[IC] Common Sense - A Post-Post-Apocalyptic Revolutionary Tale

[Lady Absinthia]

Sunie Marks

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Sunie cocked a brow as the phone was answered, pushing her index finger into one ear to try to hear the woman better. The sounds in the background of wherever Flo was plus the sounds of her sisters "getting ready" to go was making this a lot more difficult than it should have been. "No, it was nothing like that Flo. You over paid on the deposit. I wanted to know if you just wanted me to credit your shop account here towards the final payment or if you wanted to come pick up the extra." Sunie tried speaking up as best she could without yelling, wanting Flo to have an easier time than she was yelling.

Her sisters pushed their way out of the back of the show, Sana carrying a dark black case and Lola twirling keys on the end of her fingers. "We'll be back in a bit," Sana said and Sunie gave her a slight nod as Lola grabbed her jacket from the rack near the door and slipped it on before skipping outside. The bell ringing as the door settled back into place once they were both outside.

Shaking her head she peeked behind the curtain as she waited for Flo to respond and saw the mess they had made. Well she didn't figure Sana made the mess, Lola was the sloppy one. Oh well it could have been worse. There had been more than one occasion when Lola had left the back room and nearly burned the place down because she had left something burning or too close to the hearth. At least time it was nothing that a little time and a broom couldn't fix.

[Dragoknighte]

July 29^th, 2371

7:03AM
_{Royal Family ETA: 36 Hours}

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@Nallore"I just told you that it wasn't what you'd think. And the only thing I can give you right now is that picture. Sorry that I don't have more information available. I think she lives in the city, but I can't back that up with proof." Leonard took a look at his phone and grimaced. "I have to go anyways, so I'll shoot you a text with the pic. If you can't find her, that's too bad, but not the end of the world. I'll see you later, man." Anthony's friend stood up from the table and brushed off his clothes before he left the cafe, sparing a wave for Anthony before he left. True to his word, not 5 minutes later, Anthony's phone buzzed with a new multimedia message.

@Lady Amalthea"Oh dear, did I miscount? I suppose I'll just put it toward the final payment. It would be a hassle to go all the way back for cash I would have to pay you anyways." And like that, the call abruptly cut off with nary a farewell. Well at least that freed up a bit more time for Sunie to do anything else. Like clean up the shop. Or call Lola to bitch at her until she cleans up her mess.

[Nallore]

Anthony Ryder

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Anthony couldn't help but snort slightly and held his hands up in the air. "Alright, she aint your secret lover or anything got it." He said rolling his eyes ever so slightly, he mentally took note that she could possibly be within the city somewhere, which would be slightly easier to find out where exactly. "Alright dude see ya later." Anthony said as he waved his friend farewell as he watched Leonard leave the coffee shop behind.

Anthony took out his wallet and asked for a waitress for a check, leaning back in his seat as one of the waitresses came back and handed the check to him. He took out the money and left a little tip, then Anthony stood up running a hand through his hair as he turned around and started to leave the coffee shop. He then felt his phone going off, and took it out looking down seeing the same picture that Leonard had sent him. Anthony started to make his way towards the closest bus stop, decided to go check and maybe find some info from the local homeless people sometimes they did give good leads while others were more dead ends.

[Lady Absinthia]

Sunie Marks

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Sunie was about to say something and then the phone went dead, shaking her head she hung up and ran her fingers through her hair. Making a quick note about the payment and such so it was taken care of she then placed her books back beneath the counter. Taking a long breath she looked around the front area before pushing the curtain aside and looking into the back. She had something's to clean up now. She wasn't going to bother with getting in contact with Sana or Lola for that matter. It wouldn't have been a fruitless endeavor. Sana would have said it wasn't her mess, which it wasn't and bring Lola back would have only made things take longer than her doing it herself. She loved her sisters but they were a handful and she wondered at times if maybe she should start pushing them to find work elsewhere. It wasn't as if they weren't a help around the place but sometimes she had to wonder if it was really worth the trouble.

Stepping into the back she got to work on straightening up, having things out of place just made when she was working take even longer because she was either searching for something or moving something out of her way. Best to just get it over with. As she cleaned she knew she had to keep her sisters working there, and get on their training more. She wouldn't always be around and she needed to pass on her knowledge just like the knowledge had been passed on to her. Someone would have to take over for her one day otherwise the shop would just fade away. There were so few jobs these days and it was hard to make money, it was best to try to keep things going.

Flipping on one of her monitors she set it to breaking news and kept the signal going in the back while she worked. She figured it would be good enough to have some background noise and to see if anything was going on. If there were attacks or something happened that was violent chances were there would be a run on her shop from both sides wanting to amp up their current collection of protection. It tended to happen, people liked to panic, or at least have some excuse to get one more gun. She wasn't going to complain though, it keep her family housed and fed. Once the place was straightened up, she sat down and got to thinking about the blueprints she had been shown, how she was going to go about it, and how to start. Once an idea was in her mind, she got to work.

[Dragoknighte]

July 29^th, 2371

8:01AM
_{Royal Family ETA: 35 Hours}

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@Nallore Asking around doesn't bear much fruit, at least initially. Most of the answers received amount to "never seen her." An understandable reaction given how big the city is and how small a needle in the proverbial haystack. Just when it appeared as though this route of information collection would be a bust, somebody's eyes lit up in recognition for a fraction of a second before they looked away, mumbling about how they don't recognize her. The person in question was a short, middle-aged woman of average build hanging around outside a grocery store. She didn't appear to be especially dirty, and was pretty stable mentally from what little interaction he'd had with her.

@Lady Amalthea The news this morning was the same as it always was. A lot of blood and fear-mongering that drew in attention for profit, at the expense of journalistic integrity. All that intercut with segments of dull banter between cardboard personalities and the most important part of any news program: the weather. Sure, one could just check on their phone, but somehow weather reports and new reports were still linked together. Speaking of which, it was looking like sunny weather for the next week, with a heat wave coming in starting Saturday.

As she was cleaning up her sister's mess, Sunie just happened to spot something hiding underneath a table. If fished out from its hiding spot, she'd find a dirty piece of neatly folded paper. Based on the amount of grime and fade accumulated, it would have to be a few months old at least.

[Nallore]

Anthony Ryder

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After going around asking some of the homeless, and the poorer looking people Anthony closed his eyes letting out a slightly defeated sigh. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, he was usually pretty good at trying to get any kind of information out of people Anthony started to head over towards a grocery store Anthony was asking a few of the people there as they went about their shopping as usual. Then he bumped into a short middle aged woman, when he showed her the photo on his phone he instantly took notice when the woman's face lit up, then she went silent and mumbling that she didn't recognize her.

The woman did know her in some way, he then started to search through his pockets eventually he pulled out his wallet along with all of the cash on him. "Maybe a little bit of money could jog your memory miss, I could help you out ya know get you whatever you need. All I need is just her name, and maybe if you know where she is. I can give you some more money as well." Anthony gave her the offer hoping that she would at least give him a little bit of information on Leonard's secret lover as he continued to jokingly thought more of them being together.

[Lady Absinthia]

Sunie Marks

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Sunie swept the various calamities on the the ground and dumped into the trash what wasn't needed and the rest was sorted out and placed back into the container bins that were around the shop. Sighing she grabbed a damp rag and began to wipe down the steel tables and so forth. She wanted to things to be in order but the more she cleaned the more she realized that her sisters, at least Lola, had not been doing their daily up keep chores on the shop. The level of dust on the top of the door jams made her cringe. Dirty rag after dirty rag was tossed into the wash bin for later before grabbing another.

Her ears kept listening to the news, a heat wave was coming. Oh joy, that meant the shop was going to be blistering hot. Didn't matter how much cool air was pumped in, it was not enough to deal with a hearth and a heat wave. Making a few notes she would shift the shops hours to night. Something she did from time to time, especially in the summer. Helped cut down on costs over all and kept her from getting heat stroke when she was working.

Getting down on her hands and knees she went for a final sweep of the shop, to clear out whatever was under the tables and benches. Looking under them she rolled her eyes, it obviously had not been done in sometime. It was supposed to be tackled weekly but right then it look like the under the couch syndrome of some first time away from home young adult. One of those things that needs to be cleaned but since mom had done it for you your whole life you just didn't think about. (Like cleaning out the fridge fully.)

Scrap and paper after scrap and paper she pulled out and sorted it. Receipts here, wrappers there, and so forth. Just as she thought she had gotten everything she found one more piece of paper wedged behind one of the legs of the main work bench. Reaching she grabbed it and nearly just tossed it. Wanting to just be done with the thing and figuring if it had been under there as long as the dust on it was telling her that it wasn't important. But Sunie was in OCD mode and rolled back onto her read end, sitting on the floor as she unfolded it to see what it was.

[Dragoknighte]

July 29^th, 2371

8:01AM
_{Royal Family ETA: 35 Hours}

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@Nallore "I-I already told you that I've never seen her before in my life." In between her unsteady words, her eyes flicked rapidly from the left to the right and back again. From the looks of things, she either didn't believe Anthony, or it would take more than a little bit of cash to get anything out of her. Out of the corner of his eye, Anthony could see some of the people walking in and out of the grocery store looking at him and the lady before they carried on with their current business.

@Lady Amalthea Interestingly enough, the innards of the paper were handwritten, and not by the hand of either of her sisters. Large portions of the note were blurred together, making it difficult to make out exactly what the message was supposed to be in its current state. Water damage? Whatever the source of the damage was, the fact of the matter was that most of it was illegible. However, from what could be read, two phrases stuck out among the the blurred masses and solitary words. Towards the beginning of the note: seems someone sold us out. And around the end of the writing: Once they're dealt with, we can progress with the rest of the plan.

[Nallore]

Anthony Ryder

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"C'mon lady seeing that look on your face you do clearly know something." Anthony said as he looked over at the grocery store seeing the woman was looking around as if she was paranoid, either she is scared for her life or there was someone after her or knew more. "I can get 'ya some protection if you need it, i'm just trying to hook my friend up with this here lady friend of his." Anthony said letting out a slight sigh as he took out his card, figuring that the lady did know something but he didn't want to make a scene.

"Alright, well if you remember just contact me. I'll give you more cash for more info, just contact me on this number or swing by my pad." Anthony said as he handed her all of the money that he had on him to the woman, he looked around and started to turn around and started to turn away back the way he came. Anthony started to hope that the woman would actually come around and hand him some sort of information on Leonard's lady friend, he smirked ever so slightly as he thought about his friend's lady friend if they were actually a thing.

[Lady Absinthia]

Sunie Marks

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Sunie slowly read over the paper, which wasn't easy considering the level damage to the paper. Water marks? Something else? Either way it wasn't as if it was a simple task to figure out what it said. She was able to make out a little bit of it. Someone was sold out? They would need to be dealt with? There was a plan? What plan? Who? It didn't make much sense to her but the people she catered to weren't always the most noble, on either side of the political divide. She was sure it wasn't Sana's or Lola's handwriting, so whose was it? Could be a number of people that had come into her shop. She sometimes had to bring people into the back to go over things. Anyone could have dropped it.

Leaning forward she thought to herself for a moment before standing and looking around. Well, if anything she could try two things to figure out what was going on. Normally she would have just tossed the paper, figuring it didn't concern her. But this was in her shop and for all she knew the people that needed to be dealt with was her or her sisters. So there was no choice at this point. she had to at least do a little bit of investigating. Granted that wasn't in her skill but she did have a few base ideas. The first one was her Image Scanner, made if she scanned it she could enhance the image and get a few more words off of it. the other was to start going through her hand written files and see if she could find someone's writing that matched what was on the paper. Right then she was glad she kept most everything done old school - in pen instead of in the computer.

Stepping over to her scanner she rested the paper down and took a scan, pulling it up on the computer screen and running an enhancing program. It was rather basic but she used this to help determine small knicks and flaws in various metals she worked with. To give her a more in-depth view than she could get with the naked eye. Might as well try it with paper, a simple scan wouldn't hurt it. Wasn't like she was trying lemon and heat on the back of a two hundred year old document. While the program was running she pulled out the last six months of orders and started going through them slowly. Making piles on one side of her of handwriting that was close at first glance, and another stack for hand writing that obviously didn't match. Hopefully she would get something. At least the shop was quite, Sana ad Lola wouldn't be back until late that evening.

[Dragoknighte]

July 29^th, 2371

8:02AM
_{Royal Family ETA: 35 Hours}

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@Nallore The woman looked at Anthony, the card at his hand and once more at him, or more specifically his face. If pupils were microscopes, he'd be able to see the lens telescoping out to analyze his expression. She took the card, but didn't say anything in reply. He had made it a few steps before a voice called out behind him.

"I don't know what you're playing at here, but if you're really serious about this, come back here at midnight tonight." And if he turned around, she would be gone.

@Lady Amalthea As the computer set to work slowly going about it's thing, Sunie did the same, looking over page after page of various documents she had on hand. The pile of "not even close" signatures increased rapidly while anything even vaguely similar to the writing she had seen on the note were few and far between. By the time she was done with this first pass, the computer had finished its attempt at textual enhancement. Looking at the screen, the program hadn't really done much to improve readability, however, there was something that appeared to be a name, but how exactly it was spelled was something of a mystery. McKinnon? McKimmon? McKinnan?

[Nallore]

Anthony Ryder

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Anthony turned when he heard the woman's voice once more raising an eyebrow giving him a time and meet her back here at midnight, but he saw that she was gone by the time he had fully turned around. He sighed slightly he didn't get any kind of information right away, but a time to set up a meeting was good enough for him for now. Anthony continued to make his way back over towards the bus stop. Anthony was tempted to just call Leonard with the potential lead on his lover, but he needed to make sure that the meeting did pan out right for him before telling him.

Anthony stuck his hands in his pocket as he started to walk down the street, he had several hours to kill and find something to do until then Anthony decided he would go for a walk and his place wasn't that far just a few blocks away from his house. He ran a hand through his long brown hair and looked at the men and women who were walking and going about their daily business he would occasionally give them a friendly smile and a nod to some of them while he walked by.

[Lady Absinthia]

Sunie Marks

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Sunie went through file after file, there was a lot. She had been in the business on her own with her sister for a while. She had been working for her predecessor even longer. He had been the one to turn her on to the hand written file. Some of the papers were probably older than she was. This was going to take some time and it was still early in the day. Glancing at the clock it was just after eight in the morning. If felt like a lot later. Granted that was how these things went. When she was working on a project the time flew and she would hardly believe that it was closing time when she would look at the clock. Here she was sitting there going through papers, boring work, and it was only eight. This was going to line up to be a very long day relatively speaking.

Rubbing her eyes she wandered to the front of her shop and poured a cup of coffee from the post. It was there for customers normally but right then even she needed a cup or two if she was going to keep from going cross eyed after looking through paper after paper. Taking a sip she walked back behind the curtain and set the cup down on her work bench. Picking up the stack of papers she had ruled out but stopping in her tracks as she noticed the scan had taken was done enhancing. Placing them back on the counter she pulled up the results and cocked a brow. McKinnon? McKimmon? McKinnan? Was that who had written this or who it was about? Either way it was something.

Sitting back down she got back to work, at least having some kind of a lead now. She started with the stack of paper that looked to have hand writing similar with what was on the paper. If she didn't find a name there that was close to what was on the scan she would move on to the ones she had pushed aside that was not of the same hand writing. If she didn't find anything then, she would continue to go through the files she hadn't even touched yet. If there was nothing in any of those, she had no idea where she could turn but she would cross that path if and when she got there. Till then she needed to get back to this.

[Dragoknighte]

July 29^th, 2371

8:19AM
_{Royal Family ETA: 35 Hours}

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@Nallore Most of the people that Anthony passed by on his way home didn't even make eye contact. Not all that surprising given the typical mindset of any given city goer. Few people seemed to notice a smile given, most the did notice looked at Anthony weird, as if they were suspicious of him trying to sell something, and a tiny minority actually bothered to smile or nod back. Whatever the temperament of the citygoers, Anthony had made his way back to his apartment, free to pursue whatever desires he had.

@Lady Amalthea Paperwork sorting was slow and cumbersome. Given the huge stack of files Sunie had to go through, it wouldn't be surprising if most of her day got used up from this before even factoring in "wasted" time using the bathroom, eating, dealing with customers, looking at something other than ink on pulp, etc. And on top of all those other things, the bell for the front door rang not 20 minutes into searching through the paperwork. Based on the lack of noise that would likely accompany either of the other Marks, and the sporadic sounds of footsteps, whoever walked in was probably a customer, one who was unfamiliar with the store itself.

"Hello?" called out a masculine voice from the other side of the store. His accent sounded foreign to the city, but otherwise not distinct enough to be immediately pegged in any specific location as of yet.

[Nallore]

Anthony Ryder

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Anthony shrugged every so slightly he wasn't getting any friendly greetings from anyone around him or he was just completely ignored as he made his way back over towards his apartment. He opened the door to his apartment using his key as he entered it and closed the door behind him, looking around his apartment he didn't really keep it clean all that often a lot. Anthony walked over tossing his wallet onto a nearby counter as he made his way over towards his computer and sat down on an old looking chair that was in front of his computer desk. He booted it up as Anthony let his computer start he walked over into his kitchen and opened it up searching around finding some eggs he had in there. Anthony closed the fridge and started up his stove and started searching for a pan.

Anthony turned on the stove and cracked some eggs onto the pan once he had found it deciding to cook up some breakfast for himself, while that was going on Anthony turned his attention over towards his computer and started to search over his emails, then taking out the picture again. He started to search for the woman's name hopefully he would be able to find something on there awhile waiting for his meeting for the evening with the woman he met back at the supermarket.

[Lady Absinthia]

Sunie Marks

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Sunie groaned to herself, this was going to take a while but if it had anything to do with her shop she wanted to know. The fact she found the letter, written in an unknown penmanship in the back of her shop disturbed her. Yes, people came back but they were always accompanied by her. If someone she was working for was plotting something, she didn't want a trail of bread crumbs leading back to her and someone accusing her of being a part of it. That was the last thing she needed. The shop was all she had to support her family, she would be damned if someone caused it's downfall. Or hers for that matter. If anything she wanted to give them a right good talking to, but in the end she would probably stop doing business with them. She didn't want people who couldn't keep their trails covered around the shop or her sisters. It would just lead to trouble. She had had enough of that in her life.

Hearing the door chime she looked up and cocked a brow. Lola and Sana shouldn't be back yet, in fact she shouldn't see them until close to dinner to time. Sure the shop was open but customers coming in this early always set her on edge. Most people she dealt with came in well after lunch, closer to closing. Darkness was a friend in her line of work: well maybe not hers personally but those that frequented the shop. Few ever wanted to be seen this early in the day coming into a weapons smith. Then she heard the voice. Male? One she didn't know? That was odd.

Rising from her place she sighed, she didn't want to be bothered right then. She wanted to get through the papers. Perhaps she should shut the shop down for the day. No, that wouldn't do. She still had to takes orders, deliver pieces, and over all earn a living. These times were hard enough without shutting down for a day so she could play detective. "Just a moment," she called out as she shoved the paper work she had been going through into a filing cabinet and locking it back up before removing her leather apron and hanging it on the wall. Stepping out from the back room she pushed the curtain aside and glanced towards the new comer. "Can I help you?"

[Dragoknighte]

July 29^th, 2371

8:25AM
_{Royal Family ETA: 35 Hours}

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@Nallore Anthony used the last of the eggs he had in the fridge to make himself breakfast. It was a good thing that he was going to stop by the supermarket later, or else he might have had to find some other way of hustling up some grub tomorrow. Or just go out to a cafe and actually order some food. Wait, was the supermarket even going to be open that late? Either way, if he was planning on doing some shopping later it might do some good to see what else was running low/empty at the moment.

As far as cooking went, Anthony's eggs came out a lot better than they usually did. He was able to properly cook them over easy without any yolk breaks, pan stickage or over/undercooking them. They were properly seasoned and looked all pretty like when slid onto the plate. They weren't mind-blowing, best eggs ever type stuff, but a solid eight-and-a-half out of ten.

Breakfast aside, Anthony had a bit of a conundrum to contend with. Information technology was by no means perfect. He had access to Georgian internet, but gaining information available on Terran or Xinon servers were entirely different stories. Xinon was almost entirely out of the question due to all the issues going on over there and the moment. Earth-based servers on the other hand could be accessed, but would take gratuitous amounts of time to load given the sheer distance that needed to be traversed. The fact that the internet was still interconnected was something of an engineering miracle. Normally this wouldn't be so much of an issue, but Anthony had almost nothing to work with, and choosing to stick to local resources might lead to missing something important. But at the same time, Earthly information might not be necessary, and the extra time used up just waiting to even get it might eat up any ability to even make any headway online today.

@Lady Amalthea On the inside of the lobby was a man who looked to be about middle-aged, looking around cautiously. He was a bit shorter than average with some additional width to his build as if to compensate for the lack of stature. Despite his advanced age, he still maintained a full head of coarse, black hair. Well, mostly black. There were strands of silver-gray mixed in. Nervously, he approached Sunie, resting his mitts on the countertop.

"Um, excuse me you wouldn't h-happen to be able to give directions, would you?" A cursory glance at one of the man's hands would reveal that for whatever reason he was shaking. And now that she could hear some more of his speech, the dialect was definitely off-planet, almost certainly a native of Earth, and not Philian. More specific than that was something Sunie couldn't suss out. Even in New Cardiff one wasn't exposed to a lot of different languages on Georgia. Mostly English with the occasional Mandarin.

[Nallore]

Anthony Ryder

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Anthony quietly hummed himself a little tune as he continued to make his breakfast once it was finished looking down at it smiling at his work that he had finished. Pouring the scrambled eggs onto a plate Anthony then went over towards the cupboard pulling out some salt and pepper, then made his way over to the fridge pulling himself a half empty bottle of hot sauce putting some onto the scrambled eggs. He started to make his way over towards his computer and sat down letting out a slightly annoyed sigh when he could get much from the Earth servers on the internet. But it was something he couldn't control at all as Anthony leaned back eating his scrambled egg.

Anthony decided to just read over the news on what was happening locally around him for anything that was interesting, while also opening up another window to answer and read over some Emails for anything to do. Running a hand through his hair as he continued to eat away at his breakfast enjoying his food. Once the plate was finished Anthony got up and made his way setting the plate into the sink with his pile of dirty dishes that he hadn't gotten a chance to clean yet. He also checked his fridge opening it up again noting that he did actually need to do a little bit of shopping later as well before closing the door again and walked back towards his computer to look over some emails.

[Lady Absinthia]

Sunie Marks

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Cocking a brow Sunie looked the man over. He seemed nervous, very nervous. About what she had no idea but she was not used to people having the jitters coming into her shop. Much less to ask for directions instead of a weapon. For some reason, in the back of her mind she was glad she was armed. She was always armed in her shop, people liked to try to push things or even rob her. It was the way of things, so she kept her side arm holstered on her body at all times when she was at work. Truth be told she kept it on her pretty much twenty-four:seven. Sleeping it was under her pillow, showering it was on the edge of the tub, walking around it was in its holster on her person just as it was now. It was better safe than sorry in this world, especially in her line of work.

"I should, depends on where you are trying to get to," she said as she stepped over to the counter but kept out of lunging arms length from the man. Sunie wasn't exactly a trusting person. Reaching up she pulled the cigarette she had been holding between her lips as she spoke and blew the smoke off to the side, ashing it a bit in one of the many ashtrays she kept about the shop. Taking a breath she continued to watch him. "Where are you going?" she asked before placing the smoke back between her lips. They had mentioned a dead body earlier on the news but that wasn't around here was it? She couldn't remember, being wrapped up in cleaning and papers she hadn't paid too much attention.

[Dragoknighte]

July 29^th, 2371

8:30AM
_{Royal Family ETA: 34 Hours}

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@Nallore In terms of local news, there wasn't really anything interesting. Just a major public official found impaled on the Council Building's flagpole with a message threatening for more such incidents to occur in the future. Uninteresting stuff like that. The worst part is that any channel he'd go to featuring anything news related was only covering the one story. Sure at the bottom the little text scroll would mention something like a carjacking, a missing person or how the price of electricity would increase next month due to a projected heat wave, but by and large there was only one story the media wanted to focus on.

@Lady Amalthea "Oh, silly me. Just give me a sec." The man didn't make any move to get closer to Sunie, nor did his body language imply any sort of malicious intent, but then again, she had no reason to let her guard down. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out an old phone at least a decade out of date. After a few key presses, he read out the address he was hoping to get to. However, the name wasn't even vaguely familiar to Sunie.