[D2, EA] A shared meal in kitchen (open)

[Bee Haw]

Bea returns from grocery shopping with the supplies to make a big batch of chili and a sweet cornbread. Butter. Honey. Tastes of home. Food she's promised to make co-worker Xing at the cafe to try. And she remembered such promises and kept them.

She cooked a lot. An unreasonable amount.

"Is anyone hungry? I made a meal to share. Some of my mama's best recipes!"

She makes sure to set aside the portions for Xing before she and any interested housemates dig in.

A chance maybe to get to know some more contestants over lunch? All were welcome to join.

[Ultimate Frankie]

"*Yawn*, morning," she said as stumbled into the kitchen. "Afternoon?"

[Bee Haw]

Bea smiled brightly.

"Hello! Afternoon, yeah. I'm Bea, another contestant here. I've been cooking. Would you like me to make you a bowl and plate? There's chili and cornbread."

"You are ... one of the twins? I saw you both at last night's orientation. I'm sorry, I don't remember your name. Can you remind me? I'm terrible with names and so many new people to meet all at once!"

[Ultimate Frankie]

"Frankie, yeah," she responded. She slumped onto the counter and said, "Yeah... food, sounds good, innit."

[Frankie Reynes]

And in walked another Frankie, all casual-like until she suddenly freezes for a moment... and then points at other Frankie.

"Oi! You idiot! Why didn't you tell me you blew up!?"

[Ultimate Frankie]

"You were sleepin', yeah, and I was tired after almost dying, had a pole in me chest like this long," she said with a gesture.

"But I'm fine now, yeah."

[Bee Haw]

Bea smiled. "Nice to meet you, Frankie."

She made her a bowl of chili, and a plate of cornbread with honey and butter.

"Are you a student at the University?" (To the first arriving Frankie.)

And then the twin came in. "Oh, hello! Would you like to join us for lunch? I was just introducing myself to your sister. I'm Bea. Another contestant."

And ... wait?

"Blown up? What happened?"

[Ultimate Frankie]

“Big old green robot thing tried to kidnap me, yeah,” she said. “It exploded after the nerd hit it, uhh Miles, yeah. Then I had a pole in my chest, right here. And I didn’t get any boba.”

[Frankie Reynes]

"Uh... hi," she said, briefly looking at the very American American, before being distracted again by what Frankie was saying.

"And you didn't think to let me know? Bruv! Robot! Kidnap you?! Pole?! Boba!?"

Normally she was pretty carefree abbout stuff. Everything pretty much sorted itself out most of the time, yeah? She wasn't used to having to worry about... well, herself; technically.

[Ultimate Frankie]

“I was going to probably text you before class, yeah,” she admitted. “Maybe it was Eric Gibson? Or Pantheon, the news and tiktok is saying it was Pantheon.”

[Frankie Reynes]

"I don't who Pantheon is... but oh! I got a lead on Eric yeah! Also I also met a robot yesterday... but she was like hologram lady's lovechild or something? Until she shut down and started talking like a frog yeah? But anyway, this guy who built her, at the stem center... Markus or whatever yeah? He started trying to hack the gibson for me, but mostly it was just a bunch of google search results he compiled on him."

"So anyway, he's some super mad scientist weapon dealer dude or whatever yeah, originally from America, but then he started working for Congo? Which seems a bit weird to me, but I guess maybe that's just what you do in this rea... really tough economy. Anyway, get this, he was working on stuff like time travel, teleportation, and *multiversal* theory and stuff."

"And get this, he was hunging out at this club right here in the city just like a week or two ago. So I was thinking of going to check it out."

The words came out like a high-speed train, and then without any pause she turned to Bee Haw;

"Oh yeah, and I could eat."

[Ultimate Frankie]

"Yah son of a bitch, I'm in, yeah," she said going for the meme.

[Bee Haw]

She listened to them going back and forth, a little bewildered, and made sure they both had plenty to eat.

"It sounds like you both need to eat up, to keep up your strength."

"I'm so sorry you were attacked, Frankie! And, forgive me, I don't think I've gotten your name yet, Frankie's twin. It must be so nice to have a sister here during the competition."

"If I can help investigate, let me know. Happy to help make sure there are no more attacks!"

[Frankie Reynes]

She caught the hand and reciprocrated the meme, "You sure, though? What if you blow up again?"

At that point, she turned to Bee Haw. "I'm Frankie," she said, oblivious to how that would sound.

"You wanna help investigate? You know how to club and maybe do the noir detective thing? Last sighting of 'im is at some placed called the Champagne Room. I can *totally* sneak into the backroom or whatever, but I'm not real good at the people skills part of being a noir detective and what not, yeah?"

[Ultimate Frankie]

"I exploded once and I seem fine now, so why not go for two, yeah?" she said. She turned to look at Bea and see her response.

[Bee Haw]

Bea blinked. A little taken aback.

"Your folks named you both 'Frankie'? Wow. Or, wait, that's silly. No, you have a power to make copies of yourself? You are ... kind of like a swarm of Frankies? All piloted by the same person?"

That was not entirely unlike when she split herself into a swarm of bees.

"I ... if you do need help collecting information, I can divide myself up into a swarm of bees. Watch and listen to different places in a building at the same time, not too obtrusively. And read minds. So that might help get some information quietly. I mean, I don't read random people's minds without permission. That's not right. But if someone did or said something suspicious or related to the topic you are investigating because a lot of lives are at stake? I could help then."

[Ultimate Frankie]

"Bees?" she asked with a confused look. "Like the bees that make honey, yeah?"

[Frankie Reynes]

"Oh god, not bees... and you can read minds, too?"

Probably a good thing she wasn't reading their minds right now, or the whole multiple frankies thing was probably gonna get even more confusing.

"Turning into a bee swarm sounds wicked... but the mind reading thing sounds super useful! You could definitely help! I mean, if you want to, and are okay with maybe possibly but probably not blowing up."

[Bee Haw]

"Yes. Honeybees."

She lifted the jar of honey spread generously on the corn bread.

"What is causing people to blow up? Can you explain who the enemy is? Why they are attacking? Names of related bad guys or organizations? The more I know, the better I can listen for useful information for you."

[Ultimate Frankie]

“I think they speak French, maybe?” Frankie said and then shrugged, “That’s all I got. Probably Pantheon? You know the Elite supremacist guys?”