trans_9 | What Some Take For Magic At First Glance [Opentastic]

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What Some Take For Magic At First Glance [Opentastic]

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.

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"...what are you doing?"

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

"You're not serious."

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

"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?"

"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.

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.

He did try to find Alan! He looked through the whole inn while you were out, Zou, including nooks and crannies your average-sized body wouldn't be able to squirm into!

No Alan. Also no ghosts! But yes spiders.

"You found him alive, right? Is he molting?" Or did Emergency Rations actually take a chomp out of his wings?

"You have no faith in me. I'm not going to work on it while it's plugged in, duh."

Oh, well then. Zouichi can probably find it in himself to forgive Howard. "Alan's not molting, and he's fine. He'd be much crankier if he were. I left him back in my room." After much floofing of his feathers, of course.

He gave Emergency Rations a serious look, bending down to get a little closer. "You're cleared of all charges."

"Good you found him, at least. Does he need a leash or something?" Because if so, he can get right in line behind Emergency Rations, who is now trying to squirm her way out of the bag. She bats at Zouichi with one declawed pay, snarling at him and biting at Howard's hand. "She doesn't like authority, I guess."

"I'd rather not leash him, honestly. He's pretty obedient, and aside from this time, good about not flying off somewhere."

Zouichi frowned at the snarling cat. "Why did you bring her here? She doesn't look to happy about it."

"Just make sure it doesn't turn into a habit, I guess. Someday he really will get eaten." Or get sucked up into one of Stacy's bacterial filters or something. Who knows on this ship.

"So she wouldn't run around near the train tracks. And I don't know, she's purring." That's actually growling, but Howard doesn't know the difference. "Wanna go find that piano?"

"Why all this sudden concern over Alan? I thought he gave you death glares all the time." Which was silly, of course; Alan was the most sweet-natured bird ever.

"...that's growling." Zouichi would try to let Emergency Rations out, but out here, there's no telling where she'd run to. "Is it far from here?"

"He does. With those creepy, beady little birdy eyes." Howard does his best approximation of one of Alan's death glares, but he really doesn't capture the avian nature of the expression without the beak. "But you seemed pretty upset that he disappeared, so it's better he doesn't. Duh."

"Oh. Then what does purring sound like?" He tries scratching her behind the ears, but she just growls louder, so he slips a treat between her teeth. "Only a mile-ish, I think. I'll have to just recognize the building. I should keep a map at some point."

Zouichi stood. "You look like you forgot your car keys or something. Anyway, Alan's a parrot. His eyes are supposed to be beady." Also, Zouichi was rather fond of beady little bird eyes.

"It's kind of like a vibration. It's different from cat to cat, though." He looked dubiously at Emergency Rations. "You've never heard her purr?"

"Yeah, nature didn't exactly gift him with the 'cute' gene. At least he's got all is feathers now."

Howard starts walking, twisting his lower lip as he tries to remember which direction the building's in. "I don't know. Maybe. She's only been mine for like a week, Zou, jeez."

"What are you talking about? Alan is adorable. Have you ever seen him roll over?" Because clearly it is the cutest thing ever.

Zouichi followed him. "I thought you had joint custody. You sure you know where this place is?"

"Okay, the rolling over thing is kind of cute. Kind of. I guess you could have a mole rat or something really uncute."

"She was Albert's cat. I only took care of her when he'd lock her out of his room because he didn't like her." He pauses at an intersection in paths and takes the left one. "No, I'm not sure. Why, you got somewhere to be?"

"I'll relay the stamp of approval to him."

"Why did Albert even have a cat if he didn't like her? And not really. I'd just prefer not to wander around the City until dawn."

Also, at least some of it is haunted, so.

"I kind of gave her to him." Probably best not to mention that he knew Albert hated cats.

"If it gets to be too late, we can just retrace our steps. I swear it's around here somewhere. Don't you have GPS in your systems or something?"

Although they seem to be getting further from the buildings and more into geography. When they hit a clearing, Howard pauses. "Whoa. Deja vu. Massive deja vu."

"GPS requires navigational satellites. This place doesn't even have an upper atmosphere." Zouichi looked around at the clearing, puzzled. "Deja vu? Have you been here before?"

Because Zouichi doesn't recognize the place.

"Hold the cat for a second," he says, handing Zouichi the backpack and pulling his flashlight out of his pocket. He sprints up a hill and disappears over a bluff, before popping back up again and running back to Zouichi. "This is from the FAYZ."

He's not sure whether to be happy about that or not. There's are quiet a few elements of the FAYZ he'd rather not show up on the ship, but the cliffs seem fine enough. The mine, which he saw a little down the way, is another issue. "There's, um. We might need to check out the mine or, like, report it to security or something."

Zouichi took Emergency Rations, following Howard at a walk. "What's wrong with the mine? Are you sure it's from your world? Geographical landmarks can be common between different versions of Earth."

He nods. "Definitely mine. That's where Crazy Mary tried to mass murder all the toddlers." He motions over to the cliff.

"The mine's got...well, I'm not quite sure what the mine's got, but it could be radioactive-contaminated, or still have a dead kid in there, depending on what Stacy brought with it."

Zouichi had almost started to think he'd heard all there was to hear about the FAYZ. Apparently not. He stared at Howard for a moment. "Do I want to know?"

Then he looked back at the mine. "I'm not detecting any ionizing radiation. We could get closer and have a look."

How far down did the mine go? He was reasonably sure the ship hadn't taken the entire thing. There must be a cutoff depth beyond which they'd be unable to reach.

"Probably not. Not exactly a highlight of the FAYZ's history." He takes the backpack back, clutching Emergency Rations close to his chest. "Not that I blame her, I mean. I'd have gone crazy too, being in charge of all the little kids and dealing with freaking Astrid breathing down my neck."

The last time Howard was at the mine, it had been night, and he was selling out Lana to Drake. He'd run off rather than stick around and find out what horrible thing was causing the terror that mine exuded. Now, in relative daylight (although Stacy's sun is going down), the mine doesn't induce fear so much as apprehension.

"Okay. You first, I guess." But he'll stick right next to Zouichi.

Zouichi took out his flashlight, clipping it to one of his front pockets, then started forward, heading down toward the opening of the mine. "How stable are the tunnels? Do you know?"

The rapidly setting sun isn't really an issue for him, but he's a little surprised Howard volunteered to follow him so readily. Not too many people wanted to explore a mine tunnel at night.

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