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Tea and some time spend researching on the Internet that had been the plan anyhow. Investigating the videos that people had posted of ‘senshi terrorists’ so that he could both be amused, and try and find unfamiliar faces and, if he was lucky a few powers.
That had been the plan, but the plan refused to cooperate. He’d signed into the free wireless, that should have been simple, it had seemed to work but now he couldn’t make it acknowledge the wireless at all which was raising his frustration levels enormously, more so because he’d just ordered his tea when the problem started. He didn’t want to abandon the tea for Internet, but neither did he want to abandon the project when he had to slip in on his off days during regular business hours to ‘borrow’ their wireless.

He leaned back in the chair scowling at the computer screen as though it were absolutely the one at fault here, though he was quite sure he’d made some simple but grievous error. Probably something that could be easily repaired IF he had a better idea of what was wrong. Situations like this always had infuriatingly simple solutions just to make you feel that much more foolish that you hadn’t known how to repair it. It was a universal law he was sure of it. Cursing quietly he wondered if he should restart, or if that would just leave him making the same mistake all over again.

“Damn thing, what did I do wrong…” he hissed grabbing the thick edge of the screen wishing he could make some threat to retire the antiquated thing into a paper weight without looking like he had utterly gone around the bend.

The strange teen tensed oddly perhaps, it went a little beyond ‘you startled me’ and bordered on someone who expected either to be hit, or that he might need to hit something, but that was quickly replaced by a hard almost scalpel edged stare that both lingered too long in general, unblinking as he glanced you head to toe, not once, but twice before he even spoke. He nodded almost begrudgingly but interested all the same.

“Are you offering to help with that?” He said cautiously, whatever else he expected it was clear he wasn’t positive that he could just assume that of anyone. “User error most likely.” He added making at least some effort towards polite conversation. “But I haven’t any idea on how to fix it.”

At the very least he thought the young man who had just approached was ‘a good risk’ from a technology perspective. The game he’d been playing when he’d entered hadn’t been the thing that made him decide that, it was more that he had stopped his game and come over. That could mean a handful of things but he was hoping that ‘laughing at the expense of others’ wasn’t high on the teenagers to do list.

“It didn’t give me the normal disconnect message, it said it connected but then it’s been doing…this.” He waved a hand at the screen and crinkled his nose a little in frustration at the malfunction.
He watched the way the young man’s hands flew over the keyboard with rapped attention, delighted to see a strange kind of maestro at work though he hadn’t expected to be so entranced.

“User error, terminating user.” He quipped quietly but his eyes kept darting between Levi’s face and his hands, then to the screen as he tried as best he could to follow the paths he chose. The windows he checked and what if anything he typed into each box.

“You type amazingly fast.” He added after a moment. Credit after all, where credit was due. He’d wait till the problem was solved at least before he pressed for further information on the young man, though it made him positively tense with anticipation that he might have found someone quite, quite interesting; someone perhaps quite valuable perhaps to the cause as a whole.

“Zac, local bibliophile.” He offered in return. “Techno-average at best.” He watched Levi and the screen with some interest, probably a similar level to the interest various windows held for Levi. Little openings that might tell him some fascinating detail, trivial to vital about the inner workings of whomever he was observing, though the variables of interpretation were potentially more frustrating than the windows the computer logic was able to offer up.

“How ‘techno-savvy’ are you would you say? I’ve got something I’d really like to…” He paused and waved a hand. “Let’s just say I’m too used to jokers coming to tamper with the data I’m compiling. I’m looking for someone who could make it safe for me to put that data back on my laptop so I can more with it. But I’m not sure if encryption and the like is quite up your ally.”

He shifted in his seat and rested his chin on his hand, watching Levi to see the reactions to his offer.

“Nothing I want encrypted is on the lap top yet…” he admitted but reached down into the bag that hung off his chair and pulled out a notebook. “But you can see some of the research material if you want.” He said and typed in his password, one handed. He was adept enough that it didn’t look too much like hen pecking but he still watched Levi’s face to see if he was tracking the keys he typed. It could have been suspicion, or maybe just paranoia, hard to say.

He double clicked a folder on the desktop and turned it back just slightly towards Levi, videos of the ‘known terrorists’ who wandered the city. White bodices for the most part, tiny skirts, shorts and the normal run down of you-tube commentary.

“Just a personal project.” He said casually and shrugged. “But it’s something I’d like to get to the root of. Like a puzzle where I don’t have all the pieces, it just gets under my skin when people mess with my things.”

He let the lap top linger long enough to let you see it play out, while a few other people snuck fleeting glances before dismissing it as an older video and returned to their own work. Some of the files even looked like the raid that had been made on the police station, more recent ones were probably things like that ‘Tag Swagger’ had reported on if you kept up with recent events.

He tapped the notebook almost inviting you to look inside. “I’ve done what I can with keeping it safe like this but, it’s a lot harder to cross reference when it's all in print.”

The notebook wasn’t as accessible as the computer must have been. It was ‘something like’ short hand but he’d made his own little half pictogram, half scrambled consonant arrangement with a smattering of numbers, arrows, clocks and other odd symbols from ‘eyes’ to wavy lines.’ He looked quite pleased with himself at the mess contained there. “I can type it out again long hand with no problem, in fact this is one of the more boring notebooks. But I do think there are events that suggest that mass coma –may- have been more than coincidentally tied to them.” He tapped the computer. “If I’m right, and I can get it all safely here without worry about it being messed with again then it will at the very least be interesting. There are some other interesting points too but, given that these people seem to be able to toss on tiny skirts and hide in plain sight It’s probably better not to talk about it OR encrypting it here.

He tapped his eyes watching you for a moment. “And since if I have you help with the encryption I’m going to guess you’ll leave yourself a way in, how about I offer a guided tour of what I’ve complied instead? Are you interested?”

“Does sound silly I’m sure.” He admitted but there was a look in his eyes all the same. It wasn’t as crazy as it should have been, not feverish of over passionate. “Laugh all you want but I met one, in and out of uniform.” He said pulling his notebook back and closing it with a somber look falling into place. It was the kind of look of someone who lost something and was shutting down, no data to be retrieved at this time, file corrupted or something of the sort.

“IF you are interested Levi Drummond, techno-wizard and skeptic. Meet me tomorrow night at this address.” He scratched a note on the back of a napkin and shoved it towards you, closing his laptop, assembling his things. “Red pill or Blue pill, I’ll bring my Morpheus coat, and some notes that aren’t in short hand.”