… AND PLAY THE GAME UNTIL THE END
Demenzia
July 31st, 29475
Borealis
“Sorry for having made you wait, Miss,” the shopkeeper says with a smile to the young woman standing in front of him, as the previous customer is departing with a few medpacks and a pocket full of stims. “What can I do for you?”
“Aye, jus’ tha regular business,” the woman smiles, putting her mirrorshades off to unveil deep dark eyes and a delicate face framed by two long white locks and brown hair gathered in a ponytail. For half a second, her gesture reveals the grip of the Kerans Grinner hidden under her long trench-coat, as well as clothes seemingly crafted in Last Ditch and interface devices hanging at her belt.
“…I see,” the shopkeeper says. “Coming like the others for a little bit of hunting?”
“Ain’t random-hunting. I’m lookin’ fer someone who’s said ta hide in the area. Guess I can spare a few medpacks and some nano-kits on this, if ya see what I mean.”
“Of course, Miss. Here. Tell me what kind and what quantity. I can have everything you want.”
She smiles, talking a little longer with the shopkeeper, and finally coming to a deal. Usual business, as she has said. She knows that for more useful and illegal stuff, she had better look at the hidden shop outside of the town. This is one of the things that haven’t changed, though you could now sometimes catch there some Agent trying to pass for one of the ‘Community’.
“Say, Mistah, my big bro said there was another pharmashop here, some time ago?”
“Ah, you mean the one that was there before? I don’t know, Miss,” the shopkeeper answers with a shrug. “It has burnt ten years ago, from what I’ve heard - or was it twelve? Yes, it could very well have been a pharmashop too. You know, given the low price at which I could buy this place, I won’t complain. Why this question?”
“Jus’ me bein’ nosy. Dun’t mind me,” the young woman shrugs. “Well, thanks a lot, Mistah. It was a pleasure to do business with ya,” she adds with another charming smile, before leaving the shop.
The night is soon to fall over Rubi-Ka–the best time to go and fetch that guy. Not that fetching him matters a lot: it is above all what he has stolen that is of interest to her. If she has to kill him in the process, well… let it be done with it. She wouldn’t be leading such an interesting life if she had stayed working at Omni HQ for the rest of her life–and damn it, you could make way more money by minding the Business, the one she had been so used to do, back in those times.
Heiji had been wrong on one point. She hadn’t had any desire to start a ‘new life’. Twice she was born in the underground. Twice she had decided to stay, the second time with more incentives and better back-up. When you were a Fixer at heart, nothing could make you forget this existence. It had really been a child’s play to slightly modify this new ‘identity’ of hers, and dive back deep into what she had once known when she still was Deannah, though she hadn’t taken this name back. Too dangerous. Too well-known. And most of all, if the organization was still as powerful as it had been fifteen years ago, though she doubted it now, it would endanger her too much and too quickly for very little reward.
Often, she has wondered about the organization, and tried to find other, new proofs. But those last years, its members have seemingly assumed a very low profile, though for what reason, she doesn’t know. Maybe they’dll surface again one day, more powerful than ever. Maybe not. Until then, she’ll watch, learn, gather information, and wait. She is soon due to go back to Omni-HQ and report her observations anyway. She has a steady job now, more important to her than these little assigments she would run from time to time, helping other people to lay hands on a runaway or secure stolen items. She has contacts, too.
Perhaps she will ask for a longer assignment next time. One that will send her to the North, one that will let her see the lands there, and confirm her choice–or cause her to make another one. She will have to tell Ruby about this. She is most certainly ready.
“So, so. I have what I need. Too bad… It’d have been so good if we could have talked to him again. I really wonder where our ol’ Doc is now. Ne, Heiji-kun?”
Heh. Don’t worry about Cyrus. He was clever enough to escape twice, after all. I guess he also had his Emergency Exits…
“Yeah, sure… But if I wanna bring ya back…”
Don’t worry about this yet.
We’re together, ain’t we?
We’re together, Dee - or should I say, ‘Demenzia’, now?
“Yeah. De-men-zia. Ya gave me a pretty new name, I’ve added tha rest,” Demenzia chuckles for herself, not noticing the odd looks two passers-by give her at that moment. She has really taken on too much of an habit of talking alone, in the street or everywhere else. Some Fixers whisper she is crazy–hence the nickname she has chosen (or maybe has it been given to her? She can’t remember well… something to do with a stupid bet during one of the evenings she has been allowed to leave the training quarters…). Some others… well, some others just shrug as they look at her; after all, you need to be a little crazy or at least a little odd to become a Fixer and stay alive all these years.
And in the back of her mind, intertwined with hers in a way no Doc nor Scientist has ever been able to experiment on before, alive as he has always been since these terrible events, more than one decade ago, Heiji kindly smiles back at her.
The Omni-Tek agent now operating under the codename of Demenzia has been right since the beginning.
Heiji is still alive.
Still alive.
In.
Her.