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WHO: Patch, anyone who wants to find her, plus Qubit and Loki.
WHAT: running, exploring, fixing vehicles, offering driving lessons, being deeply depressed
WHEN: end of October, maybe a bit of November. Whatever you want. I’m easy.
WHERE: garage, agricultural level, kitchen
NOTES: Patch is going to get sick, and she’s going to hide from everything while she is sick. So for October 21-25, after she’s realized that she’s sick, she’ll be holed up in her room until her fever breaks.

Also, I don’t like action-spam. I won’t write in it for face to face interactions, but if that’s what you’re most comfortable with, I don’t mind if our styles don’t match. I just ask that you don’t do small text for anything more than a sentence or two.

A. - hallways (October 15-17)
She finds the head surprisingly quickly. It’s perhaps the most unpleasant thing to happen to her. The cheery little voice does not prepare her, just chirps out “someone is looking for what’s in the box” and then falls silent. Like the irresponsible jerk that it is. Patch reaches down, lifts off the lid, and recoils so quickly that she literally falls on her ass. Then she promptly shoves the lid back on, stashes the thing in a closet with a very heavy piece of debris on top of it, and books it the hell away from the horror of the Head In The Box. Who the hell would be looking for that?

The voice doesn’t return right away. It takes a few days before it starts encouraging her to make her delivery. Swapping out her portable phone thing for a new one doesn’t help. It follows her. Even leaving it behind entirely doesn’t help. The voice pipes up out of speakers wherever she goes. She ignores it for as long as she can, until she can’t even sleep, until she has no choice but to go back, find the box, wrap a pair of bungee cables around it so there’s absolutely no chance that the lid will come off, and then begin kicking it down every hallway in the city asking literally everyone she passes if the head inside it belongs to them.
[[ OOC: You don’t have to be Qubit to respond to this. If you’d like to know about the freaky head, go for it. ]]

B. - garage
When she finds herself in need of an all consuming distraction, she heads to the garage. There are parts there to fix, seized up engines and faulty voltage regulators and slipped belts and corroded alternators, and unlike the work that Peter is doing, all of this is stuff she actually knows, things that she can fix. So she does, whenever she can, she takes things that are broken and she fixes them, and it’s not the same as being fixed herself, but it helps.

She’s also still helping Peter with the driving lessons. At some point, it occurs to her that he might not be the only one in need, and she puts up some signs in and near the garage.
Don’t know how to drive?
Want to fix that?
Call me.
[Bad username or site: det @ patch]

C. - agricultural levels and mess hall kitchen
When the plants go crazy in a riot of colour and strange flavours, she’s all for it. Something totally new, something familiar, something positive. She goes gathering, not so interested in naming and identifying as she is just finding something she’ll want to use, something that can bring her a little taste of the familiar. Literally. The chilis that she finds, for example, are perfectly round as beach balls and bright blue, but they taste like poblanos. She can work with that. It’s inevitable that she runs into other people doing the same thing she is. It’s another chance to force herself to be social.

Even more so when she spreads out her newly found harvest in the mess hall kitchen, intent on making her mother’s potato stuffed chiles and forgetting about her problems for a little while.

D. - open for one thread
The shift inside the city sneaks up on Patch in a most unpleasant way. She’s on her way to get breakfast after a shower, turns through a doorway and into the motel room. The last doorway she ever walked through, back home. Everything is exactly as she remembers it, the muted sounds from the bathroom, the god awful ugly bedding, even the box of doughnuts on the dresser and the pills ground into the carpet. The blood on the ground, that’s hers, isn’t it? Or it is just a shadow? She has no idea, but the icy panic that surges up from her stomach is all too real. This is her death, the end of her, all over again.

! - WILDCARD
Except for the time she’s stuck in her room, find her wherever to do whatever. Just let me know and we’ll make it work.

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He doesn't plan to grab the box until just before he makes his move. Patch can see that. Or rather, she doesn't see the decision to grab it telegraphed in his moves. So does he really want it, or is he just mad at her? Either way, this box showed up in her path, and it's hers to deliver, and she's pretty sure just handing it off to some random person doesn't count. Besides, freaked out and sleep deprived and sick though she may be, this package used to be somebody, and even if she can't stomach the idea of carrying it around, she still feels obligated to figure out just how he ended up here.

So, when Qubit's hands make contact, surprisingly fast for someone who didn't even see the lid coming at him, Patch digs her fingers into the ridges of the moulded plastic handles and refuses to give it up. "Let go, or I'm going to kick you," she warns, with cold determination to do her really distasteful duty with this thing.

"Oh, now you do want it?" Qubit exclaims, tightening his grip as well. He doesn't even stop to consider whether she's bluffing, because frankly, he doesn't care. "It's the head of an android, for G-ahh!"

Ow, yeah, she was not bluffing. Her boot nails him right below the kneecap, which throws him off balance, but it's not enough to make him lose his grip just yet. Possibly because he's just that stubborn. "Will you stop that!"

"Of course I don't want it, but it's still my responsibility!" Patch wraps her arm around the entire box, over the top of it and gripping the bottom, getting far closer to the dismembered body parts than she wanted to with her whole small shipping container and bungee cord situation, and she wrenches it away from Qubit, not caring that she's throwing him to the ground in the process. "I am sick, I am tired, my head is killing me, I have been shuffling around a body part for the last two days, and I don't care if androids aren't seen as equal to humans where you come from, that's no reason to kill them and force people to deliver their body parts like they're presents from Santa!"

As Patch yanks the box from his hands, sending him sprawling, it belatedly occurs to Qubit that perhaps picking a fight with a stressed-out police officer was not the best idea he's ever had. He picks himself up less quickly this time, keeping a cautious eye on her while she rants, and putting a couple extra feet between them for good measure.

Until now, he couldn't figure out why she was so worked up about the damn thing. You'd think she'd been given a box full of human remains, the way she was acting. But... he doesn't know the first thing about her world, her background. If, in her world, androids are equal to humans, her reaction's a bit more understandable.

He's still pretty irritated about how this is going, but the worst of his actual anger has passed. Once he's certain enough that she won't continue the fight, he takes a second to straighten his coat lapels, with a sharp snap of the fabric.

"It isn't dead, Patch," he says flatly.

She blanches visibly at that, all of colour and most of the muscle tautness leaving her face in a rush. "It's-- it's a head." But guess who is yanking that lid back off the box to peer down with muted shock and horror at the contents. "It's a decapitated head."

Not dismantled or detached, decapitated. Not component or machine part, body part. Not power down, kill.

Her reaction still doesn't quite track. If androids have achieved equality, then presumably they're fairly ubiquitous, right? Naturally he wouldn't expect everyone there to be a robotics expert, but they ought to know a few key facts.

"So? Androids don't 'die' the way organics do," he says. "As long as their core programming survives, losing hardware is at worst a nuisance."

There are a whole lot of words coming out of his mouth, and she understands very few of them. Which is not actually the point, is it? She doesn't know what's going on, but he does, and this all seems very normal to him. It has for a while. She should have picked up on it earlier. "Green." Oh for crying out-- that is the worst joke. Ever. She'll be annoyed at the little voice later.

Right now, bigger fish to fry. "Is this yours? Do you know who this is? Did-- did you kill him?"

Green? What kind of non sequitur - oh. That was her clue, was it?

Qubit draws up to his full height, though he's only barely taller than Patch, and grasps his lapels with both hands, the lines in his face deepening with his frown. He doesn't answer for a few seconds.

Because it is his. And he knows it inside-out - as he should, since he made it. But he didn't want her to know that. Why did she have to jump straight to smashing his fingers? He could have handled this quietly, with some grace. Taken the thing off her hands without arousing too much suspicion. But he let her get a rise out of him, and now she's asking him two questions to which he cannot say no without making himself a liar.

Qubit has become many things he'd rather not be, in the last couple of years. Manipulator. Extortionist. Betrayer. Hypocrite. Murderer.

But he won't be made a liar.

"I told you, it isn't dead," he repeats, more forcefully. "Do you want me to wake it up? Because I can."

Well, that answers her first question, and Patch might look delicate, but she's had steel in her spine from the moment she was aware of the world around her. She might not understand a single thing that's going on right now, but she won't let herself be bullied out of her integrity.

"Did. You. Put. This man's head. In a box?" She's still using words that have nothing to do with machinery, and is currently cradling the box in one arm almost protectively.

The colour high on her cheeks now is the result of something other than the sickness tearing through the city. She is livid.

Qubit doesn't flinch. Does she really think that's going to intimidate him? He's stared down worse. But her singlemindedness, her dogged refusal to let up on that one asinine point, is fraying his last nerve.

"That. Is not. A man!" he snaps, jabbing his finger in the direction of the box. Sorry, if androids are equals or whatever then that probably sounds racist as hell, but it really seems like Patch does not understand the difference!

"It is a machine. It's a tool, engineered for a specific purpose. You might as well accuse me of murdering a bloody miter saw!"

It is not a machine. She's not sure of much, but she's sure of that. She's had to wrap her mind around a lot of weird shit since coming here, but she knows what robots look like. They are clunky and awkward and only vaguely human in their general shape. They have hard angles and no set configuration in their limbs or build, and they absolutely do not look exactly like a human head with the face ripped off and metal musculature underneath.

Which is what she clings to, while she reaches the end of her rapidly fraying rope. "It's not a machine. It has eyeballs, it has lips, it has fucking hair." Her voice cracks a little on the last word. Who would build a machine with hair? What purpose could it possibly serve?

Probably not the purpose you're thinking. That was more the real Modeus's thing.

Some of the wind leaves Qubit's sails as he realizes... he must have been wrong about Patch's world, because she's clearly never seen an android in her life. Even the early ones had eyes and lips and hair, because the whole point was to make them look human.

"All synthetic," he replies tersely. "Silicone skin, acrylic hair, plastic eyes. No part of that thing has ever been alive."

Patch can't think of any reasonable purpose. She shakes her head slowly, and looks back into the box, warring emotions all over her face. "Why would-- It feels like a person. It has to be." This is too much. Much much too much. "This is yours? You... made this?" She still has a difficult time getting the words out, wrapping her mind around the motivation for it. "Why?"

Qubit doesn't answer. He doesn't have an answer for her.

Oh, an answer exists. But he can't give her one she'll accept in twenty words or less. What's he supposed to say? It's an early warning system in case my checkered past comes back to haunt me? Even if he were willing to open that can of worms right now (or ever), even if he had the time or obligation to explain himself, even if he trusted Patch with that sort of information - even then, all she'd do is get hung up on its stupid ears or something. It's the absolute least important detail she could have chosen to fixate on and it's driving him crazy.

It wouldn't matter what he says, he finds himself deciding. She wouldn't understand, anyway. And he doesn't owe her an answer. He doesn't owe her anything.

But as he's eyeing the head, debating his next move, something happens that changes everything. Without any input, the plastic eyes light up green, and the lip actuators curve upward in an uncanny smile.

"What's the matter, Qubit? Cat got your tongue?"

Qubit blanches, his eyes going wide. He knows that voice. But it can't be. It's impossible for so many reasons, he can't even choose one to focus on - so instead he considers none of them and goes straight to his gut reaction.

That's not just an AI. That's the real Modeus in there.

And that means Anchor is in terrible danger.

"Drop it," he says. (Why hasn't she dropped it already? Don't tell him evil voices are the one thing she does expect out of it-)

Qubit's reaction is more than enough to get Patch to re-examine the box she's holding with panicked urgency. What she sees, however, is nothing. No change in the slightest, nothing at all to provoke the reaction that Qubit is having. Which just makes Patch give him the calmest thousand yard stare.

This is right up there with those kids who tried to convince her and her partner, her first year on the force, that their drunk driving was actually because of hornets in their car. She can still see them so clearly, their bumper wrapped around that telephone pole, their ruined radiator belching steam into the sky, running around screaming and batting at their heads and warning the officers to keep away, save themselves, don't be heroes!

"Is that really the best you've got?"

"Qubit! That's no way to intimidate a lady," he hears the snide synthetic voice intone. "Have you tried severing her hands?"

"Shut up!" Qubit snaps. There's no time to think, he has to act! "That wasn't a request! Drop it and run, if you value your life!"

A bright blue-green light fills his eyes, and he whips his hands toward the nearest wall - in response, a panel bulges outward, then pops off and clatters to the floor as he telekinetically rips out the electrical system behind it, twisting and warping it to spec as if it were no more durable than wet clay. The light fixture directly above them goes out with an audible POP, leaving the immediate area dark except for the dim ambient light of the atrium - and the bright, eerie light cast by Qubit's power.

It'll take about ten seconds to come together - slower than usual, for him - but whatever it is, it's cylindrical, opaque, and slightly larger than a human head.

It's well beyond his safe limit in both size and complexity, and the cost hits him hard and fast. Pain shoots up his arms like lightning, through his skull like an electric spike, and for a terrifying second his vision blurs, and he knows he'll black out if he so much as blinks - but somehow, whether it's through determination or simple stubbornness, he keeps his eyes open. Gritting his teeth, he forces his focus to stay in the machine and complete it -

The light from his power goes out abruptly, and the cylinder clangs to the floor. As Qubit bends to retrieve it, though, the leg Patch kicked earlier buckles, and he falls to one knee, breathing heavily, holding the cylinder to keep himself upright. Modeus's dry laughter echoes in his ears, or - in his head? - "Ha! Well, would you look at that?"

Edited 2019-11-26 15:21 (UTC)

All right, of all the shit she's had to deal with today, having her life threatened by the dude who made a head just for shits and giggles is a step beyond the pale. Patch, hand on her gun, is closer to shooting this man than she's been with anyone else so far.

Until he makes the actual walls curl down like banana peels. Which is officially just Too Fucking Much, and she bolts - but she hasn't dropped the box with the head in it. She's making pretty good time, too, for how exhausted she is, until she hears the noises stop, which is a relief, and then hears him fall and grunt in pain, which-- damn it.

Her hand is back on the gun at her hip when she turns back to face him, but the fact that he's stopped being unbearably creepy helps. A little. Very very little. She really wishes she could just walk away. Life would be a whole lot easier right now if she could just be the kind of person who would just walk away.

With all his attention consumed by finishing this machine without passing out, Qubit doesn't even notice Patch has bolted until afterward, when he looks up and sees her halfway down the walkway - with Modeus in tow.

"Patch! Wait!" he wheezes. The anger's been drained out of him along with everything else, and all that's left in his voice is desperation. Fear. Not for his own sake, though - he may think Patch is an idiot, but as far as he knows, her life is in danger right now, and she doesn't deserve any of what Modeus might do to her. Nobody does.

"The head - that's the danger-!" He tries to stand, but wobbles badly and doesn't get anywhere. "I need you to -"

His hands shake as he fumbles with the controls on the machine he just made. Can't feel his fingertips, that's probably a bad sign. But he does get it open, the wall of the container sliding back with a mechanical hiss.

"In here - it'll stop him making the jump," he says. "Please. There's no time. You don't know him, he'll kill you, I'm the only prison that can hold him-!!"

Is he, though? Can he, in this state? Doesn't matter, he has to.

She checks the head again. Still just sitting in the box doing sod all. None of this makes the tiniest bit of sense.

That desperation, though, the hint of fear, that's real. Fuck. This guy is either a serial killer and she's about to end up with her own head in a box, or something else is going on in his mind, and just because she doesn't understand it, doesn't mean she can ignore it. Fuck.

She closes the distance and looks at his creation. It's a box. He made a bigger box. With the harvested wall panel to control a much smaller door than intended. So maybe he made a tiny cylindrical room for the head, which she supposes might be a step up from box. Point is, it doesn't look dangerous. Doesn't mean it's not, but she can't shake that timbre of desperation from her mind.

The cube of a box is not going to fit into the cylinder of the new box, that much is clear just from looking at it. Which means she has to touch the remains. Which is just-- such a great next chapter to this story of her shitty week. SHe opens the box, looks at the head, which is still just sitting there motionless and dead, and carefully reaches her hand in. Facing it this way, she knew would be difficult, which is probably a big part of why she tried to avoid it, running on fumes as she is. Can't avoid it now, though. She lifts the head out, carefully and gently, and places it very carefully inside the container. Then she uses the panel to close it, and then sits on top of it. Not just letting him walk away.

If he can even walk away. Guy looks like he might pass out. Was he sweating before, or is that new? "Straight answers, no sarcasm if you can help it. I've had a very long couple of days and this is incredibly weird and I need some straight answers. What has changed in the last two minutes to make you think this head is dangerous? What is the jump? How are you a prison? Most importantly... are you going to vomit or pass out? You look really bad."

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