Scene #8657: Sergeant Petra's Boot Camp

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	As much time as Petra spends in the Training Department, talking with the clerks or doing assigned paperworks or trainings-- it's easily her second-most frequented Department after Control-- it's not very often that she approaches Hod to talk to her directly. Which isn't that strange, really. Hod is two levels of management above Petra, in a totally different part of the facility; it'd sort of be like a cashier ringing up the Regional Supply Coordinator of their chain to have a chat. But of course, Petra is doing just that. Her esoteric relationship with Lobotomy Corporation's authority has clashed with her ingrained submission to corporate management long enough to have delayed her from coming to Hod, but a recent conversation with Cinder sparked her resolve to bring it up again. Cinder is, mostly, the reason why Petra cared about the clerks in the first place. And besides. The times Petra's talked with Hod before, it's been reassuring her that it was good of her to kill herself, and suggesting that she dress up like a ghost to help with Halloween. Hod is cute; Petra is sort of fond of her. Petra knocks on the orange door of her office in Training, framed with glowing green tubes that run down the hallway to either side, before pushing it open. Her peek through the crack in the door is awkwardly, childishly tentative at first, before Hod acknowledges that she's there and gives her enough confidence to enter the rest of the way. Petra's wearing her EGO gear, between-schedule for Works upstairs in Control. In her hand is a silvery Capri-sun-like pouch, but miniature-- sipping the mild dose of Black-restorative medicine that she picked up after working with Fragment of the Universe. "Hey, Hod. I was thinking, uh, talking with Cinder, and I thought about a training routine that might be good? That I could help with." Petra hesitates, then brings her other hand up to hold the pouch with both of them, looking a little mouse-like while sipping. Visibly, she relaxes a little, and looks over Hod, remembering the Meltdown. "And, um, how, like, have you been?"
Angela	Hod IS adorable. She always has been. Even as a box-shaped robot with an eye and antenna and thin metal limbs--she's still pretty cute. Hod is in her office. Every Sephirah has an office so that they can communicate with the Manager or Angela in private. Like with Malkuth, Hod's office is also adorned with a screen showing an upside down Tree of the Sephirot. A faint orange tint fills the office, emitting from a pair of glowing orange rings circling a black hole like energy field pulsing gently in between the rings. It...seems stable? She's faced towards a screen, looking distraught when Petra enters. She startles a bit with an "eep!" and turns as Petra steps on in. Locking doors takes energy so the Sephirah tend to keep them open except for the end of the evening when work is done for the day. "O-oh! Petra!" Hod can't smile but the antenna sticks straight up and starts wagging around like a tail. "Do you have a suggestion? Angela would have to clear it but...I'd be happy to hear it." She beams steps back a bit so Petra has room to step in. "I've been, um, okay. Aliveish, like everyone else." "I'm glad you're still entirely alive, though! Um. H-how can I help?" She clasps her little robot hands together before snagging a remote and turning off the screen she had been looking at before, seems like it was overlooking somewhere in the Disciplinary Department.
Petra Soroka	Petra shivers and bounces on her toes when Hod's antenna wags, overwhelmed by a sudden surge of cute aggression. The urge to grab her antenna and yank her up into the air and watch her flail around is overpowering, and Petra unconsciously reaches out halfway towards her before stopping herself. Her hand hangs in the air, and Petra clears her throat to refocus. "Ah, um. Right. I mean, I thought I'd run it by you first, since you'd be the one managing it. And you're, like, the one responsible for this stuff, so you'd know best." Fondness for Hod blends into sympathy in some ways. Petra can't help feeling a bit protective of her, in a uniquely personal way that surprises her a little, in a minor, fainter, admittedly sort of pathetic echo of 'like us'. <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Telling someone who's worthless to live for themselves is the same as telling them to kill themselves." <J-IC-Scene> Hod says, nervously, "Did you feel...worthless?" <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "... I'm just trying to understand how you feel. And I-- don't think the rest of everyone's advice comes from, that. Actually acknowledging your feelings." The tentative affirmation of Hod's worth in the company, despite Petra's relationship to Angela, is intentional. Needing to feel useful to the people she'd wronged is a feeling Petra knows extremely well. "So, uh, remember when Cinder got promoted? Or, I guess, what happened before she did. I gave her one of my guns, and she was able to keep herself safer with it during the Meltdown back then." "I was thinking that the clerks could get some training with their guns? I could teach them, run some classes or whatever, but I just think... it could give them better odds. Like, it's already something I know, so it won't cost anything to bring anyone in to teach them, and... yeah. That's it." After fumbling her way through an uncharacteristically-thoughtful request, Petra takes another sip from her medicine pouch, then leans against the wall. "Aliveish, sure, but-- how are you feeling? That shit back before--" The Meltdown, implicitly, but Petra doesn't want to directly confront her on it. "-- doesn't go away after just one day. I just wanted to check in, I guess."
Angela	''And you're, like, the one responsible for this stuff, so you'd know best'' Hod's antenna sticks right back up again before drooping faintly. Her trust in her 'knowing best' about the Training Department has really taken hits as of late, particularly with what happened with Tiffany. It's sort of a mix of uneasiness with disappointing the statement and happiness at hearing it and personal awareness that she's like this. "W-well it is my department, so I'll do my best!" She promises, bobbing her headbody with hopeful if manufactured excitement. "I remember, mhm mhm..." ''I was thinking that the clerks could get some training with their guns'' Hod starts to say something, then makes a show of cupping where her 'chin' would be if she was still humanoid. She seems to be less thinking something over than she is rethinking it over. "Well the guns only have one bullet... The purpose for those guns weren't self defense... That's because bullets are actually really expensive in the City..." She mulls for a moment. "...But they're...not very expensiv out there, right?" She brings her hands together and adds, "I suppose it could potentially be dangerous if they lose their minds...but not any more than Agents, though they're more likely to...." She startles from her own thoughts. "Oh, oh... You're right, I mean, haha, obviously it doesn't! I ... But I'm resolved to be a better person even if..um... I don't want to say 'Try' because--if you start like that it's kind of like giving up immediately right? So I'm try---I'm going to think positively so I don't...so that doesn't happen again."
Petra Soroka	"Oh, right, bullets're expensive here. I could just, go out and buy a few crates of ammo, if that helps." The ease with which Petra suggests becoming an illegal arms dealer would make the Watch proud, if that ship hadn't long since sailed. "I know it's not really the point, but, eh..." "I think... you probably want to give them better odds too, right? If we have to do some risk analysis bullshit showing that the benefits outweigh the costs for the company to convince the Manager, that's fine, but, like... the goal's to help the people here and help the company's goal. I think you want that too, so... just tell me what needs to happen. You'd know better than me." The change in topic isn't exactly easier for Petra, given that she's out of her depth on either side of it. Expressing empathy towards a group, or expressing empathy towards a specific, suffering person, are both things that Petra's notoriously bad at, but at least now, after all this time, each of them have a story she can rely on to guide her. "God, Hod, I'm not worried about you turning into a weird tree thing and wrecking the facility again. That's not-- that's not what I mean. I mean, like-- that whole thing was resolved by talking it out, you know? Not just try-- not just being better all of a sudden." The insistence that Petra has takes herself off-guard a little, even dropping her fidgeting with her trench coat and medicine to focus on Hod. She drums her fingers against the wall behind her, resisting the twitching impulse to pull out a cigarette. Unable to keep up meeting Hod's eye, Petra's gaze slides awkwardly away from her, looking at the corner of the room. "The job's still hard on you. So I just mean... if anything's been especially hard, or upsetting you, or you need help being as helpful as you need to be. You can talk to me. I guess, uh... you probably prefer being relied on instead of relying on people, but... I'm like that too, I guess. So since we both are, we can rely on each other. You know?"
Angela	Hod's antenna gets droopy at the mention of the Manager. Unlike most Sephirah in the facility, Hod feels guilty for what she did to the Manager rather than wanting the Manager to feel guilty for what he did to her. She chose to die in a much more direct way than Malkuth or Chesed or even Netzach. She didn't choose to become a Sephirah, exactly, but she chose to live a new life making up for her failings in her past life. "It's my department so I can... ''insist'' but I don't know if I should insist after what happened with Tiffany and her addiction." But she does like Petra and want to help her, and--It WOULD be nice to do something that works out. "I think... you're right. A risk analysis, um, bullshit would help but I don't think--the main reason we didn't give more bullets to clerks, um, aside from them being seen as relatively..." She doesn't really want to admit the disposable element of clerks. "Not all of them are trained with firearms, so I think if we can keep the cost of bullets down, it wouldn't be a bad idea. They'll never be as useful against Abnormalities as EGO Weapons but it would help a little so long as it doesn't disrupt Agent Training which, um, at this point I don't think it would. The purpose of the guns are--well, it's hard to, um, miss your own head so we didn't really need to train them so--yeah, they'd ned to get good at it. If we can do it without it costing too much I imagine it would convince them." "O-oh, yeah, I mean, I don't think I can become a tree again but--I know it's easy to --it's easier being who you always were rather than what you want to be, right? I mean, it makes sense, you're always practicing who you are instead of who you want to be so..." Does she prefer to be relied on rather than relying on oters. She hesitates, and then nods again furiously that probably doesn't help any anti-bullying initiatives here. "But--we are in this together, you know? So um, I'm happy to...I mean, I don't know if I can be as much help as you've been, but..." She takes in a sharp breath and makes a motion with her 'hands' that is similar to punching a fist into a palm while her antenna swings lazily from side to side. "I'll do my best to be someone you can rely on, Petra! If you think this is a good idea, I'll work day and night on this!"
Petra Soroka	Petra isn't actually sure who Tiffany is, but she really doesn't want to ask. She has no paradigm for dealing with 'addiction', especially without knowing what it is-- sure, Petra smokes way more than she should, but that's still different from, like heroin. Without having an experience to model her response off of, Petra just lets the topic slide past, latching on to the next thing instead. "It totally won't cost much. Like, I can give them the training, and I don't need to be paid anything more than I already am." In any other corporation-- even in this one, really-- this would be a terrible precedent for Petra to set, but she doesn't think about it that way. Lounging in Hod's office, boot kicked back up against the wall, her priorities are far more skewed towards the empathic rather than economic. Helping the clerks, and helping Hod help the clerks so that she feels better. "And I know some guys who make bullets in their garages and stuff. I, like, never buy from proper stores, it's way more expensive. So I can get supplies way cheaper, too." Petra smiles lopsidedly at Hod's cute antics, crossing her arms. Petra can tell she's still kind of avoiding, or maybe fundamentally doesn't understand, exactly what Petra's offering her, but that's alright. Wanting to help Hod isn't just about this one instance-- but this one thing is still one step forwards towards managing to do that. Giving Hod a tiny example of being able to rely on each other through making this training initiative a success might help her be more comfortable with doing it in the future. Petra giggles and punches her fist into her palm in return. "Y-yeah. I'll do my best too, Hod. Give me a call if you need me, with this, or anything."
Angela	Hod doesn't explain it either. Tiffany isn't mentioned much at Lobotomy Corp anymore by anybody but Hod. "Are...you sure you do not wish to be paid more? This is a lot of extra work you're taking on..." Hod is a bundle of nerves, but does at least--for now--have resolve. She intends to hold onto it. It's a small change but if she can change in a small way... Hod IS the sort of person who would prefer to be relied on rather than to rely on others. Most of the Sephirah are like that, really, which is partly why they even have big Meltdowns rather than constant small outbursts or something more stable. These are people who struggle to hold in all their problems in order to be 'reliable' and then burst when the weight of that becomes too much. But it's a good step to start with one project. Hod does seem...anxiously hopeful about it. She wants it to go well but is still worried bout it flopping or killing someone--so starting with one project is probably what she can handle right now. So Petra's not really wrong at all there! Hod says, "R-right! You can count on me!" Then she makes a noise like a washing machine clearing its throat. "Right! You can count on me!" Then she remembers that repeating the phrase but 'more confidently' doesn't exactly work so... "Um, Petra...I should warn you, actually. Gebura's been looking for you. About what happened on the Union Busan." She hesitates. "I don't know what you've heard about her but... Be careful okay?" Gebura could probably destroy Hod with a look but she doesn't want Petra to be caught unawares by the Color.