Not so friendly smalltalk

Who: Everett and Indira
Where: right outside the bar
When: right after the meeting

Ev had tried to keep his hopes reasonable throughout the meeting; he knew the score here, after all. But there had been some hope he just couldn't crush. The idea that things could be different this time around died hard inside him, and he was still nursing it in private at the moment. The meeting was over, plenty of people had filed out of the bar, but Ev was still hanging around. Leaning against an outside wall, he flicked a match to life and brought it against his cigar, puffing it to life. He'd take his time here, make sure everyone cleared out, and walk a long circuit around town. Been a long time since I had a beat to walk, he mused silently, exhaling a cloud of dense smoke.

Indira, on the other hand, had gone into the meeting expecting the exact same thing that she was currently leaving with - they were all completely screwed. That wasn't going to stop her from defending herself, of course. Like hell was she going to let them do to her what they'd done the first time. But neither did she think she had the ability to take care of all the hopeful, naive morons that seemed to be in the town. The ones who'd been in an experiment seemed all too willing to forget what had happened there, and the others... the volunteers. Well, they were just clueless. They hadn't yet learned the depths of depravity that the scientists were capable of reaching. She, too, paused outside the bar, but not to smoke. She had enough problems without adding lung cancer to them. No, she just wanted a breath of fresh air, take a look at the sky. The rain that had been going nearly all day was finally taking a break, and she was glad for it.

Before Indira, no one had come out for a few minutes. So when she stepped out onto the streets, Ev took notice. He'd spotted her during the meeting and had been curious; was she Muslim? Ev had dealt with plenty of Islamic women before, so the idea didn't last beyond his first glimpse of her bad eye and the withered skin around it. No, she was hiding something. Most likely something that had happened here. "Wish I could say I was disappointed by how all that went," he said, breaking the relative silence of the street, "But around here there's not much that can still disappoint me. Surprise, sure. Disgust, easy. Only way I could be let down now is if I was an idiot."

"They'll learn," Indira said darkly, voice still accented with her native Hindi despite having lived in Canada for a decade and not speaking it regularly for nearly a year. "When the first idiot who thinks they're still going to sweep in and save us all ends up dead. They'll start figuring it out then." She shrugged, glancing over at the big man. He'd seemed to know the score, more or less; he was one of the few she hadn't automatically disliked. "It's not my problem," she said. "I'm no babysitter."

"I don't consider myself one either," Ev agreed with a sigh, "But someone needs to be. I get the feeling that if no one is, every death'll get twisted to be as divisive as possible. And I don't feel like killing anyone but the people who put us here, self defense or no." He glanced over again, turning her accent around in his head and clamping his cigar between his teeth. Ev took a step closer, mindful that Indira probably didn't want strangers too close. "Still, I think I can at least keep myself in line. Everett Dupree," he introduced himself, arms folding over his chest.

"All I care about," Indira declared, "is getting myself and my friends out alive. And as the 'friends' part of the equation currently only includes one other person, I'm content with that." She knew what would happen; people would start to suffer, and then someone would very quietly lose it completely and start doing the scientists' work for them, taking them out one by one. She'd be damned if she let that happen again. She eyed him with her one good eye as he took a step closer, glad when he didn't come any nearer and didn't offer his hand to shake. "Indira Sen," she answered.

"All circumstances aside, good to meet you Indira." He didn't like the idea of abandoning everyone he didn't know here, but Ev recognized the pragmatic nature of it. It was a clash between his policeman's mind and his soldier's one, something that hadn't happened before. The policeman was there to protect, the soldier to complete the mission and survive. "Unfortunately, I think that getting out is going to take some forethought. We're still in the middle of Russia's asshole, after all." But even venting over the frustration was nice; he couldn't do that around Diata, she needed someone to keep positive with.

Indira merely gave him a curt nod. She couldn't say it was good to meet anyone; after all, no one wanted to be here, especially not now. "They've got to be observing this somehow," she said, making a mental note to re-comb through the house in search of hidden cameras. "And it's going to be a lot harder to get in and out of a town in the middle of nowhere unseen and unheard than it is a single house. If we can catch sight of them, we can take their transportation." It was frustrating to think they could be just barely out of reach of civilization - even the bare bones would do. A working phone, really, was all she needed.

Ev listened to her assessment, though it was all things he'd considered himself already, it was good to know he wasn't alone. "If we decide to move and we're prepared, 'unseen' won't be crucial," he rumbled, amending to comb his own house if he went back to it tonight. "Whoever these people are, we know they're willing to kill us. We need to be at that level too if we opt to run."

"I meant them," Indira said, rolling her eyes. "The scientists. They have to be able to get in and out somehow - a car with bigger fuel capacity, helicopter, something. They shouldn't be able to move about in here as unseen as they did in the homes." Her eyes hardened, the only part of her face visible behind the veil. "I won't have any issue doing what's necessary," she said. "Anyone who does can get left behind, as far as I'm concerned." The only people she'd trust at her back where those from her own experiment. She knew what they - including herself - were all capable of.

"Yeah, they have choppers," he told her with an affirmative nod, "We saw that back in my stint. Hell, probably tunnels under here too from what I understand. If I had to guess? I'd bet they have two or three options for unseen movement." But that was strategic talk, and Ev didn't see much point to it unless a plan was being formulated. "Good to know you're ready to deal with this however we have to, though. I'll make sure to keep you on my list of people to notify." So he wasn't looking to officially take any kind of overseer's position; that didn't mean Ev had no intentions of working with the people here who'd work with him.

"To do what?" Indira asked. "Steer hapless experiment participants in the proper direction for evacuation?" She snorted slightly. "I don't know any of you from Adam; for all I know, you're in league with them. There is one person in this town at current that I trust. I can't say that I expect that to change." She didn't think she had the energy left to widen her circle and care for anyone else, not when she was already worried about those members of her experiment who were still missing and making plans with Addison to protect themselves.

Ev glowered at that, but couldn't quite blame Indira for her perspective. "First off, as I hear it Adam was white. So there's that," Ev joked dryly, shaking his head. "And second, if there's anyone who's not working with these people it's me. Yeah, they got to me. But at this point they could have all the leverage in the world, and I wouldn't care. I'm going to do what I have to." But he wouldn't be able to convince her with talk, that much was obvious. "I'll stay in touch whether you buy it or not, maybe you'll get some weight to stack up into faith. Doesn't mean I won't help if you don't." He stepped away from the wall with the statement, huffing out a cloud of smoke and looking in the direction of his house. "Still time to walk a route, make sure there's no surprises coming. You have a safe walk, wherever you're heading."

"Anyone can say they're not working with the scientists," Indira pointed out. She nodded shortly. "You do that," she said. She didn't think it would help, but she supposed she could keep her mouth shut on that point. If he was just trying to be nice, he didn't need more crap. If he was trying to get close to her to pull some rotten bullshit... well, it wasn't going to happen. He'd had fair enough warning. "Same to you," she said instead. Wasting no more time on pleasantries, she turned to head back to her house. There were more plans she needed to start setting up.