((OOC: Quickie!))

With an irrefutably impolite snort, the red-faced monkey hung her head while she unsuccessfully fought off her giggles.

"'Grown-up?'" she repeated, still evidently amused, but just the teeniest bit sardonic. "I's wonderin' who the hell spit in his latte -- I didn' teach 'im to act like that. Must'a got it from you."

The team of anti-terrorists trailed inside after the monkeys, thankful for whatever respite the building would offer. Cross still wasn't totally one hundred percent certain of what to make of the two people he lingered behind, but they seemed competent and capable, and there were a lot less able people in the world than there should have been, so he did like that. His opinion of them thus far was overall pretty positive. He got the strangest feeling from the boy, though--he couldn't explain it but somewhere inside he felt like he should have utterly hated that guy, like he should have grabbed him and broken a bottle over his head or something... And he'd never met the dude before this morning. Weird. Oh well, who cared. Probably just resembled someone he'd beat the s**t out of once.

"Wow," said Elegant Joe, who was tracking mud all over the floor as he walked around the length of the foyer. He stopped and studied an enormous chair that, while somewhat modest, he guessed was probably worth about twice his annual salary. He wondered if he should steal it.

For the most part, the team looked a little uncomfortable. They were a little fatigued and felt better than they had earlier, but at the same time, the novelty that was standing in the home of the island's leader did not pass their notice, and there was a somewhat awkward silence lingering amongst them while they went to find some place to sit down / rest / not get blood on / not break. A few of them did start wandering around and nosing about, though. It was the president's house.

"Don't worry."

The interjection came from a few camo-clad guys rolling out a stretcher. The president's home was just that—a home—so it didn't exactly have a full-fledged medical center, but a makeshift one had been set up to handle first aid and urgent care needs.

"We got word that the hospital's still intact," said one (an older fellow of vague race/species, perhaps some kind of guinea pig or somethin') as the other two helped Caz take a seat and lay back. "But as you can probably imagine, they're packed out the wazoo right now, so you probably wouldn't get any help there for a good twelve hours, anyway. We can take care of this here."

While explained, he kept busy shining a light in her eyes, checking dilation, etc.—Typical concussion check, pulse check, and so on.

"You can come along if you want," he stated in passing, before turning attention back to Caz. Soon enough, they were wheeling her down a nearby hall.

"Now, you remember your name, darlin'?"





--



OOC: And now's probably a good time to skip ahead a little, let the cast recoup, regroup, and so on. We'll pick up maybe an hour, or few hours, or whatever from this point, if everybody's cool with that.

OOC: Post to move things forward. Not much accomplished here just yet, though; mostly a big "thinking" post.





It'd been a few hours since they arrived at the presidential manor. Rock was groggily astir, plodding back through the front lobby, or foyer, or whatever one would call the big "public" living room of the abode. He'd been unable to sleep for too long. It was an odd feeling, not pressed upon him by means of worry or stress, but just... like being stuck in gear, unable to fully shut off the drive that had kept him going the entire previous night, even though he felt a little worn down.

He already called his folks. Spring City was in good shape, for the most part. There was a little trouble around the fringes of town, but nothing the people there hadn't been able to handle. Nothing had even happened in Emerald Town. From what he could tell, and what the radio indicated, only locations of tactical importance had been struck—Military bases, GUN outposts, and so on.

It was far from over. He had the itch—The "get moving" itch. Maybe it was just being in that building that made it hard to relax, kind of like sitting in the middle of a big target. He knew the robots would be back, and all they'd have to show for their time was a little bit of rest.

The primate stopped right in front of one of the hugely tall, blue-draped windows, his arms criss-crossed over his chest loosely. The view wasn't much but the back of some tanks, a lot of wrecked landscaping, and some smoldering buildings beyond the lawn. The sun was out and shining brighter than earlier; that guaranteed them the day to prepare however they could.

He wasn't going to get any more sleep, he decided, and thus began formulating a course of action in his head.

((OOC: Much bigger post than necessary, so for the record, only the last two paragraphs are probably relevant reading material. Feel free to skim or skip--most of this post is here strictly for effect.))



Tally ran the cleaning rod through the barrel of her rifle. The patch on its end came out dirty, and she replaced the patch with a brush and ran the rod through again. The squad had seen so much action the previous night and gone through so many clips that the majority of them were probably undertaking the same effort with their own pieces, if they hadn't already done so or were going to soon. She had expended a lot of rounds too, but there had been no erosion damage to the bore that she could see. That wasn't to be expected until she'd fired about a thousand rounds, and then she'd have to get around to replacing the barrel, which she found to be a tedious and difficult task. Maybe she'd get the Major or whatever he was now to help with that.

Of course, he'd just tell her to dump it and switch to a bolt-action. She always refused, and not only just to piss him off. Soldiers were as loyal to their guns as they were to their religions. Her semiautomatic might not have had the inherent accuracy as a bolt-action, but she liked being able to get off shots quickly, and that was necessary for most of their operations. They'd debated this endlessly and neither would budge.

There were more people around in the president's home than she'd anticipated and thus she had to share the room she was in with some army personnel. Tally would have preferred to do this alone. She did tend to fit the stereotype for snipers, people told her. Translation: you're an abrasive bitch. She had never denied this; it was a little amusing, if anything. A healthy abundance of attitude hadn't done her much good during her time in Central City police (instead it made her a favorite target of her superiors--that was South Island law for you), but it worked better here, where her co-workers preferred to speak with answers that came at muzzle velocity.

Finished and satisfied with her work, she reassembled the components she'd removed from the rifle and cleaned up the service equipment she'd borrowed from the army off the table she'd been working at. The act of maintaining the gun there had earned her a number of unhappy looks from staff, but president's furniture or not, she didn't need her weapon crapping out on her in what was a perceivably unpleasant future.

She left the room and entered what appeared to be a dining hall. Seated in the massive chair at the head of the dinner table was Ooryl, making an utter mess. In one hand he held his SMG, in the other was a cleaning rod and a burrito he'd somehow managed to pick up; from where was beyond her. He was chewing loudly and kept moving his hands so he could carefully take a big bite of the thing while servicing the weapon. A house staffmember stood by idly, looking repulsed by his atrocious manners. If they'd been annoyed with her, they must have been irate with him. Also, he was eating it sideways.

She didn't care to watch him embarrass the concept of advanced civilization with the way he ate, so she walked around a little more, bored. Killey and McBride were in the makeshift treatment center, Zanetti'd probably done something to wind up there too by now, she didn't care where Sparky was, Joe was probably off stealing as much as he could before he'd inevitably get caught, everyone else was lingering around... And she wasn't sure where Cross was. Off doing army things, probably.

One person who didn't also didn't pass her notice when she wandered into the foyer was the monkey guy who had been along for their ride earlier. And maybe it was just her imagination, or it was his body posture, or whatever, but she thought he looked a little jittery or restless for someone who should have been trying to relax like almost everyone else was. Not that he could be blamed if that were the case, she figured.

"Nice view, huh," she commented from where she was a short distance away. "Make a great postcard to send to the folks."

"Sure didn't need to get any uglier, that's for sure." Funny how capital cities were always either pristine (a rarity) or about as attractive as the contents of an abstract art gallery. It was a wonder that the president chose to have his home here. Maybe the war would pretty the city up some.

She had been one of the few to take notice of the dogtags. The guy looked like he'd seen his share of action, but he didn't look all too happy with the way things were at the moment, despite the recent victory, if taking out one of what were probably many gigantic war weapons the enemy had could have been called that. Maybe he just needed a punching bag (she thought he looked like one of those kinds of guys who have a routine need for frequent violence).

"You look like you want to get out of here."

It was a guess, but she figured it was pretty close to the mark.

Tally shrugged lightly. "If it were up to me, I'd be outside in that sun shooting the bad guys and looking for the doc's hiding place." She pursed her lip and her eyes moved off to one side. "But it's not."

Such was the way of one who had committed themselves to being an underling. That was military life for you, and things were no different in the SSD task force. Maybe if the team was run different, like a normal federal agency, she'd have some more say in their operations, but most of the anti-terrorists hated it when people considered them "feds"--they were cops or soldiers, and "feds" induced thoughts of suits and flashing fancy-looking IDs at people. Cross and his superiors kept a military order to things and they liked it that way.

"Gettin' awful tired of sitting around here on our hands though." She glanced out the window behind him, wondering what would happen if she took one of the tanks for a joyride. "What are you and your buddies gonna do? Not gonna hang out here 'til this whole thing blows over, are you?"

[quick!?]

"Well, in that case..." Rekk said, making himself clear as he came up on Rock and Tally, arms crossed. "Here I am."

Before Rock could get to what he intended to, however, Rekk turned his glance to Tally. "Where's your CO?"

Tally's head turned to face the suit. Judging by her expression, she wasn't trying too hard to hide that she felt he was awfully young to be given the kind of responsibilities that came with positions of high power, but she said nothing of it. "I'm sure he's off finding somebody to chew out." For his own shortcomings, most likely. She didn't add that part out loud.

She knew they wanted her to get lost, so she turned and headed out of the room. "Good luck doin' what you can do if you do," she said to the primate as she left.