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[hippie_ninja]

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[hippie_ninja]

Stars were one of the things he was grateful for in the early days, after all the cities went dark. He grew up in the DC area, where sodium vapor lamps choked the Milky Way into a uniform darkness overhead. He tries to remember the last time, though, that he stopped to take in the constellations overhead and he can't.

He will tonight, he decides. Even if it's just for a minute or two.

"What was it like inside the biome?"

[konstant]

"Crowded," he chuckles, but like there is a part of him that was programmed to be angry with rogue replicants to do his job better, there's a part of him that is forever attached to Los Angeles as his city.

"The biome was built to keep the conditions inside it hospitable for human life. You can hear the air purifiers constantly, and the vent systems controlling the temperature. There's a shield to stand in for the ozone layer and to keep out radiation, and walls all the way around to support all of it. So the air always smells the same, and feels the same, and no one that's saying anything knows where the ash that falls all the time now comes from - probably a by product of the vents. There are storms sometimes that get through but who knows what you're standing in."

[hippie_ninja]

"I can imagine it. But I don't think what I'm picturing is anything like what it was like." He shakes his head slightly. "I remember smog. I remember there were days the air seemed thick and yellow with it sometimes."

[konstant]

"What city was that?" Jesus has seen one of K's memories but that doesn't sound like this now. That wouldn't be a memory he'd expect Jesus to talk about.

[hippie_ninja]

"Washington D.C." He looks up at K and adds, "Before the walkers. When we still had traffic. When we still had cars."

[konstant]

"That was the first major city to collapse in my timeline," he offers, no opinion about it either way. That was before he was activated. It's a name on a map and a handful of surviving pictures.

"That was where you lived?"

[hippie_ninja]

"I don't remember which one fell first." They'd all fallen in the same week.

"I was born there. I grew up there. But before this, I lived in a small farming community. ...I think you would've liked the farm."

[konstant]

He hears farm and thinks of the miles and miles of uniform white tents on gray, wasteland sands in northern California. He knows it's not what Jesus means, but like the biome in reverse, he can't really picture it.

"Tell me about it?" Then, remembering that he's seen at least part of it, and remembering how Jesus had reacted outside the Listening Room: "If you want."

[hippie_ninja]

"We had cows and horses. We were the first place for more than a day's drive that did. We grew our own crops, corn and beets and turnips. When I first moved in I liked to wake up early and walk around. I could smell the dew on the leaves and it smelled different than waking up in the forest."

He's homesick and it hurts, but he swallows it down for the chance to share the imagery with someone who lived behind walls, away from anything remotely green.

[konstant]

K sighs gently, a slow deep inhale and a soft exhale as he thinks about it. Pictures it, or tries to anyway. He has no idea what corn and beets and turnips smell like; he's only just getting used to dew on leaves.

But Jesus is leaning against him and he feels that hitch of movement, and his fingers squeeze ever so slightly around the other man's shoulder.

"I've never seen a real horse. Or cows, but -" The horses catch his attention. "I used to see them in movies. I always thought I'd like seeing a living one."

[hippie_ninja]

"I wish we could leave the city. I'd stay in the program, maybe I'd even have an easier time with it, if they'd let us get out into the country." The noise and the crowds make him jumpy sometimes where they never did before. He doesn't want to think about it right now or it will start him listening for trouble where there is none and he knows there is none.

"You like Westerns?" He's not sure how many other types of film feature horses.

[konstant]

"I know someone who has a home outside the city. He let me stay the night there when I first arrived." It had been the most miraculous, unlooked for blessing, even if it would have been too quiet for him to sleep if he hadn't been half dead still.

"Yes. Westerns." Not that he'd forgotten the name but he wasn't sure it would be recognized the same. "They're very dramatic. I like the animals in them."

[hippie_ninja]

"My friend lives out there. It's beautiful, his house and the land. I almost wish I could contract with someone who had that freedom." It might make all this a little more bearable.

[konstant]

He smiles, a little when he remembers that they have some of the same friends so there's a non-zero chance it's the same friend.

What he focuses on though is, "Why couldn't you?"

[hippie_ninja]

"I wouldn't want to get him in trouble even if he could contract with me. I'm waiting on someone who won't be collateral when I get into trouble." Or who will be acceptable collateral, rather.

[konstant]

"But why couldn't it be someone else that lives away from the city if not him?"

Just to be sure he's not missing anything.

[hippie_ninja]

"Everyone who lives out there seems to be established. They don't want new subs." Especially not troublemakers, he's pretty sure.

[konstant]

K nods, letting it go. If they were in Los Angeles he'd have more resources, he'd know who to ask. Not here.

"Are you talking about Vrenille?" he asks instead.

[hippie_ninja]

"He's my friend out there," he nods. "Why?"

[konstant]

K smiles.

"That's the person I was talking about, too," is all.

[hippie_ninja]

"He takes good care of people," he says, a note of admiration in it. "And he's been here for years. I hope I'm like that when I've settled in."

[konstant]

"I think you will be," he offers. K owes him a lot, after all, and he's seen him even just at work with other people.

"If you still want to, when you have the resources in line."