Good Cop Bad Cop: Chapter One

First topic message reminder :

One week. Asher has to be mean, Kay has to be nice. Whoever gives up first has to write a story for the winner. Should be... interesting.

James shrugged. "Just the people in the med bay who heard the idea yesterday, I didn't want it to devolve into another political catfight. And Ethan. And people can bring people of course."

"Lucky me," Ethan muttered, smacking the projector.

Matt chuckled. "So no Luka?" He nodded. "Probably wise. She's a nice kid but yeah... gotta love the brainwashing huh?" He sighed.

He laughed. "Now smacking it to get it working? THAT is the sort of engineering I understand!"

"She tries so hard to get along with people, but somehow she always ends up in a fight." James sighed, "Oh well, we still love her."

"Like I said, I'm no electrician," Ethan grumbled and slapped the stupid thing again until it fizzled into life, shooting a brilliant beam of light at the screen far below.

James whooped and hugged Ethan, then went and hugged Matt for good measure. "We're saved!"

Ethan looked pained. Whether by the bright light or the hugging was anyone's guess.

Matt grinned. "Works every time man. If it doesn't work first time, kick it some more." He snickered. "You're the hero of the night Ethan.

"I'm a hero. Lucky me," muttered Ethan.

James tested the projector by playing some trailers for some frankly horrible looking B movies with ridiculous names like 'The Tentacle Queen from the Dark Lake!'. Yay for trailers!

"Damn right." Matt grinned at Ethan.

--

Kay would go find Asher for this... ridiculousness. Should be entertaining anyway.

Asher was fiddling with Kay's charred tablet in his room. He had disassembled it and laid all the parts out on a piece of cloth, and was almost losing track of time, which was pretty impressive for someone whose brain had a clock built in.

~~
The trailers had a LOT of weird stuff going on, and lots of people of various genders and species screaming and clinging to their significant others in horror. Good stuff.

Ethan shook his head. "And you called our universe fucked up."

Kay knocked on the door. Funny, he hadn't really ever been into Asher's room.

--

Matt laughed and shrugged. "They're both screwed up in different ways man. You're the one who wanted to come here."

Asher looked up at the sound of someone knocking, and when the person didn't announce who they were, decided it must be Kay and went over to answer. He was sort of confused for a moment, before he remembered, oh yeah, movie night.
"Hello," he said, opening the door.

~~
"Yeah, but yours is screwed up in a more surreal way," Ethan said. "Mine makes sense."

"Oh well, too late for you now. You're one of us!" James laughed.

Kay smiled softly. [I've never had to come to your door before.] He remarked, looking amused. [Ready to go?]

---

"I'll take surreal over nasty any day." Matt nodded. "one of us! one of us!" He cackled.

Asher laughed. "I guess you haven't. Funny how that worked out." He stood aside so Kay could see his room, which was pretty Spartan except for a bunch of boxes of robot stuff on the shelves, and a couple of books, and oddly enough a rather homemade looking medal. And the mess of tablet parts on the floor. "Yes, I'm ready to go subject you to the highest quality Terran silliness."

~~
Ethan groaned. "I don't want to be one of you." He looked almost happy-ish though. It was nice to be included. Not that he'd admit that out loud.

Dawn, Rigel, Skye, Moone and Shane came to movie night as a group, having met up in the halls.

[You're working on the tablet?] Kay noticed the parts. [Any hope for the poor thing or is it effectively scrap?] He smiled softly at Asher's ordered but spartan room. Though curious about the medal, he figured there was some story there that he'd learn eventually.
[And i'm curious to see how high quality terran silliness compares to low quality Imperium escapism.] He looked amused.

---

Matt snickered and patted Ethan on the shoulder. "Too late." He flopped into a chair.

Asher looked at the tablet's remains, looking pleased. "Some parts of it seem to be fine. I'm thinking I might use the processor and whatever else isn't burnt, and make it into a desktop computer or something, since the battery is fried." Yeah, Kay probably wasn't especially interested in the details of his plans, oh well. He laughed, "Well I hope it won't disappoint. It IS extremely silly stuff."

~~
James draped himself on a seat next to Matt, waving happily as Dawn, Rigel, and Skye came in. "Hey guys!"

Dawn, Rigel, Skye and Shane came in and found seats, waving to everyone.

Moone had gone to the kids room to watch those movies

Kay smiled. [You've seen my books Asher, I like a bit of mindless dumb fiction sometimes. ] He indicated he walk with him. [Maybe Mourn has some spare bits laying around you can use. His kleptomania's almost as bad as Matt's.]

---

Matt waved. "Hello ladies, and Rigel. How's it goin? Ethan got the projector working so everyone cheer for Ethan"

Asher smiled, amused. "Good, because you're going to be experiencing about two hours of cars blowing up and a CGI replication of a guy from the twenty first century looking serious and talking about how important family is." He shut the door and matched his pace to Kay's. "Maybe he does. I'm sure there's something on this ship I can salvage, she has nearly everything here after all."

~~
Ethan squirmed and took a seat a few seats away from the others. People. Ugh.

"I made popcorn for anyone who can eat," James called, "And for people to throw if they can't eat it." He grinned.

"Oh James, so thoughtful." Matt grinned and rummaged through his pockets. "I brought drinks, and jerky. The jerky is mine so hands off." He laughed.

--

[Well it should be a novel experience at least.] Kay nodded. [Its probably better than those weird Satare musicals anyway.]

"Aww, I can't have any jerky?" James pretended to be sad.

~~
"I think almost any movie is better than those musicals," Asher said sagely, "I still have no idea what happened in the one we saw."

Kay shook his head. [I understood the language and I had no idea what was going on. It was... madness. ]

--

Matt laughed. "Jerky is even worse than cookies to get out of teeth." He nodded.

"You're probably right," James said, "Booooo. Pretend you can taste it! Tell me how it tastes!"

Ethan put his head in his hands, "Just start the movie, Pinocchio."

James glared, then looked confused. "How do you know that reference?"

"I read a lot of books this week," Ethan said with a shrug.

"Okay then." James looked impressed.

Asher and Kay arrived at the theater.

"Oh hey, they arrived! Now we can start the movie! Are you happy, Eeyore?" James asked.

"Thrilled," said Ethan.

Asher found some seats comfortably nearish to the others and sat down. "What in the world are you talking about?"

"Jerky," Ethan said.

Kay looked bemused. Nope, he didn't understand any of these references.

Matt just laughed. "Hey guys. We were thinking maybe you'd ditched us."

Kay rolled his eyes.

Matt handed him a can. "I brought drinks."
He handed all the non androids cans as well, various sodas.

[Not alchohol?] Kay asked, looking incredulous.

Matt laughed. "Disappointed? Nah, plenty of time to get drunk later. Besides, we're kinda running low on bottles of beer."

Shane laughed and accepted a can then sat back to watch the movie. "Popcorn tastes better with soda anyway" He said then shrugged a bit "Sweet and salty together."

Skye, Dawn and Rigel took their portions also, ready for the movie.

Asher gave Matt a look of shock. "Oh no, we would never ditch you guys! How could you think such a thing?" Besides, they'd just spent a whole day sneaking off to do whatever they wanted. So there. He gave Kay bright smile.

Ethan shook his head. It was still weird seeing... almost himself willingly spending time with... almost Kaylr. Oh well, for now it seemed okay, and if Kay tried anything, they'd deal with the problem then.

James tossed some popcorn at his brothers, and then some more at Matt. "Good. You guys need to learn to have fun without booze anyway." He waved for Vestia to start the movie.

The movie opened to a dark screen, with a man's voice narrating something deep and meaningful about what brings people together. And how they were a team. And how the end might be coming, but they would meet it and fight it back.
And then the screen came alive with brightly colored, roaring cars, and suddenly they were speeding across the desert chasing a maglev train, as police cars roared behind them.
Two of the people used grappling hooks and climbed out of their cars onto the speeding maglev train, letting the cars be dragged along behind through the sand.

"I think that would wreck the cars' wheels," Ethan sad.

"Hush! You said yourself, you're not an electrician!" James told him.

"Electricians don't work on cars," Ethan pointed out. "I just, you know, have a basic understanding of science."

"Shush," James said as the cars raced on and people on the screen yelled to each other about the approaching police.

Kay looked amused at Asher, and shook his head at James. [It's Matt who's the alchoholic. ]

"Lies, whatever he's writing, it's lies!" Matt protested without even bothering to look at Kay's tablet.

They settled down to watch the movie.

"Rule of cool man." Matt laughed to Ethan.

"In that case, he needs to learn to have fun without booze," James said sensibly. He leaned over to grin up at Matt, "Although you're a pretty likeable drunk, so maybe being an alcoholic is fine for you!"

The police cars were cornering the good guys! They couldn't escape! So the people on the train jumped down onto their friends' cars and left their own cars to be dragged away into the distance.

"Aww, I liked those cars," James said.

The cars stopped. Many nervous closeups of faces were shown. A gigantic ripped guy climbed out of a police car. It was hard to tell how he'd fit in there. "Team, I need your help," he said.

"Well he's terrifying. Guess they just have to do what someone that muscly says, huh?" Ethan said. "I wouldn't fight him, he's built like a minotaur."

"He's their friend from the other movies," Asher said, "They only fight a few times."

"Still wouldn't fight him."

"Asher thinks he's cute," James confided in the others. "He said so once."

Asher spluttered. "That wasn't what I meant and you know it!"

Ethan snickered.

Kay covered his mouth, laughing silently.

"He reminds me of the soldier's back home, huge, scary as shit meatheads." Matt remarked and grinned at James. "awww i'm likeable? " He side hugged him. "thanks man."

[They aren't all meatheads.] Kay told Matt.

"Yeah yeah, they're still huge and could rip your head off if they wanted." Matt waved a hand.

Kay smirked. [Don't think a few of them didn't try. When they forgot we had control of all the pain relief. Idiots.] He shrugged. [Reminding them of this tended to get them to shut up and cooperate. ]

"you're such a mean nurse." Matt laughed.

Kay shrugged. [I know. ] He looked pleased.