Xiin looked up at the two and hissed softly. He slid the book into a space on the bookshelf and his eyes fell on the newcomer. He then answered Hunter's question while keeping his gaze locked on the other man.

"I'm no ssspecialissst... and the book wasss quite informative. Did you know that sssome kittiess actually wear hatsss?"

The lizard chuckled deeply and brought a clawed hand up to support his weight on the bookshelf. He quieted down some and let his tongue flick out of his mouth in the direction of newest addition to The Kabal. Xiin then spoke in a hushed and intense voice.

"Welcome... Ssspecialisst."

Jebidiah looked to The Employer, a slight scowl on his face. Why would he hire one such as him? Is this what was to be expected? Was he to be working with a troupe of partially human idiots? Is he partially human? At least he can communicate semi-decently; perhaps even the annoying hissing could be bypassed if I concentrate enough...

Looking back toward the Lizard-man he asked, trying to use as simple words as possible, "Where are you from?"

“Well,” said Hunter, “if you excuse me gentlemen, I have business to take care of. If either of you need to contact me just speak one of the staff and they’ll contact me.” With that he turned and left the library. He had some tests to perform with Dr Ingram before he made a return trip to the Xavier Institute.

(OOC: Sorry to run off guys, but I have loads to do once Haywire is over and I need to prepare some stuff. Seeing as I’m only allowed in two places at once I got to get moving)

Xiin's only reply to the two was a quite hiss. He had grown tired of the newcomer already. He could sense some... air of superiority... He thinks he is better than me... foolish human... Xiin flicked his tongue at Jebidiah as Hunter walked hastily out of the room. He spoke rather boldly to the human before leaving the room himself.

"I'm from a jungle. Where I ate fissshesss and pisssed in the river. I had a good life. But... now I am here. Taken by Hunter'sss men to ssserve him or die. Ssso, ssserve him I will. He hasss been good to me. Taught me to read... But when the time comesss... I will leave. Just like all of usss in thisss... "Kabal". But until then, be sssafe, 'Comrade'."

With that, Xiin tucked another small book under his scaly arm and walked towards his enclosure in the corner of the lab facilities.

((ooc: Continued from "Guest Room - Iris/Rayne".))

gurgle

Twitch. Twitch, twitch, scratch-ankle-with-other-foot, twitch.

grumble

Roll. Grab-squishy!-snuggle.

grrr

Twitch, spin, snuggle. Blink. Blink... blink.

Calley woke up slowly in Doc Jimmy’s Infirmary of Joy, curled around a little white pillow, with his head at the foot of the hard plastic bed. He yawned and sat up, crossing his legs and tucking the pillow under his chin. Blink, blink. He felt a lot better than when he’d collapsed on the backseat of that jeep. But that wasn’t saying much. Put it this way: he felt like he’d gotten about two weeks of—how had the Scary Boss Man put it?—“well earned” sleep. He looked around lazily.

The room was empty. Well, that was boring. ...Then again, boring might be good. He had groggily fogged memories of various threats and mishandlings that had happened when things weren’t boring. They didn’t include memories of eating. That probably explained why his stomach had woken him up. He scratched at his neck idly. His fingers hit something metallic and explody. Urk. He, ah, stopped scratching at that.

Huh. No sign of the good doctor around here. Or anyone else, for that matter. More importantly: this infirmary was sadly lacking in edibles. Calley hopped off of the bed, tucking the pillow under his arm as he went. He was sort of an unconscious kleptomaniac like that. Food. Food was important. And since there wasn’t any in this room, that meant he had to bravely venture into the hallways. He was still sleepy enough that wandering around the building without permission (or any idea of where he was going) seemed like a good idea.

A pair of orderlies were discussing the latest mutant that Mr Antonescu had captured. The man who turned into a beast. Both had seen the battle between Hunter and Terrance, and the impressive display of the boss besting the monster was the topic of discussion and a lost and disgruntled looking youth stumbled up to them.

“You look famished kid,” said one of them, “When was the last time you ate?” Neither worried about whether he was authorised to be here, there were more than enough guards to ensure that those who were unauthorised didn’t get to where they weren’t allowed.

“Listen,” said the second, “The canteen is first left, second right, third right, first left, forth left then straight ahead of you. It’s all pre-paid for by Mr Antonescu, so knock yourself out.”

"First left, second right," he repeated to himself, "first left, forth left, straight. First left, second right, first left, forth left, straight. First left, second right--thank you!--first left, forth left, straight. First left..."

By some minor miracle of convoluted directions, Calley found himself within smelling distance of the canteen. His nose did the rest of the footwork for him. Snerk; "canteen". Hunter's folks hadn't been in the Big Apple long, he was thinkin'.

...Which was just as well. Oh sweet mother of canteens and all things edible, that food looked good. That hamburger even looked like it was made from beef, rather than gray Clown-grade putty. It was... it was...

...It was three return trips for seconds before the canteen workers started to look at him a little funny. Calley was hungry. Calley had yet to discover how much his stomach could hold before it ruptured. Therefore, Calley was still eating.

And he probably would be for awhile. He snuggled with his stolen pillow over at one of the tables, and stuffed his mouth with pride. Umm... bacon. It tasted so much better when he hadn't gotten cat fur all over it.

(OOC: Continued from Mondragon labs – Xiin’s Enclosure)

IC: Hunter strode into the canteen and immediately spotted Calley with a half eaten burger and a pillow. The kid seemed to be in the process of recovering from his multiple shifts.

Hunter took a seat opposite Calley and said, “So you found the canteen then. As first missions go that was a good job, especially considering that you have no formal training. Now, you seem to have good knowledge of the Sanctuary and the Order that resides within. Tell me everything.”

Zephyr had done a recon of the place, and found out about some of the defences, but had been unable to glean any information on the Order. Time for Calley to start filling in the blanks.

He was ravishing his way through round five—a cheeseburger, slathered in mustard, with a side of giant french-fries and reddish-brown BBQ sauce for dippin’—when an alarmingly familiar figure entered the scene. The Scary Boss Man himself. Calley would have stood up to show his respect; unfortunately, he was too busy spontaneously choking to do much of anything. The man sat down across from him.

“So you found the canteen then.” Calley kept choking by way of reply. “As first missions go that was a good job, especially considering that you have no formal training.” In other words: there was room for improvement. Calley had figured that out for himself. For one thing, he’d attracted too much attention with the poodle lady and the sunglasses girl, and chances were good the kid in the Hans Solo t-shirt remembered him, too. And going in, his collar had said his name. Not good, especially since on any return visits he’d be... Mister Fluffywhiskers. He didn’t think anyone had actually read his tag, but it still made him uncomfortable that someone could have. (Mister Fluffywhiskers. Seriously. He was still trying to digest that one, so to speak). No doubt there were a ton of things he didn’t even know he’d done wrong—the whole “he still didn’t know what to look for with defense capabilities” was an entirely different can of worms. Most importantly: he’d been too tired to have fun. That was just a crime. “Now, you seem to have good knowledge of the Sanctuary and the Order that resides within. Tell me everything.”

Everything, huh? Calley thought for a second, balancing the pillow on his head thoughtlessly. Then he started in with the “everything”:

“The Order is pretty small; all of them are Sanctuary residents, but they wander in and out, even when there’s a mission going on—like I said back in the limo, it all seems pretty disorganized.” The pillow started sliding down over his forehead: he shifted it back, and switched topics.

“Dorian King is the leader.” He was proud that he’d remembered the guy’s last name. He was a little sheepish that he’d forgotten it in the first place, ‘specially considering that the guy had an entire evil pharmaceutical building named after him. “I’ve only seen him once—I don’t have a clue what his mutation is. He makes pretty speeches, though. And he’s almost as scary—” Calley hastily swallowed the ‘as you’ he was going to say, and rushed on:

“Syn’s his second. I don’t think she’s much older than me, but she’s responsible, and she’s smart; I think she’s the one who actually keeps them together. She’s at least got super strength, but there has to be something else or Kaz would have kicked her ass by now.” Was swearing in front of your employer appropriate? Err... Moving on again.

“Kaz has super strength, and definitely super speed.” Show off. “Something else, too, ‘cause he randomly grew long hair and elf ears over night a little while ago. His powers grew, I think. Like I said before, he really hates Syn’s leadership: he’d probably be open to, ah, alternate job offers.

“My Isabel does this cool bone-weapon thing. It’s awesome.” She also liked cats. ‘Nough said. gruuuumble Calley took a bite of his burger: quiet, stomach. No growling at the Scary Boss Man. Of course this made the pillow try to take a nosedive onto his plate, but he put it back in its place.

“Abyss: big, red, has muscles and a monkey tail. Definitely has super strength, probably something else, too. This is going to sound stupid... but I think there’s more than one of him, or something. I’ve run into him a few times, and his scent is sometimes just... different.

“Oh, and one I forgot to mention before: Thorn. She came in late to the war room meeting. Smelled like alcohol.” He wrinkled his nose, and shoved a french fry into his mouth. “Don’t know what her power is first-hand, but she’s probably not named that for nothin’. Err, in my opinion. Sir.” He took a drink of orange pop.

“There’s other members, but they’re AWOL, and I haven’t heard anything much about them.

“Right now, they’re doin’ experiments at KP on some captive mutants and humans with that Jack girl. I saw some video of ‘em.” He took the pillow off of his head, and tucked it under his chin again. Comfy! “The captive mutants totally lost control. That Iris girl who lives in the room the hacker worked out of—she’s got an ice power.”

Long recital: complete. “Errhm, I think that’s all, Sir.” Calley fidgeted in his seat. “May I ask you a question? Are you a mutant? And back in the infirmary, with those other people—were those things about getting paid and stuff meant for me, too, or am I just sorta on the work-and-I-won’t-get-exploded contract?” He realized he was scratching at the necklace-collar-of-doom again: he locked his hands together over the pillow, instead. “And have you told those other guys about my mutation, Sir? ‘Cause I’d kinda like to keep it private. For, ah, security reasons. Sir.” And also because he was paranoid about people knowing about him. He’d done pretty good at staying off of people’s radars—outside of this room, there were only four people in the world that even knew he was a mutant. One of them was Doc Jimmy. The rest were his family. He liked the thought of no one else really knowing what he was—or at least, not knowing exactly what he could do.

...So maybe that was more than one question.

Hunter listened as Calley told him everything he knew. The kid had a good memory, and a natural eye for detail, as he picked up on little thinks that would indicate further powers than the obvious, like this Syn.

Calley had guessed that as Kaz, who has not only a grudge against her, but superior physical abilities, has refrained from “kicking her ass” as he put it that she must have another ability. As for this Abyss character, Hunter had met a mutant once who could make copies of himself, perhaps he had the same ability.

Asides from that fact that Calley had a pillow balanced on his head and was eating it had been a very good debriefing. This Kaz character intrigued him. “Is Kaz’s surname Corydon?” If it was then that would explain why he had lost track of him. He had been meaning to contact him anyway, but he sounded as if he had gotten stronger while with the Order.

The girl whose room the hacker was working from was being experimented on was she. Studies of the cell phone via the chip revealed that it was in fact the girl, but from what Calley had said she was captured at the time. He would have someone look into that after he reviewed the girl background check.

Listening to Calley’s question he thought carefully before answering. “I am a mutant. I am far stronger and faster than any human. I am also far older.” He didn’t say how old. “You will be paid, $100,000 salary along with an apartment of your own.”

“I have kept your mutation secret, and intend to keep it that way. Do not discuss your mutation with anyone. If they ask why you work for men simply say it’s classified. Now, is there any area in the sanctuary that you cannot access?”

Hunter had a plan to meet with the Order’s leader, this Dorian King, but he had no intention of doing it simply. He wanted to show that he knew all about them, and they nothing about him. Knowledge is power.

“Is Kaz’s surname Corydon?”

Calley gave a little shrug. “Sorry, Sir. I haven’t been hearing last names much—I haven’t caught his.” Silly Order with its silly first-name basis. Really, didn’t they know that Isabel’s Kitten wanted to know every detail about them?

So the Boss Man was a mutant. Honestly, Calley hadn’t been sure. It was nice of Mister Hunter Antonescu to be so helpful. First name, last name, and a brief abilities run down—really, that’s all Calley asked for. As for the paycheck and the apartment: sweet. Doubly sweet, since “apartment” really meant “no, you don’t have to keep sleeping in Doc Jimmy’s lab”. That was… astoundingly good to hear. And the guy wasn’t telling every lizardman and hot-shot mercenary what his spy boy could do… excellent. “Do not discuss your mutation with anyone”, was it? Not. A. Problem. And personally, Calley wasn’t planning on telling anyone about this job. If they knew about it, Calley was probably about five seconds away from exploding, anyway.

“Now, is there any area in the sanctuary that you cannot access?”

Calley thought about it, tugging on the pillowcase idlly. “If I was bipedal, than I’d probably not be able to get into the second basement, or into Dorian’s office—everywhere else is pretty much public domain, though. Easy.” Dorian’s office—now that was an idea. Why hadn’t he snuck into there already? “But I’m pretty sure I could get anywhere in that building the same way I got into your apartment.” Unless Darth Dorian was paranoid enough to have traps installed in all of the building’s ventilation ducts. That would just be strange. “Hey, Sir—would you mind if I kept catting around at the Sanctuary? I sort of like the set up I’ve got going on there. It’s kooshy.” Which is to say, he got to sleep in a cute ribbon-haired girl’s bed every night, and pilfer bacon from the kitchen every morning. It was amazingly fun, to say the least. All of the stray information a kitty could pick up was quite interesting, too. Between the Sanctuary, the NYPD, and now this place, Calley was feeling pretty good about how much of New York he could keep tabs on. Too bad he didn’t have any tie to the Mansion. Calley sat up a little straighter. “Sir—would you mind if I took classes at the Mansion? I’d like to know that place a bit better.” Hmm; living at the Sanctuary, taking classes at the Mansion, and working for the Kabal—that was the dream.

Knowledge is entertainment.

Hunter was fairly certain that the Kaz Calley had mentioned was Kaz Corydon, the abilities matched up, and Kaz was an uncommon name. He made a note to find and locate Kaz when he got the chance.

So Calley could get everywhere, good as he wanted the cat to deliver something to Mr King. His office seemed like the perfect place to drop it. Listening to Calley’s request to remain at the sanctuary he saw it as a perfect way to keep tabs on the Order.

“You can remain at the sanctuary,” he said, “As for classes at the mansion, you won’t have time as I have a crash course in espionage training tailored to your particular abilities prepared for you. However, there is one more mission that cannot wait.”

(OOC: I’m going to PM Oppressor and Syn about leaving a CD with a message asking to meet with them. Once they agree I’ll give you a CD that you have to secretly get to somewhere in the sanctuary)

No Mansion classes, huh? Oh well. He’d just have to think up another way of sticking his nose in that place; one that the Scary Boss Man would approve of. And specially-tailored espionage training wasn’t the worst consolation prize he’d ever heard of. Not by a long shot. Plus, he had the seal of approval to stay at the Sanctuary. And you know what that meant? The Boss Man was actually open to his suggestions. Hmm. Their relationship might not be as terror-based as it had started out. Whoot.

“However, there is one more mission that cannot wait.”

Calley would have perked his ears, if humans had ears that could perk. “I’m game,” he said simply, without even knowing what it was. He was rested and ready. Still a little hungry, though—he polished off his burger and sent his soda chasing it down.

Hunter smiled and pulled out a CD. “Your objective is to place this CD inside one of the sanctuary receptionist’s draws without anyone seeing you,” he said. The CD had PRIVATE: FOR DORIAN KING OR SYN ONLY written on the case.

“For this I recommend your monkey form,” Hunter suggested, “As Dr Ingram has made this backpack,” he held up a very small backpack, “In which you can carry the CD. In future operations you may be carrying other items. When you get back Dr Ingram will have a new full wardrobe for you.”

“These clothes will be specially designed for you,” he explained, “all will have a certain combination of movements that will cause them to incinerate themselves, so what happened in the hacker’s room would not happen again.”

Inside of Receptionator Lisa’s desk, eh? Calley took the CD, and looked at it from all sides. Hmm. That might be… tricky. Mostly because it was lunch hour in Hell when the woman left that desk.

“For this I recommend your monkey form,” the Scary Boss Man said. Probably for lack of knowing anything else Calley could turn into. Actually, Calley didn’t really know all the things he could turn into. Unfortunately, the man actually had a reason: “As Dr Ingram has made this backpack in which you can carry the CD.”

…He couldn’t believe the Boss Man had said that with a straight face. Calley took the miniature backpack, and simply stared at it. This had to be a joke. Right?

“When you get back Dr Ingram will have a new full wardrobe for you.”

…He felt a little like laughing, himself. And a little like crying. He settled for playing with the zipper of the backpack. Ooo, fully functional…

The idea of incinerating clothes made him look up again. “What is with that guy and demolitions?” He blurted out before he remembered who he was talking to. He tried to make himself look small. “Sorry Sir. So, ah, shall I just be on my way, then?” He scouted off of his chair, tucking the backpack and the CD into the pillowcase. He only got a few feet before he had a thought. “Umm, Sir? Can I get a jammer or something for the cameras? They have an awful lot of cameras.” Thirteen in the entrance hall alone, if he’d counted right.