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Public Service - On the Edge, Monday, Period 2

It was most definitely not Reno waiting for them at the Causeway this week. Instead, Karina was. Complete with hands planted on her hips and a scowl.

You lucky people.

"Our teacher's gone and got himself turned into a bird or something," she said crisply, when it looked like most of the class had shown up. Say hello? Why would she do that? "But we've got a bigger problem than that this week."

Someone had absolutely ignored Reno's orders to never go to his world on their own. When Reno wasn't a bird he could tell her off for it, if he wanted to.

"It's a pretty self-explanatory problem. So, come on, through the portal."

Once they were through the portal, she jerked her chin at their construction site in the square. It… looked pretty bad. Pipes had been torn up, and their equipment was missing. Signs of scuffles were everywhere, like the people who'd taken things had had a few disagreements over ownership between themselves.

"The other site is even worse," Karina announced. "So today, rather than reporting our progress to the WRO, we're doing clean up. Everyone fan out, make a list of things you know are missing, things you suspect are missing. We'll also need to decide what we're doing to keep this from happening again."

"Stay in groups. Do not wander off alone." Like she was one to talk about that. Whatever. Karina clapped her hands together. "Let's get to work."

[~~Wait for the~~ OCD is a-go!]

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You heard her!

The Square was a mess. Bits and pieces that had been missed were strewed all over the place, none of them individually useful, and none of it entirely intact.

Karina wasn't kidding when she said the ruins were worse off. Not even a single screw remained and there were spots where something that looked suspiciously like blood was drying and flaking. The fights here had more heated, more vicious, and that showed.

Anders' face grew pinched and red with anger as he surveyed the damage. After a lot of under-his-breath swearing about Andraste this and the Maker that, he came out with, "I'll never understand how people can be so hateful about something that would only have helped them."

Edited 2014-10-20 13:46 (UTC)

"They probably think we did help them," Karina said dryly. "By giving them shit they could break down and sell for a short-term profit."

She was remarkably calm about this. Mostly because she'd already lost her temper about the whole situation before class had ever started, since she'd seen it first.

Anders snorted. "Right. And call me a cynic, but I don't think they're spending the money on safe water for thirsty children."

"That's called being realistic," she said, kneeling down to survey some the piled up rubble. "No way the people who did this did it out of the kindness of their hearts and for the good of the disadvantaged."

"Of course not," Anders agreed. "They simply can't believe anything good would come to their world, so why not wreck anything they can get their hands on?"

That ... was more a kick than a prod that he gave to that latest bit of twisted metal.

"Probably whatever money they got selling the scraps has already been drunk away."

Karina sighed and looked at her hands.

"Yeah," she said, "yeah, that's probably the case and I hate that. But, like, that just means we've got to rebuild and get it done this time, right? Before this happens again. Once water starts to flow, I think it'll be okay."

"Maybe," Anders conceded. "And I suppose if they want to tear it up again after that, it's not our problem. I still hate seeing the waste."

"Me too," she admitted, dusting off her hands and standing again. "It's so pointless."

"Senseless," Anders agreed. "And sad. These people get so little, and then a few of their own go to wreck one of the better things to happen here lately."

He glanced up at her. "Did Reno leave any money for us to hire guards?"

Edited 2014-10-20 19:09 (UTC)

"If he has, I don't have access to it," Karina admitted, putting her hands on her hips. "But I don't know that we have the time to hire guards today anyway. We'd need to make sure they were trustworthy and that probably takes longer than we have."

"And if we hired who we could get quickly, we'd probably end up paying the people who tore it down," Anders noted sadly. "I guess all we can do is clean up the best we can and figure out a way to keep the next version safe."

Four wasn't a hedgehog any more, but he was an extremely cranky teenager just looking for someone responsible for this so he could kick them.

This kind of thing drove his justice-driven self crazy.

"Infuriating, isn't it?" Anders said unhappily, kicking at a bit of blood-smeared metal. "All that work, and now it's torn down. Bet they did it in a night."

"A couple of hours," Four agreed, shoving aside some metal debris.

Anders let out a heavy sigh and began gathering bits of stone, since kicking at things wasn't helping much.

"I hope whoever did it is happy knowing children won't get safe water to drink now," he muttered.

"Pretty sure long-term thinking wasn't their strong suit," Four said, looking around in the vain hope that something could be salvaged.

"It doesn't look like it," Anders agreed. He crouched to sift through a pile of rubble. "Well, here's a bolt. They left us a bolt."

"Say it louder," Four said. "Maybe they'll come back for it and we can kick their asses."

"Oh, that sounds like fun," Anders said, with more cheer than one would expect from a man discussing bloody revenge. "A couple fireballs and they might think twice before they ruin anything else."

"And if they don't learn anything--because they seem pretty stupid--they'll be singed."

Too bad. Really.

"I love stories with happy endings," Anders sighed, and found a second bolt to keep the first one company.

"Me too," Four said, looking over some of the pipe to see if any of it was still straight enough to use again.

So far...no.

"Idiots."

Cosette was not angry about this; she was too shocked and visibly on the edge of tears to be angry about it.

"I don't understand," she half-whispered, biting her lip as soon as she'd spoken in a mostly futile attempt to keep from sniffling. "We only meant to help!"

For all that she was used to accompanying her father on his charitable excursions, she'd never had any unpleasant experiences like this. That was because he made sure to shield her from them, which was well-meaning on his part but as a result Cosette was taking this a lot harder than she might have otherwise.

Awww, geez, Karina was so not cut out for this.

"Hey," she said, "it's--well, it's not okay, but we'll fix this. People just, well, they... suck."

That was probably not super comforting?

Well, no, but Cosette was an overly sheltered girl who'd believed that any half-remembered unpleasantness from her early life had been an anomaly, so she'd be having a hard time with this no matter what.

"We worked so hard on it," she said sadly, then with a shake of her head and a deep breath, as if trying to find some kind of resolve, added, "But we can do that again, can't we, especially since we know how? It'll be as if we've already had practice."

She seemed a little bit less upset by the time she'd worked through that thought, at least.

Thank god.

"That's right," Karina said encouragingly. "And, since we've had practice, it will go that much faster. This is a set-back, no deny that, but it isn't one that's going to ruin this."

Yes, luckily Cosette would much rather focus on making things better for other people than feeling sorry for herself.

"We won't let it," she agreed, still watery-eyed but apparently determined not to let that discourage her from doing something. So yes, when she continued speaking it was through the occasional sniffle. "I don't see why we should let them have the satisfaction, after all. Now, if we're all making lists of what needs to be replaced, we ought to compile them all in one place, oughtn't we, and make sure everything's accounted for? I still don't know what half of these things are called, but that, I'd be happy to do."

Given that Cosette seemed to be managing okay, Karina felt safe in ignoring the sniffles.

"Sounds good," Karina said agreeably. "I'll make sure everyone brings their lists to you, if you want to handle putting all our information together."

Cosette was not going to complain at all if the sniffles got ignored.

"I'm better suited to that than I am the building," she said, nodding. "I did well enough with the roofing in Skyrim, but this is a bit more complicated than that was."

"Okay, so, how are we going to stop this shit from happening again?" Karina asked. "If we just stick up a fence, we run the risk of the water getting turned into a restricted access commodity. Let's not do that. Anyone have better ideas?"

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Public Service - On the Edge, Monday, Period 2

Get to Work!

Site 1 - The Square

Site 2 - The Ruins

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