[open] she's moistened every curl

[airachnoid]

Who: Airachnid and YOU
Where: Around L.A.
When: Any time in late March
What: Airachnid uses her holomatter avatar to research human culture and interact with her future prey while walking around Los Angeles.
Warnings: Mentions of murder and genocide, and there is a good chance of murderous unvoiced thoughts because we're talking about Airachnid here

Airachnid's general plan of action for decimating a species is simple: land on their planet unnoticed, pretend to be one of them, learn about them until she is more of an expert on them than they are, and then use whatever methods are best suited to tearing apart their particular society. As much as she enjoys personally killing individuals, she recognizes that trying to go about her hobby that way would be extremely ineffective. Therefore, her methods often involve some degree of worming her way into a strategic position within their world and destroying them from the inside. That's not to say she doesn't commit traditional murders; she will take every opportunity to murder that she can get. She just doesn't want to spend forever on a single project, as there are other planets she has to visit as well.

So, to gather data as a supposed member of whichever unfortunate species she has targeted, Airachnid uses her holomatter avatar. It's a remote projection that can interact with its environment, and it's vital to her work.

In fact, throughout late March, her holomatter avatar can be found wandering the streets and buildings of Los Angeles with an observant look of unusual intensity. She sometimes stops to read Wikipedia articles on a definitely-not-stolen laptop in public locations (parks, cafes, etc) and to participate in a variety of mundane activities, such as frisbee, cross-stitch embroidery, and pogo stick usage, all for the purpose of research. She takes this murder hobby very seriously, okay. Airachnid also tends to sort of weirdly observe people and listen in on their private conversations in order to gather information. If spoken to, she will put on her best normal human act, based on what she knows about normal humans. It's not a lot.

Despite the unforeseen obstacles and difficulties Airachnid has encountered on Earth so far, she's determined not to give up. She will learn about these humans, she will make them an endangered species for fun, and she will collect that awful Matilda's head. You can count on it.

[ Let me know if you would like a specific starter! ]

Comments

[nailsandglass]

Matilda was looking a deal more cleaned up than she had in recent days. Having a home to return to, and people that looked after her certainly made things a good deal easier. It still hadn't quite set in that Tommy and Ana were serious about watching out for her, and a part of her innately feared that they would get bored, or up and leave like her family had. Until then she was...really liking how things were.

She really hoped that they wouldn't end up hating her. She was a naturally adventurous child, which is why she still went off on her own a lot, but she also felt it was prevent them with getting too impatient with her. Out of sight, out of mind. At least that's what she had been taught, and they couldn't very well get annoyed with her if she didn't bug them too much.

Right now she was in the park, sitting on a bench with her legs dangling in the air. Birds gathered around her as she tossed small pieces of bread at them--next to her, the ever present stack of books.

[airachnoid]

Airachnid was also sitting on a bench in the same park, though she certainly wasn't feeding birds. Instead, she was reading a rather interesting entry about prominent historical human empires on a human data network. She was very absorbed in it, too, at least until aggressive chirping and cooing disrupted her concentration.

She turned to look at the source of the noise. One park bench away, a number of birds hurried to peck at bits of human food that a human was tossing them. Completely uninteres–– wait a moment. Airachnid knew that human. She could recognize that ugly, fleshy face anywhere, considering how intensely she had burned it into her memory.

Matilda.

After a couple moments of recovering from the surprise of seeing Matilda here, Airachnid stowed her 100%-not-stolen laptop in her also-100%-not-stolen canvas bag, got up, and began walking towards Matilda's bench. Matilda wouldn't recognize her like this. She could try to dig for information about the girl. Weaknesses, places she frequented, a permanent residence –– she might even be able to build up enough of a sense of trust with this projection to lure Matilda to a place where her real body could kill her. A place without trees, of course.

"Do you like birds?" she asked conversationally, upon reaching Matilda. Here was where she was most thankful for her access to the so-called human Internet, and specifically to that list of common Earth creatures.

[nailsandglass]

Matilda raised her head to look at Airachnid and gave her a smile.

"I like all animals."" She answered cheerily. Matilda always wished that she could have a pet--any pet, but her family had never gotten one, and she couldn't really be certain she could take care of one now. So coming to the park and feeding the birds on occasion was her way of making up for it.

She held out some bread to Airachnid.

"Do you want to feed them too?"

[airachnoid]

"Of course," she said, reaching out for the bread. Airachnid watched how Matilda picked at the bread and tossed the bits at the birds before doing it herself.

It was certainly a challenge to be so close to her object of vengeance, even only with an avatar, without attempting to harm her. She could just imagine wrapping her hands around Matilda's neck, or slowly slicing her apart, or skewering her...all in time, though. Patience was important at this stage of the game.

"Do you come here often?" Airachnid flashed Matilda her best I-am-just-a-kindly-Earth-human smile and continued tossing bread to the crowding birds.

[nailsandglass]

"Not a lot." Matilda admitted. She might have offered the information of her visiting the library often if Airachnid's avatar had been younger. As it was her general distrust of most adults was a thing, but Airachnid's smile and willingness to feed the birds helped.

"It's a nice place to come to when the weather is nice though. And when I have spare spread." Which wasn't often given the state that she and her siblings lived in. She was no longer having to scrape by, feeling hungry most of the time, but things were still a little tight with Ana and Tommy. They weren't all that old themselves, after all.

"What about you? What do you like to do?" Matilda asked, pulling her gaze away from the birds to Airachnid.

[airachnoid]

Hmm. There wasn't too much information there, though Airachnid would keep what Matilda said in mind. Still, more digging was necessary.

"Oh, not much," Airachnid answered, with a little tilt of the head. "Though I have been doing some personal research lately." A little bit of the truth wouldn't hurt. It certainly wasn't enough to be suspicious; from what she had seen, humans did plenty of personal research. Hers was somewhat different, but the point stood nonetheless.

[nailsandglass]

"Personal research?" That perked Matilda's curiosity. Was this lady a scientist or teacher?

"What kind of personal research?"

[superball]

One bad thing about Eusine (one of many, some might say) is that the volume of his private conversations range between "boombox" and "jet at take-off".

It probably wouldn't be so bad if he were at home, or maybe in some random park. Unfortunately for everyone, it's while waiting in the line of a café that Eusine elected to call his parents that day; he's excitedly babbling into his phone in some sort of weird moon language the initiated might recognize as French, his free hand gesturing around for emphasis as if he has his interlocutor right in front of him and not on the other side of the ocean.

And this is how he bumps into the table Airachnid is sitting at, too focused that he was on his conversation to pay attention to where he was going. What a graceful specimen of human masculinity.

"Ah, pardon-" he begins, before catching himself. "My apologies."

[airachnoid]

When the loud human bumps her table, Airachnid reflexively grabs the laptop in front of her to keep it from falling anywhere. She gives the man a look of open contempt and irritation – she's tired of constantly maintaining her friendly Earth human act, and this one doesn't appear that useful or important. Too bad she can't hurt him.

"Don't be so careless," she hisses, "and, for that matter, lower your voice. Some of us are doing work."

If one were to look at her laptop screen, one would see a page filled with information about the office of the United States President, partially floating over a page detailing the many uses of eggs. What can she say; she gets curious.

[superball]

It's not polite to look at other people's computer screens. Which is why, obviously, that's the first thing Eusine does after bumping into Airachnid's table - other than telling his parents he'll call again later and hang up, that is. Curiosity killed the cat? No idea what you're talking about, this cat is perfectly fine (and incredibly handsome.)

Of course, what's on the screen is a little... eclectic. Eggs and the US President's office? Could she be a secret agent, trying to devise an egg-based trap in order to protect the president from intruders? You could argue that doing this kind of stuff in a public space doesn't seem like a good idea, but that's what they want you to think.

(It's also way more exciting than "this lady just happened to look up those two completely unrelated things.")

"Once again, please accept my most humble excuses." he says, putting a hand over his heart. To be quite honest, he doesn't really look like someone who even knows what "humble" means. "I'm sure being a... ah, cook... for the White House must be an exhausting job."

He winks. No worries! Her secret is totally safe with him. He won't tell a soul.

[alienheroes]

Believe it or not, not all of Ben's free time is spent lying to his parents and doing things he's not responsible enough to be doing. For example, today he's doing exactly what his parents think he's doing - in this case, riding his scooter around the park.

Then he almost gets hit by a rogue frisbee.

"Hey-!" He ducks out of the way and watches the disc land on the ground, then goes to retrieve it, turning to face the direction it came from. "Hey, whose is this?" He's not actually angry so much as faintly irritated. It didn't actually hit him, right? Could've been worse.

[airachnoid]

Airachnid's aim has always been good, but apparently frisbee creates an exception to that rule. She did not mean to throw it in that direction, and similarly did not intend to almost hit that small human. Of course, it would have been better if the frisbee actually had hit him, but one can't have it all.

Wearing an apologetic expression, she approaches him.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she says. "I'm new to this, you see. You aren't hurt, are you?" She would just hate for him to be hurt.

[alienheroes]

"Nah, I'm fine. It's cool." He holds out the frisbee for her to take back. "Just be careful, I guess," he adds with a casual shrug. He's not sure how being careful with a frisbee would even work.