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to protect and serve

WHO: Detective ~~Eudora~~ Patch
WHAT: the face-to-face option for her network post, looking for clothes and ammo and other necessities, learning her environment by hitting the ~~streets~~ walkways
WHEN: whole month of July for most of it, though an immediate response to her network post would happen on the 15th, and a belated response can happen any time after that
WHERE: room 020, but also kind of everywhere?
WARNINGS: anything in response to her network post may contain detailed and blunt discussions of violence/death/dying - anything at all with her runs a small risk of her at least thinking about her own death. if this will upset you, please tell me so before we begin so that i can avoid it.

NOTES: I don't like brackets/action-spam. It's not natural for me to write that way, and I much prefer prose. I can read it just fine (but please don't make your bracket text super tiny) and don't mind if styles don't match. So you're welcome to tag me in action-spam, but just be prepared for my responses to come back in prose.

option A
After Patch makes her post to the network, she feels an odd moment of disconnect. What if no one responds? What if she is the only one feeling overwhelmed and out of her depth? What if she just aired her trauma, and she's the only one going through it?

Well, if she did, then she did. Can't change it, and wouldn't even if she could. Because she might not be alone. It might help someone else. Which makes it worth it.

She goes to the door of her room, unlocks it, opens it. It closes again on its own. Right. She opens it again, waits for it to try and close, and sticks her hand in the way. She's prepared to yank it back quickly, lest she lose some fingers, but the door halts its progress, presumably in response to whatever is blocking it. That'll work. She comes up with a little squat metal container that used to hold something, but now is only home to a vaguely musty smell. With that placed along the recessed metal track, it leaves the door to room 020 open about a foot, unable to lock, and accessible to anyone walking past.

option B
She doesn't have much. The clothes on her back, main weapon, ankle weapon, and a few extra clips of ammunition. Plus the junk from her pockets. Never thought she'd see the day when taking stock of her possessions would include a mental tally of 'eight mint lifesavers' but the universe seems determined to keep tossing up hurdles in her path. Well, bring it on. High school track about to pay off in a big way. Metaphorically. She checks her weapons, tightens her ponytail, and runs her fingers over the gentle ridges and valleys of her badge where it's resting under her shirt, like a talisman. Time to go learn her new neighbourhood.

option C
Also time to go shopping. If you can call it that. Some extra clothing would be a good start. Boots, jeans, and jacket she can make do. But a spare shirt, a change of underwear, and something to sleep in, that would be nice. Toothbrush, hair brush, maybe a book. Anything to keep her occupied.

option !
Wildcard! You know how this works. Come at me, bro! :3

15 July
afternoon - Ben comes to talk about how he knows Patch - room 020
also afternoon - Drake stops by for more cheery death talk - room 020
late evening - Cole waits until everyone else has come and gone - room 020

16 July
afternoon - finding out just what a tiny thing Peter is - R & D

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Garages. Makes sense. It also makes it onto her mental list of places she needs to go. Later. Not now.

Along with asking people to keep their eyes peeled for spare air and water filters.

"That's even better," Patch tells him, finally on somewhat familiar footing. "You can figure out your teaching style with me. Everyone has one, and knowing what yours is is important." Another pearl from her father. "So, talk to me about this 3D printer, and I'll hold the light." She's probably never going to be able to build one, and she's all right with that. Maybe she can see if she'd be able to perform minor repairs on one, or operate one once it's fixed. She doesn't have to be as smart a Peter, just smart enough to do something.

Even learning that she's not capable of operating one of these machines could be useful knowledge. Keep her from breaking it, accidentally.

Well shit, she has a really good point. A practice student so he can learn how to teach, that's a great idea. Granted, showing her how to operate the machine will be significantly easier than trying to show her how to fix it, but this is still a pretty good starting point.

"Okay, well. I've always thought that the best way to learn something it to just dive in, soooo. Here we go?"

So, he starts pointing out different parts and explaining their functions, showing her the sort of damage to the parts that he's looking for, how to remove and reattach them. Things like that. It's probably not the most exciting lesson ever, but Peter is very much in the zone, nerding out about technology and how it works.

Patch listens. She follows as best she can. She absorbs everything that makes sense about the machine, but she's also watching Peter, learning about him, and about what he's trying to do, how he's trying to do it. When he finally winds down a little, that's when she speaks. "Ok, first off, wow. I think you might be the smartest person I've ever met who wasn't an actual college professor." Based on this one interaction. He'll probably very quickly eclipse that opinion as she gets to know him better.

"Here's the thing, though. You're way smarter than I am, and you need to keep that in mind. I could only follow... maybe half of that? Some of the things made sense, and some just flew right over my head. Drawing parallels sometimes helps. Like when you compared these little motors here to those vending machines that grab your drink for you, I got that. Try and do more of that. And maybe try to pause a little more to ask if there are questions. I can see how passionate you are about this, and how easy it is for you. That's amazing. That's exactly what we need, being stuck here, but not everyone is going to be on your level. I think most of us won't."

She's trying to be encouraging, and she probably wouldn't criticize a teaching technique under normal circumstances. These aren't normal circumstances, though. No one ever taught him how to teach, and his ability to do so is going to directly impact their chances of survival.

"Like this bit here." She points carefully to the mechanics that feed the raw materials into the heating and extrusion elements. "You started off comparing it to a pasta machine, which is great, cause I have one of those... but then--" She sweeps her hand and widens her eyes. "Lots of very big words I don't know, and I got completely lost. So, can we try going over it again?"

Peter listens to Patch's advice just as closely as she'd listened to his attempt at a lesson, even going so far as to scribble a few of the things she says down in a notebook. He'd never really needed to take notes back in school, his brain was like an information sponge and he almost never forgot anything that he'd learned, but there was more on the line here than just his grades. He knows that he has a tendency to get a little overly excited when he's talking about all this tech junk, keeping some little written reminders for himself might help him chill and focus on teaching properly. Or at least as close to properly as he can get.

"Okay. Less big words, more analogies, keep it simple. Take more question breaks. Uuuh... Okay, yeah. I can do that. Let's take it from the top, I guess."

And take it from the top he does. His second dive into explaining how the machine works isn't perfect, but it goes significantly smoother than his first attempt had. This time takes longer; he spends more time explaining the more complicated parts and functions in simpler terms, and there are a few pauses while he comes up with good comparisons for some things. Whenever he finishes with an explanation, he stops so she can ask for clarifications if she needs them.

He likely has a long way to go before he can say he's good at teaching, but it's progress.

"How was that? I feel like I still got a little wordy."

When Peter pauses for questions, she asks them. They pile up, because this is very complex and quite a bit beyond her level of mechanical skill. Lots of questions. He's better with them now, though. He's relatable, and patient.

"A little too wordy is better than not wordy enough. Especially in a setting like this. Passing on this knowledge is crucial. "So... these canisters have the raw material." She hefts one into her hands, carefully, like it might break. "And it has to be fed in... somewhere over here?" She sweeps one hand over one corner of the machine. It's not exactly right, but it's close. "Which means there's a piece missing here, right? Something to support the canister?"

She's trying, and she's getting there. Very slowly. She's getting there, though, with Peter's help.

Peter is more than happy to answer those questions, and before long he's starting to feel a lot more comfortable with the whole thing. He even manages to stop fidgeting as much. It's a big accomplishment.

"Yeah, it feeds in right over here," He scoots closer to point out the spot the raw material feeds into, "and there is a piece missing, you're absolutely right. I've got it over there on the table. One of the little bits that attaches it to the machine is broken on it, but it's an easy fix."

Patch nods. She thinks she's starting to understand it. "So it feeds into the extruder over here, and these little motors move it along the X, Y, Z planes, and it builds on this--" She moves to tap on the build platform, but it doesn't give. Not even the tiniest bit. That seems odd. She moves her finger underneath the plate, instead, and puts a little pressure. It will move up, but then it falls back down solidly. "It seems like... I might be wrong, but it seems like something is missing here, too?" She crouches down to try and see under the plate, but the angle is wrong, and blocked by the casing. "Maybe some kind of spring or something? To keep tension? Because if this nozzle was a little bit off, and it tapped down too hard on this plate, and there wasn't any give... couldn't it break itself?"

Is she talking out of her ass? She's a little worried that she might be. Nothing like feeling like an absolute moron in front of someone half your age.

Peter, meanwhile, looks pretty impressed. He hadn't even covered that part very thoroughly yet and she was already getting it on her own.

"No, you're absolutely right, that's exactly what's going on here. That's another part I need to fix, is all. I think there's a broken spring down in there, I just need to take this bit apart so I can replace it."

Even if she had been wrong, Peter wouldn't think she was a moron at all. This techie junk can get complicated.

"It's like the shocks on a car. I'm still pretty sure I couldn't build or repair one of these things, but the mechanics don't seem to be too alien. No pun intended." She pauses for a beat, bites her bottom lip. "You know what? No. Screw it. Pun intended. I miss dad jokes." She misses her dad, actually, but she'll take what she can get.

She puts the canister back down on the work table and looks at Peter a little bit expectantly. "So, let's check out these tiny little 3D printer shocks?" She's into this now. It's kind of exciting.

That was a terrible dad joke, but Peter can appreciate a good terrible dad joke. He shakes his head, but he also laughs, so Patch wins. Wins at dad jokes, I guess. And also at getting Peter to feel totally comfortable around her, it's almost like that super awkward meeting earlier hadn't happened. Maybe it was just awkward for Peter, but then everything is awkward for Peter. So. Keep up the good dad jokes, Patch.

"Sure! Lemmie just see what tools we're gonna need, and we can get to work."

After a quick inspection, Peter grabs a couple different sized screw drivers and sets them out on the table. It's super convenient that screws and screw drivers are apparently universal. "Wanna give it a shot? We need to remove the casing first."

Patch grins, feeling genuinely useful in a measurable way. A thing is broken. If they can fix it, it's something to point to and call progress. She can tell which bit is the casing, because it's made of an entirely different material, and also a different colour. Which is just convenient, really. There are seams, and she looks along one until she finds a screw, with the nut on the other side perfectly fitted to the contours of the casing. She grabs a screwdriver that looks like it will fit, and gets to work.

"One naked magic printer, coming up."

Peter stops himself short of making some sort of inappropriate joke. Honestly it was probably just going to be something lame like 'oh baby' which is. Like. Barely a joke and barely inappropriate, but he's a weenie and doesn't want her to think he's some kinda weirdo and just you know what he's going to just stand aside and let her remove that casing. He'll make himself useful by keeping all the screws she removes together or something.

"They coming out okay? I ran into some stripped screws earlier on another piece of equipment that were just a nightmare to unscrew."

Patch is crouched on the other side, getting the screws down near the base. When Peter questions the ease of the task, she pops her head up over the edge to look at him. "You know you just jinxed it, right?" Sure enough, the next screw has been drilled in too tightly, and this one has gone into the base of the unit, not into another piece of the casing. She can't even come at the nut from the other side "See? I blame you." She's smiling, so obviously she's not actually upset, but this is mildly annoying.

She looks around them. "So, do we try to drill it out, or have you seen something we can use to cut a deeper flat-head notch?" He's been here longer than she has, she'll defer to him.

Peter just. Rolls his eyes. Ah yes, good, this might as well happen too.

He's not actually upset about jinxing it, after rolling his eyes like a TEENAGER, he gives her a grin.

"That's fine, I blame me too. Uhhh..." He pauses for a moment, rummaging around in a tool box for a moment. He's not really coming up with anything useful, sooo.

I'm uh, not coming up with anything useful right now. Gonna have to look for that stuff later. But uh, lemmie- I can- I can just get that for now. One sec."

Another perk of his weird sticky power, it makes unscrewing stripped screws super easy. Using his pinky, he's able to unscrew the stuck screw, which he then then presents to Patch triumphantly. Still just stuck to his pinky. TAA-DAAAA.

"...I think this is cheating."

Patch grabs Peter's hand, not hard, but enough to get a good look at his fingertip. "Wait. No no no. We don't just get to pretend like that was totally normal. How did you do that?" She shakes his hand, trying to get the screw to fall off. It's stuck on there really good. What is happening here?

"My magnetic personality?"

HAH. Well, he thought it was funny.

"It's just this thing I can do. If I wanna stick to something, I can just like, do it. Kind of a weird ability? But eh."

He lets the screw drop from his pinky, catching it in his free hand.

Patch gives him A Look, even though the corner of her mouth is quirking up at the terrible joke. It's good, yeah. Bad, but good.

"You just stick to things you want to stick to? Anything you want to stick to." It's not that she thinks he's lying, but she does think he might be playing a prank. He did ask her about stripped screws just moments before she found one. So, she pulls her satellite phone off of her belt, and holds it up. "All right." She shakes it a bit. "Stick to this." Something he can't have prepped ahead of time.

"You think I'm making this up? Why would anyone make up a stupid power like this?"

But he does stick to it, just reaches a couple fingers out and sticks 'em right to the phone and starts tugging it away from her. Bam sticky powers.

"So far I've been able to stick to anything. Ice is tricky though, because of the like, melting."

Patch lets him pull the phone away, and it's so insane that her mind is having trouble with it. Which is silly, really, because Diego can curve knives in the air, and his sister can make people do anything she wants just by talking to them, and one of his brothers can teleport. So it shouldn't surprise her, but somehow it still does. It's just so trippy, and maybe it's also rude, but Patch is not even close to done yet. She grabs Peter's other hand, and presses his palm and fingers against her own, skin to skin contact. "Stick to me."

Well this went from kind of amusing to super awkward in about three seconds, huh.

"Oookay, out of context this would be super awkward, just-- just saying."

But he does it, he sticks right to her hand and gives it a gentle tug. See, stuck. Super stuck.

That earns him another Look, this time with a raised eyebrow. "You are a teenage boy, I am twice your age, I am also not a predator, and I know I just met you but I think that pretty firmly establishes the framework for our relationship. Also, if the word cougar comes out of your mouth, I will absolutely flick your ears, and I am the youngest child in a very big family. I know how to make that really sting." She says it like it's a legitimate scary threat, even though she knows full well that it's not. Which is sort of the point. Things are often not as awkward as teenage uncertainty attempts to make them. Not if the adult in the equation it's a total scum bag, and Patch wants to be very clear from the word go - Peter is safe with her.

He is also something of an oddity, and she's sure that's super difficult to deal with on top of puberty and the absolute horror show of awkward that accompanies it, but she can't just set aside the interest. "Is this normal where you come from? Is this just... a way humans have adapted to... something?" She honestly wouldn't even begin to be able to speculate on what they'd have to evolve these skills to offset. She's just spit-balling, here.

"...Okay, fair, but you have to agree that asking someone to stick to them is weird no matter what the context is, right?" Because it is, it's totally bonkers. And also teenage uncertainty is absolutely making things more bonkers than they need to be, it's true. He unsticks from her hand and stuffs his hands into his pockets, giving her a shrug.

"But uh, no, this isn't normal at all. I'm kind of a special case? See, I got bit by this radioactive spider, but instead of something horrible happening, I like, mutated. Like- like turbo puberty, only with superpowers. I can do this sticky thing, I'm really strong, I've got like, a sixth sense now, which took some getting used to."

"You were exposed to radiation, and instead of cancer, you got superpowers?" Man, his world sounds wild. Considering what goes on in her own world, what she has dated from her own world, that is saying something.

She is peering very closely at the spots where their skin is stuck together, trying to see just what it is that's making it possible. It doesn't exactly feel like an adhesive. She's stuck, but there isn't a residue that she can detect. "What kind of a sixth sense? Like... psychic vibrations, or something? Can you tell what's going to happen before it happens?"

Peter shrugs and gives her a nod. Eeeeyup, that's about the long and short of it right there, Patch. "As far as I know, I'm the only person where I'm from to get bug based powers that way. There was a guy called Ant Man, though, but I'm not sure what his whole deal was. I remember he could get really tiny," he holds his thumb and forefinger up, about an inch apart. Dude got really tiny, "and then really huge. Like, building huge."

It's been a couple years and Peter only met him once. But anyway, Peter's getting a little off track. Time to focus.

"Uh, the sixth sense is more of a... I can feel when something's about to happen. Like, say, you throw something at the back of my head from across the room. I just know that it's there, I can feel it coming and I'd have time to get out of the way or catch it."

She's just not even going to touch on Ant-Man. Can't, right now, actually. It's mental self-preservation at its most basic. "But you don't actually see the future. You couldn't tell me what I have hidden in my hand before I show you?" That would be incredibly useful. Just saying. Not that his abilities as he describes them don't sound super useful. "And your brain? Were you this smart before you got bitten, or is that new, too?"

to protect and serve

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