Message: 10/53 Posted Author
Text Message Sun Aug 18 Kalinka
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< Text only, to all Hunters >
Just to let you know, I am staying in Moscow until further notice. I am still available for calls, and my radio will be on. After some things that happened, however, I need to stay somewhere else for a little while. Thank you for your understanding.
< Listed at the bottom of the message is the address of an international youth hostel, located in the Red Square district of Moscow. >
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[Radio] You send Kalinka a direct message: "Miss Kalinka?"
Kalinka sends you a tightbeam radio transmission: "Yes?"
[Radio] You send Kalinka a direct message: "Ah'd ask if errythang's all right, but Ah thank Ah know that answer....*sigh* Look. If ya need anythang, call me."
Kalinka sends you a tightbeam radio transmission: "Okay. I am afraid right now. Daddy gave to me his gun, and he wanted me to shoot him with it. I could not do it, so I grabbed the gun and I ran away. He is making me -very- frightened with the way he is acting right now."
[Radio] You send Kalinka a direct message: "*dead silence for a long moment* All right. Are ya in a safe place? If not, Ah have friends Ah trust in Texas."
Kalinka sends you a tightbeam radio transmission: "I am safe, yes. And Daddy is just mad, and you know he is crazy when he is mad. He will calm down...I hope...but I did not want to see him for a while, because I love him very much and I just could not do the thing he was asking me to do."
[Radio] You send Kalinka a direct message: "Ya did right, missy. Now, ya stick tight whare ya are. If anythang else happens, call one a us Hunters. *his voice has remained calm throughout all this, incidently*"
Kalinka sends you a tightbeam radio transmission: "I will, Bowie. And if you need anything -- like repairs or such -- I will be right down, this is not an excuse to get away from duties."
(The next day...)
Hunter HQ - Dr. Cossack's Lab
This is a room approximately 90 meters long, but very narrow ith a low ceiling. The walls and ceiling are bare metal with regular grounding bolts driven into them, with a white anti-static tile floor. There is a area in the midpoint of the room that deviates from the white; a pattern of red and gold, about as wide as the table that used to be bolted there. It vaguely resembles a `C', with a red star in the upper left corner of the C and the letters `Dr' inside the C, underlined several times -- perhaps for emphasis.
The room has been modified into a modern laboratory, with banks of computer systems, weird upgrade-chamber like devices, tools, and other errata arranged in a neat and organized fashion. It doesn't take up the whole room -- probably a little more than three-fourths of the room is `laboratory'. The remaining fourth, furthest from the door, consists of a series of neatly stacked, generally equal-sized containers, marked with labels that are meaningless to the average person.
The Cossack sits near the back corner of his laboratory, by the storage crates. He has a railgun cracked over his leg, cleaning it with a vibro-tool. He smokes as he works, the lab otherwise silent save for the hum of the weapon.
Bowie walks down the hallway leading to Cossack's lab, his footsteps echoing against the metal flooring. The gunslinger isn't smiling. It's not that he doesn't like or respect the doctor, far from it. However, there is something about him that sets him on edge...a fragment of memory, to which he has yet to place in context of time or place, of Cossack threatening Protoman with an assualt rifle. He shakes his head and continues on, stopping in front of the frosted doors. And then knocks.
A snap of the fingers, and the low-level AI that Cossack has to run his menial labor automatically opens the door with a hiss of hydrolics and superconductive tape. A BORIS unit appears from the right, scans Bowie, then continues to the left on another errand.
"Bowie," says the Cossack in his usual muddy Russian-English. "Velcome to lab. You vequire maintanence?"
Bowie steps inside, the doors no doubt hissing shut behind him. This is the first time (at least as far as he can remember) he's ventured into Cossack's domain, and so he takes a moment to look around him. The BORIS unit warrents a vaguely puzzled frown, but he otherwise doesn't remark on it. "Howdy Doc," he greets softly. "Ah'm fine, thanks. Ah jus wanted t'talk, if ya have the time."
The railgun snaps closed with a *kerclak-hiss* of components locking back into place magnetically. The Cossack picks it up and puts it aside, moving another chair over nearby his own.
"Haff a seat," he says. "Speak."
There's something disconcerting about Dr. Cossack having a railgun in easy access. Not so much because Bowie's reasonably sure that the doctor knows how to use it as because he's pretty sure the doc isn't going to like what he has to say. He crosses the room to join him, taking the offered seat. He's still not smiling. If anything, his expression is one of concern.
"It's about yesterday."
The Cossack's right eye tightens. "You visten to me, you," he says, with a sudden cold intensity that gives one the sensation of being under a blowtorch so hot as to be cold. "You haff no idea vhat is it to be a parent. Especially not of Kalinka, especially vhen you are not me. You haff no /concept/, no -notion-, of vhat it takes to keep her safe in a verld zhat hates me and vould kill her to hurt me."
Bowie stiffens in his seat. Straight to the point. The Texan's brow furrows as he folds his arms across his chest. "Ah know that. Ah'll never be a parent, and Ah sure ain't anyone's son. So meybe Ah don't have a clue. Meybe that means Ah got no place t'talk. All Ah know is that the two a ya scared the bejeezus outta each other yesterday."
"Good," he near-sneers. "She needed zee introduction of veality into her mind. She put everyvun who vould haff saved her in needless danger. She played wiff zee lives of many zhat day."
Bowie repeats, "Ah know. Whut she did yesterday wus a doozy of a mistake, one a the biggest lapses in judgement Ah've seen in a long while. She risked our necks because she didn't thank thangs through." A pause. Words have never come easy for him. "'Fore Ah was a Hunter, Ah wus a Ranger. 'Fore that, Ah wus a policeman. Ah'm no parent, but Ah've dealt with mah share a teenagers. Miss Kalinka's a Hunter, an one a the smartest kids ah know. But she's also still a teenager, and teenagers Ah thank are goin t'show lapses in judgement." Another pause. "Ah ain't makin excuses fer her, an Ah already gave her a piece a mah mind on the whole matter. On the other hand, none a us can be accused a bein perfect. Hell, if that wus a requirement fer bein here, y'all have tossed me out by now."
"A lapse of judgement," says the Cossack, with extremely precise diction, "is leaffink car windows down on a day vhen rain is threatenink. A lapse of judgement is playink cards wiff zee house haffink zee better odds."
He glares. "Endangerink zee liffs of Hunters by goink into enemy territory wiffout sufficient forces or varnink is -not- a lapse of judgement! It is criminal stupidity!"
Bowie's tone remains calm, refusing to let his expression fall into scowl. "An whut would ya call handin a gun over to yer kid an askin her t'pull the trigger?"
"Makink her do zee same t'ink she did to everyvun else!" he shouts. "Makink her -t'ink- about her actions by makink zem /veal/."
Bowie's words do not match Cossack's volume or temper. "Like Ah said, both a ya scared the bejeezus outta each other. Ah don't fault ya fer tryin t'make yer point."
The Cossack grunts and sits back, running his hands back through his hair. "And now she is in hostol back home. I hate it vhen she does ziss."
"An if yer father handed his gun t'ya, and asked fer ya t'kill him, whut would you have done?" Bowie asks pointedly. No reproach, no recrimination, no anger is to be found in his tone, only concern.
"If I had endangered zee liffs of a score of my colleagues," the Cossack snaps back, "I vould haff -deserved- to feel as she did."
"Ah'm not disagreein with that," Bowie says, still unruffled. "She needed a wake-up call. Whut Ah'm tryin t'say is that Miss Kalinka did something mind-nubingly, blatantly stupid. We're lucky the Masters let her an Crescendo go without a fight. On the other hand, Ah've done mind-numbingly, blantantly stupid thangs." The gunslinger's own lapse in judgement yesterday is not going to be brought up as an example. "Ah thank ya drove the lesson home." His tone suggests disapproval on just how the doctor drove it home, but he does not say it aloud. "But she also needs t'know she can be fergiven."
The Russian grunts again. "Vhen she has cooled off, she vill come to me."
Bowie asks another pointed question. "When she cools off, or you?"
He snarls. "/Her/." As if Pavel cools off.
Bowie remains stubbornly even-tempered, though his brow furrows deeper. The Texan unfolds his arms, shifts slightly in his char, and then folds them again. "Ah know ya love her, Doc, and Ah know she loves ya too. Don't let stupidity get in the way a that."
"Duly noted," he says, flatly, eyes going cold. "Get out of my lab."
Bowie doesn't protest the dismissal, at least not verbally. He doesn't say another word. However, he locks eyes with Cossack for one brief moment, his brown optics disapproving and somehow sad. The Texan rises from his seat and turns, walking at his normal pace towards the door.
The Cossack begins muttering to himself in his native language, picking back up the railgun, opening it up, and returning to his toils. He cleans the weapon with the tool, the hum from its output the only thing heard as Bowie leaves.