Welcome to Gaia! ::

Matt followed Mary into the room and glanced around at some of the stuff that was there. It seemed to all be customizable with places for engravings and stuff like that. Some of them seemed like they would be really nice to remember someone by but others were just bland and ugly. "I think I'll pass on this offer too. I'm not that into stealing," Matt said shaking his head. "Man, you must really like to break rules, it seems like that's all you do," he continued.

A voice came from behind the door frame. "I've found that the definition of creepy is something that reminds you of death. And caskets go right under that category," Matt said as if he had seen her coming. He hadn't, but most people wouldn't be able to tell. He slowly turned around saying, "Hi there, can we help you?" s**t she's probably gonna call the cops, eh whatever it happens, he thought too himself. He prepared his perception too go off if anything strange happened.

That's fine, of course you shouldn't talk about me as though I'm in the same room as you. Not that I'm in customer service... well not up front. Rebecca took a quiet sniff. She didn't smell too badly of embalming, shame.

Ignoring the comment about the urn (that had to be one of her uncle's ideas, personally Rebecca thought it was hopelessly tacky), Rebecca raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you mean this fellow isn't it?" she said. "I thought you might be looking for a matching pair of caskets. Or, you could tell me why you're breaking into my family's business before you end up in one."

Ducking back behind the doorway for a moment, she picked up the cordless phone from a coffin that hadn't been moved out to the display area and dialed the police. There was no reason she had to stand here bantering with a couple degenerates. "Hello, this is Dusinane Funerary Home... we have a couple of intruders," she said as soon as she got an answer.

Mariana monitored the employee as she walked off. She became slightly concerned as the girl apparently didn't understand her. After a moment, she shook her head and shrugged. No prob, she thought to herself, I'll just give the owner a call and settle this later. But for now, let's have some fun!

Once the girl had left the room, Mariana turned her attention back to Matt, whose attention seemed to be on the doorway. It seemed that the mention of "intruders" made him a bit anxious, though he abruptly shrugged it off. In its place grew a great grin as he asked into the plan. Finally, the kid's gettin' into the game! At that moment, she couldn't have been prouder.

"Sure," she said nonchalantly. "I got a plan." She grabbed two golden statuettes off of the shelf with absolutely no pretense of hiding her actions. She then threw her arm around Matt, shoved one of the statuettes into his chest, and waved at the security camera. She turned her head back to Matt and gave him a wicked grin.

"I think I've been dominating our time together a bit too much, don't you think? Now it's your turn to decide what to do." As she finished, she heard the faint noise of sirens in the distance. "Right on time! You're on, kid!"

Laura came to a quick stop at the funerary home and turned her sirens off. She let out a deep breath and then looked at James. James Cross was in a tizzy. Laura had violated so many speed limits and traffic laws in order to get here. In this one ride she had shown James a side he never knew she had. James took in a couple of deep breaths as well as Laura took out her gun and her badge. She looked out her window as if she were trying to locate something specific. "Listen..." she started. "I know you are still all bent out of shape about the whole getting suspended, but if you want to prove yourself to Oual, yelling at him won't do it! Now listen... you listening? This right here is a standard public disturbance. No arrests will have to be made. Just scare the intruders a bit and make them leave. Got it?" Laura flashed another brilliant smile his way.

James couldn't believe what was happening. Laura was actually letting him go out into the field alone instead of just shadowing her and looking like a flake. Granted it was only a public disturbance, one of the lowest in the book, but the fact that Laura was letting him take up the task on his own was almost... well... rebelious of her. "Th-Thanks." James stammered.

"Thank me later!" Laura snapped. "But take my badge and my gun. You look more like a hobo than a cop. At least with these little items it will give you more of a cop look. Oual would kill me if he knew I was letting you do this... so don't disappoint me Cross!"

James attached the gun to his belt and slid the badge into his chest pocket. He jumped out of the car and bolted for the funerary door, trying to look all professional and cool in front of Laura. It probably would have worked too if he didn't trip on his way inside. He opened the door slowly and wandered down a hallway just in time to hear voices.... "Hey, it's been a good time but I think we are gonna get out of here."

James turned around a corner and saw two teenagers, one male and one female, bolting out what looked like a back entrance. This was it. He couldn't fail Laura. He needed to succeed in this job not only to prove to Laura that he wasn't a failure, but also for himself. He followed the two teenagers out of the back door and slowly gained speed on them until he was literally two steps behind him. He heard the male say, "Haha, I was right. So, um.., where did you park your bike?" The two didn't even notice that James was behind them so he slowly extended his hands and put one hand on a male's back and the other on the female's back.

In a low and nonthreatening voice James said, "Now listen... I am not going to arrest you or anything. I just want to talk. I promise you... we are just going to talk. Don't run and do not attack me. That will just make matters worse. I just want to talk."

Mariana's eyes quickly shot over to Matt as she picked up the slack. "What is a name, anyhow? Why is it that we need to associate ourselves with a certain series of sounds?" She started strutting away from the hand on the small of her back; though she could appreciate how quickly the steel-handed man worked, she wanted to face the man. Swish, swish, pivot, turn. "After all," she continued, "answering to a name is merely a learned behavior. We're certainly not born with it. When we're born, we have no name at all--or at least, we wouldn't know it yet. So, it really makes you wonder, if two people were isolated from all outside influences, would they develop names for each other?"

Mariana looked deep into the new person's eyes. He didn't look familiar; if he was a policeman, he must have been a new recruit. Such a shame, she thought, I was hoping for one of the regulars. She began stroking her chin and musing over the man's expression, wondering whether or not he'd follow. "Well?" she asked, walking in and to the side so that the officer was standing between the two. "Any thoughts?"

As James flipped out the badge Matt slowed down his perception and took a good look at the badge. It seemed legitimate but the name read Laura Listerine. Wow, that's kinda wierd, Matt thought too himself raising an eyebrow and returning perception to normal. He felt it was best to keep the info to himself. His suspicion would not help their case.
"We were just taking a look around talking philosophy, psychology, and the like, you know normal teenager stuff," he said shrugging. "I'm sorry officer but I don't think we'll be of much help, I didn't see anyone break in," Matt continued, his faced looked like he was trying to remember anything of use.

James Cross jumped up when he heard the familiar voice of Oual. "Damnit!" James cursed under his breath. Why was Oual always there at the worst possible times! After the moment of shock that Oual had come to the scene of the crime, many other emotions charged through James. Why was Oual here? Laura had been called to the scene and despite the fact that she let James go and take care of this situation, it was still hers which meant Oual did not need to be here! Then it dawned upon James as he thought more and more about it. Oual had come to see James's progress. James Cross's hatred for Oual started to swell up again. Only a pompous p***k would do something like this. The thing that James really feared though was that if Oual wanted to he could very weel send him AND Laura home... for good. Something inside Cross's heart told him that Oual wasn't going to do that though... at least not just yet.

While it seemed like Oual was trying to butter up the two teenagers by answering the female's insane question, James just wanted to get this situation over with. "Okay kids... let's just get some answers right now and we can all be on our way. Let's get a move on here!"