Day 58: Mission #1 [Scarecrow and Depth Charge]

[scarefaux]

[From here.]It was not the hallway they found on the other side of the door. The crossing of the threshold was accompanied by that spinning sensation in the Scarecrow's middle- similar to feeling he'd had the night the doors were enchanted- and it was no mystery of why: they had been spirited away to somewhere else entirely. Decorated tables,

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[scalyfishman]

That was a no to the ripping part, then, though by this point Depth Charge was probably riding on enough nervous energy to tear through three of them at once. Slag, if he'd had them on hand with the waitress' sudden arrival in the mix he could probably have managed ten. She really had a thing for bad timing, huh? Couldn't say handing over the whole wallet wasn't exactly inconspicuous, either. Even so, it was a relief to see the bookmark finally vanish off with her- good thinking on the Scarecrow's part.

As he watched her head back towards the front of cafe, though, he couldn't help but feel a creep of of suspicion sneak back into place. What if she was a plant? They'd already decided that this place was probably full of soldiers, so for all they knew their waitress was just going to hand it straight to one of those officers when they got back, and no amount of playing dumb would save them then, or the other patients. And when the entire point of this mission for him had been to keep the Scarecrow safe...

No. Keep it together, DC. Don't turn into a conspiracy theorist. Keeping his head together was vital when they still needed to plan what they'd do when they returned, what they'd say, but it was easy to fall back into that nasty little web of doubt again. This was why he hated undercover work: that endless spiral of falsehood, lies prettied up to be convincing enough even to those involved. Total slag.

"We need to come up with an excuse or a false name," he said, well-aware of what he was about to say- but this was a necessary lie. For a moment he broke off, trailing through his memory for the names he'd seen on the bulletin board most often. "Maybe 'Peter' or something? Heard that twice now." Hopefully both Peters involved would understand. "If they ask for more we can say she seemed edgy and we didn't want to push it."

And if that failed... Depth Charge didn't know. But he did know that the longer they stood around, the more suspicious they'd look to any hovering agents.

[scarefaux]

Another false name- they certainly were handy, weren't they? The Scarecrow nodded at Depth Charge's suggestion, sure that his roommate knew best, even if his expression seemed grim at times. It had to be the stress of the situation they were in, he reasoned: the thought that someone could be hurt- someone who could make a difference and actually help the patients trapped in Landel's, or at least was trying- was a lot to handle, probably even more so on a brain that was in proper working order. How Depth Charge managed himself was something the Scarecrow was sure he'd never know.

"Peter sounds good," the Scarecrow agreed with a nod. "I only know of one person with that name, and he helped me come up with a fake name once before. Let's just say I'm not very good at it on my own. Names here are more unusual than they are in Oz, you know. I'm afraid anything I come up with might be suspicious." There was the lingering concern that they would inadvertently land someone else in hot water- hopefully not either of the Peters they knew- but if there was more than one, perhaps it was a common name and they'd never know which was which. It was a hope he had to cling to- there wasn't much else.

He headed for the door, waiting for Depth Charge to follow. "Ready?"

[scalyfishman]

Depth Charge couldn't help but smile a little at that. "I know a Peter, too. Maybe they're the same guy." It didn't seem all that unlikely that Peter would be happy to sit and help the Scarecrow come up with an alias, knowing the guy; not many people would shrug that kind of thing off and actually be useful rather than just nodding and smiling, but he had patience for three. Had to, if he was a medic of some sort. Kind of made him feel a little guilty about the number of medics whose days he'd turned into a disaster zone, to be honest.

He still wasn't sure if using that name would make things difficult for the Peters still in the Institute, but at such short notice it was the only reasonably convincing name that either of them could come up with. And anyway, surely they wouldn't seriously think to associate the name with any of the patients? They knew them. They had them on file, for Primus' sake.

With a quiet breath, he followed the Scarecrow to the door. "Ready." Then he opened it and stepped back through.

[to here]