“Heh… don’t worry too much about it,” Kitcha released a chuckle at Ray, easing up again as she twirled around the retracted hilt of her bloodied sword. “You know what they say. The best make mistakes, no point in crying over spilt nectar, you gotta break a few eggs, etcetera…,” she took another sip of her beer, setting it down. Didn’t want to get too much alcohol in her system before the job, after all.
“... So… this is one of THOSE kinds of gigs, huh?” Kitcha pondered, crossing her lower arms lightly as she gave Snakeye a doubtful glance. Sure thing, let’s ask for the information we’re being paid to wipe off the galaxy, she refrained from saying, instead turning back towards the princess. “Lucky for you, I’m good at keeping things out of the public eye. I trust that you’re taking measures to keep any more ‘bodyguards’ from following us to the facility?”
"Well, that's what the cloaking field is for." nodded Belle-Abelon, "It was an...unfortunate coincidence that they came to the exact same tavern as I."
"And you need not worry about what experiments were going on in there...although, if you truly need to know, then I suppose I'll tell you." She cleared her throat as she pressed another button, the hologram of the building turning to what looked like rows of soldiers.
"The cold hard truth is that we were studying genetic engineering. Specifically, the idea of growing Martians in a lab. Imagine the benefits: cloned organs for emergency surgery, creating stem cells that can benefit the sick...or creating an army of super soldiers fresh from the beaker." The Princess elaborated, "On paper, it seemed like a very good idea."
She pressed another button, as the hologram turned into what looked like some sort of mutated Martian. His arm had swollen to monstrous size as his back jutted out bony spikes. His left had swollen shut while two smaller eyes appeared above and below it. Some kind of blue ooze released from his mouth as the hologram showed the monster going on some kind of rampage.
"Of course, a lot of things can look good when written on paper."
Snakeye stared at the hologram, "By the smelting pits damnit... Another Noonian Breakout?"
He mumbled to himself, "It was bad enough when humans were doing it, nearly averted an entire war!"
He turned back to Belle, "Okay I'm in. Pay me or not but I see moral obligation in shutting this down before it gets really out of hand."
Well this had escalated quickly. It was his first actual job, on his own, and it was already getting dangerously close to too real. He waited for a few moments, before noting the hologram projector he had set down. It had broken...But maybe he could fix it. He took it off the table and put it back in his pockets.
"So the government screwed up. And we're helping them dodge responsibility. Cool, cool." Ray said. He watched the monster in the hologram rage around. "So those guys are just hanging out there? Who's taking care of them?"
As he spoke, he couldn't help but cast a single glance at the cyborg. The one with the AI. He'd have to ask him if he had any kind of software interface.
edited 4th Jan '16 2:19:33 PM by HeroicSociopath
Wait, she’s actually showing us…? Kitcha’s eyes widened, lowering her head for a second before raising it again.
In retrospect, she might have preferred keeping her eyes away from the hologram.
“Oh, gods…!” She cried out, feeling that beer approaching her throat again. Thankfully, it did not get that far. “Ugh… I just… how… OK, I see your point,” Kitcha regained her composure, sitting up straight. “Yeah, this is… I actually agree with the robot here. Uranus would flip out if the hive congress heard anything about this. Playing god is something, but I’m willing to let bygones be bygones if it stops anything like… you know, a declaration of war or anything along those lines. I don't need THAT many job opportunities.”
Kitcha turned towards Snakeye, meeting his dissatisfied challenge with an oblivious blink. "Yes, I did...?" She tilted her head to the side, pondering briefly on his soured attitude. "I mean, it's technically correct... kinda... not completely, I guess, I never looked too into the specific technicalities of the term. Is... that a problem...?"
Snakeye glared, "A robot is a tool meant to achieve a limited amount of tasks with minimal input. Or if you wanna go classic, Rossum's Universal Robots were bio engineered slave people meant to preform hard duties no one else wanted to do."
"I'm not a robot, I am not just a tool meant to move a box from point A to point B."
From the look she gave him it became clear she wouldn't really understand, he grumbled and walked away.
edited 4th Jan '16 4:09:58 PM by EchoingSilence
"... ohhhhhhhhhh..." it dawned on a blushing Kitcha as the biotron explained the context, before he made his leave. "... I just hit something I really wasn't supposed to, didn't I..."
She remained silent for an awkward pause. After a few seconds, she coughed into her hand raised to her mandibles.
"Sooooo... how about that genetic engineering facility?"
edited 4th Jan '16 4:39:30 PM by Cedi
"Precisely." Belle told them, "Like I said, your job is to destroy everything: wondering robots, computers, files, and those mutants. Don't drink anything in the beakers. And, oh yeah, don't die."
It was at this point the cloak shipped stopped in front of a large building. It seemed to have been boarded up with some kind of metal and the building looked unstable, as if the place was falling apart and decaying. The walls had cracks and the door, although shut, looked like anyone could've kicked it down as the metal looked to have been rusted and brittle.
Ray was always boggled by how fast space travel was. They were already nearing Mars. He wish he'd had more time to ponder this morally ambiguous conundrum. Ah well. He'd think it over at whereever they were staying on Mars in preparation for this mission.
That boarded up building didn't look like a nice place to stay. That was where their mission was.
"Not gonna give us any time to rest after saving your butt?" Ray asked. "Or even prepare?" He looked out the window at the building. "We're not all made of metal and magic like Snakeye over there." This was no good. If his plan was going to work, he'd need time to fix that hologram projector. Or...
"20,000 credits. And one of those robots." Ray said. "If we're doing this right now, it's a hell of a lot riskier." He wasn't speaking from experience, but he knew that his dad usually spent a fair amount of time preparing for most missions in advance. "Ideally, we'd have blueprints. Pyrotechnics, too, if we're literally blowing the place up."
edited 6th Jan '16 5:34:01 AM by HeroicSociopath
“Come on, the bar wasn’t THAT bad…” Kitcha rebutted, crossing her arms casually. “... Look... haggle all you want, but I think that the standard risk of death isn’t that bad for 10 freaking K,” she hesitantly debated, holding her arms at her sheathes. She quivered a little at the thought of actually refusing a higher payout, but she remained firm in her words. “... OK, it’s probably a higher risk of death than most jobs, but still.”
With a swift sha-wing of various metals, she raised her arms. Two ornate ceremonial daggers, a technical knife, and the bloodied Earth sword hilt were all held at the ready, pointed towards the ship’s floor. “... though, blueprints or a map would sure be handy, if you have any,” the alien agreed with a nod. “Intuition and memory can only go so far when you’re trying to wipe out literally everything. And it'd be nice to have a general idea of where those abominations might be hanging out."
Ray pursed his lips. She was probably right. As hard as it was to say, in the grand scheme of things, his life was probably not worth 10k to the martian girl. That, and he really only wanted to try and get a bit more time. Still, he'd rather have this mission and get 10k and info on his dad than not have it.
"I guess you're right. But one of the robots would be helpful. We could send it in as a decoy and ambush the mutants." Ray said. He seemed to think for a moment. "If you could give us network access too, that would be helpful. Stuff like camera controls."
Kit took out his blaster again and checked all of his systems were functioning properly. As he stood up, Nyx took control of AEGIS and several robotic parts extended out of the shield casing as the droid rose up and hovered at roughly head height.
"Get me to a terminal and I should be able to deal with the computers. Data wipe too. Hopefully they slacked on the security but if not I'll need a bit more time."
"I can send AEGIS in for recon if we need to see ahead but plans would help."
With a roll of her eyes, the Princess said, "Very well." She snapped her fingers as a robot rolled up to her and handed her a blueprint, "Just know that I want this thing burned along with the rest of this place." She said, walking over and handing it to Ray while also giving the Human a quick glare, "If I were you, I wouldn't try anything funny. Curiosity got the Kraken exterminated."
"Two can play the recon game," Kitcha added to Kit's AI, taking a step forward as she put a hand to her cloaking device. "First sign of trouble, this baby can nope me outta sight before you'd even know I'm there. Or before you know I've got a knife in your back. Now, without further adieu, I've got some horrifying abominations to purge from the universe..." she announced, twitching lightly a split second at the thought as she departed towards the facility.

"No it wouldn't... I've done a few bounties involving wiping info. Ever heard of the Skrillian plague? No? Good," Snakeye responded.
The Biotron stepped forward "So princess. What kind of experinents?"