xp_logs | No Pryor Convictions

Doug, Jubilee, Wade, and Marie-Ange are about to go on a date when Doug gets a call from a contact who wants a favor from him.

Doug could see the beginnings of impatience in the body language of all three people waiting for him as he jogged down into the lobby of the brownstone apartment building that the members of X-Force called home. Abortive glances towards watches, folded arms, tapping fingers, and so forth. "Sorry I'm late," he greeted Jubilee, Marie-Ange, and Wade as he reached them. "A contact of mine called me just as I was about to walk out the door, and he seemed pretty worked up." He flashed a printed sheet of paper with several barcodes on it. "On the upside, though, in return for looking into some things, he sent me four box seats to this weekend's Giants game."

Marie-Ange raised an eyebrow. "The Giants, they are ... football, yes?" At the nod from Doug, she smiled. "Oh good. We love football." She paused, smiled mischievously and added. "Well, Wade loves football. I love scarves."

Doug had been about to say something else entirely, but abruptly chopped off and looked at Marie-Ange, his eyes narrowing and a finger coming up as if to wordlessly say "I am on to you."

Wade batted Doug's finger out of the air, suppressing a half-smile at the reference as he asked, "So what was your friend all worked up about? And is it going to make us miss the movie tonight? I got us reservations for eight at that fancy steakhouse Jubes was talking about last week."

"Mmm, steak," Jubilee said as she slipped her hand around Doug's arm and pulled him forward. "Lateness is forgiven only if you feed me now."

Doug shook his head as the foursome walked down the street. "Nah, we're not talking some kind of 'gotta go someplace right now' urgent, just that he wants me to look into a string of bank robberies. His little brother got arrested, and my contact's pretty sure that he's taking the fall for someone else."

Marie-Ange's interest perked up and she ducked around Wade to walk so she could glance at Doug as he talked. "So, the little brother was robbing banks? How do you take the fall for someone else if you are robbing a bank, much less robbing a series of banks?" It was not quite a rhetorical question, she could think of a few ways to do it but it involved things like shapeshifters or very complicated plans involving corrupt members of law enforcement.

Doug looked a bit distracted for a moment as he tried to recall what exactly his contact had said. "The little brother was only picked up for one of the robberies. Apparently what's happening is that young mutant kids are getting picked up at the scenes of these robberies, and charged as accomplices, while someone else gets away with the money." It was a disturbing pattern, to be sure.

Wade frowned, tucking his hands into his pockets as they meandered down the street. "What's the kid's mutation? I'm guessing it made robbing the bank easier. For that matter, have you got any information on the other kids that got picked up?" It wasn't like Wade minded someone orchestrating robberies, per se. In theory, actually, he had nothing against someone doing that. However, someone taking advantage of kids to do it hit about three of his particular buttons. Make that four - leaving the kids to take the fall for the whole things was worse than just using them in the first place. "And what's being done for the kids now? Or is this the sort of information you're gonna have to get after dinner and a movie?"

Doug had tried to get a reply in edgewise two or three times, but Wade was like a conversational steamroller sometimes. "Yeah, so far all I've got is a 'hey, would you mind looking into this for me' call. And I figured I'd delayed dinner enough as it is. I'll start digging first thing tomorrow."

"Alrighty you three, exnae on the workyay, like totally. This is like a date, so get with the chat about movies and I don't know, normal non-spy people stuff," Jubilee finally said, a hint of fond exasperation in both her body language and her tone. "Cause s'not like all that shit ain't gonna be right there tomorrow when we wake up."