He can be escaped; he did a lot of tromping around in a mud dungeon and barely stayed conscious through his shower, yesterday evening, and went to bed quite tired. "Persimmon."

They don't have any of those. (The part of Cara that vaguely remembers how to be cute and fun and is yearning for a chance to try it out again has aspirations of making a pile of objects Haru mentions while asleep and leaving them on the bed the next morning. She's got no idea if she'll indulge it or not.)

"Lugubriousness."

She has to look that one up, at which point she has to suppress a bitter bark of laughter. He's been holding some of that every night!

Okay. Come on. Get over it.

Count to ten. Try to breathe. And go wash up.

(She does.)

Plumbing noises wake him. When she emerges he's no longer producing nouns.

"Good morning," she says brightly, as she re-enters the room. 

"Morning!" His turn in the bathroom now.

Works for her!

When he gets back, she's gotten dressed for the day and can start solidifying her plans. "Did you have anything scheduled this morning? I woke up to a notice from my agent telling me they want me in San Diego for a bit."

"Unless something has changed I -" phone - "...it has, now they want me in Quebec City instead. If you see a Menagerie critter while you’re there, I know where you can fence it for millions, if they can kill the core this time around."

Huh! "They're worth that much to the OMP?" 

"A panda costs a million in rental fees to China per year, and in spite of the famous difficulty of getting them to do it, pandas are capable of reproducing."

"Huh. Reality has a surprising amount of detail!" She smiles at him. "If I see one, I will do my best to calmly acquire it."

"Probably keep it in your power's sights while you do."

She loses her startle and flinch reactions when more than slightly backlashed, even without an instruction. (She hasn't really mentioned that to Haru.)

"Yeah, I've read about how they work. I'll be careful." (She isn't sure if she'll be staying there long enough for it to matter, but weird things happen all the time.)

"And when you're all done I'll see you then."

"Yeah." She smiles a bit, and gets on her phone and formally accepts the assignment, which will notify both the requesting agency and her agent.  

"What do they want you for in Quebec?"

"It's a fairy themed one, breached and started luring people back to Fairyland, and they think it's psychic not drugs."

The two genders she's not saying that. "Hopefully no biting victims, this time." 

"Hopef-" Phone bleep. "- okay never mind, the city of San Diego wants me to bring Cricket and coax people's Menagerie monsters away from them! That's crazy, Cricket's more expensive than I am - I guess the strategy is something like, hey, I have a monster too, isn't it nice to have a monster, yours doesn't have its shots -"

"Huh! Perhaps they'll have all three of us commute together... have you two ever done anything like that before?" It seems like the kind of thing Cricket might find annoying, but she's not sure - she's still learning how Cricket thinks. (She doesn't know enough about cat body language to know if Cricket's is cat-typical or not, which doesn't help.) 

"No, and I'm not actually sure it's a good idea. Of course, almost anything they try might turn out to be a bad idea! The entire problem with these critters is you can't fully-inform the people they latch onto."

Cara nods seriously. "Yeah. It's a bit of a nightmare." ...seems like they should get a psychic for it, really, but perhaps they already have all applicable ones on site and the legal situation in California in particular - well, no, they did declare a SoE.

"It's worth me accompanying you to San Diego since you're going anyway and that way you can stop more cars, but they might change their minds or an agency lawyer might tell Paula I mustn't touch it or both, so who knows if I'll actually wind up taking any monsters that aren't all by themselves at the time."

"I think they've gotten most of the smaller cars by now, but yeah, plausibly they'll have something else for me to do after the firetrucks." She texts Phoebe to let her know that Haru is coming along. 

"Aren't those things sleeper agents? New ones could wake up any minute. But maybe we'll be home in time for me to hit Fairyland anyway, a Fairyland is always good photography."

Cara winces internally. "Oh, I'd read that they all turned on at the same time but it from a secondary source" (read: people talking about it on twitter) "I haven't looked at what the CaliDRT was putting out."

(Her brain is helpfully playing out a debate between the two reasonable viewpoints of "idiot! He's going to think you're unprepared, not ready for this, too young!" and "fuck you! this isn't Tia, and that was obviously stupid unhinged behavior anyways, look where it got us!")

"Maybe they turned on at the same time but if they waited at all, could be some waited longer." Shrug. He finishes his pop tart.

Flywheel's phone beeps at her!  The California DRT would really really love it if she's willing to teleport from firetruck intercept point to firetruck intercept point.  They're nearly done but they've been saving firetrucks for last.  (Firetrucks are the hardest to stop but are the lowest-priority, as firefighters are a hardy folk and suffering is part of their day jobs.)  They have an esper on tap named Sinkhole who has an unusually efficient-for-this-dungeon-break power.  Their presumptive plan, subject to Flywheel's approval, is to use Sinkhole to bleed off the firetrucks' kinetic energy via sticky goop and let Flywheel freeze as many firetrucks as backlash permits.

If Flywheel has any input, planning requirements, or logistical constraints Juanita would really love to hear them immediately-if-not-sooner.  Otherwise, they're happy to credit her an Ablinger port, followed by local teleportation to the first intercept point. 

Flywheel has a partner who was requested to help with Menagerie, but presumably they'll figure out transit for him and his talking cat separately.

She needs to have her in-field communication run through a screener - her agent should have shared the details already. She's otherwise fine with all details of the plan - she can be at the marble point for travelling to SD in checks Otto! 10 minutes. 

Yep, they have that squared away!  (They're also really curious about why she needs a screener, but they would never admit it.)

After receiving confirmation that she'll be in beautiful* downtown San Diego in under twenty minutes, a flurry of activity occurs.  Drones are exchanged for ones with fresh batteries, the Tracking Team updates their maps in a hurry and prepares to update their maps very quickly.

*termsandconditionsmayapplyseeearthquakedamageassessmentfordetails

One Carol McCleery is also plied with coffee and a pair of breakfast burritos.

Cara lets Haru know what the plan is as she suits up.

He's got a checklist! She has his number, their phones are charged and working, location sharing is on, they have a silo to meet at after, helmet situation is all set, check check check, "all green, you are clear to save the day."

She smiles warmly at him (...it doesn't take any acting on her part. She really appreciates the checklist.) "Thanks. Good luck with your very cute organic bomb defusing."

"Thanks, I'm gonna need it."

(...she hopes he won't, but... yeah.) 

Cara gives Haru one last hug goodbye, and then heads out the door. 

Flywheel gets in the Otto! as it arrives, and reads through Sinkhole's publicly-available info on the way there. 

(She wonders what an anger backlash would be like. Probably it's a real struggle. (she'd definitely prefer it though shhh, brain))

Then she's at the teleporter point, and then she's in San Diego. She lets the system know she's ready for deployment. (They already know she needs only a second or two of advance warning and is fine with being put directly into the path of an oncoming firetruck - the closer it is to her, the easier her job is.)

Carol's there.  It's logistically simpler to have the espers who're going to be stopping the cars stage at the same location.  She's still wearing an increasingly scuffed motorcycle jacket with dozens of pockets.  She's opted for a ponytail instead of long braids, though.

... it's going to be weird not talking directly to Flywheel.  Kind of a relief, though.  She smiles and waves.  She pauses her last minute equipment check and offers Flywheel a wordless hand to shake?

Oh, sure, they can do a compatibility shake. She'll pop off a glove.

Firm, confident, pretty-dang-compatible handshake.  She smiles at Flywheel, lets go of the hand like a normal person.  Points to herself and gives a thumbs-up.

Oh, wow. (It's a bit nice to have her helmet hide her face - she doesn't have to couch her surprised expression.)

...she's at no backlash and they're not starting literally right now, so - "I'm going to be cut off from direct comms once we get going, but it's good to meet you. Talk to my interpreter like you would talk to an esper you're working with."

(She slides her glove back on.)

Oh, thank God I can at least introduce myself.  "You as well!  I'm sure it'll be fine."  And she won't even have to talk to me, which is even better.  "Refrain from most dungeon sign as well, right?"  It was in the briefing, but I want to make it clear that I read the briefing and am actually communicating the fact that I respect her requirements.

She nods. "The dungeon sign is unlikely to matter for this, but yeah, that's best practice. Thank you." She puts her smile in her voice, since it'd be a bit weird to flip her helmet open now. I appreciate you having read the briefing and kept it in your head.

"You're very welcome.  If you decide you want field-expedient guiding, you're welcome to hug me.  Just relay or sign for it if you decide you want it."  Since you can't communicate, for whatever reason.  Fucking backlash.  And this puts the ball in her court, no way I can be construed as being pushy like this.