Jump to the Left, Step to the Right

[Molly Quincannon] For Nat, being invited to lunch by Molly is not exactly new. They're close friends, after all, and hanging out is good. For Wren ... well, being invited to lunch by Molly is more new, but that's because they have only met once in meatspace, and were only ships passing in the night online until recently. But it's nice to be introduced to new places and things.

The wording is a little unusual, though: There's an ... INTERESTING ... restaurant off the Mile, which I would like to check out in a serious way. Join me? This followed by an address.

The address leads to the mouth of an alley, where Molly stands leaning against the wall, waiting.

[Wren Jacobs] Wren arrived after a pace. She has done her best to dress down...her dread falls were out and she wasn't dressed in punk motif. She still had thigh high boots with straps but for the most part, she wasn't sporting anything so designer or out there that it would be impractical. She was here to have fun, relax, eat, and hopefully not get into trouble. She even geeked out a bit, bringing her satchel which carried her mobile machine as well as her other toy.

She waved to Molly as she walked up, fingers brushing back the kohl dark hair.

[Natyana Wapanee] Well why the hell not. She's been out and about today. The dog was left behind in favor of bribing him with a big meaty bone after the morning walk so she could go do some shopping for some possible home furnishings, or at least ideas to put into Lara's apartment.

When the text comes, that gets a raise of an eyebrow and an answer.

They don't serve fried dog, do they? Boomer would be so heartbroken at the leftovers I bring home.

When she arrives, she has the customary coffee in hand, though the cup is near empty, and the shopping thus far has apparently been unsuccessful. She's in her customary jeans and tank top, but lately she's been leaned more towards leaving her hair down. Molly might notice, though, that the tattoo is finished finally. Or at least, the visible parts of it.

Her eyes tilt over to Wren, giving her a polite smile.

[Molly Quincannon] Not that kind of interesting, ning-nong. That was Molly's reply to Nat's text, and then it's the waiting until Wren arrives, followed by Nat. Introductions first, with a small smile. "Wren, Nat. Nat, Wren. Vdept, 'Speaker. 'Speaker, Vdept. Different flavours of awesome. I barely recognised you without the dreadfalls, man. And the tat's awesome, all finished as it is." She's talking the way some people watch a tennis match.

"There shall be lunch," she says once everyone's got acquainted. "Lunch, and showing off my new toy - which I finally finished, and it is awesome - and keeping eyes, ears and ... other senses ... open. When I say 'interesting', I mean ... our kind of interesting. But first, how's everybody? Why the change in look, Wren? How's Boomer, Nat?"

[Wren Jacobs] "I wanted lunch, not the possibility of someone asking for an autograph or someone wanting to throw a milkshake on me."

She smiled a bit.

"I had a late night crunching so I'm famished, tired, and likely to cause assault charges if someone harassed me today. Thus, ta-da, me without the glam."

[Natyana Wapanee] She smirks at Molly's rapid-fire talk, then puffs up. "Dude... the whole thing. Even the tail. But I think I'll hold off on showing it off. Cuz you know how much I love flashing and all. Boomer's fine, he's tuckered out from the hiking trip and I didn't really want to have to fight with a dog that doubles my body weight and try to carry bags so he's at home being lazy today."

She turns to Wren and gives a nod. "Nice to meetcha" Though her commentary about harassment gets a raised eyebrow, and a blink. Very much not familiar with the VDept's arena of popularity. She looks back to Molly

[Natyana Wapanee] [per + aware]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wren Jacobs] Per 3 + Awareness 2
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 6, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Molly Quincannon] [[Awareness roll...]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Molly Quincannon] Molly - who knows the score about Wren - just smiles and nods. "Okay then," she says. "Off we go."

She leads the way down the alley to an unconsidered side street, where there's really not much of anything beyond a small wooden door marked with a sign reading "Mozzie's". It's an old sign; not neon but wood with a little wall-mounted light over it to allow passers-by to read it when the light is bad ... and the light is always bad on this side street, apparently. There's a window - not a big plate glass affair but a normal house's window, though even through the lace curtains there's a suggestion of small tables topped with candles and maybe someone moving inside. The menu to the left of the door shows some fairly standard fare - steaks and stews and chicken, plain food of no particular ethnicity.

For all three prospective patrons, there's a sense of Other here, and not just the resonances of the three mages in question, either. As Molly said originally, this place is ... interesting.

[Molly Quincannon] Wren doesn't get a sense of resonance particularly, but this door leads to more than a restaurant, that much is for certain. More of a Somewhere Else, perhaps. Though there doesn't seem to be anything venus flytrappy about it; it's more inviting and less 'step into my parlour said the spider to the fly'.
to Wren Jacobs

[Molly Quincannon] Nat doesn't get a sense of resonance particularly, but this door leads to more than a restaurant, that much is for certain. More of a Somewhere Else, perhaps.
to Natyana Wapanee

[Wren Jacobs] "Hrmm...well....it does have a vibe about it. So...why not? I hope the food is good at least."

She smiled. She gave a nod to Naty in return, shifting the strap of her bag as she glanced around. The decor wasn't exactly her style...she was expecting interesting to mean a virtual cafe or maybe cyberpunk esque. But a wooden sign? Retro to say the least.

[Natyana Wapanee] She moves along the side way with the other two, falling into step easily enough. The thrumming tingle of the door though, that takes some attention. She blinks, eyes narrowing and an eyebrow shooting upwards.

"They serve happy apples here by chance?" Her eyes sliding over to Molly with a smirk.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly rolls her eyes. "Dude, seriously, happy apples? I was only gleeing because I got to change the seasons by hitting things with a stick." Not offering any further response than that, she leads the trio in.

It really is vintage, almost antique. So too are the few patrons - a couple in the corner and an old man with a newspaper by the door leading to the kitchens. The solitary waiter, dressed in a timeless outfit of white-shirt-black-trousers, nods to them and gestures with one hand as he pours coffee for the old man with the newspaper with the other, indicating that they should take a seat anywhere. Molly finds a four-top in the centre of the room and sits down, squinting a little, as if she has a headache, and the waiter wanders by with menus. "Welcome to Mozzie's," he says. "Can I get you ladies anything to drink?"

[Wren Jacobs] "I'll take a coke or hot chocolate. Whichever is better."

She gave a brief smile to the waiter before focusing on Molly as she quirked a brow.

"Something wrong?"

She reclined a little in her seat, crossing one booted leg over the other. Her eyes flicked around a bit here and there but primarily they go back to the two sitting with her.

[Natyana Wapanee] Her paper cup that hosted the cold remains of her coffee are dropped in a trash can outside before stepping in, snickering at Molly with a shrug and a playful grin. "What? Could've said the trippy apples from the shiny place where you beat some wood with your stick. Now that wouldn't have sounded bad at all."

She follows Molly inside, eyes blinking around at the décor, at the few patrons, at the waiter. She takes a seat, dropping her little backpack style purse over a corner of the back of the chair as she sits. "Water is fine, thanks."

[Molly Quincannon] "Coffee, please," is Molly's request.

The waiter looks at Wren oddly ... then shrugs. "One hot chocolate, one coffee, one water coming up." He pauses, gives each of the women a long, scrutinising look, and then goes off to get their drinks and let them peruse the menus.

To the question from Wren, Molly shakes her head. "It's nothing. Kind of ... not quite a headache and not quite vertigo. Might just be I'm undercaffeinated, but ... it's like the non-auditory equivalent of trying to listen to two radio stations at the same time."

[Wren Jacobs] "..or being in two places at once?"

She arched a brow to Molly before glancing around the shop again, eyes taking in details...pausing as her bran clicked. Her head swivelled, looking towards the newspaper the old man was reading as she looked at the headlines.

[Natyana Wapanee] She eyes Molly for a long moment, casting a sidewards glance at Wren. It takes a moment to click, but when it does, she peers back to Molly suspiciously. With that look she knows so well, but it's at least a much lesser attempt at being huffy. The call went out before she took off, so there is that bit of point in her favour.

She leans back and picks up the menu, flipping it open to look it over.

[Molly Quincannon] The headline of the paper is something about race riots, though the girls are too far away to see the actual date on the old man's newspaper. Still, the paper looks different - different typeface, different paper quality, and no colour photographs. In fact, there's not a lot of photograph at all.

Molly looks up at Wren, then blinks. "I ... guess so. Never been in two places at once. And I'm not sure it's a ... 'where' thing. Maybe more--"

The waiter interrupts by turning up with their drinks. He's still staring at all three of them like they're from Mars, though there's a bit more wariness bordering on hostility when he looks at Wren and Nat. "Are you ready to order?"

[Wren Jacobs] "...more when? If so, way out of my area of know how."

Wren arched a brow at 'Race Riots' before she looked back to Molly and Naty.

"...you guys remember anything in the news about riots recently?"

[Natyana Wapanee] She looks up from the menu "Yeah... how bout a club and fries with gravy" She eyes the waiter at his glares, nose wrinkling up just a bit as she closes the menu and hands it back to him.

She looks to each of the other two, then settles her eyes on Wren and blinks. "Riots? Uhh.. no"

[Wren Jacobs] "Just a club sandwich for me."

She adds as her order.

[Molly Quincannon] Nat and Wren get dirty looks as they talk about the riots - sort of a Why do I expect anything better? sort of look. He waits a bit impatiently for Wren's order.

Molly orders (hamburger and fries) and leaves the commentary until the waiter goes away again. "I'll check that in a minute, okay? And ... I heard something about that. I guess we'd have to get a paper to know for sure how that's all going."

[Natyana Wapanee] Her eyes slide to the waiter again and she raises an eyebrow, her gaze going cold. Hinting in a not so subtle way that he's not hiding the looks overly well.

Once he's gone, she looks to Molly again, then turns to look at the surrounding tables for a cast-off left behind.

[Molly Quincannon] The waiter doesn't seem to care to hide the looks; he takes their orders in a perfunctory manner and then heads for the kitchen.

Nat's scan for a discarded newspaper is fruitless - apparently, wherever or whenever they are, the people don't just ditch their newspapers on tables the way they do in teh twenty-first century. When the waiter's gone, Molly pulls her iPhone out under the table. Then she glares at it. "No signal. Lovely. Still, I can work with it. Um ... spirit ID might be nice. I have a hunch. Mostly based on the race riots thing. I think the most famous ones of those here were, like, ninety years ago."

That said, and because she's not going to deprive the man by the kitchen of his paper, she turns back the clock on her iPhone until she hits something that helps soothe the 'this is not my time' headache.

[[When Are We? Time rote, diff 5 -1 focus so diff 4.]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 5 (Failure at target 4)

[Molly Quincannon] [[Balls. Up to diff 5. Damn thing.]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 10 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Wren Jacobs] Molly sat back quietly...if they were somehow backwards...she didn't dare bring out her laptop. Or her deck. Right now, she was a dead fish in the water. She glanced around briefly, now starting to get nervous at the hostility.

[Natyana Wapanee] "Liiiiiiittle tiny problem there chica. I don't think you want me stabbing myself and bleeding all over the place with the dirty stares flinging our way." Her eyes come back around to Molly with a slight wince, her voice dropping lower for a moment. "But gimme a minute and I can do it the subtle way."

Her hand swings around to her little bag and she tugs it open, digging out a bit of gauze, tucking it between her thighs. Other hand digging into her pants pocket. The little woman not so much a dead fish, but would need some cover. The hand that was digging into her bag shoves down into her other pants pocket.

There's a soft click when the pocket knife opens, and a hiss of air through teeth when she pushes her thumb against the sharpened edge, then scoops up the gauze and curls her thumb around it. Letting her thumb do a little leaking into the cloth while she looks around more before actually extending any senses.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly shakes her head after a minute, quietly putting her phone back into her pocket. "Yeah, subtle or not, gonna need you here, Nat. Because this is telling me that ... yeah. July twenty-eight, nineteen-nineteen. But ... also not. Damn, no wonder my head hurts. It's just ... our guys do this thing sometimes? Zeitgeist? Spirit of an age. I ... guess they come up on their own sometimes, especially with the mess the local Umbra's been in lately. So I dunno if this is when, where, what or all of the above. Hence."

Then she shrugs to Wren with a bit of a grin. "Well? I did say it was interesting."

[Wren Jacobs] "Yeah...I just hope 'interesting' doesn't also conveniently rhyme with lynch right now. Ya know what I'm saying?"

She keeps her voice low, glancing to Natyana and then back over to Molly.

"...I don't even know if my codes will work...this like...precomputer, y'know? Calculators were math slates. Its so old tech, vacuum tubes are the new thing."

[Natyana Wapanee] "Long as we can keep the beat sticks and white hoods at bay this is right up my alley. Technology doesn't apply to anything I do." She smirks and turns her eyes around, shifting her focus away from the readily visible to the other two women.

[spirit 1 base diff 4, -1 practiced]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 3)

[Molly Quincannon] The sensation Nat gets is odd - it's not sensing a spirit, nor is it being in a Shallowing or any part of the Umbra, but a combination of both. It's not a sense of a spirit in any particular spot, but almost being inside one. While zeitgeists aren't really something that falls into the Dreamspeaker remit in those terms, and Nat's not got the familiarity with Time to be able to say for sure, the idea that they're more or less in a spirit, or an area very strongly affected by a spirit to teh point where it's made substantial alterations to 'here' and 'now', is strong.
to Natyana Wapanee

[Molly Quincannon] Molly frowns a little at Wren. "Um ... couldn't say, but I always flashed on the idea that numbers is numbers is numbers, and it's all just talking to the universe anyway. Just because there's no wifi doesn't mean that we're not still talking." Then she frowns, curious and thoughtful. "Beyond the Space thing, what've you got in your skill set? I never asked."

The door opens and three men - one small and ferrety, two quite large, with the ferrety one being the better-dressed of the three - enter the restaurant. The girls (possibly more Nat and Wren, though Molly doesn't exactly look normal here) get glares and the trio sits down at a not-too-distant table, keeping an eye on the young women.

[Natyana Wapanee] The look that crosses her face is an odd one. Something akin to a WTF? sort of look. Her eyes make their search full circuit, as if looking at the décor more closely. Her eyes passing over the three that sit close as she turns her gaze back to the other two women. A finger taps her temple, and she squints. "Everywhere. Everything. Like umm.... Han Solo moment, parking in a cave on the meteor"

[Wren Jacobs] "Numbers are numbers and numbers. But you're not understanding..the stuff...my coding. A lot of it is with a machine. Even then, I don't have my guitar for the other..I'm running on limited operations here. At best, I got a few reality hacks that might buy us an ESC if we really need it. But that's all the scripts I'm carrying."

She glanced around again, frowning a little. She eyed the muscle men and ferret...pausing for a moment as she felt her brow furrow and then almost get a headache...as she realized if they were in old Chicago...that also meant Prohibition.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly blinks at Wren. "But ... laptops have batteries..." Then she shakes her head. "Not the issue. We can talk modus operandi later. My iPhone worked a bit. It was hard, but that might have been the headache. Or..."

Then the implications of what Nat said hit her and she turns and blinks. "Ah. Well. Here's the question - stay or go? I'm kind of curious as to how we're going to pay for lunch anyway, since I don't think they take plastic and I don't think I have bills old enough for this. I mean, who carries vintage currency?" Then she eyes the ferrety man and his companions, matching stares. "And who's the goon squad?"

[Wren Jacobs] "If I'm right...and this is old Chicago...think Godfather or Capone."

She kept her voice low.

"...a laptop is going to be much more noticeable than an iPhone, hon. That's why I said I'll have to rely off other exploits. Now...the question is this...how easy is it for us to just leave if that is the case?"

[Natyana Wapanee] "Well, on the bright side, if we stick around long enough we probably won't have to worry about having to pay from all the looks we're getting. Two of us are a severe minority, and you're no better for being in public with us. You won't get shit for a signal here if it don't want you to, but Molly has a good chance of forcing it with the boosters. We're like pigs in a blanket at the moment, and it's got it's own flare to set the playground. I could probably do enough channelling to give it a hell of a blast to the gullet, but it will take alot to build enough for it."

She keeps her voice a low murmur, then turns her eyes over to the trio with her focus shifted slightly back to the current.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly looks at her clothes, her tattoos, her piercings, her scars ... and then chuckles. "Nat, if this is not-quite-nineteen-twenty Chicago, I'm no better off anyway, just because I look like more of a freak of nature than usual. I suppose our chances of getting out ... well, if nothing else, it depends on what's going to be on the other side of that restaurant door when we open it, doesn't it? Which means someone's going to have to go look. The one who can make themselves more or less invisible, for preference." Yes, low voice is the order of the day...

Particularly since the waiter turns up around that point and unceremoniously drops their food on the table in front of them before turning to the 'goon squad' with a great deal more respect, bordering on obsequiousness. Molly looks over that way and ... looks oddly gleeful. "Real goons? Like, mob goons? Really? Oh, I know this isn't an ideal situation and I don't want anyone getting lynched, but that's just too cool."

[Wren Jacobs] Wren thinks and then glances to the two.

"Either of you got a pen?"

She glanced to see if the guy had at least brought a few paper napkins with the food. She didn't touch the food....she had a feeling the guy spit or worse in it. For that matter if this was some sort of trap or the like...well...the food might be part of it as well. She merely glanced over to the two, expectant.

[Natyana Wapanee] She shakes her head no to Wren, chuckling. "I have just about anything but in my bag, unfortunately." She does agree with Wren on the siding of actually eating the food though. Figuring on high chances of finding something slimy in it that isn't tomatoes.

She narrows her eyes at Molly, one foot popping up to attempt to kick her under the table, though whether the leg will reach is another matter. The woman can't even reach the floor. The eye narrowing turns to a wince, knowing the stakes here of Molly wanting to poke and look and question, and.... her palm comes up and slaps over her face.

[Molly Quincannon] [[odds Molly has a pen, evens she doesn't.]]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
to Molly Quincannon

[Molly Quincannon] There are no napkins, unfortunately. However, after a dig through her bag, Molly comes up with a Sharpie and a battered copy of the most recent Jim Butcher paperback, from which she tears one of the blank pages towards the back. She's not really paying attention; her mind's on the goon squad ... and no, unfortunately, Nat has not entirely managed to kick Molly under the table. "What're you up to?" This more or less directed at Wren, to be replaced with a general, "I wonder if they're doing the protection racket thing here. Or if there's a bathtub still downstairs. Ooh."

[Wren Jacobs] "...preparing."

Wren thinks and then starts to write random numbers forming a circle. Then within the circle, she creates another circle of numbers but they're not lined up with the others. Between these two circles, she puts 0s, then another set of 0s with strikes through them. She continues to do this while the two talk, growing the circle outwards...numbers shifting into letters...letters starting to form words. The page's center is soon swallowed with the last ring of the circle now mimicking the inside of the circle with zeros crossed out and zeros that are not, but now its flipped where the zeros on top are now on bottom.

"...mirror effect. Like I said...I knew a few reality hacks if I have to do it that way."

[Natyana Wapanee] Her eyes widen a little and she looks at Molly, peeking out from between her fingers. "Shit." She won't try to stop Molly. These are the things Molly enjoys, and things that have proven very useful and a great way of moving things along where no one else would. But she does prepare to jump out of her seat and bolt after the curiosity stricken woman should she jump up and start nosing around.

Wren's preparations catch her eye though. Head tilting, hand coming down to adjust the gauze her thumb is curled around while she watches the circles being written out.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly raises an eyebrow and takes a look at the code. "If you need help, I've got Space, Forces, Entropy, Time, bit of Mind..." Then she shrugs. "Depends what you're preparing, I guess, but if I can ... two minds are better than one."

She's still looking a bit longingly at the back room. "We ... don't have time to poke around a little before we try to go, do we?"

[Wren Jacobs] "Its a spatial filter."

She pauses once she's gotten most of it down.

"Basically the idea is that I create a small gap in spatial perception here for a moment. These..."

She points at the 0s and non-0s.

"...represent the immediate space we are currently in. Once the hack begins, for a second...people looking in this direction will have a 'glitch'. In that moment, we can move from our seats. The glitch realigns their spatial perceptions and for a small time, mirror images using that same spatial filter and this code create an illusion. Its not concrete and the mirrors can't interact. They're just on a set program of self-interaction...the appearance of being busy. There's just one small problem with it...if anyone does touch them or something interacts...the filter drops and jig is up."

She glanced at Molly.

"I don't know how much your OS is compatible with mine..but you can try. Its a combination of spatial, mental, and manipulation of light energy."

[Natyana Wapanee] She eyes Molly, snorting. "You really want to play with weasel boy and his two busty sisters?"

She blinks. Slowly. And looks at Wren "I... totally didn't follow that. Something about smoke and mirrors and something like out of Ultra Violet? Maybe?"

[Molly Quincannon] Molly considers that, then nods. "I can help push it along, though I'm going to have a different medium and I'm going to have to be discreet. Well, some of it's already discreet," she adds, removing her iPhone under the table again ... her iPhone, and one other gadget that any Who fan will recognise as a sonic screwdriver. (Natyana, in fact, will recognise it as a recent gift, just heavily tweaked.) "Just give me a minute to calibrate and I'll be right with you."

After mining some code from her ForceFeed app ("SpectraSkew") and performing a bit of mental mathematics using the code she knows, the representation Wren's drawn and the layout of the place according to her memory, she tweaks a couple of things on her silver device and nods. "Ready when you are." Then, for Nat, "I don't have the overlap Wren does yet, but yeah, that about covers it. And I usually bend light around me to make myself unseen, though I'm working towards perception filters."

[Wren Jacobs] "I got this more from Ghost in the Shell meets Johnny Mnemonic."

She smirked and then taking the piece of paper...she holds it up, the symbol outside of her...she rotates it around as best she can before placing it on the table and then utters under her breath, Keanu Reeves-style.

"Hit me."

[Natyana Wapanee] She wiggles her nose, eyes darting back and forth between the two. "Just tell me if there's something I can do....? I guess?"

Now they're talking out of her realm. Time-space-loopholes.... was enough to make her want to scratch her brain through the left nostril, honestly. Give her a shiny wall of gauntlet to poke at and she's good. Her eyes go over to the goon squad again and she watches them a moment.

[Wren Jacobs] Mirror Hack - Vulgar Without Witnesses: Highest Sphere + 1 + 3 = 6

-1 Taking time, -1 Using Foci = Diff 4

(Extended Rote - First Roll)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 4, 4 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Molly Quincannon] [[Helping! -1 taking time, -1 using foci, diff 4]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 7 (Success x 1 at target 4)

[Wren Jacobs] Mirror Hack - Vulgar Without Witnesses: Highest Sphere + 1 + 3 = 6

-1 Taking time, -1 Using Foci, +1 Extended = Diff 5

(Extended Rote - Second Roll) (3 successes out of 7 = 1 for Duration, 2 to affect other Pattern)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Molly Quincannon] [[Helping, diff up to 5, and there's that sonic screwdriver noise in the background...]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 7 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Wren Jacobs] To the outside, Wren had her fingers against the paper, her eyes flickering as her mind was acting like a computer, streaming code data into the transmission port, the connection to the outside.

[Wren Jacobs] Mirror Hack - Vulgar Without Witnesses: Highest Sphere + 1 + 3 = 6

-1 Taking time, -1 Using Foci, +1 Extended = Diff 5

(Extended Rote - Third Roll) (5 successes out of 7 = 1 for Duration, 2 to affect other Pattern)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 5)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Molly Quincannon] [[One last bit of help if possible, and using a WP.]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 8 (Failure at target 5)

[Molly Quincannon] Molly's aid in the transmission, insofar as it goes, is the things that appeal to the human senses. The light in the corner of the eye; the slight, almost unnoticed sound as background hum. The sonic screwdriver is under the table, but bright blue light is hard to hide completely, even if it isn't consciously noticed.

Everyone in the restaurant blinks a bit, as if they've sensed something, but beyond the glares at the three girls - neither more suspicious nor less suspicious than the ones they'd been getting since they walked in - no one reacts. Evidently, while this entity felt something happen, it's not sure what happened yet. And things go on as normal, with the goon squad having a conversation that Molly's obviously dying to overhear and the waiter pouring the man with the newspaper another cup of coffee. Molly gives Wren a questioning look, as if to ask, We clear? It was her rote, after all; she felt it work, more or less, but she wasn't in the driver's seat.

[Wren Jacobs] ...her dark eyes opened, staring out as the code complete. She held up her fingers, counting it down from 3 to 1 before she stood out of her chair, gesturing for them to do the same. Then she takes five steps away after pushing the chair back and moves away...waiting to see if anyone looked in her direction.

[Natyana Wapanee] She watches, waiting, and moves when Wren motions. Slipping from the chair and moving a little away from it. Her eyes slowly moving around and watching still.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly gets up with the others, though she does edge a little closer to the goon squad than she does to the door. Either way, no one looks their way; they continue to address their dirty looks to the spots the trio of 'freaks' formerly occupied, but not to their new positions. It seems that the rote was a success.

[Wren Jacobs] Wren noticeably does not talk. She gestures with her fingers to get their attention...pointing towards the door as she looks to Molly, waiting since she seemed to be the one who could potentially make this worse with her curiosity. She waits to see how the girl signals back, having a feeling that she is going to want to go deeper...

[Natyana Wapanee] She... doesn't move yet. She nods to Wren's signal, but then turns her eyes to watch Molly. Her face scrunches up and she points a waggling finger at her.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly looks at the goon squad, and then the door to the back ... and then heaves a theatrical (but silent) sigh as she rolls her eyes. Basically, every shred of her body language says, Oh, all right, fine. Thus Molly takes the lead, moving to the door with no shred of stealth, opens it and steps out. No hesitation, no waiting - apparently she's confident in her and Wren's work, and in the fact that they'll be allowed to exit and will end up somewhere familiar.

...She's bound to be a bit insufferable once the other two follow her, though, because her Overconfidence has, for once, paid off. They're back out in the little unconsidered side street, and when they look back, the sign and the window and even the door are gone, leaving in their place nothing but blank, crumbling brick wall.

[Wren Jacobs] Wren glanced around, not sure what had happened here but not about to chance her rote suddenly failing as she moved to follow out.

[Natyana Wapanee] She slips out after the two of them. Eyes glancing back over her shoulder as she follows the two women out. Not too concerned about the insufferableness of Molly to come about the confidence thing. The whole over confidence boosters not having failed with the little popple around yet.

When they get outside, her head tilts at the wall, and she purses her lips. "Now see? That coulda been us vanishing with it."

[Molly Quincannon] "Or maybe it only disappeared when we left," Molly said. "It could have hung around until we exited it. What's a zeitgeist with no one to see it?"

Then she shrugs. "Anyway, c'mon. I will take you somewhere sane for lunch. We get acquainted. And not tooled up by early twentieth century Mafia. Though I did want to hear about the speakeasies..."

Still, off they go, for a more mundane setting and food they can actually eat.