didn't we agree to do this together? (Steven to Eve)
"You had a concussion, and a lovely partner to nurse you back to health. I can deal with an investigation on my own. Doesn't mean I prefer it, though. Besides, most of it was just a waste of time. Dead ends left and right. But once we got the lab results in, we were back in the game. You'll love this; here." She handed Steven a mugshot of a young, vaguely familiar looking man. "The fingerprints on your gun, beside your own, belong to a Gabriel Luis Herrán. Born in Mendota, California to Chilean immigrants. Orphaned when he was nine, got separated from his older brother, passed around like a hot potato in the foster care system. It's almost textbook material. Kid turned to petty crime. Shoplifting, mostly. Then he gets older, and bolder. Until he's twenty-two and just suddenly poof. He vanishes. Perhaps he's left the country. That photo there is his last mugshot from around twenty years ago. What's even more interesting is, that because you reported that burning car, the forensics team had a chance to analyse it. They found a used epipen and a whole fucking lot of blood. Whose you may ask? Our very own Theo Matos, who's still in hospital recovering from being stabbed after he thwarted a b&e. If you ask me, Herrán has come a long way from being a shoplifting kid. He's grown into a very dangerous man."
TIMING: Current
LOCATION: Wicked’s Rest Public Library
PARTIES: Cairn (@cairnivore) and Eve (@technowarden)
SUMMARY: Cairn and Eve spend time at the library repairing an old computer. Through their interaction, Cairn reflects on brokenness, care, and the nature of repair, while observing Eve’s skill and patience. They exchange quiet insights about noticing and tending to things that are broken, both machines and metaphorically.
After the chaos of the first surge, Eve had finally found time to get back to her other commitments, which included re-establishing herself with the local library. While things with Eden were… Well, never mind that, she was still pretty popular with the other library staff. It gave Eve an easy fix. She entered the building with a bag of cannibalised parts from older computers, in the hopes they could be used to replace the absolute dinosaurs that the library would not let her replace with something more modern.
She waved at Helen, the librarian at the front desk, and started towards the computer area, where a couple dozen computers were lined up on neat plastic white desks and older plastic chairs. Some people had a book on the table beside them, some people were carefully filling out job applications, or watching tutorials on youtube. Others were just doing what Eve did so often; just scrolling online, letting their whims and the algorithm take them wherever.
“Sorry hon, do you mind if I squeeze in next to you?” Eve gestured at the computer beside the woman, with a large page taped over the screen: BROKEN, DO NOT USE. “I’m going to take up a bit of extra space while I try and fix it. Will that bother you?” Eve spoke quietly - there were a few people working nearby, and she wanted to maintain the sanctity of the library as much as she could.
-
Cairn didn’t answer right away, her eyes flicking to the computer, then back to the woman. Her mind immediately went to the person she had spoken to online about machines. What did she say her name was? Eve. Machines weren’t part of her world, but she could tell this woman knew them from the way their conversation had gone online.
Instead of replying to Eve’s question, she observed her quietly not moving but no longer interested in the website she was on. An article mentioning some disappearances around this town. Slowly she was learning that this town really was strange and yet, everyone went on about their life as if these disappearances didn’t matter.
The air around them was still, the faint murmur of the library filling the space in between. The woman’s voice was soft, considerate, reminiscent of the librarian who occasionally showed her how to use the library and its services. Still had yet to get her to sign up for a library card, however. Cairn didn’t trust that.
She tilted her head slightly, her attention clearly on Eve’s actions. Cairn didn’t speak, but her curiosity was quietly growing. Was it the same with the machines? Did they need care like the forest? She could understand that. Everything needed something, even if it didn’t always show it.
“Do they die?” she asked suddenly. Her eyes were still fixed on the machine. “Or do they just sleep, until someone like you comes?”
-
The other woman didn’t reply, but also didn’t complain as Eve took a seat, swinging her leg under the table. This was a rhythmic piece of work now. The keyboard wasn’t working, but at first glance she couldn’t spot any signs of damage. Her hand quickly slid into her bag, pulling out her diagnostic tools and screwdrivers alike, and began testing the computer itself. The problem was rarely what it looked like on the surface, which was to say, the keyboard was not the problem. Wasn’t that true for so much of the town.
Eve sunk quickly and completely into her reverie, pouring through her mental knowledge to try and remember how to fix these prehistoric machines, that she hadn’t realised how intensely she was being working until the woman beside her spoke up. She looked up, and smiled. The question itself was a little odd, and was almost reminiscent of the conversations she had been having online, trying to convince a woman that computers were not alive. Was this her? She smiled.
“It depends what you mean,” Eve replied honestly. “When the computers stop working, we say it has died, but we mean metaphorically. It was never alive, and it doesn’t sleep, or at least not in the sense that I think you mean. It was switched off, through this button here. I turned it on to see if I could fix it. Does that answer your question?”
-
Cairn listened quietly as Eve explained, her brow furrowed in thought. The idea of things “dying” yet not being alive felt strange, like a half-truth she couldn’t quite grasp. She tried to liken it to something like plants—how bark could look gray and lifeless but still hold green beneath, how roots slept through winter and woke with spring. But this machine had no roots, no green, no breath. It was the kind that never was. Just off. Just… ended. She glanced at the computer’s silent keys, then back to her.
“It’s like a seed, maybe,” Cairn said after a moment of watching her. Noting her movements but her mind busy in an attempt to understand and logic it the only way she knew how. “Dry, quiet, not growing, but not gone. Just waiting for the right light. Or water. Or heat. Not dead, not living either. Just… paused.” But plants don’t have switches. You don’t tell them to wake. Nature just does it for them.
Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully at her. “Maybe it’s more like a root someone buried and forgot. It still needs something. But not the same things.” She nodded to herself, happy with the understanding she had come to. Now, she wondered why exactly she was here to fix it. What was wrong with the computer? “Can it come back? Or is it the kind that stays quiet forever?”
-
Like a seed? A seed had an endless potential to grow into a plant, but a computer was already fully grown. You had to hack it appart if you wanted to make it bigger or better, it could only ever grow by human hands. But the metaphor didn’t really matter, other than that it was how some nymphs spoke. The more the woman beside her spoke, the more intrigued Eve was.
“I think this one can come back. Look. Do you see all of these tiny parts? This is the brains of the computers. This is how it remembers things. If these parts break, it can be harder to pull things back together. But this connector here is what’s broken. Without it, we can’t talk to the computer, or to anyone online. Luckily, I’ve brought some spares with me.” As Eve spoke, she gestured to the various components: the motherboard, the connectors, and the tiny shorted wire that was causing all of this computer’s problems (at least for right now.
“I try and be gentle with the library computers. They’re so old, they keep breaking, but Helen–” Eve gestured over to one of the older librarians, that her and Eden had beefed with many times “-- Has always insisted we can’t replace them. Even though it’s like how sometimes old trees have to fall to make space for the saplings. Her argument is that a lot of patrons wouldn’t be able able to adjust to a new interface - a new way of interacting with the computers. As an unbiased patron, what do you think?”
-
Cairn didn’t answer right away. Her eyes followed the other’s gestures—careful, practiced—like she was tending to something wounded. She studied the blackened wire, the quiet shape of the machine gutted open, made vulnerable. It was strange how gently they handled it. Like the computer might flinch. She made a note of the gentleness that she showed to machines. Maybe that’s just how they were treated. Revered almost. She leaned in slightly, eyeing the dark burn along the connector.
“If it can’t speak anymore, does it forget what it was? Or does it just go quiet?” Was there a difference between the two states—forgetting and silence? The question hung there for a moment, but Cairn didn’t press it. Instead, her gaze drifted toward the library’s bones. She wondered for a moment what newer technology looked like. She didn’t frequent many places to naturally know what was modern and what wasn’t. It wasn’t the first time she’d been told the computers in the library are old.
“She wants to keep things still. Same buttons, same paths.” Cairn straightened. “But that’s not how it works. Not out there.” Her voice was calm, certain. “Things change. And the ones who don’t move with it—” She glanced back at the broken wire. “Get left behind. Or eaten.” She didn’t say it harshly. Just the way someone might say the rain is wet. That night came. Cairn had to admit she struggled to grasp computers and couldn’t imagine what more she’d have to learn with newer machines but in the end, it was something necessary. Cairn had to adapt. Or she’d die.
-
“If it can’t speak and be repaired, then no, it doesn’t forget,” Eve replied thoughtfully. The more this person talked, the more she wondered about her past. It reminded her of the way that fae sometimes spoke, especially the leshen or the leanan-sidhe, any fae that was more connected with their domain than their Aos Sí. Eve wondered how it felt, to see the world as Earth first. She had only ever been taught to recognise the humans. She tapped the hard drive. “The memory is in there, but we would have to pull it out and attach it to a new computer to be able to find out what is saved in there. Once computers can’t talk anymore, they’re usually dismantled and recycled to make new ones. Or to make other electrical devices.”
Eve appreciated how Cairn considered the question, her smile curving in a small smile. Who was this woman? Eve wanted to know more, desperately, but she could also tell that by moving too fast, she might startle her, like a deer in headlights. “Definitely can’t recommend getting eaten,” She said with a wry smile, knocking her knuckles against the exposed carbon fiber of her prosthetic leg.
“If you could say that to Helen, you’d become one of my favourite library patrons immediately,” She joked with a soft chuckle, carefully peeling off the old, broken connector, using needlenose pliers to disconnect the tiny pins without so much as scratching the board it was on. When she completely detached the wire, she set it to the side, between her and Cairn, and reached for a small ziplock bag with the replacement parts. “I think you’re right. We shouldn’t be afraid of new beginnings, even if they are hard.”
-
Cairn watched the wire set gently between them, like a broken tooth laid out to rest. A small, deliberate offering. She remembered the first time she lost one. She’d cracked it against stone. A fall, a fight, she couldn’t even recall the cause anymore. Only the snap and a sharp bright pain that hummed in her skull. The way it rested in her hand after. Pale. Irregular. A part of her that had been inside, now out in the cold. She hadn’t cried. She hadn’t told her pama. She held onto it for a while.
“Then it remembers,” she said, voice low. “Even if the body fails. Even if no one listens.” She didn’t look at Eve right away. Her fingers hovered just above the desk, still, like they were remembering too. Not the tooth exactly, but the sensation of loss. Of something familiar gone, and her tongue returning to the space again and again, trying to make sense of its absence.
“I think I used to be part of something.” She didn’t explain what this was. Just let it hang there. “But it broke. And I couldn’t bring the pieces with me. Just… what stayed.” Her gaze slid to Eve’s hands. Precise. Steady. She noticed the way Eve treated the machine, not just fixing it, but listening to it.
Cairn’s voice, when it came next, was soft. Not shy—just honest. “Maybe that’s enough. If you learn how to make it speak again.” She paused. Let the thought settle. The corners of her mouth twitched. It wasn’t quite a smile, but something that had the shape of one if you looked carefully. “I wouldn’t know what to say to someone like Helen,” she admitted. Not dismissive. Just true. A beat. “But I’d like to know what to say next time I see something broken.” She didn’t know where the thought had come from. Only that there was a difference between leaving something behind and letting it be seen. Maybe broken things didn’t need fixing. Maybe they just needed someone to notice they were still there.
-
Eve replaced the component carefully, the prongs clicking into the motherboard effortlessly, and then slowly folded every component back into the computer, as the other woman spoke. She listened, and listened, and her heart ached a little. Where Eve could chat for hours without saying anything important, this person could say almost nothing and pull open the doors of Eve’s heart. It was a talent Eve did not share, even for her own heart. As teh computer began to reboot, Eve looked back up at Cairn.
“I used to be part of something too,” Eve replied quietly, her voice with a subtle tremor. “I broke too. But I think one of the best things about being a person is that we can rebuild ourselves into a new shape. Not the same, but still good.” She smiled at herself, quoting the line from Lilo and Stitch, although she doubted the other would recognise it. She smiled too because she believed it, that anyone could reforge themselves, and cut themselves into a shape that made good out of their new normal. She could only dream it for Emilio, for Owen, for every wayward spirit in this town. (Of which there were many.) She was grateful when the conversation shifted, all the same.
“You can let them know at the desk. The computers have numbers on them, here, so you can tell them which one is having problems.” Eve pointed to a laminated label attached to the top of every computer. She smiled at the woman, and reached in her bag, pulling out a box, with business cards inside of it. The text and logo was simple, but neat, and easy to read. She slid one over to the woman. “But if you like, you can contact me. That’s my name, my email, my phone number. Even if I can’t fix something, I usually know someone who can.” That was true about more than just IT. She turned back to the computer as it finished rebooting.
“And look, it lives to speak another day!” Eve grinned, turning the monitor so Cairn could see the Windows “Welcome :)” page as the system booted back up. She opened up the word processor and pressed the keyboard curiously, even more pleased as the words she typed appeared on the screen. Hello world. “Good as new, at least for now.”
-
Cairn took the card and turned it over slowly in her hands, eyes tracing the neat print. She didn’t speak immediately, letting the hum of the rebooted computer fill the space between them. Her gaze shifted to the screen, then back to Eve’s hands, how deliberately and gently they moved, as if coaxing life from the machine itself.
After a long moment, she finally spoke, voice low and measured. “It can still speak. Even after it’s broken. Even after… everything.” She nodded slightly to herself, as if confirming something she hadn’t known she needed to understand. Eve’s words earlier still echoing in her head about rebuilding, not as the same, but something still as good. Her fingers hovered near the card, but she didn’t pocket it just yet, letting it rest between them like a small, shared promise.
Cairn looked back at the computer. She thought of seeds she had seen buried deep in the soil, long forgotten, waiting for light or water. “I don’t know how many things I could make grow like that,” she said softly, almost to herself. “Not with my hands. Not in this place.” Her mind recalled all the tiny components, the delicate wires Eve had tended. “But… maybe some things only need someone to see them. To hold them steady, quietly, until they find their own way.” She tilted her head, considering it. “That… might be enough.”
She finally slid the card into her pocket, her gaze flicking to Eve’s for just a fraction of a second. There was acknowledgment there, faint and careful, like a whisper of trust. She stepped back slightly, letting the space between them hold its weight, letting the quiet stretch and settle. It was a pause, small and deliberate, with enough room for what might come next, if either wanted it.
Tisha watches her carefully, eyes flicking to the badge once, then twice, trying to make sure that Eve is who she says she is. You can never be too careful. Detective sounds good though, safe, better than Agent, so she nods and motions for Eve to follow her into the apartment. “I already gave a statement.” She says, as if it matters. The man was dead when she got there. That’s what she’d said. Better that than he was being devoured by a very messy fae being no one else could have seen. The kettle whistles behind her, and she finally tears her eyes away from the other woman to walk over to the stove and take it off the burner. “Tea?”
Eve had read the statement. Numerous times even. Enough to come to the conclusion that her colleagues hadn't been particularly thorough. Either that or the holes in Tisha's story were in fact very much evidence shaped on purpose. But let's not get ahead of herself.
The detective nodded, a smile doing its best to fight its way through her general bad mood to briefly flicker on her lips. "Thank you. How could I say no to that?" While Tisha was busying herself with the tea, Eve closed the door behind her and took a brief glance around the apartment. One could learn so much from just the tiniest details. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"
"Mhm," Eve hummed pensively, her gaze zeroing in on him, expression unreadable. "Please do remind me on what precise grounds did you belive you were entitled to that disclosure?" She crossed her arms for extra dramatics, her eyes the only thing about her that didn't scream 'Run! Run real fast!' "I don't recall filing you under authorised personell. When exactly did you receive clearance?"
Then her eyes crinkled with restrained amusement and finally a smile bloomed on her lips. She had been teasing. Only teasing. "Ollie, seriously," she spoke with a much softer tone, "I can't tell you everything. Some things are just confidential and others..." She sighed. "You gotta ask Steven yourself, you know?"
Adam was busy working on a case. This one seemed to be consuming a lot of his time, but he was determined to figure it out. He's at the scene again when he notices someone. "Excuse me, do you know anything about the incident that happened here a few weeks ago?"
