[hr][center][b]Episode 4 [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvqr366Op3k]Fruit Loops[/url][/b] [sup] Collab between [@Utrax] + [@Goldeagle1221][/sup][/center][hr] [i]WHACK[/i] Jeremiah landed hard into a bed of fruit, various juices splattering everywhere. He looked up, clearly dazed by the impact, pulp clinging to his face. Rolling to his feet he crouched, scanning his surroundings. Fruit, fruit everywhere. The large grey room he found himself in was filled with various fruits, and flies, the stench of fresh and rotted fruit stinging his nose, or at least it would be if not for the HAZMAT mask he wore over his face, and the one size too small skin tight yellow jumpsuit constricting his body. He shook his head, his dizziness rattling against his skull. Colors of all kinds spotted his vision as it adjusted to the dark cell, the only light coming from the hole in the ceiling from which he fell. He lifted his booted foot, a half a peach sticking to the sole. "I hate peaches," He grumbled. Yeva landed with an odd grace-- well, more graceful than the wreck that Jeremiah had been. For one, she went into the fruit feet first then ended up sitting down into it. A heavy sigh escaped Yeva as she looked around trying to understand-- “What the whole shit is going on?” Shaking her head in defeat, Yeva stared at the peach on Jerimiah’s boot then said, “It’s a good look for you, mate. Could be the latest A.L.C. fashion craze.” Casually she picked up a fruit, some orangeish-yellow-maybe-diamond piece of something, peeled the husk back, then bit into it. “Well,” she mumbled through a mouthful of sweetness, “The wanker got us good, didn’t he?” Jeremiah sighed, holding back a laugh. He wasn't happy, but even he couldn't deny how strange recent events have been for the two. Before he could even think further into it an intercom suddenly buzzed on. [b]"BAWK BAWK BAWK BAWK BAWK BAWK BAWK"[/b] "A chicken, A FUCKING CHICKEN, REALLY? FIRST GOATS, COWS, BEARS, AND NOW A CHICKEN!" Jeremiah yelled back at the intercom, hoping it was a two way, but something told him it wasn't. "Don't forget the foam noodles," mumbled Yeva. It had been a long day, and no amount of farm animals were going to make up or it. Yeva held a hand out toward Jeremiah in a gesture of soothing, calm, maybe even to slam it over his mouth if he continued yelling. She didn’t make a move to halt his tirade just yet. "I'm starting to think this might not be the guy I was looking for," Jeremiah squished some fruit as he turned to face Yeva, "he doesn't really strike me as... the..." Jeremiah snapped his fingers, "kinda man I'd want to lead my scientific research. I mean, unless that research was in the affects of fruit on terrible fashion statements and taunting farm animals of course." The squished fruit actually seemed to hold Yeva’s attention more closely than Jeremiah’s, well, anything. With a thoughtful bite of her weird-fruit, Yeva replied, “Hold on, I don’t know, don’t sell him just yet.” She held a finger up, “Consider the day’s events, right? Perhaps there’s some potential there...” Right. The day’s events. How could anyone forget the day’s events? [hr] [center][h2]Days ago aboard the Absolute Magnitude...[/h2][/center] [hr] A tea kettle whined as Yeva fished a teacup and saucer out of a small storage cabinet. Overused and overtaxed, Yeva eyed the teacup warily, it's many surface cracks taunting her, as she poured hot water into it. One of these days the damn thing was going to spill scalding water all over her but, she always made it a point to add the tea bag last just in case-- spilling perfectly good tea would be unacceptable. So she placed the saucer over the teacup to let it steep-- another unacceptable act would be to drink it without proper steeping time-- then she eyed the oven. Within it's warm confines there were cookies of the chocolate chip variety. Yeva's stare passed over the miserable little kitchen then. A ladder lead down to it from the common area because, truly, this was nothing more than a converted storage compartment. The space as a whole was cramped and rather dimly lit. A lone ceiling lamp with two light bulbs did it's best to illuminate the oppressive shadows. Crates full of spices, dried [i]things[/i], and cooking [i]stuff[/i] sat next to the wall-- one crate in particular acting as the occasional chair. An assembly of mismatched stools and chars sat around a card table. Then there was the oven. Yeva wouldn't talk too much shit about it, honestly. Though it was a welded and bolted together mishmash of various metals and wires, it had done enough justice for her that, were it to be replaced, she would give it a proper Jupiter space burial-- throw it right into the eye of the Gas Giant via propulsion jets. About the only thing in this entire kitchen that had been purchased, by her recollection, was the refrigerator-freezer combo and the microwave-- the latter of which always ended up mysteriously broken. What? No. Of course Yeva didn't know how it broke-- of course not. The real mystery was who the hell kept repairing it... [i] Clunk-clunk clunk-clunk...[/i] Yeva's eyes went toward the ladder at the sound of someone climbing down. The boots-- Yeva had an acute ability to distinguish who was coming down by the sound of their boots-- and this sounded like Jeremiah. Hopefully he didn't want cookies yet. [i]SLAM![/i] Jeremiah's heavy engineer boots hit the ground hard as he jumped from the last few pegs. The man had a big smile on his face, but his eyes betrayed fright at the sight of Yeva. Smoothly he tossed a small frozen microwavable package off to the side and out of view. Yeva instinctively squinted at Jeremiah. "Well, hey! I didn't know you were cookin' !" Jeremiah closed the gap between then before any questions of his attempted criminal microwaving was put under inspection. Distracting her with a friendly pat on the shoulder he peeped over to the oven, the heat spilling out of the loose rivets bathing his face, "rigging some baked goods are ya?" A devilish smile that hinted hunger spread on his face. "Cookies. Chocolate chip. If you're hungry, I'm going to start preparing Martian Calzones in a few," Yeva replied. It was a well known fact that Yeva treated herself to dessert both before and after a meal. With a small shrug at Jeremiah, she took a sip of her tea, made a few smacking noises, then began digging through a set of plastic storage drawers for the sugar-- where the hell were the sugar packets? Mystery number two was why the sugar packets kept disappearing but the bag of sugar went untouched. That trademark low hum of suspicion left Yeva as she continued the search. Jeremiah folded his hands behind his back and leaned over to see what Yeva was looking for. A spark of recognition lighted his eyes at her hum and he leaned back into his own space, propping an elbow on the counter, "calzones sounds nice, didn't even know we had enough for a nice folded pie." "Ah, it's an old family recipe that my Gran taught me-- have to improvise since most ingredients down here aren't proper. Bloody Martian spice stock that never seems to run out," she replied distractedly as she fished through the drawer, "And we could use with a bit of a resto-- oh, bugger it--" Yeva growled at the shelf then shut it. "Bitter tea it is then. Right," she sighed in defeat before taking a sip. Running a hand over her brow, Yeva looked at Jeremiah rather accusingly, but said nothing for a beat. "Next time we're near Jupiter, I absolutely must restock," Yeva gestured to the kitchen as if it were a grand and sprawling plain, "My kitchen is in disarray." "Yeah, Jupiter," Jeremiah rubbed his chin and switched elbows, suddenly a thought formed in his mind, or rather a memory, "oh hey hey, Yeva!" He stood straight up, "didn't you say the other night, ya know the one, when we had macaroni and 'space' cheese, you mentioned you knew some interesting places on Callisto?" Without a word Yeva moved toward the oven, popped a squat, then stared at the cookies thoughtfully. It seemed like a general enough topic to have talked about, even if she didn’t recall having the conversation. “I guess,” she mumbled, “A few caves, burial sites, weird trees, suspicious bunkers.” Jeremiah popped a squat next to Yeva, eyeing the cookies like a starving raccoon. The gentle sizzle of the disks of deliciousness cooking under the heat pulled Jeremiah into a sort of trance, you know the kind, a very certain kind of dream like state where the desert never ends. A wide smile formed on Jeremiah's lips as he watched the chocolate slowly melt onto the buttery- "Oh!" Jeremiah shook his head and nodded, "bunkers! That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm actually pretty curious about these bunkers and it'd be real helpful of ya if you could lemme know any important deets, ya dig?" Of course, Jeremiah found the way he asked for her help hilarious, considering he found the vernacular cheesier than space cheese (which considering the legitimacy of space cheese, is a strange statement to make) but using Earth lingo never ceased to be amusing on Yeva's space ears. Yeva hummed thoughtfully as she stared at the cookies. What much could she tell him? It wasn’t as if she had investigated any of the bunkers no, in fact, it had been her Aunt who directed her to one of them as a bit of a landmark when on hunts. Her aunt probably knew more about them than anyone, come to think of it. Yeva bit her lip at the thought of contacting the legendary Aunt Heila, then pulled her jacket closer to herself, feeling a sudden chill come on. Then again, maybe that was the chill of Heila feeling Yeva thinking about her… thinking about [i]her.[/i] Yeva eyed the nearby shadows and shuddered. Seriousness in the face of Jeremiah’s cheesy space lingo? Unheard of but here was a stony expression on Yeva’s face. “Details,” she replied before taking a sip of tea, “Exactly what sort of details? If I recall correctly, they’re nothing more than leftovers from the terra-forming.” "Was it a-" Jeremiah scrunched his face in thought, "medical... research.. military... crazy old man predicting the nuclear holocaust 2.0 ... fanatics..." "I guess what I'm trying to ask is what kind of bunker are we talking about?" Jeremiah's goofy facade was betrayed by the stern look in his eyes, "I need to know." “Jeremiah,” Yeva began with a hint of warning in her tone, “If you really wish to know, I happen to have a good contact that could give you better detail.” Taking another sip of tea, Yeva continued, “However, we would have to venture to Callisto itself-- I am not allowed to contact this person via typical signal communications. I… I have to. Ah. Persuade them with my presence. And undoubtedly incur some sort of debt in the process. Why…” The word died on her lips. Yeva was almost about to ask Jeremiah why he was so adamant about knowing-- what sort of importance the information had for him. She almost asked. Instead, Yeva sipped her tea, then turned her attention back toward the cookies. To cover herself, she mumbled, “Why are they taking so long?” "Because you won't let me tweak the oven," Jeremiah's sly smile returned, "I could have this thing as quick as the Onemomo quicktick 60, you know the one." He shook his head, "either way, if it is at all comfortable for you, I'd say we make that visit to Calisto." Letting his squat fall into a plain old sit, he continued from the floor, " I just finished tweaking the [i]Sparrow[/i]'s thrusters, we could get there pretty quick and back before the team even had a hint of the next contract." Holding up one finger, Yeva began, "The Onemomo is a scam and nothing beats slow cooking-- all I need is a proper seal, so don't even start this again." With two fingers up she continued, "You will likely be conducting the diplomatic relations with Helia and you must listen very carefully to me..." Taking a sip of her tea, Yeva stared over at Jeremiah with a serious business expression on her face before saying, "She can smell your fear, do not compliment her, and be straightforward on your request, once I open negotiations." Shaking her head, Yeva then put up a third finger, "The Sparrow is a one person vessel-- how do you expect two to fit?" Jeremiah scratched his wrist, his eyes never leaving Yeva's, nodding as she spoke. He remained quiet and actually listening very closely, up until the (correct) criticism on his single flier. "Well, uh," Jeremiah sputtered, "s-storage hatch?" A grimness settled over Yeva's presence just then. Part of her wanted to scream and another part wanted to outright slam Jeremiah's face into the floor. Doing neither and replying in the most neutral tone she could muster, Yeva simply responded, "Oh? The Storage hatch?" Jeremiah squinted at Yeva, as if trying to read between the lines, "I mean," he started slowly, "we both could try to squeeze up front but without one of us sitting on the others laps, I don;t think that'll work-" "Or maybe I could put a seat in the storage hatch?" Jeremiah was running out of ideas, and he sure as hell wasn't going to try and steal the Absolute Magnitude for a trip he's rather keep on the low. Scrunching his face in anticipation he scanned Yeva's face for any signs of acceptance. A sigh, like that having built enough to expel a portion of one's soul, managed to escape Yeva. "On a scale from one to ten-- with ten being a important as your very existence--" Yeva shook her head "-- how important is this to you?" Before she let him answer, Yeva continued, "Tell me, now, have you ever stared into the eyes of death and shook hands with it? Well. If so, then you'll find that company is surely more comfortable than being in the presence of this contact, Jeremiah. This. Needs to be about the most important thing other than your birth. I'm assuming a great risk here as well, mid you. I'm willing to do this for you but only if it cannot possibly be handled any other way." Jeremiah sighed, shaking his head, "it's a goose chase, Yeva. This could be important to me, or useless, I don't know." He started to stand up from the floor, "I don't think it would be a good idea then, for you to put yourself at any risk for my personal chase." Dusting any kitchen dirt from his butt (as if Yeva allowed unclean floors in this her most holy sanctuary) he continued, "I think I'm more than capable of figuring the location of the bunker out on my own once on Callisto," talking more to himself than Yeva, "I really appreciate you humoring me though, it means a lot." He smiled, hiding the buzzing thoughts behind his eyes. And in a moment that would likely be unforgettable as compellingly out of character for Yeva, she shouted to Jeremiah, “You will die if you go alone!” Yeva stared intensely at Jeremiah, hints of concern mingling with grief twisted her expression briefly before she looked away. Harshly, Yeva set her teacup on the ground, then stood. Snatching an oven mitt off of a nearby counter, she opened the oven, then pulled the cookies out. Silence occupied the space between them for the moment as she placed the cookie sheet onto the stove top to cool. “Ensure,” Yeva began lowly, “That the storage hatch has a proper seal.” Jeremiah stared hard in shock at Yeva, thousands of different ways of telling her to not worry about it, to stay behind, to stay safe bombarded his psyche, but neither words of expression showed any, the shock of Yeva's outburst surpassing his every instinct of not letting someone get too involved in his wild goose chase. Knowing he was beyond the point of weaseling Yeva out of this situation, he simply nodded, "you can count on it." [hr] [hider=Summary] Jeremiah and Yeva are in a horrible fruit tank. How did they get there? Flashback to earlier. Yeva and Jeremiah discuss going to Callisto in The Sparrow, a one person ship, with Yeva stuffed into the storage hatch. They are in pursuit of science and bunkers. [/hider]