[NEAR WHITEHALL MOTEL]

Seconds later, four sounds came from where Lara would've been: The hiss of ice forming, and then the shattering of ice accompanied by the crunching of metal, then finally ending with ringing as Iron clattered on the cement.

Afterwards, Lara reappeared from the corner. A club-like weapon of pure, crystal-clear ice had formed around her lower arm with a thickness of at least three inches around her fist. Marching back to the exact same sign from before the fiasco started, she resumed her leaned position.

"Thank God for signposts." She growled.

West Side - Taxi - Seon and Gwion

Gwion listened to Seon and nodded acknowledgement. There wasn't a second to waste. He thumbed the icon to cancel the mute. "Officer, my client has no desire to cause affray in Capital City and is leaving."

The voice on the other end of the line was terse. "I think that would be the best thing all 'round. See that he does so." The line went silent as the officer disconnected.

Gwion stowed his phone and turned back to Seon. "All those things can be done while we're on the move. Hotels tend to have standing deals with reputable couriers to deliver left luggage to transport centres, so the first call should be to the hotel to settle up, check out and organise for your belongings to be sent to you at the portal - that way your stuff is travelling there at the same time you are. Then contact the Resistance and your employers while we - and your stuff - are heading to the portal."

He rapped on the partition. "Driver, change of plans, we need to get to the Interdimensional Portal as quickly as possible."

The driver glanced down at the meter then carefully turned the cab about without comment and started heading to the Visitor's District by the most direct route.

Gwion caught the glance and grinned. This trip, with it's constant and lengthy meandering around, had to be a cabbie's wet dream. The cabbie was probably secretly hoping they'd change their minds again before they got there.

Gwion sat back. Done. If the hotel was onto it, Seon's gear would be waiting for them when they got to the portal and there would be just enough time to get Seon off-planet before their pursuers could reach them.

Will post for Donnelly and Markham later.

edited 23rd Jul '15 1:23:04 PM by Wolf1066

West Side - Near Whitehall Motel

"Sabaoth's been working for the Bleaksteel for longer than Darius has been leading us," Eliza explained, "Our previous leader, Darius's and my own father...he was dedicated to our original goal and actually appreciated Sabaoth's cruelty. Sabaoth was his second, just as Iao is Darius's."

She sighed. "But now that he's dead, I just don't know why Darius hasn't demoted Sabaoth back to combat unit or something. Sometimes I wonder if even he's scared of him."

She might have gone on had the sound of ice and crunching metal not distracted her. She glanced in the direction of the sound, then looked between it and the car Sabaoth had previously smashed up.

She stopped as soon as Lara returned. Stating the obvious connection was probably not a good idea right now.

"...Feeling better?" she asked instead, sounding fairly sincere.

Icon by Civvi the Civilian!

West Side (Near Whitehall Motel)

Moreena raised an eyebrow at the explanation. "I see," was all she said, before following Eliza's gaze to where Lara had reappeared. She took a few steps towards her, but stayed silent for the time being.

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

[West Side]

Kevin frowned and huffed as he took out his identification. "Freelance Detective Kevin Montgomery," he grumbled. "I did what I had to in order to get to our targets. If I did hurt anyone, I would've stopped the pursuit. I did not intend to harm." He also jerked the holster forward, to show he had his own gun.

The other two were annoyed and a bit angry, and the detective reinforced his own reasoning for not working for one specific police station.

"Now you're letting the targets get away with you wasting our time," he spat. "They could be on their way anywhere now. Deeper in this section of the Capital, the Center, Hell, the Visitor's district..." There was something about the last location that rubbed him wrongly.

He received a thought. The car is still there. Still functional. Kevin glanced at the driver's seat. It was very tempting. But without Roderick's sheet, he had no leads of where to drive.

Shit. The portal. That's how they could escape. Kevin arrived by that portal, and they could easily leave. Take the care and get them? No. Not without Gev, at least.

"I... Think I have an idea of where they might head next."

Sorry for not posting for Jade And Jac, I'm a bit short on time and all.

Life is hard, that's why no one survives.

[NEAR WHITEHALL MOTEL]

Lara turned to look at Eliza. Then she stood straight, put her hands akimbo, and looked to and fro in thought. "It's a start." She answered.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Moreena stepping a few feet closer. After about two seconds, Lara started to feel uncomfortable with the silence.

"... What? If you have something to say, say it."

[Waterfront (Southeast Bazaar)]

"Hello?" the arthropod exclaimed incredulously. "Is that all you have to say?" There followed a series of loud rasping and clicking noises, which the alien's translation device evidently declined to translate.

"Well, no matter," it said after a moment, waving its tendrils at Garkin. "If you are in need of beach clothing that fits your unique physical needs, today is your lucky day, sapient! If you wish to settle for overpriced hackwork, by all means remain where you are. But if you are in possession of taste and intellect, then ignore these inferior imitators and come forthwith at once to Kazzarada-Tel's Myriapodal Fashions, where you can find the most excellent items at the least cost!"

Whether the vendor already present takes this lying down is up to you.

edited 23rd Jul '15 7:03:01 PM by nrjxll

[Market Street ~ Open-Air Bazaar (Near Apothecary)] (Akira, Buso, Kyana, Luíseach, Miyuki)

"Fine." Buso said, bowing his head slightly, "I'll tell you all that I can. That is assuming, of course, that we have some distance to travel."

He turned his mask towards Luíseach, who nodded slowly. "Oh, a bit of a ways, yes. Southward." she lifted one side of her coat slightly and reached inside, fishing something out of a pocket. "In the Museum Park, a man— another... what did you call me? An 'associate'?" she cracked a toothy smile and shook her head, "Another 'associate' of Buso's-"

"Who?" Buso tried to ask, but it didn't put the slightest hitch in her words.

"-is going to be carrying a rock. He's going to be giving that rock to another man in exchange for something stupid and valueless. I," she pulled her hand back out of her pocket—now gripping a small piece of folded paper—and tapped it against her chest, "would very much like that rock, so..."

"Who?" Buso again demanded, taking advantage of the brief dip in the pacing of her words.

"Shh!!" Luíseach hissed at him through clenched teeth. She quickly stepped forward and pressed a finger right up against his mask, around where his mouth might be. "Patience you noisy bird."

Buso raised a hand and carefully, but very firmly slid Luíseach's finger off of his mask. "Go on then."

Luíseach gave him a wild-eyed look, then took a quick breath and stepped back, directing her attention more towards the others. "As I was saying, I want that rock, so you four will be going town to the Museum Park, retrieving this rock, and bringing it to me. And then Buso will have his buchu, you two will have your money, and you..." she squinted at Kyana, "...eh, whatever it is you're here for. Simple as that."

"If it was simple, you wouldn't buy out all of the buchu in the city and hold it for ransom, now would you?" Buso said, folding his arms over his cloak.

The woman smiled again, "Oh wouldn't I? Maybe I just like forcing you to run petulant little errands for me, squawking all the way. I know it must hurt, being made to perform a task so far below your lofty standards of importance, but... hey," she shrugger, "the sooner you get to it, the sooner it gets done."

edited 24th Jul '15 12:02:24 AM by Ryuhza

this place needs me here

Market Street - Open Air Bazaar - Not-Chaos-Hunters and Terra Novans

James looked about. He had nothing against the idea of exploring. This world wasn't Earth, but it had similarities to the Earths that Kris and Wolfe described. One of his great joys in life was having had the opportunity to meet people who could show him something of the world of the future and here, he could experience a lot of it. "Well, if we're going to explore, then I think I'd better get a, um, "brain bucket". As exhilarating as that ride was, I would feel somewhat safer if I had some protection."

Kris nodded. "I'll need to get one, too." It was tempting to get herself a bike but she had a perfectly good one back on Terra Nova - she just wished that she'd thought to bring it.

"Well," said Teri, "if we're going to get brain buckets, we could always head back to that bike shop just down the street."

James looked at her. "Are you suggesting that because of the bike shop or the food hall?"

"I resemble that remark!"

Wolfe laughed. "You oughta sue him for Information of Character." He looked at the others. "Whaddya reckon? Should we head back to the mall, get some helmets and head off for an exploration of the city?"

West Side - Officers Donnelly and Markham

Officer Donnelly looked at the displays that Gev called forth. So, the alien - the bodyguard's client - was the one they were pursuing.

He noticed the slight tightening of Roderick's facial muscles and figured that the off-worlder was more than a little pissed off but, considering that this trio of clowns had wasted police time with their shenannigans and had behaved without due care for public safety, he didn't feel particularly bad about that.

Donnelly checked the ID card against the RFID signature they had picked up and it matched - he didn't seriously expect it not to, but these guys had behaved so unprofessionally, it paid to check that they hadn't spoofed the RFID signatures.

"While I'm sure that on your world, your rank grants you certain privileges," Honour Guard, huh? Some kind of privileged elite who's used to being a law unto himself, "but here you have precisely no rank or privilege until such time as you make your presence known to the local police. Tell me, what rank would I have if I just turned up on your world unannounced and started chasing people through your streets?"

He looked a back and forth between Gev and Roderick. "'Relatively quietly', 'not trying to spook him', 'tail them quietly' - with a firearm ready to access on the front seat and one of you in full combat armour. It looks to me more like you were pursuing with the intent to attack. The fact that you did not make your presence and your objective known in advance doesn't look good in the circumstances - it could be construed as highly suspicious behaviour."

Roderick's attitude - the automatic assumption that his rank entitled him to behave however he wanted and that Donnelly was in the wrong for having pulled them over - was getting to Donnelly. He hadn't missed the inference in the comment about the driver panicking due to the unexpected arrival of local police, and it rankled. If these fucking idiots had done things properly in the first place, none of this would have happened.

"By the way, 'commandeering' is what a duly recognised police officer does. If any of you had had the common courtesy to contact Central and make yourselves known before embarking on your little armed joy-ride through the streets, it would have been 'commandeering', but since you didn't, it was what we call 'stealing'. When we receive two reports of a stolen car - it may interest you to know that the autocab company had already reported that one of their cabs had been tampered with and was under manual control - and one of them reports the occupants to be armed and hostile, we local police are required by law to take it seriously. That may sound unusual to you, but that's how things work here - unknown persons take a car, we treat it as stolen, we don't just think 'oh, it's probably just some off-world cops' and go and get a doughnut. I don't know how it is on your worlds, but around here, we're not mind-readers.

"When were you planning on notifying us of your presence? After you'd gunned down a couple of people in our city? Or after you'd been fired on by local officers responding to the shooting? We'd be required to respond to that, too, you see - and, what with us not being mind readers, we'd just see three unknown armed people in a stolen vehicle shooting at a tourist and his bodyguard.

"In all seriousness, I don't know of any way in which you could be more stupid and irresponsible."

While Donnelly was busy with Roderick and Gev, Officer Markham focused on Kevin.

"Us, wasting your time. That's rather interesting, because right now, I'm writing you a ticket for failing to stop for a police officer and reckless driving and I could very easily make a case for fining all three of you for wasting police time. When we get a call about armed thugs in stolen cabs, we expect to find armed thugs, not arrogant off-world cops who didn't have the decency to keep local police in the loop."

He entered Kevin's details into the palm computer he was carrying.

"Let's get something straight, here: you guys failed to notify us of what was going on - before or after you helped yourselves to this car - and now you're bitching because we were required to pull you over - something any one of you three could have forestalled at any stage by letting us know what's going on. I'm sure that you're familiar with the concept of 'jurisdiction' and I suspect that you're also familiar with the concept of 'radio' - which, incidentally, you could have used to call for local assistance in keeping tabs on your quarry if you'd let us know what was going on in advance.

"Now, although I'm certain you would have stopped if you had hit someone, would you have even noticed - with your attention on escaping from us and pursuing your quarry - if your actions had caused the cars that you cut off to have accidents? You caused a number of people to brake suddenly and swerve while you blithely quit the area with no concern for their safety."

Markham printed out the ticket and handed it over to Kevin. "You're extremely lucky that the other drivers managed to avoid hitting one another after your boneheaded stunt."

He was frankly disgusted with all three of the off-world officers.

Donnelly noticed that Markham had finished ticketing the driver. "Right. We now know who you are, what do you plan to do when you catch up with them?"

edited 24th Jul '15 1:20:28 AM by Wolf1066

[Waterfront]

Angua gave a shrug. "You're right, I guess. Alright then, let's see if this place has something." She took a quick look around the interior of the store. "Hey, this looks a lot better! Kinda cheap-looking, but plenty on offer."

Angua bounded off into the back aisles to browse through the store's stock of swimwear. She took a few minutes longer than she had last time, but returned with a bright yellow pair of swimming trunks. She held them up for Qrlil. "How about these? Too modest, maybe?"

yey

Bus to Old City

Midori looked to Sophie. She had a point, it would be awkward and possibly bad if they allowed the figure to follow them while they looked for a fragment of something that was quite powerful. "I-I'm sorry but she's right. This errand is quite important so I'm not sure if we have time to show someone around." she replied, blushing all the while in shyness.

Meiko's Cafe

"Alright." replied Kiyumi to Samantha's request to let them go first. Linxy looked a bit worried and waved Kiyumi and Naoko off as a customer came inside and said, "You two take care of that for a moment." feeling like she could trust them before turning over to Samantha. "Are you alright Mademoiselle?" she asked, seeing the anxious look on Samantha's.

Open Air Bazaar

Kyana looked to Akira and Miyuki. It would make sense that they wanted money since they didn't have much to begin with. It would also help them get more clothes. What would she get out of it? She didn't really need money, though finding this 'rock' was going to be interesting. Until she heard where it was. "Museum Park? That's far from here." she said in surprise but she had already decided to help Buso, "Alright, we'll go." She wasn't sure if Akira and Miyuki would like that she was making the decision but if they were going to get money out of it, she was sure they would have no complaints.

"Can you imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie?"

New City

"Meh. Don't think they'll be messing with us if we cross paths again," Varnas says as he watched the trio go. "Unless you really want to beat them up into a pulp, that is."

"Anyway, that fighting has made me hungry again. I'd like to go grab something quick to eat."

Museum Park

"Well, I can't tell you exactly how to construct a reactor off the top of my head, but I'll try." You give a short cursory explanation about some of the technologies involved, and sound quite advanced. "That said, it's very much possible to simplify it, even if there's some loss of efficiency or amount of power generated. Just before we make the trade, give me time to have my engineers work on it for a bit."

You pause, then say, "Which might take a while, as right now I don't know exactly where my crew are. I let them go on libo, and they aren't likely to return until late evening. They don't like it if I call them back right now to work on something when they're trying to have some fun."

"Are you okay with that?"

"Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." - R. W. Raymond

Waterfront (Southeast Bazaar)

The winged vendor let out a frustrated sigh. "Oh, for the love of Ishtar..." he mumbled to himself before pointing an accusing finger at the purple being. "How many times do I have to tell you? You can advertise all you want, but not at my stall!"

Garkin watched the increasingly awkward scene unfold with some hesitation, and tried to decide wether simply walking away from it would be the best option or not.

Old City (Near Whitehall Hotel)

"Oh, I was just... contemplating," Moreena answered. "I assume that things didn't go quite as planned?"

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

[Bus to Old City]

"I suppose that is a sensible position to take," the cloaked being replied genially - or at least as genially as it could given its sinister-sounding voice. It bobbed its hidden head and touched the side of its hood with one finger in an oddly conspiratorial gesture.

The alien stood up and began walking towards the exit to the bus, when it suddenly stopped and turned around. "By the way," it asked, "have you seen any other qrtxians in this city? They would not necessarily appear exactly as I do; my appearance is... somewhat unusual, for my species. But they would have identified themselves by name." Its voice dropped to a low mutter. "Of course."

[Waterfront (Southeast Bazaar)]

"I protest!" the arthropod boomed, its tendrils rotating rapidly like some demented windmill. "I am not advertising, sir! I am merely seeking to guarantee that this good gentleman is given a chance to be aware of the highest quality items for sale - not that you would know anything of such things, of course!"

Despite the rather unpleasant nature of the clicking and rasping sounds that could be heard underlying the alien's translated speech, Garkin could likely get the impression that this argument had unfolded many times before between the two vendors.

[Museum Park]

Trekesser decided to quietly excuse himself, still feeling slightly out of place as the two humans continued their business negotiations. Slipping away without much noise for such a large being, he made his way down into the central area park, deciding to skip the Monolith for the moment. As he'd said, ancient enigmas were rarely worth the trouble.

Not sure what he'll do now, but he was starting to feel like a third wheel, and not in the entertaining comedy sense.

[Waterfront (Crazy Gary's)]

Qrlil waited, somewhat uncomfortable in the environment of Crazy Gary's - which was hardly the general type of store that she was used to - until Angua returned. She considered the yellow swimming trunks, tilting her head and smiling.

"Well, I don't necessarily consider that a problem," she replied, then hesitated, not certain whether that had been a potentially problematic thing to say. "Er - that is - qrtxian swimwear is generally rather more modest than that" - she tilted her head in the other direction, remembering some of the research that Angua had been doing on the terminal earlier - "though our requirements are admittedly also somewhat different."

She smiled again, looking from the trunks to Angua. "Anyway, I think the color would look good on you. Though," she added, remembering the kasuar's earlier comments, "are you certain that you don't want something with a pattern on it?"

[West Side]

Right. I've just about had fucking enough of this.

Gev kept struggling to prevent her fingers from forming into talon shapes. In the armor suit, she worried it would look like a threat. But increasingly she was shifting from mad and embarrassed to just simply mad. These annoying little humans had no real idea of what was going on, and yet they were insistent on holding the three of them up with their fucking pedantry.

She eyed Kevin; he was probably right that Seon was making for the portal, which meant the whole mission was probably fucked. They'd never catch him in time at this rate. Before, she'd been inclined to mentally bristle at the detective's claim that sometimes the law was more of an impediment than a good thing; it was a nasty Corinarchi sort of thinking, and pretty rich coming from the guy whose blatant disregard for the law had gotten them into the most trouble so far. But, she had to admit now, she could see his point. It wasn't hard remembering that she wasn't in the Free League anymore, given what this city was like, but it had been hard really grasping that.

All right. Get yourself under control. They may be a couple of morons, but pissing them off is just going to mean even more time gets wasted. Unless she contacted her superiors - but no. A lecture about exposure, even from that slimeball Rualis, really would be like getting called out at the academy again.

She decided not to bother trying to defend their actions any further - let Roderick do it if he wanted, he seemed prickly enough. Instead, she simply focused on answering the last question. "Our intentions were to take them into custody. Seon, at least, and his bodyguard as well if he committed any illegal action." Her beak tightened, then she burst out "Which he would have been doing if he shot at us, I should add, because I would have announced my status when we caught up to them! Seriously, you- you're making a whole lot of assumptions here. This suit contains a number of non-lethal weapons; we weren't going to fire on them with lethal force!" Well, she wasn't anyway; she couldn't speak for Kevin.

She breathed deeply for a moment. "Though in answer to your question of what we're going to do when we catch them - we're probably not going to now, so it doesn't really matter, now does it?"

edited 24th Jul '15 10:43:28 AM by nrjxll

Bus to Old City -> Old City (Bus Stop)

As bad as she felt about letting it down, the being at least seemed to take the rejection well. Actually, the fact that it was getting off here too gave her the chance to try and reconcile the two conflicting parts of her mind.

"Actually, we're probably going to get off here as well," Sophie said, getting up, "I'll pay for everyone's fare just so you can use the buses again later if you need to."

Provided the being would let her do so, she did just that as the group left the bus. Upon stepping off, she took a look around before answering the being's question.

"I...don't think so? Then again, I'm not sure what exactly to look out for." She frowned. "If you'd like, if we do happen to meet another one we could tell them about you?"

---

New City - Meiko's Cafe

"I think I'm going to be okay," Samantha said, turning to face Linxy and trying to sound as calm as possible, "Really I'm just kind of frustrated with myself right now." She looked down at herself and frowned. "As silly as I feel wearing this, it's even sillier that I'm actually letting it get to me. Especially when I approved coming here in the first place."

She looked up again before putting on a small grin. "But like I said, give me some time. I'll adjust soon enough."

Can't think of anything for Eliza to add for now; go on without her.

Icon by Civvi the Civilian!

Waterfront (Southeast Bazaar)

"The highest quality, huh?" the winged man continued. "We both know why your stuff is cheap! It falls to pieces at the slightest provocation! My garments are made to last!"

As the two merchants continued to argue, Garkin made his best effort to discreetly back away and disappear into the crowd.

I'll have him meet up with the others shortly.

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

[Waterfront - Crazy Gary's]

Angua didn't have eyebrows, so in lieu of them she arched an eye ridge in a curious gesture. "Requirements? Uh, okay. Different how, exactly?" She looked down at the garment. "And uh, yeah, I think this is okay. Glad you think so." Angua smiled. "Are you getting something for yourself or were you joking about that? I think I remember you wore a swimsuit back at the Resort."

edited 24th Jul '15 11:20:37 AM by Gault

yey

[Waterfront (Crazy Gary's)]

Qrlil shifted into a slightly evasive posture, mostly without being aware that she was doing it. "Oh - er - you know, physical requirements. And such." She wasn't certain how much she wanted to discuss this - at least at this moment - even without the question of whether Angua would be embarrassed that Qrlil had seen her search on the terminal.

She tilted her head. "Anyway, I was not joking exactly, but I am not exactly certain whether I want to go swimming either. Many of the waterfront's more interesting attractions are apparently on land, and if I just want to bask in the sun, I can simply reset my robes." She paused, thinking back to what Angua was referring to. "And I believe that swimsuit was technically the Sonjomi Resort's property."

She turned her head in the other direction. "Still, though, I suppose it is best to be prepared for all eventualities. So yes, I suppose I will buy something."

She waited to see if Angua had anything further to say in response to her - and to see if Zerrimus would show up - before going looking, though.

West Side - Officers Donnelly and Markham

"Our intentions were to take them into custody. Seon, at least, and his bodyguard as well if he committed any illegal action." The alien's beak tightened, then she burst out "Which he would have been doing if he shot at us, I should add, because I would have announced my status when we caught up to them! Seriously, you- you're making a whole lot of assumptions here. This suit contains a number of non-lethal weapons; we weren't going to fire on them with lethal force!"

Officer Donnelly rather doubted that things would have turned out as the alien seemed to think and the sudden outburst was not inclining him to trust the alien's ability to handle things in a responsible manner.

"Though in answer to your question of what we're going to do when we catch them - we're probably not going to now, so it doesn't really matter, now does it?"

Donnelly looked at Gev. "Which is your fault for not notifying Central when you began your pursuit."

He looked over at Kevin and back to Gev. "As to not using lethal force and notifying your quarry, your driver - who apparently 'panics' at the sound of sirens and visibly behaves impulsively and irresponsibly - had already drawn a lethal weapon - long before the situation warranted the drawing of a weapon. If he had so much as picked it up before you managed to identify yourself - and I do mean identify, not just yell out 'hey, we're cops' and expect them to take your word for it - the bodyguard may well have perceived that as lethal intent from what he thought was armed criminals in a stolen autocab and might respond accordingly.

"And guess what? If we tried to prosecute him, his lawyer would point out that none of you were uniformed, that you were in an autocab that you had modified, that one of you was clearly ready to use lethal force long before the confrontation and that you had failed to notify local police of your intentions. It wouldn't take much to convince a jury that the bodyguard was reacting to a deliberate murder attempt by rogue off-world police - and all of that would be your fault." This entire Cluster Fuck was their fault.

"As things stand, I could arrest Officer Montgomery for having his weapon unholstered during the pursuit. No situation had yet arisen to warrant drawing of a firearm and he had already decided to use lethal force." Donnelly was about one uncontrolled outburst, on the part of the off-worlders, from breaking out the cuffs. "If he had used his pistol at any stage, he would have difficulty proving it was a 'good shoot' - a lawyer would have called it 'premeditated murder'."

it's less "wall of text" if I have Donnelly respond to one character at a time if I can manage it.

edited 24th Jul '15 3:56:24 PM by Wolf1066

[West Side]

It's probably safe to say we can't catch Seon at this point. Shit.

Kevin took his ticket and saw the fee- he forgot the exchange rate for credits to dollars, but he knew it was a good amount. He sighed and shook his head.

All the arguing and local police hindering them, Kevin felt a headache coming on. He was hearing his name being thrown around. He was in the most trouble, after all. He really felt embarrassed. It was his recklessness that began holding them back.

Kevin felt the greatest need to shoot the two men, but it was a great stretch to do so. He would be buried in trouble there. He listened, but drowned it out in thought.

He tried to search in his mind, somewhere to help them. Dammit. It wasn't like this yesterday or this morning...

Kevin lifted his head and said, "You know, call Central. Ask them about officers pertaining to an event not too long ago, near Whitehall Motel. They'll tell you that Roderick helped in catching a criminal of his own. His target, no less. Gev was also at the scene, I might add, and helped, I believe. Roderick told security forces about what had happened, and they let him go."

"You can also call security of my involvement of an attack in Eye's Cream Parlor. I helped in subduing a demonic creature with this gun," he added, and pat the butt of it.

The detective pinched the bridge of his nose. "If you want to arrest me for reckless pursuit and carrying a weapon, fine. But at least understand we've interacted with security officers before and they had no issue. Maybe they didn't know we were pursuing Seon, hell, they didn't know we were pursuing a criminal until we subdued her when security arrived."

Life is hard, that's why no one survives.

West Side - Officers Donnelly and Markham

Officer Donnelly listened to what Officer Montague had to say and nodded. At least the man was talking calmly.

"I don't know the specifics of those incidents you mention, but I'm willing to bet that in neither case a known bodyguard called in and said that he was being pursued by unidentified hostiles - we certainly weren't called before things went down - and I'll bet none of your quarries had a legally-defensible reason for resistance. This Walker guy is known to us - he's been here less than 24 hours and already known to us - and he discharged his duty in notifying us that he felt he and his client were in danger. If we had known who you were in advance, we would have told him who was pursuing him and ordered him to stand down on pain of arrest - and I suspect he would have done so.

"But if you'd caught up with him unannounced and he felt threatened and within his legal rights, it could have got nasty real fast. We've seen the aftermath of him being surprised, and it's not pretty - he's walking free today because his story checked out against other reports of the affray and it was clear he acted only in self defense and the defense of others. However, we prefer not to sort things out after the fact if we can possibly avoid it."

[NEAR WHITEHALL MOTEL]

At first, Lara kept silent, also contemplating the car that Sabaoth had demolished. It was impossible to tell why, but the fact that it was his doing was...discouraging.

"I don't know..." She finally answered, "Maybe? I'm not...really sure I had a plan to begin with, if that makes sense."

Then something occurred to her, and she put her hands on her hips, "If you think I wanted to talk with that moron just to pick a fight with him, you can stop worrying. I might be tactless at times, but I'm not stupid... Speaking of which," She turned her attention to Eliza, "Was it that necessary to sic a drone on me?"

West Side - Near Whitehall Motel

Eliza threw up her arms in an approximation of a shrug. "That was the best way I could think of to make sure we could still get in touch with you, and vice-versa. Unless you have a phone that can hack into the Bleaksteel's communications network or something, which in that case you probably should have mentioned it before we parted ways."

She shook her head. "That was one of the best possible outcomes of that meeting, really. Knowing Sabaoth I was expecting worse to happen."

Icon by Civvi the Civilian!

[West Side (Autocab)]

Boy, these guys sure were anal, weren't they? "Look," said Roderick, "we made a mistake. We get it. Can we please just move on and actually try to catch the fugitive?"

West Side - Officers Donnelly and Markham

Officer Donnelly turned to Roderick. All that, and all he sees is one mistake! "You can go, now. You've been indentified and by now the bodyguard should be aware that you are Law Enforcement, so he shouldn't fire on you unless you do something really reckless."

Markham nodded. "And mind how you drive."