[IC] Act One: Savannah

At the first opportunity, Gabriel shows the others the journal with its baffling, yet fascinating sketches:

"Someone of respectible artistic talent I see," Samuel notes as he leafs through the journal. Still not entirely certain what he was reading, he adds, "A trip to Los Angeles seems to be in order then, if I'm reading this correctly."

"And most interesting from a Psychiatric point of view, too," he adds.

Nodding, he agrees "It certainly seems so. Let's check out of our rooms and get back to the airfield."

"This is crazy! What bothers me with this bookwash is that there are clearly more people out there who believe in it, dangerous people! Look at that thing! Explosives?"

Lillian takes a breath, "I'm all for a trip to LA. I would like to take look at their Tin Pan Alley when we're out there. It could help my career in the long run."

You each ready your things at the hotel, and check out. Dr Walker thinks to phone Frank at the airfield to prepare the plane - refuel, check the gauges, whatever it is he does to make it ship-shape (plane-shape?) - and you set off in the car. As you wind through the rural roads (at least the ones to the airfield are better than the ones to the Henslowe estate), you come across another car partially blocking the road, and several gentlemen stood around it. Presuming that it has broken down, you get out to enquire as to whether you can help, and almost immediately discover your error. The men, a mix of white men and some of east Asian origin of some kind, look surly, and start to jabber at you in some unknown language (even the white men!), while one pushes a piece of paper into Samuel's hands.

"What is the meaning of this?" he protests, observing the interlopers.

Without taking his eyes off the group of men, and his free hand slipping to his side, Samuel answers the Doc's question. "They want us to give up, Doc."

"How on earth do they know about us?" Lillian grumbles quietly.

One of the men sneers at Dr Walker as he asks his question, and pushes him back, standing as if ready to fight the good doctor. He repeats the gibberish that the group are speaking between them, all long vowels and few consonants, and totally unintelligible, but rather obviously a threat or insult from his demeanour and the way he spits the words out, if words they are.

Samuel has, surprisingly, been around many Asians of various cultures in his life - not enough to have picked up more than a smattering of words (thanks, please, yes, no, etc) - but enough to recognise when various languages are being spoken. He's not always 100%, and couldn't really translate or speak or anything, but he notices that some of the men have tattoos - thick, black-lined tattoos - and can recognise that they have Thai words in them, but the language they're all speaking? Definitely not Thai. Not close to any Asian language that he's ever heard, in fact. Almost like it's not an actual language at all, just sounds, and yet, they all seem to understand it and babble away in it as if it were.

"The tattoos look like the ones I saw in Siam, but... they aren't speaking the language," Samuel says -- quietly! -- to his companions. "I'm not sure what language they're speaking."

Through it all, he keeps his eyes on the group and his hand back just far enough that drawing his sidearm wouldn't be an issue if necessary.