She uses the time to get up and dressed and ready, mirroring his progress.

Okay, Mr. Yates, where are we off to?

After he's had a quick breakfast, he seems to be making his way to the subway station.

She follows along, staying a few blocks away.

He does in fact get into the subway station, and waits for a train there.

She loiters around the corner from the subway entrance until she hears the train coming, then heads down into the station to catch it with just a few seconds to spare.

He sees someone arriving at the station from his seat (never turn your back to the entrance) but does not seem to recognize her. He furrows his eyebrows but otherwise doesn't react. Doesn't relax, either, however; that does not seem to be a mode he can actually occupy.

The train departs.

She doesn't like being cooped up with this many people - not that the train is even that full - but she has lots of practice at playing it casual when she needs to; she stares boredly out the window.

She might notice the window she's sitting at has the word "ADVANCE" with an arrow pointing in the direction the train's coming from and a miniature version of the little ghost tag Marcy used on the Defined Tower's window.

She's not really paying attention to what her surroundings look like, but she does eventually notice.

Aw.

The train continues towards the town hall station...

...passes the town hall station...

...to the surprise of absolutely no one...

...and continues for a couple more stations before he gets up and exits the train. He looks around and starts walking out of the station.

How far away is the next station? She's been paying attention.

Not more than a mile.

She'll get off at that one, then. Unless he gets in a cab or something she should have no trouble keeping track of him in the meantime.

He doesn't. He continues walking until he stops at an old, deceptively abandoned-looking building. Inside it are a few men discussing trivialities and a truly staggering amount of weapons.

...wow.

All right well she doesn't have to get close to it. In fact, she ends up going a little ways in the other direction, since that's where the best hiding spot is.

Once she's settled in, she emails Penny: Successfully followed, but no news yet.

The reply is immediate: Okay. Keep me posted.

Her father knocks on a back door in a specific pattern, and one of the men looks through a crack. Recognizing him, or at least the knock, he opens the door and lets him in.

Will do.

Greg walks into a room where a couple of the men are idling and drinking. One of them turns to look, blinks, beams, and stands up. "Well! If it isn't Kegstand Greg! Haven't seen your ugly mug in a while!" He walks over to Penny's dad—Greg, apparently—and hugs him.

Greg suffers through this valiantly. "Marcus, we need to talk business."

"—business, Greg? After all these years? Come on, sit, have a beer, I haven't seen you shitfaced since you got married—how's your girl doing?"

"Dead."

Another blink. "Damn, man, I'm sorry to hear that. When—?"

"Twelve years ago. I'd rather not talk about it."

"Damn. I always told you getting rough in the Sideways'd get you someday, but I never thought..."

"I'd rather not talk about it," he repeats, more firmly.

"Right, right. Business, eh?" The man shrugs and turns around, starting back for his sofa. "What could possibly bring you here after fifteen years?"

"What do you know about the Cult of Bedlam?"

The man stops cold, and the others in the room tense up, too. If Greg could be any tenser, he would be, but he probably can't. "Cult of Bedlam, Greg? Dead and buried. Why you diggin' that up?"

"I know you, Marcus, and I know when you're lying. I'd know you were lying even if you were sober, and you're not."

"Damn you, Greg," Marcus sighs, dropping back onto the sofa.

More Cult of Bedlam stuff. No details yet.

Greg takes a seat, too, on a different couch, but doesn't relax into it, back and neck stiff. He doesn't say anything, just studies Marcus.

"You hear a rumor or two, right?" Marcus eventually says. "Don' really pay attention to it, 's just the Dee of Ass making people afraid like always, right? And then you hear another rumor, and another—homeless people, people no one will miss. Buildings at the fringes going cubist, all suddenly, no one even touched 'em, no one tried doin' anything to 'em, just poof, crazy. And you hear this and that about stuff goin' on in the Outlands." He pauses, and narrows his eyes at Greg. "But I know you, too. You knew this. So what's this about?"

"Needed to see if you knew anything more than that."

"Why?"

Greg doesn't answer.

"Gregory Yates, what have you—"

"Suspicions. This leading to that. I'm not sure yet."

"Well what are you sure of?"

"I'm being followed, and I think it's the Cult."

Marcus stands up suddenly. "What? You're being followed by the Cult of Bedlam and you decided to come here?"

"They did not follow me here," he explains, calmly, not standing up, even though Denice can tell his heart's racing.

"What did you get yourself into?"

"I don't know yet. But I'll figure it out."

Cult's following him, he thinks.

I don't know what happens if you tell him you know that.

Either he clams up even more or he tells me stuff. Don't know which way to bet.