Okay, @Jo Zebedee, @Joshua Jones, @DLCroix, @tinkerdan, @Narcissus, @The Judge (and anyone else vaguely interested). This is actually the crux of what I wanted feedback on in the first place. This is the point where we jump from IC's (amnesiac and freshly woken) perspective to the group that have been up and about for a few hours. It's just the transition between the two perspectives. Does it work? The key think I have tried to do to link what the reader has gleaned from IC's limited observations is link the physical characteristics as well as the prominence of the figures within the quarrel.
“I’m not runnin’ away. I’m gonna find something useful to do that isn’t in the same room as you, pen-coc!” vented Nowuh, departing through the right-hand door – his simianesque face as intense as his lurid red, yellow and black hooped armour.
“Good God, the head on ye, man,” barked Goz, following him into the common area. “Ye are abandoning the debate.”
“It’s a blazing row I’m abandoning, not a bloody debate,” scoffed Nowuh, whirling about, defiance renewed. “Whatever you want to call it, it’s gone on long enough.”
“Oh, ‘tis rich when ‘twas ye who’s kept it going on this long!” exclaimed Goz, standing his ground, hands on hips – his pumpkin skin ripening.
“Fellas, fellas… Come on, now,” reasoned Dehmoe, walking between the two men again.
“Only ‘cos I don’t bloody agree with ya,” riled Nowuh. “What, am I just supposed to shut up and accept your point of view – is that it?”
“Ye could start by acknowledging it!” demanded Goz.
“I have acknowledged it, Goz, I just think you’re bloody-well wrong, don’t I,” despaired Nowuh, spinning off into the room.
Head in hands, he walked over to the pseudo-serving hatch to the utility room and let his predominantly black aeronaut-style helmet drop lifelessly onto it.
“Wrong to expect a man to do his job?” spat Goz, boss-eyes inflating still further.
“…with your foul shadow constantly blockin’ the light, bloody yeah!” despaired Nowuh, slamming the worktop and wheeling around. “Iesu Mawr!”
“Hours, you’ve had to do your job, and ye have the gall to dig me out for doing mine!” vented Goz.
“There’s leading a team, Goz, and there’s bein’ a bloody tyrant! Rulin’ with an iron fist is som’n that died out a bloody century ago!”
“It gets results, though, does it not?” argued Goz. “’tis a typical attitude of your type; decrying a problem ye are helpless to solve, then condemning the man that solves it for you for his chosen methods.”
In the background a minor commotion prompted Rorr, watching from a safe distance in the doorway to the forward room, to turn back toward where the quarrel had first ignited.
“My type?” checked Nowuh, stalking back over to face the barrel-chested man. “You want types, boyo… The pointing fingers; the venom; the sneers; the looks – it’s the act of arguin’ your type live for. Bollocks to what it’s actually about, as long as you get to spray your half-litre of saliva up the walls every bloody day. It’s the only way you knob-ends can justify your existence.”
“Me justify my existence?” raged Goz, looming forward, his green hammerhead-style helmet almost clipping Nowuh’s. “What single thing have ye done to justify yours, tell me that.”
“If you shut your pie hole for one bloody minute, I might be able to think straight long enough to work out how this place works.”
“Assuming this guy doesn’t work it out first,” remarked Rorr.
All heads turned to the exotic young man leant casually against the doorframe, striking as ever with his chiseled good looks and dazzling red-fringed electric indigo armour – although the aloof swagger was decidedly forced. And it took for the inevitable question to be on the tip of his colleagues’ collective tongue for him to thumb casually over his shoulder toward whomever had triggered the comment in the front room.
“CTO,” he added, before turning into the room. “What up, oi?”
As the others made tracks to join him, Rorr moved closer to the newcomer, who was stood with their back to him, tracing the left-hand wing of the slanted bench. Short, with a posture simultaneously taut and languid, their vivid sky blue and ultramarine bodywork rivaled his for wicked cool, particularly the alternating hoops on the upper body.
“About bloody time you woke up, you lazy bugger,” jested Nowuh, walking in to lean against the back wall, and looking pleased to be able to smile again.
“Morning, sleepy head,” chirped Dehmoe, walking through next, similarly enthused by the alleviation of hostilities.
Goz, last to enter, still wore a look of thunder, however, albeit a more cautious shade.
“Nothing to say, horse?” he prodded, pushing past to the front of the pack. “I would have thought ye’d be desperate to make a contribution after so long on your backside sleeping your life away.”
But still the stranger did not respond, not even turning to acknowledge the remark. Instead, they moved to the forwardmost seat, before crouching to run their hands over a curious greenstone-faced cupboard tucked beneath the lifeless console.
Goz spun around, eager to share his umbrage at the newcomer’s apathy with the others, only to find them oblivious to any affront and perhaps now even mildly amused by his indignation, especially Nowuh. Inevitably, it was Aeiro, still sat to the left of the room, that bore the brunt of Goz’s rage – the humdrum man in plain white being the recipient of an accusatory glare, no doubt at his failure to alert them of the sixth member of the team’s awakening.
“Well, I guess some of us are just a little more ‘bear with sore feet’ in the morning, am I right?” bubbled Dehmoe, wisely sliding between Goz and the stranger. “Anyhoo, you just take your time and speak when you’re good and ready.”
“Take your time?” choked Goz, incredulously. “Is one hour more shut-eye than the rest of us not time enough already?”
“Well, it’s not as if it’s his fault, is it,” reasoned Nowuh. “There’s no rhyme or reason to these awakenin’s, evidently.”
“Yeah, I mean… I was up an hour… before you – almost,” ventured Aeiro, timidly, and instantly regretting it.
“And what did ye do with all that time, eh?” seethed Goz, looming over him, hands outstretched. “F#$k all, that’s what. Ye’d do well to remember that before making smart comments.”
“Leave him alone, man,” defended Rorr, stepping forward. “You’re always picking on him.”
“It’s ‘cos he’s a useless excuse for a human being, but ye are not too far behind him,” vented Goz, turning on the young man.
Seditious glare met repressive stare, but the sudden rise of the newcomer from beneath the bench popped the tension and prompted contrasting brow movements at the sight of their face for the first time.
“Hey… man,” greeted Rorr, before following the gaze of the stranger – IC20 – to the back-left corner of the room.
Goz seemed to have a pertinent question on his lips until the newcomer ghosted straight past him to whatever they’d seen, poking a metaphorical stick into his hornet’s nest on the way.
“Are ye not going to say a damned word?” fumed Goz. “Not even a ‘hello’?”
The response was, again, a silent one as the stranger walked toward the corner of the room, pausing momentarily to glance back through the dormitory doorway at the six glass-topped capsules, before sizing up a rectangular metal box – greenstone-faced like almost everything else – mounted on the wall between a white wooden cabinet and a stylish light panel.
“Incredible,” muttered Goz, staggered to still be the only one irked by the newcomer’s behaviour.
“I dunno, I find our friend’s taciturn nature bloody refresh’n, to be honest,” chuckled Nowuh. “One less voice to compete with yours, Goz; I thought you’d be happy.”
“Not if I’m to write out a damned questionnaire for him to fill out to get any answers,” snapped Goz, lasering a look of pure scorn back at Nowuh. “Happiness would be a useful contribution from any of you langers!”
With perfect synchronicity, IC pushed the face of the box which flicked up to expose a small recessed compartment sporting an array of fuse-like objects and one large crimson switch. Instinctively depressing the round green button next to it, IC toggled the switch… and a hibernating electronic beast awakened. Ambient lights brightened, monitor screens lit up and the room filled with the buzz and hum of a computerised orchestra sound-checking its instruments. Capping it off was the near-instantaneous freshening of the mildly stifling air by a reanimated air-conditioning system.
The stranger span on the spot, but where smugness, satisfaction or joy might have been expected, there was only an air of weary, stone-faced indifference, and the merest parting of the lips.
“Like that?” she checked.
“I’m not runnin’ away. I’m gonna find something useful to do that isn’t in the same room as you, pen-coc!” vented Nowuh, departing through the right-hand door – his simianesque face as intense as his lurid red, yellow and black hooped armour.
“Good God, the head on ye, man,” barked Goz, following him into the common area. “Ye are abandoning the debate.”
“It’s a blazing row I’m abandoning, not a bloody debate,” scoffed Nowuh, whirling about, defiance renewed. “Whatever you want to call it, it’s gone on long enough.”
“Oh, ‘tis rich when ‘twas ye who’s kept it going on this long!” exclaimed Goz, standing his ground, hands on hips – his pumpkin skin ripening.
“Fellas, fellas… Come on, now,” reasoned Dehmoe, walking between the two men again.
“Only ‘cos I don’t bloody agree with ya,” riled Nowuh. “What, am I just supposed to shut up and accept your point of view – is that it?”
“Ye could start by acknowledging it!” demanded Goz.
“I have acknowledged it, Goz, I just think you’re bloody-well wrong, don’t I,” despaired Nowuh, spinning off into the room.
Head in hands, he walked over to the pseudo-serving hatch to the utility room and let his predominantly black aeronaut-style helmet drop lifelessly onto it.
“Wrong to expect a man to do his job?” spat Goz, boss-eyes inflating still further.
“…with your foul shadow constantly blockin’ the light, bloody yeah!” despaired Nowuh, slamming the worktop and wheeling around. “Iesu Mawr!”
“Hours, you’ve had to do your job, and ye have the gall to dig me out for doing mine!” vented Goz.
“There’s leading a team, Goz, and there’s bein’ a bloody tyrant! Rulin’ with an iron fist is som’n that died out a bloody century ago!”
“It gets results, though, does it not?” argued Goz. “’tis a typical attitude of your type; decrying a problem ye are helpless to solve, then condemning the man that solves it for you for his chosen methods.”
In the background a minor commotion prompted Rorr, watching from a safe distance in the doorway to the forward room, to turn back toward where the quarrel had first ignited.
“My type?” checked Nowuh, stalking back over to face the barrel-chested man. “You want types, boyo… The pointing fingers; the venom; the sneers; the looks – it’s the act of arguin’ your type live for. Bollocks to what it’s actually about, as long as you get to spray your half-litre of saliva up the walls every bloody day. It’s the only way you knob-ends can justify your existence.”
“Me justify my existence?” raged Goz, looming forward, his green hammerhead-style helmet almost clipping Nowuh’s. “What single thing have ye done to justify yours, tell me that.”
“If you shut your pie hole for one bloody minute, I might be able to think straight long enough to work out how this place works.”
“Assuming this guy doesn’t work it out first,” remarked Rorr.
All heads turned to the exotic young man leant casually against the doorframe, striking as ever with his chiseled good looks and dazzling red-fringed electric indigo armour – although the aloof swagger was decidedly forced. And it took for the inevitable question to be on the tip of his colleagues’ collective tongue for him to thumb casually over his shoulder toward whomever had triggered the comment in the front room.
“CTO,” he added, before turning into the room. “What up, oi?”
As the others made tracks to join him, Rorr moved closer to the newcomer, who was stood with their back to him, tracing the left-hand wing of the slanted bench. Short, with a posture simultaneously taut and languid, their vivid sky blue and ultramarine bodywork rivaled his for wicked cool, particularly the alternating hoops on the upper body.
“About bloody time you woke up, you lazy bugger,” jested Nowuh, walking in to lean against the back wall, and looking pleased to be able to smile again.
“Morning, sleepy head,” chirped Dehmoe, walking through next, similarly enthused by the alleviation of hostilities.
Goz, last to enter, still wore a look of thunder, however, albeit a more cautious shade.
“Nothing to say, horse?” he prodded, pushing past to the front of the pack. “I would have thought ye’d be desperate to make a contribution after so long on your backside sleeping your life away.”
But still the stranger did not respond, not even turning to acknowledge the remark. Instead, they moved to the forwardmost seat, before crouching to run their hands over a curious greenstone-faced cupboard tucked beneath the lifeless console.
Goz spun around, eager to share his umbrage at the newcomer’s apathy with the others, only to find them oblivious to any affront and perhaps now even mildly amused by his indignation, especially Nowuh. Inevitably, it was Aeiro, still sat to the left of the room, that bore the brunt of Goz’s rage – the humdrum man in plain white being the recipient of an accusatory glare, no doubt at his failure to alert them of the sixth member of the team’s awakening.
“Well, I guess some of us are just a little more ‘bear with sore feet’ in the morning, am I right?” bubbled Dehmoe, wisely sliding between Goz and the stranger. “Anyhoo, you just take your time and speak when you’re good and ready.”
“Take your time?” choked Goz, incredulously. “Is one hour more shut-eye than the rest of us not time enough already?”
“Well, it’s not as if it’s his fault, is it,” reasoned Nowuh. “There’s no rhyme or reason to these awakenin’s, evidently.”
“Yeah, I mean… I was up an hour… before you – almost,” ventured Aeiro, timidly, and instantly regretting it.
“And what did ye do with all that time, eh?” seethed Goz, looming over him, hands outstretched. “F#$k all, that’s what. Ye’d do well to remember that before making smart comments.”
“Leave him alone, man,” defended Rorr, stepping forward. “You’re always picking on him.”
“It’s ‘cos he’s a useless excuse for a human being, but ye are not too far behind him,” vented Goz, turning on the young man.
Seditious glare met repressive stare, but the sudden rise of the newcomer from beneath the bench popped the tension and prompted contrasting brow movements at the sight of their face for the first time.
“Hey… man,” greeted Rorr, before following the gaze of the stranger – IC20 – to the back-left corner of the room.
Goz seemed to have a pertinent question on his lips until the newcomer ghosted straight past him to whatever they’d seen, poking a metaphorical stick into his hornet’s nest on the way.
“Are ye not going to say a damned word?” fumed Goz. “Not even a ‘hello’?”
The response was, again, a silent one as the stranger walked toward the corner of the room, pausing momentarily to glance back through the dormitory doorway at the six glass-topped capsules, before sizing up a rectangular metal box – greenstone-faced like almost everything else – mounted on the wall between a white wooden cabinet and a stylish light panel.
“Incredible,” muttered Goz, staggered to still be the only one irked by the newcomer’s behaviour.
“I dunno, I find our friend’s taciturn nature bloody refresh’n, to be honest,” chuckled Nowuh. “One less voice to compete with yours, Goz; I thought you’d be happy.”
“Not if I’m to write out a damned questionnaire for him to fill out to get any answers,” snapped Goz, lasering a look of pure scorn back at Nowuh. “Happiness would be a useful contribution from any of you langers!”
With perfect synchronicity, IC pushed the face of the box which flicked up to expose a small recessed compartment sporting an array of fuse-like objects and one large crimson switch. Instinctively depressing the round green button next to it, IC toggled the switch… and a hibernating electronic beast awakened. Ambient lights brightened, monitor screens lit up and the room filled with the buzz and hum of a computerised orchestra sound-checking its instruments. Capping it off was the near-instantaneous freshening of the mildly stifling air by a reanimated air-conditioning system.
The stranger span on the spot, but where smugness, satisfaction or joy might have been expected, there was only an air of weary, stone-faced indifference, and the merest parting of the lips.
“Like that?” she checked.
