"Your totem must be unique, exclusive to your own person." His voice called out to the group gathered next to him. Addressing his point, he reached into his own pocket, pulling out a small, metallic necklace. The talisman on the end was heart-shaped, and had a small lock on the side.
"There is something inside the locket, but only I know what it is." He said, angling the locket away from them and opening it, as if to make sure it was still there. His expression darkened for a moment, before closing it and redirecting his attention back to the crowd. "That's the definition of a totem, a seemingly innocuous object with a hidden quality only you know. If anyone else knows about it, it defeats the purpose."
"So. Why do we need this?" Miki asked, rubbing her stump slightly.
"So you know when you're in a dream. Everything you have on your person carries over to the dream. It's as simple as reaching into your pocket." He sighed, leaning back in his position a bit.
Akira stuck a hand in her pocket, ruffling it around a bit as if she was searching for something. Slowly, she drew it out. It was small six-sided die. It was red, but the plastic it was composed of was strange. It most likely was loaded, but only Akira knew the weight of it. Thom nodded slightly, now knowing that she wasn't exactly new to this business.
He continued lecturing the team far into the night.
She wasn't sure what to expect from today. Thom had detailed her on the nature of the dream, but left the job she was unwillingly commissioned into undetermined. Suzu supposed since she was supposed to be the information mule she wasn't privy to most of the information about the job anyway. Besides, she was probably a dead woman after it was finished. These men were professionals, smart enough to not leave a witness behind.
Was being rational her coping mechanism? Detaching herself from the situation so far seemed to work, it's not like she was in control of it anyway.
Sometimes she had wondered what Hisao would think after they discovered her… hopefully intact corpse floating in the nearby harbor, or in a roadside ditch somewhere. Would he grieve her? Would he be broken? Suzu always pushed away the questioning before it began to bother her. Lamenting over her situation wouldn't help her anyway. It never worked, past or present.
Then of course, there was the question of Thom. The steel door securing her inside this prison was incredibly insulated, but even then she could make out snippets of conversation concerning his dissapearence. They had called him a 'traitor', or 'weak'. Suzu wasn't sure what to think, but she was pretty sure they could do the job without him. Why did Thom leave? What was he doing?
No matter the answer to those questions, there was still the present.. The fact that she was in a van of some sort with a bag over her head proved that. Suzu's inertia shifted as the van took yet another turn. Her feet kept knocking into some object as the van turned, it felt metallic. Other than that, she couldn't really determine the shape. It wasn't the PASIV, they wouldn't lock the hostage in with it, even if she was guarded.
She twisted her wrists, trying to feel how her bonds were secured. They felt thin, slightly malleable. Was it some sort of twine? It was only when a thin piece of plastic poked her back that her suspicions were confirmed. Cable ties. She wasn't going to get out of them in a hurry.
"Stop that." A gruff voice rang out next to her, accentuated by a gun barrel being poked into her side. Suzu had tried to keep a brave face ever since she'd been kidnapped, but she couldn't hide the icy vice gripping her heart. Her expression faltered for a bit, afraid that the man next to her could see it even through the dark bag hiding her features.
A short metallic scraping sound emanated from the other-side of the van. Another man was riding with them. It continued, only stopping shortly before starting up again. She could see the silohette of the man adjacent to her. He looked hunched over, wielding a tool of some sort. It was only the voice of the man next to her that gave her any context on the situation.
"Nice drawing, but technically it's not your gun." The man next to her spoke again, this time in a lighter tone. He leant forward, one hand resting on his knee.
The metallic scraping stopped, the other man sitting up from his prior position. It appeared as if he was holding a knife, making a crude etching on the stock of the weapon.
"Aren't we razing these after we're done?" The other man's voice was a little lighter than the other. "Thom made our job harder by taking half the-" He was cut short by a small head-motion by the man next to her. Suzu supposed he was addressing the fact that they shouldn't talk about pressing issues in the same car as the hostage.
The man across from her gave a short sigh, before hunching over and returning to his prior ministrations. He muttered something before another metallic sound echoed throughout the back of the van.
It wasn't exactly hard to make out that she wasn't going to be an issue for much longer.
"Wake up." Hisao jolted up. Whereas the man before might've brought the covers over his head, the man now knew that he was wasting time by doing so. Thom tossed a bag onto Hisao's cot. The impact it made was enough to completely wake him up.
Rubbing one of his eyes, he grabbed one of the handles on it. It was a duffel bag, big enough to hold a great array of equipment. He thumbed one of the straps, attempting to guess what was inside, without results.
Thom passed the curtain separating the cots from the rest of the room, before returning shortly with yet another bag, which looked less hefty. He tossed it unceremoniously onto Miki's cot. She jolted up as well, tossing a bout of cursing outward.
"What is it?" Hisao asked, his voice mostly monotone.
"Mostly stolen goods." Thom said flatly. He saw the look on Hisao's face. "It's not a bloody VCR, open it up."
Hisao sighed, still slightly miffed at the rude awakening. He took the main zipper in his hands and opened the large bag up. The opening slowly revealed what looked like… a vest? It black, about the same color as the bag. It had 6 pouches in the front, and a zipper down the middle. Hisao picked it up with one hand, it was sturdy material. He looked up to catch Thom walking back in with another bag.
"Where did you get a load-bearing vest?" Thom didn't bother answering, instead he walked over to Akira's bed, launching yet another bag into her lap. Luckily, she already seemed awake, thanks to Miki's cursing. Miki herself had taken the vest in her… hand and was pressing it against her chest.
"It's your size." Hisao told the girl across from him. She gave a short sound of recognition before looking back into her bag. Suddenly, her eyebrows raised in shock, before dropping the vest and reaching her functional hand into the bag.
Hisao looked back into his own bag, interesting in what surprised Miki. His own eyebrows rose as he saw what was inside.
A 9mm submachine gun, manufactured by Heckler & Koch lay dead-center at the bottom of the bag, complete with a few magazines to the right of it. They all gleamed softly in the minute light. Hisao gently picked up the gun, making sure the safety was off. He held it in the two of his hands.
Thom simply stood there, a shit-eating grin plastered onto his face. Hisao turned to look at him, a confused glare in his eye.
"They were… expensive stolen goods." He turned his head to watch as Kenji strode in through the curtain, fully equipped in his new gear. Hisao had to admit, it was some serious hardware Thom managed to get for them.
Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.
"Hey guys, check this out." Kenji said before pointing his gun at imaginary enemies to his right and left, miming pulling the trigger. He spun a quick 180, dropping on one knee. Throughout all of this, Akira watched him, a bored look on her face.
"Is the safety on…?" She droned, evidently not a morning person. Kenji's blank face revealed nothing, before he reached up. A short click emanated from the gun. Miki grinned ear to ear, Akira however, made no reaction.
She lifted the bag off of her lap before mumbling something about how Kenji was going to kill them all. Hisao meanwhile, had more pressing matters on his mind. Ones that he needed answered.
"Why did you get all of this?" He asked Thom, who was busy reaching into his own bag. He turned upward in response to Hisao's ceaseless questioning.
"Well I suppose I'll give it to you straight. Your girl's being moved somewhere and we're going to intercept them along the route. The vests are there so you don't die, the guns are there to make sure they die." He quickly put on the vest, followed by him picking up his own weapon.
Hisao was stunned, too overwhelmed by his conflicting thoughts on this situation, and the man standing next to him. Thom turned around and walked back through the curtain. He called out to the team still surrounded by a shroud of fabric.
"Are you coming or what?"