[b][i][center]December 3, 11:15 AM PST
CCC, Coast City

[@Ceta de Cloyes][/center][/i][/b]

Jessie walked into the burger joint a few minutes after Ezra had arrived, hauling her now-overloaded backpack over her shoulder. She had skipped the rest of her morning classes and gone out to get a few things that she thought were needed for their experiments. As it turned out, 'a few things' quickly spiraled into 'needing another trip to the ATM because she had spent two grand on electronics'. So now her backpack was full to bursting with brand new toys and components, and also a fair amount of cash for safekeeping. A quick scan of the restaurant showed Ezra by the window on his laptop, using the sun to hide his complexion and glowing eyes probably. Jessie booked it up to the counter and quickly ordered her food, which ended up amounting to three burgers and a small bucket of fries. The amount of electrical energy that her body produced had to come from somewhere, and she had figured out years ago that part of it came from her caloric intake, she burned fat cells to convert into electricity.

After waiting a few minutes for her food and confirming that her order was correct, Jessie carried her tray and hauled her backpack over to the window table and sat across form Ezra breathlessly. "Hey! There you are!" She said with a grin as she set the food down and tucked her backpack under the table. Jessie dug her phone out of her pocket and opened up the bookmarked pages on her news app as she sat down, sliding the phone across so Ezra could see. Photos of the metahuman and suspected metahuman activity plastered across the news. The purple lighting-bolt lady floating with a burning city behind her. The Nazi she was fighting levitating over buildings. This new guy, 'Superman' landing next to news reporters. She leaned across the table closer to Ezra and lowered her voice, making sure nobody was around to hear. "They can all fly. You can fly. Why the hell can't I? I wanna fly. Can we add that to the list, some kind of flight suit?" She asked with a joking wink. Well, maybe half-joking. She really did want to fly, but at this point they were still experimenting with the technology, the pair of students was likely far off from being able to build a working prototype of anything apart from small gadgets. 

"Dude, you have to upgrade that piece of junk you have." Jessie said, changing gears as she leaned back in her chair and motioning to Ezra's old laptop. "That's no good for anything, it's been obsolete for years. No way it'll stand up to the kind of stress our projects will put it through." She said, not caring if anyone could hear now. She thought that was discreet enough that nobody would suspect them, and the thing was old and slow anyway, nothing she said was untrue. "Fortunately for you..." She continued, reaching under the table and digging into her backpack. "Someone just hit the jackpot today, and decided to help outfit the group so things run a bit smoother!" She said with glee as she produced a brand-new laptop, the protective plastic film still clinging to it. She had gone to her tech guy, over in the Grove district; that's where most of the day had gone so far, as well as the cash. The beefiest, most powerful machine he had available, now all hers... Well, Ezra's now... Hers was on the way. 

"This is what I wanted to talk about." She said, her voice becoming quieter again as she slid the new laptop across to her friend. "We have a cashflow problem. Well, and an energy problem, but that's not something I can help with, your stuff doesn't like electricity much... But cash, we need. We need parts, chips, components, capacitors, computers, and unless you're ready to slap on a mask and hold up an electronics store, we need to get it all legitimately. And that, my friend... Is where this comes in." Jessie slowly reached into her backpack one more time and pulled out a thick stack of bills, setting on the table behind the laptop to obscure it from the rest of the restaurant. "We have to be able to live, too. Unless you want to abandon planet and go float with the stars, we need money for food. Clothes. We need to go out like this, look like normal people. You need hair dye constantly. You could certainly do with decorating you place some more. This..." She said, sliding the stack of bills towards him. "Is the answer to all those questions. I figured something out this morning. ATMs have really bad internal security. I can just tell them to [i]give[/i] the green away. Plus, it's insured. We can do this, man. We don't have to worry about money ever again, we just... Go to the ATM whenever we need extra cash. Whenever we need [i]anything[/i] That's two grand right there, and it's all for you Ezra. That's your share. How's that sound to you?"