Night 57: Main Hallway, 1-West

[witchdetective]

[ from here ]As Erika approached the meeting spot, she was pleased to see that she was, indeed, first to reach there. This was to be expected: Erika was closest to this particular hallway and she could have given the others a minute's head start and still probably beat them while walking at a leisurely pace. But Erika had hurried to get here and

Comments

Yes, that's a thought fragment if Neku scans... and it was Grell that Meekins glimpsed, btw XDDD

[dork_at_duty]

That pretty red-haired lady I saw here last night... I wonder if she'll pass by these stairs aga-- whaaa!

At the sound of someone addressing him and interrupting his thoughts, Meekins gave a start and turned towards the source of the unfamiliar voice. Standing before him was a teenaged boy at least a head shorter than Meekins, the wide band of a set of headphones covering the boy's unkempt orange hair. With the serious expression on the boy's face, he reminded Meekins more of one of those radio operators at the police station than a street jamming kid -- not that Meekins' first impressions of people ever tended to be on target. In any case, this had to be the person that Mr. Sora assigned him to.

"Y-Yes, that's me, Sir! Officer Mike Meekins, at your duty, Sir!" he exclaimed on impulse, giving the boy a swift salute as he stood at attention. "You must be Mr. Neku, S-- Er, I mean, Neku!" He cringed as he caught himself breaking his own promise to Neku that he wouldn't keep calling him "Sir" or "Mister." It was just force of habit, but he would still have to try harder to respect the boy's wishes.

"I am prepared to take your orders," he continued, the last word sounding like a drawn-out hiss, as though he were about to append one more word starting with "s" at the end. "What will tonight's mission be?" Could it be another trip to the pantry, or... although Meekins paid little attention to the intercom announcements, there was mention of a drug lab in the Medical Wing! He wondered in excitement if they would be investigating that. But whatever it was, it was all up to Neku.

Fffft. Oh Mike. I think Neku has heard quite enough of you without even scanning. XD

[composers_proxy]

Neku sighed inwardly. This guy was going to grate on every last nerve, wasn't he? He was so ridiculously straight-laced and aiming to please, even though he was probably five or six years Neku's senior.

He didn't bother taking off his headphones when the man addressed him, but nodded that he understood. Meekins might be kind of weird (and did he really just salute?), but at least he wasn't going to be argumentative. Still, Neku was sorely tempted to tell him that no, these weren't orders, and if the man called him sir one more time, he'd probably start twitching.

"Sora said we should listen to the broadcast. Since I think he has other plans, we should check out the Medical Wing," he reasoned, glancing at the other to gauge his reaction. "Report... whatever there is to report. Map it out. If it hasn't been open til now, there has to be a reason."

Sorry for the wait, orz D:

[dork_at_duty]

At first, Meekins wondered if he might have to raise his voice this once, since Neku didn't take off his headphones. After all, how could the boy hear him if he had such a large set covering his ears? But then, it occurred to him that maybe Neku needed them on to pay attention to the radio broadcast or whatever it was he was listening to, so Meekins decided that it was probably in both of their best interests that he maintain his "indoor voice" while on this mission.

Besides, Neku's answer indicated that he'd heard and understood every word Meekins said. Needless to say, when Neku suggested the Medical Wing, Meekins could barely contain his excitement. They were going to investigate a real drug lab! Just like Ms. Ema Skye doing her forensics work! Too bad she couldn't come along tonight, but maybe once, Meekins would have useful information to give her and the rest of his fellow members of the L.A. law enforcement.

"Yes!" he barked ecstatically, perhaps a touch too loud for the occasion. Realizing this too late, he worked to control the tone of his voice for his following statement. "I was thinking that the Medical Wing would be an interesting location to explore, S-- Neku. I've only been here since yesterday, so I didn't know it wasn't open before. But if it just opened up, they must have been hiding something really suspicious there."

He crinkled his brow in what he hoped was a serious, professional expression. "Most of my work at the police department has involved guarding things and recruiting new people. But it's always been my dream to work my way up to becoming a detective. This mission will prove to be great experience for me in that goal." Meekins grinned, the anticipatory light of enthusiasm shining in his eyes.

He then glanced down at the crude map that he had copied off of some kind stranger from the bulletin board. "It looks like it's down this way," he displayed his knack for stating the obvious, as he pointed towards the east. "I'm ready to get started when you are!"

Sorry back at you! LJ fail has made it so hard to post. :C

[composers_proxy]

Neku wasn't exactly sure how Meekins would react to the idea, but the enthusiasm was pretty hard to ignore. Well, at least if they were walking to their certain doom or inevitable maiming, they were in agreement about it. Still, it was kind of weird to be the one in charge when the other guy was older and... well... obviously the guy had some kind of training. Military? Security? Hard to be sure. Aha, nevermind. Police. Somehow not surprising.

"We're just trying to get out of this place, not building a resume," Neku sighed, leading the way down the dark hall.

[to here]