(OOC: Collab between Mie and yours truly.)

Much like a scolded child behaves after being disciplined for whatever naughty shenanigans they'd been up to, Jam was not in the best of moods as she skulked sulkily around the Towers abode. Every now and again, she'd grumble and gripe under her breath, or sigh irritably, but for the most part, the crazy self-conversation she was normally prone to left her solitary exploration of the house quiet.

It was one of those strange phenomena the reddish girl had determined to be a rule from the very few wealthy dwellings she'd both seen outside and in; they were always way bigger inside than they looked. This was the conclusion she'd come to, as she meandered from hallway to door to side room to room, to new corridor, in what seemed like an unending maze. She briefly considered marking doors, or leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, but wisely figured it was just another thing the eternally uptight feline could chew her out over.

The alibi for her nosiness, she decided, was her AWOL companion, whom she was only 99% certain to not be on the premises. Cellular towers were apparently out, as her TXTs came back undeliverable, so her only means to verify his presence or lack thereof was to check every room, lavatory, closet, cabinet and drawer (...?).

"Oh," blurted the snooping simian with a start as she stumbled upon the first occupied room she'd found. Initially, she began to withdraw, but stopped with a series of blinks upon recognizing the inhabitant. "M'sorry, I didn'-- Hey. F'it ain't our purple heart."

And lo and behold there stood-- or lay-- that cream-white mole who she'd seen injured in Ace's arms not a few hours ago. The room didn't make it too hard to find her, as there weren't too many eye-catching items in the room besides her and the television she was aligned with... hooked up to the news, of all things.

Caz rolled her head along the pillow of the gurney she reclined upon with a deliberate slowness, like the monster in a horror film, wide eyes and a goofy, tight-lipped grin you could tell she was trying to hold back. Granted, she could only lament how unintimidating she looked right then, and offered little but an intelligent

"Muuhh?"

"Oh."

"Hellooo..."

"...I'm injuurred, heheh."

Of course, the bandages on her head and the vital signs monitor she was hooked up to could have told Jam that.

With a long half-lidded stare beneath her raised brow, Jam was second guessing her impromptu decision to make small talk, and hovered, still outside the door.

"Yeeeeah, I see that," she murmured, seeing if there was anything else of interest in the room. "I didn't notice when you came up earlier, but were ya deficient before y'hit yer head?"

Always the charmer. Very few people would know, but she never intends to come across as crass as she does.

"I'm not injured! I mean deficient!"

Pause.

"I am not deficient, ma'am," she responded matter-of-factly, complete with knowledgeable pout and a pointing of the finger. "...Because I don't know what that means. I do recognize you, however. You're that girl from the truck! Ace told me you blew up the creepy boat guy." And then, she didn't really say anything, but rather gave a very approving nod with a tired, yet very enthusiastic smile. And then looked unsure of herself.

"Tha, tha'was you, right?"

Meanwhile, again...

Since things had died considerably--or at least as much as they could have in the face of what was more or less the eye of a storm--Officer Steel was finally able to return to his patrol vehicle. He could have returned to it earlier that day, but Steel walked everywhere with that slow, po-lice swagger macho men like him had. It would take more than a robot zombie apocalypse to make him run.

Ignoring the fact that his car no longer had a door on the right side, the doberman lurched his big frame into the passenger's seat of what had been his interceptor--the cool slang word for patrol units--and sat halfway-in and halfway-out, in an effortlessly hardcore-looking pose. He had systematically issued a ticket to every single wrecked vehicle behind Outlaw for illegal parking and hence needed his backup ticketbook, which he kept in the glove compartment where no dirtbags could steal it. People had tried to steal his equipment before when they thought he wasn't looking. Steel was always looking.

He popped open the little hatch, mildly savoring the prospect of more tickets to give, and was just starting to reach in when he stopped suddenly.

Officer Steel very, very slowly took off his badass aviators. He stared with huge, disturbingly bloodshot eyes at the contents of his police car's glove compartment, as if someone had just struck him and he wanted to know if the individual who just struck him was a ****ing ass who didn't know who he was.

Someone...

took...

my...

flares.

"..."

Someone had just earned themselves a long, painful stay at the South Island Inmate Hilton, and a long, painful encounter with Steel's nightstick.

( 'Scue if it's a bit wordy, Don't intend to such all the time, Also.. it's almost 2 am, so pardon any quirks or misplaced words and what not. )

Having since given up on making his way through the city in it's current state Juneau had since leisurely seated himself under the shade of a palm tree growing in a grassy patch overlooking the beach just beyond the reach of the encroaching sand. His back was propped against the trees trunk with his left leg stretched across the grass, his right raised just enough to comfortably rest his right arm” So much for a relaxing visit to the city.. “ He mumbled as he lifted the flask in his right hand and took a quick sip of it's contents before returning it to a rest on his knee. ” .. Not exactly the live musical entertainment I'd wanted to relax with a drink to.. “

He halfheartedly pointed the revolver gripped his left hand towards the sky and spun it's cylinder a few times with his thumb as he yawned, holding it up a few moments before lowering it and his hand to his side once more before taking another drink from the flask held in his opposing hand. He wasn't too concerned in being on the beach with things having since calmed down, barring any sudden robot zombie raids of course, ..although the approaching and subsequent sounds of the biplane landing just out of view in the distance due to the foliage and other terrain peaked his interest.

“...What now..? “ He sighed as he took one last swig from his flask before stashing it into his vest as he stood, simultaneously returning the revolver to it's hip holster in the process. Collecting his board from it's resting place against the tree he tucked it under his his right arm before heading off in the direction the plane sounded like it'd landed, cautiously of course, taking recent events into mind.

"Perhaps you should just let people make decisions for you," cut in a harsh, acidic voice from behind Teck.

One glance would be all that was necessary to reveal the figure standing in the doorway was Major Cross.

He turned his frost-frigid stare from the porcupine to the monkey girl, then the bed-ridden mole. In one hand he held a wicked-looking rifle of some futuristic design, its green, almost glass-like barrel mercifully pointed at the floor. In his other hand was a black nylon bag, about the size of a suitcase, maybe a little bigger. He was still in uniform, sans helmet; it might have been a little jarring to see him without it, but the lack of headdress failed to change the perpetually steely expression.

He stepped further into the room at a casual gait and set both the rifle and bag down on a table.

Cross turned his eyes back to the porcupine, their expression almost mocking. It was a pity he had to do this in front of the two women, but some things needed doing regardless of who was witness to it.

"If the results of your little plan earlier today are any indication of your combat ability and judgment, you'd be best suited to fight this war hiding under your bed and staying out of our way."

He took several slow steps forward, closing the distance between them. "Let me refresh your memory. Do you remember what you did with the explosives my man entrusted to you?"

His pace slowed but he was still coming. "Do you realize there are now plastic explosives just laying around out there in our city for anyone to find and do as they please with?"

He finally stopped when the distance was reaching cringe-worthy proportions.

"And do you remember what you went to recover after tossing aside the equipment you'd been given?" The Major allowed no opportunity for answer. "Because I do. And my men and woman do. You felt a piece of clothing was a much more worthy supplement to our ability to fight the enemy than explosives that did not belong to you. I don't care how much sentimental value the rag might have. You did nothing but demonstrate that your self-interests come before the interests of everyone who wants to win this fight, and if this were a hundred years ago I would have you hanged."

For Teck's sake, it wasn't. The darkly-feathered crow eased back somewhat and focused his eyes back on the table. It might have been callous, cruel commentary, but if there was one thing to be thankful for, it was that Cross wasn't a drill instructor anymore. "If your self-centeredness really clouds your judgment so much, then the last person you should be taking orders from is yourself. Unless you think you can really help out. If not, then don't."

The crow's face did not express even a hint of change during Teck's response. Whether that was good or bad was up in the air, but the icy stare implied he found the porcupine's statements to be less "reasoning" and more "excuses." Cross had little patience for such behavior in the face of blunders like this.

"That's certainly noble of you, but it won't be necessary," he said with a touch of sarcasm. "I sent two of my men to recover them already."


*************


Ooryl and McBride plodded along the empty, ruined streets tiredly, the sheer monotony of the deserted surroundings inducing a forboding sense of paranoia and making them feel worse than they already did.

"It is not Ooryl's fault the stupid thing blew up. Must have had power surge. Or something. Should have just ordered pizza."

"Better to be out here than back there scrubbing taquito crap off the walls," said McBride.

"Yes, Ooryl is pleased how much safer it is out here in deadly warzone than it is in confines of fortress that is presidential home. Idiot."

McBride pointed. "Is that it?" he asked, gesturing to what he thought was the second of two objects they'd been sent to retrieve. The first block of explosives had been found a short distance from the presidential lawn, where Teck had chucked them at the ship, but the second block had thus far evaded them.

Ooryl squinted. He lowered the goggles on his helmet and fooled with a tiny nob on their right side for a second; the picture he saw through the specs zoomed in. He raised them back up after a second. "Believe so."

A rather fat flicky fluttered down next to the distant explosives. It pecked at them for a second curiously, then grabbed the band running around the center of the plastic block in its beak.

"Hey, look," said McBride.

The flicky started flying away with its new toy.

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" screamed the two soldiers. They tore after it and waved helplessly. "WAITWAIT NO COME BACK OH S**T NO HEY GODDA--MOTHERF**KING BIRD!! HOLY AFFKGSKLFJSD--" They pointed up with their weapons and started blasting away at it. The bird continued flying. "THAT'S PROPERTY OF THE SOUTH ISLAND GOVERNMENT KLSDFJWEAL SONOFABITCH #$%@#^%!! F**KING KILL YOU FLYING RAT, SLIMY LITTLE COMMUNIST TWINKLE-TOED--"

It flew over some distant buildings. Ooryl bent forward and panted while McBride limped pathetically after it, waving his hands. "COME BACK! COME BACK!! COME--aah he ain't comin' back. Oh my God we are so f**ked, Ooryl. Oh s**t. He is going to grind us up into pastries."

"Ooryl does not want to be any manner of food." The iguana kept running with the alligator trudging along in his wake. If only he'd had a coconut, he could knock the thing out of the sky.


*************


"They should be back pretty soon," Cross continued, secretly questioning the validity of such a statement (if they'd nearly blown up the kitchen, he wondered what other kind of trouble they could get into when he wasn't around to keep an eye on them). "Perhaps you can make yourself useful in some other way, like making the beds around here or helping with the plumbing." The way he said this seemed to indicate he was completely serious.

He turned his attention back to the bag and began rustling through it, then put his focus on the monkey. "You did good back there."

It must have been weird to hear him say something with that... voice of his that wasn't somehow negative.