"I'm not thinking that far ahead yet, I just want enough tech to like, survive and bootstrap to wherever else I want to be on reflection."

"Okay." And he carries her and looks. There's a broken copy machine and a broken printer and some neon exit signs and plenty of wiring.

The copy machine is very good. The printer's good too. She takes it all back to the computers.

"Is this a good time for me to fugue -"

"What do you want me to do if there's danger."

"You can shake me out of it, if you have to." Sigh. "Rete used to be able to tell when would be a good time - but it's not gonna hurt me even if it's not."

"Then yeah, go ahead."

"Work'll suffer a lot if I get hungrier," she mutters, and she sets to work. Improvised screwdriver. Dismantling plastic casing. Prying apart chips and batteries and wires and sticking them back together in jury-rigged fashion.

He watches, fascinated, and then tries borrowing peoples' eyes to get a sense of the city and options for food.

There are supply drops from the outside world. They're not balanced very well against demand; there's lots of random things that the locals want less than anticipated like canned spinach and certain flavors of MRE that remain in heaps in the street. There is a lot of vandalism and random destruction, some of which is claimed in graffitic fashion by what are probably gangs, as though a slum grew to swallow the whole enclosed space. People move furtively and mostly in groups. Somebody seems to not be out of ammo yet; there's the sound of gunshots and screaming.

Piles of undesireable flavors of MREs sound like just the thing. Once Lorica has a bot that can go fetch it. '

He wants to go home. 

He closes his eyes and watches through other ones and sings.

She works and works. She doesn't have good tools; her hands are getting scratched up.

The other people in the library observe their existence. One leaves the building; others retreat deeper.

That's good. They really don't want a fight. He wishes not for the first time that he knew healing songs. He fantasizes about assassinating Eidolon mid-Endbringer attack and Leviathan vanishing in a poof of smoke and everyone apologizes for being a moron. 

He sings.

He mentally maps Baltimore through other eyes. There really isn't very much enclosed space.

And substantial portions of it seem to have been barricaded from within by the gangs or people hoping to deter them.

And he can't do artifact design without a working computer. Well, can - used to, back in Valinor - but it'd take decades. He can probably jump the barricades. Or maybe Lorica will think of something.

She's sure doing something. Put put zap twist grab put.

She's not working on something that gets them out undetected. First steps. 

He searches for anyone with a view of the place where he entered Baltimore.

Nobody is looking at that spot right now.

Okay.

Singing.

She snaps out of it, holding a three-legged plastic and wire horror that looks half-exploded all over itself.

"Okay. This can - it can't hold Rete, I need a lot more stuff to hold Rete. It'll scavenge for electronics and food and I can make it come back early, if you see somebody about to menace it. It will not work in the dark and it can't fly, or climb all that well, but I got it so I think it can open doors and break windows."

"Great. Can it take instructions, there are piles of food in the streets in a couple places."

"It'll try to go in the direction it's pointed in when I put it down even if there's obstacles, that's it, this is kind of -" She gestures at gutted appliances.

"It's brilliant, I couldn't have gotten anywhere. Out the front door, then."

She nods and sighs and heads for the front door.

And they let little robot go and he summarizes the state of the city. "Could maybe announce to people that if they bring electronics you can make them stuff but we'd need a plan to handle security and we shouldn't assume you're the only cape."

"And if four people bring me some toasters and a pager I can't necessarily make something useful for each of them."