Outside the Diner

[Taranis]

Alexandre's face is overcome with a look of worry as it seems that in his attempt to tease Brett his thoughts once again returned to where they had been before the fly annoyance. He turns back to Kelsey.

"...No, nothing like that. He's my... WAS my..." He takes a momentary pause, as if hoping a fly would interrupt him, but no such interruption occurs.

"...An acquaintance of mine..." Alex looks to Brett,

"You missed a whole lot of shit in the past few days Mr. McKinnon. A whole lot."

[Nick Sleet]

An electric snapping noise heralds the approach of Nick Sleet. A slightly manic grin and fixed look in his eyes is lit by the light of expiring bugs.

"Did I hear my name called? Say, a fellow comrade under assault! This will not stand!"

He walks over and begins the gentle, tai-chi like dance with the racket of death.

"Hi Brett, long time no see. You missed a shit-show; every time we go to that damned power plant things go horribly wrong."

He looks over at Kelsey and Alex, continuing his slow motion rampage.

"So, what were y'all talking about?"

[Taranis]

Hearing the familiar zap heralded by the scepter of insect's bane, Alexandre's spirits immediately rise.

"Mr. Sleet, you are a beautiful, beautiful man and songs will be sung about you upon remembrance of these great acts of valiance. Also, thanks for killing the flies." He gestures to Brett,

"We were just informing Mr. McKinnon here on the recent developments in town, such as your war against the insect menace that so plagues these lands." Alex claps, squashing a fly in mid-flight between his hands,

"I'm getting pretty good at nixing the bastards myself."

[Owle Isohos]

"Ah, shit, I'm sorry," Kelsey apologized to Alex as soon as she realized she'd misspoken. She glanced down at her feet. "Adam Campbell's wandering around again," she offered, softly enough no locals passing by would hear. "As one of the Darkened." She looked apologetically at Brett. "He left blue flowers outside Hannah's window, and Billy Campbell said he's seen him calling to him, trying to get him to come out. We've been reassuring him it's just a prank, and that he needs to be the bigger man and not fall for it."

She smiled at Nick, and edged a little closer to the racket of insect doom. Stupid flies. "Hey, Nick. I have no idea what we were talking about."

[Nick Sleet]

Nick grin also appears...fixed.

He snaps a backhand that takes out several flies, and says to Alex "Just doing my job, citizen!"

"The salient issue for me is that Bob, in attempting to hold off the bugs, got himself exploded by tampering with dark powers."

He snaps a swift figure eight with the racket.

"He was an effective operative..."

He trails off, but the zapper continues its slow dance.

[Tesla]

The Professor opens the door of the Diner and comes out onto the porch. He takes another sip from his hip flask, makes a face and puts it away.

Looking around, he spots Brett and quickly moves up close to him, staring fixedly at him.
Reaching beneath his coat, he slowly reveals a roll of tin foil and offers it to Brett.

[Brett]

"Fly problem?"

Brett stands there confused, the flies that seem to swarm everyone quietly land upon Brett for a moment and then silently drop to the ground. As the group talks and discusses a small pile begins to develop by his feet. Hearing the unfortunate news about the boy he seems to wilt in defeat.

"Adam's... one of them now? I thought he was... we... but it doesn't make sense how did that happen?"

[Owle Isohos]

"He was trying to help," Kelsey answered Brett. "To hear the Sheriff tell it, he sort of started cracking under the pressure of all the weird once Leslie tore the wool off his eyes. Adam wanted to help us, and...I think that's how the Darkness got to him. The Sheriff said that he had power, and he was unstable enough to use it. That's why...that's why Adam got into a car accident." She glanced down at her feet again. "So he would die before becoming Darkened."

"Apparently, the smart ones can come back from death. We need to ask the Sheriff more. I...I don't think Adam's coming back from this, Brett. I think it stopped being Adam a long time ago. And I hate it. But...I think we're going to need to stop him before he hurts Hannah and Billy."

[Brett]

"First we lose Adam, then Gus, then Hank,a nd now we're obviously not punished enough and have to go through Adam again and we only have a few months unt..."

He stops, sitting down on the porch resting his head in his hands. If he could scream and not look like a maniac he would be hoarse by now. he takes off his glasses and looks up a few minutes later. Sniffling to hold back either tears or allergies.

"Annn.... anything else go down?"

[sndwurks]

In the unmistakable way that Billy somehow does it, the local shaman and private investigator walks out of the AAA Diner in time to hear Brett's last comment.

"We're translating miniature giant crop circles from an alien tablet in the heart of the power plant which was revealed to me in a dream," he offers unhelpfully. Billy picks up a cup filled with coffee from a table, possibly even his, downs it in a single draught, and sets it back down on the table. "Good to see you, Brett."

And with that, Billy turns and continues on his way towards the road to main street, not providing any further insight or help. Shaman of unhelpful interjections... away!