fandomtownies | Diaz & Ass., Monday [07/05].

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Technically speaking, this wasn't Rosa's job anymore. When shit got weird, she no longer had any obligation to invest even a second of her time dealing with it anymore. But there were people...buildings!....going missing, apparently falling down holes that no one else could locate after the fact, for a week now, and...well, it wasn't that she cared or anything like that, it was just that she had a building and was a person, so it was really just in her best interest to help try and figure out what was happening before any actual buildings (hers) and people she cared about (herself; Tightpants, too, probably, by proxy) were affected.

So she was using her time in her office that day, pouring over some information, seeing what pieces could be put together. Maps of the island, the fact that all this started when that donut place came in, radio transcripts. The usual. And if she happened to come across anything interesting, she supposed she'd take it to the library or the town hall (or, ugh, maybe even the trooper station), like you just did with these kinds of things.

If it weren't for the fact that she actually kind of enjoyed doing this crap, she might be a little pissed off about the fact that she was no longer getting paid to do this sort of thing.

Diaz & Ass. is open!

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Miguel at least knew Rosa well enough to guess what she'd be doing today, and he was a good (and inquisitive and reluctantly heroic) boyfriend, so he followed her down with a gallon jug of cold-brew coffee, corned beef sandwiches, and himself in his Spider-Man outfit.

"Find anything yet?"

And Rosa appreciated that stupid Spider-Man suit almost as much as the cold brew.

Almost.

It was enough to soften her sigh a little bit, anyway, at the question, even if she expected it, and she looked at everything spread over her desk like she just wanted to throw it all in the ocean. Or one of those holes.

"A bunch of loose threads I can't quite tie together," she admitted. "Maybe if a few more buildings disappeared, I'd have something. Maybe today we'll get lucky."

Disappearing buildings was totally luck. Especially if it wasn't hers.

"This may sound crazy," she then added, "but I think those raccoons with the donuts are involved."

A beat.

"What am I talking about? That's exactly the kind of thing it would be around here."

"Definitely," Miguel agreed. "Ugh. Because they got here at the same time, or is there more to it?"

"...maybe," said Rosa, after a moment to frown down at her map of the island. "Probably. With the exception of the firehouse and the firefighter," who she hadn't met yet but was probably the worst just based on being a firefighter and therefore no big loss there, "things seem to have amped up on Wednesday, after the activity. Which was sponsored by..."

She'd let him fill in the blank.

"All I'm saying," she added, "is I bet if we had a look at their donut delivery logs, there might be some interesting correlations."

"UGH," Miguel said even more heartfelt. He remembered those stupid doughnuts.

"Wonder if we could get our hands on those." He screwed his face up thoughtfully. "Maybe I should follow one of them, try to see where their shop or base or whatever is."

Rosa couldn't help smirking a little at that prospect.

"Worth a shot," she reasoned, especially if it was him doing the sneaking. "I wonder if we could lure them out by ordering some to be delivered to, like, Skywalker's house or the flower shop..."

Rosa.

"Try to stake it out or something. I wonder if Blackstone would be willing to use her shop as bait..."

Because she definitely wasn't doing it here.

"Worth a shot," Miguel said.

His phone buzzed, and he took it out. "Hey, it's from Dwight!" He opened it in a hurry, but the message was a bizarre mix of symbols and visual static. He typed out a quick message in reply, just in case. "Either the missing people are alive wherever they are, or his phone is and has been texting on its own."

He wouldn't rule either out.

Rosa's chin lifted with interest, as if trying to see the message on the phone from where she sat without moving too much.

"What's it say?" she asked. "Can you....trace it or anything? See where it's coming from?"

That was definitely more his thing than hers. When it came to technology, Rosa considered herself lucky when she managed to go through a whole day without just throwing some device out a window or just breaking it out of frustration.

Miguel showed her the screen. "I can't even read it. Since he probably hasn't started suddenly speaking in weird static, I'm going to guess something's interfering. Doesn't leave us with much. If I'd caught it in progress, maybe I could have traced it, but not now."

He fiddled with his phone. "I'll see if I can set something up if I get another one. And try catching a raccoon meanwhile."

Rosa...was still jotting that down, as best as she could, leaning in and squinting a little to try to help determine exactly how to transcribe some of what got scrambled.

If anything, she could send it to Santiago, who would probably see it as a fun and exciting challenge, because Santiago was the nerdiest person Rosa knew, and Rosa knew...so...so many nerds.

She frowned at the nonsense for a moment before nodding. "Sounds like a plan," she said. "If you get anything, we can add it to the pile."

Miguel nodded. Then he grinned and flipped her a salute. "Looks like I'm off to do some chasing. Should I back out or turn around first?"

Hey, he wasn't only wearing the outfit to chase down raccoons.

Edited 2021-07-05 23:44 (UTC)

Rosa wondered if she should have even bothered holding back her smirk; it was clearly a losing battle, even for her.

"Maybe a few piroettes," she suggested. "Cover both sides. Feel free to take your time. Those raccoons aren't going anywhere."

"Hey, I'm not the ballerina," Miguel protested, but he was still grinning, and obligingly did at least one slow turn on the way out.

"Don't get swallowed by a hole while I'm out, okay?"

Diaz & Ass., Monday [07/05].

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