"Well, thanks."  He heads back inside and returns a minute or two later with encarriered kittens.

Very unhappy encarriered kittens!!  "Why are we going without Mom, I thought she was coming too - "

"She is, we have to do this in batches." Next!

In goes Nicholas.

"Well, feed us until then."

"But you said the three of us were going to be in a batch together," trembles the vocabulary kitten from where he's pressed very small against the back of the carrier.

"The twolegs wouldn't let Jordan take all three of you at once." He appears a couple kitten treats through the bars.

The more forward kitten scarfs them all down.

"Why not?"

"I don't know, but hopefully Nicholas will be right out with your mama."

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa."

Ivy spends a hot second looking like she's going to say something and not doing so before: "Uh - can you ask, or - does he like me?  Like would he prefer being held, to.  The carrier."

"Do you want that twoleg to hold you instead of having to be in this box?"

"Yes."

"He says yes." Box: open.

The vocabulary kitten pads out onto Ivy's lap and settles warily back onto his haunches, but not before his sibling steps over her legs and starts sniffing at the fallen leaves covering the low stone wall.

Ivy wraps her jacket around the vocabulary kitten so that his head still pokes out and scritches down the back of the adventurous one.

And Nicholas returns after much less time than Jordan took.  "My behavior has been deemed suspicious and I will not be capable of serving as the legal adopter of any cats today."

"Well shit. - were they like, watching us in the parking lot, or did they just not like your face."

"I expect the timing was suspicious, and that my birthdate was more of a consideration than my face.  I don't know how visible this spot is from the employee-only areas."

Ivy gives a so-so handwobble while keeping her head very firmly down towards the enjacketed kitten.  "Could probably see us if they thought to look."

"Well heck. These ones want their mom. Ivy, next time you're on shift how many cats can you hand out own-recognizance, what will happen if somebody doesn't like you doing that...?"

"There's not a strict limit, but anything more than like two adoptions of two cats would be kind of suspicious?  And that's under normal circumstances, most days we don't get any and every few days we usually get one, unless there's some kind of promotional event or whatever.  I'd probably just get sacked and maybe investigated if the guards around here felt like it and anyone complained loudly enough?  They might tell other places around here to watch out I guess."

"How do you feel about getting sacked and then moving to my city about it, I don't know how many roots you have here or if you like your job-job or whatever you call the one you get paid for."

"I mean, I asked how licitly you wanted to do this."

"Yeah, turns out possibly not very but you will notice I'm not at this moment bursting through the wall of the shelter to perform a heist. When is your shift?"

"I definitely did notice that.  Tomorrow afternoon, but there'll be someone else in with me till onect six.  You want to wait till then and not just have me come in after closing tonight?  I have a - it probably doesn't matter that I have a key, does it."