Day 35: Bill's Hardware

[kagurazuki]

[[from here]]

Kagura walked hesitantly into the store, following Leon and trying to remain unobtrusive.  The place was full of stuff she knew nothing about, but she kind of liked the woodsy smell it had.  She did as she'd been told and walked up to the counter, hoping to speak with the large man who worked there.

"Um, hello sir," she said politely

Comments

[officer_leon]

Leon wandered in after Kagura, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, trying to look bored. He glanced around the store, doing a quick mental inventory of where things were and what he needed. They had lighters, but they were up on the front counter by the cashier. Hopefully he'd have better luck with nails and wire.

Glancing at the man behind the counter, Leon decided to stay up towards the front, at least until he was given permission to explore the place. The less threatening he looked, the better.

[damned_town]

Perry, who had been wiping down the check-out counter as they entered, gave the newcomers a great big friendly smile (as well as an extra nod of the head to Kagura). "You feel free to look around to your heart's content, little lady."

The girl seemed a bit young to be the man's girlfriend. He might have thought them siblings, except they looked nothing alike. None of his business, he supposed. "You folks after anything in particular?"

[Lauren]

[kagurazuki]

"That's so nice of you," Kagura replied, offering a polite smile in return and looking at the array of things on the front counter. "I'm not really looking for anything in particular," she admitted, hoping to hold the man's attention with a few questions at least. She tried to keep her attention focused on the shop keeper and not Leon.

"My friend kind of dragged me along. To be honest I don't know a lot about much of anything here. The most I've really done was help my cousin with some home repairs last summer, but I do love arts and crafts. Do you have anything simple maybe? I'm not very good with the difficult things. Something to pretty up a room perhaps?"

[officer_leon]

Leon was only half-listening as Kagura chatted with the cashier. She'd do fine, he was sure. He drifted away from the conversation, idly examining the various tools scattered about. He lingered near the claw hammers, but knew that trying to smuggle something like that back to the Institute would be fruitless. He'd lose the hammer and get sedated for his trouble.

There were a couple other men chatting quietly near a rack of tools, and Leon rather suspected their aims were similar to his. He slowly moved in their direction, hoping that the three of them could work together to get a few items.

[scarletspeedstr]

[from here]Wally looked around the small store, noting the aisles of tools and the fact there were a couple of other people here already. They looked like patients, though without the normal smiling logo, he couldn't be sure. He gave a trademark Flash grin to the guy behind the counter as he walked past, taking a wild guess that he was the Bill the sign mentioned

[dawning_dreams]

"Zeppelin...?" Cid muttered as he followed Wally into the store, and while he'd normally be quick to write off the kid's confusion as ignorance to Shin-Ra's newest technological advances, he had a feeling from the 'they still use those?' comment that he was probably from a different world. It figured: that blond kid, Guy, from the other day had been impressed with Cid's know-how, but he couldn't damn well expect everyone to be behind him technologically, could he

[scarletspeedstr]

"So we won't get caught," Wally whispered, winking at Cid. There had to be some way to get something useful out of here and back into the institute without anyone noticing, right? Of course, he'd have to find something useful first.

"Uh, any idea if we could use any of this stuff?" he asked sheepishly. A lot of it just seemed pretty basic and not exactly useful to him, but then he'd never had to use a weapon before, so he wasn't sure what exactly 'useful' would mean. Not to mention that the smell of food from earlier had reawoken his appetite. Swiping something was beginning to take a second place to keeping up with his metabolism.

[dawning_dreams]

Cid took a look at the stuff Wally had grabbed and scratched the back of his head.

"Well..." he said, leaning forward to grab the set of screwdrivers away from the kid and glancing over the range of sizes with a more experienced eye, "kinda depends on what we come across. Against monsters and nurses, sure, y'can't do much with tools but bash in a baddie's brains with a wrench we prolly can't steal anyway, but if we find some electronics or even get to break open the radios..."

He heard a sound from the door and looked up to see someone else enter the shop. If they were going to swipe something, they'd better do it now, before a lot of eyes were on them, so Cid moved to shove the kit under his jacket as soon as the store-owner turned away...

[damned_town]

"Hey, you be careful with that."

Perry leaned over the counter, reaching out to slowly and gently remove the lighter from Ion's hand. Couldn't have mentally hampered kids running around with those in their possession, after all.

[Lauren]

[damned_town]

The large man couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at this kid. As if the green hair wasn't odd enough. They really did have some crazies, didn't they? Of course, it could be this kid simply had overprotective parents. You know, the kind that kept anything remotely dangerous in locked safes in their bedroom or something.

"It's a lighter," he answered carefully. "Burns things. Not for playing with."

[brokenweapon]

[from here]Bourne noted that he wasn't the only person to take an interest in the hardware store...and he also noted that he wasn't the only person with criminal intentions. He could use them as a shield if the shopkeeper took an unusual interest in the quiet, furtive 'mental patient' looking at tools, which, in the right hands, could be instruments of mass mayhem

[damned_town]

[UM... workers are relatively distracted. I say go for it.]

[brokenweapon]

[Lock and load. :D]

The tape secreted underneath his rather baggy shirt, Bourne made his way back to the front of the store, taking a cursory glance at various items as he returned. Leaving in too businesslike a manner was automatically grounds for suspicion, and he couldn't afford that. A lighter would be good, but it was too close to the front of the store to bother dealing with. Better to take what he could and get back to his other objective - escape.

The asset left the store shortly after, headed back the way he'd come. He knew what he was looking for.

[to here]

[jokers_wildcard]

[from here]

Harley pushed open the door as nonchalantly as possible, holding the door a few extra seconds after entering to ensure it wouldn't smack Itchytacky in the face (as funny as that might have been). She couldn't say she had been to all that many hardware stores, but this place wasn't entirely impressive. The faint smell of wood and metal just made her feel almost out of her element. It was a good thing she was excited enough to ignore that to a point.

She didn't stray too far from the door, waiting for her companion to come in and take the lead so she could follow him like an excited puppy. She offered her best charming smile to anyone to happened to spare a glance in their direction upon entering.

[youlackmascara]

Itachi watched his companion with confusion and some wariness. She seemed very happy about something. His attention turned to the store as he followed her in, however. There were already a few patients in there, likely with plans similar to their own. After all, none of them had money, so there would be no other purpose for going into a shop.

Itachi edged down one of the aisles, expecting Harley to follow. Boxes of nails and screws, which weren't very useful, but the staff of the store seemed busy and would likely not hear a murmured conversation here.

"The staff here are occupied with the other customers. We may not need a distraction," he muttered out of the side of his mouth, idly picking up a couple nails and staring at them.

[jokers_wildcard]

Harley walked right behind, curiously looking up and down the shelves of the aisle they had entered. She noticed the place was far busier than expected, too. Here she thought they'd be the first to think of going there.

She pouted her lower lip out in disappointment, but said nothing else on the matter. If he didn't think they needed the distraction, then it probably meant they didn't. In a way, this could be viewed as a good thing, since they could now both grab things and make out better

[youlackmascara]

Itachi put the nails down and moved further down the aisle. "Not very big," he murmured, a note of irritation creeping into his tone. These pants were so impractical, too tight and with pockets that no sane person could actually make use of. What was even the point of having pockets if they couldn't be used? Not to mention the point of having pants that restricted movement, or the point of straps and chains that could not actually be used for anything. At any rate, he could probably fit a small, sharp object into them, or slip some other type of thing down his sleeve.

"Screwdrivers," he pointed out as they continued further into the shop. "Wrenches. Adequate, but we might find something better." This place had to have some sort of knife. Probably hammers and saws as well, but they weren't Itachi's type of weapon, not to mention that they'd be hard to smuggle out.