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The Unexplored Wooded Area, All Day Monday

Had anyone expected the godawful cacophonous noise from yesterday to be over and done with by today? They shouldn't have. And, if anyone had expected such an optimistic thing, their hopes were dashed today because yep, that noise just continued, with all its digging and beeping and various other sounds of heavy machinery.

Outside the dig site, combat engineers were patrolling the perimeter. Even though looked to be almost leisurely about it, and there weren't very many of them, trying to pass by them was inadvisable, unless you were one of the regular, be-exoskeletoned Hyperion workers passing through into the area. No, if you weren't wearing Hyperion yellow, it was best not to try going that way. It was for your own safety!

And you didn't want to get shot for your own safety, did you?

Thought not.

Even with all those machines in town. Yes, they were still there, and fully functional.

[ooc: This post is open for interactions with Hyperion employees! Only outside the dig site's perimeter, though. We really don't recommend trying to get inside.]

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Topher had never been out in this unexplored wooded area before, and he was pretty sure he wouldn't be doing it again. There were bugs and dirt and stuff. But the sounds of construction were hard to ignore when you were as curious as Topher was.

However, he certainly wasn't going to try to pass into their territory. No sirree. He was just going to stand just outside their construction area and ask questions, raising his voice to make sure they couldn't pretend not to hear him over the sounds of the machinery.

Beginning with: "Hey, uh, what is this?"

On his way to the site proper, one of the guys with an exoskeleton stopped to give Topher a surly look.

"It's a private dig, kid. Move along."

"What are you digging for?" Topher asked, peering forward at such an angle that he almost lost balance. "Aren't there machines under there and stuff?"

He wasn't going to see much but the occasional glimpse of the machines, no matter how much he'd try to peer at the site. Their dig wasn't a spectator sport, and they'd set their stuff up accordingly.

"It's a private dig," the man repeated. "Means what we're digging for is also private." A pause, and then, "What machines?"

Hey, that sounded like potentially useful information.

"What're you digging for?" Topher retorted. An answer for an answer, see? "I asked first."

"Not gonna tell you, kid." So there. "But you could get in trouble for withholding important information."

Not that they couldn't get it elsewhere too.

"Assuming you even have any."

"I always have important information," Topher assured him, tapping his chin, "but I don't find your threat very threatening, I gotta say. Anyway, there's no way for me to tell what's important if I don't know what you're looking for."

"We're digging," the man pointed out, getting more sour about this conversation by the second. "That's all you've got to know to be ale to tell whether knowing about some underground machines is important."

Topher shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I don't think it's important," he decided. "Hey, what's your suit made out of?"

"Metal."

Funny how that sounded like 'go away'.

"You don't know what kind?" Topher looked pitying.

"Beat it, kid."

That sounded even more like go away. In fact, it was actually synonymous.

Also, the guy was lifting one of his metal-enhanced arms up to wave another guy over. It was one of the ones carrying the big guns.

"Nice meeting you," Topher said hastily, and he started to shuffle away, frowning.

What the hell was going on here?

Look, there were boxes of money everywhere, and strange males on the island doing dubious things. It was like everything Surreal enjoyed creating chaos with in one convenient place! It was Winsol!

And the nice part about being a witch was that you could vanish your ill-gotten coinage the second you got it, and didn't have to carry it around and have it weigh you down or potentially give you away. Like when you were sneaking around the perimeter of some sort of loud construction site.

She still wasn't likely to get very far, because the closer anyone got to the dig site itself, the more pairs of eyes there were to spot an intruder. All of them armed.

But, currently, the closest person here was talking loudly into... a thing (http://i.imgur.com/wY88Lvb.jpg). A general progress report on how a certain group of workers was doing, nothing too interesting to outsider ears.

But it was enough to distract him, anyway.

That looked like a fun thing! Look, Surreal had been at Fandom long enough to recognize non-Earth-Normal tech when she saw it, and she was not liking the psychic scents these males were giving off. Logically - by Surreal logic, anyway - that meant she wanted that thing.

It was time to put her classes with Mr. Bond about bluffing into action.

Surreal gave anyone who glanced at her a bright and sunny smile as she moved closer to the site, stopping and picking what few winter plants and flowers had not been trampled by their machinery and weaving them into a wreath as she walked. If she happened to be moving toward the male with the thing, well, that was totally a coincidence.

The male with the thing had not noticed her yet. 'Yet' being the operative word here. Much too busy barking information into the thing.

Until, of course, he no longer was. There was only so much barking of information to be done, after all! And so he stopped, and put the thing where it belonged, into a holster-like thing on his hip.

And that would be her cue!

Surreal tripped - quite convincingly - into the male with the thing, sending her armfuls of wreaths everywhere, even as she tried to catch them. "Oh, oh no! I'm so sorry!"

No she wasn't. Well, she was sorry for the waste of plants, anyway. Her wreaths were very pretty.

Do you know how often Hyperion employees got wreaths thrown at them?

Never.

So understandably, the guy was pretty perplexed by this turn of events. A wreath caught on the edge of his helmet and he batted it away, as if that helped in the flowery chaos.

"Lady, you shouldn't even be here."

Flowery chaos was all she needed for Surreal's fingers to brush against thing in the holster ~~NOT THE DIRTY THING YOU PEOPLE GAWD~~ and attempt to Vanish it.

"I shouldn't be here?" she echoed, eyes going wide and her tone somewhat indignant as she scrambled to ~~collect~~ ~~throw about~~ collect her wreaths. "I've lived here for ages. Sugar, ya'll are the new kids, that's why I made these for you!"

She beamed and reached up to try and put another wreath over his hard-hat. "Welcome to Fandom! How do you like it so far?"

"Trespassers will be frowned upon," he groused. It wasn't an answer, but he also didn't want wreaths anywhere near himself, so really, she'd brought the bad attitude on herself.

Not that she probably cared, what with his ECHO communicator safely Vanished and all. But he didn't know that. "Take your flowers with you."

"But I made them for all of you!" See Surreal imitate a kicked-puppy with deadly accuracy! "Besides, I'm not a trespasser, I'm a resident."

YOU MADE HER SNIFFLE, BAD MAN. LOOK AT THAT ONE PERFECT TEAR FALLING DOWN HER CHEEK.

She gathered up her wreaths, gave him her best wibbly face, hung her head and walked away. And if he was missing anything else out of his pockets or off his big rig-thing, well, Surreal couldn't possibly know where it had gone.

He was going to be very annoyed and confused once he'd realize whatever was missing... was indeed missing. But right now, he just shook his head, and went back to his work. Not a lot of time to waste on weird kids with flowers.

Too bad for him!

So there were these guys hanging out around town, taking over restaurants and installing things like gun machines all over the place. While Raven sure wasn't going to argue with easy access to a weapon for herself, arming the general populace -- who, in her experience, were really only a few shocks away from turning on each other and attacking even without a ready supply of flame throwers -- was another thing entirely.

Raven had a lot of experience going places where she didn't belong. The key, of course, was to look like you did belong. And the easiest way to do that was to look exactly like the people who were already there. She hung out a little ways away to observe -- disguised as an innocuous teal deer -- then picked out one of the guards to mimic. She made a few adjustments -- no use having one of them discover a previously unknown long lost twin or anything -- shifted her weight a few times to get used to the bulk of the look, then headed in.

Time to see if she could figure out just what these guys were up to. And if not, weeeeell. A souvenir or two couldn't hurt, right?

"Hey, you!"

Oh that's right, someone had spotted her. Someone who was even pointing a finger at her. Although maybe they hadn't so much spotted her...

"Come over here."

Raven had just enough practice at this sort of thing not to panic -- but it was a near thing. She hadn't done this in awhile, after all.

(Clearly, she was going to have to practice more in her free time.)

"What?" Raven asked, heading over. "I'm busy."

She had no idea what she might be busy doing, or if this person might rank higher or lower than the guy she'd based her form off of. She was just going to have to bluff like crazy.

Bluff like the wind, Raven!

"Not that busy, you're not," the man ground out, but luckily not in a way that sounded like she'd just talked back to a higher ranking person. So that was good! "Have you seen Baker?"

"Not if I can help it," Raven groused. There was little people enjoyed better, she'd found, then trashing a mutual acquaintance. "He wander off the job again?"

Maybe Baker was actually super reliable and a nice guy. There was always someone in the ranks who thought any given other person was terrible.

Baker was not a terribly reliable guy, so the man right in front of Raven was unsurprised, but also not happy.

"Apparently," he said. "Probably at one of the restaurants again. Unbelievable." Sigh. "Go get him, will you? ECHO back when you find him."

One small problem with that.

Was the problem that Raven had no idea what that meant? Because, yeah.

"That's what I was busy doing," she said, stalling like crazy. "I can't ECHO anyone right now. Machinery's busted."

That sounded plausible, right?

"Probably one of those damned squirrels."

Sorry, squirrels.

That was definitely a thing she was getting right about Hyperion workers, though! Because unsurprisingly, a company having shady dealings around the island didn't appreciate gossipy rodents.

"Is it?" he asked, pulling out his own ECHO communicator. "Lemme check. Troughton!"

A voice responded from the communicator.

"Just checking." He closed the connection, then looked at Raven. "This one works."

Raven quietly flexed a couple muscles and managed to pull out a facsimile of his handset of her own.

Or, rather, she managed to make her hand look like she was holding a handset like his. She copied his movements and tone to pretend to call Troughton herself. Unsurprisingly, she got no response. "Must just be mine, then." She rolled her eyes. "Just always my luck. You got a spare around here I can borrow while I go track Baker down?"

As far as souvenirs went, one that could potentially let her listen in on the shady company ranked high on her list.

And the researchers would love it, too!

The man sighed, but then tossed his ECHO communicator (http://i.imgur.com/wY88Lvb.jpg) to her. "Take this one, I'll take Troughton's. But don't stay gone too long, we need everyone working full shifts."

This was a damned busy dig site, after all!

Raven caught the communicator and used it to give the guy a jaunty salute. "I'll get his ass back here ASAP, don't you worry." She really wouldn't. Baker could continue to slack off all he wanted as far as she was concerned. "Tell Troughton I heard what he said about your mother. It wasn't that funny."

What? She needed a distraction for when she changed back. Or something.

Okay, maybe she just thought messing with these guys was fun. Could you blame her?

She headed out at a jog without waiting for a reply, the perfect picture of a army-like corporation stooge on a mission.

Maybe someone at the library would be able to tell her how this gizmo worked.

"Wait –- what did he say about my mother?"

But it was too late.

Well, at least this guy was a swifter mover than Baker was. So, there was that.

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The Unexplored Wooded Area, All Day Monday

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