Logs:Security Details
| Security Details | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2023-05-16 I have to start hitting the gym. |
| Location
<PRO> Cafeteria E-16 & Commissary E-17 - Lassiter Research Facility | |
The cafeteria is the largest single room in this wing, tiled with the same multi-gray linoleum throughout, its walls clean but bare of any decoration or relief for the eyes. The floor space is mostly taken up by rectangular tables with attached if often creaky bench seating, with a long stainless steel counter at one end serving up bland, often overcooked, but reasonably nutritious food day in and day out. It's noisy and crowded here at mealtimes, but not so much that it's impossible to have a table to yourself. Or be exiled to your own table. Roscoe's on his own today -- his BFF of the day, whoever that is, is in the infirmary or got shipped to another lab or got moved to a new mealtime schedule or something -- but he has no Diary of a Wimpy Kid hesitance about him as he picks up his tray and scans the room for a table that isn't likely to run him off. He's already chosen, is already stepping over the bench, has already eaten half of his meat in three bites before he slows down, like he's just remembered to breathe. Only then does he glance up at the other kids occupying this table. "Yo," he says, heedless of anything he might be interrupting, "You keeping kosher in here?" Leaning over her tray, one arm curled around it, Nanami has gotten most of the way through her meal, slowing down now on some sweet potatoes. "-- Kosher? They seem real respectful here, what kine grinds you need?" She sounds just a little dry, on this. "You keeping kosher?" Her brows are creasing; she looks Roscoe up and down, very skeptically, before assessing (a little critical): "You're Asian though." It's not Roscoe but Spencer that she asks, suddenly uncertain: "Can you be Asian?" Spence is fulfilling his Lanky Teenage Boy stereotype, ravenously packing away his rather large meal. He's straightening and readying a smile as he notices Roscoe approaching, though his question seems to confuse him. "I...sorta? Why?" Was he confused? Not enough, apparently. Nanami's question throws him completely. "Wait...what do you mean can I, like...I guess it depends what you mean by 'Asian'?" He seems to be warming to the topic, though. "I mean, I'm half Syrian, and Syria is in Asia but like...that's not usually what people mean when they say Asian?" At Nanami's tone, Roscoe looks slightly affronted -- not quite bristling, but not quite taking it in stride. "You're Asian," he counters. He seems rather taken aback to hear that Spencer is Asian too (?), though maybe his big teeth make most of his expressions seem somewhat slack-jawed. In any case he recovers quickly. "Just wanted to see if anybody's bagseyed everything you can't eat yet, it's country gravy day tomorrow." "Tch, I just mean how you come be the Kosher Police here. Can you even be Jewish if you're -- wait, you're Asian?" Now Nanami is looking twice as uncertain, frowning between Spencer and Roscoe with a deeply growing skepticism. She takes another mouthful of her sweet potatoes, seeming a little distrustful of them, too. "You're not just making up some shit, no?" This question seems entirely in earnest. "Big Spencer Holland myths around here I think he could say he's from Mars, wen flew a dragon here, half this jail would believe him." "Ohhhh..." Spence nods sagely. "Not that it makes the rest of it kosher, but I don't eat meat, and they always give me so much food." He gives an encouraging smile. "Come sit with us then, I'll share. And I'm not making it up." No transition, though he doesn't seem all that offended at Nanami's doubt in his heritage. "Syria is western Asia. Like, really really western. I don't consider myself Asian, it's just kinda...technically? True?" He shrugs. "Man, I gotta think of some cool stuff to make up, usually people don't even believe the real cool stuff I say." This time Roscoe does bristle, definitely -- "I'm not a cop" -- and when he slides down the bench, to sit with Spence and Nanami instead of off to the side, it is with a slightly put-upon pout, though he looks with immediate, obvious interest at the meat. "For real?" he says, and cranes his neck over his shoulder for -- something, very quickly. He dumps the remnants of his dinner straight onto the tray to start folding his plate around itself, lining it carefully with an uneaten slice of bread before dumping Spencer's meat unceremoniously into the center. He keeps up a running commentary as he does so: "Don't mind if I do. I don't think my cellie's had a meal since he got here. Talk about having a target on your back." The makeshift carton disappears under the table -- maybe under Roscoe's shirt? It's probably better not to wonder. "What, they starving him? Is that some kine experiment or he just too gay? Who your cellie? Some our friends," Nanami is telling this to Spencer now, with a frown, "ack way too gay. At school that shit fine, yeah? We need give 'em lessons, some kine help. Knock that right off, they want to leave here with teeth still. Take a shower ever, without --" Her brows pinch, hand curling tight around her spoon, and she doesn't elaborate. Just: "We maybe try fo Birdcage Remi? Something? Harm don't even know how to Gender but gotta try fo learn quick, every day new bruising there." Spence's brows furrow deeply. "I know people have been getting beaten up, but if people are starving on the regular..." He seems to have largely forgotten about his meal, eyes flicking back and forth across the empty tabletop -- and then suddenly snap aside to Nanami. "Wha -- we can't just...Birdcage people it doesn't work that --" He stops. Reconsiders. "Ok, I'm not sure it won't work, but it won't be enough. Like. It didn't even work in the movie!" Takes a deep breath. Lets it back out. "We have to get more on top of buddy system. I have to start hitting the gym. Maybe we can get a group, do some self-defense skill shares..." His lips compress, and he allows a reluctant smile. "Maybe a gender skill share, too." Roscoe wrinkles his nose -- "No, he's a flatscan," he says, then tilts his head, considering. "Might be gay, too, I'unno how to tell." He goes back to eating what's left of his dinner, the plastic spoon making a rattling sound against the textured surface of the tray. He addresses Spencer too, maybe just following Nanami's cue. "Nah, she got the right idea, this really not the place to be gay or gendery or --" he cuts himself off at Spencer's sharp intake of breath, though his face scrunches into a frown. "You ever been in a real freak fight?" he asks. "Chee, you Roscoe?" Nanami's voice has gone hushed, like this is a suddenly exciting secret. "Gae says you a good one." She bumps her shoulder against Spencer's, clicking her cheek against her teeth. "Hit the gym, he says. You shooting up, but how you be everywhere at once? In here you can't. Even Beau can't stand by all of us, all the time -- man, wish we could the chum kids one of those --" She snaps her fingers. "Like those toddler ropes. String-leashes. Keep them all by Beau. Big help." Her brows pull in again, and she looks back at Spencer. "Have you? Your brother, he look tough-tough. He teach you?" "Oh, you're Roscoe!" Spence says, not quite in time with Nanami, in slightly dissonant stereo. "Thanks for looking out for my bestie I mean -- I woulda definitely just given him my food if I knew how bad it was." He presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. "Okay maybe not leashes but like, maybe some people need. Multiple? Buddies?" He sounds like he's really reaching here. "But you can't just stop being gay or trans. You can pretend but it's not like a switch you can just flip" He chews his lower lip, glancing from Nanami to Roscoe, then back. "Shane's mad tough, but he hasn't taught me. None of my family ever wanted me to have to fight. But I'm gonna have to learn, fast." Roscoe looks downright smug at being recognized, maybe -- his expression doesn't change much but his posture lifts. "Buddy system," he says, scoffing. "Word you're looking for is 'gang'." He sets his spoon down and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, settling into an awkward hunch, chin propped on his fist, to wait out the rest of the meal with his stolen food still hidden on his lap. His scrunched-up frown scrunches doubtfully to one side. "You figure it out pretty fast," he says. "You go up against someone with, like, exoskeleton or made of metal or big-ass claws or something, you just stay up long enough you don't look like a little bitch, and you don't snitch. Nobody expects you to win." "Ya, Gaétan tough, think he just been going for "stay on my feet, get one or two punch back in, maybe they think the flatscan not just a tissue paper", bumbai he catch cracks less, get less bus up probably? It'll get --" Nanami frowns. "Still real 'ino. Less 'ino, maybe." One of her shoulders lifts. "I'm stick close to this one --" She's nudging Spencer, "-- he come in hear, have one gang. You wanna be my boyfriend now?" She's asking this kinda casual, of Spence. "Your gang look after me too, then. Spence's bigger," she's explaining to Roscoe seriously. "People like me fine. Not big, though." She's looking him up and down and, casual too, like she's already kind of sure of the answer. "You don't snitch? Where you stay --" And then with a small frown and a small adjustment of her register, voice a little softer in this code switch. "-- Where'd you live. Outside here." "I mean, you can call it that if it makes more sense to you? But the way I see it, the gang is all of us taking care of each other in here." Spence leans forward and spreads his hands, earnest in his explanation. "What I'm talking about is who you go with to the rec room, or showers, or sick call, to watch your back. And that can change from day to day, right? Kinda has to, like --" He gestures between himself and Nanami. "We're buddies now right, but it takes more than us, and I can't always be --" His head whips around to Nanami, his eyes like saucers. "What?! Why? I mean, I'll look out for you, so will the others, you don't have to dump Gae you definitely don't have to..." He's blushing furiously, and desperately seizes onto a different topic. "I -- uh -- thanks. For the advice I'll keep it in mind?" Probably he didn't actually intend this as a question, and in a moment he's calmer, again. "How long have you been here?" Roscoe takes such sudden interest in whatever's going on between Nanami and Spencer and apparently Gaétan that he forgets to keep his face in its skeptical scrunch, raising his eyebrows and his chin off his hand -- "Oooh," he says goadingly. Perhaps this is a mistake; it seems to remind them both that he's there. He puts his chin back on his hand. "Boston," he says. "I been here a minute. More'n a year, I'unno exactly. Where you from? I swear every one of you I meet sounds like they come from somewhere else." "Dump who? You one lolo buggah?" Nanami sucks her teeth irritably at Spencer, shooting him a sharp sidelong glance. "What you try fo do? Opsec this and opsec that, but something gonna catch me trouble then you talk?" She scrapes the last of her sweet potatoes into a small pile and shovels them into her mouth. "Boston, eesh." This has, once again, switched registers. "Cold and everything? Hawai'i, here. My sister and me both. Kelawini. Kind of as far from Boston as you can get and still -- go to jail in this country." She picks up her tray, lifts her chin in a sharp upward nod. "I'm gonna go see how Kavalam's doing. He -- doesn't know as many people here. Guess I'll see you round, huh?" Her smile is quick and small. "This does seem to be the most popular restaurant in town." | |
