Welcome to Gaia! ::

There were plenty of things someone didn't see when they went anywhere else, was the thing. That was an ordinary, totally inconsequential, normal part of being alive, of traveling - every location, every city, had its own unique footprint, its own unique identity. There were things about Seattle that Kosmochlor missed, being back in Destiny City; there were things about Destiny City that she'd missed while she was all the way in Seattle, working on her degree, spending most of her time as a civilian.

Something about Destiny City was unreplicatable. Maybe it was fallout from the war, from a decade-plus of awakenings and corruptions and purifications and casts; who knew who else had stood in this little spot, sequestered away from the hustle-and-bustle of downtown by a flimsy waist-height fence and a closed building? Okay, so maybe she shouldn't have been here, but it wasn't exactly breaking in if she was sitting on one of the (not even grimy!) tables in the open-air back seating, just taking a nice little break from all the draining.

The streets were so busy this week. It made quotas easier than ever. And with all the revelry in the air, it was easy for bodies to not be discovered; easy for assumptions to be made. That was only relevant inasmuch as Kosmochlor had been tossing the starseed up and down in her hand absentmindedly for a few minutes, too busy watching the sky to think too much about putting it away.

These were sights she hadn't seen while she was gone. The way the sky lit up and blended, danced, streamers of light in the cosmos? That was something wholly unique and magical and native-ish to here, and she only maybe wanted to tear off a piece with her teeth and look at it up close, which was a perfectly normal and reasonable human want to have -- and tickling on the urge of her senses, too... was that a Mauvian? Alone? Fascinating. They rarely wandered far from their human tethers.

"I'm unarmed," Kosmochlor said, certainly not shouting but also not exactly quiet either, "and alone, and I don't bite! So if -" she drew it out, letting it linger - "if you want to talk to a sentient being, cross my heart I'm wishing you no ill will. Harmless." Harmless as she ever was, anyways. And even if things did turn sour, why would she kill a Mauvian when she could drag them to someone stronger than her and turn their brain to better tasks for the Negaverse's benefit? She wasn't that kind of fool.

If the Mauvian had humanoid form, though, Kosmochlor was acutely aware she was probably in trouble. For all the ability in combat she might've had (and did have, sometimes, but she was no SpecOps gal), if she was pulling her punches and they weren't... it was best to just not hope that was the case.

Kosmochlor perked up and waved, fingers all in motion and legs crossed at the ankle, as soon as she spotted the cat. Yes!! She'd been believed!! It made sense she'd been believed, it wasn't as if she'd necessarily been lying, but it wasn't like she would've begrudged excessive caution. Some Captains might've gotten to their rank through inaction and niceties and turning their quotas in on time, sure - but not all of them.

"Can't I just want to talk?" Kosmochlor pouted, for a second, before she had the awareness of how awkward it probably looked on her face. Squishy-type emotions weren't ever her best look, and it was important to put her best face forward. The better the first impression, the more she could utilize it going forward. "We're not all cartoon villains, cross my heart and hope to die, and I've been out of town for absolutely ages. It's good to meet a new face or two!"

"Where are my manners, though?" Her smile was bright as anything, gently cheery. "Captain Kosmochlor, formerly of Saturn. And your name is?"

Leading with her status as an ex-Knight might be beneficial, at least until - if - she dropped the news it'd all been a willing exit. Not that she had to. Playing it up like she'd been unwilling, woe was her, might be the kind of thing this cat was looking for.

It wasn't even that she wanted anything specific out of this cat, either. A name for the database would be good, plus maybe her bonded Senshi or something, but how was she ever going to get closer to understanding Mautech the way she wanted without knowing a multitude of cats?

Kosmochlor knew the entire thing sounded more than a little preposterous, so she tried to look and sound appropriately sheepish. "Yes? It's a whole combination of things, really - the night really is lovely right now, I'd hate to interrupt that; I'm really not a fighter and frankly it'd be embarrassing to get my a** kicked by a cat; and I've been studying Mautech on my own time...? I'd rather have an acquaintance than an enemy!"

That second-to-last one was half-expectant, although mostly through tone and implication. The odds of Viatrix giving her anything were unlikely, given any suspicion was probably more than warranted, but it was still worth a try. "Not for Negaverse purposes or during Negaverse hours, by-the-by. I do my own tech when I'm not like this, and Mautech is so far above anything standardized I've seen that I'm trying to figure out interference points? I'd ask some Negaverse Mauvians, but," Kosmochlor grimaced, "they're ridiculous about the whole thing, incredibly private with schematics, half the time I ask and I get a 'return to me with 30 starseeds' prompting, which: no, that's mass murder, I'd rather not."

She paused, then, not long enough for Viatrix to get a word in but long enough to switch tracks for a second. "Oh, if you want a name for that old me -- Babel. Didn't like it much when it was mine, still not a fan."

"Some of them are idiots," Kosmochlor agonized, half-jokingly, but in this there was no necessary lie: for every Negaverse Mauvian she'd met who was part of Intelligence, or maintaining Negaspace's technology or helping her get a full setup going in her office, there was a brainless little Nega-kitten who was far better serving as moral support than tech support. 'Get them while they're younger' had, apparently, not served the Negaverse well on that front. Cute as the kids might've been, useful in a standard Mauvian way they were not.

Kosmochlor dealt with it, of course. She hadn't made it through rebuilding a civilian life and participating in her hobbies - old and new - without learning to deal with stupid kids, more heart than brain (or just more stupid than brain, that worked, too). But she saw no need to mince words here.

Oh, if it hadn't almost definitely been a terrible spur-of-the-moment plan that would've completely ruined the entire night -- there was that impulse, to grab Viatrix and teleport to Negaspace and call a General-Sovereign, to turn that clever little mind to better use. But Kosmochlor knew herself well enough to know she'd ******** it up somehow; after a few months, she was still getting used to a Captain's power compared to a civilian's again, and those kinds of sudden movements were likely to breed infinite trouble.

Better the carrot than the stick. That was an easy decision, even if there were brash, impulsive thoughts pointing elsewhere.

"It's a bit hard to find 'interesting space stuff', you know? You've likely got loads more than I do -- but it'd definitely pique their interests. But if you're interested," she smiled, oh-so-guileless, "we could trade! Just a tiny little bit of knowledge. I'm sure you'd like to know a bit about your enemies, wouldn't you? Better the villain you know, right?"

"I know people!" Kosmochlor grinned - she rocking back and forth a little, hands on the edge of the table, tap-tap-tapping out an uneven rhythm on the metal. "Not necessarily closely -- but there's a whole set of new recruits, farm-fresh, no memories to call their own. If you've been looking for anyone who went missing around that time, odds are I might've recognized their face, since I've seen them all at least a time or two."

Maybe it was an ugly or impersonal or cruel way to put it, but it wasn't like she'd recognized anyone in that seminar audience; it wasn't as if she'd known all that many people on the other side before she'd left for Seattle, and if they were making a fine go of it, that was all well and dandy. But Viatrix, undoubtedly, would care about it. Might want to know what'd become of people who hadn't yet been confirmed dead but had been confirmed MIA.

...and if it failed, she did have a disassembled tablet in hammerspace, but that felt like it was probably proprietary. She didn't know what Viatrix could get out of it, but the potential risk of it being traced back to her, if anything came of it - it seemed unwise. Information was one thing. Physical tech was something else entirely.

"Cross my heart, though, this isn't for nefarious purposes; I'm not about to start trying to trace it back to whoever else it might be associated to, or let anyone else know who might get any ideas? If anything I'll be testing things on myself. If you just want to trade names, that's fine too -- lets me get a head up on who might want to maul me on sight."

It wasn't a question that required too much deliberation, so the answer came simple. "MauTech would be the ideal? But I'm completely willing to settle for schematics - it's miles better than what I'm working with right now on this front..." Kosmochlor clicked her tongue, lost in thought for a second, trying to figure out all of it. Offhandedly, she remembered faces, but not a lot of names -- there was the girl with the pumpkin skirt and witch hat, Actaea, she'd been fresh. (And an irritating girl, too, but that was unrelated.) At least one Super who'd been in the audience for the orientation and teleported himself out - unlikely to have been a corruption, then. Purple hair in buns, dark hair with pink and blue ribbons -- it was a good starting point.

"So. How about this? If you meet me back here in a week at around this time, I can get you a partial list. There's no actual reason for me to be looking all this information up, as far as any of my superiors know," Kosmochlor shrugged, "and I'd rather not throw myself under the bus, so a full list is likely out of the question -- no guarantees. But partial is doable; I can manage at least that much."

"Here's my guarantee," Kosmochlor said, cheerfully: "I can't give you one, aside from the assurance most of my bosses would much rather I scruff you right now and drag you in instead of waiting for a meeting I have no assurance you'll make, but I bet your friends would love to see that list!"

Viatrix's suspicion was obvious. And it was even justified, Kosmochlor thought! Certainly the whole thing was suspicious; she wouldn't have trusted anyone making the offer she was making.

"All I can give you to rely on is the fact I want the schematics far more than I want you on our side, sorry! Terrible condolence, I know."

It was really more than she'd thought she'd get - but, frankly, Kosmochlor had assumed she might well get mobbed by a ne'er-do-well with a lust for justice when she put out her initial offer for conversation, or at least end up with some unfortunate catscratch injuries. Hale and hearty, with only maybe a 50% chance that Viatrix would make this followup a trap, was better than good. With any measure of luck, none of the cat's friends would've known Babel at all or recognized that name from this life -- statistically it was even likely, given how asocial she'd been back then, how she'd shied away from real interaction -- but asking for that one, too, might've been asking too much.

"Acceptable! Then I'll see you in a week!"

She hopped to her feet, offered a crisp goodbye wave, and vanished elsewhere with a teleport before anything could be said otherwise.