sure! let's do that!
Who: Rusty and Mazie When: After sunset Where: Hallway near the activity room
The storm had gotten worse and Mazie had stuck herself in her room after a quick shower, the warning her mother had given her about showering in heavy storms still weighing in her head. She probably wouldn’t ever get electrocuted through a bad storm, but still, the warning was ingrained.
She’d spent some time trying to work on getting the cameras under her control and after making 0.0 percent headway thanks to the complications and the power surges, she got too frustrated to sit around in her room, staring at her computer. Deciding that on a dark, stormy night where she was not making any progress electronically, there would be nothing better than grabbing a board game and seeing if someone was around that might want to play it with her.
And she was about ten steps away from the activity room when the lights shut off and didn’t come back on. “...Ok....great. Aaaany minute now....”
Rusty had been in the activity room, playing video games, and when the power died out completely, he waited, and then groaned loudly. "Come on!" he said, to no one in particular. He waited a few beats again, then finally set the controller down, and stood up, staring into the darkness. "....annnnd now I'm totally lost, in dark room, blind." he noted.
Mazie listened, hands on the walls as she bumpily followed the sound of the voice into the activity room. "Don't freak out," She said immediately, thinking that was generally what people did when some new person showed up in a dark room. "I was out in the hallway heard your voice. I'm Mazie, who've we got in here?"
"Rusty." He answered. "Wait--Mazie? Like, you and I need to discuss Plants Vs. Zombies?" he asked, lighting up immediately. He'd been waiting to meet this chick! Of course, he probably would have preferred to do it in a not pitch black room, where he was all but guaranteed to trip over something, fall and immediately die. Ooh! Maybe she'll scream rape or something! After you reach out in the dark and accidentally feel her up! It'll be awesome! Jessy hissed in his ear.
Grinning a little in the dark, Mazie had one hand out in front of her, like that was going to help anything, and the other waving around off to her side to try and find the nearest wall. "That'd be me," She said with a little laugh in her voice. "Just my luck that we'd meet when there's absolutely no power, huh?" She asked, arm still slowly waving off to the side. "Marco Polo me, ok? Marco..."
"No kidding." he said, sighing. But he smiled, automatically relaxed by being around someone he'd wanted to meet. No one could be evil if they liked Plants Vs. Zombies, right? Sure. "Polo." he said, sort of taking a few steps in the direction of her voice, though he stubbed his toe on the edge of...something. Who knew what. And he swore under his breath. "Ow."
"This is ridiculous. You'd think that an experimental prison full of criminals would have a pretty kickass generator…" Mazie said, a laugh on her lips as she realized that they were in the same room and just..bumping into stuff in the darkness. "You ok over there, Polo?" She asked, both hands out as she headed deeper into the room to try and find Rusty.
"Yeah, just bashed my toe." Rusty said with a heavy sigh, reaching out as well in the direction of her voice. And, a few moments later, he brushed some part of her, or she brushed his hand, or some approximation of contact, and he jumped. "Okay! Here!"
Mazie had done everything she could to prep herself for the initial contact with Rusty, but she still jumped at the feeling of his hand. Still, after a moment, she latched onto it, needing to make sure she didn't lose him again and have to go through that very intense mini-fright again. "Ok, here," She agreed. "So…hi, nice to meet you." Mazie squinted, eyes straining for some sort of light in the darkness even if she still saw nothing. "Got any idea where the nearest light source might be?"
"Hi." Rusty said. "And...er...not actually sure, honestly. I haven't paid attention to stuff like flashlights or whatever." he said. "Maybe we should sit outside? Or at least by the door?" he suggested. At least there would be lightning to see her by.
Mazie started to pull them both towards the direction she assumed the door was. "Definitely getting to some sort of light is gonna help, even if it's near some windows or something. We could try for downstairs, the room's pretty close to the stairwell, and I imagine there's got to be some flashlights in the tool shed unless they've been snatched up already. Some match sticks are in bar I think and there has to be some candles around this place too, they just sent us a ton of them the other day. So whatdya say, Polo? Ready for the adventure of descending stairs in the dark?"
Well didn't she just have her shit together? Rusty merely nodded, mildly bewildered. She can't fucking see you, moron. Use your words. Jessy muttered. "Um, yeah. Yes! I mean yes. I'm ready." he said, tripping over his words.
"So what were you doing in the activity room before the lights went kaput?" She asked, feeling her way along the walls until she managed to get them to an opening and assumed it was the door. She stopped, though, trying to visualize the layout of the floor. Activity room, to the right would be the nearest stairs, right? Better give it a try. She figured the only lights were downstairs and she needed to snag one so she could check up on her people.
"Playing some Call of Duty." Rusty answered. Lightning flashed out there, and Rusty got a look at Mazie as they exited the activity room. He walked out first. And, he was immediately somewhat disappointed, even if he didn't show it in the slightest. She was a thin girl. He'd been kind of hoping she wouldn't be. Damn. Oh well.
"Solid choice," She said, casting a glance over at him during the lightning strike. Seemed nice enough and his appearance was about what she expected from what little she knew of him. "If you're a fan of the classics, I finally got the Space Invaders game downstairs set up…but shit, I hope these power outages didn't fry it." Sighing and now incredibly frustrated with this place, Mazie shook her head. They were nearing the stairs but Mazie always had one hand on a wall and the other in Rusty's. She needed to think of something else, try to keep her mind off of the possibilities of a broken Space Invaders and a ruined computer back in her room.
"So, Rusty…" She started, keeping her voice low out of habit even though logically, with no power, everything that ran off of it, including the cameras, should be down. "We needed to talk, didn't we? Let's talk then. What better time, right?"
"Seems like a good time." Rusty agreed, following along with her since she seemed to know where she was going, and he wasn't a take charge kind of guy. "What's up?"
She inched her way towards the stairs, sure that she was going to just eat it and fall right down them, but instead her foot finally managed to tilt over the edge of one an she grinned. "Success! Stairs, we've got stairs." She tentatively stepped down, reaching for a hand railing that she latched onto .
"Ok, so Rusty, as I'm sure you've probably figured out by now, this place is kind of weird. We're a full lot of criminals, like the rainbow of criminals in here, and we have zero guards and no cells. Instead we have this sort of strange, omnipresent 'Administration' that sets up shit like stocks in the courtyard..and now they're asking for our opinions of self-policing and all this other stuff." She kept her voice quiet still, just out of habit. "So, there are small groups of people in this place who are…taking matters into their own hands. And I'd like to know a little more about what your special talents are, because I think we might have some cross over, if you do what I think you do."
Rusty started down the steps carefully, not particularly enamored with the idea of biffing it and cracking his head open. That would just suck. He took in what she was saying, and think he got the gist. "We're talking hacking, aren't we." he said. "Um...I'm not a superstar or anything. I can deal with security measures, have before. So there's a few things I can definitely do. What were you thinking?"
"That's exactly what we're talking about." That had Mazie grinning, a real grin that probably looked really creepy in the middle of a blackout, but this was something else. "You've got experience with security? You're my boy, then," She said, not stopping to even ask if he was interested. It didn't even occur to her that he hadn't signed on for anything yet, just mentioned a skill. "Help with security measures is exactly what I need." Taking another slow step down, she turned her head in his direction and voiced a low, "I need someone to help me get control of the cameras here."
"Oh. Okay." Rusty said, smiling a little. It didn't occur to him that it might be a bad plan. It didn't occur to him that he had no idea who else was involved, that he had literally just met this girl. None of those completely valid hesitations occurred to him. They never did. He was a trusting sort of guy, who tended to get in over his head easily for this very reason--and clearly that hadn't changed. “When do you want me to start?”
"Hell, as soon as we can. As soon as the power's back up. I've tried on my own, but this system is giving me trouble and I was splitting my attention, really, between it and the game. Now that the game works, knock on wood, maybe we can actually make some real headway on these cameras." She took another step down and continued. "You should come to my room when you're ready to work. I can show you what I've already been able to do. Hint: Be careful what you write in a private journal post."
"Okay, sounds good. And thanks for the tip." Rusty said. "I'm honestly not much of a journal guy. So, I sorta don't really use it. Not unless I'm told I have to." he admitted. He read the journals that other people posted, had commented on them, and stuff, but he didn't exactly 'dear diary' it up on his own.
"Fair enough. When I first got here, it was nice to feel like a part of an online community again so I did read other people's posts and comment and all that jazz, but right now I'm focused on something else with the journals." Another step, then one more, and she smiled again. "You don't know how great it feels to have another hacker here. Or maybe you do, but just…it's pretty awesome. Is that what they caught you for?"
"Oh, um. A few things." Rusty said, shrugging. "It's honestly not all that interesting. It was me and some buddies, and...yeah. Stuff." he said, rubbing the back of his neck as he made a face. "Sorry, I'm really just not that interesting, period. But I do know what you mean about being around someone else who can do it. Cuz...yeah. It'll be nice to feel like I'm not speaking in tongues to everyone."
Mazie was quiet for a moment, listening to him and letting his words process. "Why don't you think you're interesting? You have some solid opinions on dolphins, you love Plants Vs. Zombies, you're a fellow hacker…there's lots of interesting things there. If you don't wanna talk about why you're in, that's your business but don't pretend you aren't interesting."
"Oh, it's not pretend." Rusty was quick to assure her. "I'm just kinda...not. I mean, sure, I can hold up my end of a conversation. So can A.L.I.C.E.. I play some games, stuff like that. I dunno. Just cuz I can talk doesn't mean I'm actually interesting. I'm sorta...That Guy." he said, shrugging as they walked, even if she couldn't really see it. "Y'know, That Guy that people know, and who's around, but no one's really best friends with or anything, and who's not the funniest guy in the room, or the hot guy, or anything. I can be defined by having no defining characteristic or function to any given situation. I'm just part of the proverbial crowd."
"Hearin' a lot of negatives in there, Polo." She stepped down again, hoping they were nearing the end of the stairs but it was impossible to tell. "I'd like to hear more about the positives. Besides, A.L.I.C.E. is way better at conversations than any of us are, so that doesn't necessarily count." She was quiet for a moment. "What if I were to tell you I thought you were interesting?"
"I'd say you're an optimist and don't have many people around to talk to yet?" he suggested. "And I dunno. Not sure what positives there would be. Um...I'm not a jerk?" he put out there. "At least, I don't think I'm a jerk. People've called me one, I guess. But my friend Jessy, she didn't think I was a jerk." Yes I do.
"For one, I've got a pretty solid group of people here to talk to, which is not something I would have ever expected for a girl who was homeschooled and spent at least 22 out of 24 hours in her own room, so that rules that out. There are some kickass people in this place, no matter what's going down with the Powers That Be. And two, eh, I don't know about the optimist thing. Consider myself more a realist if anything."
She took a moment, her foot awkwardly finding its footing on the next stair. "People've called me a lot of things I'm not either. Gonna put jerk on the list of things that you are not. But that's not really a list I'm interested in, Rusty." She didn't know why she was so curious, why she wanted to see to it that this guy didn't go around here knocking himself at every corner, but she was focused still on finding out more about him. "I'll play 20 questions with you if I have to."
"Um...what list were you interested in then?" he asked, figuring he could at least give a proper shot at telling her what she wanted to know. He wasn't really secretive by nature or anything, he just truly felt like he was one of life's nobodies. He was that dude people knew but never thought to call. Shit like that.
"What do you like. Things you like, that's what I'm interested in hearing about. And to be fair, I'll answer whatever questions you have too. Open book here," She promised, smiling a little more even though it was dark.
He started them back outside, the sound of the rain giving that away, so that was good. "I dunno. First person shooters, um...sci-fi. Comic books. WOW. I guess whatever fill in the blank you can put geeks into the same sentence with, that probably fits me."
She shook her head again, a smile on her lips. "No, Rusty, not what generic geek things you could be attributed with liking. Things you actually like. WoW, comic books..ok, who's your favorite comic book hero…or villain, I'll take villain too." The rain gave away that they were outside and as her eyes adjusted to whatever light they could find there, she took a moment to try and figure out where the shed was. "We're gonna get soaked getting there. I hope there's something in there for payoff."
Rusty thought about that for a long moment. "Do I lose points if I say Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy?" he asked, ducking his head slightly. "And them specifically together and I mean together?" He gave a little half smirk. "Cuz...yeah." he winced slightly at a bright flash of lightning which didn't do much for his night vision. "You want me to make the run? Cuz I can do that, just kinda...I don't really care, I'm not afraid of getting wet or anything." he offered.
"You gain points because they are also my favorites," She said nudging him with an elbow. She took a moment to realize that now, maybe the prospect of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy was more dear to her heart. Smirking at that, she turned to look at him and then lifted an eyebrow. "Rusty, look at me. You think I'm gonna melt or something? This'll count as a shower. On three. One, two, three," She said, letting go of his hand and bolting into the rain toward the shed.
He smiled at her, and then was finding her running off into the rain, so he darted off into the rain with her, not about to let her go alone either. But he was glad he'd gained a few points, at least. That had to be something, right? Maybe he would make a friend. Or maybe she'll be friendly just long enough to make you care, then realize you were right--you are a boring dickbag. Jessy said.
Once inside the shed, Mazie grinned, sopping wet but actually enjoying herself. She went to ring out her hair and tossed it up into a messy bun then began the search. "Flashlights, flashliiights, where aaaare you? Does it look like anyone's been in here before us?" She asked when she heard Rusty.
Rusty looked around, tugging his fingers through his hair to get it out of his eyes. "Er...maybe?" he suggested. "I have no idea." he admitted. He did start looking around, though, pulling open a few drawers at the work bench. "I haven't been in here before, so it could always look like this."
Mazie rummaged around, using the lightning flashes to help point her in different directions. She managed to knock her knees and her toes against items in this shed pretty frequently and one hard hit of her hip into a counter nearby had her cursing, and also producing a rolling sound. She looked up and grinned after a flash of lightning, grabbing one long, tapered white candle. “...Ok, this’ll work. Maybe. Got myself a candle, what do you have?”
"I haaaaave..." Rusty said, glancing more through drawers. Another flash of lightning had him spotting a box of matches, and he grinned, grabbing them triumphantly. "Matches!" he said. Then he opened up the box and struck one, holding it out towards her.
"Hell yeah! We make one good team, don't we?" She asked, smiling as she headed over to him thanks to the match's light. Holding her candle out to the flame, she watched it light and smiled. "Ok, first thing's first. We gotta find some more candles. Then we should rig something so that we can hold them without burning our hands off from wax. C'mon, maybe there are more candles over here where I found this one."
Rusty walked over, to get a few more candles, and he glanced around to see if there was a lantern anywhere, or something. "We going to go like, give them to people? Or put them somewhere where they can find them easier?" he asked, not sure what the rest of the plan was now that they'd found candles.
"Guess that depends on how many we find. Hopefully we'll find enough to maybe…I don't know, put them in common areas or something. If we have enough, sure we could take them around and hand them out to people. She held the candle out for him to see what he was doing, in the meantime looking for something to make a handle. "You see any duct tape?"
Taking the candle, Rusty glanced around, then smiled, grabbing some off a peg on the wall. "Here ya go." he said, tossing it in her direction. He hissed slightly as some of the wax dripped onto his hand, and he made a face. "I had a friend once who was kinda into hot wax during ugly-bumping." he said. "Never got it, myself. Not that I tried it. But...kinda because I couldn't get past they 'why would you do that?!' stage."
Mazie lifted an eyebrow at that, grinning because the conversation was a little out of the blue, but at least Rusty was telling her more about himself. "Oh yeah? I guess it's a 'don't knock it until you try it' thing but I don't know if I'd be trying it." She waited for a moment then shook her head. "Who am I kidding, I'd probably try it if the person I was with wanted to try it. Not sure I'd like it though…Though points for use of the term 'ugly-bumping'."
She started fashioning a ring out of duct tape, fanning it out and then attaching the sticky part of the tape to the bottom of it. Pulling off a long piece of tape, she held her hand out for the candle. "Here, I think I can solve the wax problem for now."
"It was more delicate than some other terms." Rusty said, laughing. "And yeah, I guess I'd probably agree if someone else brought it up? But I'm kind of sure I would ruin the whole thing by not giving a 'rawr' sexy face at the suggestion and making a 'please don't burn my genitals!' rabbit-in-the-headlights look instead." he shared. He handed the candle back to her, as more thunder boomed outside.
Laughing, Mazie shook her head. "Damn. Jumping straight to rabbit-in-the-headlights? Not even deer?" She joked, wrapping the duct tape around the base of the candle a few times before glancing around the shed. She opened a drawer, found a screwdriver, and proceeded to butcher the duct tape until she could work a tear into it. Once clean of the roll, she wrapped the last of the tape around and smiled. "Presto! One candle holder."
"Oh, no. I don't have a 'deer-in-the-headlights' mode. I only have a couple modes. 'Fine', 'Confused', 'Ohmygod-ohnoez'." he told her, ticking them off on his fingers. "That's kinda it. Oh, and 'unconscious', but that's only when I'm asleep or playing videogames. It's less a 'mode' and more a lack of one, I guess. And go you! Duct tape solves everything."
She shook her head with another laugh on her lips at his list of modes and then put the duct tape around her wrist like a giant bracelet. "At the end of the world, I'd use duct tape for currency," She said. "Duct tape and super glue." Holding the candle out so Rusty could see, she glanced around the area again. "There's got to be more than just this one candle here."
"And spam." Rusty said. "It has it's own key." he added. "And weren't there more in the drawer? If not, maybe people already did raid the place." he said with a shrug. "If so, that's fine. I'm not afraid of the dark or anything, so, we're cool."
"Good call on the Spam." She held the candle out to him, reaching to open the drawer she'd just gotten the duct tape from and the drawer right beside it. She rummaged around, sprouted a grin with her hands in the second drawer, and produced a like candle. "It's our lucky day, Rusty. You can keep that one if you want, I'll work on a handle for this one. Then we can go look for other candles or something? I know there's some people I wanna check up on but you can hang around with me while I do that if you want. Your call."
"I don't really have all that much better to do. Well, unless you count trying to figure out what approach I'm going to take with the cameras." he said. Since he did actually want to do that. Now that she'd brought it up and asked him to do it, he was all about it.
"That is something good to think about, but we've got no power so..eh, come tag along with me if you want," Mazie said, finishing off the handle for the second candle and then putting on the duct tape bracelet again. "Here, light me?"
Rusty tipped his candle to Mazie's, lighting it up. He looked back out into the courtyard. "Back into the fray?" he suggested, giving her a half smile. God, you're such a pathetic dork. Jessy commented.
"Let's do it," She agreed with a smile. "As long as you've got those matches, we're good to go." At least they had some sort of light now, that was a giant step in the right direction. Now, back into the fray.