[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=4682b4][i][b]Ash Holloway[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=4682b4]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Mechanics (K) [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/Wnnd0Wm/Ash-FC-5.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] The erstwhile Army Captain had gritted his teeth and prepared to re-enter the foul-smelling purgatory that was the women's bathroom at Mechanics. Giving thought briefly to Shakespeare, both the long dead English writer and the histrionic Latino in the Mess Hall earlier, Ash quietly quoted Henry V to himself, [color=4682b4]"Once more unto the breach, dear friends."[/color] It was as much actual resignation to his coming duties as it was sarcasm. He took a deep breath, the last lungful of fresher air he figured he'd have for a while. He could do this. But Thana was right; perhaps the casserole wasn't the best idea ever. After Mizrahi confirmed the assignment, Ash began to make his way to the bathroom. It wasn't going to clean itself. When the tall Arabic fellow bid him to stop, Ash indeed stopped. There was a note of confusion on his face, and just a little concern. Generally when someone told him "change plans", or any variation of it, something inconvenient was underway. In this case, however, it wasn't particularly inconvenient for [i]him[/i]. The men's bathroom was in need of service, but it was not the horror show the other one was. Then who was it inconvenient for, if not him? Taking a quick look around, he noticed Volts and Tesla through the windows. Mizrahi was still doing his thing, same as before he changed Ash's task. Rivets was missing, and so was... Hunter. Ash just realized that the younger man hadn't gotten back in time. And the moment that he realized this, the guy walked in, reporting to Mizrahi. The response was not positive. Be it a short conversation between the two of them, Ash was certain that this was none of his affair, and moreover, whether the kid screwed up or not, standing there to bear witness was unnecessary and could be taken as a sign of epicaricacy. Or, as the Germans put it, [i]schadenfreude[/i]. So he stuck to task and entered the men's bathroom, located the the cleaning supplies, and got to work. At least he now knew for whom the change of plans would be inconvenient. He was sanitizing upright surfaces; sinks, counters, etc., when he heard Mizrahi and Volts enter the Mechanic area again. Speaking Arabic, which was interesting. Not the language itself, nor what they were saying, as Ash couldn't understand a word of it anyway. The interesting part was that the taller Mizrahi was actually a talkative person, just in his native language. He had suspected something along those lines earlier. Good to know he was actually personable. After Volts and Hunter left, to whatever fate was in store for the young man, Ash simply continued to clean the bathroom. The rest of this wasn't his business until someone asked him to take part or the situation changed in a morally questionable way. So he cleaned. The throat clear that announced Mizrahi's presence was unexpected, though he figured that there was something additional that he had to take care of now, or some change had occurred now that he was working in here by himself. But what he heard from the taller man gave him genuine surprise. Dawri? No, Sparrow. But he didn't really know Thana as Sparrow that well, so it took him a second or two for the pieces to fall into place. Also, it took a second for the application of the word "yer". Oh yeah, he was learning English from Thana. In any case, she had praised him to Mizrahi, who was telling him about it. Apparently, to her eyes, he was a good man. e greatly wished to live up to her expectations. [color=4682b4]"I try hard to be a good man,"[/color] he responded. Sometimes it was tough. Decisions that resulted in the best chance for survival for those he looked after sometimes made for grey actions, but he did genuinely do what he could to uphold the oaths he took as a soldier and officer, and remember the ethics in which he was raised. [color=4682b4]"She says the same thing about you."[/color] Not exactly the Algonquin Round Table of literary and conversational greatness, but it was a productive start. [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=dc143c][i][b]Thalia Carmichael[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=dc143c]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Administration (A) [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/D9f1NPS/Thalia-Irritated.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] The last pearl of wisdom addressed to Thalia from the General was hopeful, at least. Naturally, she might expect her brother (literally from another mother) to have her back and put in a good word, as she would to for him. But Joaquin's own history would speak volumes about his capabilities and temperament. Thalia, well... she was barely out of college for two years, maybe, before Zeds started eating everyone. Her career was just kicking off and she could only go by the reputation she developed in her younger years. They weren't exactly good, wholesome stories, most of the time. So yeah, it was good that he vouched for her. She nodded her understanding to The General, and even expressed a quiet, [color=dc143c]"Yah, good day,"[/color] back to him as he left. It was also good that she didn't voice half of the thoughts going on in her head about being where she was. The constant need to reassure herself that this was the right decision to make was starting to grate on her nerves. Besides, what else was she going to do? Thalia couldn't abandon Thana, even though they really didn't need each other directly for survival anymore. And she wasn't going to sneak out in the middle of the night and leave Alexander, even now that he was finding his legs in the community (so to speak). And Joaquin. So Thalia resolved herself to try to put any ideas to the contrary out of her mind as best she could. Even if she wanted to leave, it was suicide without preparation and a place to go, as well as the knowledge on how to get there. Any such thoughts would be fleeting. Not to mention that there were a couple of people here that she swore could tell what she was thinking, anyway. Thalia was lucky that she didn't find herself mumbling those thoughts out loud. She had a proclivity that way. Shaking it off yet again, the one-armed woman set back to her job. Sorting. [color=dc143c]"Paper, plastic sandwich baggies, batteries, stuffed llama, single harpsichord key - white, ball gag, illustrated Kama Sutra pop-up book..."[/color] she said, rattling off things she was putting away or cleaning up and obviously, at least to her, just saying random crap to get her work buddy's attention or make him smile. It was are for her to joke like this, though for the moment it was just the two of them in the room. Still, it sounded like her mind was elsewhere. Thalia was holding an introspective monologue back and needed to say [i]something[/i] to keep her inner thoughts inner. Luckily, or unluckily as the case might be, that damned riddle came back to her as she worked. Something about repetitive action with little intellectual power necessary to accomplish it, plus a lack of need to constantly scan her surroundings led her mind to wander. And invariably, it wandered back to that riddle. Mull it over as much as she might, Thalia just couldn't make heads nor tails of it. At all. Period. If the answer were written across the wall in big, bold letters, she still wouldn't have a clue. [color=dc143c]"Ey Mugsy,"[/color] she started, digging in her pocket for the paper bearing the riddle, [color=dc143c]"Take a look at this for me?"[/color]