zeal

zeal

rules!

1. If you guys want to follow a post order, go for it. I only care about everyone posting once for every post I make.

2. The chances of combat occurring are so low I haven't tabulated a "character death" probability but one never knows. Try not to shoot the NPCs and you should make it out with all your health levels.

3. If you have Flaws, hand 'em over.

4. I'm going to make assumptions based on stalking y'all's transcript blogs for setting this up but if you want to supply me with the name(s) of up to 3 Garou (living or recently-deceased) who your character considers "important" I will totally use them against you later.

5. Hold onto your butts, opening post incoming.

Evans

[nightmares, yo]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

zeal

They all got a letter yesterday.

A few of them are not easy to find and their properties afford them enough of a lookout that they could have seen a visitor coming. Others live in secured buildings. Locks between them and the outside world. It doesn't matter. The letters bear no postage and no return address and they do not recognize the handwriting on the outside.

Thin block letters score their names into the centers of the envelopes' faces. The paper inside the envelopes is yellow, legal, without scent. The handwriting on the letter itself is careful with an edge of anger to it. The author pressed hard but did not smear the ink.

Each letter says the same thing, in the first paragraph:

You and I have never met. I know you have no reason to read this, let alone trust me, yet I write to you in the hopes that you are decent and will meet with me anyway.

The rest of the letter is different for each person.

Evans

Sam finds the letter in her mailbox, along with ads and junk mail and bills and such. When she finishes sorting through the stack she picks up the envelope, frowning a little. The Glass Walker isn't entirely married to the idea of electronics, but paper correspondence? In this day and age? When she opens it her frown deepens.

Well. That doesn't really clear up much. Sam Evans has a lot of friends that are a lot of things. So, is this letter calling out hackers? Members of the queer community? Computer engineers? If there is one thing someone might be worried their sister is, it's a computer engineer.

Garou, maybe?

Whatever it is, despite the angry cast of the handwriting, someone is asking for help. If there is one lesson Samantha Evans should have maybe learned in her time in Denver it's to stop answering calls for help. She's seen so much, nearly died a time or two. She also got a kid, though, so.

She fires off a text to Keisha letting her know that something's up, leaves Jake in the care of the nanny (a Bone Gnawer kinsman by the name of Anthony, by the way, a kind man with a Garou cousin not far away just in case of...well, just in case), and heads out to the Wells Fargo Center.

She pulls her aqua blue CX-5 into the lot, but doesn't get out yet. Instead, she hangs back in the driver's seat, checking her bag to make sure she has all of the essentials. Notebook, wallet, taser, mace, 9mm hand gun, check check check check check.

Lola Hawkes

Lola had received a letter yesterday, pinned under the foot of the small wooden table between two rocking chairs on her front porch. She was immediately suspicious, as such is her nature, but after she'd opened the letter and started reading that feeling was justified. By the time she reached the end of the letter, the suspicion was replaced with defensive anger that boiled in her ribs and flushed her face. It was a watered down, impotent rage compared to what her Cousins carried, but it had her crumpling the letter up in her fist and stomping inside of her house none the less.

The next day she arrived at the Wells Fargo Center as the letter had instructed, approximately ten minutes within the seven o' clock hour. She had parked her old and half-rusted metal deathtrap of a white truck in the parking lot, the vehicle rumbling and creaking in protest on its suspension as it moved from street to lot. She found herself a spot that she could fit the dinosaur of a vehicle into, climbed out, and slammed the door shut behind her.

It's seven on the nose when Lola makes her way around to the front of the very tall building. She only looks out of place because she seems to be searching for something-- wandering, anxious, hunting, but unsure of what for exactly. She wore her long black hair down her back and over her shoulders with a white knit cap to keep her head and the tops of her ears warm. Along with that she wore a thick wool-knit cream colored sweater with cuffed sleeves that hugged her wrists, and a thick red down vest overtop of that. Dark jeans and brown riding boots covered her bottom half, and her hands were jammed into the pockets of her vest.

Along with clothes she wore a heavy scowl, and when her breath huffed in white clouds into the air they were almost reminiscent of a bull snorting steam at a red sheet.

She was hunting for whoever this Matador would be.

Alexis Theron Lambros

Alexis Theron Lambros is, as those people who have met him can attest to, a very calm individual. Many people learn martial arts for many reasons; self-defense, athletic outlet, just so they can beat people up and be a badass. Alexis' reasons were firmly for the first two, and he studied the philosophy along with it. He practices elements of that philosophy, and it gives him a bit of a Zen outlook to complement the teachings of the Nation. As such, there isn't much (well, Phoebe knows one thing, but besides that) which can rattle him.

Mention of certain individuals in conjunction with a potential blackmail threat prompts him to leave all that Zen calmness at the door of his apartment. The letter and its envelope are left crumpled on the floor and he's generally been in a bad mood for the whole of the day afterward. He keeps to himself and calls off his classes for the day, and stays at home until the time is right.

The time is now right.

He shows up at the location, pulling his 1984 Buick LeSabre into the parking lot of the building. He's dressed simply enough, in a grey turtleneck and jeans with a windbreaker over the whole thing. He hasn't come armed, because...well, he doesn't believe in guns. He knows how to use one, but he hates them as a rule, and the weapons he knows how to use don't conceal well. So when he slips out of the car, still frowning, he casts his eyes about the place. Alexis generally has good situational awareness, and he's putting that to use now as he scans the lot, starts to move toward the building front.

Éva Illésházy

By seven full dark has fallen and the city is wrapped in that strange balance of shadow and brilliant, artificial light that seems strange and bright and stirring as the days narrow toward the winter solstice.

Listen, there is a nondescript Lexus parked some indeterminate distance from the Wells Fargo Center. It is not close. The woman who drives is is attractive but not remarkably so. She is careful to check the mirrors and the terms and conditions of the public meters, and careful of her periphery, and careful of so-many-things, but also, not entirely full-of-care.

After all, she is here now, has been here for some time. At 5:30 p.m. she slips into the bar at Randolph's and orders a Scotch that she nurses. Something approximating a meal follows, but anyone closely observing her would note that she does not consume much of either the beverage or the meal, before paying her bill and leaving a generous tip. Oh, but anyone observing her closely is so-observed in turn. This is how things go.

--

Éva arrives before 7. Call it 6:50. She is dressed in business casual attire, carries a leather attaché case.

She is armed in so very many ways.

More than you dare count.

--

When Lola appears around the edge of a tall building, in the shadows of the evening, at seven p.m. on the nose, the Shadow Lord notices. Smirks, mildly and wholly to herself, and turns in an arc for another singular survey of the space before walking up to the Uktena.

The pair are of a height, though Éva is wearing moderately-sensible three-inch heels, which lift her up to 5'10" or so, so perhaps she has to drop her mouth to murmur into Lola's ear.

"Let me guess. You received a letter."

Melantha Argyris

Melantha gets her letter at work, and that's pretty creepy. But that's how it has to come, because the tinyhouse doesn't exactly have an address other than one they have made up. She gets it, and she reads it on her dinner break, frowning, her spine and shoulderblades knotted up with growing discomfort. The first line and the third line are strange -- so hopeless, so plaintive, so needful -- but the lines in between them seem all but threatening to Melantha. Warning. She doesn't like it, and she wants to find this writer and give them a piece of her mind.

She borrows the truck, one more notch in the 'get a second car' vote that's ongoing, and drives down from Evergreen, glad that the promised snows have yet to show up down in the city.

--

The truck is big, and yellow, and... pretty hard to miss. It's been seen at Forgotten Questions for moots and meetings. It's been seen at Cold Crescent for other stuff. Melantha gets out wearing jeans and comfy sneakers. Her coat is knee-length and bulky, very warm, with a thick hood. She got her own hoodie to go under it, a thermal one with sleeves that hook over her thumbs. The hood is down, and her hair -- and there is so much of it -- up in a thick ponytail.

She just gets out of the truck, and sees a stranger, and frowns at him. "Hey!" she says, outright, calling over to Alexis. "Did you send me that creepy letter?"

zeal

Most of the people who work in the Wells Fargo Center and the shorter buildings surrounding it have gone home for the evening. The lots are emptied of everything but empty 20-ounce plastic bottles and cigarette butts and errant bits of paper fallen out of pockets and purses. Foot traffic has bled out and the only people still moving between vehicles and doorways are those with great distances to travel.

For a time the only two bodies out in front of the building are a hard-faced young woman and a sharp-dressed sharp-eyed lawyer. Their breath steams up from their mouths and the wind does not tug at the hems of their garments but the cold seeks to leech the life from them anyway.

More vehicles arrive. More faces they recognize from warmoots or the recent punishment rite. Irony in the meeting but a poetic sort. Melantha and Alexis are the only ones in the parking lot.

If anyone feels as if someone is watching them it is not paranoia bred of the letter's nature. It is the same letter. Sent via email it would have been blindly carbon copied. Maybe the wording would have been more deliberate in its vagueness.

Whoever wrote the letter had to write it five times. Travel to the places they spend the most time. Jam them into door frames or underneath furniture before sneaking off again.

Now she tucks her hair back behind her ears and glances both ways before she crosses the street to walk towards them. At a glance she is a young woman of average height, her build concealed beneath a peacoat, long dark hair beneath a wool cap. They have about thirty seconds before she's at the front of the building with them.

She appears to be alone. They cannot read the nuances of her expression yet. She walks with long strides and keeps her hands in her pockets.

Melantha Argyris

[alertness! do I notice the lady or am I too busy gearing up to yell at Alexis?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

Melantha Argyris

Unknowingly, this is how the two Black Fury kin meet each other: the female one, the shorter one, the one who looks and smells to wolves like a scion of their tribe and not a mere... y'know: kinfolk waitress, storming up to him across a parking lot after sliding out of the driver's seat of a giant yellow truck with black racing stripes, which doesn't look like something anyone should drive ever, it's so ridiculous. Making demands. Wanting to know if he's a creep.

He's not, but she doesn't know that yet.

She catches sight of someone else, too. A woman she's seen at warmoots and 'around'. Another one with a little ear-spike that she has also seen at warmoots and 'around'. And the lawyer, who she... also realizes she recognizes. But then someone crossing the street, as unknown as Alexis is. Melantha drops back a step or two, narrowing her eyes at him.

Alexis Theron Lambros

Alexis glances over at Melantha when she shouts his way, brow furrowing. Truth be told, he might be asking the same of her if she hadn't said it first. Perhaps it's cosmic irony that the two Fury kin haven't met yet, or pehaps its fate that they should first meet now, outside of the vicinity of those Garou who mean so much to each of them. Maybe it's just a matter of circumstance. Whatever the reason, Melantha eliminates the need for Alexis to be suspicious, and he shakes his head.

"Not unless I sent one to myself, first." He's already at the edge of the parking lot, and he nods with his head to the other Fury as if to say Coming? And then he's turning round to the front, where he sees Lola and Eva. Two more that he hasn't specifically met, though he saw them both at the judgment the other night. He frowns again and moves to walk toward them.

And as that other person, the new presence who he knows he hasn't met, walks across the street, he has another unknown element. Another blackmail-ee? Or their own person Mister (Ms.) Boddy? And that's when he stops where he is, between the two kin at the front of the door and the parking lot where Melantha and (unrevealed yet) Sam are, watching the woman making her way toward them with hands in pockets.

He's watching those hands closely, switching his attention between the pockets and her shoulders. When someone makes a sudden move, their shoulders are usually where you see it first.

Éva Illésházy

During those first ten minutes, Éva studies the hard-faced young woman while frowning, rather mildly, down at the screen of her tablet. Texting something; responding to e-mails. Involving herself in the digital world to provide herself with a reason for loitering here, at this hour, in this weather, alone in the largely deserted square.

It would be so much easier if she were simply to take up cigarettes, but

instead she looks like a thoughtless professional captured mid-walk by some suddenly pressing something at near-seven p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon.

The girl must know who she is, though. To deliver such correspondences.

Must know who they all are.

--

A sideglance at Lola's expression, long enough to take in what is doubtless some note of resonance over the letter she received. Some confirmation, affirmation: something like a yes.

And Éva is careful, turning her dark head (hair pulled back into a sleek chignon, her suit jacket dark beneath a short dark peacoat. Her 9 mm always within reach) noting the others on the periphery, shadoes against the parking lot.

Notes them, all of them. One by one by one.

And makes a decision, walking toward the girl rather than away, reaching into her left pocket with her left hand for a folded piece of paper.

It is blank but otherwise the color and texture of the letter she received, which was examined and then burned to ash.

"Excuse me," to the hard-faced young woman. " - are you the author of this letter?" The paper flashes white against the darkness, then disappears into back into her left pocket.

Evans

Sam sits in her car, watching as people arrive, a stranger storming toward her friend, and another stranger headed for the building. It's a few minutes after seven now, so this has to be it. These people probably received letters, as well, and chances are decent that this other newcomer headed toward Lola and Eva is the one who sent it. Or the young woman storming toward Alexis is.

Sam opens the driver's side door and slips down onto the pavement. Quietly, she shuts the door behind her and heads with a quiet, swift efficiency toward Alexis. If the other stranger turns out to be a threat she's pretty sure Eva at least will have that area covered.

As she gets closer she realizes that's no stranger at all, but a young woman she's seen before, at the last warmoot probably, or somewhere in the crowd for the punishment. And then Alexis is giving Melantha that Come along, Pond head nod Sam recognizes. She does not ask them to wait up. Sam may be the shortest of the lot by nearly half a foot, but she doesn't need people to make allowances for her just because of her stature.

So it is that she arrives at the cluster of Kinfolk a little late but just ahead of the stranger.

By way of greeting, she looks around and simply asks, "Letter?" Her long brown hair is down beneath a blue knit cap and her hands are tucked into the pockets of a fitted olive green jacket. Her jeans are snug as well, her boots comfortable, good for kicking or for running, whichever comes first.

Lola Hawkes

There's a tell-tale 'clack clack' of heels on pavement that catches Lola's attention, and she turns sharply to face the sound, eyes sharp and wide and a dead giveaway to the woman's intent for half a second. Whoever it was that summoned her here was in for it, simply put. But recognition dawns upon the Uktena Kinswoman soon enough, as she's seen this older dark-haired white woman at several Moots. She's a Shadow Lord Kinfolk, and she could be trusted, so Lola's body language relaxes (only a little), and she turns to face Éva more directly.

The question is met with a huff of air through her nostrils, but not blown into the face of the inquirer. "Sure did."

She didn't ask how the older woman was lured out here, or what her letter had said. She knew they wouldn't be identical, hers was very specific to her after all. However, it became clear after a glance past Éva's shoulder to spy one unfamiliar face and one that she recognized as a Kinfolk, soon joined by one that she knew to be Reese's sister, that this was a summoning of Kinfolk. They were all called out here, probably for the same reason.

Lola growled under her breath to the thirty-something (forty-something?): "This reeks of a trap."

Then, bit by bit, their attention all turns to a woman who is crossing the street to join them in front of this massively tall skyscraper. Éva turns and approaches first, asking the question that they all wanted to know. Lola kept her hands in the pockets of her vest, flicked her eyes to the other three that were congregating toward the area as well, then followed after Éva on flat-soled boots. She didn't crowd the older woman, but she would fall to stand at her side, looking imposing and brooding but saying nothing-- just glaring at the woman and waiting for an answer with what is clearly baited breath.

Melantha Argyris

[Correction to previous post: cut out everything after 'know that yet'.]

zeal

The woman wears running shoes with the laces tucked down. They will not flap or come untied if she decides to bolt. Her jeans are boot-cut and fit snug to her legs. She walks as if she is used to taking her time to get from one place to the next.

And as she draws closer her pace does not slow but the light in her eyes mutes itself and she looks from one face to the next to read what it is she's walking into. This is a meeting of her own making but that letter did not tell them anything other than that if they did not meet her here she would come for them.

It may well be an idle threat. The woman's posture is impeccable and she carries herself as if the repercussions for slouching are heavier than whatever she wears beneath her coat. The coat conceals her weapon but not the presence of the holster she wears.

Her cheekbones are covered in freckles. Her hair and her eyes look the same color in the dark. Yellow street lamps are all they have to push the night back away from them. When the attorney speaks the woman looks to her. She worries her lower lip before she answers.

"Yes," she says, and nothing else.

Evans

[percept (insightful) + empathy (emotional states)]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

Alexis Theron Lambros

[[Per+Emp]]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Lola Hawkes

The instant the word 'Yes' leaves the woman's mouth, Lola is a flurry of motion. Her feet move her forward a step and a half, and her hands fly out of her pockets so that they can shoot forward toward the female. Anyone with an eye trained for combat can tell that she's not trying to strike or punch-- she isn't throwing from the hip or shoulder, so that doesn't apply. Anyone without that trained eye, though, will probably be convinced that Lola's going to initiate a brawl because her lips peel back from her teeth and she's already making a gutteral noise in her chest and throat, the sound mingling with and eclipsing the 's' on the woman's answer.

She doesn't hit, but she does seize the woman by her coat-- collar preferably, but lapels or simply loose fabric at the front will be accepted. Lola's difficult to escape like this-- she's fast, she's strong, and when she gets a grip on the coat her grasp is like steel wire.

The poor woman gets two solid shakes by her jacket before Lola snarls in her face.

"Don't you ever fucking lay threats down on me and mine again. 'Don't make me come to you'? Bitch, you wouldn't make it halfway."

Éva Illésházy

"An absurd sort of trap," Éva remarks back to Lola, rather agreeably and remarkably quietly before she approaches the strange woman. All the work put into those letters and their delivery, merely to draw them here? If Éva intended to hunt someone, she would not alert them to the game ahead of time.

Why do anything other than shoot to kill?

"More than this one, I think." An arched and singular brow and a cool dark stare that rises from the strange around the space, then falls back to her. "Which seems to have been quite the task to undertake. Did you do it of your own volition - "

Then Lola is stepping forward, lips peeling back from her teeth, all-in-motion, reaching for the girl's lapel. Éva grits her teeth, a supple spasm of motion in her temple, and makes a gesture intended to stay or still or forestall Lola before the Uktena actually grabs the girl, in hopes of giving Lola pause before she does make that grab. She will not, however, physically put herself between the two.

Lola Hawkes

Éva will make an effort to stop Lola, gesturing with a hand or expression or otherwise that this is a poor choice.

Lola likes Éva. Hell, she may even respect her. But Lola's been thinking about doing this since she decided simply shooting whoever was unfortunate enough to fess up would be too extreme. She would not cease her action for the older (wiser) Kinfolk's silent suggestion.

Alexis Theron Lambros

The woman approaches and the kinfolk start to converge on her. And Alexis is willing to let them before Lola steps forward and starts snarling threats. Just like that, the Fury kin is moving foward. He's not rushing with aggressive intent, but he's still moving quickly as he tries to get between the two women.

"Whoa, easy," he says to Lola as he puts a hand on Lola's shoulder. He can take a punch if she needs to unleash one at a target; while Alexis is in fact combat trained and knows she's not going to hit the woman, she may need somewhere to throw that anger so they can handle this. Alexis is none too pleased with this woman either; he doesn't get angry often but he's pissed right now. Still, threatening a blackmailer is usually not wise. They're often desperate or have contingency plans. And he noticed that holster, too.

"Let's step back a moment, and talk." He shoots a glare to the mystery woman, one that strongly suggests that the key word in there is talk.

zeal

[ST note: ret-conning Mel out of the scene because reasons. I have to adjust a few things but another post is coming.]

zeal

[oh right i didn't do this yet

manip + subt]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Éva Illésházy

This deep and frustrated noise, back-of-the-throat. Whatever else the woman might have said is forestalled by Alexis' intervention. Éva takes a distinct step backwards as he puts himself between the two women.

This lingering irony in the shape of her mouth. Much of what she intended to say is swallowed, changed, redirected with a glance at the stranger. Over the heads of the other two kin.

"Is that the reaction you wanted? If so, I think you earned it. What exactly is it that you want out of this."

Éva Illésházy

For ST reference: Perception + Subterfuge. Spec: hidden motives. Looking for: in any answers she gives, whether she is being deceptive.

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Evans

Sam hangs back a bit, a little to the side of Alexis until Alexis is moving to touch the Uktena kinswoman. For a moment, people are mostly focused on the potential for violence, for either a punch or a good shaking. Most of them, that is, except for Sam.

Sam who is looking at the woman, her own expression calm and just shy of pleasant for all that she received a similar threatening letter. Whatever was written in hers, though, it didn't drive her to a fury of protectiveness for the ones she cares about. Her eyes, too dark to display color in the dim evening light and lined with heavy black liner, shift to Lola before returning to the woman.

"That will probably make you feel better, but-" but then Eva speaks up and Sam cedes the floor to the older, more experienced kinswoman.

zeal

If the woman does not anticipate the rural woman leaping forward to grab and shake her then she does not react to it. But: she knew enough else about her to lance fear and anger up out of her in less than one written page. She does not react because she is not surprised.

The eldest of the four allies attempts to stop her and the only man present attempts to calm her. With a fist wrapped around her collar the woman stands stock still and watches Lola's face without staring at her. Watches too Éva. Samantha doesn't get very far with her sentence but she can read familiarity in the way the woman carries herself and speaks.

Anything she says Éva will be able to tell if she is lying. As of right now all she has to go on is what was in the letter. She thinks her sister is one of them.

"I don't know which it was," she says and now that she speaks more the Kinfolk can make out an Eastern European crackle to her accent. "But one of your friends bit my sister."

Alexis Theron Lambros

He's got his hand on Lola's shoulder, and he's half-expecting an attack from her. He wouldn't be surprised. Maybe he's expecting the woman to shoot them in panic from being semi-assaulted, or a sniper that the woman has as a backup taking a shot from a hidden location.

He was expecting a lot of things. He wasn't expecting to hear

THAT.

He really doesn't mean to be rude. It's not laughing at her, really. But...come on. And so he looks at the woman and a full moment of laughter gets out before he has a chance to try and swallow it back.

"Oh, for..." He shakes his head, still trying to hold back a chortle. It's just so...well, COME ON. "No one bit your sister. I can promise you that."

Evans

Sam's expression quirks, eyes narrowing a little as her mouth turns upward in a slight, disbelieving smile, the sort of smile that graces one's face when they're not sure if a joke has just been made. At least she doesn't laugh, c'mon, Alexis, rude much? She didn't get very far with her sentence, which was going to lead into a question, but the answer to that question comes anyway.

"And you thought, what? You'd tattle to us and ask us to keep our friends in line?"

Of course she would, she thinks, because if she made it through the Delirium knowing her sister was bitten by Garou she's probably afraid to face their shifting cousing head on.

Then again, she doesn't seem terribly afraid at the moment. Maybe she doesn't know what sort of people she's drawn out.

Lola Hawkes

Alexis was a man that Lola had never met before, but here he was walking up and clapping a hand on her shoulder and trying to (gently, in his defense) tell her to step back and step off. Lola at this point seems to be all but ignoring the other Kinfolk there, but at least she isn't redirecting her anger where it isn't deserved. Alexis isn't hit for touching her. Hell, his hand isn't even shrugged off of her shoulder. But she does keep a firm hold on the woman's coat, and seems even more bothered by the fact that she didn't get anything close to a reaction out of her.

When the woman speaks, expressing worry that one of their lot bit her sister and now she's changing, Lola scoffs noisily and shoves the woman backward-- hard enough that she would be forced to stumble at least one step back to maintain her balance. Lola's feet, though? They don't move from where she's planted them on the concrete. This is her claiming ground and standing it, and she won't be moved.

But hey, at least she's not shaking anyone anymore.

"Don't be fucking retarded. If you know enough about us to know where to find us, how to get us here, and if you know....--" Well, whatever it was that this stranger knew about Lola was clearly something that she didn't want to talk about and spit into the public air, so she cut herself off and sneered instead. "You know full well that's not how that works. Cut to the goddamn chase, we ain't idiots."

Éva Illésházy

"I can see why you're concerned, then." Éva returns without so much as cracking a smile. There is a degree of concern and a degree of professional composure and no real warmth in her eyes, but the competence is can be soothing.

Then Alexis: laughing has Éva shooting him a brief and quelling look. It is a glancing blow, before she returns her attention to the stranger, but seriously and quite precisely.

The flare of her nostrils.

Neither Sam nor Lola receive the same look, primarily because there are only so many directions one can glance at once. The first rule of dealing with the unknowing or insane or the egomaniacal and so many in between is to cede them the rules of the universe. Grant them their world and let them describe it for you.

Also: Éva knows that the woman is not lying. She believes what she says.

"Excuse them. I for one take this very seriously. Where is your sister? Is she still injured? Or is she experiencing...

"Other symptoms."

Éva Illésházy

Manipulation + Subterfuge: biting is absolutely how werewolves are made, yes you are right I totally believe you crazy lady.

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 6, 6, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 2

zeal

[perc + subterfuge: i call bullshit.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

zeal

Alexis laughs and she does not react.

Samantha asks if she is tattling, thinking she is going to ask them to keep their friends in line, and she looks as if she is going to bust out into a cousin of the laughter that gripped Alexis. Whereas his laughter was born of relief thinking the woman before them to carry ignorance with her hers has a different sire.

Her hands haven't left her pockets. They are still there even as Lola shoves her back from her. The woman takes one step back to maintain her balance and another to regain her stolid footing. She shakes her head to free her shoulders from the curls fallen down over them and she smirks.

"'Other symptoms.'"

The woman chews her lower lip again and looks away a moment. The glance away is not a tell. Wherever she parked is not within her line of sight. Soon her eyes come back to them.

"Your friends and the things they fight... they're all the same to me. If I have to, I will put her down myself. But I thought we could come to an arrangement, seeing as you know things I do not know."

Alexis Theron Lambros

The laugh, to his credit, does go away. It was already on its way to gone before Eva threw him that look. It was more a reaction of relief and just an emotional release than anything else, not that it would be interpreted as such. Truth be told, he already feels a little bad for it, but that's just the way it is.

And it's CERTAINLY gone when she says she might "put her down," her being the sister in question. That draws all the humor off his face, and he looks at her more closely now. Frowns.

"Your sister. Blood relative, or adopted?" He glances at the other kin and then back to her. "What sort of arrangement are you talking about?"

Éva Illésházy

"What symptoms?" A brief, lifting query. "I ask because it is possible that the infection has not yet spread. She could be cured, depending how far this has gone.

"Someone would have to examine her closely, and determine whether the infection can be contained or eradicated. You understand the delicacy of the situation. Give us her name and her address, we will look into it and have someone contact you to let you know if recovery is possible.

"Or if a more final solution is necessary."

Evans

The woman wants to make a deal, Alexis (and Sam) want to know what sort of deal. Preferably one that doesn't have some close or unrelated family member getting killed. And preferably that doesn't have this woman asking for access to other supernatural creatures. She is a benign threat, but a threat none the less.

Sam Evans, though? Sam is not a threat to anyone, not unless she needs to be. Her smile of disbelief melts into something pleasant and friendly. It's perhaps a strange counter to Lola's aggression and Eva's sharp tone. But hey, sometimes you catch more flies with honey.

"I'm interested in names, too," she says. "Like yours for one. How do we know we can trust you to stick to any kind of arrangement you propose?"

[I am totes your friend: charisma (charming) + empathy]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1

Lola Hawkes

Alexis asks about this relative, if they are blood related or adopted to be made sister to the woman who didn't react to Lola's up-front aggression or Alexis's laughter.

Éva said that the infection could be spreading and tried to pull information from this woman as to the whereabouts of this sister.

Lola still didn't even believe that this sister existed.

The Uktena scoffed again, and swung her arms in front of her, then back to her sides, then in front again a couple of times. Each time that her hands met in front of her, it waso to roughly tap the side of a tight right fist in the curved palm of the other. This made a jarring clapping sound each time it happened. Thankfully it only went on for about four turns.

"Whoa, now. Before any goddamn thing else--" And she cuts a sharp look back to the other three Kinfolk, eyes burning hard on all three faces for a half a second at a time. Her eyes are quick to return to the stranger, though. "Who the fuck are you? To know as much about me and probably these others here, to have looked that deep into our lives, I don't trust a fucking thing that's come out of your mouth yet tonight.

"Shit. I doubt this sister even exists."

zeal

They have more questions than she has given them answers and they do not have a name for her though she not only has their names but their addresses and the names of their loved ones. In some instances this woman has information that not even the rest of the Nation has. Knows those who have died recently and those who are not even born yet.

If she had reached out to the werewolves themselves they would have cut her down right here or dragged her in for questioning.

Alexis knows that Phoebe and Thomas would have wanted her checked for taint. Keisha and Tamsin would have wanted to follow threads back to her sister, if she has a sister, if she is not out here alone and insane trying to goad them into giving up more information. Even Lola can't reliably predict what Hector would have done but they all know what Erich would have done.

There's too much variability when dealing with the ones actually perpetuating the War. This woman considers her options. If she were lying about the sister Éva would have seen it.

That Sam projects an air of trust and companionability - that it is an air - is lost on the woman. She's too distracted now by all of the questions and all of the possible ends to this ride she's started.

"She does exist," she says. "For now. If the day comes I do not recognize her, then no. This sister will not exist. She is my twin, Mister Lambros. And this was all her doing. I will take responsibility for not stopping her sooner, but... we all have reasons for doing the things we do, yeah?

"If you can stop this, whatever it is that made your friend bite her, I will give you everything we have. The computers, the notebooks. Our guns. All of it. And you'll never hear from us again. That is what I propose."

She pulls a business card out of her pocket. On the back she has written another address. She hands it to Éva.

"Meet me here at the same time next Friday, if you accept. My name is Nina."

That isn't her full name but it's enough for mystics to work off of. She leaves them with that. Turns and walks back the way she came. That's another difference between them and their cousins. She would have never given a wolf her back.

Evans

Sam's aura of trust and kindness isn't so much an air as it is a projection of her self. She is kind. She draws frightened Black Spiral Dancer cubs into the circle of her arms not because she'd want her last act on this earth to be one of kindness, but because that is the kind of selfless person that she is. She rescued a squalling baby from a burning bar not for praise or accolades, but because that is what you do when the helpless are trapped in danger.

She is good, is Sam Evans. That does not mean that she is trusting. The woman - Nina - turns and walks away and Sam, whatever the others do, she hangs back a bit. Waiting to see if Lola has another burst of fury to get out to draw attention. When it's quiet, though, Sam glances at the others, tips her chin in farewell, and she tails the woman. Not far, just enough to catch a license plate number or see which bus she catches.

[dex+stealth, +WP]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Lola Hawkes

There is an instance that the sister does insist, and the woman continues on in a flat tone and provides some information. It's not nearly what Lola would have wanted, and not necessarily what she was asking after in the first place. She wanted very much to know where this woman got her information and how she was able to find it there in the first place-- why she would have been prompted to dig, where she would have located their identities to even begin that digging.... This was the biggest, most important thing for her to understand because, you see, Lola is as territorial as the literal wolves she calls her cousins.

But.

She gets a name (probably a fake one), and a flimsy lead (although the address on the back of the business card would be checked into immediately), and that's all the woman provides before she turns her back on them and starts walking away. A more hotheaded Lola would have persued, would have forced hands away from the holster that she knew was there, would have knocked her skull into the pavement a few times and would have fought anyone that tried to stop her, or simply ignore their blows and pulling arms until she'd gotten what she wanted.

The Lola that stands her tonight instead takes a deep breath of cold air as though it can cool the fire in her chest, rolls her shoulders back so her chest is pushed out a bit and her back is straightened and her overall posture is larger and more intimidating, and says nothing.

She'll glare after the woman as she leaves, wait until she is out of earshot, and then say harshly to Samantha, Éva, and Alexis the three of them (this prior to Samantha sneaking off, as the Glass Walker was waiting for the Uktena to make her move anyways): "I'll give you one guess as to where I'm going." She taps the business card against her palm in indication, then slips it into her pocket and starts a distance-consuming long-legged stride back to where she parked.

Éva Illésházy

Éva accepts the business card with precise, fine fingers. Glances at the address, then lifts her dark eyes back to the woman's face. Steady, quiet, withheld. Shielded, assuredly. There is a quick-curl to her mouth, which is not quite smoke and is not-quite fire and is more and less than both.

She is remarkably careful, watching the stranger walk away. Allowing the name to unfold in her tongue, consider the diverse knot of other kin to whom the woman issued whatever she issued: pleas or threats or something in between. When Nina is out of earshot, she allows the other three to inspect the business card. The name, the address. To write anything down that they desire.

Then she glances at the rest.

"Someone's going to have to meet her. I think it would be best to bring a shaman along, as well, at the very least. Perhaps the sister is a cub. Perhaps she's Fallen, or falling.

"Stay in touch," the Shadow Lord counsels the Uktena. With a faintly ironic smile. " - and if you do go looking prior to the meeting, try not tip your hand."

The Evening Post

Twilight

There was not much Alexis could do for Shanae and her brother once they slipped away from the block party to catch a cross-town bus. He did not have their names. He did not have their addresses. The city is a massive place full of hundreds of thousands of young men and women, and he is mostly-a-stranger, with no more than the barest sketch of a personal story and a pair of first names to go on.

He makes a few inquiries specific to the siblings, and most come up short. Some of the people he questions are concerned about his intensions. Others, well. Others are bored or indifferent or incredulous or concerned-but-dispassionate or or or -

- so, time passes. Life resumes. He gets some information from Josie, his contact at the shelter. She doesn't know much. They make plans to go and volunteer, to dig in, to disappear into the organization, but there doesn't seem to be a way to penetrate it just by volunteering.

The only volunteers are church members.

If you go there, you'd best be the praying sort.

But: in mid-August, just as school is starting to resume, Alexis gets a series of calls from a series of strange numbers. The first three or four are hangups, but then, at last, a girl's voice on the other end. "You said you'd help. Will you still?"

--

He gets in touch with Josie. They spirit battered women and children away from their abusers, particularly when their abusers are granted custody by the state against all evidence to the contrary. They can help Shanae and Antoine disappear, slip out of the hands of authorities. Find them a place where they can be safe, and she can go to school and he can go to pre-school and they can eat real food sometimes.

They cannot do anything for the mother, though.

Not unless there's proof that her presence there is not volitional. And everything says it is.

And initiating some sort of official inquiry would only bring scrutiny down on Shanae and Antoine: so.

--

It is perhaps a week later that Alexis receives a call from Josie. Says she was contacted by a journalist with the Denver City Paper. Soliciting sources for a story about rEEntry. She didn't have anything to offer the woman, but remembered Alexis' interest in the place.

Passes on the woman's contact information, if he wants to meet.

Alexis Theron Lambros

Alexis has been busy on a lot of fronts; summer is always busy for his work, what with kids out of school and plenty of extra classes as a result. Then there's the whole "making sure Park Theurge Power doesn't collapse from exhaustion" thing he's working on recently. But Antoine and Shanae have always been in the back of his mind, pressing concern there. There had to be something; had to.

He was glad to get a response from Shanae, and he promises to do what he can. The constant dead ends frustrate him to no end and he tells the girl not to give up hope, because he's not. And then...a chance for a new lead. Journalists aren't people he trusts as a rule; they have an agenda as much as anyone, and it's rarely that of the victim if an extra byline can be had at said victims' expense. He's seen that one too many times (okay, forty too many times). But it's worth a shot and its all they have right now.

And thus he rings up Sam, who he's been passing information back and forth, to see if she wants to meet this woman with him.

Sam Evans

[oh right nightmares]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 7 )

Sam Evans

It's a busy summer for everyone this year. The city wolves are busy trying to figure out where and when and why the Beloved Horror try so hard not to wipe them out - which they could apparently do quite easily - but corrupt them thoroughly. Alexis has classes and training and working and still searches on the side. And Sam? Sam has a son, a tiny, chubby little infant that is usually pretty happy but sometimes just cries and cries and cries oh god please stop I'm going to go outside for a minute ack! She doesn't let herself think about what baby Jake might grow up to be, if she'll do a good enough job smothering him with love and he'll turn out okay, or if he'll grow up and turn to the dark side. So, basically every parents worry ever.

Between telecommuting and finding a renter for her condo and looking for a new house that's close but not too close to downtown and trying to find a good nanny or babysitter or something, Sam hasn't had much time to continue her own research. But when Alexis gets in touch and says something about a journalist she's skeptical, as well. Especially with this place, this center that seems to only ever bask in good publicity, which is odd considering the sort of activities it harbors.

Never the less, she agrees to meet this person with the other kinfolk. She finds a babysitter - kin, a Gnawer with a Garou sibling who can be there in a second if the Spiral Sam stole a baby from decides to pay a visit - and she prepares for her first night out in what feels like ages.

Be cool, Samantha, only seventeen-ish more years to go (that's misleading, Sam loves her new son and dotes on him constantly when his crying isn't threatening to blast her ear drums).

Alexis Theron Lambros

He sounds relieved when Sam says she'll go with him. He's not as nervous with the idea of going out or putting himself in the crosshairs of a potential Wyrm-influenced organization as he should be (see also: walking through Chinatown late last week) but it's still good to have some backup. Alexis is--not trusting, but also not the best at picking out liars either. He could definitely use an extra pair of ears and eyes on this one when they go to talk to the woman, and hopefully gain a new lead into finding out more about rEEntry.

So he calls the woman in order to set up a meeting with both himself and Sam.

Twilight

So, Alexis proposes and Sam accepts and Alexis contacts the woman: Jennifer Waterhouse. She has a byline with the city paper and a degree in journalism from Columbia circa 2002 and she's been in Denver since she was 'downsized' from the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2008 and she lives in a small apartment and doesn't make much money and is still paying off her goddamned student loans because Columbia but: at the very least she can expense meals when she is courting sources.

So, she proposes that they meet at Cabaret, which is not a Cabaret but rather a coffee shop with an excellent bakery and artisan bread and sandwiches and the world's most delicious soup-of-the-day and a flotilla of various grilled cheese sandwiches on the menu.

There's nothing particularly cloak-and-dagger about the proposed meeting, wary as the pair of them are. If Waterhouse is concerned about their credentials, their interest, their information: well, perhaps she has already checked them out.

Or, perhaps, as they fear, she is an agent of the church, looking enemies, reverse engineering a way to defear the opposition.

But: she gives them a brief description and they can look her up on the paper's website. A brief bio and a slightly out of date picture shows an ordinary, modestly pretty, round-faced young woman, hair color indeterminate as the picture is black and white, blinking back at them from behind owlish glasses.

She's already at Cabaret, already seated with a mug of coffee and a laptop at a booth in the far corner. Hasn't ordered a meal yet although it is dinnertime / past dinnertime.

Alexis Theron Lambros

Int+Investigations

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Sam Evans

The Kinfolk arrive together to be both a united front and also for support of each other. Sam has made sure that Alexis is aware of the things Tamsin said, that the church is looking for people who dig a little too deep or get a little too close, and Sam, she's dug herself pretty deep. She's a Glass Walker for one and tenacious as hell for another.

A search on her would show that she's something of a job hopper. Graduated from a Vermont school with a degree in Psychology then dropped off the radar for a year or two before showing up again on the lowest run of a corporation based out of DC. Within a few months she worked her way up one step on the corporate ladder before she climbed off it completely to go manage a bakery in the middle of BFE. Now she's here, in Denver, working for a tech company out of DTC. Sam Evans has gotten around in the last few years.

And now she's here, in a cafe that is not a good place to catch a show. She stands almost a full foot shorter than the man at her side but she appears no less athletic. Her hair is down and her dark blue eyes are lined in dark eyeliner and there are piercings all up the outsides of her ears, including on amazingly scary black ear spike driven through the right lobe. She's dressed for the incredible heat of the day in a white tee with AS FAST AS YOU CAN. in big bold letters, all black except for FAST which is red. Her shorts are not as short as they would be on a taller woman and her boots are brown and ankle-high with rivets all around her heel.

She nudges Alexis' forearm when she sees the woman seated at the back, recognizing her from her picture.

Alexis Theron Lambros

Alexis does all the research that he can to give him that available information. He isn't exactly a computer expert but he's no Luddite either; he can Google as well as anyone else and find her information on the Denver city paper. He looks up all her details, what kind of a reporter she is and such so he's forearmed with what he needs to know.

On the way there, he lets Sam know what he found about the woman; it would seem that she's all about local politics and takes on both sides of the political spectrum. She may just be legit, though they should probably still be careful.

The Fury kin doesn't dress formally as a rule, or even business casual. Alexis prefers T-Shirts, jeans, light jackets, loose-fitting clothes that are more for ease of motion than style. But that isn't to say that he doesn't have some clothing of that style in his closet, and he's going business casual for this meeting. A grey button-down short-sleeved shirt and simple black slacks make up his outfit today.

He steps into the coffee shop with Sam, the two of them seeming quite different in style. That will work to their advantage hopefully; harder to get a fix on them. He looks over where Sam indicates when she nudges his arm and nods, walking that way with her and giving Jennifer a polite smile as they come up.

"Miss Waterhouse?"

Twilight

"Call me Jen," returns Miss Waterhouse, shutting the laptop and rising from the bench seat in a rather awkward curl and leaning forward to offer her hand to shake. First to whomever is closest. Then to the other. She already has business cards in hand and hands them out. A quick smile does not really banish her intent look at the both of them, then she nods toward the bench opposite her. "Grab a seat. And if you want dinner or something, it's on me.

"Well, my editor, really, but same difference for your purposes, right?"

Her glasses are different than those in her profile picture. Sleeker and more modern and square, and her clothing is pretty neutral. Jeans and a white shell and a blazer slung off to one side. Sandals on her feet if they sneak a look beneath the table.

"Really glad you guys could make it. My editor's really hot on these folks, you know? I was hoping that you guys had been involved with one of their programs but I'm guessing," glancing from one to the other, " - not?"

Sam Evans

[percept+emp]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Sam Evans

Sam takes the offered hand and shakes it firmly. There is a thick leather cuff on her right wrist, and a few random cords on the left. "Sam," she says by way of greeting, her smile wary but charming. She's not good at hiding things, but while she's wary she's not overly suspicious. In fact, when she takes her seat and she folds her hands on the table in front of her, her head angles a little as she watches the woman, and she seems to relax a touch. Not completely, but a little.

And she is genuinely remorseful when she says, "No, well," a quick glance to the side, double-checking before she continues, "I haven't. For an organization that runs on volunteers it's amazingly difficult to volunteer."

She remembers Winona's offer to help pave the way for them to get in, but as she'd never heard of it again assumed it had been impossible.

Alexis Theron Lambros

He extends his hand to the reporter, giving a warm, friendly shake. "Jen, then. Nice to meet you." He doesn't give his name right away; after all, he doesn't need it going on the record and he isn't exactly up on his journalism law to know when that applies. And he's a shitty liar (no really, he seriously is) so tossing out a fake one would be a bad idea.

"I'm good, thank you. An iced tea, maybe." He lets Sam slide onto the bench and then follows suit, taking a seat and leaning back. "Yeah, I haven't worked with them either. I sort of run in the same circles though; I do volunteer work at other places. What makes your editors so interested in them?" He shoots a quick look at Sam, then back at the reporter.

Twilight

"He has a source, some homeless guy who had a bit of a run-in with these folks. Sounded super shady," Jen gives them both a bit of a quick shrug, a subtle curl of her shoulders. Waves the waitress over and gives them both a chance to put in their orders, then asks for a grilled manchego-and-fig sandwich for herself, in addition to a refill on her coffee, " - but also a bit like something out of a movie.

"Not All the President's Men, either. Something maybe with a little more suspense and a little less gravitas. So I cover the planning commission, I've done some stories on the fight over the Healing Place and I get assigned to cover this one. I've got all kinds of rumors but not alot of facts and not a single person with tangible proof of anything, or anyone willing to go on record.

"Still, he wants me to come up with something, so here I am again, chasing my tail. Hoping that you can help."

Sam Evans

"We'll do what we can to help, but, uh. What exactly is the story you're going for?"

This from Sam, who has a guess on the latter but tries to play it down a bit, still. Could mean gunfights, could mean, well. Alexis did say that this woman covered more political aspects.

Alexis Theron Lambros

He orders just a regular iced tea, nothing special to it, not flavored, and leaves at that. Once the waitress is gone he rests his forearms on the table, watching Jen a moment, considering. "Well, that depends on what you need." He takes in a deep breathe and lets it out slowly. His attention slips to Sam when she asks what the reporter is going for, story-wise. He nods, agreeing, and looks back to offer some explanation.

"Here's the thing, Jen. What I will tell you know is that I've run across them, and in far from the most positive manner. That being said, a lot of what I know involves people who I can't speak for and who are at very serious risk if their names are brought into this. That's not a risk I'm willing to put them through, certainly not without their advance consent. I'm also looking to find out everything that I can so that I can help these people. So, that's my agenda. Like my friend, I'd like to know where you're coming from."

Twilight

"First of all, like I said. I'm looking to keep my boss off my back. So I need to figure out if this source of his is blowing smoke, or if there's something more to what he's saying. Second of all," and their drinks arrive and the young woman who is turning into a middle aged woman without quite recognizing the point of departure, the place where things change, glances up and gives her this blank but moving little smile of thanks, and settles down to her goodness-knows-what-number cup of coffee for the day. Still waiting for her manchego and fig sandwich, mind.

"I'm looking for the story that's there. The story I can prove. Or hell, even if it's all background, I'm interested in being there in the right place and at the right time when the shit goes. Believe it or not my boss is a badass and we still actually report the news and not celebrity-baby number seventy-seven at the City Paper.

"But if this is all bullshit, some background interagency turf war over city block grants and not-in-my-backyardism, well. I'd like to know that too." All of that is to Sam. Jen's eyes are steady on her.

Then shift with a steady glint to Alexis.

"I don't use names without direct permission. Mind, some of this shit I can't print without someone willing to go on record, so I'll be clear there too. So I'll stipulate right now that everything we say is off the record and confidential, until that changes and that changes with your say-so. Meantime, if you're open and honest with me, I'll be open and honest with you. That's what I can promise. Can't promise that the NSA isn't reading my e-mail, you know.

"But, I don't think that they care a whit about a bunch of weird Christian fundamentalists.

"Really, I'm just getting oriented. Trying to figure out the first angle of approach. Because what I have right now isn't much. Reverend gets a hot new wife and attendance skyrockets? Social service agency with tiny and self-selected population reports incredible self-congratulatory results? How's that any different than Scientology? Not even poor people want a drug treatment facility in their neighborhood? Corporate America still runs ramshackle over them?"

Twilight

BRB!

Alexis Theron Lambros

He listens quietly as Jen explains her stance, where she's coming from; what kind of story she's trying to dig up. What she says seems to be backed up by what her past writing says...not that he expected different, but still, it always pays to play things safe. They have a lot of risk here; this is a journalist who is poking around something that could bring in Garou involvement. That is just about the worst idea ever, to say the least.

So he listens. She's a skeptic it seems, and Alexis nods a little to himself at that. That's good. And he smiles slightly at the idea that she doesn't use names without direct permission.

Another look over to Sam, and he looks back to the reporter, leaning back once more. He reaches tout and rotates the iced tea glass on its napkin, thinking. "Okay. Well...I don't know about my friend here, but if she's okay with it than I am. What did the homeless person say?"

Sam Evans

Sam leans her shoulders forward a little, listening intently. There's a tiny little shadow forming between her brows, something that might deepen with age and time and life on their side of the Garou's conflict. It adds gravity to her expression that breaks apart like sunshine breaking through rain clouds when the waitress arrives. Sam looks up past Alexis at the woman, holds out her hand for her glass of water, and smiles brightly.

She lowers her hand to wipe the already-forming condensation from her hand onto the thigh of her shorts, and about that time Jen is switching her attention to Alexis. Sam's shifts that way, too, dark eyes sliding to the side before her head angles a little in that direction. She knows a bit about the story that's there, Alexis, too. But there are somethings that just can't be told to ordinary people. They have to play this very carefully. They have to protect the Veil in the way that their kind do.

Sam nods her assent, "Yeah, to a point. I'll tell you anything I can."

Twilight

"That this rEEntry group offered a friend of his a place to stay, no strings attached. Turns out, according to him, they had loads of strings. Nondisclosure agreements and medical power of attorney, and on and on. Of course, he didn't get copies of any of the agreements she was asked to sign, and I don't know that he's right about what they were. Hell, when I go in to the Apple Bar to get my iPhone serviced they ask me to sign a seventeen page form just to update the OS.

"Then, it gets weird. Claims they sent some thugs looking for him. Asking around for him. Which seems, you know, a little extreme for a shelter. Tracking down someone who refused to sign up.

"Now," a faint tip of her head. "One of their employees disappeared recently. Skipped town, apparently, which means, skipped out on the conditions of his parole, which puts the lie to what they're saying about their recidivism rate, right? But not in any way that's substantial.

"Director even got picked up for violation of her own parole, for falsifying documents or something, which has them on the backfoot but again, that's a page seventeen police blotter piece.

"So, those are my cards on the table. What can you offer me?"

Alexis Theron Lambros

He raises an eyebrow when he hears all of Jen's information. There are a couple of things in there that are of interest to him, to be certain. He would love to know what kind of falsification was done, which employee disappeared and when. And the idea that thugs went looking for this source...that seems not at all surprising to him.

This is when Alexis speaks up. He's being very careful about what information he gives out, for obvious reason. But he needs to give something before asking for more.

"Just for starters, there was a young man. Dmitri Halloran. He went to the Citadel, that camp for troubled youth, and he escaped. Now he's been treated as dangerous by the police based on what the rEEntry people told them when he was previously a non-violent drug offender. That's not very rehabilitative. Again, on its own that isn't much. But you can see a pattern coming up here, I'm sure."

Sam Evans

"Well," she says, "their recidivism stats aren't based on anything public, anyway, they're just saying things and people are believing them. Or not, which could be why Eastland's trying to push them out."

She pauses for Alexis, and she nods. "I'm not surprised they'd try to wrap people up in as much red tape as possible. They're not really known for letting people out once they're in. Or at least, if someone's been released, I haven't been able to find them."

Twilight

"Yeah," Jen agrees, with this quick flashing sort of look. "It's not much. It's not anything, really. Anecdotes, you know? And all their counselors are graduates, so they're clearly letting someone go, somewhere, somewhen.

"There I've got a few rumors that Christina Black was supposedly hot and heavy with Crenshaw back when she was working for - shit, I don't have my notes that company he sold - but seriously, those are rumors and so what. Even George W. Bush basically admitted to being a sinner and an alcoholic until he turned 40 and came clean. What does that do except add to her conversion story, you know?"

In the middle of this discussion, her phone starts to buzz. It's an alarm, not an incoming call and she grimaces. Her manchego and fig grilled cheese has yet to arrive.

"Shit, I've got to go," she says, fishing out a couple more business cards and offering one each to them. "Listen, you get anything you think I can run with, or find someone who can talk to me, or get some information - something solid, something concrete - give me a call. Cool? Help me keep my boss off my back."

Block Party [MoHN]

Sam Evans

[nightmares]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Angelica Cordozo

[Angelica has the Soft-Hearted flaw, just incase it somehow comes into play ]

Twilight

The EAST END AREA REDEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION is holding a daylong block party somewhere off East Colfax. Block party: try two or three blocks worth of party. There are inflatables for the kids, a barbeque eating contest, and a step dancing competition between a few local dance studios and fraternity and sororities and alumni associations.

Some of the booths are set up by local businesses, advertising their services, offering a few freebies, and the like. Most of the booths, though, are manned by local social service agencies, churches, shelters, kitchens, day centers, churches, churches, and churches. Among the most prominent - and the most fun - is an encampment at the far end of the block that takes up nearly half of it. There's a small tent for revival style preaching, and a half-dozen offerings in the tents.

The House of God has a half-dozen organizations under its umbrella. A soup kitchen and thrift store both called In His Name share a large booth. The former is serving free food, slices of cake and non-alcoholic punch and sandwiches, and the latter has racks of thrifted clothing available for $1, $2, or $3 a piece. Balloons stream from the big tent, which is bright in the fading late afternoon, early evening sun.

Another tent in the same complex is more subdued: staffed by a 30-something woman in a neck tattoo and a mismatched business suit and a big, bluff white guy in a too-small suit. rEEntry the sign over the tent says. What they offer (aside from an urn of coffee) isn't clear.

A large, bright white tent showcases a three-dimensional model of something called The Healing Place - which is COMING SOON. There's more cake here, and chips and dip and grapes and cheese and a few more people in suits. Brief perusal of their easels with advertising material suggests that The Healing Place is a drug treatment center in the works, and there's a thermometer showing just how far they've come while seeking funding. Just a few thousand dollars left to go.

Yet another arm: The Citadel has a booth plastered with pictures of African-American and hispanic kids enjoying the usual sort of summer activities at a sleepaway camp. Fishing and hiking and swimming and tubing and playing tug-o-war in the great outdoors.

Mostly, though, the people who throng through the House of God enclave are there for the games and prizes. The Bouncy-House and the Test of Strength, the even the handful of small carnival rides the church sponsored in. A mini-ferris wheel for kids, and a full-sized Spider ride for kids and adults. There are hotdogs on the grill and a general atmosphere of cheer, though a few of the pamphlets from the church proper have titles like THE WAGES OF SIN and SIGNS and LAST DAYS?

Church members are dressed well, if often shabbily. And circulating through the crowd are a handful of young converts dressed in full suit and bow ties, formal enough that locals sometimes mix them up with the Nation of Islam.

Alexis Theron Lambros

[[Cha 2, Empathy 2]]

Sam Evans

[charisma 4: charming, empathy 4: emotional states]

Angelica Cordozo

Block Parties were in Angel's blood, both figuratively and very nearly literally. She'd been to more of these things then she can count, and her parents before her had set up and been apart of their own fair share of such events. Sometimes they used to joke that Angel had been conceived at a block party and born at a protest...neither of which were true...but ahh the stories.

The redevelopment of any area of town was a good thing, new buisness mean't more money, mean't more social programs, and mean't better living conditions for the vast majority of those living in the area. But it wasn't these folks that Angel was on the look out as she walked through the crowd with a bag of cotton candy in one hand, idly snacking away on the bright blue sugary delight. It was all those who would be left behind, those who couldn't afford to move onward and upward, those who were always in need.

These were Angel's people, these were the people she hoped she might help someday, down the road, if fate willed and they wished it.

For now however, their was a party to enjoy. Her steps were light, almost dance like as she moved through the crowd with that bag of cotton candy, the big golden hoops in her ears bouncing as she went. Her hair was pulled back smoothly from her face and she wore a pair of skinny hip hugging jeans and T-shirt with The Villa's logo embroidered on the back, one had to represent after all.

She was moving nowhere in particular...but slowly but surely she was getting closer to the House of God....seemed that god really knew how to throw a party.

Angelica Cordozo

[Angels charisma is a 4, while her empathy is a 3]

Sam Evans

Since Sam's arrival in Denver, she's been busy busy busy. Work has eaten up a lot of her time. Her side projects, too, take up a good bit of her free time. And then there's the exercise, the night or two a week she goes to the gym, the nightly elliptical jaunts in her condo, the once a week boxing lessons. Sometimes she forgets how to breathe.

That's where her coworkers have come in for the rescue the most. They're the ones who told her about the 1Up and the Wynkoop's Thursday night Reddit meets, which to be honest has only been fun sometimes. For once it wasn't Rob who told her were to go for fun, but David her boss, married with a kid, who is actually into things like redevelopment block parties and company picnics and the like. And for once Sam didn't have anything else going on tonight. So she made sure Winslow had water and the balcony door was securely closed and the blinds shut against the sometimes unnecessarily watchful gaze of Cold Crescent's tower, got herself cleaned up after work, and headed out.

"Cleaned up" for Sam is relative, of course. The bantam city kin wears a faded red shirt that reads the Runaways CHERIE CURRIE (a reproduction of course) over tight jeans with large tears at the knees and smaller slashes all up the tops of her thighs, and boots that go to about her mid-calf and are black with too many buckles. Her long hair has been braided loosely around her face, showing off the many piercings that take up a significant chunk of real estate along her ears. Her eyes are smoky shadowed and thick lined, but it's Denver and despite the heat there's no humidity to make it all run and melt off her face.

Clearly, she does not belong among the church tents.

So she keeps to the other areas for the most part, checking out a booth for a shelter before wandering down a little further toward social services. She has procured a hot dog from somewhere, contained in a shallow paper bowl and covered in sauerkraut and chili. She chews a bite thoughtfully as she peruses someone's table full of pamphlets.

Alexis Theron Lambros

Alexis can often be seen at situations similar to this. The work he does at women's shelters (teaching self-defense classes mostly, but also volunteering in other capacities from outreach programs to grunt work) almost ensures that he's aware of most of these events and he tries to make them whenever he can. It helps that his job at the martial arts center is one where he can be a bit flexible in his schedule if he needs to be. The amount of goodwill he engenders benefits the center financially when people come to sign up for classes, so he gets some leeway.

That brings us to now, of course. Alex isn't working this one; he doesn't have any association with this religious group obviously, and not having looked into themthem yet he didn't volunteer. You don't do charity without knowing who's higher up the chain of command...or at least, Alex doesn't. So he's here for moral support only, making his way through the event with a relaxed walk. He's friendly, nodding and waving to anyone he might recognize from his own ventures and pausing to look at the church's propaganda. His brow furrows at them, but no more than those brows might for any other religious talk. End of the world, wages of sin...he's heard it all before.

He has his own family religion, and he knows how close the churches are to the truth of the matter. And how far off.

He's dressed comfortable for warm weather in a light T-Shirt advertising his dojo (at the insistance of the owner), jeans and comfortable running shows. He's got sunglasses on to shield his clear blue eyes from the sun. He pauses as he sees someone out of the corner of his eye, someone he caguely recognizes and not from his self-defense classes. He's seen Angelica somewhere before, in a Nation-related capacity. He smiles and splits from the teenager he was chatting with and turns to head in her direction, waving.

Sam Evans

Sam looks up and smiles and charm and goodness and light to the people manning that particular booth. It's as she turns away and looks around, scouting out the next booth she intends to grace with her presence that she sees Alexis' head moving through the crowd. Not Angelica, though, not yet. The two women are each too short to be seen unless the crowd parts for them just right, and it just doesn't do that yet.

But Sam sees Alexis, who she recalls seeing somewhere sept related. Lost in the crowd of the Solstice gathering, probably. She changes direction and ambles over thataway, taking another bite of her food as she goes. He looks like he's headed somewhere on purpose, but that doesn't even give Sam pause. They're kin or something, related through the distant threads of their shifting families. She has to say hello.

Angelica Cordozo

Alex made his way through the crowd towards Angel, and for a moment he might think he'd lost her in the crowd, that bobbing pony tail fo brown hair disappearing within the wall of humanity that rose up ever so suddenly. But in the next she is there, her own hand up and waving back, her pale blue eyes sparkling in the street light as she smiled and pressed her way towards him.

When she reached him a light welcoming laugh left her lips as she spoke, pleased to see the man. "Alex, so good to see you, how are you chico?" She asks with delight before pointing at him with a far to amused look on her face. "You know the ladies want you back Mr.. They've practically been begging me to sign you up for another course." She says tilting her head as she nodded.

"Seems you do good work." Her smile was enthusiastic broad, the sort of smile that drew you in and made you smile right back. It was over Alexis shoulder, or more likely around his shoulder given to the man's height in comparison to Angelica's that she spots Sam heading in their direction. She offers the woman that same energetic smile and a wave of her cotton candy bag, waving the fellow kinswoman into the group.

Alexis Theron Lambros

Alexis has pretty good situational awareness; despite what a Fenrir and a Bone Gnawer could attest to from a couple weeks earlier, he's normally pretty good at seeing the whole situation around himself and assessing things. So he notes that there's someone coming toward him from another direction as he strides in Angel's direction, and his head turns toward that individual on an intercept course.

When he sees that its Sam, he smiles and nods. He recognizes her as well, from the Solstice gathering if he recalls. It was something like that. He tilts his head, as if to say "this way," in the direction he was travelling. Three kinfolk show up at once place of their own accord without it being planned...that's not the kind of fate that you ignore.

Angel greets him, and he returns the greeting with a frindly smile. "Hey you. Funny to see you here." It's said with a good-natured humor...of course she would be. He takes the compliment in stride. "I've been trying to get back out there, I've just been busy. You know how it is. Glad to hear I've made a good imporession.

Angel waves to Sam...so good, they all know of each other at least. He looks over his shoulder at Sam as she comes up. "So, what do you think of these guys? I don't know a lot about them..." He gestures vaguely toward the tents and other places where the church people are. The question is said mostly to Angel, but only because you don't introduce yourself with a question. Or he doesn't.

Sam Evans

Sam has seen these two around, but she hasn't actually spoken to either of them until now. Alex sees her, recognizes her, gives her that Come along, Pond look, so she finishes off her dog. Its paper container finds a home in the closest trash bin, and as she wipes her hands off on her thighs she kicks up the pace.

"Hey," she greets, but before she can introduce herself Alex is asking a question.

"I hadn't even heard of them before today, but honestly, I'm not much of a churchgoer. I'm Sam, by the way." Leaning a little to her right, her foot slides out after and she maneuvers herself to a more optimal position for conversation with a view of the larger tents.

Twilight

There are always disturbances in crowds like this. Especially in crowds like this. The booths here aren't just offering homemade versions of carnival games or face painting. They're offering cholesterol and STD screenings and family planning and pushing, always pushing, against the avalanche of despair that is life for the poorest of the poor.

Right now, over at the Harmony House booth, a schizophrenic homeless man whose body odor wafts through the crowd like a bleak and wretched flag is speaking louder and louder and louder to himself. Stands just outside the booth, holding a giant paper shopping bag stuffed with even more lumpen arrays of plastic shopping bags and apparently nothing else becoming more and more agitated, while one of the young AmeriCorps volunteers tries to talk him down.

Up ahead, half-way down the block, near the House of God encampment: more raised voices. Alexis is tall enough that if he looks upward he can see the convergance of a pair of suited church members usher-walking a tall young African American girl with puff-ball pigtails bodily / physically out of the half-block or so claimed by the House of God and its affiliates.

--

Closer to home, and harder to spot because he is smaller than even the tiny kinwomen here tonight: a five year old wandering alone through the crowd. He's African-American, with close cropped brown hair and big brown eyes, wearing a t-shirt with Elmo on it and jeans and his eyes are shining but he's not not not crying. Not crying at all. Just holding his chest up and out and looking around the crowd with the bewildered intensity of a lost child. All those legs and arms, all those limbs. All those -

- Sam. No one's really seeing him because he's lost but there's this point where a decision is being made and he walks right up to Sam and tugs on the tail of her t-shirt.

This tug-tug-tug behind her.

Tug-tug-tug.

Tug-tug-tug.

Angelica Cordozo

Angel plucked a small portion of the bright blue cotton candy and stuck it in her mouth and sucking it off her finger. She watched as Sam stepped up and nodded her welcome. "Hey, you were at the Solstice thing right? I'm Angelica." She offered freely, it was the sort of environment you did that, and even if it wasnt..well it was Angel.

Her gaze slips back towards Alexis as he asks about the various programs and tents, about the house in particular and she looked about pointedly before shrugging and leaning in gently to talk in a slightly less outdoor voice. "They do good work, I can't argue that." She gestures discreetly towards the House of God and moved her hand as she spoke.

"They were just a little soup kitchen and shelter less then three years ago, and then boom!" She makes an exploding motion with her hands, her cheeks puffing up slightly as she did. "They started growing, funny thing though...far as i know? They've never gotten any kinda government funding." Her hand moved on to rEEentry and Citadel.

"Both are about rehabilitation, the one working with ex-cons and the other troubled teens and students..." She seemed to trail off in that moment, as the child starts to tug on Sam's T-shirt and she looks to the young kinswoman, and then back to the child.

Sam Evans

"That's-" Sam starts to say weird. She of all people knows a thing or two about companies booming, and the sorts of places that do good on the outside while harboring darker things in their hearts. It's where she came from, well, where she comes from most recently.

She starts to speak but stops at that first tug-tug-tug on her shirt. Sam twists around to look down first. Then she lifts her chin and does a quick scan of the area, looking for a concerned parent or freaking out babysitter or guardian or whomever.

Tug-tug-tug.

She turns around the rest of the way and immediately drops down to one knee, shifting her messenger bag back from her left hip. It's instinctive, that lower of herself to the child's level. Even someone of Sam's diminutive height is sort of giant-esque to a five-year-old.

"Hey, buddy, what's up?" she asks, checking him over with a glance for signs of stress or distress.

[empathy (emotional states)]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 4

Twilight

He's very clearly upset. Tears in his eyes and he's trying not to let them fall. He's scared and lost and he's looking for someone and he can't find them because the space is so full of adults and Sam was the nicest looking one within eyeshot but he doesn't trust her and he doesn't want to talk he's not supposed to talk to strangers but everyone's a stranger right now.

Twilight

Sam turns around and looks down and Angelica too and suddenly the boy who was invisible is being seen by TWO people and maybe THREE people and whatever it cost him to approach a stranger is costing him more when more and more strangers are looking at him and he reaches up to shove the back of his hand beneath his nose and there's a little bit of snot that comes away on the back of his hand, all stringy and he gives them both another sulky, swinging look, steeling himself to say something, something -

"Can't find Shanae."

- is what he says, when he finally speaks, and his puffs his chest up before saying it like he's got great big lungs in there and but it comes out quiet and scared with just a bit of bravado.

--

Half a block away, the tall girl being ejected - physically ejected - jerks her arms and pulls herself away from the folks in suits. Shouts something at them, inaudible over the distance and crowd. The larger of the two - a big, bulky white guy with prison tattoos whose biceps are too big for the suit lurches forward like he's going to smear her face on the sidewalk, but a woman puts her hand on his arm and holds him back. If Alex is looking that direction, he can see it all play out like a silent movie.

The girl stiffens, looking back at the two of them, then shakes her head all angry before her anger is chilled, is distilled into something else. Still and panicked.

She turns around and wants to head back into the Church tents but the man and woman are still standing there eying her so she turns around and plunges forward through the crowd. Clearly, frantically looking for something or someone now.

Alexis Theron Lambros

"I'm Alexis." He smiles to Sam and extends a hand in greeting. "Nice to finally meet you. Officially, that is." His handshake is firm without having any sense of machismo to it; there's no Type-A obsession of showing dominance. The reasons are probably obvious.

Angel explains that the House of God people have blown up over the last few years, and Alexis looks surprised and impressed. They both know how rare it is for someone to do that, especially without subsidies. "Really? Wow..." He looks around the event again, viewing it with new eyes. That alone isn't enough to raise red flags...it's odd, but conceivably possible. "Interesting..."

And then there's a frown on his face. It isn't for the disturbances...Alexis expects those at any large gathering, especially one such as this. Rather, he zeroes in on the African-American woman being escorted away. He frowns, deeply. Had there been resistance, his fellow kin would have gotten barely more than a "Be right back" before he was racing over to intervene. As it stands...he's not happy. It's genetically bred into him not to be.

He looks down at the kid, at Sam and Angel. "Something's going on. I'll be right back."

Hey, it was more words than "Be right back," at least. He starts walking quickly toward the situation. The guy who looked like he was about to take a swing is getting what appears to be a death glare. But he's holding back, because no punches were swung yet. There's no mistake on where he's headed though.

"Hey! Everything okay here?" The words are shouted, and they're directed toward the woman. Not the suits.

Angelica Cordozo

Alex tells them he'll be right back, and Angel looks up at him briefly to nod her acknowledgement of his intent. She looks in the direction he heads, but of course she can't see whats going on. Instead she turns her attention back to Sam and the child.

She offers the child a reassuring smile and kneels down next to Sam, looking at her briefly, both surprised and incredibly happy to see that her fellow kinswoman knew exactly what to do in this situation. She lets Sam sooth the child and when an opening is given she flashes the child another reassuring smile as she held out her cotton candy.

"Your gonna be ok little man, here...have some cotton candy, and tell us where you last saw Shanae."

Alexis Theron Lambros

[[Strength+Intimidation]]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Sam Evans

He's scared. Sam's mouth quirks but she doesn't even think about reaching out and gathering him up in her arms. It's not something she would do to a fully grown adult, and it's definitely not something she would do to a small child. Never mind that in this day and age touching children with whom one has no connection (and sometimes even then) is a huge no no, don't do that, never ever ever.

Child Psych was a thing Sam studied back in the day, but though her degree wound up being more general. Her specialty with children comes from having only about a dozen younger siblings (three, actually, but they were a handful so it always felt like more) and defaulting to Eldest when the Eldest ran away. She tilts her head and quirks her mouth. Despite the clothes and the make-up and accessories like a spike, black and curving through her right lobe, she is genuinely pleasant in demeanor. Kind and gentle and surprisingly tough. Though she doesn't gather the boy up in her arms, she is scarcely any different than she was the night she gathered a tall, spinly Spiral cub close. That night she soothed and calmed and stroked the girl's hair while silently bidding her farewells to her family all the way across the country, certain that Death himself had stopped that van, if not The Death then at least Her Death.

The point is, Sam is a good person, and her goodness is genuine, and right now it's radiating from the punk-woman in almost palpable soothing waves.

Tilting her head up she looks at Alex and nods silently. She looks at Angel and there's a ripple of displeasure. Offering candy? To a small lost child? Mentally, she shrugs it off.

"We can help you find her, if you like?" she asks, holding out her hand toward him, not caring about the little bit of snot if he takes her hand.

Twilight

The two people in suits: a young(ish) woman with dark hair and blue eyes and the big white guy are both watching Alexis as he runs half-way down the block and shoots that death-glare at the big white guy. There's a ratcheting up of tension in the big dude, a stark, forward curl of his shoulders, enough that the woman inserts herself physically in front of him and talks him down. The big guy says something angrily to the woman, inaudible otherwise, and then turns around and jerks himself away from her, relieved to have an excuse to turn away, and shamed that he feels anything like relief.

The woman though; she looks back at Alexis as the two of them are walking back to the rEEntry tent. Gives him this sweeping survey, up and down and down and up.

Like she's memorizing the shape of his silhouette against the crowd.

The girl turns in a sweep as Alexis asks her if there's something wrong and she gives him this quick, hard look that sweeps back to the pair of suits retreating through the crowd. It's just a gut reaction to trust him; but it seems that deathglare was enough. She grimaces, " - lost my brother when I was - "

Cutting a look back at the church tents. She's younger than she looks. Fourteen or fifteen. Just her height makes her seem older, that and her angry self-possession. Which feels justified, radiant, rightous.

"You seen a little boy? Five year old?"

--

Meanwhile, the boy glances from Sam to Angelica and back again. Reaches out to the one for the cotton candy and pulls away a big, shearing handful that starts to melt as soon as it hits the warmth of his hand, and reaches out the other to Sam, then frowns and reconsiders, then does it anyway.

"Not supposed to talk to strangers."

The kid says.Not supposed to take candy from strangers either but that one's pretty hard to resist.

He starts stuffing the long hunk of melting sugar into his mouth, still sniffling, a bubble of snot expanding and breaking on his upper lip as he considers them.

"By the Ferris wheel." - is what he tells Angelica. "We was in line but then she went."

Alexis Theron Lambros

Despite current appearances, Alexis is not a man who provokes situations as a rule. He's certainly not a guy to keep them heated past when they need to be, and so there's no parting words like "Yeah, you BETTER run!" or mocking looks sent toward the guy in the suit. Alexis doesn't hold the man the enough regard to give him a moment's more attention than he requires, although he absolutely files that face away in his mind. Under a category that is labelled in a way he would never speak. He doesn't like profanity most of the time.

Besides, he has more important things to worry about...namely, the woman in front of him. As we were told earlier, Alex has some fairly good situational awareness and he caught the conversation between the boy Sam found and the kinfolk herself. Angry and dangerous Alexis bleeds away to leave friendly, concerned Alexis behind for the woman and he nods a little bit.

"Are you Shanae?" He definitely caught that part. "I'm Alex. I think he found my friends and I."

He steps back so as to give her some room. "C'mon. If it's not him, then we can regroup and go looking for him. Four heads are better than two, you know?"

If she seems willing, he'll turn and start leading her back to the others, gently clearing a path so she can get there.

Sam Evans

Her brows lift at the momentary indecision, but the looks melts into a warm and glowing smile when he takes her hand.

"Good, you shouldn't talk to strangers. Name's Sam. I live down the street." Down the street meaning much, much closer to downtown, but still. "This is Angelica. If you tell us your name we won't be strangers anymore." The hand she offered was her right, which leaves her left still free to reach into her bag for the little travel packet of tissues she keeps in there among many other things. She rips one out and holds it out to the boy. If he takes it, fine, if he doesn't it goes into her pocket. Either way, she lifts up onto the balls of her feet and cranes her head around, looking for the ferris wheel.

That's when she notices Alexis parting the crowd like Moses. She lifts her free arm and waves.

Angelica Cordozo

The young man takes the cotton candy and starts to stuff it into his mouth. This action makes Angel's smile broaden, a moment of trust between strangers, a chance to help....it was what she lived for. Sam's displeasure is noted, but it is left alone, there were obviously bigger things to worry about, like the well being of the child who stood there, one hand covered in sugar and the other in Sams.

She rose then, also looking about for the Ferris Wheel, both her and Sam craning around like meerkats in search of danger. When they pick it out Angel knelt back down and spoke to the boy.

"What's your sister wearing little man." She asked as she rested her hands on her knees. "She wearin anything special, anything you could easily pick out at a distance?"

Of course...little does Angel know....the childs sister is closer then they imagined.

Twilight

The girl goes still when Alexis says her name, nods warily and then breathes out sharply when he introduces himself and tells her I think he found my friends and I and she's already willing, moving. Frantic and edgy and alert.

"Damn, thank god - " her relief palpable, livid in the evening air. Alexis might be intent on gently clearing a path back through the crowd but Shanae - the girl is long, tall, lean, athletic - wants to fucking run. There's still adrenaline bright in her veins and tears come with the relief and she's right on Alexis' heels and sometimes pushing him forward, " - where are they,"

--

Sam offers the kid a tissue. Five year olds only blow their noses IN your tissue. They don't take them when their hands are full of cotton candy and also stranger-hand. Still, the boy lifts his nose toward her hand when she pulls out that tissue, ready to give her a good blow if she's brave enough to wipe the snot-bubble from his nose.

"Ain't supposed to tell my name." The boy returns, "We don't live real close. We took the bus. Shanae said we could see our moms but they - "

Right about then, Alexis and Shanae charge through and Shanae rushes through and grabs the little boy up in her arms. Just wraps him up and picks him up, nevermind snot and cotton candy which is now melting not only on the boy's hands but right into her puff-ball pigtails. "Antoine, thank god."

Shaking with relief, is she. Absolutely shaking with it. Relief and the afterburn of anger and - all of it. All of it.

"Thank you - " over the boy's shoulder to the rest of them. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

Alexis Theron Lambros

As soon as Shanae indicates that it's her, he understands. He goes as quick as he's able without being rude to the people they're displacing; the last thing they need is to start a fight in the crowd. He knows it's not fast enough for the woman he's escorting to her brother, but he's trying at least.

And then they break through and he fluidly slips to the side so that the siblings can be reunited. He smiles as they do, crossing his arms over his chest. He gives a quick look around; he's not putting it past the security people (he assumes that's what Prison Guy and Associate were) to be looking for an opportunity to eject them even further.

"Don't mention it," he says when Shanae gives the three of them thanks. He looks over to Sam and Angel a moment, giving them both warm smiles, then back around. He's basically standing guard over the reunion at the moment. He has a couple of questions, but they can wait. It's only after the initial burst of relief is warn off a bit for Shanae that he speaks up. "So what was with those two that were hauling you off, anyway?"

Angelica Cordozo

If bridging gaps between strangers and helping those in need was her bread and butter, then a moment like this was Angel's champagne and caviar. When the little boy is swept up in the woman's arms she simply stands with one hand on her hip and a broad smile upon her face. There is something else in that smile however, something like longing, or a memory of something in the past.

"Your welcome Shanae, to do anything less would be a crime." She said looking around at Sam, sharing a pleased look before her gaze found Alexis as he came up after Shanae's explosive entrance. "What can't you do?" Her tone amused, but also impressed before the smile faltered some and she looked back towards Shanae and Antoine, considering the words the young child spoke moments before being swept up.

"Shanae, If you like I can get you a ride home, I bet sticking around after this isn't really in the cards right?" She asks, her voice tentative, as if she were trying to feel something out.

Twilight

"Shit." Still with her arms around the kid, shaking her head and giving a sharp look back through the crowd toward the church encampment. Then she looks back at Alexis. "They won't let me see my moms. She's done been in there for I don't even know how long. Supposed to be a month and she come out with a job and clean and I don't even know how long it's been and when you go down there to they office they don't even let you in.

"Got to buzz you up and they just say you don't got an appointment you got to go."

Then a sharp breath in, glancing back at Angelica. Right hand cradling the back of her brother's head as she looks down at the Bone Gnawer and shakes her head. Maybe a hint of suspicion in her face and manner. "We got bus passes. We'll be alright."

Sam Evans

Sam holds the tissue in place while Antoine blows his nose into it, then wipes away the snot with nary a curl of her lip or a scrunch of her nose. Never mind that she's just exposed herself to about ten billion different illnesses, she's kinfolk. If a corrupted company or weird laser shooting diamonds or Spirals can't take her down, a summer cold doesn't stand a chance.

Then there's Shanae and Sam is left holding a snot-filled tissue for a moment. "Hang on a sec," she says, to Angelica. She's not about to interrupt that reunion, not by a long shot, but she does want to toss the snotrag. It's when she's looking at Angelica that she sees that smile, and sees perhaps a little more than either she wanted to see or the Gnawer wanted to show. Turning her head away quickly, the rest of her soon follows, and she trots off to the nearest trash can before trotting back.

She returns in time to hear about appointments and buzzings. Frowning a bit, she asks, "What happens when you try getting an appointment?" she asks, assuming that it has of course been tried already, and failed.

Angelica Cordozo

Angel see's that look of mistrust and she puts her hands up casually. "It's cool, cab ride, bus pass, its all the same to me." She wasn't taken aback by the woman's comment, such mistrust was common on the streets, and a gift horse was often thoroughly examined...with dental drills.

"Your talking about the rEEntry program right?" She inquires, looking at Shanae before letting her gaze drift past her to the tent in the distance. "If you like, I can put you in touch with a lawyer Shanae." She offers as her gaze slides back to the woman and her brother. "I can help cover the fee's and maybe she canw ork through the red tape to get you guys in. I knew the program was pretty serious...sounds like its to much though."

Twilight

"They say, she ain't cleared for re-entry yet." Shanae returns to Sam with a grimace over her brother's head. "So we don't have no reason to come down. Then they say, if you wanna come down we kin send you to camp for the summer. Find someone to foster that brother, or do you want us to call CPS and tell 'em you been left there all alone."

An alert look back to Angelica when she offers an appointment with a lawyer, help covering the fees and red tape. The girl's still 14 or 15 but nearly as tall as Alexis, a looming shadow over the two diminutive kin. "I don't know. If CPS comes Antoine and me are gonna go to foster care. We go back we won't never get to see my moms again. They ain't gonna keep us together, neither."

Alexis Theron Lambros

He frowns deeply when Shanae explains what the problem is, his eyes immediately straying--almost involuntarily--to where he the suits went back to. Normally, he wouldn't be as immediately suspicious. It's shady, yes...but there are possible explanations. But his mind combines that with what Angel said, fitting the pieces together like a particularly slippery puzzle.

Blew up into something huge out of nowhere. No government subsidy. Claims to help people in a difficult--even desperate--situation and then those people are cut off from their family. Alexis doesn't have a huge amount of experience with them, but still...he knows a damned cult when he hears it. One with backing from someone powerful.

Powerful and shadowy cult leaders. Yeah, that doesn't make his day.

"A lawyer might be a good idea, yeah." It's said supportively, though he isn't sure that he necessarily believes it. "Don't go to that camp. If you want--and I understand if you're not comfortable with it, 'cause you don't know me--I can look into finding a place for you guys to stay until your mother gets out. Somewhere that CPS won't know to look for you and so these people can't try and sweep you away."

Sam Evans

This is the part where Sam has less knowledge than the other two. Angelica has her community center, Alexis helps at women's shelters. The Glass Walker couldn't even begin to tell those kids where to find places like that in this city without pulling out her phone, and she wouldn't want to just rattle off names. She'd only give the names of places she knew to be reputable. She and Alexis have something in common with that mindset, at least.

What she does, though, is she files away the information. A company that takes mothers away from their children, then tells those children they have no reason to see her? Red flags everywhere, danger danger Will Robinson. She makes a note of that program, that camp, and starts planning out how exactly she'll go about researching them.

If only she had a Laura Mitchell to buy her a burner laptop and drive her out to some other city to jack into some other place's wi-fi. And then she realizes that she's no longer at the bottom rung of a company. She's no longer the assistant at a bakery. She's perfectly capable of doing those things herself.

"I'll help out however I can," she promises without saying exactly what shape that help might take.

Angelica Cordozo

"Then hows this sound. I'll look into them, and I'll see what I can find." Its the best offer she can make. "I'll let you know, and if I can get something arranged for you guys to see your mom's, then I'll let you know?" She pulls out a card for the Villa, with her number already there in the typography.

"Just gimme a call...or don't, whatever your comfortable with right?" She offers that last bit, holding the card out to Shanae for her to take...or not. She would still move forward, she would still investigate.

Something was rotten in that little program....and she intended to find out.

Sam Evans

[percept+alert]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )

Angelica Cordozo

[Kin Senses tingling? Per+Alert]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

Twilight

(Hmmm.)

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

Alexis Theron Lambros

Per+Alert

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Twilight

Shanae takes Angelica's card, but it is Alexis' offer that really seems to snag her interest. There's a rich vein of living suspicion on her face, but something about demeanor, the way she holds out her hand for a card he may or may not have, says that she's considering, seriously considering his office of a shelter where CPS cannot find them.

He tells her not to go to that camp though and she gives him this sudden grin: all fat chance and do I look fucking stupid to you and bright teenaged bravado. Like hell she was going to that camp, but good advice anyway. On that point, they agree.

If Alexis has a card to offer Shanae tucks it with Angelica's and shifts her brother's weight from one arm to the other one and tucks the cards together and slips them into the back pocket of her jeans. Then shifts the boy's weight again and gives them all a genuine smile.

"Thanks for finding Antoine."

--

She steps past them, pushing through the crowd to find the bus stop.

Meanwhile, each of them, every last one of them, notices, perhaps two dozen feet away: a woman in an ill-fitting business suit, her arms crossed, tattoos visible on her fingers. Watching them.

Just watching them. Her attention cuts to Shanae as the girl slips away through the crowd, and then she too, turns around. Disappears into the block party.