5192/Shine: Facility Recon

Shine: Facility Recon
Date of Scene:	15 February 2021
Location:	Moonstone Facility, Joplin, MT
Synopsis:	Bart makes his way to Joplin, Montana, and gets a better bead on where Phoebe Beacon is -- and what the Outsiders are up against to get her back.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Bart Allen

---

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    It was snowing in Joplin, which means that the plow trucks are out doing the best they can on the main route to and from town. Gus's Gas, with a tarp over its broken front window, is closing down for Sunday night, focus shifting to the bar/restaurant in town that's attached.

    Out in the distance, the Moonstone Facility's lights are shutting down, conserving their power, the white lights on the horizon fading as the wind picks up.

    Local temperature is a 'balmy' -8 degrees and rapidly dropping.

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen would have ran out to the area to check things out. He spends a bit of time, checking around the area, not liking the fact that the snow in the area would have covered most things, but he looks around. He then goes and grabs some winter clothes and heads into the Restaurant as Bart, not as Impulse. Looking to get a table he can look over the place from.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Bart comes in, and there's a little bit of a stir as he goes in. There's a quiet jukebox playing ancient country in the corner. Pretty much everyone in the room looks tired and cold, and there's a lot of plaid and flannel. It also seems like pretty much everyone knows everyone else here -- but there's a place at the counter, rather than a table -- tables are all full. And the lady behind the counter sets a laminated menu for Bart in the blank space.

    "Don' get much traffic out this ways in the winter. You musta taken a wrong turn somewhere in the storm, huh?"

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen hmms and says "Possible, I aint exactly sure where, I am at. Was hitch hiking and the guy I got a ride from, was a wierdo, and did not find it out will about a mile out. Had to walk in from there. Glad I was able to find a place. Not sure how much longer I would have made it." He fibs but tries to give an excuse why some folks would not know him.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Had to walk a mile? In /that/?" the woman states, and she frowns and pours Bart a cup of coffee.

    "Drink up. It's hot. Don't want you catching your death of cold on the counter, do we?" she questions. "Take your time ordering. "

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen nods and takes the coffee in both hands and sips it "Luckily I had a good coat, and warm pants on." He tells her. He does let the coffee sit in his mouth for a moment to see if he tastes anything odd, counting on his metabolism if anything has been put in it. "Is there a place to stay in town, or where I might be able to get a ride?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The coffee is just coffee. Diner coffee. Not the best quality, but it's hot -- which is hat the waitress was going for.

    "Well. I don't -- this is Joplin, sweetheart. We're literally it. I know there's a cattle truck leaving in the morning, you can get a ride to somewhere better with Sal. He's a decent guy." she comments. "... but pretty much everyone in town is here or at home -- unless you count that weird place up to the North."

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen 's brow raises a bit and says "Weird place up north? It is a creepy hotel or something, I mean the truck driver was creepy enough, but I guess I will need to find a place to stay till Sal, you said? Heads out.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The girl looks Bart up and down a moment. "Well, I got half a queen bed if you want it." she states flirtatiously.

    She is easily old enough to be Phoebe's mom.

    "And yeah, they've got some -- weird kid-reformatory experiment to the north. The people stop here for gas every once in a while, but they never come in for food. One of their kids escaped the other night and musta collapsed against Gus's window, busting it all open. Or they were thrown into it. Hard to tell." she frowns again, looking at Bart.

    "I'd stay away. Some of their guards have guns. There's a rumour that they have... y'know... /mutants/ there." she whispers, as if it's a bad word.

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen winces a bit at the last part. He looks out at the window and says "I may consider that bed." He offers, "How late are you open here? " He asks as if trying to seem his place to stay is the main concern "Someone threw a kid through a window here last night? I aint a mutant, but do I need to worry someone is not going to believe I am 18?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "We close up at midnight, just in case we get any truckers making their way up to Canada." the lady replies. Her nametag says Dolly.

    "-- you /are/ eighteen, aren't you? Kids shouldn't be hitchhiking. Horrible things happen to hitchhikers on the regular." she states quietly, and she frowns.

    "An' I don't think so. Just that place is locked up pretty tight for regular kids. Every so often we see some expensive cars going up that way. Escalades and lambos, Gus says, stuff that you don't usually see 'round these parts."

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen nods, and says "Yea I was born in the summer, wanted to see the country before I went to college. You know ya always hear about kids backpacking through Asia or something, I wanted to go around America before I go to college." He tells her. He does whistle softly at the type of cars. "So, think it is mutants or just some rich folks, trying to do the whole scared straight thing with their kids?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Ah... well, you ain't missing much here, hon. This place is dyin'. Pretty soon all that'll be here is the gas station and that weird place up--"

    "Hey, Dolly, he ordering or is he yappin'?" comes an aged voice from the back. "Yeah, yeah Gus! Give the kid a minute, he's had to walk a mile in this crap!"

    The man next to Bart at the counter speaks up in a quiet voice: "... not like the kid that came through the window. It was minus fifteen that night. Dunno how he managed to make it that far in that cold wearing just one of them light jackets. Something's wrong with that kid; should have been an ice cube four minutes in." comments a man with bushy eyebrows and a long, drooping gray handlebar mustache.

    "There is something wrong when someone's riskin' that much to get outta a place. If it's rich people tryin' to scare their kids straight, whatever they're doing is working. "

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen hmms and will order a decent sized meal, steak and eggs, hashbrowns, and chili. It is a lot for a guy his size, but maybe the cold got him hungry. "If it is scaring someone that bad, sounds like it is going to far, glad I aint gotta look up there for a place to stay." He hides his anger at the people.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... well the boy can eat, that's for sure." the man with the mustache remarks quietly. Dolly brings over a big bowl of chili, with hunks of hamburger and onion and pepper, a couple packets of saltine crackers and a couple of slices of American cheese.

    "You won't find it." the man remarks with a frown. "They got a couple big gates. 'S what made me think of some kinna... prison. Rather than a kid's place. USed to be a homestead. Some religious group or something. Then some guy from back east showed up and erected fences and those big lights. Ain't nothing like I've seen before in these parts except for a prison."

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen nods his head and starts to eat a bit, and as he does "Dang, how long they been about, you would think some place like that would at least keep the towns around it with cash coming in for supplies and such. Sounds like those guys are jerks."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Well they ain't saints, that's fer sure." the man states. "I do odd jobs. Plumbin'. Some electrical work. Their guy was down, so I was hired to come through there. Had to sign a buncha paperwork, discussin' what I saw was indicated to be a 'bad idea'... but like you said--" he drinks something dark and amber. "They don't get their supplies here. They don't bring anything to the place except the occasional gallon of gas. So screw 'em." the man states. "There's still homesteadin' up there, all right. There's sheep and goats, they use draft horses instead of tractors. They got solar panels and their well's probably affecting all of ours with how much water they pull -- but they've got all sorts up there. Men, women, children, all wearin' them white outfits. They kept talkin' about how Mickey was gonna come and heal their sick."

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen s brow raises "white suits. someone going to heal their sick? That sounds like some kind of cult or something." He comments on that bit of info. "They aint going to get you guys sick are, they they trying to hide something from you." He looks to the guy "Your feeling ok I hope."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "We're fine, doll, you just focus on eating--" Dolly replies from the side as she cleans something up.

    "They're... not quite a cult. But there is something weird goin' on. The fact that now all those rich cars coming by, who knows? Maybe they tried to diversefy. Or maybe they're Scientologists or something." the man gives a shrug.

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen hmms and nods his head a bit to this and will finish his chili waiting on the rest of his food. He does make sure not to make a mess even wiping off his silverware for the rest of the food before offering Dolly, the bowl when she is nearby trying to help. "So, how long you had to put up with them, anything that would help your town keep going?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Wasn't so bad before... what, two years ago? Then they put up all those fences, moved some heavy equipment in." the man considers a moment. "They homeschool all their kids, but most of the time they seem like all right, quite neighbors. Minus the alarms the other night. Then all that business about it being some facility for troubled teens." he frowns. "Y'know, son, not everything's right there. Aside from that business about healing the sink... they had grates and exhaust pipes comin' out of the ground. I wonder if they did some diggin'."

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen hmms and nods his head a bit to this and says "Well, gotta say this stop has been interesting. I was hoping to find out about the towns in America and how to help them. So, you think they are messing with your water, has it tasted odd or anything since they came in?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Nah, but the Jones's well ran dry last summer. They had the shallowest one of us all. They had to have a new one dug, and that cost damn near fifteen-kay." Dolly states with an angry expression. "Ain't right. That house's been there for close to seventy years, they didn't have to dig a well in all that time."

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen shakes his head a bit at this and says "A shame, you all seem like good people out here." He comments, letting them continue seeing if he has got them on a roll so they might tell him more.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Well, we try." the man gives a wry grin to Bart, and as Bart's steak, eggs and hashbrowns are delivered to him, he tilts his hat a moment, and slides over a small stack of bills.

    "I'll pay for his half of the bed, Dolly. You just make sure the room's warm enough, huh?" he states, and he turns from his seat and grabs his thick winter jacket, and makes an exit.

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen looks over to the man and says "Thanks hopefully I can come back through and repay you sometime." He offers and starts eating and looks over to those left in the place "So what was the town here known for, back before folks stared moving away, a factory town?"

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen will finish his meal, and does take the bed for the night. In the middle of it, when Dolly is asleep, he will head out doing a super speed recon of the actual "prison" and then catches the ride with Sal in the morning, so none are the wiser he was there.