<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">OOC</div><div class="spoiler_body">There was the United States Air Force becoming the United States Aerospace Force, and its subsequent absorption of NASA and 90% of all space-related assets. Hot Eagle got dusted off, and they figured out how to make that work. Used it, even, to get marines into a US embassy terrorists had seized. That put everyone on edge. But the real big thing was that DARPA got major funding - even for DARPA - for two projects: MK-PSI and SUMMER-RED, and they actually got something useful out of it. Real gee-whiz Star Wars science fiction nerd shit. That's when they started building Arks and ear-marking people and matériel. Adam, Eve, and the Eden Site came first. Then all of the little Arks. </div></div><br/>As Q felt his body, the only new additions he found were clean bandages, and beneath them, antiseptic ointment applied to places where buckshot had been removed from his body. He had been shaved in places other than his face, but such a discovery would only come with exploration that would have been considered far too intimate in Q's time. Now it would not raise an eyebrow if he wished to be . . . thorough.<br/><br/>Sundowner remained calm and smiling as Q went on his little spiel. Unfazed, the pale man watched as the marine began to inspect the rifle. There was a significant difference in the rifle over the one now lost to Q: it fired the .50 Beowulf round. There was a mixed blessing there: bigger punch, rarer ammunition. There was certainly none of it in the Ark that Q called home. Kludging the facilities at the Ark to reload recovered casings was not something that fell within Q's MOS.<br/><br/>"Too much to divulge to you in any expedient manner. Nothing. Very well. That is patently absurd; our anatomy remains largely unchanged and so we do, in fact, have hearts. I am trying to be kind and hospitable. No." The man with dazzling blue eyes said, counting down with a finger in time to his responses, each in turn directed at what Q had said to him. He rocked gently, not feeling threatened by Q. There was a glimmer within the blue of Sundowner's eyes as he answered. Q was being reassessed. This was different than what the blond man had expected.<br/><br/>"Do you even know my name? What I do here? Why I have such nice accommodations?" Spoiler Alert: Q did not, in point of fact, know Sundowner's name, or even have any concrete sense who he was or what role he played in this community. "Please do not answer: I know that you do not. The questions are rhetorical." Sundowner tilted his head, and the left corner of his mouth cocked upwards into a grin. "I want you to think about that, Warner, and then I want you to think about the tone that you choose to use with me." The words were delivered with neutral pleasantness, indulgent in the way that Warner's fourth grade math teacher had been when she explained division to Warner for the third time. It trusted that eventually Warner would reach the correct mental conclusion, and was patient and forbearing in its knowledge that it might take Warner a very long time to get there.<br/><br/>The door to the room opened, and a lanky man dressed in faded prison orange coveralls entered. He was wearing a rubber mask in the style of a white unicorn featuring a blue mane with flaking paint and a hard plastic horn that had faux-gold paint that was chipped. The horn itself was broken off halfway. Unicorn was carrying Warner's clothing, and it had all been cleaned and laundered. Without a word, Unicorn set it down on the table that had recently held the rifle. Everything was clean and pressed, almost as good as they had been when they were first issued to Warner. They could not imitate that fresh out of the plastic smell or do much for the holes Rez put in there, but Q's boots were polished clean enough that he could see his face in them and even the saltiest drill sergeant would have to admit, ungrudgingly, that a damned fined job had been done polishing them.<br/><br/>"Now. If you want to, you may put down<em>my</em>rifle, get dressed in<em>your</em>clothing, and Unicorn will show you out." Sundowner raised his left hand, palm up, to indicate this one was one option. Then he raised his right in the same manner. "Or you may realize that<em>I</em>am trying to be<em>your</em>friend, and that<em>I</em>have gone to considerable trouble to make<em>you</em>comfortable as a show of good faith, and<em>we</em>may proceed from there with that mutual understanding."