Adding on a shrink tube, Erik shook his head at her question. “I’m good,” he said good-humoredly as he nodded over at the Corn Nuts, “Got my fix here.” It was all he needed. His obsession with Corn Nuts might have been peculiar to other people, but it helped him concentrate on his work. It was a simple preference that could easily be replaced with any other types of snacks, but he preferred the corn bits when he could get his hands on them. They were getting rarer and rarer by the day, so he valued them. It was almost unsettling to think of the day when it officially ran out. He might actually have to consider the possibility of driving out further in search of them if it came to that. Maybe he was a bit too dependent on them now that he thought about it. Either way, it was the one thing that could always satiate him.
Separating the three wires from the cable, he twisted a few fray ends together before he tied them to the jack plug. He then grabbed a small clip from the toolbox, clamping the wires onto the pins. “Gotta love loopholes,” he chuckled, roughening the edge with a piece of sandpaper, “But I think I can understand where you’re coming from if it’s like that. It would probably drive me insane if I didn’t have something for my hands to work on every day.” Erik wouldn’t claim to be a genius. He knew that he was based on test results, but it always seemed like a silly thing to tell people. It also felt cocky calling himself that. He was well aware that he could be pretty cocky and full of himself, so he honestly didn’t need the additional boost to his ego. But, as it was, his mind was never at rest. He needed things to concentrate on. Even when he was taking a break from his experiments, he needed to do something else, to work on something else. It was like an itch that had to be scratched or else he would feel irrationally irritated and uncomfortable until he did. “It must be nice to get out of the shelter then.”
He was honestly curious about the individual shelters in the area. Their functionality and their dynamic with each other was always fascinating to hear about, which was why he took the chance to learn more about them from their residents whenever he could. But, if given the chance for a tour of the groups, Erik wasn’t prone to visiting any of the more stable and civilian friendly shelters. The identification requirement was reasonable, logical even, but it definitely wasn’t for him and his goals.