Logs:New Strategies

New Strategies
Dramatis Personae Echo, Roscoe
In Absentia	2023-07-28 "At least I was part of one gang in prison."
Location <PRO> Grounds - Lassiter Research Facility, Ohio
A few hours after the liberation (#HeHasASword) (#OccupyLassiter) the energy in the crowd of thousands has not declined by much. Anybody who has gotten the hell out of dodge has been replaced by families, friends, press, opportunists -- the hitherto-little-used roads to Lassiter are overwhelmed with traffic both in and out. Many camps are packing up again; many others seem prepared to stick around. There is tense discussion all over about what comes next, mixed in with the tearful reunions and lively chatter. Roscoe's scrubs have been laundered recently enough to mark him as one of the many Lassiterians who didn't get out earlier this week, but he's already picked up a Minnesota Vikings snapback (a little too big for him), an Occupy Lassiter tote bag to replace the pillowcase of his belongings (and loot) he brought out, and most impressively, a borrowed cell phone with both battery and connection. He has been standing well apart from the corner blocked out for the Holland Gang Xavier's School contingent, one hand over his other ear to listen to the voice on the other end, nodding. After he hangs up, he returns the phone to the U.S. veteran on trash duty he borrowed it from, and goes back toward the group. Is there a skip in his step? Probably not, that would be really uncool of him. There is a dearth of actual chairs at the Lassiter Occupation; he settles into a squat instead. "My mom isn't gonna get here until way late, they're stuck in traffic," he says, then blows a frustrated raspberry. "This blows. I wish I had a fancy ass jet to take me home." Freed from her very brief moment performing trauma for the cameras, Echo has changed out of her scrubs into a black Holland Was Right shirt, doffed by an arrival in favor of the newer, shinier Occupy Lassiter gear, and a pair of red basketball shorts that match her current ugly-but-functional-ish glasses. Showered and hair pulled back in a short ponytail, she's retained only her prison shoes from her Lassiter look, but her inability to match the jubilant energy of these random stranger classmates, now that everyone is out, is perhaps also telling. She's made herself a seat of an overturned box near the bus, and though her non-Lassiter classmates are getting very little out of her, a crooked smile appears on her face as Roscoe returns jauntily from his phone call. "Pretty sure we're taking the bus back, for what it's worth," she shrugged. "If they hadn't started driving already you probably could have booked a seat for services rendered." There's a slight pause. "Your whole family's coming?" Roscoe looks over his shoulder at the bus, then folds his arms over his knees, props his chin on them -- without his hands free to tilt his hat back, it tilts forward over his eyes. Probably he can still see Echo. "Damn," he says. "Why do they even have a jet." He isn't really asking; he doesn't wait long enough for a response. "Just my mom and my sisters, my dad is keeping the laundry open. Are you --" under the hat, probably, he is looking around the clustered Xavier's crowd -- "meeting your folks back in New York then?" Echo stifles a laugh as Roscoe compresses into an even smaller form-factor than usual. "Looks like my team's too big for you," she observed, pretending to swipe the hat off his head, but her jest disappears as Roscoe asks after her folks. "No, I'm just--" She stops again, looks down at Roscoe's obscured face as if trying to decide something, and then down at her ugly slip-ons. "...I don't know when I'll see them. If," she amends, with a rueful smile. "I wasn't really welcome back before I went to jail." She turns her head vaguely to the northwest, as though she can see Minnesota from here and not the glamping yurt in the way. When Echo swipes at his hat, Roscoe leans sharply away, almost falling over -- "Dude," he protests. This is the last he says for a minute; after a moment he does reach up to push the brim of his hat back, though he's staring straight ahead, not at Echo, squinting even in the shade cast by the bus. "That sucks," he says. "Shouldn't they -- I mean, you got punished already, you went to jail. They can't still be mad at you about it." Even as he says it, his nose is wrinkling doubtfully; he adjusts his stance to shrink even smaller. Echo glances at Roscoe just long enough to look for a reaction, and then she looks away again. "No, it's not like -- we weren't on great terms before." She leans forward and puts her head in her hands. "Then -- I dunno. Guess they didn't want people to think they raised a cheating kid or a mutant. Xavier's is perfect, right? Out of sight, out of mind, good school, look like you're great providers. Must be why they didn't tell the press..." She rushes ahead. "Don't get me wrong, it's not that bad. Other people's parents have hurt them, and like. I live in a mansion." Echo gives a little laugh and shoves her too-big glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "I just...miss my sister. I'm really glad you'll get to see yours." "We weren't on great terms before any of this, either," Roscoe presses, "maybe…" he pauses, biting his lip, and lets that thought trail off, still staring determinedly out across the campground, eyebrows furrowing slowly. "It's still kinda bad," he says. "It sucks getting sent away from everything. Did you really get kicked out," he says -- a smile is tugging just slightly at his lips -- "for plagiarism?" "Yeah...I...well. They know where to find me," Echo says, jaw set. She laughs for real this time though, looking a bit lighter to have overshared. "God, I know, right? They should hear about--" she looks around, and then replays Miami saying "Chico" barely audibly right next to Roscoe's ear, with a look, before settling back. "Anyway, it was 'tape recording,'" she adds with airquotes, "but they don't think they kicked me out. I wasn't homeless, and they pay a little tuition, I think. But I can't go back, and I can't talk to Candace." She drums her heels a little on the ground and looks at Roscoe again. "How are you feeling? Nervous at all? They're gonna be so surprised, bet you grew like three inches in there." Roscoe rolls his eyes -- "Now they know where to find you," he says; after a moment he settles, cross-legged, in the dirt, swinging his Occupy Lassiter tote bag off his shoulder into his lap. "You sound like a good big sister," he says. "I'm sorry about Candace. Maybe you can look out for her more when she's older. I was --" this time there's definitely a sheepish smile spreading across his face -- "a horrible little brother, I'unno how my sisters put up with me, but I'm really glad they did." The smile drops somewhat, after this. "I grew way more than three inches," he says, "I had to go crying to Jermaine for new scrubs every couple months." If Echo wasn't tearing up before, she is now; she wipes her face aggressively with her left hand while making a waving motion with her right, trying to preemptively head off any concern from Roscoe's part. "Sorry, sorry, I don't know why that hit me all of a sudden." She gives a single sniff. "Yeah. Just hope she knows it's not that I didn't want to talk to her." Taking a deep breath, Echo presses her palms together and gives Roscoe a sympathetic look. "Dang, you must've been really small," she says, though a hint of a grin is inching onto her face. "Don't worry. I see where you got some of your jail strat from, now -- they'll recognize you the second you make one of those helpless faces." "Sorry, sorry," Roscoe is saying, also, eyes widening up at Echo before he shifts them politely back to his lap to wait out this display of feelings, fidgeting with the cuff of his scrub pants. "I think I'm gonna have to change my strat," he says, then lets out a heavy sigh. "Too many people figured me out. Maybe once I get home, I can convince people I'm tough. I've been in jail and stuff. Got all these dope scars. Probably I'm gonna be the oldest one in my grade." He turns his Vikings hat around backwards, as if to test this theory, but he still has to tilt his head up and back to look at Echo. Echo steals Roscoe's signature "pfft," the grin full on her face now that the tears have stopped, eyebrows raised half a centimeter over still-slightly-watery eyes. "You don't have to have a strat all the time. Maybe you can try, I dunno, just saying what you actually think once in a while." Her rueful smile is back, and the next bit comes a little slower, a little more serious. "Those kids are all going to seem like babies to you, anyway. Most of them couldn't fathom the stuff you've seen if they tried, I bet." "Yeah but I like having a strat," says Roscoe, but probably this is too obvious a cope to defend further, for he doesn't elaborate. Instead, he sits back on his hands, tilting his head. "This is so weird to think about," he says. "I'm gonna have to start worrying about homework again." A squint returns to Echo's face, which for all she knows perhaps makes it more familiar to the other teenager. "Uh huh." She tilts her head up to look at the sky. "I've been informed it's still July. Try not to think about homework or prison for a couple weeks." She glances sidelong at Roscoe. "What is weird to think -- I mean, are we ever gonna see you again?" "Shoot, what is there left to think about," says Roscoe. Apparently 'are we ever going to see each other again' was not high on his list -- his nose wrinkles. "What, you want to?" he says. "That's not gonna help you not think about prison." But he is reaching into the tote bag to unearth a cheap white ballpoint pen with a printed Lassiter logo. Probably the pen was liberated from Lassiter at about the same time Roscoe was. He does not turn up anything to write on, so he just hands her the tote bag itself -- "Put your Insta or whatever and I'll follow you, I guess," he says. "Like, if my parents let me have my phone back." Echo rolls her eyes. "At the moment all I have are friends from prison," she says, wrinkling her own nose. "I hate the feeling of wondering what happened to someone." She frowns at the tote bag, flipping it over a few times before writing @helcaraxe on the inside of the mouth. "I don't post much," she warns. "Wasn't allowed a smartphone till they made us get them for school. Maybe Gaé or Nahida'll give me some pointers if I ask nicely." This joke is followed by another frown, as though remembering something. Possibly she is now contemplating everyone else's likely opinions on whether "temporary jail alliance" in fact sounds like a lasting basis for friendship. "Yeah but you're stuck with them, I'm home free." Roscoe frowns at Echo's Insta handle, mouths something to himself (probably a disparagement of Nerds) and then crumples the tote back in his lap and slouches down again, spins the pen around his fingers once, twice, before stowing it in the bag again. "I didn't post much either," he says. "My parents mostly got me a phone so they could track my every move, I wasn't supposed to have any social media on it." He lifts his head, narrowing his eyes at the Xavier's cluster. "At least I was part of one gang in prison," he says after a moment. "Can you imagine if I went home and I didn't have anything to show for this? Embarrassing." Echo looks over at the rest of the students, both the Lassiter ones and all the strangers. "I guess," she says, hesitant. "We're all stuck with someone. I might still pick them over some human randos," she adds, looking over at some straggling Well Meaning Allies. She reaches down to the side of the box, where she's stashed some apple chips, and pops one into her mouth with a smile. "Luckily for me, I think 'cohort' is appropriate again." "'Cohort' was never appropriate," says Roscoe, getting to his feet again, his tote bag of goodies clenched in one hand. He plops his Vikings hat backward on Echo's head -- "You tough now too." "Yeah, yeah. Good talk," Echo says, reaching up to pat at the brim and then -- deciding to leave it like that. She uses her hand to shade her brow instead as she looks up at Roscoe. "See ya --" she stops, considers, looks back up again with the same crooked, fond smile as before. "See ya someday."