He had listened to the pandering of some of the Hospital's regulars for hours. Mousey hair further obscured his view through the slats of one of the vents, but it didn't matter. He had closed his eyes some time ago. Sleep had not overcome him as he was still attentive to everything being said, but nothing had caught his interest for some time.He heard the sound of something heavy being dropped on the floor and peeked open one eye to see who had dropped something off, who had laid down what, or who had fallen down. The other eye slowly followed the first as he recognized the tall one-eyed man in the trench. 'Zac' they called him, and it was only one of several monikers attached to the man. Zac was at least more interesting than anything else at the moment, and so when Dannell saw the man enter the cafeteria, he slid his way along the duct work in the same direction.
"It's interesting to note the new alliances forming. It's a dangerous thing. I once heard a man refer to it as 'sleeping in two beds'." Dannell cleared the tangled knots of hair from his eyes as he peered through metal grating. It was Ed who had spoken, and had obviously followed Zac into the cafeteria while Dannell was inching his way towards his next observation point.
Zac turned his one eye towards Ed, as memory served him well enough to ladle stew into a bowl without missing. "And what alliances would those be?", he asked in that perpetually quiet, rasping tone.
"Asche is in close with a Nuclear Messiah man ... " Ed informed the drifter as rags were shaken out and then slung over his shoulder.
"Oh yeah?" Even from this vantage point, Dannell could see the lift of Zac's brow and could detect the feigned disinterest. "So that's where she went runnin' off to."
"Yes. She says it is because he seems not to be like the others." Distaste rang clear in Ed's tone. "That is the worst kind of man to trust."
Zac scratched his chin and with a motion for Ed to follow, headed for a table so that he could eat and listen in some semblance of a civilized manner. After he sat down, he looked up at the kid. "Got a name?"
"Name ... " Ed thought for a moment. "No. No, I can't quite remember him. But you've seen him ... you blew up his truck."
A spoonful of the gruel was slathered into One Eye's mouth as he listened. Ed may not have remembered, but Dannell did. It was another piece of the eternal jigsaw puzzle and a morsel of information that Dannell ferreted away for later use. Zac chuckled after he had cleared his mouth of food. "Oh ... him." The grin was missed behind another spoonful of food.
"He's someone to watch," Ed warned him, as if Zac needed be warned of much. "Trucks do not ... grow with the suns, right?"
"No, they do not." Zac had never been known as a man of many words.
"So, I have come to various conclusions for ... further reference."
"Care ta share the info?" Zac asked, as he toed a chair towards the younger man.
Clearly, the younger man was near bursting at the seams to share his thoughts and ideas as he sat. His hands gripped the edge of the table, knuckles turning white from excitement. His voice trilled forth in a somewhat strained, but fluid huumunn tongue tinged with a Syrynykk dialect ... sans the annoying hisses and clicks. "OK. If the Church finds out that he is just using them, then he's dead and so is Asche. If he's not really using the Church, then Asche is possibly in trouble still ... and there could be something deeper."
"Guilt by association." It was an answer, not a question.
Ed shook his head; that wasn't exactly what he was thinking of. "Guilt by association, possibly, but let's set that aside."
To Dannell, it was clear, and evidently it was clear to Zac as well. "So either way, she's screwed."
"Yes," agreed Ed. "My one concern is preserving this haven, Che ... " he paused and interrupted his own line of thinking with a question. "What is your name?"
The bowl of stew before Zac was looked up from quickly, as the question had surprised him. Dannell couldn't believe that in all the times the two had spoken, that Ed did not know the man's name. It was an amusing thought. Dannell's head moved as Zac's did, searching about the cafeteria for a moment before returning his gaze to the one who could not bring himself to eat the food. "One Eye. Anything else?"
"OK, One Eye." The name was a bit strange, but then again, it wasn't the first pseudonym Ed had ever heard used here. "Well, besides the Church possibly hovering outside of the door like rabid phlupps ... What do you know about a man called Black Caine?"
Ah, Caine. Now that man Dannell had seen, heard of and heard from. Nothing of what he had understood would have qualified the man as reputable. Caine had several associates and dealings, the best of which could have been called shady.
"Never heard of him," Zac responded quietly after a shake of his head.
"Hmm. He's a dealer in heavy goods."
That had piqued Zac's interest a bit, it seemed. "How heavy we talkin'?"
"I'm talking heavy arms, lots of food, hookers, hired killers." Ed seemed to include this as an afterthought. "By the way ... why do they call them hookers?"
Dannell had to prop his knees up and press his mouth against them to keep from laughing out loud at the question. He had known Ed was young, but just not quite how young.
"'Cause once they get their hooks in ya, you always go back for more," Zac smirked through his response. It was just about as good a definition as any other that had previously been proposed.
"Oh, I see." Neither the question nor the response seemed to phase Ed terribly, as he plunged ahead. He may has well have been asking about the weather. "Well, he dresses really well. So does his lady friend. The girl who carried the thorn around -- a friend of Garth Lowinn -- she works for him."
Zac nodded at this new fount of knowledge. "Caine, right?"
"Well, he doesn't just dress well." Ed seemed particularly impressed or distracted by Caine's fashion sense. "He dresses beyond anything that I have seen in this world. Yes, Caine."
Another nod from the quiet, lone-eyed man. "Think I seen 'im once or twice."
"I was thinking Church," Ed posed. "He was a Church member, with all the connections and such." Now that was something that Dannell hadn't heard voiced before and he filed it away for later perusal.
"Seems good reasoning," Zac agreed. "Suppose though he used the Church?"
Ed seemed to muse for a moment. "Used the Church ... it is possible. But he sticks out like a sore thumb and is friends with a Freeman. Freemen seem to stick together and share. This guy's either a loner or works for a third party."
Dannell smirked to himself. He already knew the answer to that one.
"Who's the Freeman that Caine has been seen with?"
"Oh, Garth Lowinn," Ed repeated. "Before he supposedly quit."
One Eye's teeth gnashed together at the last comment, but he let out a slow breath to release the irritation. A brow quickly shot up in surprise. "Garth quit the Freemen?" His jaw twitched as he bit his tongue to avoid any further utterances of surprise questions.
"Yes. I have no idea why though," the kid admitted. "Perhaps you should ask Asche? She hears everything from the smallest burp on up. Otherwise, I have no idea what's going on here."
Not quite does Asche hear everything, thought Dannell to himself from his perch above the two. With painstaking care, he shifted his now asleep foot out from under him and leaned a shoulder gently against the side of the duct to listen better. The hushed tones were becoming more and more indistinct.
The drifter's jaw worked on nothing, as if out of habit as he nodded. "Odd. Perhaps I will ask her. So what do you suppose we do about it?", he offered to Ed.
"My only worry is that the Church has interests in this building. Caine seems to have a lot of connections for just one man. So, I think he should be watched or something like it. On that note, one of the doctors here is a little too involved with him as well. Lowinn's wife. Just a thought, nothing more."
Another nod ... it seemed to be his favorite response this evening from the enigmatic man. "I'll keep an eye out." Zac always did ... he couldn't help it, it was just his nature. Suspicion was also in his nature, and it reared it's head now. "Is involved with Caine? How?"
"Well," Ed began to explain, "she's been dealing with him. I know, it's a little farfetched, but it's happening."
"What's she gettin' from him?"
"I wish I knew." It wasn't clear from his current viewing stage whether or not Ed was bothered by his lack of knowing, or whether it was simply a statement of his ignorance to such dealings.
The two lapsed into silence, ruminating over what they had so far discussed. Dannell didn't need to lapse into anything, as he was always the silent sentinel. His eyes flicked to Zac's hands as they began to rifle through a pocket. Finally, a rectangular pack was produced. Dannell squinted to see more clearly what it was, and was rewarded by Zac tapping the pack and extracting a cigarette. It was placed between thin lips, and remained unlit. Strange for the man to be content, leaving it unlit, but apparently he was. Sometimes, Dannell just didn't understand people, no matter how often he observed them.
"So where's the Freeman, Garth?" Zac inquired after some time had passed, and it caused Dannell to be more attentive again.
"Don't know," admitted Ed. "Maybe someone decided it was time to put him down? Personally, I hope not. That means more questions.
That one eye narrowed as One Eye regarded Ed carefully. "Think someone did? Plus, they tried once. He survived that." His head tilted to once side as his lips worked on the cigarette.
"Don't know." Perhaps Ed was not the great tome of knowledge he thought himself to be. "He's an old guy. Got a history. Hmm," he caught the last part of Zac's statement. "Really. Well, he might survive this time. But I hear he's been gone for a long time. People often leave cities and just don't come back."
The truthfulness of Ed's comment was acknowledged with a nod before Zac leaned back in his chair and then rose. "Sometimes it's best when they don't." Stiff shoulders were rolled and then covered as he shrugged into his coat.
Ed pondered this with a frown and a lean back in his own chair. Above the, Dannell mimicked the gesture. He knew it to be true, but didn't like to think so fatalistically.
Experience had taught One Eye many things, and one of them was that you could never have enough food. He hefted his ruck onto his back and tossed the young man a pack of jerky. "See ya, kid." He rapped his hand on Ed's table as a form of thanks. "Stay in touch."
Ed scratched at his forearm nervously before sending a smile up towards Zac and depositing the jerky into a pocket. "Bye, One Eye. I'll be here."
Tattered boots set themselves to tile as one man left the other to his own devices. Gruffness was soon followed by youth as Dannell leaned back away from the grate, in the event that an elevated, standing position might give someone better insight beyond the barrier. The cafeteria doors pushed open and the two men disappeared back into the lobby. Now, it was just down to the hidden one, the ever-concealed one in the ventilation shaft. The one who saw and heard a great deal, and unlike Elliot, had a sentient form and was capable of attaching emotion and true thought to information. And he had been given quite a bit tonight. He just wondered how it all fit in with what he had seen the past few nights, and he could not help but wonder how it would relate to what would happen tomorrow. He wasn't worried about it thought. He was a patient man, and had nothing else to do but wait ... and listen.