Participants:
| Scene Title | Gerkin Winters Interview |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Agent Baumann contacts Lance and Joe regarding the boy found in the sewer, who is really looking like a ghost that possesses rat swarms right about now. |
| Date | March 24, 2018 |
Lighthouse Kid Central
Joe is in the kitchen at the moment, his legs swinging as he's sitting up on the countertop. Not that it's really a kitchen so much as an indent away from the rest of the apartment. But hey, he's sitting there, swinging his feet slowly as he noms on peanut butter. His favorite snack. Also the bane of Lance's cupboard. Joe at least writes his name on jars that he eats out of so people know that a Joe has struck there. He's swinging his feet, which are in just socks at the moment, shoes off near the front door, talking animatedly to Lance. "You know, we should go to the staten market and see if we can't dig up some stuff to help down in the sewers. Redhook market doesn't really have the kind of stuff we might need. I've got some of the gear I brought from Canada, but it's not spelunking gear yah know?" He asks, waving his hand in the air, the hand holding the spoon, laden with peanut butter.
"We could ask Colette," Lance suggests from where he's sprawled on the couch, on his back with legs draped over one of the couch arms. There's a chalkboard hanging on the wall of the living room - well, it's an old sign that someone's covered in chalkboard paint anyway - and there's a rough map of the sewers beneath Red Hook Market sketched out on it, with entry points marked, the place where the body was found marked, the place where the food was found marked. "We're going to need the right crew, too… we need to get Hailey in on this."
Lance's address was found thanks to an interview done by another SESA agent, and the time it took for her to make it to this part of the safe zone didn't take very long. Still, she wanted to make sure that she looked official, wearing a simple suit and skirt combo with a jacket over it all, her SESA badge pinned above the breast pocket. There's a soft knock on the lighthouse-emblazoned door. "Mr. Gerkin? Are you in? My name is Cassandra Baumann, and I'm with SESA."
"Yeah, we will need the right crew. I actually talked to Silvia already. She's in. I think she'd be awesome at exploring if we need to get in anywhere tight. Course if she gets wet when in sand form it will mess her up for awhile. She says she has a hard time reforming while wet." Joe's shoulders lift in a slight shrug, his eyes on the map as he noms away at the peanut butter. "Hailey for sure yeah. Especially if there's a giant rat swarm down there. I got pretty chalk with Silvia about what it could be. But we didn't come up with any good answers. The rat swarm that is. I'm assuming it's a swarm. The real question is whether the food was stolen for the rats, or if the two are completely unconnected." Joe taps his chin a few times with his non peanut butter holding hand, then blinks as there's a knock on the door. "SESA?" He asks, looking a bit confused, a glance at Lance, then back at the door. He glances towards his backpack in the living room where his gun and shoulder holster reside for now. He sticks the spoon back in the peanut butter jar and slides off the counter, moving to stand behind where the door will open so he'll be out of sight when it's first opened.
"I'm thinking maybe a rat telepath? Maybe even a rat possessor… could one person possess an entire swarm at once," Lance theorizes, tossing a piece of chalk into the air and then catching it as it comes back down towards his chest, "I mean, I guess it's— " Then there's a knock, and he cranes his head to the door. He hears the call, and in a deft tumble he's off the couch and to his feet, padding barefoot over to the door. He unlocks it, opening it enough to peer past the chain and demand, "ID?"
The rustling behind the door indicates someone is home and, when the door opens, she leans over to peer inside. "Of course." She reaches into her inside coat pocket, retrieving a her ID and passing it through the door. It's official. Agent Cassandra T. Baumann, SESA investigator, with her picture and some other relevant information. "I was hoping I could speak with you about the incident in the sewer? I've done a little investigation and have some information that I could use your assistance with or, at least, a little advice."
Joe stands ready behind the door to take action if it's not SESA with valid ID. He hears Cassandra speak, but he can't see the ID from where he is, so he waits behind the door for Lance to give the okay or not. He doesn't have a weapon or anything, but typically he doesn't need one, so he stands and he waits, his eyes on Lance's face, or as much of it as he can see that is. He also glances to his brother's hands in case one of them starts signing.
Lance actually takes the time to read the ID, and then the door closes firmly. Hands move in a flicker towards Joe, Looks legit. He pauses, eyes widening as he adds Hide the board!
There's a lot of rustling and thumping from past the door then, before finally the chain comes off, and he opens the door. Lance steps back and sweeps an arm to invite her in, "Sure thing, Agent Baumann. What can we do for you?" The chalkboard is awkwardly shoved behind the couch, parts of it sticking out covered in a patched up blanket in perhaps the worst attempt to hide things in the history of hiding things.
Agent Baumann stares at the door after it's closed in front of her, looking left to right to make sure she's not going to be bum rushed from either side as things are frantically moved, muffled by the heavy wooden door, returning to her calm, neutral stance when the door is reopened. Taking her ID back, the woman lifts herself up on her toes and nods. "Thank you very much for allowing me to speak with you." She peers into the apartment, catching sight of Joe doing whatever he does to look nonchalant after moving whatever it is he moved, stepping inside, her bag over her shoulder.
"I did a little research on the boy that was found in the sewers." She opens her bag and offers a plastic bag with a Linderman-era registration card inside, a smiling boy's picture laminated in the plastic. "His name was William DeLuca, and he lived in the sewers for a while." She closes the door behind her, letting them take the card if they like to look over.
Joe of course rushes over to hide the chalkboard. His idea of hide the chalkboard is to slide it behind the couch. He also straightens up a few other things, like his notebook, and the ferry map they used the first time, which was what they used to draw the chalkboard map. He also scoots over to his backpack and kicks it to the side of the couch and out of sight, and zips it up before he walks back over near the door, in view this time, his head tilted to the side as he peers in Cassandra's direction. "First Agent Lin now Agent Baumann. We seem to be getting a lot of SESA visits…" Joe comments in a more than curious tone. Joe makes no efforts to look nonchalant. He is a terrible liar. And that extends to body language as well. Go commando on bad guys? Explore a sewer? Be there for his friends? All of those he's great at. Lying? TERRIBLE. Joe's features fall into a frown when he sees that familiar ID. "We knew all that." He murmurs, his tone soft though, not reprimanding or anything, just sad.
Lance closes the door once she's inside, sliding just the bolt into place. He steps over then to look at the bag, his lips twisting in a grimace. "Yeah," he says, reaching out to take it, "He should've been one of us. Y'know? Evolved. Orphan, homeless. Registered. Guess he just fell through the cracks." There's more than a little bitterness to his voice there.
The bag is tucked away back where she got it. It might have been a little heavy handed, but she felt that they needed to know she was serious. "It's terrible, but that's exactly what happened. From what we can tell, everything was done right and then he ended up in the sewers." Cassandra frowns and looks to Lance and Joe. "First off, we're trying to find some next of kin so we can give him a proper resting place. Once there's some information on that, I'll let you know if you want. It'd be nice to have a few people there besides me."
She takes a moment to check her notes. "The second thing is a little more….dark. My evolved ability lets me literally look into the past, based on a place or a thing, and project it. His card just showed the testing and registration and a few images of his parents - nothing really out of place at first, but it seemed to be coming from twenty different vantage points. Really strange. He was listed as a psychic projector, but I think he was more than that." She doesn't have any proof but that's all she can think of at this point. "There have been reports of him showing up around the marketplace, appearing and vanishing."
"There's more, of course." She moves to sit against the arm of the couch, paying attention to the young men, not the chalkboard sitting right behind her. "The way he died was…traumatic." She looks to them both. "That mattress he was on was on top of milk crates to stay out of a flood. There were rats trying to get away, looking for dry ground. Lots of them." She pauses for a second, dabbing her eyes for a second. "I'm not going to go into details, but before he died, he pushed his consciousness out to get away from…death. And I think he's still around there, somewhere."
Joe reaches a hand up to rest it on Lance's shoulder, giving it a supporting squeeze at the bitterness in his brother's voice. "He should have been. And he did. A lot of kids did Lance. This…." He sighs softly and shakes his head, giving the other young man's shoulder another squeeze. He doesn't drop his hand either, leaving it there for the moment. /This/ is why he wants to help other kids. Right here. So they don't slip through the cracks. "If you can't locate any next of kin I'll figure out a way to cover cremation and… stuff. I'll figure it out. But he deserves something better than what he got." Joe's voice cracks just a touch, but he takes in a breath to calm himself.
Joe's head tilts slowly forwards. "He is more than just a projector. We saw him when we were in the sewers. Something of him remains. Ghost, psychic remnant, dunno. Lance insists they're the same thing and I guess they are. Just different sources." Joe tilts his head to the side a little bit. "His body was under the mattress, not on it. But yeah, we recognized the rat bite marks on the body. And we realized he's still hanging around." Joe's shoulders shrug a little bit. "We've been around a lot of Evolved in our lives. We have better intuition than a lot of people when it comes to abilities and what they're capable of." Joe offers a small if sad smile. "So we actually had already guessed all this. The real question that's bugging us is the rat swarm. It's too big and too coordinated to be random. We think there could be an animal possessor or something like that involved." He pauses, looking to Lance. "Rat mimic? I've never heard of mimics being able to turn into other living things but…" His features scrunch up a bit. "Could be something similar to the kid? An animal telepath who's body died and they're in command of slash trapped in the swarm?"
"I set up a memorial thing, over the grate," Lance mutters, almost embarrassed to admit it, at Joe's words about cremation and body care. Then he's nodding along with Joe, "Yeah. And it is the same thing— " He punches his friend's shoulder, "— no real difference. But yeah, he's totally around. We've seen him." He steps over to drop down onto the couch, leaning against the opposite arm the agent's leaning on, frowning, "Yeah. Rats aren't— I mean, outside of movies and shit, I don't think rats are like piranha you know? And nah, nobody's ever found an Evo that could turn into an animal. Possess one, yeah."
ORDER: It is now your pose.
It's one of the details she left out deliberately but, as Joe mentions the mattress, Cassandra nods. "I know. It was the flood. He was trying to knock the rats off, fell over backwards and flipped the mattress on top of him. The rats swarmed and in the middle of it all, out he went." She doesn't tell about the screams for help, the fear he felt, the feel of rats on his skin, biting, scratching, scrabbling for purchase. "He was trapped and escaped in the only way he could."
Cassandra pulls out her notepad, flips to a clean page, and starts scribbling. "The rat thing…..is something I've been considering too. See, with the food thefts, all the food was taken into the sewers, ripped open, and the contents devoured. My initial thought was an evolved person phasing the food through the floor, letting gravity do its work…." She taps her page with her pencil. "Rats would explain a lot. It'd explain how they could get in and take the food out, it'd explain the damage to paper and the like in the market. Baby steps before going for what they really craved?"
Joe tips his head to the mention of the memorial. "I saw it. A lot of people have seen it. That was good of you." He squeezes Lance's shoulder again before letting his hand drop to his side and tucking it into the pocket of his jeans, his thumb hooked on the outside as he turns to Cassandra, only to get slugged in the shoulder. He sticks his tongue out at Lance, but a smile has returned to his lips. The LHK's are used to sad moments. They were pretty common in their lives. They tend to bounce back pretty quick. "So maybe rat possession, or they're trapped in there cuz their body died, like William is disembodied. Or maybe they're his now? Maybe they were just a regular swarm but now they're his?" His head tilts to either side a time or two before his shoulders lift in a slight shrug. "Not sure. But they could definitely be possessed. I've never heard of a mimic mimicking living things either but there's a first time for everything. I've never met anyone else that was bulletproof like me. I've heard stories of a metal guy but I would guess he was a mimic not like… just bulletproof."
"We figured it was something like that. I mean not the flood part. But we figured he got attacked, was probably too weak to fight them off. And now we have a psychic ghost of a kid that shouldn't have slipped through the cracks." Joe's head shakes a little bit. "The phasing would be a royal pain in the butt. Cuz the phaser would then have to get out of the sewers, back up onto the ground and do it all over again. And most phasers have pretty strict limits on just how much they can phase. And all that food we found? All that food that's gone missing? Would take a TON of trips. And it wouldn't be fast. Since they'd have to come up out of the sewers every time yah know? So they'd have to run a marathon. And I doubt they could do it all in one night. Unless they had some way to crawl up through the floor? Which I…." He looks at Lance. "Ever heard of a phaser being able to go up? I guess maybe if someone lifted them from beneath… they could phase partially? And… that would still be a lot of trips. And a huge strain on the phaser." Joe looks over and gives his head a slight shake. "Someone would have seen a rat swarm. Or there would have been signs. Rat dropping, lots of muddy nasty pawprints at the site of the food thefts. Unless that's a detail the public doesn't know?" He quirks a brow at her.
Lance grimaces at the mention of what happened to the boy. "The food was definitely eaten by rats, though," he offers as a epilogue to Joe's rambling theories, "I saw the same bite and claw marks on the packaging that were on— " A pause, a hard swallow, "On Will. That's why I said we had to go. 'Cause they're still in there, and they're hungry."
He rubs a hand at the nape of his neck, "If we could find Will, maybe he knows something. Or if my sister will stop being a spaz and come help us…"
"Depends on how many rats you have to work on moving the food. I mean, we could do the math and all, but it's just guessing." Cassandra writes 'search interior of storage for signs of large quantities of rats' and underlines it twice, closing her notebook again. "At this time forensics is still working on the storage room at red cross and the safe zone storage. I should be able to get them to look for rat signs, though. Shouldn't be too hard.'
"The phasing was a guess before we started working on the whole William angle, but it looks like we're going to start moving that way. The sewers and subways are pretty much unknown right now. We have ideas of where things go." She makes a few more notes in her notebook - observant people might notice she wrote 'underground guide?' before tucking it away again. "Jesus….a sentient rat swarm? Is this really a thing?" She looks to the two men as if to say 'talk some sense into me.'
Joe rolls his eyes at the mention of Hailey being a spaz. "Bro I've tried talking sense into her. She won't see it. I…" Joe's his hands and arms lift up into the air in a 'who knows' sort of gesture, shaking his head. "I just can't even with her right now." He flashes a quick smile at Lance before looking back at Cassandra. "Well, the rats would have to grab something and haul it. You're looking at at least two rats per item. Possibly more if it weighs more. But it wasn't a small amount of food that went missing. Which means a lot of it would have to be moved quickly. Which means a huge swarm all working in concert. And… how did they get in? And how did they get the food out? There would have to be a floor or close to floor level entrance. They wouldn't be able to climb with heavy food containers. Just saying. I don't think the rats stole the food. Their teeth and claws are sharp. I'm sure they'd have ripped open containers on accident spilling food while they were transporting it. And according to what the public knows there wasn't spilled food everywhere. So that means someone or something else stole the food. They might be entirely unrelated. They stored the food down there and the swarm came upon it. Or they stole the food for the rats." Joe's shoulders hunch as he thinks, and he starts to pace a little bit. "We've been getting seriously chalk about this for awhile." He admits to the SESA agent.
Joe uhhhs and lifts his shoulders in a gradual shrug at the question Cass asks. "I mean… yeah it could totally be a thing. Technopaths can survive the deaths of their bodies. Some psychics can apparently survive the death of their bodies. There are animal telepaths who can control animals. There are animal possessors. I don't see why there couldn't be a sentient rat swarm. Whether it's being controlled or possessed I couldn't say. But… yeah. Don't see why not. You can see into the past. I'm bulletproof. Lance is a ninja so… I mean… yeah."
"I mean, we know people can possess animals," Lance adds with a shrug of one shoulder, "Rats are— I mean, rats kind of work in concert, a hive mind, right? So if someone slipped into a rat - maybe - maybe they can slip into a bunch of rats." His hands spreading as if to indicate the entire bunch of rodents at once, "I mean, it's just a theory. They could just be super well-trained or something, too, or there's just some rat empath out there. We don't have enough information, we're spitballing. So, I mean— "
He starts to gesture to the board, remembers it's been taken down, tucks his hand back between his knees, "I mean, you need the right team to go in. Animal empaths or telepaths - someone who's omni-species - would be ideal to spot the rats before you all got eaten. Mimics or other people who aren't eatable, too. Unless you've got some of those FRONTLINE suits of armor around still, I don't think rats could eat those. Maybe a clairvoyant or astral projector… mm."
He glances to Joe, "We need to find Will. Well. His ghost."
"And that's why I came to talk to you. Exactly why, Mr. Gerkin." Cassandra looks to Joe. "And you as well, Mr. Winters. You gentlemen have connections. They see me coming and they immediately think cop, or that I'm trying to cause problems. I'm really not. I'm trying to find out the answers to the questions that have been put before me to keep things like this from happening again." She gets to her feet, fishing out a business card from her ID holder, leaving it on the corner of the couch. "If you see him - if you hear of anyone seeing him - let me know as soon as you can. Location, time, where he appeared, where he went, where he vanished. Help us narrow down where he might be so we can put him to rest. This is next-level Twilight Zone Dungeons & Dragons possession Rat King sort of stuff, and he doesn't deserve it."
Joe turns to look at Lance as he starts talking about them needing a team. He's not sure if this is Lance indicating they should include Cassandra in the plans or not, so he keeps quiet about their spelunking team they're putting together. But he does nod his head to the statements Lance makes about a team. "You need tanks not DPS in there. Lots of em." Joe loves his video game references when it comes to gathering a party of folks together. "I'm pretty sure it is actually Will bro. Not just his ghost. I mean like… him him. Like how Brian is him but not him? I mean him but not original him? I'm pretty sure it's similar, just all psychic. Which is nifty. And makes me wonder how many ghosts over the years were actually psychic evolved and nobody knew it. That… we should find a telepath and go to some haunted places. It'd be interesting to see what we could find."
"I mean… to be fair.. given what the people of this city have been through? Especially the evolved of this city? Can you blame anyone for shying at the sight of a badge?" Joe's head tips to the side a little bit. "I sure can't. Even if you're doing good… SESA is going to have to spend YEARS rebuilding public trust. Especially in the Evolved communities. You might never rebuild trust there. And that's something you guys are going to have to be ready to face." Joe puffs out his cheeks as he peers at Cassandra for a few moments. "Are you coordinating with Agent Lin? I know he's working on this case as well. Can we make one call to either of you? Or should we call both?" He's smirking a bit as he walks back to the kitchen to grab his peanut butter. "What if he doesn't want to rest?" He asks, turning to look back at Cassandra.
"Yeah, well, he's still a ghost," Lance insists, "Not that there's anything wrong with being a ghost. Samara was a ghost. Only I guess she still had her body, but— " He wrinkles his nose, "That's my point, like, I bet lots of 'ghosts' were just evolved stuff." Then he's frowning, glancing after Joe and to Cassandra, "Yeah. He's just— I mean, he's just disabled, not dead. Putting him to rest sounds kind of fucked up, no offense."
Cassandra takes a breath, fixing the pair with a serious look. "Mr. Gerkin, according to /everyone/ in the world but me, Mr. Winters, and now you, building on information I gave you approximately ten minutes before, William DeLuca is dead. By all metrics that anyone has, he's gone. I have his remains in a cooler at SESA headquarters, and we're currently in the process of finding his next of kin so we can give his body a proper burial. I'm not talking about exorcising him, but at least try to do something for him. Yes, it's messed up. Getting eaten by rats during a flood is messed up. We deal with messed up things in a messed up world." Cassandra looks to Joe for a second before starting on his litany of comments. But first, the elephant in the room.
"I am quite familiar with the obstacles any sort of law enforcement faces when dealing with the residents of the safe zone. As one of the evolved members of SESA, I believe in justice, truth, and doing what's right. All that stuff aside, I think I can do good for people. I do good for people. And every time I do something for someone, the wound gets a little better. Yes, I know it'll take years. Decades, even, to heal the rifts caused by what happened before the war, the war, and the reconstruction."
Cassandra takes a breath, blowing it out. "Okay, back to the matter at hand. Yes, I'm working with Inspector Lin. He is the primary, I'm informing you of what we've discovered as a courtesy, because after reading the reports, I felt that you both deserved to know what happened."
"Oh, and if you're looking for a psychic? I'm not your girl. Sorry." She shifts her bag from one shoulder to the other. "All I can do is show the past in vivid color, which is how I know what happened to William."
"Samara is weird yeah. But Will might be fully alive. Like fully. Just without a body. Maybe he could get a new body… somehow? I'm not sure where that one was going." He admits with a soft laugh, but does tip his head. "Yeah putting him to rest sounds like putting him down. I don't think it's a ghost like most people think. There was that technopath. Or like multiple technopaths. People talked about him during the trials. Rebel? I've read a lot of the public transcripts of the testimonies and trials. Rebel. The gestalt like multiperson technopath consciousness. I mean… he was alive. They? They were alive. Why not Will?" He looks back to Cassandra with that statement. "There's ample evidence of Evolved living beyond their bodies. William DeLuca is clearly doing just that. He is communicating with people. He showed us the way to his own body which suggests cognitive thought. He also ran when the second agent came blundering up hollering and shouting. Which shows a fear response. So… just saying. Pretty sure he's alive. Just not the way we think of alive."
Joe nods his head, a small smile on his lips. "Good. You're Evolved yourself you said. So just keep it in mind. I understand it's got to be frustrating when you're just trying to do your job. But these scars aren't decades old. They're still open wounds for a lot of people. And as long as you keep that in mind I think you could do a lot of good for the people of the safe zone. I have yet to meet a SESA agent I didn't like. Agent Lin is pretty cool people too." He flashes her a wider smile. "We appreciate it. Keeping us in the loop. And if we find out anything we'll let you know. Just like we promised Agent Lin. We want to see the issue end too. The hunger shortages are hitting pretty hard. Riots in the market, people grumbling. It's… it's rough. We want to do what we can to help solve the problem." He looks at Lance, then back to Cassandra and then back to Lance, an eyebrow raised. He glances to the chalkboard. Should they show her the chalkboard? Should he show her the ferry map? It might help…
Lance leans in a bit, and stage-whispers, "I think Joe's planning on becoming a lawyer or a lobbyist or something. It's why he talks like he's in a debate all the fucking time, especially when I ask where all the peanut butter went." Then he drops back, one hand scratching at his chin, "Well. We need more information, and while you haven't actually asked us to look for Will, you're probably not allowed to. So. We gotta find him before we do anything else. See what he knows."
Cassandra doesn't rehash what has already been said - she is in the same camp that Joe and Lance are with Will. "I can't ask you to do any kind of investigation. You're not deputized, bonded, insured, or trained to do any of the things we do. I won't ask you to go into the sewers because that's dangerous and insane. I really can't emphasize not going into the sewers enough. Do not go look for an intelligent swarm of rats because that's poking the bear with a short stick."
"There's a theory that he trusts younger people, like you, more than someone like me or another agent. After his experiences getting registered, I can understand why." Cassandra's only a couple of years older, but that's enough. "So you might have a better chance of seeing him and communicating with him. I'd suggest a pad of paper to write on, since he may not be able to affect the world enough to produce sound."
Joe turns towards Lance. "Look." He waves his newly peanut butter laden spoon at the ninja. "I have told you all about the peanut butter ninjas. And the peanut butter pirates. I don't know what else you expect me to do. I don't come equipped to take on a whole team of ninjas or a whole team of pirates okay? I might be sword proof but dangit their kung-fu is strong okay? I'm not /that/ primal okay?" His grin grows wider, until he opens his mouth and pops the end of the spoon into it. It's pulled free leaving the peanut butter behind. "Well I mean… we're totally tra…." He stops and looks at Lance, then back to Cassandra with a bright and cheery sort of smile. "We are fully capable of handling ourselves." He smiles, and then noms more peanut butter to shut himself up. "Also rats can't eat me. Just saying." Yeah, peanut butter didn't shut him up. "We can read lips pretty well. You learn to communicate quietly when you're a child on the run from the government secret axeman forces. But yeah. I get your drift. We'll be careful."
"He can talk just fine," is Lance's observation, then, one shoulder coming up in a shrug, "He talked when we found him, anyway— Joe, tell me that's not the last jar of peanut butter. We've got a shortage, man!" He looks a bit pained, hands spreading to either side as if to indicate Joe and the peanut butter, "At least spread it on a crust of bread or something!"
“Invincible or no, trained or no, I really must stress that you do not go into the tunnels beneath New York, looking for answers.” She’s really saying that, and it’s not with the wink and a nudge that means ‘I’m saying not to do this, but do it anyway.’ From what the two can tell, Cassandra /really means/ that they shouldn’t go down there. “Gentlemen, thank you both for your time.” She turns to unlatch the door, ready to head out. “Be sure to contact myself or agent Lin if you remember anything that might be helpful.”
Cassandra opens the door partially, ready to head out, and then pauses. She looks to the pair of them. “Wait.” There’s a turn, the woman standing in the door. “He talked when you found him? When you were with Bowie…er, Agent Lin and Agent Rhys?” Cassie’s notepad comes out, the woman looking to Lance and then to Joe. “Do either of you remember what he said?”
Joe looks down at the peanut butter, then back up at Lance. "Whafor? And oh yeah. He did talk didn't he?" He looks over at Cassandra, pointing the spoon at her. "Will talked. So there's that. I actually forgot he talked. I mean I knew it, but I forgot it. Good looking out broninja." He throws an upnod Lance's way, then goes back to scooping out more peanut butter. "Look. I pretty much subsist on peanut butter. Why do you think I never eat the bread and stuff? I just eat the peanut butter. And I brought two jars yesterday. Wasn't cheap. I mean it was fairly cheap. Just not cheap cheap. A lot of people don't like the relief food peanut butter cuz it's like half oil. I don't care. I just pour the excess oil out and go from there.”
Joe tips his head forwards at Cassandra’s question. “Yeah, now that Lance reminded me. He asked if we were lost too. When we first found him Agent Bowie… which is an awesome name, and Agent Rhys hadn’t come upon us yet. We… talked with him, like a short convo. Lance then asked him if he was lost and how he got down there and William said he followed them and pointed over our shoulders at Agent Bowie and Agent Rhys and then turned and went through the wall. We thought he was a phaser at first, and honestly I thought he was a phaser up until we found the body. I went running off after him and he led us to the mattress and his body. And then he disappeared. He didn’t phase through the floor just poof he was gone. But yeah. He interacted with us.” Joe’s shoulders lift in a half shrug. “The agents… wouldn’t have heard that I don’t think. So no surprise it wasn’t in their reports.”
“It was pretty normal talk, so…” Lance crooks a smile, one brow lifting, “I’m sure that if we find him there won’t be any issues talking to him. We’ll— “ A glance to Joe, then back to Cassandra, “We’ll let you know if we learn anything more, Agent.”