Boyd inhaled as Ronnie spoke, as if he were taking in her words by mouth. In reality, he was waiting for a pause to speak. When the pause came, he ran his hand through his hair, his fingers stopping just at his crown and scratching gently. Boyd's hesitation was met with Noella's sudden reappearance as well as very unexpected physical contact from the woman. The two made their intentions clear, and Boyd was surprised that he had recruited two Peacers to his cause with very little effort. It was enough to cause his hand to fall gently to the table in contemplation. He couldn't be certain if what he felt on his face was a slight smile as something familiar welled up in him, a feeling of imminent danger with just a hint of potential greatness.

After a moment, Boyd finally spoke: "Deadly as he may have been... The man was suffering. Had himself something wrong with his insides. From what I'd heard, he hadn't picked up a gun nor blade in more than a year. He was weak... Dying. Maybe could have lived another week or two before it caught up with him. I doubt he put up a fight to be honest." Boyd shook his head as he ran his fingers around the rim of his shot glass. "It begs the question why this fella shot a dying man, rather than waiting for his own body to do the dirty work. Either way, five grand [i]does[/i] go a long way around here. But we won't be able to use any guild resources without the Old Man catching scent of our intentions." 

Suddenly, the tavern felt unusually cramped to Boyd, as if the number of support beams had tripled in the last few minutes and the walls were uncomfortably inward upon the center of the room. It was a common sensation for Boyd when he had elsewhere he needed to be. "Both of you." He spoke in a hushed tone. "Gather what supplies you can without drawing too much attention. If anyone asks: You're just going on a scavenging trip. Then meet me at the old well. The broken one behind the clinic." Boyd's face turned a bit sour for a moment, though it was only a flicker of uneasiness. "I'm going to have to find some way to get a car."

---

Having left the tavern and parted ways with his co-conspirators, Boyd IV made his way back upstairs and through the stronghold. The first thing he had to do was get an old requisition form for a vehicle. 'Form' was a strong word here, as it usually just consisted of a note with a personal request on it. The key here was that it had to be A: Already approved. and B: Unnoticed if missing.

After close to half an hour of watching the Peacer in charge of running requisitions "up the ladder" so to speak, Boyd saw his chance: Two relatively new Peace Keepers had requested a transport vehicle for moving machine parts. Since they were low on the totem pole, it was unlikely they would be approved for anything particularly good, most likely getting an old station wagon or the like. Even though he knew he would need something better eventually, Boyd would rather have a piece of garbage car that was unlikely to be missed for a while. He just needed someone without his father's face to claim the vehicle after intercepting the form.

---

A few minutes and some fast talking had allowed Boyd to personally see the request form taken to the motor pool out back. Something else had caught his attention on the way however: His father must have been openly recruiting once more as there was someone sitting in one of the interrogation rooms. The key give away that it was not a prisoner was the fact that he didn't have a broken nose or fingers. A new face was exactly what he needed to get the vehicle attached to the requisition form in his pocket.

Taking a clip board from the nearest vacant desk, Boyd wandered nonchalantly toward the room, stopping to smile at the Peacer he had seen lead the man inside. The moment that the coast was clear, he opened the door and entered with a veil of enthusiasm that made the back of his mouth taste bitter. "Hey there, fella." His gloved hand extended toward the young man, the other holding the blank clipboard to his chest. Boyd wasn't the best at social interaction non involving violent proceedings in the near future. "John... Long. Call me Long John." The introduction tumbled from Boyd's lips with uncomfortable uncertainty. "So you're here to join up?"

The man Boyd spoke to was more lucid than he had hoped, and not some brick wall with hands he could fool. None the less, he had the home field advantage and it was pretty clear that this man was not a native to this stronghold.