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“Age before beauty then,” Sledge said, stepping to the side to allow the challengers the first shot. Aedus offered him his technique for holding the dart. Sledge simply stared at the obsidian man. He had said that he played darts before. Obviously he knew how to hold the blasted thing. Just the way that David had held it in the past was more like a fist. Instinctively his hands curled around the dart in his usual way. Once the tips of his fingers made contact with his palm there was the familiar tightening of his skin, that heavy weight to it. No good. Such a sensation happened the day he punched through a wall for the first time.

He released his hold on the arrow. Take your time, think this out. You can hold it like you always have and risk having arms like noodles the rest of the day. Could also end up driving the arrow through the board and get kicked out for destroying something. Or you could play the game awkwardly and play it safe. “I thought we were playing darts, not practicing our needlepoint,” he hassled the old men as he went for his first shot. Keep things light and airy, take your time, get the feel of the dart. There’s three people what can go before you. It’s not as though you have to be particularly nimble with this, just accurate.

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.

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.

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?”

Time to test the waters of the bar. Aedus had claimed that the gentle prodding was because of his flirting with the waitress, who turned out to be the owner's daughter. Wise choice there he scolded himself. Never hit on the owner's daughter. You automatically look just as bad as you could. Even standing with a chainsaw in one hand and a machete in the other would make you look better in comparison, so long as you hadn't payed special attention to daddy's little girl.

"Good thing then," Sledge hollered back over his shoulder to the one who had mocked them, "Because I dinnit plan on leaving my spot 'ere until I've had my fill. After all, Maggie's working 'ard to keep us all happy, and having some chips in me stomach will make me plenty happy." What he wanted wasn't just the fries. He needed time before he had to stand back up again. Time to know that his legs weren't going to be telling him that he was on a boat still. Time for the chips to soak up some of that acid in his stomach that was causing him such troubles.

No need to bump the table, or to quick change the guessed card for the fake one. The mark had fallen for it, the way that they always do. Still for the sake of consistency, Sledge took the queen's card and used it to flip over the center option. "Sorry mate, but so close," he said, showing that the choice made had been the six, and the queen had been one over. Sledge pocketed the money. Ten dollars for thirty seconds of work. Was it any wonder that he had chosen this line of work over being a slave to a factory like his parents?

"Care to try again?" Sledge asked setting the cards back into their original positions. He flipped the cards back over. "Twenty gets you thirty." Once again Sledge started to shuffle the cards, letting them move more in his grip than on the box. The glossy finish allowed them to slip and slide. There was nothing better than the feeling of cards bringing him money.