and i'm going nowhere [OPEN]

[circumitus]

Who: Rey and You.
What: Catchall June log for any non-event stuff!
Where: Guard Headquarters, The Dam (by the River), Home (House 1401), and anywhere else you may desire!
When: Throughout June. Please list the date in the subject header if you have anytime specific in mind!
Warnings: Probable odds of profanity are high. I'll update if anything comes up.

---

I. Guard Headquarters

Idle hands are the devil's workshop.

That's how the saying goes, anyway. Rey has never been one to revel in R&R for long, so something about that old phrase speaks to her. Between the dreams, the god's resurrection, and the anticipation of things to come, she needs something else to direct her focus. A distraction.

Which is why she finds herself frequenting the headquarters -- whether there be someone else already there from the patrol unit, or they enter finding her already there.

She has also never been one to file paperwork, but she also is no stranger to writing up reports. Now here she is, jotting down some concise notes to pass on to the anal retentive Maketh Tua, if only to briefly sate the control freak in that woman. If only.

It isn't that she thinks she's making a difference here. It's just... you know. Idle hands.

In some ways, it's more for herself than for the people around her. She really can be a selfish creature.

II. The Dam (River)

Since its construction, Rey has taken it upon herself to visit the dam whenever she can. Make sure that none of the city's elements or some idiot arrival hadn't sabotaged or damaged anything. As it helps support the city's power supply, it's an important structure to maintain. And since Rey had been the one to organize the damned thing, she may as well be the one held accountable as well.

For something that had been built using what resources they had here, the device is surprisingly functional. If there are any few perks to having the memories of other people in your metal brain, it's possessing the knowledge and experience of those women who understood things that would have otherwise been beyond just 'Rey the synthetic'. Rey, the empty husk with nothing to claim as her own beyond a body count...

If nothing else, it's rather peaceful here. A sort of peace that one doesn't often find in this city. When she's not running maintenance on the dam itself, she's taking a break by the waterside with a bottle of beer and half a sandwich she had concocted before leaving home.

Drinking on the job? How irresponsible.

III. Home (House 1401)

Synthetic parts are scattered across the table of the living area. Seeing that they had been provided by a god that didn't entirely understand the technology beyond the schematics she had provided, it doesn't hurt to check to make sure everything is in working order. If she's going to be using these to help her friend, it would be better to know that they aren't going to malfunction anytime soon...

That would be bad.

It's late at night and coffee has been made. For all she knows, she is alone. But at the first sign of someone approaching the door, she springs to throw everything into the box on the floor. It's what she's been using to contain all of the parts for the time being.

After all, she hasn't yet explained to the person that they're for that they even exist. Or what Rey had to do in order to get them in the first place. Nothing too crooked, of course, and the deal has already been fulfilled on both ends for her to fuss over the fine print.

Hell if she has any desire to explain this to anyone, though. (Save for perhaps Glacius, but whatever.)

IV. Wildcard

[ooc: Have something else in mind you'd like to do with Rey? Feel free to either hit me up with a starter of your own or I can write one for you! You can also contact me via PM/citygrit on plurk.]

Comments

June 9th, House 1401. /Law & Order dun dun noise

[synthedick]

As it turns out, the person those synthetic parts are for is making his way home from his patrol. Nick is especially vigilant on the late shift around this time each month: it's about when the Door should open and bring in a batch of newcomers, if his calendar is still somewhat accurate. With dreams and a potentially murdered brother on top of all the memories from a dead man, it's hard to tell if anything else could be wrong with the programs and processes that keep him moving.

He doesn't exactly hide his approach -- why would he? -- as he heads for the entrance to the house he shares with Rey, his cigarette dimly lighting his face in the darkness of the night. What he does do is pause as he reaches the door, as he thinks for a moment that he heard a metallic clang from inside.

[circumitus]

Judging by a number of factors, Rey can tell pretty fast that it's Nick approaching the front entrance of the house. For one thing, they're very direct when they reach the door...

So, either a home invasion (which she has yet to hear of such an incident occurring in Hadriel), or it's her roommate.

By the time Nick enters, she's covered the box with a lid in order to conceal the parts. Nothing out of sorts, here. Nope.

"Hey," she says once Nick enters, not yet turning her head to face him when he does. She was pretty quick to hide the evidence; more focused on that. "You were out pretty late..."

No later than usual, actually. But she's just attempting conversation. Act natural. Or something.

Shit.

[synthedick]

"Not much later than I usually am," Nick replies with a curious glance her way. He would know, since he's the one with an internal clock. He's not sure what that odd noise was, but nothing seems out of place. Maybe he was just hearing things. Better run a diagnostic on his auditory system later.

He slides out of his coat and hangs it on the rack by the door -- a habit he's gotten into since he started living with Rey. He'd usually just wear it all the time, but it feels more casual to remove it on occasion, especially when he has to patch it up more often these days. What's more is that he knows that with Rey, he doesn't need the coat to help her see who he is. The clothes might make the man, but he's grateful she sees him as more than just the machine underneath them, and for that, he's grateful.

He puts out his cigarette in the ash tray on the table and heads for the couch. "I'm gonna run a diagnostic really quick, so I'll be out a minute." In other words, no need to worry about him if he doesn't respond to her for a moment or two.

[circumitus]

True. That is... true. Rey knows that, thinking about the hour that it is. Time works differently here than it does where (and when) she's used to. Not by much, however.

Grateful even more so that he's taking an extra moment of reprieve to run the aforementioned diagnostics, she slides the box under the table with her foot. She nods.

"If that's what you need to do..." Rey forces a smile. Which is more like a slight twitch of her lip than anything else. "No worries. I'll make sure nothing comes crashing through our doors while you're down."

At least that much she can be honest with. One boon to living with a walking weapon is the near constant security.

[synthedick]

"A constant fear of mine when I was living alone," he says dryly, giving her a grin as he leans back into the couch and closes his eyes.

Performing diagnostics on his systems is always a little troublesome, as they usually require him to shut down his other ones -- including his sensory receptors. That leaves him blind, deaf, and unaware of what's going on around him -- something he's not fond of, given his life as a detective, and previous life as a cop. Some of his subroutines only take a second, but others can take some time to run through the various checks involved in making sure his internal systems are calibrated. It's time like these when he's glad he has a roommate, just in case the gods actually would send something crashing through the door.

He's out for several seconds, then several more, before finally coming back online. In good news, his auditory receptors are all in working order, so he's not hearing things. He makes a mental note to look into it later as he pushes himself off the seat.

"I see the door is still in one piece," he notes.

[circumitus]

While Nick goes temporarily offline, Rey takes a seat at the table. She doesn't anticipate anything to actually come stampeding through their house, but one can never know in this place.

In the meantime, she remains vigilant. She may not have been a cop, but as a soldier, she can understand the importance of not letting your guard down for too long. Especially when you're in a situation where you are potentially in constant danger, such as that of Hadriel.

Fortunately, Rey is a patient sort, and even scoffs at Nick's comment once he's back. Her eyes dart towards the entrance, before they shift back to him.

"For now."

At least Nick is the least of her concerns when it comes to this door's survival.

She then cants her head. "Don't suppose you caught any blips while you were down?"

[synthedick]

"Not this time." And he's extremely grateful for that, given it's a lot more complicated for him to adjust those systems than it is for some of his other parts.

And on the subject of those other parts, his hand acts up again, his pinky sticking in a flexed position as he gives the rest of his body a cursory test. He sighs, giving his metal hand a frustrated look.

"This hand is still giving me issues, though," he notes, retrieving his screwdriver from his pocket. "Can't exactly fix that with a few calibrations. That one screw always ends up tightening itself eventually."

Given he finds himself in a lot more scraps in Hadriel than he did back home -- it's not as though Diamond City was invaded by ferals or radscorpions every month, like clockwork -- he's starting to see the signs that he's overdoing it, working his old body beyond repair. His neck has been giving him a few problems, though that's a less visible concern; more troubling to him is the response issues he has from time to time in his left leg. It's an old wound from a case-gone-wrong that he's had to patch a few times with wires and connectors salvaged from other synths.

Well, there aren't any other Institute synths lying roaming around in Hadriel. He'll have to find some way to fix it on his own.

[circumitus]

At least the software seems to be fully operational. Rey wouldn't know much about what to do with that. That's more of an area of expertise to the Coders she knows from her own world, though no doubt there are a few present in the city who could accommodate.

Hardware, on the other hand...

"Do you mind if I take a look? Used to be an engineer, after all." She pauses, getting up from her seat at the table. "Well, one of me was."

Out of context and to a complete stranger, that would be a preposterous statement. But knowing that Nick is aware of the existence of her past selves, she's somewhat more comfortable with blurting would-be nonsense such as that.

In a way, she's grateful to her memories. They've gotten her out of sticky situations on more than one occasion. Plus, she's had opportunities to make herself plenty useful here thanks to those women, whether they were real or not.

Surely it's a thing that Nick can relate to.

[synthedick]

Nick offers her a smile as silent acknowledgment of his gratitude. He knows well enough what she means -- guess there's an advantage to have an engineer copied into her gray matter, same as it is for him and a cop rather than a raider.

He heads to her, offering her his screwdriver and holding out his bare hand. "Have at it. Maybe you'll have more luck than I am."

[circumitus]

It is an advantage, though Rey could do without the couple of sociopaths that share with the others. Fortunately, she has learned some level of control over those not to let them run rampant, and here she is. Some sort of freak concoction of differing personalities. Fun for the whole family.

For now, however, Rey allows the engineer in her to take the reigns. It's not like she communicates with them in the way that one would think, but more like a tiny voice in her head. An instinct, or muscle memory, guiding her actions when she takes the screwdriver and knows exactly what to do with it.

Taking his mechanical hand with her free one, she leans forward to examine the metal.

"Mm. Could be rust that's messing it up, could be the old screw. I can try removing it to get a better look."

She says this like she's asking for permission, because she is. You don't just take off someone's finger without making sure they're okay with it. That'd just be rude.

[synthedick]

He gives her a nod. "Go ahead." He wouldn't normally let just anyone take him apart, but this is Rey. The circumstances are different for her -- and far different from when they first met.

"Last couple of screws in there got stripped and loose, but this one seems to be doing the opposite. It could probably stand replacing, but there aren't exactly spares just lying around the stores here."

[circumitus]

The implications of what Nick is allowing doesn't go over Rey's head, either. It takes a special sort of trust to allow someone to just take you apart, even if that was something that could be done to her without things getting messy.

"You'd be surprised what you can find in this place if you look in the right places." Thanks, Rey. Like that isn't cryptic or anything. "Promise I'll be careful."

As she says this, she steadies Nick's hand with her own while she uses her other to twist the screw off with the tool he had given her. Her expression is calm and focused while she works.

Before long, the finger comes off. Nick may be different from the synthetics Rey has taken apart back in her own world, but it's all the same concept. In its own way.

She takes a look at the metal finger then, holding both it and the screw in her palm. She glances to him. "Screw's a little dinged and the metal has some mild corrosion, neither things that would help very much. Think I can clean the metal, and replacing the screws shouldn't be a problem."

Like she said, you can find things just fine if you look in the right places.

Or ask the right 'people'.

[synthedick]

Nick's calm matches Rey's as she unscrews his finger; the pinky comes off with little fanfare, and he's as collected as ever, considering he just had a digit completely removed. It's been a long time since he got any feeling through it, so it's not as though he's in pain.

"If you think you can find them," he returns. "I've been searching through the market, trying to find something I could salvage for just the screws. Haven't really seen anything in the right size, but maybe you'll have better luck than I did."

He gives her a small smile, but his brow knits together. There's more on his mind, namely the fact that, if his count is right, it'll be any day that more people come through the Door. That means more monsters, and that means more wear and tear on him. If he's having trouble replacing even one screw, he's not sure what he's going to do if something more crucial shuts down.

girl you looking dam good--

[dedikated]

More occasionally than ever before, Kate spends time walking along the length of the river. Running was all fine and good, but after a while, the same-y expanse of the city got boring and the rush of adrenaline stopped being distracting. So she begins walking instead, spends time in her head talking to the ghosts of her loved ones. They're not here, not really - dead people are dead and that is all - but she likes to imagine that her mother's stories about the dead sitting with us in a world that's ours but not is true.

(It makes her feel better, a little. Makes her hope that whatever they see, they're proud of. She's done good things in the last seven years; saved people, worked hard even though she wasn't sure she could.

... Those things make up for everything before, right?)

But she's not completely lost in her thoughts. Not quite. Kate notices the person sitting on break - she guesses - at the dam and squints, trying to place her. She's seen that woman recently, more than just in passing.

The dream comes to her after a moment of standing and thinking, the restaurant and the chatty brother. Yeah. She remembers that. It was a nice dream. Unremarkable enough to be remarkable in the laundry list of traumas and horrors that continued to echo in the back of her mind. (Not as badly, not nearly as badly.) She approaches - jacket slung over one arm and hair loose, pushed over a shoulder - and raises her free hand for a short wave.

"Hey. Mind if I join you?"

i see what you did there

[circumitus]

By the time Kate makes her appearance, Rey's got a mouth full of the last remnants of the sandwich she had practically inhaled. Her cheeks are puffy like a hamster storing the food for later, until she swallows upon recognizing the owner of the voice.

It had only been a few weeks since the peculiar dreams had ceased to plague them all, and it shouldn't come as a shock that she would ever happen upon them again. Even with the rare few encounters with those Rey wasn't all too acquainted with.

After a moment's pause, she finally shakes her head.

"Go ahead. It's a free city. Sort of."

As free as they can get while simultaneously being prisoners in this place. At least they don't have to deal with being locked up while they're here. That's an experience Rey could live without ever having to endure again.

terrible jokes are my stock and trade

[dedikated]

"Some of the time," Kate agrees, plonking herself on the ground next to Rey and stretching out her legs in front of herself. Of all the places here, the dam is one of the few places Kate doesn't visit very often. Actually, she really knows zip about it, other than the general purpose of a dam. Because that is pretty unambiguous.

"We need to do introductions?" Because, honestly, she has never been catapulted into someone's dream without having really spoken with them before. Does that require an introduction? Kate tilts her head in the direction of the hair tossed over her shoulder and scrapes a few loose pieces back into place, glancing from the dam over to Rey and back again.

[circumitus]

There isn't really much to see here. Not unless you appreciate the sight of running water, which Rey sort of does. Either way, she likes it. It's quiet but not silent, and she can think here without being consumed in her own head.

Picking up her half-empty beer bottle, Rey glances to Kate out the corner of her eye. She takes a quick drink before shrugging a shoulder. "Not really. The hair makes your appearance quite... memorable."

Yes. Memorable.

[dedikated]

That answer is fine by her, to be honest. "Guess it can be pretty useful," Kate comments, tugging a lock between her thumb a forefinger. Identification wasn't exactly a priority when she chose to continue dying it here, it was nothing more than habit and the strangeness of seeing herself with a shock of dark root and blonding ends that had Kate asking Delight for the favour.

She lets a couple of moments tick over in silence before saying anything more. "Was this always here?" She gestures with a hand towards the dam, of which Kate has really known nothing but the fact that it exists. It certainly doesn't seem like the kind of thing that comes as standard in this dump.

[circumitus]

In a way, Rey can actually understand. Perhaps Kate's hair has the same significance as Rey's scars do to her. The fact that she's almost always had them, and they've been the one constant following her throughout her many lives. So she doesn't question it at all.

Rey then turns her head towards the dam when Kate calls attention to it. "No. Helped build it personally, along with a few others here."

She shrugs like it's no big thing.

[dedikated]

Pretty much. As dumb a teenage pact as it was, Kate's grown inordinately fond of her hair colour, practicalities be damned, much like the piercings that litter her skin.

The scars... eh, she supposes they're stories, if nothing else. Even if the burn travelling down from her shoulder to her elbow or the claw marks deep across her arms and chest were a bitch to cover up back when being sent on undercover guard assignments at fancy dos was a thing in her life. She always found an outfit that worked, or Alicia came in clutch with some mind control trick that made her look normal. She wouldn't say no to getting them removed, but all the same.

Kate's brows raise at that. "Really?" And gods smite her for this next comment despite the fact that she doesn't even twig to it. "Damn." That is impressive, Rey, see it as such.

[circumitus]

Rey glances to the structure once again, before returning her attention to Kate.

"Well, sure as hell didn't do it alone," she reiterates. "Wrote up the schematics and contributed to a lot of the heavy lifting, but wouldn't have been able to do it without the others here."

Or she could, but it would've taken significantly longer than it actually did. Even with their lot, she expected that it would take more time, but they have some pretty efficient, non-human workers. That certainly helps.

"Just figured it was the least anyone could do, when Hope was suggesting that he cut our power or food supply to help him regain his strength."

Again, no big thing. Come on, Rey.

[dedikated]

"Good to know Hope was always a dick," she comments with a roll of her eyes, once Rey is done explaining everything. But it is a pretty big deal; honestly, Kate wouldn't even know where to start with schematics for a dam. It's way beyond her circle of knowledge. The heavy lifting... Eh, maybe she could manage a touch of it, probably nothing in the grand scheme of things.

"Guess everyone here owes you one." She catches herself wondering, trying to imagine what this place was like from the pieces of information she's gathered in conversations had with those who have been here the whole time.

[circumitus]

"He isn't without his uses, at least."

After all, Hope did give Rey the synthetic parts she needed to help keep Nick from falling apart. She's probably going to have to do more than just that, sometime in the future. The thought makes her feel a little sick, but she'll deal.

The things she does for the people she cares about.

She then quickly brushes off Kate's comment. "Just don't want people relying on them any more than they have to."

[dedikated]

She'd debate that. Asshole can't even exert enough influence over the Door to bring more willing clinicians (but then, they've had a couple of new additions recently, so maybe something did happen). Kate's hand idly runs up the burn scar across her left arm, feeling the ever slightly tender skin there and using the sensation to avoid thinking too deeply about how annoying Hope was.

"Know what you mean." She feels over-reliant on them, unable to make her own clothes or get all the food she needs. The beasts in the cave make decent meat, but man cannot live on meat alone. And then there's the silly things, like her hair. But Delight is relatively agreeable, so that one wasn't so bad. "Damned if we do, dead if we don't." Because they have to ask for almost everything.

[circumitus]

"And even dead doesn't count for much here."

Not when they can be brought back to be toyed with all over again. Honestly, it'd be worse if Rey hadn't already been through that song and dance plenty times before.

Her mouth then tightens into a thin line. "At any rate, the effort on the dam was as much self-serving as it works out for everyone else, in the long run."

That's what Rey likes to think about.

The long run.