X AND Y WALK INTO A BAR

[typer]

OVER A DRINK

01. Post with your character. 02. You're at a bar. What kind of bar? Any kind you want. From fantasy taverns where various species mingle to futuristic space bars where half the drinks will probably kill you, or even an an overly kistch themed place where everything is overpriced, it's all good as long as there are drinks and company. 03. Respond to other characters. Perhaps you want to buy them a drink. Or perhaps you're inclined to be bought a drink. Maybe you saw someone you knew, or maybe you just want someone to talk to. Could be there's nowhere else to sit, and could be you want to drag them out to dance.  04. Get drunk. Or don't! Be the guest, or the bartender, or the newcommer, or even the janitor. Mingle, make friends, or lurk in a corner.  05. They say alcohol lowers one's inhibitions. Might just be time to find out how much.

 

originally (deliciously)

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Anthony J. Crowley | Good Omens | OTA

[makemyday]

[A very flashy looking man is sitting at a small table with his legs crossed over at the knee, and he appears to be fiddling with a phone. A phone that looks like it belongs in the 1980's. A few wires are poking out of it, and he's using what looks like a tiny phillips screwdriver to tinker with very broken insides.

A single glass of dark wine sits on the table before him, but it looks largely untouched.]

(Have another jerk! :D)

[aaron_agate]

Agate had been spending a lot of time making a vast, complicated circuit of the city's various night life destinations. These stops had taken him to some very strange places, in the company of some very strange people, but somehow, the charmingly anachronistic sight of that fat-ass cell phone put him in mind of one of his very old, very long-ago ventures. The man holding the phone was not familiar, per say, but he instantly put Agate in mind of some of the kinds of people that he had kept company with down that veritable memory lane.

Tonight he was taking it easy, nursing a pint of something about as blonde as he was, and he paused at the table-side to peer down on Crowley's work. "Tell me that thing's still edge-of-the-line where you're from," he said by way of introduction. He was having a nostalgia pang over the late twentieth century and this wasn't helping things.

[Jerks are my favourite yes good.]

[makemyday]

[He takes a moment to look up from his work, his fingers freezing on that tiny black-and-red striped screwdriver. Hidden eyes take a moment to look this man from foot up to bright blonde hair, and he found himself wondering for a few seconds if this guy was natural, or just a show off.

Whichever it was, he didn't ponder on it for too long.]

You bet. I'm a mechanical surgeon, and you see, this thing I'm working on is actually a type of automaton that walks about and talks on it's own when it's in perfect working order. Unfortunately someone stepped on it, so I'm attempting surgery to save it's Artificial Life.

[He says this with a completely straight face before shooting a very snakelike grin up at the man.]

[Very yes!]

[aaron_agate]

"Pity your bedside manner's fucking atrocious," Agate noted, casting the shaded fellow a look that was equal parts droll and condescending. Somehow Crowley had managed to hit the nail on the head with regards to what Agate actually needed: as an AI who had rolled on into the city looking for both amusement and a market, he possessed two bodies, the latter of which was as artificial as it was on the fritz. By day he had been making other circuits entirely, looking for someone who might possibly be up to snuff with extremely complicated patchwork job. He was good with most technology but his rather expensive cruiser required a certain panache for circuitry that he didn't have the tools for. So he'd been on the hunt, but no luck yet. Instead, he seemed to be absolutely plagued with shades-wearing assholes with waggish tongues.

Well... he brought it on himself.

Nodding down at the bit of broken tech, he mentioned, "I used to tinker with that sort of shit back in the day. Early tech, phones, computers. Tidy market at the time if you knew what you were doing." Which Crowley obviously did, of course.

[ Haha I'm going to enjoy this ]

[makemyday]

[The other's tone and facial expressions in relation to Crowley's aforementioned 'Bedside Manner' really only made the slick looking man's expression brighten up. He liked a good turn a word, and he found some amusement in the blonde's words. After a moment, he put the screwdriver on the table, gesturing for the guy to take a seat. This might be interesting enough to keep his attention for more than five minutes, after all.]

Good thing most of my cases include patients who are widely not in mental working order then, mm? [He waves the wire-ridden phone a moment before pulling out a pair of pliers from his fine black jacket, spinning them with his fingers.] Early tech, hm? Some sort of mechanic, are you? And I do know what I'm doing. Technology is brilliant, it's one of my favourite things that you lot have managed to come up with if I'm to be completely honest.

[You know I think I might as well.]

[aaron_agate]

'Us lot', Agate thought. Crowley meant 'humans', which the blonde supposed he was more or less, even if he was currently occupying a clusterfucked genemap clone, and a highly illegal one at that. Trouble with networking outside of his domain was that he had to sink to a fucking singular level... and sometimes he liked it. So 'human' it was. He took a sip to that.

While everything that the sassy mechanic said rankled him, he had to grin never the less. It did put him in mind of noting that Crowley was very specifically dropping a hint. 'Not human', or at least 'not quite'. Curious, but down for questioning later. Agate wasn't drunk enough to go digging up dirt on other city denizens at the moment. He was still recovering from last night, really! "Yeah, but coding more than mechanical repair. Really, a lot of shit: you know how something gets broken, you have to figure out this whole other world of puzzles if you want to really understand what happened and how to put it back together again. Properly. Had my fingers in the early market for this and that, but I also found it soothing. Get in touch with your roots, you know?" He pulled a chair up, plunked his bony ass down into it. Gesturing with a finger loosened from his glass, he asked, "this a part of a collection or do you actually drag this thing around like a lead weight for practical purposes?"

[makemyday]

[He was able to distinct a Human from an Angel or a Demon; but for this specific man who was talking to him, he wasn't entirely sure. He could tell that there was something... off about him; but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. That was probably the only reason why he'd dropped the hint that he himself wasn't quite human, because honestly, whatever this guy was, he'd probably be unphased by what kind of creature he was actually talking to.]

That's what makes it even more fun. Computers? Brilliant. Give people enough power to create intelligence that rivals themselves and it just turns into a big fun barrel full of monkeys, doesn't it? [He sounds almost giddy, the edge of a very quick tongue flicking out of the corner of his mouth before he set the very broken-looking phone on the table between them.]

I'm just waiting for the day that they go rogue. That'll be fun to watch, don't you think? As for this little do-dad, if you want me to be entirely honest, I'm trying to re-wire it in a way that it's a bit more modern. You know how people get so gung-ho about new technology, right? Nostalgic stuff goes viral. Makes folks go nuts, especially when a limited stock goes out so quickly and there's not enough for everyone. [There's another chuckle.] So far I've managed to wire it for bluetooth capabilities, and now I'm trying to wire in a touchscreen that slides out of the side in place of the number pad.

[aaron_agate]

Agate dropped his lids into a tidy glare without much thinking about it. The difference between 'going rogue' and 'getting some god damned rights' was a fine one, and one that he had skirted up into the 'mini' range on occasion. Of course, where he was from the event horizon of self aware, self-replicating alternate intelligence had been crossed, and it had been a losing game on the part of humans who worried about AI's-on-a-rampage ever since. Not that humans had since been strapped into thickly wired pods, or chased to near extinction. On the contrary: Nexistence and the people like Agate who grew and changed within it used humans in as symbiotic a fashion as humans used them. Going rogue would benefit nobody. The benficial relationship between human usage of AI domain meant that though things could get cut-throat with each species to its own, sabotage of one to the other did not often get far...

But that was in Agate's past for the moment. He was a lonely AI in a single body, staring down a particularly cunning humanoid with a penchant for gaming the market. Any unaffected taunts he could let slide. The blonde was captivated. "How on earth do you hope to get people interested in the bulk factor? You'd have to expand your thinking to accomodate a world of nostalgic ecclectica just to make that piece of junk fit."

He grinned then, "on the other hand, if you had the marketing skills to pitch it you might be getting somewhere. Show me what you've got so far. I'm curious."

[makemyday]

[Honestly, if Crowley knew that this man who was sitting across from him was of said Intelligent Technology Gone Sentient, he'd be terribly interested, and he'd probably dump more than his fair share of rude, over-reaching questions that would likely reward the demon with a closed-handed slap. Not that he was entirely unused to asking the wrong questions that made him an enemy or six, it'd just be another day in the life of Original Sin.]

[He took a moment to put away his pliers, reaching finally to take a sip of that glass of dark wine he'd ordered honestly hours ago, had been drinking from steadily, but never seemed to run dry.]

Ah, but you see, that's where you need to be clever. That's the thing about the world, it's full of people who are stuck in the past. People who can't accept a new thing because it's too 'Bloody new, bloody small, easy to lose, easy to break' and what have you.

Market an item like this for the crowd who are too old and crotchety to really get used to the Times that are A Changin'? You're going to have a riot of needy people in your hands. Do you remember the time where they got the technology to 'Remaster' Black and White films to have colour? How many DVDs and even In Theatre tickets to SEE old movies once again just because they've been a liiiiittle modernised?

Trust me, sell to the right crowd, and you'll make millions. And you'll piss off millions, too, if you go the right way about it. [He hums again. The latter is what he was going for. Causing enough people frustration from either not being able to GET to the new remodeled item, or having a few of those who did buy the item not to like it? A little bit of extra sin in every body, and that many more souls were headed towards hell.

Brilliant.]

[aaron_agate]

If Crowley kept dropping dramatically disturbing jokes about the rise of the machines, Agate might just fall on the bait. But he was distracted now, a sheen of appreciation brightening his eyes. "You've got big plans," the blonde finally nodded, taking a swig of beer and just sitting for a moment, staring down at the half-built piece of shit brontosaurus-bone cell phone that could. "But you're going to fail before you begin if you go with touch-screens. Too ephemeral. You'll be wanting something miniature keyboard. Tactile, annoyingly small buttons that never the less depress. Or are depressing. Take your pick."

By this point he was half joking, but he could do that all night. He had to wonder at the trick with the wine; Crowley was either one hell of a consummate backwasher, or he had some very strange tricks up his sleeve. "I'm Agate, by the way." Wiping the hand made moist by beer glass condensation on a napkin, he held it across the table to shake. Something about this meeting felt pleasantly fortuitous, one way or another.

[makemyday]

[What could he say? Rise Against The Machines was probably his favourite Movie Trope, and he was actually annoyingly fascinated at the idea of it actually happening; because let's be honest. In a contest of Aliens Vs. Zombies Vs. Machines Becoming Sentient; the last choice there was obviously the most realistic and possible.]

Aaaaaah, look at you. Got some ideas up your sleeve, don't you? I considered a keyboard, but it wouldn't leave much room for an operable screen would it? ....Hmm... Unless I wired the screen to be a little higher, just a little wider on both ends...

[He was clearly looking the thing over, and if the other could see his eyes behind those black, voidlike glasses, the pure gold eyes would be flickering with ideas.]

[As for his trick with the wine, he was afraid that was a secret unless the other asked nicely.]

[He nodded once. Alright, so this guy was definitely someone worth talking to. He'd cut back on the crass remarks just an iota to keep from chasing him off. He reached a hand out to shake the other's as well, squeezing lightly, his skin a few degrees warmer than a normal human's.]

Crowley. Anthony J. Crowley. Well met, Agate. So what brings you, here, then?

[aaron_agate]

Hot handed, huh? Agate had known the sort. Hell, he'd been fucking around with a fire elemental more or less seriously for as long as he could remember. A few degrees didn't mean much to him. He was beginning to wonder if he'd managed to stumble into a soup -- that was, a 'supernatural' -- of some kind, if this city leaned more towards the unusuals than it did towards norms. The fact that he'd run into more often not-quite-human people than usual was giving him headaches, project-wise. Most of his plotting revolved around a large base of relatively identical subjects to draw from. Anomalies meant mistakes, and mistakes meant possible deaths, or at least brain-deaths.

That was what touring the city by night was all about, anyways. Getting a feel for who the revelers were would help him figure out where his first open-market experiments were going to end up... but there were quite enough anomalies that he was going to have to go back to the drawing boards and rejig distribution, not to mention the whole goddamned formula he had used to spread his original project.

Whatever the case, when they'd finished their shake and introduction, Agate replied, "oh, you know. Trying to take over the world -- The usual, you know?" He cast Crowley, Anthony J. a wry grin, joking, probably too pleased with himself. "Honestly I've been perusing the city's night life. I like to know where I stand with regards to who's surpassed that hind-brain urge to den up after a hard day." Or, more pointedly, that other hind-brain urge to lose it under drink, or dance, or music or whatever brainfuckery went on around these parts. He wanted to know the hidden networks that fed that urge. He wanted, eventually, to be supplying them, though that was a very young plan still, curled tightly over itself in its little shell of inception.