He brightens up again. "Yeah! Everyone, I think. Well, not the little baby, Rosa was pregnant when I last visited but it's been a few years. And I imagine there'll have been other babies, I think Maria and her husband were thinking about it."

"How'd you get to know them? Lived there for a while?"

"Yeah. Not very long, but it's a small town, everyone knows everyone else."

"So you did some kind of work for them for a while, or...?"

He trails off, and squints at a couple of figures visible in the rocky sands.

".... Those look official. But not from around here. What is that, Julai...? What are they doing way out here?"

"Problem?"

"Not just yet, but we might be about to run into one. Brightly wrapped mystery, can you roll out of the seat and onto the floor for us, please."

He does not need to be told this twice. Onto the floor he goes.

"Coppertop, can you lift up his seat cushion and then pull up the little floor wall thing between the floor and the seat...?"

"Ooo--kay," she says, obeying without understanding why. "... Wait, my car has a secret compartment?!"

"Not very secret, but yeah. Brightly wrapped mystery, if you would please roll yourself into the not very secret compartment."

Once again, he does not need to be told twice. Not very secret compartment is a go, making sure his whole outrageous red coat comes in with him.

And it is then closed back up behind him, by someone who's a bit offended, actually.

"Why didn't you tell me it had a secret compartment!!"

"You would have filled it with expensive junk we don't need."

"I. I would, but, it. .... It would have been useful expensive junk!!!!"

"Ahuh."

The Julai Military Police is the branch of the Julai police that deals with external threats to public safety. They chase after criminals who have escaped and ensure only safe people are allowed in. So it sure is interesting when the little group, riding blue flightless bipedal birds the size of horses, signals for Vernon to stop as they catch up.

Which he will do, because he is a good, law abiding citizen who has never done anything wrong in his life.

"Liking this less and less. No talking, you, I mean it this time."

Blink blink blink, but she hums an affirmative.

And then he will put on the correct face of wary-but-cooperative and wait for the fucking Julai Military Police to come say hi.

"Officers? What can we help you with?"

"Citizens," says the captain, a man wearing a cap and a cloth mask that covers his entire lower face and only leaves his begoggled eyes exposed. "We are looking for a dangerous criminal that we have reason to believe came this way." And he shows them a "Wanted" poster for someone called "Zash the Stampede", with a picture of... well, Z. And a bounty of $$6,000,000.

Wanted Poster

"Dangerous? What kind of danger? Another one of those madmen with explosives or carnivorous bug mutants or something...?" He obediently takes the paper to look at it like he's trying to interrogate it for the secrets of its danger. Ahuh. Yeah, that's what he expected. "We haven't seen anybody alive out here, but maybe if we're lucky he's with one of the dead guys the Bad Lads strung up back there. I mean, I guess not lucky for the bounty, but. Uh, thataway, if you want to check. Any idea which town he's likely to be heading to?"

"He's known as the Human Typhoon. He's killed lots of folks all over and he's running around destroying and stealing plants. He's a vicious criminal." The police captain shakes his head. "We've spread out along the paths to lots of towns but if he was going to Jeneora Rock you'd have seen him by now. Probably." He frowns. "What the fuck are the two of you doing here anyway?"

"On our way to Jeneora ourselves. I'm Vernon, this is my niece, Yvette Marlowe, from the big fancy city. Talked her parents into letting her have a look at the, auhm." He coughs, clears his throat, then leans closer to the masked man and lowers his voice. "... You know about the problems Jeneora's been having, yeah?"

"...with the plants? Not Julai's business."