Caine stood, a bit upset that his deal with Bliss was as of yet unresolved and pulled on his coat, giving her a polite smile."Goodnight Bliss Lovejoy." He said, moving like he might give her a small kiss, but instead pulling himself back and heading towards the hallway that lead to the lobby and eventually, the night.
As he walked away Bliss smiled to herself, watching him. "Goodnight Caine." She said, with a bit of disappointment.
Ash Dracchenn turned her gaze ever so slightly, sweeping it over the cafeteria, settling her stony expression upon the man with one eye. He returned half of her stare, motioning ever so slightly for her to come sit by him. She responded, without a word and began to make her way through the thick crowd that milled about in the cafeteria towards his table. He moved his feet down off of the tabletop, using one boot-clad foot to kick a chair out for her to sit in and the other to move a bag out from under his chair, over to the one he was moving out for her. She didn’t sit, instead she stood over him, imposingly, with her arms crossed over her chest. He didn’t seem to mind her hovering over his table, instead he flashed his single pupil down under the table, as if to say: "Look."
"What you need is under the table." He said coolly.
She responded to him with what had all the outward appearances of nonsense. "What’s wrong? Were you afraid of a little competition?"
He shrugged a bit, kicking the large, truck battery-shaped bag out from under the table towards her feet. "Sorry ‘bout that." He paused for a moment. "I just had to make this trade with you before I left."
"You’re not sorry." She said coldly, bending down to open the sack and examine the large truck battery that lay within, allowing a small, tight smile to slide across her face like motor oil on rubber before she stood again. As she brought her eyes up to face him she caught what she swore could have been a small grin crossing his face, she forgot about it as he spoke to her again.
"I need three days rations, some jerky, and a shower card." His eye narrowed, scanning away from Ash to a man who was coming towards them from another part of the café.
Ash hefted the bag up onto her shoulder with a strength that lay hidden under the surface of her skin. She turned to leave as the second man approached the Cyclops that had just traded away the battery, she swore colorfully under her breath as she walked away slowly.
"We got a deal doc?" He said as she left the room without another word. "We’d better have a deal." He trailed off as the man finally made his way through the other people in the cafeteria and approached earshot.
"I’m lookin’ fer’ sumthin’. Maybe you c’n help me." The blatantly uneducated man said.
His single eye roamed over the surface of the stranger, taking him in carefully. "You’ve got five minutes."
The other man sneered at him. "I got all the time in the world pal. An’ I ain’t yer’ kid neither."
"Well, off with you then. I don’t got time for punks like you."
"Listen. I’m just looking for some lighter fluid." With a sudden movement he took a golden locket off from around his neck and set it down on the table. "I’ll make it worth your while."
"Lemme’ see." He just barely motioned to the locket with a finger. The man handed it to him and the one-eyed man ran his fingers over it with a bit of interest.
"What can I do with it?" He said with a bit of intrigue.
"Trade it." The other man said with a shrug.
"How much you need?" He said finally, handing the locket back to the man. "And when?"
"A pint. By the end of the week."
One-eye nodded. "East ‘nuff."
Mera came out of the hallway that led out of the ER after having finished up with the syrynykk woman, leaving her to talk with Shad about what had happened. She looked up to see another member of the Union of Medics, Terra Lowinn walking towards her. She smiled up at Terra. "You missed all the fun."
"Good." Terra chuckled, turning to walk beside Mera, towards the lobby. "What happened?"
Mera proceeded to recount the tale of the syrynykk woman who had stumbled in earlier that day as the crossed through the lobby, passing Mirandahh who carried a large bag slung over her shoulder and hurried along without so much as a nod to acknowledge their presence. Ed Archer hurried along behind her, doing his best at looking like he wasn’t following her. Ash proceeded out of the lobby through a set of double doors that led into the ambulance bay. The rain poured down from above, splattering onto the concrete near the large opening that led out into the cool New Rydynn night. She crossed the hard surface with the battery hanging down onto her back by the straps that threatened to give way at any moment. Ed watched her as she set the battery down and stood, shoulders stooped over and her head down.
"Elliot. Play something hard. I don’t want to hear myself think right now."
A tone came from the speakers overhead as the all-too-huumunn voice of the Elliot 7 Series Supercomputer echoed off of the smooth walls of the ambulance bays. "HARD, Mirandahh?"
"Yes Elliot. Please." Ed looked over at the woman who stood dejectedly by the stacks of junk she had collected and stored for the Hospital over the years. He wondered what could have brought her to this, her usually gruff and callous exterior had been chipped away before his eyes, revealing a battered woman, who just like everything else on New Rydynn had been worn smooth, had deteriorated.
"The 12th Symphony of Carll Levvett, circa 2100 a.a., Mirandahh. I hope this is acceptable."
"Yeah, it’s great Elliot, thanks." She said as the symphony began with a thunderous crescendo of percussion which gave way to a melody made of apparently randomly played notes on several different brass instruments, accompanied by thundering crashes of cymbals which seemed to wash over the entire arrangement. Ed looked away from Ash for a moment as the peculiar music began to rain down over the gentle sound of the rain with a force that Ed had not heard in music before. He felt overwhelmed by the rising and falling of the harsh sounds which his ears told him shouldn’t go together.
"Mirandahh, my files indicate that Levvett’s 12th symphony is EXTREMELY hard to play." Elliot’s voice said from somewhere in the Hospital’s sub-basement.
Ed looked back over at Ash, who had not yet responded to the computer. He saw that she was straining herself to lift the heavy battery up from it’s resting position on the floor and up into the engine block of an ambulance which was up on blocks in the bay. Once it was in place, she let it go to land against the hard metal of the engine with a loud crash which seemed to melt into the music which was coming from above. Ash stood up to her full height, dusting off her hands, then she went about gathering up the items One-eye had asked for in return. She gathered from her pile of things three days worth of rations, some jerky, a shower card and a little something extra. A pack of pre-war cigarettes, still in it’s cellophane.
The one-eyed man sat alone again, a bit concerned at Ash’s long absence with his half of the deal. He swept his eye over the crowd in the cafeteria before standing and storming out through the double doors which led to the lobby, he swept through the lobby, pushing his long, black coat behind him as he turned to the doors which lead to the ambulance bay. He stood there in the doorway, not even noticing Ed hiding in the shadows, watching Ash squirm about in her stash of goods, pulling together her half of the bargain. He leaned across the doorway, reaching into his pocket for his packet of cigarettes. He tipped the box, dumping out his last precious stick into his palm, crumpling the pack and shoving it back into his pocket. His hand returned, holding a small lighter. "You okay Doc?" He said into the large, cool bay as he stuck the rolled leaves into his mouth and coaxing a small flame out of the lighter.
"When’d you start caring?" She said, trying hard to not sound as surprised as she felt. She turned to face him, throwing the bag across the floor to him, letting it slide to a stop at his feet.
"You’d be surprised." He said, sliding the lighter back into his pocket, pulling smoke through the stick into his lungs and letting his eye slide up towards her before he exhaled.
Ash simply snorted at him, turning to look over towards where Ed hid, not conscious that he was there. "Yeah. Right."
The one eyed man picked up the strap of the bag, slinging it over his shoulder and turning to leave, letting a thin trail of smoke remain hanging behind him as he made his way back out into the lobby.
The supercomputer counted down the time remaining in the symphony as it sat, sprawled throughout the basements and sub basements of the Hospital. It calculated the amount of time it would take to properly phrase a question to Mirandahh then to properly select a new piece that would fit within the parameters of her next request. It chose a second, "backup" selection from within it’s audio files just in case Mirandahh had no preference on the matter and began to run a locate program, centering the search parameters around her last known location and sweeping out in concentric circles.
She was in the ambulance bay, staying within a central location.
Within another area of the Hospital the audio sensors mounted within the ceiling picked up a query directed towards itself. The query was routed into another processing unit as the symphony began to wind down, the computer’s sensors began a locate program on Dr. Mortis, centered around his living quarters and sweeping out through the Hospital in concentric circles, but was unable to locate the doctor.
The computer prepared to run controlled bursts of electricity to it’s speakers centralized around Dr. Lowinn in the proper sequence so as to produce a sound equivalent to a huumunn male voice saying: "Dr. Mortis does not seem to be available at this time Dr. Lowinn, nor is he in his quarters." Then it did, noting the polite way which the doctor responded to him, as if it mattered how polite she was to this non-feeling super computer.
Then it began to run the complex set of actions it had set up earlier around Ash, who as of yet had not moved.
Ash watched as the one-eyed man left the bay with his newly found possessions, muttering to herself about the music she had unknowingly asked Elliot to play for her. Cursing to herself about uploading some heavy metal into Elliot’s audio banks. She exhaled in relief as the symphony finally came to a slow, loud, painful end. "Would you like another hard selection Mirandahh?" The speakers around her suddenly asked her.
"No Elliot. Could you just play something ... sad?" She said, shaking her head at the computer’s selection of audio files.
There was a silence in the air of the Hospital as the computer made the proper selection from his audio files. Finally the computer had arrived upon the proper selection and it’s speakers began to pour out the sounds of tribal chanting and drums.
"I have selected the burial right of the syrynykk, Mirandahh. I believe it is appropriately sad, no?"
The one-eyed man made his way as far as the lobby before turning and returning to Ash’s ambulance bay. He saw her lying back against the wall with her knees pulled up to her chest as he came in. He crossed the hard concrete floor to crouch in front of her, dropping the bag next to him. She seemed as if she was about to cry. He lifted her chin up with one finger and looked into her left eye. She looked away from him a moment, seeing the form of Jaredd Boyle moving about in the shadows of the bay, she called out to him.
"You got one?" She said into the darkness, pulling herself up from her crouch to stand at her full height.
He turned towards where her voice came from, moving towards where the one-eyed man and Ash sat. Yeah I got one, but I didn’t bring it with, not after what happened last time." He shot the other man a look. "I see you found some use out of the other one though."
"Yeah, I figure I could have either used it or let it go to the scavengers." She said shrugging.
The one-eyed man stood up from where he kneeled in front of Ash and turned to where Jaredd’s voice came from. He turned back to face Ash. "Listen, I’ll be back. We’ll talk later." Ash nodded at him and he left the bay with his usual air of having something better to do.
"Well, I had some of my boys go out into the ruins and locate what we think is an engine that you could put to use."
"What’s the asking price?"
"To be honest with you I hadn’t thought about that." He shrugged. "Like I said I didn’t bring the whole rig with me."
"Well, I’m gonna’ have to see it before I agree on ANY trade."
"I’m not too concerned about getting paid for it, you’d just have to come and pick it up."
"Oh no, I’m not gonna’ just pick it up unless we got a deal. I don’t like being beholden to nobody. Got it?"
"Well then, do you have transportation out there, or do you need a ride?" Ash ignored him a second distracted by something. "Well, what is it, you need a ride or not?"
"I’d take a Union, but the Nukes and the Freemen tend to shoot them up." She said, looking over at the Church officer.
"I don’t understand why they’d go’n do s’mthin like that Ash, yer s’posed to be neutral, no sense in wastin’ ammo’ on friendlies." He smirked and shrugged again. "Then again I guess there are quite a few itchy trigger fingers out there."
"Yeah, there are." She said coldly, looking over at the ambulance up on blocks. "But you offered me transportation."
"Yes’m I did." He said nodding. "When d’ya wanna’ go?"
"How about right now?"
"My bike’s waiting out front." He said, motioning towards the door that led to the outside.
"Then lead the way Mr. Boyle, and maybe we can discuss price on the way over." With that the two of them made their way out into the cool wet rain of the New Rydynn night, becoming just two more empty souls struggling to survive in the crushing strangle-hold of reality.