Scene Listing || Scene Schedule || Scene Schedule RSS
Owner Pose
Timekeeper "It's the Storm. It's here."

The glass tubes on her wrist flicker to life, and tick down.

2 3 : 5 9

    There's a flurry of activity that comes after that. Madam Z's return call confirms with Vertin that stock prices are cresting the heights they only reached before Black Tuesday, only to go silent at the Timekeeper's dread reply. She hangs up, and the gears of bureaucracy churn into motion-- you can imagine, across the world over, the phone lines ringing, the later-era comms lighting up, the scramble to retreat, consolidate, survive.

    But it's not meant to accomodate this. Not less than a year after the era began. There will be people who say that the Timekeeper's warning must be premature, that no Storm has ever come this quickly, and the LSCC will set up the equipment to confirm it, and all the while the numbers on Vertin's wrist will tick lower.

    Sonetto's face went pale, but she diligently snapped back to work, informing Sabre Squadron of the timer and the need to retreat back to the Foundation, using the teleport disks they have. It went without question that the pair wouldn't be going back to safety until the last minute, with more to be done before the end of the era. That means getting to the Walden and confronting the Manus Vindictae, but there's one stop before then that Vertin can't ignore.

    They really are all in the same direction. The Sotheby manor, the Ainsworth telephone office, then the Walden-- 'Chicago' is like a singular office building in downtown by the lake, and arcanists orbit around it in ever-further rings.

    The Storm Syndrome hasn't really hit yet, not like it had when you were in London in 1966. People seem uneasy, there's spontaneous flare-ups of thievery or shouted arguments glimpsed through windows or around corners, but there isn't chaos in the streets at this point. It's reasonably easy to navigate, down to the ramshackle neighbourhood with its persistent smell of factory smoke where the telephone operators' office is, and Vertin knocks just once before swinging the alleyway door open.

    Inside, it's the same as always. A wall of switchboards, cozy but threadbare, a few chairs, two of which are occupied by the young red-headed girl Margaret, and Bellwhistle. Bellwhistle's eyebrows shoot up and she swivels in her chair, but with indefagitable professionalism she smoothly wraps up the call over her microphone before saying anything else. "Are you waiting? Are you through?"

    The Awakened unplugs and moves one wire, then plugs another into the portable switchboard cradled in her arms before standing up. The sudden entry, especially with so many people, puts her on guard, but she tentatively extends the benefit of the doubt to Vertin.
Timekeeper     "Vertin?! ... Ahoy, honey, what's got you so balled up today? Are you alright?"

    Vertin swallows tensely, breathing heavily from the trip and white-knucking her suitcase. "Miss Bellwhistle. There's been a change; the city's not safe anymore. I'm sorry. I thought I'd have more time."

    "Not safe? Slow down, sweetheart. Whatever's happened, you know I'm a tough gal, we'll stick it out together. Someone hurt you?"

    Vertin shakes her head, desperately trying to get her breath back. "No. It's not that."

    The humid air from the coming rainstorm slowly overtakes the cool atmosphere of the operators office. Vertin lifts up her chin to make eye contact with Bellwhistle. "I wasn't lying when I brought you on, but in addition to being a recruiter from the Watch, I am the Timekeeper of the St. Pavlov Foundation. A disaster is going to overtake the world in under twenty-four hours that will wipe away life as you know it, orchestrated by the same group I asked you to investigate. The Storm. My role is, and has always been, to avert the damage the Storm causes."

    Sonetto startles, only knowing the Ainsworth office from the time they looked after Sotheby, and having no knowledge of it being a Watch cell. Vertin's sudden sharing of classified information with civilians, not to mention taking the time to do this rather than head straight to the Walden, makes her tense up, peeking her head outside and checking down either direction of the alley. "Timekeeper...? !"

    Meanwhile Margaret, after having taken her headset off, warily eyes Vertin and the group of Elites like she might have to make a break for it. "Hold on, you're a Fed?"
Riku Asakura Riku, still dressed in his usual fashion, follows after Vertin and Sonetto.  He doesn't know exactly where to go, but he trusts in Vertin to know the way.  When they end up at the telephone operator's office, he realizes she might be there to warn them of the approaching storm.  Which means they might be taking a break before hitting the Walden.  

The approach of the storm has Riku nervous.  There is only one thing on his mind: 'not again'.  It's a thing he can't fight, a thing he can't become big at and defeat... It's a natural disaster that destroys entire eras and the people who live in them.  Right now, he can't afford to feel sad, depressed, or hopeless; they still have stuff to do here, and perhaps people to save.

Sonetto being startled and tensing up causes Riku to do the same, looking around before looking back at Vertin and Bellwhistle, then taking a breath to try to calm down.  This was starting to become perhaps a bit much, but they needed a breather right now.  Though sharing the information with Bellwhistle causes Riku to raise an eyebrow.  
Was there a way to save people?  Or was it just a limited number of people?  

'Hold on, you're a Fed?'

"I wouldn't call Vertin a fed because she works for the Foundation.  But I'm not an arcanist, so I don't know all of the ins and outs of things.  Right now, I know she's someone you can trust, especially with what's happening in the world.  She wouldn't have come here if not for a very good reason."
Ein The escape from Sotheby Manor weighed deeply upon the little lady of the house. She, and Mr. Karson, had been extracted from the manor proper and spirited through the servant's passages out the door. Regulus had taken the sniffling and shocked Sotheby with her after a brief flicker of invisibility, and as they made good on their own retreat, a wet-voiced young lady had mumbled a faint "We're rea-lly unseen?" as an observing gasp, in the moments where she lost bag and hand and sight about herself as they had continued.

Vertin, for her part, had retrieved Karson, who had avoided striking the Timekeeper with a cane and been most insistent in Sotheby's safety before Vertin had explained that it had all been taken care of.

Having missed Regulus' passage, Karson experiences Vertin in the moment of the Storm's break like a strange and prescient magician or more heavenly being, his doubt sorted by Sotheby disappearing without sound or struggle at Vertin's apparent direction, and now the young woman had come for him. Lost, in many ways, the old butler nods, and follows, sensing that he's either being guided if he follows, or left lost if he doesn't.

---

2 3 : 5 9

While Tamamo sets her talismans around the LSCC 'Device' emitting the faintly disruptive buzzing into the inner ear, the moments of the Storm's beginning cause an activity that blooms like a flower to the dawn - first slowly, but more colorfully and vibrantly over time. Cartwright and his two scouts dutifully watch the operation, Cartwright because he's interested and the scouts so they can repeat if they must at the farther sites, until a radio operator jogs to Cartwright and announces that it's an emergency alert from Headquarters. Taking the radioman aside apologetically, it's not five minutes later that the whole command post is mobilized, some of the personnel leaving immediately with wounded from earlier to save total discs in one operation, while the rest redeploy to performing new objectives. Quick, clipped orders and 'moving to Storm procedure' becomes lost in military jargon and operational zones for a map you don't have.

Ms. Moissan, hands still chalked for a fight, is called in to gather Tamamo to inform her of the Manor team's success and diversion towards the Timekeeper, where Sotheby is, and then circle up with Lilian and James in their encounter with the Manus that Lilian reported. By the time Tamiel and Veronica are rounded up finally Ms. Moissan gets her jog and the party separates from Sabre Squadron whose orders appear to be. . .

"Agent Moissan's mission, and ours, remain the same. Sabre has orders to remain in this zone for the next nineteen hours and change, and then make best efforts at retrieval and escape. Until then..."

Team Timekeeper can figure out the rest. With their specialty being the Storm, Cartwright is left to let 'his' reinforcements go on to their far more specialized orders.

---

Karson knows where he is once they get down the streets, but Sotheby is lost until the front door which magically opens to a place she recognizes!

"Oh... It's this place..!" A worry-wearied Sotheby declares softly, while Ms. Moissan has entered Regulus' range with a hovering protectiveness for Sotheby without wanting to extract her charge from her friends' arms.

When Vertin begins spilling Foundation secrets - and the Watch?? - Moissan has to process quickly before mentioning:

"The St. Pavlov's association is international." She corrects, gently, because they're not. . . *Federal*. Even if they represent The State.
Tamiel Luxis     The news that the Storm is imminent filled her with an awful shock of dread. Tamiel is quick to leave the Sabre squad to their positions--She joins up with Team Timekeeper in a series of floaty jumps, taking off at a steady run behind them. Her eyes drift upward, time and time again--as if to make doubly certain with her own eyes, that the rain was still falling in the right direction.

    "The Storm. My role is, and has always been, to avert the damage the Storm causes."

    "She's right, Miss Bellwhistle, Margaret. I was there, the last time it happened. It was...Awful."

    It didn't escape her notice that Vertin's suitcase would be able to save Miss Bellwhistle...But what about Margaret and the others? It echoed back to a conversation she'd had, when she'd cornered White about the massacre. Others, who Vertin's protection wouldn't safeguard. The angel anxiously spun a finger through her hair, biting down on her lip hard.

    'Hold on, you're a Fed?'

    "Not all of us are with the Foundation--I know I'm not--but all of us know what the Storm can do." Her doubts about the Foundation, its aims and means wouldn't go unchallenged, with Sonetto in the room with them, so she leaves it unsaid. She clasped her hands together. "Just wait until you hear Vertin out before you make up your minds, please?" She wondered, again, if she could protect someone from the Storm--It felt like such a murky, uncertain possibility.

    She wouldn't ask her to leave those kids behind, Tammy found herself glancing toward Vertin. What are you thinking...?
Veronica     Vertin: "It's the Storm. It's here."

    Veronica's jaw sets. "So then this, this hunger for wealth, it's part of the Syndrome?" she says, thinking back to Agent Parson's experiment and how the (simulated) Storm Syndrome there started soft and ramped up exponentially. While en route to the Ainsworth office, Veronica silently chides herself for not bringing the pieces together sooner. She shouldn't really expect her fuzzy vibe-checks to compare to the Timekeeper's precise 24-hour warning, but she wishes they did anyway.

    Her confliction fades as Vertin explains the impending disaster to Bellwhistle. Vertin became the Timekeeper - the *only* Timekeeper - well before Veronica had her EGO. No use in thinking she should be on Vertin's level here, in their world, facing their apocalypse. "I'll-- keep an ear to the ground," she says, mostly for her own sake. "So we can avoid trouble on the way." She knows there's only so long that that utility will persist - Chicago is a city of millions. In time the floodwater of collective mania will rise beyond Baker and Seventh's psychic levees, and she'll have to close herself off from the era's pulse just to stay lucid.

    Margaret: "Hold on, you're a Fed?"

    Veronica holds up a palm - right hand, white ribbon still around the wrist - in a conciliatory gesture. "Vertin's the reason some of us are still around to see you," she says with a nod in Regulus's direction. "There's not time to prove all of this, but they need you to hear them out."
Regulus Regulus knew eventually that one day she'd be on the other side of the nixie tubes. She didn't expect it to come so soon. This time didn't even have a full year. She worries about Schneider and her family. The more time they could have kept this era going, the more they could have worked to a safe plan out for Schneider and her family, Bellwhistle and her friends, and whomever else. She pushes her shades closer to her eyes so nobody can see how big and worried they are. Thank god for sunglasses that make you look cooler.

Of course, at first she's not really even visible at all. And neither is Sotheby--Regulus is aiming to keep Sotheby from being visible when she is (sort of?) the target of rioters and the Syndrome-afflicted. She reappears with her when they finally make it to Bellwhistle's Watchtower. Regulus thinks that's how it goes, anyway. But even as she reappears, she stays close to Sotheby for now because the poor girl had, as they say, ''such a fright''. She gives Sotheby's hand one last squeeze when Moissan approaches.

"Ah, she's had a rough night. Maybe..." She places her hands on the opposite arm and wiggles them up and down in front of Moissan.

APPLe floats off of Regulus's hat and floats over to Margaret. "Ah, do not fret. They're all here to help." He twists his body to look to Bellwhistle. "My apologies for not revealing more, but we were endeavouring to be undercover so as to help slow or stop what is happening now. You can trust these people. I've seen their character for myself."

Regulus appreciates APPLe trying to reassure them but she can't make herself say the same thing, instead--for peace and love--she attempts to do the same for Sonetto, "Uh--yeah, sorry. But they were all a huge help, we wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as we did with Manus Vindictae if it wasn't for their help." She looks to Margaret, "We're...associated with the Foundation, but-- Please, it's really dangerous right now. If you wanna get mad, get mad later." Her cheeks pinken. "I was in a istuation like this before myself, and I made things a lot harder because everything was so scary but... I promise they aren't ''that'' scary, okay?"

''Vertin's the reason some of us are still around to see you.''

"Yeah APPLe and me." Regulus murmurs. "We nearly died for good, but Vertin saved us."
Tamamo     'Take as many talismans as she tells you to, to the rear three sites - deploy them as indicated. Another team will set up in the near side outpost. Ma'am?'

    "At more than ten meters apart, a crowd such as this will push through the wall by accident. So long as they do not worsen, three in four parts of that distance will be enough." Tamamo gives her instructions on placement, used to this kind of delegation well enough by now, and hands off a measured stack to each helper. There's a trick to the activation, a little spell she performs with hands held just so over one edge of the paper, but she's the one who devised it, and she worked it to be simple enough to reliably teach.

    23:59

    "Will you be taking the devices with you, captain?" Put another way, she's asking, 'is this defensive system a defense against the storm,' as that's the only obvious reason not to remove them, if they're at all valuable.

    'Failsafe trigger the moment I approached.'
    'Neutralized with prejudice. No casualties.'

    Tamamo, knowing, feels an unpleasant twisting, unrelated to gripping her hands together a little too tightly. "Oh, my dear..." With Lilian having just returned, Tamamo goes to stand by her, if only to look over her for injury she can tell isn't there, and warm by her presence.

    Presently, there is Moissan's arrival, Regulus with Sotheby, Riku, and... surely several other people returning, but Tamamo's distracted by the need to say, "Oh, young miss Sotheby! Thank goodness you are well, after all." She might have asked 'are you alright,' but-- "You were not injured along the way, were you? This has all been very worrying." She'd rather give every opportunity for Gwendolyn Vera Sotheby to be the brave one, until she hears a word to the contrary. Tamamo, on the other hand, is fairly practiced at not being brave, for a Paladin elite.

    The humid air from the coming rainstorm slowly overtakes the cool atmosphere of the operators office.
    'I wasn't lying when I brought you on, but in addition to being a recruiter from the Watch, I am the Timekeeper of the St. Pavlov Foundation.'

    "Ah, so, it was like that..."

    'Hold on, you're a Fed?'
    'The St. Pavlov's association is international.'

    "I have certainly never been American." A Heian-era Japanese woman reincarnated to 21st century England and then spending her time in a connected magical continent certainly has an accent, and not one that could be confused for Washington. She's also not with the Foundation, but Lilian is, so it doesn't seem worth correcting to that degree.

    "Timekeeper Vertin, I would appreciate you detailing your plans, at this point. At the least, your priorities. Do you intend to carry as many as you can away from this sinking ship in your lifeboat? If so, have you decided upon the lucky few?" That could be taken as a very cruel thing to ask, but she says it like a professional consideration. "Will you consider this a greater or lesser priority than combatting the effects of the Storm Syndrome? I would like to hear your thoughts."
Odette Raskins The plan was sound. Everyone's done their jobs. Things should be fine going forward, and it's even settled enough that Odette's able to break off from her work with Sabre Squadron to join the rest of Team Timekeeper! It doesn't feel fine, though, what with that timer ticking down and the next timeline to be washed away already starting to unravel a bit right in front of her.

It may not be nearly as bad as it was in London, but she's already on edge. Even the little flare-ups have her tensing up or tugging her cap down or both, and it's not until the group reaches that familiar telephone office that she allows herself to breathe at least somewhat normally. Seeing that familiar-ish effect when Regulus and Sotheby appear from out of thin air, she breathes another sigh of relief while hurrying over to give them the predictable once-over of making sure they're not bleeding out.

"Thank goodness, you're back... Don't worry, Miss Sotheby. You'll be okay now. We're in a good place here." She reassures, partially for Sotheby's benefit and for Ms. Moissan's as well.

"Miss Margaret! Miss Bellwhistle!" Relieved to see at least two of the faces in the office, the EMT takes a moment to glance around the rest of the place while Vertin starts to explain the situation. Like Sonetto, she freezes up some when she hears Vertin just spelling ALL of it out for them more than she could have expected Vertin to do.

"Feds? No, no, we're not.. I mean, most of us aren't?" She tries to reassure Margaret, but even she sounds uncertain of that. Thankfully, Moissan clarifies that matter somehow, although Odette's probably biased towards accepting whatever she's got to say by now. She still takes a quick headcount of everyone that's burst into the office, though, along with those that had been here already while slowly pursing her lips. "But there's more important things than that right now. It's not safe to stay here anymore, and..."

No, there's definitely something missing. "Where's Miss Doris? Or Evie, or Ruth?"
Lilian Rook     Lilian's introduction to this world was the Storm of 1966. Despite knowing a little beforehand, her comprehension of Vertin's circumstances is, in the most real sense, formed all but exclusively by that technicolour crucible of music and madness at the last hours of the world's end.

    Back then, she hadn't stopped to consider anyone along the way. It was an Operation; everyone already destined to be washed away were outside of her concern. The concept was frightening, but the rain was beautiful. The way it defined the Saint Pavlov Foundation as a temporal ark, its people adrift together, felt like the only real purpose of the world outside those windows. The Chicago that came after it was a change of set. A transient, illusory thing, that would once again be washed away before long and replaced with a new battlefield.

    It was fascinating and grotesque, humbling and beautiful, both a bond of mutual alienation and an unprecedented opportunity. Lilian had reflected on the nature of the Storm, from time to time, ever since she first saw its final hours last year. She had no end of thoughts on it, and none of them had anything to do with 1929. The closest that she'd come was only yesterday, when she reminded herself that nothing here mattered anyways like a mantra.

    Before Vertin said a word, the light in the nixie tubes caught out of the corner of her eye taught her of the sharp, icy dismay revealed only to the unlucky souls at its onset. Transitioning over the border between eventuality and inevitability-- between telling herself that Chicago didn't matter and knowing that it was alrady gone-- made her feel such a sudden and vicious stab of anxiety that she hadn't said a word since. The strange-familiar feeling for which she had no name had kept Lilian too occupied with pushing it back to spare a thought otherwise. No more than just the one.

    <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Let me guess. The stocks tanked and so the vultures are out here in force claiming that someone owes them."

    §If no one did a thing, they all had just five months to live from the beginning. Five months. What do we need Manus Vindictae for if the humans can destroy the era themselves?§

    Lilian steps through the Ainsworth office threshold as if in a trance. As if roused by smell or a familiar voice, she stares into the cramped little room from the borderline of getting up and going back to sleep; between doing nothing and doing everything that comes next. Hearing Vertin's agonized tones, or at least what she images are the closest they ever get, Lilian finds herself suddenly too-conscious of the weapon worn openly on her waist, and holds back a laugh as the words 'ritual fetish' echo in her mind.

    'Timekeeper...? !'

    Lilian works her jaw cuts herself off twice. She had only very vaguely suspected, and hadn't had much time to care. The Foundation's guidebook doesn't mean much to her, but Sonetto's reaction says enough. Lingering from the very first time Vertin had declared their allegiance, turbulent feelings rise up to the surface, and are quashed back under. Her opinion and her self-aimed call to action are one and the same: "Thou art responsible to thy blood first above all else, both the blood of thy line, and the blood shed for thee."
Lilian Rook     'Hold on, you're a Fed?'

    Lilian rolls her eyes. It's the least friendly motion in the room, but she can't help it. "Congratulations on your promotion to federal intelligence agent. Your black helicopter is waiting outside." she says, instantly exasperated yet losing her momentum by the end of the second sentence.

    'Timekeeper Vertin, I would appreciate you detailing your plans, at this point.'

    "Likewise. Last time, you and Sonetto had only three 'parachutes' between you. I need to know now how you're planning to allocate them." Lilian says. For unclear reasons, she nervously glances to and back from Bellwhistle in specific. "No more than one group can be 'my idea'." she says. Vertin hadn't asked. "And you know the one thing I'm not willing to risk, so, my assistance cuts off there, under or over the table."
James Bond Hold on, you're a Fed?

    "Not this again," Bond sighs, dragging his palm over his face. "I've already had this back-and-forth once." There's a sideways glance towards Regulus--

I was in a istuation like this before myself, and I made things a lot harder because everything was so scary but... I promise they aren't ''that'' scary, okay?

     His annoyance softens, only slightly, and his attention returns to Margaret.

    "No one's here to make an arrest or to enforce any kind of ideology. Even if anyone cared to, that is so far from where our priorities should be at the moment that it'd frankly be suicidal. Believe what you want. If you want to escape here and live to fight for what's important to you, then you'll listen to Vertin."

    Will you consider this a greater or lesser priority than combatting the effects of the Storm Syndrome?

     Bond's eyes look darkly past everyone, outwards, beyond his immediate surroundings as if accusing the city itself. He fumes silently. Damn it. I wish we'd had more time. Every time we come close to something it seems like...

     "Vertin. You're the only one in the Foundation who can feel these things coming, isn't that right? Has there ever been anyone else who could? Ever?"
Timekeeper "I wouldn't call Vertin a fed because she works for the Foundation."

    Margaret points accusingly at Riku, edging sideways across the room to get to her bag on the table. "Woah! Fed thing to say!!!! Miss Bellwhistle, we've been infiltrated!" In a few decades, when COINTELPRO would've started if not for the end of the world, Margaret would've been fucking ready.

". . . but all of us know what the Storm can do."
"My apologies for not revealing more, but we were endeavouring to be undercover so as to help slow or stop what is happening now."

    "So you were all in on it all along..." To the other Watch members, Margaret's indignation is tinged with betrayal. It's one thing to have a mastermind, another thing to have a fleet of cop-speaking goons show up as support, but Regulus and Tamiel and Odette are just *people* they've chatted with in the office before.

    That framework of thinking doesn't leave much room for the scruffy girl to seriously consider the threat of the end of the world. Her shoulders slump, but she doesn't seem any less inclined to take a chance to run until one of Bellwhistle's enameled metal hands squeezes her shoulder. Bellwhistle lightly holds her in place, but her probing stare is directed at Vertin and the others, not her.

    "St. Pavlov Foundation or not, Vertin's looked out for us before, hasn't she? Let's give her a chance before assuming she's pulling our leg, love."

"I was in a istuation like this before myself,. . ."

    Taking Veronica's indication towards Regulus, Bellwhistle's lips tighten. A red light flashes on the switchboard in her arms, and she hesitates before plugging a cord in, almost lethargically. "... Number, please?"

    She unplugs it a second later, reattaching the cable to her microphone. "How's it been before? If it's the end of the whole world, and all. Are you and those folks in the grey and white preventing it?"

    Vertin shakes her head grimly. "No. Each time, the world ends. The Storm washes away the world as it exists in this moment-- the year 1929-- and replaces it with another time, another set of people. You have to trust me: your life is over if you get caught in it."

    "Well, what the hell's that about?! Why's it happening now?!" Margaret raises her voice, stomping up to Vertin to glare at her, nose to nose. "What's a Storm got to do with us?!"

    "It's unfair. I know." Margaret breaks eye contact first, gnashing her teeth.

"Even if anyone cared to, that is so far from where our priorities should be at the moment that it'd frankly be suicidal."

    "That's batty. You're all batty." Margaret mumbles, leaning her head against Bellwhistle's shoulder. Explicitly promising that arrests aren't on the table is what worms through the cracks in her defiance and makes it crumble. A cop would never say that unless they were lying, and... "But Vertin's cool enough, I guess."
Timekeeper "But they were all a huge help, we wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as we did with Manus Vindictae if it wasn't for their help."

    Sonetto looks uncomfortable, but she's conflicted between reasons for it. On one hand, Vertin was surreptitiously working with underground elements of Chicago, assuredly criminal no matter how nice and sweet they seem, as part of the corruption arc the Watch has led her down. On the other hand... in her interactions with the Ainsworth office, they've been nothing but wonderful, and *Regulus* having been in the know and able to help Vertin with this, while Sonetto was kept in the dark, hits her with a pang of disproportionate loneliness. Like usual, Vertin's managed to leave both sides betrayed.

    "You were aware...? I understand. It is the Timekeeper's prerogative to make intelligence decisions in the field, and mine to support her. If they were of assistance to the Foundation's efforts combating Manus Vindictae, then that is that." Sonetto sighs. "Besides, it is too late for anything else."

    Looking past Vertin, Bellwhistle spots the nervous little girl that she's familiar with, which is a point of data that... feels like it undermines the Fed angle, but is impossible to interpret otherwise. She trots over, drumming her fingers on top of Sotheby's hat, click-clacking metal against hard little adornments. "Hey, darling, what's brought you out all this way again? Another party, is it?"

    Sonetto answers briskly, taking Vertin's cue but acting strictly as an agent of the Foundation. "The Storm causes mass hysteria and incites violent behaviors in the populace. The Sotheby manor was the first target we were aware of to suffer the violent outbreaks that come at the end of each era. We were forced to retreat from the premises."

    It's not as if Vertin could afford the time to phrase it more gently than that, but she does feel a flicker of discomfort at Sotheby's mood. "Have you heard anything similar over the lines?"

    "No. I'm not certain. Maybe." Bellwhistle pauses to search her memory, eyes sliding to the side to think with a tiny typewriter 'click'. "There's been a bit more nickels dropped to the cops than usual. More folk complaining about being sick, past hour."

"Where's Miss Doris? Or Evie, or Ruth?"
"Timekeeper Vertin, I would appreciate you detailing your plans, at this point.
Last time, you and Sonetto had only three 'parachutes' between you."

    Bellwhistle looks at Odette with widening eyes, the question settling in really what kind of threat this is. "Not workin'. At home, maybe the store. But what will we...?"

    "We aren't prepared this time." Vertin's tone is completely even, practically to an alien extent. She drops her suitcase on the table of the office, reaching into the inner pocket of her suit jacket. "We only have one."

    Pinched between her two fingers, Vertin offers out a teleportation disk to Bellwhistle. "This will take you to the only safe place for humans in the world. In several more hours, the destablization of arcanum in the atmosphere will be severe enough that it can transport several of you rather than one. Find Doris, Evie, and Ruth, and take them all with you then."

    Her throat is dry, but there's not a single flicker or stutter in her voice as she elaborates further. "My suitcase will keep offworlders and arcanists safe. Mr. Karson, I have to ask you to join the Ainsworth office and take transport with them. In the meantime..."

    "If the Manus Vindictae have developed a means to accelerate the Storm, we have no choice but to see it play out for ourselves. From here, we go to the Walden, see what they've done, and what we can put a stop to in the time remaining."
Timekeeper "I'll-- keep an ear to the ground,"

    Knowing what she's looking for now, skimming the psyche of the city gives Veronica vertigo. Compared to the inchoate madness of what she sensed in 1966, the collective emotion of Chicago now feels like crumbling stonework over a sinkhole. She can feel, dimly, what lies in the inevitable future, where everything falls apart and collapses into the seemingly endless pit of greed and financial cannibalism that the America of the present is built on, but for now, it's held together by friction and inertia.

    She can try to check in with her sensing-ability regularly to track the progress of the Storm Syndrome, but she's right that it's dangerous. Back in London, the offworlders that just stepped foot in the city weren't fully immune to the Storm Syndrome, despite not being local and not having been exposed for an entire day beforehand. Priming herself by looking on the unfiltered id of the city might make her more susceptible once it worsens.

"Has there ever been anyone else who could? Ever?"

    Vertin shakes her head. "Never. It's irreplicable, thus far."

"If so, have you decided upon the lucky few?"

    To affirm more clearly after her clipped summary, Vertin adds, dessicatedly plain, "Yes. I won't ask for people's assistance and then leave them to die."

    "We'll mitigate the effects of Storm Syndrome where we can and save as many lives as possible. But if the Manus Vindictae induced the Storm, then we have to know how, and why now. That is my top priority."
Riku Asakura 'Woah! Fed thing to say!!!! Miss Bellwhistle, we've been infiltrated!'

Riku looks both surprised and guilty for making things worse for a moment.  Surprised because he wasn't expecting that kind of response from Margaret, but guilty because it obviously made her more irritable.  He shakes his head, hands up in an apologetic expression.  "No, that's not what I meant at all!"

Thankfully, Bellwhistle keeps things under control, and eventually Margaret remembers that Vertin is cool.  Things start to calm down from there, while things are explained about the Sotheby Manor.  He looks somewhat guilty at Sotheby, because he wasn't able to save her home.  What's more, there isn't anything they can do about their time at all.  

'If the Manus Vindictae have developed a means to accelerate the Storm, we have no choice but to see it play out for ourselves.'
'But if the Manus Vindictae induced the Storm, then we have to know how, and why now.'

"Why do you think the Manus Vindictae accelerated the storm, and why?  Isn't the storm against their interests too?" he asks, sorely unprepared for the truth behind some human's nature.  He looks confused at this revelation that the Manus would be responsible for the sudden onset of the storm.  

"But if that's our only lead..."
Regulus Regulus isn't hurt, but she is breathing heavily and even though she is putting on a brave invincible face. Sometimes her breath catches in her throat and she disguises a cough by wiggling around a lot and gesturing with her arms wildly. She's not just winded from all this running around and heavy use of her arcane skill, she's stressed and anxious all mixed in with her determination. She herself looks to Odette, briefly, as if hoping for some thing from her but it becomes apparent she's not going to step in--in that way, at least. Sometimes people have covers, she remembers, but god damn it.

''If you want to escape here and live to fight for what's important to you--''

Regulus can't help but feel responsible for Bond and Lilian's current annoyance. They aren't even HER but, well, she did make it hard (even if she'd insist that when a small army of strangers shows up on your doorstep insisting you go with them, that's never a comfortable thing to hear!).

"Vertin can provide safe harbor, alright?"

''So you were all in on it all along...''

"I'm afraid so, but Miss Vertin is sincere. I hope you can believe that." APPLe assures them, adjusting his tie with his hand.

''How's it been before?''

"It was as if the all world had gone crazy. First the people, then the environment itself, and then all the people besides me were whisked away in the Storm. I only made it out because of Vertin. You're all really sweet and wonderful--" Regulus pushes up her shades so that her hand is cover covering her eyes for a moment as she breathes in sharply and hiccups a little before adding, "It's a life raft, we can't stop it now. Maybe someday we can put things right but today all we can do is help you survive. I... know it sounds crazy. It IS crazy. But it's true." Her gut churns at being in this position this time but what else can she do but play the role her would-be rescuers would have been before? But she does manage a weak little smile once Margaret at least confirms that Vertin is cool.

"No matter the era, that stays true at least." Regulus quips quietly.

''You were aware...?''

Regulus has seen Sonetto as a rival, an opponent, a friend to butt heads with, and even an ally but she hadn't really seen Sonetto as a person before. Hey, to be fair to Regulus, Sonetto seemed like she could do anything and could handle anything and was the goodest girl--

--but you know, just like with herself--Sonetto is loyal to Vertin too. And cares about her because of Vertin reasons, not just Foundation reasons. Regulus swallows down saliva and mumbles, "Um, sorry." She says, despite this being Vertin's decision in the first place. "They really were a big help, though. And I bet they'll get along just splendidly with you."

''If the Manus Vindictae have developed a means...''

Regulus thinks of Schneider trying out all those sodas and sweets as if they were her last chance to. Before she left Chicago. More like, before Chicago left her.

"Yeah..." Regulus quiets down, goomily. APPLe pats Regulus on the shoulder lightly.

"Naturally, we'll give you whatever aid you can in that respect. It would explain why they seemed so invested in the era when they could have simply waited."

"Do you want to go with him, Sotheby? You could join us in the Suitcase but it might be a bumpy ride." Metaphorically speaking at least.
Ein 'Will you be taking the devices with you, captain?'

"They'll have to be left, and their effect observed remotely. It's not safe enough to test, either way, and we'll not be able to remove it all in time anyway. This came from New York by railcar and was trucked in with local help."

Cartwright doesn't seem to have any intention of staying with this sinking ship of an era, but he's required to be here Long Enough. The idea clearly unsettles him, but he's a career military man, and has his marching orders.

"I hope the Dame Commander was right." He asides, as Tamamo is escorted off by Moissan. He doesn't admit to what, even with further questioning - but it is about the prophecy before Saint Peter. He, too, would rather not report before Jesus wet from this rain.

---

Sotheby had been clinging to Regulus - as they had skipped Karson - but the easing into familiar environs and the wrapping-about of familiar circumstance breathes a fresh life into her overworked little heart and brings her away from terrible transpiry.

Moissan, meanwhile, is a particular sort of relieved in as graceful a way as she can manage when Regulus sees fit to finally release the slightly-clingy Gwendolyne Sotheby from one person to step into range of Moissan to stand before the Bavarian agent and get both her hands into her glass-clinking bag to draw out some vials of grey mineral and green goop with one hand, and a rather large lighter with the other. With a dull-eyed focus, she starts torching the underside of one of her crystalglass bottles stoppered in cork, heating the metal while carefully keeping the other glass vial held between pinky and ring finger away. The whole operation seems very rote to Sotheby, if a bit 'child playing with fire' to an outside observer.

For what it is worth, Ms. Moissan places both hands on Sotheby's shoulders and just keeps the emormous hat's feathering out of her face, while Karson seems a distant sort of lost again, knowing where he is but lacking an idea as to what he has to do. There's a sense *he* has to be somewhere else, that he's not quite to be here, but he suppresses that by sticking near Moissan and Sotheby, clasping dirty-white gloved hands behind back and mustering his face.

'You were not injured along the way, were you? This has all been very worrying.'

Sotheby shakes her head, not quite vocal for a moment, solemn. Her eyes shift to Regulus - not in the same way as James, of course - and then back to Tamamo. "Thank you for asking. It's been *quite* a night..." She sighs, a little performative, a little childish fig-leaf of the act perhaps obvious to those listening closely, but the first shade over how she feels as she tries to find it for herself.

"I'd have brought something to pay," She speaks, while her torching of the grey mineral sees it heat and melt, able to set away the lighter for a careful two-handed mixing and stir. "for the help, but I've nothing mixed now. Don't worry, in just a bit, I'll..."

Corks off, she mixes, swirling catalyst in, a glass rod being added to agitate with a 'ktin-ktin-ktin' before she brings the rod out dripping gold for her own inspection, finding the dripping metal satisfactory and letting it slide off instrument back into vial for stirring.

Above her, Moissan is asked the same question a few ways - how many parachutes. "Without counting Sabre's, I am carrying none, and had been alotted four from the Captain and the Squadron's stores on paper. In practice," She shakes her head, understanding truth. "I am carrying none. The event wasn't predicted for months, and--"

Making excuses, Moissan shuts up instead, bitter at herself.
Ein 'Hey, darling, what's brought you out all this way again? Another party, is it?'

Drummed on her hat, Sotheby mixes while looking up through the tops of her eyes, and on her shoulder, a black stuffie peeks out from behind her neck to perch on shoulder and swing simple legs in a more cheerful idle than Sotheby feels or acts. Typhon doesn't talk, of course, but is a presence that seems to address Bellwhistle. From beneath, like puppeteer, comes Sotheby's ensmalled voice. "Typhon's escaped from the terrible attack of Jupiter, and all its evil hordes! Our castle was. . ."

Sniff. Sotheby, speaking for Typhon, must be brave, but it's still raw and fresh for her, and she stumbles with her words as her hands swirl a vial of transmuting gold as an idle stimulation to do something, anything familiar.

"-sacked by the evil armies, and so, it's an adventure off the Auto Island for him."
Veronica     @emit     Veronica pulls her attention away from the local psychogeography. "It's already getting to be a little much for me," she comments in place of another report on Chicago's emotional condition. "I need to-- save my energy."

    Vertin: "But if the Manus Vindictae induced the Storm, then we have to know how, and why now."

    "One of y'all said there was a market crash this year, but usually later than this, right? The Syndrome this time is about money, maybe they're messing with the stock exchange to cause a panic... not my wheelhouse, that. Could they do something like that from the Walden?" Veronica scratches her head. "Would be a lotta telephone calls."

    Something strikes Veronica (mentally), and she holds up a hand for Ms Bellwhistle's attention. "Er, before you go... I dunno how much of the phone calls you hear, but has there been a lot of people calling brokers and whatever today? Could help us to know."

    Veronica gets another idea. "Odette," she says, "We should keep track of how the Syndrome's affecting *us*, right? There's some- screening questions I know, that might work here." Veronica proceeds with a short battery of cognitive tasks for anyone willing-and-able: reciting basic facts about one's self or world, counting backwards by threes, and so forth. If nothing else, it offers something to do for those less involved in the planning process!
Lilian Rook     'How's it been before? If it's the end of the whole world, and all. Are you and those folks in the grey and white preventing it?'

    §Just say yes, Vertin.§

    'No. Each time, the world ends. The Storm washes away the world as it exists in this moment-- the year 1929-- and replaces it with another time, another set of people. You have to trust me'

    §For fuck's--§

    Lilian gasps, raw and irritable.

    'Well, what the hell's that about?! Why's it happening now?!'

    "Because America got too greedy and everyone looked away so they could clutch their lottery ticket and pretend not to notice the rich eating the poor." says Lilian. It is very likely that she will never repeat those words for the rest of her long life. Right here and now, oblique to any sense of ideology, they feel unpleasantly true enough to spit them out like a rejection. "They've fucked the market, and everyone lost. The people are going mad trying to hoard what they can to themselves and they're ready to rip each other to pieces over it. The panic is contagious. It won't be long before it gets here too, and--" Lilian looks at Bellwhistle for the same reason as before, but her wince communicates something else about the person in the room made of beautiful enamel and valuable parts.

    "Surely that of all things isn't difficult for you to believe. You knew that they'd only ignore you all as long as there was gas in their cars and a raise on the horizon."

    'If they were of assistance to the Foundation's efforts combating Manus Vindictae, then that is that.'

    "If they stuck their necks out for me then I wouldn't abandon them either." Lilian says. "I'm only the sort to declare it first, so it's not a surprise for later."

    'More folk complaining about being sick, past hour.'

    She tears her gaze away from Sonetto, trying to study Bellwhistle's expression. "Sick? You mean physically, don't you? And only in the last hour?"

    'We only have one.'

    Lilian's exasperation doubles. She rattles off "Is ceann des na hamadána diabhail thú!" with a tone that is unmistakable for anything but cursing.

    'If the Manus Vindictae have developed a means to accelerate the Storm, we have no choice but to see it play out for ourselves. From here, we go to the Walden, see what they've done, and what we can put a stop to in the time remaining.'

    "And what, praytell, Miss Vertin, are we going to do without a teleportation disk?" Lilian all but snaps. "Don't tell me you've kept secret communications with White, too? The suitcase isn't a way out of the Walden. You can't seriously be expecting us to follow an operational guideline that puts literally everyone at the mercy of how well you can hang on to your luggage."
Odette Raskins "Your black helicopter is waiting outside."

Odette glances outside idly, realizes that Lilian was joking about two seconds later, then tilts her head enough to crick her neck like she totally wasn't looking outside.

Regulus coughing and wiggling

Having known Regulus for more than a bit by now, Odette can actually recognize when she's not in the best shape. Scooching over to offer one arm for support, she deftly pops open her medical case with the other, then gets to work mixing a powdered substance into a bottle of water. "Slow sips. Don't chug, it'll get you good and hydrated in a minute." She explains, putting on her best reassuring-caretaker face while spinning the bottle around between her fingers and then offering it to Regulus.

It's just Company-branded P*dialyte, and it works exactly as advertised.

"So you were all in on it all along..."

She can't help but feel some guilt stabbing right into her gut. "Sorry, Miss Margaret. It's a... It's a messed up situation, I know, and we'll make it up to you later. Right now, though, we... We don't want any of you to get caught up in the Storm, or-" She gestures at Sonetto, nodding rapidly as she explains the symptoms of the Storm Syndrome. "-getting into the fights outside, or any of the craziness that'll start happening."

"More folk complaining about being sick, past hour."

What really gets Odette to raise an eyebrow, though, is that bit from Bellwhistle. "Sick how? There were a couple of sluggish looking people a ways back, but... No, no, constant anxiety and violent outbursts could mix together and drain someone pretty quickly, too. Was it anything like that, or something else?"

"Not workin'. At home, maybe the store."
"Find Doris, Evie, and Ruth, and take them all with you then."

"Safer than being on the streets, at least." Odette peeks outside again, both looking for and hoping not to see any of the three outside while she watches those passing by the office. She's looking for any signs of the Storm Syndrome starting to hit here, even if she isn't expecting too much just yet. "Y-yes, follow Miss Vertin's plan, get somewhere safe and quiet with them, and hunker down until then. It'll be okay."

"From here, we go to the Walden, see what they've done, and what we can put a stop to in the time remaining."

Suddenly feeling a dryness in the back of her throat, Odette can only manage a hasty, if visibly terrified nod at that plan of action being laid out. It takes her another second to actually get any words back out, and it's audibly clear that she's trying to convince herself, too. "Ri... Right. The more we can stop, the more people we might be able to save."

She knows that there's only so many teleportation disks, but the alternative of not doing more still doesn't sit quite right in her mind. "What kind of place is the Walden, anyway?" She asks, trying to take her mind off the lingering fear by asking Vertin more questions.

Unfortunately, her mind goes straight to more anxiety-inducing questions. "Do you think we'll run into... Um. Mister Parsons there? Or Miss Greco?"

"We should keep track of how the Syndrome's affecting *us*, right?"

"Oh! Y-yes, good thinking." Nodding quickly at Veronica, she counts on her to handle those cognitive questions while waiting for a pause to ask something else of Margaret and Bellwhistle: "Did either of you feel like just hitting something today? O-or someone?"
Tamamo     'You were aware...? I understand. It is the Timekeeper's prerogative...'

    "Eh? So, it was like that...?" Tamamo sounds considerably more shocked by this than when she'd said those words a couple minutes ago.

    'What's a Storm got to do with us?!'
    'It's unfair. I know.'

    "We would like to know the answers to these things. Unfortunately..."

    'Are you and those folks in the grey and white preventing it?'

    It would have been so easy to say 'yes,' but Vertin hasn't. Tamamo silently considers the act of providing that one lifeboat to this group. Who was that young man, who had kept speaking of 'saving the people in front of him'? There's nothing for it now.

    "We -- among the Paladins, that is -- made an attempt at mass rescue during the last Storm, but even moving people off-world did not save them from disappearing with the changing of era. I fear the situation is quite grim, with the only solace being that the world shall continue to exist, even if it repeats." Did that only make things more confusing? Maybe. Tamamo expects Bellwhistle to be a good listener. Margaret, maybe a bit less so. For a moment, on thinking about it, Tamamo looks around for Mrs. Evie, even knowing she's not here.

    "Asakura-san's question is a good one. 'Why?' I had not thought the Manus had such a control, nor a reason to accelerate the Storm. Have they done such a thing before?" Absent anything else, an incorrect forecast would have been easier to believe. "Was there good reason to believe it could not happen so quickly?"
Tamiel Luxis     "That's batty. You're all batty."

    Tamiel grimaced, looking away and rubbing at her neck. "'Your whole world is going to end' is..." She grimaced. "...Awful." She decided on, eventually. "...And, it wasn't our place to tell, either..." She wasn't interested in answering her in the language of Foundation regulations and sworn secrets. "But...Still, I'm sorry, Margaret."

    "This will take you to the only safe place for humans in the world. In several more hours, the destablization of arcanum in the atmosphere will be severe enough that it can transport several of you rather than one."

    Tamiel's wings fluttered, and she clapped a hand softly over her chest, breathing out. A flicker of a smile touched her face, quickly skewed by worry. Vertin would be in trouble for breaking foundation protocol and telling them that the Storm was happening in the first place. She would be in even MORE, Tamiel was certain, for giving unsanctioned people tools to shelter from the Storm.

    She was inviting even more hellfire on herself, and Tammy had no idea how to stop it. "We'll find a way to make it up to you, after you all make it through this, okay?" She offered Bellwhistle and Margaret a smile. "As long as you stay safe and all make it through tonight."

    "Do you think we'll run into... Um. Mister Parsons there? Or Miss Greco?"

    "Yeah." Tamiel's mouth formed a grim line, bitterness touching her face a moment, and then gone.

    "Asakura-san's question is a good one. 'Why?' I had not thought the Manus had such a control, nor a reason to accelerate the Storm. Have they done such a thing before?"

    Tamiel actually has something ready for this, "Some people, they go their whole lives remembering times that were better for them...or that they thought were better for them." She flicked at a piece of her halo, sending it careening away briefly, before drifting back into place above her head. "'If only I could go back, to that world. If only things could be like they used to.'"

    "Might be something like that.."

    "We should keep track of how the Syndrome's affecting *us*, right? There's some- screening questions I know, that might work here."

    "Good idea..." Tamiel ending up striding alongside Veronica, "Those are some good ones to try...It's also important to...Pick someone to trust. It's really hard to shake yourself out, if something is already in your head--pick someone you trust to keep their head, and decide that when they say, 'you're letting it get to you,' you'll do what they say."
Tamamo     'I'd have brought something to pay, for the help, but I've nothing mixed now. Don't worry, in just a bit, I'll...'

    Tamamo gives a curious few looks to the act of mixing, before realizing what she's doing. Finally, "That is quite understandable. We will be patient."

    'The event wasn't predicted for months, and--'

    Tamamo looks between Vertin and Moissan, and allows a look of sympathy to cross her face, saying nothing. The fault of prediction isn't easy to place, and even less it is useful, in an era's final day.

    '...sacked by the evil armies, and so...'

    "It is well to escape such a thing unharmed and in company," Tamamo says, like that really was about the best that could be hoped for. In her experience, that's so.

    'They've fucked the market, and everyone lost.'

    "Is it truly that...? By stoking the flames of greed, they were not merely looking to profit for themselves off those doomed not to live in the future for which they sought to invest, but it was the greed, itself, that brought about the end?" Tamamo has to ask for several reasons, one of them being that they were just talking about not knowing why the Storm happens.

    "Is it the madness that brings the end, or the end that brings the madness?"
Lilian Rook     'I'd have brought something to pay'

    Lilian feels bad for Sotheby, but she can't really pay attention to her. The topic right now is implicitly her wife's safety, and even beloved young girls whose homes are being torn apart by the filthy rabble have to come second to that. It's only once she smells that particular scent that she jerks her stare back around. "Oh my god we've got to get you out of here." whispers the woman who leaves gold shell casings on the pavement with some regularity.

    '-sacked by the evil armies, and so, it's an adventure off the Auto Island for him.'

    Lilian breathes in sharply through her teeth, then holds down the noise she'd like to make by clenching her fists and quietly counting to twelve. The thought of the mob again, battering at the doors, peeling the bronze leaf off the gate handles, dragging her under like a riptide and scrabbling tooth and nail to take from her the one thing she couldn't possibly replace, makes her turn around sharply with intent to kick something nobody will miss. The nerves that fire remind her of the night before last faster than her muscles can acknowledge them, and then just the feeling of her own rapid heartbeat is enough to make her hesitate.

    Lilian lifts up her hands, glances at her gloves, and then as if to be sure, takes one of them off, then the other, as if she expects to find a reminder written on her hand. She looks at Sonetto, as if she might find her holding up a flash card instead, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, her residual disorientation begins to drain away, leaving behind a kind of resigned dissatisfaction similar to knowing that she'll just have to make some assumptions for now.

    'Did either of you feel like just hitting something today? O-or someone?'

    "I thought you were looking for things out of the ordinary?" Lilian says, and allows herself a British black humour little laugh. She leans on Tamamo's shoulder as she replaces her gloves.

    'Eh? So, it was like that...?'

    "Sometimes, being unassailably honest means that you can't be told certain things." she sighs, vaguely commiserative, or at least pitying. "Everything happening right now is a surprise to all of us, so I'll try to leave it at that." By saying so, Lilian hopes everyone else will too.

    'Do you think we'll run into... Um. Mister Parsons there? Or Miss Greco?'
    'Yeah.'

    "It'd be nice if we did." Lilian scoffs. "Both of them like me well enough I could figure something out."

    'Is it truly that...?'

    "I have absolutely nothing at all to base this on, but I don't anticipate that Manus Vindictae is especially concerned with profit." says Lilian, dull and unhappy. "Not in American dollars, at least. If there's something they want from the humans, they'd steal it, take it by force, or pull strings to get someone to giving it to them." Again, she doesn't think twice of her wording. "The sense I got was that the stock ticker was another perverted fascination of the prohibition; another forbidden vice to feed. If they didn't mean to bring on the Storm, they certainly meant for Chicago to collapse into bedlam either way."
Tamamo     'Safer than being on the streets, at least.'

    Tamamo considers this in the context of Vertin implying that those in the Storm are 'left to die,' and finds she's pursed her lips. She says nothing.

    'What kind of place is the Walden, anyway?'

    "A den of vice, made on purpose, I should wager, more less for love of a taboo than for 'taboo,' itself."

    'Both of them like me well enough I could figure something out.'

    "Please try not to be shot again. Ah, no, I should say, 'I shall protect you,' instead." Tamamo indulges in Lilian's proximity to the degree of putting a supportive arm around her waist. Her perfume is like a Spring breeze, though Chicago's been overpowering it, on the whole.

    'Not in American dollars, at least.'

    "I had suspected 'land,' though the specifics escape me. I imagined they would come together if I knew the means by which they found shelter."

    'If they didn't mean to bring on the Storm, they certainly meant for Chicago to collapse into bedlam either way.'

    "This much is certain to be true." She whispers something more, but it's probably not important.
Regulus Regulus is still staying close to Sotheby even if she scootches to let Moissan get at her. Maybe it's thanks to Sonetto or others but Regulus can trust individual agents even if she's skeptical of the society behind them. She senses that Sotheby doing a bit of alchemy is a good coping mechanism so she doesn't interfere with that but she does ask, "What're you making, love?"

Try not to panic just yet, twenty odd hours--that's time to do something, isn't it? She and APPLe exchange a number of glances.

"...Thanks for taking Sotheby with you, Typhon." Regulus manages a smile at the plush doll that definitely isn't alive but she wants to play along. She looks to Lilian, though she's so used to Tamamo being kind of too cool to be defeated by anything that she doesn't really make any sort of connection that Lilian might be worried for Tamamo's safety. Ditto the other way around, actually. And so soon after realizing Sonetto's heart can be pricked too.

Regulus is feeling thirsty enough that she'll even drink water, even COMPANY water. She absentmindedly collects it, screws it open, and downs like half of it in one gulp. "Thanks, Odie." She says. "I'm not used to moving around this much while holding my arcane skill up." Though it's certainly easier to move around while invisible than it is to fight while invisible, even if it's moving quickly.

''I had not thought the Manus had such a control.''

"Maybe it isn't really a 'control'. I mean, they obviously can't just do it whenever they want. But maybe they know how to steer the ship, so to speak, into turbulent waters." Of course she has to make pirate metaphors when she can, but that would explain a few things, like Lilian is suggesting. Frankly, even without The Storm, she knows the Great Depression was certainly an end of an era in its own right. Even if nobody really learned a lesson for long when there was money to be made, or manifested from thin air anyway.

She takes another long sip from Odette's capitalist infused water bottle but fortunately one bottle will not pollute Regulus's free spirit. She is, however, starting to breathe more easily and even seems to calm down a bit.

She is hesitant to mention Schneider, since she's sure that Vertin has a plan, but she looks over to her all the same when Lilian mentions the name. She is very hesitant to trust Flamel Parsons even a little.
Lilian Rook     'A den of vice, made on purpose, I should wager, more less for love of a taboo than for 'taboo,' itself.'

    Lilian does something very unusual and frowns at something Tamamo says. Not at Tamamo. Never at Tamamo. But the sentiment draws a strangely tight line across her face.

    "It was already here before the changing of the era. Before Manus Vindictae suddenly exploded in power from their perspective." Lilian chews on the words a little longer. "So I can think of another reason or two that a few arcanists would try running an illegal bar out of a burnt-up forest where there isn't a landlord and the police don't go." She reaches the limit of how far she's willing to expand on that thought, and seizes on something else.

    'I'm not used to moving around this much while holding my arcane skill up.'

    "We'll get you well and properly trained up if you're going to keep doing this, Regulus. Mark my words." says Lilian, not unfondly. "But if all that's required is to push the year to its breaking point on its own, preventing the storm isn't exactly a hopeful proposition. You're not talking about a nefarious Manus Vindictae scheme anymore; you're on human nature."
Ein 'My suitcase will keep offworlders and arcanists safe.'

Sotheby doesn't catch the words of weight. Moissan already knows and her expression remains tight as she rests hands on Sotheby's shoulders. Karson...

"To go where?" He asks, not impatient, but pointed. "Away from Lady Sotheby? To await? And you're to put her in your suitcase?"

"It's been tested and safe." Moissan assures, quick to answer, but, she's an Arcanist. She was already internally cursing her own foolishness at not getting the discs from Sabre, so the guilt gave her admittances velocity.

"I won't abandon-." Karson begins, looking to Sotheby.
"You wouldn't be." Moissan guides, trying.
"You can't expect me to-!" Karson begins, voice raising.
Moissan, for a moment, is sharp, direct. "Yes, Mr. Karson. I do expect you to."

In the aftermath, the pair quiet, both shying away from a shouting match here and now. Mr. Karson looks instead to Bellwhistle and Margaret. He formulates for a moment, but doesn't say anything. He's trying to understand where he is, and knows to at least be tactful before gentle ears.

'Do you want to go with him, Sotheby?'

Sotheby lifts her head, not to Regulus, but to Karson, dimly aware that there's a fork in the road but not fully understanding the implication. Rather, she does understand that Mr. Karson is threatened by the ending of the era and it's the 'going with him' that's a hard part for her. Does she want a party? An adventure?

What does *she* want?

It takes her a little bit, with her hands still swirling stoppered vial of liquid gold in the roll of thumb, controlling temperature by hand motion and riding the torch-imparted heat through the whole reaction. Much of this transmutation seems pre-mixed, something to do with her hands, and her thoughts are soon interrupted by more than Tamamo's 'oh, go on'. It's Regulus, asking her what she's doing!

"I'm trans-mu-ting gold? Really just the last step, taking low earth and lif-ting it into the high metal, but liquid gold is roughly equal parts low earth and reagent mix." She explains, where 'low earth' in this case appears to be the expected classic: mineral lead. In this, she talks even more clearly than narrating for Typhon, a factual sort of clear. She hands the now-just-warm vial to Regulus, a stoppered glass tube now full with cooling gold as if it was some fun science experiment or fidget toy she was done with now.

"It's a proper Lady's duty to see to her people, so, Mister Karson. . ."

Looking at Sotheby, Karson trembles faintly, overtaken with some deep-in-the-chest emotion, and he manages to just clear his throat and sigh rather than something far more humbling, but,

He is humbled.

"Then, I will," He trails off and looks between Margaret and Vertin. ". . . Help out with finding your friends, ladies. To assemble for our departure."

Ms. Moissan keeps a steely face through this, but the subtitle to the portait of the image would be revealingly direct. Something to the effect of 'I have finally learned I hate this', but Ms. Moissan does not know how to address that feeling currently. As a field agent, she was trained to bide her time for opportunity.

Typhon, as narrated, nods 'his' cloth head and resettles with stubby arms on Sotheby's shoulder while she dips her head to talk again. "Typhon is al-ways surrounded by plenty of friends and allies! A great hero ne-ver is without allies, so you can tell them by the party that's always around them! You've heard of the hero's party, haven't you?" Asks a child who proves she doesn't and hasn't herself, but...

She hears a bad word and gasps, but for some reason nobody else reacted, so, startled out of a second set of thoughts, she looks up a little confused and tries to smile.
Regulus Regulus is honestly starting to feel less leery towards exercise and vegetables after her experiences with Petra's obstacle course and, of course, the turnip wars--so she can manage a little smile at Lilian's quip and says, "The Team Timekeeper Cardio Program, there's nothing quite like it." She nods a little, though, if all it took to make a Storm happen was to capitalize on human greed, woofh. It's a tougher job than she thought. It might require many groovy concerts, more than ever before, or one real special one.

"I was the test, it works." She tells Karson, softly, but ultimately she's inclined to leave the matter to Sotheby herself.

Regulus has leveled her minion subclass job enough that she has put about three skill points in the 'Just take things when offered them' talent. It isn't meta, but it's still a useful skill. She holds the bottle, not even thinking that she's just been handed a tube of gold, because she thinks that Sotheby is going to take it back from her as part of some other step in some other plan. Of course, this means she doesn't get a 'thank you' because Regulus thinks she's helping Sotheby with something, but she does say, "Wow, who needs a Philosopher Stone huh?" because she feels if she gasses up Sotheby enough that maybe the trauma of the day will be buried under the gold Sotheby is making.

...

...How long is she supposed to hold onto this for, she wonders as she awkwardly fidgets.
Timekeeper "Why do you think the Manus Vindictae accelerated the storm, and why?"

    "They've taken more aggressive tactics this era than usual. Their control over the local government, the direct subversion of the timeline, and the monsters cropping up around the city. This level of activity suggests--" Vertin starts rapidly running through her thought process, until Riku gets to 'why would they do that', and she stops cold.

    "... Ah. Manus Vindictae's philosophy is to take down the world that humans have created and build their own in its place. The Storm is rather effective at hurrying that along."

    To Tamamo, "This is near twice as fast as the shortest era prior to this. If they've done nothing, then the Foundation will need to adjust its expectations-- possibly to an ever-decreasing time frame. Either way, we'll increase our knowledge of the Storm, rather than falling further behind Manus Vindictae."

"And I bet they'll get along just splendidly with you."

    Nerves shot by the Storm-- it's easy to forget, but Sonetto's only experienced as many Storms as Regulus has. 1966 was her first out in the field.-- the short sullen mood that Sonetto sank into is interrupted by Regulus *reassuring* her. She blinks at her, and then straightens up, reasserting her perfect posture with her glasfeder worrying between her fingers.

    "It is not of mission importance, anyway. If they survive the Storm, then I will have the opportunity to get to know them better in what comes after." That sounds oddly grateful, coming from Sonetto.

"I'm only the sort to declare it first, so it's not a surprise for later."

    There's nothing Vertin can say in response to the implication of being 'a different sort'. Sonetto looks down, tugging her fingers through her hair. "I cannot say... that I do not understand the Timekeeper's reasoning."

"Typhon's escaped from the terrible attack of Jupiter, and all its evil hordes!"

    It's entirely believable to Bellwhistle especially that Typhon is alive, and equally irrelevant to how he's speaking 'for' Sotheby in the moment. She sticks out her pinky to shake the stuffie's hand, with a solemnly understanding nod.

    "Oh dear, that's awful. Just tragic. You must be very brave indeed, to give such terrible forces the slip this way, Typhon, dear." 'The end of the world' is one kind of apocalypse, but 'a girl losing her home' is another, and much more digestible.

    "I'm sure you'll have lots of allies just as brave that you'll find on your adventure. If you'd like, I'd happily be one."

    Margaret is starting to be overwhelmed by the prospect of her upcoming twenty four hours, so she takes the opportunity to leap on the role of being powerful and reliable for the younger girl instead. She punches her fist into her palm, hyping up the stuffie. "You can count on us, Sothes! If it's an adventure, it's not gonna be an adventure alone!"
Timekeeper "The Syndrome this time is about money, maybe they're messing with the stock exchange to cause a panic... not my wheelhouse, that."

    Sonetto's eyes shoot open wide, spinning around to look at Vertin. "Ah-! Madam Z told us before, about the arcane stock certificates, that they were not present in 1929 originally! The Walden...."

    "Right. It seems likely they integrated themselves into the stock market from the beginning." It's a sensible theory. It doesn't seem characteristic of the Manus Vindictae to make their safehouse a center of stock trading unless they were pulling something. But...

"So I can think of another reason or two that a few arcanists would try running an illegal bar out of a burnt-up forest where there isn't a landlord and the police don't go."

    "The Walden was there before," Vertin confirms quietly. "The stocks were not. Nor were the government officials, paid-off policemen, or, likely, the majority of their clientele."

"Er, before you go... I dunno how much of the phone calls you hear, but has there been a lot of people calling brokers and whatever today?"

    Bellwhistle rubs her cheek uncertainly, rocking the switchboard in her arm absentmindedly like a baby. "I couldn't say. The banks were making calls, no doubt about that, but I wasn't paying close mind at the time. Yes, I'd say, there were more than usual. I could check on the lines, but..."

    There's a red flashing light on the switchboard she hasn't checked yet, too absorbed in the conversation about the end of the world. Vertin interjects, "It wouldn't be worth waiting around for. Just go, and find the others."

    Bellwhistle takes the offered disk and turns it over in her hands, seeing a floppy disk for the first time, much less a magically-inscribed one. Her words are oddly affectionate and out of place until noticing that they're directed to the disk itself, rather than anyone in the room. "You're a cute one, ain'tcha?"

    Vertin dips her chin, reassured by something or other about that exchange. "That will take you to the Foundation's grounds outside London. Once you're there, say the Timekeeper sent you. Mention my name or anything else if you'd like, but be sure to say that title. Whatever else they say to you, I'll take care of it... tomorrow." Twenty four hours is a really short amount of time.

"Sick how?"
"You mean physically, don't you? And only in the last hour?"

    "Yep. Sick in the body, is how. Stomach pains and suchlike, bad enough to go to the hospital." Bellwhistle looks at Margaret uneasily, thinking about the possibility of some kind of... apocalypse disease going around. "Didn't know what to make of it."
Timekeeper "Surely that of all things isn't difficult for you to believe."

    Margaret puffs her cheeks, blowing her curly hair out of her face and plopping back into her seat, setting it spinning slowly around. "So it's the rich pigs' fault, and a buncha doomsday culters. Who woulda guessed? Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all."

    She sits up, looking at a patch on Bellwhistle's arm where the enameled metal is a slightly different shade of white, teapot-patternry stopping around a small repair mark. "Never even ignored us before, neither, or else we'd just be able to live normally. Mr. Piggs always said it was coming for us, for being poor, and bitches, and Miss Bellwhistle's friends." She nods to herself, much more pleased now that she can frame her actions at the end of the world as giving people the middle finger. "Fuck 'em."

"We -- among the Paladins, that is -- made an attempt at mass rescue during the last Storm, but even moving people off-world did not save them from disappearing with the changing of era."

    The noncomprehension on Margaret and Bellwhistle's faces means that there are *way* more conversations that are going to need to be had in the future. 'Offworld', even, gets a "Up in space?" of complete unawareness of the multiverse as a whole. 'Paladins' is a term they're unfamiliar with too.

    But regardless, Bellwhistle's made up her mind. "So it's serious, and so there's no wiggling out of it. Let's not bargain with destiny any further then, sweetheart."

    Bellwhistle motions for Margaret to get up, then gives Karson a squeeze on the hand, paint-like eyes on his. "Hey, your girl's a trooper. And Vertin's never let any of us gals down so far. So Sotheby, sweetheart," Bellwhistle leans down to plant a metallic kiss on top of her hat. "See you soon, okay?"

    The door opens, and closes. Now, the only people left in the room are those whose survival Vertin can personally guarantee with the suitcase whose handle hasn't left her grip in the past hour. And as Lilian pointed out, that is the only way she can guarantee their survival.

"You can't seriously be expecting us to follow an operational guideline that puts literally everyone at the mercy of how well you can hang on to your luggage."

    "We'll be out of the Walden before the Storm arrives." In response to Lilian's heated words, Vertin is robotically flat, readjusting her jacket and hat in preparation to begin walking to the Walden without delay. "When it does, there won't be another soul roaming the Earth but me. The suitcase is as safe as any other bunker, for the people in this room. This is the only way to save as many of the lives that depend on me as possible."

    Except, of course, that it can be taken away from her. Vertin can't muster up a sigh, or a grim set of her jaw, or a defiant argument; just a brief, silent motion, adjusting her grip on the suitcase to wrap her arms around it for a moment.

    "I won't let go."
Riku Asakura Riku listens to the conflict between Moissan and Karson.  He isn't sure what to say, because Sotheby can escape through the suitcase, but Karson can not.  Karson's only escape was through the disk that Vertin gave Bellwhistle.  He starts to speak up, but then Sotheby makes short work of the argument.  Riku nods once to Karson, as if to say she'll be safe, with a smile.

'I'm trans-mu-ting gold?'

"You can do that?  Wow..." Riku says, absolutely amazed by the magic that the young girl can do, making things into gold is certainly outside of his expertise!  

'... Ah. Manus Vindictae's philosophy is to take down the world that humans have created and build their own in its place.'

Riku frowns at this.  "So they'd use the storm to wipe out one history and try and produce a new one with their hands in it..?  That's awful..." he says, frowning and dismayed that anyone would do such a thing.  How could a group of people even consider completely killing people so that they could make a new world?  

Riku nods once, "Alright, I'm with you on this, Vertin. I'll do everything I can to help stop them..." he says firmly.  While the storm might be natural, what the Manus was doing was anything but.  

'Up in space?'

"Uh, no... It's more complicated.  You'll understand once you get to the Foundation, or more likely, we'll be better able to explain."

'We'll be out of the Walden before the Storm arrives.'

Riku nods to Vertin.  While people say he trusts too easily, in this situation, all he could do WAS trust in Vertin and her suitcase.  He takes a breath and smiles, ready to do what he needs to do.  "It's alright, I believe in you, Vertin."
Odette Raskins "Yeah."
"Both of them like me well enough I could figure something out."

The sharp divide between Tamiel's and Lilian's responses to that give Odette a brief moment of whiplash. On Tamiel's end, she feels that anxiety digging deeper into her head. On Lilian's end, she feels a strange sense of relief and confusion.

"N.. No sense worrying about until it happens, then. We'll just worry about we do find." She sounds like she's trying to persuade herself of that, but she does genuinely sound a bit calmer than before about that.

"I'm not used to moving around this much while holding my arcane skill up."

"I can imagine... Well, at least there's some time to recover between now and getting to the Walden?" Still trying to reassure Regulus, Odette digs around in her case some more, then pauses once she sees Regulus chugging the heck out of that water. Knowing full well how the hydrating stuff mix works, she closes her case back up a second later. "E-easy there. Ah... Remind me to get you something else once we're most of the way there."

"We'll get you well and properly trained up if you're going to keep doing this, Regulus."
"The Team Timekeeper Cardio Program, there's nothing quite like it."

Satisfied that Regulus probably isn't going to tip over from exhaustion anytime soon thanks to the power of supply theft, Odette perks up a bit at Lilian's offer. She gives Regulus a little nudge on the elbow and a reassuring bob of her head/perk of her eyebrows. "That's the spirit. If there's anyone that'd know how to get you prepared for that, it'd be Missus Rook. Her training's helped me plenty, too, you know?"

"I won't abandon-"
"I do expect you to."
"Do you want to go with him, Sotheby?"

The shy-of-a-shouting-match may not be loud, but it's easily the sort of conversation that Odette's been conditioned to keep her nose out of. She listens closely, and she can feel that tension growing, especially when Sotheby is asked that pinpointed question by Regulus. The fact that she's rolling liquid gold around doesn't even register in the EMT's mind until it's outright stated, and it still gets a distracted "huh" out of her.

"It's a proper Lady's duty to see to her people, so, Mister Karson. . ."
Hey, your girl's a trooper."

It's not until Sotheby states her intent clearly about what she wants to do that Odette finally gets her thoughts recollected, and she nods quickly in agreement with Bellwhistle, then with Karson when he relents. "Th... Thank you, Mister Karson. Don't worry, we'll make sure Miss Sotheby stays safe." She declares with far more confidence than she should probably have, turning to chuckle easily at Typhon's short limbs.

Should she really be laughing?

"You can count on us, Sothes!"

If it's not, Margaret makes sure Odette laughs anyway. "Typhon and the whole crew, mhm! Every hero's party needs to have plenty of backup, and that means all sorts of people that know their way around everything we might run into." She adds in her own way of trying to reassure the alchemist. "One of us being uncertain of something now just means there's someone else we can count on to know how to steer the rest of the group later. So... We'll be okay."

"Stomach pains and suchlike, bad enough to go to the hospital."

"Could be any number of things, then. This much at once could still be stress, consuming something tainted, not eating or drinking enough..." Odette tries to puzzle through what the sudden ramp in calls about sickness could be, but she's only really able to grasp at straws without being able to examine someone further. It's something to file away in the back of her head for later, perhaps.
Regulus ''Time to recover between now and getting to the Walden?''

"Oh sure, I can have a little nap before breaking into a hive of Manus goons and doing it all over again." She bobs her head. "Might as well fuel up before we get busy." Unsure what to do with the tube of gold, she just sort of puts it in her jacket pocket, totally unsecured, but at least she doesn't go so far as to set it on the ground. Maybe Sotheby will need it later!

''If there's anyone that'd know how to get you prepared for that, it'd be Missus Rook. Her training's helped me plenty, too, you know?''

Through herculean effort, Regulus manages not to look skeptical of the claim that Missus Rook helped Odette. But it is nice seeing Odette feeling more confident, so she goes through that effort which is a kind of cardio in of itself. "But uh--let's get through today first, yeah?" She isn't looking forward to problems after these 24 hours. The last time Vertin stuck out a little too long she got into trouble and if she knows Vertin, and she feels like she's gotten to know Vertin by now, she's probably on the verge of breaking some other regulation that'll lead to headaches later. Maybe she can circumvent that somehow?

''It's easy to forget.''

It IS easy to forget! Regulus kind of DID forget actually!!! It is so easy to imagine a world where she didn't even notice Sonetto was upset!! But Regulus's near term goal, maybe even mid term goal, is to make sure Vertin has all the support she can hope for--especially from people from her own world. She wants Vertin to have friends, companions, adventure, and love.

But maybe it is thanks to Schneider that Regulus has a clearer sight of the star to follow in order to make those humble dreams a reality. Sonetto, too, is someone she should try to ensure is taken care of even if it seems like she never needs that kind of hand.

"Yeah, we could make a brunch out of it. It'd be great." Regulus offers, though she is decidedly choosing brunch because Bellwhistle and Company seem like Brunch Girls.

''Madam Z''

Regulus tries to imagine Madam Z in her head and imagines she has an eyepatch. "A little scary they were able to push along that quickly in this era as arcanists." Regulus admits. Shouldn't the Foundation have had an advantage in an era like this? Maybe her grand understanding is missing something.

''Fuck 'em.''

Regulus shifts her body so Sotheby doesn't see but she does hold up a middle finger of her own in solidarity.

It's a strange gesture that's meant to be a friendly farewell but she figures it'll work out.

''I won't let go.''

"Of course, love." Regulus smiles, even managing to look totally confident without much effort this time. "We've come too far to let bad weather stop us now." She's not underestimating the storm of course but, as ever, she'll pretend to be brave in the face of all this in the hopes to make this disaster seem that much more managable.
Lilian Rook     '... Ah. Manus Vindictae's philosophy is to take down the world that humans have created and build their own in its place.'

    Lilian laughs; monosyllabic, dry and sharp. "If this is really all it takes then who could even blame them?" she says, shaking her head in disbelief; right up until she is struck with the vivid recollection of that woman turning inside out right in front of here, still fresher than an hour in her mind, and she recoils and turns her head. "Beg pardon. I suppose I haven't much talent for gallows humour; that sounded less ridiculous in my head."

    'I cannot say... that I do not understand the Timekeeper's reasoning.'

    No matter how Vertin looks at her, Lilian won't take it back. But her idea of 'declaring it first' is putting the Codes in plain sight and letting the people who can pay attention filter through between them. The last time she decided 'it wasn't a surprise for later' was the One Week War at L Corp. That thought on her mind, across from Vertin keeping that secret from Sonetto, compels her to reply "Don't worry about the reasoning. The fact that she tries so hard not to hurt you deserves a bit of faith."

    'Oh dear, that's awful. Just tragic. You must be very brave indeed, to give such terrible forces the slip this way, Typhon, dear.'

    A week ago, Lilian had been fascinated with Bellwhistle at first sight. She'd cursed herself for not saying a thing at the time. She'd hovered around the topic without asking until only days ago. She and felt such a sense of excitement when Vertin suggested that they might get along that she even rushed off into Chicago to find her own little adventure with a charming stranger.

    PHONE: Phoning Tamamo, Lilian Rook says, "That's why Bellwhistle lives in this dingy office and her boss thinks being here with her is a punishment."

    'I'm sure you'll have lots of allies just as brave that you'll find on your adventure. If you'd like, I'd happily be one.'

    It was that Vertin had been approached on the street, hit it off with someone she'd never met, and been invited into this dilapidated little world for four. That this ugly little hole was a secluded retreat for the few women of this time who could smile and laugh about guessing wrong on her wedding band, and that Vertin was welcomed to it on sight, brought into the fold because of her hat and her suitcase and her unusual way of being so terribly earnest all the time. That was the romantic idea that had consumed Lilian since she last stepped foot into this office, no matter how juvenile she told herself it was.

    PHONE: Phoning Tamamo, Lilian Rook says, "That's why Schneider is in the mafia and Sotheby's parents never let her leave the house."

    'You're a cute one, ain'tcha?'

    It'd never once gone that way before. From the girls whose names no one else remembered anymore, to the men who bitterly hold the fate of the world in their hands right now, chapters Angela through Zephiel and all the other letters in alphabetical order between, not once had she ever thought that, just maybe, the troubled soul in front of her bore enough of a resemblance to reach out to them, and didn't come to bitterly regret it in the end. And the 'arcanists', no matter how endlessly fascinating she found them, or how easy they were to talk to, certainly didn't need her any more than they did.
Lilian Rook     PHONE: Phoning Tamamo, Lilian Rook says, "I really like Sonetto and Matilda, and Sotheby and Loggerhead and Bellwhistle and Ulrich and all the rest of them. And I've just got here, and just found out that outside that walled garden, they're practically extinct."

    'Hey, your girl's a trooper. And Vertin's never let any of us gals down so far. So Sotheby, sweetheart'

    They already had each other. They had Vertin. They had the Ainsworth office. The LSCC. The Suitcase. The Walden. They needed someone like her so very little that they were the only proof Lilian had that reaching out like that worked for anyone else either. So coming back to this little office; the place where Bellwhistle was still doing her best to live her life and help her own as well, shaking hands with their stuffed animals and whispering encouragement to their tools, taking Vertin at every word she says and doing everything in her power to shelter the girls who had accepted her, as if that crack in her shoulder weren't even there; she should be right there with them, shouldn't she? She should feel proud of her.

    PHONE: Phoning Tamamo, Lilian Rook says, "I thought they all saw 'arcanist' in me because I was a star and they wanted that to be true. Then it turns out that they all see 'arcanist' in me because I'm precisely what an arcanist is supposed to be like."

    'So it's serious, and so there's no wiggling out of it. Let's not bargain with destiny any further then, sweetheart.'

    And all she can think about is the blaring of car horns, the smell of warm asphalt, and the tacky feeling of half-dried blood sticking her gloves to her knuckles. Finally standing in this office once again, where she imagined asking a hundred different questions and making twice as many promises, Lilian can't bring herself to look at Bellwhistle at all. If she were to be reminded any more of the gap between them, she wouldn't be able to stay.

    PHONE: Phoning Tamamo, Lilian Rook says, "Clueless and hysterical."

    'Never even ignored us before, neither, or else we'd just be able to live normally. Mr. Piggs always said it was coming for us, for being poor, and bitches, and Miss Bellwhistle's friends. Fuck 'em.'

    "To hell with them." Lilian says, all of a sudden without any of her previous energy. "You won in the end. Or, it's the end, and you've won. You'll never have to think about him or them ever again." Lilian lifts her hand to her face, but her fingers twitch back away when they near her scar. She presses them into her hair instead, twisting it up behind her ear in frustration. "He was a bastard all along and you've been decent people all this time, so his reward is being sifted out and left behind, and yours should be different. Keep that in mind, and don't join him."

    'The suitcase is as safe as any other bunker, for the people in this room. This is the only way to save as many of the lives that depend on me as possible.'

    Lilian sighs. Her hand release her hair, then is pushed across her face. Her closed eyelids flutter. She bites her middle knuckle for just a second, and then lets it fall away.

    "Whatever I said, forget it." she says, first staring at Vertin, then guiltily drifting to Sonetto. "I don't know what I'm talking about right now. If there's something in the way of your plan come the eleventh hour, it should be my job to clear out of the way, not yours."

    'I won't let go.'

    "I know." says Lilian. Her eyes drift back to Vertin's hat, where Bellwhistle had left a parting kiss. "You've never let go of anything in your life."