Log:Interlopers and Observers

A List of Questions 2019/09/21 Night Marshal Mechanica Rangel Kelly

4

After interrogating Carpenter, Mechanica sent a message to Night Marshal to meet on a rooftop in Lowtown, above the Time Warp Arcade. <> A GPS map location is attached to the text as well as a time. Carpenter may have ignored it during his angry drive home home, but has plenty of time to make the meeting.

Mechanica is already early at the location and cloaked. She's idly reviewing the List and frowning at what detail she's missing. She hates waiting and seeing, but that may be the option here.

Night Marshal gets to the building with plenty of time. He tries out his climbing gear, and makes his way up the side of the building without using the fire escape. He pull himself up onto the roof and makes his way over to the exact location.

She also hates Rangel, or at least the way the feline keeps giving away her position. For Rangel it's sort of a game, encouraging people to update their weird hidey technology to cover senses like smell and touch and other. Rangel uses her stalking skills, aiming to get near enough without alerting her prey to her presence. For starters it would be sheer luck, but the old pebble toss helps increase her odds by drawing attention in a specific direction.

With a shimmer in the air, Mechanica decloaks as she sees Night Marshal and smiles. "Hola, Vaquero," she purrs seductively. "I hope you had better luck than I did. And I wish you had told me you were turning the list in to the policia," she adds, rolling her eyes a bit with a smile. "Especially to someone -on- the list."

Night Marshal shrugs, and chuckles, and speaks in that sort-of western manner of speaking, "Howdy. I reckon I said that I trusted someone on the list with my life, didn't I? I wanted to get another opinion on what I was seeing."

Mechanica sighs and folds her arm over her chest. "Si, claro, but I didn't expect that one. I caught him talking to someone high on the list I wanted to check in on. Seemed odd for them to be together just after the list was taken." She groans and rubs the bridge of her nose as she closes her eyes. "I thought he might've been hostile and came on a bit...strong." She lowers her hand and looks back up at the Night Marshal, over her embarrassment. "If you trust him that much, he must be a good guy."

She suddenly pauses as she hears the pebble. "Company," she whispers harshly and immediately vanishes again, activating her radar to scout.

Night Marshal freezes and listens. He then starts looking around with his IR vision to see if he can spot who Mechanica was talking about.

Rangel approaches after her pebble toss, giving a wave toward Night Marshal, not entirely familiar with him just yet. She's less quiet about walking on the rooftop gravel than she would like, but she's in a mostly relaxed situation, and hearing the discussed list, it has her curious. "Not really company. More like a fuzzy curiosity satisfier. Interloper and observer, launcher of shafty things, Rangel by alias." She bobs her head to Night Marshal, again greeting. "I haven't annoyed you as much yet."

"Starguard," Mechanica hisses as she becomes visible again, now at Night Marshal's side. "Interloper is right."

Night Marshal tilts his head, "Yeah, I'm not sure we've met yet. I go by 'Night Marshal'." He glances to Mechanica, "Someone you know?"

"Just someone who blew my cover," Mechanica answers.

Rangel flips the logo band over. "I keep leaving that on display. Sounds like you aren't a fan. Not gonna ask why. I just know it probably wasn't involving me. Unless it was. In which case sorry!"

"Apart from sniffing out your bleeding shoulder, how'd I blow your cover? Anyone with a good enough nose'd find you."

Mechanica eyes Rangel suspiciously. "I don't understand why Starguard would recruit an ex-assassin and kidnapper. You've committed crimes I won't even touch for a good cause."

Mechanica smirks. "Well, they're recruiting assassins and wild cards, for one. And I don't entirely trust the false Guild never got its hooks in them."

Rangel grows a grin. "You looked that up just now. You know nothing about me. Apart from what's on the file. Which is a surprising amount! Just not a lot about the finer details. They didn't recruit me."

Night Marshal raises a brow. "If they didn't recruit you, how did you end up with Starguard?"

Mechanica still eyes Rangel with suspicion. "I prefer the facts I can research to a stranger's word."

"An embarassing need for help in a world that kicked me pretty hard," Rangel replies. "I can take a kick. Gets groggy after six or seven. So I went to them. Worked out a kind of um. Deputizing? I'm not one hundred percent clear but if I read stuff I'd probably be more informed." She shrugs. "Oh I wouldn't trust me either. Also wouldn't trust files completely. But you get to put your faith in anything you choose."

Mechanica stares deadpan at Rangel. "That actually makes them sound even worse. And it still means they hired a former assassin. Deputizing? Seriously?"

Night Marshal shrugs a bit. "Commander Perrault has a history of making decisions like that. Seems kind of dumb to me, but so far it's worked."

Rangel smiles. "Fixating on someone's past is gonna make you seem really unforgiving of circumstance. Also something you're able to choose. I wasn't given the choices. I then paid for those lack of choices. Then I was given choices! So now I make choices. Like not killing people. It's really novel even after a few years of choosing that."

Mechanica folds her arms as she regards Rangel, still mistrusting her. Mostly because she can sense through her cloaking technology that she relies on to survive. She decides to not talk about the List for now. "Luck runs out eventually." She glances over to Night Marshal and whispers, "They're military. Bad for business in our line of work." The three are standing on the rooftop of the Time Warp Arcade. Mechanica is standoff-ish about Rangel's snooping on her and Night Marshal's arranged meeting.

"Well, the good news for your conceit is I didn't quite catch that," Rangel informs. "But you should know my hearing's on par with the sniffer. May want to pass secrets by writing or message or something, just in case."

Sniffer. Rangel can hear the indelicate snort coming from the nearby alley. "You guys need to stop being so loud." comes Kelly's voice from said alleyway. "It's like you -want- others to overheard your secret plans for world domination."

Night Marshal seems to be pretty relaxed, all things considered. He doesn't have a beef with anyone here on the rooftop. At least not yet. "What brings you here, Rangel? Were you following Mechanica?"

Mechanica almost bristles at the thought. "Next time I'll have to pick a more remote location. And this is already pretty dead this time of night," she grumbles upon hearing Kelly being the least stealthy apex predator in the world.

Well, it's not like Kelly is -trying- to sneak up on folks, "I'm sorry. I heard you guys from the street level." She shrugs a bit and adds, "But I do have really REALLY good ears." She smirks humorlessly and adds, "It sounds like there really -is- something serious going down. So.. I thought I'd investigate."

Kelly says that as she steps up over the edge of the rooftop into view....

"If I was her and I had my sort of paranoia, I'd say definitely," Rangel replies. "And it sounds a lot like she does in regards to me. So that works out to a yes from both hypothetical and true her." A glance toward the alley. "I know that voice... grumpy. Aha. Grumpy voice match to grumpy face. Hello again." She turns and shrugs. "My personal story is that I was checking up on the bullet catcher. Genuine concern! Imagine that. Me with the concern I mean, not genuine concern as a concept. I guess you don't have to imagine me with concern either..."

Little does she realize Mechanica's paranoid about anyone until they prove themselves trustworthy. "How considerate of you," she says tersely as she folds her arms over her chest, drumming her claws lightly on her left bicep. And now Night Marshal knows she didn't take his advice on resting.

Night Marshal hasn't met Kelly previously, as far as he can remember. He offers a wave in her direction, and then looks to Mechanica, "Did you get the wound healed?"

Rangel is wearing a grin when Night Marshal asks that. She's not saying why. She's just grinning with that knowing look.

Mechanica stiffens a bit at the question. "I managed to locate a healer, si..." she says with some evasiveness in her eyes. That's what guilt looks like for sure.

Looking to Rangel, Kelly gives a sigh. "Great. Little miss Fuzzylogic." she remarks with a shake of her head. "Look. I really -do- have all night, but I'd rather not sit around and wait so.. any idea when you guys might be getting to the point?" she asks as she folds her arms just under her bustline, "I mean something is up. I've heard word on the street that things are going down. I just have a rather.. focused natural prey."

"Actually I'm pretty much done with the doing what I set out to do when i caught scent and chose to check on," Rangel replies. "Fuzzylogic! Because I'm covered in fuzz, logically." She nods in mock certainty. "And I'm kind of like 'The fuzz' if you use weird slang that fell out of practice. And whatever you mean as a third thing. So just to clear things up, last time I saw you and you saw me there was this look on you like I was to be hunted and strangled and beaten and maybe stabbed a couple of times for good measure. Has that urge passed or is this just a really long prelude to the stabbing?"

Night Marshal nods to Mechanica, "Good." He then looks over in Kelly's direction, "I am not sure what you're talking about. You heard...what was going down, exactly?"

"I don't know what point you're talking about," Mechanica says in response to Kelly.

"Funny. Neither do I. It just sounded like you were trying to plan some op. So I thought it might be a wise idea to look into it." says Kelly with a shrug. "Of course, I don't KNOW what is going down. Word on the street is something seems to be escalating. Not sure what or how."

Night Marshal takes a deep breath. "Well, there's a low key mob war going on between the Cangelosis and the Capellis. And they may be trying to drag the two local Triads into it as well."

Mechanica takes Night Marshal's lead. "A mercenary named Ghost Dog carried out an attack as part of it. I'm still trying to see what I can dig up on him."

"Yeah," Rangel muses. "There was a bomber guy planting some carsplosions out by the Dragon Palace. Ghost DOg? There's a name. I'll get going now. Nice meeting you," she bobs her head to Night Marshal. "I get up to vigilantics so might see you around more. The law of annoying people means I'm definitely going to see you more," she mentions to Mechanica. "And you haven't answered me about the stabbing prelude," is added for Kelly. "I'm all healed from the kicking so I guess I can be stabbed now and it would be within acceptable abuse limits." She bounds to another roof, then another, and so on.

Night Marshal rubs his chin. "Attempted car bombings. A drug production location destroyed. Stuff like that. Mostly, it's been Capelli's folks on the attack. If I were to guess...I'd reckon he took somethin' personal-like."

Shaking her head, Kelly shrugs her shoulders, "Crime families. Triads. It's like everyone wants to be like Mike." she smirks a bit, "They're trying to emulate the family structure and activities of the world's oldest bloodlines. Odds are they don't even know they are." But she inclines her head, "Ghost Dog." she remarks though. "Haven't heard that name of late. Might be folks are afraid to talk about him." And as Rangel departs, it's like Kelly seems to relax a bit. Something about that girl gets her dander up. Hard to explain why.

"Personal?" Mechanica asks, eyeing Rangel as she leaves. They're definitely going to cross paths again. "Was there anything in the news that sounded like that?" she looks back to Night Marshal.

Night Marshal nods. "A couple years back. Tommy Cangelosi tried to take out Sonny Capelli's son. 'Least...that's the rumor I ran across. No immediate strike back, but it's related, I wager."

Mechanica chuckles. "Revenge is a dish best served cold, they say."

"You know who probably made up that saying? Someone who wasn't capable of serving it piping steaming hot." offers Kelly, "Self Justification is one of the hallmarks of philosophers." she adds with a smirk, "But.. I might have just made that up."