In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 622):

Dan and Ronald are on the other side of the cafeteria, in a corner without a lot of other people around.  The area between you is maybe 50 meters, give or take.

Lydia looks up.  "Going? Oh.  You mean Sunday.  I was thinkin' we'd go get Vietnamese.  You ever had Pho or a bahn mi?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:26, Thu 17 Dec 2020.

Jack decides that given their encounter is in public, and there will be time to help Ronald later, he doesn’t act on the spot. Acting would also directly expose him. He can perhaps speak to the other boy before class, later. Then again, if he waits to find out, he can’t know how they’ll respond.

Looking back toward Lydia, he smiles at her and answers, “No. I grew up in a little cabin outside of St. Cloud, we had some good Chinese in town, but I never had any Vietnamese.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 624):

"It's great," says Lydia.  "We'll go get some pho then!  You'll love the spring rolls."

Dan lets Ronald loose.  Ronald steps back a step, clutching his chest.

"This isn't my fault!"

Dan snarls.  "I don't care!  You knew what you were getting into!"

Ronald glances around.  "You can't do anything here ya know.  There's too many people-"

Dan steps towards Ronald.  "Watch me not give a shit."  He almost hisses this.  He then steps back.  "Everyone already thinks I'm a junkie!  So what do I got to lose?  Get it for me.  Or I swear I will kick your teeth so far down your throat you won't be able to go to the dentist without some Ex Lax."

Ronald blinks.  "That was...kinda stupid.  What you just said."

"Shut up."

Dan walks away.

Lydia has been talking about catching up in her classes.  Nothing dramatic.  She seems to like detailing everything going on in her life.  With lots of details.

She glances up at the clock.  "Oops.  I gotta jet."  She takes one last bite of her salad and tosses her pack of cookies into her bag.  "I gotta hand in two math assignments before fifth period and I'm not quite done.  I'll text you about Sunday."

She stands, picking up her tray, but then stops, looking at you sort of shyly and coyly.  "I'll talk to ya later.  'kay?"

Jack, for his part, is as attentive to Lydia's first word as he is to the last. Listening and giving the positive impression that he is paying attention, receptive, and asking appropriate follow up questions as the situation mandates. But even as he listens, he pays attention to the ongoing dispute between Ronald and Dan.

It seems that Ronald was 'aware of what he had gotten into.' Even if Dan is being aggro, it's possibly not entirely as straightforward as that.

He'll follow up but not immediately.

Rising when Lydia does, Jack says, "If you ever need help with homework, let me know. As long as you actually know the content, I can do the busy work for you in like thirty seconds," he mentions quietly on the sly as he picks up his tray and offers to take hers from her as well.

Putting the trays away, he wanders off toward his next class.

Thinking about how he'll be handling the rest of the day. Probably approach one of the Program's members after school? He has an address for one of them, but are they even living in town? Should he fly to Chicago?

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 626):

Whitefalls is really on a tear today.  It gets so bad, she ties into it with one of the girls in your class who didn't do the assignment.  Whitefalls sends her to the office.  It's quite the little episode.

Darja is already in her seat for Casey's class.  You have a test on four Supreme Court cases today.  She looks like she's brushing over her notes before the bell rings.

"Hei seal.  I would ask if you are ready for this, but you're you."

She chuckles and flips her cheat sheet over.

"It's weird.  I actually feel like I'm a better student now than I was back home.  How's Lydia?"

Jack smiles at Darja when she comments on his preparedness. "Yeah, I'm ready for this. Colby should be good to go too, he was studying the other night," he reckons, fiddling with where he is putting his pencil and eraser. Situating everything to his satisfaction as he talks to her. Idly throwing glances through the walls while they chat.

He bobs his head once at her declaration about improved performance.

"I'd speculate that you were possibly a little stressed with the way your were treated back home, now that isn't as much of an issue? Changes in stability?" he speculates aloud. Picking up a pencil, he idly makes little wavy motions with it, sawing it up and down between two fingers.

"Two questions for you: do you have a way to get in contact with someone from your afterschool program? And do you know what Dan Cabrizzi has been bothering Ronald about?" he asks, both relatively quiet, since he knows that she can hear him no matter how quietly he talks.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 628):

"See peab olema see. Lapsena ei olnud mind piisavalt kallistatud."  She chuckles.  "Sorry.  I've been trying to work on my sarcasm.  Someone told me I'm not very good at it.  But yeah.  I think you may be right.  Things have been...calmer.  In spite of all the afterschool stuff."

Her eyes go a little wide when you mention the afterschool program, but she seems to stop herself from asking anything unnecessary.  "Yes.  I'm supposed to do some training with one of them this evening as a matter of fact."

She frowns at your last question.  "That...Odd you should mention that. I don't know anything about Dan.  But Ronald has been acting strange."

The bell rings and Casey comes in, telling everyone to put away their notes and books.  He has a stack of papers in his hand.

Darja glances at you.  "Tell you later."

The test has three sections.  You breeze through the matching and multiple choice.  The last part is an essay.  Colorado v. Wilhern.  A mother was selling her meta-daughter's genes for research purposes to a couple of big labs.  The state brought reckless endangerment charges against the mom.  It was the case that established the Wilhern Test, or standard used to determine if meta-research is within acceptable limits.  In Wilhern, the mom agreed to bone marrow extractions.  You have to provide an argument defending the mom.

You wrestle through the essay and the bell is ringing before you even know it.  Colby stops by the chat but rushes out after a moment.  He had to pick up some shifts at his parent's restaurant.

Darja walks with you outside.

"Anyway.  I'm going to be meeting with Hard Time in thirty minutes."  She considers a moment and then shrugs.  "I guess you can tag along.  Or I could give him your number or something."

Jack declines to respond in Estonian, seeing as she switched so quickly. “It’s harder for me to pick up on a sarcastic tone when you’re not speaking in English, but I’ll get there with practice,” he mentions. “Oh, and you’d asked how Lydia is? She’s doing okay. Her aunt died so she’s a little sad, I think, but she’s coping okay. Didn’t seem on the verge of tears when I saw her or anything.”

Thinking about Darja’s observations, he mirrors her frown out of habit. A sour look on his face for a moment and then its gone.

“Dan cornered Ronald in the cafeteria and was threatening him with ‘getting him something’ or getting his ass kicked, but it sounded like Ron had gotten him whatever it was in the past or had somehow been complicit in some past event,” he explains what he’d overheard, and then out of curiosity, throws a cursory glance over the school to see if he can spot either of them.

Looking back to Darja just in time for her to mention that they’d talk about it later.

The test is a breeze aside from the essay portion. As always, he has too much information and not enough personal opinion. So after a bit of internal debate, he goes with direct quotes from the arguments by the council in favor of meta-rights, and justice Ginsburg’s opinion, which he quotes liberally. In fact, his answer is mostly quotes when he’s done with it, but structured in a way that it sounds like an original opinion.

He makes sure to attribute his quotes directly in the paper, ‘Ginsburg wrote’ and ‘the opinion of’ so that Mr. Casey doesn’t throw the book at him for plagiarism. It of course also demonstrates his mastery of the subject, at least as far as memorization goes, and that should hopefully cinch the 100%.

“I’ll come with you.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 630):

Dan is in what you think is a Geometry class.  He's got Hollister for it.  She's up at the board, working through a proof, and he's watching her, tapping a pencil on to a notebook, frowning away like he's thinking about something else.

Ronald seems to have English.  The class is reading aloud from a novel.  Ronald is biting his lip, staring down at the book.  He has one hand in his pocket where he's got an e-cig.  He's playing nervously with it.

"Me peame lendama," Darja says.  We'll have to fly.

Turns out she means she plans to fly you there.  She looks around and points towards an alleyway.  "Let's duck down there.  I'll give you a lift."

Going to let her give you a lift?  Or flying yourself?

Seeing as nothing warrants immediate attention on their departure, Jack follows Darja on her roundabout trip through the afternoon streets. The crisp fall air and the likelihood of snow seeming to be perpetually on the edge of ‘anytime now.’ He is aware that he’s about to be potentially spotted flying out of an alley with her, or to be seen going into an alley in general, but there is a certain risk in these things.

Out of habit, he makes a check for drones and followers, gawkers of any sort as they make their way back into the alley.

“Since I’m going to be joining up, no reason to give you plausible deniability anymore. I’ll fly myself,” he tells her and hovers right up into the air, indicating that she should lead the way.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 632):

She blinks as you start to hover.  And then laughs.

"Jerk!  And you made me carry you around that time!"

She sticks her tongue out while pulling down her lower left eyelid at you, but it's of course good natured.

Laughing, she takes aloft and the two of you head upwards.

It is pretty evident early on that she's testing you a bit.  Seeing how good you are.  It's really evident when she leads you into a barrel roll high up.  She shakes her head at your perfect execution, still smiling, and starts to head to the northwest.

After a minute, you can tell what she's following.  As the city noise starts to fade, you pick up a signal.  It's low and repeats at fairly steady intervals.  The farther out of town and closer you get, the easier it is to make out from the background noise.

You are about halfway between Minneapolis and St. Cloud by your estimation.  The signal has the two of you veering west now, and soon you arrive in a backwoods area.

Standing in a field is a man in army fatigues and a brown hoody.  He's large and well built.  Not far away from him is a Ford pickup.

He stands there, watching the two of you come in, arms crossed, leaning against the truck.

As the two of you set down, he looks at Darja, than at you.

"So.  Someone wanna tell me what's goin' on here?"

Darja clears her throat and then waves in your direction.  "So.  Mr. Time.  This is my friend.  I'll let him introduce himself. He wanted to talk to you about the program.  This," She turns to you, waving at the man, "Is Hardtime of the Paladins.  He's my combat coach."

“I wanted you to be able to say you didn’t know, and not be lying. Never make your friends lie for you, if you can avoid it.”

Flying a few dozen miles, he makes mental note of the chirping device. He would need to listen for it in the future, and not tuning it out would let him hear it at a greater distance. Like so many other things, he’d been listening to anything but that noise. That and he’s fairly certain the one thing Darja does better than him is listening, and maybe she’s a bit more agile in the air. Certainly more agile on an agility to speed ratio. His natural assumption is that he’s probably much faster, but she has a real natural way of flying.

He brute forces it, and can pull off most tricks with a combination of speedy thinking and force of will. Darja seems to be more natural about it.

More practice needed? Maybe?

---

Jack clasps his hands behind him as Darja does her level best to make introductions, for some reason not using his name, but he supposes he should be happy with her for that. Not that this jack could be reboxed after the fact, they’d be able to find him from this meeting, for certain. No, it’s probably just her being polite. Or forgetting.

When she finishes and Hard Time doesn’t immediately jump in, he nods.

“Hello, I’m Jack, I go to school with Darja.”

He nearly expounded on things, tried to make a case about his purpose in coming here, but perhaps it was better to wait and see what Hard Time would say.

While he talks, he idly glances over the truck, examining it before he looks back to the large man.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 634):

The truck has Michigan tags.  Maybe his personal truck?

On first glance, Hardtime looks like a former Marine drill sergeant.  He's got that kind of square jaw and nose that's been broken a few times look going on.  His blonde hair is buzzed so far that it's almost just scalp.  There's thick hair covering the back of his hands, which are large with thick, stubby fingers.

He looks you over and then glances at Darja.

"Gimme five hundred aerial laps."  She frowns.  "Now."

She gives you a sheepish smile and shrugs, and then leaps upwards, taking off into flight.  It seems like her control of flying is the result of practice, practice, practice.

Hard Time sighs and scratches the back of his head.  "Okay.  Jack huh?  Jack who?"

He squenches up his eyes and looks at you again, slightly cocking his head as he does so.  "We ever met before?"

He shakes his head.  "I guess it doesn't matter.  So you able to fly on your own?  Or did you come up with some kinda dohickey that lets you fly?"

He listens to your answer and at some point says, "Okay.  Here's how it is.  We're always lookin' for talent.  But we also have to be careful.  We can't just take anyone in off the street unless we understand what strings they got attached to 'em.  I'm not the one who you'll have to talk to about that.  But I'll give you a heads up now.  If you got strings, you need to tell us about 'em upfront."

He scratches his chin.  "We're gonna need to talk to my superiors.  You go to school with Darja, right?"

Glancing after Darja as she is sent off into the sky for laps, he wonders what the purpose of that is. Flight practice? Shouldn’t she be practicing speed or maneuverability? With his stamina, it’d be pointless to practice for the sake of endurance. He think he’d have had her train either straight line sprints or flights through the trees for maneuvering sake.

He doesn’t say any of this, of course. Because he undoubtedly doesn’t know things, and it’s not his place to coach a fellow student.

“Jack Sharpe,” Jack answers without hesitation, not minding. They’d know who he was soon enough. There would be a question of whether they’d know who his parents are and what they can do.

“I can fly on my own, yes,” he answers, not just volunteering all of his abilities though it might speed things along.

Listening to the man’s explanation about looking for talent and strings, he nods slowly.

“No, no strings,” he answers. Strings as in those attached by others? His parents? But everyone’s parents have strings attached. And he doesn’t have a secret love child or anything that requires money, if Hard Time is referring to him having strings attached to him joining.

“Talk to whoever you need to talk to. Yes, I go to school with Darja,” he confirms.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 636):

Hard Time nods.  "Alright."

After thinking a moment longer, he straightens up.  "Darja, forget the laps.  C'mere."

He doesn't say it very loudly or into a head mic or anything.  But you can see Darja come back this way after a moment.  Well.  She does have good hearing.

"I need to evaluate Mr. Sharpe here.  Get an idea of what he can and can't do.  At least get an idea of how good a flyer he is."

Hard Time points at the woods not far away.  "Darja.  I want you to head into those woods.  When I give the word, you,"  Hard Time points at you Jack, "Will fly into the woods.  Darja here will try to tag you.  It's a game of tag.  If she gets you, then you're it.  You try to tag her.

"I'll be in the woods too.  And I'll be gettin' in the way."  He smiles.  "You can't touch me though.  If you touch me or let me touch you, you're out automatically.

"Questions?"

Watching as Darja comes back in, the tall teenager scratches at the back of his head. He’d have to give it somewhat close to full power. It’d be an insult to them to not at least play tag at somewhat close to full speed.

“How far can I fly, and I assume if you’re interfering you want me to stay near to the ground?” Jack asks a few questions, just to keep things clear and up front. He doesn’t ask anything like, ‘are you sure you want to get in the way of us flying at high speed’ but he knows Hard Time is robust in his meta powers, so he can probably take high speed.

Jack will have to steer to avoid the man, just in case he can’t.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 638):

He smiles.  "Good.  You know enough to ask questions."

He points at the trees.  "Stay in the forest.  Go no higher than the tree tops for this go round.  Go as fast as you want but keep control.  Points will be deducted for each tree you crash into.  And since you're not in the program yet," he emphasizes that word, "Any injuries are your own responsibility."

Darja sets down and nods when Hard Time asks if she caught all that.  She grins at you and then flys away to get into position.

He glances after her.  "If you have any attack powers...ya know.  Zap beams or shit...you can use them against me but not her.  This isn't about a smack down brawl.  This is about givin' me enough what-they-call 'raw data' to make a determination.  We on the same page?  Then go to it."

The woods for the most part are not dense.  The leaves have almost all fallen and the naked eye visibility is what you would expect.

Whatever kind of flying practice they've had her doing, it's paid off.  Darja has decent moves.  She corners well, handles her acceleration and deceleration admirably, and is fairly flexible.  Is she a better flyer?  Maybe more practiced.  Her smaller body mass also gives her an advantage when it comes to maneuvering between trees.  But better than you?

We shall see.

Hard Time, for now, is just walking behind the two of you, studying your movements.  He hasn't acted yet.

I'm going to ask you to narrate this first round of tag:  Jack obviously could win it handily if he really puts his mind to it.  But I'll leave that up to you.  How long does it take him to tag Darja the first time?  Does she tag him back?  Does he crash into a tree?

I'll leave that up to you unless you'd rather I handle it.  We can also leave it up to chance if you prefer.  Let me know.  Thanks

“Okay,” Jack confirms, understanding the parameters limiting the distance he can fly and the height, he takes a moment to look around and size up the area, getting a feel for the shape of the area beyond his initial assessment.  Looking back toward the man at the mention of injuries to offer a sober nod at that. Scary, he smirks.

Hearing about the beams, he pauses for a second. He’d been fine with not touching, but if beams are allowed, why not allow him to use his hands. He almost brings it up, but instead simply nods again.

Hovering a few feet into the air, he glances in the direction of where Darja had gone and then floats a few feet away. Waiting for the word to begin so that he can start to evade Darja.

The moment the word is given, he focuses so as to slow his perceptions of time to its fullest and jerks a few feet further away from Hard Time, giving him time to not to have to worry about the man as he glances over in the direction of Darja who is undoubtedly already hurtling toward him. He watches her arms as she approaches in not quite slow motion and simply shifts another few inches out of her reach as her built up momentum sends her sailing past.

Shifting his attention momentarily back to Hard Time he watches the man moving, and rather than letting him play any sort of games with the two of them and their flying antics. He simply blows on the man with a burst of gale force winds between two of the man’s charging steps, when he’s in the air—timing it so as to throw the man backwards—to whatever effect.

He pulls away even further at that point, and darts off into the woods near to the ground. Since the tree cover is sparse, he’d rather not get tangled up by ripping through the foliage. Instead he simply darts the length of the copse of trees and hovers there. Waiting for Darja to charge in again. Following her progress as she tries to circle around toward his right, thinking he can’t see her, he follows her through the trees.

This time, he doesn’t wait for her to close the distance entirely before dodging. Instead he flattens himself vertically and flies directly at her and then darts past her in the other direction. Their combined motions, he hopes, more than adequate to keep her from responding in time to the sudden change in directions.

Glancing in the direction of Hard Time, he notices the man has started to gain a little proximity, though is still dozens of yards away now.

Jack promptly cuts loose a light blast of searing heat vision to light the man’s shoes on fire. Not doing anything more to him, he is curious how the guy will handle it and continues to fly.

Only ten seconds have passed.

Since you gave me the options. I thought I'd start us off, and you could finish us?
This message was last edited by the player at 03:03, Tue 29 Dec 2020.

Your post will need a little length.  Will get back to you tomorrow.  Sorry for the delay.  Thanks

Hard Time doesn't seem to be able to fly.  He can probably leap pretty far.  But he seems to be keeping to the ground as he enters the treeline.

Darja manages to surprise you a couple of times.  First, she's willing to use her legs.  About the third time you sidestep her hand, she spins on an axis, swinging her leg around and towards you.  You dodge of course.  But it was unexpected.

Hard Time takes a step back when you use the gale force breath.  You think it was more a matter of the surprise of it than the actual force of it.  A few trees buckle and blow away behind him.

He narrows his eyes and mutters, "Wind powers maybe?"

When you give him the hot foot, he grins.  Slamming his boot into the ground with enough force to drive it into the dirt about five inches, extinguishing the flames that way, he mutters, "My my my.  Aren't we the swiss army knife of meta powers?"

With a grin he takes a step back and then he leaps upwards, the first time he's come off the ground yet.  He's not a flyer.  He's a leaper it seems.

He also seems to get stronger as the game progresses.  He isn't tiring either.

Darja is actually the one who brings it to an end.  The game has gone about a half hour.  She times a dive from the tree tops with one of Hard Time's assaults.  You could dodge it.  But Hard Time should probably have enough data by now.  And you think she's getting tired.

Darja flops onto the ground, panting.  Hard Time cracks his back and gives you a hairy eyeball.  He then turns to Darja.  "You know.  You shoulda done that earlier.  Timed your attacks with mine."

After a few gasps, she nods.  "...right...".  Maybe because she's tired, she doesn't look up.

Hard Time looks back at you.  "Alright.  I'm not the decision maker.  But I'll do everything I can to get you in.  There'll be background checks and what not.  But before all that.  I got one question."

He waves a hand, like he's gesturing towards everything. "Why do you want in?  What do you hope to get outta this?"

The tall dark haired teenager doesn’t retort when called a Swiss Army Meta, the more he thought about it mid-flight, he’d been thinking that it might be funny to see how Hard Time reacts when he realizes what else Jack can do. Since he can’t bothered to use several abilities. The longer he goes without showing them, the better.

Fully landing, Jack settles to his feet and reaches over to lightly tap Darja. So that it’s clear that he tagged her back. He smirks a little when he does it, because he doesn’t mind teasing Darja.

Looking from her back to Hard Time, he nods his head slightly at the mention of not being the decision maker. “Sure,” he confirms.

The last question earns the other man a small nod, but he doesn’t reply immediately and gives his best rehearsed ‘I need to think about how best to answer that’ face, “Well,” he begins and pauses again, for effect, “The long story short is that since I moved to Minneapolis I’ve picked up on several problems that need fixing: murders, cults with guns, exploding people, Roger-the-body-swapper, hidden weapons dealers, you know, a lot of things that had I a decent group to help me and a proper cape I’d have at least taken a college try at fixing,” he explains.

That’s obviously a setup for the follow-up and he follows up a breath later.

“.. so I was faced with either the choice of joining up and becoming official, and have the ability to follow-through; which the program seems like a good direction to go with that. Or fully committing to investigating all on my own. I don’t think I need to tell someone on a Cape team what the benefits are vs. just doing it on my own. Legalities aside.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 643):

Darja blinks and looks at you with raised eyebrows.  There are obviously more situations detailed than she knew about.

Hard Time's grin becomes a scowl.  "Been cowling it a bit, huh?"  He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "Well.  That happens.  Can't expect a dog not to chase squirrels.  And there do seem to be a lot of those around lately."

He stops rubbing his neck and gives you a drill sarge type expression.  "Guess we'll need to plan for a long debrief session too.  For now:  I'll give you my contact info.  If one of these situations come up, call me.  Once you're officially in the program, we'll figure things out from there."

He looks over at Darja, taking a second to consider her.  "You did pretty good.  Your control is tight considering your experience.  But you need-"

"Situational awareness.  Da"  She brushes grass off her jeans.  "Da.  I get it.  Will work on it."

Hard Time waits until she looks up at him and then gives one nod.  He turns back to you.  "I'll need your contact info.  Expect someone to drop by this evening."

After he gets all that, and after both giving you a business card and making sure you have his cell, he nods.  "Alright.  Get home.  So you know Jack, this is part of the training.  Getting back an' forth without being seen.  But I guess you're already pretty good at that. Get goin' you two."

He starts back to his SUV.

Darja sighs.  "I guess we should head home."

Jack takes the information down on Hard Time, putting it in under the contact: “Drill Sergeant.”  He makes sure to glance over the card once, memorizing it as he does everything else, before he puts it away. He could just manage Hard Time’s information like he does the Monkey’s; memorizing the number and dialing it each time, never saving any details on anyone with that other phone. But that would be giving away another trick in his toolbox.

And the more he thinks about it, the more it amuses him that he’ll hide things from Hard Time until later.

He doesn’t reply, as usual, when it’s pointed out that he has been cowling. He doesn’t know what Hard Time’s stance on it is, probably not good, but the guy can’t deny that he knew if it has been outright shared. Just in case he’s cool enough to have his back. Same like he did with Darja, he leaves things somewhat vague on purpose.

At the request for his own contact details, he relays everything requested. Either punching his number and address into Hard Time’s phone directly, texting him, or letting him memorize it, as he feels works best for him.

“I live with my aunt Marlene, she should be around,” he mentions. “Right, that’s not too tough if I go fast and high.” Turning his attention to Darja at the dismissal he shrugs. In Estonian, he says, “See you later."

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 645):

Darja nods.  "I gotta stop by my Uncle's job.  So I'll see you later."

She hesitates a moment and then waves.  "Hope to see you soon."

She has a bit of an odd look on her face.  You haven't seen her look like that before.  But she takes to the sky soon after.

---

Marlene sighs heavily as she puts her oversized purse down.  It's 6:24 PM and she just walked in the door from work.

"So.  How was school today?"

Seated, having finished his homework in the few moments after he’d returned from the initial meeting with Hard Time, the tall young man is watching episodes of The Mandalorian.

The apartment is also spotless. He’d scrubbed every surface, straightened every room that isn’t her bedroom, swept, vacuumed and even cleaned the interior of the oven. He has been running fans just to clear the air a little, though the cold outside prevents him from blowing it out the windows.

Idly leaning across the arm of the couch while he sips on a glass of water. Trying to relax a little. “Hey Marlene. Someone from ‘the program’ will be dropping by tonight, possibly,” he tells her immediately. Not about to bury that. “I cleaned.”