Interlude: Nobody's Watching
27 May 2022Aurora Bael
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TELEPRESENCE v4.02.03 //Log Playback Mode
Select Date/time (MMDDYYYY HH:MM:SS.X): 05263308 20:13:49
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Robert Landon Harkness is a stout man of about 45 years with silver grey hair, and a short, thick beard. His face looks like what's left of a leather handbag that's been left in the rain a few weeks. He puts his hand on the panel to open his apartment door after a long and boring day chasing down bounty contracts that has refused, yet again, to pay for the services his team had been hired for. The door slides open and he steps inside, head slung low, and tosses his pack containing a handful of weapons and the few bricks of cash he had managed to collect from the less unscrupulous employers. Before he can relax, a hand falls on his shoulder, pulls him backward, and slams him up against the inside of his door.
In his face is a fully loaded customized P-15, and behind that pistol is a very pissed off but pleasantly piqued Aurora Angelica Bael. "Hi Bob!" she said cheerily through gritted teeth. "How was your day?!"
"The fu- Rory?!" he stammers out. "How did you even get in here?!"
"Oh please, it's like you don't even know me at all." With a fist full of his collar she turns and kicks him across the room so his ass lands in a chair facing her. She perches on the barstool next to his tiny kitchenette, gun still trained on him, and leans down to look him in the eye. "I think it's about time you and I got reacquainted. Specifically, we need to talk about who the fuck you think you are."
Bob reaches fast for a spot under the end table next to him... But there is no pistol waiting for him. Rory pulls it out of an inside pocket with her off hand and shakes it in the air, setting it on the counter next to her. The look on his face says this is a bad situation. The look on Rory's face says much the same thing for him. "Are you gonna kill me?"
"Maybe. The night is young." She picks up a bottle of whiskey that was sitting next to her and pulls the cork with her teeth before launching it at him across the room. It misses, but she doesn't mind, and takes a swig anyway. "You sold me out, Bob."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he says confidently. "And I know, that's what I would say if I had sold you out, but it's the truth. I know I can't actually convince you of that, so let's just skip to the part where you shoot me or we're friends again. I really don't care which." They stare at one another for a long time across that loaded gun. Seconds tick like hours. Rory relaxes her grip ever so slightly. His shoulders drop about the same amount. "...Nice eyes. They look new. Where'd you get em?"
"Don't change the subject," she says, waving the pistol back and forth dismissively. Rory glances about the kitchen and smirks. "...Here's what I figured," she begins, putting the pistol back in her thigh holster, but still not letting go of it. "If anyone on that carrier knows what happened to Conrad, it's fucking you. I figure, you're sore about it, so you get me into something over my head, figuring I'll get myself made and turn into someone else's problem." She stands up and moves to the fridge, grabbing two glasses from the cabinet as she does. In each glass she puts two ice cubes, and pours the whiskey over them. "When that doesn't work... And see this is where I get fuzzy, because I remember a lot of shit that I'm not sure actually happened, so I was hoping you could fill in the blanks for me." Without taking her eyes off of him, she sets the glass on the floor and glides it over to him with a smooth kick. It spills a little, but not enough to ruin his drink. "What I do know is, two months after I left, the carrier got seized and left your asses homeless. And that's pretty good motive for blaming me after, as you say, 'everything that happened'."
Bob smirks. He doesn't bother to keep her in sight line as he bends down to pick up the glass. "Did I know you killed Captain Conrad? Yes." He takes a drink, sparing a moment to savor the flavor before swallowing it down. "Come on, everyone knew you two were on the outs. Hell you even slept with me once a few weeks before it happened. You come back and he doesn't? That only reads one way. Do I blame you?" He looks at his glass and back up at her before knocking half of it to the back of his throat and swallowing. "No. I sure do not."
"Bullshit. You're loyal as a muff. I'm surprised you didn't tell him about us," she shoots back.
"I did tell him. He didn't care." Bob says with a sneer directed more at the memory than at her. "But I was loyal to the COMPANY, Rory. That's what you do when you're a hired gun. You watch out for the people keeping you alive. You used to know that."
"I still know that," she retorts in the middle of taking a drink.
Bob scoffs at her and finishes his whiskey, setting the sweaty glass down on a coaster next to him. "Whatever you say, kid. Listen, my point is I hated him almost as much as you did. Especially that 'do you wanna be free' shit he was always pulling on slaves. Always women, too. The guy was a grease ball. That carrier was flying on Yeti, blow, and prophylactics by the end of it. You don't pay a soldier in drugs and whores. That's pirate shit, and I fucking hate pirates."
"Oh God, me too," she chuckles, finally letting her hand leave her pistol to scratch the side of her nose. "I did some regrettable shit for Hudson but spending that week shooting Pirates out of the sky was not one of them."
"Right?! Fuck those guys!" Bob says with a laugh he holds up and shakes his empty glass. "Beer me?" Rory nods and crosses to the fridge. Tosses a can across the room into his waiting hands. "Honestly? First thing I felt after realizing he was dead and you were leaving was relief. The pair of you took that company to a really dark place. I know, it was mostly him, and I get it. But you wanting out? That changed the whole game plan. Only..."
Rory finishes her whiskey fast and cracks herself a beer as well, moving over to his couch. "Only what?"
"Only after all the drugs wore off we were all too busy nursing withdrawal to work. And when you're running legit? It's a lot harder to make money."
"Hey, we did plenty of legit jobs when I was around!" Rory says pointing.
Bob frowns at her from under a furrowed brow. "A lot of larceny, too. About half our income—"
"Yeah yeah yeah, okay, I get it. He wanted his warrior freedwoman and I gave it to him and enabled all the excess by not knowing any better. Skip to the part where my brain gets fucked up on stolen Imperial brain tech."
His face contorts into abject confusion. He rubs his brow with both hands and leans harder into the conversation. "Rory what the hell are you talking about?"
"Someone fucked me up, Bob. Real good. Got into my head, pulling wires, making me forget shit, forcing me to..." Rory trails off and takes the moment to drink her beer unhealthily fast. "I carried out four hits I never chose to take. Nice clean infil 'n' kills. One of them was even a Marlinist envoy to the Alliance. The briefing called it a meet and greet, but it was the start of something. All while hearing your voice in my head telling me what a good girl I was. You need to make that make sense or I'm up a goddamn creek."
Bob looks suddenly very concerned, steepling his fingers and leaning back in his chair. "That... Might explain a lot."
"I am literally on the edge of my seat," Rory says, suddenly sitting forward again.
Taking a moment to stroke his beard in that thoughtful middle-aged way, be nods again. "You went dark there for a while. White Knight? She called me looking for you about a month ago, said you weren't taking her calls anymore."
"How do I know that's even true at this point?"
"Because you said you remember shit now. Have a look in your own self, see if it's there."
"Smartass," she mutters, and closes her eyes to think... Incoming call, declined. And another. And another. And— "Okay. Alright. But I was working for them, I couldn't even say the words 'I'm working for ADF intelligence' when it was happening without throwing up after 'wuh'. How's that grok?"
The door to the apartment opens from the outside and on reflex, Aurora pulls leather and points her gun directly at the face of a very familiar thin-framed woman with thick lips and jet black hair. She too draws down and the pair of them hold in stunned silence waiting for the next to move as the door slides closed behind her.
Bob smiles and stands up, walking over to the woman and slipping a hand around her waist. He kisses her cheek and turns back to his uninvited guest. "Aurora, I believe you know my wife, Jade del Mare—Harkness?"
Rory's eyebrows make out with the ceiling as her jaw decides to try it's luck with the floor. "Jade? Your WIFE?!"
"Oh shit... Nadie? Oye, puta, what you doing here? You here to kill my husband?"
Rory laughs and looks over at the time, slowly lowering her gun and putting it away while Jade does the same. "I mean... Maybe. The night is young!"
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