this is the part where prison is more or less dave and busters

[saklas]

Passengers: Everyone who wants to come see what the weird vending machine is about for the first time it is open to them! This is an open mingle/party style log.
Location: "a corner," the location of the Commissary
Date: February 1 - 7 on year one of our cool and sexy journey
Summary: 14 space idiots squint at the ATM that can supposedly make elk meat and clown shoes for them
Warnings: Will add as needed! I'm 90% sure someone's going to ask for drugs or blades, just as a weather forecast

Comments

[saklas]

"No. That's too easy to bullshit. You'll get a book about happiness, or religion. Something it's offering, but can't actually give you. Something you know well, and that it doesn't know at all. I tried to get it to spit out as a 'clothes item' shoes that I knew only exist in a museum."

He gestures downwards at his sparkly dumbfuck kicks.

"Got a replica, but it took awhile."

The other attempt he's just going to pretend didn't happen.

[rank1]

Travis looks down at the shoes and for a brief moment wonders why anyone would want shoes as ugly as that before snapping to focus. Right. Something that he knows, but the machine doesn't.

Oh shit.

"I could ask for my cat," he says, like this is a genius idea. "The thing doesn't say we can't ask for living things, right? It would have to work overtime to spit out not just any cat, but my cat."

[saklas]

"You're right."

Holy shit. That's really good.

"You're right. Shit, you'll get. You might get a replica made of foam.

But I want to see it try. I want to-"

Volk points over his shoulder with his thumb and lowers his voice.

"The wardens are here because they've been promised shit. If we ask it for stuff and it keeps not being able to deliver..."

[rank1]

"Yeah," Travis says, mouth twisting into a grin. "Yeah! The whole system will come down."

He puts his hand out for the ticket.

"Let's do it, let's get my cat."

And hopefully not get a sentient foam replica that loathes its own tragic synthetic rubber existence, but he's reasonably confident this place can't make his cat in the first place.

[saklas]

Well, no. It's more likely they won't give a fuck, because that's how they've reacted every time Volk has pointed out all of the other things about this place that don't make sense and aren't fair.

But, he wants to see this. He shrugs and hands over his last ticket.

[rank1]

Look, Travis has never tried to bring down a system without murder before. He'll learn. Until then, he's taking the ticket and pairing it with one of his own and feeding it into the machine, and he punches in his request.

"I've had her since she was a kitten," he says, conversationally, even if no one asked. "We've been through a lot of hard times, and she's always by my side. She's like my child, you know?"

[saklas]

A cynic is someone who smells flowers and looks around for a funeral -

"You'd better hope someone's feeding her."

[rank1]

"She's covered," Travis replies with the slightest edge to his voice. Sylvia's supposed to visit in a few days. She won't let Jeane starve. He fucking hopes so, at least.

He leans against the machine, his gaze fixed on the delivery door at the bottom. Waiting, waiting.

"What if this thing gives me a real live cat? A clone of Jeane or something. Then I gotta get more tickets to get a litterbox and shit..."

[saklas]

"If this thing can print a clone of a live animal with a functioning digestive system, I will put on a ski mask, pick up every warden here by the legs, and shake them upside down until the tickets come out, and that's a fact."

[rank1]

"That'd be sick," Travis replies. Volk has the build of a cheap Halloween skeleton and the constitution to match, though, so comedy's doing the heavy lifting on that mental image. "I'll buy you the ski mask."

The machine makes a sound, all stepper motors and lithium lubricant on lead screws. Travis drops down to a crouch, elbows resting on his knees, hands out like he is going to accept a football hike when the doors open. He does not accept a football hike. He accepts a cat-shaped piece of foam with minimal effort to render the fur, but beautiful colouring. Jeane (foam cat) is as perfect as foam cats can be.

"Oh shit, it looks just like her," Travis says. He is charmed even if this isn't his live cat: "It even got her size right. It took me forever to get her down to this weight."

[saklas]

Volk sighs through his nose. Foam. Of course.

"Well, it's one more thing that we tested. I'm glad you like it."

Not a complete waste of time. Time's the real currency here; fuck the tickets.

It's not a bad cat, either. She's got a round little cat face.

[rank1]

Doesn't she? She's so cute. Travis holds her up under the armpits for Volk to pet. She does not sag like a real cat, which is disappointing, but to be expected of foam.

"Sucks it didn't work out the way you wanted. You think we should switch from stress testing stuff to just breaking shit?"

[saklas]

What? Why are you showing him the cat.

"It's good."

Volk pats the fake cat, rotely. Okay. Good cat. Is this what you want? Let's move on.

"I'd say yes, but let's not be dumb about it. It's as big as a van, I'm guessing the current in there could kill you."

[rank1]

Who doesn't love a cat? Jeane (the cat) is perfect, and her foam likeness is about as close to that as a foam likeness can get.

He did, however, not even consider any current.

"You never smashed a TV or crashed a car or anything? They don't just exlode," Travis replies, tucking the foam cat under his arm and standing up to size up the commissary machine. "We don't even have to start with this thing. Bet there's something more important."

[saklas]

"The people are the most important."

Wait.

"Which doesn't mean kill them. It means the wardens have keys to vehicles that can take us out of the building, we just need to figure out which one can be talked into the idea that they should let us go. Or s- Do you speak anything other than Orcish?"

He's not going to say this part of the plan out loud in the language everyone speaks.

"Mercsat, or Elven? If not let's just... talk somewhere else."

[rank1]

"Just English and Japanese," he replies, with a flicker of confusion on his face –– Orcish? "Guess we better find somewhere private."

[saklas]

"We can just walk down the hall."

It's easy to see if someone's following them, in a hall. Volk heads that way.

[rank1]

Travis follows.

"You really think the wardens would do anything to stop us even if they did? I slugged a guy and all they tried to do was embarrass me."

[saklas]

"Yes. It'll make one of them look stupid. People in power hate looking stupid, it suggests they shouldn't have it."

Once they're far enough out, Volk says.

"If we can steal a warden communicator, we can steal an escape vehicle."

[rank1]

Travis ponders that for a moment. It’s doable. Probably easily —- there’s a handful of wardens that would be easy to mug, at least for him. Volk, though…?

“I can cause a distraction if you want to mug Claire. You can take her. Or I can, but I don’t really do stealth.”

[saklas]

"I don't even think we need to do something that'll draw attention that quickly. In fact, the longer it takes them to figure out we did it, the better. It's a shame they all sleep behind locked doors."

Volk is currently not aware that William is in the inmate dorms.

He glances back at the Commissary, then down at the foam cat. Identical replicas. It wouldn't work long for a CommLink, it'd be too soft. It would be great if they could swap a warden's out for a fake, they could be long gone by the time the theft was discovered.

Wait.

That's not the only machine on the ship that makes CommLinks.

"What if -

When Rhys' phone broke, he got another one, right? So, somewhere on this ship, there are extras. They look down and they see a ship phone, a real one..."

And they don't know that theirs is gone.

[rank1]

“Yeah,” Travis says, hooking his thumbs in his pockets. “I had to get mine replaced too, after that fight. The robot owl just asks what happened and gives you a new one. But they’d know whose replacement it was, right? Your name would be on it.”

quietly deferring to u on this

[saklas]

"I thought it just had - are these personalized?"

Volk reaches into his pocket to give his a once-over.

Not personalized physically but you could see whose communicator by the username/inbox

[rank1]

“I mean, it’s logged in, right?”

thank u friend

[saklas]

Volk, paranoid, turns it over a few times just to be sure.

(His already has a big crack in the screen from when he fell on his fucking face on day one. Very embarrassing - he hopes people don't assume he can't run in heels, because he completely can.)

"I mean, yeah, we'd get caught when they turned it on. But if they weren't using it for a few hours or checking it, we'd have that much time. If we grabbed it right before they went to sleep..."