#6 Main St.

[Owle Isohos]

Kelsey fell into step besides Leo once more, frowning when she saw the blue post-it.

((Fine by me, but Kelsey's going to hang back and keep a safe distance. She doesn't want to get irradiated.))

[Sally]

Following Leo's lead, Sally comes 'round the southwest at a full clip and a ruckus, in hopes to panic their quarry into running right into the waiting arms of Alice, Madrigus, Leo or Kelsey. Given his choice of Alligator, animals prone to laze about and wait for prey to get within range, charging right in as The Distraction would prove counter to his answer to Liberty's profiling questions.

Alas, his ploy was without merit.

"Aight, on-ward n' up-ward toward Mi-cro-wave land," Sally says, looking to Leo for the nod ahead. "Same idea as this time? I ken cut 'round wide and come up from the back, see if that can flush her ya'lls way?"

He levels a finger at Alice, "An' don't you go colt-cockin' no locals, neither, Chickadee. Las' thing we need is some kind gettin' his brain a'scrambled an' havin'-" he drops his voice to a whisper, "An' a certain Candy-Colored-Crew gettin' word." He pauses. "Well, nah, I guess the last thing we need is ta hav' to go toss a brain-scrambled dead local ta' Corvus or Ethan or Mr. Morsi so that they body never gets fount. Not like folks'll notice too much if somebody winds up missin."

Sally looks at his companions, blinks, and realizes that might have been a bleak statement, "That mighta been a bleak state-ment. Les' just move on from tha' one."

As they head towards the Reactor, Sally says, "Whaddya suppose the chances of that there rad-i-ation killin' them moth eggs that... some folks... got stuck in they guts?"

[Owle Isohos]

"The locals have enough things going after 'em to add ourselves to the list of what might kill 'em," Kelsey agreed, nodding to acknowledge that it was pretty bleak. As they walked along towards the power plant, she tried to loosely keep in the formation Leo had them in.

"I don't know that I'd count on that, Sally..." She grimaced. "I mean, I figure you're just as likely to end up with mutated moth eggs as you are with dead ones. Didn't the moths seem kinda...attracted to the reactor? I thought I heard people had to deal with a whole bunch of them the last time we came up here."

[kimp]

A hastily erected chain link fence - the height you see in the yard of someone with a nasty dog or, possibly, a 'growing concern', rather than 8 feet with razor wire like most industrial locations boast, because maybe someone didn't think a fence was neccessary until a certain group of strangers decided to make a midnight incursion on the place being that the locals have more sense than to go and get themselves irradiated (they leave that stuff to the professionals... and dumb strangers) - marches across the property line of the power plant. It doesn't surround the plant - the line goes straight across the front and then makes a sharp turn at each corner before petering off about 5 feet in each direction.
(Look, that's a lot of ground to cover and it isn't like the Whisper Hill Hardware carries *that* much fencing)
A folding chair is set dead center in the middle of the fence line. On it lounges a woman reading a book. The cover of the book is shot of a man's naked torso. No head - that's cut off at the top of the book (with the implication that what's up there doesn't really matter in a romance) - and just the hint of what's below the belt - because, really, cutting that off... Men might not protest being beheaded on genre fiction books, but cut off below the waist and... boom! Protests.
Anyhow the woman, dressed in a neat black uniform that fits well enough to accommodate her slouched stance in the questionable support of the folding chair, seems absorbed by the book. So much so that she doesn't look up until the group is less than 5 feet from her and then she starts and almost rips the book in her haste to shove it under her butt.
The expression she pastes on her face is equal parts chagrin and professionalism. Its a hard look to maintain and it seems to vacillate between the two until settling on the professional end of the spectrum.

"May I help you?" she asks, a touch of military in her tone.

Should someone ask if the guard has seen Liberty, or someone of Liberty's description, go past she will say,
"Someone ran past at a steady clip approximately 10 minutes ago. Brown and..." she frowns, squints into the distance, "maybe brown. No," she corrects herself, "Too far away. Can't guess. Again. That's what got me stuck on glow-bug duty. Brown and undetermined. 5'5 to 5'8. Black pants. Blue shirt. Moving towards the boat house or the lake, not the plant, so I only gave them a brief look. Is that your perp?"

You figure she'd probably have given a longer look if it was a shirtless, figuratively beheaded man running past, considering her reading material - poking from under her butt and making her cant to the side - but that's probably enough. Right?

Onwards!

[Madrigus]

"Radiation would be terrible idea, Sally," Madrigus grumbled. "Between exposure rates, exposure side effects, and a number of other things you're more likely to kill the host before you kill the eggs."

He feel silent again, watching the world around him, getting more incensed the more they failed.

Finally, when they came up to the power plant and saw the woman he gave her a long, hard look. She definitely wasn't one of sheriff winter's people, and certainly didn't seem like much of a Blackstone person. The chair was out of place, and the gimmick with the book seemed... Like a gimmick. Whatever she was, he seriously doubted this woman was security, and the whole thing reeked of falsity.

He considered tossing the bean bag he held tightly clutched in one fist. Would that be considered collateral damage? His fingers worked in the sleeves of his robe, fidgeting. He wasn't too considerate if it was, and wasn't his little corner of hell known for that kind of thing?

He waited until the others were close enough around him, where they formed a little semi-circle to speak, and one hand flashed out, the tiny bag sailing towards the center of the seated woman's mass. If he was wrong, talking his way out of anything that might happen would be easy. He looked like a hobo, after all.

[kimp]

:: The guard stiffened and her eyes widened as the missile hit her chest. Jolting to her feet, her hand flew to the impact point, her fingers tapping rapidly, as if assessing damage. Then her gaze shifted there, as if to confirm what her fingers found. After that her gaze shifted down to the ground at her feet where the beanbag lay, then back up to look at Madrigus ::
You people are weird.

:: That assessment made, she kicked the beanbag in Madrigus' direction and leveled each member of the group with a steady look that seemed to measure the potential for additional beanbags flying in her direction. With narrowed gaze she jerked her chin in the direction of the road and crossed her arms ::
You want to leave now.

:: It wasn't a question. To further the impression of her intent, she pulled out a cell phone and punched in a short three digit sequence. ::
Sheriff? This is Patty, over at the plant. I may have a situation here.
:: There is a short silence, then she adds ::
They hit me with a beanbag.
:: Another quick silence, then ::
It may be full of biologicals. In fact... yes... I do feel like my throat is closing up a little. And my eyes are burning.
:: What follows is a masterful performance as she proceeds to make choking noises, bug out her eyes, stick out her tongue, and jerk her chest ::
I could use assistance.

[Madrigus]

Madrigus narrowed his eyes at the woman, then looked up at Sally, who was on his left, and looked rather sad and unconcerned. In a surprisingly good grifter's grumble, he gruffly babbled something that sounded like "Well um I thunk she done was looked like uh the person we done been followin but I not throwed no blogikal stuff no sir you tell er so so I don't knowed she warrant what I done thunk she was yar?"

He blinked owlishly at the end of his plea, though his eyes sparkled with mischief.

[PoeticJustice]

Alice rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Come on. To the lake and the boathouse?" she asked, increasingly agitated.

[Owle Isohos]

Kelsey nodded. "Let's keep moving. We're on a time limit."

[Sally]

As Alice and Kelsey let good sense prevail, Sally Lautner looks from Madrigus to the guard, and back to Madrigus. And back to the guard, his eyes slitted into squints,

"Ya'll, we dun been boondoggled right outta 'ur britches on this one; we's fixin 'ta get ousselfs hogtied inta a vat a salted grease, an'" he looks back to Madrigus, "Ya gotta lay off tha' Popov Vodky this early in the day, Mad Mike," he pats the man on the back, then slowly turns his head back to the guard, eyes beady,

"Now, we'll be gettin' along on 'ur own ac-cord, 'cause it looks like my afta'shave is causin' a bit uva al-ler-gic react-shun on yer be-half. An' Mike here's gotta get back ta his coun-sel-ler," Sally says, sniffing a bit, "Ya should be ashamed a yerself, by the way, this man's a vet-er-an, an' if it weren't fer him, Koo-wait an' mosta the middle-east woulda belonged to Sad-dam."

Sally raises his eyebrows, as if a single bit of his nigh-on-unintelligible-prattle made some kind of sense that trumped whatever outrage the guard had displayed, and then heel turns and heads to follow the ladies. He makes sure to stay behind Madrigus, as his own form is large stature is enough to eclipse the man completely, should the guard try to look for any identifying details under the other man's robe.

When they get out of earshot of the plant, Sally says, "Aight, we runnin' short on time, an' we's gettin' ham-strung here." He pauses, brow furrowed, and looks to Kelsey, "Shit, I went back ta that re-actor twice. My eggs's got tentacles growin' out of 'em at this point..." he shake his head, "But that ain't here no' there. We got us a boathouse 'sides the lake. Now, we been there before, right, Chickadee?"

He turns to Alice, "Did us some Ghostbustin', right?" he can't help but grin at that clustered pile of fucks, "That there's a bit of a choke point. The path down the hill his right sharp, and the little cut-aways on the inside of the boat house 's got pallets and rubble 'n shit in its way. So, if we come up the back of the 'house, there ain't much in the way of good runnin' fer her. If somebody's up top a' the path towards the Diner, they'd have the high ground on 'er somethin' fierce."

He rubs at this chin, "An' if we could manage to get somebody 'round the far side, either high or low, they could int-er-cept. That'd just leave somebody to stay behind and 2 to go inta the boat house lookin' fer her. A course, that's assumin' she ain't tucked under the dock isself, Frogman style."

One could assume that Sally referred to either his Brothers-in-Arms, the Navy SeALs, or an actual Man-frog. After meeting Herne & Mr. Morsi, scaled shifterfolk, he wasn't ruling anything out.

"So, if folks is okay with that ar-range-ment," he looks to Leo, "Who takes what pos-it-ion?"