Scene #9083: The Mothman Travesties pt. 2

Owner	Pose
Calvin Nash	Ossabaw Island Gatehouse 5 AM Bright and early--that's what Calvin wanted, and that's when the meetup is. You'll find him and one Marshal Denny Garcia Junior waiting for you outside the gatehouse on the shore close to the neighboring coastal settlement of Keller (or Richmond Hill, depending on who you ask). The sky is still dark, the sun a faintly felt suggestion--even Calvin isn't wearing his sunglasses. Both Marshals are wearing their uniforms' winter jackets. "Mornin'. We already got the cars loaded up and waitin' on the mainland," advises Calvin. "I can take five of y'all in the Jeep. Rest of y'all'll be in Junior's truck." This won't be a leisure trip with the luxury of riding in the bed of a truck--it's colder now, for one. The roads haven't been maintained and there might be offroading, as well, not to mention the increasing density of demons as one gets closer to Atlanta. Thus, two Marshals. Junior may be familiar to those of you who responded to the Warprunners' initial discovery of this place--he was riding shotgun with Calvin then. Junior is shorter and leaner, with close-cut black hair and a neatly-trimmed horseshoe mustache. "Hey there," he says, a Southern tenor to Calvin's similarly-accented baritenor. "Good to meetcha." The first leg of your trip is quite simply getting onto the mainland--but that's as simple as using the Terminal, a teleportation device localized to this world's developed settlements. The jaunt is short and strange; there is a brief and overwhelming flood of emotions too varied and blended-together to make sense of in the one or two seconds it happens. Keller-and-or-Richmond Hill 5:05AM On the mainland proper, the houses are a little different than the island's bunkhouses and mounds. There's still buildings here that predate the war, and they've been kept alive and safe with whatever's on hand in the case of some of the oldest repair jobs, and properly, evenly cut materials in the case of the newer ones. This was once a mid-tempo suburban community, and although there's no longer many larger cities to give context to that, it still maintains a little of its former identity, recontextualized for a post-warhead world. Slower-paced than Ossabaw, it's not a major nerve center for the Assembly like the island is. Demon Marshals aren't an unseen thing here, but they're much less numerous, like the fire department of a small town comparitively. The old asphalt roads have been deliberately ground up and broken into loose gravelish fare, or turned into dirt roads altogether. Trees are as common here as on the island--perhaps more so, given that the ones here were deliberately planted before the war to cut down on sightlines and noise pollution between neighborhoods. A jeep and a pickup are parked not far from the Terminal exit, in a little cul de sac maybe five minutes or so from the ferry to the island. Both vehicles are painted in the livery of the Ossabaw branch of the Demon Marshals, and each has a sizeable CB radio antenna mounted on the front bumper, tied down along the roof (in the case of the Jeep) or the bed (in the case of Junior's pickup). Beside them, there's a wooden table with a metal coffee urn, and several mason jars set up. "Help yourself to some coffee, if you want," says Calvin. If the two set-aside jars are any indication, he and Junior have already had some. There's sugar in a little wooden box, but no creamer.
Khosa	Bright and early. So bright and early it's not even bright yet! Khosa had no problem with getting up early, and she has paid exactly as much attention to the weather she usually does: none. She can feel the cold but she has enough body control that it won't bother her, even without any visible changes, until it goes below freezing. Well, won't hurt her. It bothers her a little. She's looking a little thoughtfully at the jackets and possibly debating a shopping trip. (Predawn light doesn't seem to be difficult for her to see in, either.) "Mornin'," she replies in greeting. "Me, I'm for whichever has more leg room," Khosa says, as she's tall enough that that's a concern for her. She doesn't want to spend all day folded up if she doesn't have to. If that's not going to be a problem in either case, she picks the Jeep preferentially. Whichever she ends up in, she looks perfectly alert despite the time of day when she makes the transit. This kind of suburbia is still a novelty to her, post- or pre-warhead, and she looks around as she usually does. "Bigger trees," she decides, as one of the primary differences. "Is it something in the dirt, or are they just older?" Khosa investigates the coffee, which she has had only rarely. She pours herself a cup - well, a mason jar. Same deal. She does not put sugar in. "Are we waiting for anything besides all of us and some coffee before we head out, or are we ready to go?" She's ready. She's just not sure the caravan is, or if they need some extra supplies.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	"Oh my godddd," Madeleine complains as she helps herself to a black coffee. "I know I agreed to this but why did it have to be so early..." As she takes a sip she blindly rifles through her cryptid ita-bag with her free hand and pulls out a package of Red Vines. "Lemme know if you want some candy, I hit up the store at Ivy's warpgate hub on the way here." Despite her best efforts to appear cool and detached, she finds herself huddling near the other Elites for a semblance of warmth. That crop-top isn't helping. "Reckon I should go in the Jeep," she says, "on account of when we see Mothman Calvin and I will both be stopping for 'im. Plus I don't want to leave Drogrung in the truck-bed, it wouldn't get any sleep there." From her back, the spear opens its single reptilian eye at the mention of its name, lazily regards Madeleine, and slowly closes again. When she's not talking, Madeleine's eyes are on her surroundings, not the present company. What might appear to those her know her a little as vigilance would be recognizable to those who know her very well as something akin to nostalgia. A world scarred by great calamitous violation by the laws of heaven (and/or atomic physics) writ large across the landscape, in which life simply continued, reminds her more than a little of the un-places the Excrucians call home, torn asunder by a 'real' world's creation. And this land no less demon-haunted than her own, she thinks to herself.
Angela	There's three members of the Control Team present as well as Angela and Malkuth on a video screen. Malkuth is in the background building a miniature lobotomy corp house of cards to the side and behind of Angela whose face takes up approximately half of the viewscreen. Cinder is holding the Angelapad so she ends up moving towards the jeep. ('I call Shotgun!' Cinder shouts but will, of course, go elsewhere if an actual Partner or someone else insists upon it. The rest of the Control Team decides to go with the pickup for the sake of keeping teams relatively equitable (and not bound up one car with npcs). "M-m-m-mothman, the m-m-mothman song! Yeah It isn't very long cause it's the mothman song!" Cinder singsongs, kicking her legs back and forth. She's pretty excited. Angela says, "Malkuth are you certain you should be working on that right now?" "It's the best time to work on it! Since my whole department is out here and every body can handle the Abnormalities on my floor, I don't have anything to do! Don't you worry, once this is done we'll take a picture and I'll move it somewhere nice and safe..." "Well it would be unfortunate if there was a loud noise that startled you resulting in the whole thing collapsing. Of course, any noise at all provides some degree of possibility in that area." Angela closes her eyes and eases back for a moment as Calvin offers coffee. "Don't mind if I do." Captain Rook says, pouring himself on and also snags one for Random. "Guess now would be a good time to go over anything real important--or anything we might've forgotten, just to be on the safe side." ''Reckon I should go in the Jeep.'' "You are the Expert."] Angela agrees.
Futaba Nuki	The cold weather means it's time for something suitably winter-y, and Futaba arrives decked out in a fairly standard puffy jacket, worn over a sleeveless ninja-esque tunic and her usual scarf flapping behind her. "Yo, Mister Nash! And hey, Mister.. Junior." She greets the two with a cheery wave, only pausing briefly from thinking about how strange it sounds calling anyone Mister Junior. "Taking a ride over, eh? Ah, I'll head over on the truck. More room to stretch out in there, y'know?" She calls that spot in the truck with a hearty laugh, balling up her hand and flicking it around with random jerks and changes in direction like that means something. "Probably wanna spread out in case someone hits a pothole or something on the way, yeah?" She pauses briefly, furrowing her brow a bit before turning to Calvin and Junior again. "Doubt anyone's fixin' up the roads out here, right?" On the way through the housing area, Futaba whistles softly upon seeing all those houses that look somewhat less awful than she'd expect. "Looks almost peaceful out here... Hmn. Kinda surprised there aren't more Demon Marshals out here. Is it just that much safer over here compared to where we're headed, or..." She pauses again, pressing a hand to her chin. "... Do the folks here just want it quieter?" Futaba goes for some coffee without thinking, tasting it first and inhaling sharply at the flavor of black coffee not quite working for her. She dumps a bunch of sugar in, then realizes there's no creamer and adds even more sugar in. "Oh yeah. You're gonna be looking for that Mothman, too, yeah?" She glances over at Madeleine and Cinder, snickering a bit at the latter's song before downing some of her sugar-with-coffee-in-it. "Lemme know if he's as ch-uhh. As... If the legs are more man or moth."
Natsuki Nuki	"Morning." Grumbles a drowsy Natsuki, the eyemask-pattern hanging a little darker underneath her eyes at such an early rise. She appears for the terminal in comfortable athletic sweats with white seams and a black hoodie with a neon yellow interior and bright draws down the front from the hood, pooled openly about the Osakan chimera's neck. Still wearing tiger-ears and snake-tail as the style for the operation and just changing something up the look for something comfortable to sit in a car for several hours. It wasn't something she was especially looking forward to, being honest, since being trapped besides her sister in social bindings for a long period might spend out her last nerves... But it was also a delicious opportunity to show off and perhaps capture a bit of myth for herself from the table-leavings and carcass of their commitment. The seeds, of course, were a mission too, though... "I'm here because of the Mothman, obviously." Natsuki admits brazenly as she helps herself to coffee before climbing in the jeep, still waking up and needing a bit more beauty sleep than 'before a rooster's cry' tiers of early arrivals. In this, Calvin reminded her of her dad - and never in a good way. Always damnably too early, for everything, like there was nothing else important to be done--! Sucking down liquid, the groggy chimeroid rubs eyes with a knuckle and takes another draw. "Even if the seeds are why I'll stay. I'm even more interested in the real deal of a 'myth' in this world after a trip down to the Tabernacle." Natsuki has a question - and this time it's for Madeleine. "How did you pick up the trail of the Mothman before this? Did you get called in special, or call Calvin in special?"
Ivy Carrow	Ivy too, it turns out, is one of that disagreeable tribe known was 'morning people.' She's on her lonesome today in her usual Warprunner uniform, with the sole exception of a baseball cap with 'Am I Lost?' printed on it in big bold letters. "Ahoy, Calvin!" Ivy said, giving the marshal a cheery wave. "Junior!" He may need to emphasize to Ivy that she won't be getting to ride in the truck bed today. Several times. "How does the Terminal work?" She accosts Calvin, presuming that there was something to do with demons at work a marshal might have insight in. "I've only been through a couple portals that feel anything like that. It must be relatively safe, or it wouldn't be for public use with the population decimated..." Her thoughts are already five steps ahead--portals and teleportation are, after all, her Thing. "I really do love this place." Ivy said, smiling as she overlooked broken world around her. "Do you know how many worlds stay broken, or just cannibalize themselves? But look here..." She turned around to face the rest of the elites. "They used the husk of the old world to build a new one. People can build a home anywhere." Ivy joins the rush to pile into the jeep, her eyes straying to Natsuki. Her brow furrows thoughtfully, and she snaps her fingers once, twice, thrice--"Natsuki?" It comes out as a question. "I swear I've heard Alex mention you as a new Partner." She held out her hand with a jaunty smile. "Gate-Captain Ivy Carrow. Pleased to meetcha."
Calvin Nash	Me, I'm for whichever has more leg room "Right here, boss," says Calvin, patting the roof of the boxy Jeep. "It'll do ya just fine." There's a vituberance about him as he does it--driving it must be a rare privilege. Are we waiting for anything besides all of us and some coffee before we head out, or are we ready to go? "No ma'am," says Junior affirmingly to Khosa. "We're just about ready." Lemme know if you want some candy, I hit up the store at Ivy's warpgate hub on the way here. "Ooh. Let me get some of that," Junior requests. He stores what's given in his COMP for later. I call Shotgun! "No can do," says Calvin with some resignation. Normally he loves honoring shotgun requests. "Ms. Madeleine needs it this time around. But I promise you'll get first dibs the next time we ride together." He even flips his COMP open to make a note of it. Doubt anyone's fixin' up the roads out here, right? "Right," says Junior with a frown. "Best we've managed to do is clear out some of the cars along the interstate over the years. They'd be totally clear, except there was a while after the Terminals where we didn't think it was that important." Evidently, something happened to make them reconsider the importance. Is it just that much safer over here compared to where we're headed, or... "It's a lot safer," says Calvin. "This place was one of the first settlements in the Assembly. Sprung up right alongside Ossabaw." So they've had plenty of time to figure out what works, and plenty of help from the heart of the nascent polity they belong to, just a short distance away. Even if the seeds are why I'll stay. I'm even more interested in the real deal of a 'myth' in this world after a trip down to the Tabernacle. "Happy to have you," says Calvin with a little rock-in-place. "Don't just mean on the mission, neither. You come on back any time you feel like a bite to eat or just to shoot the shit." How does the Terminal work? "Lemme ask you this. What's farther, a hunnerd' miles in water up to here, or a hunnerd' over land?" Calvin answers, holding one hand just below his pectorals to illustrate 'up to here.' "Same distance, right? But you'd get there faster on land. Same shit," he says, pointing back towards the terminal with a thumb. "Terminals go from one to another, through the Expanse. That's part of why it's safe," says Junior. "No detours or looky-loos, so you're not there long enough for it to matter." They used the husk of the old world to build a new one. People can build a home anywhere. Calvin pats the patch on his jacket's sleeve proudly--the sun rises on a little sapling growing from the ashes of old buildings.
Calvin Nash	ON THE ROAD... 5:20 AM Calvin and Junior set off as soon as everyone has decided on seating arrangements. The dirt road which was once State Road 144 winds west through Keller/Richmond Hill, until the houses to the left and right of you grow gradually less refurbished and the road gradually more cracked-asphalt. It's bumpier, but the suspension of two offroad vehicles handles it easily and relatively little of it reaches the cabin--meaning that if you prefer catching up on lost sleep, you won't have too difficult a time. Towards the outskirts of town, you're first witness to some old properties and woodland that've been cleared out and turned into farmland. The farms seem to be the soft 'city limit'--past those, it's easier to see how much time has passed since the war. Houses lie in various states of collapse, alongside fallen and rotting power poles. Some are now protective casings for trees that have grown up through them like hermit crabs finding abandoned shells. Others are covered in leafy cauls of smothering kudzu, which often threatens to envelop some of those trees as well. In the JEEP, Calvin comments on Khosa's observations regarding the trees. Bigger trees. Is it something in the dirt, or are they just older? "Prolly the first," Calvin opines. "Island dirt's different. Some places in Georgia, on the mainland, it's even red." High iron content in those places, probably? "By the way, I remember you said you wanted to learn how to drive, Ms. Khosa? Well, I ran it by Director Moore, and she said we could take one of the trucks out in the field sometime."
Calvin Nash	In the PICKUP, Junior strikes up some conversation with Rook and Random. "Calvin was tellin' me y'all have some similarities to us when it comes to work. What do y'all do for a living, anyway?" A right turn onto a major highway puts both vehicles onto I-95 South--so says a dented, weatherbeaten sign threatening to fall from its metal support brace like the rusted remains of the traffic light a few yards back. Thus begins the first truly long stretch of the journey. Interstate Pockets of dead civilization persist in the periphery of two pairs of headlights (and in the leading Jeep's case, the four beams of a light bar), glimpsed between overgrown walls of foliage and the rusted hulks of cars, picked clean and, conspicuously, pushed off the side of the road. "The plan's to use the daylight to get ahead of 'im," Calvin says over the CB. "He mostly comes out at night. So we'll reach the University first, pack up what we need, and then grab 'im on the way back. Which is good, 'cause it means we'll have Atlanta behind us by the time it's dark enough to be dangerous." An abandoned trailer park office passes by the driver-side window of both vehicles, standing a quiet vigil over a mostly-empty lot--anything of value as a residence has surely been moved to settled places by now. Opposite the trailer park, the caved-in roof of a low, flat rectangular building stares with its darkened void at the travelers. The lot it overlooks is shot through with wild grass and the rusted, picked-clean skeletons of old construction equipment, including the corpse of a front-end loader that's probably a nest for a family of rodents by this point. The leavings of various other bygone businesses pass you by on both sides. Once upon a time, this was prime real estate, a hop, skip and a jump away from the nearby community yet isolated enough via the abstraction of the interstate (and deliberately planted trees) to keep from reminding that community of the existence of the reviled laborer, old America's most hated enemy. The few billboards which remain standing are clung to by creeping kudzu, painted over within the past few years to advise of nearby settlements. A long stretch passes by with only rows of old oaks as your witnesses, like a silent, still army arranged at Interstate's cracked and crumbling borders. It persists, well over a mile past a bridge spanning the western end of the Ogeechee--the same river that empties out into the water around Ossabaw. From there, it's a brief jaunt into the outskirts of the greater Savannah area--for some of you, this will be the first brush with what Calvin had referred to as a 'light damage zone.' Savannah was a major city before the war; not so much as Atlanta, but large enough to be a target. As such, Calvin has to cut northwest short of where the map yesterday had shown exit 157A. "Gonna pull off right here," he says over the CB. "You got it," says Junior in response. This far away from the city center, buildings are 'mostly' intact, but even here, windows are shattered, power lines are down and a legion of dead trees flanking the road even show signs of partial uprooting. Merging back onto I-16 East shows the ruins of a complex multi-way intersection, its supports having given out either as a result of age or the aftershocks of the warheads. Heading west then, the crumbling facades of wholesalers, supermarkets and home improvement stores give way to abandoned subdevelopments, bathed in the tender, red-orange light of early dawn. Calvin and Junior shut their headlights off not long after.
Khosa	"Because if we waited for later we'd never get going," is Khosa's response to Madeleine. "Or get there in time. What kind of candy?" She'll try anything, though she has little trade for it unless Madeleine wants jerky, and that's more of a later-in-the-day thing - Khosa didn't bring any other snacks. (Though she did pack some water bottles.) "Works for me," Khosa agrees with taking the Jeep. She's six foot four so she is absolutely not going to say no if Calvin thinks that one's got more room for her. On hearing they're about ready, she takes a longer drink from the coffee, intending to finish hers before they get going. "You brought shotguns?" she asks, not having immediately got the slang. (She figures it out when she sees where Madeleine is sitting.) She grins toothily at Futaba when she hears her, then continues onto Natsuki: "You gonna see about that 'contract' too? Or do you want to go down to the Tabernacle and see how it works first? I have to admit I'm a little curious after hearing about the 'wrappers'." "Do you know how many worlds stay broken, or just cannibalize themselves?" "Yeah," Khosa says. "Even at home, we've got all these ruins. People've lived in the Tablelands for so long nobody remembers how long we've been doing it. But not a lot of people go to deal with them. Lots of old forts and towers and even just houses, places where nobody can remember there being a town or any way for there to be one. I kinda like seeing it, people rebuilding around them." Khosa loads into the Jeep with the intention of continuing the conversation then. She's wide awake, at least. --- "Prolly the first. Island dirt's different. Some places in Georgia, on the mainland, it's even red." "Huh," is Khosa's response. "I've seen red dirt before, but not much grows in it. In the stony barrens, around the rocks and mesas, there's red earth and yellow sand. Does it turn the trees red?" She's going to be really surprised by autumn pretty soon. But then she can't help but grin. "Great," she says. "I'd love to try it. Seems useful, and kinda fun. I can drive a wagon all right, depending on what's pulling it, but I've never done it with something like - " She thumps the frame of the Jeep, not too hard. Khosa actually spends a lot of time looking out windows. The mix of ruin and rebuilding is new to her - she's used to things that simply fall to ruin and are abandoned, never touched again. When it becomes less actual civilization, and more dead civilization, she is both more at home and not because it's such a different style of building. It's big. "Wouldn't've thought there were this many people in the area, ever," Khosa says. "Guess that's what living in a green age gets you. Before the fighting, I mean - not that it's not green now, too." She raises her voice to ask the other people in the Jeep: "This what all your worlds are like, too? I mean, either like it is now, rebuilding, or ... the way it used to be. Sorry, Marshall." She doesn't mean to make it sound like his home is ruined. Her eyes track a supermarket as they pass. "And prosperous." Though the damage, 'light' as it is, puts an unpleasant damper on things; even the building she's looking at is halfway to falling in, she thinks.
Futaba Nuki	Junior confirms Futaba's concerns, but she looks more hyped up than worried despite that. "Well, at least we won't have to worry about that bein' a problem as long as I'm around. If there's absolutely something that needs to get shoved outta the way-" She holds her hands up, reshaping them into the front of a bulldozer and then gesturing at Natsuki. "-then we've got it covered!" She adds, 'helpfully' volunteering both herself and Natsuki for the task. Calvin confirms her thoughts about this place being safer than most others, and Futaba lets out a thoughtful noise as she finishes off her sugar-coffee. "Good blueprint, then... Guess it'll take a while for anywhere else to get to this level, huh? Just gotta chip away at it, I guess." She comments, glancing over at all those houses from earlier. The peace here is certainly enviable considering the circumstances, so... Maybe something here could work back home, too, but what? As promised, she claims a spot in the back of Junior's truck, and she's already looking amped up by the time she gets into the truck. The sugared-up coffee certainly doesn't hurt her energy levels any, but she's cognizant of the fact that she won't be the only person in the truck. The Control Team and Natsuki don't have to worry about her taking up any more room, at least, as she flattens herself against one side of the truck to look more like a decal than a person. She's actually well behaved on the ride over, too, largely keeping an eye out from her seat/perch while keeping her legs firmly weighed down so she doesn't go rolling around too much on the way. "What do y'all do for a living, anyway?" "Me? I'm a ninja h-" Wait. A living. She's not making any money off this stuff, is she? No, she's making her actual spending money through "I'm with the Paladins. Making sure weaker folks don't get stomped on, punching out bad guys when they try to do that, keepin' the peace, that kinda thing." She replies to Junior with a light chuckle, then pauses as she realizes something else. "... Hey. You think ninjas ever make any money off what they do?" "You gonna see about that 'contract' too?" "You know it. I gotta see what all this is about so I know what really goes on in this place." She replies to Khosa with a lgiht-hearted laugh, tapping a flat finger to her equally-flat chin a moment later. "I mean, it can't hurt to see, yeah? And if it turns out to be a pretty good deal..." She doesn't finish that thought, but lets it hang in her mind for a while. "So we'll reach the University first, pack up what we need, and then grab 'im on the way back." "Works for me. I don't really know what this guy's gonna look like if he doesn't look like the statue, so." Futaba chimes back in on her own radio, leaning over the side of the pickup truck to watch everything speeding on by. She's not sure what to really look for to find this seed, but knowing that the destination is a university does narrow down how far she'll actually need to look later. For now, she just keeps her eyes out for anything that might be approaching their vehicles, eventually turning her arms into wings to take to the skies. She glides around a bit to get a lay of the land, then hovers over the group to provide another viewing angle for whomever might be tailing them. Or, if she sees one, the Mothman.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	"How did you pick up the trail of the Mothman before this?" "Well, I heard this world had monsters on it before I knew that some of them were the classic cryptids - but learning each of those facts definitely caught my interest a little more. When Calvin named Mothman in passing, it was basically decided then and there that I'd have to do some research on this world. So I guess I called myself in special?" Madeleine passes Junior a pack of Airheads Xtreme Sour Strips and watches in mild horror as the candy is digitized. When she hands some Red Vines to Khosa she reflexively glances at the psion's wrist for a COMP. She graciously accepts shotgun in the Jeep, which happens to afford Khosa more legroom as the huntress slides her seat forward. As the crew begins their journey, she's quiet for a while, but as the hulks of abandoned buildings pass by she starts getting a little antsy. So she starts chattering. At first she's identifying what businesses she can from their ruins. "Was that a Muckle Shuffle we just passed? I swear that was a Muckle Shuffle. It had the weird half-timber infills and everything. Oh, right, you probably don't know what that is - Muckle Shuffle was only the best chain flea market this side of the Rockies!" But in time she falls silent again, let down by putting names to so many people's extinct livelihoods (and thus putting a little color to their similarly extinguished lives) and by the lack of recognition from the other Elites. Then she strikes up a new conversation, reflecting on what's been built since the bombs fell. "Hey, Calvin. If that was the Expanse, in the Terminal jump, then people can- can go there, right? Have you ever been? Or is it not safe outside the Terminals? I wonder what it's like..."
Angela	''No can do.'' "Oh poop." Cinder says. IN THE PICKUP "Technically we work for an energy company but in practice we manage a bunch of--we call them Abnormalities holed up in the chief facility of L Corp. We have to manage their moods, appetites, and so on the best we can and sometimes we have to deal with breaches which, depending on the Abnormality, are varying levels of inevitable. We can get gear and gifts based on the Abnormalities we work with, though it's company property so what we get isn't neccessarily what we're best with." "Mmm...." Random says. "I'm guessing trying to manage the Abnormalities is the part that we do that has most in common with what you do, though we're happy to learn anything else you're willing to share. Might be able to discover some new tools to help out back home." Her gaze to Justin Rook indicates a degree of uncertainty. Angela beckons Cinder to show her the countryside as they are driving. She's curious. In a way, the fact that the civilization is dead makes what she sees more indicative of the culture than if it was fully functional. Sometimes you can only learn about things post-mortem, after all. That's why they do autopsies.
Natsuki Nuki	The Jeep gets pretty piled into, though Natsuki doesn't vie for the shotgun seat. Really, she wants to sleep, but being whammied by the emotional superhighway before she was awake fully had drained her of some of her sinisister sparkle. Snap. Snap. Snap. 'Natsuki?' Natsuki Nuki, in the truest show of the whole name set besides her sister, appears to Ivy as a young adult Osakan Japanese woman with a darker golden-tan skin tone compared to her sister. Atop her head, among white-blonde hair drawn into a loose ponytail with two framing long bangs, are two tiger-like ears in fuzzy orange. Across and around her eyes is a tanuki eyemask, matching Futaba's, though her eyes are intense yokai-red. Up periscope first, from among her pre-seating on the Jeep's interior, is the rise of her snake-headed tail, alerted more by snaps than by the words, nictates reptilian membranes over gazing ophidian reds, and stares at Ivy while tasting air with forked tongue. The voice isn't instantly recognized, and people aren't wearing their 'hello, I'm __' badges in convenient Kanji readings, but guided by her name, Natsuki finally turns her head to look now twice over at Ivy. "That's me." Comes out a little gruff and puff, before her eyes search out something in Ivy's face and expression and eases back in pre-chosen window seat in the back. "Gate-Captain, hmm?" Natsuki asks at an appreciating rumble, leans an arm out of the Jeep window to take Ivy's hand and shake it American style, with an eager pump that's not too excessive, but, Even wrapped down Natsuki's quite strong. "And that might make you one too? Terrible of me to not know all the faces, but I'm still settling in. Welcome to the Mothman, and seeds-we-guess, expedition." Khosa's appearance is far more appreciated - having already decided she was moderately excited about the Mul's natural excellence last time - and Natsuki brings in her hand to lean on the inside of the door. "I took the chance just after the briefing to walk down, actually, since I had missed the open house earlier and needed the Marshal to walk me in. Since the Marshal and Madeleine already explained the lack of COMPs, I don't think there's a chance of me making a local contract this way, but," Natsuki's very awake now, lit right up by talking wrappers and demonology. "The way fusion works is mighty interesting - and the catalyst, magnetite, is interesting all on its own." She admits, all but drooling like talking steak and shrimp dinners. "You should ask the Marshal about Demi-Fiends, I think you'd be interested in the topic." She asides, and then, they get going! Calvin's glowing endorsement of her keeps Natsuki warmer than direct air and heated seats (a good thing, as Jeeps are beyond such frivolities as room must be made for a complete lack of suspension) and she settles further when they're underway, the terrain somehow of window-interest to her despite the relative desolation. Everything, even the desolation, was still a little new to her -- even if she didn't want to fully admit such. Later, after a lot of ruin tourism and window-gazery... 'This what all your worlds are like, too?' "Hard to describe where I'm from with just here as reference. Calvin's been there," The supermarket passes, with 'prosperous' as the word. "... more prosperous than this, at least the part I'm from. The big event was, like, two generations ago, and it mostly just made people less stupid about the ears on my head. Or more stupid, depending on the person. Not that I was alive at the time to know the difference. The 'mystery' vanished, and a lot of eyes were opened at once. But no bombs, no."
Ivy Carrow	"He mostly comes out at night. So we'll reach the University first, pack up what we need, and then grab 'im on the way back. Which is good, 'cause it means we'll have Atlanta behind us by the time it's dark enough to be dangerous." "I've been wondering what the big cities look like, since we had to turn back on first contact." Some of the joy has gone out of Ivy's voice, leaving her more contemplative. "Once we're there, I can open a way for some of my runners to come in, if we're gonna need more hands. But, I'll try to keep major gates to a minimum...No telling how everything that happened here frayed space-time." "Even at home, we've got all these ruins. People've lived in the Tablelands for so long nobody remembers how long we've been doing it...I kinda like seeing it, people rebuilding around them." "Tablelands, huh?" Ivy's ears perk up. "That's a shame. I can't imagine everything that's gotten buried and forgotten. There might even be things that'd make life easier for everyone, hidden away." "My Warprunners would love to see if we could work out some understanding with Tyr, like we have with Ossabaw. Maybe we could help 'em find some of that." She grins as she transitions the conversation into a sales pitch. "Would you pass that along?" "And that might make you one too?" "Guilty as charged." It's a little hard for her Ivy to attempt to bow while strapped into a jeep, but she makes a solid attempt. "I've been curious about how the Marshals do their work since we scouted this world." A glance at Calvin. "Can't wait to see for myself~" 'This what all your worlds are like, too?' "That's a complicated question." Ivy ponders, drumming her fingers thoughtfully on an armrest. "A lot of worlds don't really produce elites--though worlds do usually share some commonalities; there's usually an 'earth,' like this, and usually they don't blow themselves up quite this badly."
Calvin Nash	6:38 AM In the JEEP: Wouldn't've thought there were this many people in the area, ever. "Oh, yeah," says Calvin, conversationally. "The U.S. was real big. Savannah ain't even as big as the cities get. The whole country had... what, 'bout a hunnerd', two hunnerd' million people, by the end of it?" And 'metropolitan areas' like he'd mentioned yesterday--the big areas surrounding cities and the cities themselves, together--tended to have, as he'd mentioned, anywhere from hundreds of thousands to low millions, depending. There's an idea that going east into Savannah proper would only see the level of destruction increase, from decay and incidental damage to something much more drastic. That won't be today, however. The next 15 miles take you through a long, desolate stretch of forest. Futaba, serving as an eye in the sky, sees movement within the forest, but nothing so far that indicates they're being followed; it's more the type of movement that suggests lying opportunistically in wait. Stopping here would be a bad idea, but there's no reason to believe that they're being actively pursued, for now. Hey, Calvin. If that was the Expanse, in the Terminal jump, then people can- can go there, right? Have you ever been? Or is it not safe outside the Terminals? "It ain't safe," says Calvin. "Stay there too long, and you might not come back. Not to mention you might get found," he says. "And not everybody there's friendly. Most of what we know, we know from demons. There's different..." He searches for a word, as countless old oak soldiers rush by the window. "Countries? Islands? In a great big sea. The sea is Kadmon. Then you got Atziluth, where all the angels and Yehovah's kiss-asses are, 'cause they're too good for everybody else. Then there's Beriah and Yetzirah, where everybody else stays. All of 'em have their own cities, with little neighborhoods and everything." I've been wondering what the big cities look like, since we had to turn back on first contact. "Well, we oughta get there with plenty of daylight left, so you'll get a good look. Just don't wander off. They ain't safe even during the day. This here we're comin' up on," he says, nodding forwards and a little to the left, "Was a plant where they made cars." The vehicles pass a great complex easily a mile wide, with the remnants of small roads running like arteries between silent, still buildings on weed-strewn lots otherwise full of mixed golden-brown and rust-red dirt. "We picked all the good shit clean and shipped it up to Oklahoma years 'n years ago, but it kinda gives you a picture of how things used to run. That there's where the workers'd park," he says, angling his head towards a cracked parking lot as a flock of crows takes off. Dented, time-eaten signage advises of rest stops and forgotten restaurants, including an insidiously ever-present golden-arched M, as the industrial park fades in the rear view. Forgotten little periphery communities off the interstate stand like cracked, dead barnacles on the skin of a much larger, similarly dead creature, passing in a few blinks of an eye. Along with them, the occasional plot of rotten farmland passes, too. Mucky brown 'lakes' full of runoff from those farms carry foul smells to the passengers in mercifully brief bursts.
Calvin Nash	In the PICKUP: I'm with the Paladins. Making sure weaker folks don't get stomped on, punching out bad guys when they try to do that, keepin' the peace, that kinda thing. "I know what you do," says Junior with a good-natured chuckle, his eyes flicking up to the rear view mirror to fix her with a grin. "Well, except for the ninja thing, I guess. Don't even know what a ninja is, but Calvin talks about the other Paladins a lot." Technically we work for an energy company but in practice we manage a bunch of--we call them Abnormalities holed up in the chief facility of L Corp. I'm guessing trying to manage the Abnormalities is the part that we do that has most in common with what you do, though we're happy to learn anything else you're willing to share. "Sounds like it," Junior says, nodding in agreement with Random. "Best piece of advice for demons I can give you is that one size don't fit all. One might be impressed by you bowin' up, but another might want you to make nice. And sometimes you just gotta... well, learn that by trial and error. Which is why you always have backup," he says, taking one hand off the wheel to pat his COMP. "Seems like Angela understands that already, though, seein' how there's three of y'all plus that video thing of hers. How long y'all been workin' with her?" I-16 stretches on for hours--and so much of it is repeated variations on what you've seen thus far. Small towns (by the standards of rural America, anyway), forest, the occasional farm and its consequences, billboards in various states of disrepair, collapsed fireworks or adult novelty stores. 60 miles in, the sight of an old radio station and an intersection with State Road 14 feels like a novelty, as does an old gas station fifteen miles past that. "I dunno how people ever lived with those things," remarks Junior as the station passes by. "Dangerous as all hell." Indeed, it looks like something or someone blew the reservoirs, caving in the entire station, with the only hint as to its former purpose being the sagging sign offering a sad salute to you as you pass by. Farmland grows more and more common, past that, as unfortunately does the smell of retention ponds holding its runoff. 8:16 AM. "Makin' good time," comes Calvin's voice through the CB. "Prolly get there in another 3 hours if we can get through Macon quick." A sign ripped from its brace by the wind and lodged between two divding walls notes that Macon is 24 miles from here. Thus, 24 miles later, you're able to see some of the damage caused by neglect as you cut across the northern end of a middling-sized city that evidently avoided a direct hit. Despite the fact that there was no direct hit, many of the buildings look burnt out or as if they exploded from the inside, and there are places where Calvin and Junior have to slow down to keep the vehicles from sliding into linear gouges that seem to have burst from below the ground. As a matter of fact, it looks like fires damaged a significant portion of Macon's residential and business area. Going through here is slow, as in places the roads and sidewalks appear to have buckled from below, where they haven't simply exploded as before. The buildings that survived whatever caused them are variously at the mercy of what might be water damage, their own weight, or the gradual encroach of nature. Kudzu carpets an embankment climbing up the side of the interstate, and completely envelops a fallen power line. The buildings with flat roofs suffered the most, as plants gradually brought them to their figurative knees by way of overgrown gutters and rainspouts. Your passing frightens a gaggle of squirrels out of the overgrown husk of an auto repair shop.
Khosa	Khosa looks slightly askance - okay, more than slightly askance - at Futaba flattening herself against the truck as she loads onto the Jeep. She didn't think they were that tight for space. "I took the chance just after the briefing to walk down, actually, since I had missed the open house earlier and needed the Marshal to walk me in." "Shame I missed it," Khosa says. "I need to swing by and say hello to the Pastor again. Never saw a fusion proper, but I saw the setup, and I saw the magnetite - I brought a little piece of it home for someone who's better with materials to look at but even I could feel the energy. The only kind of stuff I keep energy in is crystals, though - or me." She does glance at Calvin when Natsuki brings up 'Demi-Fiends'. "Well now I'm curious about 'em," she admits. Also, about the Expanse: "Sounds like some things are the same everywhere, if they're forming little oasises in the sea." Khosa's brow furrows. "Wait, those are both water here, that doesn't work - " She cuts herself off. "Cities anyway." "Tablelands, huh? That's a shame. I can't imagine everything that's gotten buried and forgotten." "The Tablelands is a part of Athas," Khosa explains. "There's the Silt Sea in the east and the Ringing Mountains in the west, down to Siren's Song in the south - that's an estuary off the Silt Sea - and the Smoking Crown and the Dry Marsh in the north. All the city-states are in there, and the little towns around them, most of which pledge to one or another of the city-states. Tyr's about midway north, up against the Ringing Mountains' foothills. Lots of mesas and buttes, so it's the Tablelands." "Best we can tell, it's the one place on Athas cities hung on after the Green Age, through the Red Age and into the Desert Age. There's a few places outside it but not, like... nothing like the city-states. But all across the Tablelands if you know where or how to look there's remnants of the older Ages." Khosa looks at nothing in particular for a bit, though she's still looking out the window. "Sometimes even metal. Our mines barely have any left and it takes a lot of work to make it useful. Something like this Jeep'd cost a king's ransom in steel, even if it didn't drive." "And even in the Tablelands there's nothing like this. You could gather up all nine of the capitals and drop 'em in the space we've driven through this morning. I walk across Tyr more than once in a day. If you count just the main city, where the walls circle, if you could fly over it it's about a mile down the long direction. Some scholars say the world used to have more people in it, and I guessed that was true because it was better then, but didn't really believe how much more. But since I saw - " Khosa waves her hands out the window. "I kinda have to." "I'll pass it on, though," Khosa says. "Some of the old nobles are real not interested in people from outside Athas... they think they're just threats, or they don't believe there's anything there, by which I mean here, worth talking about. But King Tithian does, which is why I'm here. I don't talk to him in person, usually, but I'm pretty sure he reads my reports, because I learned to write about half so I could make them." A pause. "Writing used to be illegal for everyone but nobles," she clarifies. "And merchants, sometimes, though most of the big trading groups are run by nobles anyway. Mostly I just memorize things if I need to instead of taking notes."
Khosa	Time passes. Khosa recovers from what funk she was in pretty quickly, but the outside remains interesting as long as there are variations. The impression is given that she's just taking it in and, for lack of a better word, getting the feel of it. Farmland Khosa understands, at least. That's familiar, in some ways. Unfortunately Khosa's generally sensitive senses do make her notice the runoff smell, and her nose wrinkles expressively whenever it comes up. She doesn't complain. As they say, shit happens. Sometimes that includes manure. Macon is not so familiar. She whistles, low, at the damage. "And this is light?" she asks, at a particularly burnt stretch. "Looks like it had a firestorm and someone pulled chunks out of the ground without caring much about what came with it." A pause as she considers. "Do vines normally go up everything like that?" she asks. "Looks like they're pulling that building down, sort of." She is looking at a kudzu-covered building, though she cranes her neck to look at the nearby shattered sidewalk and buckled road pretty soon. It's a different sort of damage than she's used to; the desert wears away with wind and sand, but it doesn't shift with the change in seasons or wash away from water.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	"It ain't safe," "Right," Madeleine says, her tone verging on conspiratorial. "But have you ever been?" 8:16 AM Madeleine observes the ruins of Macon with interest, confusion, and a little horror. "Dang, why'd so many of the buildings just blow up? I'd have thought they'd turn the gas off when everybody left." Or died, she doesn't say. "Remind me, did demons show up right after the war, or was there a gap? You reckon the war might've created some kind of way for them to get in, if they existed before? I know these are probably beginner questions answered in a dossier somewhere, but I haven't read all the paperwork the Assembly's sent to the MCRD," she sheepishly admits.
Angela	''Sometimes you gotta... well, learn by trial and error.'' "That DOES sound familiar," Rook laments, glancing to the COMP, then towards the giant skull on a cross he's been carting around. "How long..." He seems a little confused by the question. "...Huh..." He hasn't thought about it in so long he has completely lost track. "Has to be at least three years... But I was an early employee and it was..." "Several years," Random says. Dwelling on how exactly everybody was down there between the time loops, which some employees are more aware of than others are this point by virtue of picking up this and that from the Meltdowns, is something LobCorp Agents don't tend to do. "She works with the Manager more directly than us though. Except for excursions like this." Rook adds. Over the hours, Angela has to do all sorts of other work in the meantime. Malkuth is now working on the Upper Layer of the Lobotomy Corp facility. She is short enough in her boxbot form that it's difficult for her to get cards up that high. Angela, meanwhile, is quiet. She is just taking it all in. Cinder periodically hums to herself, staring at the window and no doubt hoping to find a Mothman fly on by. They both pay attention to Calvin when he speaks and Angela actually twists her head quite firmly on him when he mentions 'Atziluth'. "That is quite humorous," Angela says in the least humored tone you can imagine. "We name our second lowest facility layer 'Atziluth'. No angels are present, however." Malkuth glances over when the damage becomes more prevalent. "Gosh, this looks like some places in the Outskirts..." Malkuth murmurs softly.
Futaba Nuki	Gliding above the group really gives Futaba some time to let her thoughts settle, even though she's ostensibly keeping an eye on things and not just hanging out. She dips up and down every now and then rather than just sticking to truck or sky, though, since it does get a little/very boring just gliding along without anyone else to chat up. Plus, it's more interesting getting multiple viewing angles of the bombed out locales they're passing by. "Nothing coming after us, at least. Should be safe enough to keep pace." She tells the pickup crew as she lands in the back, thunking down heavily before sliding up against the side as a decal again. Does she even need to do that? Probably not, but it ensures she isn't blocking Junior's view to the back. "You don't got any ninjas here? Dang, that's... We gotta fix that somehow. Although I gues that means.. I'm also the first ninja you've ever seen, then?" Grinning proudly, the tanuki smacks her chest loudly while making sure her scarf is flapping at full size for some heavy emphasis. "A ninja is a master of stealth and surprise, of agility and attack, someone that gets the job done at all costs even if nobody knows they even showed up!" Right now, Futaba is not wearing anything black or suited for stealth at all. "They've got all sorts of powers and tricks, too, like turning into wood, spittin' hot fire, dropping all sorts of spiky stuff on the ground... Oh, and smoke bombs! And shuriken-" She demonstrates by pulling a shuriken out of her jacket pocket along with a few stray down feathers. "-and swords..." Thankfully, she doesn't take her flaming katana out to demonstrate that, too. Jumping from sky to truck keeps Futaba busy and entertained enough for the most part, occasionally even gliding by the Jeep to wave at everyone inside there and see if they've got any spare snacks for her to mooch off of. <<"Been thinking about that fusion stuff... Uhh. Calvin. Junior. Is it always a permanent kinda thing?">> Futaba asks into her rado while descending from another scouting run, transmitting her flapping noises over the radio briefly as she touches down on the pickup again. <<"I mean, it sounds pretty dang interesting, mixing it up with someone like that. Just kind of... Sounds like something you'd really have to be sure of. Don't wanna end up fusing with someone that you'd hate as a permanent roommate, you know?">> Each round in the sky is slightly shorter than the last, and she stays on the pickup a little longer when the group passes by the kudzu embankment. She transforms her nose away reflexively, recalling the last time she had seen it out here and not wanting to risk that smell again. "3 more hours? Dang, too bad there isn't another warpgate all the way out here. But.. It'd be a while until you and yours could get one of those set up all the way out here, huh?" Futaba strokes her chin again in thought, then looks over at Random and Rook with a curious tilt of her head. "Been meaning to ask.. Those Abnormalities in that Lobotomy Company of yours. Do they ever.. Like. Get to leave? Or do they have to stay holed up in there for all that energy stuff you got going in there?"
Natsuki Nuki	Wistful about the Tabernacle and having only been there once, Natsuki reminisces about that for a short stint of interstate driving (ver: Jeep). "The building's nice, but the feeling is... something else. Entering, I felt the layers of warding on the place, like walking through the ten walls of a fortress in two steps and being surprised by all the walls I felt in such a short time. Within, the air is different, and charged. Did you feel similar, when you went?" Natsuki's question searches a little, though she might have had a different experience as an embodied sort of spirit than the woman from Tyr. "The most interesting thing about the fusion, beyond the obvious of the baffling logic of how the demons were combined so specifically to create a predicted result, was how direct the sharing of the emotional energy was. That..." Closing her eyes and leaning back against the rear bench seat headrest and bracing her knee on Calvin's seat before her, Natsuki sits back in the bumpy jeep ride and visualizes. "It was all a kind of literal, the gathering of emotional energy talked about during that meeting was not just a necessary getting-to-know and trust, but a mixing and fusion of a different sort, of summoner's and summoned, to bear the cost of the becoming. Not just two into one, but one and one and one making a more powerful three, together, the alignment of traits - luck - and the outside. The 'Expanse', which, the Marshal might correct me, seems to be closer to the surface within the Tabernacle than any place else. 'Keeping the lights on', there, in that soft and working fortress laboratory, seemed to take magnetite and minding directly." Bringing both arms behind her head to sit more casually with crossed-parked legs and jammed up knee, Natsuki makes herself jumble-bouncingly comfortable and opens an eye eventually to look back out the window. "Demi-Fiends are humans fused with demons - I imagine the emotional energy there requiring so much more is a different matter than just the simple covering of costs - fusion is as much about ingredients mixing as personalities. I asked the Pastor and Marshal if a Demi-Fiend could fit in a COMP. They didn't know..." Natsuki's 'heh heh' comes out like the chuffing chirps of a bird, and she titters on at a whistle-toodle rumbled under by the rugged engine on road. "But isn't it interesting to think about? The COMPs apparently used pre-war technology, and we're searching for seeds from before as well, so maybe you're all the more right for ruin and recovery being the two states." "I haven't seen much of my world, though." Natsuki admits, not altogether proudly or loudly. "Cities can be big enough, even if they're walkable in a day. I could cross Osaka in a day, and it's still most of what I've known. Not all, but... most." Long hours of wonder - of places never gone, of outside, remains ahead for Natsuki, and Macomb calls chimera to echo Khosa again. "Looks like something exploded - or fought here? Like a firestorm fought a flood and this is what's left. Calvin, is this some sort of Demon battleground you're taking us through? Or just... Empty spaces, where people aren't right now?"
Calvin Nash	The 'Expanse', which, the Marshal might correct me, seems to be closer to the surface within the Tabernacle than any place else. 'Keeping the lights on', there, in that soft and working fortress laboratory, seemed to take magnetite and minding directly. "Yep," Calvin nods his agreement. "Every so often, you gotta keep a Tabernacle supplied with a little dripfeed. The longer it runs, the less often you gotta do it, but when we build new ones, it can take a lot of work to get them runnin' as smooth as Ossabaw's. Pastor Fred could prolly man it twice a week and we'd be fine, but he just likes workin' the keys," Calvin fondly notes. But isn't it interesting to think about? "It'd be different, that's for damn sure. If it was me... I'd wanna be out, most days, honestly. I like fried fish and cornbread and booze and reefer too much to be stuffed up in a computer all day," Calvin honestly admits. "I figure I'm just worldly like that." Specifically of 'this world,' the world that is, and not whatever world might be. Maybe that's why he turns his nose up at angels and mistrusts Lucifer's enclave. But have you ever been? "Nope. Not 'bout to, neither." Maybe someone in the Assembly's research corpus would be more amenable to the idea? A visit to Oklahoma is due after Mothman is contracted, anyway. And this is light? "Oh, less-than," says Calvin, carefully maneuvering past a ground rupture and signaling with his hand through the window for Junior to do the same. Calvin, is this some sort of Demon battleground you're taking us through? Or just... Empty spaces, where people aren't right now? "Macon didn't even catch a bomb. Closest woulda been Robins, and that ain't closer'n 20 miles from here. Aaabsolute furthest a shockwave woulda gone is ten, and that's when it's got shit to bounce off of, like back Savannah way and that intersection." I'd have thought they'd turn the gas off when everybody left. "Anybody that still woulda been alive to work them lines wasn't 'bout to walk into Hell to go do it. Bet it was prolly the same for them old places Ms. Khosa mentioned a while ago," he says. "You figure anybody bothered showin' up for work when they thought the world was endin'? Anyway." Winding back around to Khosa's observations from Madeleine's, Calvin offers an explanation, his eyes occasionally finding hers in the rear view. "When gas lines go, you get explosions. Then fires, from the explosions. Water, you get water everywhere, then mold. Then... pow," he says, making a little explosion noise, indicating collapse. "A lot of them lines ran under the ground." Do vines normally go up everything like that? "Kudzu? Hell yeah, it will. That there's just a little part of the whole thing. Under the ground, that sucker might go for miles. They say it got brought into the country a long time before the war. Dunno why in the hell you would," he opines with a scoff. "Burnin' it don't kill it, tearin' it up don't kill it, it grows faster than most critters can eat it... Death magic's 'bout the only damn way to get rid of the stuff." Remind me, did demons show up right after the war, or was there a gap? You reckon the war might've created some kind of way for them to get in, if they existed before? "The Expanse did. The war threw the door wide open," he says. "The bigger the city you go to, the more proof of that you're gonna find. Whether they were out 'n about before that, I don't know. I doubt it, though," he says. "Otherwise we'd'a seen 'em at... dance clubs, and churches, and stadiums and titty bars, and everywhere else people felt real strong emotions. Wouldn't we?" But then again, his thoughtful pause says wordlessly, Earth's magical traditions had to have come from somewhere, and surely some of them involved briefly cracking the door open rather than purely calling on the spiritual energy present within Earth.
Calvin Nash	That is quite humorous. We name our second lowest facility layer 'Atziluth'. No angels are present, however. Calvin is about to sound the most educated he ever has in front of other Elites. "It's all 'bout perspective, Ms. Angela," he says. "If you buy into what the angels say, then Earth is the lowest, and the 'point' is that Yehovah takes his worthy to be part of the sea of Adam Kadmon. But where is it they come to build that Thousand Year Kingdom to prove who's worthy? Down here with us 'sinners.'" "Technically, Earth is both Assiah and Assiah Gashmi. It's to-where you can see us through your screen on account of there's light and hear us 'cause there's air, instead of bein' able to do that 'cause of us willin' that we oughta be heard and seen. But it's also got a little of the spiritual, which is how come me and Junior can use magic, and why humans got some of the same... ingredients as demons." He must've been thinking about his conversation with Natsuki a good bit. In the PICKUP: I'm also the first ninja you've ever seen, then? "I guess so," says Junior laughingly. A ninja is a master of stealth and surprise, of agility and attack, someone that gets the job done at all costs even if nobody knows they even showed up! "Uh..." Not only is Futaba not dressed for stealth, but she's spent most of the time that they've been acquainted transforming all or part of herself in rather distinctive fashion. The enthusiastic discussion of her various tools seals it in Junior's mind: This woman is simply on another level from his talents of perception--she has mastered forms of stealth he doesn't even have words for. Indeed, that he can see her at all is a testament to her boundless generosity in the face of someone who'd otherwise be left guessing at every turn. "Yeah," he says, mentally stunlocked. Been thinking about that fusion stuff... Uhh. Calvin. Junior. Is it always a permanent kinda thing? "Yep," Calvin says through the CB. Don't wanna end up fusing with someone that you'd hate as a permanent roommate, you know? "The less trust, the less the chance it works," says Junior, his horseshoe mustache framing a frown. "And failure can be pretty bad. If you ain't lucky, you could fuse into somethin' worse than what you started as. Some people don't care about that. But them folks can't count on their demon partners nearly as much as the ones that do." Dang, too bad there isn't another warpgate all the way out here. "I don't think Director Moore'd be comfortable askin' Ivy's people to do that," Junior admits. "Not without havin' Marshals to guard it. And I can't see her doin' that, on account of this is, ah... whatchacall... special circumstances," he says after a snap of his fingers brings the phrase to mind. "Nobody in Georgia lives north of Savannah."
Calvin Nash	9:57 Geographically, the Macon stretch of the trip is a drop in the bucket. Chronologically, it's a decent bit, because of how much orienteering has to be done--and just think, this is the route Calvin planned ahead of time with knowledge of the state of the roads. Taking the backroads would have probably added even more time. Eventually, however, I-16 becomes I-75, winding north by northwest past a decaying church, a burnt-out and caved in outlet mall studded with forgotten chain businesses. Its crown jewel, a supermarket, must have spelled nothing short of horrific in the weeks following the war. Trees invade and overtake suburbs visible between the roofs of dead businesses, and it's here that the efforts of the Marshals have begun to slow down. While 75 itself is clear, neighboring State Road 23 can be seen from the windows, plus a collapsed overpass, and both are dotted with rusted out cars. You pass an old dealership whose offerings have been picked clean long ago by now, and then by an old outdoors store. It's then that you're out of Macon... and into trouble. Calvin and Junior's COMPs both go off with a loud, angry buzz, not alike an emergency broadcast alert. It rings three times loud and long. But Calvin just steps on the gas. Junior: Calvin! What in the hell you doin'?! Didn't you hear the alert? Calvin: Sure did. Junior: Well, we gotta turn off. Calvin: Like Hell. We're makin' good time. Junior: Calvin, I don't wanna fight no Fiend! Calvin: Then don't. Just floor it and we'll leave whoever it is behind. Fuck 'em. Junior: Goddamn it, Calvin... Calvin: Get them 'kajas ready. Junior's voice is shot through with obvious anxiety, but Calvin's acceleration doesn't give him much choice--he doesn't want to split off and thus split everyone up, so he floors it too, and both vehicles put their suspension to the test on the cracked highway. Futaba sees 'whoever it is' before anyone else, owing to her vantage point: a motorcyclist, gradually fading into view from the rear horizon. It's not that he was tailing them--rather, it's that they've entered into his territory or that his territory finds itself here today. As he draws closer--and he's gaining, make no mistake--she can pick out extra details: The white fuel tank of his chopper-style motorcycle bears a decal of a heart pierced by a lightning bolt. It's an old model, and he's wearing a classic outfit to boot--70s style black leathers, complete with a stylish red scarf that flaps behind him in the wind. He might be mistaken for human, if not for the fleshless, leering, eyeless skull peering out from beneath his helmet, or for the fact that the wheels are made of fire. And he's gaining faster, now. He's gaining faster, leaning forward on his bike, because after casting a slew of spells (all with the suffix '-kaja') on the Jeep, Calvin stuck his hand out the window and gave him the middle finger. Junior: CALVIN! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR EVER-LOVIN' MIND?! Calvin: It'll be aight. fJunior: NO HELL IT WON'T! THAT'S HELL BIKER! Calvin: Well.