It's Honestly a Terrible Plan

[piper90npcs]

Who: Almost everyone
What: Dan uses his stripper powers for good, Stacia teaches everyone a brainhack, just about everyone throws a riot. Operation Honeyplank is a go.
Where: All around the Rig
When: After some network plotting.
Warnings/Notes: Attempted seduction, brain hacking, violence, likelihood of swearing.

The Rig is large and city-like enough that it never truly sleeps, and that is all the more true now that it's disgustingly humid all the time. It's the last dinner shift and even the workaholic execs are starting to call it a night, but the ambient noise keeps everyone aware that there's still life all around them, that the Rig is something of an organism as much as a vehicle.

In the mess hall, people are starting to clear off their plates and the hires on bus duty are wiping down tables. Some are lingering around the tables chit-chatting, mostly speculating about just how cruel and dangerous Planker's new obstacle test, which he boasted about to them at the end of their last session, is going to be tomorrow. Some are on chore duty and doing dishes. Some are starting to head back to their rooms.

And others are setting up to, as Madonna says, start causing a commotion.

Comments

[takenalive]

Oh, you're arrogant for a little man.

[This is kind of meant as a compliment? Alloran's usually been suppressing his own belligerent side because things are exhausting so much of the time and it's not worth it.]

You do that. I think I know where the right clothes are. But you might have to help me if we're going to do this quickly, I've only ever put on the shit the company has us wear.

[Esplin morphed human many times and usually wore more clothing than could come with the morph, but he had various assistants for that part. Alloran knows what elements go where but knowing and doing are different things, and while he's mastered walking, the standing-on-one-leg part of the process is gonna be tricky and something might be inside out.]

[hallelujahjunction]

Ain't nothing wrong with confidence, even when it ain't earned.

[Whether it's a compliment or a criticism, Dan beams in response, checks in with the people who'll guard the static, frozen Planker, and brings back a Rig uniform that looks the right size.]

Hot tip, put your clothes on while you're set down and I'll help you out. [Dan sits down and pats the floor, undoing the zipper and buckle for the coverall; he's noticed that Andalite hands have more fingers and that dealing with human hands probably feels, at best, like trying to do your fine motor skills while wearing bulky oversized gloves with some of your fingers stuck together.]

[takenalive]

[He laughs, and it's not right at all - apparently the genuine, startled-amusement laugh that comes with the factory model of Planker's body is a good twenty degrees more cute and personable than anything the real thing's been expressing. Alloran definitely catches this and turns it into throat-clearing, and does not say what he was going to say, which was Son, I'm an Andalite, I knew unearned confidence before your parents were born.]

Don't be funny with me.

[When Dan's ducked back in Alloran has actually found one of those aluminum benches that isn't bolted down quite right and sat on it to struggle into socks and an undershirt, which is backwards.]

It's gonna have to come off quickly too. There's a time limit on this tech and I'm not getting stuck as this hairless ass. But if I demorph in this much clothing it's getting shredded and needs to get tossed if we don't want it being incredibly suspicious.

[hallelujahjunction]

I can't help being funny. That's just my face. [He gives Alloran a quick nod. He roots in his pockets for something.] Take the shirt off, you got it backwards and I'm going to do something to it.

[He gets the shirt and the pants before Alloran can put them on, then uses the staple remover he's been carrying in his pocket to start ripping out some of the seams. Not obvious seams. Just slicing away the ones that absorb most of the tension.

Dan grew up tailoring his own clothing, hand-me-downs and give-me-backs milling around between him and his many siblings, then grandfathered that skill into his drifter life living out of a car, stretching his attire to last for years of rough use, and, of course, using it for professional purposes. The boy knows how to quickly alter clothing to a tearaway.]

Alright, let me get these pants on you. Be gentle with them, all you'll need to rip them to shreds is a good yank. How much time do you got?

[takenalive]

You're the human, I suppose.

[He's really not sure what this editing is supposed to accomplish. Won't clothing without its structural elements, if it's found, be at least as suspicious as clothes that have been torn apart? Do humans not notice?

Maybe he should have acquired a dog, which could pick up clothes and carry them away, but it was much easier to get access to a Rig cat. Every now and then they escape the areas where they're supposed to be and go exploring and resisting being caught. If someone sees a cat slinking around, that doesn't leave the same impression as seeing a wandering dog with a mouthful of cloth and no interest in socializing.]

Stay too long in any morph and you're stuck like that. It happened to one of my men. I have a hundred minutes now. [He's got a little more than that, it hasn't been twenty yet.] I can always demorph and remorph to refresh the timer, but that means this pile of nonsense again. Let's get this over with in one shot.

[hallelujahjunction]

Oh, so like when you make a goofy face. [To his communicator:] Alexa, ninety five minutes from now...remind me I need to set my alarm for chores tomorrow morning.

[Dan suspects Alloran has a way to tell time, but as he's just a normal human who's gotten much too reliant on voice-technology to manage his life. He starts getting Alloran put together, getting Alloran's socked feet into the legs of the pants.]

Okay, if you need to shift, pull these off and they'll look like just a pile of regular laundry. Ain't no one going to look close enough at something pulled apart at the seams. Trust me, I done quick changes plenty. [It'll be easy enough to, if Alloran needs to shift, have Dan pick up the clothing and pretend he's on laundry duty again today.]

[takenalive]

Is that how you work? No wonder this one's even uglier than usual.

[Alloran cooperates awkwardly. He remembers how this goes, and how when Esplin just forced a subordinate to pick up his limbs and stuff them into the appropriate tubes it made everything take longer and be worse. Which the Yeerk hadn't been averse to, but sometimes even Esplin chose expedience.]

This would be easier if you people didn't hate your own bodies so much. Godforsaken foot clothes. How do you manage these at all?

[Esplin's human-dressing experts had rapidly figured out that it was best to go with shoes that could just be slipped on and off, quite different from the extensively laced combats he pulled out of a locker. In Aria morph, on the Rig, Alloran just hasn't worn them at all. It's not like it matters if his feet are injured.]

[hallelujahjunction]

[That gets a stifled laugh out of Dan, who's starting to slip into character, just so no one walks in on Planker and a new hire being pals and jovial together. They have Planker's terrible reputation to uphold, after all.]

Hand me those. [He helps get them onto Alloran's feet, arranges the laces, then puts in a slipknot that'll give if anyone gives even the slightest yank, something he picked up...oh, somewhere between fishing for food and sailing boats around Lake Tahoe for fat tips from rich folks. Perfect for a quick escape. Not so much for lasting that long without getting undone and tangled, but Dan hopes that they won't need more than half an hour to give "Planker" a credible time and place.]

Look, I ain't arguing with you. We’re all entirely too clothed and ain't none of this practical. I mean, it ain't like Planker's going rock climbing, I don't see why he's got to wear combat boots all day when a damn pair of sandals would do fine for work here.

[This is, for the record, the only "office" job Dan's ever had, and while he understands that one should wear closed-toed shoes at work, he also thinks that's a weapons-grade stupid rule.]

Alright, I figure we go through the cafeteria so everyone on the night shift sees you, then you come yell at me in the hallway so everyone hears you, then we hopefully get headed back here.

[takenalive]

[There's essentially no smell to these new-formed feet, which haven't existed for long enough to get sweaty. The socks are clean. Maybe "there was no smell" and "the socks were clean" is a better way to put it. Let's not dwell on the odor of the spare boots Alloran pulled out of the locker. He grimaces as they're bound around his feet.]

Right.

[These are also new ears, completely free of the cumulative damage of having gunfire and explosives and a whole lot of yelling happening in close proximity for however many years. Alloran hears shoes on the floor and a muffled voice with a few seconds to spare. His borrowed eyes widen and he shoves upright - almost falls, Dan might need to catch him - and arranges his features into unhinged outrage, ramping his voice up from a low growl into a spittle-flecked scream.]

- pus-faced milk-fed maggot, you call that a polish, this boot'd be cleaner if I broke it off in your ass! I WANNA SEE MY FACE IN IT, SAGGY-TARIUS!

[He's not nearly red in the face enough, but it's probably not a detail a pair of interns who wanted to work out together at a quiet hour are going to notice.]

[hallelujahjunction]

I don't know, Sarge, my colon's pretty clean, [Dan mutters as the interns pass, hoping to prompt another round of screaming for good measure and resisting the urge to smile at how well Alloran's sinking into this impression. He hopes Alloran's having fun with it.

The interns gawk for a solid two seconds, then decide to split before Planker's foul attitude potentially gets turned on to onlookers as well. He looks up at Alloran.]

Perfect. Couldn't have done it better myself.

[takenalive]

[Alloran responds by going full bawl, riffing on abuse Planker's hurled before. He's been here a year, he knows the common themes and the limits of the man's creativity. When the interns have found somewhere better to be, instead of winding down once more to plausibly-couldn't-hear-this-through-walls levels he does that sudden silence that has never meant anything good.

Then he turns enough to spit on the floor. Saliva's been escaping his mouth for basically the whole diatribe because human mouths are always secreting digestive fluids and Planker doesn't ever pause to swallow it back, not when he could use it to emphasize his contempt. At some point in this Dan may have noticed, Alloran's breath has no sourness to it either.]

I'm so glad you approve. [That would be much more in character with a more childish, petty sarcasm than this dry tone.] Let's get this done already.