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At another time, a little later than the first time, the Cooper farm finds itself presented with yet another carload of newcomers.

At least these don't apparently plan to stay -- and certainly wouldn't seem to have close bonds, the way they're all three bitching at each other, or the way the car doors slam in order as they get out and immediately stalk in different directions.

[Tag under subthreads of who you're tagging, plz? <33]

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Letting the answer to hers just fade into background, Jo smirked at Oracle's question.

"Everything."

"And then some."

Like how good Oracle's surveillance is on the people that work for her.

"'Everything' is something of a big order," Barbara points out. "How about something a bit more specific?"

The truth is Babs probably keeps closer tabs on her people that Rachel will be even remotely comfortable with. But it's for their own good. Really.

Jo leaned against a table.

"All major cities still standing, and those of importance that aren't. The highest ranked threats locations and their reasons for it. Military bases that are not rubble. A running tally on what needs it's ass kicked next."

She really meant it when she said everything.

She could do this for hours.

Rachel could... not.

She frowns and glances over at Jo once, quickly, before putting her gaze back on Babs.

"How closely you watch, how much freedom there'd be working all this."

Babs gives Jo an approving grin, "That'll take a while. We might want to have this discussion in a more relaxed setting. If you want a real briefing I can work one up though."

She turns to Rachel, "I watch a lot, but not everything. And the truth is, I can't make field decisions. I learned that early on. I send you places, you make the decisions there."

She'll save the no killing talk for later.

Jo will sit out that talk. Plzkthnks.

She nodded, shoving her hands half in her pockets.

"Later's fine, but, yeah, I'd like one. The more detailed the better."

Edited 2008-07-06 05:17 (UTC)

Rachel will laugh her ass off at that talk.

Until then, she's frowning all over again. "How long is a while? I'm not wanting to hang around here long.

"...no offense."

She's totally sincere about this, no rly.

"I'll get in touch with Dinah in an hour or two and work out a meeting. I can do the briefing before that." She cocks her head, "And what's wrong with this place?"

Jo's letting Rachel field her own questions.

Even if she already has three reasons she wants to leave.

~~And more waiting to find her in the coming days.~~

Rachel arches a brow at Babs' question.

And smiles, very sweetly.

"You'd rather we stay?"

"I don't have a preference myself, I was just curious." With a relatively workable communication and transportation network set up in the area, she doesn't care where people chose to base themselves.

Jo gave Rachel a glance. Not very sharp, but inquisitively ironic.

"I fill you in on the briefing, if want to explore the place more."

Read: Totally a bailing door right here.

Explore what? The house? The cornfields? The mass of people around them?

Either that or listen to a briefing. Though the first option includes hearing the briefing second-hand from Jo.

Rachel shrugs and nods, glancing at the other blonde.

She's followed worse.

"Well, the simple part first: With the exception of Metropolis, if it's a city chances are it's wasted. Most of them directly, some of them due to a collapse of infrastructure. As for priority targets, I'm still trying to put a list together. There are problems all over, most of the inhuman."

Barbara proceeds to give a run-down of what she knows about major areas in North America, in descending order of original population. She taps a few keys to bring up some visual aids, which is especially helpful when she gets into the list of encountered monsters.

The streaks of smug or smirky don't vanish entirely from her personality while the briefing is going on, but they settle in to a ten percent category. It's hard knocks and sensible questions from then on.

Who's found what and what worlds are things from, if she knows, and certain ones where she recognizes them as they pop up. She's not taking notes, even though she seriously considered asking for paper.

It's more than she had in weeks.

And she's very silently grateful. Even if that doesn't show while the picture gets more and more gruesome.

Rachel is quiet, stone-faced and attentive, arms crossed and listening. She doesn't startle, doesn't gasp - but she's seen a few of those images now and again.

According to the number of monsters Barbara is showing them, it's doubtful that these creatures are morphs. But in the back of her mind, she's already cursing herself for being so careless, for letting even two people know who she is, what she can do, letting them know she's here.

"These're all killed or just what you know is out there?"

"Just what I know of. Some encountered by me or my people, some not."

Jo's staring at the screen of changing monsters while they talk.

There was a point back home, a tidal wave of black they were fighting back.
That part would be the same here, even the part where it's randoms what shows up where.

It gets muddle somewhere, between sanity and survival.

Rachel's still frowning, thinking on some of those monsters. She remembers fighting those, remembers hurting those.

Remembers being hurt by those.

"What's that mean? 'Your people'?"

"People who work with me," Barbara says evenly. Then her voice hardens ever so slightly, "People I help since I can't be out there myself anymore."

There's challenge there, as if she's daring Rachel to say something, anything, about her being in a chair.

Jo was ignoring their rising and falling tension (it was none of her mind if they got along or rubbed edges) but she did glance over.

"Roughly how many are they?"

Rachel hears the challenge.

It's why she grins.

Like a chair would stop anyone from fighting if they wanted to.

"Help or order?"

Babs eyes the two of them for a moment before answering Jo's question. "Maybe a dozen or so." It's a number large enough to be somewhat impressive while still being a vast underestimate. She's still not sure she trusts these two.

Then she rolls her eyes at Rachel. "Help. I recruit people like you. How many of them do you think take orders from me?" She shrugs, "To be fair I do give orders, but that's only to people who have worked with me long enough to know that I give good ones. No point in ordering people around if they won't listen."

Maybe to someone else it is. Jo's seen far too many people come into and out of the bar for that to be impressive.

But it is a lot better thing nothing.

Especially given that Lawrence has six (or seven).

Maybe those 'dozen or so' will not be crazy. It would be nice. Not that she's counting on anything in this multiverse working out under a heading of nice.

Re: The Meeting ----- Jo, Rachel, Oracle

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Re: The Meeting ----- Jo, Rachel, Oracle

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Re: The Meeting ----- Jo, Rachel, Oracle