Kaki looks at him for a long moment, before taking his hand to shake.
"I would assume your job is out of the picture at this point," she says.
She withdraws her hand from his, rubbing her knuckles a bit with the opposite as she peers down at the fresh corpse. Her jaw rolls in contemplation, brows knitted together at the predicament she now found herself in. Eventually, she sighs through her nose and turns to him with a mission in her eye.
"...All right. If you have anything to do or bring, now is the time to get to it. Otherwise, we should leave immediately. For your sake."
Nodding, he pulls out the small burner phone that all rangers were issued and dialed the bureau's number.
"Ranger ID 48649."
He waits a moment for his call to be transferred to his supervisor, watching the woman out of the corner of his eye as he does.
"Hey, it's Seventeen. I quit." There was a pause on the other end of the line before his superior started scrambling and begging him to rethink. Going on about he was the only one strong enough to protect Monster Island, and if he was unhappy with something she would do her best to make it right. "There's a poacher here. I killed him," he says before flipping the phone shut.
Going into the tent, he throws a couple of things into his backpack that was important, like the orange scarf he carried with him everywhere, and a crumpled polaroid of him and Eighteen from before they were androids. He looks over at the pistol that he had just used to execute a man, only waiting a second before grabbing it, turning the safety on, and shoving it in the holster on jeans.
Exiting the tent, he briskly walks past the woman. "Let's go."
"Follow me, then."
She takes a soaring leap down the cliff, and then another, going back the direction they came in, and heading towards where her ship had landed. When they get there, she ushers Seventeen up the ramp and closes the entrance behind them with a slam of a panel on the wall.
"Get yourself strapped in one of the passenger seats," she tells him, as she crosses the room past him and to the ship controls, where she quickly begins to input commands to get the ship into the air.
There's a loud rumbling as the ship prepares to depart. She takes the opportunity to strap herself in the captain's seat. It takes just a few minutes and quite a bit of flashing light from the ship rising against the atmosphere, but eventually, the turbulence ceases, and the ship is traveling at hyperspeed.
With one hand, the woman removes the belts strapped across her breastplate and steps over to the controls once again, to check the navigator and see their final destination.
"We'll be going to a planet called Tatinarte," she says, not looking at him as she does so. "I have been once, on a refuel trip, but this time I am on business there. It was planned before I visited your planet."
She turns finally, leaning a little onto the metal of the controls.
"My name is Kaki, by the way."
"Kaki..." he says, letting the name of the woman he was now bound to inexplicably sit on his tongue. He leans his head back against the passenger seat headrest and massages the bridge of his nose.
It had all happened so fast, and yet even now in the dark embrace of outer space, he doesn' have enough time or energy to process it. Opening his eyes, Seventeen stares out at the cosmos.
He had never been to space. Not like this. It was… frightening. Empty and cold, only a few layers of metal away from being constricted to death by the oppressive darkness. But it was also beautiful. The stars twinkled and dart by faster than he had ever seen anything move. And the universe's dust particles, they looked like glittering tears.
He's so lost in the simultaneously astounding and devastating marvel, he doesn't even realize he's shedding tears himself.
Kaki's expression falls when she notices his tears under the artificial lights, guilt carving the space between her brows. She sighs lightly through her nose and goes to him, where she would put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Seventeen..."
She's unsure of how to comfort him - if it was appropriate to tell him that what he did was right, that it was justified - that the man he killed likely had done much worse. Even though the words can't leave her lips, her eyes are full of sympathy as she looks upon him.
"You are tired," she says. She looks past him, gesturing behind him with her gaze. "There is a bed over there. If you would like, I could get it out for you. It would do you good to sleep."
Embarrassed, he quickly wipes the tears away. He didn't sleep. He actually couldn't. Something about the infinite energy model he and his sister were, but he's reluctant to mention that to Kaki.
"Sure. But, do you have any way I could get a message to someone on Earth?" Seventeen looks down at his gloves and begins to peel them off his calloused hands. "My sister - I have to at least let her know that I left."
Kaki blinks at that, withdrawing her hand from him.
"Well... No," she tells him. "This ship used to have a communication system, but it was removed years ago for security purposes. I'm sorry."
Seventeen was empathetic and perceptive to a fault. It's part of what had messed him up so bad when he was forcibly turned into a machine. He had never been wrong about a person's moral leaning before... That being said, what the hell were these vague "security purposes?"
He looks at her with an expression he hopes conveyed, 'I know you're omitting details, but I'm not going to make it an issue,' and pulls his cell phone out of his pocket.
"Good thing that crazy scientist woman runs the cell service," he comments, seeing that his Capsule Corp cell still had service light years away from earth.
"Oh! It works even out here?" She sounds pleasantly surprised - she hadn't encountered technology so advanced outside of the Planetary Trade Organization in a long time. "That is great news! Here, I can give you some privacy..."
Kaki walks away to the left-most part of the ship and sticks her fingers into a hand-sized depression in the wall. She pulls it, revealing that it was a door that hid a short hallway with a kitchenette, and another door that presumably belonged to a bathroom. She glances at Seventeen and shuffles away to give him space to go in.
"Um, yes. You can shut the door behind you if you need."
As emotionally exhausted as he feels he couldn't help but be endeared to her awkward hospitality. Neglecting to shut the door, he dials Eighteen's home phone and paces a bit as it rang.
"Hey, Krillin? Yeah, it's Seventeen. Can- Can you put Eighteen on? Uh yeah, I'm fine."
He looks over to Kaki and rolls his eyes jokingly at his brother-in-law's chattiness.
"It's just been a long day… No, listen, Krillin- Krillin, I really need to talk to Eighteen. Okay, thank you."
"Laz- Eighteen… Yes, I know you don't like being called that- Yeah, yeah, you have told me a thousand times, but I just forget… Uh-huh… Yeah."
He sighs audibly. She was so frustrating sometimes.
"EIGHTEEN, WILL YOU LET ME SPEAK!"
There's a long pause on her end.
"...I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled. Listen, something happened at work. I'm going to be gone for a while… Yeah, off-world… I'm about to lose service soon. I just wanted to say that-"
He struggled to express this a lot, especially to his sister who was even more outwardly emotionally distant than him.
"...That I love you."
Kaki stayed where she stood for maybe the first few lines of his call, all but twiddling her thumbs. She couldn't really hear what was being said on the other end of the line - not that she was trying to eavesdrop. Eventually, she would step out of view.
As the conversation wore on, she opened the weapon's closet just beside the entrance to the hallway to look at what she had stored inside - a stack of crates full with loose items for sale - to make sure none had toppled over earlier during take-off. Finding that they were secure, Kaki shuts the closet and goes to the opposite end of the ship, near the entrance. She uses her foot to push at an indention near the floor, which prompts her bed to come out from its place inside the wall.
The bed was made but the sheets were slightly wrinkled, and she idly leans down to smooth it out with her arms.
She jolts at the sound of Seventeen's voice booming from the kitchen, her head whipping in its direction. She stands back up straight, wringing her hands together, and apprehensively goes back to meet him again in the kitchen.
"Sorry about that. My sister, she's a little… frustrating at times."
He walks up to where his backpack sat behind the co-pilot seat of the small ship and drops his phone into one of the interior pockets.
Without thinking he peels the MIR shirt off, as it was covered in dirt, sweat, and another man's blood. He runs his hand idly along the skin covering his abdomen, which despite all his battles was smooth like marble. The lack of permanence in his combat made him sad in a way.
He snaps out of his daze and can immediately feel Kaki's eyes on him. If androids could blush, he would have been crimson.
"I, uh… I sleep without a shirt on," he says sheepishly.
It caught her off guard, and her eyes went as wide as saucers at the sight of him taking his shirt off. She really didn't mean to stare, but she took too long to look away. When he voices his notice, Kaki's cheeks burn in embarrassment and she turns her head in the opposite direction to hide her face.
"O - Of course. That is fine," she says. She rubs the back of her neck, turning back just a bit to address him and holding out a hand. "I can, um, get your shirt washed for you if you wish..."
He smiles rather tenderly. She was like a blushing schoolgirl now, which painted such a stark contrast to her bulky armor and the large scar running through her right eyebrow and down to her cheek. Briefly, he wonders what the story behind that was… Another time maybe.
He tosses the shirt to her outstretched hand.
"Do you have anything else that would fit me? That was just my work uniform." Seventeen pauses. "...I guess I don't really need it anymore…"
"Hmm. I do, actually."
Kaki takes the shirt in hand and tosses it into a bin beside the closet door, before opening the closet again and disappearing into it. After a moment, she steps back out with an almost too small-looking article of clothing, black in color. She hands it to him.
"Here. I know it looks small, but it will stretch to fit your form. It's an extra of what I wear under my armor," she tells him. "The sleeves are cropped, though."
Seventeen takes the shirt and rubs the fabric between his fingers, wondering what it was made of. It was incredibly soft, and like Kaki had said, so small it almost looked like clothing for a child.
"You weren't lying about the size. My niece could wear this," he chuckled.
He slips his arms through the sleeves and pulls the shirt over his head, ruffling his hair as he did. Once it was entirely on he looked down at his biceps which were on full display.
Seventeen smirks at her.
"If you wanted a ticket to the gun show, you could have just asked."
Kaki's brows furrow at the remark, her eye flicking up and down in confusion, before rolling her eyes a little.
"Please," she mutters, to mask the growing embarrassment catching in her chest.
She sniffs and looks back to him to answer his unvoiced question.
"...It's arachnid silk. My people, the Brench, traditionally used it before it was popularized by the Planetary Trade Organization. Usually you see soldiers wearing it underneath armor, but it's become somewhat common outside of Trade reach for its comfort and durability."
A smile plays on his lips. He can tell she was embarrassed by his comment and that made him strangely proud.
"...I've never heard of the PTO, but that sounds unethical to me. Large-scale livestock farming usually is. But no ethical consumption under capitalism and all."
Casually, he strides over to where he could see the corner of the bed peek out from around the corner. It was a full-size mattress, well more of a cot if he was being honest, and looked rather stiff to lay on for extended periods. This would be an issue for anyone else but since he didn't sleep, it isn't for him. He turns to look at her, his eyes lingering on her face for a moment. It might have just been the limited lighting of the ship, but something about her right then was so melancholic.
"...Goodnight, Kaki."
Kaki can't help but to huff at his comment about the PTO, a bitter yet wistful expression crossing her face. He didn't even know the half of it.
She sighs and turns back away to saunter towards the controls, where she would pull up the map on the navigator again.
They were still several hours out from Tatinarte, which meant there was plenty of time to kill.
"I'll be over here," Kaki says, finally, in response.
Silently, she sits in the captain's chair.