Seasons in the Sun

[Brian]

The cafe is relatively quiet, a few Gibraltan teens playing Counterstrike rather poorly, but seeming to enjoy themselves regardless.

Standing in the entrance are the three newly arrived guests, the swarthy Parthipan, dagger sheathed on one hip, the wary Paul, hands tensed as though to ... something ..., and behind them, the self-assured (though a bit surprised looking) Phil.

Sitting at a desk in a corner, shuffling through uncooperative pages in Hotmail until the install of Windows 95 gives up the ghost and crashes (forcing a reboot and the loss of an incomplete e-mail) makes one Nathan Shuker swear.

This swearing (and accompanied running of hands through hair) has the effect of rousing the meditative (if bulky) Bjorn lounging in a chair nearby with an (untouched) glass of water sitting on the table next to him.

[Dracos]

Dracos glances around.  "Well, if this isn't an...interesting coincidence?  Perhaps the fates are with us?  Hey Bjorn, Rezzie.  Seems you two are alive and well.  Survive the trip to gibraltar well enough?"

Dracos

[Bjorn]

"Ah do thank," Bjorn drawls in the best Texan accent he can manage (which, no matter how good it is, is better than he is necessarily comfortable with.), "that you are mistaken.  Mah name is Reverend Jacob Housner.  Howevah, it is indeed a pleasah to make the acquaintance of a fellow American."

Touching the smudges of the entire group and bringing them into the link, Bjorn acidly adds, I know the whole secrecy and subtlety thing hasn't exactly been your preferred approach here, but do try.  

Yes.  We're fine.  You, on the other hand, have not been.  Care to give us more detail?

[Dracos]

"Ah, apologies, I misspeak."

~Sorry, subtlety isn't exactly my strongest suite.  Let's sit down somewhere private preferrably if you want the long version.  If you want the short version, I can give it right now.~

Dracos

[Bjorn]

Check your email.  You walked in here for a reason.  In the meantime, you can give me the very short answer to: do you work for Pax Arcana now?

[Dracos]

~I tend to make it a habit not to backstab friends.  So, no, I don't.~

Dracos pays for a bit of time, sitting down near rez to check his email.

Dracos

[Bjorn]

Bjorn settles back into his seat, resuming his contemplation of a sunset over the Rock.  All right.  Why don't you give us the more detailed version of what happened, then?  This is a nice public place, and anybody who can overhear us talking like this would probably overhear us no matter where we went.

Besides, he adds, glancing back over his shoulder, it looks like Nathan might be a while.

[Dracos]

~Okay, we left you guys at the airport and traveled to Britain without a hitch.  Switched planes and were on the way to Gibraltar when the plane we were on got taken over by terrorists looking for shade.  Which...I think I told you already, but anyway.  We managed through mostly luck to take over the plane and land it safely in France before the French airforce would've blown us out of the sky.  Gin got himself nicely shot during this and had to rest up in the hospital.  Additionally, the kid that'd been helping them was right next door to him.  Anyhow, we rested a few days then Huitz had his dream, which you know about in pretty good detail and I assume you've told Rez.  Huitz, you can answer questions on that as I don't care to.  Anyhow, while we were at the hospital chatting we happened to have a nice little telepath decide he wanted in.  We promptly changed discussion topics and started moving out of the place when some armed and armored terrorists charged in and the telepath decided he wanted more information then he'd been allowed to get and chose me as the target.  I wasn't really paying any attention to the others at that point as I was trying to keep my mind intact and then chase the guy down, though he did manage to sever the connection in the end.  While I was following it though I ran into these two huge guys in professional suits, near twins as far as I could tell, if not twins.  They asked for me to come along with them peacefully so I tried to listen in on them mentally and figure out what they were about while verbally checking their credentials and the like and asking what they wanted.  They were able to pretty easily halt my telepathic probes with answers of their own but they seemed on the level and I didn't see much gain to fighting with folks carrying official interpol identification.  Anyhow, we went down and they patched up Huitz who seemed to have gotten the bad end of the deal and brought the lot of us and the kid to talk with... forget his name but he was dressed in a pink suit like that guy from Giant Robo.  Anyhow, he told us he'd been ordered to capture us... but at the same time had personal reasons why he didn't think that was right, so he decided he'd let us go.  We took him up on his deal, escaping by bus and then by train to Germany, where we found Caber waiting for us.  This is when you reached us last, and when he was busy trying to convince us to join Pax Arcana.  We all refused and he fled the joint rather than picking a fight.  I don't think that Pax is going to move against us just yet.  At least not until we've cleared Gibraltar.  They seemed to be assuming we'd just end up being distracting irritants to Seventh Cabal and get crushed easily by them.  Anyhow, after that we took the train down here, leaving a little bit of a false trail but not much...and here we are.~

Dracos
OOC: Yeah, the formatting is ugly as hell.  Sorry

[Bjorn]

That's it?  The metaphorical chalk of Bjorn's question oozes disbelief.  Caber -- a guy who can probably generate his own army if he wants -- shows up, offers you a job, and then runs away when you say no?  Pax Arcana is impressed enough with us to offer you a job, but not so impressed that they're going to stop us?

Involuntarily, Bjorn grimaces, and takes a sip of the water to cover it, still staring intently at the Rock.  Let's get our ass in gear.  This whole thing stinks, and I want out.  Nathan, what does the Oracle say?

[Rezantis]

Miss Oracle informs me that we now need to find Ezmereth, who is probably sitting on top of the rock.  Me, I don't see much point waiting, except for the obvious fact that Bjorn promised to get cookies and is trying to welch on it.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn grunts, under his breath.  Check CNN for me, will you?

[Rezantis]

Right, right . . .

Rez attempts to load it. On this -painfully- slow connection. And waves to the new entries.

"Hey, guys, was wondering when you'd join us . . . "

Expecting something?

[Bjorn]

Yeah.  You just got your damn cookies.  Now, stop whining.

Now, having thoroughly confused everyone in here whether we know each other or not, shall we head to the Rock?

[Rezantis]

See? Welching. See if I partner up with you again!

Rez pauses.

And it's better than you guys staring wordlessly at each other for five minutes. It'll be a moot point soon anyway. Let's go.

[Brian]

CNN.com still has relatively little information, though, there is a recently updated article that has someone who looks familiar (people in pink trenchcoats stand out) investigating a crime scene with a number of MiBs around him.

The captions say, "Detective Ashley is in charge of the Interpol section...."

Clicking on it to the article basically yeilds an analysis that says he is looking for the terrorists, and promises that if there's any connection between those terrorists still in custody, and the recently vanished heroes of flight 450 (who vanished, oddly, at the same time as a massive explosion cleared out an abandoned warehouse across the city -- this is also being investigated to see if it's related), such that the terrorists and the heroes were working in tandem, that he will bring them to justice.

He adds that he doubts that this is the case, as one of the heroes was very badly injured in the process, but allows that anything can be possible.

Further comments are under confidential authority until Interpol officers have decided how to handle the situation, and if you found this article interesting, you might also like to buy: American Warlord, by Tom Clancy (purchase is on amazon.com!).

Freaking spam.

That's about it, though.