Establishing Control (Collectors)

[Dauzi Tavalon]

Dauzi looked at his fake I.D. and looked at his name "Phineass Bigcok?" He shrugged at the name and put the I.D. in his pocket. He then moved from a laying position to a sat up position, making sure that his gun was within grabbing range of himself.

He looked at Kali, and asked the important question, "Alright, you two are newly weds. Do I get an elaborate backstory, or do I just have to make one up for Phineass Bigcok, and why is he here on your honeymoon?"

[Parker]

"Okay, good," Parker only glazed over the name 'Dakota Greaves' briefly before tucking the ID into his pocket. The IDs were only a side thought of his at this point as he was more concerned with the road and the 'reasons' why they were taking it. He appreciated that Kali knew about the history, her suggestion for a cover story was more than enough to please him.

"Yeah...yeah, that should work," he mumbled, glancing in his mirrors as the dirt clouds behind him started to pick up as they drove, despite the snow these roads still made quite the mess but he felt he could still see decently if anyone were to come up behind them. He'd only barely heard Dauzi question his own that he couldn't help but give Kali a quick look as he asked further, "Yeah, I guess what is his story with us?"

[Demetrios]

See? This is why Kali didn't want Dauzi to come along with them... HOW WAS SHE SUPPOSED TO EXPLAIN THIS? Kali had spent the better part of the trip considering various options and none of them entirely made sense. "Well..." Kali said with an exasperated sigh, "I've been considering some ideas so you guys tell me what you think: we're two rich newly weds that brought along our favorite male prostitute... that's you Dauzi. Or maybe you're my super protective older brother that INSISTED to come along with us, that might be more reasonable. Or my Father is super rich and powerful that he sent a bodyguard along to our honeymoon. I dunno I think all of them would possibly work."

"I've gotta say you guys have no idea how hard it is to come up with good covers in such a short period of time. But if you two don't like my ideas please do make some suggestions! I would LOVE to hear what you two come up with."

[Parker]

"I think if I ever did really marry a chick no matter how much the brother hated me I would find a way to take her out on a honeymoon without him so no, that won't work," Parker had shaken his head at most of Kali's ideas, though the one stuck with him for a few moments.

"A bodyguard could work though. Dauzi? You up for being Phineass Bigcok the bodyguard?" he asked, feeling a bit better about the situation now and turning the music on the stereo up a little bit more now as he settled in for another several hours of driving.

[Dauzi Tavalon]

"I could live with being the bodyguard. Honestly, it's not too different than what I already do." Phineass said, already getting into his persona, "And to make sure you don't slip up, make sure you call me Mr. Bigcok, Dakota. Yes, I saw what your new name is." He looked over at Kali, and asked her, "So what is your new name, Miss?"

[Demetrios]

"Maki..." Kali said with a glance towards her own fake ID. 'Maki' was the name she had for the first few years of her life, before Demetrios knew she existed and before he took her away from her mother. It wasn't something anyone could have known, she never had any records and Demetrios would never have told anyone. Kali was the name he gave her, a name like Maki was far too T'elvian and would draw attention in a profession where attention was bad. Thankfully in this instance it worked well with their cover, "Maki Greaves..." Her voice was solemn for a moment.... only for a moment before she quickly added, "NEWLY MARRIED AND READY TO TEAR THE CLOTHES RIGHT OFF HER MAN! RAWR!"

Maki was probably more of the innocent, shy type of girl. Sheltered by her father from the harsh Thelotian world she would be a wide eyed and absorbing everything as if it was all the first time. 

Suddenly her phone began to buzz, breaking her from the manic laughter and causing her to frantically dive her hands into her pockets to try and find the phone. Fishing it out she held it up and glanced at the name, it was just a series of numbers of numbers she recognized - a call from one of her officers. Holding up her hand to silence any words from the two (like THEY needed to be told to be quiet) she answered the call and held the phone to her ear, not speaking but merely listening.

Her expression was unflinching as she listened, the words far too muffled for Parker or Dauzi to really hear but they sounded rather calm. One could guess that it was just them merely reporting in... 

Kali hung up the phone, placed it down on the ground and smashed it with her heel. Kicking it twice, she gathered up the small pieces before tossing it right out the window. "We've been hit. We lost some of our officers on the way there. Smash your phones and do the same..."

It was the worse case scenario and something she rather feared. Just coming out of the gate and already being harassed, "There is a leak in the group, it seems..."

[Dauzi Tavalon]

Phineass pulled out his phone, opened it up and broke it by bending it back, snapping it. It sent tiny plastic part onto the car floor. He opened the back, and pulled the battery out, tossed it on the seat, and pulled out the sim card. He snapped that, and then tossed that out of the window.
"Ill wait to toss out the rest of the phone a bit further down, not to have anyone following us being suspicious." Phineass said, as he looked out the window.

[Parker]

Parker noticeably twitched as Kali teased the hell out of him. That's what she was doing, right? Teasing? Again! Arrghhh.

In a way the phonecall she received was a little bit of a blessing to Parker, in a very twisted way he supposed. It was time to get and stay focused, and...do something about this outside of Thelotia. Oh boy.

"After you," Parker tossed his phone over to Kali to dispose of, "my hands are on the wheel and we're not stopping. Not here and not now, anyway."

He knew the drill. The situation didn't matter, they had to keep moving lest they were being watched the whole time. But now the question was did he continue on so quickly to Gefrya or did Kali have another idea in mind...?

"So uh...so now what?" he was asking Kali, with her leading the plan here he needed to ensure he understood still, "like do you know if we have a snitch or was someone just not careful? I'm still following this new route of ours anyway though it's gonna take us considerably longer with the stops in between. Maybe we can find something along the way to help us?"

[Demetrios]

Kali took Parker's phone and quickly delivered a brutal smash to it, crushing the object into many different pieces before going through and finding any vital parts she missed. "My guess is a snitch..." Kali said lightly as she collected the pieces into her hand. "I can't believe those barbarians just picked them out from the traffic. It would have had to been someone leaking information..."

She was unsure what to do next. Part of her wanted to turn back to Thelotia and rethink their approach but the other half reminded her clearly that Demetrios wanted PARKER to lead the mission and if they went back empty handed.... well that was a far more frightening fate than anything she could think of. Would Demetrios label her a traitor? Would he think SHE was the leak?

No, they had to push on. Stopping now wasn't an option. "Maybe... maybe we should get off the road for the rest of the night?" She asked cautiously, "If we're being hunted now... maybe we should get a new car as well." She was open to suggestions here. Nobody was cool and calm enough to come up with a new plan at the snap of their fingers, after all!

[Dauzi Tavalon]

"No, getting off of the road for the night would be suicide if we stay somewhere this far out. It would be easier for an attack and to get away with it." Phineass said as he looked at the signs they passed. "Though, switching vehicles might be beneficial. They could have bugged the car, and so ditching it could throw them off our trail."

He looked over at Parker and asked, "What do you think, Mr. Greaves? We find a car, and drive that one for a while?"

[Parker]

'How would they have bugged my car unless they knew I was taking this specific one out?!' Parker thought, his frustration coming back as he frantically weighed the options and listened to what both Kali and Dauzi were telling him. It was scary being out here with just the three of them and Parker not knowing where to hide, that alone was enough to worry him but with someone out here looking for them now...well now what? He learned from a much earlier point from Asteria that you disappear the moment you were found out. But when you were fighting your own people who knew you would do exactly that, what was the safer or smarter choice?

"We can't keep going, Dauzi," Parker answered sharply, ignoring the use of the fake names for now until they were out of the car, "if we're being looked for and they know what to look for, we're still in the open for them to find. They know we're on our way there, heading straight to them is a worse idea than hiding. B-but then what if they know we're on to them now? Even laying low isn't going to be the safest when they know to expect that from us."

His jaw tensed as he tried to think about what he wanted to do, what would be the safer bet...

'Keep normal. Be normal!'

"This is a really long drive anyway. Especially with the tourist stops," Parker spoke again, seemingly off-topic for a moment until he continued, "there's no way the Greaves' are going to make the full drive in one day. They...they have to stop, a-and waste time at the museums and T'elvian villages because Maki really wants to go and Dakota likes her too much he can't say no. It gets dark sooner than they expect, maybe even for an extra day longer than that because they're having too much fun..."

Parker shrugged then, wildly tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he looked over to Kali.

"And...and maybe they get lost for a bit and end up having to take a different way into Gefrya when they do get there. They're not worried with their bodyguard nearby, right? I'll stop at the next small city on the way, hotwire us something different to drive. If nothing else, the moment we are in the city safely we can go from there, but we have to keep behaving like normal people until we get there."

Maybe it was a dumb idea. Maybe going back to Thelotia was smarter. Maybe if the other officers were already hit going back to Thelotia was the most dangerous plan there was. As far as he knew the best they could do right now was blend in, not 'disappear'.

[Demetrios]

"Right, we continue on the path. We already changed our route so there's no reason to believe they know where we are..." Kali nodded. But if it was one of their officers who leaked the position than she had to assume that officer took note of which cars they came to the meeting and left in. So at the very least the bikers knew they were looking for this car and NO DOUBT they knew they were looking for Parker, the man's face was everywhere right now. 

Kali was seeing monsters in every shadow right now, every lonely car they passed on the road she expected it to be full of spies telling the enemy exactly where they were. But Maki wouldn't have been frightened right now, she would have been enormously excited with her thoughts drifting towards the great moments that awaited her on this trip. Maki was a fool, but normal people were fools so she'd probably fit right in with the crowd. 

"So..." she paused began as she pulled out the map, "We could probably hit, like, two of these places before dark right? No doubt there are hotels if we need to stop..." She liked the idea of finding the nearest city and ducking into it for a bit. In cities it was easier to blend in and vanish, but entering towns on the other hand made everybody keenly aware of your presence. People out here had a diffferent mindset, they looked after each other because they believed Thelotia isn't looking out for them.

"Anyway, I like your plan Parker..." she said with a small nod as her eyes never left the map, "We should probably cover our bases though, you know? Like how we first met, how long Phineass here has been protecting me... you know, things to help keep our story together." 

[Parker]

"Yeah. Yeah, we turned off with the idea of this happening before you even got that call, s-so for all we know we're actually ahead of them. Maybe not by much, but maybe just enough..." Parker bit down on his bottom lip thinking on it. Had he not made a mention earlier, would they still be alive right now he wondered? Even if they were only minutes ahead of an attack, that was time precious enough to him to evade them...

"The very next city we'll ditch this," Parker gestured to his car, sad to think he was going to willingly part ways with his favourite car he'd had for only years but when he thought about it this was probably the best way for them to part. It was better than it being shot down, full of bullet holes or having the nitrous tank explode. It was better than it being stolen, and he knew it was the best way to force him to let it go knowing that 'Parker Clermont' was known to enjoy his racing cars and right now getting rid of Parker Clermont was on his list of things to do as per Demetrios. No more race cars. Normal, maybe even fancy Thelotian cars but nothing that was going to link authorities or enemies to him anymore. It hurt but this was for the best.

"How far do we have to the next city? Somewhere I can duck in with enough pickings for cars that I can just, you know, swap out. The sooner we get that taken care of, the better."

[Demetrios]

"Not too far I think..." Kali answered, remembering the map she had just looked at. "There is some old holy grounds that we could stop at beforehand. Of course there are plenty of other destinations that we can hit instead, we don't have to see everything on the ride up." Kali huffed at the thought of stopping at all the different locations, it would be an immense extension of their trip but honestly she wasn't in any position to complain. They were being hunted in territory where they were completely blind. That was something she was used to doing and had no experience fighting against...

Things had been different in Thelotia when the Dust Collection Agency when against the revolting Agency because both were near equally matched with overlapping intelligence but the Agency that had revolted in Gefyra City had complete control of the area. The mission to infiltrate Gefyra City would be immensely difficult but she was sure they could do it. They just needed to be careful... something admittedly Parker might have been better at. Was that why Demetrios wanted him in charge?

"Either way if they find us we'll need to retreat back. We can't fight our way through them with just the three of us, that'd be suicide." 

[Dauzi Tavalon]

Dauzi looked over at Kali as she made her plans of the stops and the plan of retreat if needed. "Parker, I think it might be better if we get the car at the town instead of the holy ground." He said as he stretched his arms,
"When we switch cars, they are going to look for this one, and if they see us stopping in this car, they might not believe we are planning to switch the car, and if we are lucky, they might not expect that we got caught wind." He said as he gathered his stuff, and make sure he didn't drop anything.

"I will handle this car and hiding it." He said, "This is a nice vehicle, sad it has to go."