "Can you size up someone by height and weight just by looking at them then? You really can track everything!"

Autor nods somberly at the description of Red Hood, but he's startled into a smile by Jay's snort and swearing.

"That's a tough line to walk," Autor says, and then drops it to ask about the suit. "Do you have anything to augment your speed? Do all the thermoptics make the suit hot to wear?"

[runningred]

"Not all at once. Too much data all at once becomes hard to track and use. Height's easy but weight's harder and the measurement is usually an approximation. It's the gait that's more trackable; the way someone moves is ingrained and takes effort to change or hide."

"It has been." He concedes. "No, I can't move any faster than I can run naturally. I've known Speedsters and they abilities are a whole level of different you need to be a meta to understand. The suit has some pretty complex cooling systems and air exchanges to keep it cool. Which is part of what's tripping me up against a vampire. It doesn't mask my scent at all, in fact makes me easier to sniff out."

[herr_bookman]

"Oh, neat," Autor says. "How do you track the gait?"

He tilts his head. "Meta? What does that mean, in this context?" Autor asks. He furrows his brow, thinking. "Which is why you need scent maskers. Hm. You don't want to interfere with the cooling systems, I suspect. That's an interesting challenge. Are you looking to conceal your scent or change it? Could you ingest something to change it?"

He's thinking of Dr. Lecter, and his ability to pick out whether or not Autor has eaten latkes from across the room.

[runningred]

"Tell you what, I'll show you." He puts the helmet on and with movements of his jaw and glove, he sets the scanner. "Already, walk away from me and then back. About ten paces should do. Don't think, just walk normally."

"Changing my diet wouldn't be enough, not against this vampire. He knows my scent too well for that." Right down to the smell of adrenalin and arousal. "But it's a very interesting idea. I was thinking for finding ways to conceal it, or filter the air in such a way that the parts that carry scent are captured before they leave the system. It couldn't be very efficient in the long term and small scale, like for the length of a game it might work."

[herr_bookman]

"Wait, what? Ooh, interesting," Autor says. It takes him a moment to walk normally--of course he overthinks it--but he eventually does get it right, walking to and fro, and back to Jay.

It occurs to Autor that "he knows me too well" might include blood drinking as well, and then he recalls Sunshine's concerns about Jay. Ah, so it is Eric Northman. "That'd be neat. I hope it works. Masking it with something like demon bunny pheromones probably wouldn't work, but that'd be hilarious."

[runningred]

Jay takes the helmet off and plugs it into his palmpilot. "So, here is the way you walk." He brings up a series of spaced lines with time to the hundredth of a second marked between them. "Now that I have that info, I could track you, even in the biggest crowd. And especially from above."

Jay laughs. "Yeah, I've thought about how I could use demon bunny pheromones as an offensive weapon but I think that would count as assault here."

[herr_bookman]

Autor adjusts his glasses. He doesn't know how he feels about being able to be tracked from anywhere, but he can't deny that the technology is neat. "That's impressive," he says quietly. "And it only takes you ten paces to record a video like that? Wow. Do you have information like that on everyone in the bar?"

The boy smiles a bit at Jay's laughter. "Just think--pheromone pepper spray, just in case the vampire gets too close."

[runningred]

Jay shakes his head and makes a show of deleting the data. "No, I don't keep details on people here. I don't have a reason to."

"Hmm... maybe. I was using it as drop-bombs in glass ampule. Hide my scent and created a distraction. But a pepper spray could be fun."

[herr_bookman]

Autor wonders if that's a slight against his dossiers. He doesn't think so, and dismisses the thought.

"The only problem with a spray is that you'd have to be quite close to use it," he says, and then tilts his head. "I have an aerosol soporific that I used to knock out demon bunnies. I wonder if you could make one that could disable a vampire."

[runningred]

Jay knows nothing about Autor's dossiers but he would undoubtedly be very interested to read them if he did.

"I doubt it. Vampires don't breath so there'd be no way to get it into their lungs. And the point isn't to disable him, just outrun and outsmart him.'

[herr_bookman]

"Ah, true," Autor says, nodding. And then he grins. "Why, if you get that close, you could use a simple can of spray paint, to blind him. Of course, that would probably hurt, and be terrible to clean out," he says. He taps his chin. "Still, if he gets that close, there has to be something you can use to distract and get away. A smoke screen, perhaps."

[runningred]

"If I was actually fighting someone, I might consider spray paint but it would be outside the rules of Rooftop Tag. Granted they were written for games between young superheroes but - No tags that could impede someone's ability of patrol the next day, nothing illegal or we're likely to get in trouble for, nothing that could endanger civilians."

[herr_bookman]

"Those are good rules," Autor says, tapping his chin. "Flashbangs might be right out, given that they might endanger civilians. Possibly."

[runningred]

"That depends on where you use then and how. I use to use tiny little ones, 'bout the size of a marble. They make useful distractions without being too bright or distinctive."

[herr_bookman]

"That's smart," Autor says. "Mine are a bit bigger than that, so I try not to use them around other people. I'll have to try making smaller ones."

[runningred]

"Do you want help making them a bit smaller and easier to use?"

[herr_bookman]

"Really?" Autor says, surprised. "Sure, I'll take that help. Thanks, Jay. You're helping me out quite a bit already."

[runningred]

Jay shrugs. "Easy done. We're all friends here after all."

[herr_bookman]

"Thanks, Jay," Autor says, inclining his head. "I really appreciate that."

[OOC: Fade on these two, you think? Thanks so much for the thread!]

[runningred]

{ooc: works for me. That was fun, thanks!}