Weekly Report 1, Day 7

General Summary

The hinges of the left door creaked. The smell of wet cardboard wafted from the hallway into the stairwell. Most of the wires from the underground utility lights were left dangling, almost like the victim of a mystery novel. The crime scene was less interesting; stacks of wet cardboard, garbage trolleys, and a short row of lockers sitting next to the ripped drywall showing where past lockers had resided. That didn't matter; what is more important is the glow the center utility light gave Kartak, the guard of the spare electronics room.
Without a second thought, Gregory Navarro hurriedly walked down the hallway. His quick steps upset the stray puddles of water, splashing a few droplets on his pink jump suit. His blue baseball cap had angled just the right way to obscure most of his face in shadow. Someone followed him, but even at the distance of a few dozen feet Gregory commanded the attention. Gregory wanted this. It's just a shame that Kartak didn't know Gregory Navarro.
“Hey, stop!” Kartak barked at Gregory, lifting his pistol to a familiar low ready stance. Gregory stopped dead in his tracks. His face changed from an anger-filled confidence to an anger-filled grimace. Kartak began approaching his target slowly, only asking, “Who are you?” In his head, Gregory began preparing the speech; I'm a new recruit that started a week ago, I know a lotta radio stuff, I don't have this district's birthmark because I didn't grow up here, Durango tasked me with fixing her personal radio before the end of the day, if you don't believe me radio Sammy Pheonix. To his surprise, Gregory did not have to recite any of this.
The mysterious body following Gregory's shadow caught up to the man. This built figure slowed down his jog, slightly bending his knees and leaning his shoulders in front of his chest. Air sucked into his nose like a vacuum and exhaled like a leaf blower.
“Hey 'Tak,” Ricky said in an aloof manner.
“This guy's with you?” Kartak replied, ending the query with an unexpected shift into a higher pitch.
“Yeah, I'm guiding him around. Experts gotta teach the newbies and all.”
Keep telling yourself that, thought Gregory.
“Then who is he?” Kartak lowered his pistol back into his holster. True to his showmanship, Gregory leaped into his introductory speech. “Hello.” An outstretched right hand reached toward Kartak. “I'm Gregory Navarro, radio broadcaster and specialist. If you've got an issue with communication, I can fix it.” A confident, warm smile spread across Gregory's face.
Kartak's left hand swung from his hips and grasped Gregory's right wrist. “Y-yeah, nice to meet you,” Kartak murmured, lazily shacking Gregory's limb. Despite having nothing for his hand to latch on to, Gregory kept his composure. The arm wagging went on for another eight seconds before Kartak released his grip. Ricky, having been entranced by the unexpected hand shake, broke the spell of silence.
“Yeah, he's here to look for some electronic thingamajigs for Durango.”
“A radio transistor, if you need to know the specifics.”
“Is this official?” Kartak's voice had fully shifted an octave higher.
“Yeah, if you need some confirmation stuff just call up Sammy Phee.”
For a faint second, Gregory's smile turned into a smirk. This big dude is finally catching on. Kartak unclipped his handheld radio and clicked the same button four times. Kartak shifted his voice back down to his intimidating standard tone. “Hey Sam, copy.” An audible reply is heard. “Yeah, Ricky has got this guy called Gregory Nuh-Var-Oh. They want to dig through some of the spare electronics.” Another reply. “Yeah, I was just checking. Over.” Kartak slips the radio clip into his pocket.
“Alright, follow me.” Kartak grabs his keys and selects the one with the the greatest bronze tinge. The group quickly pass graffiti saying, “Spare Elec.” right next to an arrow pointed right. Six seconds later and Kartak jams the key into the lock, twists right, and swings open the door of the spare electronics room.
Immediately upon walking in, Gregory is relaxed. Finally, some familiar sights. Up against the wall is a banged-up work bench with only a few missing drawers. An unplugged soldering iron is placed right under a plunger switch that turns on the bench's gooseneck lamp. Lying up against the peg board are half a dozen screwdrivers of different sizes. Right above the bench is another utility light outfitted with fluorescent bulbs giving off a cool white light for the entire room. Finally, the cherry on the top; a rolling, adjustable swivel stool with leather backrest and pad. Gregory's face slowly revealed a face of astonishment. This would be the perfect place to do the repair. The only hard part is finding the transistor we need.
“Whoops, like like the last person forgot something,” tumbled out of Ricky's mouth. Before Gregory could turn his head, a loud crack of plastic filled up the small soundscape of the workshop. Ricky was standing next to a small wooden table just to the left of the entrance, holding one half of a hand crank radio at the end of each arm. Small chips of plastic and a chunk of a PCB was laying on the small wooden table . As Gregory was reeling in shock, Ricky dropped the radio chunk in his right hand and began to feel for a good grip on the other one.
“Stop-stop-stop!” Gregory dashed back to the entrance of the room and tried to slam the held radio chunk down on the table.
“What's the problem?” Ricky wore a face of genuine confusion.
“You don't just break apart shit, especially if its got God Damn parts in it!”
“...It's spare electronics,” Ricky murmured, uncertainly defending his actions. “We've got all the really good stuff with the main electric people.”
“But all of this is still useful! We can make it all work! But we can't make it work if you fucking break it!”
Ricky's eyes darted to the wall and his posture became defensive. “Josh said it was all Okay.”
Gregory let out an aggravated sigh. For his current task, broken PCBs would not be an issue. All that is needed is a transistor, and the tools to replace it are already here. But if Gregory was really going to live here, he could not let so much useful material go to waste. Gregory looked at the broken hand radio, then back at Ricky. The lumbering man learned something today, even if it was way later than he should have and won't be useful tomorrow.
Gregory stared in silence at Ricky. Gregory's stare grew more and more intense with each passing second. His eyelids continued to close, limiting his vision more and more. Ricky's own eyes tarted to dart between the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the workbench, the table, and anything else that wasn't Gregory. Twenty seconds passed before Ricky couldn't handle it any more.
“I'm gonna...go,” Ricky said in a defeated tone. He turned and began walking out of the spare electronics room.
“Wait, Ricky...”

Character(s) interacted with

Protagonist: Gregory Navarro, NPCs: Durango, Ricky, Kartak

Report Date

21 Mar 2019

Primary Location

IQ HQ