video; un: mccree

[flashbanging]

[ McCree's just lounging somewhere outside in catland, maybe in a quiet corner of one of the plazas. Far from the meowing crowd. He's got his cigarillo dangling from the corner of his mouth, and he puffs on it intermittently, looking thoughtful. ]

Gotta say, this is a real nice little respite after all the mess we just got through. These cats have been mighty hospitable, too, and it was good of'em to take us in.

[ A pause. He leans forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. ]

But, y'know ... just between you and me, I'm really more of a dog person.

Comments

[flashbanging]

[ What? Fiona?? ]

Are you serious? Honey, what kinda world did you come from?

[cachemoney]

Weeee... don't have dogs. Or cats. I mean, I know what they are, I've seen them on the ECHOnet, but all the animals there are pretty much native. Except for humans, I guess.

[flashbanging]

[ lmao what ]

You been deprived. Dogs are man's best friend! And cats, well ... they're soft, I guess.

[ He shakes his head. ]

Did you come right outta the apocalypse, or what?

[cachemoney]

[Pandora is shitty enough to be described as a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but...] Not that I know of.

I'm from... I guess it's a colonized planet? Or it was a long time ago. Descendants of colonists and mercenaries and escaped prisoners. And military folks. Anyway, everything on Pandora wants to kill you, so nobody really has off-world animals. Too expensive.

[flashbanging]

[ He squints, puffing on his cigarillo. ]

Like Australia?

[ He mutters. ]

Don't reckon they got many good animals left down there, either.

[cachemoney]

Sure, let's go with that. [She has no idea what Australia is. u mean elpis???]

Is that somewhere in your galaxy?

[flashbanging]

'S on Earth, honey. Which is the only point in my galaxy that I've ever been to--leastways, it was, before I fell in with you folks.

[cachemoney]

I wasn't exactly well-traveled before I got rifted, either. I was born on Pandora and figured I'd die there, too. [Despite hoping and working for the opposite for Sasha's sake, it's hard not to be a cynic when you're from a wasteland.]

So, like, Earth is... your planet. Right? Australia is a city? Have you been there?

[flashbanging]

Pandora, huh. That shifts my paradigm a bit, but I hear you.

[ He'd been assuming that Fiona was an Earthling, like himself ... he stands corrected. ]

Anyway, don't nobody go to Australia if they can help it. It's a blasted-out wasteland down there.

[cachemoney]

[Check your Earth privilege, McCree]

That's the Eridium Blight on Pandora. Irradiated from fallout, completely uninhabitable.

[flashbanging]

Don't know nothin' about any eridium, but 'irradiated' covers it pretty well. The omnium--that's a robot factory--blew up and took out everything around it, too.

[ He squints. ]

But wait. You said you're from there. You look pretty healthy, though.

[cachemoney]

[A robot factory blowing up just sounds like everyone would die. You know, from the explosions. But she's not about to question McCree on his own planet's history.]

Oh -- yeah, I'm from a different, uh... [She trails off, realizing that maybe she's given McCree the wrong impression about Pandora. There's wasteland, and then there's wasteland. Slightly different.]

Pandora has really uninhabitable weather cycles. A lot of the planet is desert most of the time. And some places are rich in Eridium, which has a toxic byproduct. I'm not from one of those places, just one of the run of the mill shit-holes. Not a toxic shit-hole.

[flashbanging]

[ He scratches his beard. Well, okay. ]

Huh. Lucky you, I guess.

[ (His tone makes it clear that he does not think she was in any way lucky.)

He thinks back to the spa, and how happy she was, luxuriating in all that mud. ]

You musta seen a lot of new stuff since coming here.

[cachemoney]

[If McCree knew what Eridium poisoning looked like, he would change his tune!! She doesn't say so, though, just makes a soft noise of amusement, huffing.

She's a little embarrassed by his perception, though she's not exactly surprised. She's found long ago that McCree's easygoing nature belies his insight.] Um... yeah, actually. Zeta-12 was my first experience with a lot of different things. Swamps, forests...

[flashbanging]

[ Hey, he's not here to judge. He grins at her, clearly pleased that she's able to see so much beyond her original horizon.

He drawls, his tone full of good humor. ]

Domesticated animals?

[cachemoney]

Thaaaat too. We had robots instead.

[flashbanging]

Oh, yeah. We got them, too. Whole lotta 'bots. Some friendlier'n others. Most not too keen on being pets, though.

[cachemoney]

Yeah, no, not pets either. Mostly, um... servants? I guess. Manual labor. [She pauses.] Remind me to tell you about Gortys sometime.

[flashbanging]

Ours got real sick of that position.

[ So he presumes. Nobody really knows why the omnics turned hostile, but--if they were sentient, which McCree's experiences say they are--he can imagine how they'd be sore about building and making everything for free. ]

But, honey, I'd love any story you got to share.

[cachemoney]

[There was something with the CL4P-TP units revolting a few years back, but they've literally all been destroyed since then, or so Fiona is aware, so the danger seems very far away. She doesn't feel quite knowledgable enough to tell that particular story, though, so she doesn't mention it.]

Ha. Well, once we have a little downtime again, it's a date.