Contraband [2430-1-4-Fri-2:00am]

[Grace Forjacks]

Grace was in the kitchen, unlocking the fridge and sorting through it. She managed to turn up an apple (somewhat fresh) and a bottle of water. If she was going to be up for a few more hours, a snack and something to drink would be nice. Especially if she was keeping Eli company.

She locked it back up and headed into the corridor. Eli was waiting for her and she just motioned for him to follow her back upstairs. The cockpit was Grace's favourite place to be on the ship, and their voices wouldn't carry to the rest of the ship. She bit into the apple and flopped back into her chair. The screen was displaying nothing but space. The satellite was still out of sight and would be for another hour or so, so she just tucked that view up in the top right corner, bringing up the Network News instead. Headlines wandered over the screen, and there was muted video of some sort of interview. She left it off, not interested in politics.

"Lay off Klove." She told Eli once he was in the cockpit. "At least until his shoulder is healed up. He's got issues with vamps."

[Eli Wellington]

Eli tucked his padd under his arm and followed Grace back up to the cockpit. He couldn't help but eye the apple a little enviously. Fruit was definitely one of the few things he still missed about being human, even after so long. It was blood or nothing for a vampire. He could still eat fruit all he wanted, but it certainly wouldn't agree with him in any sort of pleasant way.

He sank back into the second chair and put his feet back up. Noting the screen she was playing with, he couldn't help but glance at the padd and wonder how different they were. He turned his attention back to her as she spoke once more and couldn't help but laugh a little. "Of course he's got issues with vamps. He's a Were. And really, who doesn't have issues with us? Perfectly logical issues at that."

[Grace Forjacks]

"No, I mean issues besides the normal territory and torture-y ones." Grace was well-aware of what the vampires did to the weres. It was only inevitable. They were hedonists on a planet with very little to do or eat, and cruelty seemed a good outlet. "His family was there for first-contact with humans, and got caught in the crossfire when vampires attacked. So all vamps get the blame for that bit of trauma. Humans used to too, but he's mellowed out."

Had to mellow out when your captain was human and looked like your mother, though Grace had sometimes wondered about that last bit. How vividly could you remember someone ten years later when you didn't have any photos? Klove was different though. He knew the faces of military men and women he hadn't seen in nearly fifteen years, faces that should have been unrecognizable to all but their closest friends due to ageing. Klove said it was the nightmares, cycling over and over again.

Meanwhile, Grace only had a clear image of Sweet Polly looked like because she had Polly's wanted photo. It was awful and poorly lit, but it made Grace smile everytime, seeing Sweet Polly sneer up into the security camera, offering a hearty fik-you to anyone looking down at her. It would have been nice to have more, but they'd both been too poor for cameras, and by the time Grace got out of the hospital, all the tapes she could have stolen were already wiped or recycled.

"I've been meaning to ask, where'd you get your hands on a padd?" Grace asked, one part-curious and two-parts ready to move her thoughts away from Sweet Polly. "I haven't seen many vamps willing to embrace electronics, much less able to get their hands on them."

[Eli Wellington]

"Ahhhh yes, I heard about that particular adventure," Eli nodded, remembering the stories immediately. "I never did go with the vamps who went, but then again, not many of them came back so it's probably a good thing I didn't." That was a lie. Eli had definitely gone to seek out the ship, the news of new humans rekindling excitement in him and the hope that the vampires weren't doomed any longer. The difference was that he hadn't been in the first group who had initiated the attack, and so the fight had already broken out by the time his group got there. Seeing the chaos and dubbing it not worth it--even at the price of the first humans in centuries--they had quickly high tailed it out of there before they could accidentally get involved.

"Seems kind of silly to me," Eli shook his head. "I understand the kid not liking us for our day to day fun, because that's just our boredom, but come on... our first real source of food in forever and my people aren't allowed to eat? It's like if all of the wildlife in the fiking forest was finally wiped out, and then someone dropped off a huge crate filled with goats and deer and leafy greens or whatever the hell the non-predator ones eat. The Weres would be on that in an instant, whether there were guards or whatever shit in their way or not, because they'd be hungry. You don't dangle food in front of a starving people and then cry foul when they do what's necessary to obtain it." Because then they get sparked with ideas, like leaving their planet for a new one filled with humans, Eli pondered to himself. "Seems to me the humans were more at fault over the problem that day than we were, with all that flaunting of their tastiness... and their fiking bad aim."

He glanced down at the padd once more at Grace's question. "Oh this? I found it in the forest." Truth, even if it was only a half-truth. "Had Malcolm show me how to get around the lock the old owner had on it, and how to use the message thingy. I still don't know how to use it other than that, though."

[Grace Forjacks]

"Logic like that is why vampires are so unpopular." Grace helpfully pointed out, "You didn't ask, you just took, and now nobody wants to risk dealing with your kind because they know it'll end the same way. Well. Except for me, but I'm the exception, not the rule."

"Anyway, it wouldn't matter. Even if your logic was flawless, it wouldn't mean a thing to him. He lost his family. There are some deaths you just don't move past. Family's one." She took another bite of her apple, pausing to chew and swallow, then added, "Though, if everyone had the time vampires had, maybe they would. How old are you? Ten, fifteen hundred years? You probably don't even remember your family."

Grace made a give-it-here gesture with the padd. It was an eInkr, so it couldn't have been older than a year or two, and someone had clearly spent money on it. "Only the messages? You're missing out. Let's see what the older user was subscribing too, assuming he hasn't shut his account down."

[Eli Wellington]

"You can't really ask," Eli stated. "Nine point nine times out of ten, the answer to 'Hi! Can I eat you?' is 'No.' Again, obvious reasons. You then have to take what you need to survive." He shrugged a little. "No one asks rabbits if they want to be eaten. We Vamps just have the downside of having main prey that can talk back."

"At least fifteen hundred. You kind of stop keeping track after awhile. Birthdays mean nothing when you don't age because you're already dead. And no, I don't remember my family." Half-truth once more. There were select things he remembered that he wished he didn't, but for the most part, he couldn't even think of their names, let alone their faces. Eager to change the subject, he handed the padd over to her. "Only the messages. This shit is so advanced even the stuff I've learned hurts my brain. But I guess carrier pigeons don't really work in space..."

[Grace Forjacks]

"Maybe if you were content with just nibbling instead of draining people dry, more people would take you up on your offer." Grace countered. "If you milk the mammoth, you've got milk for years. But if you kill it, then you've got meat for a month, and no more after that."

She flipped through the padd. It was bare-basics, no subscriptions, but a functioning Network account. She looked up the info. Main account owner was a handsome fellow and he had two eInkrs activated on one account. "Looks like someone lost his spare padd, or whoever he gave it to lost it. Since he hasn't cancelled the account, he hasn't noticed that he lost his padd, or he doesn't know how to cut off a padd from your main account- ah, he's a Were. Definitely doesn't know how to remove a padd. We're going to have to hook you up with a new NetID anyway. You can be from the Below, they can't keep track of births down there."

Grace handed the padd back and brought up the NetID page. It wasn't the official thing, but the men who ran it had a backdoor into the real NetID database. There was no way Eli would be able to get one legally, not when they'd be likely to notice his lack of history (and lack of pulse) during the background check. "We'll say you're from South Browns, they breed like rabbits there, and it's contested territory, so everybody makes a point to not know anybody. Age? Let's say 24. It's a bit young, but it'll give you about ten years before you'll have to switch ID when people notice you aren't ageing."

[Eli Wellington]

"I've been nibbling for years," Eli stated rather curtly. "It's not as fun as it sounds. You need a drain here and there or you're forever hungry and only mildly sated. For instance, had you not given me Mr Chef there, I would be having a muuuuch harder time having a regular conversation with you without going for your throat, because it's been a very. long. time. since I've had a good meal."

He watched her fiddle with the padd. "Yeah I sent him a message or two, but he didn't want the padd back." He had wanted something else-or rather, someone else--back, Eli thought to himself in amusement. "Can't blame him though."

She started into something else on her own screen as he took the padd back. "Below works. ...that's the dark part right? I think that's where I need to go anyway. ...twenty four? Alright. I'm pretty sure I was twenty something... I think..."

[Grace Forjacks]

Grace nearly called him out on being testy, but she supposed it wasn't good to taunt a vampire, at least not about his food supply. She also decided again stroking her throat. Grace could be reckless, but she wasn't dumb. "I'm not saying you don't deserve a meal. I'm just saying if you didn't kill the meal at the end, you'd have better luck getting people to open up a vein for you. I buy blood from the Below and people willingly give a few pints for a little coin. The problem is that you take your ten pints from one person, instead of spreading it out over three or four people. Think about it. That's how I make my money. Many smaller paydays can be even better than waiting for the one big one that may never come around again."

Grace continued entering info, glancing at Eli now and again to get the necessary details. "Below is the dark bit. I grew up down there, north of South Browns, and there's no sun. I was nearly thirteen before I ever saw any sunlight." She estimated his height, putting him at 1.9 meters. Under family, she simply chose N/A, citing 'orphaned' in the field asking for an explanation. "You'll be able to get away with feeding down there. Nobody cares too much about deaths, but don't be an idiot. A bunch of drained bodies with puncture marks will get someone's attention. Burn them, or cut them up, or mutilate them. Just make it look like a madman did the kills, not a vampire."

[Eli Wellington]

The first part of the conversation was starting to agitate him, so he decided to drop it. She would never understand unless she felt the blood lust herself. He had half a mind to show her, but knew better than to turn another vampire. Even if he was heading to a place with endless food all to himself, his brain was still far too trained by years on Nox to immediately think that adding another blood sucker to the food chain was a very bad idea.

He nodded at her suggestion on how to handle kills. He was glad she wasn't continuing to suggest he not kill anyone. He'd nearly forgotten what it was like to have to hide his identity and do things in secret. Leaving people alive after feeding on them was risky business when you were outnumbered by humans. Even with an arrangement set up, there would always be the risk of someone finally reporting him. It was always safer to eventually kill them and omit the witnesses once he was done with them.

"Madman, not a vampire. Gotcha. ...so in other words... be myself, just hide the bite marks." He grinned at her.

[Grace Forjacks]

Grace smirked a little. Eli was going to do well in the Below with an attitude like that, assuming he kept quiet. If he brought in the front attention, they'd kill him. He might have been a vampire, but there wasn't anything that survived a shot to the head. "That's the plan."

With the necessary info entered, she send it off. The submission screen came up, with the usual legal BS that Grace knew by heart. "We'll get a response sometime tomorrow with your new NetID. Do not use it to talk to anyone you used to know. Let them think you're dead. From now on, you're Eli Noddy, an ordinary 'Low dweller."

[Eli Wellington]

"Excellent. I can do that." Eli was looking forward to exploring the new world. It had been so long since he'd been able to pick his prey. And the thrill of being able to sneak and hide again was starting to make him a little anxious.

"Noddy? What kind of lame name is tha--Waaaait," he paused for a moment, realizing something important. "Is the Below like a slum or something? I'm not sure I can deal with dirt."

[Grace Forjacks]

Grace paused, looking at Eli. Did he really- of course he hadn't realized it. He was a vampire. He'd probably heard 'no light' and 'overpopulated' and hadn't bothered to think about anything else. "Of course it's a slum. You think anybody with even a little money would choose to live five miles way from sunlight? You end up in the Below because you've got no money and nowhere else to go."

She surfed over to Sophia, one of the oldest free databases, and searched for photos of the Below. Images popped up on the screen showing sights that were familiar to Grace, the old cement buildings, the factories still running in the dark, and the factories abandoned and left to rot. Gangs of boys and gangs of girls, underfed children and pregnant teenagers, and stores with boards instead of windows, gang-tags instead of logos. "I'm not sure what else you were expecting. It's not like you'd get away with killing in the Inbetween or Top. The cops and military get involved up there, but they stay out of the Below's business."

[Eli Wellington]

Would anyone with even a little money would choose to live five miles away from sunlight? Eli put up his hand, suggesting that yes, that was exactly what he was doing. Granted she was in the mindset of humans who didn't burn up in the sun, but still... she clearly hadn't thought out that statement very well.

He leaned over to look at the photos, immediately scrunching up his nose at the sights. "Oh, gross. People really live like that??" Maybe he should have thought this out a little better. There was no way he could live like that. Not with all those... peasants. Maybe there was somewhere more in between that he could set up a home, and only go into the Below for food. Or... "shit...I think I seriously need to read up on Terra before I get there."

[Grace Forjacks]

As he put his hand up, she shook her head, "You don't count. You're not human, and you don't have human priorities. All you want is darkness and humans you can kill without consequence. Humans, most humans, want light, food that isn't synthetic-" She gestured with the apple, "-well-paying jobs, safe neighbourhoods, and probably children. There's nothing on that list that you want or need."

Grace snorted at the horror in his voice. Whoever Eli had been in life, he clearly hadn't ever been poor. Well, he would learn to get used to it. "I used to live like that. My brother caught rats and brought them home for dinner, and my mom would skin and cook them. And then we'd fight over who got to eat the tails." She grinned and shook her head a little, "Luckily, I got in with a gang and didn't have to resort to catching rats with him."

She took the eInkr back from him, going to the database page. She subscribed him to Sophia, then turned it toward him so he could watch her navigate through it, "There, you've got access to plenty of info on everything Terran. Just slide your fingers to scroll down a page, touch anything underlined to read more about it, and if you need to search for something, tap that little box up there-" Grace tapped the search-box, and a little keyboard jumped up, -and just type out what you want. The information is more or less reliable, if about six months out of date."