"Mhm. You can take some time to be an introvert first if you'd like."

"Lucien, can I live with you for the foreseeable future? - I shouldn't live alone, if I have some kind of backlash emergency that could be bad, and your place is nice and it's slightly weird being at Lorica's erstwhile home."

"Oh uh - I'm going to be moving into a place with my parents once things settle down and I probably should check with them but it works for me."

"It works for your parents too."

"...I should, like, meet them, before I decide if I want to live with them, I don't get along amazing with most randomly selected people."

"You'll get along with them."

"That's disconcerting of you to say and doesn't change that I want to meet them first."

Well, such is the curse of foreknowledge.

"We can go and meet them whenever? They're staying outside the city right now."

"Sure. ...I should own a phone, possibly acquired on the way to doing that."

"Yeah - uh. Tattletale can we have a ride to Stonewood?"

"Sure, my treat. You can keep the cake too."

"How generous of you. Is Stonewood a neighborhood or a store with phones in it?"

"Town outside the city where my parents are - it'll have an electronics store open and I'm not sure if there's one open in Brockton Bay right now."

"There is but its phones are crap."

"Well, can't have that."

"I'll send a car round in a bit."

"Thanks." Pack pack.

And there's a car. They can stop at Lucien's apartment first so he can pickup some more things. And maybe change his clothes real fast.

Do they have time for an entire shower?

They do!

Oh yay. Shower, new clothes from the bundle swiped from Lorica - they're mostly the same size though May's going braless because Lorica was a cup size up from her - and then they can be off.

The wrecked cityscape eventually gives way to a more normal suburban landscape, and fifteen minutes past that they pull off the highway and into the small town where Lucien's parents have been staying.

"Electronics store first?"

"Sounds like a plan."

And on to the store! There are various smartphones with an unfamiliar but surprisingly well-designed operating system, though they are definitely still a step down from what May is used to.