Adam slept soundly for several hours. That was no surprise as the twins had really worn him out and even before that he'd had a baffling day. The previous night had been the worst of his life and by all metrics it should also have been his last, but it was followed by what was definitely the best night of his life in the form of a few free drinks from a sympathetic ork and a pair of women (or at least one woman and something resembling a woman) taking an interest in him.
Those several hours were followed by several minutes of a dream. Adam had never really put much stock in his dreams before--if they meant anything it was for magicians and shamans to worry about. The only time he dreamt was after a night of heavy drinking and he hardly remembered them.
This one he remembered clear as crystal, but what he remembered didn't make much sense. A hand, closing over a sword. A gun thrown into the sand. A flash of horrible light and a wound in the fabric of the world, rent open by a force as-yet unseen in the sixth world. And not for a lack of trying.
He started awake in the room, dark save for the glow of his eyes. The only sounds were his own heavy breathing and the passing of cars on the street below. He was sore all over: the groin from the grinding, the thighs from the thrusting, the neck from the riding. Those two had been olympic-level athletes and they'd used him like exercise equipment. What a wonderful way to die that would have been.
Scrambling off the cheap bed, Adam stumbled over to the cheap display screen on the wall opposite the bed, leaving his commandeered clothes on the chair nearby. Flicking it on with a touch he was greeted with the current time, current weather and, most worryingly, the current date. It was not what he'd expected it to be, off by something close to nine months.
He wiped a hand over his face, startled at the powerful scent clinging to his palm and fingers. Those women fucked like tigers.
At that moment recent newscasts started to conjure up on the display screen. Court cases, new products coming out, and of immediate interest to him some kind of shadowland footage that was trending wildly. The face in motion in the small window was instantly recognizable to him considering he'd been alternating between kissing and fucking a pair of them not long ago.
Adam tapped the window to bring it up by itself, as well as causing it to run from the beginning. It was footage of the woman from the night before, easily set apart from her twin by the fact her body was bare of all but one tattoo. She was bare in the video too where she was facing off in a fist fight against a pile of orks, bloody tusks by the looks of them. Most of them were also na ked.
The recording itself looked street-tech level quality but it was edited together in a manner nothing short of expert by a person who knew what to emphasize and when. He tapped the speaker symbol in the corner and music cut in suddenly, asserted by the video footage to be coming from the junkyard orchestra on the side of the field the woman--Impulse? That had been her name, yes--was wrestling on. Yet there was no loss of fidelity, perfect acoustics and resonance--it was a studio version, layered over the footage for the sake of matrix distribution.
Watching the woman work gave Adam a stir in his lower abdomen. Damn, he thought, Am I getting the hots for a bodybuilder slut and her almost identical sister?
The video hovered on a clear shot of the woman's face and helpfully supplied a California Free State SIN bio, like someone had looked at her with a camera drone or commpad connected into the city's matrix. Her name scrolled across the top alongside the music: IMPULSE DAWSON - INVESTIGATIVE CONSULTANT. A clinical head shot of the raven haired woman was shown across the left side of the screen, her thousand yard stare in that on-file image juxtaposed against the elated grin she wore while making an ork cum in his pants from a touch. Her eyes flashed with pink light, suggesting her intense magical power. He shivered with the memory of her using it on him; if he hadn't done the trick with reversing his functions to keep himself going they'd have flattened him in that bed last night.
After Dawson was identified the video began to include frames of her past media appearances: cases she was involved in, criminals she'd busted, disasters averted. Occasionally there were frames of her in motion but more often just a shot of her with a headline, usually with other cops. She looked grim, joyless and forlorn. Adam could read people, an essential skill for lying to them. The woman from the past was someone angry that she wasn't dead yet. Suicidal. A different woman than the one cock-teasing go-gangers in a muddy field. The person who had picked him up in that bar the previous night was a phoenix, fiery and radiant, having emerged from the ashes arranged in the shape of her.
One of the headlines that showed up featured the Azzie that Adam had tried to steal from. Well, succeeded really. The evidence was all over him. Seeing his face kicked something off in his veins, which started to tingle with energy.
On the screen the headlines dissolved to leave behind a singular star colored jet-black, which grew to fill the entire screen as the music reached a measured end. He realized after a moment it was the Lone Star logo stylized and flipped upside down. The file of the upload was supposedly identified as Sunday Lunch with the Dark Star.
His memories from the previous morning snapped together, tying back to the brief news report he'd seen month ago--even more months now--back in the bar. He'd almost ran into her earlier that day, and judging by her behavior she'd have done him right there on the street. And the Sixth World did have to deal with two of her!! The other at least wasn't a cop, not with that Mother Earth tattoo she'd been sporting. Though that did likely mean she really was trying to have his kids.
Out of habit he tapped his right pocket, the prelude to pulling out his power pad, and not for the first time he was frustrated to feel the pocket empty. He had a desire to seek information on her, more than the kind a courtesy terminal in a cheap hotel could provide. Information was ammunition and since his fall he'd been unarmed.
Breathing heavily now, Adam glanced up at the display screen which was scrolling other recent newscasts. A familiar face was among the lineup squares: silver-haired, pointed ears, immaculate suit, billion nuyen smile, same as in the video's frame a moment ago. The headline: Incarcerated Aztechnology junior executive pursuing promotion.
Adam felt an involuntary thrum go through his body and he staggered backwards, towards the bed. That damned coorporate blood feeder... Adam felt like he was vibrating from within. All this orichalcum, bonded to him down to the bone. Were his days numbered? Was that botched heist really to be his last act? And that psychopath he'd hoped to harm with his theft-- still sitting pretty, sipping champagne and targeting people for profitable deaths from behind gold-plated bars.
The thrilling high of his wonderful night now crashed to a depressive low. One halfway good thing he'd hoped to do with his life and all he'd really accomplished was getting laid.
He sat on the bed and let out a long, slow breath, wiping one hand over his face and then grunting at the strong scent emanating from it. Gods, what tigers.
Well, he was still alive. He could still tap a key, steal a credstick... maybe even pull a trigger. Not too late to do something good before it was over. He'd need his power pad to help him scout, and plan. He had one heist left, one more theft to make: the life of an Aztechnology executive.
Standing back up, Adam cracked his neck in both directions, rolled his shoulders and then began inputting commands into the display screen. Even with basic matrix access he could trigger the pad's remote locator function and find out where it was. The first step to getting it back... the small digital domino leading to the death of Julius Megiddo.
= = =
Getting back home shortly after one in the morning meant Instinct and her human were able to get a decent amount of sleep, only having to satisfy the needs of their live-in lovers for an hour before they were docile enough for rest. Being so well-trained made them convenient like that.
Instinct slept peacefully until sunrise, when she started awake after several seconds of a thoroughly unpleasant dream. The girls, heavy sleepers that they were, didn't notice Instinct sitting up in bed. Impulse though had become dramatically more sensitive since the night on the beach. Her essence shimmered through her body and her eyes opened up at once, seeking out Instinct's form in the early morning light. Alenia stirred from beside her, but a stroke of her hair kept her squish-faced and drooling against Impulse's left breast.
Her human spoke with her eyes. Report?
