⇜ well, technically speaking, ⇝
the benefit of being an underachiever is that you can be back at the safezone just in time for everything to go to shit.
actually, jj and gaeul have been here for a while now. they did about the bare minimum they could as far as scouting went, returned to the safe zone, and were about to start playing tic tac toe with rocks because they had nothing better to do. that's how you know they hit rock bottom (no pun intended, for the most part.) jj and gaeul playing tic tac toe. surely they would've invented a more entertaining game within about thirty seconds, but still. the fact that they even had to consider it.
everything started kicking off when word began to float around that com devices were down. sure enough, jj checked his own only to come to the same conclusion. well, anyone that didn't come to that conclusion would be dumber than burglars from the home alone movies, and they got thwarted by an eight year old multiple times. sure, the eight year old was smart or whatever but he's pretty sure those guys were too stupid to know how to read.
"coms are down agent mist," he reports, even though he's sure gaeul probably knows already too. for whatever reason, they're both out here in the field, so he might as well treat it like an actual mission.
besides, if coms are down, it is a little concerning. celest is usually on top of things like that. it concerns him that he doesn't even know what any of this is for, either. who or what are the senior agents looking for? did they look into it sufficiently? are they sure whatever distress signal they intercepted isn't a trap? they sent the most important agents out there. what happens if the entire team gets wiped out? he has some qualms with this strategy, but he's just a baby agent with even less sway than most because jinx hates him, but maybe jinx should come up with better strategies if she doesn't want feedback.
now's not the time, though. he knows this. lerissa arrives right before jj asks gaeul if they should try to figure out if they can get any coms back online. he pays attention-- watches as she treats suhwan and seoyun who are almost dead? how did he miss that? suddenly too much is going on. his mind races, and where usually he would try to steer clear of lerissa-- nothing personal, it's just the med wing that he has beef with --now, he wants to do what he can to help.
she calls for anyone technically savvy to do what they can to get local coms up, and he looks to gaeul. "i was just about to suggest we do that before she came," he says. now they have express permission, which jj never really requires, but ensures their important business of saving the entire mission won't get interrupted.
he starts off toward the local coms tower, squints at the screws on one of the panels once he arrives, then busts out one of the screwdrivers in his backpack. yes, he packed screwdrivers. he figured all of these agents would bring a plethora of weapons and typical supplies. who else would be prepared for technical disaster? probably only him and gaeul, and probably agent lurker, who's currently out there with the other seniors. that serves as both a comfort and point of terror for him, but he tries not to think about it, and instead unscrews the panel, getting a good look at the wiring inside to make sure everything looks as it should from this angle. if he had to guess, this incredibly convenient meia-wide coms outage is probably a result of hacking, but he wants to check this first-- definitely not because he just wants to see what the inside of the local coms tower looks like.
"hey, somebody stuck some gum in here," he says, only to add, entirely deadpan: "just kidding."
↪ @miagaeul