Fowler is currently in his room devouring a noodle cup that he made in the microwave, with Dollop perched on his hand trying to lap up some of the broth, and trying to practice some lines in his head for coffee with his roommate tomorrow so he can deliver them on the first try.
"I would like a grande Americano with soy, I would like a grande Americano with soy -"
Being the Reluctant Babysitter, Eve will probably leave the knife-throwing room with juuust enough time to meet up with Garrett and Fowler at the door.
Fowler sheepishly opens one half of his jacket, where a tiny Dollop head is poking out of an inside pocket. She tilts her head at Eve and peeps curiously.
Garrett, distracted by trying to find somewhere to put the wizard's flamethrower and monitoring the tablet's data transfer , glances at the clock about ten minutes too late
Fowler jumps back on instinct, and anxiously takes out his much-bent paperclip from a pocket and starts rolling and bending it in his fingers. "Um," he contributes, valiantly.
Muttering a curse under their breath, Garrett fumbles around the room for their notes and glances desperately at the tablet's progress
The flamethrower ends up stuffed upside-down inside a box of metal brackets ordered as replacements for a specific, prone-to-breaking part in the standard-issue storage bins the org uses
Wearing formal robes with enchanted embroidery making shifting patterns on the sleeves, Dr. Grythal sweeps back to his chair. "Well. You can start with the explaining."
Garrett, sweating slightly, opens the door with a sheaf of papers in one hand and the tablet in the other. The ethereal-seeming cable trails from its side down the stairs and out of sight.
"They were -" Fowler clears his throat in a strained way, attempting to help. "The other door was locked. We were trapped with the assassins and there was limited time. They would have killed us and maybe hurt the pandas. They had to..."
"We were just sent to... to evaluate the security. We didn't think we would be... we panicked a little..." Fowler clams up, seemingly still unable to process the sequence of events that is very unlike how his old zoo heists used to go.
The enchanted embroidery wiggles extra, as if it's picking up on the Dr.'s emotions. "I'll give that the pandas are still safe." Turning to Eve, he asks, "Who is 'we'?"
"They got through the wards." Fowler starts nervously petting Dollop's head with his thumb as he speaks. "Small things could get through. They threw a smoke bomb."
"From whom?" His face has shifted to attempting to be kind and encouraging; given the rest of his personality, this ends up awkwardly between stern and supportive
Garrett touches some stuff on the screen and flips it around to face the other three
"This is everything that happened from closing time." It looks like the normal readout, but with some additional stuff at the bottom indicating a recording is being played back
It shows Erok [keeper's son] puttering around quietly to clean up from the day, change out some water, then walk up to the door. He swings it open, nods, and closes it lightly before leaving.
Y'all are lucky he wasn't there while you were putting the thing up so he doesn't know what it can do.
"Keeper's son left the door unlocked. Good job." He shoots an actual smile at Garrett. "I have a new assignment for you. Write up a summary of the benefits of this device, for distribution to possible clients."
Fowler is silent. In some of his zoo heists in the past, it always rankled him whenever senior management chose to blame low-level employees for mistakes that their choices and architectural decisions allowed to happen.
"Final topic. Fowler. An inventory check revealed that a gift shop near you was missing a copy of some bird book, Four Thousand Facts On Moonpark Birds? Would you happen to know anything about that?"
@Mithical you're in. She's not in her room. A desk has cluttered papers and several pictures of her laughing with her arms around various people; several look similar enough to be family, several don't. Ann has a penchant for labels, so there is a convenient WEAPONS sticker on a drawer under her bed.
@bobble Fowler positively lights up, dances and stims enthusiastically and cuddles Dollop for a minute, and then excitedly opens up his very legitimately obtained bird book and sits down to happy-read for a while.
@Ginger sure enough, another box of broken comms has arrived, with HIGH PRIORITY written on the side. Approximately 95% of the repairs you get are labeled HIGH PRIORITY.
A box with spots for ten more spikeballs (three have been removed) is nestled among other weapons, including a mace, at least fifteen knives, and what you could swear is a magic sword enchanted to shrink into knife size.
Those things are really expensive and illegal, though, so maybe not.
Eve will swipe five more spike rings (one for every finger except for thumbs and pinkies), then take one of the knives and use it to pin a business card with her contact info right above Ann's bed.
Ann walks inside, muttering about "those ungrateful termites in Acquisitions", and rummages around the papers on her desk. Having found what she was looking for, she turns around to leave, sees the card, and stops short to squint.
Slowly, haltingly, she walks over. Ann grabs the card, smiles, and says aloud, "If you're still here, Eve-ily, I'm going to the range in half an hour."
She spins in a circle again, smirks, and moves to leave the room again.
