Utterly Mad

"Oh? You get that thing foxed ma'am?" Asked someone from around the fire. In her sudden exaltation, she'd forgotten momentarily where she was. Catnip couldn't, wouldn't, put the stone back. She'd searched so long and had others searching so long. The fact of her displacement didn't matter, she had it. She finally had it in her grasp and now... She understood. The train would run off the stone as a wind cell. It would provide unlimited power to her Magnum opus. In her hands she held the solution to the world's power problems and also the key to total annihilation. A vortex stone. Catnip gulped hard and in one smooth unsuspicious movement, dropped the stone down her shirt where it sat cool between her breasts. She gave her shirt, and the bra under it a little tug to loosen them a little in the same motion. It wouldn't stay there long, Catnip would move the stone to her bag or a pocket very soon but she had to act natural first.

"It's empty..." She said with the practiced solemnity she saved for lying to Pricetown's merchants or to Pinkies enforcers when they came looking for swiped property.

"Ah? Oh. I thought you said there was something in it though?" Asked one of the people gathered around. Catnip turned, cannister in hand and as she did so, syrupticiously dropped a scrap of metal into it. The move was practically perfect and when she handed it over the people were not at all surprised when the chunk of twisted steel dropped out of it. "Huh, well. At least there's one, right?"

"Yeah... I just hope it works." On the outside, Catnip was cold and calm, but inside her heart was doing backflips and pull ups. She wanted to jump and shout in the primal way she and her siblings had in moments of extreme triumph, but held the compulsion in. It became harder to do that though when she realized she could use the stone to return home as well.

"What's that smile for? Even with one, we are still trapped in here. I hope to God we won't need the second."

Catnip hadn't felt the smile rising to her lips and as soon as it was mentioned, it dropped. Her tools were put away, the stone was slipped down the front of her shirt and into a pouch on the front of her belt, and she moved closer to the fire. The flames danced and sparked, flickering here and there, casting shadows like dancers on the sides of the sawn off oil drum. The guitar changed hands and the song changed again. Catnip began to doze, listening to the fire and the guitar and the long low wail of the wind. Strange, that last. Her eyes snapped open and the guitar came to a discordant jangle as the gathered people realized, someone was screaming. Catnip didn't see who said the last words she would remember from that night, but she would remember them long after she'd kicked the dust of Pricetown from her heels.

"Jesus fuck, she's burning..."