Jake swore, for maybe the third time in the last fifteen minutes, after the engine on the motorcycle failed to start. Again. This wasn't his area of expertise, but he'd done plenty of research online, and this last fix should have worked. On the other side of the bay stood his working bike. But Jake was somehow partial to this one, this complete piece of junk he'd gotten for free, on his birthday, from Boyd's.
He would conquer it. It would not defeat him.
But for now, he needed a break. Glancing over at Kady he grinned. "I do have pizza being delivered in another half hour, to make watching me curse at this thing at least somewhat worthwhile. And I appreciate the company."
It was almost comical to watch him struggle with the hunk of junk, but Kady was well aware of how much people could grow attached to vehicles. Especially motorcycles. It seemed to be part of the thrill of owning them--taking them apart and putting them back together, hoping it would work out better the next time. A little elbow grease and some cursing seeming to be all that was needed.
She picked up one of the tools on the bench she was leaning against. “Food does make most encounters better. You flushed out the fuel lines yet? Half the time with these older ones contaminated fuel causes the majority of the issues.”
"Yeah, then replaced the lines and did a thorough cleaning of the tank." Whenever he did get this thing running, he was definitely going to know a lot more about how motorcycles worked. "Could use Jules here. She'd laugh at me and then fix this thing right up. Too bad she didn't show up along with the base. Or anything to make this place less empty and creepy."
He paused. "I could give you a tour." Of the empty, creepy base.
The comment about his friend briefly had her thinking of her own “Jules” before she set the tool back down. “You’ll figure out, I’m sure.” A tour would be nice though and help eat up the time until the pizza actually arrived.
“Let’s do a tour. Since we apparently don’t have oreos.” Which was a tad disappointing. Unless he had some stashed in this rather large space. It would forever amaze her that Vallo could seem to bring in a lot of random, large places and just drop them down on the world, forcing it to make room for them.
Jake glanced around, confused. "Did I forget to bring those out? No worries. We'll start at the kitchen then." And that's where he took her. "Keep in mind, this is military. Everything must be as depressing as possible. It's a rule."
He led her to the kitchen, which had several different oreo flavors available. "Just don't ruin your appetite," he teased. "Welcome to the world I chose over prison. Spent a good chunk of my childhood here before my dad kicked me out. Came back cause that's the deal my sister cut for me and didn't make me reenlist as a cadet."
That was his tour of the kitchen, though he did point to the freezer. "There's always going to be ice cream stocked in there."
It was almost depressing but nowhere with oreos and ice cream in the freezer could be that bad. Especially not with the life she’d had growing up. Going from one place to the next while her mom tried to catch that magic high and then being sold into servitude. But she wasn’t one to talk about that shit.
She took a box of the double stuffed oreos, taking some out before sitting up on the counter. Carefully she unscrewed the oreo, separating one half from the other so she could add another double layer on top of it. No point in eating them half-assed.
“Good to know where to come when I need an oreo fix.” She nodded around. “Can you store your...is it a robot--here?”
"Anytime," Jake said. "I promise to keep this place stocked. Gotta spend my money on something, after all."
He leaned against the counter opposite of her. "Yeah, all the bays are strangely empty so it could go in any of the jaeger bays. If I can get Ezekiel to part with it. Can't pilot it solo though so it doesn't really have a use here, you know how that goes. Get something from Vallo, can't actually use it?"
He had no idea if she knew how that went. He had very little information about her in general, but that didn't seem to bother him. She was there, keeping him company, and clearly was enjoying the double stuffed oreos.
“Vallo seems to be good at doling out useless gifts.” And not so useless considering it’d given her back her magic, even if it had been an ass about how that went. But she had it fully now and that was what mattered.
“Maybe someone who’s...drift compatible will show up to pilot it with you.” Though she thought it was kind of ridiculous that the thing needed two people.
"I'd love for my sister to show up," Jake commented. "I mean, since people come back from the dead here in a non-zombie way. My dad, maybe, but he'd probably still want to criticize me. But if I get anyone, it'll probably be Nate. If you think I'm good looking, you should see Nate."
She hadn't said that, but Jake considered that a minor detail.
Family seemed to be what most people wanted showing up. Not Kady though. Having her mom around would only make things worse knowing she couldn’t ever really save her from her fate. No need to rehash that barely scabbed wound.
“Careful there or you’ll end up with your dad here and that will happen.” It seemed to be Vallo’s own little joke to do things like that. She couldn’t really blame the place for being a little shit when it wanted to. She’d do the same if she was some omnipresent world.
“Nate a friend or one of those frenemies?”
"Both?" Jake answered, but then shook his head. "Nah, Nate's one of the good ones. And he was my co-pilot. We got paired together as kids then when I got kicked out he got a new one. When I came back, he was conveniently in need of a co-pilot again."
Jake checked the time, and then went to the fridge to grab a beer, offering Kady one or anything else he had stocked in there. "It's hard to hate someone when you know everything about them, and vice versa. The entire mind sharing thing and all…"
He opened the bottle and then said, "I wouldn't mind my dad showing up. Proved him wrong too late."
He hadn't asked her questions and Kady didn't volunteer information, but he finally asked, "Anyone you'd want to see here?"
She took a bottle of beer but didn’t bother opening it yet. Did she want anyone to show up? The obvious choice was Penny but dealing with losing him again when he inevitably ended up being sent home wasn’t a spiral she wanted to head back down again. It was probably better if he didn’t show up.
“I’ve got some friends already who are around. That seems to be enough.” She knew better than to wish for anything. Her world had shown her more than once how wishes turned out horribly wrong.
She shrugged before finally opening it. “So how do you drift?”
"Cheers," Jake said, appreciating Kady's practical approach. And well having friends around seemed like it would be nice, though he hadn't had any trouble making new ones once he arrived. One of whom was sitting on the counter, both a new friend and partner in crime. He was doing alright, here. Besides, other than Nate, most of his friends were only temporarily in his life.
He hadn't been back in the corps long enough to see if that was changing.
He wished that the jaeger was at the base to answer that question, just to show her what it looked like on the inside, but for now descriptions would have to do. "So, anything the robot does, we do, right? So you're hooked up in an area that accommodates that. And that includes monitoring whether or not you can get a neural handshake, where you're basically mind melded to the other person. In the process of getting there and then after you have absolutely no privacy. It's not for everyone, obviously."
Even as experienced as he was, his first time drifting upon return had caused memories to surface, on full display for Nate. Though there hadn't been much Nate hadn't seen before.
"Anyway, once you're connected, you have shared headspace, right? And where the robot is doing everything we're doing, we got to be doing the same thing. Throwing a punch. Running. Jumping. All that… It's much quicker than talking out loud and we can act in unison. That's not like anything else and it's really hard to describe, but it's a rush."
Mind melding with anyone was a fucking nightmare in the making. She had the beginnings of a headache just thinking about it. Jake seemed like the kind of guy who it’d work out well for. Some people craved that kind of interaction. She always ran from it. Until she didn’t. And well, look at how that had turned out.
“Sounds like something out of my nightmares.” She raised the beer bottle to him though, shaking her head as she thought about it some more. “Gotta suck though to not to be able to do that here.” Stranger things had occurred in Vallo though that she wouldn’t be surprised if that other guy who’d helped with the robot didn’t figure out a way to drift with it too.
She held out the box of oreos in case he wanted one before she started in on another.
"I mean ideally," Jake said, walking over to Kady and snagging a couple of oreos, "I won't have to worry about whether or not I can. Ezekiel wants to build a solo piloted machine, or maybe Scrapper will show up. Some kid I know managed to build one so..." Hopefully Ezekiel could manage.
He ate an oreo straight up, not even untwisting it first, before continuing, "If I tried to pilot a normal one solo, I'd pass out. I know, because I tried when I was fifteen and that's how I got kicked out."
That guy probably could manage building a solo piloted machine. Not that Kady could think of why they would need something like that around but people had sorts of weird comfort things. “Why did you try to pilot one solo?” There had to be a story behind that.
"Oh, I was dumb," Jake replied. "So I joined the corps when I was twelve, because my sister joined then but she was eighteen. And my dad always compared me to her and I was never good enough in comparison. So one day, Nate and I are arguing about whether or not I could pilot one solo, and I realized that if I could, my dad would have to recognize that I'd bested Mako."
He took a moment to laugh at himself. "Two steps, passed out. I mean, I was lucky. They switched to two pilots cause the early solo models did a lot of damage to the pilots. It's hooked up to your brain, right? Anyway, it backfired. Came to and my dad was staring at me, telling me I had embarrassed him and I wasn't cut out to be a jaeger pilot. Couldn't exactly just go home after that so…"
He gave Kady a shrug. "Pizza should be here. I'll go get that."
Jake’s dad sounded like a Grade A level dick. Who compared their kid to an eighteen year old? And worse, who let a twelve year old join up at twelve? Dicks, that was who. Some days Kady was certain that all parents were just shitty assholes, but she’d seen one or two good ones out there. Just rarely did they ever belong to people she actually knew. It was bullshit all around.
“We’re gonna need the pizza in order to have the strength to deal with that hunk of junk you’re calling a bike,” Kady pointed her bottle at him and slid off of the counter.
"Don't be insulting my bike like that," Jake said with a grin. "Gonna make it extra awkward when I'm finished and you're jealous of it."