rickitikitarr | 3. could be worse could be raining

3. could be worse could be raining

[Audio]

These things, they're coming through holes in the fabric of... well, space itself. Is there any way to close them?

[Is the technical explanation that Ricki stumbles for. It's only a seventies scifi explanation of a phenomenon he barely understands, but it's what he's got right now.]

It means that until they stop opening, any of the normal tactics- a perimeter, a systematic sweep- are totally useless. They can crawl right in behind us. Normally I'd suggest gathering everyone in the mess and working our way out, but if a tear opens up in the back, it has the potential to turn into a slaughter. We actually may be best keeping the vulnerable on their own, in their rooms, while everyone who can tries to clear down the halls.

[Then, silence, and finally two quick gun shots. The feed remains dead a little bit, as he gets his adrenaline down. His voice is still low, very level, when he can continue.]

But that means people may be trapped without food. It might be worthwhile to get volunteers to make runs for their neighbours. It'd be better to work in pairs to accomplish that.

Anyone game? [And, belatedly.] Anyone trapped?

[He'd do a better job of organizing this if it weren't on the fly. But as it is, he can hear something approaching. Heavy footsteps that may only just be captured by the feed. Then there is the sound that some residents will recognize as a gun being reloaded, before the feed cuts off.]

[Spam]

[Ammunition is scarce, but Ricki makes the most of what he has, hoarding it closely as he makes his perilous way through the halls of the ship, sometimes hunting, occasionally being hunted. The gun helps against the felhunters, and he isn't shy of shooting the succubi either, but on more than one memorable occasion he gets into it with a golem and ends up having to run for it, god damn it.

He'll help and need help, both in reasonably equal measure.]

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[The way Ricki checks the room is not at all far from the way Eggsy would do it himself; the way Eggsy steps in after him, covers his back, is likewise a trained response. When the room's clear, he relaxes marginally.]

First one that hurt that much.

[He sits down heavily on a bar stool and rubs at the back of his neck again. It's weird; he thought he'd be able to feel some swelling or bruising or something, but - no. It just miscellaneously hurts. (He knows there's a potential explanation for this and he's trying not to acknowledge it.)]

Does anybody know what the fuck is goin' on?

Edited 2015-04-13 21:37 (UTC)

From what I can piece together, the holes can be closed- only anything that came through them needs to be killed first. Don't ask me about the how or why.

[Setting the water down in front of him.]

Of course, a proper systematic sweep of the place is impossible, since the holes open right back up behind whatever line we try to form. I'm just starting from the top and working my way to the bottom, then back up again, getting anything that I'm capable enough to handle- which is most of it, barring those rock creatures, since I wasn't allowed to keep my grenades, on account of my wicked soul.

[He accepts the water with thanks and takes a deep gulp. ]

Still look like you're doin' alright, though.

[He likes you, Ricki, but you can't have any of his grenades. He nods at the gun.]

How'd your wicked soul get packin' anyway?

Talked a professional into it.

[He admits, and takes this moment to reload, which he handles with expert and fond familiarity. Ricki has been handling guns since he was a kid, and has the sort of respect for them and ease with them that make other enthusiasts willing to part with their wares.]

I used to move these through Malaysia, probably sort of the way you used to mend jackets.

[He laughs and it makes his neck throb. Yeah, maybe he can make this work.]

Fuckin' amazin' what you can get through Customs stuffed in a mannequin.

So you weren't one of the good boys, when you started working.

[A guess, but a pretty shrewd one. He normally has better than to push, but longs for someone to talk to about the state of spycraft in the future. The books are vague at best.]

No casual wave from the professor to stay behind after a day at Cambridge?

[Poking a tight, bristly sort of fun at his more upper-crust coworkers.]

[Eggsy scoffs and shakes his head. He blew anything meaningful about his cover the second he pulled the lighter and they both know it; Merlin would slap him. But Merlin ain't here, and no Kingsman ever had to fight a glowing stone whatever-the-fuck, and maybe the highest level of discretion doesn't really count for shit when half of everybody's dead and the other half are superheroes and God knows what else.]

Mate, do I look like I went to Cambridge?

[But it's the same bristly humour, because he knows he was the exception to the rule.]

[He grins, and nods. All right. Ricki is a Cold War kid, mutually assured destruction is a way of life for him, and now they've both got one another's secrets.]

I was eighteen and drunk in a Penang harbour when they found me. Takes all sorts.

Ricki Tarr. Scalphunter.

[A technical designation that probably won't strictly cross over, but is certainly an illustrative turn of phrase, in and of itself. It also feels very good to say, the way a tall man playing shorter gets a deep satisfaction from the crack in his back as he pulls up to his full height.]

[The face he pulls is partly impressed and partly 'are you having a giggle mate' but he's mostly thinking that it sounds a lot more hardcore than Kingsman.]

Scalphunter? Fuckin' sick, Ricki.

[But then he sobers, tilts his head.]

I won't tell nobody.

[Words written in stone.]

Same. But-

[Gesturing at him with a knife, before realizing, no, that's not appropriate, and wincing, turning the blade away. He only has it out to begin tearing a handkerchief into strips.]

-I want to know more. A word of this won't pass my lips, but the Circus must look different in your day and age. Fill me in. They train you up this young?

[He has that right-for-the-throat trait pretty well covered.]

[Eggsy treats the gesture with what he feels is an appropriate level of concern for that kind of thing when he calls himself a Scalphunter. Relaxes when it comes to nothing.]

Di'n't you say they picked you up when you was eighteen?

But not on the physical stuff. I'm a dangerous man, but I couldn't glide like that if my life depended on it.

[It's clearly a different school of thought.]

Nah, I did all that before. Gymnastics through school, runnin' round the estates an' that. You know who locks their windows in a top-floor flat? Fuckin' nobody.

[Okay, so he's not proud of his nascent career as a petty criminal but he's well aware that he had a useful set of skills. Kingsman just built a lot of aptitude for killing people (and, apparently, glowing rock monsters) on top of that.]

[Ricki looks up at him for a second, stopping his busy construction of molotov cocktails to appreciate for a moment how cool Eggsy is- not because of the gymnastics thing but rather because he has such sensible ideas about top floor windows. He has the unusual feeling of wanting to impart every bit of wisdom he has to him.]

So what do they have you on? Sure as hell not deskwork.

[He gets the idea as regards the Molotovs and circles around the bar without having to be asked, rummaging through the bottles for the insane Russian-killing high proofs while Ricki preps the bottles. Petrol would be better, but where are they gonna get that?]

They got the Cambridge graduates for that, don't they? Plebs like me're just cannon fodder, in't we.

Sure. Human resources.

[Agreeing, but not with any particular rancour.]

Some of 'em will see us that way.

[But there's a lot more to it, of course.]

Yeah.

[And then, because he can't spit on Harry's memory even in the interests of maintaining some vague semblance of a cover:]

Not all of 'em, though.

As someone who's been in this line of work near twenty years, it's never a downside when someone sees you as less than you are.

[Screwing the last cap tighter.]

All it is is an opening. You don't suppose the ship is flammable, do you?

[It has literally just now struck him that this might be a terrible idea.]

[Oh, that much he knows. Watching Arthur's hollowly satisfying death - watching the old prick die because he couldn't imagine being outmanouevred by some chav kid - taught him that.]

Dunno. Those fuckin' rock things ain't set it alight yet.

[How wrong can it go, then. He goes back to prepping the bottles Eggsy finds.]

Course, I'm not the best example to follow. You know which side my judgement came down on.

[He's an inmate, after all.]

[Eggsy shrugs and passes him something that doesn't seem to be labelled in any human language, but is completely odourless and makes the inside of his nose feel like burning.]

I ain't the judge, mate.

[If Ricki fucks him over then they've got a problem, but until then? He feels like they both need all the help they can get.]

[Good. Because he wants to kill these things, even if it blows up half the boat, and it'll be easier with help.]

Still got the shakes? The effects pass before too much longer.

[He sets down the bottle and looks at his hand for a few seconds. There's a slight tremor that he hadn't noticed before; it seems to go away when he's focused, when he's handling something. He keeps rummaging through the bottles.]

Be alright in a minute.

[Unlikely - his neck is killing him - but it's not like he can stop for the month of physio it feels like he needs.]

The death toll can knock it out of you.

[He'd hesitated on whether to say that.]

[Fuuuuck.

He stops, his shoulders dropping.]

...I was dead when you got to me, weren't I?

[Said in the tone of someone who, deep down, already knew this was the case.]

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