Hide & Seek

"Hide and Seek" is the eighth episode of.

Outline
Jacob is creating a new wand when he hears news of the Alchemilia Corporation being in Silivia. Baptiste continues his exploration of Siliva, deciding to take a break at a pastry store. Chris continues to evade Alchem., hiding behind an alley-way, and then stealing the clothes of a passerby. Atticus and Marshall have an argument about the morality of stealing, due to Marshall attempting to take from the cash register of a barbershop.

Melissa continues her talk with Steven about her memories, with Steven deciding to take her in for examination.

Savannah finds the barbershop Atticus and Marshall are in, but an Alchem. operative, Fontaine, finds and slits her throat; as ordered by Gabriel. Baptiste leaves the store, finding and recognizing Atticus and Marshall in a building across the street. Chris is spotted by Fontaine.

In the lab, a new character enters.

Prologue
A few more finishing touches and Jacob's new wand would finally be completed. Putting a microchip inside of the stick was hard enough; he had hardly anticipated the investment required to pull off just one of the "magical" effects. The thought of abandoning the magician shtick and getting a job reared its ugly head many times during the grueling process. Now, however, it had gone away as he was nearly done. One more adjustment and-

The room was suddenly swallowed by darkness. A power outage at the worst possible time. Jacob sighed. What caused this? How long would it last? How much would he need to redo?

Those concerns vanished when the Alchem Corp logo appeared on his computer. Jacob remembered what his father had told about Alchemilia and his company. They were supposed to be a thing of the past, a memory of life before the war. Yet, plain as day, their insignia had appeared on his computer.

Someone, apparently a representative of the long-dead conglomerate, was now delivering a message to the people of Silivia. Something about a fugitive. Jacob was not listening. His thoughts were on android parts carelessly scattered around his garage. Most of them were extracted from Wellington models, but a few had the exact same stylized "A" his computer still displayed.

"Never let anyone know about it," his father had told him. "Destroy it, if you can. It's not worth the risk."

The Story
"I think we oughta to abandon ship." said one of the guards, sleepily to Baptiste. "We've been at this for quite a while now. Just fetch the Hummin'bird, go back to the site, and tell the citizens to alert us if they find the droid so we can pick it up."

"And then that would be procrastination," replied Baptiste. "I don't do procrastination. I'm here to get this over with, the tracker said he is definitely in the city. Come now, perhaps we take a breather over here." Baptiste smiled as he pointed to a Silivan pastry shop.

The guards were quite amused. "Well then," one began, "I suppose sometimes it's better for a break then to abandon the project."

The men politely strolled in. The shopkeeper fearfully took their order of several glazed donuts, deciding it was best for the order to be free. As they sat down for their prize, Baptiste began lecturing them. "Trust me, we'll have him back in no time. Come now, look at this -- the tracker saw him around this nearby park."

Unknown to them, two Alchem. fugitives, Marshall and Atticus, were robbing a nearby barbershop. Behind the barbershop, Chris Wellington, whose GPS signal was enclosed by mounds of garbage.

Atticus Anoethite and Marshall Rooke=Marshall looked at the nearest source of audio, which happened to be a large television screen on the side of a shop, directly outside the alleyway. "We're screwed."

Atticus, hearing the broadcast, looked over in shock at the television screen. "That means Chris is this city, we have to find him!" While the broadcast from Alchem Corp was certainly not good, he was relieved to hear the name of one of his companions again.

"The police are probably already looking for us. We'd be sitting ducks." Marshall looked down the alleyway. He noticed a backdoor was open. Inside of the building, he could make out a barber pole. "I'm going to check that shop out."

"But we have to find Chris. We can't just leave him to be fetched by Alchem. Corp again." Atticus then noticed Marshall heading towards the backdoor and started to follow. "Damn it, listen to what I'm saying instead of running off after some nonsense."

Marshall entered the backdoor of the barbershop. He looked around to see if anyone was there. No one was in sight. He then noticed Atticus had followed him in. "Atticus?"

Atticus, following behind Marshall, stopped upon hearing his name. "Yeah, what is it?"

"I didn't mean for you to come with me!" Marshall paused. "I came here to check this place out, but there’s no one here. I'm going to break into the cash register and see if we can get some cash." He started towards the cash register as he finished his sentence.

"Well, too bad, I'm here. Was I supposed to just wait outside like a sitting duck or something?" Atticus said, stepping into the building behind Marshall. Upon hearing the rest of Marshall's sentence, he facepalmed. "What the hell are you doing? Was not stealing from the café enough? Do we have to face more possible trouble from the law?"

"Relax. No one’s here. We should be fine." Marshall took the pair of rusty scissors out of his pocket and tried to open the register with them.

Atticus was baffled as Marshall continued with his plan. he quickly walked up to Marshall and grabbed his wrist in an attempt to prevent him from opening the register. "Stop!"