2013.06.10 - Pier Pressure

There are some areas of the harbor that are nice; nicer, at least, than other parts. The utilitarian areas are picturesque in a rugged, stained sort of way. Warehouses, shipping crates and so on are interesting if not stereotypically photogenic. Not too long ago, there was a pitched battle at this particular dock, which may be why Booster Gold is poking around; he was here for that fight, and now he is looking for something.
One of the shipping crates rocks and then is lifted into the air, held aloft with two hands overhead by Booster. "Skeets, just run a quick scan of the area. Also, yuck, it smells like... gross stuff, here."
"Very erudite, sir," opines Skeets, the little droid, flying along the exposed area as he gathers data.
"Whatever, you know I don't have the words in this language for this stuff." Booster swings the huge crate back into position, and once Skeets is out of the way, he sets it down as carefully as possible on top of another crate. There is a loud clanking, in any case. "If I'd known there'd be smells like this in the past, I would have looked up more specialized vocabulary lists."
Vorpal is skulking around, being true to type after all. He had spent a very, very long day filling out applications for registration, undergoing checks... all of that, and he had started to feel claustrophobic by the end. He decided to take a wider patrol route than he usually did... after all, if he was going to be bona fide registered, he should become familiarized with all of the other routes. In his experience, these areas are always magnets for the unsavory underground, and someone had to keep them in check. 
He walks quietly along the rooftop of a warehouse, ears twitching in all directions as he tries to filter out sounds.
"Unfortunately, sir, I'm only finding some residue from the explosions," Skeets reports, floating in one spot, the window/eye on the front of his ovoid body flickering slightly as he processes the information he has been gathering.
There is a rhythmic sound as Booster drums his fingers against the metal shipping crate he is leaning against. Despite the griminess of the area, he still looks clean and shiny. "Well. Well... darn it." He looks out over the water as he crosses his non-weight bearing leg over the other in a casual stance. "I really wanted to figure out which thug fired that shot at Supes. I shouldn't be surprised, I guess he knew how to cover his tracks. It was probably a ninja. It was a ninja, wasn't it? I bet it was a ninja."
The conversation finally becomes a little clearer as he approaches the edge of the rooftop. Crouching low, he blinks as his night vision shows him a figure dressed in a rather shiny outfit. "Wow... get a hold of that." he mutters quietly to himself, his ears twitching as he tries to make out the words over the noise of the waves competing against them at this distance. He does catch 'shot at supes' and 'ninja'. What was this guy playing at?
Standing close to the front of the roof, he leans over a little to try to get a better view. He gives up and decides to float down to ground level quietly.... and that's when the light goes up behind him, lighting him from behind rather dramatically- a motion-activated light in front of the warehouse...why didn't he notice it? "Confound it!" he hisses to himself, he's just announced his presence to everybody with eyes.
Rather than get into a combat stance, Booster remains in his casual, leaning posture. He does turn his head, however, and briefly his goggles look translucent, but by the time he is looking towards the light source they have become opaque. Although he must be assessing the figure, he seems to conclude that this is no immediate threat to him, because he says, "Hey." His lips purse in thought, and he adds in another language (which happens to be Interlac), "<Hi there.>" When he looks over at Skeets, he is speaking in English again. "This is bogus. I wish I'd been looking at the right boat when it happened, then at least we'd have that footage to analyze."
Vorpal blinks, as the man suddenly decides to speak... well... Moonspeak at him. "...Um... excuse me, what did you say to me?" The cheshire says. He's puzzled. Usually people that he surprises skulking around in docks tend to attack him, instead of saying things at him. And what was that ... egg thing, anyways? When the light went on, he was prepared for a fight. Now, he feels like he's dressed with nowhere to go.
"Oh...sorry. I thought there was a chance you might not be Terran, no offense. I was just saying hello. I wasn't meaning to be rude." Booster stands up properly now, dusting off his gloved hands, although they seem clean. "I'm Booster Gold. This is Skeets." He gestures at the robot.
"Hello!" says the floating golden egg.
"We had a dust-up here not too long ago, I was kind of hoping I could find some overlooked clues but..." Booster makes a vague but sweeping gesture to encompass the docks, which ends with a disgusted, dismissive wave at them.
Vorpal blinks for a moment, and then walks over to Booster, his attitude changing from cautious to more relaxed. "Oh, I know your name! I---" he blinks for a second and looks at Skeets, who just talked at him "Um... hello.... Skeets...." he says cautiously. You can tell he almost wants to play with it--- it floats, and it looks like a ball. And it's shiny. That's like cocaine for a cat. "As I was saying, I've heard your name" he says, approaching Booster. "I've just gotten registered today myself, actually." he says enthusiastically, totally forgetting to introduce himself. Damned rude cats.
Booster was looking a little tired, perhaps from disappointment since he was unable to dig up any useful data. Being recognized, however, will always perk him up, and it's as if someone had just flipped on the light switch in a dark room. He gives one of his brilliant sun-bright smiles and rests one fist on his hip, gesturing at Vorpal with the other hand as he says, "Oh, you recognize me! And that's awesome that your registered. I know it's a lot of ... what's the term, Skeets?"
"Red tape, sir," provides the little robot.
"Right. But it's cool," Booster turns the gesture into a finger-gun pointing Vorpal's way, 'firing' it at him along with a wink. "Congratulations!"
Vorpal smirks, then gives Booster a grin of his own--- a cheshire-megawatt one. "Thanks. Codename's Vorpal..." 'He's pretty cute' the little voice in his head goes, 'Does he have to act like an action figure, though?' 'Hush' He tells himself and tilts his head. "I thought you might have been one of the slimy scuzzballs that tend to hang around here. Are you investigating something? Maybe I could help."
"Well, I'm not sure there's anything to help with," Booster admits, his mouth pulling to the right as he rubs his chin and glances at the water once again. "Although it did happen to involve some slimy scuzzballs. Basically, Superman and I came in to do a drug bust but it went way, way wrong." He points at the ship bays, currently empty. "The problem is that the information I'd need was on the ships, but someone blew them up. While we were under them in the water, in fact. That made it pretty difficult to witness who did it." Looking back to Vorpal, he spreads his hands in a shrug. "I'll be honest, I mostly want to find out who did it so I could smack them around for it." He frowns, and then gets an expression of propriety on his face as he lifts one finger in a didactic gesture and says, "Within reasonable legal boundaries, of course."
The cat's eyes grow wide at Booster's telling. "Wow.... Superman...." he doesn't make an effort to hide the awe in his youthful voice. Then he realizes he's coming across as a complete amateur, he turns to look at the water. "So... the ship was... over there?" he points towards the water and a giant glowing (purple) 'X' appears on the water, somewhat approximate to where Booster pointed. "And let me guess... no witnesses were on the dock at the time, either?"
"Six ships, actually. But yeah, they were pulled up there." Booster is looking rather unhappy, now. "There were people on the dock, although at that time it would've been guys who were in on this whole thing. Someone killed a lot of them... it sure wasn't us. If anything we actually had to save some of them after the explosions." He floats up into the air, then, a few feet, and points at where the X is on the water. "I helped dredge up some of the wreckage, later. But... explosions, submersion in water... that erases tracks like whoah."
Vorpal walks over to the edge of the water and frowns. "So... if nobody saw anything, you've got a limited set of places they could have done this from..." he looks around the docks, looking at which buildings were positioned where, and he extends his hand, tracing lines from the X into various areas, and then sighs. "To blow up six ships like that you'd need extreme firepower. That sort of thing tends to draw the eye when unleashed. Unless they were in any of these areas..."he says, pointing to the line-of-sight lines...which vanish fifteen feet away from the X due to his power's limits, but it's easy to trace them. "Which would still give you no security camera footage of anyone who did this. Assuming they did this from over there and not, say, out into the bay with sophisticated targeting equipment. Or flying from overhead. And then there's the possibility that, somehow, the six boats could have been rigged with explosives by an insider working for Mr. Blow It Up. I can see your frustration..." he says, frowning.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was the latter. Because we were under the boats when they blew up, and Supes was lifting one right when it exploded, and it took the bottom right out of the ship." Booster is quiet for a moment as he recalls that situation. He then adds, "As you'd imagine, it was kind of hard to do much of anything when you have six ships exploding right on top of you. And whoever did it woulda had an easy time getting away because then of course we were busy rescuing people." Booster's hands lift and drop, and then he lands on the dock's edge. "I'm still pretty new at all this, it would've been nice to do some amazing detective work and salvage the whole mess. I'm just not good at that part."
Vorpal hehs "Well, I'm new at this, too... it's pretty awesome that you get to work with heroes of Superman's caliber. He probably sees you're very good." The cat says, sitting down on a box. "I hope to be that good someday."
"Man, it is totally awesome," Booster agrees, with cheerful enthusiasm. "Where I'm from, dudes like Superman are just legends. It was really cool to find out he's also a totally nice guy. Dude's under a lot of stress so I wouldn't fault him if he was cranky, you know? But he's friendly." He is smiling again, as if it were difficult for him to maintain a downcast attitude for any length of time. "Don't worry, dude. Vorpal, I mean. I'm sure you'll figure it out and be rad." He gestures to Skeets, who flies over to him. A tiny hatch opens on the robot's body, and a pincher arm unfolds from there, offering a slip of cardstock to Booster.
After taking the slip, which is actually a slimline business card, he offers it to Vorpal. "If you need help or whatever, that has my contact information. If you actually break the card where the star is, it'll send an emergency signal to me. Neat, huh?"
Vorpal takes the card and looks at it. "That is awesome," he says, looking at the card and turning it every which way, and then stashing it into the side pocket of his tights--- since they're just re-purposed running tights, they actually have pockets! with zippers! "I'd give you mine... I'm sort of sleeping in an abandoned warehouse for the moment," he lets out a little laugh. "You know, if you don't mind, I'd love to have coffee with you. I've got a lot of questions and you obviously have more experience and seen more. I don't really know anyone to approach for advice..." he pauses. "Except for Dr. Fate. But... I mean, he's really nice, but I'm sure he'd get a lot more out of instructing little Harry Potters who can actually do magic rather than cheshire cat freaks like me." He grins, taking a jab at himself.
Booster looks faintly perplexed. "Yikes. You're not a freak. Except, I know that this era is... super weird about anyone who looks like an alien or mutant. I don't understand it, but I'm trying to, so I can like... help." He looks over at Skeets, his expression faintly lost, and then back to Vorpal. "But yeah, sure, that'd be cool. I should tell you, though..." Holding up one finger, he says, "I know nothing about magic," another finger goes up, "I'm not from this era... I'm from the 25th Century, so I'm still figuring stuff out, too..." and then a third finger. "This isn't my native language, and I keep running into situations where I'm totally clueless about the vocabulary I need."
Vorpal laughs "That's ok... I don't need to be tutored about magic... what I do just sort of... happens. I don't use spells or chant or anything of the sort. I have... reasons to believe that my transformation was caused by, well, the actual Cheshire Cat." Oh, little does he suspect the truth. "Twenty Fifth century, huh? I was wonder what you meant when you said all these guys are legends back where you come from. That's pretty damned neat... I know this really cute g---- this really neat guy who comes from a paralell dimension, but I hadn't met a time-traveller yet. Curioser and curioser!" He says. "What was the biggest culture shock you got when you landed here?"
"Most of the people I hang with are from even further in the future," Booster remarks, holding up his right hand to show the Legion ring on his finger. "It's nice, because we can speak Interlac, which is one of the languages I grew up with. But I'm trying to get fluent in 21st Century English." He is quiet now, as he seems to be giving Vorpal's question serious consideration. Finally, he says, "I think it was seeing so many people walking around who ..." The blond man seems at a loss and looks to his droid.
"Middle class, sir," Skeets prompts, helpfully.
"Right. The middle class, I guess that's the term... it's hard to explain but it's not really a thing, where I'm from," says Booster, hands moving vaguely. "You either had varying degrees of rich people, or really really poor people. And it was pretty distinct."
Vorpal huhs "That's interesting... there are so many groups around. I would be lying if I said I haven't fantasized about being part of one... but I sort of need to prove myself first before anyone looks at me and sees more than a Disney Store Rejec----" he realizes Booster might not get the reference and quickly corrects "--- than a toy store reject. I did get to drop an anvil on Electro a few days ago--" he says enthusiastically"--- although the guy I mentioned before had already shorted him out with water by that point. Man... having a power like that must be awful. When a garden hose can take you out, you know you've got issues."
"Having a group is good, although they tend to be selective. And I don't mean that in a bad way," Booster shakes his head, idly toying with the ring on his finger. "It makes sense that they'd need to make sure the people they admit can take the stress. My try-out for the Legion of Super-Heroes was... rough." The corner of his mouth twitches faintly, but he doesn't stop smiling. "More important, I think, is having the connections. Even dudes who say they're loners and do the whole solo thing still have people they go to. Even if it's because they need a specialist or whatever." He gestures to Vorpal, saying, "It's why I gave you my digits."
"Thank you for them, again. I wish I had something of value to offer in return, but I'm saddled with... bizarre talents, to say the least." Vorpal tilts his head. "I think I gave Huntress an aneurysm."
"Nah, dude, don't worry about it." Booster waves his hand, and gives a shake of his head. "I didn't do it so you'd owe me, or whatever. You're doing the hero thing, that's a good enough reason." Barely audible is a voice that seems to be using that Moonspeak that Booster spoke earlier. Glancing at his hand, he says something in response in that same language, apparently talking to his ring. Then, in English, he tells Vorpal, "I need to get going, in a sec. But I'm totally willing to meet up with you and talk about stuff and all that. Hm..." He rubs his chin, eyes rolling upwards as he thinks. "In the next few days, I've got my internship with Stark Industries, and one audition at the agency. But I'll have some time in there."
"An internship at Stark Industries? Nice." The cat chuckles and hops off the box. "Tell you what, you get back to me when you have time off. I don't want to impose and you've got a full schedule." He goes over to Booster and extends his hand, giving him an open smile. "I appreciate it more than you can imagine. Being out there alone is... pretty intimidating. I have to head home, too. It's a bit of a ways to the Bronx and I want to make sure I hit one of the places I suspect some guys are using to hide drugs."
"Yeah, I'm not a scientist, but I have a few things to offer 'em. But it's the audition that might net me actual money, which would be nice." Booster reaches out, and gives Vorpal's hand a shake; it's firm, although in a very careful way so as to avoid accidental crushing. "Anyway, be careful, dude. It was cool, meeting you."
Vorpal shakes Booster's hand firmly and nods. "Same here. If you need to reach me, just call the Registration bureau... they'll hold my messages until I actually get the stipend cleared and can afford to not live in a dump and have a phone. I check every day. Just leave a message for Vorpal... or Keith O'Neil. I don't really do the secret identity thing because... well. Big purple cat. Can't hide that." Cheshire grin. "Take care of yourself, Booster!" He says. 
"Got it." Booster hovers up into the air, then, smiling and touching two fingers to his forehead in a jaunty salute. The posturing, heroic persona seems to come and go, at least under such casual circumstances; this is probably because there will not be any cameras or citizen witnesses in an area like this. But it sometimes comes through out of sheer habit. "Later, dude!" A faint, golden glow surrounds him, and when he flies off he is a comet-like streak of gold fire in the darkness.
Category:Log