Chuckle. “Well, let’s see… breaking and entering, trespassing, destruction of property racketeering, theft, illegal surveillance, and assault. ‘Course, if anyone asks, I made all that up ‘cause I’m a dumb kid.” Kaitlyn smirked. Being raised by the Order gave her quite the résumé.

“And my name isn’t ‘kid,’ it’s ‘Firecracker.’ I’ll try not to be a bad influence on you, kid.”

That was quite the rap sheet for someone who didn't look like they could even drive yet. But being a mutant could sort of jump start you in that manner. Tses laughed slightly at the last remark. "Can't be a bad influence on me, I don't have a rap sheet to add to. Makes it nice when you don't exist." She smirked slightly, eyes scanning the street for something else to get into. That was only half true, at least since a few months back when the cops tried to charge her for murder. Another mutant had killed some police officers and she almost got blamed for it. But they still only had a name to peg her with, and as far as she knew, those charges got dropped.

Up ahead, the smell of one of the food vendors made it's way through the cold winter air. "You hungry at all?" She asked 'Firecracker. What was with mutants and code-names anyway...

Shrug. “I could eat. Maybe a pretzel or something” Adults tended to assume kids her age don’t run around with a lot of money. Kaitlyn didn’t plan on informing her otherwise; maybe she’d score a bit of free food.

“And technically I died a few years ago.” Or, at least, the cops who might have looked into it probably assumed she was dead by now. She wasn’t on the FBI’s missing kids list anymore. Dead kids couldn't get rap sheets.

Tses scanned the street vendors, but no pretzel stands immediately stood out. Plenty of hot dogs though. Apparently in the vendor if you had a food cart, it needed to have some sort of grill food on it. "There might be Chinese food around the corner, but I don't think there are any pretzel stands on this end of the city. Unless you go to a movie or something." Not that she really went to those often.

Tses glanced at 'Firecracker' as she talked about technically being dead. In the end she just shrugged. "Guess I wasn't younger than you when I was technically dead. Gives you freedom to do what you want at least." The sounds of sirens were getting more distant. Hopefully the old lady just made a fuss for nothing and the cops realized it was just a harmless prank.

“Chinese works.” Kaitlyn didn’t have anywhere to be – she was just walking home from staying at a friend’s place. Which home, she hadn’t decided on yet. She could just wait in the Chinese place while all of this blew over.

They were silent, for a while. Then: “So, how’d that happen to you? Technically dying.”

Tses started weaving through the foot traffic to find the Chinese food place. Like any good New Yorker, she crossed the street before the light had changed and chuckled slightly at 'Firecracker's' question. "Well, I never went to school or anything, so I was never in the system that way. And then dad decided to make himself some enemies who burned down the house when I was thirteen. You know, with us inside. So technically I died in a burning building."

She could still feel some of those burns on her skin, in many ways surprised she ever made it out of that house. She thought about other things though, not wanting to focus on those memories much.

Kaitlyn tilted her head, deep in thought.

Then, she came to a conclusion: “You’d need to have another dead girl in the house with her teeth busted out, for the cops to look at her and think it was you, to think you were dead. Else they’d just count you missing.” Shrug. “Prolly doesn’t matter, though.” Dead, missing; if they weren’t looking for you, it was all the same.

“…Is it creepy if I think about stuff like that a lot?”

Tses shrugged. "I'm not sure dental records would have helped them much, considering I didn't have the sort of parents who took me to any form of dentist or doctor. I might'ta had a baby fingerprint in the system when I was born, but after then, I just stopped existing. Been over seven years anyway since that fire. Even without proof they probably counted it... Hospital only knew me as a Jane Doe..."

It was weird talking about the whole thing in such a casual manner. She never really stopped to question what the authorities really would have thought about the missing Isiksenn daughter. As far as the world knew, they only really had one kid. She was lost in the shadows. "And nah, it's not creepy. At least, I don't think it is. Unless you're killing someone else and faking dental records to convince the police they're you... Then that's a little creepy. But mostly because rearranging someones teeth that way is nasty." She shivered. It almost took away her appetite for food.

“Well, I mean, if you just sorta find the body…”

Something like that is a lot easier when you’re in the Order, and you know a guy, who knows a guy… but really, just what the hell is that guy doing? Stealing the body from a morgue? Or…? “Okay yeah that’s still pretty creepy.” If she ever needed to call on a favor like that, she’d try not to think too hard about it. “As long as it works, though…”

They came through the door. The hostess approached them almost immediately. “Welcome! Will it just be the two of you?”

Finding a body? Yes, still creepy. Tses was never quite that desperate to disappear, and certainly never desperate to deal with bodies or even think about it and...

Creepy.

She shook it off though. To each their own. They were at the restaurant and once inside the smell of food wafted around. Tses nodded to the hostess, and they were soon seated at one of the tables. She couldn't remember the last time she ate indoors like this. Usually what she ate was snatched and grabbed on the run. It felt good to get off her leg though. "Pick what you want." She said with a casual shrug. She wasn't really paying for it in the long run. The wallet was.

She sat down, scanned the menu. “I still don’t know your name. It would help, since we’re supposed to be cousins.” That was the story they would be going with for the next half hour or so. Like anyone would ask.

Well, names were helpful. "My name is Tses. T-s-e-s. First S is silent." She shrugged. While it didn't matter when you said it out loud, the spelling made a big difference if you were actually trying to claim you knew her. She was NOT a Tess, thank you very much.

Scanning the menu for a moment, looking for any familiar words, Tses set the menu down and decided it might be safer asking for the specials when the waitress returned. She didn't like this kid enough to have her read to her. That would be dump. "And yours? I'm pretty sure I can't introduce you as Firecracker to everyone..." She chuckled smuggly. She could imagine THAT police report.

Kaitlyn considered Tses’s request in silence. If that was even her name.

Eventually, she shrugged. “Eh. I guess it couldn’t hurt. I’m Katie. K-A-T-I-E.” It was close enough to her real name that she’d answer to it, but still not her real name. "It’s short for Katherine. But it's really not that weird for mutants to make up new names like 'Firecracker' for themselves." As she had tried to explain to her friends. But at least Mars would understand, or Syn, or any of her unofficial uncles. They all went by names like that.

Shade did, too, of course, but he was a jerk.

Tses shrugged her shoulders, leaning back in her chair slightly. "I knew a few people with code names, but it just never was my style. I mean, a name's a name in my book. I guess it's different if the cops can like look you up or something, but I don't think an alias will save you much from that... still look like you." She rambled herself to a pause, and then the waitress arrived. Tses asked the special, and she rattled off something that sounded good. Tses just decided to have that.

Once 'Katie' had picked out what she wanted, Tses yawned and took a sip of the water on the table. It tasted ok. Not like soap like one of the restaurants she dined at awhile back. She never understood why people put lemons in water until that day...

She hadn’t even thought about the practical reasons for getting a new name. “Actually, it’s more about distancing yourself from your old life as a human, before your X-gene kicked in. New name, new life.” That’s what one of the guys at the Sanctuary told her. That’s why the idea of getting a new name seemed so good.

Then, more quietly: “So, uh, how do you get good at picking pockets?” Kait-

Firecracker. She had to stop thinking of herself as ‘Kaitlyn.’

As we were saying, Firecracker was never any good at picking pockets, back when she resorted to petty thievery to survive.