got caught up again

[wronganswer]

who: Anderson and you, hopefully! Open!
what: Anderson tries to adjust after arrival. Prompts for floor 10 in the communal housing, the shooting range, and shopping. Also feel free to respond with anything! She's on the police force so any potential coworkers have an easy way to run into her, or be doing something suspicious and she'll investigate. Additionally, I have no attachment to prose, so please feel free to switch to brackets.
when: Various
where: Various
warnings: She is telepathic and empathic, although not very aggressive with it. But please fill out her permissions before threading!

    > FLOOR 10

Anderson is an astonishingly easy roommate to adjust to. It might even take a while to realize she's there. She's used to Spartan living, and it shows: she never leaves traces of her presence around in the communal areas, and she cleans up after herself promptly, immediately. That doesn't mean she's a hermit. She's morbidly interested in meeting all of her roommates, just not quite forward enough to seek them out in a concerted fashion.

But feel free to describe something they would be doing on an average day, and perhaps they could run into each other.

    > SHOOTING RANGE

About the only place she still wears her Judge's armor now is the shooting range, where she goes to clear her mind and practice with the local firearms. She intends to get up to snuff on every single weapons comp there is, as one of the only remaining things that she considers inside her comfort zone. Some part of her relaxes just to be back in the uniform with a gun in her hands.

Anderson has never considered herself one of those Judges that can't turn off when they're off the job, but she's starting to realize that only works in comparison to other Judges. Not in comparison to average citizens, or at least not the ones here. She feels completely unmoored, at a loss, pretending she knows what she's doing as she's had to pretend so often before. When she's really having a hard time adjusting, she uses her Lawgiver, keeps up on pure target practice. She's frighteningly efficient, and she doesn't practice only kill shots; she fires to disable as often as to kill.

The new weaponry takes more concentration, but is enjoyable in its own way. She can be found several days a week practicing, if not shooting then stances, smooth reloading, safe carrying positions. She's thorough.

    > SHOPPING

Easily the strangest part of her week is shopping. Anderson's prior shopping experiences have been starkly divided: the dim memories of her childhood in the poorest slums of the city, where her parents could barely afford anything and shopping was fast, sparse; and the luxuries she used her tiny disposable income on as an academy student, the Hall of Justice providing everything she needed to live and nothing more, same as a military cadet. Those were a chance to breathe, an excuse to get out and be among the people she wanted to protect as much as it was to fulfill the purpose of shopping.

Here, in the Quarantine, she is here to shop. She needs clothes. Toiletries. Cooking supplies. Books to read-- for pleasure. It's a bit overwhelming, truth told, not in the scope but just in the mundanity of it. Anderson had gone from poor mutie to terrifying Judge with nothing in-between, and suddenly being thrust into average daily life is a bit baffling. She doesn't dislike it, though. She enjoys the chance to see life from a new angle, appreciates the amount of decisions she can make with no consideration for regulations or for anyone else. She can take her time, since she's still in training at police headquarters and hasn't shifted to a full time schedule yet.

She had to rent a car for the day in order to have somewhere to stash all her purchases. Circumspect and restrained, she doesn't have a ton of them, but here and there she can be found poking through more feminine shopping areas, makeup or jewelry or sundresses, pondering. It's not a part of herself she's ever really considered before, usually on the defensive or the offensive, never just herself, and she's curious.

For about a week, you can run into her shopping for just about anything, poking around in interest even if she has no intent to buy.

Comments

shooting range

[advanced]

[Even though Bucky is efficient and well trained with weapons, he doesn't come to the shooting range in order to practise. He does that elsewhere, somewhere less public. He comes here to see who else comes here, to scout out the different people and their varying skill levels.

It's the first time he's seen her, either she's new here or she's just started learning. Definitely the first one now that he's seen her practise. He doesn't approach her, he's not even visible as he's sitting up on the roof of the gun shack, but he doesn't know that she can probably feel him there with her abilities.

Just watching like a creeper.]

[wronganswer]

[ She mostly sinks into her own mental space, enjoying the solitude, while shooting. She goes long stretches without checking her surroundings. It would be distracting to leave her psychic abilities on while shooting-- and if nothing else, it would make it hard. She has a hard enough time shooting people she's not sure deserve it, although she can do it and doesn't hesitate anymore.

Seeing their final thoughts doesn't help that issue one bit. Overall, Anderson has detached her telepathy from combat entirely, unless she's scouting.

After a while, clip burned through, she leans back onto her heels and lets out a long breath. She goes about the wind-down of cleaning and ensuring it's not loaded before putting it away. Today, she'd borrowed one from the range to get familiar with it, and it's not until she's put it back that she sends out an idle mental scan, a sort of muscle stretch to get reacquainted with her surroundings after the dead silence earlier.

She's not expecting to sense someone on top of the roof, and it's such a predatory position that she instantly tenses, gaze snapping up there unerringly like a lodestone.

She's not a Judge here, she repeats herself, in what is becoming a mantra. No one's going to shoot her out of the blue. Don't go for your weapon. Don't escalate. Whoever it is feels attentive, but non-hostile. Good enough. ]

Who's there? [ she asks evenly, after a tense moment. She still can't see him, only sense him. ]

[advanced]

[She's good, exceptionally so.

He watches carefully to see if he can tell which hand she favours, what possible weakness she has, if she has the sort of aim that might be attributed to something like a super soldier serum such as he and Steve have. All through it, he thinks he's safe, she obviously hasn't noticed him.

Until all of a sudden he isn't safe any more.

Bucky has no good explanation for being on the roof, and his thoughts are immediately wary and sharpened to a high focus. Should he run or attempt to diffuse the situation by talking? In the end he does neither, just stays perfectly still and silent in the hope she was just guessing.]

[wronganswer]

[ She's good, but not perfect. Honestly, Anderson's a rookie Judge, and probably nowhere near Bucky's level. Her aim isn't quite exact, her steadiness isn't totally there. Her mutation doesn't help her with anything but the psychic realm, and she has no physical benefits at all. She has a long way to go before the meat grinder of Mega-City One chews her up and either hardens her into a veteran Judge or spits her out, dead.

It's the cold reality of her life and she knows what's ahead of her. It also makes her tamp down all the empathy in herself and try to mimic Dredd, be as uncompromising as she has to be to survive. She can't afford to question her own judgment. She's a Judge.

When there's no response for long seconds, she announces in an authoritative tone, ] I really don't feel like climbing onto a roof right now, and you're making me nervous. [ Not that she sounds remotely nervous. It's a warning: Anderson just isn't capable of walking away from someone who might be a threat to those who come after her. She'll insist on dealing with things one way or another. ]

[advanced]

[He hears the tone of voice and he knows what it means, the words are a formality before a fight starts. He's used that sort of warning before on a target that he's meant to take alive, and he really doesn't want to get in a meaningless fight here. Especially not surrounded by this many guns.

Running probably would end in pursuit.

So eventually he drops off the side of the roof to land a few feet from her, silent and blank faced.]

I don't mean you any harm.

[wronganswer]

[ Oh, thank god. She really doesn't want to get into a fight either. Not on her first week on the job, where she's not sure what she's authorized to do and what not. Anderson tries real hard to toe the line of the law.

She relaxes subtly to have her eyes on him. She can metaphorically taste the truth of that, and with it, her light touch on his mental presence fades. She has no more justification for reading him. ]

I believe you. Where I'm from, that would get you shot. [ She shakes her head. People in the Mega-Cities don't fool around. ]

[advanced]

[Is she trusting or just trying to lull him into a false sense of security? He can't tell, but he does know that he wouldn't believe anyone that had been spying on him meant no harm just on the strength of their word alone.]

We're not where you're from.

[Not that it would matter. He's been shot before, and shot at a whole hell of a lot more times than that, he knows how to deal with guns and bullets.]

[wronganswer]

Yeah. Taking a while to adjust to that one.

[ She sounds even-toned, but internally, she's rueful. That's all too accurate. She's also used to people thinking she's a little off until they figure out she's psychic, and then mistrusting her completely. Admittedly, it's an easier guess to make at home where psychics are common knowledge, if not common themselves.

She's playing with an uneven advantage around here. Anderson hasn't been keeping it a secret, but she doesn't go blurting it out, either. ]

You interested in the show? [ she asks, skeptical. Just what was he doing up there? ]

[advanced]

[He could lie. He has a strange half-memory of what the Bucky of old might have done, smile and try and charm her, perhaps make a dumb joke like he was trying to catch some sun up there. But he's not that man any more, and flirting would be a foreign language these days.]

I like to know who knows their way around a weapon.

[It's an excellent way of gathering intelligence on anyone careless enough to use a public shooting range to practise their skills.]

[wronganswer]

[ There's just no point to Anderson in hiding what she can do. Judges are bogeymen, stories used to scare children into behaving in the Mega-Cities, except that those stories are real. They're authorized to do whatever they wish, just about, as long as it stands up to scrutiny later. With no one else on the scene, that's a lot of freedom. There's as many corrupt, self-serving Judges as there are altruistic ones, like Anderson, and citizens never know which one they're going to get.

One thing's the same, though: they're all capable of ruining your life. No, there's never been a point to her in hiding. Even her damn badge these days says Psi on it. She's happier being up front-- and happier without the flirting. She'd take this blunt shop talk any day. ]

Looking for partners or competition? [ she asks easily. She hasn't gotten a sense for how things work around here yet, and she absolutely wants to. ]

[advanced]

Neither.

[He certainly doesn't want a partner. Competition might be closer to the truth, but he'd rather not get into a fight with anyone he sees fighting, it's more that he wants to know who might pose a threat in case anything goes wrong. Information is almost as deadly as a gun when in the right hands, after all, and an assassin needs both in order to be the best.

He shrugs, taking a half step back.]

I'll leave you to it.

[He's not much of one for conversation and he's trying to escape before she gets any information on him in return, but he won't just turn and run unless he has to.]

[wronganswer]

[ Despite who she has to be to fulfill her role, Anderson is innately a social person who cares about other people and wants to reach out to them. That's all much more possible here. Especially since she can tell at a glance if someone means her harm-- the shift in mental focus is like a pressure along her skin when it occurs, even when she's not actively keeping tabs. ]

Wait. [ A simple statement, no pressure. ] If you're just watching, you might as well stick around. I don't mind an audience.

[advanced]

I thought you'd finished.

[Not that he continues leaving. It'll be interesting to see if her performance changes now that she knows she's being observed, either by downplaying her previous ability or by showing off with ability that he hadn't seen yet.]

[wronganswer]

Just with that one.

[ Honestly, she doesn't do either. Judges get knocked for both downplaying and showing off. They have to use the exact appropriate amount of force at all times as determined by the law, or they're sanctioned. It's the thing Anderson struggles the most with, because she wants to be merciful, and she can't be. Without a living, breathing person in front of her to show mercy to, though, she's precisely correct, no emotion, nothing to get in her way.

The platonic ideal of a Judge, basically. They are the law; they aren't an individual any longer.

Especially with her Lawgiver in her hands, familiar, that's easier to achieve. Anderson walks back to the firing position and glances over at him in invitation as she unholsters it. ] I promise you haven't seen one of these before.

[ Largely because it's a unique weapon, genetically keyed to a specific Judge and no one else. She can't fathom it existing outside of the Judge system. She just can't. Hers might as well be a part of her. ]

[advanced]

[Bucky follows her a short distance, though he stops about six feet from the firing range. The survival instincts in him are murmuring that this is a bad idea, she could easily fire on him from this short range and he'd have to be very fast to deflect it with his metal arm. But her body language doesn't suggest she might be a threat, so he holds his ground for now.]

You're right, I haven't.

[That's not that unusual, there are a lot of weapons here that he's never seen from other worlds, but he's confident that he could learn to use all of them rapidly. It's what he's built for, trained for, even if he wishes that weren't the case.]

[wronganswer]

[ She's so used to being perceived as an instant threat thanks to her uniform that it barely even occurs to her that she could make someone uncomfortable by having her gun out. That'll come to her slowly, the longer she's here.

Anyway, she has an ulterior motive: she's hoping she can lure him in with novel weapons information, since he seems to be that sort, and she wants to get at least his name before he escapes. Call it habit, her own information-gathering instinct. ]

It's called a Lawgiver. There's a reason it's so bulky: there's six different types of ammunition in it.

[ And it has absolutely occurred to her that getting more ammo for the specialty kinds is not going to be a joke, if it's possible at all. What a situation to be in... ]

[advanced]

[The Lawgiver isn't so wholly alien that he is confused as to its function, but he's not really seen a gun that can carry more than one kind of ammunition before, and it doesn't seem like a particularly good design to him.

But then, he's never seen one in action before.]

What do they do?

[He can assume that one is a standard bullet, and one might be a tranquilliser of some kind to neutralise rather than kill, but otherwise he doesn't want to hazard a guess.]