Contrary to Uncle Marco's expectations,<em>los Buitres</em>haven't relaxed. Oh, they drank and indulged in every pleasure they could milk the hold for, courtesy Marco's deal with their leader.<br/><br/>Yet despite this dissolution there was an undercurrent of tension in the gang. Rez is irritable. That was a dangerous condition, and those around her knew it best.<em>los Buitres</em>this morning are twitchy nervous... Hardened road-raiders checking over their shoulder now and again to see if the big bird is about. Rez hasn't made an example of anyone in a while, and the way things are going, an example is probably overdue.<br/><br/>The omegas, the new, or the unproductive are jostling hard, trying to find ways to come to her attention that will push them up above their peers in a sort of devil-take-the-hindmost frenzy. It's the air of desperation that drives them, and it remains a subdued, crafty-careful frenzy -- a slow but intense dance of watching for or subtly trying to make the right kind of opportunity, because all of them know what'll happen if they screw up a play while Rez is in this kind of mood. Some gaze enviously at Newt, the youngest, who despite his age has recently managed to be promoted up from among their number. He's not all that much, they reassure each other. Just caught her eye in the right place at the right time and did okay. He's not like Ogre, say, or Cat or Tack...The sort of hardened killer who has a solid position in the gang, built atop a stack of bodies, and not all of those bodies outside of the ranks. Rez isn't the only one who occasionally indulges in house-cleaning, she's just the only one others check with first.<br/><br/>Despite their fears, the real thing protecting all the Vultures is that, though they don't know it, Rez secretly blames herself. She really had thought that maybe there was something to the guy. He sure didn't<em>fight</em>to get that pretty tech he had. So he found it somewhere. She'd taken his pretty toys away and within a day he'd gone and found as shiny a rifle as anyone could ask, and none yet knew where it came from. Mother Vulture smelled loot. She could practically taste it.<br/><br/>Still, when they'd milked him for every drop of information he ever had, he'd come up dry somehow. Lots to talk about, but none of it worth knowing. Maybe he just was one of those who had that kind of luck, to stumble into such things in places everyone knew were played out.<br/><br/>Most of the younger Vultures just imagine that for the moment, she's blood-sated.<br/><br/>The more long-term members are silently amused by this idea. They know that there's no such condition. Not for her.<br/><br/>Rez and her immediate coterie had strolled back in through Marco's gates long, long after the screaming had died down to the occasional pleading, panicked whimpers. Then the terrible silence of a throat that had lost all strength to scream.<br/><br/>She'd toured a bit in the dusk light, just wandering through the marketplace, watching the nervousness spread any time she shifted direction, the many hardscrabble stall-squatters' eyes filling with dread when she paused to glance through their wares. She wasn't buying. She just looked, and when she turned away those dealers whose goods had garnered her attention fretted over how they could protect what they owned in the night.<br/><br/>Eventually, the game palled. Things did that. Rez and her small handful wandered off to the only place in the hardhold where she was never,<em>ever</em>'Mother' or 'Mama.'<br/><br/>Mother's Place had probably been some kind of an office-building, once. It was one of the few spots in Marco's hold that had more than two or three floors. Now it was the closest thing to an upscale brothel for quite some distance...Unusual enough to draw visitors from afar by reputation alone. Mother boasted that he and his could fulfill any fantasy, that they had at least one of everything and probably two if you just wanted to watch. It was obviously an exaggeration, but few were liable to fuss about it given what Mother actually<em>did</em>have on offer.<br/><br/>What came out of Mother's place in the morning was starkly cleaner, leathers oiled, metal sanded to a sheen...Even the black feathers on her shoulders and worked into Rez's braid have been preened and straightened. ...But not a thing has changed in her face, and despite the best efforts of more than a few of Mother's best, the tension in her back hasn't changed a bit, either.<br/><br/>Churning around in her skull, undistracted by more reptilian pleasures, the leader of<em>los Buitres</em>weighs and balances situations and options. The tension in her gang. The frustrations at lost opportunities for further loot. Some compensation was to be had in light of the vehicles they'd brought back on their own hook, doubling what they'd been sent to fetch, but it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. Wealth was a<em>problem</em>, not a solution. The last thing she needed was for them to get fat, dumb and happy sitting around here. She needed warbirds, not Dogs.<br/><br/>No, the idle hands were a problem. The wealth was a problem (she'd somewhat profigately reduced her own sharing of that during the night).<br/><br/>The Vultures needed to ride, and they needed to raid. That was the real solution.<br/><br/>Sensing change in the wind, a small flock of early birds accumulate around her as Rez winds her way across the holding in the mid-morning light. She traces as straight a line as twisting alleys and rubbled buildings permit between the door to Mother's and the door of Amanuel's chapel.<br/><br/>The sheet-metal booms under her fist. "'Ey, Tinker. Gotta talk."<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">OOC notes</div><div class="spoiler_body">Marking off 1 barter and introducing an NPC Maestro'D. Enjoy.</div></div>