The night was cold, cold like the bitter cynicism strangling his soul. Noir walked in, looking like a stereotypical detective in his brown trench coat and fedora. He was here to relax, but he knew there was no hope of that happening. Not when he had just found out that his least favorite person in the world, Commander Samuel James, had just been named as succesor to the soon to retired Seattle police chief. All Noir could think about was revenge, revenge against the heartless Lone Star officer who had fragged up that hostage situation almost a year ago, leading to the demotion, suspension, and disgusted resignation of Detective-Seargeant Alex Walsh, leading him to become the bitter private investigator known by the street name of Noir. Why was it that good coppers who wanted to protect and serve always got the shaft, while corporate executives who cared more about money than cleaning up the streets got put in charge of the city and pair millions of nuyen a year to keep Seattle safe for the elite few who contirbuted the most to their bloated salaries? Sitting in a window booth, Noir ordered a rum and coke, looking for all the world like a character in one of those dark movies that you just know, right from the start, is going to have a tragic ending.

As Noir walks in, Aria looks up towards the door. For a moment she just stares, her eyes glazing over as if she is trying to remember something, then she quickly turns away. She motions the waitress over to her, and then even closer so she can whisper in her ear.

(For all of you with that hearing amplification mod) See that man over there in the Fedora? All his drinks tonight are on my tab.

While the waitress is still bending down, Aria slips something into the front pocket of her apron.

Without even pausing to think, the old dwarf answered. A haphazardly-lost expression crossed his features as he spoke.

"She's alive in a way that Seattle ain't never gonna be. Yah can hear the whole city breathin' around you, it's heartbeat pumpin' in the streets. The city's alive, vibrant, and it's soul is so powerful that it intoxicates yah.

"But she's a predator, she is. Despite the flash and gleam o' the performers in the square, despite the music that trips down the streets in the Quarter ... She's out to get those what ain't born from her womb. Ayee, but it's a tempting hunt."

Wailer stops, exhuming a slight whistle. "But she bit me," he grins, "An' her poison courses through mah veins," he adds as he pats his jacket pocket again. "I can't rightly put it to words .. s'why I play the harp."

Following the elven woman's gaze, he notices the Troll rocker getting the cold shoulder as well. Hell, he thought, figured it'd be impossible to overlook _that_ chummer. Turning back, he asks, "You Seattle-bred, miss?"

Artemis looked down at Wailer and smiled brightly, “I was born in Tir Tairngire. A land of music and beauty itself, although I admit I am not so skilled with harp or flute as I am with voice. But even the Tir has a limit to its majesty.”

Letting a brief silence consume her in memory, she continued. “Seattle just happened to be the best means of finding what I seek. A place where someone can change their stars. If one can live long enough.”

The gnome was small, small like only a gnome can be. He was also about as crazy as a person can be and still concentrate enough to cast a spell. His name was Fingers, and he was a racoon shaman. He was also a kleptomaniac. Tonight, he was going to have a few drinks at Reno's, talk to a few interesting tall folk, and try really hard not to steal something this time.

Meanwhile, an extremely unkempt human named Moriarty was headed towards Reno's, also ith fun in mind. Moriarty was a shadowrunnuner. He liked shadowrunning, but he had a bit of a problem with other runners. Namely, he thought they were too serious. Moriarty usually put up with his dour colleagues, but tonight he was in a less passive mood, mainly because of the homemade jazz he was tripping on. Moriarty did a lot of drugs, but he had so far managed to avoid addiction, mainly because he never did the same drug twice in a row. Reno's, being a bar commonly patronized by runners, would be a perfect place for him to spread a little humor and levity. There is a fine line between crazy practical jokes, and minor acts of terrorism. Unfortunately, he was too stoned to see it.

Meanwhile, Noir was sipping his rum an coke, stewing over the corruption of corporations in general, and Lone Star in particular. He wished, as he had a few zillion times before, that the government still ran it's own law enforcement, instead of contracting it out to the lowest bidder. He wished civil service still meant something more than just working for the wealthy elite in society, overcharging them for it, and then looking the other way as they took advantage of the impoverished masses.

His misanthropic internal monologue was interrupted by the stranges sight he had ever seen; a 3-foot tall gnome in raggedy robes slid into the boot across from him, standing on the seat because if he sat down, his head wouldn't reach the table. "Hi, I'm Fingers!" said the strange little man. "You look like you're thinking about something really interesting. Wanna tell me about it?"

"Not especcially," said Noir, who thought this was quite possibly the most sureal thing he had ever witnessed.

"Awww, come on, you look sad. When I'm sad, I always feel better after telling a random stranger about it."

Noir already had little trouble believing this. And, truth be told, if he could tell others about the police department's inept new chief, maybe he could actually accomplish something after all. No, he thought again, that was a stupid idea. But what the hell, it was better than thinking about how much his life sucked all night.
"Well, it all started 11 months ago, when I was a detective-sergeant with Lone Star. I'm a hermetic mage, and was in their paranormal investigaton department. It was a hot night, hot like the fires of hell, and the streets were dirtier than usual. I was between cases at the time, so I was driving around town like a normal beat cop, enjoying an unprecedented night of no crime reports whatsoever. Suddenly a call came over the radio, snapping me out of my reverie, ruining my hope of a peaceful, lawful night. An accountant at a small local corporate office had gone beserk after finding out that he was being laid off, and had brought an Uzi III to his office in an insane attempt to win his job back by holding his coworkers hostage. I rushed to the scene like Hermes of Roman mythology, gliding through the streets on wings of urgency." The strange gnome hung on his every word.

The place was already surrounded by police officers crouched behind their squad cars. A mobile electronics van was set up behind the blue barrier. The situation was under the command of Commander Samuel James, a name I would soon come to loathe. I entered the command van, introducing myself and asking what I could do. He informed me that the place had already been scouted astrally, and the lone gunman was holding 12 people hostage in a conference room on the 3rd floor of the 6 floor building. Escaped office workers were being interviewed. I asked one of them about their company health plan. She told me that the company paid for cloned body parts, and kept DNA samples of all their employees at a local hospital for just that purpose. I knew what I had to do."

"Ritual magic!" interrupted the gnome, who was himself an experienced practicioner of the arcane arts.

"Exactly," said Noir.

Noir continued his story. "It didn't take long for me to obtain the gunman's blood sample from the nearby hospital. Sample in hand, I drove down to the Lone Star Paranormal Crimes Department HQ, where I could find ritual materials and fellow mages to help me. I radioed my plan to Commander James. The gunman would be knocked unconscious with a simple stunbolt spell, and then the SWAT team could just waltz in and handcuff him in his sleep. All that Commander James had to do was delay the gunman for a few hours, complying with some of his demands if necesary. I walked into the police station. A smattering of graphiti on the station wall mocked me, mocked my profession, insulted everything that I and every other honest cop in the world stood for."

"Wow, you're a good storyteller. You should write a book about this."

Noir considered this. "Unfortunately, no one likes books with sad endings. And this is a pretty short story. I was able to find 2 other mages in the station who also knew the stunbolt spell. One of them also had a fire elemental which could lend it's power to our ritual. I told James that I was begining the ritual, which could take 2 to 4 hours. He signalled his acknowledgement, and we began. Halfway through the ritual however, we suddenly lost our link to the target."

"What happened," asked Fingers, who had heard enough stories to understand that a climax was coming on.

"He was dead. Commander James had sent the SWAT team in rather than wait for my ritual team to handle the situation. The result: 2 SWAT members wounded, 3 hostages dead and 1 injured, and one dead suspect. When I saw Commander James later that day, I barely restrained myself from hitting him with the stunbolt that should have solved the hostage crisis. The arrogant prick explained to me that the gunman had threated to execute a hostage if power, water, and trideo weren't restored to the building immediately. I asked why he didn't comply with this demand. He said that the UCAS government had a strict policy against negotiating with terrorists and hostage takers. That Hostess Twinkie motherfucker got people killed because he couldn't negotiate with a criminal, not even if doing so would have ensured the criminal's arrest. I told him exactly what I thought of his obsession with rules. I got a demoted and suspended for my insubordination. So I told him to take this job and shove it. I've been a private eye ever since. And today, I found out that he is going to be the new police chief next month."

Fingers wracked his mind for something insightful to say about this. His cogitations were interrupted by the door slamming open, revealing a shabby-looking man holding what appeared to be a shoddily-constructed hand grenade. "Prepare to free your narrow minds!" shouted the maniac.

Moriarty, the mad scientist of the Redmond barrens, pulled the pin on his homemade grenade and flung it to the ground. The grenade landed a few meters from the booth where Noir and Fingers sat, rolling only a foot or so because it was terribly unbalanced. "It's party time!" screamed the lunatic with the chemistry obsession.

"Grenade!" yelled the suddenly energized private detective. Noir flung himself bodily onto the strange-looking grenade, sacrificing himself in a noble effort to save his fellow citizens (Although many of the patrons were in fact SINless) from the machinations of the crazed stranger standing at the entrance to the bar. Or so he thought. Instead of the expected explosion, the grenade spurted several jets of bluish liquid. Noir's worst fear's surfaced. A nerve agent being released right here in Seattle! He was wrong about this too, for the liquid was actually a mixture of DMSO and kamikaze, a moderate-strength amphetamine.

Moriarty was less than pleased that his drug was being hogged by a single greedy patron. "Curses! Foiled again!" he said, shaking his fist in Noir's general direction. "You are henceforth my arch-nemesis!" So saying, he pulled another grenade out of his pocket, pulled the pin, and flung it to the floor at his feet. He and Fingers watched expectantly as Noir convlused on the floor, still trying to cover up what he thought was liquified nerve gas, and everyone else in the bar hid from what they thought was a real grenade this time.

As it turned out, this next grenade was even more harmless, being merely a homemade smoke canister intended to cover Moriarty's escape. As The scientist and the shaman watched, smoke poured out of the can, spreading across the ground. Because the smoke was much heavier than air, it didn't rise above a foot in altitude, providing no concealment whatsoever to the frustrated soi-dissant supervillain. Fingers pulled out a tiny toy squirt gun, which he had purchased from a local toy store. "Make one move and you get it right in the eyes," said the pint-sized racoon shaman, who was so intent upon the newcomer that he hadn't even noticed pocketing the salt shaker that sat on his table.

"What the hell is that, a toy? Ooh, real sc-AAAARGH!" shouted the insane pseudo-genius, as he got some of the world's strongest tobasco sauce squirted in his eyes. "You haven't seen the last of me!" he cried as he dashed out the door. As if this weren't strange enough, he was then hit in the back by a small ball of fire which had apparently been fired from Finger's squirt gun. This seemed extremely strange to everyone else in the bar, who didn't know that the toy, in addition to being a really stupid weapon and a useful condiment holder, was also a spell fetish. The fleeing manac screamed even louder as he ran down the street. As his clothes burned, and he dashed towards a large puddle in the middle of the street, he considered that this was the first time he was ever glad to have forgotten to bring plastic explosives with him.

Aria listened to the conversation between Noir and the gnome with interest. Now i know why his face seems so familiar she thought. I wonder if he remembers me? Probably not.

Just then Moriarty walked through the door and flung his "grenade." Aria was under the table before she could blink, and from there she saw Noir jump on it.
Once a cop, always a cop She saw the grenade shooting a blue liquid before Noir's body covered it up completely. a gas grenade, eh? I guess had this filter put in for a reason With that thought, Aria stands up from underneath the table. Seeing the gnome already moving to confront the mad grenadier, she begins to work her way behind him. As he runs out the door, he trips over her outstretched foot.

Aria makes her way over to where Noir is still lying on the ground, and offers him a hand up.

"C'mon, I think they have some private rooms here in the back, let's get you cleaned up."

"I don't know what that grenade had in it, but it's making me feel really weird." Noir said franticly. The ecstacy was already getting to him. "What the hell is that color over there? I've never seen that color before." He paused for a moment, thinking about something. "Do you have any potatoes?"

Aria helps Noir to his feet , slings his arm over her shoulder and starts toward the private rooms in the back.

Whatever was in that grenade, it's already starting to take effect. he may not have much time

Entering the small private room, she seats him gently in one chairs, then turns and locks the door behind herself, flipping the white noise generator on on her way over. Turning back towards Noir, she pulls two items out of her pocket, one a zippered leather case, the other a small black box. She sets the box down on the table, and pushes a button on its surface, causing a small LED on it to blink red a few times, then turn green. Then she opens the zippered case and pulls out several flat rectangular packets. She chooses one of the packets, tossing the rest on the table, and rips open the cellophane wrapper.

"Here ya go, this should counteract the effects of whatever you were just dosed with. It might take a moment to work."

She takes a hold of his hand and pushes up his sleeve, placing the slap patch on the inside of his wrist.

"Just sit back and relax."

"Whah- where am I?" Noir mumbled confusedly. "What happened to fingers and the wierdo with the grenades? And where are those face-eating monkeys who kept... Oh, right, they weren't real. Goddamn, what was that guy smoking and where can I avoid it?"

Aria takes out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She offers one to Noir and then takes one for herself and lights it, inhaling deeply before beginning to speak.

"Well, as for where you are , you're in a private room in the back of Reno's, and if by Fingers you mean the gnome, he's still in the main room. He ran that idiot with the grenades off. I brought you back here because whatever was in that grenade was having some odd effects on you, and given who you are, I thought you might have a few secrets you want to keep. Cops, even ex-cops, don't have a very long life expectancy around here."

"Which brings us of course, to who I am. My name is Aria, or at least that's what I go by now. What my name used to be isn't really all that important. I met you once, about five years ago, while my academy class was in field training. I was fairly young then, and I looked different, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if you don't remember me, but I remember you."

"Anyway, after I graduated, I was assigned to undercover work. I underwent additional training, and was fitted with certain enhancements. I was trained for deep cover work, insinuating my way into criminal organizations to gather evidence, all of my implants were tailored to look like they were no more that what a well off go ganger could afford, and soon I was on my first assignment. There were problems though, a leak somewhere in the department, and my identity was compromised. The mission was aborted, and I was informed by my contact that 'Star management had decide it wasn't cost efficient to extract me. I was left slowly twisting in the wind as the saying goes. Fortunately, I had always been just a bit paranoid, I had made a few contacts in the slums that I hadn't told my superiors about, and I had a few arrangements in place to get out if I needed to. I managed to make it out alive, and with quite a bit of money, before word filtered down to the group I was hanging with that I was a plant. Once I got out, I did what I was trained to do, I faded into the background, became a part of the scenery. I used some of the money to hire a good decker to purge my personnel file from Lone Star's computers, and the rest for some plastic surgery. It's amazing how little one has to change to look like a completely different person."

Aria puts her cigarette out in the ashtray on the table.

"Since then, I've continued to do what I was trained for. Lone Star isn't the only corporation that needs information, and if the people that hire me now consider me an expendable asset, well, at least I know that going in. As for why I'm telling you all this, I really don't know, as I said I'm usually fairly paranoid. I guess it's because I know what you've been through, and you looked like you needed to know that regardless of what they say about you on the trid, there are those of us out here that know better."

"Well, you look like you're feeling better. I would appreciate it if what I told you tonight doesn't leave this room, as I said, ex-cops don't have a long life expectancy in this neighborhood, and I know of several people who would love a shot at me if they knew who I was."

OOC NOTE: I'm out of this game. Its a little to involved and confusing for me and my work right now. ICly, Rheiv exited before this grenade was thrown or whatever. If you need me, messege me, because a couple of you have my number. I'll see what I can do then.

"I understand," said Noir. "I have to use a pseduonym for just that reason. I ut a few runners away in my time too."

Aria picks up the back box from the table, turns it off, and puts it in her pocket. She replaces the unused slap patches in their case and puts it back as well, and starts towards the door.

"Stay back here as long as you need to, I'll tell Reno to send a waitress by in a few minutes with some club soda for that stain on your shirt."

She unlocks the door and slips out into the main room again. As she walks over to the bar, she waves the bartender over, and orders a fresh beer and some club soda for Noir. Taking her beer, she returns to her table, righting the chair that she knocked over in her haste to get under it.

What an idiot, bringing a grenade into a place like this, he's lucky he's not a grease spot on the floor

Aria settles back into her chair.

As Aria sat back down at her table, Fingers approached her. "How is Noir doing? Is he sitting down in the back?"

"He's fine, if a little shaken. I had the waitress take him some club soda for his shirt. Any idea who that guy was?"

"No idea," Fingers responded. "I got a look at his aura, and he had a lot of cyberware. I think he had some bioware too. "

Fingers went into the back room to see Noir, only to find that the private eye had slipped out the rear service entrance and vanished into the night. It was about this time that the intrepid gnome noticed that he had pocketed a fork, a salt shaker, and a menu. He decided to leave out the rear door himself before someone noticed.

Hearing both Wailer and the stranger over at the far table call out warnings of grenades and danger, she felt herself be taken to the ground by the dwarf and covered by his body. She brought her hands to her ears and opened her mouth, expecting a possible concussion grenade. When they heard the hissing begin, her eyes widened at the thought of a nerve gas taking out the bar.

Leaning her head to look toward the incident, she saw that the man nearest it had thrown his body over it and was taking the spray to his torso... whatever it was. The madman who tossed it was already laughing maniacly as he ran out the door. The bouncers were right on his heels until a gnome launched a fireball at him. The bouncers were sure to get a severe pay cut and hammering for letting somebody in with grenades, even if the whole thing ended up as some kind of sick joke.

Seething with anger, her eyes flashed as they watched the lunatic escape. “I hate grenades...” her Tir accent slightly heavier than before.

Artemis blinked with surprise as both her and Wailer realised their positioning. She blushed almost as much as he did after climbing off of her and offering a hand up. Taking if gratefully, she dusted her backside off and offered Wailer a forgiving look. A gnome had saved her once, much in the same way. It seemed to be a continuing habit, but the reality of it still touched her heart. She looked around the bar to be sure that nobody had actually been hurt by the prank. The human woman who had come in most recently was now escorting the delirious man who lept onto the grenade into one of the back rooms. Nobody else seemed to be in need of any medical attention, so she turned back to Wailer.

“It's alright... if it had been a real grenade, you would have saved my life though,” she smiled, “I thank you deeply for that.”

Wailer waves it off as he bends down to retrieve his cane and briefcase. Seeing his hat still underneath the table, he grunts as he reaches under it and tries to fish it out with his cane.

"Ain't no thing, Missy. Ain't no thing. Certainly was a bit more excitement than I was figuring on for the night, however ... " The old dwarf pops a toothy grin at Artemis as he taps the Banshee-headed wooden cane against his heart, " ... I'm not too sure that this old ticker's all too up for it."

With that, he forgets momentarily about his hat and looks around the bar quickly as time begins to flow again. "I didn't see ... they get that slot that threw whatever that was?"

Seeing his hat beneath the table, she kneels and retrieves it for him. “Those reflexes of yours are not so typical for an... old man,” her thin dark eyebrows raise inquisitively. Her eyes glaze over slighly as she percieves Wailer astrally. Much as his physical appearance intrigued her, his astral self was even more so. Her eyes focused on his physical self again.

Standing back up, she offers his hat to him. “There's a lot more to you than treats the eye. I sense that the spirits have a liking for you.”

Glancing over at the entrance to the bar, “I doubt they will allow that ‘gentleman’ to return again.”

An discomforting chill runs up her spine as her eyes pass over the dud-grenade currently being disposed of by Reno's staff. “They have astral security in here again. I believe they feel that elementals will prevent any more people like that from escaping without punishment. Personally, I believe that anyone dropping grenades in a bar with innocents and strangers deserves what ever comes to them.”

Wailer hrms, screwing his mouth up into a thoughtful-ish gesture as he looks towards the door as well. He says something quietly about 'Not being so sure there's any innocence left in the world,' but cuts it of quickly as soon as he realizes that he's speaking out loud.

With a shrug and a resetting sigh, he turns back towards Artemis and flashes her a broad smile as he accepts his hat. He carefully pats it off, scratches absentmindedly at one part of the brim where there's a tiny spot of brown crust, then spins it between his fingers and sets it on his head.

"Well, I have tah say that's it's been right near the most interestin' night I've had this week," he says, shaking his head, "and it's definately been a pleasure meeting you, Miss. Ah'm gonnah have to call it a night ... These ol' bones can only take so much ... fun." Wailer winks, crow's feet wrinkling into appearance, framing his eye alongside bushy salt-and-peppered eyebrows. "You evah in the area, make sure to come down and check out my place overlookin' the sound in Dee-Tee. Just north of the corporate sector."

He hands Artemis a holo card featuring a small family-ish restaurant overlooking the water, complete with faux-wood, a deck, and fishing nets on the outside. Over the entrance is a soothing neon sign proclaiming 'Shorty's Cajun Bar and Grill'. Tossing an extra on the table beside him, he grabs his cane and briefcase, then turns back to Artemis.

Her eyes and mood immediately pick up as he mentions the view over the Sound. She nods, “It sounds wonderful! I will be sure to visit. No people with guns and grenades?”

With a smile, she leans forward and gives him a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Thank you again for the gesture of self sacrifice you made earlier. Not many are willing to do so in today's difficult times.”

Drek.

If it wasn't one thing it was always another, wasn't it? First the power surge to fry her trid this morning, then she found that the last of her soycaf -somehow- got knocked into the sink, then there was the job,.. and the trolls,.. and the job that went south because of the trolls. It was enough to make a body throw up her hands in disgust, which she almost did before she remembered that she was still driving....

Of course it was bound to start raining during the hour she was out tonight; was it too much to ask, really, for a few hours of clear sky, even if it WAS Seattle? On the one night this week she thought it safe to leave her coat behind? Her dark violet Aurora skidded to a stop half a block away from one of the only open buildings in the area, a low squat bar called 'Reno's whose 'live entertainment' could have been heard clear across the sprawl. Cursing herself again for leaving the buttery soft leather jacket behind, the slender woman stepped from the back of her bike and yanked the helmet from her head. Long, silky black ringlets tumbled from within the helmet, bouncing lightly over narrow shoulders and brushing against smooth cheekbones as she rushed for the door.

The unnamed female grinned at the bouncer in a most disarming manner in spite of her foul mood, revealing devastatingly deep dimples in both cheeks and pearly teeth that would do for any sim starlet; if there were any problems getting into Reno's that night, she experienced none of them, not even slowing to relinquish a weapon since she carried none tonight. Dressed in nothing more than a trendy black jumpsuit, slim leather boots, and a pair of pale lavender glasses, she moved like a dancer ... or maybe a sprinter,.. regardless, there was an inhuman grace to her supple limbs as she made her way to the bar, a small smile lingering upon full, pouty lips.

Surrendering his pistol at the weapons check, Grendel moved deeper into the dim interior of Reno's. Barely four hours had elapsed since the conversation here that triggered the ongoing cascade of events that occupied much of his thoughts. Here was as good a place as any to kill the time before meeting with Zoe. He took the same table as before, closest to the dart lane, settling himself across from Delacroix.

"So twice in one night no less. I think were becoming regul..." Delacroix cant finish the sentence as he begins to weeze and cough violently. Singnaling to the waitress for a water, he downs the glass and begins to feel a bit better. "Sorry about that. The illness comes in waves."

The same waitress who served you earlier shows up, a smile on her face at the two handsome elves. "High, welcome back." She takes your orders quickly and walks off. It isn't long before you have your drinks sitting in front of you.

"Well, the scenery continues to improve. We've got a couple of hours to kill. I recommend that you sleep first, then you can cover my required rest period prior to our meet with Zoe." Grendel's eyes measure the exotic looking woman standing by the bar, but the dead calm in his voice betrays no emotion.

Silk didn't need more than half a second to size up the bar and its inhabitants, of course, and while it wasn't exactly her choice of nightlife, the place certainly seemed to suit her mood .. and her budget.

Ah, crap.

Patting her left hip as if a pocket full of money would somehow magically appear beneath her left hand, she shot the bartender an apologetic smile and signaled for him to go about his business. Apparently jackets were useful for more than their protective properties and visual appeal. She shrugged, though, ringlets jiggling as she turned to face the room. There was a bit under an hour left before she had to make it back to her flop and she'd be damned if she spent ANY of that time worrying about .. well, anything.

Like now, if she wanted to be a bit more careful, maybe worry about looking like less of an idiot, she wouldn't be tipping her glasses down to get a better look at the big elf on the other side of the dart lane. Impending doom, it would seem, lent her an almost reckless disregard for her own well-being.

His attention did not go unnoticed, the dark haired woman returning his gaze with one of frank inspection herself. Grendel felt his lips curve ever so slightly in an expression that only the shadows around him kept from being truly predatory. He bore her scrutiny without gesture, although it did raise her stock some in his estimation. Normally women were a little more circumspect in their surveillance, she was almost brazen, almost daring him to follow through with what his casual glance had started. And, in something uncharacteristic for him, he did.

Leaving Delacroix to fend for himself, Grendel moved out from the dart lane, threading his way through the tables to the bar. He pitched his voice to carry no further than the two of them, although it was still hollow, almost without inflection.

"Buy you a drink?"

She grinned rather broadly, offering up a sort of prayer of thanks and mental happy dance for being born female. Letting out a little sigh of relief as she was finally able to look up to someone again, 'those dumb trolls don't count,' she turned her grin into a cheeky, dimpled smile as the other elf sidled up beside her.

Buy her a drink? Clearly the guy hadn't seen her little episode with the bartender but .. maybe that wasn't such a bad thing at all; let him think that this was her plan all along.

"If you want." Silk pitched her voice similarly, if for no other reason than the fact that she could.

Grendel let himself rest against the bar in a posture of feigned casualness, elevated into status yellow by the appearance and the invitation of this intriguing stranger. The bartender, having seen this scene played out too many times, was already heading back over by the time Grendel lifted a hand to call for him.

"Jack and coke for me, and the lady will have..." Grendel glanced over at her in an open invitation. He could order, if so challenged, but he knew nothing about this woman, nothing on which to base his guess as to what she would prefer to drink. Luckily, that gauntlet was not thrown down.

"Gin martini," replied the dark haired woman. The bartender nodded wordlessly, hands already reaching for glasses and bottles. Grendel turned back to face her.

Odd. That's what I would have ordered for her.

"I'm Grendel," he added, finally getting around to an introduction. He did not, though, offer his hand. Whatever she was, this woman moved like an operator, and out of professional respect he would not impose a gesture that he, himself, would have refused in her place.

"What brings you out on a night like tonight?"

"Thanks."

Silk accepted her drink and offered the bartender a bright smile before turning her back to the man completely. The pose she assumed was relaxed, a bit of a slouch with both elbows resting against the edge of the bar as she tilted her face up toward Grendel.

"I'm going to have to ask you the same, you know." She paused to take a sip of the martini. 'Not bad!' "A body can get a Jack and coke anywhere sO you can't be here for the drinks. I hope you aren't here for the, ahh," Silk pitched her voice low for a second, "live entertainment. As for me, I don't like the rain - it makes me restless."

"And you can call me Silk."

"Silk. It's a pleasure to meet you." Grendel sipped from his drink, just a taste, actually, as he tended to use drinks mostly as a digsuise for other business.

"Me? I'm here for the ambiance. The conversation and atmosphere," he paused long enough to let Silk know that by 'atmosphere' he meant 'the view of her' before continuing. "Aren't so entertaining at home. I'm opposed to wasting my time doing nothing. I would rather do anything than just sit and watch the world pass by. I'm here to kindle the fire of living in the darkness of mere existance. I'm here seeking that...human touch." The classic lyrics came easy to him, and he felt his lips curl again in something too close to a smile.

Not quite laughing into her drink, a wide and toothy smile spreads across Silk's expressive face.

"Kindle the fire of living...." A quiet chuckle escapes her as she glances from the glass resting casually in one gloved hand to the tall figure standing just close enough to kick her blood into a slow and steady simmer. "That's deep for Wednesday night in a place like this." She arches a sooty eyebrow. "Are you always so eloquent?"

"Eloquent? Perhaps, but I think I can do better." Grendel paused, glancing once around the bar before returning his gaze to Silk's face. His drink remained untouched in his hand, his posture loose and open. There was something about him, though, an undercurrent of energy that spoke of intention and possibility. An expression that might have been the ghost of a smile touches his lips.

"Don't think I failed to notice that you answered my question with a question. That's going to become something of a challenge if you keep it up."

Breath expels from between her lips in an almost-imperceptible 'whoosh' as she finds herself grinning up at him, the corners of her eyes creasing mischeviously.

"You think so, do you?" Unable to contain another soft and easy laugh, she pauses to take another sip of her martini, sensing that the progress of their conversation would closely follow the amount of liquor left in her glass. Would she take small, teasing sips and draw this discussion out for the rest of her hour or was she feeling bold enough to down the drink all at once and try her luck with this interesting stranger?

"I'm as open to challenge as the next girl, Grendel," Silk smiles, the rim of her glass hovering just below her lips, "but if you prefer simple answers, I suppose I could offer a few of those as well."

He worked a four count breath in before his answer, calming the rush of adrenaline that built in response to this attractive stranger standing in front of him. If he was reading her right at all, she was sending the kind of signal that predators like him searched for. But that was a big if.

"Something tells me that your answers will be anything but simple, and possibly a challenge in themselves."

He paused for barely a second, weighing courses of action in his mind with the same speed that he evaluated and implemented combat actions.

"Let me ask you this, then. How long did you want to stay here?"

"Well." She gives her martini a swirl, half-watching the shimmering line of gin and vermouth coat the sides of her glass while the rest of her attention remains focused on Grendel. There was a reason she spent her days and nights hunting the streets of Seattle, a reason she rode the redline as hard and as often as she did, and it had everything to do with the way her skin was tingling right now.

"It's a fantastic place," a small sweep of one hand encompasses the room and its varied occupants, "noisy. Definitely fragrant," Silk laughs quietly, dark curls bouncing on either side of her upturned face. "I don't usually have a problem with that but .. I don't know."

"It feels crowded to me."

Her gaze sharpens for half a second, violet eyes shrewd and direct in spite of the easy curve of her spine and the casual crossing of one ankle over the other.

"What do you think?"

Again, a ghost of an expression steals its way across Grendel's face, the right corner of his mouth turning up, drawing his lips into an expression of wicked delight. The twin scars on his cheek stand out in bas relief as the muscles beneath them tense for a moment before sloughing back into indifferent relaxation. He set his unfinished drink on the counter, his hand dipping into the pocket of his cargo pants for the appropriate amount to cover the tab. His eyes, though, never waver from the invitation he's read in Silk's gaze.

"For the conversation that I'm envisioning, yes, this corner of the world seems a bit crowded and noisy. I have somewhere a little more private in mind, if you'd like. Or, if you have a place of your own, I'm still a gentleman and will let you choose."

"I hope not."

Silk sets her glass aside as well, her chin lifting ever so slightly as she watches the subtle shift of his features and notes how little he truly gives away, how one wicked little grin from him would likely constitute a maniacal chuckle or at the very least a voracious leer in another less-guarded face. Opting to do the opposite and hide as little of herself as possible, as if she was capable of any real subterfuge, she offers a slow smile and the tiniest of winks.

"How about you tell me about this place you have in mind and I'll decide if its acceptable. It wouldn't be fair otherwise, would it?"

His mind, trained in the perfect mix of theory backed by brutal operational experience, picked out the signals from the noise of the conversation, as if he were sorting through electronic hash for the tell-tale triple echo of rigger control frequencies. The information was sorted and filed, transiting the interface between collodial cognition and silicon retention with ease born of years of practice. It would be difficult for an outsider to determine where Grendel ended and where the machine began, for him, there was no longer any meaningful boundary. Immersed in the network for as long as he had been, he no longer thought of it as a separate entity. It was an extension of himself.

He took one last sip from his drink as the bartender collected the varied denominations of corporate scrip that covered the tab, palming open his pocket secretary and extending the flatscreen holographic display with his thumb. After a moment, it glowed to life with the bubbling fractal of Renraku's corporate logo. The screen blanked, then rezzed into three dimensions, depth appearing as if a hole had opened in the top of the bar beneath the device. Thirty seconds of overhead surveillance from his Condor drone flickered to life, showing a large, multi-story warehouse. The shot was wide enough to reveal the entire building plus the street out front. Despite the lack of visual artifacts, it was obvious that the picture was taken from an overhead elevation. The exact details, though not relevant, were available to his subconscious request. The Condor drone had been in a thousand meter orbit, its camera looking northeastward at medium-narrow zoom, an optical enhancement that reduced and sharpened the viewpoint. Details surfaced in his mind as he contemplated how, exactly, to brief the appointments of the safehouse he kept in the building.

"It's a twenty minute drive from here, an urban renewal project fifteen years old. The lofts are currently at sixty percent occupancy, the highest they've ever been is seventy six. It was never the wild success story the developers hoped for, but it has turned a profit for them. The lofts are small but robustly constructed, they used masonry sections rather than construction plastic forms. The refreshments aren't exotic but the drinks will be cold."