[crow]

It was still wobbling between three different buildings when they finally closed in on it, but Lyra stood there and waited for a moment to see if it would settle.

Her escort, if she could call them that, stood in a very escort-like guard as she stared at a phone in front of three equally decrepit-looking buildings. Which wasn't to say that the three buildings looked the same, but none of them were in better shape than any of the others, and they all looked as if they had never at any point looked nice.

[crow]

At least there wasn't one in significantly worse shape than the others either. Given their luck, that would be the one they'd need to go into, if there had been one like that. But then again, at least if they had something like that, they might have more of a lead, and she wouldn't need to stand around like this waiting for divine providence or whatever.

Maybe she was spoiling for a fight a little bit too, if only so she could have it over with.

[crow]

"Any luck?" said Luke, not looking at her but muttering over his shoulder. His patience had only held for so long, it seemed.

"It's playing eenie meenie miney mo," she said. "But I think it's going to be the one on the left. It keeps going back to that one."

"Good enough for me." Luke's grin turned wolfish, and he wasted no time closing in on the door. But a hand on his shoulder stayed him--- Bastien, eyes dark, shaking his head.

"We don't know what's in there," he said.

[crow]

"What do you want us to do, wait here and see if something comes out?" Luke sounded more incredulous than irritated, which was good, because an argument was just about the last thing Lyra needed. But she understood Luke's logic more than she did Bastien's this time.

"Are you saying we should sneak in through one of the windows or something?" she said. "We don't know which room was hers though."

"I'm just saying we should have a look around first," said Bastien.

[crow]

And maybe they could figure out which room was hers that way. He didn't say it, but Lyra could puzzle it out from there. The two of them looked at her--- waiting for her to make a decision. She called the shots in more and more of their operations.

The President said it was because of her flexibility as a field agent, something like that. It was funny, Lyra had always thought command had more to do with seniority or experience, neither of which she had.

[crow]

By that logic it ought to be Bastien in charge. He and Luke had served a similar tenure, but she wasn't sure she'd trust Luke to order anyone else around. He was good as an agent, but better under someone else's direction than his own.

And Bastien did things on his own sometimes anyway, so maybe it was a better alternative than having him follow orders. But he didn't go against her decisions too often, especially if she took his suggestions seriously.

[crow]

"I guess it can't hurt," she said. It cost them time, but there didn't seem to be any worse risks to it. It maybe wasn't what Luke would have hoped for--- more walking and staring, neither of which were exactly his favorite activities. But maybe they would find something important.

"So, are we splitting up?" said Luke. He didn't argue after she had made up her mind--- Luke was good like that. That was why she thought he was better following someone else's orders, actually.

[crow]

But his suggestion in this case wasn't exactly something that Lyra wanted to put into use. Which was part of why he wasn't suited for command to begin with, wasn't it? "No, I think it's better if we stick together," she said, tapping a finger to her chin, as if she had had to think about it.

In reality, it didn't take much thought at all on her part. They were in unfamiliar and quite possibly dangerous territory, and there was only the three of them.

[crow]

This was tantamount to a horror movie situation. They even had monsters, even though those hadn't made an appearance just yet. Splitting up was a terrible idea. She'd watched enough flicks to know that much.

"Right," Bastien said. "If they have back-up waiting for us, it'll be too easy for them to pick us off one by one."

"Exactly," Lyra said, smiling. For a guy who was such a lone wolf, he really did get it. "Plus this way we've got more eyes on the situation too."

[crow]

Luke didn't argue, merely nodded. With that matter settled, there was no putting it off anymore, and Lyra led the way around the side of the building. The three of them skirted around it, moving from the main alleyway to the even narrower space between the buildings. In places, it was so narrow that they could barely squeeze through single-file.

The first thing Lyra noticed was the smell. It already hadn't been great before, but in the more cramped space, it was worse somehow.

[crow]

She didn't know if they were getting closer to the source of whatever it was, or if it was just because there was less air to go around. Regardless, this wasn't shaping up to be the best time. She was going to have to wash everything she was wearing when she got out of here.

"They've been dumping their sewage out here," said Bastien. Lyra glanced up, a little surprised that he had chosen to comment on it. He was usually pretty tight-lipped and all.

[crow]

Noticing that he was under scrutiny, Bastien looked away--- up, as if he was scanning the building itself, but Lyra knew avoidance when she saw it. "It's not corpses," he said eventually.

Ahhh. His comment suddenly made sense. Maybe there had been something in her expression that had given him the impression that she was worried.

Well, he wasn't entirely off the mark there. She had been thinking about horror movies just a second ago, so corpses had been on her mind, come to think of it.

[crow]

She hadn't quite made the mental leap to wondering whether that was why the smell was so bad here, but she also couldn't exactly claim to know the difference between the smell of rotting flesh and... sewage. She'd experienced the latter before, just not the former. Somehow. Despite everything she'd been doing lately. It was probably a rash of incredibly good luck, actually.

Lyra didn't want to think about why Bastien seemed so sure it was just sewage. You didn't come by that kind of knowledge living a comfortable, normal life.

[crow]

There had always been an air about Bastien that sort of suggested he came from a rough background--- not like he was a thug, exactly, but the tiredness in his face made it seem like he had gotten through some rough times.

And it wasn't just combat and Mals either, because Luke had gone through all of that too, but Luke's bearing didn't seem to carry that same... weight. Maybe he hid it better, but Lyra had a hard time believing that. Luke didn't lie very convincingly.

[crow]

And for that matter, the other Contacts that she'd met, however briefly--- none of them had quite the same quality to them either. Even the President, whom Lyra had encountered in passing a few times, and who looked tired beneath the sharpness and the rolling thunder of her verdicts, didn't feel like...

But it wasn't her place to pry into his secrets. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been easy for him to talk about, and Lyra was all too keenly aware of the fact that she was still new to their organization.

[Wild Pet Found]