week four - sunday morning - guy

[arockstar]

[Newt hasn't been able to find Guy in the main temple, and he's still not super jazzed about venturing into the west wing, so here's hoping he's in the east. And, luckily, he is, hanging out by the fire pit and... tinkering with something? Hm.

Newt takes a seat near the fire, but not too close to Guy. Go figure, people seem to find him untrustworthy since the trial. Everyone's been keeping their distance, for the most part. He'll mimic that for, like, comfort, or whatever.]

What are you working on?

Comments

[menially]

[Whatever it is, it's small, and Guy's using some actual recognizable tools as he fiddles around. He'll stall for a second when he catches Newt out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn't come to a full stop until the other man starts to talk.

Just. Deadpan as he looks over at him.]

A new brain for the next person that asks that. Come on, what the hell do you take me for?

[Just going right back to it.]

You like making it a game, right? Take a guess.

[arockstar]

[That gets a genuine laugh.]

Well, you're definitely doing something with all that weird tech that showed up in the lab. You're the only person that knows what to do with it, after all.

[He leans back in his chair.]

Do you know anything about how our brand of technology works? Motors and the like?

[menially]

There's manuals in there just like there is for anything else. It's not like I meant for it to be kept for myself.

[A shrug. He's pretty sure this is bait, but whatever.]

Theoretically. Took some reading, but it just looks like a difference in terms more than anything else. Thermodynamics for you is basics of third and fifth for me - stuff like that. Motors exist where I'm from, too, you know. They're just powered differently. [He holds out his little... whatever it is. Half a cylinder of some sort? It looks awfully small for the clunk of fontech.] You guys have learned how to condense things, too. Makes our stuff look kind of primitive.

[arockstar]

[Yeah but like who reads manuals???]

Hm. I wonder if that's all talk, but it doesn't matter. You went to check out the carnival last week, didn't you?

[There's a grin.]

I'm surprised you fell for my trick with the generator. Ever figure out what I was up to?

[menially]

[What a jerk.]

You didn't leave a lot left to work with, so no. You went through an awful lot of trouble to make it look like someone didn't know what they were doing, but to destroy something that thoroughly on accident would have been impossible without getting injured in the process.

[arockstar]

Ah, there you go. That's the detail we missed. Why didn't you speak up at trial? Didn't want to implicate yourself?

[Given that Guy is one of the mechanical types, and Newt absolutely would've tried to pin the tampering on him or one of the others had it come up.]

Hector grabbing the cables overrode the generator, hence the damage. It wasn't a hard puzzle to solve, and yet I'm not sure the masses ever managed it.

[menially]

People had resigned to Hector's cause of death at that point - we saw the burn marks on the cables well enough. We just mixed up what caused the shock.

[If he's trying to make Guy super irritated, it's working. But at least the dude is keeping his composure together.]

I didn't think twice about it at the time. Given how much we had to juggle during that damn trial, I would have had to have a good reason for bringing that kind of conclusion up without enough evidence to back it up, or it would have just led us in more circles. Anyone can fake damage. Even if I'd suspected it was someone that knew what they were doing, that wasn't enough proof on its own.

Guess it didn't really help matters either way, though.

[arockstar]

You really think someone who didn't know how to rig up an electrical trap would bother trying in the first place? We have practically unlimited options for killing each other in this temple. Why not choose something safer? Electricity is unpredictable to the uninitiated.

[menially]

[A scoff.]

Do you really put it past people in this temple to be that stupid in a panic?

[arockstar]

I really don't.

[He laughs.]

But the fact remains that it was suspicious as hell. You know there's others out there like me, right? Playing up their own innocence, taking advantage of everyone else trusting their word and their abilities.

[menially]

Of course. With the stakes that the gods are giving us, the longer we go with this competition, the more that kind of thing's going to be leaking out. People aren't that damn simple.

[As far as how suspicious the generator was, he's not going to address that Newt is correct, and that he had, indeed, made the wrong choice. Newt knows it, he knows it. No sense giving him any more fuel for that fire.

He pauses, pointedly staring up at Newt with an expression that's hard to read, serious without being completely angry.]

Was it worth it?

[arockstar]

You're not wrong there. Better step up your game.

[His chin tips downward.]

You're going to have to be more specific.

[menially]

Taking that sort of risk. Killing all those people, setting us all up, only to get caught.

Was it worth it for your wish?

[arockstar]

[He nods as Guy gives him the answer he was expecting. There's a smile, but there's something reserved about it.]

No.