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

[couldkillthedevil]

Yeah. I get that. None of it's easy, it is?

[It's something she liked about Anderson, even if she doesn't know her very well yet. There's a simple kind of honesty and openness to her that she appreciates. It's something she can relate to, in a small way; this easy kind of need for familiarity.]

At least it helps take the mind off of everything else.

[wronganswer]

[ It's not exactly a good survival trait for a Judge, but she refuses to let go of it no matter how hard it makes her life. Toeing the line between who she has to be and who she is is tough, very tough, something that plagues here even when she's ostensibly out from under that in this place.

She nods in response, agreeing. ] Once I'm out of training I'll have something else to do, [ she comments, feeling like she's been in training her whole damn life. She's not far wrong. ] Where did you end up getting placed for work?

[couldkillthedevil]

[Ah, right. Just being at the shooting range wouldn't tell Anderson much, would it? And she realizes that she doesn't actually know where the other woman was working, either.

She carefully leans down to grab her bag, fishing out the Riverview Police Force badge to show her.]

Police force. As an officer. I am— was a homicide detective back in LA, but I guess they want to see me prove myself first. What about you?

[wronganswer]

[ Her eyes widen slightly in surprise before recovering; another wall drops, and she becomes subtly more friendly. Trusting people is stupid, but... she wants to. ]

Me, too. Police officer until I prove myself, then a detective. I don't mind the training time. [ Anderson is incredibly serious about her job, and at this moment, it shows, somehow not comical on her youthful face. ] I want to make sure I enforce their laws, not whatever I've brought with me.

[couldkillthedevil]

Oh. [She visibly perks up at that revelation, her previous curiosity turning into full-blown interest. And with it also came a certain twinge of respect for the woman. So she cared not only for the law, but for the specific people it applied to. That's something she could appreciate.] I didn't realize you were in law enforcement, but I suppose I should have if you're spending time practicing at the shooting range.

Were you a detective before? When you were still in... what was it? Mega-City One?

[wronganswer]

[ It's come all too much to her attention that the laws of Mega-City One should not be applied elsewhere. Anderson can agree with that, even as it makes her secretly riddled with doubts about the harshness of the Hall of Justice's sentencing. They barely manage to make a dent in crime, and when they do show up, it's a chokehold. Citizens are terrified to see them rather than relieved.

That can't be right.

So no, she doesn't mind shifting gears here and keeping her ensuing inner struggle to herself. She's a long way from home and that moral dilemma isn't relevant to anyone else. ] I'm a Judge, [ she says, without thinking about the tense shift. She is and always will be.

Anderson's already realized that saying she's a Judge explains nothing to anyone else, and there's a short hesitation as she considers how to put it. ] Like a special forces detective independently authorized to sentence criminals. [ She doesn't offer any moralizing or defense of the concept along with it, though. She just states it plainly. Her feelings are too complicated for this conversation. ]

[couldkillthedevil]

[There's a pause there as Chloe mulls that statement over, not comprehending at first. 'Judge' has a completely different connotation where she's from, after all, and is part of the system of checks and balances she's become comfortable with and accustomed to.

But it's the mention of 'special forces' and being authorized to 'sentence' criminals that has comprehension slowly dawning on her.]

So the police are, what? Militarized forces where you're from?

[There's a definite note of discomfort there, because if there's one thing she believes strongly in, it's the concept of justice. Having that all be on one person's shoulders... it's too much. Too many possibilities for corruption.]

[wronganswer]

[ Anderson doesn't even have to think about that one to answer it, although again, she's not trying to defend it, either. She anticipates people here not understanding it-- she's not sure she herself agrees with it, but she understands it, gets where the necessity came from. ]

Yeah. We have to be. [ She shakes her head. ] If you think I'm packing heat, it's just to keep up with who we're trying to take in.

[couldkillthedevil]

What do you mean?

[Said with a quirk of her brow, her tone carrying an inquisitive sense of needing to know more. She didn't know what it was like to live in a world that's experienced nuclear fallout, but there's still that edge of uneasiness there at the concept of cops being given so much power.]

Are criminals not just regular people where you're from?

[wronganswer]

Regular people, sure. Regular people with submachine guns, [ she quips, displaying a black humor streak that frankly every person from a Mega-City needs to have as a survival strategy. ]

First case I went out on, a gang had taken over the whole residential block. Tapped into the monitoring systems, camera feeds, everything. When they couldn't pin us down, they brought out a gatling gun.

[ Anderson rolls her shoulders subtly in memory, feeling the tension and choking smoke of that day rise up in her mind. ] Not saying that was a typical day, but it wasn't anything to write home about, either. Dredd didn't even blink. That's the Judge that was giving me my final assessment.

[couldkillthedevil]

So that many of the population took up such advanced weaponry? All to throw off the cops? Most people don't just attack without reason, even criminals. There's usually a motive. And fear sounds like a pretty good one to me.

[It's a question of what came first, to her. Was it people picking up machine guns that pushed the Judges to react, or was it the other way around? Each side would probably tell their own story.]

[wronganswer]

It's not to throw us off. You have a misconception of how many Judges there are in comparison to the general populace.

[ She gives a humorless smile. ]

We're stories told to kids to make them behave. People go years without seeing us at all. There's plenty of motives, but it's not to defend against us.

[couldkillthedevil]

Fair enough. I don't know anything about your world. But where I'm from, giving cops or 'Judges' that much power? Almost is always guaranteed to result in corruption and abuse. It's not something I'm used to.

[She certainly doesn't mean disrespect, but it's hard for her to accept it.]

Sounds like you're some type of boogeymen, when you put it that way.

[wronganswer]

We are.

I'm not saying there's not corruption, or that Judges are infallible. [ She looks so deathly serious it's hard to think Anderson is anything approaching cavalier about it. Truthfully, it haunts her, has since she was very first recruited as an eight-year-old. It's just not something that will be improved by discussing it, at least not for her. ]

But it's the system I got. All I can do is be the type of Judge that will make citizens believe I'm there to help them, not hurt them.

[couldkillthedevil]

[Chloe watches her silent for a moment, as if assessing her. She's usually a pretty good judge of character; it's what eventually had her department turning against her. That and her unwillingness to put a case to bed when she knew it all stemmed from someone in their ranks.]

That's noble. And it sounds like that's all you can do, really, with what you were given.

[wronganswer]

[ Anderson would sympathize with that one if she knew that. Here is someone else that in a few years would inevitably end up doing her own internal investigation... But that's a ways off.

She shakes her head, rejecting the compliment. ] It's never going to be enough, but I'm not about to give up. But-- [ She lets out a breath. ] I guess I shouldn't be surprised if they'd pick me as someone who felt like they didn't belong there.

[couldkillthedevil]

I think it'd be more surprising if you didn't feel out of place about it, to be honest. But that's also coming from someone who's never lived through it.

[A soft sigh, followed by a considering glance.]

Do you want to go back? Home, I mean.

[wronganswer]

[ She looks away, out across the range at her targets, all with neat clusters of holes in them. ]

I... don't know. I do, in a way. I went through-- all those years of training to get where I am. It's what I always wanted to do.

[ Anderson doesn't follow this up with why she wouldn't want to go back. It's too personal, too raw. She's not sure she knows yet herself, exactly, what words she would use for it. ]

[couldkillthedevil]

[And Chloe, being a rather private person herself, doesn't push her on it.]

It's hard. Just letting go of everything you've ever known or worked for. I'm not sure what I'd do if they told us we couldn't go back.

[Even the thought sends a sudden spike of anxiety through her, a fear she's been trying to push back this whole time.]

[wronganswer]

[ Anderon doesn't need to be a telepath to know what she's thinking about there. It's turned off at the moment, but the memory of what she'd seen when they'd first met lingers. ]

But we can, [ she answers immediately, confidently. ] You'll see your daughter again. And if you remember this, you'll have great stories to tell her.

[couldkillthedevil]

Hopefully.

[That brought a soft smile to her face, that tension visibly easing out of her shoulders.]

She'd probably love the idea of a magic fountain that brings people presents.

[wronganswer]

[ Anderson can't help smiling back at the idea. ]

You should float one across a fountain to her right after you tell it, [ she suggests. ]

[couldkillthedevil]

[That gets a genuine laugh out of her.]

I'm not usually the kind of mom that tries to spoil her kid with gifts, but after all this is over? I just might actually do that.

[wronganswer]

[ She smiles softly while not quite meeting her eyes, remembering her own mother without dwelling on it. ]

Maybe more for you than for her, in this case. You could collect things to give her while you're here.

[ Anderson doesn't think she'll really be able to bring them back with her, but like she said-- it's not really about that. Some people react to loss by trying to push it as far away from them as possible. She's never done that; it warms something in her to remember her parents, and she suspects that since Chloe's daughter is not dead but merely somewhere else, remembering her might make her feel better rather than worse. It seems to be working so far. ]

[couldkillthedevil]

Maybe...

[It's said thoughtfully, almost on a hum. She also doubts she'd be able to bring back evidence of this... journey? Dream? But either way, she could picture Trixie's face lighting up at the sight of some strange little trinket or magical object pulled from this little moon. That's not such a bad thought, when put that way.]

I'd have to be careful. Next I know, she'll be wanting to come here.