[ ♬ ] While passing through Sector oo2, Luka has never been more grateful for two things; the first of which that bats where creatures of the night. Not yet awakened by the arrival of twilight, chiroptera of all sizes, including ones not native to nature's design, hung from every available overhang within the android's line of sight. And trust me, she looked. That's a lot of bats. It was awe-inspiring how so many of them could sleep so peacefully through the din of industrial machinery that, in itself, filled her with a quiet unease. The second thing she was grateful for had to be, without a doubt, that she was inorganic. Should there be any predatory creatures among the furry fliers, the 'blood' that circulated throughout her artificial veins would provide them with no sustenance; devoid of hemoglobin, plasma, whatever it was that fueled the vermin. As such, she should seem totally uninteresting to them, right? There was only a moment of lament, as an after though no less, for her internal exhausts - her lungs, if you will - that surely drew in pollutants from the filthy air.
[ ♬ ] Having had more than her fill of the eerie atmosphere and finally taking notice of how much time she had squandered away on her own thoughts and the idle observation of the slumbering beasts, Luka turned to head back over to the train station and move on to the next sector...
[ ♬ ] When the powerful thrums of street lights activating in absence of the already scarce light from above roused the bats that had not already taken to the skies.
[ ♬ ] The sound alone of hundreds - no, thousands - of wings taking off at once send the mechanical maiden's processing sensors in to overdrive, artificial heart tripling it's workload in order to prevent her systems from frying themselves completely. Would this be what humans regarded as panic? Standing there, hands clamped firmly over her headphones in an attempt to keep her hair from whipping about like pastel streamers to save herself the trouble of untangling it all later, Luka breathed in more of that filthy air in an attempt to stabilize herself. The worse of it should be over now that the pests had excused themselves to find a meal.
[ ♬ ] Except, of course, that was wrong. Standing not far off the path she had intended to travel was by far the most unnerving individual she has had the displeasure of setting eyes on since her arrival. From the stranger's build, she fell under the assumption that it was a man she had cast her gaze towards; beyond that it was difficult to discern specifics due to the large hand that blocked most of his facial features from view. Had he been watching her? Still recovering from take-off, the android gathered what fragments of confidence she could summon and closed the distance between them.
[ ♬ ] While the smart thing to do would have been to keep her tongue in check, well, Luka felt as though this stranger deserved at least a bit of praise. Even if the prior situation had done most of the heavy lifting by working her up, he had still managed to give her a fright with nothing more than appearance alone. Her words came quick, chosen carefully to be delivered specifically in passing.
[ ♬ ] "Your costume is the best one I've seen so far."
