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WHO: Hank Anderson | NPCs | Open
WHAT: A hunt for information and a desire for good whiskey. People can also find him at the boardwalk or drinking at the bar.
WHERE: A speakeasy on the boardwalk
WHEN: Towards the end of July
WARNINGS: 🎜🎝 Hank's mouth needs washing out with soap. Suicidal tendencies.

Hank usually tries to tie up his hair while he's at work. He's still not cut it. It's a holdover from years of depression. He didn't fucking feel like cutting his hair so other than some beard maintenance he just let that mane happen, and mentally he's still not found the place to chop it all off. Now he just keeps it in a half-ass high ponytail with half of it hanging out while he's on the job, like a heavyset loose samurai. Now he's just got it down, looking like his usual casually sloppy shaggy dog self in a bold shirt and a well-worn jacket. At least he looks like he belongs in a bar drinking.

The boardwalk is only mildly busy. It's a weeknight, people are off work, the food is cheap but everything isn't lit up like a James Cameron daydream quite yet. Give it a half-hour. There are rows of little restaurants and game booths and a few hole-in-the-wall establishments down little turn off side-streets. The places for grown-ups to go while the kids play.

That's when Hank first finds a bar that he's heard a couple of claims about. Maybe bullshit; a couple of the other bars he's also checked out have been bullshit. But fuck it, another place to get whiskey, right?

Another holdover from three years of depression.

The old detective (former detective, maybe future one) settles himself at a distant side seat on the bar, somewhere where he can see whatever the live stage performance is when it starts while he tends to a neat whiskey.

He draws the attention of a scaled woman next to him as he downs his glass without so much as a flinch and pushes it forward for a refill. No sign of the notorious whiskey face. He's scalded that reaction right out of his throat. He might as well have a fuckin' booze callous the way this nigh on toxic shit doesn't phase him.

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Nick laughs openly, a wide grin stretching across her face. “Y’know, I think you’re the only adult who’s ever agreed with me about that. I always said those teachers and everyone else just didn’t wanna deal with me ‘cause I wasn’t worth the effort. ‘Course, maybe that’s what I expected - Ma used to say some pretty nasty shit to me when she was drunk off her ass.” Nick leans in, wagging a finger and twisting her face in an exaggerated expression of hate, an imitation of her mother. “‘Nichole, you’re not even worth the gunpowder it’d take to blow you to Hell.’ That was one of her favorites.” Nick rolls her eyes and takes up her drink once again, pausing for a sip before resuming conversation.

“So your partner’s an android, huh? How’d they end up bein’ good guys? That’s not usually how the story goes.”

Odd conversation to laugh during. But that's what happens, doesn't it? Enough shit and suddenly it finds a middle ground between mildly irritating and pretty amusing.

He smiles a little himself. "Yeah, uh... I met a lot of kids in bad situations. Some asshole ex-husband would come in and shoot a mom in the back of the head. Kid would be the only witness. You'd be going to their schools and asking teachers and they'd all say the same fuckin' shit. 'Oh he was distracted or didn't listen in class.' 'He didn't get along with the other kids.' 'She missed school all the time, her parents said she was skipping'. Some girl gets bullied to death by a couple of letter jacket fucks and suddenly nobody saw the signs.

"It always pissed me the fuck off. I got so I could immediately see all the tells that the fuckin' school couldn't. But I uh..." He almost adds something like 'I think it made me a better father'. Except it causes a twist in his throat, a harshness to his expression like he got something stuck that he can't quite swallow, and he uses one more drink to wash it down.

He's found himself well in the foggy zone.

"Androids were always the good guys. I was just too fuckin' stupid to see it for a long time. I guess it's like with kids. You gotta really watch and see what they do, and I did. And they were like the rest of us. Just... at first they were fuckin' smart phones, and then the right awful experience brought out the person in them... Okay maybe not all of 'em. At least one changed 'cause she was in love. Musta been others, too."

Edited 2019-07-28 09:30 (UTC)

When your life is a nonstop horror show, there comes a point where you either learn to laugh about it, or you never stop screaming. Nick’s opted for the former. She’d guess Hank might be of a similar mind, given the kinds of horrific scenes he describes.

She listens to him quietly and attentively, and by the time he finishes telling her about the androids, a soft smile appears on her face. “Androids in love,” she says, like she almost can’t believe it but wants to. “Maybe there’s still hope for humans, too.”

Nick finishes the last of her drink, slides the empty glass back across the surface of the bar, and swivels the chair to give Hank her full attention. “Well, Hank, it has been wonderful talking with you. I’d love to hear more about those androids in love and your partner sometime, if you’re up for it. I have to go meet some people now, but I tell ya what ... “ She leans in and lowers her voice, conspiratorial. “If you’re not busy tomorrow night, come back around 9 or 9:30. I’m working but I’ll have a break then, and I might have an idea about where to find some of that metal and jazz you’re looking for.”

"Yeah. If I hadn't seen them, then uh..."

He thinks of his plan. That 'plan' that therapists ask you about. He had no hope for humanity, and to him? Androids were just an exaggerated version of man. He was fucking sick of it, seeing the bad all the time and barely brushing by any of the good.

This is why more cops actually die by suicide than in the line of duty. The 'thin blue line' he's come to realize has more to do with a shitty government mental health care system than it is. Like he'd ever take advantage of it, anyway. He can't tell whether it's some outdated sense of toxic masculinity or he just doesn't want to let people near that shit because it's his.

"Well then, if you can hook me up, then it's a date. I need the fix," the former narcotics cop jokes, downing the very last of that glass. "Yeah, I'll tell you all about 'em. Hope they're out there happy somewhere."

Nick knows more than she’s letting on about having a lack of hope for the world, especially herself. Maybe she never had a plan to end her life, but she sure as hell didn’t make any effort to prolong her life. She figured she’d be dead by the time she turned twenty-five anyway, so there was no point in abstaining from habits like chainsmoking, severe binge drinking, provoking physical fights, various other risky behaviors. But she changed, physically, and learning that she would basically live forever changed her outlook as well.

“A date, huh? That would actually have to wait until after I’m off work for the night,” she says, grinning widely, and stands up from the stool to begin her exit. “But lucky for you, I don’t have anything planned.” She gives the bartender on duty a friendly wave goodbye, then turns back to Hank for a final farewell.

“See you tomorrow,” she says, and makes her way toward the door and out into the night.

Hank goes through his next day as he normall would a work day. He tickets five cars. He talks down a man with a strong case of affluenza and a stronger case of Pain In The Ass from holding up traffic during his tantrum. He does not, however, revoke the ticket. He goes to the school in the evening to monitor one of the stops to make sure everyone crosses to the sports field without injuries, families with their freshly acquired spawn filling the stands. He's not sure he recognizes what the teams are playing. Considering his mild (much milder than his drinking) gambling habit, he would kind of like to. The occasional sweet moments between parents and children making him heartsick.

He has time to go home and change out of his uniform and throw on some of his normal clothes. A club shirt with an enviable zigzag pattern, where he's managed to find the right shade of red and the right shade of blue that they mess with the eyes when you try to glance over it. Over that a leather jacket and his usual jeans and cheap work boots with good waterproofing. All he needs.

He shows up at the right time, heading into the bar and finding, by some miracle, the seat he'd perched in the night before open again. So he plops down in it and pulls his feet up to rest in the lower rung.

As promised, Nick is behind the bar when Hank arrives, hair pulled back into two low, choppy pigtails and wearing a black t-shirt with a faded white print, a reference lost on most of this city. She greets Hank with a nod and steps forward when he sits down.

"Welcome back," she says, with a pleased smile. "Are you ready for an adventure, or can I get you a drink first?"

"One glass of whiskey and I'll make it quick," he promises, tapping the counter. He can tear through a small glass in no time flat.

"Then I'm ready for that adventure."

He's guessing that if there is questionable music out there, it takes some effort to get to. He doesn't doubt that she literally means an adventure.

She nods and busies herself with pouring Hank's drink order - same whiskey as last night, she has a good memory for that sort of thing, well practiced over years of tending bars. "Here you go," she says, sliding the glass toward him across the bar, "and no rush - I have plenty of wiggle room on when I take my break."

Some of the best adventures happen in your own backyard, right? The path to this adventure won't mean traveling far, but there is definitely some effort involved in getting there.

"And besides," she adds, with a knowing grin, "slamming back whiskey's a good way to find yourself holding a basket full of bad decisions. Trust me, I know a lot about this very specific scenario."

The unfortunate side-effects of withdrawal are happily gone now, now that he can afford at least the occasional drink (he's cut down by far, but he keeps enough in him that he's not feeling it physically).

The drink is, as usual, a relief, downed with little trouble and a breath after that suggests he might be on the verge of huffing dragonfire.

"You're talkin' like I might need a second one to handle this." And he's getting more curious now. "Alright. Let's have a look at what you're talkin' about." He tucks his hands into his jacket pockets, ready to follow her in his easy, lazy stride.

Nick finishes wiping down the bar with a rag and tosses it in a bucket behind her. “I really think you’re gonna like this place,”she says, grinning widely, then turns to catch her coworker’s attention. “Hey, Zvaldi! I’m taking my break.” The other bartender nods, and Nick slips around to the front of the counter and waves for Hank to follow her down the hallway leading toward the bathrooms, the emergency exit, and a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Instead of continuing toward the exit, Nick turns to the employee door and presses her palm to the lock plate; it clicks softly and turns green, and the door unlocks.

Nick pushes through the door and into another hallway. She walks past two more locked doors and veers sharply to the right, around a corner and down a long, rickety flight of stairs. The lighting is dim, but Nick traverses the terrain with confidence.

At the bottom of the stairs is another door - heavy, old, likely made of some kind of metal. There’s no lock plate to open this door.

“We’re here,” Nick says, turning to Hank to gauge his reaction. “Now, there’s two rules to this place. One, you can’t tell anyone it’s here - kinda like Fight Club. And two, you gotta check in your phone at the door. You cool with that?”

Edited 2019-08-07 10:44 (UTC)

He follows along, noting the print sensitive access to the back area. It's like one of those old access points from behind stores for maintenance work back home. He doesn't know if that's what it is here, but there's enough space that it's what it reminds him of. He trots down the stairs, careful on the old steps as he's a big guy and knows he should stick to the sides and not the middle.

They get down to the old metal door, and he pulls out his phone. Well, if he's getting dragged to his death, it's not like he hasn't been asking for it for years. But that funny thought is punctuated with a, Eh they know I have to go into work tomorrow.

He pulls out his phone, (both his new one and the old one he had on him from Detroit) and offers them to Nick. "Deal."

He's met with a wide grin from Nick, equal parts pleased and excited. "I really think you're gonna like this place," she says, carefully shifting Hank's phones and her own to an arm while she knocks three times on the door with her free hand. A small metal plate about eye level slides open to reveal a pair of eyes that inspects Nick and Hank.

"Charlotte sometimes dreams a wall around herself" is what Nick offers the eyes in the door as a passphrase, and it seems to be the correct set of words to gain entry, because there's the metal-on-metal scraping of a bolt being pulled back and then the door creaks open. Nick turns back to Hank and waves for him to follow her inside. On the other side of the door, they're met by a bald man with blue, shimmering skin, sitting in a worn, stuffed chair and a large brown dog that sits up at attention to greet them. Nick hands the man their phones, which he deposits in a small plastic bin on the shelf behind him, and bends to let the dog sniff her outstretched hand. The dog gives her a lick of approval and is given a friendly chin-scratch in return. Nick stands and turns back to the man with the blue skin, left wrist upturned for him to scan with a black-bulb flashlight. If Hank is paying attention to all of this, he'll see a white-ink tattoo revealed by the black light, a small jagged line.

The blue man nods his approval, and Nick hooks a thumb in Hank's direction. "He's with me," she says, and steps toward the piece of heavy stage curtain serving as a door into the main room. She pulls it back and gestures for Hank to enter.

"Welcome to Rick's Lo-Fi Emporium," she says. "I think you should be able to find something you like here."

The room is a cramped space, something of a cross between an antique store and a used books and records shop; the smell of dust and old cigarette smoke hangs in the stale air. Shelves stacked with books and outdated tech line the outer walls, manual typewriters and adding machines and alien contraptions of all shapes and sizes. A beat-up industrial Xerox machine holds a space in the back corner, with a sign reading DISPLAY ONLY - NOT FOR SALE. The main part of the floor is full of tables crammed with crates full of records, CDs, even cassette tapes, and there's a turntable on the cashier's counter playing a record of string quartet songs.

There are exactly three other customers milling around the store, selecting wares to purchase. At a small table near the Xerox machine, a young red-headed woman and a greying, bespectacled man sit, intently discussing in hushed tones and writing out notes on the scattered piles of papers in front of them.

Hank offers his own hand to the dog, not because he needs the approval, but because he misses dogs in general. He misses Sumo. He misses the smell of his couch just from the big dog laying on it. He misses the happy crunch of dogfood in the background as he dug into his own little cardboard container of Chinese take-out. He doesn't really think right now is the best time to be dwelling, though.

Charlotte sometimes dreams a wall around herself. He makes a mental note of it as he finds an old Arch Enemy record and looks at the back of the sleeve. There is a shitload of stuff here he doesn't recognize. He's repeating the phrase a few times in his head while looking around at all those helpful little devices. "None of this stuff would use dualisnet, would it?" he muses quietly to Nick, noting the older, self-reliant items that he can recognize. The alien ones he can't, but from context he's making the guess.

"I had a camera like this," he points to one with a patch for the film canister. He can remember taking it in to be developed. And then starts picking up records to look at. "Ah, man. I remember talking my way into a security detail at a Cannibal Corpse concert and getting to meet Corpsegrinder backstage. Never had the privilege to rescue someone from a mosh pit before."

That's a Xerox machine. An old Xerox machine. And he's guessing it can only be used here.

Nick flips idly through the crate of records marked NEW ARRIVALS, laughs quietly and shakes her head to Hank’s question. “Nah, all this stuff’s about as far off the grid as you can get in a place like this. It’s not illegal to have old tech, it’s just - what did Rick call it, a specialty market? And there’s some pretty fierce competition, so that’s why all the secrecy. Rick’s had to move a couple times in the past few years - burglaries, vandalism, I think his original place got burned down.”

With a wide grin stretched across her face, she turns her attention from the records back to Hank, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Cannibal Corpse? Now there’s a band I haven’t thought about in a while. Had a roommate back in Chicago who loved Cannibal Corpse - specifically, she loved playing them loud enough to shake the windows when I was tryin’ to sleep. I worked nights, and she couldn’t wrap her bleach-soaked head around the fact that working nights meant I needed to sleep during the day.”

Nick’s nostalgia is cut short by the - now frowning - redheaded woman at the table hissing her name to call her attention. Nick looks to her, and she impatiently waves for Nick to approach the table.

“Looks like I’m being summoned,” she remarks to Hank. “Back in a sec.”

"My partner had to deal with me driving a car that still used an old fashioned fuel gauge with the needle. But I've... I've seen some bad accidents. Sometimes having a self-driving piece of shit robs you of some very necessary decisions. Same with the fridges that can watch you, etc. Why the fuck is a recording of my fat ass getting into the fridge necessary?" Self-deprecating bitter criticism of the world at its best.

And none of that quiet rant is for show. This is a man that loves the smell and feel of real paper in a book. This is the man who actually seems to have some reverence for pulling a record out of a sleeve and looking at the ridges.

"Metal should always be an 'out of the house' thing in my opinion, but that's my day music. So..."

He mutters as she's called away, and he's making mental notes as he goes. Not just of valuable clues, but of a few rarities. He does glance over at Nick as she's talking to the woman.

Hank's pretty much preaching to the choir when talking about technology. Before her voyage through the multiverse began, Nick drove an '83 Chevy truck, never owned a computer, didn't have a Facebook page, and still used a flip phone - in 2009. She grew up on the better side of poor in a tiny Midwestern town and counted a Walkman and what she was able to save of her father's cassette tape collection as her most prized childhood possessions. She still hand-wrote notes and lyrics for the songs she constructed in a paper journal that was lost in the transition to this city, and she is too well-versed in dystopian genre media to ever trust a self-sufficient machine.

When she arrives at the table and sits in the empty seat, her entire demeanor changes. She's tense and angry, her body language no longer reading as open, and though her voice is quiet, her tone is sharp enough to draw blood. The man at the table says nothing, but he occasionally shakes his head in disapproval, mirrored in his frowning expression. The redheaded woman argues quietly but vehemently with Nick, and if Hank has a mind to listen in on their conversation, he'll be able to hear that she speaks with a slight French accent.

"We agreed," she says, forcefully jabbing her finger into the table, "that we would wait - it is too soon."

"No," Nick counters, "you agreed - I didn't. Look, I think we can trust him, and it wouldn't kill you to trust me for a change, either."

"In fact, it could kill me - if I trust you, and you are wrong."

Hank does overhear as he picks something up in his hands. An old Gameboy from back when he was a teenager. Jesus, there's a QIX game still in the back. Who the hell even remembers that.

He pops it out to look at it. Is that French French or Quebec French he's hearing under her voice? Not that it matters too much, but there is an accent. Trust is coming up here. But so is mention of death if she doesn't.

Does this involve him coming down here or something else?

He slips the game back into the back and turns it to dislodge the battery cover. Nothing inside. Good. He closes it back up.

He's got his suspicions. But that there's death involved is a real curiosity.

"Look, Paranoid Patty, you asked me to join your little tea party here, not the other way around." Nick leans back in her chair and shrugs. "You said this was a team, and if you're not gonna trust me, there's no point to me even being here." The other woman scowls deeply, but offers no answer, because even though Nick is right, her pride won't allow her to admit to it. She shakes her head and begins to collect the papers spread out on the table in front of them, folding the larger ones along well-worn creases into neat piles.

"I am not going to have this discussion here," she finally hisses, sliding a scuffed black briefcase out from under her chair and opening it to place the items from the table inside. "We can talk about this later."

Nick scoffs loudly. "Yeah. Sure we will. We done here?"

"We're done. For now."

"Great. See you." Nick slides her chair back and stands up, then pushes the chair back in toward the table where it belongs, because she's worked as a bartender for way too long. She's irritated, but shakes it off and reaches for a friendly smile again as she makes her way back to wherever Hank is.

"Hey. Sorry 'bout that. You find anything good?"

"Work getting to your head?" he says about her pushing the chair in.

Black suitcase. Looks like it's seen better days. Something that's been around. He commits that to memory as well as he puts down the Gameboy. "Yeah, a few things. Depends on whether or not they got rechargeable batteries here. I don't expect a steady supply of the alkaline ones."

There's something going on here, but not enough for any definitive thoughts. After all, nobody fuckin' likes cops. They can like him after they get to know him, but he knows what he is. They could just not want this shit around 'em.

But there's that pulse monitor. And that Xerox machine. And people afraid that they'll die. Maybe he'll be more direct with some questions later. Right now, he'll let them pass their judgements.

"What, the chair?" She shakes her head, almost laughing at herself. "Nah, my ma used to smack me if I didn't push in the chairs at the kitchen table. She was ... kind of a drunk. Kind of a lot of a drunk, and she'd trip on shit if it wasn't in its right place. So I learned pretty quick, and it's just second nature now."

Her smile's a little dry this time, and she casts a wary glance at the pair she'd spoken with at the table minutes ago as they file past her toward the exit without a word. The redhead clutches the briefcase tightly in her hand, her pace quick and no-nonsense.

"Batteries - yeah, Rick keep 'em behind the counter. You can find 'em sometimes in random shops around town, but you can't always find some, so they tend to get lifted otherwise. Hey - Zhiin," she calls to the small woman leaning against the counter, engrossed in reading a thick hardcover book. Zhiin looks up and blinks five luminescent green eyes at Nick, a nonverbal questioning of why she'd been called.

"He needs some batteries," Nick says, nodding in Hank's direction. Zhiin blinks each eye in succession and turns her gaze toward Hank, an acknowledgment that she's ready to assist him with his purchase.

"Just show her what you've got and she'll get you the right size," Nick says. "You're gonna need a universal USB plug too, unless you already got one."

"Then your job must be pretty rough." Dealing with drunks all the time. (Drunks like him.)

There's something he's already curious about in that case. He tries to remember how many times she folded one of those papers, in case it comes up again.

"Double As." He goes up to the counter with a CD player that had drawn his interest, a couple of CDs to go with it (of real jazz, not the watered-down kind), and he goes to the counter to make his purchase.

He has the passing thought that humans must find eye contact with her real confusing. So he just doesn't even try.

"Nah, it's not too bad. I get to talk to people, hear about the places they're from. Gives me ideas for songs I'll maybe write someday." She grins and leans back against the glass-pane display counter, elbows lazily resting on top. "And believe it or not, I've only had to break up two fights the entire time I've been here. Back in Chicago, I'd have to break up at least that many every month."

If she notices that anyone finds her appearance strange, Zhiin doesn't seem to mind, or at least seems to be used to it. She retrieves the pack of batteries and corresponding charging kit from a shelf behind the register, and rings up the small stack of Hank's purchases. Nick leans in toward her across the counter and lowers her voice.

"Hey, Zhiin - give him the house special, yeah?" Zhiin blinks each eye in sequence again, which must be her species' way of saying yes, and taps in a sequence on the register screen that takes ten percent off Hank's total.

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cw violent verbal abuse of a child

cw: discussion of violent crime

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cw: more suicide talk

cw: pretty much the same

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cw mentions of childhood domestic abuse and alcoholism

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