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[shootsharp]

MASK OR MENACE, HEROPA; floating in a most peculiar way.

[ The mood of the street changes when it begins to rain with a cheerful summery patter that is nevertheless relentless enough to cause a stir. Umbrellas bloom and raise. Footsteps quicken, and the open-sky mall clears of people as they change their trajectory for cover.

Except for Teddy Flood.

It's been some minutes. Water gathers between the crevices of the bricked ground he stands on, boots fixed in place, and rain strikes off the wide brim of his hat, finding a path to run and coming down at a intermittent trickle down his back. The flare of his jacket only barely protects where his conspicuous revolver hangs at his hip, because he's making no effort to do so. He's making no effort at all, still as a statue. Not even breathing.

His blue eyes seem both blank and focused on some mysterious point in the air, raised up, roughly towards where the city skyline looms up into the patchwork clouds above. He is midstep, one hand raised, his expression relaxed into inscrutable.

Some pause to take in the sight of him, as if judging whether or not this is some kind of street performance. Someone's shoved a five dollar note into his breast pocket. Others snap pictures.

Teddy doesn't notice, watching the sky. ]

MASK OR MENACE, NETWORK; the stars look very different today.

excuse me i seem to have fallen
off the beaten trail you wouldn't
happen to know which direction
lies sweetwater would you

MASK OR MENACE, HEROPA; planet earth is blue and there's nothing i can do.

[ Metal-shod hooves click and plod on wooden planks as Teddy slowly steers his horse across the boardwalk. He cuts a distinct figure amongst the beach-going Floridians, boots dusty, hat unironic, good form in his saddle and an openly carried gun at his hip. The novelty drags some glances his way, and he tips a nod to those nearer without too much in the way of conviction.

Because he is distracted.

A subtle redistribution of his weight in the saddle is enough to stop his horse from his slow meander to a halt as Teddy looks out over glittering blue ocean. After a moment, he swings his way out of his saddle, touching down with the subtle thump of boots on plank, the jingle-jangle of horse tack. Keeping leather reins wrapped over his knuckles, he moves closer to where wooden railing bars off the drop onto the yellow sand that stretches off into the frothy waves. ]

Comments

heropa.

[indocile]

( oh, no.

oh, no, no, no, no-- )

Teddy, ( with a worried sort of exasperation, conscious of how absolutely nothing she says now he's going to register in any useful way, ) not again.

( what does she even do with this. how did he come right the last time? where is catherine, catherine would probably know exactly what to do with a computer box person, there is probably - maybe it's like that time she saw someone jumpstart a car with another car??

margaux slowly types how does computer turn on again into her phone's search engine, jerking abruptly when she realises she's started leaning against teddy like he's a post to do it. )

[redshoerevenge]

Mako doesn't mind the rain too much, not since Hong Kong, so when it starts to fall, she doesn't open her umbrella. Not immediately. Not until she sees the frozen man. Her eyes sweep his features, his stillness, she touches him with careful fingers.

It could be a power. It's her first worry. But it's that stillness, his unblinking eyes that that convinces her otherwise. Her umbrella folds and she tucks it away, her wings materialize in black with blue and orange-red markings that glow as she shakes them out.

"Let's get you somewhere dry," she murmurs, "and see if we can't fix your problem." Mako tucks the five dollar note further into his pocket and delicately places her arms around his midsection. They're going to De Chima on the Mako Express, heading straight for the laboratory she uses for work.

She waltzes in and through security with her motionless guest without issue, gently sets him down, rummages for a towel and begins to dry him off. For awhile, once he's at least drier, she studies him.

"If you are a robot," she says softly, "you should have an emergency reactivation card in your pocket. It would help, you know." Mako drapes the large towel around his shoulders before reaching for a diagnostic unit. She'd used them as an easier way to diagnose software and hardware issues in her AI programs on many occasions, hopefully, it'll turn something up here.

[shootsharp]

[ Rain continues to patter and soak dusty grey suit even darker, and Margaux's lean only does not tip him over for virtue of the fact she's small, and while he doesn't tower over anyone, he's solidly built. Despite his preternatural stillness, when she leans, there's no robotic inflexibility. He is warm where he should be warm. Flesh and bone.

Seemingly. He doesn't blink, but maybe Margaux will when her phone suddenly stops working in her hand, shutting down, but rebooting when she hits the on switch.

In that moment-- ]

Margaux, [ Teddy says, angling aside from her. He squints, faint calibration, a flicking glance upwards. ] You'll catch a death out in this.

[shootsharp]

Teddy is impervious to what would have been a spectacular view, and unflinching when a towel is draped over his shoulders, and unresponsive when she offers her gentle rebuke. However, there's a life boarded up inside of him when Mako goes to make her evaluation. The technology doesn't sink of perfectly, but perhaps both are suitably advanced enough that signals can be detected that at least indicate that he is precisely what she expects him to be.

He also isn't broken, although that focus grouped face remains unmoving, still staring skywards, even if now all he sees is a ceiling.

But there seems to be some kind of internal errored loop that just needs a little untangling--

[indocile]

( blink, yes; she also makes a small noise of frustration and smacks it against her hand a couple of times before thinking to hit on, and - )

Oh, for the - you will catch something else, Mssr. Flood.

( catch these tiny hands, giving him a little shove that will probably not impact him any more than her leaning did, actually. )

How long have you been out here? What happened?

[paintedblack]

It occurs to Hector, for one brief moment as his leather-clad frame creaks to a stop directly in front of the living statue of a man he has a funny feeling he's shot before, that he may well have done this himself the first time he'd stepped out into this impossible city. Stopped still as a cow in mud. Time skipping ahead without him. Oblivious.

He probably would have pulled the look off a little better. With a vaguely serpentine tilt of the head and dip of the shoulder, he peers around the other man's frozen form, down the line of his lapel, to his hip. Water streams off one side of his own curve-brimmed hat.

And a black gloved hand reaches down to pluck the revolver from under Teddy's coat.

Much obliged.

[redshoerevenge]

In building her own AIs Mako had determined that she could work through the errors if she mentally connected to them. It wasn't really a Drift, though, but it was more of a connection with a fine touch to, say, detangle a sequence. So, she reaches out in just the same way she had to them, and though it seems to take ages, she very gently manages to set the error right and slip back out again.

Her nascent AIs weren't that complex. By the time she came back to herself, it was much later.

"Hopefully," she murmured, "you can sort yourself out, now."

[shootsharp]

[ He obliges her in just a slight step backwards beneath her mock-assault, giving her what is very nearly a smile. It fixes in place at her questions, wheels turning behind his eyes, before he tips a look backwards, the way he came. ]

Not long, [ he says. If he's in any way disturbed by how she's found him, you couldn't tell from the way he speaks now. ] I came up from that tunnel [ he means the subway ] not a minute ago, and stopped to get my bearings.

[ He moves, then, to gently, contactlessly herd her out of the rain, the continual patter of which puts his teeth on edge. ]

[shootsharp]

Theodore Flood's return to the world of the living comes mostly with a slow breath inwards, that blank expression resolving into something else. It's not quick, exactly, and he spends several seconds absorbing the place he is in. Whatever it is about the laboratory -- strikingly different to his antiquated costume, his old timey revolver -- seems to settle in his nerves, and he relaxes.

His eyes settle on Mako, and his hand comes up to find the edge of his hat in subtle salutations.

[shootsharp]

Moving faster than thought can carry, Teddy's half-raised hand snaps cross to close on Hector's wrist, shoving both it and gun aside while letting go of neither. Waking up is what happens concurrently as the grey-coated gunslinger fixes a wintry stare on the scarred face of his current opponent.

Recognition sharpens in his expression.

"Look what we have here."

A bounty, if he ever saw one.

[redshoerevenge]

Mako's patient, though she leans her chin on her hand to watch him as he resurfaces. Amazing design, incredibly lifelike. Beautiful, really.

"There you are," Mako says with a smile, her head tilting slightly,a slice of bright blue hair settling sharply against her jawline. "Welcome back."

[shootsharp]

"I can't say I recall making your acquaintance, ma'am."

The apologetic tone in his voice is only subtle, a subdued instinct towards being polite in the first instance. His accent is much the same, expected by the looks of him without being outright cartoonish. Teddy breaks his attention from her, takes in his surroundings once more. "But I been here before, one time or another."

[redshoerevenge]

"You were out in the rain in Heropa, I brought you to De Chima," she says quietly. Her laugh stays at that volume and there's definite amusement in her voice. "I guess it really is a welcome back, then. I'm Mako Mori and this is the laboratory where I work on very small robots."

[shootsharp]

"Much obliged, Ms Mori."

The word robots is heard but unresponded to, Teddy taking a step aside as he goes to move around the space with the same sort of restless ease as if she'd let a tired coyote through her door. Much like the incremental motions she's already seen, the rest of his motor functions are smooth, lifelike, unhitching.

Perhaps too smooth, at that. "Teddy Flood," he says, on that delay, tipping a nod to her. It's then that he seems to notice the towel, and he goes to drag it off his shoulders, bunching terrycloth in his hands with a pause, before he goes to fold it over an arm.

Low-key amusement takes over his confusion. "And it seems I owe you one."

[redshoerevenge]

"Glad to help, Teddy," she says and then shakes her head a little, raising a hand briefly. "No, no. You don't owe me anything. I'm just glad you're okay. You were a bit," she hums a little as she tries to find a word, "out of it and with the rain--"

Mako shrugs and offers a small smile.

She watches him move about without much concern, pleased to see he can walk about without issue. It puts her at ease.

"I was a bit worried for awhile." Nonresponsive gentlemen in the streets tend to provoke a certain sense of concern.

[shootsharp]

She shrugs, and Teddy gives an indistinct nod, an easy smoothing over of whatever gaps of knowledge lies between them. His overriding directive is one of immersion, and interrupting every sentence to clarify what any given guest means would only entangle them in the mechanics of the thing.

"No need to be concerned," he assures easily, instead, finding a place to set down the towel. "A little rain never hurt nobody."

Although on that note, he does take his gun out from his holster -- turning his shoulder to her so as to avoid causing alarm -- and with the slickness of a well oiled machine, checks it over with faint, metallic clicks. "You in the business of rescuing lost souls? Or was this a one time type of circumstance."

[redshoerevenge]

She nods thoughtfully, watching him take the gun she hadn't confiscated. If he'd wanted, there had been more than ample enough time to shoot her with it. There still is. But she has unseen armor to protect her and wings if need be.

"I think it might have veered into habit, here," Mako says with a laugh as she thinks about Daryl, Carl, Enid, and pretty much all of the people she now has ties with. "Then again, we're all lost souls and we're always being found by someone."

[shootsharp]

The gun is put away again once he's satisfied, and Teddy smiles at her more around the eyes than he does his mouth.

"Sounds romantic," he says. Romannic. "And like someone I know."

Because of course there's a girl, the mere mention of whom often triggers his immediate departure in his fruitless pursuit of her, but in this instance, his own script allows him sly reference without all out anxiety. "World needs more heroes. Balances out the bad."

[indocile]

( not so keen on standing in the rain too long, either, margaux allows herself to be herded towards somewhere drier, saying, )

I hope you got them to your satisfaction,

( a bit tartly, piqued by the entire experience and at least 75% of that pique on his behalf. 25% conceptually outraged by his characteristically stoic response to the entire affair. at least he's moving and making expressions and being exasperating again, though, she much prefers that -

sometimes she still wonders. did humans have people like this, at home? did they die? can they die? are they just still like teddy was, somewhere, waiting-- )

Where are you going? We. I am coming too!

( in case. in case of what?? in case. )

[redshoerevenge]

"Hopeful, perhaps," Mako murmurs. "Is that a someone who might be here? It's said that people from the worlds we came from can come through the Porter, but I haven't seen anyone from my world show up. I keep looking, though."

He's right, though, the world does need more heroes. She studies his face for awhile with curiosity.

"It does balance out the bad. There's so much of that already. Where I come from, I help protect the world from monsters, so doing the same here isn't much of a stretch."

[shootsharp]

"She lives on a ranch a ways out of Sweetwater," Teddy says, which is something of a no to her answer as to whether this someone is in fact here, save for that Teddy seems to expect that Mako knows the town he speaks of. "Has a way of looking at the world like it's full've meaning."

And beauty, but that's the kind of talk he thinks Dolores gets away with better than himself. He nods to Mako then, saying, "If that's so, maybe I'll see you out on the road sometime. Lot of monsters need chasing 'round these..."

But that's not true, is it? No bounties to hunt, no paths to take.

"'Round these..."

The repetition doesn't kickstart his script, and his eyes focus past her, expression smoothing out of confusion into the same kind of passive blankness he'd been in when he'd frozen, when she'd found him.

[shootsharp]

I was fixing for a drink.

[ Once under cover, he resumes an easy wander, and catches sight of the little fold of money in his jacket pocket. He pulls it out, smoothing it with his thumb.

Patient enough to have wandered this far from the Porter in search of a nice bar as a point of reference, he is patient still, and offers her the note. (She didn't even have to forcibly loot him!) ]

Where I was before, you can't swing a cat without hitting a saloon. Here, I'd be surprised if anywhere carries a decent whiskey.

[indocile]

( margaux's very automatic reaction to being handed money is to tuck it into her bra-strap; more to the point it is to accept it, rather than consider whether or not she should refuse. teddy knows his own business and how much money he can go handing out to pretty girls, probably, especially when the next purchase either of them is likely to make is apparently 'liquor'. )

They're all sort of new to me, ( conversationally, falling comfortably in step with him - albeit a quicker step, to keep up with the pace of his longer legs. ) The arrangements at home are very different.

( he would adapt there, too, she thinks. he is patient with the world in a way she is not, even if someone else decided he would be. )

I bet you another five dollars I can find you a decent whiskey.

[shootsharp]

Town saw a lot've newcomers too, [ Teddy says as they go, looking over storefronts, traffic, people. He has, necessarily, adapted to existing in this world too, but there's always some part of him that niggles. If he focuses on it for too long, well--

Margaux's already had to deal with that once. How much he absorbs is debateable, eyes ever so slightly glassy, sliding off some things in search of others. ]

And I'll take that bet, if you're buyin'.

[redshoerevenge]

"Oh no," Mako says softly, moving across the space to take his hand. At contact, she reached out like she'd done before, nudging herself back in get him right out of that loop again.

"Come back, Teddy. Please stay and talk with me." She murmurs useless things, then, things that don't matter as she works to pull him back once more. There's got to be something she can do to help him not, well, spin like a toy top.