< Trouble and Visions><< Trouble and Visions><IC: Anique let out a sigh of relief as Will let go of her shirt and headed for the group of Kindred to her left. Let Sydney deal with Will, she thought. At least he knew how to do so, better than anyone else. She slumped down on the floor, leaning against the wall of the warehouse.
The new guy, the one she had half-introduced herself to, was pondering the situation out-loud. He was right, she thought. Freewater (that bitch!) hates us because we are Malkavian, and don't fit in to her pathetic little Toreador world. Prehaps he was right on his other count as well. If he was a painter, the Toreador Prince probably wouldn't like his paintings, considering her sense of taste was horrendous. Anique had heard the Prince blather about "True Art" at ellysiums, and knew that anyone with real talent would be overlooked by Freewater's limited insight. However, Primogen Murray was certainly no artist (unless one considered booze-guzzling and singing Irish drinking ballads in a slurred voice an art form). That would mean only one thing. Somebody was after the Malkavians. Hum. This new guy was a Malkavian too. How had he found them all so quickly? She had never seen him around. Usually, it took kindred a considerable amount of time to find the rest of the Malkavian community in Toronto. They didn't just 'show up' by walking into the right bookstore. Well, she could tell from his aura that he was definetly a vampire. It was pale. Pale as death, one could say. Looking at Vampiric auras always made her think of the cold. They were not bright and lively as the auras of humans, but suggested teh life that had once been there, and reflected the pallor of death. At least, that was how she explained it. Just as Sydney was starting to speak, she heard voices in the other room.
"Come out come out wherever you are, my little loonies! It's Ellison and Remington come to call! We need to have a little heart-to heart, don't you think?" The voice was sweet and syrupy, and made Anique want to gag. She knew Ellison had spoken the words. Now there was a Poseur if one had ever been born. She couldn't bear the thought of him in those horrible stretch pants and poet shirts, with that smarmy grin he wore when he mocked people (which was most of the time anyway). Besides, she didn't like the jist of what he was saying. She was afraid....maybe they would try to hurt them!! If someone had hurt Murray, then they could hurt the rest of the Malks too!
She reached down the side of her leg and lifted the cuff of her jeans on the right-hand side. Strapped to her leg was a long, shiny knife. It was a 'stilletto' knife, designed to be used to jabbing cuts, or defensvley like a small sword. She unhooked the leather scabbard that held it against her leg. Anique watched the light play off of the foot long silver blade. She brought it up to her mouth, and gently drew the blade along her tounge. The pain of the blade cutting her mouth brought her fully awake and into complete awareness of herself and those around her. She watched as the blade dripped with a little of her blood. No one would hurt her tonight. She used to power of her blood to heal the cut on her tounge. She noticed the others looking at her with wide eyes. She didn't really understand why. Only that they were also looking towards the door in terrified anticipation of what lay beyond.
IC: Sarah just watched as almost everyone spoke about the current situation. Christian was very interesting in his ideas although it all seemed to be stream of conscience and chaotic. Sydney seemed frizzeled but under control some how considering the circumstances. Antique just looked relieved to have Will off of her and Will for his part looked like a time bomb ready to blow up angain at any moment.
"Come out come out wherever you are, my little loonies! It's Ellison and Remington come to call! We need to have a little heart-to heart, don't you think?" Suddenly rings from the other room and everyone seemed to grow a shade paler than they were which was ammazing considering how pale some of us were.
"Are we in trouble?" softly and almost in a wisper escapes Sarah's mouth.
~"see vampires don't even like other vampires," came out in a know-it-all tone from Becky. "They want to kill you just like the last ones you were with i told you vampires are all bad." Becky stood there like a typical eight year old who has a point and won't back down~
Sarah in a wisper, "Becky now is the not the time to get into this, Sarah then glares at the air next to her and then look back to the slightly baffled new commer and even those who know Sarah. Sarah turns to the door and watches and awaits their entrance.
IC: "Oh boy. I don't know who these guys Remington and Ellison are, but from the looks on you faces, they must not be bearers of happy tidings." Christian looked around at the others, waiting for someone to make the call.
~Come on, come on you guys! I don't know what to do here! They might not know me, and I'd probably like to keep it that way. Boy, I'm beginning to think I should have stayed in New York. At least there I knew who my enemies were, and thanks to Malcolm Black, at least it wasn't the Toreadors. Never thought they were anything to worry about until now.~
Nobody moved for a few seconds, then finally Will lost control and rushed to the door, flung it open and ran out into the now-all-but-deserted bookshop. Evidently the arrival of Ellison and Remington had hastened the departure of the few patrons of the shop.
"Murderers!!! Killers!!! Bastard Murdering Sonsabitches!!! Why?! Why Murray?" Will ran at the two in a lather, stopping just short of Ellison and staring intently up into his bored gaze. "Tell me, tell me, TELL ME!!!" Ellison turned slightly to look over his shoulder at his confidante Remington, affecting a bored yawn at the Malkavian's antics. Pulling out a delicate handkerchief and wafting it in front of his nose, as if Will stank of something beneath the tolerance of the Toreador's senses, he addresses Will in the same syrupy sweet voice.
"Oh my dear fellow, you DO make such a scene. That will never do. No, not at all. You must get some control over your baser instincts, or you're no better than one of those sewer dwelling Nosferatu, yes?" Looking back towards the open door of the storeroom, Ellison now sees the others emerge cautiously into the room. "There now. The gang's all here, eh? Ooh, and what's this? Fresh meat? Don't tell me you're one of them, my dear young boy! Oh no, what a waste. Once again the innocent beauty of youth gone to waste. Ah well, what was I saying Jack?"
"Damn you Ellison! What did you do to Murray? Tell me now!" Will again sputtered out, looking as if he was barely able to control himself.
"Now do be quiet, Will" Jack Remington managed to get in, not without a bit of authority to his voice. Not at all like Ellison. Remington was more manly, full of confidence but not overly haughty. "We really don't know what you're so upset about. Honestly, you are making this into a crusade when it was just a bit of.. oh what was that wonderfully witty term the Prince used? Ah yes, house cleaning. That was it, just a bit of house cleaning. Getting rid of some of the garbage, as it were. Isn't that right, Jason?"
"Garbage?" Sarah asked, looking like someone just told her that the Backstreet boys were really gay.
"House cleaning?" chimed in Anique, also looking a bit less frightened and leaning towards angry.
"How dare you?" asked Sydney, pacing quickly toward the pair of upstarts. "You come into MY shop, calling me and MY friends garbage? How dare you? Who do you think you are? Get out! Get out immediately and don't ever let me see your snotty faces here again!"
"Oooooh!" chirped Ellison. " Now don't go crazy on us Syd. Wouldn't want you to lose any MORE marbles. We'll go. We'll go. Just keep in mind, my little fruit loops, you're on the fast track to Nowheresville and the train is waiting at the station. I hope I'm there when they punch your ticket. Ta ta." And with that they turn and stroll out, tittering as they go, like a couple of schoolboys who just put a sign saying "KICK ME" on the headmaster's back. Everyone else just stands fuming, staring at eachother and pondering if they should run out the door and get this mess over with here and now or wait to plan a real strategy.
"Damn the black-hearted bastards!" yells Will. "They killed him and they're happy about it. They're positively giddy about it!" offers Sydney, also looking about to bust open with rage.
"So the question still remains," says Christian, his first words since they left the storeroom, "what do we do now?"
IC:Anique watched the whole scene unfold. Ellison was disgusting. That asshole could hardly call himself a TOREADOR, much less diss the Malkavians! Even Curly Will has a better sense of taste, she thought. Well, Will didn't help matters, rushing at the two harpys like an enraged bull, demanding to know why they had killed Murray. He's just givin 'em what they want, she thought. He acts crazy, they soak it up like a dried up sponge. She pondered her own neurosis and psychoses for a moment. Oh well, at least she had some self-restraint. And none of THEM were wearing tight black stirrup pants, like Ellison. So she sat back, watching the harpys mock them for a while. Sick, she thought...a harpy, whose purpose in unlife is to judge others! What a waste. She thought about how excting it would be to slit them open end to end, and divine the future by the patterns of their shriveled entrails. (oh no, she certainly isn't CRAZY)...too bad that would require killing them, and then they would be a pile of dust...prehaps there were patterns in the dust that would give up their secrets. she felt the hard, cool steel of her knife blade against her fingers. Remington she had a bit more respect for. He dressed better, for one thing...and he wasn't a toreador. He was condescending in that aloof, self-consuming Ventrue manner. He had, though, called them 'trash'. Well, that wasn't TOO much of an insult, coming from a Ventrue. Just watch him, she thought. The minute his little tight-panted buddy Ellison turns his back, Remington will be calling HIM trash, too. Just like them to dis the new guy, she thought. They pranced around like they owned the city...doing and saying whatever they liked. Wouldn't it be fabulous to watch THEM try to fit in somewhere new...perhaps a city run by Brujah....better yet, watch the Sabbat make mincemeat out of them. A smile played at the corners of her lips. With a final insult, they turned and left.
Sydney looked frazzled and on the verge of tears, Will was practically foaming at the mouth, and Sarah stood there with a look of absolute shock. It was the new guy who spoke up...
"shouldn't we do something?" he said. Anique thought about it...what COULD they do?
"Well", she said " How do we know that Murray is even dead? Do we have any proof, or is it an assumption we are making here? Besides, even if he is dead, how can we say anything about this without risking our own skins? Maybe we should go to the Nosferatu...they might have some information, and besides, we heard Ellison and Remington dis them too!"
IC: Sarah stood there almost frozen as they approached until Will ran up and caused a scene at least. AS he ran up Sarah seemed to awake from her daze and grasp ahold of some self-confidence.
"...garbage..."emitts from the mouth of the Remmington as Sarah gives a look of surprise and disgust at the comment as if the New Kids on the Block had just announced a reunion CD. She just stares at them listening and hearing similar tones and mannerisms from her not so distant past.
~Machi was like that always cutting you down and making you feel worthless and even if he did boost you up he'd crush you again. Just cause he was the pack leader didn't mean he had to be so cruel. I hated that always being seen as less important and as a weakling. At least these guys aren't brain fucking us yet like Machi did all the time that pissed me off. I wish Julian was here right now, he'd teach them a thing or two about respect and not dis'n everyone~
After they leave Sarah snaps back again when Christina mentions doing something and Antique joins in. Sarah looks between the two and nods in aggreement. "Which nos to trust though? and where should we go?" Sarah starts to rattle off quickly.
IC: ~What in bloody hell is going on here? This is enough to drive a guy nuts if he wasn't already there. I remember these guys, Ellison and Remington from the Prince's court. They hardly took notice of me then. I guess it was what, a month ago now I came here? And hardly was I here a week when Will sniffed me out and took me before the Prince. Come to think of it, she hardly seemed to care that I was there at all, either. It's like she just didn't think one more Malkavian was any bother. That's curious, considering that Sydney, Sarah, and Anique seem to be scared by this Murray's apparent death. I mean, how do we know the guy didn't deserve it? These princes are pretty strict about keeping the masquerade up. Maybe Murray had something to do with those killings at that nightclub.~
Christian sits by himself in a corner of the bookshop while the others discuss and argue about what this all means. Christian, being new and not at all known to these people, didn't feel as if he had any place in the discussion. After all, how do they know he's not a spy from the Prince, or the Sabbat even? No, he had to convince them that he was with them somehow, but he wasn't at all sure either that he could completely trust them. Usually he trusted his visions, but as he has told himself so often, sometimes he can misinterpret their meanings, and sometimes they're just plain wrong. In any case, these so-called harpys had seemed to imply that all Malkavians in the city were headed for hard times.
~So what to do? I can't go back to New York. Teresa went way off the deep end and disappeared, so I have no sire there to protect or train me. The only friend I had was Malcolm Black. As only and powerful as he is, even he doesn't have any real power to help me. Besides, they're so busy struggling with the Sabbat there that I'd be better off throwing in with the Anarchs. So here I sit, homeless, friendless, and soon clanless if these harpys are telling the truth. Oh Mum, why did you have to give me these visions? If not for them, I might have had a normal life. I never would have been embraced. Who would have looked twice at a scrubby little fish like me? And look at me now. What do I even have to offer now? I'm in trouble and I don't even know what to do. I'm not powerful enough to stand on my own, and the only people I have even met in this city are all in the same boat with me, it seems. Oh Mother, tell me what to do. Won't you talk to me again? Just show me something. Show me what to do and I'll do it.~
As if on cue, Christian abruptly jerks up as his eyes roll back in his head, his body goes stiff and he teeters over off his chair and onto the floor. He lies there, drawing looks of puzzlement from the assembled group who have stopped talking long enough to witness his descent into madness. In a flash, his mind is filled with images and voices of people he has only briefly seen and some he has never met. He sees Monica Freewater, laughing in that haughty manner only she can affect so well, tossing her head back in mirth. She can't know true laughter. Hers is the laughter of one who has done some form of mischief or wrong to another. Around her are Ellison and Remington, both laughing with her at something that escapes his notice. All around the room are others. Some laugh, some just stare, and even others look shocked and horrified. Around and around the image goes, circling up towards the ceiling and becoming a twirling pallette of colors and sounds until finally it descends again to focus in the middle of the court. There, alone and naked, collapsed in a pool of blood, lies a group of five people. Three men and two girls, their precious lifeblood flowing onto the marble tile. And then, a single word, louder and more forceful than all the other talk, issues from the throat of a solitary ghost of a man, standing just behind the throne. He is handsome, distinguished, and seems to have an aura of presence to him. The kind of man who would be Prince, perhaps, or had been. For now he seemed nothing but a wraith, watching these dismal events unfold, sad of their happening but powerless to stop them. And again, this single word issues forth from his lips, strong and commanding, and impossible not to obey. "Fight" he says again. "Fight, or die". And once again the vision brings the room into a spinning kaleidescope of color, twirling and tossing its viewer back into the harsh light of reality.
"Blood Hell!"
IC: Sarah loses her interest in the disscussion as she sees Becky wander over to Christian who is sitting ont he floor with a pained look on his face as if he was contemplating his undead life. Becky wanders over and watches Christian and sits next to him and looks caringly over him. Sarah watches her completely lost in how becky has taken intrest in him and finds it almost cute.
After a few minutes becky reaches to run her fingers through Christian's hair and as she touches him his body goes stiff. Sarah jumps at this not knowing what Becky has done and wondering what is happening to Christain.
"Becky what did you do?!" Sarah yells in an accssatory voice at her.
~"Nothing! i swear i only touched his hair,"~ Becky begins to panic trying to figure out how to fix what happened and takes his hand in hers.
At this point everyone in the bookstore is staring at Christian or Sarah wondering what is going on and who is Becky. The other 3 vampires also stand looking concerned but unable to move to do something at the moment. As Becky holds his hand his body relaxes and he comes to with the statement, "Blood Hell".
IC: Anique watched, horrified, as Christian slumped to the floor, eyes rolling back in his head. It all looked so SIMILAR...She couldn't help feeling panicky. She sat down, her back against the wall, trying to stave off the memories of that night. The night when they had taken Javier. Although it had happened so many years ago...over a hundred years ago, it all came rushing back in a flood of crystal clear recollections....it had been incredibly dark that night,with no moon.
It was hot, dry summer, and the streets of Paris were choked with a cloud of dust that lingered there like a shroud. She had been walking through the old city. Anique had been instructed to bring a message to the catacombs. The easiest entrance was down beneath a cathedral. Underneath lay a labyrinthine system, at the same sea-level as the Seine. She descended into the echoing darkness of Roman ruins, buried for thousands of years....Although she had been therebefore, she could never shake the feeling of edginess she felt when she went into the catacombs. Something about that place was unnerving. The crumbling passageways of rough hewn stone that seemed to loop back on top of each other did not themselves frighten her. It was something ELSE...a kind of fright that knawed away at the back of her mind. She had wandered in that place for what seemed like hours, the message she was carrying crumpled in her fisted hand as she clutched it in fear.
Then, from up ahead of her in the blackness, she could hear them. Voices. Amoung them Javier's voice...the voices echoed about her, and her head spun trying to discern where they were coming from. Finnally, she groped her way along the rough walls in the dark, towards the sound of their voices. The darkness gave way to the pale glow of torch-light. She entered a small, round chamber, lit by one solitary torch. In the center were two men in finely tailored black suits. Behind them, chained to the wall, was Javier. He was dirty, with black smears on his face and hands, as if he had been dragged down a corridor. Blood had dried in rivulets down his face, the tracks of his bloody tears. They had his mouth gagged with a filthy rag, and she could see the evidence of cruel lashing on his body...he looked so weak. He had probably not been fed in days. She stood there, frozen with horror in the chamber. The men in black suits looked at her with beady, cruel eyes. One of them reached out and tore the crumpled paper out of her hand.
"How nice of you to bring the order....You have fulfilled your mission well, little girl" she first man said as he sneered in her Direction. The other man took the paper from him.
"By Decree of the Prince of Paris, I hereby order the exectution of one Javier the Tormented, on account of his brazen disregard for the masquerade. The scentence is to be carried out in secret, and in the presence of his bastard Childer. Her life is to be sparred, but she shall have no further admittance to the city of Paris. She is to be exiled immediatley. Any heroic attempts on her part are to be met with final death." Javier fought against his shackles. She looked up at him and saw the fear in his eyes.
Suddenly, the room was cast into pitch darkness....The dark seemed to envelop her...it was the kind of darkness that is unnaturally black, as if it had sucked the light out of the room...it was a suffocating blackness. She felt something press up against her and hold her to the wall. There was something solid accross her face, covering her mouth. She opened her mouth to scream or bite, but the blackness entered her and filled her mouth, her lungs, with itself. She heard Javier scream, a muffled yell that was soon strangled by the suffocating darkness. It seemed like forever. Suddenly, the blackness had let go of her, and she was dumped, like a potato sack, onto the floor of the chamber. She looked up and saw the two men in suits standing over what had once been Javier. Poor Javier. She choked back a sob when she saw him there. THey had torn him, litterally, to pieces. His head slumped back, and his eyes rolled back in his head. His blood started to spread out in a pool of crimson on the floor. One of the men took out a long sword, with a curved blade. In one fell swoop, javier's head was severed from his body. She turned her head away as he became a pile of ashes. Anique felt a rage well up inside of her. She had used the blood before, as Javier had taught her. He had never been very good at it, he had said. He could cause people to get excited or angry or bored, but really didn't do much else. Hence, Anique had no name for what she did to those men. But somehow, in her rage, she called upon the power of the blood inside of her, and brought forth something that made her shake in her own shoes to think of.
Those men in suits died that night. The first one slit his own throat, right there. Anique made sure he was looking her in the eyes as he did it, so she could see the inner fires burning with suicidal madness. The second died by cutting out his own shriveled heart. As he was bleeding to death on the floor, Anique bent over him, and sucked the rest of his blood and finnally, his soul. When the men in suits were a pile of ashes on the ground, she went to what remained of Javier. The blood of her tears mingled with his ashes on the ground, a snaky, writhing pattern of bright crimson red against pale, deathly grey. Her savior was gone. The one who had rescued her from her delirium, from the life of poverty and madness of the street,who taught her of the end-times and read to her out of dusty tomes, was dead......
Anique stared wide-eyed at Christian, slumped back on the floor. Her eyes glossed over with horror at some long-ago tradgedy. Her hand cluched a small glass bottle tied at her troat with a piece of silk. Her knuckles were going white with terror. As she stared at Christian in horror, he came to with the words "Blood-Kill". With that utterance, Anique herself toppled back in a dead faint.
Sydney watched the harpies leave, shaking. He hated them. Hated Jason Ellison's jaunty step, his flouncy blouses, his holier-than-thou attitude. He hated his gelled hair (men just shouldn't wear that much gel...or women either!), and his deprecating smile. Remington seemed to fade from his irritation, even though he reguarded the erratic little bookshop with distaste, he at least had the decency to do so with intellegence and some amount of decency. Ellison on the other hand needed to have something hard and sharp shoved through his chest, and then be left out in the noonday sun. Sydney fantasized for a few seconds, before realizing that the door had shut. The harpies were gone, and there was no more source to his anger.
He shrugged. Will made a move to run after the harpies, but fortunatly was shaking too badly to rise from the floor. The others began to discuss a course of action, and Sydney tried to organize his thoughts. *I know I should be able to...wait!! I do, I know!!* His eyes lit up, and he ran to the back of the bookshop once more, digging through piles of old record books. Names...old names...old addresses. And, here! Sydney produced a scrap of dingy paper, written on the old stationery of his bookshop in Madison. Scribbled in grimy pencil, it was barely readable, but still there:
Jennifer St.James
Sydeny smiled, and held the paper aloft, energing from the back room. "I found it!" He blurted before taking in the picture before him. Christian on the floor, with Sarah beside him speaking to Becky. Anique collapsed beside the two of them, and Will, hanging onto the back of the VW bug, wailing about Gehenna. Sydeny let his jaw unravel to the floor.
Sydney sighed, *Why can't they be sane like me?* he mentally whined to himself, and scooped Will up into his arms, settling him into the VW Bug, and locking the door. Even if it didn't calm him down, at least it deadened the noise. After that he stooped down by Anique, shaking her slightly.
"Anique, hey, you allright, girl?" he asked softly. She stirred ever so slightly. "Come on, wake up." He coaxed. Her eyes fluttered, and she spoke in a whisper-thin voice.
"I need a really stiff drink."
IC: Anique opened her eyes and looked groggily up at sydney. "I think I need a stiff drink!" she said. She sat up, and laughed at Curly Will. His hands and face were pressed against the window of the VW bug, his nose and fingers making marks on the window. She relaxed when she realized that Christian was alive, and, on top of that,that he was not her sire about to meet final death. 'C'mon...' she thought to herself...'you shouldn't have a reaction like that! how embarrassing!! You KILL people!! you DRINK BLOOD. and you are going around FAINTING like a PANSY!!' she shook her head, hoping that she had kept her monolouge an INNER one. Sydney stood up, a distinct gleam in his eyes.
She recognized that light...he had an idea. "So, Sydney, " she said out loud. "What are you thinking? You have a plan or something?"
IC: Waking from the vision, Christian looks around to see Sydney standing over Anique looking concerned, but strangely also excited. Will silently (thank God) examines the interior of a VW bug/reading room. Sarah is close by, looking between Christian and ... empty space just slightly to his left with a look of concern, also. Slowly he rises to his feet and straightens up a bit, running his fingers through his short but unruly hair and rubbing his face vigorously.
Suddenly, he is struck by an idea and he begins to frantically search the room. "Where is it? Where is the stupid thing? I know I had it when I came in here.. Aha! Now I've got you my pretty." (a la the Wicked Witch of the West)
Straightening up, a backpack emerges in his hand from behind a pile of books. Quickly and recklessly he pulls out a sketch pad and pencils, spreading them out on a nearby table and taking a seat, intent on drawing something. Without looking up at the others to see if they're listening or even aware of his presence, he begins to address them collectively.
"I know you probably are curious as to how I got here, and what that whole episode on the carpet was about, and what I have to do with any of you. I'll try to explain as best I can, but I can't promise that you'll believe me or trust me any more in the end than you do now. That's entirely up to you. Anyway, the reason I'm here... Ever since I was a kid, I've had visions, prophecies really. Sometimes they come to pass, sometimes not, and sometimes I really can't say if they do or not. See, it's kind of like that Matrix thing. You know what I mean? That scene when the lady says 'Don't worry about the vase' and he turns around and knocks the vase over. Well, the question is that if I really can see the future, then does doing something about it bring it about or will it happen anyway, and if I do nothing will it happen just the same. That makes no sense, but stick with me here. When I have these visions, they're almost always about something that might happen, good or bad. If I act, I might bring it about or prevent it, or maybe have no affect at all." He continues to draw on his paper, depicting the scene that just ran through his head moments ago. On the page are near-perfect likenesses of Ellison, Freewater, and Remington, and he begins to draw the outline of a man standing behind Freewater.
"But here's where it gets weird. Ok, it's already weird, but I had this vision that involved all of you tonight. I can't say why or how I know that, but I do remember this shop in it, and I remember your faces. So it can't be an accident that I show up here on the same night we find out that this Murray is dead, right? And then with everything else going on, I sort of forgot to tell you all this. But then just now I had another vision, and we were all in this one too, except we were dead, or maybe just hurt badly, but Freewater and her cronies were having a good laugh about it just the same. But then behind the throne was a man who kept repeating a word to me, fight. And finally he said fight or die. Not exactly Shakespeare, but it had a sort of urgency to it. And this vision, like the one earlier tonight, was different from what I usually see. It had more of an urging, sort of warning quality to it, like someone had put it in my mind rather than just showing up there like normal. Normal, haha. So there it is, anyway. I know you have no real reason to trust me or care if I live or die, but I really think that we're all in danger, and we'd be better off sticking together on this. Besides, you're the first licks I've met here that I kinda like. Could I babble a little more, or should I shut up now?" He stops drawing and lifts his gaze from the page to look around now. Sarah stands just behind, bent over looking at the page. She reaches over casually and picks it up, turns it around toward the others and says
"Sydney. Maybe you should take a look at this."
