[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/6Hdr7Rp/Holloway2.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] [color=4682b4]"Welcome,"[/color] responded Ash coolly but politely, anxious to get done with his task for the day. While it might not kill him to miss the memorial outside of the walls for the sake of performing his duties to his new home, he might not forgive himself for some time. So he continued as best he could, the sounds of him scrubbing and rinsing, moving things about ad moving them back seemed to go on incessantly as Ash poured himself into the task set before him. It only occurred to him once or twice that this was not the work he had been trained to do, and it was tempered by the competing thought that no one was too good to clean a toilet or mop a floor. Humility wasn't something that Ash was particularly known for. Lucky for him, neither was pride. Work, especially with his hands, was. Not that most of these people would know that yet. Time would reveal that trait to the people in charge here. When Maddoc entered the room, Ash was preparing to move a stack of stored goods back into the bathroom. Reflexively, he straightened his posture in the manner he might have when a superior officer entered the room. Ever the soldier apparently, even into the Apocalypse. He said nothing, merely waiting until the man left, and then returned to his duties. Still, something about the exchange struck him as odd. For the meantime he kept his thoughts to himself. It was nonessential to the task at hand. Time passed, and work was accomplished with little else on the way of interruption. Before too long, Ash found himself staring at a newly cleaned men's room, concentrating for any detail that he might have missed. Light fixtures, dust on the top rim of mirrors, oxidation around plumbing fixtures, etc. He went back to quickly correct a streak of cleaner on a stall hinge, and then returned to where Mizrahi was working. The man was his supervisor, after all. [color=4682b4]"Men's room is done, sir."[/color] Ash wasn't exactly certain if this was a "sir-worthy" circumstance. He was a military man, and this was a settlement run by former military. Better to show respect that might not be necessary, rather than fail to show it when it was. Being that his task was complete, Ash allowed his thoughts to resurface. Maddoc had come in with a leaf of paper, upon which was presumably written a work order. They had papers which gave them assignments slipped under their doors in the morning. Ash had to fill out a questionnaire in Quarantine. More paper. The had files accumulating on them, as he had witnessed during interviews. He had heard others discussing paperwork. As an engineer and a man accustomed to filing in triplicate, his intellectual curiosity was piqued. Maybe they located a stockpile in a dry, sealed off place. Or raided a newspaper printing factory. Maybe they even made it on site, though he hadn't heard mention of a facility as of yet. [color=4682b4]"If I may?"[/color] he began, broaching the topic politely, [color=4682b4]"The paper - how does this community keep stocked with paper?"[/color] [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] Outside of Administration (A) -> Hospital (B) [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] [color=dc143c]"Desalination. Road that loops. Thanks."[/color] The lady probably thought that Thalia was crazy. Not that it mattered to her. Thalia had more questions, or rather, she wished to delve into the one question that she had just asked for further detail. Now was not the time. She had a starting point and a place to check out. Thalia would have to go back to that map, reminiscent of the ones in malls that proudly proclaimed that "You Are Here", and figure out exactly where Desalination was. Wandering around town asking questions when her time might be requested elsewhere would be counterproductive to getting settled into town, even if she wasn't exactly comfortable with getting [i]settled[/i] in a [i]town[/i]. More than that, this was just a passing exchange while they went to retrieve a gurney. A tidbit of information to process while they tended to more important affairs. Even Thalia had to admit that the one major advantage to civilization was available medical care. Even someone to bind wounds and a safe place to rest was immeasurable. She was very much changed from her days as a Boston urbanite. Before, she wouldn't have imagined spending months at a time out in the woods, spearing squirrels and collecting crawfish for meals; eating on the occasional feral dog for a few days. Gathering wild onions or polk leaves to stave off scurvy in the spring and summer. Now, air conditioning bothered her. Perhaps one day, she might be allowed to exit the walls, even if it was just on an assignment. Wistful and possibly damaged as she was for wanting to be out there, being able to help Alexander by crossing a road and fetching something was highly advantageous. That the door was held open for them seemed like an antiquated sort of gesture to Thalia. Polite maybe. But antiquated. If there was a weaker sex, [i]ever[/i], that concept was obliterated in recent human history. If you were still alive and didn't hole up behind walls the entire time with others pulling your weight, you weren't weak, regardless of whether you sported indoor or outdoor plumbing. Still, she was in a hurry and didn't say anything about it. The most regard she gave Roy as she passed by was a glance which turned into an almost predatory gaze. It could have been taken as suppressed aggression or annoyance, but in reality was more like the look she gave the buffet of food on their first day in Quarantine, which for her involved mashed potatoes and clam chowder. She dragged her food away away and attacked with bestial abandon. The tiniest smile came after she turned her head away from him and entered the hotel, proper. Nice looking guy. He might be useful for stress relief if she got too hard up. [i]Fuck Hunters Guild[/i], indeed. The short discussion between Rolodex (Thalia had to remind herself to ask about that handle) and Mary, however, was definitely enough to provoke aggression or annoyance, both of which she actually had to suppress. Just not fully. And though it was aimed mostly at Scary Bitch, some of it was for Sandra, too, for the lilting explanation of her gurney races, as if this wasn't an actual situation they were dealing with right now. As attention became focused on her, the One Winged Angel looked to Rolodex and spoke the single word question of [color=dc143c]"Really?"[/color] She then looked right back at Mary and spoke in unwavering, direct tones, [color=dc143c]"Three people in this world I consider friends. One of them needs a gurney. If you don't want to get it, point and I'll get it myself."[/color]