Logs:Threat Assessments

Threat Assessments
Dramatis Personae Halim, Ren
In Absentia	2024-07-04 “Everywhere’s gotten pretty crowded.”
Location <NYC> Pier 51 - Hudson River Park
On both the Manhattan and the Jersey side, there are throngs of people up and down the river banks, collecting en masse in anticipation of the soon-to-begin fireworks show over the river. The crowds teem in rooftop terraces and cafe patios, on park benches and stretches of lawn. This particular segment of prime park real estate is strikingly less crowded than just a hair to its north and south both. There's a wide berth around one classically red-and-white checked waterproof picnic blanket stretched out on the grass. The Black man sitting cross-legged and stiffly upright in the center of the blanket does not look particularly intimidating -- blandly dressed in jeans and black sneakers and a grey tee shirt, kind of sallow, kind of ashy. The trio of Sentinels that have been patrolling this section of park might have more to do with people's aversion -- they are not actually keeping anyone away from here, but their oddly erratic behavior -- occasionally stalking after people who stray nearby, occasionally recombining themselves into One Larger Sentinel for no immediately evident reason, occasionally stabbing their spindly knife-edge legs with strange vigor into the grass -- has not been encouraging most casual parkgoers closer, either. Seeing the sentinels on Ren’s day off should have immediately set off some red flags as he makes his way alongside the park, but it does take longer than expected to process what they’re actually doing. “The hell?” Ren crouches down to study the sentinel that had been… following him? Seemed so. He gingerly sets his crutches down, and looks warily over at the other two, narrowing his eyes at their erratic behavior. Despite it being evening, the long, dark coat he wears is much too warm for the heat and humidity the city is currently experiencing. He wears a pale pink shirt and long dark pants. The mask he wears matches his shirt. His hair sticks out at a few different angles, held up by the sweat very clearly beading on his face. He doesn’t seem all too concerned, but thoroughly confused, as he reaches out for the sentinel following him in an attempt to grab it to study it. The Sentinel does not seem keen on being grabbed -- it is rolling back out of the way, pulling its legs inward as it does so that those sharp-knife edges on its modular limbs bristle rather dangerously to any grabby hands. "That's illegal, you know." This doesn't come from the Sentinel, probably; at least it is not any of the Sentinels' programmed voices but a fairly flat, fairly human voice that is oddly more toneless than the tailored-to-neutrality robot voices. Has the man on the blanket looked around? It doesn't seem so, and his back is still to Ren and the bots. He is lifting a hand from his knee to point, unerringly, to the Sentinel Ren tried to grab. "NYPD property." Ren snaps his hand back at the Sentinel’s bristling, unwilling to lose another finger to satisfy his curiosity. He brings another hand to the cuff of his sleeve and squeezes around his wrist briefly, before letting go. At the sound of the toneless voice, his head swivels in Halim’s direction, and it requires a double take between the sentinel and Halim, and the pointing, to put together its even him being talked to. Ren squints at the Sentinels, “I think something might be wrong with them.” He reasons, “Lots of kids out tonight—” He grabs his crutches and pushes himself up with a grunt, “Wouldn’t want someone losing a finger.” He tilts his head to study Halim—or more accurately his unturned back—before gingerly making his way closer, giving the Sentinels a wide berth. “Have they bothered you at all?” He asks, non-accusatory, mainly curious. "Lots of kids," Halim echoes, and in his flat monotone it's hard to tell if this is simply affirmation, or concern, or something else. "Lots of fireworks. Lots of fingers. The spiders --" Now he does turn, directing a small frown at the Sentinel that just whirred away from Ren. "-- unlikely to take a finger." He turns his head back up to the sky, frowning at that now, too. "I don't bother them." Ren watches the Sentinel whir away, eyebrows still pulled into a furrow. “Right. Unlikely.” Still halfway turned toward the spiders, he directs his attention also towards the sky. “Seems like you’ve found a good spot for the show though. Mind if I hang around?” Again, his eyes are looking back towards the odd behavior of the sentinels. “Everywhere’s gotten pretty crowded.” "Did they take yours." Halim isn't looking towards Ren's missing finger; his eyes are fixed back on the (still firework-less) sky. "Did you grab one." He goes a little more still at the question, and though he doesn't turn to look at the other man two of the strangely misbehaving Sentinels do. "It's a public park," comes stiffly. “No. My finger is unrelated to my robot grabbing activities.” Ren looks between the sentinels, and Halim. Maybe he lingers on Halim for a moment longer. He shifts further away from the sentinels a small step. At Halim’s response, he waits a beat as he seems to weigh something in his mind, before taking a heavy seat in the grass—careful to keep his coat underneath him to keep his pants clean. He sighs out a heavy breath, and maybe he was going to be taking a seat soon whether or not Halim had agreed. He still angles himself in a way he can keep an eye on the spiders, and watch the fireworks. “So it is.” The Sentinels also shift away from Ren, fanning out in a small V around Halim's blanket. "Do you think they'll behave better. If they're watched." Are they behaving better? They have all crouched in place as the first whizz-BANG of fireworks starts to go off, sky bright-lit with the first colorful explosions. "Could you stop them. If they didn't." Ren visibly startles at the first firework. He hunches forward, bringing a knee up, and pulls on the sleeves of his own jacket with opposite hands. His eyes are no longer on the sky, or the sentinels, but on Halim. “..They’re acting strange. Is all. I’m curious about it.” His voice is even, “I don’t believe I could stop them.” He pauses as another set of fireworks lights up the sky, “Could you?” Halim's eyes are still fixed straight up. He exhales sharply, and shakes his head once. "There are thousands of people here. I don't think Sentinels are the most likely source of violence." Ren watches the fireworks, and he’s stopped pulling so sharply on the sleeves at this point, the fabric now held loosely in his fingers. He lets the silence—or the silence interrupted by loud explosions—hang for a prolonged moment. He huffs out a breath eventually, and maybe it’s almost a laugh, “Was that your way of telling me to stop worrying and just enjoy the fireworks?” He asks. "If I wanted to tell you that, I would have said stop worrying and enjoy the fireworks." The spiders are shifting again, scuttling farther from the men but closer to each other, their many modular parts shifting and flowing into each other to briefly create one even larger spider. The Spider King is rolling itself away, further up the bank and out of sight. Halim's eyes don't move, bright starburst flares reflected in his dark eyes. "Worry about what you want. Holidays have a lot of danger. Very few of them are robots." Ren does watch the Spider King robot roll away out of sight. He turns back to the sky, and hums in agreement with Halim’s words, “…Yeah. I’m not big on the crowds during events like these.” He nods over towards one of the larger groups visible. Halim is silent for a considerable moment. Maybe he's ignoring Ren, or maybe the fireworks have distracted him. Eventually, though, he does speak up, abrupt: "... then why did you come." Ren has leaned back on his palms by the time the question comes. His quick glance indicates he hadn’t been expecting the response, “Wasn’t planning on it. Was on my way home from somewhere.” He huffs, “Unfortunately, changes in routine are good for the brain. Decided to scope out a spot last second so I couldn’t think about it.” He says gruffly. He squints at a particularly large firework. “Also, I was getting tired of walking.” Halim blinks, just once. He starts to open his mouth but evidently decides against this. The fireworks are still going off overhead but he is standing, shaking out his thin groundcloth and starting to fold it neat and precise along several guidelines helpfully instructing where it should be folded. "M14 will get you to the train." Ren doesn’t move when Halim gets up, “Oh, thanks.” He goes to push off his palms, but one of his palms stays on the ground as he shifts. He wipes one of them on his jacket, and offers a wave, “Safe travels. Holidays and all that.” Halim doesn't reply. He shoves his hands into his pockets, shoulders slouched and head bowed as he trudges silently away. Ren watches him walk away, and watches the fireworks for a bit longer to be safe. “Starting to think the biggest danger around here is you.” He mutters to seemingly no one, before beginning the long process of attempting to remove his palm from the grass the alien plant had rooted its long vines into. “Or at least the biggest nuisance.”