Thread: A Place In This World (Collector of Rarities x Nobodysangel)

Before the advent of the internet, taking college classes without having even finished middle school would have been a problem. The nice part about the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was that it put a lot of it's coursework and seminars online for free for anyone to use. They didn't ask questions about things she didn't want to talk about, like why she'd never finished eighth grade officially, or why her mail was forwarded to the Jackson Prescott Memorial Rescue Mission, or why she was doing all of her coursework from a library in the Bronx rather than her own home. Lots of people just asked so many questions, and Ris didn't like it particularly. After all, why should she want to field questions that she didn't know the answers to herself? She'd been huddled up in a corner of the Bronx Library since they'd opened at eight am the shelter didn't let anyone stay on premises during the day, so most of the people went and did various things during the day. Ris rode the subway for an hour or so until the library opened and then spent her day there, refilling a water bottle from the water fountain and surreptitiously creating copies of the little bag of Chex Mix she'd bought two weeks ago. She was very, very careful not to do that where anyone could see her if there was one thing that the Facility capital F it was a very capital first letter sort of place, all uniforms and white walls and people trying to 'scare her straight'. What they wanted to scare her away from she never quite understood had taught her, it was to never, never let anyone else see what she could do. It made people afraid and angry, and so she hid in the bathroom stall and turned the molecules of stacks and stacks of paper towels into snack sized bags of Chex Mix for her daily meals. She posed a strange picture to most people used to a certain 'image' of the homeless. She was young, tall and painfully thin, bundled up in a heavy coat that came down to her knees, open to expose her faded red tee shirt and threadbare blue jeans. Her sneakers had obviously seen better days, though they were new enough to not have the soles worn through yet. A large backpack sat beside her as she curled up in the chair in front of one of the library computers, idly reading through scientific journals and research papers. Ever since she'd been released from the Facility, she had devoured books, online seminars, free Internet courses and everything else she could get her hands on. It made her happy when few things else in the world did right now, and the fact that she had people to talk to, people that liked to discuss science and literature, music and history and mathematics with her and didn't care to even ask anything else about her. She was simply TheBoisterousKumquat, and that was wonderfully liberating. And then Dr. Hyde had mentioned wanting to meet her, and she had, to her own shock, accepted. They'd taken an online microbiology course together and they'd gotten along quite well and now Dr. Hyde wanted to meet her. He'd explained that he'd meet her at a public place for safety and comfort's sake, what he'd be wearing and what he'd look like. So, instead of reading and picking up another class or four, she was simply sitting in her chair, staring at the door, arranging her pieces of Chex Mix into piles of the individual pieces. Her shaggy, unevenly cut brown hair hung in her face, her blue-gray eyes focused and intent as she concentrated on the door, wondering if she would recognize him when he came in. The idea of meeting and talking with a real person was more than a little frightening, but she reasoned that she couldn't just hide behind a computer screen forever, and it would be nice to actually have a real, living friend for once.