(continued from this thread)

Kait insisted that they wait until they got "there" before she would tell David anything, save for her name. This was the first time she had ever brought anyone into the Order, and she didn't want to screw everything up by letting anyone overhear something top-secret. She didn't even tell him that this "there" place she kept mentioning was actually the Sanctuary. He probably didn't catch on to that until they were standing right outside the golden doors, where a little sign told these two and the whole world that this was the Sanctuary.

Being made of precious metal, the doors were unusually heavy. The little Orderling struggled a bit to open them for her guest, but she was able to manage it. Aside from them, and Lisa, the foyer was empty. "Hi, Kaitlyn!" Lisa greeted the girl with her usual cheer. "And welcome to the Sanctuary! I'm Lisa." This, she directed at Sledge.

With that out of the way, she lowered her voice a little and shot the young girl a questioning glance. "Is this...?" Kaitlyn nodded, and the secretary produced a small, prepaid cellphone from inside her desk. She held it out for Sledge to take. "Keep this with you," she told him.

The little girl's stomach started to growl again. "I need lunch." She headed towards the dining hall, and gestured for Sledge to follow. Now that she thought of it, the Dining Hall wouldn't have many people in it around now, making it a great place for her to explain to Sledge how his life had just been changed.

Kaitlyn, not Catherine. While other con men might choose to have names as far apart from theirs as possible, Sledge had always been fond of keeping aliases simple and close to your actual name. Yes, there was the risk of your true identity being discovered, but sometimes it was easier to keep one thing semi-similar. There could be so many different lies to keep track of, and if you slipped up it meant that you weren't nearly as good as you thought. As chock full of self confidence as Sledgehammer was, he wasn't stupid, nor was he willing to sacrifice all security. If he should slip up it wasn't hard for him to say that yes, he was David Maxwell. After all, that was his name, though not necessarily the entirety of it. Charlie had taught his brother that the best lies were the ones that had a good amount of truth to them. You can lie with more conviction when you know at least part of what you say isn't a fabrication. The similarities in Kaitlyn's alias and her actual identity satisfied the Brit. When Kaitlyn messed up, which, given her age, and her earlier attempts to trick him, was going to happen, better for her to say that someone misheard her or remembered the name wrong.

The sight of the golden doors made Sledge whistle. Such extravagance seemed more at place in a land deeply in touch with it's religion. Sanctuary, declared the sign, making him wonder if Kaitlyn had dragged him to a chapel or mosque of some sort. To him the name meant nothing more than a hunchback who rang bells, or an afternoon spent pouring over an atlas. His mum and da hadn't owned a tellie, and he tended to stay away from anything having to do with the medicinal world. It wasn't even the whole drugs wrecking havoc on your health speech that they repeated annually when he attended school that made him stay away. There was a good deal of money to be made in the legal medical field, possibly even more with the illegal drug ring, but the risk was far too great to outweigh any of the few pros. To him it ranked right up there with murder. Crime might be acceptable to Sledge, but there were a few criminal acts that just got to be too messy and complicated to deal with. In short Sledge had never even heard of The Sanctuary or its history. “Did you want help with that?” he asked, watching the pint sized blackmailer struggle with doors meant to be opened by someone much older and larger than her.

Still under the misconception that Kaitlyn had brought him to a church or something similar, the fedora was promptly removed and he followed her mostly silently. She had seemed almost as hungry as he was, and he had stepped into the path of a car. A car that had come to a complete stop true, but it was still a car. If she was bringing him to a church's soup kitchen then well, it was closer to a home cooked meal than he had been since he arrived in America. Beggers can't be choosers and what all, but if he was given some thin, watery, barely flavored broth he was going to dangle Kaitlyn from her ankles out a second story window.

What should have surprised Sledge was that he was expected. Kaitlyn and the receptionist had a brief report that hinted such. Instead of being shocked at such news, for he had figured out rather quickly that Kaitlyn was purposefully singling him out, he was startled by the cell phone. Of course a building that had golden doors would hand out a cellular as though it was confections at Halloween. Probably where the phone he had 'stolen' earlier came from. “What I need this for?” he asked looking it over. Note. Find out how to bloody use this thing. “Take it has all mod cons?”

Kaitlyn stopped and looked at Sledge like he'd just been speaking gibberish.

Lisa kept typing for a second before saying anything. "Modern conveniences." She told Kaitlyn. To Sledge, "You can make calls and send texts with it, but you should really only be using it to communicate with us. It has a few numbers in it already. Kait can fill you in."

"It's all set up so nobody who steals it can use it to learn about us." Kaitlyn added. The receptionist nodded. Without skipping a beat, the little redhead changed the subject to what was really on her mind: "What was lunch today?"

"Spaghetti. There might be some bread sticks left, too, if Charlie hasn't weaponized them yet. That reminds me, Kait: think you could get him to stop doing that? Everyone else just thinks it's funny." It was funny, but Kaitlyn was used to helping Lisa out every once in a while; she felt guilty about everything she'd done to the Sanctuary over the last year. And her reputation around the Sanctuary could make her very intimidating, when she needed to be.

"I'll talk to him," said the little girl.

The receptionist smiled. "Thanks."

Stomach began to grumble again. Again, she gestured for Sledge to follow her. There was a plate of spaghetti with her name on it.

At long last, someone who understood what he was saying! America and England were truly two countries separated by a common tongue. Sledge knew he had to be missing something every time he saw one of those signs that said "No Honking". Public vomiting couldn't be that large of an issue to warrant police involvement for disobeying the signs. He gave Lisa a thankful smile and pocketed the small bit of technology. Cellulars were fine, though he doubted he'd be using the texting and such.

>>It's all set up so nobody who steals it can use it to learn about us.

"That's including me," the Brit mumbled as Kaitlyn was off on the topic of spaghetti. His stomach wanted the pasta as badly as the little girl's did, she just didn't have the patience to wait and eat after explaining things to him. This place looked as though there would always be some mash that they could nibble on, so why wait? Also who was this Charlie that was determined to turn bread into a weapon? Given how casually Lisa dropped that bit of information he could only assume that such insanity was perfectly normal here.

Once more Sledge found himself following Kaitlyn farther down the rabbit hole. If she didn't explain things once she had her plate of spaghetti, Kaitlyn might get the same treatment that green sweater had earlier. He sighed, knowing that he wouldn't be able to carry out that. She was a little girl and so was probably easily distracted.

The hallways in the Sanctuary could best be compared to a sprawling labyrinth. It took Kaitlyn months before she finally stopped getting lost in it. Now, she could navigate her bewildering route to the dining hall like it was the most natural thing in the world. Along their way, they ran into a few odd-looking mutants. They also noticed a few breadsticks here and there, sticking out of the concrete walls. They were far harder than a normal bread stick should be, and they had been propelled into the walls with such force that they were lodged into the concrete.

Kaitlyn felt like he owed Sledge a bit of explanation, by now. "This is the Sanctuary," she said. "It's this big place where mutants can live for free. I live here, and my mom owns it. Her name's Lori." The little Orderling looked around to make sure nobody was listening, then continued, though with a much lower voice. "She's also in charge of the Order, and you're in the Order now." She would have kept talking, but as soon as she was done saying that, a man walked out of a pair of double doors ahead of them. About half of his face was missing, leaving part of his skull exposed. He didn't seem too worried about it. Above those double doors, were the words "Dining Hall."

"Hey Kait," said half-a-face-guy, with a friendly wave. The part of his mouth that was still there was stretched into what might have been a grin. Kait waved and grinned right back at him. Thomas was really a nice guy, once you get past the fact that half his face is missing. And it did take her a while to get past that.

Once they made it into the dining hall, they found that it was almost entirely empty. The dining hall itself closely resembled a large cafeteria, much like one would find in a public school, except the long, rectangular tables were lined with actual chairs, as opposed to benches. There were a few people still cleaning up the place, with mops for the floors and rags for the tables. Judging from the current state of the room, they were probably close to being done. Kaitlyn went straight for the chow line, which was now set up so that they could just grab their own plates, put spaghetti on them, and find a table.

Kaitlyn’s explanation of their current location and why he had been brought there explained nothing to the Brit. “Right. Got that from the letters over the door,” he told her, “Now care to explain th’ bit about your mum’s group?” She had been cautious to tell him about this ‘Order’, as little as she said. So much for the hope that Kaitlyn’s youth meant she would be a little more eager to share information that she probably should keep quiet on. She did however seem to be easily distracted.

Though once he saw what had distracted Kaitlyn he could hardly blame her. Now David thought himself to be relatively easy going when it came to physical mutations. On his first day in the States he had played arrows with a man who was solid rock and the only things that had bothered him were: a, the sloshing sound of b, the unpleasant smelling choice of drink. Seeing someone missing half their face does provoke some sort of reaction, and he did jump at the sight. How does someone even manage to talk with half their face missing? Both the man and Kaitlyn did not seemed highly concerned about the need for some facial reconstruction surgery, so Sledge had to assume that this was normal. Down the rabbit hole indeed.

Sledge had to follow Kaitlyn like he was a lost puppy to know where the dishes and such were. “Where do I go to get a cuppa coffee?” he asked her.

Order stuff could wait until they had food and drinks. The kitchen staff had left out a bowl full of parmesan, which Kaitlyn greedily shoveled onto her pasta.

"Over here."

She lead the new recruit to a group of silvery metal drink dispenser things, with labels made of scotch tape marked with sharpie. Labels such as "Wine (Jesus-free)," "Mud," "Decaf Mud," "Iced Tea," and "Sweet Tea" Kaitlyn began to explain. "Jesus-free wine is just water, and mud is just coffee." Kaitlyn filled her own cup with sweet tea. Some of the Sanctuary's mutants had a really weird sense of humor.

With that out of the way, she lead him to a table in a remote corner of the room. Now, they could eat! And maybe she could get around to explaining that whole "Order recruitment" thing, too, but the Spaghetti was really yummy. That came first.

"Is the milk called cow juice then?" he had to ask upon seeing the labels. Either someone had a strange sense of humour or it had been someone young enough to not know how truly wonderful a mug of coffee could be. The label on the water took him a moment to get the joke. David had thought at first that it meant that there was actual wine in it and that the other option was blood. Thankfully this "wine" was just water. When you're presented with the thought that you now work for bloodsuckers and a person with half a face is normal you are entitled to question your pasta.

He took a seat opposite the girl and set his hat down on the table beside his plate. Pasta wasn't quite the home cooked meal he had been hoping for when he stepped in front of that car. Shepard's pie was high on his desired meal list, or a roasted chicken diner, the meat juicy and tender, with fresh steamed green beans... Spaghetti was fine, really, Sledge wasn't entirely too picky on what he ate, but it just didn't have that comforting level to it that other foods did. A little salt was sprinkled on the sauce to enhance the flavor of the tomatos before he started cutting the spaghetti into smaller, easier to handle bits. "Your mum?" he prompted Kaitlyn.

"Nope." The milk was generally placed in pitchers, which didn't need to be labeled.

This man did not know how to eat spaghetti. Really, who cuts up spaghetti? Thankfully, Kaitlyn was there to demonstrate proper technique. She used her fork to twirl a bunch of spaghetti into a small, noodly ball. A few noodles tended to hang off of each noodle-ball; these, she slurped up loudly with each mouthful. The Sanctuary taught her everything she needed to know about good manners.

Oh. Yeah. Kaitlyn needed to talk about the Order now. She looked around; nobody else seemed to be in earshot. Being the efficient Orderling that she was, she talked while she was eating her spaghetti.

Slurp. "My mom's your boss, now. 'Cause you're in the Order." Slurp. "The Order is a big secret. You can't ever tell anyone. We do lots of stuff that's against the law." Slurp. "When we need you, Lisa'll call you on that phone." Slurp. "Oh, and Lori pays really well." Smack smack slurp smack. Spaghetti with parmesan and tomato sauce. Yum.

Any doubts David might have had growing up in regards to the way his parents raised him he could usually disregard. He put the same dedication into his scams that his parents did their factory work, so clearly they taught him the importance of hard work. While his parents believed that helping their neighbors was charitable, Sledge thought that charity was letting someone get away nicking from a department store. Most of the good morals that they had tried to instill in him had been skewed to fit his own view on what was right and what was wrong.

Table manners however, were something that he had agreed with his mum and da on.

"The plate is already in front of you, you don't have to fret that someone will eat it all on you," he told Kaitlyn, sliding his napkin over to her, "'ave you always been a ginger, or are you actually a blonde that's overenthusiastic when it comes to pasta?" Not only did Sledge have to teach the girl how to lie properly he was going to have to do something about her table manners. If for no other reason than to save himself from bearing witness to half masticated food. "Also spaghetti is not a musical instrument. It shouldn't make any noise as you eat it, so your mouth should be shut if the food is in it, and should you have to slurp, you 'ave too much on your fork."

Having given Kaitlyn a brief lecture on how a human eats food David allowed himself a sip of coffee. Frowning he looked inside the mug before taking another sip. The pot had held a mixture of a fresh pot and the dregs from the last one, which made it taste incredibly awkward, and wasn't nearly as strong as he was use to. "Now what sort of illegal activities are we talking about here?"

Kaitlyn sat up straight and stared at him. Was he telling her how to eat? Because she was pretty sure knew how to eat, until now. She'd been eating all her life. You put food in your mouth, you chew it, and you swallow it. It really didn't seem all that complicated.

She used her napkin to wipe the cheese and tomato sauce off her mouth, and swallowed. "Umm... okay." As much as this could have irked her, she might as well humor him. The orderling took a notably smaller bite of spaghetti, which she chewed with her mouth closed until Sledge finished asking his question. It would be hard for her to answer his question and eat at the same time if her mouth had to be closed, after all.

"Sometimes, you'll be selling M. Sometimes, you'll have to go to people's homes and get money from them, or threaten them and break their stuff if they don't. Sometimes you might hafta steal stuff, or pick a fight with the X-Men, or spy on people." That covered almost everything Kait had to do, anyway, but it probably didn't cover everything the Order might make him do. "There might be other stuff, too. Lisa or someone will tell you what you hafta do before you do it."

Now that Kaitlyn was eating more properly Sledge felt better about holding a conversation with her, along with the future generation’s social skills. A hand crossed his face, two fingers slide the fedora off his head. In the same motion he made the hat glide across the back of his hand, catching it backhanded as it flipped off him and tumbled towards the ground. Little tricks like that looked easy, but when you went into the technical aspect it was actually quite difficult. Perhaps one could say that he was showing off by doing it. Not really though. Hat tricks helped to keep him entertained and also allowed him a chance to keep his fingers and wrists loose.

Kaitlyn listed off the illegal activities that Sledge might be called upon to participate in. Nothing sounded too different than what he did back in England. Any con man worth his mettle could take money from a mark, so why did they enlist him? Probably because of his sledgehammers. Breaking things had been one of the tasks that Kaitlyn said he might have to do. Generally speaking breaking things wasn’t against the law. Instead he interpreted it to mean break into places. Well, walls hadn’t been an issue for nearly ten years now. The bigger issue was breaking through a wall without anyone noticing.

“All that sounds fairly standard, surely anyone else could do the job for your mum,” Sledge said. As bad as the coffee was, it still was coffee and he needed the caffeine jolt. He was feeling the beginnings of a migraine coming in, and he felt strongly that it had to do with the ginger sitting across from him. She was too young for him to really have a clue what to say. So far he had just been blunt with the girl. “But what’s this M business about?” he asked.

That hat trick was seriously impressive. Far more impressive, in fact, than good table manners. "Cool!" she proclaimed, once again revealing a mouthful of spaghetti.

'Standard' wasn't really the right word for it, and they couldn't really get anyone else. Well, to be honest, the Order could have gone without him entirely, if it weren't for Alister. But David would find out about that in a little while, and she could only address one thing at a time. "M is the drug that gives normal people mutant powers," she explained, as if he wouldn't have already known about it. "We think it'll help make normal humans start hating us less. The police don't like cleaning up people who get all melted or frozen or scrambled, though, so they don't like us selling it." Kaitlyn said this as if people getting melted, frozen, or scrambled wasn't such an uncommon occurrence.

Boundries needed to be set with Kaitlyn. Breaking and entering was one thing, mostly because Sledge wasn’t stupid enough to break into a building when someone was going to be there. There was no crime against entering, or against breaking, you just had to make sure not to get caught doing the two together. Drugs were serious business, an offense that brings about too much penitentiary time and legal punishment to be worth the money. “I’m not ‘andling or dealing any of that M. I’ve seen too many blokes taking a trip at Her Majesty’s pleasure for even the most simple things. This M covers two most controversial issues. I get caught without a Visa, I get sent back to England. I get caught with drugs, I get sent back to England’s jail.”

Given his criminal record back in England it would be prudent to avoid any altercations that brought it up. He should go for a job that actually had a paycheck instead of running the card games and selling cheap computer speakers for a ridiculously high knock up. Problem was that he had witnessed his mum, da, and older brother slave away to bring home their meager pay. David did not want that sort of life for himself. There had been dreams when he was younger, dreams of what sort of job he wanted. He realized though that they were only dreams and as painful as it might be to get rid of them, he knew that they weren’t going to happen. Stopping the illegal activities was out of the question, but he could choose what ones to do. “Iffin you’re smart,” he said to Kaitlyn, “you won’t get involved with that either. You’re too young for something so serious, no matter what that little plastic card of yours says.”

Too young?

Kaitlyn had never handled M before in her life. She'd heard about it, and she thought she'd seen it once. The other Orderlings probably felt the same way as David did about letting her work with the drug itself. Even so, she didn't appreciate David talking down to her like she was child, and the fact that Kaitlyn actually was a child was completely irrelevant. It was the principle of it that ticked her off. She scowled.

"Whatever. The police are a joke. They fall for things like my ID, and they're too afraid to mess with us. Besides, there's lots worse than getting sent back to England." Such as the other Orderlings.

Okay. Maybe she shouldn't back him into a corner like that. Alister said they needed him, so she probably shouldn't try to scare him so much.. "We do lots of stuff that has nothing to do with M, though. You probably don't have to do that stuff if you don't want to." She could talk to Lori about it, anyway. "They won't let me do that, yet," she added.