[Open] Step One: Cut a Hole in the Box

[observationalhazard]

Who: Hanji Zoe, open
What: Hanji is fresh off the metaphorical boat. She tries to settle her mind by taking things apart.
Where: Training Center
When: Afternoon, March 22
Warnings: References to violent death, in all likelyhood.

"Unsettling" was a very mild way to describe the situation Hanji was in. It was almost too much for her to grasp - spirited away by some unknown method to compete in gladitorial games for the amusement of others? That was something out of terrible fiction (not that Hanji read much fiction these days). It was an impossibility, completely unlikely. Or had been until a couple hours ago. She hadn't bothered with threats or pleading. The guards and officials didn't seem like the sort to respond well to that and fornow the best thing she could do waas gather information.

After a quick introductory lesson on the building she was staying in and a brief tour of her new apartment (prison cell), she'd been left to fend for herself. The sheer amount of luxury and dcadence that surrounded her was equally amazing and terrifying. She was still used to spare meals of black bread and potato soup. The fact that she could snap her fingers and have practically anything delivered to her by servants was beyond her experience and left her feeling like a child who'd suddenly been told they have the run of a candy shop, if not a little unsettled.

And then there was the technology and the lack of titans. They had electric lights, every room had indoor plumbing, and a million other things that they'd only talked about in theory or never even imagined at home. She wanted to see all of it. And she wanted to know why they didn'th ave titans. No one had answered that one yet.

Which was way when she'd found a holoprojector in the training room, she'd "borrowed" a few smaller knives and set about trying to get the casing off to get a look at the innards. Besidezs doing something vaguely productive helped her think. How did they run everythingon electricity, anyway? The tip of her tongue poked between her lips, brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to use one of the knives as an improvised screwdriver.

The moment anyone passed close enough for her to hear them, she waved a hand in their general direction, "Hey! Pass me something to use as a hammer!"

A little while later and she had the panel off, a tangle of wires exposed, her goggles snapped over her eyes as she tried to make heads or tails of the thing.

Comments

[revvinguptheharley]

Harley had been watching the girl work from afar while enjoying a three scoop ice cream cone. As the girl seemed to be making progress she tip toed over till she was looming behind the girl.

"Neat! Whatcha making?" She was still in her training clothes from earlier, snug shorts that exposed every inch of her powerful legs and a secure sports top in black with red stripes on the arms. It had the District logo on the chest.

[observationalhazard]

Hanji was routinely surrounded by weirdoes. Harley probably wouldn't bother her. Much. She rolled her neck, arching to get a look at Harley.

"Building? Nothing, yet! I just want to see how this works. But..."

Maybe she could build something. Eventually. Her eyes settled on the logo. Even at an awkward angle, she could see the number. Her eyes lit up, "You're from the 9th District?"

Now, was she a native or someone who might actually be willing to help?

[revvinguptheharley]

"Huh?" She looked down at the logo on her shirt and then laughed "Ah no. I'm from Gotham City, America. Planet Earth, just not this planet Earth." She waved a hand dismissing the semantics. "But they assigned me to District Nine so if I win the arena, that's who gets to eat like human beings for the next few months instead of like livestock."

"You must be new." She added with a warm slightly crooked smile.

[observationalhazard]

Well, that was all kinds of interesting. From Earth? She'd never heard of America or Gotham. Maybe there was another band of survivors out there somewhere. Or maybe she was from another world entirely - so many possibilities.

She answered Harley's grin with one of her own and some slightly sheepish laughter, "Ah, I'm that obvious, hmm? Yes - I just arrived."

Hanji paused again, "It's... an interesting place, this Capitol."

[mannersmatter]

((OOC-Do you mind if I have Effie run into her when she's just looking around the main building? She doesn't spend much time in the training center))

[observationalhazard]

(( Not at all! Go for it! ))

[gruesome]

At first, Some thinks she's one of the rarely-spotted technicians, here to repair the thing she's dismantling. But no, she's not dressed like that. A tribute, then. He's never seen her before, though he's not sure if that means she's new or not. There are so many of them now. Either way, she's going to get in trouble, keeping on like that. She could get everyone in the room in trouble.

He's not trying to sneak up behind her as he approaches, nervous, but his feet make no sound on the padded training center floor.

"Ah... hello?"

[observationalhazard]

"Hello!" Hanji responds cheerfully and glances over her shoulder to give the newcomer a look-

Whoa.

Whoa. Whoa.

What is that?

Sorry, Some. Hanji immediately stops what she's doing and wriggles out from underneath the projector so she can get a better look at him. Her face splits in a grin a mile wide and for at least a moment or two she seems completely oblivious to the idea of "personal space".

"What are you? You're... you're... amazing!"

[gruesome]

At least he got her away from her dismantling. He chuckles nervously, allowing the proximity. Standing casually, he can't help but tower over her, even slouching.

"Ah... I'm a grue. My name is Some." Offering her a hand to shake at least gives him a polite reason to take a bit of a step back, and he runs another hand through the crest of fur on his scalp, making sure it lies flat. "I belong to District Two."

[observationalhazard]

She thought titans were weird, but Some is a whole 'nother ball of wax. He has too many limbs and too many eyes and an extra mouth and she can't really begin to describe him. Not yet. She has to look at him, really look at him, to start spotting all the details. She shakes his hand with a wide grin and then pulls it up toward her face so she can examine it.

"A grue - I've never even heard of a grue - ah, nice to meet you Some! I'm Hanji! They've put me in District Nine."

[nunpunching]

Punchy's not a hardware type. He's always been significantly more interested in software, in the sweet bliss of a world that existed simultaneously in two dimensions and in limitless directions in his mind. Physical engineering always seemed trapped by gravity and capacity, and while Punchy doesn't mind the rules of programming, something about tangible reality strikes him as boring. He'll work with it, but it doesn't thrill him.

So he doesn't pay much attention to the person in the corner fiddling with the projector until she calls for help, and he realizes that he doesn't recognize her voice. She's new, and something about the combination of "female + new + potential engineer" takes Punchy from apathetic to enthused in about ten seconds flat. He saunters over, all flashy clothes and big grin and unfortunate face tattoo, and leans on the projector with his elbow.

"'Ey, shawty." He holds a mace out to her. "This work?"

[observationalhazard]

Hanji has no idea what "shawty" means, but it's probably slang. Damn kids and their new-fangled ways. She glances up with a grin and a tip of her head as she reaches out to take the mace. Punchy - Punchy is interesting and that's saying something, considering the colorful personalities she works with on a daily basis (and considering how 'interesting' she tends to be herself). He's got flash.

She'll give him that much, anyway.

"Perfect! Thanks!"

Immediately, she's banging away, trying to leverage the damn panel off with a knife and her impromptu hammer. It makes conversation a bit difficult, but she's still trying.

"You're another Tribute, aren't you?"

[nunpunching]

"Damn straight, shawty." Punchy doesn't mind. From this angle, Hanji's hunched over in a way that gives Punchy a cursory-but-not-creepy perspective of her rear end. He's not eyebanging, he's just...failing to move his eyes away. "Name's Punchy."

Granted, sometimes the Gamemakers see fit to still call him Matthew, but fuck those hoes. Punchy feels very passionately that he still deserves his heroic moniker.

"You?"

[observationalhazard]

Hanji finally knocks the panel off and she straightens, dusting her hands off. Success! Sort of. Now she has a tangle of wires to look at and she has no idea what any of them do. She turns back to Punchy and offers a hand, "Hanji."

She pauses a moment and then cocks her head, "Shawty - I've never heard that word. What does it mean?"

[youbarium]

"Would you like an actual screwdriver?" asked a voice from behind her. If she turned to look, she would see a tall man in a white labcoat and an unflatteringly-short haircut, looking curiously at her work.

[observationalhazard]

"Id be eternally grateful," Hanji replied, rolling her head back to get a look at the newcomer, "The knife works, but it's not quite the same."

The white coat didn't mean much to her, but at least he'd offered help.

"It's like they don't want us to break into these or something."

[youbarium]

Carlos took a small box out of the pocket of his lab coat and opened it. Inside was an array of tools -- small, not sturdy enough to do any kind of heavy work, but serviceable enough. He pulled out a screwdriver and handed it to her.

"Here. Just bring it back to the District 10 suites when you're finished with it, or when you get yourself a better one. This is just the toolkit I carry with me, you know, for emergency science."

[observationalhazard]

Hey, good things did happen to good people. Hanji popped to her feet with a laugh and a grin. She plucked the screwdriver out of Carlos' hand with a nod of thanks, "District 10? You're another tribute? I just arrived - they put me in District 9. I'm still not sure what any of it means - just that they want me to fight to the death."

It wasn't that amusing, but laughing was better than crying.

[orestes]

It wasn't every day you saw someone who was clearly a Tribute destroying Capitol property, even in the interests of science. Enjolras respected the effort, though as the wires seemed to spark and sizzle beneath her touch, he didn't know if he could say that he understood it. In fact, he was relatively sure he did not.

He moved closer to where she crouched so as not to disturb her and studied before choosing to make his presence known. It was quite a show, all things considered. More probably to him than to many of the other people in Panem, more accustomed to electronics as they were. "They will not take kindly to your meddling, mademoiselle. But I admit that I have always wanted to know what the inside of one of those things looked like as well."

[observationalhazard]

Hanji glanced up from her work with a slow blink and then turned so she could scramble to her feet. Almost instantly she offered her hand, "Well, they might htave to get used to it. I'm not going to let all of this pass me by without a chance to study it!"

She waited for a half a second to let him get a word in edgewise and then continued, "I'm Hanji Zoe!"

[orestes]

"Enjolras," he replied, still glancing past her to the flicker of light and electricity where she had been working. Her hand was light in his and hardly seemed capable of moving through all of... Well, whatever it was.

"Is this what you do in your world? Study machines like these?" It was possible that she was some sort of scientist, like Carlos, but then, even to his own amateur understanding of such things, there seemed to be a rift between pure science and machinations. There were also fields such as medicine and alchemy-- chemistry, that were not altogether the same, but also not altogether separate.

[observationalhazard]

"Well, not really machines - usually creatures called titans!" Hanji's all smiles and friendliness and she seems to take up all the space in the room when she's talking and animated. She lifts her hand in a lazy salute, "Nice to meet you, Enjolras! Most of the other tributes have been friendly so far, so I'm glad you're not about to break that trend!"

[mannersmatter]

Effie had her arms full of boxes. Most of it various things for the Tributes, basic things...plus maybe a bit of shopping for herself.

Really, she didn't do much for herself anymore.

So toddling along on her feels, arms full of boxes, she didn't even see the other woman until she had run right into her, sending a rain of lacy, pastel things down on them.

Perhaps most of the packages were actually for her. But really she hadn't been doing a lot for herself lately.

Really.

"Oh, I am so sorry!"

[observationalhazard]

Hanji squawked slightly and took a step or two back as she was showered with packages and other things. She registered a surprised sounding voice on the other side of all of those packages and she waved a hand, trying to get something that had hooked on her goggles off.

"Don't worry about it, really! I don't mind!"

[mannersmatter]

Reaching out, Effie plucked the feathery bit of fluff off of Hanji's glasses, dropping it into one of the open bags that had landed with the bottom down.

"Such a sweet young lady!" Effie said with a bright smile, before moving to pluck up the whirlwind of stuff that had settled to the floor around them. "Are you a new tribute?"