Quoted By:
"Am not! <span class="mu-b">He should hangin' around that ol' Stygian bar again!</span> I ain't lying! He even told me where to find this!"
The tallest of the five kids pulls out a loaded revolver. All of the kids ooo and ahh at the sight of it.
"An anomaly? Freely wandering around in the City?" Kiara's LED eyes dull for a moment. "<span class="mu-b">Sentient by the sounds of it. Maybe we could bother him for information?</span>"
It takes a while for the kids to say anything interesting again but you pick up on something.
>SECOND THRESHOLD
"I told you! She glew in the dark! She literally glew in the dark! Sparkly silver outfit too!"
"It's glowed, you dumb idiot!" "Oi! I ain't taking that from a 5th grade dropout!"
[PERSON OF INTEREST] A spook? Here? Not some random assassin? This could be interesting.
Kiara was zoning out for a bit but she's now listening intently. "Ho? Finally something interesting. I was going to kill myself if I heard another kid talk about their dreams."
"Yeah! Yeah! She seemed real sad about somethin'. Scared even. Tried talking to her but..."
"Begged her for money again, poorie?"
"You're poor too! No, she just hugged me before running somewhere. Think it was near some <span class="mu-b">abandoned science lab place.</span>
"Weird! Did she say anything?"
"She was mumbling real bad. Somethin' about 'needing a break' and 'having too much on her plate'. Guess she had a rough day at work."
"We all have rough days here! She ain't special!"
"Nicole? Does that-" "No. No, that doesn't make any sense to me. The spooks are usually smug or unflappable. 'Sad spook' doesn't make a lick of sense to me." "All by herself too? Hugging random kids? Could she have gone rogue?"
"Dunno. Think she might be at #D-ZZZ-9?" "If my analyzer module isn't faulty, that is the closest 'abandoned facility' to here."
>THIRD THRESHOLD! LAST ONE PASSED!
You're about ready to leave since they're just babbling nonsense but Kiara pulls you in just at the last moment.
"Come back. I think they're about to get to something real juicy now." You're not sure what gave Kiara that impression but you'll go along with it for now. As you stand alongside her, you overhear an odd tidbit from the kids.
"What do ya MEAN our favorite hangout's closed? The one by the gym? THAT one?"
"Yep! I told ya! This gal with a real funny hat and a big golden staff came bargaining in! Shoved me right out of it!"
"Wait. How big was that hat?"
"Real freakin' big! Had a buncha golden scribbles all over it! Some N-Corp fancy pants. Had a buncha other priests following after 'er. Real weird."
"Did she say anythin' as to why?"
"All she said is she's lookin' for some 'Foxtrot' whoever." "What, our neighbor?" "Dunno!"
That's the last you can overhear before it all becomes garbage noise. You snap your fingers upon remember one name that might fit that description: Ms. Bergoglio. "Think it might be Bergoglio?"
[KIARA SEEKER] "No doubt about it. I think I vaguely heard somethin' about them being a minor N-Corp family."
