She finished folding the first towel, moving to the second. Sooner she finished, the sooner she could leave, work, eat, work, then drop onto her bunk. She should hold her tongue. Should being the key word. Of course this didn't happen. She continued in her trained, steady voice. "Pride tastes a lot better then the stinky food you order and serve,.. Sir"

This towel's folds were getting lop sided. none of the corners were lining up and the sides crisscrossed. not something she was going to do over now. "And perhaps you should take a page from a five year old's book and blow on your hot drink." Her eyes flicked up and she tapped her nose. smell plus the hearing his heart hit a slightly faster beat. (If this part needs changing tell me.) "Or is pride going to cool your taste buds."

((ooc: No problem, Were. )

Rupert took a moment to elaborately blow on his coffee. He didn’t try to drink it, though. A little bit of air never did cool a volcano. The lioness—he really couldn’t make his mind call her ‘woman’—was earning some serious points in his book. For one thing, she was keeping her tone perfectly even and civil. If it wasn’t for the slight tell in the way she was sloppily folding that towel, he’d say he hadn’t even ruffled her feathers. Or fur, as it were. Plus she’d used the word ‘stinky’. Now that was a word he didn’t hear nearly often enough. Still keeping up his disgusted gaze, and giving her a small, disapproving shake of his head, he went back to his seat and set down his coffee cup. Any longer holding that, and his hand would have been blistering.

Naturally, some sort of parting shot seemed required. “Hey, five year olds are pretty smart. For instance, you don’t see any of them around this place. Yet here we are.” He gave a shrug, and picked up his pen again.

She’d gotten half way through the third towel when his closing shot came. She placed that towel on the shelf un finished. Then the rest of the hand towels followed in a small pile. “No I don’t see five year olds here but I do see an eight year olds and twelve year olds having to learn what goes through a predators mind. Half of your guards would have been arrested for the things they have done here, but no. They do good here don’t they.” Her voice was still steady but inside she was shaking. She shouldn’t of had to go into more details about the guards. There had been a pedophile problem from day one.

“The five year old brain is a wonderful thing. Most mutants who are five haven't had that part of their brains tell them that their a mutant yet. I’m sure if more mutations turned up at earlier ages,..” Like her first mutation had turned up. “…you would have five year olds here, even yonger. No eight year olds. Those three years really make a difference. Don’t they.” She stood, gathering her bag swung over her back and the basket balanced against her hip again. As it was when she walked in.

Rupert had put back in his headphones and done some mindless paper-signing as Sara went into her speech. Her rather apt speech. He couldn’t argue with it, that was for sure. The same things made him sick to his stomach, as well.

He waited until she seemed finished, then he waited three seconds more before turning back to her, pulling out one of his earbuds, and giving her wide eyes of blatantly faked surprise. “I’m sorry,” he unapologetically said, “did you say something?” He tilted his head to the side, in the most thoughtful manner imaginable. “Come to think of it, don’t you have a job you should be doing?” He said it in what he hoped to be a purely final tone. It was about time for this conversation to end: he had no hope of winning it, after all. On his ipod, “I’m an asshole” by Dennis Leary was playing.

She had been headed straight for the door when his question about her having a job to do came. What did he think she had been doing this entire time? Playing? She changed her path to the door mid step. Taking a new path that took her right past Rupert’s desk.

Her tail whipped out from under the hem of her grey dress and swept across the desk top, flicking the papers off on her side. “Whoops. The thing has a mind of it’s own.” She said referring to her tail.

Reaching the door she painted on a crap eating grin. With her hands full, she used her hip to push the handle then maneuver past the frame. In a different voice then before, more like a valley girl tone Sara bid her good by. “Oh and that thing with the papers and the desk.” She let out a stupid giggle. “Loved it! Later!”

Over her shoulder Jeminai and another couple of guards turned their heads to see who Sara was talking to. Eye brows nearly disappearing under the brow bands of their uniform issued hats. The door banged shut and Sara was gone.

(If that last bit needs changing tell me.)

Rupert snatched the death certificates out of the way of that incoming tail: he let everything else get swept to the floor. Not that he had much choice in the matter.

He would have been willing to leave it at that—her walking out the door, him scrounging over the floor to pick up papers—but then he noticed the little crowd they had gathering outside of the door. The little crowd who looked from the scattered papers to Rupert to Sara, and had just enough combined brain cells to add things up. Rupert experience exactly one moment of hesitation. Then he took out his remote, with a little wink to the other girls, and gave the lioness a little jolt to remember him by.

After the door shut, he put the remote back in his pocket, and picked up his pen. It hadn’t been a big shock. He did need to keep up appearances. If there was anything that Rupert had learned over the past weeks, though, it was that all the rationalizations in the world won’t hold off a good case of self-loathing. The lioness had definitely won this round.

She counted to three, slightly surprised at the hesitation at pushing that little red button on the remote. She nearly thought he let it go when the jolt finally came. Making her teeth press hard against each other, causing her to give a shake. She got one echo shock from her healing ability kicking in. She’d taken much worst before.

She glanced over her shoulder just as the door closed. Then she was on her way.

Idly twirling a simple graphite pencil between his newly calloused fingers Zephyr leaned back into the cheaply constructed office chair as he silently reviewed his notes. He needed to commit as much to memory as possible for he could not afford to keep any physical record of his findings for more than a few days or so; it would be hard enough trying to explain to the warden why he had felt the need to catalog almost every security feature within the camps, but if one of the mutants managed to get hold of his records they would almost certainly be caught, interrogated and when they pointed to him well… Simon had no desire to become the latest inmate for this particular installation.

Glancing over his assigned quarters with a bored eye the merc’s gaze was inevitably drawn to the bland calendar which was hung on the wall opposite the entrance to the room. Fixing his eyes upon today’s date the elemental slowly thought back over the time he had so far spent within the camps. It had been an experience certainly and not a relaxing one by any means, for the most part though the elemental believed his infiltration to be a success. The façade he had crafted for his new persona had successfully deceived guards and prisoners alike into believing that the young British teenager was nothing more than a clumsy and oblivious fool. As a result his presence attracted little, if any, notice unless he chose it to be otherwise. That combined with his increasingly utilized spatial senses meant that he was almost always able to blend into the background, an anonymous figure of little worth or consequence.


His pseudo notoriety had also been greatly aided by his regular assignments to the various defensive towers which surrounded the camps perimeter. High above the rest of the facilities residents the merc had had ample opportunity to observe the various goings on as well the ins and outs of the camp without being disturbed. He know knew the names and views of every guard within the camp, the vast majority of them were sadly nothing more than simply minded bully’s and sadists whom had been given the chance to fulfill part of their prison sentences working to serve their country against the ‘mutant threat’. The only saving grace these particular individuals had was that they were easily manipulated and thus of no real consequence.

The second, smaller majority were those that held some measure of sympathy for mutant population either because of a family relation which possessed the xgene or simply because of some type of moral code they worked in an attempt to make the imprisoned mutants lives as bearable as possible. They were unsuccessful for the most part yet they did not seem to be easily deterred. Simon had spent the majority of his time in their company and even managed to established what might tenderly be called a rapport of sorts as he used the little attention they gave him as a means to explore and develop his new persona.

Glancing back down at his papers once again Zephyr’s eyes wandered over to a detailed sketch he had made of what seemed to be a metallic lizard on two legs. The stalkers, he had decided at the beginning, were a problem. Although he had yet to face one in combat he had seen a recording of the assault on sanctuary and what he had observed disturbed him slightly. Possessing elongated heads, gaping maws with rows of serrated fangs, slender serpent tails and a retractable set of claws on each limb the creatures were like something out of a bad horror film. In contrast to Hollywood history though these things had no obvious and crippling flaws; their speed and strength was beyond human, they could remove themselves from visible sight and by the way they behaved it was obvious that they were equipped with some type of advanced AI which had them capitalize on their bizarre animalistic appearance to inspire fear in their opponents.

Despite this though the merc was reasonably confident that he was capable of handling one of the reptilian machines should the situation arise. He had given some thought to the strange creations after all and had crafted a few strategies he believed would ensure him a victory, however the elemental was not certain in his belief like had been in the past and that alone gave him pause. He had not doubt that the things could be beaten, they were only machines after all; they had been made by a human and humans were far from perfect. It was merely a question of finding the flaw in their design and exploiting it, until that flaw could be found though he would prefer to avoid any type of confrontation with the stalkers unless absolutely necessary.

‘A journey to the labs might be in order’ he mused as he shuffled his paper and rose from the desk walking casually to the bin in the corner of his room. Hunter would have surely set his staff to work on analyzing the stalkers for various defects and weak points that could be used in the future, and the elemental had every intention of taking advantage of whatever they discovered.


((OOC: Yeah it's been a while but after not posting for a few weeks I thought I might as well as least make an attempt to show Zephyr still had some place in the plot. Any problems just send me a PM.))

ooc: jumping in too, but jumping right back out again too, just want Raina to be seen here

ic:

Raina was led by the nicer female guard- Angel into the room. They both had on their hips a basket filled with papers. Angel leaned down once in the room and started pickign up the recycle bins and dumping them into the baskets. It was obvious that she was helping Raina out- but after 7 weeks the woman didn't care what the others said.

Raina stood motionless holding the basket while Angel made the rounds saying good morning to the people in and around the room (s). Raina didn't look up- she kept her eyes low. She knew that making eye contact with anyone was asking for trouble so she didn't.

There was something odd she could smell though, something or someone familiar. Raina had never been one for exagerated use of the senses... but there was a certain person, and occasionally certain people, that she could just feel when they were near by (ooc: This is just a reference to when Raina thought about how she could smell Rupert back in his apartment)ic: but having spent so much time being delerious in the camps she'd learned to ignore these small things.

"Detective Kelly." Said Angel with a nod picking up his load of crumpled papers and tossing them in the basket. "Been busy this morning 'ave we?" she smiled and went back over to Raina. "All right deary, we've got a quota before noon let's go." she was leading Raina by the arm out the door.

Raina's head was still facing away when something started to register. It was taking it's time- being in the camps so long made it hard to think. Then she realised what she'd just heard... and seconds before Angel led her out the door Raina turned her head a fraction and caught the face of a man she knew.

Rupert.

It was Rupert.

He was here.

He was in the camps.

Her facial expression softened for a moment as it would had it been 7 weeks earlier before all of this had happened- where she'd been happily surprised to see Rupert.

As the door closed blocking their view of each other, Raina's face hardened. She turned back to face her destination and that was all she saw.

Later when she'd returned to her room... she cried.

ooc: and that's it for Raina in this thread. lol. I just wanted to have her know or at least think that Rupert is here. She's not entierly sure if she believes what she saw.

She kept her eyes down. There were very few things at this camp that weren't going to haunt Rupert, years from now, but he never thought that such a simple thing would be one of them: she kept her eyes down. She didn't move, didn't speak, didn't look up.

Of course, he knew that she couldn't speak. He'd read the special modifications they'd put into her collar. He didn't know if they were necessary to stop her power—there was so much he didn't know about her. Like how much weight she'd lost in these seven weeks. Or what had happened to her, besides him, that made it so she walked into the room like a ghost of a ghost, carrying her basket and going where she was lead without ever looking up. She didn't take any notice of a single thing in the room. He knew where they were, he knew what that meant; but he hadn't know that it could steal a bright, lively woman's desire to even look up.

He could see a lot of things without ever moving from his seat: he watched her pale reflection standing mutely still in the window pane in front of him, as the guard escorting her bustled around the room. Angel. She was well-named, but she really needed to keep a lower profile. Around here, even his reputation as the apathetic supervisor who never came out and joined the fun was better than her reputation as the guard who actually gave a damn about the freaks.

“Detective Kelly.” It seemed like a long time since he'd been called by that title. Even Rupert was beginning to forget that he was just here as the token representative of the New York's justice system in this whole ungodly affair.

“Mrs. Angel. Been busy this morning 'ave we?” He replied noncommittally, wrenching his eyes off of the window and back to his current project: he was trying to get some sort of plumbing installed in those laundry ponds. After over seven weeks of daily use, the things were disgusting. Since they were used to wash the guards' bedsheets, as well, he wasn't meeting much resistance to the idea. The trick was wiggling around the budget to fit the modifications in.

“All right deary, we've got a quota before noon let's go.”

His shoulders loosened the moment the door was closed. Having her in the room... it was a lot different than knowing she was somewhere in the camp. He didn't see the look on her face just before she'd left. He didn't even know if she'd seen him. As far as he knew, she'd done nothing but keep her eyes down.

He was about ready to personally throttle each and every member of the Resistance, if he didn't hear conclusive plans from them, and soon. Even hearing from Naveed was sounding good, at this point.

That wasn't the Raina he loved. He needed to get her out of here, before that woman truly died.

((ooc: Continued, some time later, in "Where does it hurt?"))

(OOC: Jumping ahead with the rest of Camp activities.)

Neena sighed inwardly. There were times when she really, really wished that she could experience fear. It might prevent her from doing some rather stupid things. Well, maybe not stupid, necessarily. Rash might be more appropriate. Or half-baked. Hair-brained? Maybe even foolish....

"All right, we'll stick with stupid," she murmured under her breath, then sighed. "Oh well."

And she continued right on with her sabotage. Today's agenda included, among other things, spiking a bottle of shampoo with neon blue dye. It was proving a rather difficult task to accomplish, due to the quirks of the owner of the shampoo bottle.

Neena frowned a bit to herself. What kind of woman doesn't keeps her hair care products in the bathroom? Hairspray, okay. Even styling gel, sure. But shampoo and conditioner? Those belong on the edge of the tub or shower, not next to the TV.....

Cleaning the Barracks gave the African-born woman opportunity to subtly make life difficult for some of the more 'rambunctous' guards in the Camps, scoring minor revenge for some of the indignities suffered by many of the girls. The current version was a rather mysterious, and painful, rash affecting many of the guards' nether regions. Jemanai was a name Neena had been hearing frequently lately, by both mutants and some of the male guards. Neena hadn't actually run across the white-haired woman yet, but all she'd heard about her was not pleasant. Thus, she was added to Neena's 'list', starting with a new do for her hair.

However, the problems presenting themselves were stacking up. Problem Number One: Jemanai kept her shampoo and conditioner in the main room, where Neena's every move was watched, either by security cameras or her escort. The later was outside smoking, fortunately. Neena had resorted to her clumsiness, knocking the bottle under the bed with her hips. She'd crawled after it, and was presented with Problem Number Two.

There was very little room under the bed, and th dye bottle was stuck inside her makeshift bra, pressed firmly against the ground. Neena huffed. It took some struggling to get it out, and in the process the lid popped off, spilling several drops on her fingertips and on the carpet.

<"Lovely.... Just lovely....">

The blue dye didn't stand out horribly against her dark skin, but it was still visible. And rather obvious on the floor. It wouldn't take a genius to connect the pair of squirming legs to the blue dot under the bed. And from there it wouldn't be a huge leap to connect her with some of the other stunts being pulled.....

Neena sighed and unscrewed the top of the bottle. If she was going to get caught anyway, may as well go through with her plan.

-------------------------------

Twenty minutes later Neena emerged, and headed to the next room, under her escort's less-than-watchful eye. Her hand was conveniently tangled in a pile of dirty bedsheets.

(*Wonders how I keep getting dragged back in this thread.* I think all of my camp NPCs have made at least one appearance.)

Why keep your shampoo near the TV you ask? Is there really a better place? I mean there were dust bunnies to keep the bottle company and where else was the shampoo bottle suppose to site. I mean the shower was kept…. Clean! No social interaction with other non living objects. Not as many as dust bunnies. Ok. So the drain in the shower said things every now and then when the water was draining out but the drain never sounded happy when it was doing it’s job. You think Jeminai really wanted her Shampoo and conditioner bottles listening to unhappy drains? I thought not!

Besides. If your shampoo and conditioner bottles weren’t sitting near the TV how were they supposed to enjoy episodes of the Happy Tree Friends. It’s common Knowledge that the happier your non living objects are, the better they work, and Happy Tree Friends is among the top ten shows for Happy Shampoo and Conditioner bottles. As a result Jeminai had the best hair in the camp… Well… That was her opinion…

Jeminai entered her room right after she saw the turn down service exit. Man sitting around and reviewing security tapes can really take it out of you. The mutants had it easy. They just had to do what they were told. Thinking was an option. Jeminai was required to think all day long. Not that she would ever stop but many of the mysteries around the camp, like the mysterious rash going around, were making her head spin.

A nice hot, long, shower was in order for her now. Something to sooth her nerves and relax those all too up tight hair follicles. She walked to the closet and took a clean towel from a wire hanger. That’s right. Not even clean towels should have to listen to angry shower drains, then scooped up her shampoo and conditioner from the TV stand. Happy Tree Friends was respectfully put on pause so her hair products wouldn’t miss anything. Then she began her shower.

…

About twenty minutes later, a blood curdling, squealing, scream.

…

Jeminai practically exploded out of her room. Purple, fluffy, bunny covered bathrobe just hardly making her modest as the corners fluttered up behind her. Matching bunny slippers slipped across the wooden floor. But her attire wasn’t the unusual thing about her. Oh no. If anything the fluffy bunny slippers could have been part of her guard uniform. Not that she hadn’t worn them for a days work before. They were comfortable!

No the odd thing that had passing guards staring at her was her neon blue hair. And the fact that the dye had run down her pail white skin turning her face and hands blue as well. And it wasn’t the flattering type of blue you’d see someone paint their face. The blue on her face was streaked. STREAKED! You cold see the layers of where the water had run down with the dye, giving her uneven vertical stripes across her face. Exactly the reason whey Jeminai had avoided ever dying her hair after the first time back in high school.

Ignoring the staring faces of guards who had either done double takes, or were walking while performing what motorists called a rubber neck, she stomped up to the next door flinging open another guard’s bedroom door open to…. Nothing.

The Next door….. Nothing…

The next door…... Nothing…

The next door……

A second blood curdling squeal was heard. Jeminai jumped back before straightening up. “Sorry James that Rash is really getting bad.” She went to shut the door, almost closing it before yanking it wide open again. “Hey James, you missed a spot with that cream. Is it getting any better?”

“GET THE F*** OUT!”

“Oh right.” A hand reached out from the depths of James’s room and pulled the door shut, slamming it hard enough to shake the walls.

Well Jeminai was busy anyways. So off she stomped opening random guard doors searching for someone to blame.

(OO: lol!)

Neena emerged from a room down the hall, dropped a giant bag of trash besides two others, and grunted a bit under the weight. Then she went back in to finish up with the vacuuming.

Halfway through the task her ears caught the sound of something strange out in the hall. She shut off the machine and listened. There was some loud banging out in the hallway, but that wasn't the sound she'd heard. Shrugging, she turned the vacuum back on and continued.

Then she heard it again. Frowning curiously, she again paused to listen. This time she heard two people shouting at each other, a couple doors down. She recognized James' voice, but no the other. She shook her head and again resumed her cleaning, bending down to check the cracks. She hated cleaning, but she enjoyed being clean. Plus there was a little space in between the wall and nightstand, just large enough to secret a piece of cheese or fish, and let it rot. And it just so happened that this room's occupants were on her 'list'. And she also just happened to know that one of them had a very sensitive nose and a rather strong gag reflex. Lovely combo....

Less than a minute later the door to her location slammed open, loud enough to be heard over the vacuum. Neena straighted. She didn't have her glasses on since she was indoors. Though she wasn't surprised at what she saw, she still moved both eyebrows upwards, as if she were.

"Oh my...." She trailed off. In her head she added, <"So this is Jemanai.">

"Oh my...."

Jeminai stared back at Neena. ’So this is the one that cleans the guard barracks today.’ Ok Jeminai had seen her through the eyes of the security cameras a few times. She knew the face but not the name. Not that names were a big thing, Rose with any other stuff and all that smell as… Yucky?.. Yuck worked.

“What are you looking at!” She hissed at the cleaning lady. “Is there something odd that you are going oh my about?” She stepped in the room and shut the door behind her. Let the other guard who was watching Neena stare… as he was…. Great. “Well?!”

“What are you looking at! Is there something odd that you are going oh my about?”

The woman shut the door on Ethan, who's jaw had dropped. Neena blinked a couple of times.

“Well?!”

The corner of her mouth twitched. She hadn't expected to deal with this situation quite so quickly. The little dye bottle had been emptied into the shampoo bottle, and disposed of in one of the trash bags outside. Buried, maybe. But still well within finding distance. Her hand was wrapped around the vacuum handle, hiding her dye-spattered fingertips. For now.

Neena bit her lip to keep herself from smiling. Unfortunately, she couldn't completely hide her personality.

"You, uh.... have something on your face.... Ma'am." She reached out for a towel with her free hand. "Would you like me to remove it?"