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DeLorean...? Interesting. Ripley took his hand back, and once more had his arms crossed.

To the question, the Trainee nodded. "Six months now. First Division meeting, though." Six months, two big infirmary trips, and until today, no division meetings. He was counting himself lucky, if he based his frame of reference off of Otto's warnings. As he studied the other man, he had to wonder if he had received the same advice he did. "You?"

"You must get lots of interesting comments." Ripley mused, wanting to ask 'Like the car?', but stopping when he remembered it was probably Tobias' equivalent of Believe it or not.

Taym glanced up and flashed a grin at Shiloh before he realized what he was doing--an instinctive "glad you're still alive" emotion, buoyed by his inexplicable joy at the novelty of communicating with someone else's weapon, that surfaced before he remembered himself and stifled it back to stoicism, looking back down at the screen and its vaguely-ominous messages.

No bloatware. ******** you too biggrin

He hated emoticons, but felt for Syntax and for the sake of civility of tone it might be wise to make an exception.

"Cool as s**t," he informed Kostya distractedly. He almost never conveyed messages from his own weapon, but he added, absently: "Fionnghal is jealous."

"Talking to people," he said lowly, distracted again as he reviewed Syntax's abrupt departure (feeling offended by its contents without being entirely sure why) before handing the phone back over and leaning back in his chair, an expert-level slouch with his hands in his pockets and his eyes wandering over the thus-far assembled Death hunters, carefully avoiding looking at Lawrence at all. "She's pretty quiet, though." Too quiet, often--not a thing he'd have thought possible, when he'd first learned what the bond implied and was desperate for a bit of solitude and space. "You're not kidding. Syntax is very... loquacious."

"...Hazing?" Ripley parroted, looking briefly surprised. "You were hazed?" Tobias had mentioned animals, which was a clue, but to his knowledge that had happened to everyone, not just the new kids.

Tobias' choice of words almost made Ripley groan unhappily. Almost. "Count your lucky stars then, I guess." He mused, imagining how cruel his parents would have had to be to name one of their kids Arthur, especially with their family name being what it was. At this point though, Ripley had turned away from Tobias in favour of flipping through his phone. He typed away, apparently ignoring Tobias until he had sent a text to him:

Heads up: C. is ruthlessly short tempered. Watch what you say to him.

"How've you been liking the island?" He started conversationally, as if he hadn't just sent the man a text.

Taym ranked answering questions only slightly better than uncomfortable silence, in general much preferring asking them. But this conversation was bound to catch up with him at some point, and here, now, where they would eventually be interrupted by business, was as good a time as any.

"She's very... formal," he decided on. Which was only half true. "Professional. Quiet--reticent even. Serious. I guess pretty much the opposite of Syntax, from what I saw and what you've said." A pause, while he continued to restlessly rake his eyes from one corner to the other, without really looking at anything. "She's mostly non-verbal. Sends over--I don't know how to describe it. It's like feeling something you aren't feeling. Or little dreams, I guess: snippets built up out of--out of instincts, since I don't guess they're memories."

And again, as usual, she made no comment, no reaction, to this assessment. It was, as it always was, frustrating. "She's a stuck up b***h and thinks she can take the edge off by calling me sir," he tried, his tone obviously needling, the comment clearly made more for her benefit than for Kostya's, and received merely a ripple of irritation for his efforts. "Lets go sometimes, though. Forgets to be all businesslike, forgets there's a stick up her a**, for all of about five minutes and usually exactly when I need her to be focused."

And then he grinned, not at Kostya but turning it inwards. Apparently that worked.

"I just got a lot of snark." Though a lot of it was from other Trainees. Mostly one Trainee in particular, but he still counted. He glanced down at his phone as it went off, finding the reply as short as he would have expected. The phone was tucked away once more, into one of his many pockets, and he leaned back again to make himself comfortable in the chair until the meeting start.

"Good word for it." Interesting. It was an understatement, but it seemed to be the only readily available word to use. In a way, he was glad the topic of monsters hadn't come up yet; Ripley didn't want to admit how badly he was dealing with that particular part. He had yet to not get his a** handed to him.

"Hm." Tobias' question was mulled over, the pale trainee definitely trying to help out his acquaintance. "Unfortunately, no. But I can keep my eye out." He scratched the side of his nose, humming thoughtfully before side glancing at Tobias once more. "But you're welcome to use my room if you need it, until you find something. I'm on the main floor." He'd go crazy if he had no proper light sources; he read too much, and already suffered from terrible eyesight.

"How is the basement, by the way?" He'd heard stories.

Madison was not best pleased by the summons - she never was, because it meant they were probably going to be Screamed At, or Glared At, or Screamed And Glared At, with possibly some physical abuse thrown in there too. She slipped in and took her place, having timed her arrival such that there would be multiple targets. Just in case.

The corner of Taym's mouth curled up: a fleeting half of a smile and the most anyone ever got. His was not a face made for smiling, but for smirks and grins and sarcastic sneers. "Explains a lot," he said. "Maybe he'll outgrow it. The constant talking. Maybe give him a few years and he'll be sulking and thinking he knows everything, I think is how it normally goes."

He watched Caelius at his desk, eyes drifting over to Mark, and back. "Almost forgot you'd be here," he observed, half a pleasantry, half a strangely-hostile jab. Taym's feelings about his own division had grown markedly more complicated in recent weeks.