Jul 13 05:16:23 105 PA

From Chronicles

The current game time is: Mon Jul 13 05:16:23 105 PA.

The garage area of Advanced Idea Mechanics is an extremely large single room, with a chemically treated (MDC) concrete floor. The walls, unlike those of the office are completely undecorated, giving the place a spartan, industrial feel. Which is fitting, considering the bustling of activity that is being undergone in this place. Most often, a suit of power armor or two is being worked on and occasionally a giant robot can be seen encased in scaffolding along one wall. At one time or another, just about any kind of job is visible being done. From weapon reloading, to repairs to outright radical modification. And it isn't just confined to robots and power armor, either. The occasionally light armored vehicle and even main battle tank are seen here on occasion. To help with the work itself the ceiling is fitted with huge cranes that move on mobile tracks, allowing them to lift into place things like weapons and giant robot limbs. For working on the latter as well, a massive support construct has been built into one wall complete with a crane of it's own, providing means to lift and secure for repair a robot that is missing both legs if required. Other equipment, from spot welders to laser torches to electronic toolkits can be found on benches and the like all through the area. As you watch, men in exoskeletons, sometimes assited by a vehicle or a crane carry things from two rooms visible down a short yet wide hallway, slipping under large blast doors. These doors close automatically behind whomever leaves, indicating perhaps that volatile materials are stored within.

Early evening and the AIM is drifting into peaceful contemplation of the night, as much as any large hanger type building can. The few noises that echo around the building are coming from beneath a wreak of a car. They may be linked to the pair of legs sticking out from beneath it, clad in coveralls and topped off with a pair of chunky boots. Now and again, a feminine hand, oil stained with nails cut off as short as they can be, reaches out from beneath the car and grabs a tool, to retract again.

The relaxed air and the easy atmosphere of the hangar sets the mind towards mischief, and Janus is not immune to it as he pokes his head into the small man-sized door of AIM's entrance. He stands there in the doorway for a short time, looking around at the interior until he finds what he's come for. A devilish grin sliding into place on his features, he stalks on silent feet across the garage floor towards that wrecked vehicle and the unsuspecting mechanic working beneath it. He squats down at Caliopa's feet, ducks his head and looks up the length of her to watch her at work. His voice is full of humor and warmth. "You should replace the doozit with a new wamjingy, if you ask me," he opines in that flowing accent.

There is a thud as she jumps, banging her head against the bottom of the engine and a curse word that her innocent face would suggest she didn't know. She wiggles out from beneath the car, squirming her hips to get out, giving him a glare that has none of the sunshine normally in her expression. "Don't you know nothing but to be walkin' up to folks startlin' them?" Definitely grumpy, and she rubs her head, ensuring that the oil on her hands is transferred into her hair. Brown eyes frown at him as she reaches for tools, "And it ain't, the sump is leakin' oil."

Janus doesn't apologize or even bother to look contrite. Heedless of the oil, he reaches one hand out to try to place it to the side of Caliopa's head and tilt it so that he can take a look at where she banged herself. A sweep of his thumbs wipes away the grease from the spot and, symbolically at least, the hurt. "Didn't figure you for a jumpy one," he confesses, which might pass for an apology after all.

She allows the touch, her look to him a little less grouchy. "Here all by meself with folk comin' and goin', and stuff up in the air." She comments, before shifting, crossing her legs and stretching, her hands in the air above her head. "Uhh, I reckon I been under there hours." She smiles then, like sunlight coming out from behind a cloud, as she drops her hands to her lap. "You broke somethin'?" She asks.

He's got his hand there already so he just leaves it where it is for a few moments longer, sitting back on his heels and staring at Caliopa's face like that was the one and only reason he came in tonight. "No, but I'm getting right close." He chuckles then, wistfully, draws his hand back and tears his eyes off to find something else to look at with a sigh. He settles for one of her tools. "Meant to ask you a few questions," he remembers, furrowing his brows and blinking a few times as he comes back to reality.

The returned look lacks any comprehension of the effect she is having on him and her smile doesn't dim. "Yeah? You reckon you're gonna break somethin'?" She asks, stretches to reach for one of her tools, gently cleaning it off and placing it in the toolbox, neatly in its place. She does it with a tenderness normally reserved for living things, and repeats it with another tool, before she glances up. "Questions?"

Janus watches her care for her tools with a growing understanding, his grey eyes moving back and forth from the toolbox to her face and his mind putting pieces together. Things, they start to make more sense. "Questions," he confirms, rocking back off his feet and falling back onto his seat to sit on the cement floor of the garage. "A little Sheila down in the Dregs thought I should ask after the Constructor Fleet, and then I heard you were with them."

She gives the tool box a last look, her gaze taking in each tool, precisely in its place, cleaned and cared for, before she closes the lid and locks it neatly. She looks up again, her brown eyes resting on his face, her forehead wrinkling. "The ...oh! Yeah, Zaphod done called us that when the reporters grabbed him. It kinda stuck." She gives him a slightly puzzled look. "Atti does most stuff for it though, and the doc. I jus' fix stuff up, 'n' look at the stuff they give me." Simplistic.

A nod is given to the explanation and Janus takes another look around the hangar while he thinks on things a bit more. "Only met Atti the once, and your doc's still missin' isn't he?" The corners of his mouth lift with a smile and he brings his eyes back to Cali's. "Sounds small, just the three of you. The way folks talk in town, sounded like an army."

She absentmindedly pets the toolbox, her face thoughtful. "Well, it ain't jus' us. Katsumi, she does stuff with fightin' of a sort, and there was another of us that died, and Kat, she hired on some fightin' folks." She shakes her head, uncurling to rise gracefully to her feet. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, leaving a smudge of oil on her cheek with the same movement, before she bends to pick up the box, holding it with both hands in front of her. "Ain't really my side of things. I ain't got an understandin' of the fightin' stuff."

The look on Janus' face says enough. This isn't going the way he'd planned. "Wanted to ask about the manhunters, mostly," he tries, still sitting there on the floor and lifting his head to watch Caliopa rise. "Talk is that VCF is who would know 'bout them." He peers up at her, lips drawn in a faint little frown. "Fightin' stuff is about the only thing I -do- understand. Reckon you could introduce me?"

She lifts the box onto the flatbed of her truck, having to lift on tiptoe and swing it to do so. The movement causes her plait to swing, brushing over her lower back. "The manhunters?" She repeats, turning to give him a blank look, before jumping herself up beside the box, to push it further down. The movement leaves her with her back to him, bent as she pushes it away. "Uh, I can take you to meet Atti, or Kat if you want." The offer is made over her shoulder, with a warm, sunny smile.

Janus nearly misses the smile, distracted as he is by parts lower down. "Eh?" The noise is caught in his throat, a quick-flash blink of his eyes sending them upwards to catch her glance and an equally quick flash of a smile sent over in an answer. He stirs then, shifting a foot and putting a hand to his knee and pushing himself to his feet with careless ease. "I'd like that, Cali," he accepts the offer, nodding briskly. "Been feeling more useless than a thumb on a wombat's back."

Caliopa slides herself back to the edge of the tailgate, the box locked away neatly, in its place. She dangles her legs, leaning her weight through her palms against the edge of the truck. She smiles brightly at him, tilting her head. "Thumb on a wombat's back. I like that. My pa used to say, useful as a chocolate teapot." She informs him, her brown eyes warm and friendly.

Janus brightens with the revelation and easily steps over to the truck to stand in front of Caliopa. "Been feeling like that too," he says with a light shrug, looking down on her with a fondness in his eyes. Something occurs to him then, his attention flicking from her to the forward cab of her truck. "Oi, could I take a ride with you back to the Happy Days?"

She smiles down at him, tilting her head down, the plait falling over her shoulder. "I don't drive home, ain't worth it. I figure, I don't move much all day, so I walk 'n' it gets the kinks out of my body." She pushes off the truck, sliding to the floor, the movement tugging at her coveralls. "Can walk along with me if you like..."

Janus clasps his hands behind his back, keeping them under control to resist any urges they might otherwise get, and takes the offer with a broad smile and a simple dip of his head. "I'd like that just fine." Tilting his head, a brow lifted, he indicates the way towards the door and falls into an unhurried pace.ags:caliopa, janus