TEXT: Day after the Festivities

[sociallychallenged]

Username: dpdhank@dualislink

My name is Hank Anderson, I'm a patrol officer with Dualis's police. I think I met a few people at the Dualis Days festival, many of them during the unfortunate opening ceremonies.

The police are conducting an official investigation but I want to conduct my own independent investigation. In my experience that usually solves cases a little more quickly. [That's how he and Connor made it as far as they did, superseding what was technically required of them. The end result was also the better result for the world, not the preferred result for the powers that be, too.]

I know some of you were close to the bombing. If you're interested and able to give me some information I'll be in the kitchen on floor six for the rest of the evening.

[Anyone that comes to find him will be lucky. For the moment he'll be listening to some jazz he loaded onto a music player and speaker he found in a thrift shop rather than metal. But you better believe when it's necessary he'll switch to metal if he has to. In the meantime he's also reading an actual paper book, a softcover novel that he was lucky enough to find.]

Comments

[merged]

[ She feels a tickle of guilt, questioning whether or not she said the right thing. ]

I... hope you can, too. [ But she feels a pang of jealousy as she says it, too. Jealous and fearful that the one person that matters most to her will probably never know she did everything she could to find him, that she did her best to save him, to save others, that she tried at all. He has the hope that he'll go back and maybe, hopefully, his partner will still be there. She doesn't have that, can't will herself to have that.

Ah, fuck. Now, she just feels bitter and upset when she should be angry and vindictive. She wants to be angry and vindictive; it'd feel better. ]

Personally, I just kind of hope I wake up from this and that it's all just another shitty nightmare. [ Maybe that sounds dramatic but she's lived literal nightmares and, honestly, she'd rather be there, in them, with him, than feel so isolated and alone in a place like this. ]

[sociallychallenged]

I bet you get some real fucked up ones.

[On one hand, he doesn't want to think too much about a lonely Connor searching for him. On the other, he doesn't want to remind this poor girl of her nightmares.]

Maybe if you can take control of it you can get us out of the fuckin' cyberpunk projects and into a nice apartment complex.

[merged]

I'd get us out of the cyberpunk projects but I don't think anyone would like where we'd end up. [ She seems to realize how cryptic that sounds and quickly continues. ] I don't really have good dreams, even when I try. [ She shrugs. ] Nightmares or nothing.

[ She even went to the doctor a lot as a kid for it. She's just happy she doesn't sleepwalk anymore. ] So, maybe you can take control of it; you probably have a better idea of what nice is than me.

[sociallychallenged]

[Hank's brain hates him in a different way. His dreams are usually either the typical brand of bizarre- naked at work. Driving the Oscar Meyer Weenermobile with a siren. Watching an action movie that's a buddy cop flick with Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders and Wendy is the sexy fem fatale (that one nearly converted him to only food cart food forever).]

[Or they're sort of happy. Playing with Sumo and Cole at the playground. Watching him and several other kids playing duck duck goose. The generic but true memory of rounds of catch in the backyard. And most recently, stupid half-ass things his mind has concocted with Connor laying on him on his couch, his plastic idiot head on his chest]

If this was my dream it'd be a lot stranger. Though with people naming places like Gotham and bringing up the X-Men I'm kinda wonderin'.

[merged]

[ What are you eating before bed, Hank? Jesus.

She recognizes some of the words but they don't ring any real familiar bells (now if he'd said Middle-earth, she'd have perked up). ]

Yeah, I really don't know how much stranger you could make it. It's like we're in a fucked up love child of, I don't know, Blade Runner and Wizard of Oz.

[sociallychallenged]

So if you're Dorothy, am I the Tin Man or am I the Cowardly Lion?

[As if either is a deep compliment. One a man who can't figure out his emotions. One a man who is too fuckin' chicken shit to do what he needs to. Both grow, at least, but they're kind of perfect examples of how people can go wrong after a bit much.]

[Though considering some of their other threads of conversation, that's one of the lighter ones.]

[merged]

So sure you're not the Scarecrow? [ She teases somewhat hesitantly. ]

[sociallychallenged]

Hell no. I've got too much stuffing for it.

[He leans back and drums on his stomach like the donut lover he is. What the fuck good is it having some padding if you don't drum your belly, one must ask.]

[merged]

[ That makes her laugh in response, rolling her eyes lightly at the gesture; what a dad thing for him to do. She lets a quiet fall before she stands up from the table. ]

I'm gonna let you get back to your investigation, good luck with it. [ You know, don't draw too much attention to yourself and shit. She doesn't mind Hank too much so she'd rather he stick around. ]