Strip 697 -- First Seen: 2011-05-06
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The Transcript For This Page

Panel 1
Re-establish the scene of Chang visiting Ed in Ed's recovery room.
Ed: Anarchy is not paradise. Just as in any society, there are bad people who do bad things.
Ed: The only advantage here is that these things are relatively rare. 'Evolution in Action.'

Panel 2
Begin flash-back sequence, we see Vinnie and Neil talking to the former owner of the Hôtel de Crillon, who happens to look a lot like this fellow: http://www.scottbieser.com/showntell/MeFromCamera1-28.JPG
Caption (Ed): 'Some of my friends tracked down the former owner of the Hôtel de Crillon, and asked him if he knew any secret ways into the hotel.
Caption: 'He said there were, and when he heard about Kate, offered to lead a rescue team.'

Panel 3
The Former Owner is standing next to a four-stack of monitors, on which we can see various parts of the hotel – a hallway, the cafe kitchen, a business office, a guest room (currently empty).
Caption (Ed): 'Then he dropped the bombshell. When hotel supplies began disappearing, he had tanglenet cameras installed.'
Caption: 'Turns out the cameras weren't just to stop theft; our boy is a voyeur.'

Panel 4
Looking past the backside of the monitors, at Vinnie, Neil, Former Owner and two other fairly muscular Belters, who are looking at the monitors with wide eyes.
Caption (Ed): 'We found Kate and your 'Special Services Operatives' in a storage room, just meters from the room where the secret entrance came out.
Caption: 'Chang, the rescue team … saw things.'

Panel 5
Pull in closer on the four rescuers. They are looking at the monitors with mixtures of shock, horror, and revulsion.
Caption (Ed): 'Just for their sick amusement, those animals were humiliating and terrorizing Kate.
Caption: 'They had her stripped naked and tied to the storage shelves. They did things ...'

Panel 6
Back to the present. Ed is finishing his somber story. Chang is looking not at Ed, but off into the distance, with a cold fear in his eyes.
Ed: Chang, my men are only human.

Panel 7
Chang is now looking at Ed with a blank expression.
Chang: So what you are telling me is that four of my soldiers went AWOL.
Chang: I guess they could be anywhere by now …
Ed: Yeah.