Logs:Of Files and Freeloading (Or, Shitfuck Recycling)

Of Files and Freeloading (Or, Shitfuck Recycling)
Dramatis Personae Halim, Kavalam, Roscoe
In Absentia Kelawini, Charles, Joshua	2024-05-10 "You sound like Joshua." (a little While before bugging Joshua.)
Location <XAV> Lake - Xs Grounds
Bright, bright, bright; the lake glitters wide and expansive here, stretching off into the distance. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, it catches them all. Lapping at the rocky shore, its deep waters are frigid in winter and cool even in summer. A stone pier stretches out a ways into the water, wide and smooth, though often icy in winter. The water teems with life nevertheless, home to myriad species of fish that provide for ample fishing or just lazy watching on a slow summer day, for those who want to take a boat from the boathouse out to the center of the lake, or perhaps lounge on the pier and try their luck. It's not a great day -- cloudy, murky, there's definitely a storm coming in. But the storm isn't here yet, and so just at this moment Halim is taking his lunch Far Away from the school. He's dressed (again) in plain grey tee and jeans, sitting cross-legged on the pier and making his way unenthusiastically through a couple slices of pizza, his eyes locked onto the gently rippling surface of the water. Somewhere beneath its murk, a somewhat monstrous fishlike robot is eeling its way closer to the surface. Probably Halim was out here alone, probably he had paid good attention to the whereabouts of children before he came. Unfortunately children are slippery things -- and, currently, these children even moreso. Where Halim previously had solitude, now, suddenly, he doesn't; beside him, a skinny bespectacled teenager is peering down into the water as if he could see through the murk (he cannot.) "Don't tell me," Kavalam says without preamble, "they have decided to convert the school properly into a prison after all." Roscoe is squatting on Kavalam's other side, his arms folded neatly over his knees, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up just enough to perch in hair finally long enough to be affected by gravity; he can see through the murk in the lake, but his gaze is fixed past Kavalam's head at the man they have come here to accost, narrowed into a suspicious squint. "Maybe they finally realized how much money we could all be making them in research grants if we weren't sitting around going to class like useless freeloaders," he suggests. "Prometheus was a big money sink. The DoD doesn't care about budget." Under the water, the fish has stopped moving. Halim lowers his pizza back to its plate. "Mutant labor would more profitable. But most of you are," he's agreeing mildly, "pretty useless." Now he looks up, frowning at Roscoe but then transferring his gaze to Kavalam. "You're not in my files." "Are you sure? I must be there. I was in so many people's experiments." Kavalam looks away when Halim looks up, his shoulders just a little more tense. "Roscoe was deadly useful, your priorities are rubbish only. What is this, then? Surely there are all kinds of government jobs that would love a recycled shitfuck." Roscoe draws himself a little taller when Halim looks up. "Sure he isn't?" he says, at the same time as Kavalam, though this is where his trolling stops. "Shoot, if you still have access to our files you can sell those for a cool hundred mil and never work again. How was what we did not mutant labor. I did everything I was told to." Halim picks his slice of pizza back up, and takes another determined bite. "Yes. Sure," he confirms, a moment later. "I had a government job." He rubs a bit of sauce from the corner of his mouth with a thumb and looks back down at the rain-clouded water. "Prison labor is classified differently. Laundry -- labor. Medical torture --" His hum as he licks the sauce clean is noncommittal. "... you started a riot." "You have his files? Do you have all their files?" There's just a moment where Kavalam looks almost excited, here, but then he is quickly reconsidering whether this is an appropriate feeling and rearranging his expression into a frown. Then changing it again to Something Serious, which he settles on as adequate enough for this current moment. "There was a very-joint rioting effort. Nobody ever told us, do not start a riot." His arms are curling around his shins, hugging there tight. "You will not do teaching here, no? Some very inappropriate teachers here, sometimes. I think Kelawini would not be thrilled." Roscoe darts a look sharply down at the pizza slice when Halim reaches for it, then back up to Halim's face. "Why," is probably just to be obstinate; surely all three of them can differentiate between laundry and medical torture. "You would think torture would be even more cost-effective than laundry." He props his chin in both hands, shifting his feet to better face Halim. "Your subjects started the riot, not me. What would I do, look at people rudely?" His devoted glare ticks away just for a moment down, aside to Kavalam, then back to Halim, his eyes widening a little. "What are you doing here. Are they paying you for something?" "Very wasteful. Years of research just to figure out how to contain you better." It might be just obstinance, but Halim is giving the question a serious consideration. "Legal loopholes," is all he hazards in the end, though. "I have everyone's files. Rules definitely prohibited rioting. -- Not teaching." He finishes the first slice of pizza and does not start in on the second. "Your headmaster kidnapped me. Unpaid." His brow furrows for just a moment, in curiosity. "How inappropriate. More than the terrorism?" "Kidnapped you?" Kavalam does not sound as alarmed about this as maybe he should, but his curiosity has definitely been piqued. "From where. Why? Do we need evil science? Dr. McCoy is, I think, just annoying science." He is slowly starting to ease out of his tense Halim Vigilance, rocking a little back to lean back on his palms. "You are very good at rude looking," he assures Roscoe. His nose scrunches up, pushing his glasses a little higher up. "Mr. Logan hit on my classmate. Possibly stabbed a student but I don't know who to trust on that. I think he definitely did a lot of extracurricular stabbing, though." Unpaid gives Roscoe pause; perhaps he has been making too much of a stink about his own unpaidness to gloat. "Why," is less obstinate and more curious this time, almost simultaneous with Kavalam, though he draws his face into a fierce, scowl almost at once. "Is it because you still have all our files? Do we need evil science here. I didn't do the other riot either I swear. I don't need any more containment." He blinks back at Kavalam, almost distracted by, "Who is Mr. Logan, what?" before he shakes his head and refocuses on Halim with a renewed frown, as though it is Halim's fault he was sidetracked. "No. No evil science." Halim leans down, trailing his fingers through the water to get a last bit of pizza grease from his fingertips. "I killed a lot of people. The Brotherhood kidnapped me. Then took me to Dr. Xavier to reprogram my brain. He seems to have some practice at it." His eyes flick to the side again, and for the first time there is something -- brief, heavy -- that softens the cool impassivity in his expression. His tone is the same bland one, though. "I'm not here to contain you. He was trying to. Contain me. Un -- contain." Now his frown is just uncomfortable, when he fails to determined which of these is the right answer. His eyes shift back to the water. "Lassiter was overdue for a riot." "Just someone else with those --" Kavalam is making a fist, lifting it in the air like Roscoe should know what this means and then only a moment later clarifying. "Knockoff-Prometheus. Fist knives. You know. He's --" He breaks off when Halim mentions All The Murder. His ease is leaving him again all at once and he inches just a little farther back -- but just a little, stilling when the older man's expression shifts. He's studying Halim's face a moment, then scraping his fingers in against the stones. "He can just what. Program out the murder. Does that -- take?" "Ohhh," apparently Roscoe does know about these fist knives. He nods sagely if vigorously, only to also pull up to a short stop at Halim's words; then he is entirely still, as if that will render him invisible, shuffling on his feet a skooch closer to Kavalam. At 'Lassiter was overdue for a riot' he huffs out a single hah breath, tilting his head to hide a very brief grin in one hand. When he turns his head back he is giving Halim a serious, less hostile frown -- "You sound like Joshua." "I knew him. Once." Halim has straightened at Joshua's name, his hand leaving small lakewater-damp splotches on his jeans where his fingers press against his knee. "Prometheus was good at programming it in. I think Dr. Xavier is better." He pushes himself to his feet, picking up his plate of pizza and holding it tight in both hands. "The people here. Work very hard for your safety. Don't think they want to contain you either." His eyes fix back down on the ground as he shuffles away. Kavalam's brows scrunch further. He's frowning deep at Halim as he straightens, and then still as he shuffles away. His strange and imperceptible aura has expanded to envelop Roscoe, but pulls back away as the technopath heads off. "Hmm," he's saying, pensive. "You should come to the city with me. Joshua owes me one good Pokemon."