Barcelona, Spain

A snap of red light in a small hidden area signaled the arrival of Ashley and Umbral with Chris. Moments later he vanished, returning a few moments later with Henry before wishing them good luck and vanishing again.

Henry looked at the other two before asking, "Ok, so what's the plan here?"

There was a brief moment of a dark, smoky haze around Michael as Henry was arriving. By the time he spoke, it had vanished. Somehow, his outfit now looked more reinforced. He sighed, then spoke, "My best guess is that we should head for the Palau de la Música Catalana. The information I had gathered that pointed here seemed to focus on the concert there tonight. One of the pieces highlighted the pianist Isabella de Sa Roña and her husband, so that's probably as good a starting point as any."

Ashley nodded, frowning though.

"Agreed, but it's too early to go inside, we'd draw attention to ourselves. We need to find a place we can observe the place from, so we can see if the Cabal set up anything, know what they've got planned."


Henry sighed.

"I'll look up places on the tablet, but ... we have to consider that they may have already set up before we got here. If this has been planned a while, they may have been set up for a while now."


Ashley sighed herself.

"True, but we can at least observe the place, if nothing more than to know potential escape routes and places they might try to take someone outside without anyone knowing. First though, we need to go get tickets."

Michael cocked his head as if recalling something... Or perhaps listening for something. Then he reached into a pocket to pull out a notepad and a pen, scribbling down something twice on a small sheet of paper. Then he removed the sheet from the pad, returning the pad and pen to the pocket, and tore the sheet in half such that a single copy of the information was on each piece. One piece was held out for Ashley, and one for Henry. "That address should be a relatively safe location near the theater. If we're going to do any scouting, that should make for a good rendezvous spot."

This time he sighed. "If you've got concerns about it, I'll slip ahead and see if I can spot anything there first."

Henry chuckled slightly, holding the tablet up.

"Way ahead of you Ashley. Once I knew where we were going and what concert it was, I bought us tickets over the tablet. We don't have to go up there to buy, we can just check in with the scannable computer barcode and blend in with the crowd come opening time."


That drew a smile from Ashley.

"And that's why I brought you, thinking ahead for me."

She took the paper from Michael, nodding slightly.

"Alright, we can split apart, do some scouting around. Let's meet back at this place say ... an hour and a half before show time?"

After ensuring that Henry had the information, Michael glanced out across the city. "Right. An hour and a half before show. I'll see what I can find out about any Cabal overwatch points, and the other details."

He glanced over towards Ashley. "I've got a bit of experience in snooping around the Cabal's stuff. Ask Henry."

With that, Michael headed out, quickly blending into the crowds and vanishing from sight.

Should the pair attempt to follow him, Henry would notice something very unusual. He could follow Michael's scent trail a shortish distance before Michael had apparently ducked into a shadowy alleyway. There, the trail just suddenly stopped cold. Exactly like had happened in Estes Park.

They did head in the same direction as Michael briefly, at least until Henry snorted and let out an amused cure. Ashley looked at him, and when he explained, she shook her head sighing. The two decided to split up and begin scouting around.

Perhaps an hour or so after splitting up, Henry's tablet would ping with a message from the Barcelona Sanctuary staff. Apparently, some one had called them on a cellphone. The person had been speaking fluent German, was apparently drunk, and had been rambling about needing to meet with someone named Henry to apologize for getting stuck in the city's traffic. The initial guess was just a drunken mis-dial, but the decision had been made to pass the information along, since the pronunciation had been closer to his name than the usual German style.

If he'd check information on the city's traffic for the day... It had been unusually redirected, with certain routes out of the city having lighter traffic, and others having more, to the point of higher congestion. Including the most likely response routes from the Sanctuary.

When the pair regroup at the suggested rendezvous spot... The room was empty, although heavily shadowed. And there was no immediate sign of Michael.

Henry and Ashley walked in at almost the same time, checking around the area. It was Henry who first spoke.

"Looks like it's clear, no sign of Batman yet though."

Ashley blinked for a moment before chuckling.

"Batman? You need to lay off the comics Henry."


He could only shrug in response to that, beginning to set up something on his tablet.

After a moment, a sharp sounding whisper would be heard by both of them.

"Get into the shadows. Quickly."

Within just a few moments, a helicopter could be heard passing overhead. Once it had passed, the whisper could be heard again. "Might have just been a news bird. Not taking a chance, though."

No distinct source could be detected immediately for the source, although it would sound close to Michael's voice.

Both of them moved, though Ashley seemed to not place the voice for a moment, looking around as if to determine the source of the voice, and if it were a threat.

Henry meanwhile shook his head, guessing it was Michael.

"Ok, how the hell do you do that and where the hell are you man?"

There was the faintest of rustles behind Henry... Who could all of the sudden smell Michael's scent. When the pair looked, he was standing back there in a fairly nice black suit with a dark charcoal dress shirt on. "Right here. Also, ventriloquism... and another of my tricks for evading the Cabal. It's something I discovered I could do during my escape."

Ashley's hand reached down to her waist as she saw movement, stopping when she realized it was Michael.

"Good god, I almost shot you!"


Henry meanwhile jumped slightly, then snorted as he looked back at Ashley.

"I told you he's like Batman."


Ashley sighed and tossed her hands up.

"OK, I guess I owe you an apology on that one, you were right."

Michael... either snorted or snickered in response. It was quiet enough that it was hard to tell. When he spoke up though, it was in a normal, if slightly quiet tone. "I noticed a few things while I was looking around. Henry, I hope that message of mine made it through. Seemed like there was something odd with the traffic patterns, but I was too exposed to make direct contact safely at the time. Also, I think I spotted at least three potential Cabal overwatch points near the theater itself. This whole setup seems a little odd to me, though..."

Henry nodded.

"Yeah, I got it. Traffic's been routed in a way that any response from the Sanctuary, should the shit hit the fan, would be delayed big time. And yeah, something is definitely off, there's something big that's going to go down."

Ashley looked at him for a moment.

"You seem really sure about that, more so than Michael is. Why? What did you see Henry?"


He hesitated for a moment before setting his tablet down and looking at them both.

"It's not what I saw, it's who I saw. Merideth Stallers is here, I saw her earlier by one of the cafe's a few blocks over."


Ashley let out a curse.

"Then this place will be crawling with Cabal for sure, she's not going to be out here in the thick of it without a large detail. So just what the hell is she planning?"

Michael paused, then said a single word.

"Trap."

After a moment, he added, "A basic 'roundup', like the intel originally suggested, may be a secondary bonus... But this whole setup... It screams trap. They're after someone specific from the Sanctuaries."

Ashley nodded.

"I agree, the question though is who, and how can they be sure their target will come?"


Henry suddenly looked up, eyes wide.

"What if it isn't a specific someone? What if they're looking to infect an abnormal here, or a group of them with Lazarus in the middle of the concert? That would definitely cause a major issue, and with the traffic being diverted the way it is, they would gain the added bonus that the Sanctuary would seem slow to respond, taking support away from us. Then in the chaos, they could swoop in and do some real damage while the Sanctuary Network is fending off crap from Governments around the world. Byt the time everything got sorted out ... The Cabal would be set up nicely."


Ashley sighed.

"We have to consider that a possibility, just as we have to consider there's someone they know will be here the specifically want. We should also consider it could be both."

Michael seemed to think over that for a moment, then shook his head. "I suppose it's possible they're intending to infect... But I didn't see any signs of bio-gear with the watch points. As cautious as I've seen them be before... I have a hard time believing they'd risk top brass with a test of an infectious agent of unknown variables."

A shrug, then he added, "I know enough of the jargon to have pieced together that they aren't 100% certain on Lazarus, yet. The smarter villains don't expose themselves to unnecessary risks."

There was an uneasy pause which eventually was broken by Henry,

"Or they could be looking to unleash one of their weapons research abnormals.  We know they have ones they can control, we saw that with Will when ..."

Ashley cut him off.

"Yeah ...  not something I want to remember about, that was ...  bad.  Problem is, we have no way of knowing what their deal is until we're committed.  The more I think of it, the more convinced I am this is a setup.  Stallers is purposely showing off that she's here, trying to bring someone in after her.  Nothing else makes sense.  The question is ...  who is she after?"

Michael seems about to say something, when his head suddenly snaps around to look at one of the corners of the room. He stands staring for a short moment, before hesitantly turning back towards the other two. "Thought I heard movement over there... Henry, do you think you can..."

He broke off again, spinning to look at the corner again. After a moment, he finished his statement without turning to face the others. "Think you can plot out some alternate routes and forward them to the Sanctuary? Just in case we need a surprise of our own..."

Henry nodded.

"Yeah, I can, give me a minute."


Ashley looked at Michael for a moment before moving forward a bit.

"You alright?"

Michael remained staring at the corner for just a bit more, then he turned and responded, "I should be... Thought I was hearing whispering over in that corner, but nothing... Then again, after my previous experiences with the Cabal, I've probably got low-level paranoia precursors."

Ashley shrugged.

"Could be, most people who escape them end up with some kind of lasting change. Could also be they unlocked something in you and you are hearing something, but maybe it's not actually in the room. Best I can say is try not to let it distract you at a bad moment, but don't ignore it either until you know for sure if it's paranoia, or an ability. Can you make out what the whispering might actually be saying, like words, or is it just noise?"

Michael shook his head. "More like catching hints of a whispered conversation on the other side of an auditorium that's got weird acoustics. Can tell there's a sound there, but nothing clear... And it could just be the brain misinterpreting ambient noise anyway."

Ashley shrugged slightly.

"Hard to say. I wouldn't ignore it though, could be something that'll benefit you down the line. Anyway, it's getting closer and closer to the time for the show to start. We should start moving."