Mira had decided to pick up the old guy out of pity, since it looked like he was having an epically bad day. Part of this may have been inspired by the fact that she was bracing herself for a potentially bad day as well. The whale training staff had gotten a memo from Alec Hutch explaining that, based on various information that he had received, there was a possibility that a radical religious group may try to follow up on their well documented media promises of stoning one of the whales to death. For this reason, all of the whale shows that day had been canceled and the park's security team was on full alert and many were instructed to stay very close to the whale stadium.
As she was pulling up to drop the old guy off at the main entrance, she noticed a commotion going on, involving a lot of people and what looked like a large overturned bus, covered with heavy graffiti and laying right next to the front gate. After letting the guy out, she turned around and headed for the employee parking lot. She then took one of the many employee golf carts up to the whale stadium, using one of the park's back roads.
Floyd was already at the stadium when she arrived. He had positioned himself along one of the sides of the pool that was not easily accessible from the public areas of the stadium and for trainers only. As head whale trainer, Floyd had no intention of risking his own neck to intervene in whatever might happen today. But he had to look like he was there to help out, if need be. For professional reasons, he wanted to make his presence known, but physically stay out of harm's way and this is what had determined where he chose to stand when Mira joined him.
Floyd's day had already started out weird. On his way in to work this morning, he came across some psycho on the side of the road wearing an all white suit covered in mud. This person had frizzy strands of a gray combover sticking up and out of the side of his mostly bald head and wild looking eyes. He was frantically trying to wave Floyd down and almost became road pizza in the process. He would've ended up like a human highway possum if he hadn't moved out of the way at the last minute, since there was no way in hell that Floyd was going to stop for a freak like that.
It wasn't long after Mira arrived, that chaos erupted in the whale stadium. A large group of people that looked to be composed primarily of active senior citizens, besieged the stadium and made their way down the stairs that cut between the bleachers. They had almost made it to the edge of the tank before any security could intervene. The police were already present at the park, but they had their hands full at the front gate where a large bus full of savage hippies were trying to force their way into the park, in order to "free the whales" and to take revenge for their fallen comrades, who they claim had been assaulted there, weeks before. The park's own security force was now solely responsible for fending off the mob of angry, stone wielding Christians and defending the whale.
The security personnel had created a defensive blockade with their bodies on the stadium floor, between the rock-happy mob and the tank. They didn't have enough of an advantage in numbers to be able to really subdue the crowd and so they were only able to try and push them back as best they could. This was the scene that Rev. Don Thompson witnessed as he entered the stadium and looked down. He had just barely managed to sneak in the front gate during all of the confusion, and had made his way directly to the whale show stadium.
At this point he was exhausted and running mostly on sheer willpower. He also looked like a wreck. This thought entered his mind when he realize that there were several news crews towards the top of this stadium that were capturing all of the action going on below. This is what he had wanted of course, but he hated the fact that he was going to look like crap during his moment of glory. But this was war, after all. His people of God were literally struggling against the evil forces of a malevolent entertainment corporation. How could he be expected to look his best during the heat of battle? Besides, there would be plenty of time to look good on TV later; after today's victory.
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