S5.160 - Keeping Up Appearances

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Root and Para walked out of the polynomial apartments side-by-side. "If you like, I could have a look at the tuning of your hairband," Root offered. "Try to fix it."

Para glared. "The last time you looked into stuff for me, I was kidnapped by Hyper so that the conics could mess with my variables before you got the chance."

"O-kay," Root said slowly. "Maybe Cotangent could look then, she does engineering. I just thought it might be annoying, having people always thinking your depression was at a maximum."

"Right. Right, sorry," Para said, passing a hand over her face. What a stupid thing for her to say. "Just, stressful times for all of us out here. I'm sure you're busy though, I mean, aren't you helping with Hyper's Cone of Science?"

Root shook his head. "I'm more of a coder. The core group there seems to be Maud and Expona, as far as coordinating with Signum and Logan, then Hyper and Nis, in as much as physically building the thing. Of course, Cosine and Secant are helping to coordinate too, given their vested interest in seeing their twins again, and Cubi's keeping me apprised as she works on the periphery with splines... but not a lot of programming just now. Plus, too many cooks and all that."

"Maybe they'll need you later then." Para almost added, 'as opposed to me', but caught herself in time. "Meanwhile, I guess Lyn and Tangent are also off doing something useful together?"

"They did a talk on fractions some weeks ago. Otherwise they've been exploring," Root replied. "Looking for anything else of use in this random Purgatory... with Reci keeping an eye out for Lyn, as usual. Did you know there's a sizable cliff just a short distance from here? Potentially dangerous."

"I was aware," Para answered with a nod. She'd thought of wandering out there earlier. "Which might be the only thing I'm up to date on, hm?" She laughed lightly. "Guess I've been wrapped up in my own stuff for a bit." Busy wallowing in self pity, like a perfectly useless individual. "Sorry."

"No big deal," Root said, shrugging and smiling back. "For that matter, I'm sorry I haven't been spending more time with you lately. I've been trying to figure out how to resume my interest in gardening."

"Ah! Then I presume you're sketching tree diagrams," Para reasoned.

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