Living in the Gangsta's Paradise

[Codeh]

Jack's right hand swooped up as he brought the fedora from his skull, his left hand hand sweeping through his golden blond locks. Sweat slid over his brow, his arm shifting as he brought his coat sleeve across his forehead removing the beadlets. It was hot, it was way too freaking hot. The fedora was returned to his head as a long sigh flowed from his lip. Fiery eyes of orange darted about as he took in the landscape, it was large, wide and empty. Grass rose to waist length, it was a dark green, extremely healthy, extremely thick. Obviously rain was abundant, this place was probably wealthy wit all sorts of natural resources.

A few steps were taken through the tangles of flora, he felt like he'd been walking for hours now. His head slid to the left, his waist twisting as he looked back. He could see were the edge of the field had begun, it was maybe a mile to a mile and half back. He wasn't making any kind of real forward progress. He righted himself, and for a brief moment frusturation grasped his face, his left leg swept out as he kicked at the tufts of grass. The frusturation faded to exhaustion, he could feel the cold chills generated by the sweat running down his body. His silken shirt was adhering to his back, his pants legs becoming heavy from the accumulating moisture.

Another few steps were taken, his eyes moving down to his legs, when he saw it. Immediately eyes bulged, pupils grew several fold, and his maw hung open. There upon his left shin was a bright green grass stain. A tremor rain through his facial muscles, his eye brow twitched. His pin strip suit was being ruined by the damn grass! Why the hell did DeSoto want him to come to this god forsaken place? Leather gloves clenched.... and then his shoulders slumped. He was suddenly feeling defeated.

Hands rose as he removed the gloves, the Fedora, and his pin stripe over coat. A white T-shirt and gray vest remained upon his chest, two light brown gun holsters revealing themselves. The holsters straps constricted him a little, the wrapped around his shoulders and waist, keeping the firearms (Hector and Paris) firmly against his ribcage. "Gabrielle.... why couldn't we fly through here?"

It was a stupid question, he knew why. They wouldn't be able to get the same level of detail flying, as they could walking. But he was lazy, he was tired. And he didn't understand why Darin wanted them, well specifically him, of all people to trek around some country they didn't have anything to do with yet.

The removed garments were held within his hands for a few seconds as he looked longingly at them. Regret consumed his visage for a few moments before he returned the fedora to his head, and tossed the remaining items off into the bush. "Ah applesauce! So much for being the cat's meow, aye Fly girl?" The comment obviously directed to his female companion.

[Ace]

A fraction of a second after Jack had released those garments into the air, before the material had even cleared his fingertips, Gabrielle could have snatched them into her grasp before the mortal eye could even register movement. If she'd seen fit to. It was disgustingly hot, though, and the articles were worthless on this assignment. Why Jack had even bothered with gloves and a topcoat in the first place..

So they fell, into a rumpled heap in the grass, and the slender blonde woman in his company merely gave a satirical, overexaggerated little glance to the heavens, and overstepped them. "You know Darin," she crooned in a similarly plain, unamused tone. DeSoto had put her out, as well, with the thoughtless inconsideration of his order. The man's whims often seemed questionable, even senseless, to the Lady de Seingalt, but they were to be heeded regardless. A fact that often left quite the resentful taste on her tongue. "What's the use in questioning him, mmm?"

Gabrielle's grey eyes glimmered briefly with a jesting derision and she turned up the corner of her thin, peachy lips, sharing a flicker of a smile. In anticipation of the torrid afternoon, the pilot-turned-sovereign had opted for a much cooler traveling attire; Shorts of a crisp, uniform-worthy navy linen left legs that seemed to go on for miles bare, and free to enjoy what little breeze the sultry grasslands had to offer. She topped these with a tailored suitcoat of matching fabric, tailored to her waist and with sleeves cropped and folded at the elbow. The back of the coat extended in long, twin tails, fluttering against the back of her thighs to add a degree of formality and decoration to the uniform and giving the wearer a strangely feminine, but imperial, military air. Tall boots protected lean, shapely calves from the sharp and biting edge of the foreign grass.

"Speak for yourself," she mused, shading her eyes with her hand and sending a long, hard peer into the distance from beneath narrowed lashes. "Oy... How much further do you think? I would love a drink after this."

[Codeh]

Jack was quickly developing a hatred for the grass, a hatred that was so passionate it dared to manifest. In fact it almost did. His right hand clenched, his arm slowly drawing back. His fist running parallel with the ground. Hellbent eyes focused on a single blade of grass before him, his weight shifted all to the right leg, his left knee bent as his lifted the foot from the ground. His back arched, and soon his right elbow which was married to his side was pointed towards the earth. A glow seemed to form around the balled fist, and then suddenly he jerked forward. His form lunged forward, his left leg slamming harshly into the ground, and his right arm shot straight out. His limb seemingly vanished as it blurred out of existence, only to materialize moments later with his elbow half extended. His weight had fully transitioned to his left foot, his head pointed toward the ground, his chest almost running parallel with the soil. A little off balance he took several steps forward before his arm fell to his side. His right hand extending as he shook the digits out.

His left leg slid back against his right, his body straightened becoming rigid, as he turned to face Gabe. His brows squished toward one another, and a sour look perched itself upon his lips, nostrils flaring as he spoke to the woman. "I hyper extended my arm.... it hurts." His left arm rose, his index finger extended as he pointed to his right bicep, as if to clarify which limb had sustained the damage. Weight suddenly shifted onto his heels as he spun around, his left index pointing accusingly at the grass. "AND IT'S ALL YOUR DAMN FAULT!"

If the grass had been a living breathing organism, Jack probably would have shot it dead. He would have emptied both Paris and Hector into every single blade without a second thought. But it wasn't living, it didn't feel. He couldn't teach it a lesson. Plants were like computers, no matter how hard you hit them, no matter how loud you screamed at them, they still won.

Several low grumbles escaped his mouth as he finally decided to start walking forward again, his left hand now held firmly against his right arm, massaging the sore muscles. Today just wasn't his day. "Don't know from nothing, Doll."

It was the truth, Jack had no idea what he was looking for, or what to look for. All he knew is that they were there looking. If he hadn't known any better DeSoto had ordered them out there to be bumped off. A haphazard gaze was given to the female's chassis, was she going to try to kill him? His attention was drawn away from her by a sudden and sharp pain in his feet. He'd definitely picked the wrong type of shoes to wear for this excursion.

The lines of grass parted around him as he carried on, thoughts of taking off his shirt, or rolling up his sleeves kept popping into his mind. And if it weren't for Gabrielle's presence, he might very well have. "Shoulda worn my glad rags, obviously you thought ahead? Level with me Gabe, ya think there's any reason for us to be here? Or ya think DeSoto's just being a pill? Cuz I personally don't find this whole situation tabe the real mccoy. I'm think'n he's got somethin' up his sleeves."

A few more minutes would pass and the scenery changed. Jack exited the tall embankments of grass only to find himself standing at the slope of a knoll. A small smile moved across his visage as he eyed several small trees near the top of the hill. Potential shade was within sight. "Hey about we break her 'n let our dogs rest?"

[Ace]

Alarmed by the sudden outburst of rage, Gabrielle's body lurched back a step and she stared down at her acquaintance with a quizzically arched brow, holding back the bare skeleton of a snicker. Jack was a hot head, prone to fits of spontaneous emotion, and she hadn't been paying attention -- this wasn't a face-off, she needn't be constantly aware of the subtle nuances to Blackjack's every move. So, he surprised her.

One of the few times Jack would get to enjoy taking Gabrielle de Seingalt by surprise.

"Oh, poor Jacky." A teasing, mock sympathy flowed from the fair woman's lips and she clucked her tongue in a sympathetic pretense. "Come on. I know what you're thinking of, and please. Don't waste the bullets. Besides, we're not far from the town now and we're supposed to be exercising a little discretion."

"Level with me Gabe, ya think there's any reason for us to be here? Or ya think DeSoto's just being a pill? Cuz I personally don't find this whole situation tabe the real mccoy. I'm think'n he's got somethin' up his sleeves."

Gabrielle stopped, and switched her gaze shortly from the path ahead to her companion, those nimbus eyes holding Jack pensively and unfalteringly in their aim. It was a troubling thought he suggested.. very troubling, to think that the man in question could be merely lining up the steps to some unexpected treachery. No, that was too much to assume!

Jack hadn't shared very much with him about the assignment anyway, so Gabrielle couldn't rightly give her sound opinion. Finally, when the stare had lingered long enough to make any man uncomfortable, she glanced away and sighed into the passing breeze. "It had better not be a goose chase, Jack, I tell you that much. I'm generally against any assignment that takes me away from my people, and if DeSoto is squandering my time..."

She closed her eyes, almost as one who suffers from the onset of a sudden migraine, even drawing a deep breath through her nostrils that filled her breast with the hot, dry air, to complete the illusion. Twisting her lips in thought, the blonde looked to the tree that he gestured to and shook her head.

"Nah. Walk barefoot if you have to, the grass feels good. We can't be far now. Honest, I know we couldn't have touched down more than three miles from that town I saw while airborne.." As if physically following the direction of her curiosity, Gabrielle left the weary Jack behind to tread just a little further on. Up to the crest of the knoll, where she stood with her hands on the curves of her hips and cast a sweeping look over the land below. "Hey, Jack?" She called, hooking her fingers distractedly through the holster at her side, pushing the hem of her jacket out of the way enough to reveal the high, sailor-inspired waist of her shorts. "What do you make of this?"

At the bottom of the knoll, in a small, sheltered valley lee of the wind, there stood a ring of shoddy tent constructions. Several of them had been torn down or blown askew; they weren't much more than tarp over sticks. All of them were empty. A circle of stones marked the center of the makeshift campgrounds, and some of the embers still glowed a dim, dying orange.

[Codeh]

There was no notion of betray DeSoto, rather he was more concerned with DeSoto giving them all of the details. Selective disinformation, some things in life were on a need to know basis and it was completely possible that Darin had thought neither of them needed to know the full scope of the operation. But other thoughts had crossed Jack's mind, like what if DeSoto hadn't sent them there for any reason at all. What if there was nothing here, and DeSoto didn't know anything and just wanted them to look around.... aimlessly. A knot formed in his gut under the woman's stare, his pace quickly picking up as if to avoid the death rays cast from her eyes.

His head sunk a little lower when she refused his plea for a break. It wasn't fair, he hadn't know they would be trekking through super high grass in the scorching heat all day. His mouth opened, posed to argue, when Gabrielle called for his attention. Hiking up the rest of the knoll he found something more pathetic than a shanty town. His left arm swung up in front of his chest as his right hand caught the opposing wrist. Cuffs were quickly undone and the sleeve rolled up an inch past his elbow. Shortly after his left and right hands traded places and the process was repeated.

Without giving the female any real response, Jack made his way down the knoll. Curiosity now carrying him through the pain of his blistering feet. A few minutes would pass before he entered the outskirts of the camp ground. The scuffed dress shoes sank into a mixture of mud and soot. There were some old looking foot prints, discarded items of clothing, and a few food items thrown about. "Strange, some kind of Exodus? Or maybe an act of genocide. Are we sure this place is even populated anymore?"

By now his hands had worked up to the silver vest which had partially hidden itself under the leather straps of the holster. A tug was given on the material, and it ripped, freeing him of the less then cumbersome garment. He was shedding clothing left and right, but damnit he had to keep cool somehow!

[Ace]

"Huh.." Gabrielle moved through the camp at something of a tiptoe, her spine arched forward just a few degrees so that her eyes could drift searchingly over the ground. There were a myriad of clues to be spotted, one only had to look carefully enough not to pass them over. Still, she moved quickly. The woman had much practice in the art of observation, and in an instant she could absorb and catalog more information than the average person could in ten.

Like how the footprints that shuffled around the campground with no apparent purpose, just the random no-pattern of daily activity, had been tamped over by a bustling of steps all headed in the same direction. "These are fresh," Gabrielle noted to her companion, lifting her eyes just in time to see the younger man shrug out of his vest. Lord. He went through more clothes than a six-year old in a beauty pageant.

But he was right; as the sun fell deeper into the horizon, the baked earth grew even warmer. A thin film of sweat was starting to coat Gabrielle's neck and bead down the small of her back. Frowning, the woman gathered her pale golden hair off of her shoulders and twisted it into a hurried knot at the back of her skull. Holding it with one hand, the other delved into the pocket of her jacket and came up with a long, thick pin. Gaby fastened it into her hair like a chopstick, a degree of impatience to her movement, and then wiped the back of her hand across her perspiring brow.

She then indicated to the telltale tracks with a catlike stretch of her index finger, quickening her step along the trail. They led in the direction that the pair had been walking all along, towards the town Gabrielle has seen from the air. It was a good sign.

The brush on either side began to thicken the further they traipsed, and her eyes flickered side to side on frequent occasion as she followed the prints to keep an eye on the land features. The circumstances surrounding this 'Exodus,' as Jack had called it, were definitely strange... and if something had caused them, it wouldn't do to be taken by surprise by any scheming persons that may be hiding in the bushes.

They hadn't walked long before clearing the far side of the valley and scaling the hill beyond, and immediately a self-serving grin played over Gabrielle's lips. She looked away from the not-so-quaint picture of a town that had risen before them, and faced Jack, and smiled. "Told you."

Townspeople, merely silhouettes from this height and distance, but undoubtedly civilian, bustled through the dusty streets below. A large number of them seemed to have gathered at something on the far side of the meager community, and Gabrielle found herself wondering about these rural denizens. Why the campsite? And what was it, over yonder, that had captivated their interest so completely?

[Codeh]

Jack watched Gab discern the tracks, and followed her movements until they reached the top of yet another hill. Orange hues found the females told-you-so grin and his head only shook, though not in defeat. A few more steps were taken as he walked a few feet down the hill top to gaze at the herd. Thoughts churned, his mind raced for a few seconds, yet for him it felt like days of thinking. A series of conclusions were drawn, not about the towns people but about his own motives, the plans of DeSoto, and why they were here. "I might have lied to you Gabrielle"

A twist was made so that Jack could face the female, his head canting to the right as he grinned wickedly at her. "DeSoto wants us here for recon, he wants us to explore. But uh truthfully I have my own motives." The normal slang that infested his typical words seemed to have vanished. Maybe it was the nature of the conversation, a need to be as clear as possible that he abandoned the jargon? His tongue slid along his lips as he moistened his lips. "DeSoto isn't taking us anywhere, I plan on changing that."

His right hand slid down into his pocket as he pulled out a glass vial, the red contents of it swirling about as if to indicate numerous small organisms all swimming about in it in the same direction. He held the vial out for a few moments to make sure the female could clearly see it, and then he threw it. His left hand crossed over his chest grasping the grip of Hector and pulling it from the holster. His visage twisted as his head righted and he followed the motion of the vial.

His left arm came up allowing the firearm to trail along the path of the container, and as it reached the zenith of its flight, right above the ending group of nomads, the trigger was pulled. A load roar would erupt from the barrel as a single bullet evacuated the chamber. The projectile whizzed through the air slamming into the glass vial, shattering it. Immediately the group directly below the vial were showered in shards of glass and crimson liquid. A second or so later screams could be heard, people turned to look at the duo upon the hill, and Jack found his gaze back on Gabrielle.

"In that vial were genetically modified microbes that will attempt to re-write the DNA of its host. It will also attempt to spread via bodily fluid exchange, and skin to skin contact. This virus is just a simple test to see if it can accomplish those two tasks. Within the next 24 hours or so those who have been successfully infected should have their irises changed to white, a far less common eye color. If this is successful then I will be moving on to the next phase of the project which involves great genetic modification of the host."