Logs:Exchange Rate

Exchange Rate
Dramatis Personae Lily, Ryan, Skye	2021-10-15 "But there's different kinds of dangerous, right?"
Location <NYC> Chimaera Arts - Dumbo
This is just one of the many abandoned warehouses in DUMBO, and like many of them it has recently changed hands. Unlike most of those, however, it does not have some corporate developer's sign out front promising a transformation into luxury condominiums or a boutique shopping center or the latest concept restaurant. Instead it's marked by a piece of weathered but wildly colorful plywood propped up on a stack of broken pallets, which reads "Chimaera Art Space!" above "chimaera.org" in smaller letters. The warehouse is moderately large and decorated with graffiti art in various styles--some of it recognizable as the work of renowned local street artists. A pair of monstrous scrap metal sculptures, perhaps still works in progress, flank the entrance. The building itself has undergone significant renovation recently, complete with wiring, plumbing, and a modular partitioning system. The grounds, too, have been cleaned up, ramshackle fences torn down and rusting detritus removed in favor of reclaimed (and brilliantly repainted) outdoor furniture ringing an impressively engineered firepit. It's been hectic here during the evening hours and it's not quite empty, even late -- classes are looong past finished for the dar and the cubicles are mostly empty but there's a small cluster of bedraggled-looking youths in the courtyard, a few with telltale white streaks down their faces, looking just a bit shellshocked as they rinse each other off and try to get a few bites of bland chili into their faces. A young woman has passed out on the couch, heavy bruising almost hard to distinguish from the blue and black mottling of her natural skin tone. A number of homemade eclectically decorated riot shields have been piled in a corner together with picket signs in various states of repair. Ryan is far from all these things, though up here, on Chimaera's brightly mural-painted rooftop (Tag and Jax's handiwork is easily recognizable to anyone familiar with their styles) he has a good enough view of the courtyard. He's been a visible if far less flashy presence than his usual persona, the past few days, speaking little, intermittently contributing some music but mostly just -- there, often by Jackson's side. Right now he's in an angular black shirt partially unbuttoned to reveal the white floral velvet burnout shirt beneath, gray skinny jeans, and no-nonsense black jump boots with heel tabs that read "VEGETARIAN SHOES", leaning up against the rooftop barrier, idly squishing a handful of rainbow colored buckyball magnets between his palms as he looks down into the courtyard below. "Well." Just that. "Yeeeeeah." Beside Ryan, Skye in a fitted black t-shirt with the scarlet bird-head logo of Red Canary Song splashed across the chest and the organization's name beneath it in cursive Chinese calligraphy, boot-cut blue jeans, and red high-top sneakers. She's also leaning on the barrier, but facing the other direction, her eyes wandering aimlessly over the bright lights of Manhattan across the river. The hunch of her shoulders might be an effect of her posture, the exhaustion of the last few days, the stress about days to come, or maybe she's just cold now that she's staying still. "You ready?" Her voice sounds pretty casual, but Ryan can hear the fear that pushed those words out of her. Lily's footsteps announce her arrival onto the roof, the soles of her black sneakers not muffling the clang of the fire escape steps. She's in a grey hoodie with a red cross on the back, unzipped over a NY Action Medical tee-shirt, a black fanny pack bearing a duct tape red cross around her waist. Her hair is falling out of her braid, bags under her eyes heavy with exhaustion of the last few days. When she gets to the roof, Lily makes her way to Skye, unzipping a pocket on her pack as she does. Doesn't say anything, but gives them both a wave -- with a USB stick in hand. Ryan's exhale is slow and heavy. He slumps further against the wall, his shoulders hunching in mirror of Skye's, and crunches the magnets between his fingers again. "Ready," he echoes with a small shake of his head. "I should say yes. Be lying if I said I knew what the fuck that meant. Reassuring, huh." He doesn't quite straighten when Lily emerges but there's a greater alertness to his eyes, flicking first to her face and then to the stick in her hand. One brow quirks, curious. "You come bearing gifts?" Skye chews on the inside of her cheek. "I wasn't really expecting reassurance. I don't know what I was expecting." She reaches up and tugs her hair loose from the ponytail to tumble messily about her shoulders, then stretches the hair tie between her fingers like a tiny cat's cradle. The sound of footsteps make her tense, and she only relaxes a little when she sees who it is. "Heya. Thank you for your service." Maybe she meant the medicking, but it's the USB drive her eyes lock onto. There's tense excitement in her voice now, though the fear is still there, lurking and chittering. "Please tell me you got the good shit, and other things that I also don't usually say to my dealer." "Well, I'm fresh out of good tidings, so, guess it's gifts." Lily's voice is a little ragged, hoarse from too many days of too much yelling and not enough water. "Only the good shit. Facility layout, subject descriptions, current Prometheus personnel list. More. It's all labeled." She holds the USB out to Skye, giving the woman a tight smile. "I -- I hope it's enough. I wish I could do more." Ryan's expression doesn't change at the mention of the facility layout, but at personnel list he straightens, turning away from the railing and toward Lily. "Their contractors, too? God, I hate those fucking traitors." His voice is incongruously cheerful as he hoists himself up to sit -- only a little precarious -- where he'd just recently been leaning. "Well, if you never see us again, guess it wasn't enough. If you do --" He doesn't finish this, though. The cheer is short-lived, tapering into a frown, a jittery bounce of leg, another rattle of the magnets in his hand. His eyes have fixed on the fanny pack, on the red duct tape cross. "Thanks." Skye lets the hair tie roll back onto her wrist as she takes the drive. At the last item on Lily's list she looks up, too, though not quite as animated as Ryan. "I don't know if it's too late to adjust our training scenario data, but either way it'd be good to have some idea what we're, you know." For a moment it seems like she may not know, but then she settles on "Up against", the fear in her voice perhaps noticeable even to Lily, now. "Wishing we could do more is... Well, you've done a lot, already, and it was plen-ty dangerous even if you did follow my bomb-ass digital hygiene guide." She looks at Ryan, follows the line of his sight, then back up at Lily's face. "But there's different kinds of dangerous, right?" "Them, too," Lily confirms, hand dropping to her side when Skye takes the drive. "Thanks isn't necessary. I owe you all this much. More." She nods at Skye's last question, brow furrowing. Glances down to her pack, up to Skye and Ryan. "Yeah -- this was way different than what you all are going into but -- you've done this before, came back before.” It's not exactly a question, but there is a little uplift at the end of Lily's sentence, pleading for confirmation that this is true. "Plenty of times," Ryan's reassurance comes easy, glib -- but then, considerably less so, "... but we had Dawson, then. Now..." His eyes turn up toward the dark sky above. "Still, we got a good weekend for it. Whole entire second string of people he's saved in town to back us up so it's not like we're short handed, exactly. He was sort of a team all to himself, though, so it's --" He looks at the USB. Looks at Lily. "We'll come back. Might put our medics' skills to the test but we'll come back in one piece, even, hopefully." Skye grimaces, sucking a breath in through her teeth and wobbling her free hand in the air to gesture ambivalence. "He's done it before. I'm a noob. Kinda-sorta." Sorrow laces her words now. "Too many of these folks have had to do this too many times." Her gaze skips between the others speculatively. "Yeah, shout-out to medics, just saving asses all over place." She tips a lazy salute at Lily, and then raises her eyebrows kind of meaningfully as she adds, "I mean we do have a healer of the lay-on-hands variety, but like, he wears a lotta hats and can only handle so much. You know." Lily's lips press together at her brother's name. "How many of you equals one of him?" She looks at Skye, brows furrowing before understanding dawns. "If you need more medics --" she starts, hesitantly, then rephrases. "If you need more healers, I can -- I could probably. Borrow that. I could be almost anyone, really. Another healer. Another you, if you needed, maybe." The last part is directed squarely to Ryan, though she sounds far less confident on this than she did regarding the healing. "Are we talking like moral worth or in combat because one of those has a slightly less fucked up answer." Ryan's eyes widen, briefly. He glances to Skye -- back to Lily -- back to Skye. "I really don't think you want to be me unless we want the building down around us but -- shit." He rolls the little magnets between his hands. Flattens then into a strip, crunches them back into a heap. "Another healer could be the difference between someone coming home and not." There's a heavy reluctance in his words, but it doesn't stop him from asking, "... you got plans this weekend?" "There isn't an exchange rate." Skye sounds just a little sharp. Her anger is much louder to Ryan, but it's turned aside quickly into a murky, anxious forboding, "Maybe just as well you couldn't copy me that time. What with the. Wrecking shit." She rallies, dredging up a little hope to wear on her face. "You know it's still mad dangerous, right? Even if you stay back with the vans and the support people. Also like, this is actual literal terrorism. And not just in the 'I leaked some files that made the Army look bad' kind of way." There's a twin flare of embarrassment and defensiveness, quickly evaporated in the face of Skye's warnings. "I don't feel qualified to bring down buildings. But, if I can make it less dangerous at all --" She chews the inside of her cheek, nods slowly. "My schedule is wide open. When do we leave?"