The passers by were a furtive lot, eyeing the Grim warily as they scuttled about on their own business, but eventually she found someone willing to talk.  He looked human enough, a scruffy thirtysomething in a paramedic's uniform, leaning against an ambulance, reading a newspaper and pausing every so often to sip from a cup of coffee resting on the hood of the manbulance.<br/><br/>"District 13 is thataway," he jerked his thumb down the street.  "But I don't think you want to go there right now.  First, you aren't dressed for a visit to the Tacks Man, nor to the offices of our own Officer Tock.  Secondly, it's almost thirteen o'clock."<br/><br/>He shifted the paper in his hands, turning a page, and now Kristen could read the headline:<br/><br/><strong>Alice Infestation Continues!</strong><br/><br/>"You must be new in town," he continues, giving her a playful little smile that might just be intended as flirtation.