Logs:Safe

Safe
Dramatis Personae Flicker, Hive, Steve	2019-02-05 "What's an inter-net?"
Location <NYC> DUMBO, Brooklyn
The sunny warmth of the morning is a blissful relief from the recent wave of brutal cold. It's drawn New Yorkers out en masse, streets bustling with people taking the opportunity to run errands, visit their favorite hangouts, or just wander for a time without the need for five layers. Nestled down here among the huge former-warehouses being renovated into luxury "lofts" or hipster restaurants, one bright and colorful building has attracted a bit of a crowd. The sign out front reads "Chimaera Art Space!", bold and brilliant graffiti decorating its walls. An impromptu art sale is taking place on the sidewalk outside the space, tables laid out with art in all kinds of media. A skinny dark-skinned child in a kippah decorated with a jumble of bright Crayola crayons is drumming with both energy and skill on a set of upturned plastic buckets, the intricate rhythm livening the scene. One table has not art but hot curry, samosas, tea and coffee ("pay what you want"!) A number of signs and palm sheets posted around the tables or being handed out by volunteers bear the smiling face of a young woman with large afro-puffs. "Justice for Chloe" and "Support our Neighbors!" as well as explanations in English, Spanish, and French about raising money for the legal fund of a young woman recently seized by ICE for deportation. Flicker is among the volunteers manning the art. Less colorful than many of the tattooed, pastel-haired collective, he stands behind a table in plain grey short-sleeved polo and khakis. The mechanical arm he wears has plenty of color to compensate, bright red and bursting with glittering gold stylized koi fish dancing up and down its length. Dark hair neatly trimmed, an easy smile on his face as he takes a twenty from a young woman and gives her a plastic-sheathed watercolor of the block they're standing on in trade. "Hey, how much for the arm, though? That's some gorgeous art all to itself." From a woman accompanying the first. Playful, smiling. His smile tightens -- just a hair. The prickle that darts through his mind is distinct, sharp, but familiar and quashed with a well-worn habit. "Bizarrely enough, not for sale." For just a beat, he leaves it at that. A moment later, he reaches out -- the uncolored, skin-and-bones arm! -- to rearrange some of the art on the table in front of him. He shifts to the side a couple of oil pastel works (a little surreal in their depiction of a New York City inhabited by fey and monstrous residents, the vivid colors and whimsical designs making it easy to almost overlook some of the artworks' gruesome undertones) to resettle some scarves closer to the fore. These are vibrant, cheerful, swirled with an eclectic mix of abstract patterns and some iridescent or metallic hues that it doesn't seem quite possible to achieve in the soft fabric. "I do have other things by this artist, though." Steve wanders in from the street in blue jeans and a heather gray hoodie, just another nondescript passer-by drawn by the sights and sounds. Maybe not-so-nondescript, if only for the targe shield slung across his back, its polished metal surface painted in concentric bands of red and white around a silver star on a blue field. Though his movements are as fluid and self-assured as one might expect of a tall, well-built white man, his thoughts are a chaos of uncertainty, misery, and hypervigilance. It is the bright red prosthetic arm that initially draws his attention to Flicker's table in particular, although instead of averting his eyes after that he gives a small nod of greeting -- first to Flicker and then his customers. "Good day, Sir. Ladies." His eyes drift down to the merchandise. < Amazing what they can do with colors these days. > Even this thought is conflicted -- tinged at once with admiration, wonder, and a seemingly inexplicable sense of alienation. The pastel of a fantastical New York draws his attention and puts a warm smile on his face. < Might brighten up the room... > The mental picture that accompanies this shows a small chamber that, despite the quality of its furnishings, looks dismally institutional. He looks back up at Flicker. "Pardon me, Sir. How much for this one?" Just emerging from the building with a large bright orange beverage dispenser (labeled LEMONADE on its side), Hive doesn't outwardly seem to be paying much attention to this interaction. He's pretty bland as this crowd goes, too. Faded threadbare jeans, beat-up tan work boots, a black tee shirt with a picture of the Death Star over the woods ' ceci n'est pas une lune', a tatty old denim shirt unbuttoned over it, sleeves rolled up above the elbows and making his bony arms look even thinner. He doesn't seem to engage with anyone as he sets out fresh cups, moves to tie off a filled trash bag and replace it with an empty one. There's a quiet but firm nudge up against Flicker's mind, though. Up, and into, insinuating itself into the other man's thoughts with a painful but familiar wrench that soon settles into a shared awareness. A spillover of the misery, alienation, hypervigilance, that are coming off of Steve. Overlaid upon this, wordless, an emphatic attentiveness to various things about the newcomer. Broad and muscled. White. Odd red white and blue shield. Slightly overgrown military haircut. Flicker sends the pair of women off with a quick smile and a scarf as well as the initial drawing. A quick smile that starts to relax but brightens back up again at Steve's greeting. Hive's unsubtle intrusion into his mind has him leaning heavier against the table. His own mind melds easily back into the other man's, its overactive chaos at least familiar to the telepath. What he's watching is the assurance of Steve's movement. Sizing it up. Measuring it against the aggressively nondescript outfit. He answers readily, though. "Afternoon, sir! You enjoying this sun? That one's thirty. Or whatever you feel like. It's for a good cause." "I'm making the most of it," Steve replies, his smile lingering. "It doesn't feel much like February, but think I've had enough of cold for a little while." The remembered chill that runs through him unbidden at those words is literally painful in its intensity. This does not show on his face at all save perhaps for an extra blink of his eyes. He quickly, deliberately, returns his attention to the artwork. "I saw the signs up front." His tone is measured, belying the flare of anger beneath it. < It's like Herbert Hoover all over again. > The wallet that he fishes from his pocket looks incredibly new, with considerably fewer cards than average. < What do I feel like is enough? Is thirty a lot? > He hesitates a moment, then hands Flicker a crisp fifty-dollar bill. "Please keep the change." Amusement and disorientation at those words. Briefly, the icy flare of pain that runs through Steve ripples out through Flicker, too. It lasts only a fraction of an instant before Hive's mental presence withdraws as sharply and unceremoniously as it first arrived. Hive himself detours to toss the garbage in a dumpster around the side of the building, before returning to flop down heavily into a folding chair at Flicker's table. Not like Flicker's using it, anyway. He props a foot up onto his seat, arm draped over the back of the plastic chair. "S'a good pick." His chin jerks toward the work Steve has just bought. "That dude's gonna be famous some day, trust me. You'll have got that for a fucking steal. You coming from a con or something?" He's just got a crumpled pack of cigarettes out from his pocket, tapped one out of the box. Waves the unlit stick toward Steve's back. Over at the end of the table, a trio of young white men are walking up. They look casual, too; jeans and a Rams jersey on one, the next in an entirely unnecessary leather jacket over a plain grey tee, the last in button-down and jeans with a bright red baseball cap reading Make America Great Again on the front. The one in the Rams jersey stops to pick up a handful of the palm sheets off the table, snort at them. "Fucking hippies," he's saying with laughter in his voice to his friends, "You got a problem with the cops doing their jobs?" From Leather Jacket: "Good riddance. You break the law, what do you expect?" Flicker closes his eyes. Represses a shiver. It doesn't dim his smile as he takes the money and tucks it into a lockbox on his table. Almost without thinking, his eyes have turned to track the bright red cap even before the men actually draw near. He's standing a little straighter when they actually stop at his table. Now his smile does vanish. His gaze is level, his voice even when he speaks up. "We have a problem with the continued harassment of our neighbors. There's plenty of other places to get art, if you're not here to help." Steve nods at Hive when he arrives. "Good day." Glances down at the artist's signature. "I like his style." Confusion, now. "I'm not a...con man -- though I was an actor for a while, and some say it's the same thing." He also darts a sidelong glance at the approaching men, his own threat analysis automatic and barely even conscious. But the MAGA hat, at least, resonates positively. < Not sure about the again, part, but you have to start somewhere. > His confusion only deepens when the other two young men start speaking. < Does 'hippie' still mean the same thing?' > "Law? What are you talking about?" "No, man, I mean like a. Fucking. You know, those nerds who do war reenactment, I don't know. You new in --" Hive breaks off, his eyes narrowing at about the same time the red cap catches Flicker's eye. He doesn't look toward it, but he does sit up, pulling himself out of his slump in the chair. 'If'. He mouths the word with together with finger quotes. His eyes widen when Steve speaks, and he pushes a hard sharp breath through his teeth. "Dude, are you serious?" He shakes his head quick, glances over to the MAGA trio. Back to Steve. "We're talking about the racist fucking bullshit ICE has been up to. Chloe they specifically came for because she'd been speaking up about deportations, but they've been ramping up this --" "What," the first man in the Rams jersey interjects, leaning in closer, "you just afraid they'll send you home next?" Hive's hands turn up in front of him. His brows lift, eyes tipping up to Flicker with a very mild exasperation. The one in the leather jacket leans over, hands planting on the table (square onto some of the artwork; the hard press of his fingers scrunches and creases at one of the phantasmagoric New York cityscapes.) "It's coming." His voice isn't raised -- blunt, heavy, plain. "You just wait till we get that wall. You'll all be going back where you belong." This time the prickle in Flicker's mind is less resigned. Less reflexively quashed. There's a heavy clench of disgust that comes with it. Firmly, he tugs the stack of artwork out from under the man's hand before any more than the topmost can get damaged. "Sir, you should leave." "This is our fucking country." The man in the MAGA hat, finally, speaking up. "At least some of us are doing something about it." "Raising money for illegals and telling us to go." Leather jacket, again. "That's fucking rich." Steve's attention flicks from Hive to the three men. Something shifts inside him, confusion dissolving into anger. "What are you doing about it?" he asks MAGA hat, his voice rising almost imperceptibly. "You see our country making immigrants into scapegoats, and your response is to harass the people seeking justice?" "Harassing? Who's harassing, buddy, these assholes want to let fucking illegals take over our neighborhoods and I'm harassing? They're taking money to let criminals out on our streets?" The man in the MAGA hat has turned to face Steve, his lip curled up and his eyes narrowed up on the taller man's face. "They have their way, this wouldn't be our country anymore at all." The man in the leather jacket clenches his jaw when Flicker pulls the stack of art away. "Do you all even have a permit to be selling this shit? You can't just --" His hand thumps down onto the table. "You're all," this seems more directed to Hive than anyone else, "part of the fucking problem and we're supposed to look the other way? To support this?" On "support", he's shoving forward, a quick and abrupt fling that may have been exasperation or true rage -- regardless, it's more than enough to upturn the cheap plastic folding table, backwards towards Hive and Flicker. (Not far off, a police officer who had been starting to head toward the group at the mention of "do you have a permit" pauses, reconsiders, heads the other way at the table-flipping.) The indecision in Flicker's mind lasts what is to him a long pause, a very uncertain mental calculation as he watches the man accosting Steve, the fist thumping onto the table, the upsweep of hand that catches their display. Takes in the other mens' posture. Expressions. The distance between them. Their repeated jabs at Hive (it's this, more than the rest, that pulls a sharper flare of anger into his mind.) He tamps the anger back down again quickly. By the time he's assessed -- seen red -- calmed himself again -- decided to move -- the table is only just starting to tip in their direction. The firm press of his palms back down against it halts some of its momentum, though not enough to stop several of the pieces atop it from sliding back. Harder to track is the snatch-snatch-snatch blur of motion that follows. He lets two of the plastic-sheathed sketches fall to the ground -- grabs a scarf before it can hit dirt -- vanishes and reappears on the other end of the table to catch a pair of small hand-blown glass dragonflies out of midair on the fabric. Something in what MAGA hat says makes Steve go stiff. Only for an instant, and then he's suddenly moving. He drops his weight and slides one foot back, fist clenching as his arm comes up. His mind makes wordless calculations, careful, despite appearances, of not using his full strength. The jab is glacial compared to Flicker, but lightning-quick by human standards, aimed at MAGA hat's jaw. < It was never your country to begin with, > he thinks, and is about to say it aloud when the motion blur that is Flicker steals his attention. < What in God's name... > He manages out of sheer habit to keep MAGA hat and Rams jersey in his peripheral vision while staring in open -- if brief -- astonishment at the teleporter. Though the man in the MAGA hat is taking a hasty step backwards, it's not fast enough. Steve's punch connects solidly; he expels a roar that is equal parts shock and pain. The hat flies off, falling upside-down onto the sidewalk. The man swings back at Steve, powerful but wild. "Motherfucker." Hive just puffs his cheeks out and rocks back in his chair. His expression doesn't change much when Leather Jacket shoves the table, nor at Flicker's rapid catch. He leans over to one side to pluck up the drawings that have fallen, setting them haphazardly down on the table again. "Kinda had that coming." Off-hand, to Flicker, as he waves his still-unlit cigarette towards the fallen MAGA hat. The man in the leather jacket has stopped -- brief, aghast -- at Flicker's abrupt shift of motion, too. It takes him a half-second to recover from his surprise, but when he does he shoves the table with a definite and intentional force, this time. "Illegals and freaks." Sharp, angry. "You fucking see that?" Probably directed to his friends -- maybe directed to the world at large. The man in the Rams jersey is shaking his head, looking decidedly uncertain about stepping between Steve and his punching or Flicker's unpredictable movement. Regardless of his complete and total inaction, he feels vindicated in informing Steve (with a harsh jab of his finger in Hive and Flicker's direction) "This! This is what we're doing about it!" Flicker has been moving to put the scarf-cradled glasswork back on the table. He is quick to change his mind about this, though! Instead, he places the bundle in Hive's lap, hand dropping to Hive's shoulder to blip the other man, chair and all, several feet back. This time, the artwork is left to drop to the ground, a pang of regret sparking briefly in Flicker's mind. "I'm sure trashing people's art is really helping save the country." He's leaving the fisticuffs to Steve. Though he stoops to start collecting the scattered works, his attention never entirely leaves the men nearby. Steve sidesteps MAGA hat's answering punch and grabs the man's forearm, pulling it in a bid to throw the man off balance and send him stumbling sidelong into Leather Jacket. His glances at Flicker's...flickering aren't exactly furtive, but his alarm as receded even if his perplexity has not. "Then you are wrong," Steve tells Rams jersey coldly. Inside he's still seething, and still spoiling for a fight. < An actual fight, God help me. > "Gather your friends and get out of here." This is calm and authoritative, but he hasn't relaxed out of his combat stance. MAGA hat goes toppling, stumble-falling hard into Leather Jacket, who reaches out to balance against -- the table that's no longer there. He stumbles, too, falls to his knees. Scrambles back up kind of abashed, stomping (huffily) on one of the bright pastel cityscapes as he makes a hasty retreat. The hat is left on the ground in the men's wake. Hive lets the other men deal with the racists. He's complacent even about his sudden relocation, only making sure to hold onto the cloth-wrapped glass a little more carefully. He heaves himself to his feet, moving to right the table so that Flicker has somewhere to put the gathered art. "You wanted a fight," he volunteers, now, "you could've kept hitting 'em. No great loss." A flush creeps up into Flicker's cheks now that the men are gone. "Sorry about that." He's offering this apology quietly to Steve. "Some people are just --" His lips compress. He picks up the hat very gingerly between two fingers. A wave of disappointment washes through Steve when the three men take his advice and retreat. He draws a deep breath and straightens up. "I was sorely tempted," he admits, quirking a smile at Hive, "but didn't want to damage your art further." His eyes track the bright red ballcap in Flicker's hand. < I've seen dozens of those hats out on the streets. Are they all... > "Not your fault. They came here looking to make trouble. If anything, I provoked them." < Not intentionally, though I probably would have if I'd understood what they were on about. > He looks past the cap at Flicker himself. < Is this man...a mutant? Is it rude to ask about that? > Inwardly he pushes aside those questions and the vague sense of disquiet that accompany them. "I'm sorry for the disruption to your fundraising. May I help in some way?" "They're all racist shitbags. Anyone you see with this cap on deserves a good punch in the face. Don't imagine the police will agree, but it's the truth." Hive finally tucks his cigarette between his lips, though he still doesn't light it. "What the fuck rock have you been living under? You sound local enough." His attempts to straighten the display are fairly halfhearted, putting some of the art back into messy piles. "Do, uh, humans usually teleport where you come from?" "You already helped. Who knows how much trouble they would have caused." The red in Flicker's cheeks deepens at Hive's sort of lopsided conversation. He may not be plugged into the other man's brain anymore, but it's readily enough apparent what Hive's responding to. He bows his head, picking up where Hive leaves off and collecting the drawings back into neat stacks. Folding the scarves again. Setting the glass figurines back in a proper splay. The ones that survived the fall, anyway. "He's not wrong," he admits, frowning down at the cap (which has now been set on one far edge of the table.) "What did you think Trump's whole shtick was about? It's not like he tries to hide it." "I'll keep it in mind." Steve stares at the red cap, memories of young men with black-and-silver armbands -- the swastikas on them subtle, worked into other imagery -- flitting through his mind. The vantage point is often from the other side of those men's fists. "And the cops, well...they're cops." He shrugs, as if this said all that needed to be said on that subject. Hive's question, though, goes straight to -- Icy water rushes up and shatters the glass, and everything goes black. He manages to keep his external reaction confined to a sharp gasp and a bit of a start, though inside his thoughts are slow to get back into order. He casts his gaze around, his mind automatically noting entries and exits to the grounds, potential cover, sniping positions...and then he gaze off toward the southwest in the direction of the docks, filled with longing and grief. When his eyes finally return to Hive, though, they're sharp and calm. "Red Hook," he says at last. "I'm from Red Hook, and I've never seen anyone -- teleport." The noise and movement of the crowd presses in on him, but he sets his jaw tight, stubborn. His eyes dart to Flicker. Head shakes. "He sounds like another populist demagogue, far as I can tell. Doesn't make what those boys said and did right, no matter how many presidents take their side." Hive pulls in a breath, just a fraction of a second offset from Steve's. His jaw tightens, and a moment later he plucks the cigarette back out of his mouth with a grimace, eyeballing its squashed end. "All the fucking presidents have taken their side, this one's just louder and uglier about it. Does mean they're getting bolder, though." When he looks back at Steve his gaze lingers, brows pulling inward through the scrutiny. "You want a coffee, dude?" He's not really waiting for a reply, gesturing to his vacated chair as he wanders toward the food. "I'm getting you coffee." "Didn't mean to startle." Flicker's polite voice doesn't actually carry much of any apology in it. He waits till Hive has moved out of earshot (there's a mild and unselfconscious awareness in his mind that this is an entirely pointless affectation) before looking up from his tidying to address Steve more directly. "Thank you, though. We honestly didn't want trouble here, and if a fight got out of hand the cops sure wouldn't come to our help." He presses down on the table, rattles it just a bit, adjusts its wobbly legs when it tilts a little too much. "And there's way too many white people happy to pretend they --" His red and gold fingers wave at the dirty discarded hat. "Just have an innocent difference of opinions, like rounding people up into camps is something we can just agree to disagree on. It's important we," this time, his gesture encompasses himself and Steve. "Are actually willing to shut that kind of thing down." "Coffee -- would be great, thank you." Steve still sounds and feels a little distracted. Maybe more than a little, as he starts when Flicker speaks again. "You're not responsible for my ignorance," he says, and there's a strain beneath his casual tone as he adds, "It's good you were able to get your friend out of harm's way." He anticipates the flashback this time and forces his mind onto a different track before it gets much farther than wind driving snow into his eyes as he reaches out -- "I'm glad I could help. There's a lot -- a lot I don't know, but I do know you can't just have an innocent difference of opinions about people's lives and liberty." < Camps. I knew they were keeping things from me, but camps? Deportations? They call this changing for the better? > He nods jerkily, still more or less keeping his shock under wraps, though Hive can feel press of his fury grief, and loneliness -- but also his fierce determination. "Yeah. We have to shut it down." A more overt acknowledgement of Hive's continued mental eavesdropping comes in a quick silent request, the lemonade dispenser overlapping in Flicker's mind with an exaggerated sense of thirst. He bows his head with a soft breath of laughter, his smile pulled a bit askew as he gnaws at the inside of his cheek. "Oh man, but I wish it were always that simple to pull my friends out of danger." The mental images flickering through his mind are well familiar to Hive, sterile operating theaters and flashes of gunfire, a spray of acid, institutional hallways choked with smoke and the smell of blood. "Just feels like a lot of people think these things are up for debate. Like oh, literally tear gassing refugee kids, that's normal and not at all evil, if they wanted to be treated like humans they should've been born here." Though this is followed by a swift frown. "Not as though we do much better by those who were, though." When Hive returns it's carefully hanging on to three drinks. He sets the cups all down on the table, nudging a plastic cup of lemonade toward Flicker and an insulated paper cup full of steaming black coffee in Steve's direction. He keeps the last (also coffee, also black) for himself, slurping up a small swallow. His free hand claps down in a casual squeeze at Flicker's mechanical shoulder; the heavy mental pressure that settles in against the other man's mind if firmer and more lingering than the physical contact. "Please," comes a scoff far lighter than the memories should warrant, "You do alright by us." He regards Steve steadily over the cup-rim on his next sip. "You really didn't know about any of this? Someone been banning you from the internet? No papers deliver to..." He lets this hang in the air for a moment, attention keenly focused on the thoughts surfacing in Steve's mind. Finishes, a little wryly, "Red Hook?" Steve finally loses his fight to continue looking even moderately all right. His breathing grows faster and he sets his jaw tight, hands clenching into fists -- momentarily before he forcibly relaxes them to accept the coffee with a mumbled "Thank you." His thoughts are almost too chaotic now to interpret, mostly fragmentary scenes of fights ranging from street brawls to pitched gun battles. The coffee seems to calm him just by its presence, though, and his first sip of buys him a few moments of relative peace. "This -- this is fantastic, thank you." He focuses on Hive once again, with a will. "I ah... meant to pick up a paper this morning, but got a bit sidetracked." He briefly recalls what looks like an attempt to evade someone following him, but the reflexive thought that his mind inserts into Hive's pause is < Times Square, of all the ridiculous places >. Now, though, he is staring in blank confusion. "But...what's an inter-net?" "The café its from is great." Flicker does, at least, enjoy the warm coffee smells. He leans a bit into Hive's touch both physically and mentally, relaxing into the psionic buttressing comfortably and letting the more jarring memories fade away. Whatever he might have said next is thrown abruptly off track by Steve's question. He looks up with a widening of eyes, not at Steve but at Hive, too nonplussed to render more than a silent mental <<?! >> Hive meets Flicker's eyes, though his own are narrowed with equivalent puzzlement. His jaw tightens, works slowly. "I'm not trying to be nosy," he finally speaks up with a deliberate care softening his gruff voice, "But are you -- living somewhere safe? If there's people," where his mind curls itself around Flicker's, his discomfiture is clear. "If you aren't allowed to," he tries again, then exhales. "If anyone has been keeping you --" Rippling through Flicker's mind, a wordless frustration. Faintly abashed. "Do you feel safe where you're staying?" Steve frowns, first in perplexity at the questions and then at his inability to summon a ready answer. < They say it's the safest place in New York. They say they just want to help me, but... > A ripple of unease passes through him. No words, but his distrust is profound and unmistakable. < ...they've lied to me from the start. > He takes another sip of his coffee and scans their surroundings mechanically. Finally, reluctantly, "To be honest, I'm not sure I know what safe means. But, no." Fatalistic, with a small shrug. "Not really." Flicker schools his expression carefully, but a flush still rises into his cheeks as a rapid-fire series of thoughts flashes through his mind in overlapping tumble. A sudden comprehension, a sudden swell of concern, a reflexive puzzlement as he looks over Steve with all his muscles and confidence of motion. Thumbing through a kind of mental rolodex of friends and neighbors. All he actually says in the end: "Do you want to get out of there? Do you need help?" Hive's teeth grind again. His fingers tap lightly against the side of his mug. "Honestly, it's hard to say what safe means, sometimes. S'more than just 'are people physically hurting you', yeah? Like." One bony shoulder lifts jerkily. "Like can you come and go how you want. Can you make your own decisions about your life." His brows knit inward. << Do they let you on the fucking internet, >> slices sharp and disgruntled into Flicker's mind. "Talk to who you want to talk to." "I can leave, though they tried very hard to dissuade me," Steve says, calmly enough, though it sounds plainly forced. "I did leave, though I had vaguely planned to return." << That was before I knew the depth of their treachery. >> The anger seems to fortify him a bit. "By those measures, it is not at all safe, even though I'm sure they don't want to hurt me. Physically." << I know what they want. >> He shakes his head rapidly. "I should not go back. Only..." It is only by main force of will he stops his voice from trembling. "I don't know where else to go." Once again, Flicker's teeth catch at his cheek. He delays his answer over a long sip of lemonade, slower than it needs to be. Swallows, nods. He's rifling through options, mentally, proffering them to Hive with uncertain suggestion. Various shelters are considered and discarded << -- never free beds -- >> << ...not safe either >>. Various acquaintances with free rooms considered and discarded as well. << Jax? Nah we can't just put this strange human there with a kid. Joshua and Mirror... >> This thought flicks itself from his mind almost as soon as it's formed. << Ion always seems to know people? Maybe... >> He exhales slowly. "That's rough. Do you maybe want to go get some food and we can -- try and figure out some options for you?" Hive touches lightly on each suggestion Flicker makes in turn. Turns them over with a slow consideration, weighing the options. At length he nods, a decisive weight in the motion. "I think I know someone who might help."