xp_logs | Doug and Forge, racquetball (Reply)

Doug and Forge meet to try racquetball at the gym Sofia recommended to him. And after some hijinks, they get around to the reason Doug wanted to talk shop with Forge.

Doug shifted self-consciously as he waited for Forge to finish getting ready. He stared at the lockers around him and scuffed one new shoe against the other. "These shoes feel funny," he remarked after a moment. "And don't get me started on the goggles." He turned to look at the other man. "Do these goggles make me look stupid?"

Forge looked up, perusing Doug through a pair of similar goggles. "I think the point of the goggles is to look stupid. Along with the shoes." He hefted his racket, giving it an awkward practice swing in the air. "You said Sofia referred you to this health club? Have you pissed her off at some point? I don't even know her and I'm starting to think this is some kind of revenge plot."

"It gets worse," Doug replied. "You know what they call these?" he asked, plucking at the small circle hanging off the end of his racket handle. Off of Forge's raised eyebrow, Doug chuckled dryly. "Wrist thongs." He smirked at the expression on the other man's face. "Yeah, that's what I said."

"I won't tell anyone if you won't," Forge deadpanned, looking in the mirror to adjust the terrycloth headband he'd picked up to where it wasn't pushing his goggles down onto his nose. Departing the locker room, they headed down the hall to the courts, watching through the thick plexiglass walls at the various groups of young executives hurling themselves across the courts. "Is the grunting required?" Forge asked, looking slightly horrified. "I don't think the human body should make that kind of noise unless there's a baby coming out."

"I sure hope it's not required. I didn't find that anywhere in the rules," Doug mused. "And that expression better not be obligatory, either," he noted, indicating a man who looked like he was passing a kidney stone as he strained toward the ball just out of his reach.

Forge nodded as they entered the racquetball court, mentally reviewing the rules. "Okay, stand between those lines to serve, hit the ball against that wall before it bounces twice, play to what, five? Ten? Some easily factorable decimal number. How hard can it be?"

"First two games to fifteen, rubber match to eleven. You of all people should know the importance of precision," Doug quipped as he bounced the rubber ball off the floor a few times. "And why do the words 'how hard can it be' fill me with an indescribable dread?"

"Dude," Forge insisted, watching Doug prepare to serve, "we built a replacement cyberlimb system complete with fractal memory neural mapping from scratch, and we made it capable of biochemically-induced external combustion flight. We foiled a bank robbery with the power of our huge mutant brains. Racquetball? Bah, child's play. Launch it. Serve it. Bring it, whatever."

The serve rebounded off the back wall directly for Forge, who smirked, took half a step to the side, and swung--

--missing the ball by nearly three feet as it struck him square in the chest, knocking him flat to the floor.

"...i declare that a 'do over'..." he wheezed.

"'Do over', huh?" Doug smirked. He bounced the ball a few times as Forge got up. "You mean you want me to do over the part where I'm just too much for you?" he needled. "Service!" he called, sending the ball at the back wall again. Forge managed to return it, and Doug blinked as he found himself wildly out of position. He charged hard, only to have the ball whiz by his outstretched racket. His eyes widened at the fast-approaching side wall, and he barely avoided slamming into it face-first by the simple expedient of taking the impact on one shoulder and rebounding flat on his back.

"Child's play, he says. Big mutant brains, he says. How hard can it be, he says," he muttered, staring at the ceiling.

Forge took the next serve, completely missing the ball twice before managing to slam it against the far wall in a banking shot that nearly took his own head off. "Fore!" he hollered, surprised that Doug could move fast enough to return it, and moreso that he was able to pick up a slight slice off one of the walls and score again.

"Okay, so once you get used to the momentum thing, it has its -- AGH!" he joked before Doug sent a shot caroming across the court. Extending himself, Forge managed to almost get the tip of his racket on the ball before skidding on his belly across the hardwood floor. "Ow."

Doug was still a touch mad at Forge for the Pornography Thread, as he tended to capitalize it in his head. As a result, he definitely had a moment of enjoyment when he bumped into Forge and sent him stumbling slightly during the next rally. "Whoops, sorry there, Forge," he said a touch disingenuously.

Rubbing his shoulder, Forge narrowed his eyes at Doug as he switched his racket over to his left hand. "No problem. Seven-nine? Service." With his right hand, he tossed the ball lightly into the air, and then let high-tension myomer muscle take over, whipping the racket through its arc and rocketing the hard rubber sphere off the back wall and spinning up towards the ceiling. "Yours."

The ball seemed to hang in the air for an eternity, which allowed Doug time to quirk an eyebrow at Forge and respond "Thanks ever so much, Mr. Six Million Dollar Man" in a dry tone before slowly backing into position to make a play. He stepped back, and back, and back, and...THUD. He turned his head to notice the plexiglass wall behind him, and rubbed at his shoulder as the ball landed with an unassuming 'thok' noise.

"Ow."

"And that's just the arm, although technically if we're going by current rate for this high-quality of artificial muscle, we're looking at closer to seven and a half." Forge looked innocently through the thick goggles at Doug. "Don't tell Pete and Remy, they'd try and sell me for beer money."

"And here I was just going to sell you for the complete collection of Naked French Redheads One through Ten on DVD that I saw on eBay the other day," Doug returned with his own best innocent expression.

Somehow Forge managed to lose his grip on his racket in the middle of his next serve, sending it flying into the wall with a loud crack. "Ooh, point to Ramsey. Got me there."

Doug felt a brief twinge of worry that he'd taken things a little too far, but Forge seemed to be pretty good-natured about the quip, merely trotting over to retrieve his racket. "So what can you tell me about the Reavers?" Doug asked in an apparent non sequitur as he readied himself to receive Forge's next serve.

Forge served the ball lightly, making Doug scramble across the court. At least conversation meant they could try and keep up a volley instead of just trying to murder each other and not wreck themselves in the process. "The cyborgs who tried to raid the mansion about twenty months back?" he asked, backhanding Doug's return in a double-ricochet against the corner. "Just the tech stuff. Myomer construction based off a much larger model, originally part of a Shaw Industries project. The design used in Haroun's--" he paused as he had to dive to save the ball from hitting the floor, lofting it up against the wall for an easy return. "--Haroun's cyberware was almost the same thing, but the Reavers were obviously a straight-combat design. It took me a while to reverse-engineer the differences, and that's saying something. I did some research through the records of Wideawake, you know, the corporation that Alison bought? The original designer worked for Shaw, but got fired after some problem with a government proposal. Foreign national, either South African or Australian, not sure which. Don Pierce. Name ring any bells?"

"Not offhand, but a name's always a good place to start," Doug replied between shots. "So, um, if you were looking to build, say, Reavers 2.0, where would you go to pick up the myomer tech on the hush-hush?" he asked.

Forge swung and missed, cursing slightly as he batted the ball lightly over to Doug. "You can't legally in the states. Wideawake owns the patents for cybernetic use. Overseas, first idea would be the Shaw industrial project in Berlin, but rumors have it with the company almost going under, they might be shutting down the overseas plants. Could be a big coup for smaller companies looking to chew up the remains."

Doug pondered that for a moment. Forge had certainly given him enough to get started in Remy's request for information on the Reavers and who was behind them. He paused briefly to consider his next words. "I know you don't really want to know what goes on, but if they come after the mansion again..." He held the ball rather than serving it again so he had Forge's attention. "Reader's Digest version, as few details as possible. Remy got blackmailed into...well, like The Amazing Race, only with more killing. And the Reavers were part of it. So somebody's still behind them."

Forge pondered that, then walked over to Doug. "Something you ought to know, could come in handy, then." He extended his left arm, twisting his wrist slightly. Small vents opened up along the skin of his bicep, hissing lightly. "Myomer works like organic muscle. Pass a current through it, it contracts. But it gets hot. Each strand's coated with a heat dispersing coating, but prolonged heavy use - especially in something like a combat chassis, is going to need a really efficient heat sink. I'm not sure if that's useful, but if I were going to try and break something like that, that's how I'd do it."

"Track the heat sinks, got it," Doug said musingly as he watched Forge's arm fascinatedly. Shaking himself back to reality, he chuckled. "So, have we thrown ourselves around and gotten dinged up enough to call it a day? From now on, I say we stick with business lunches," he quipped. "Burgers after we get changed out? I'm buying."

Forge looked at Doug and smiled. "At fourteen-all? I'm not done with you yet, Ramsey."

You could almost hear someone chuckle as the hard rubber ball was tossed up in the air.

"Service."