2025-04-07: Wait, we're supposed to be getting paid?
- Log: 2025-04-07
- Cast: Aurora Dusk, Lilium Valerie
- Where: The Legally Distinct Newtype Lab Under Heaven's Base
- OOC - IC Date: April 7th, Universal Century 0100
- Summary: Aurora and Lilium have a nice conversation about life as an enhanced person, what they can really do for fun at this point, and their various financial woes.
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
At some point, Aurora and Lilium find themselves sitting in a room in the Heaven's Base Newtype Lab (which doesn't exist) together.
"...So, how is it? Being a Cyber-Newtype." Aurora taps the table in front of her.
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Lilium leans back in her chair, kicking her legs back and forth as she stares up at the ceiling. She's been put through a lot of choreography program testing recently--an Idol's work is never done, after all--and after a certain point, even her enhanced body starts to get tired... which means she's not fully prepared to process Aurora's question.
A Cyber-Newtype... she's not really sure what that means, for some reason, but she feels like it's...
"Ehhhhh... an Ehanced Human? It's, like... I dunno, I'm not sure how to put it into words... My body feels way lighter, but... heavier, too... Is it normal to, like, not need to sleep as often as I used to..?" She turns her head to stare back at Aurora for a moment. She's still not been told much about what she is... and it's probably going to stay that way.
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Aurora gazes vaguely at the wall, flicking her eyes from side to side.
She tries to remember what actually becoming a Cyber-Newtype was like. It's been so long since she was enhanced... "Heavy and light... the sleep thing is normal." She nods. "We have enhanced endurance. We can take more fatigue and exertion than other people. Also, we have extended lungs. We still need sleep, though." Aurora shakes her hair. "Don't stay up too late too many times in a row..." The Colonel does that. It's not very good for her.
Aurora herself knows quite a bit about what she is. Some of that is Emily yapping about it. She doesn't strictly need to, but it's nice to know.
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
"I mean, like... I've gotta stay up a lot to keep up with the schedule..." Lilium sighs, staring back up at the ceiling.
"It's, like, pretty packed... basically always..." Photoshoots, recordings, interviews... whatever arbitrary task NUNE felt like dropping onto its Angel's head on any given day. All part of the job.
Still, though... there was something else... "...There's, like... I don't know if it's just what being on stage is like... maybe it's more from being an Idol than anything else, but..."
She shakes her head. "..No, it's probably just that." She doesn't see much point in trying to express her newfound sensitivity.
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Aurora turns to look at Lilium, sky-coloured eyes slightly wet. "...That's normal, too. I have a long schedule, and I travel a lot... it's why I don't have a permanent home, really." It seems to be their lot in life. They work long and hard for their goal... and they don't really- "-How much do you get paid now?"
"When you're on stage, it's like..." ...? "...Does it feel like... you're doing what you're meant to do? Like your purpose."
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
A head tilts slightly to one side, and a finger is moved to a lower lip. Bright pink irises stare back. "I guess... different work, but you've got a lot of it too... Still, like--" She pauses. Her expression shifts somewhat. Is she frowning--no, it passes immediately. "...I... don't? Liiiike... There's nothing I could really do with money right now, and the program's budget is big enough as it is... personal expenses I think I would have to pass through Doctor Frankford... or... maybe Doctor Ashton would be able to do it too now..?"
What she's meant to do... her purpose... that wasn't what she'd meant, originally, but...
Lilium smiles her usual photo-safe smile. "Yes. That's exactly it."
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Aurora blinks. "...You're not getting paid?" Even Aurora gets paid a little bit. She knows some people aren't so lucky as to officially have job titles that entitle them to a spot in the payroll computer, but Lilium- "...Some people don't get paid, but you started as a member of the regular forces..."
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
"Ehh.... I meaaaan, like... I think the money is still allocated..?" Lilium shrugs. "Liiiike, I'm an O-2 Staff Officer's pay grade now, and I think I'm technically pretty highly paid for that, even... but that money goes directly into the project's budget, I'm pretty sure?"
She pouts slightly. She'd like to have some money for personal expenses......
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
"I guess it isn't that strange. Not everyone in the Newtype Corps gets paid... and my salary is kind of small. I have room and board, and medical expenses..." Aurora shrugs back. She doesn't really get much in her pocket for her work either. Ah, well. It's not about the money for the CNT Corps. "Congratulations on the high pay grade. I guess we could go ask Dr. Frankford about the pay allocation..."
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Lilium nods along, closing her eyes for a moment... and then opens them again. "Eh? You have to like, pay for your quarters? And medical bills?"
Her head once again tilts slightly to the side. Sure, she didn't get any of her money herself, but still..
"-Oh, no. I'm pretty sure it's, like, an accounting thing?" The black hole in the budget that Boosted Songstress creates is easier to hide if part of it is disguised as a salary for its star, after all. "I don't... really get it..."
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
"...That's normal for soldiers. Technically, you get a stipend for housing if you live off base, and you don't get it if you live on base. I always live on base, though..." It IS actually normal, for once. What isn't normal - or rather, is distressingly normal among enhanced personnel (the ones that even HAVE salaries) is having your salary docked for medical expenses.
Aurora taps the table. "Accounting..." She blinks. Eh. She's fairly lucky to get the pocket money she does. Thanks, Colonel. (Mother of the year, that one.)
"I guess. But it'd be nice to have pocket money, still..."
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
The Idol nods understandingly. "Ooooooh... I thought you, like, had to pay to live on the base... that makes more sense, yeah..." She lets the part about medical bills slip her mind. Technically, the wages she isn't getting paid go towards hers as well, so it's not like it's weird...
"Ehhhhhh... I guessssss, but, like.... I dunno what I'd really do with it right now, you know..?"
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Aurora nods. "It's not really like having to pay to live on the base. It's more like they'll pay for you to live elsewhere... but I'm busy enough it'd just be a hassle."
She taps her chin. "...I guess going to restaurants, or getting model kits, or going to the arcade... stuff like that. Maybe a vacation if I had the time off, but I don't really. I get vacations when I'm on leave assigned somewhere. That's basically a vacation." No the fuck it isn't, Aurora!
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
"Oooooh... yeah, that's normal... I guess I heard it backwards...?" She never used to misunderstand things like that. Weird...
She leans back, swinging her legs off of her chair. "I guessss... I can't really, like, go out to public spaces without making it a Whole Thing now, though..." An almost wistful sigh escapes her. "There's nothing much I really wanna buy, either... and it's not like I really get much free time anyways."
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
They really fried Lilium's brain, huh... A feeling of concern flickers to life in Aurora's own brain. She sure is glad she's a nice, conventional weapon, as far as their kind goes... She tries not to pity Lilium, though. Pity is worthless.
Aurora leans back. "Being famous sounds like a hassle. I'm fine being an unknown. Black ops doesn't admit celebrities."
"...Do you play board games? Video games? Any games? I was pretty good at Tiddlywinks back at the lab.
Speaking of back at the lab, Aurora should really see about making sure Lilium knows how her body works. "Did they make you stronger? Physically?" She squeezes the table a little to punctuate her point. She tries not to break it, though. She's pretty sure she could. Flimsy thing like this...
...maybe Ashcroft would be better at this.
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Lilium, for her part, feels fine. She probably just forgot--she's had a lot on her plate lately, so it's nothing to worry about.
"Ehehehe... sure is..." She smiles. Obviously it looks fake, as usual, but it feels pretty genuine. "...It's worth it, though... Something about being on stage is..." She shakes her head. It's not something she can really put into words. Maybe nobody can...
"Ehhh... I used to play BatoOpe a lot, but apparently I can't do that anymore... I haven't had a chance to play board games since I moved out of my parent's house, though." She pauses for a moment. "Or... we used to play Texas Colony Holder in the trenches, I guess..? That was just when we had nothing better to do, though..."
Her body... they'd done something to it, right..? "Uuuhm... I'm not sure... I guess higher endurance, like, technically counts, but I don't think I can apply higher levels of physical strength.."
Lilium is, in fact, mostly right here... she might be stronger in theory, but not by much--mostly as a side effect of other augmentations. She could probably damage the table if she knew she could...
But she doesn't know.
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Well, it's not like Aurora being concerned about it will really help. As far as they're both concerned, the milk is out of the carton. Drink up or shut up.
It's still nice to feel Lilium's genuine smile underneath her fake one. Like a secret that only Awakened can understand... there are other secrets like that, but those are called "funnel" and "HADES" and "psycommu". "Like... like you're doing what you're made to do?" Aurora tilts her head. "More than that. It's..."
She gazes at her hands.
"Satisfying."
"You can't anymore? Is it a famous thing?"
"...maybe we could find some time for a board game, or we could play Taraba Climax Colosseum or something..."
More endurance makes sense. Not much more strength, though... Guess Lilium is optimised a different way from Aurora. "I guess you're not going to be doing much fistfighting..."
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
"Ehhhh... that too, but like... it's... the audiences' eyes on you, the feeling of... I... I think I'm not the right person to explain this... it's like you're someone else up there, you know?" She nods, thinking for a moment...
"...Satisfying, yes." The conversation turns to BatoOpe once again, and... "-oh, no. It's, like, a security clearance thing... I don't get why, it's not like I can even access the forums... Board games would be good, though!"
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
"Someone else..." Aurora looks up. "...I think I get it. Sometimes fighting makes you feel like that..."
Of course it's satisfying. Aurora and Lilium, among others, were 'created' to fulfill a purpose. It's common sense that doing what they're made to be is satisfying. If a hammer could think, maybe it would enjoy driving nails into wood. "...Security clearance? You don't have a high enough clearance to play it, or they're worried you'd leak something?"
"Hmm... board games... I think I can get a few."
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Lilium nods her head, crossing her arms with a similarly-photogenic smile on her face. "Ehh... I don't know if I ever got it back when I was, like, still a soldier, but... I guess I can kinda see it..."
She sighs wistfully. Recreated or not, this felt right, didn't it..?
"I think I, like... before I decided I needed to be a mobile suit pilot... I wanted to be a singer, once..."
She cants her head to the side slightly. "-oh, like... a leak thing... I don't know what I'd be able to leak, but...."
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Aurora fidgets slightly. "Not exactly... it's more like a Cyber-Newtype thing, when you've been... modified the way we are, or similar ways. Like conditioning..."
If Aurora can be both aware that she was made like this and find satisfaction in following her 'programming', there's nothing wrong with Lilium being like that. (That's a pretty big IF there, don't you think?) "I don't remember... before. It was when I was too small to remember," Aurora says quietly. "The only 'before' I remember is from Augusta."
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Lilium tilts her head slightly to the side for a moment, pondering this. "Ooooh... huh... I guess it's both that and the stage thing, I guess..."
She doesn't feel programmed... but Aurora is probably speaking metaphorically. Probably.
But Aurora... well, she would've had to have been young, considering she's still pretty young now...
Lilium stares down at the floor for a moment. "Oh... I... like, didn't know... I guess I probably should've figured, but..."
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Aurora shifts slightly. "It sounds plausible. People like us are wired like that." Some of them even before they go into the machine... As for metaphors, unfortunately Aurora is dead serious about conditioning. Of course their minds are altered. It's part of being turned into what they are. Both their bodies and their minds have to be modified in various ways.
It's not like Aurora feels that Lilium is being insensitive, or anything. "It's how my life is. I was a baby around 0083, so I grew up at Augusta. I don't really know many people from there, though..." She knows Emily was there. "It was basically already decided what I'd be from there. What made you become a pilot?"
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Lilium nods along, her arms crossed once again. "Right, right... I guess there are some wires in there..." She means this seriously, of course. She has trouble interpreting what it is Aurora is actually talking about... not that she's really aware of it. Her thoughts just sort of flow past the subject. Weird, that.
"I... guess that makes sense, still, though..." She shakes her head. "...I've talked about this before, right? I looked up one night and..." Her head hurts for a moment. She winces. "...I... I just felt like it was all I could do to make the world Peaceful..."
Is that... the reason she gave last time..?
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Lilium nods along and Aurora tries to follow. She tries to pick up on what Lilium is sending out. Something feels... odd about the way she said that.
The way Lilium's head hurts doesn't escape her, either. Aurora is familiar with the signs of headaches. "...Head hurts? It's a common symptom. Make sure you take your medicine for it..."
...this has been a pretty worrying conversation.
Last time, what Lilium said was... different, Aurora thinks. At least... it was the same dream, but something's changed. The headaches are... Aurora gives Lilium a Look. The same look she gave her back in the Colonel's office. Is she beginning to understand it?
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Lilium shakes her head, clearing it. Her train of thought resumes, on the path she's pretty sure it was always on.
"Eh? I don't remember being on... well, anything I don't have to get injected regularly, anyways... out of my hands... the headaches are, like, rare-ish, anyways..." They're probably random. She's sure it's fine.
Perfectly fine.
Lilium doesn't pick up on the look all that much... but something feels oddly familiar about the feeling coming from Aurora.
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Aurora is a little surprised. Lilium might have already realised that Aurora's facial expressions are a little subtle sometimes... but her feelings are much easier to see with the power of the Cyber-Songstress. "Injections? Most first gens only have to take pills... I guess they gave you some extra things, maybe that's why. Speaking of." Aurora pulls out a pill bottle, and her water bottle, and promptly takes her pills. "I take these for... maintenance."
It's that look of sympathy again, that feeling of 'you're similar to me'. Aurora was sort-of giving it off even before Lilium was enhanced. She couldn't have predicted exactly what they were going to do to her... she assumed that Lilium was going to be a pilot like her. Ah, well. Nevertheless.
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Surprise..? That's odd. Sure, it was maybe a little weird (was it?) that she was on so many different medications... but Aurora being surprised at the way she was taking them..?
"Ehhh... first gen? I'm not, like, thaaaat old..."
Lilium, thinking about it, does sort of remember that conversation. Sort of. She thought it was just a strange medical exam, at that point... data gathering. Ah. Well, nevertheless...
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Did... did Lilium always talk like that? They've definitely messed with her personality. Ashcroft liked her as she was... she's probably not going to be happy, Aurora thinks. "There was a briefing, and they said they used first gen techniques... I'm technically first gen, since work on me started back during the Titans era..."
Ditto that conversation. It was foundational for the three's relationship...
"...Maybe you should ask about actually getting paid. Since you have a pay grade, you probably can... a lot of other enhanced personnel aren't lucky enough to be in the payroll computer." 'Be grateful for what you have, especially if other people lack,' you could say.
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Lilium absolutely always talked like this. She would know. She's her. She did, right?
"Ehhh... you got told that..? I guess, like, the how wasn't really relevant to what they thought I needed to know..." She pouts. The expression seems a little exaggerated.
The conversation in question... she sort of remembered it, but she's well aware that the events immediately preceding her... becoming what she is... are a little blurry. Still, she remembers the gist...
"I don't know... if, like, it's important for the project's budget that it goes through a stage where it's technically my pay, that's, like, probably something I shouldn't mess with..."
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
"Yeah, there was a briefing for people who were likely to work with you, where they talked about some of it. Flay was there."
"...it'd still be nice if you could have some of it. Even pocket money would be nice..."
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Lilium pauses. It made sense that there'd be some kind of briefing on her, she supposes... and by the sounds of things it was more information that wasn't relevant to her, specifically, but...
Who was... 'Flay', again..?
A problem for later. Right now, she has more pressing matters--
"I mean, I guess... but like, wouldn't that just be the same as me asking them to write off things as project expenses..? I'm pretty sure I can already put in applications for, like, reasonable things..."
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
"I guess that makes sense."
"...so, how is the Seraph? It has a psycommu type system, right? How are you liking that?"
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Lilium tilts her head slightly to the side. Again. Psy...commu? That was...
Right, it'd be one of the systems that keeps the Seraph working... the Speaker Funnels control system, probably, but... maybe a component of the... what was it, Songstress Accompaniment system..?
It's something like that. The systems that interface with your brain.
Ooooh, so that's it...
Lilium places a hand over her heart, that smile returning. For a moment it almost looks genuine, before her muscle memory kicks in. Just a moment. Barely long enough for an unenhanced human to notice. And then, she speaks: "It... she's... harsh, sometimes... but she means well, I think. She wouldn't be so kind, otherwise..."
An odd way of talking about your mobile weapon... but Enhanced Humans were like that, weren't they?
<Pose Tracker> Aurora Dusk has posed.
Aurora sees Lilium's human smile before it gets overwritten by her... muscle memory. It's touching. It's also... Aurora is glad she still has her own face.
It's not THAT odd to anthropomorphise your machine. Psycommu were made to interface directly, and language like 'harsh' or 'cold' or 'gentle' fits best. "Harsh... gentle..." Ah, that sounds familiar, somehow.
"That's good to hear. A lot of psycommu machines... it's sort of like each type has a personality. I've been in a Qubeley before... it felt like a bodyglove. Like it fit snugly. Psycho Gundams are domineering..." Aurora begins counting off on her hand. "I was helping test some of the quantum type GN-Xs, and those feel... a little fancy? Maybe you'll get to fly one."
"...how much did you know how about Cyber-Newtypes before?"
<Pose Tracker> Lilium Valerie has posed.
Lilium places a hand on her shoulder for... no particular reason. She leans her head that way as well, and lets out a wistful sigh.
"Ooooh... that makes sense! I guess that's more normal than I thought it was..."
She opens her eyes once again. "Quantum types? I don't know... I feel like they'll probably, like, keep me in the Seraph... It was made for me, and... I guess at this point, I was made for it..?" It's a weird thing to say out loud. Weird, but it feels right. "What do they look like, though? If they're 'fancy', I'm guessing... I don't know, kind of like a noblewoman..?"
"-About Enhanced Humans? Uuuhm... basically nothing, honestly... I... really thought they weren't around anymore because of Cathedra..."
And so it goes, on and on. It's a comforting change from normal, at least...