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Who: Randolph Lyall, Nick Burkhardt
When: backdated to 11/11
Where: Locke City High School
What: Lyall and Nick meet up while the detective's covering a patrol at the high school

It's not usually the sort of assignment he'd volunteer for, but when the station needed someone to cover a patrol at Locke City high, supposedly as part of an effort to crack down on the latest "drug," Nick goes for it. He's handed out on-call duties and there's no new cases at the moment, so he doesn't feel guilty working a little on his network plan.

Well, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't also partially motivated by the fact that his partner's barely talking to him. For once, Yuji'll probably get more work done without Nick there.

It's easy work, mostly patrolling the halls and chatting with the occasional teacher or student, asking them questions about unusual activity or behavior to keep up appearances.

At the moment, he's leaning against the wall outside some of the classrooms, drinking from a cup of coffee as he keeps an eye on the hallway.

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Lyall is coming down said hallway after actually using the teachers' lounge for once-- lunch with Richard Locke, in fact; he's otherwise been trying to stick close to his classroom, given the police presence-- when he catches the familiar scent lingering ahead of him. He slows, a bit confused, until Nick comes into sight.

He does recall Nick is a cop, but he's still not expecting to see him here. "Good afternoon," he says, not exactly giving away that they know each other, but not being unfriendly, either.

And still with his mostly-good American accent that he's trying hard to keep in place when at school.

Nick'd tensed up a little when he'd heard footsteps coming down the hallway, trying to appear as though he was on the alert, but he relaxes when he sees a reasonably familiar face.

He's never heard Lyall as anything but British, so the lack of accent surprises him somewhat, but he doesn't say anything. He can always ask him about it later.

Instead, he smiles. "It's a great afternoon, now that I'm properly caffeinated and most of the kids are in class. I don't know how you do it every day."

He's joking. Mostly.

"Being accustomed to it, most likely," Lyall suggests dryly, stopping entirely for the chat, now. At least he has a little until class starts, so they can chat. Unsure whether Nick had been waiting for him in particular, or just being today's Police Presence, he adds, "Can I help you with something, or are you merely loitering in the hopes of catching an evil-doer?"

"In that case, I think I'm glad I don't do it on a regular basis." He takes a drink of his coffee, spending a little time longer than necessary with it, because he's trying to figure how to reply to that. He's mostly here to do his job, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't hoping to run into Lyall, to - well, 'warn him' sounded dramatic, but something like that.

Lyall was one of the few on the network who knew he was a cop, Nick didn't feel comfortable not telling him what he was doing.

"I'd protest 'loitering' as a term, but yeah, that is pretty accurate. This isn't usually my kind of thing, but I'm covering for someone." He pauses, only briefly, then continues with, "I do need to ask you some questions, but I don't think the hall's the best place to do that."

There's only a brief pause on Lyall's end-- he knows Nick is a "safe" cop, so it's only a little bit of hesitation-- before he answers, "Of course. There's still ten minutes left in this lunch period, we can speak in my classroom." He gestures a few doors down, towards his classroom's door, and resumes walking.

He opens the door for them both and holds it for Nick, motioning him inside ahead of him politely.

"Thank you," Nick replies, smiling politely, like what he wants to talk about isn't anything more than the standard 'have you seen any odd behavior or suspicious activities' questions he's been asking everyone else.

He walks down the hall, nodding to Lyall as he passes him and heads into the classroom. Then he waits, until Lyall's come in as well and the door's been securely closed, before he says anything.

"It's not strictly police stuff." His voice is quiet, but he's assuming Lyall can hear it. "...actually, it's pretty heavily numbers related."

Actually, Lyall can't, at first-- not until he hastily pops out one of the earplugs he keeps in habitually, these days. He catches the latter half of that, at least, and relaxes, nodding. That's enough to let him know, at least, that this isn't actually a lead-up to a regretful arrest or some particularly uncomfortable questions for both of them. "Very well. What do you need to know?"

...right, Nick should have expected that, considering he was one of the ones who'd suggested it. He's a little bit on edge at the moment.

"Sorry," he offers, leaning his hip against one of the desks as he considers what he's going to say. So far, he hasn't had a lot of success in telling people his plan. "It's more what I need to tell you, I guess. I wouldn't involve you in this at all, but you know I'm a cop, and part of the network, so I'm covering my bases here."

He fiddles with his coffee cup for a moment, then just goes for it. "I'm - going undercover, sort of. I'm going to try to get Sherman and the sheriff to trust me, so I can find out what they know, and what they're planning."

"Good. Someone needs to." He's frowning as he says it, though, leaning down on the lab table at the front of the room, that he uses for demonstrations. "You ought to be careful, though. That sort of thing can be easily found out... have the dogs alerted to you, at all? I know that's their purpose." Even if he hasn't seen any up close enough to sniff, it's not hard to guess.

Nick huffs out a brief, surprised laugh at that. "You're my new favorite person, man, pretty much everyone else I've told has called me an idiot." He sets his coffee down, leaning forward a little. "No, they haven't. I've been careful around them. And you're right, this is going to be dangerous. Honestly, I'm not expecting to be able to keep it up forever. Just long enough to learn what we need to know, and hopefully get out."

"Oh, what you're doing is dangerous, there's no denying that," Lyall shrugs with a little smile. "Which may be considered stupid by some. But like I said. It's necessary. They know far more than we do, and we need to know more-- what they know is a good start." He folds his hands on the tabletop, looking sober. "Is there anything any of us can do to help?"

Nick smiles back. He was going to do this anyway, no matter how many people thought he was stupid for it, but it was nice to hear that someone else thought it was necessary. "Exactly. We have a limited number of options - that's why I'm doing this." He picks his coffee back up, thinking that over. "Don't tell anyone, mostly. I'm going to have to make it look like I'm acting against the network, but I'm going to try to make sure no one gets hurt."

"Very well." Lyall nods to that, thoughtfully. "Having someone inside, especially someone pretending to work with the other side of all this, is really invaluable. --Does Kotetsu know?" The only other police officer he knows for sure who's part of the network, right now.

"That's what I'm hoping for, and that I can keep it up as long as possible." He shakes his head. "Not yet - well, not really, anyway. He's out of town right now, so he doesn't remember anything and doesn't really know what I'm talking about. But he'll know as soon as he gets back."

"Good. I would hate for a co-worker of yours to get the wrong idea." He tilts his head at Nick curiously, and maybe a little hopefully. "Have you discovered anything yet, or is this idea still in fairly initial stages?" He's a scientist at heart: he needs information to feel secure, and so far information has been sorely lacking in this endeavor.

"Me too." His voice is soft there, different than when he'd kept it low not to be overheard. There's personal reasons why he doesn't want Kotetsu to get the wrong idea about him, more than just the obvious co-worker issues.

Then he gives a slightly rueful smile. "Initial stages, unfortunately. I've been doing a little digging and chatting up before, but I think I've told the network what I know, about Sherman not being human, and everything going on with the water contamination. And I think other people have covered the suspicious stuff about the Dead District bombing. But anything I find out, you'll know, even before I figure out how to get it to the network."

"So that sheep smell has a cause, after all." Lyall looks grimly amused, at that, and files away the reply about Kotetsu to ponder another day. It looks too personal to question, when they don't know each other that well. He does feel he has to forestall one thing, though, looking a bit embarrassed: "Oh, there's no real need for that... I don't mind waiting until the bulk of us hears. There's hardly anything that special about me, in particular, to need to know."

"Yeah. I'm not sure what, yet, but I could tell he wasn't human the same way I knew you were a werewolf. Only his was a lot more vague, unfortunately." He takes a drink of coffee, making a slight face at it, before shaking his head. "I trust you, man. I'd, uh, I'd like your opinion, on whatever I find. There's a few people I'd want to talk things over with first."

"I suppose, if you put it that way." He does have to admit, he's at least relatively level-headed and reasonable about most things... so who knows? Maybe he'll be of some help, somehow. so he nods. "All right then. I'll do what I can, once you have something to share."

Right now, Nick really values level-headed and reasonableness. "Thanks." He smiles, then pushes away from the desk. "I'll keep you updated. But I should let you get back to work. And get back out there before I get hard time for taking such a long coffee break."

"This isn't a coffee break," Lyall corrects with a smile of his own. "You're interrogating me. Surely you're allowed a few minutes in private to do that. However, seeing as there are students outside my door waiting to be let in, I suppose I ought to let you get on back to looking for trouble."

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gotta be the 11th, since the 10th is a Sunday XD

WELP that'll teach me to pick dates without calender-checking XD

it happens, no worries :3

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