Gathering Resources

Downstairs in the cafeteria where a number of people bustling around, cooking, cleaning and hunting for food, it was an ordered chaos and I could see why it appealed to troopers and goons to stay here. They had the company of fellow soldiers and the security of a well monitored environment. For people who spent their days in the line of fire, or waiting for parahuman blenders to jump out of the next alley, a well secured and constantly supervised location wouldn't be an invasion of privacy but a safe haven where they could lower their guard. I could understand why people choose Big Brother, but I could never do the same, privacy in mind and deed was to vital to my own existence.

Instead of waiting outside or looking for Ms. Norbert I went to get myself something to eat and between a lot of healthy and even Vegan food I found my little part of heaven. An entire table filled with different kinds of parfait, those small packages of butter and slices of different kinds of bread. I loaded my plate with 3 different jellies, 6 packs of butter and the tastiest looking slices of bread I had ever seen in a cafeteria. Maybe having such a strong Nazi presence in the city had brought about a change in the bread culture. There was toast and those overly soft breads as well, but the majority of people seemed to enjoy the whole-grain bread. I could barely get one slice before it was gone.

Nobody payed to much attention to me, but I got the feeling that every person in this room had registered and dismissed my presence as non threatening. Case in point, when I went to find a seat there was a suspiciously empty table right in front of me, the only empty table in my part of the room and a table with enough chair to fit me, Ms. Norbert and two other people. It was almost like someone had planned the whole thing, or at least had standard protocols in place for temporary inhabitants like me. My hunch was confirmed when not even 5 minutes after I had started to enjoy my breakfast, Ms. Norbert appeared at my table.

"Good Morning Benjamin, did you sleep well tonight. Was everything alright? I hope the clothes we prepared weren't to big, we asked the nurses for your measurements, but there weren't any in stock so we had to borrow from the Youth Guard office."

I guess it made sense that the Youth Guard would have clothes in different sizes in reserve, but I didn't know why she was telling me those things.

"We will have to go shopping soon, not just for you, but for your sister as well. You are the only one who knows what she will like."

And there it was, they were probably trying to sell my sister a sob story about me wanting to take care of her despite being afraid of her uncontrolled power. It wasn't even a lie, I would love to buy a few things for her and I wasn't ready to be in the same room with her, but I didn't like to be manipulated, not even to my own advantage. The only thing stopping me from shooting down the plan entirely was that I could use this to my own goals. In her current state my sister would never be allowed to join the Wards, so maybe I could pass on a secret message to her while delivering the clothes. It wouldn't be my first time sneaking messages to her, I had done that multiple times when she had to stay in school for detention or was punished for her violent behavior. I might even be able to smuggle a small enchantment to her, provided I gained resources to make another.

Suddenly, like a higher power had thrown the dices in just the right way, I knew there were multiple caches of resources hidden in my closet. Caches that contained everything from a powerful steel to some kind of magic crystal used to channel life energy. How all of that fit into my closet I didn't know, I just hoped nobody would check my room before I had the opportunity to hide the stuff. My sudden distraction must have shown on my face, because Ms. Norbert was getting a little anxious, I wasn't following the plan and she didn't know what she could do to compel me to do so. Maybe I could help her out, I really needed access to some paper to practice my runes.

"I am all for getting my sister something nice, but how about a set of PSPs for the two of us. That way we could play and communicate with each other. "

And it would be way harder to monitor than a PRT cellphone. I didn't think they would have one ready and a way to bug a new one in an unsuspicious amount of time.

"I am afraid we can't do that, your bank account is still frozen and it will take a while for the investigation to conclude. The budget of the Youth Guard isn't big enough for that kind of expenses. How about writing a message?"

I could see the flaws in her logic, she could just lent me the money, it wasn't like I couldn't pay her back. Not to mention that the PRT would have easily given us dragon tech phones which were way more expensive than an used set of PSPs. It appeared like Ms. Norbert had been given orders and not ones in my favor.

"I guess, but I don't want every trooper to be able to read my message. How about getting wax and a seal to make sure no one touches it?"

More resources were always useful, and maybe I could build a wax board. Those were really useful and a lighter and candles were more than I had available right now.

"I guess that is alright, I don't think that would be too expensive. How about leaving right after breakfast?"

It seemed like Ms. Norbert didn't know much about professional writing sets. A used PSP might have been cheaper, but she didn't need to know that right now. I wanted to check on my resource closet, but I knew I didn't have the time to change anything before she would get suspicious about the amount of time I needed to get ready. And if the PRT really wanted to search my room they would have already done so. It was safer to go right now.

"This is acceptable, but how about a set of cards with dice. I need something to occupy my time with, after all, someone removed the television from my room before I was allowed in."

Ms. Norbert didn't really like where this was going, but I had the feeling she wasn't used to orders from higher up conflicting with her morals, so she agree reluctantly and spent the rest of the short breakfast telling me about her old cases in the Youth Guard. She was a gentle soul, in it for the feels, not the money, but she wasn't solely on my side, so I had to stay on my feet.

In the end I managed to get a lot more out of that shopping trip than Ms. Norbert and the higher ups in the PRT intended. Even in the few stores in the vicinity there were quite a few nice things one could find if they looked long enough. Besides two sketch blocks, a pencil set, a set of cards and a set of dice, I managed to guild trip Ms. Norbert into buying a Discovery Kids Dinosaur Excavation Set and a Crystal Growing Kit as an apology for denying my wish of an expensive writing set. Now I had access to a few chemicals, in a childproofed water mixture but still chemicals, not that I knew what they could be used for and rudimentary carving supplies. And lets not forget the clothes, I had concentrated on choosing nice things for my sister, but I managed to snag a large hoodie with deep pockets for myself. I could feel Ms. Norbert being just as ready to end this outing as I was, I had probably overdone it a few times, but in this case the ends justify the means. And my sympathy for her was dulled by the fact that she had tried 3 times to get me to accept a PRT phone as a viable way to contact my sister. I was young, but I wasn't stupid and at this time it wasn't feasible to pretend like I had suddenly started to trust the PRT farther than I could throw them.

Ms. Norbert escorted me back to the building and promised to pass on the clothes and a hastily scribbled 'I am well, hope you are well .. bla, bla ..' note I had written without any thought. My sister would know I was alive, purely because I had a habit of writing overly formal in my most pretentious script when I was forced to write stuff I didn't belief in. After all, every time since I was 9 I had used that script when I had been punished to write lines in school and she knew that, because in more than 90 percent of the cases it had been her fault and I was only punished because of my proximity to her.

I took all my stuff to my apartment, the code worked, so they hadn't quarantined it for finding magic crystals in a box in my closet, so I was optimistic that they hadn't found anything.