What Some Take For Magic At First Glance [Opentastic]

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard has avoided The Warehouse entirely for the last few days. Something about wandering around in it alone seems like a profoundly unsettling prospect. Even when he returns to it, he decides it's a better idea to work out in the front yard than actually lounge around the living room.

Today's project is a roller fridge. Having found three sets of identical rollerblades (for someone with six legs? Or just three right feet?), Howard's set to dismantling them and fixing them to a mini-refrigerator he found in an unclaimed house down the tracks. He eventually plans on recalibrating the fridge into a freezer and attaching a handle to drag it to and from Hydroponics, but actually putting wheels on it seems to be the most difficult task so far.

After several failed attempts to use a candle-lighter to weld some sort of axle on, Howard gets a drill and an extension cord out. The sound of the drill upsets the cat, whom he's zipped into an old backpack, bar her head. He doesn't want her to run off onto the tracks, after all, or leave her alone in the house, and despite all the random junk he's accumulated, he hasn't yet found a small leash or collar.

She growls at him and struggles to free herself, but he routinely calms her down with cat treats and a sock full of catnip when the noise scares her too much. To keep her attention, he slips one of the cat treats up his sleeve and out of sight. That's just sleight of hand.

The fridge, on the other hand, may require more creativity. He sits with the backpack full of cat on his lap, chewing on a hangnail, trying to figure out how exactly he's going to give it wheels that can swivel.

Comments

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"...what are you doing?"

Zouichi looked at the rollerblades, the fridge, and Emergency Rations.

"You're not serious."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I'm not putting the cat in the fridge, don't worry." Not unless she dies, that is. "So yes, I'm dead serious."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"My first guess was going to be a mechacat."

Howard, sometimes people are just going to have a dim view of your peculiar brilliance and you will just have get knocked down, but you get up again; they're never going to keep you down

"What do you need a roller fridge for? Are those skates even going to hold up that much weight?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I'm pretty sure no one in their right mind would trust a cat with a gun. You should see what she did to the curtains."

As if to confirm, Emergency Rations glares at Zouichi and growls. Howard scritches her behind her flattened ears and hunches over Emergency Rations protectively. "Did you end up finding Alan?"

"If the weight goes right over the wheels, it'll probably work. Figure the Chancellor can use it for his ice cream, or I can freeze stuff from Hydroponics. One or the other. It'll need a battery, though. Might see if the car battery Chase brought me will work." This may be a bigger undertaking than he's ready for.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

He crossed his arms. "Yes, I did." No thanks to Howard, who might have at least tried to help find Alan. Not that Zouichi was going to harm a cat even if Emergency Rations had eaten his parrot. Animals couldn't help themselves.

"Well, don't break anything. Or electrocute yourself; out here it might take a while for someone to find you." Maybe someone should get Howard Life Alert or something, the way he kept dragging heavy objects back and forth. One day something was apt to fall on him.

[moms-temperment.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, Howard. Hana heard you had a cat, with a really weird name.

His daily City wanderings have led him past your warehouse and, in all honestly, the thing that got his attention was the stylish cat-bag. Which he just stops and stares at in utter confusion for a moment before finally seeing Howard.

Well, he and Howard haven't really exchanged nice words in most of the meetings they've had but he really can't resist that cat-bag.

He steps forward, holding one hand up in a greeting gesture, some odd furred white creature with feathered wings dozing on his shoulder.

"Yo, um, that your cat?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"She is now. My roommate got repodded and left her. Didn't even leave her any food out." That's what bothers Howard the most about Albert leaving, aside from the 'people just vanishing' thing.

He frowns a bit at Hana, still clearly not fond of the kid, but not openly hostile for the moment. "Never thought I'd be glad to be on a snotship, though. What's that white thing?"

Emergency Rations looks at the feathered thing as if it could be a snack.

[moms-temperment.livejournal.com]

Hana stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Bummer." He wasn't sure what to say really, Hana hadn't truly experienced having someone close to him repodded, though he couldn't imagine what it would be like if Sandy suddenly stopped being his roommate and he couldn't speak to her again.

"So, why's it in a bag?"

Hana smirked a bit at the 'snotship' comment before waving off the question casually. "Oh, don't mind him, that's just Taro."

The feline-hybrid creature yawned and shook its head, looking at Howard and Emergency Rations sleepily before stretching its wings and flapping up into the birds nest that was Hana's hair to curl up and nap some more, giving Hana what looked like some nerdy, too big, Dungeons & Dragons roleplay hat.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Eh, he was kind of annoying. Always did this thing where he'd clear his throat at me if I left something out of place. Even she didn't like him," he says as he scratches the cat under the chin. Emergency Rations bares her teeth. "I don't want her to run off onto the train tracks."

He raises an eyebrow. "And what the hell is Taro?"

[moms-temperment.livejournal.com]

Hana tried to imagine it. "I bet that could get pretty annoying." Pulling a lopsided smile he takes a step closer, eyebrow raised at the cat skeptically. "Friendly thing, huh?"

Hana shrugged. "I dunno, I just bought him because he kept trying to follow me."

[teethofneedles.livejournal.com]

There's the sound of a metal on metal, gear shifting, armor and padding rubbing against one another. So Howard probably hears Karis before she shows up. She turns the corner (she's wondering the city again, eating up time) and for a moment she eyes him, the yellow lights that serve her for eyes sizing him up before she strolls on, her typical, arrogant self.

"Hey, Howie. Long time, no see. Whatcha been doing?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Getting shot at. Getting bled on. Getting kidnapped. You know, the usual." He hardly looks up at Karis as he tinkers with the rollerblade wheel; he's familiar enough with her voice. "What's up with you?"

[teethofneedles.livejournal.com]

"Sounds like an average day in the life..." Karis chuckled. A bit nastily, really, but Karis tended to be nasty.

"Me? I've been working on building a gyrocopter. Been cannibalizing parts from stuff in the hangar."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard's fairly used to Karis' brand of nasty. If anything, it's comfortable. And he'd rather think of cannibalizing parts than people. "Yeah? Anything you need? I'd trade you stuff for a working welding torch right about now."

[teethofneedles.livejournal.com]

"Welding torch I have. Chassis is pretty much complete, though. What I really need are machined parts for the engine - drive-shafts, stuff like that. Tubes for the coolant and fuel. Can't take much of that without gutting vehicles. Find anything like that?"

She arched a brow. She liked Howard. As much as she liked anyone, anyway.

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

Jr. had no idea what he was seeing when he passed by. A refrigerator, some dismantles rollerblades, and a cat in a bag? So many weird ass ideas could come to mind, but Jr. guessed it probably wasn't anything too weird.

At least, he hoped. "Cute cat!"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Thanks," Howard responds automatically, even though given that he sort of ended up saddled with it, he's not sure why he's taking it as a compliment. Upon seeing that it's Jr., who got to see that absolutely charming encounter with Harriet, he gets a bit more guarded.

"How's your head?" He taps the center of his forehead, where a brand would have been had he been a clone. It's not really out of concern so much as to cue Jr. into the fact that he's not the only one who had something to bother him back on Galilee.

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

Jr. crossed his arms with a smile. "Perfectly fine, now! It didn't take them too long at all to get'em off after we got back here." Something he was more than thankful for. And now that it was said and done, it wasn't really so aggravating to talk about. If anything, Jr.'s emotions lied more with what they left behind rather that something that was fixed now.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Did they have to peel them off like stickers or scrub them? By the way, can you hold this up a minute?" He tilts the fridge and tries to kick a wedge in under it, but it's difficult to do as one person.

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

"Stacy gave the medical crew a quick and easy way to remove'em - think more needles." He shrugged. Though he wasn't really one to praise Stacy, those in medical had made sure to look over the method to make sure it worked okay. So he was thankful, in a frustrated sort of way. Two brands for the same thing was a bit much, and though the one on his head had been a little less ominous than the one on his palm (it was funny sometimes how the number 666 still made so many people double take), it was a lot more noticeable and the forcing of it was what annoyed him the most. Not that he actually liked the other one, but he had grown up always having it.

He leaned over, making sure to put more weight onto his left leg (his right felt more or less better, but he still wasn't chancing anything) as he slipped his hands underneath the fridge. "What are you even doing with this thing, anyway?"

[governorkang]

Kang had spoken with Howard before in the tavern, and remembered the human mentioning owning a warehouse full of random items he'd found around the ship, in the city. He didn't expect to find him staring at a fridge and rollerblades, though.

The cat was ignored. He figured no sentient cat would ever agree to being stuck in a bag like that. "You do have quite the collection here."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Kang," he says, not quite a greeting. He's not quite sure how to respond to the Councilor. 'Sorry about calling you Councilor Scales'? 'Can we pretend you didn't see that whole showdown with the little clone girl'? 'So, how are you liking the fake weather Stacy's giving us'?

"Eh, I like to prove people who complain about teenage boys being lazy that they're wrong. You looking for something?"

[governorkang]

"I am, actually," Kang said. He had no intention of bringing up what had happened with Harriet. "You wouldn't happen to have mattresses or bed frames, would you?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I would. My roommate just got repodded, actually. I think when he gets back, he's going to have bigger problems than me selling off his bed. It's a good bed, too." He tilts his head and looks Kang up and down. "And I have some others in the garage. I'm just going to hazard a wild guess and say you're better at armwrestling than me."

[governorkang]

Kang shrugged and grinned, "Better than most humans. I doubt you have a frame big enough for someone like me, but I need a human-sized one as well."