Kaine had never returned back to the order after getting haywire he had dropped out and disappeared off the radar living in squats and dives avoiding the police and the Registration officers.

His condition had slowly worsen over the past month as he descended into complete madness no longer borderline Kaine was a complete schizophrenic to scared to return to the order to worried that he wouldn't be accepted if he returned to the X Men. His hair was long and ragged he had grown a thick beard. His clothes were tattered still wearing his battered leather jacket and combats which were now covered in blood dirt and god knows what else.

Kaine sat in the doorway of the shop as darkness descended he just hoped some one would find him and help him as he was beyond helping himself.

Calley had a Big Mac and fries. He also had three other bags of fast food goodies. Precious grease, come to my stomach! Yep, he was outside of Mondragon Labs. And yep, he was in human form. By virtue of the fact that the guards hadn't stopped him from leaving, despite Hunter's standing orders that all gathered mutants remain at the Lab grounds while the Resistance got organized, he assumed he was exempt from that little inconvenient house arrest. Either that, or the Scary Boss Man's insistence that none of his employees know what Calley could do was finally working in Calley's favor. Most of 'em probably still didn't know he was a mutant. Therefore, orders to keep mutants from wandering off didn't apply to the scrawny short Italian boy that Hunter tolerated.

The why, how, and who wasn't important. What was important: I can actually feel my arteries hardening!

...Good for you.

Food! Greasy, fatty, cholesterol, MSG and calorie-ridden food. Calley needed food. He required food. Hunter's canteen was all well and good, but the very name--"canteen"--showed that the Boss Man and his crew weren't used to American eating habits. Some of those food options... actually looked identifiable. And healthy. Calley polished off his gray slab of former cow-by-product, and licked his fingers of the semi-yellow mostly-clear residue. Now this was the stuff that made America's youth roll when you pushed them. He'd been ravenous lately, and eating like a pig, but somehow, he'd been loosing weight steadily ever since he'd started working for Hunter. He really wasn't sure how that worked. But under his baggy clothes, he was looking more like a stringy-muscled skeleton than when he'd been a stray cat. Seriously. This was ridiculous. Calley was determined to stuff himself with something guaranteed to fatten him up for the slaughter.

Hence the four bags from McDonald's he was carrying as he walked past the scruffy hobo in the shop doorway. One of them was empty already, but that was what the other three were for. He glanced briefly at the guy in passing.

...Then walked a few step backwards, and came even with him again. He tilted his head a little to the right, then with a great air of deliberation, picked one of his bags, and held it out to the guy. "You look like you would like something greasy and warm in your stomach." He sagely spoke.

Calley waited a minor eternity—which was probably more like three seconds, but same diff with a twitchy teen—before he simply set the bag of McDonaldy goodness in front of the hobo. “I’ll just, ah, leave that with you, Sir. ‘Night!”

With that, he kept on his merry way. But he kept an ear open in case the hobo decided to speak. Hobos could say the most interesting things.

((ooc: If you come back on, Kaine, feel free to call ‘im back. If Calley knows you’re a mutant, he can get you a ride to Mondragon Labs and the Resistance therein.

And if you don’t come back on... then I’ll just be cutting my dramatic burger-munching exit. )

Sonya has been wandering the streets of Manhattan for what seems like forever, trying to decide what to do next.

She’d felt so clever after her little chat with that police detective, like she’d be able to actually do something useful. It seemed so simple at first: imprint on one of the Camp guards, infiltrate the Camp, meet up with Rupert again, run her Mysterious Mutant Organization con again, nudge him into triggering a breakout, be the hero of the hour!

(She tries not to think about when that became so important to her, because it reminds her how tired she is of hiding out alone, how much she’d loved finding, if not a home, at least a sanctuary… and reminds her of how it felt to watch it blow up around her.)

But when it came down to brass tacks, it wasn’t actually that simple. It had taken her days just to find out where the Camp was, and to identify a couple of guards. And, sure, she could have tranked one of them and taken their identity, but… well, then what?

She’d been counting on coordinating with the Sanctuary leadership to get outside backup… transportation, places to hide, that sort of thing… but she has no idea where they are. The old Sanctuary building is a ruin, and cops are barricading it, and suspicious-looking MiBs are “casually” wandering around it, watching everyone who approaches… federal agents? Some kind of anti-mutant group? Sonya has no way of knowing and is afraid to find out.

Not to mention that, when she’d finally had time to think things through, she’d realized just how much she’d screwed up. The cop whose identity she’d taken would have been found by now, without his uniform or his weapons, tied up in a closet. The police would have investigated. By now, Rupert would know he hadn’t really been talking to Stanley, but to a shapeshifter. She’d thought she was being so clever, but really she’d just revealed her identity to the enemy.

Maybe I should have really shot him… blown his face off, buried the body. It’s not the first time she’s had that thought. But she just can’t imagine herself doing it.

So she’s been wandering the streets of Manhattan for what seems like forever, trying to decide what to do next.

The one bright spot is that she’s no longer broke… having Stanley’s ID and credit cards and face and handwriting was enough to get her a relatively fat wad of cash, enough to keep her in fast food and cheap motel rooms for a while. Which, a little while ago, brought her to a McDonald’s for lunch, and a startlingly familiar face, the same one that had introduced her to Sanctuary in the first place.

The boy hadn’t been there during the attack, which probably explains why he’s still roaming free, and he doesn’t seem to have been injured or anything. And he knew the folks in charge… and maybe he knows where they are now! Or at least how to get a message to them, or something.

She’s reluctant to approach him, though. He wouldn’t recognize her in this body, of course… he’d only met “Sonny.” So she’d have to reveal her power if she claimed to know him, and she hasn’t wanted to do that. But… well, she has to trust someone, doesn’t she?

Maybe. But why should it be this kid?

Suspicion and loneliness struggle and she ultimately splits the difference, following the boy as he stuffs himself with burgers and walks down the street. Wherever he’s been, they don’t seem to have fed him too well, she muses… then revises that impression when he stops and gives one of the bags to a homeless guy. He’s either a saint, or wasn’t really that hungry to begin with. The odds don’t seem to favor “saint.”

When the boy starts walking off again, she makes a decision… follows him for a little while and calls out “That was a nice thing you did for that man.”

(( OOC: Current appearance: www.harrycutting.com/view_imgs.asp?id=2742 ))

It was quite normal for a scrawny, mildly-helpless looking teenager to find himself getting followed down a deserted New York street in the middle of the night. Somehow, the cute woman behind him didn’t fit the bill of a mugger, though, so Calley wasn’t terribly concerned. Most likely, her apartment was just in the same direction he was wandering. Huh. Where was he wandering?

I was wondering much the same.

Meh. We can always get Frank to pick us up.[/i]

“That was a nice thing you did for that man.”

Calley was distinctly surprised. Random women all on their lonesome usually didn’t address strange guys in the middle of the night, in his experience. He really had to work on his fearsome aura. He turned on one heel, and began to walk backwards. Finished swallowing his current french fry... blinked twice... and replied with a shrug: “More ‘impulsive’ than ‘nice’, probably.” He motioned at her with the red McDonald’s fry cartoon in his hand, keeping the rest of his goodie bags safely tucked under his other arm. “May I ask what brings a lovely lady like yourself out onto relatively abandoned streets at this hour?” It would be kind of cool if she was a mugger. That’d break a few stereotypes, right there.

> “More ‘impulsive’ than ‘nice’, probably.”

She shrugs. “It’s not like it can’t be both. It was a nice impulse.”

It’s weird talking to him while he walks away from her, though she can’t entirely blame him… strangers starting up conversation like this just isn’t a New York phenomenon. Besides, he’s probably as paranoid as she is after the attack on Sanctuary, even if he does seem to be handling it better.

Besides being weird, it’s also funny to watch him keep the conversation going while walking backwards and eating lunch. Wonder if he’d do backflips if I asked? The image makes her giggle, and she adds “You keep that up, you’re gonna trip over something, you know.”

> “May I ask what brings a lovely lady like yourself out onto relatively abandoned streets at this hour?”

She decides she likes him in that moment. Not for the question, or the compliment, but for something harder to quantify in his voice and his expression… a sense of openness to possibilities, that he hasn’t pigeonholed her. Most people would have decided by now what they thought she was: a streetwalker looking for business, or a homeless girl looking for a handout, or a thief or a victim or whatever; this guy just seems to be looking to see what’s there. Which is a whole lot to pin on three seconds of interaction, granted, but Sonya has met a lot of people n the last few months and it’s a quality she’s rarely encountered.

“Sure,” she adds, unsuccessfully stifling the laugh. “Go ahead!”

“Sure. Go ahead!”

Calley doesn’t bother stifling his laugh. “Now that was a perfect answer.” He spun on his heel, but kept walking backwards—that is, towards the woman. He shifted gears to forward when he came even with her, and offered over his red fry carton. “You just won a french fry. Or would you like a burger? I’ve got a lot of burgers.” It was true: he had a lot of burgers. A lot of burgers. “Personally, I was out on a fast food run. So now I ask you, as you have kindly permitted me to: ‘What brings a lovely lady like yourself out onto relatively abandoned streets at this hour?’” He quoted himself.

And for the record? If he wasn’t carrying so many precious edibles, that ‘you’re gonna trip over something’ would have prompted a dramatic trip-and-back-flip scene from him. It was almost too good of an opening. But his food had to be protected from the villainous ground. He continued cuddling his bags, and munching. Hopefully the whole walking-next-to-her thing wasn't making the woman uncomfortable. He'd noticed that he, ah, was in the bad habit of making people uncomfortable.

Sonya remembers the boy as an odd one from their brief encounter; apparently that wasn’t a transient attribute. If anything, he seems to be making a production out of it, like a clown or something. Which is interesting. Not terribly helpful, granted, but interesting. She wonders what his story is, whether the clownishness is a cover for something, or just the way he is, or what.

> “You just won a french fry. Or would you like a burger? I’ve got a lot of burgers. Personally, I was out on a fast food run. So now I ask you, as you have kindly permitted me to: ‘What brings a lovely lady like yourself out onto relatively abandoned streets at this hour?’”

“Lack of anywhere else to be,” she replies, honestly enough. “I was supposed to stay with some friends, but that… um… kinda blew up in my face.” The literal truth of that makes her laugh again, albeit somewhat bitterly, and it occurs to her that she hasn’t laughed this much in months. Apparently the clownishness is contagious.

“Yeah, you really do have a lot of burgers,” she adds as she takes a French fry out of the offered carton, hoping to distract attention from her own reasons for being here. She looks him up and down appraisingly and continues, with just enough of a grin to make it clear that she’s teasing: “And you don’t seem nearly chubby enough to eat that much on a regular basis. Are you on your way to a party? Smoke too much weed and have the munchies? Paying a late-night ransom to the world’s worst kidnapper? Planning to lock yourself in with your girlfriend for the next twenty-four hours? Boyfriend? Llama? My curiosity knows no bounds.”

Calley theatrically straightened himself up as she appraised him. When she let loose her torrent of scenarios, he rolled his eyes towards the sky, and considered his options carefully. “Hmm...” Finally, after great deliberation, he arrived at: “I’m avoiding a party hosted by the world’s worst kidnapper. And I was born with the munchies,” he added, popping a fry. “No drugs required—honest! Can you even picture me on drugs?” He grinned over at the woman. She’d known him for all of five minutes, but he was pretty sure she’d already know what he was talking about.

“So,” he continued, dropping the grin, “you don’t have anywhere to stay? Normally I’d tell you to head to the Sanctuary, but the cops shut it down a few days ago. Something about them housing mutants.” He shoved the empty fry carton into a bag, and wrestled out a burger, which he cordially introduced to his teeth. Meanwhile, the clutter was tossing out options. While he was with a person, their problems were his problems. It was only after a person was out of sight that he could merrily leave them to go to Hell in whichever hand basket they preferred. Like Issie, his girlfriend. Issie was in the camps. Meh. “Do you have enough for a hotel room? ‘Cause if you don’t, I think I know somewhere you could stay. Might sound kinda creepy, though.” He took another bite of happy cow-grindings goodness, and tried to look non-creepy.

And now for something completely different: ‘llama’ had just been added to his list of forms to acquire.

Sonya blinks at Calley’s reference to Sanctuary… not that it ought to surprise her, since she’s fully aware of his connection to the place, but it does. She’d expected to have to drag the conversation around to the subject.

She’s not really sure whether she should respond or not, and makes another mental note to herself to have some kind of plan in mind before trying to do this covert-identity contact thing… playing it by ear only takes her so far. (Granted, it’s not like she’d planned to run into Calley in the first place… still, she’s going to have to get better at this.)

Ultimately she decides it’s as good an opportunity as any to bring up the subject she’s actually interested in. “Um… well, yeah, now that you mention it… Sanctuary is where I was intending to go, before they shut it down. That’s where my friends were.” She takes a deep breath and adds “Really, I’m trying to get in touch with a woman named Syn, who used to live there. But I don’t know how to find her, now. So…” she shrugs one-armed. “Like I said, nowhere much to be. Sure, I can afford a hotel room, but all I can do there is sleep, you know?”

Curiosity nags at her, though, and she adds “So what’s this creepy-sounding place of yours? Is that where the drug-free llama-kidnappers party is?”

Calley happily downed the rest of his burger. It gave him a very good stall for time as he, the clutter, and Slate held a mini-conference in their head.

I don’t recognize her.

We were gone from the Sanctuary for several weeks. Our information is most likely outdated.

Yeah, but we knew everybody from before that, and this ain’t one of them. Not one of the humans, and definitely not one of the Subterranean Special Kids.

Have we seen her at the police station? There is the potential that she is a cop.

If she’s a cop, then that means she suspects us. If she suspects us, then there’s probably some charming people standing by to take us in. That is not what I had in mind when I pictured us spying on the camps, Slate.

I repeat: have we seen her at the police station?

No. But there’s a lot of new people in town for that—she could be national guard, or something. And it’s not like Central Park Precinct is the only police station in the city.

Indeed. Then again, the possibility remains that the blatant hint at her identity which she just gave is, in fact, true. She may be a mutant who knows Syn.

Uh-huh. But why would she be talkin’ to us about it? She’d have to suspect something about us before she’d say that. For all she knows, I’m just a regular erratic New Yorker with the munchies and a fondness for homeless shelters. I’m tellin’ you—we’ve never seen her before. Why would she say that to us? This is weird.

It appears we are missing information.

Yah think? Thanks, Slate.

If we are missing information, then you should do our job.

...Murr.

Calley crumpled his burger wrapper, and shoved it in the bag after the fry carton. The good thing about inner dialogues with your own personal insanity: they really didn’t take that long. Calley answered, with blissful ignorance, “Syn?” He tilted his head to the side; “Black hair, red highlights, about my height, cute face beneath the constant dragon scowl?” He shook his head a little. “I saw her around a little, but can’t say I was best buds with her. How did you know her?”

“So what’s this creepy-sounding place of yours? Is that where the drug-free llama-kidnappers party is?”

Calley grinned. “Actually, I was thinkin’ my apartment. I’m stayin’ at the party house for a bit, and I need someone to look after my cat.” He gave a little wink that could mean just about anything. Particularly since he really was just winking for the hell of it. “I’m thinkin’ you might be party material, though. ‘Cept that only the cool kids are invited. Are you cool, Miss...?” He paused, waiting for her to fill in her name. Then he offered out his own hand (after wiping the burger grease off onto his baggy pants). “I’m Calley, by the way. Pleasure to have a midnight stroll with you.”

> “Syn? Black hair, red highlights, about my height, cute face beneath the
> constant dragon scowl? I saw her around a little, but can’t say I was best
> buds with her. How did you know her?”

“Did? You make it sound like she’s --” Sonya stops short, remembering the wreckage, and blurts out “Is she OK?” before realizing she’s reading way too much into the choice of past tense. “Um, sorry. It’s been a tense few days. Anyway… it’s not that I know her all that well myself… we only met a couple of times. It’s just that she’d recommended Sanctuary as a place I could go, like you were about to.
Except then Sanctuary got kinda, well, not so much a place people go, and she’s gone, and I hear a bunch of residents got arrested, and I don’t know what’s going on… and I don’t know why I’m even talking to you about this stuff, it’s not your problem. It’s just that you brought the place up, and I thought maybe you knew how to reach her. Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

> “Actually, I was thinkin’ my apartment.”

“Oh-ho! That kind of creepy. Um, no, thanks. I mean, you’re cute, but my momma didn’t raise me to move in with cute boys I just met.” She looks him over for a second and adds with a grin “You could talk me into dinner and a movie, though.”

> “I’m thinkin’ you might be party material, though. ‘Cept that only the cool kids are invited. Are you cool, Miss...?”

Sonya shrugs, ignoring the prompt and answering the question. “You ask me, anyone who talks about how cool she is ain’t cool, you know? I’m up for a party, though. Especially if they’re not serving Big Macs.” She can’t quite decide how serious he’s being, and how much of this is metaphorical, and how much is just plain goofy, so she decides to stick with literal for now.

> “I’m Calley, by the way. Pleasure to have a midnight stroll with you.”

She takes his hand, and is unsurprised to establish that he’s a mutant… though she’s a little surprised to note something familiar about his genetic structure. She can’t place the familiarity, but it nags at the back of her mind just the same. “Nice to meet you too, Calley. Thanks for the fry.”

Okay, so she’s not biting. Didn’t even tell us her name.

Potentially, the reason for that is as she says: ‘I don’t know why I’m even talking to you about this stuff, it’s not your problem. It’s just that you brought the place up, and I thought maybe you knew how to reach her.’

Potentially. Potentially, potentially, potentially. Potentially.

...In any case, she does seem quite emotional over what occurred at the Sanctuary.

Yep.

Additionally, she just insinuated that she would agree to a date with us. Unsubtly, as seems to be her style.

Did she? Thanks, Slate. I hadn’t noticed. What, are you interested?

...Perhaps.

...Okay, just to get something straight: you are not allowed to date. My body, my taste in women.

Hmm.

Don’t you ‘hmm’ me. This is not up for debate.

...It would be a good way to get information from her.

It would be a good way for no. Just no.

Hmm.

Since the rest of his brain wasn’t exactly being helpful, Calley decided to ignore it. “So, Syn herself recommended you to the Sanctuary?” He asked simply, raising his eyebrows slightly. “I wonder why. Was it for the talent show?”

“And you know, the apartment thing isn’t as creepy as it sounds. You’d’ve had the place to yourself, after all—I’m stayin’ with the cool kids.” He grinned. “The self-proclaimed cool kids. That is a little egotistical, isn’t it?” ‘Egotistical’ didn’t even begin to describe most of the people gathering at Mondragon Labs. Hunter was the definition of egotistical, and Syn was the picture they put next to it in the dictionary. And that was just two of the people present.

The boy seems distracted by something -- probably by trying to figure out who she is and why she's talking to him -- but still maintains a casual air. That's interesting.

And he doesn't take the "dinner-and-a-movie" bait, and she wonders what that means... distracted? Shy? Doesn't like her? Doesn't like girls? It's equal parts disappointment and relief: on the one hand, she'd hoped to distract him, perhaps get more information out of him by flirting... on the other hand, she didn't want to get herself into anything she wouldn't be able to handle. Plus, he actually is cute, she reminds herself... not everything is about playing junior spy, after all.

> “So, Syn herself recommended you to the Sanctuary? I wonder why. Was it for the talent show?”

"Well, she wasn't real clear about her reasons. I kinda got the impression she prefers asking questions to answering them, y'know?"

It grows clearer and clearer to Sonya that this conversation is leaving as much unsaid as said, and the former set seems by far the more interesting. Which isn't at all surprising, really, and reinforces her growing sense that she really ought to know what she's trying to accomplish before she initiates these sorts of conversations. Some day, I'm going to have a plan.

Calley is suspicious, that much is fairly obvious. That, also, isn't at all surprising... she would be too, if a stranger popped up and started quizzing her on Sanctuary out of nowhere. And he'd pretty much just asked her if she was a mutant. Which she wouldn't mind revealing to him, really, but then he'd want to know what her mutation was. She could use the same line she'd given Syn and Abyss, about being able to detect mutations... but then he might make the connection between her and "Sonny." Of course, she could also tell him the truth, but... well, she's reluctant to do that. It's clear that these people are playing for high stakes, and she doesn't know who the players are.

Well... she doesn't have to answer, does she? It's not like any of the mutants she'd met at Sanctuary had told her what their abilities were... she can just claim it's private. But she has to give up something to stay in the game, here, and she can't take too long to think about it without raising even more suspicions. "I guess... well, I guess she thought we had something in common, know what I mean? She thought I might, um, fit in." There. That wasn't giving away too much, but it threw some chips on the table. Now it's his turn to call or fold. At least, she hopes that's how the game works... it seems to work that way on television.

"How about you? How'd you meet her?"

This just keeps getting more interesting. And she just kept getting more evasive. In-ter-es-ting. Obviously, Calley wasn’t getting anywhere with his own highly dance-around-the-subject approach. So, he decided to change gears. He looked around quite casually. Nobody in sight. Hurray for deserted nighttime streets.

With a sudden grin, a very sudden lean into her personal space, and a lowering of his voice, Calley went blunt: “Would that thing-in-common be the tiny little trivial fact that you are a mutant? ‘Cause from what I saw, Syn didn’t much associate with the human residents of Sanctuary. And she certainly didn’t invite more non-special-people into her little club.”

He leaned back out of her bubble with the same suddenness he’d invaded it. He pulled out a fresh carton of fries, and began munching. “So,” he asked quite chipperly between bites. “What’s your talent? Personally, I do a striped roaring zoo impersonation. Fry?”