The fourth wall, the one furthest from the bed looks like it isn't there at all! Instead an oddly serene view of mountains and a forest lit by a full moon takes its place. It's only on closer inspection that it turns out the fourth wall is a re-purposed (salvaged) OLED screen from some old cinema. Jason apparently uses it to make it feel like he's off in the wilderness instead of nestled in the decaying part of an old city. Another door leads out and from what can be seen through it, the edge of what looks like a whirlpool bath, it's probably his private bathroom.
"It isn't much, but it's the quietest and most private room in the place," Jason claims as he enters from the workshop and turns on the recessed and hidden lighting, bringing the room light level to something akin to the light from a setting sun. "The door has a biometric security code; so I'll need to program yours into it as one of the master codes so that none of us can bother you if you don't want to be disturbed. The bathroom has booth a shower and a large tub; and there is a cabinet with shampoo and towels. So hm, I think that's all you'll need? I don't have guests very often. After I get your imprint set in the lock, I'll grab my spare blanket and pillows, and then go crash in my workshop. You must be exhausted by now, what with the plane trip."
The golden vixen is still dressed in her armored black jumpsuit, with the hood down to expose her fox head and long hair. She sets the Naginata Divine Mercy sniper rifle down next to the door with an audible clack.
"If we don't want to be disturbed, you mean?" Inari says slyly, her hand leaving the doorknob. "You know, in all the time we've spent together on the Ozymandias, you never talked about yourself. Why don't you introduce me..." She gestures to the walls.
"I wouldn't want to disrupt your sleep or be in the way," Jason claims as he grins a bit nervously. "As for introductions, ah, hm," he adds after he starts rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, that's wall one, it's pretty sturdy. That over there is wall two; it's a bit of a prima-donna. Wall three is a loner..."
"Oh, so they're like Randall, me, and you? Silly, I meant the pictures. They are kind of like your family, don't you think? I see two people who might be your parents." Black armored Inari glides up close to Jason, then lays her arms around his shoulders.
This puts her luminescent fox eyes and her nose and lips very, very close to Jason's face.
"Hah," Jason remarks, "I didn't mean it ..." That train of thought derails pretty quickly when he finds himself practically staring into Inari's eyes. "They're dead," he says in a markedly flat tone, then gestures towards the picture of his parents. "My parents I mean. Fifteen years or so now. Jack and Ellen. I'd love to tell you they were important people but ... not really. My father was in middle management, my mother was a teacher. Killed in an accident; drunk kid slammed his aircar into ours. Don't remember much about it, other than waking up in the hospital and being told I was the only survivor. He was tried for manslaughter, but because the police 'lost' some of the evidence he was let off." He shrugs slightly, adding, "If you count 'lost' as his parents had enough money to make the problem 'go away'."
"That's terrible!" Inari shakes her head sadly, then leans up to hug close. "I don't know if you'd consider Avatars LLC my parents... My earliest memory was meeting Akiko. She was my light, my world, my master. Our first day, she was excited when I'd actually fetch a stick for her, but my repertoire of 'tricks' got bigger in a hurry. And there were days when she'd wake up and we didn't go out for an adventure, she just burrowed her head in my fur and pet me."
"It's life in a summary; bad things happen. There is no real justice in the world," Jason admits as he returns Inari's hug. "It's funny ... your world has just kept growing, from your early days to well ... now a sensation. Mine has just contracted. I spent a few years bouncing from foster home to foster home until I could go to college. It was then I started learning how to dig; because I wanted to bust the cops for taking a bribe, but I could never get enough evidence to prove it."
The golden vixen has a definite musk, now that Jason is in a room and out of the cold. It's not bad, though wet fox might be a bad idea. "Did you ever do something about that kid?" asks Inari, looking into Jason's eyes. Her own eyes hint that if he didn't manage it, she might be willing to help...
"No, and I guess it really doesn't matter anymore. Everyone makes mistakes ... and I'm no different than him truth be told. Well, except that I do have a criminal record, though it isn't easy to find," Jason admits and shrugs.
Inari licks Jason's nose. "You are different from him, you know, just because you'd never try to erase your mistakes. And you will always be my white knight, and Akiko's. You delivered us from quiet madness." She pauses, then takes Jason's hand and leads him to the bed, sitting down and patting the spot next to her where they can look into the wall of wilderness.
"Eeeh, you have a rosy view of me," Jason admits as he settles down onto the memory-foam mattress beside Inari; sinking an inch as it settles. "I was offered a deal to work for the government in their cyberwar group for a couple years in exchange they would seal my files ... and I wouldn't serve jail time," he explains. "Granted I didn't exactly get a choice, given it was that or spending the rest of my life in a dark cell, but. And then there is Andrei of Dantech ... the man who authorized the butchering of my brain. Of course I didn't know that until the whole Avatar's incident."
"Him and Blake Forester, two of a kind." Inari squeezes Jason's hand. "I'm not a perfect woman, either. Me and Akiko, we were a pair. Then he put us together, combined us, and we went slowly mad, not just because of the Godawful scripts he put us through, but because we were losing ourselves. As much as we loved each other... We had to get away, form our own lives, or we'd never be able to heal." There is pain in her voice as she admits this. "But I keep feeling like Faust, with Voya playing Mephistopheles."
"Am I leaving Akiko out in the cold? Or is it better that the cameras don't stare at her all the time, like they do at me?" Inari asks.
"That was one reason I didn't contact you or her," Jason admits, "I wanted you two to heal; otherwise i would have felt ... like I was using either of you somehow. I just couldn't do that." He looks up at the ceiling for a few minutes, thinking. "I think it shows that you care about her and want her to choose her own way, without fame or the public trying to dictate it. You're protecting her. But I have to ask ... who is protecting you now?"
Inari looks over at Randall and Jason's picture, squeezing Jason's hand. "We Avatars have a lot of abilities, but we still see our masters as our protectors... When we're in trouble, our masters have the ability to call out our hidden abilities, to heal us, to comfort us and make the pain go away." She pauses, thinking.
"Except we're not in that world anymore," Jason says as his head tilts a bit to the side and looks at Inari consideringly. "And I have a hard time as seeing anyone as your Master. Even with myself and RIU ... it's more of a friendship than it something with connotations of control."
"Akiko isn't my master right now," Inari says softly. "That part of me... Of her... That link was warped by Blake's engineering. We were supposed to bond with the first person we saw." She looks a bit embarrassed, glancing over at Jason.
In the other room, RIU is keeping an eye out as Kimon tirelessly cleans up the debris from the attack and Tracy slumbers exhaustedly.
"She isn't your Master?" Jason asks, his brow dancing. "Er ... who is, then?"
Inari leans over and gives Jason a kiss. "I could be mean and say it's you," she whispers. "I know you'd flounder all over the place."
"I was worrying that you were going to," Jason admits, flustered and twitchy after being kissed. "Is it no one, because of what Blake did?"
RIU beeps in Jason's mind! He actually sounds jealous.
The golden vixen smiles slightly. "I think at first, I thought you were going to be my master. I kept an eye on you for a while, but it didn't seem like you wanted to. So... I went afield. I did wild things, seeing who could keep up with me, tried out different guys. Who needs a master anyway?" She looks nostalgic up at the program book of her first concert, then sings a capella. "o Now that I'm free, I can fly... And the mountains that seemed so high, are now dust beneath my wings... And I can see the sun is rising. o"
"I ... I honestly don't like the idea of anyone being beholden to me," Jason admits as he quickly finds himself rubbing the back of his own neck again, "I mean, yes, it's fun in certain daydreams, but ... in reality it just wouldn't seem right. I would prefer to have a friend over a .... servant? Not the right word but the meaning is close." It's also now his turn to look at the ceiling. "Plus ... I always have this fear I would fail. Or that the image you have of me would become tarnished in time."
Inari noses Jason. "Silly. It's not like a master and servant thing. You just know what RIU needs, and that he will be there if you ever need him, and he knows the same of you." She looks thoughtful, her eyes crossing the wall to Randall and Jason's picture. "What do you think of Akiko?"
The golden vixen's hand continues to clasp Jason's. In her eyes Jason reads more concern over her long-lost master and friend, and whether she has prospered or withered living on her own, than jealousy or worry about a rival for Jason's affections.
"Much stronger than she was four years ago. Sure of herself, happy in many ways, and beautiful. But ... with all that, she misses you," Jason answers honestly. "She needed the time to be alone and find what Blake nearly destroyed. But, I don't think she should lose what he gave her, either. You. Someone she could tell anything to."
Inari looks thoughtful. "Maybe we could develop that bond again," she murmurs. "If I could lose the deal with Voya. I don't think she'd like living in a goldfish bowl."
"I've enjoyed being a famous rock star, but now I want to know where the merry-go-round stops," the golden vixen says with a wry look.
"Contacts can be changed," Jason notes, "... with a little work. There isn't time now to figure out a way into the system, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be later."
Inari grins. "And the millions of screaming fans? Think we could throw them your protege in a fox suit?"
"Tracy? She's more like athletes foot than a protg," Jason remarks rather dryly. "I'll have to give it some thought, but something should be doable. Of course if Sasha kills me before all this is over, well.
"Well, at least I feel like there's finally a way out," Inari says, grinning. She suddenly pounces! and pins Jason down to the bed. "Now, about that rain check..."
"Bwah!" goes Jason as he finds himself on his back and sinking into the bed. "What, am I to be one more of your conquests?" he asks in a frustratingly neutral tone, "Another guy to try?"
The golden vixen's eyes look down at Jason as she eyes him speculatively, leaning down to lick him across one cheek, over his nose, then down the other. "What do you want to be?"
Inari seems wild and dangerous and sexy, but even as she's playfully toying with Jason's jumpsuit fastenings, pretending to be predatory, Jason has an odd intuition that she really means it - if Jason wants her to be his girlfriend, she just might find it satisfying. And if he just wants a moment of joy, well she will have at least given that much to the person who brought her out of the darkness and made her a creature of light.
"To mean more than that," Jason admits in a moment of honesty as he can't help himself and looks cross-eyed at his own nose. "Not that playing the role wouldn't be fun ... and probably fulfill a few fantasies, but if I don't mean more than that, well... I just don't want to be someone to throw away. I can't say what the future holds, but maybe tonight I should see what happens if I stop running." His lips curl back in a bemused smile as he adds, "And I keep a stocked first aid kit in the bathroom, so ... lets both just see where things lead."
"You gave me life," Inari whispers as she reaches up to dim the light, then slowly pulls unfolding panel after panel of the armored jumpsuit. "You mean so much more to me than a single night can possibly give."