Mech Pilot who all-channels out taunts as a 90s eurodance dj.
Klein-Mackenzie have a contract to stroll up a hill, optionally knock out some defence turrets, and secure the facility on the top, intact.
Today is not K-M's day.
Dingo are right at the top of the hill, for best line-of-sight signal capture. Below them are Serval's gunboats and Lemur's long guns; K-M are undoubtedly doing the smart thing and sitting tight, hull-down in whatever cover they can find below the hill, on the phone to their client, explaining in small words that no matter what they pay or threaten, right now they have a straightforward choice of secure or intact. And everyone knows that everyone involved wants this site intact. Plus it's miserably hot.
Kelpie is rubbing it in over her mech's PA, blasting godawful synth-heavy dance music downhill and yelling; she's having a great time.
"DJ Fifty Mil!" she's bellowing, as Fletch strolls over to Beeper's mech with a fresh coffee for her. They barely need both walkers running, and they're networked, so xie can take her eyes off the screens for half an hour of nothing happening except K-M running their gear up toward MTBF. "Let me see your hands! MAKE! SOME! NOISE!"
Fletch is all ready to joke about somebody making some noise with a sniper if Kelpie keeps it up — not necessarily K-M — when xie rounds a rock formation and finds xerself at the perfect height to look directly into Beeper's cockpit, open to catch some breeze. Beeper has her big closed-back signals headphones on, eyes closed, but she's swaying in her seat to the music's bassline, hands above her head like she's on a club dancefloor, humming along with a crooked grin on her face.
"Fuck shit," Fletch says, with the dropped coffee splashed up xer ankles, but xie can't quite stop looking, even after Beeper's yanked off the headphones and slid down in her seat to pretend like she's not even there.
It would be a great time for Fletch to say something funny, like usual.
"Shit," Beeper says into the silence, cowering with embarrassment. "Don't look at me! I really can't fucking dance."
It would be a great time for Fletch to say something.
"I mean, not that I gotta tell that to a gymnast," Beeper adds, with the seamless cheeriness of someone who's been excruciatingly well-trained to pummel their own self-esteem all the damn time.
"You're really hot."
...It was not a great time to say that. There is no great time for that. This is Beeper and god Fletch sounds breathless, humiliatingly needy, because xie is. Because.
Beeper slides up the seat a little and looks at Fletch over the rim of the cockpit, wary, like this is gonna go like a ha ha, kidding, fuck you! scene in a movie about mean shitheads in high school.
"ARE YOU READY?" Kelpie bellows, and Fletch swallows hard. Because.
No.
