[ there are moments that change your life. decisions that, once made, cannot be unmade. the pivot points on which destiny turns. dave strider (not the first name he ever had, not his only name, but the alias he's stuck with now and one he prefers to his last name as a kid) remembers these.
the day he turned eighteen he enlisted in the army. it was the only thing he could think to do to get out of the life he'd once had, and the first path he could see towards anything different. that was a pivot point. away from his once-guardian and knee-deep in structured training, life made more sense than it ever had. he helped people. maybe they'd pay his way though college if he picked something to do, but - that stray thought quieted as years went by and his country Needed him in a way no one ever had. from the army he went to the CIA. there wasn't anything outside of the job and his partner, and it was fine that way.
then shit went to hell and there was another pivot point: rose lalonde offering him a job, that coy little smile he came to find she almost always wore paired with utter mystery and a variety of canes that alternately hid blades or tasers. he wouldn't learn why she'd found him or how until much later, but from the moment he said yes and veered left from utter hopeless despair, she'd saved his life. she handed him a purpose like it was nothing at all when it was everything, and then and now she had his steadfast loyalty for her trouble.
there have been so many moments since then. so many people integral to his life now. things have changed since samaritan went online, although none of them were the kind of people to simply Stop when shit went to hell. rose lalonde was too damn stubborn to ever give up any endeavor she began. captor and megido were too crazy. dave was...well, too loyal to rose to consider doing anything else with his life. jade was a little of all of the above. besides, they helped people. and people definitely needed help more than ever. they've all dealt with the random new lives in their own way. egbert is...well, more or less amused if baffled by dave's new cop alias (dave is more or less fine with it, whatever) while megido takes her part time jobs with a stoic air and harley is a therapist and lalonde plays up her scholarly role with a flair neither dave nor aradia bothers to apply to a false story.
since there was never any chance they'd stop the numbers, there isn't any prevaricating about this one. they take it, even though rose is cagey enough that dave doesn't know what they're doing until they're already doing it. she can be annoying like that, saving the alert that they're working a number until the last possible second.
maybe she wouldn't do that if dave didn't go wherever she wanted him to go with minimal bitching, though. live and learn (he'll never learn).
so anyway. this number is dirk (dirk strider if we're Lazy and dave would have gone "nice name, is it fake like mine" to rose) and he's a kid. a kid alone caught up in something they're not sure about, but dave's on recon duty and rose had done the thing where she eyed him and told him to stay objective because she knows how he is about kids. kids and the abused. objective is megido, though, so dave's pretty sure she didn't fully mean it.
so he's stalking dirk to see what dirk is doing, i guess, casual as anything and curious. what happens next? ]
[Dirk Strider is not a perfect student who suddenly broke all his fine, pristine records for a game. Dirk Strider is a kid who came as a mess out of the system. His records are well-kept and normal until he was ten: parents dead, looked after by his older brother. He had all his shots, hospital records for anything serious, grade school attendance and sharp grades. Teachers noted he had problems with following the rules and obeying organized times (he was famously bad at naps in kindergarten) but all the teachers that were good and cared commented on the brightness and intelligence. Weirdly inexpressive, though.
Then his big brother died when he was ten. The records change: custody moved the kid into the system and he was shunted between foster homes. He was caught running away several times. Then he stopped being caught. Smart kid is smart at computer manipulation and there's a trail of small ATM thefts which turns into skimming money off of bank accounts. The kid is pathological about robbing from 'Bad' people, CEOs involved in labour-exploiting acts, known mob bosses. His hacks are mostly done through remote AIs, and he has always set up someone equally bad to take the fall. He was a very socially conscious thirteen year old.
He comes back into official records at age fourteen, a charge for graffiti. Then he's gone again and reappearing under a half-dozen aliases with the same kinds of crimes.
It's a digital record of crime that trails halfway across the United States. It took five years to get him back to Houston. And now that he's back home?
Now that he's home, Dave gets to watch him as he snatches a number off a telephone pole. The nautilus symbol is on it, of course. Does he pursue the kid as Dirk tries to get lost into the city again or does he take another path?]
[ he'll pursue. the phone number thing is snatched and texted towards rose, who is better equipped to handle it while he keeps tabs on the kid. she tells him it's a "curious little puzzle" and he tells her that's nice, lalonde, tell him when you've got something more than praise for the damn thing?
dave utilizes his usual skill with tailing people, making no attempt to approach dirk as of yet. neither he nor megido really has that problem - approaching people at random, that is. even captor is more likely to hang back and not interfere until necessary. rose, too.
jade is likely to approach, and so is john. neither of them is here right now, however. ]
[Then he can enjoy trailing Dirk all the way to GPS coordinates. It's a graffiti'd wall! Wow look the nautilus symbol appeared again. Mysterious. There is possibly some kind of puzzle here, who knows. Dirk is staring at it either way. And then he—vanishes?
Huh where did he go. Maybe around that building? There are also cars. Where did a kid disappear to.
[ he snaps pictures of the graffiti'd wall with "more weird seashell bullshit" "a nautilus shell doesn't really qualify as a seashell" "so anyway txt me when you solve the weird seashell bullshit" as an aside. dave strider does not have time for puzzle shenanigans even if he's actually good enough with math to maybe give it a college try.
he will continue choosing > pursue because letting a kid potentially die (which is, after all, the main worry with numbers although that has been changing a little bit) is never an option. also he has no idea where to divert to. he'll casually amble towards the cards and glance around, hands in his pockets and looking for all the world like a bored pedestrian. ]
[He'll perhaps notice the scuff-marks that show someone just slipped into this abandoned, boarded-up building. He may even sense a person who watches him through the boarded windows. But the kid is not coming out of there.
The kid is, in fact, taking a few pictures of his own to see if he can match up or confirm any identities. He isn't sure it's this dude, but he has a sense he noticed him around before. If his stalker is playing the game, Dirk will be able to find out pretty soon.]
[ yep. welp. this is a judgement call dave hates making: engage or don't? for all that genie likes the human element it makes things difficult. because of course dave strider can't call something "the machine" with quotation marks, and he gives it a thousand and one nicknames but most frequently refers to it as rose's genie-in-a-bottle - genie-out-of-a-bottle - despite a thousand aggravated reproaches from others. captor grumpily hates the nicknames, but dave strongly suspects genie herself doesn't care and might even Not Mind.
the recon hasn't gone on long enough to know for sure if it's a perp or vic kind of situation. but dave has a soft spot for kids who don't know what the fuck they're doing with themselves, who don't have a place to turn. he rocks back and forth on his heels for a second before deciding that the kid is always off the walls random enough without added paranoia. not that...confirming that he should be paranoid is good, but - also, he could be getting into trouble in the place.
dave approaches, taking his hands out of his pockets just so his hands are visible, and grimaces at the general appearance of the building.
he is going to get dirt on his clothes and while he's had way worse it still always inspires in him a sort of offended cat nature at this point in his life. time to assess the situation inside, he supposes? while being only kind of casually concerned about his own safety since that's always a tertiary concern at best. ]
[ok that's fine dave? the kid is not immediately approaching. the building is awful, and some of the floorboards are dead gone. Signs of disturbance in dust and refuse from other squatters may indicate a path deeper into the building, towards one of the rooms where the windows were not boarded up as securely as the others.]
[ cool. he'll use CIA INTERNATIONAL AGENT SKILLS and also just. army skills. to track down where the kid went via disturbances in the dust and refuse, still making mild faces of distaste as he picks his way through things. why the fuck does he bother to dress nice when his job is what it is? ]
[NOPE that kid's out the window and running. Dave will either have to chase him down or try to find him again. Obviously, he will no longer be in the hotel he was one staying at under a pseudonym. None of his false identities will be active anywhere, in fact. If he's somewhere, it's a totally new name right now.
So, will Dave chase him down while he runs, or will he be forced to use Rose to solve the next puzzle?]
[ ANNOYING CHILD but he will obviously acrobatics out the window and tail him? rose can do her puzzle shit dave will ignore that though he will not approach the kid so much as. tail him until dirk loses his temper about this, probably, or unless he has to intervene for some reason.
it's. a weird version of chasing someone since he isn't quite bothering to go to extensive measures to hide he exists but also will simply keep eagle-eyed tabs on the kid. he has a badge, this is fine? he's allowed to lurk wherever he wants and stuff?
shit. is this corrupt cop stuff? dave isn't sure. he'll ask john for an opinion later though john probably would just kind of laugh at him. ]
[ he earns a lazy salute for his troubles. why is dave this way. ]
Sup. [ this is How Not To Make Contact With A Number 101, but luckily they don't do earpieces as much any longer so rose doesn't have a constant update to what dave is doing.
...not that she won't have long-winded criticisms later, but hey. ]
You know, you should invest in those, what are they, the pedometer walking things? But the video game ones. Like I know they got a Pokemon one. You could hatch like 50 eggs with all this runnin' around. Get one of those tamogatchis, too, they still sell those right? You could raise an annoyin' beeping monster all your own. Kind of a waste otherwise, all the runnin' around and no pay off.
[ would flashing his badge help or hurt at this time? dave isn't sure, and extra is not sure if that would but his alias, the thing currently keeping him alive, in danger. ]
I don't want to hurt you, kid. Or anyone else, really, although I might have to.
[ mildly. not directed at dirk. assuming that dirk has picked up actual players as tails ala claire, he's more directing that comment very blandly at said tails which might exist. ]
See, the part that would suck about that would be I'd have to file fuckin' paperwork for it. First person to make me have to file extra paperwork is goin' down extra hard, for the record.
[Dirk thought he picked up tails but then Dave came in so he assumed that he was wrong about those and that Dave was it. Now the way Dave is talking? Is really, really freaking him out.
Dirk does not keep a gun on his person, but he does have a knife literally up his sleeve. He hasn't gone for it yet but he absolutely looks like he is ready to pick a fight with this freaky, unsettling stranger.]
That's really comfortin', dude. I am feelin' soft and cozy as a kitten on a fuzzy blanket.
[The paperwork reference means this dude is possibly a cop, and that's what is keeping Dirk from springing the knife. If this dude is a cop, he could arrest him for trespassing at least. Dirk could probably plead that he got freaked out at being tailed but he doesn't want to go to court to do it. Dealing with the system is his least favourite thing, and it will be a huge delay in his efforts to win the game.
All of this means Dirk is feeling cornered, and a cornered Dirk is not a happy one. There are cars on this street but not any and none he could jack in front of a cop without being caught. Dude can definitely keep pace with him which fucking sucks and if he gives him cause to nab him he's fucked. Where are the exit routes? He'd have to vanish but last time he was spotted. A trail, he figures, so get a place to vanish that wouldn't leave that. One street south is busy enough to vanish into if he ditches the jacket, maybe. But how does he get there.
Holy shit he does not want to be doing this right now.]
What the fuck do you want?
[Even if he is a cop he's clearly not objecting to the cursing so Dirk will not be filtering that out.]
[ immediate and genuine, no hesitation. dave flicks his gaze to the side and back rapidfire, making the tails and shifting. he's still casual, but clearly prepared to stick to his earlier words. ]
Consider me some kinda support class for the video game of your choice. It's way more glamorous soundin' than my day job. I have no idea what the fuck you think you're up to, but my only interest is that you get through whatever it is alive. That's harder if you act even more erratically just tryin' to lose me, and you might not lose them.
[ it's possibly too-honest. but dave had never cared for adults lying to his fucking face when he was younger and cornered and scared. ]
Whatever you're caught up in, I won't stop you. S'not my business. But do me a favor and let me stick around for forty-eight hours to see you through whatever it is in one peace?
[Dirk notes the eye movements and when he does he registers it: tails. Shit.
He doesn't trust this guy, at all. 'Keep you safe' hits him somewhere he doesn't like and he was never a very expressive kid (his brother never condemned that in him) but right now all the lines of his body say he's ready to hit abscond or aggrieve.
Dirk makes the fall fast. Let this weirdo get him out of whatever this situation, then shake him. He'll handle these tails (other players?) when he needs to.]
Hm. I did warn them, but collateral damage ain't my favorite thing. Also: paperwork.
[ he studies dirk for a second, taking in the body language with a sigh because he knows it but there's nothing to be done: the important thing is...letting rose figure out the details and just adhering to the mission. keep the kid safe.
right. ]
Let's teach you some on-the-job counter tactics. C'mon. Though they won't help you lose me, you gotta get better at losin' assholes like these.
[ he doesn't make a move to touch dirk but he jerks his head at a particular avenue and starts that way. the kid will follow or he won't, and dave meant what he said: if dirk follows he's going to start pointing things out low-voiced to be careful of when trying to lose people in this day and age. ]
[There's a tension. Sharp delay. Run or follow? But there are tails to shake and fuck this guy for wanting to teach him shit. Dirk could hit him if he weren't a fucking cop.
Dirk follows but he doesn't say a single thing in reply. The body language says Dave is still walking beside a badly contained livewire.]
[ look. if dirk loses him, he needs to be better at losing other people, too. ]
I think you're better at tech shit than me - not hard if you get into anythin' beyond bein' born in the information age - so we'll ignore that part of it. What I'm good at is disappearin'. You can call me Dave, I hate titles.
[ he doesn't use dirk's name. he won't, unless he gets it. there's a brief segue into how to distractions are Fun for the whole family and dave cheerfully engages in a few brief conversations with passers-by as they go. he had to learn the charm he employs on others, and a few careful misdirects will make it harder for people to follow them without being waylaid. ]
[Dirk doesn't like the way Dave smiles. It's easy and comfortable and it's fake-not-fake, the kind of smile that doesn't matter. He watches and even stubborn as he is he won't totally throw out the information being given to him but he doesn't have to appreciate it. His expression has reverted into a contained anger, something barely noticeable as not being neutral.
He still isn't talking. He is, however, using eye movement to make his shades look up the clue he just found for the three-pronged arch.
Look if random dude in this show got lame google glasses, i'm giving Dirk his really helpful computershades. that level of scifi is totally POI legit.]
[ it's the kind of smile Everyone gets. dirk hasn't quite yet aside from the sort of nothing-smile that comes with someone speaking calmly and quietly and patiently. it's not exactly patronizing, but rather dave seems a little detached in certain ways, and it isn't a habit he ever got over even though he's charming when he wants to be.
the smile is more real when he answers his phone on the first ring and listens to rose give him a brief puzzle run down. she gets a "the words you just said mean nothing to me in conjunction with one another but have a blast" in response. ]
One of these guys is military. [ to dirk, brightly, though the genuine smile flickered away when rose's call did. ] So I'm gonna have to ask you to go down that shady lookin' alley with me and pretend you don't see me doin' to him what I'm gonna do to him. It won't be lethal, but it ain't strictly legal.
I'm open to alternate suggestions to disablin' the dude.
[ if dirk has any, now would be the time. dave...chooses to not back off for the moment, although he still hasn't come within a foot of dirk or tried to touch him at all.
weirdly, dave hasn't tried to touch anyone at all, keeping a fair amount of distance between him and anyone he speaks to. it's habitual more than anything else. ]
However, he does have a gun and he probs will use it and I don't want him hittin' anyone but maybe me, although I'm kinda opposed to that as well on a personal level?
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episode one: i learned 2 split things up. praise.
the day he turned eighteen he enlisted in the army. it was the only thing he could think to do to get out of the life he'd once had, and the first path he could see towards anything different. that was a pivot point. away from his once-guardian and knee-deep in structured training, life made more sense than it ever had. he helped people. maybe they'd pay his way though college if he picked something to do, but - that stray thought quieted as years went by and his country Needed him in a way no one ever had. from the army he went to the CIA. there wasn't anything outside of the job and his partner, and it was fine that way.
then shit went to hell and there was another pivot point: rose lalonde offering him a job, that coy little smile he came to find she almost always wore paired with utter mystery and a variety of canes that alternately hid blades or tasers. he wouldn't learn why she'd found him or how until much later, but from the moment he said yes and veered left from utter hopeless despair, she'd saved his life. she handed him a purpose like it was nothing at all when it was everything, and then and now she had his steadfast loyalty for her trouble.
there have been so many moments since then. so many people integral to his life now. things have changed since samaritan went online, although none of them were the kind of people to simply Stop when shit went to hell. rose lalonde was too damn stubborn to ever give up any endeavor she began. captor and megido were too crazy. dave was...well, too loyal to rose to consider doing anything else with his life. jade was a little of all of the above. besides, they helped people. and people definitely needed help more than ever. they've all dealt with the random new lives in their own way. egbert is...well, more or less amused if baffled by dave's new cop alias (dave is more or less fine with it, whatever) while megido takes her part time jobs with a stoic air and harley is a therapist and lalonde plays up her scholarly role with a flair neither dave nor aradia bothers to apply to a false story.
since there was never any chance they'd stop the numbers, there isn't any prevaricating about this one. they take it, even though rose is cagey enough that dave doesn't know what they're doing until they're already doing it. she can be annoying like that, saving the alert that they're working a number until the last possible second.
maybe she wouldn't do that if dave didn't go wherever she wanted him to go with minimal bitching, though. live and learn (he'll never learn).
so anyway. this number is dirk (dirk strider if we're Lazy and dave would have gone "nice name, is it fake like mine" to rose) and he's a kid. a kid alone caught up in something they're not sure about, but dave's on recon duty and rose had done the thing where she eyed him and told him to stay objective because she knows how he is about kids. kids and the abused. objective is megido, though, so dave's pretty sure she didn't fully mean it.
so he's stalking dirk to see what dirk is doing, i guess, casual as anything and curious. what happens next? ]
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Then his big brother died when he was ten. The records change: custody moved the kid into the system and he was shunted between foster homes. He was caught running away several times. Then he stopped being caught. Smart kid is smart at computer manipulation and there's a trail of small ATM thefts which turns into skimming money off of bank accounts. The kid is pathological about robbing from 'Bad' people, CEOs involved in labour-exploiting acts, known mob bosses. His hacks are mostly done through remote AIs, and he has always set up someone equally bad to take the fall. He was a very socially conscious thirteen year old.
He comes back into official records at age fourteen, a charge for graffiti. Then he's gone again and reappearing under a half-dozen aliases with the same kinds of crimes.
It's a digital record of crime that trails halfway across the United States. It took five years to get him back to Houston. And now that he's back home?
Now that he's home, Dave gets to watch him as he snatches a number off a telephone pole. The nautilus symbol is on it, of course. Does he pursue the kid as Dirk tries to get lost into the city again or does he take another path?]
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dave utilizes his usual skill with tailing people, making no attempt to approach dirk as of yet. neither he nor megido really has that problem - approaching people at random, that is. even captor is more likely to hang back and not interfere until necessary. rose, too.
jade is likely to approach, and so is john. neither of them is here right now, however. ]
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Huh where did he go. Maybe around that building? There are also cars. Where did a kid disappear to.
Pursue or divert?]
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he will continue choosing > pursue because letting a kid potentially die (which is, after all, the main worry with numbers although that has been changing a little bit) is never an option. also he has no idea where to divert to. he'll casually amble towards the cards and glance around, hands in his pockets and looking for all the world like a bored pedestrian. ]
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The kid is, in fact, taking a few pictures of his own to see if he can match up or confirm any identities. He isn't sure it's this dude, but he has a sense he noticed him around before. If his stalker is playing the game, Dirk will be able to find out pretty soon.]
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the recon hasn't gone on long enough to know for sure if it's a perp or vic kind of situation. but dave has a soft spot for kids who don't know what the fuck they're doing with themselves, who don't have a place to turn. he rocks back and forth on his heels for a second before deciding that the kid is always off the walls random enough without added paranoia. not that...confirming that he should be paranoid is good, but - also, he could be getting into trouble in the place.
dave approaches, taking his hands out of his pockets just so his hands are visible, and grimaces at the general appearance of the building.
he is going to get dirt on his clothes and while he's had way worse it still always inspires in him a sort of offended cat nature at this point in his life. time to assess the situation inside, he supposes? while being only kind of casually concerned about his own safety since that's always a tertiary concern at best. ]
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These are new shoes.
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So, will Dave chase him down while he runs, or will he be forced to use Rose to solve the next puzzle?]
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it's. a weird version of chasing someone since he isn't quite bothering to go to extensive measures to hide he exists but also will simply keep eagle-eyed tabs on the kid. he has a badge, this is fine? he's allowed to lurk wherever he wants and stuff?
shit. is this corrupt cop stuff? dave isn't sure. he'll ask john for an opinion later though john probably would just kind of laugh at him. ]
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Dude. What the fuck!
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Sup. [ this is How Not To Make Contact With A Number 101, but luckily they don't do earpieces as much any longer so rose doesn't have a constant update to what dave is doing.
...not that she won't have long-winded criticisms later, but hey. ]
You know, you should invest in those, what are they, the pedometer walking things? But the video game ones. Like I know they got a Pokemon one. You could hatch like 50 eggs with all this runnin' around. Get one of those tamogatchis, too, they still sell those right? You could raise an annoyin' beeping monster all your own. Kind of a waste otherwise, all the runnin' around and no pay off.
[ #nailed it ]
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Okay, you're fuckin' insane, and I am not engagin'. Fuck off, dude.
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[ would flashing his badge help or hurt at this time? dave isn't sure, and extra is not sure if that would but his alias, the thing currently keeping him alive, in danger. ]
I don't want to hurt you, kid. Or anyone else, really, although I might have to.
[ mildly. not directed at dirk. assuming that dirk has picked up actual players as tails ala claire, he's more directing that comment very blandly at said tails which might exist. ]
See, the part that would suck about that would be I'd have to file fuckin' paperwork for it. First person to make me have to file extra paperwork is goin' down extra hard, for the record.
[ still said very calmly and evenly. ]
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Dirk does not keep a gun on his person, but he does have a knife literally up his sleeve. He hasn't gone for it yet but he absolutely looks like he is ready to pick a fight with this freaky, unsettling stranger.]
That's really comfortin', dude. I am feelin' soft and cozy as a kitten on a fuzzy blanket.
[The paperwork reference means this dude is possibly a cop, and that's what is keeping Dirk from springing the knife. If this dude is a cop, he could arrest him for trespassing at least. Dirk could probably plead that he got freaked out at being tailed but he doesn't want to go to court to do it. Dealing with the system is his least favourite thing, and it will be a huge delay in his efforts to win the game.
All of this means Dirk is feeling cornered, and a cornered Dirk is not a happy one. There are cars on this street but not any and none he could jack in front of a cop without being caught. Dude can definitely keep pace with him which fucking sucks and if he gives him cause to nab him he's fucked. Where are the exit routes? He'd have to vanish but last time he was spotted. A trail, he figures, so get a place to vanish that wouldn't leave that. One street south is busy enough to vanish into if he ditches the jacket, maybe. But how does he get there.
Holy shit he does not want to be doing this right now.]
What the fuck do you want?
[Even if he is a cop he's clearly not objecting to the cursing so Dirk will not be filtering that out.]
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[ immediate and genuine, no hesitation. dave flicks his gaze to the side and back rapidfire, making the tails and shifting. he's still casual, but clearly prepared to stick to his earlier words. ]
Consider me some kinda support class for the video game of your choice. It's way more glamorous soundin' than my day job. I have no idea what the fuck you think you're up to, but my only interest is that you get through whatever it is alive. That's harder if you act even more erratically just tryin' to lose me, and you might not lose them.
[ it's possibly too-honest. but dave had never cared for adults lying to his fucking face when he was younger and cornered and scared. ]
Whatever you're caught up in, I won't stop you. S'not my business. But do me a favor and let me stick around for forty-eight hours to see you through whatever it is in one peace?
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He doesn't trust this guy, at all. 'Keep you safe' hits him somewhere he doesn't like and he was never a very expressive kid (his brother never condemned that in him) but right now all the lines of his body say he's ready to hit abscond or aggrieve.
Dirk makes the fall fast. Let this weirdo get him out of whatever this situation, then shake him. He'll handle these tails (other players?) when he needs to.]
Sure. What-the-fuck-ever, dude.
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[ he studies dirk for a second, taking in the body language with a sigh because he knows it but there's nothing to be done: the important thing is...letting rose figure out the details and just adhering to the mission. keep the kid safe.
right. ]
Let's teach you some on-the-job counter tactics. C'mon. Though they won't help you lose me, you gotta get better at losin' assholes like these.
[ he doesn't make a move to touch dirk but he jerks his head at a particular avenue and starts that way. the kid will follow or he won't, and dave meant what he said: if dirk follows he's going to start pointing things out low-voiced to be careful of when trying to lose people in this day and age. ]
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Dirk follows but he doesn't say a single thing in reply. The body language says Dave is still walking beside a badly contained livewire.]
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I think you're better at tech shit than me - not hard if you get into anythin' beyond bein' born in the information age - so we'll ignore that part of it. What I'm good at is disappearin'. You can call me Dave, I hate titles.
[ he doesn't use dirk's name. he won't, unless he gets it. there's a brief segue into how to distractions are Fun for the whole family and dave cheerfully engages in a few brief conversations with passers-by as they go. he had to learn the charm he employs on others, and a few careful misdirects will make it harder for people to follow them without being waylaid. ]
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He still isn't talking. He is, however, using eye movement to make his shades look up the clue he just found for the three-pronged arch.
Look if random dude in this show got lame google glasses, i'm giving Dirk his really helpful computershades. that level of scifi is totally POI legit.]
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the smile is more real when he answers his phone on the first ring and listens to rose give him a brief puzzle run down. she gets a "the words you just said mean nothing to me in conjunction with one another but have a blast" in response. ]
One of these guys is military. [ to dirk, brightly, though the genuine smile flickered away when rose's call did. ] So I'm gonna have to ask you to go down that shady lookin' alley with me and pretend you don't see me doin' to him what I'm gonna do to him. It won't be lethal, but it ain't strictly legal.
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I can take care of it myself. Just back off-dude.
[He'll disappear. He knows how to on a street as busy as this one. He can get away.]
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[ if dirk has any, now would be the time. dave...chooses to not back off for the moment, although he still hasn't come within a foot of dirk or tried to touch him at all.
weirdly, dave hasn't tried to touch anyone at all, keeping a fair amount of distance between him and anyone he speaks to. it's habitual more than anything else. ]
However, he does have a gun and he probs will use it and I don't want him hittin' anyone but maybe me, although I'm kinda opposed to that as well on a personal level?
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