trans_9 | Rust in Peace [Open]

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Rust in Peace [Open]

Zouichi, for once, wasn't in the City on patrol. Instead, he was making a systematic search of the city's streets, looking for telltale stray robot parts that might lead him to what he was looking for. Unfortunately, during SHODAN's attack, not all of the crew (except him! okay not really) had been terribly judicious about the property damage they were inflicting on the nearby buildings.

So there was rubble everywhere. Oops.

But it had been in the middle of a robot attack, right? Sometimes you needed to break a few eggs to make an omelet, right? RIGHT.

[This is the log for searching for robot parts and a SUPER SECRET ENGINEERING PROJECT okay it's not that secret but IT SORT OF IS. Feel free to have someone try and peek in on the Engineering thread ~~and have Lash furtively cover her test paper~~.]

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Zouichi sighed. "Of course. Why do we need medical facilities when we have alcohol?" Not that he'd ever really understood the point of alcohol, except for maybe that one time when he and Red Robin had gotten totally drunk and... anyway.

"Hoarders aren't crazy. They just feel the need to hoard things. If you hoard things, you're a hoarder." Yes, this conversation was now about the finer points of hoarding, okay?

Zouichi reached inside the box, pulling out an intact fuel cell. "These are explosive, you know."

Edited 2012-04-02 19:24 (UTC)

"Because people here are fricking idiots. It's not like the booze would even be totally gone, I mean, we have a beer tree. People here are just dumb." And that was the beginning of the end for Howard in Medical. Apparently people had better things to be doing than cleaning up the Med Bay, and those better things included getting drunk, and whoa disillusionment.

"Hoarders are crazy. Haven't you ever seen that TV show, what's it called, oh, Hoarders? I'm not a hoarder." Howard's very adamant about this. "I just keep stuff."

Howard cocks his head and inspects the fuel cell. "Really? ...Whoops."

That's not worrying at all.

He frowned. "Apparently. Speaking of which... have you seen Sakura around? I was starting to wonder if I should ask around again -- the last time this happened, she ended up in a completely different part of the ship." Although it was, of course, possible that GLaDOS had abducted her.

"...there's a TV show about hoarders?" That was news to Zouichi. Well, 1,000-year-old news. "If you say so, but I don't want to have to fish you out of any detritus."

Zouichi tucked the fuel cell away into one of his pockets. "Highly explosive. If you have any more of these around, you should get rid of them."

"Yeah. She's gone." Howard's expression flatlines there. It's clear that he's pretty upset about it and trying not to look it. "Repodded."

Sure, she may return, but Howard's not going to count on it. The people Stacy's spit back up so far have been people he doesn't want to see.

"Yeah, and some of those people are batshit. Hoarding baggies of cat puke and toenails and stuff that'll never, ever come in handy." That's the difference, see! Howard's stuff is potentially useful! Maybe! "If I'm ever stuck in detritus I'll page you on our little comm thingy."

Howard bites his lip and then shrugs. "There might be, but I wouldn't know where all of them are."

Oh god is this going to be the worst weekend project ever.

Yes, Howard. Everyone believed you. You were totally not a hoarder. "I'll try to get there in time. Anyway, I guess the good thing is they can't be ruptured easily by normal impact. But if a stray blaster shot goes off, or if something else in here sets off a reaction..."

Then it would be time to test Howard's luck!

Sakura, repodded? He wasn't really sure how to feel about that one. While Sakura certainly wasn't gone altogether (was, in fact, relatively safe and in stasis), she had been someone to talk to. Businesslike. Competent. Someone he could trust in a fight.

"She'll be back." He hoped, anyway. "You don't think it had anything to do with the Daligig?"

Edited 2012-04-02 21:02 (UTC)

"Red Robin came by here and gave me a safety inspection. I already moved the heater away from the things I had labeled explosive..." Howard grumbles. Granted, that was months ago, and he's accumulated more towers of crazy stuff since then, but he doesn't like having to constantly do safety upkeep. It's tedious but he'll worry if someone points it out and he hasn't fixed it.

Howard shakes his head. He doesn't want to get his hopes up that Sakura will be back. That would mean acknowledging that she made it to the friend tier, and he doesn't want to do that. "Maybe. We lost three medical people in like a week lately. It's only a matter of time before Faiza gets yanked too."

"Yeah, well. Maybe you should have him come by and give you another one." There had to be more than one fire hazard around here. Or explosion hazard. "Don't you inventory all your things?"

"...Maybe you should do a recruitment drive. See if anyone's interested in learning to be a medic." After all, they did need at least a couple people in there, manning the Medical Bay. Right?

"Albert used to." The ledger's still in here, somewhere, but the Warehouse has become less of a business venture than a place where Howard can store his more visible neuroses. "And no. He broke into my house to do his inspection. I am on such uncool terms with Red Robin right now, but I'll get him back when I find his lair. Wherever it is."

He shakes his head. "If anyone wants to do it they can, but I'm tired of medical getting switched up on me. It used to feel a lot less...like whatever it is now."

"You're going to break into his lair?" Did Red Robin even have a lair? It seemed so... odd. Like something a criminal would do. "How do you even know he has a lair?"

Zouichi paused in the midst of rummaging through one of the robot boxes. "...How many people does Medical have left, anyway?"

"He's running around wearing a mask and cape. There's got to be some place he hides his regular clothes, at the very least. And then I can find out who he is." Because clearly two wrongs makes a right and if someone breaks into your house, you should track them down and go through their personal belongings.

Howard counts them off on his fingers. "Me. Soren. Faiza. Kaya. Douchebag MD and Douchebag RN." By which he means Carson Beckett and Rory. "We have some medics on reserve too, technically, but I've never seen them work."

Edited 2012-04-03 05:54 (UTC)

"What are you going to do when you find out who he is? Put pictures of him in the paper? Blackmail him? Shouldn't you just... report him for breaking into your house?" Because you could do that, Howard! Or continue with your Javert/Zenigata impression.

He crossed his arms. "Guess that explains why everyone rushed off to fix something else. No one around to actually work in Medical."

"Maybe leak his secret identity on the comms or something. Teach him to touch my stuff." Howard looks at Zou like he's grown a second head. "Why would Security believe me instead of one of their own? I already got busted for bullshit reasons once."

Howard nods. "Maybe. But even the people who still worked there didn't show up. I know Sakura was off burying the people in the pods, but no one else has an excuse."

"Because... that's what they're supposed to do? Maintain the law? Not break into other people's houses?" Although on the other hand, he couldn't really argue that punishment had been fairly applied to every offender on the ship. As far as he knew, they'd send Red Robin off with a slap on the wrist.

But Red Robin should know better. Him and his principles.

"'Bullshit reasons'?"

"And? People like Red Robin and Security's going to protect their own. That's how it works." Howard goes back to digging through the robot box, very careful for potential things that could blow up in his face.

"I thought you'd have gotten a file on it by now. Douchebag MD accused me of stealing from the Med Bay so I got to spend a shift getting frisked." Granted, he was stealing, but that's not the point here.

"That's not how it should work." And it bothered Zouichi that he couldn't tell Howard flat-out that he was wrong. That Security had his best interests in mind, and that Red Robin would be duly censured. "I'll talk to him."

He raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't the officer that handled the case. Guess they didn't think it was important enough to put out an all-points." Then he paused. "Were you stealing?"

"Yeah, you do that." Zouichi is probably the only person in Security that Howard trusts to defend him. Then again, he mostly goes out of his way to avoid Security.

Howard's expression can best be described as 'sulky'. "Does it matter? The only reason Carson got on my case at all is because he doesn't like me and wanted to take it out on someone."

"I will. But yes, it does matter. Why are you taking things from Medical? Couldn't you just... I don't know, ask for extra supplies?" Zouichi isn't even going to ask if Howard can stop hoarding supplies. He already figures the answer is 'no'.

"Because Faiza wouldn't let me and I don't want to go through my other bosses. It's not fair. I've been there longer and know more about how Medical runs than they do, but everyone still acts like I can't call the shots because I'm fifteen. Sakura, too, when she was here. We can't be trusted with responsibility but a clueless new guy can step in if he's got an MD after his name."

Yes, he's super bitter. And also dragging the conversation away from why he steals things. Yes, part of it's because he fears getting told no, and part of it's just that constant paranoia that makes him hoard, but part of it's just lashing out at his workplace.

And yes, it's an emphatic no on stopping hoarding.

"You want to call the shots? I agree that Sakura could be just as qualified to run things as any doctor, but you weren't even a medic before you arrived here. Medical doctors have to go through years of training before they get to be full-fledged doctors.

"And someone who takes medical supplies shouldn't be in charge of Medical. They need to be available for patients, not lying around in some house in the City." Zouichi didn't really care if Howard hoarded food or robot parts or whatever if no one else was using them, but stealing medicines, bandages, and the like from people who might need them wasn't okay.

"No, I don't. I don't want that kind of responsibility. But I'm tired of having to do all the work myself with no one teaching me what to do and then having to follow dumb new rules whenever someone new comes in and witches things around on me."

Howard looks a bit surprised, like he expected Zou to be on his side. "Wait, you think I'm making a personal stash, don't you."

"Understandable," said Zouichi. "But maybe not something that anyone can really help if people are getting repodded. Maybe someone should make the EMH head of Medical." At least the guy was around whenever you needed him.

"What are you taking them for?"

"I'm making stashes across the city that me and Sakura know about, in case medical is ever overrun again because barely anyone can be bothered to protect it over the stupid tavern." And he has a personal stash, but that is almost entirely supplies he stole from Xaxing/Galilee/Pelau/HappyHappyFunWorld wherever.

As for not keeping the other residents of Medical in the loop, that's because he's spiteful and finds the Medical heads useless. Granted, it certainly didn't help his case against Carson. 'I'm stealing rather than asking because I don't like you'.

"So... why not tell someone about your plan? That sounds like something that anyone in Medical could agree with. And if they're for everyone to use, then it would help if they actually knew about it. If you get repodded at this point, all those supplies would be lost."

Not that Zouichi even really knew Carson, but surely anyone would agree that having emergency supplies distributed would be a good thing, right?

Edited 2012-04-03 17:42 (UTC)

"Because I don't want to, okay? Because I don't like them and I don't trust them and I don't want them taking over something I'm doing just because they've got the stupid notion they can do it better." And because he doesn't always think things through. Sometimes he just does stupid, impulsive, rulebreaky stuff because he can get away with it and cone up with a justification later.

Zouichi sighed. "Okay, but you do realize that having only one person know where the supplies are basically makes it a personal stash, right? Maybe you can just let people know where they are over the comms."

Always assuming, of course, that Howard actually wants other people to know where to find them.

Edited 2012-04-03 18:03 (UTC)

Rust in Peace [Open]

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