raspberryturk | Room 504, The Arms Hotel, Sunday Evening

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Room 504, The Arms Hotel, Sunday Evening

Okay, so there'd been that dance last night. And there'd been training with Ghanima, and plenty of drinking, and then Fight Club, and now there was to be even more drinking. Because that was just how Reno rolled.

He'd kind of given up on the two-mouthful drinks that could be purchased from the minibar, and so he'd made a ~~handwavey~~ booze run earlier in the day, and he was now good and stocked up with everything from Absolut to the ingredients to slosh together a Flaming Zombie.

The name seemed fitting. Reno kinda had to, here.

Oh yeah, and there were the partners in crime.

[Come one, come all! The booze is free!]

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"Nooo," Ino said, leaning over to poke at him. "Not nice at all, but that's okay. I've heard enough 'bout your couch that I'd rather the floor."

She could bring a sleeping bag!

"Then you got the ferret tryin' to wiggle under the covers with you," Reno laughed. "An' buryin' Rude's shoes in there, too. Can't really win, yo."

Ino bubbled a laugh. "Maybe I'll spend the weekend out explorin' instead."

Reno smirked, at that, though there was something in it that was almost strained.

"I'll make you a map, yo. Check out this place, with the flowers, an' that place, with the overpass I blew up. Avoid these spots here, 'cause the Mako radiation will kill you and that'd suck..."

"That would suck," she said, leaning back. "Guess that means I gotta stick 'round with you."

Even if she really did want to just go wandering.

"Rough life," Reno snorted, and then downed another swig from his bottle. "Me or Rude or whoever. You're mostly safe if you pay attention to the signs the WRO's got up around Midgar, though. We buried an' burned enough dumbfucks, we don't want more people stumblin' back with blue eyes an' then fallin' into comas they ain't gonna wake up from."

"Already got blue eyes," Ino said, considering her bottle. "How much radiation does it take to get coma'd?"

That wasn't a word, Ino.

Ino laughed. "I'm sure Rude would be delighted to babysit me, geez."

"Brighter blue eyes," Reno corrected. "Like mine. Hell, brighter. You saw Zack's? That's mako-blue, yo. Most people don't make it that far. Problem with Mako radiation is that if you're wanderin' in it, you might not even notice if it's low enough. It don't leave the system, though. It builds up. You got that for life."

So, really, a quick jog through the restricted areas probably wouldn't kill anyone. But it wasn't exactly doing them any big favors, either. The serious mako enhancements happened in controlled conditions, in medical facilities and laboratories. Not wandering around the rubble in what used to be Sector Zero.

"His eyes are really noticeable. Any way to purify that out of the ground?" Ino asked, figuring that if she wanted to still get to go to Gaia she'd better stop asking questions about things that he might think she wanted to do.

When, really, Ino had no wish to get coma'd or anything.

She was just curious. That's all.

Reno shook his head.

"Nothin' that don't involve technology that we don't got access to anymore," he replied. "We could'a, a few years back, before Midgar fell. But Midgar took ShinRa with it, an' people would'a rather died of Geostigma before lettin' survivin' ShinRa doctors try to find cures for that stuff. It's a waitin' game, yo. The mako'll seep back into the dirt, go back down to the lifestream or whatever, and that'll be that."

A pause.

"I kinda wanna know if plants'll grow in that soil, honestly. Things on my world pull their life from the lifestream, not from the dirt. But then there's no tellin' if what grows in it is even safe to eat, yo."

"If it starts glowing, you shouldn't eat it," Ino said dryly. "But beyond that you'd need people to poke at the plants on a molecular level. I wouldn't be able to tell just from looking at them, and getting people to eat them and see is a really bad idea."

Maybe it'd be like plants on steroids? Giant beans!

"You know where all the areas are, yeah?"

"Near where all the old reactors used to be, yeah. Some of 'em still got some reserves of mako left in 'em, which could be used to power damn near anything from cars to friggin' life support systems for the sick an' dyin', but again, nobody wants to touch that shit no more."

Sigh. Scowl. People were stubborn and he hated it, dammit.

"I'd probably have to take a few samples of plants, if we can get 'em to grow in that mess, an' send 'em off to someone who is still science-minded, yo. But that'd probably take some kinda knowledge of what is and ain't safe levels of mako radiation in the first place."

She took another sip of her bottle. "Throw seeds in, on the outskirts of an area," Ino said. "See if anything happens. No doubt you can throw far enough to stick away from the radiation, and if things start growing, then you can figure out what to do next and how to get the plants. Important thing is to see if they'd grow."

"I already had my doses of mako," Reno replied with a snort. "Gettin' in and outta there fast enough to plant and grab probably wouldn't be a big issue for me anyhow, so long as I got Ghanima's trainin' behind me, too."

Seriously. Run in, drop seeds, flee. Run in, grab leaves, flee again. Don't blink, you'll miss it.

"I think the big thing would be findin' stuff that can grow in the sand, without too much water. Midgar's been sittin' in the middle of a desert for what's gotta be more than twenty years, now. I dunno, I ain't been around that long, myself."

She considered that for a moment.

"I'll think about it," she said, frowning. "And try to think of something that doesn't need a whole tree to grow before you can eat anything off of it. Maybe prickly pears."

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Room 504, The Arms Hotel, Sunday Evening

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