Agent K | Log 001

[most_feared]

Who: Agent K | Misc
What: A Day in the Life (and the investigation)
When: Between now and a little prior to the next news post.
Where: Around
Notes & Warnings: Just Kay's mouth. Doing this in action style just because it's easier right now.

(This isn't a real cut, it's a fake cut. Look at comments for starters.)

Comments

Paging Smiley and OTA - at the diner having pie

[most_feared]

[Kay is spending his average lunch time having pie at the local diner. He's getting attached to the pie here, thought the "apples" don't quite taste like "apples" and "cheddar" doesn't happen the same way when you wander off to strange animals to make it. Still, it's not bad, it's worth eating, and it gives him some quiet time to scroll through things on his communication device.]

[Though he is expecting company. A certain older gentleman who he quietly enjoys his lunch with, not appearing to have much conversation beyond what seems typical of older, quiet reserved gentlemen. In his career, he's gotten good at that sort of discussion.]

[He's not really enjoying the alien music at the diner today, though.]

[likeaswift]

[Lunch hour. Smiley hands off the keys to the bookshop to another assistant manager and strolls down to the diner and tries not to feel any pleasure at all in the upcoming meeting with Kay. The thing is, this kind of interaction is comfortable, and some part of him hates that.]

[He takes a seat at the counter to Kay's left and orders a shandy and the day's special, which is a meatloaf in reddish gravy with a mash of the local potato-like tuber. It is, Smiley has to admit, far better than anything similar he's had in England in a very long time. Then again, better food than English food in his era is not a very difficult challenge.]

[There's a pause as he casts a sidelong glance at the jukebox, which is emitting noises he doesn't much care for either. Only then does he finally murmur a greeting to the man sitting next to him.]

Good afternoon.

[most_feared]

Afternoon. [He says simply in response, raising his alien coffee to Smiley and giving him a quick smile.]

So how's it goin' at the bookstore? [Then as he waited for a response he opened up an extra sugar, deciding that the coffee was even a touch too bitter for even his blood.]

[likeaswift]

A man could scarcely wish for a more peaceful occupation. [Said very dryly. The fact is, Smiley is already starting to get a little bored, much as he'd wish otherwise. Perhaps it's this fact that actually prompts him to bring up the latest excitement.] The same cannot be said for others, I gather.

[most_feared]

I'm sure it's a whole weight off your mind. [Kay could read between the lines. He sounds like he's bored to tears, save for an odd customer or two. Even the novelty of whole other species can wear off with enough mundanity, he knew that.]

[He finishes stirring his coffee and takes a sip.] So what do you think about the talks going on now?

[likeaswift]

[Smiley's food arrives, and he stabs at it with his fork. He doesn't take a bite until after he answers Kay, and he seems to have very little relish for it, even if it is rather good.]

I have little taste for politics. [Which is entirely true.] But there are those for whom passions can run high, and one wonders to what that will lead.

[most_feared]

Oh yeah. Breeds all sorts of bad blood.

[He isn't going to smoke in the diner, but he pulls out his pack of cigarettes and packs them against his hand. He's just moving idly as he thinks, tutting quietly to himself.]

There's a little bit of talk startin' that it might have been one of us.

[likeaswift]

[Smiley looks bored, uninterested. His expression is impassive. But he's paying keen attention to everything Kay says.]

How much store do you set by this talk?

[most_feared]

Just enough to know that if it got too far around, it could give the lot of us a real hard time here. [As is the problem when everyone is a suspect.] The only ones of us that come from a place with strange explosives are the army man, the ghoul, this undead lady, and the tech that I know of. I'm still askin' around but it's still right strange. So far it looks like the most "normal" guys we have wandering around are you and the Eastern European guide.

Not real sure what his job was before he came here.

[likeaswift]

Nor I. I've seen the gentleman in question about, though we've never spoken.

[A small frown.]

I was under the impression that the goods we brought with us were heavily vetted by our hosts.

[How are weird explosives going to get in, then?]

[most_feared]

So was I. I took some readings. The technician was sniffing around there too so I let him try a sample orally- they have a good sense of taste. Basically confirmed what I found out. Right helpful of him. [He says in a way that suggests he doesn't always trust "helpful".]

[But as he is talking he is pulling up a text version of a public conversation on his communicator. Rather than sending it, he does the old-man thing of handing it over for Smiley to see on his screen.] Here, this is a pretty funny story. You oughta read it.

[likeaswift]

[Smiley takes the communicator from Kay and scrolls through the transcript as he picks idly at his food. There's not much in the way of a reaction, for the most part, but as the "technician's" story appears to slowly break down, a ghost of a smile twitches at the corner of his mouth.]

What a remarkably well-connected and opinionated person our technician appears to be in his native world. [A beat.] A highly developed sense of taste?

OTA - Outside the fence being nosy about the mess

[most_feared]

[Now that there seems to be no other threats out, he can dedicate more time to investigating the wall. He's hunkered down in the minor crater, running dirt through a scanner and watching the little lights scroll across the side in uncertain patterns. It's obviously perplexing to him, whatever it is.]

[It's no longer a sequestered scene, but even with the thread of contamination he wants to come back and see if there are any changes from the first samples he took.]

[timesbureaucrat]

[Narvin had difficulty getting close to the site of the explosions. When it first occurred, he tried to rush to the site of the attack, but found himself unaccountably unable to go there. He would freeze up, or run in tight circles, or flee, or shake his head like his mind was thrown into senseless chaos and panic.

But this time nothing happens. As Narvin treks down to the blast area he wonders if the terrorists had also set up a psychic weapon of some sort, something that only affects telepaths and had now been powered down.

He spots Kay and walks to his side, careful to keep his distance from the scanner's range so as not to interfere with its readings.]

Anything?

[most_feared]

[He shakes his head, but he doesn't take his eyes off the readings.] Everything's the same. Just faded a little, but that's to be expected from class 1 explosions. Really this was pretty minor and I don't see why a terrorist would aim for the fence unless they were hoping that some of the spiders would get in.

But most of the people here are pretty used to the spiders and can deal with 'em. They're not that big a deal. A few getting in, with our security, wouldn't fuck up a conference.

So I don't know. It doesn't make sense.

[He stands up. Narvin's not security, but from what he'd gathered he'd been around terrorists before and he did offer to come out and see if he could find anything. Not that it did him much good at the time.]

I will stop editing eventually, I swear!

[timesbureaucrat]

[Narvin gives a small but visible shudder at the mention of spiders getting it. He'd rather come face to face with terrorist mad bombers than with spiders.]

It might have been a...[He thinks for a moment to find the proper English idiom.]...shot across the bow. Something that wasn't intended to do much damage, but to put us on edge, show us that they're out there and have successfully smuggled in weapons that could do considerable damage. Just a threat alone can sometimes create disruption, breed mistrust. [He thinks of Gryben, and the threat of a timeonic fusion device that turned out to be nothing but empty circuits once history was put back into place.]

Do you think the Blood Pack might be involved? As the supplier, if nothing else.

[Once Kay stops scanning, Narvin walks a few steps closer. He has to look up at Kay now that Kay's fully upright.]

Oh, and another thing, can your scanner pick up residual psychic displacement?

[most_feared]

Not unless they have shit that hasn't been invented in this universe. Which uh... makes it less relevant to them and more relevant to who might have hired them 'cause they didn't like the subject matter of the talks.

I can't really say more, though. For obvious reasons. [He does fish around in his pockets for another scanner, though.]

Sure, I'll have a look around for you, though. Why do you wonder?

[timesbureaucrat]

[Narvin lets that go because *he* isn't sure he likes the subject of the talks either. But he definitely didn't hire someone to blow up a fence over it. Still, he's used to people blaming him whenever something nefarious happens, so he feels it's better to say nothing and try to avoid calling suspicion upon himself.

He focuses instead on the issue of psychic residue.]

When I tried to examine the area before, something stopped me. It was as if my senses were turned against me and instead of going towards the explosion site, I was compelled to run away from it.

[most_feared]

Can you better describe how it felt?

[Kay is reading over something on the new device he's pulled out. The language isn't English. Or any language Narvin would immediately be familiar with. Whatever it is, Kay is following it without having any trouble.]

But no, there's nothin' on here that would register as an extra-sensory external neural impulse.

[timesbureaucrat]

It's difficult to explain. [Narvin cranes his neck to nosily try to read over Kay's shoulder. His lips purse in disappointment when he's unable to read the display.]

It was as if something was telling me that I should be anywhere but near here. Not in words, just an impulse. An...instinct. [He's reluctant to use the word "instinct." He does things according to reason, to logic, not gut feelings. But it's the most accurate way he could think of to describe the overriding sensation.]

[most_feared]

[It is unfortunately the turn of phrase Kay clues in on, and finally his gaze turns sharply from the device to Narvin (even if he doesn't move his head).]

Instinct.

[He squints.] What other strong corporeal senses do you have?

[timesbureaucrat]

[Narvin is taken aback by Kay's sudden focus on him. And by what seems to him a bit of a non sequitur, although the way Kay says it Narvin's thinks that he's following a very clear train of thought, just not one Narvin himself is privy to yet.]

We have a large number of time senses, many of which are fairly rare in sentient species. We're also very sensitive to sensations of motion and gravity. I can feel the gravitational pull of this planet, and the moon above, and all of us spinning through space. We also possess a keen sense of taste compared to many races, to the degree that if I really needed to I could detect the specific chemical composition of soil residue by taste alone, although doing so is uncouth. Not to mention it tastes rather disgusting. Our sense of smell is likewise strong, as taste and smell are tied together.

[He ends with a shrug, wondering if any of that was helpful for the hypothesis Kay is pursuing.]

[most_feared]

Do you know if your evolutionary base was pack hunters? Meat eaters?

[He doesn't yet know what a sensitive subject this is. But it's a... decent lead. It means if security takes a dog of some sort with them, or someone descended from carnivores with similar attributes, it could come in useful. It might lead them to the cause quicker than any of his scanners.]

[timesbureaucrat]

[Narvin purses his lips, then clears his throat, then looks away for a while before answering, trying to decide whether he *should* answer. In the end he concludes that catching the possible terrorists is more important than pride.]

Yes, although we don't speak of it much. Some scientists speculate that our telepathy first evolved as a function of pack communication. And there are some...aspects of our digestive system that...ah...indicate a carnivorous evolutionary heritage. [It's terribly embarrassing for a species that makes a great show out of being peaceful and abhorring violence as barbaric to admit that their ancestors hunted down other life forms and devoured them.]

Security People - In the security office watching monitors

[most_feared]

[Work work work. Is that all he does? Basically, yes. He's gotten off his Centauran time schedule but that doesn't mean he's doing any better with his sleep. If he spends too much time on his own he starts feeling regretful and homesick. He starts to miss people. He can't do that, he has a mission here, a job to finish.]

[Thankfully there's enough alien diplomacy bullshit technicalities to keep him suitably distracted. It feels a little like home that way, a bunch of people running around and bickering because they don't even get each other.]

[He can't listen in to what he's watching, but he's at the security office drinking coffee and watching a silent video feed from one of the resort rooms of some slug thing and a shrimp thing in some sort of argument over some thing that he doesn't have the luck to know because they turned off their sound to maintain privacy (but not the video in case one happened to murder the other? He has no idea.) He yawns lazily over his cup and goes back to drinking, and casually greets anyone that he knows that goes by.]