After trying to slide under Fluffy's attack from behind and smashing his head into the printer thus ensuring that Fluffy could reach over and tap him, Hortan stared up at the grinning trader.

"Gotcha"

Fluffy ran away fast, leaving Hortan to contemplate what to do now. Fortunately John came walking down the corridor and with little grace and less agility Hortan intercepted him and stuttered,

"G..g.ggothca."

Hortan then did as Fluffy had done before and ran leaving John perplexed

John was puzzled. It was rare for Hortan to speak without being spoken to, let alone assault a senior member of the guild, albeit in such a effeminate fashion.

After a period of quiet contemplation sat on his bunk with only a rapidly emptying bottle of vodka to aid his thought processes, a faint grin played on his face. Grabbing a fresh bottle, he staggered out of his quarters and proceeded as stealthly as his blood-alcohol level allowed down to the bureautic levels of the station to stake out his chosen victim.

Mor Isil whistled tunelessly as he strolled down the corridor from his office to Central Filing to submit his painstakingly categorised and alphabetised ship inventory as he always did on a Tuesday afternoon. Although most of the other guild members scoffed at this weekly activity and suggested the PDA inventory was more than adequate, Mor found almost as much contentment from keeping his house in order as he did from his blossoming marriage. Today he was doubly happy with beating his previous best time by 10.56 seconds and he kept a tight grip on the record breaking stack of papers in his hands. He was so happy in fact that when he passed the janitoral supply locker, he failed to notice the door was being kept slightly ajar by a set of purpling fingertips.

"You're it!", John yelled as he suddenly launched himself and several bottles from the locker, thwacked Mor heavily on the back sending the councillor's papers flying like confetti, and in the same fluid motion threw himself with wild abandon down the nearest waste disposal shute.

Mor stood dumbfounded at the centre of the document shower as the sound of a large splash reveberated up the shute from the cargo masher below followed by a faint murmur from his assailant... "I have a bad feeling about this".

[deleted]

Miharu raised an eyebrow in response to Mor's comment, an unamused expression crossing her face before reverting back to its previous state.

She reached behind her and handed Mor one of two dark blue containers . "I went and got the scampi you wanted at the mess hall while you were out," she said as she grabbed some utensils from the kitchen, handing a fork and knife to Mor before taking the other container into her lap.

"Shrimp, right?" Mor asked as he took the silverware.

"Of course," Miharu replied with a smile, taking the lid off of her container and stirring the contents with her fork. "Why would I get anything but what you asked for?"

Mor only replied with a slight blush and a nod before he started eating as well. The meal wasn't long; Mor also had to finish the weekly mining reports before the day was done, and Miharu had to fill out the majority of the forms required for the reports to be filed properly before her husband could even do that.

Mor had just gone back into his office when Miharu's PDA started beeping quietly. She reached over and plucked it off her desk, her eyes flicking across the screen as she read the message.

Oy. Surb's just got a bunch of last-minute mining reports that Mor needs to see before he leaves today. I'm running a little behind and can't spare the extra trip up to your office before I head to Latos for the afternoon -- I hate it when I have to use one of the lower hangar bays, I really do -- so can you come down and get them?
~Naoko

PS: If you have some extra BG4-9801Fs up there, could you bring some down? I'm running a little low...

Miharu pulled open one of the drawers of her desk, rolling her eyes slightly as she pulled out the forms that Naoko requested before standing up and walking over to the doorway to Mor's office.

"Mor?" she asked, poking her head around the doorframe, waving at Mor to get his attention. He broke his staring contest with the holoscreen that was displaying a large variety of graphs and charts filled with mining data and looked back at her.

"Yes, dear?" he replied with a smile.

"Naoko said Surbius just received a bunch of stuff that needs to make it into today's mining report," Miharu explained, "but she has to head to Latos in a little bit, so I'm going to go down and bring it back up for her."

Mor nodded. "What's with those forms?"

Miharu looked confused for a second, then realized she'd been waving at him with her full hand. "Oh, these... Naoko said she was running out of BG4-9801Fs, and asked if I could bring some down for her."

Mor nodded, a smirk spreading across his face. "Surbius must have had the thermostat a little higher than usual recently," he remarked, trying not to laugh. "I'll see you when you get back, then." Miharu nodded, then turned and left the office.

It was a bit of a walk down to where Naoko was waiting. The trip was usually about ten minutes by foot, assuming that one didn't have a long wait for a lift to go down the eleven decks to where Surbius' office was, but the stairs added another ten minutes to the travel time. She spotted a mostly-empty bottle of vodka lying on its side in the corridor and picked it up, dropping it into the nearest waste chute before continuing on her way. A dull klunk followed by a barely-coherent "Thanksh!" echoed up the chute, but Miharu was too far away by that time to hear it. Luckily, there wasn't a wait for a lift, and the rest of the trip was over quickly.

Miharu wiped her brow as she opened the door to the waiting room of Surbius' office, waving to Naoko. "Hot down here isn't it," she commented before handing the pile of forms to Naoko, noticing that her sister's dress was covering a bit less skin than it had been that morning when they'd arrived in Dau. "Barely noon and you've already lost your sleeves," she added with a smirk.

Naoko nodded an affirmatiive, taking the forms she'd requested and slipping them into a drawer in her desk before handing a small stack of datapads to Miharu. She tucked them under her arm, then reached out and flicked her twin on the nose with a grin.

"Ow!"

"You're it," she said with a wink before turning and heading back out of the office. Naoko frowned at her sister's retreating back for a moment, then finished packing up her things before getting ready to leave.

She ducked her head into Surbius' office. "I'm heading out now," she said. Surbius looked up briefly, nodding in response before returning to his work.

Naoko grabbed her bag and walked briskly out into the corridor. As she turned left around a corner, heading towards the lower hangar bays, she walked straight into a black-haired woman wearing a TGFT standard-issue flightsuit walking in the other direction, sending both of them sprawling to the deck. Naoko winced and stood up slowly, hand on her forehead.

"Sorry about that," she said, extending her other hand to woman to help her up off the floor. "I wasn't watching where I was going." The other person glared at her crossly and ignored the hand, standing up and brushing herself off stiffly.

"That much is clear," came the curt reply. Naoko flushed slightly, now just realizing she'd run headlong into Obsidian, one of TGFT's Council, and the resident member of the UIT Work Corps' Guide team. "Is he in his office?"

"The Lieutenant?" Naoko asked, receiving only a blank stare in response. "Er... um... yes, he's in his office. Is he expecting you?"

"He better be," Obsidian responded irritably, shaking a small packet of forms in her hand, "after sending these DF7-4052Ds back to me for the third time this week!"

"57B, ma'am," Naoko interjected as politely as possible, knowing the incident Obsidian spoke of. "52Ds are the Reservation of Guild Facilities forms. You have 57Bs, the Reservation of Guild Resources forms."

"57D, 52B, whatever!" came the response. "They're all equally as annoying!"

"I don't disagree with you on that," Naoko replied quietly, trying to calm the irate Councilor. "The Lieutenant is in his office if you wish to speak to him."

Obsidian made to walk past Naoko, but paused when Naoko placed her hand on her shoulder as she moved. She turned and looked irritably at Naoko. "What?" she asked. "What do you want?"

Naoko just smiled at her. "You're it," she said quietly as she let go of Obsidian's shoulder, continuing on her way to the hangar as she left the Councilor in the corridor to figure out what she meant.

Surbius was minding his own when Obsidian came in a little flustered over some paperwork. The talk over the thin pieces of carbon was short and settled in both parties favor.  Just as Obsidian was about to leave Surbius' office, she executed an about-face tapped Surbius on his head with some rolled up form copies, about-faced again and walked out of his office with a quick interjection, "You're it."

Surbius was perplexed by Obsidian's odd action and equally odd words. "You're it.", he went over with the words in his mind, "You're it."  After a moment of dissecting the quote and analyzing the reason for it, he dropped it and went on with his work with figuring out where to put a new office for filing forms while the transition from paper to PDAs for forms took place.  Sufficient time passed for his daily duties to be complete; next objective home, or rather just down the hall.  He exited and locked up, began walking and then it hit him, "You're it.", like a fast-ball, "You're it."  He literally facepalmed there in the hallway realizing it was a mere game, knowing now that he was it, he searched for an acceptable target.

Low and behold he didn't have to wait too long for an acceptable target, Moda Messolus, strolling down wearing welder goggles and a blacksmiths apron in the already dimly lit hallway around the station furnace, pushing a hovercart full of stuff that Surbius wouldn't have the faintest idea was.  Surbius walked up to Moda to start some small talk about guild activities, the usual trade route, and roid field.  Just as Surbius walked passed Moda, he tapped him on the shoulder in a heavy fashion to make sure he felt it through the apron and stated in his quizzical way, "Ou'reyay ityay.", and walked briskly to his quarters leaving Moda behind standing there looking confused with goggles and apron, replaying the words over and over.

As Surbius approached his door, he yelled back to Moda, "You're it, Mad Man."

[deleted]

As Moda heard Surbius say he was it a great sensation of accomplishment washed over him.  He could not help but smile and recall all the advances the guild has went through.  After that thought came a wild and crazy idea that was the key to the problem everyone was facing with the latest computer glitch.  He then ran across the station to the central mainframe with gleeful expressions of joy at everyone in his way all the while getting strange inquisitive looks.

.............now I am scared

You asked for it, ahahaha.

Lemme guess, *everyone* is getting tagged at the same time.

Apparently so, now who is TGFT going to tag?

/me sees Strat online and tags VPR on behalf of TGFT ;-)

Heh. We've already been tagged. However, the RP action over on the ol' VPR forums is less than stellar.

Shh Strat, that is a great idea. We should tag Retractile.

It is a known fact that hive bots, and middle school boys, are attracted to TAG body spray...  WATCH OUT FOR THE TAG BOMB!!