Episode 20, Part II: Rogues

Omexon.

'The city hasn't changed much,' Rei thought, and pointedly did not adjust her disguise. Not that blue contacts for her eyes was much of a disguise, but when paired with a clothing she felt reasonably sure approximated what a normal nineteen year old Omexan girl might wear, it worked well enough. At the very least, she didn't look like a Goshi Assassin, and that was good. It was all second-hand clothing, and twenty years out of date as far as sty le goes, but that was fine. She'd briefly considering applying makeup to complete the disguise, but discarded it almost immediately. Rei was a girl with many skills, but her grasp of all things domestic went only as far as hearsay. That is to say, she'd heard people say things on the subject, but had never actually been involved in the conversation herself. Neat and functional were her bywords, almost by necessity, but also by choice: she had no desire whatever to be like Aimi.

Omexon was basically a series of concentric crescents. Built on a vast network of terraces descending from the top of the massive sea-cliffs down to sea level, the city made for a truly impressive sight, and the sheer scale of its construction was sure to inspire awe in even the most jaded tourist.

At least, that's what the travel book said. No, really. It's right there in the introduction. Right after the table of contents (which included such gripping entries as 'where to eat' and 'where to shop').

Rei tossed the Omexon Tourist's Guide travel book into a disposal bin outside of the tavern where she was scheduled to meet with her contact. Yes, tavern. Omexon was the sort of Cheldrun city that had taverns. Rei didn't care much for it. She hadn't cared much for it the last time she'd been here, either. Of course, the last time she'd been here, it had been as a tag-along on one of Aimi's early training missions. Technically, she'd been supposed to make sure Aimi didn't get into any trouble, but Aimi and trouble are sort of like salami sandwiches and scrambled eggs: two things which you wouldn't think would go together very well, but inexplicably wind up paired more often than not. But that's another story, and certainly not one that Rei was thinking about.

What was Rei thinking about?
Well, there were a number of things on her mind, the first and foremost of which was murder. Unfortunately, Nero was nowhere within easy reach, so she had to content herself with the second thought that was on her mind: information gathering. She needed to find her friends, after all.

Rei took one last look at the city. The air was still, the sea-breeze curiously absent today. The sky was thick with blackrock smoke, and the forts atop the sea cliffs that bordered the harbour on either side gleamed dully against the twin contrasts of sparkling ocean and murky sky.

She ducked into the tavern.

The first thing Rei did when entering a room was make a note of all of its entrances, exits, and of the positions of everyone in it. It wasn't something she needed to think about anymore - it was second nature. Enter a room, take in the layout and scan the crowd for possible threats. It was a sensible approach to room-entry. Or possibly a paranoid one. Either way, it took her a few seconds to locate her contact, seated as he was at a clean, well-lit, cheerful sort of table in the middle of the room (the dark corners were all, regrettably, occupied).

Rei sat down in front of the man, pointedly ignoring the content of his thoughts. "I was told you had information for me," she said. Her voice was pitched not to carry beyond the table.

He looked at her for a long moment. "... Your disguise sucks, kid," he said.

Rei felt a brief flash of irritation, but gave no outward sign of it.

When she didn't react to his insult, the man smiled, and seemed to relax. "You'd be surprised how often people like yourself get flustered by a comment like that. Downright unprofessional. But seriously, it sucks. Unless you're going for 'social outcast.' Not my business, though. I'm Adelphos." He held out a hand, and it hung there in the air between them for a few moments before he lowered it again.

Rei watched Adelphos, her face blank, showing no visible manifestation of her annoyance. Calmly, she handed him the first of her two datapads, this one showing the descriptions of a motley group of seemingly completely dissimilar people: a male Mechified, a female Vorax, a female Zipsum, a male Prill, a male Allskin. It was not strictly necessary, but they had already established that the handing over of the datapad and its content would be the last signal to confirm her identity to this contact.

Adelphos let out an amused snort as he read the description of the allskin male. "Kid," he said, "If I knew where to find Daitokuji Kiyoshi, I wouldn't be working this place. I'd be living in a mansion in the Park District, squandering my newly acquired fortune of twenty eight years on fine wine, women, and fancy clothes."

"My name isn't 'kid,'" Rei said.

"Oh?"

She was silent for a moment, and in that moment, the mask came down ever so briefly, and Rei looked deeply troubled. Up it went again. Impassive. Stoic. "You can call me Mikomi," she said.

"Mikomi?" Adelphos asked dubiously. "You feeling ironic on your naming day?"

Rei did not reply, but allowed a small fraction of her killing intent to escape from her psychic shields: not enough to truly indicate said intent, but enough that Adelphos and anyone else who happened to be making eye contact with her at that moment felt a chill run up and down his spine.

"Eh," he said, "Fair enough. Anyways, like I was saying, there's nothing I can do to help you find Daitokuji. The others, though, I may have a few leads on. Depending, of course, on what you've got to trade for it."

Rei produced a second datapad, this one containing copies of several files relating to DisLocator research, placed it on the table, and slid it over to Adelphos telekinetically.

Adelphos raised an eyebrow when the datapad slid over to him seemingly of its own accord, but said nothing. He scooped it up and quickly scanned over the information contained therein. After a moment, he whistled appreciatively. "Looks like we're in business, Mikomi. Can't say I've seen any sign of your Karian targets, but the Mechified... well, there's a pirate named Maverick who fits that description. Sails with the Rusty Nail Rogues."

Rei raised an eyebrow. Apparently when Adelphos thought of 'Rusty Nail Rogues' he thought of himself punching a blonde fop in the nose, and of said fop running away crying to... well, that was an odd image. "Never heard of them," she said.

"Neither had I until just recently," Adelphos replied. "They've been making a nuisance of themselves lately. Hitting minor shipments here and there. The Omexan Navy would take them out, but frankly, it's got better things to do. There's supposedly a few coastal villages that cater to the band." He shrugged. "It's all here." He produced a small datapad from his pocket and slid it across the table.

Rei took the datapad. "Thanks," she said.

"Any time, Mikomi." He gave her a considering look. "Hey, tell you what. You ever get tired of your current line of work, I could use someone who knows her way around the finer points of corporate espionage."

Rei didn't bother replying.

The search for the Rusty Nail Rogues consumed the next two days as Rei followed up on the leads she'd been given. She was almost disappointed at how easy it was to find their recruiters in a little village within a few hour's walk north of Omexan. On the plus side, finding their recruiters so quickly had left her with plenty of time in which to get caught up on current events.

The Yogensha League was holding a major summit on the subject of the excesses of the Goshi Mining Corporation. Goshi had diversified its interests, it seemed, no longer simply mining blackrock, but now expanding into the realm of private armies... fully equipped with teleportation devices.

Yeah. That's a doozy. At least, the members of the Yogensha League thought so, hence, the summit to discuss the situation. The plan had been to call Geneva Prime to task for their management of the company, but when Geneva Prime had declined to attend, implicitly throwing its approval behind Goshi's activities, the summit had taken on a much more militant feel. That was the reason for the large crowds in Omexan, and for the ridiculous levels of security that Rei had noticed when entering the city.

All in all, Rei thought that the whole thing made a dreadfully convenient target, and fully expected Goshi to show up with their teleporting troops to assassinate the leaders of their only serious opposition in Cheldrun society. At least, that's what she would have done, if she'd been in charge of Goshi. She was surprised that the summit was even going forward, actually. Especially with such an old-fashioned show of military force as unveiling a new battleship. The Rodan, it was called. The introduction of the DisLocators had changed the playing field: Goshi didn't have to play by the normal rules of warfare anymore, and the members of the Yogensha League apparently had not realized that yet. If Goshi knew its business, it would not give them a chance to do so: once the DisLocators had been conclusively demonstrated, everyone would adapt their tactics and planning accordingly, but until that happened, there was a window of opportunity in which the Yogensha League was uniquely, supremely vulnerable.

It was enough to make a girl grin, and grin she did.

Armed with an evil (Rei would have said 'cheerful') grin, Rei strode confidently into the tavern that she knew the Rusty Nail Rogue recruiter was waiting.

It didn't take long. Five minutes, and the Recruiter was sitting at her table. His name was Raul. He obviously thought that he was handsome, though he didn't spark Rei's interest. Of course, nobody sparked Rei's interest, so perhaps that's not surprising. Rather like trying to judge the image-quality on a kicked in holo-screen: it's only possible if the screen actually works. The Spanish guitars were a nice touch, but ultimately lost on the young Biomade.

"So you're with the Rusty Nail Rogues?" Rei asked. She'd known from the moment they first made eye contact that this was going to be difficult. This 'Raul' was a clever one, hiding his true thoughts behind layers and layers of lust. It was an effective psychic shield, and one that Rei had only encountered before in mundanes who were truly accomplished at resisting telepathic interrogation.

Raul smiled confidently, and his white teeth gleamed in the light. "Raul is willing to discuss the matter," he said, looking Rei in the chest. I mean eye.

His thoughts were full of images of she and he caught up in... well, Rei wasn't terribly familiar with the physics of the act itself, but she was reasonably certain that what he was thinking about now was not physiologically possible. Every thought of his fellows, every thought of the Rusty Nail Rogues led only to the thought of getting laid. 'What a mental defense!' Rei thought to herself, and forced her features to remain carefully neutral. It was exciting, the thought of interrogating a true professional. Rei knew of two ways to break through such a disciplined defense: one was to play into it while carefully, ever so carefully worming through the cracks in the facade until the whole mind lay bare before you; the other was to break through with sheer brute force. Now, as much as she might have favored the subtle approach, this was one area in which subtlety was simply not within the realm of possibility for her. Aimi might have been able to pull it off, but not her.

"Why don't you tell me all about it in a less public location?" Rei asked. It was clumsy, but it was the best she could think of.

It worked. It sent his surface thoughts into far flung and convoluted fantasies, and she almost grimaced, but managed to restrain the reaction at the last moment.

She walked quickly towards the exit, and he followed. Then, once they reached a dark, out of the way alley, she turned. He was opening his arms to embrace her, and words were half-formed upon his lips, but she had no interest in hearing them. A few well-placed blows sent him tumbling into unconsciousness.

Rei looked right, looked left, and then dragged Raul's unconscious body away. She'd already prepared a place in the basement of a nearby building. Once he was securely bound, she sat down and waited for him to wake up.

His dreams were dirty.

Rei's eyebrow began to twitch.

A few hours later, Rei watched him stir and smiled.
Good. It was time to begin. He tested his bonds and then looked at her.

"Raul did not know you were into kinky bondage, little minx. What is safety word?"

Rei's eyebrow twitched again. She'd been examining his mind the whole time he had been unconscious with no luck. Even now, staring him in the eye, all she could sense within him was his desire to impress, seduce, and otherwise enjoy the presence of women. It was almost enough to make her think that the only reason he had joined his band of pirates was because he thought it was sexy.

No. That couldn't be it. Perhaps she just wasn't looking hard enough. "Here's how this is going to work, Raul," she said. "You're going to answer my questions, and each time you fail to answer, I will cause you pain. I've prepared a number of instruments to use in this interrogation. You can see them there on the table in front of you." She gestured towards the tool-covered table. "They cover the four basic methods of torture: cold, hot, sharp, and blunt." Still nothing. Damn. "Out of professional respect, I'm going to let you pick the first type I use."

Raul smirked. "Raul picks hot and blunt." The image that flashed in his mind when he spoke left no doubt of what he meant.

Rei lost her cool. Enough was enough. Glaring at the man, she picked a small hammer off the table. She then knelt down near Raul's feet and with a single precise strike, broke his big toe with a nasty crack.

"AAAAIEE!" he shouted. "You have hurt Raul!"

"Answer my questions," she snapped as she replaced the hammer on the table.

"But you haven't asked any yet!"

Rei blinked. "... Oh. Right." The irritation she had felt was slow in fading. "Perhaps I got a little carried away," she admitted. "Tell me about the Rusty Nail Rogues, Raul. Tell me everything, and perhaps the worst you will get from me is a broken toe."

Raul talked almost immediately. Actually, scratch the 'almost.' He talked, and he talked, and he talked. He spilled everything he could think of, and then kept on talking.

Rei stared at him. It hadn't been an act? He really WAS the way his surface thoughts showed him to be? ... Wait, the Rusty Nail Rogues were *IN THE TAVERN* where the two of them had met?

Utterly disgusted, Rei gagged Raul with an old sock and then headed back up to the tavern.

This was going to be a long night.

She could feel a headache coming on. The ease with which she joined the group after a few words spoken to their leader, Julian, only made it worse. She'd thought these were professionals, but they were nothing of the sort. But Maverick was a part of their group, and Maverick was her only lead on the location of Moses. So she'd help them. She'd help them plan their assault on Rodan. She'd put up with them. Putting up with them was harder than planning the assault on Rodan.

When Raul was brought up a few hours later speaking of a kinky bondage orgy which he had enjoyed in the basement, Rei's headache got still worse.

This was going to be a long night. An irritatingly, endlessly long night.
First Minds help her.

1 comment:

Aric Clark said...

Well done! The scene with Raul was very funny and you gave a humorous reason for Rei to be mistaken. The idea of Raul as a secret genius/spy makes me laugh.

Yay, we're caught up!


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