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Sabin's expression turned serious and cold. "So because I have the balls to wear what's given to me as opposed to having to wear fatigues to secure my masculinity in my garments alone, that makes me a fruit?" Sabin snorted and leveled a more baleful glare at the man shackling him.

"This is NOT my fault." Sabin said between gritted teeth, but he knew better than to resist the men with loaded weapons, so he began to dutifully walk towards the jeeps.

Augh! When the hell did it get so noisy?! Kaveri had been out behind her duplex, working on salvaging her badly-thrashed garden, until she heard the buzzing noise and the sound of jeeps. The vulture-woman swiveled her head back, looking over her shoulder. What's going on?

Standing up, Kaveri crept over to the front of her duplex and peeked her head out, staring towards the center of the village. Something was happening, but she wasn't sure what. She got a little closer, seeing the guards and freezing in her path when she realized that they were armed. Guards were bad, guards shouldn't be here unless there was something troubling going on...

She tried craning her neck above the line of guards to see what was happening and why they were there. Was that... Zach?

"What are you people doing?!" Kaveri cried out, taking a step forward. She knew that she couldn't do anything against armed guards, but she wanted to protect her friend...

Before she could do anything else (save for gawking), though, the jeeps seemed to be gone as quickly as they had arrived.

As the vehicles disappear over the horizon, Kaveri slumped her shoulders and drooped her neck as she held up a hand as if to wave after the men taking her friend away. She turns to look at the younger-looking fellow, blinking her silver eyes.

"I don't think he did a goddamned thing," Kaveri huffed, reeling her head back and glaring down the road where the jeeps had went. "It probably should have been me those bastards were taking away. I know him, he wouldn't... he wouldn't do anything to deserve being taken away like that." She flailed an arm, pointing down the road.

"Did you see how tightly he was tied up?! That was enough to give the average BDSM freak a run for his money!"

"I can't really say for sure," Kaveri replied, catching herself mid-sentence when she realized that she didn't quite know who this person was. She was hesitant on saying much of that time she woke up in the clearing, but in her mind, Zach was completely innocent and possibly even framed. He didn't seem to be the type of guy to hurt anyone! "He's a friend of mine."

She bit her lip, absently tounging the inside stud of her labret. "All I know is, I don't think he should have been taken away. I hope he'll be okay..."

She only now realized that she still had the small gardening shovel in her hand. She briefly glanced down at it, shaking the dirt off of it and turning its handle between her grey, deformed fingers.

"I think, later, I'll head up to the labs and give those assholes a piece of my mind," she said, looking up and narrowing her eyes.

There isn't a whole lot to do with gardening tools than just digging around, but gears were already starting to turn in Kaveri's head. She'd make a sign later when she went back to her duplex. She stuck the shovel in her back pocket, wiping the dirt off on her thighs.

The vulture-woman tilted her head with interest, nodding once. "Kaveri," she said with a hint of terseness in her voice. It was pretty clear that she was rather upset about this whole mess, especially since there was little that she could do in her position.

"I come from Olympia."

She honestly couldn't think of anything else to say that didn't involve damning the labs or talking of her plans to protest -- she was certainly stewing, but nowhere near as loudspoken as she used to be when something roused her temper. The vulture's aloofness was starting to worm its way back into her mind.

"Washington," she corrected, her voice taking on an unusual dullness, "the state. Not the capital. In America." She could gather that the boy wasn't from America, judging from his accent -- but she, too, was not the sharpest regarding geography.

"I'm not really sure," she shook her head, "I've never seen anyone be carted off to the labs like that before. But then, I haven't been here for very long... I wonder if they're going to put him in a cage, too."

"I've never actually been there," she said, "well, okay, I went up there once... but never went inside, just outside the gate."

"Apparently," she said, gazing out down the road. The lab was distant, but she could kind of see it. "It's all fenced off and has guards. Nobody's being let in since the whole incident with one of the doctors being almost killed." Kaveri put her hands behind her back, rocking on her heels.

"There's nothing stopping you from going up there... it's quite a long hike, really, but you can walk all the way up to the gates. We just can't go in. It's kind of funny," the vulture said with a grim smile, "most labs keep their subjects trapped inside. I suppose the fact that we're out here rather than in there is kind of a luxury, knowing the type of things that happen in labs."

Hell, a lot of things about this damn island could be considered a luxury if it weren't for the whole... animal serum thing.

"I bet anything that's kept in there is a far ******** sight worse than what we've all got out here."

Kaveri, by default, never trusted the doctors. She only did what she did out of her own selfish interest in protecting her hide, not because she was on the side of the labs. "Neither do I," she said and shook her head, "if I could, I'd break in and ******** up all their plans, but even doing so much as attempting that is stupid right now. Especially after this whole mess, they're probably going to go into super lockdown mode for 'homeland security.'"

She snorted and waved her hand dismissively. "Yeah, some hideous clawed neck-monster woman verses trained guards with guns. That's a one-sided battle if I ever saw one!"

Watching as Alec began to leave, she shoved her hands in her front pockets and called after him, turning and taking a step in the direction he was going. "You live down that way, too?"

Then, she paused. Something finally clicked in her head as the vulture withdrew a little, as to why the boy seemed so familiar -- she had seen him at the beach bar that one time, she had almost forgotten about that in this entire mess! Her head perked up on that long neck, quirking her brows with muted interest. He ate the cigarette and kissed Zach.

Kaveri laughed herself, she knew that while she was rather padded in terms of weight and could pack a hell of a punch, she couldn't take out anyone that was armed. She's tried that many times before and got arrested for it. "Forty-one, yeah? Huh... I think that means we're next-door to each other. Kind of. Diagonally, anyways," the vulture-woman grinned. "I'm in forty-four, upstairs. As far as I know, nobody's living below me. That's probably a good sign as any that they're not going to take any more people... but if that were the case, I'd be living in just one house, not a duplex, right?"

The reference to the panda goes over her head, as she had yet to meet Nita -- it was rather embarassing of her to go so long without meeting her neighbours, but she had been rather introverted lately... especially since her transformation, and even moreso after the Aubrey incident. "Man, I feel so lame for having not introduced myself to you or... the panda... earlier. I usually don't forget about stuff like neigbours, and we probably should all probably stick together and keep some semblance of a community in this awful place."

She smiled, giving a light shrug. "I guess it's easy for me to forget things like that sometimes. Most of the time I'm just hanging out back digging around with my vegetables... I've been trying to get them back in order. They got pretty trashed when I left for a little while."

"I was one of those not long ago," Kaveri mused, remembering just how clueless she was when she first arrived here. If she could, she would go back in time and punch herself in the face for ever believing the story she was told to lure her here. "This s**t -- the neck, the claws -- all recent developments. Probably... hell, two weeks ago?" She shrugged. "I lost track. It was right before this whole goddamn mess started."

"Ah, music," the vulture-woman said wistfully, "I love music. All kinds of music. Makes me wish my fingers weren't all ******** up like this so I could play my banjo again. I can still kinda play, but it's all clumsy and awkward and playing's hard." She looks down at her hand, wiggling the two fused-together fingers. "And in some cruel twist, I bet once I re-learn to play, I'll be losing even more fingers or something. I don't know. I don't even know what the ******** I'm becoming, and honestly, I couldn't care to figure out what it is. ******** those doctors."

"Yeah, it's small -- but I don't trust anything out of the cafeteria, so I make my own food," she nods in response to the comment about the garden. "My crop's a little thrashed now, but I usually have stuff like carrots, tomatoes, lettuce... and broccoli." She laughed, putting her hand back in her pocket and hooking her thumbs in the belt-loops. "I wish I had the foresight to bring my own pot seeds, if I'd known it was allowed here."

But Billy was growing pot, so she wouldn't have to rely on the labs anymore for that. And that reminded her, she should check on how he's doing. She hasn't seen him since she invaded his garden before she changed.

"You too, huh? I sympathize," Kaveri said, "It seems a lot of people have changed lately. A couple of my friends -- the one you just saw being carted off to the big house -- have changed within the last week or two. It's like a contagious rash." She makes a mock-itching motion, careful not to cut herself on her own talons.

"I dunno," she looked over Alec, wondering what he could possibly be turning into. "It's hard to tell at this point. And as for me, no animal I know looks like this. I seriously wonder what the ******** up with this neck."

She grinned and reached up to pretend to strangle herself as she walked, making gurgling noises as her head swung back and forth. "This ******** thing, I tell you. It makes me look like a living funhouse mirror reflection." The woman laughed, cricking her neck and holding it at a comfortable straightness again.

"I guess it coulda been worse, but lemme tell you -- when it happened, it hurt like hell," Kaveri shrugged, "hopefully that'll be the worst of it and whatever else is to come is a much easier ride."

She curled her lip at the mention of the other neighbour changing. Was there something in the water?

"Well, it was nice meeting ya," she waved back, going to climb the stairs to her own duplex. She had that Garuda mask she was working on, as well as her protest sign that needed to get started after this little incident with Zach. "Seeya, dude. Take it easy, don't let the man keep ya down, alright? You have a nice evening."

And with that, she disappeared behind the door of duplex 44.