He'd been enjoying his music so much. Jamming out as he jogged, air guitaring like no one was watching. He kept forgetting it was raining - really raining, pouring hard enough that whenever he noticed the wet as something more then puddles to dramatically shatter across the world he also noticed the his shoulders were kind of numb from the impact - but that was probably why no one was watching.

Memo didn't have the slightest idea where he was going, but that didn't bother him at all.  And why should it, really?  He always trusted his phone to get him home. Besides, what was the worst that could happen to him? He had no money, no bank cards, his clothes were worn enough to show that his identity wasn't worth stealing and he wasn't worth robbing.

Although his socks were freaking sweet today.  If wet.  They really were super soggy, and his faded runners.  They were squishing and squeaking and almost audible over his music-

and then suddenly they were completely audible over his music, because his music had stopped in the middle of a song.  Memo slowed to a walk, fishing out his phone and poking at the screen a few times.

His phone didn't turn on.

He pushed and held the power button for a while, and was briefly greeted by a flashing battery sign.

Um.

So.

...

So, uh, something about not knowing where he was or how to get home?

Roach wasn't the biggest fan of running. Skipping, skittering, sprinting, all fine, darling, S words. R words were reserved for him, of course. He was currently skittering after a certain someone he'd had his eye on for some time. This particular target had made a scene a few times in the city, evidently by dying horrible deaths in public. This piqued the giant bugs interest, considering that was also a talent he had.

Not the dying part, mind you, but the coming back soon after.

It was like they were twins!

Surely, one could not tell them apart were they compared juxtaposition. Perhaps not. Fraternal twins, maybe?

The odd looking death artist had suddenly slowed in his gait, causing the trench-coat laden bug to dart behind the nearest obstacle. Had he been spotted? He peeked out slowly, an oversized fedora and shadows doing a decent job at hiding who he was exactly.

He looked... lost.

Roach paused for a second, and then shrugged. Now was as good a time as ever, right?

"Pst! PSSSSSST! Hey! Hey you! With the nice hat! Come into this dark alley with me! I have something for you!" Would that work? That sounded odd, didn't it? The whisper he used was loud and exaggerated. Anyone would be able to hear it.

Hm. Hmmmmmmm. How was he going to get out of this?

He pulled out his phone again and poked at it some more, just in case.

Mid-poke, Memo heard a voice through the rain and turned towards it, sort of ear-first and then in not-quite-stages trailing afterwards. He peered back up the way he'd come, and straightened up when he spied the sort of shape.

A person!

Memo put his phone away again and ambled over, shoes squish-squishing as he splashed through some puddles. His feet were rather wet. They would probably get cold at this rate, if he kept noticing. Actually, pretty much all of them was sodden. Whatever, apparently this complete stranger hiding in a dark alley had something for him!

This complete stranger with taste, that was. Memo patted the brim of his hat fondly, letting the little bell on the pointed top jingle a little, and continued to approach the alley.

After all, what was the worst that could happen?

Oh, my! That had actually worked! Like a dog who had finally caught his tail, and was unsure what to do in response, Roach was suddenly unsure what to do in response. He looked around the alley for a moment. It was one of those ones that ended with a fence, and had a dumpster in it.

You know, like virtually every alley in New York City.

He heard a jingly bell, and was distracted momentarily by it. As Memo approached, it took all of his concentration not to jingle the bell himself.

"Oh, right, salutations old boy! Jolly good to meet you! I must tell you, it is usually a spot of bad sense to wander into an alley invited by a stranger!" He spoke in a cheerful English dialect, holding out a hand to shake. "However, I shall introduce myself to make it so you are instead being invited by an acquaintance, and thus, your decision shall be decidedly less daft! I am known as Roach in these parts!"

Jingle the bell. Jingle the bell. No! Don't do it!

He reached out and jingled the bell. "Pardon. Bit of a compulsion issue I have. Terribly rude of me, mister..." He waited for the name of his fellow alley conversationalist to be revealed. Of course, the giant bug had rumors and ideas of the man's name, but it was all just that. He wanted concrete details. This was, after all, a bit of an assessment.

The shadowy, not-really-human-shaped-and-therefore-mutant person seemed to be looking around, but Memo didn't see anyone else. Eh, if this was a trap, what would happen? He might lose his phone, and he'd probably die. The odds of remembering either were rather dramatically low.

But hey, a hand to shake! Memo reached out one of his own, automatically giving a quick glance to be sure that he was wearing a glove and therefore not about to randomly spurt blood everywhere. All was well! And this cheery fellow even liked bells! Memo's hat really was the best, and he gave it a bob in encouragement. So much the best!

"Oh! I'm Memo. Not quite as direct, but I do kind of go through a lot of notes. Plus it was always kind of a nickname from my middle name, and I find it a lot easier to stick with some habits." Some mutants really didn't like having anything to do with their birth names, while others couldn't stand the self-generated names others used. "Alleys really don't bother me. So, what do you need?"

Roach noted the gloves. Low control over his mutation, or was he simply a neat freak? The statement about not minding alleys told him otherwise. He would have to find out more about that.

"Memo! What a wonderful name!" Roach's hand moved to his maw, tapping the bottom of it as if he were tapping a chin. "Now, you may think me a bit silly to ask, but, mister Memo, you wouldn't happen to be a mutant, would you? You could just be wearing makeup after leaving some sort of hippie dance gathering, after all."

He danced around Memo, so that he was more toward the entrance of the alley, turning and leaning against the wall on an extended hand.

"Because if you were, I might say our meeting was more than chance!" Of course it was, he'd followed him here, but he couldn't exactly tell Memo he'd been stalking him for the better part of an hour.

Sometimes, Memo was almost sad that he was in that awkward place between human-appearing and mutant-appearing, so that people could mistake him for a really weird human. It usually didn't last very long, though. It required rather more memory than he had to spare to keep track of transient moods like that.

"I can't even cover this with make up," Memo answered, still cheery. "Assuming I'd want to. And that make up actually comes in my skin tone. I'm pretty sure my mother complained about it a lot when I still lived with her." Where was she now? Hm.

"A hippie dance gathering does sound kind of fun, though. Are there actually those around? Might be interesting to check one out sometime. If I remember." Which he most likely - but not definitely! - would not.

Wait, had he actually answered the question? The question, which was... oh! If he were a mutant or not. "So yes. Mutant. Hard to keep dead mutant," he added with the casual, not at all bothered recognition of so-many-alleys-can't-even-remember-all-the-deaths-and-you-think-you-are-being-subtle.

Roach's antennae perked up at Memo's answer to the mutant question. He'd known the answer for a good bit, now, but he had to approach under the assumption that he knew nothing bout the undying mutant. The truth was he didn't know as much as he wanted to know. That was why he was here.

"A hippie dance gathering does sound kind of fun, though. Are there actually those around? Might be interesting to check one out sometime. If I remember."

His head tilted. "If you remember? Are we possessing a troubled memory, Mister Memo?" A possible side effect of his mutation, perhaps? Or maybe he was just the forgetful type. "I hope it isn't too bad."

"So yes. Mutant. Hard to keep dead mutant,"

There it was. Hard to keep dead... Interesting. "My my! It must be fate, then! What if I told you I was also quite hard to keep dead? Yes, our meeting here by chance might be more than happenstance after all! Do tell me more about yourself Mister Memo! I find you fascinating!"

He leaned against the wall of the alley, crossing his arms across his chest, and listening intently.

"Do you work?" It would seem a somewhat out of the blue question, but there it was. How easily could he aquire this mutant's talents for the cause? He seemed a bit whispy in his thought pattern... Maybe naive, maybe not all there? Either way, everymutant could he useful if applied correctly.

Memo shrugged. "I get by. I kind of remember things too well is all. Only so much space." This Roach guy was pretty interesting! And fun to talk to, honestly. For all that they were in an alley.

Was there any particular reason they were in an alley? In the rain?

His feet were cold. "Plus I get distracted easily." His left big toe was itchy. That was very distracting. Then again, Roach was interesting enough to look at to be distracting too. So many distractions!

And another one! Being hard to keep dead didn't seem especially common, but Memo also couldn't say that it was particularly incommon these days. Mutants, after all. "How's that work for you? I just forget and things go away. And dying is kind of forced forgetting, so... yeah. Hard to stay dead when you can't remember being dead. At least for me. I think other people don't have to deal with that."

Hm. If he somehow managed to remember what being dead was like, would he stay dead? That wasn't something he wanted to try. As bad as things got, he didn't want to be dead. He mostly enjoyed himself.

Work? He worked! No, wait. He'd been fired because he forgot too much. Like that he had a shift. Or what his job was. Or that he was on shift, probably. "Not currently" he said, a little bit lamely. No one wanted to hire an airhead...

"I get by. I kind of remember things too well is all. Only so much space."

The Roach nodded thoughtfully at the remark. Interesting. Not very clear, but interesting.

He went on, though; "How's that work for you? I just forget and things go away. And dying is kind of forced forgetting, so... yeah. Hard to stay dead when you can't remember being dead. At least for me. I think other people don't have to deal with that."

There we go... That answer was a gift to Roach's insight. He leaned away from the wall again, and turned to the outside world. "That, my good man, is a trade secret I am not willing to reveal... Suffice it to say I can leave a dead body behind, and not be truly dead." It was a great magic trick in his mind. One he hadn't used much, and one he would prefer not to use at all.

The visible mutant revealed that he was, in fact, unemployed, and the Roach clapped his hands once. "Excellent! On to our interview, then! You don't mind if we find somewhere more comfortable, do you?"

He paused for a moment, and turned back to Memo. "You wouldn't happen to have the time?"

"That's all right," Memo replied easily. "Chances are I wouldn't remember, but if it's really a secret then it's better not to risk it." So casual, one might almost think that Memo had forgotten he had been a bit suspicious of Roach. Then again, he had. Completely. It totally felt like he'd been here chatting forever.

Wait wait wait, interview? Was he here for an interview? He'd gotten an interview? That was great! He couldn't remember the last time he'd had an interview or a job! Maybe he wouldn't even blow it! "More comfortable would be good. Eventually I'm going to remember to be cold for more than a minute or two." Although rain was pretty.

Interview! Interview! Focus on the interview.

...if everything was like this question, though... he might be about to blow it too. That would be sad. Memo stared at the black screen of the phone he'd fished out. Dead battery, hopefully, and not dead phone. "I think I need a charger before I can get you the time..." Please let it just be a dead battery. Charging a phone was easy, if slow.

The more Memo talked about his power, the more Roach was intrigued. It seemed as though, maybe, his thoughts and physical state were intertwined. Part of him wanted to stab Memo while he wasn't looking to see what happened, but the rest realized that wasn't how you made friends.

And he needed friends.

Memo opted for somewhere more comfortable. Roach tapped his mandible thoughtfully, thinking of where the nearest clean safe house was... He turned his head to look at Memo as he stared at his head phone. Ah, so that's what he'd been doing when he slowed down on his run... Roach could understand that if someone had a faulty memory, perhaps such a device would be quite necessary to keep around.

If his memory was too bad, he might even be lost without it. Unable to comprehend where he was or what he should be doing. How could he combat that? How could he take advantage of that?

The Bug nodded to himself, as if he were having his own internal discussion. "No matter, Mister Memo. We shall head to the dawn bakery. A small shop not far off that serves exclusively mutants. Oh, not as the meals, but as the patrons. There should be a nice, silent place for us to conduct the interview. So glad you could make this appointment. Your timing was quite punctual, may I say."

This was a test of the mess with Memo's perception system, in order to make it seem like this was exactly where and when he was meant to be. Would it work? They would see.

A bakery? A bakery seemed like an odd place for an interview, but Memo really couldn't complain. And he really didn't need to be called Mister either, but he couldn't deny that the gender affirmation still made happy little butterflies flit about.

Except butterflies were distracting and he needed to be serious! As much as he could be, anyway. In all honesty, seriousness was not his strength. At all. It was so far down the list of skills that he'd forget what he was listing and why by the time he got to it!

INTERVIEW he had to keep focusing on the INTERVIEW. Which he hadn't been late for? That was great! It took so much work to be on time. He was so glad it had worked out! Thoroughly pleased with himself, Memo made to follow Roach, ever cheerful. "I'm glad it worked out!" Had he said that out loud twice or thought it to himself? As long as roughly one of the times was out loud, then all was well.

Roach walked, joyous that he seemed to have confirmed his theory. With only a couple of words he'd convinced Memo that he'd not only come for an interview, but that he'd come on time.

They walked a bit, Roach talking to him, reminding him why he was there constantly, trying to time his reactions, and when he seemed to lose focus. Was there a rhyme or reason to it, or was it random?

He turned into a small building, Waving Memo along. It looked to be a typical coffee shop/ bakery with lots of small tables, and a giant ape behind the counter. He was wearing a nice little apron, and when he saw Roach walk in, he immediately became more alert.

Roach pointed to a door in the back, and the Gorilla nodded.

"Mister Memo, wold you like a drink? We will be having our interview in the back. Coffee, please, Reginald. Put it on my tab" The other patrons, all mutants, either avoided direct eye contact with the big bug, or actively nodded to him.

After he his drink he would wave Memo into the back.