wastedcreation | open post

RP here baybee

"You forget... To pay? Are drinks free there? Or do your fancy glasses pay for you."

He imagines there's little that interface can't do.

"Everything is free there," Devero says. "Gov takes care of us."

"Really?" He was joking about the drinks being free, but everything?

"In exchange for what?"

Being a soldier, maybe. That wouldn't be too different from the commune, he realizes. But nothing is truly free. There's always expectation, rules to follow, shoes to fill.

Tox is right, but Devero's too close-- and too good a son of his government-- to see it. So he believes it when he says, "Nothing. If you can work and there's something you want to do, you do it, but no one's required to be a contributor."

"Bullshit," he says, feeling that he can be so bold because of the rapport they've built, though it may be a step too far. Still, he can't continue to hide his disdain for surface communities completely, and his cynicism from his own turbulent teen years in the commune. "There must be a catch."

"Why?" Devero asks. "There's more than enough of everything to go around. Why not make sure everyone gets their fair share?"

(There is, perhaps, a reason why Devero was one of the Scorpions sent on this particular mission, and why the Scorpions in general were given leave to go out and mingle with the locals.)

"Sure, of course, everyone can have their fair share. But you can't tell me your government is completely benevolent and expects nothing of you."

He doesn't really have a solid argument, because he hasn't fully articulated his issues with his own commune's leadership yet (because he's not allowed). And even if he had thought it through completely, he wouldn't be able to tell Devero about it.

"Why can't I?" Devero asks, turning them around a corner and down a wider, more brightly lit street. "A government's job is to take care of its citizenry, isn't it?"

Seb shrugs, quiet for a few moments.

"Sure, but all governments have their own agendas. Even you, being a Scorpion, being here, is probably part of a bigger mission they have. And while that's all fine and good right now, someday they might ask you to do something you really don't want to, and you will, because they took care of you."

He's silent again, then, for fear of saying something too truthful.

Devero thinks about that, hands in his pockets as they walk so he doesn't respond impulsively. Finally, he says, "Is that so bad? They've taken excellent care of me. Is it wrong to be willing to pay that back if I'm able, even if it's not something I want to do? I mean, as long as they're not asking me to do something wrong...."

"And if it was wrong? If it hurt someone innocent? If it killed someone who didn't deserve it, and that was partly your fault? If doing it made you into someone you don't recognize?"

Yeah, he's clearly projecting here.

He's projecting so hard that Devero stops in the street, pivoting to look directly at him. "Are you... sure you don't want to immigrate?" he asks, hunched and a little hesitant. "You can even come in as a refugee, you know, without committing to citizenship right away...."

Tox would definitely get irritated and snap at him if he didn't seem so... Genuine and sympathetic. It seems like he's not just trying to recruit him for the sake of it, but because he's genuinely worried for him.

He looks away, going quiet. He does sometimes want to get out. He is starting to become disillusioned with things.

"I can't."

There are a million reasons he can't, and many of them can't be articulated to Devero, but the pervasive one is a sense of obligation.

Devero just looks at him for a moment longer, the empathetic part of him wanting badly to pry and press. If he knew Seb better, he probably would. But they're mere bar acquaintances, and beyond that, Seb's an outsider. What's going on in his life is not really Devero's business, and he knows it.

"Okay," he says finally, nodding. He puts a hand on Seb's shoulder, turns them both to keep walking. "Come on, let's go get stoned."

He leads the way to where the delegation from the World Government is quartered, which is-- actually just the local hotel. And he doesn't invite Seb in, asking him to wait on the street while he ducks inside to get his kit. He's not technically supposed to have this with him on a mission, so he's got to be a little a sneaky about smuggling it out of the 'barracks'.

He waits until they're around a corner from the hotel to produce the slim metal case from a pocket, showing it to Seb with a wicked grin. "I know just where to try this out, too," he says, an invitation, and leads Seb further through the streets, heading now away from the center of town. At some point, he leaves the road and heads up a scrubby slope. It's not a terribly hard climb-- not for Devero, anyway-- and he grins again as they crest the hill.

Said crest ends abruptly in the sheer face of a desert wash. Back towards the road, where this gully widens out, sits the local sheriff's office. But it's not the office he wanted Seb to see-- it's the rank of dormant Scorpions below, parked in formation around the luxury shuttle that had brought the delegation here. The machines are all bathed in brilliant portable spotlights, ringed by a temporary fence festooned with warning signs.

"Good view, huh?" he asks, telegraphing hope in his eager expression. "Hopefully worth the hike?"

Edited Date: 2026-01-18 04:13 am (UTC)

Part of him is relieved at not being pressed to share things he really shouldn't, but his stomach also twists strangely with some emotion he can't quite identify. Not disappointment, exactly... A certain type of regret, maybe, and dread. Deep down, some part of him knows he was just offered an out he may never get again, and he may come to really wish he'd taken it.

The feeling soon dissipates as he follows Devero through the cooling, darkening streets, waiting where he's told to wait, looking at him with curious interest as he says he knows a spot. He wonders if his new friend is taking them to see the Scorpions, and truly hopes so. The hike and the obstacles are no problem for him, nothing he hasn't done in training a thousand times, and his expression fills with awe as he joins Devero atop the hill and looks out.

"Wow... Yes, definitely." He grins. Jackpot. This is true intel. The location, the weapon type, the level of security around them... He'll get a pat on the back from Damian, and maybe others, for this report.

"So cool..."

Such advanced technology, able to be piloted by a person, like a huge augment, an exoskeleton. It's the kind of thing Atlas is striving toward, a powerful tool of war.

Beaming like he'd arranged this whole thing just to impress his bar pal, Devero sits down on the edge of the little cliff, letting his legs dangle over. The view of the Gov hardware down there is unimpeded from this vantage, but there's enough brush and shrubby trees up here to disguise their silhouettes if they sit a while.

He slides the case out of his pocket again and flips it open, revealing a few neatly rolled joints and a slimline lighter. He offers it out to Seb, letting him have first pick of the (admittedly, pretty identical) herb cigarettes.

Seb sits down on the ledge next to Devero, for a few more moments scanning the setup below under the guise of being very interested in the tech. As the case is offered to him, he finally pulls his attention away, looking at the small cigarettes. He chooses one, lifting it to his nose for a small whiff.

"I'll be honest, I've never done this before." He continues to examine the joint. It smells pungent, and he wonders if it'll have any effect on him.

"They're mild ones," Devero assures him. "I didn't want to risk any of my good stuff getting confiscated." Not to mention the, you know, discipline and whatever that would have come along with smuggling psychoactives on an active duty mission.

He picks a joint of his own and the lighter out of the case, then sets it aside. Sticking the joint between his lips, he lights it quickly, then offers the lighter over to Seb.

"You light it, then inhale," he says, able to demonstrate while he explains. "It'll probably make you cough the first time, so don't try to pull it in deep or hold it. Just in and out." He releases his pull of smoke in a gentle puff.

Hm. So there's a chance he'll feel nothing and have to pretend he's inebriated, whatever that even looks like for this kind of drug.

He takes the lighter, but watches Devero carefully before using it. He looks experienced with it, and unfortunately, it's very cool.

Sebastian nods at the instructions and puts his joint between his lips, lighting it and trying to mimic Devero's inhale.

His body handles smoke better than most, it would seem, because he doesn't cough until the second time he inhales. The stuff smells even weirder now that it's lit, and tastes funny, too.

"What does it... Feel like?"

"If it's good for you, it should just make you feel sort of slow," Devero explains, taking another hit on his roll and pulling it deeper now that he's not modeling for a newbie. "This is a light strain so it might make you feel warm, happy, floaty. Maybe a little hungry, maybe relaxed or uninhibited. It hits everyone a differently, though." Pulling up a leg, he turns to face Sebastian, watching him rather than the still tableau of machinery below.

"If you start feeling nervous or paranoid," he adds, "best to stop. Some folks don't respond to it well."

Slow, warm, relaxed, hungry. Or nervous and paranoid. Two scripts for how to act, should his body be immune to this. He can also watch Devero closely and mimic him.

"Okay." He takes another drag, this one a bit longer, leaning back on his hand to face Dev more. He watches the puff of smoke leave his own mouth and dissipate into the air, then goes back to watching the other man.

"You do this a lot, then? What happens if you're caught?"

He said it would be confiscated, but surely there's more to it than that.

"Not much," he admits with an unworried chuckle. "I'm only not supposed to have it because this is an active duty mission, and it's against regs to bring intoxicants on missions. But since I'm off duty right now, I'll only get dinged if I wobble back into quarters completely stoned or they find it with my stuff. It's a disciplinary ding, but no worse than sneaking a bottle of liquor and getting caught absolutely sloshed off it."

"A disciplinary ding?" Tox's eyes squint. "Like a strike?"

Taking another inhale of the herb, he realizes he is starting to feel a little different. Kind of fuzzy.

"Depends on what you mean by strike," Devero says, and shrugs expansively. "It's not serious. Might have to do domestic duty for the unit for a few weeks, it'll be a mark on my record, that's all."

Sebastian huffs out a puff of smoke, but says nothing in response. That's an extremely lax punishment as far as his own military is concerned. A similar offense in the commune would be punished with extremely intensive training regimens, isolation, or perhaps docked meals (so, Starvation Lite). But talking about that wouldn't be very biologist of him, which is good, because he doesn't want to anyway.

Up here on this cliff, he doesn't need to worry about that. This is as free as it gets for him, and it feels good. Whatever they're smoking starts to kick in, thankfully with the positive effects Devero was describing. A hazy, contented feeling, his muscles relaxing, his eyelids drooping a little.

"I think I'm feeling it," he murmurs quietly.

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