PC 5983 (RP, see ooc signup)

[Lilim_Savanant]

She had finished dressing herself and put on all her clothes she had managed to grab from the hospital room. She was missing the gun holster of course and the gun to go with it, but that was only to be expected. The clips too had been removed, but at least they had cleaned her clothes and removed the blood stains.

She wasn't quite sure what to make of the strange cyborg killer to whom she had found herself attached. On the one hand he had got her out of the hospital and they were at least on the run, if not neccesarily safe. On the other he had messed up her plans and from his explanation of why he was here he was quite clearly a nut-job. And of course if he was the hired killer he claimed to be then that meant he was also quite high on a lot of people's hit lists. Together they would make a nice target for any number of people. They'd have to be on their guard at all times. And most importantly she'd need some weapons.

She still ached from the cuts and bruises she had sustained and even breathing in gave her a slight pain. But she'd suffered enough in her lifetime to know that it would pass in time. And right now she just didn't have time to worry about such minor things.

She hopped out of the back of the ambulance into the street it had stopped in, sliding the stun baton into her pocket to keep it hidden. It was neither very busy, nor particularly quiet. She had only been to Earth a small number of times and wasn't familiar with the place in anything but passing. She was gonna have to follow this man who would quite probably be the death of her. She wasn't ready to trust him yet, but right now they needed to get out of sight from anyone who might be looking for them.

She turned to face him, speaking over the noise of the everyday hubbub, "Suppose i believe your story, then fine, sure, i'll help you do whatever the feck you're babbling about. But first you're gonna help me, cause right now i ain't got any other concerns than my plans, so your 'mission' or whatever it is can go feck itself."

She shook her head in a slightly hopeless way. "But getting back in that hospital now would be useless. Not only will the place be locked down tighter than a politician's arsehole, but what i'm looking for ain't there. Not anymore. I dunno where it is, or how it got out. Gak! it's not even as if i know how the feck i know. But i can feel it. Maybe summat happened back on that shuttle, but i can feel the evil of that bastard. Its spreading. It fills my head like a cancer. He's in the city. Free. And i need to find him before things get worse."

She looked at him with a smile as if laughing at the stupidity of the situation. "And if you can't believe me, or ain't gonna help, then feck you. I might sound like a nutter, but you ain't sounding any better. So in my mind we're just a couple of psycho's on the run with a plan to let all hell lose."

She looked around the street, trying to find any sign of what would happen next, and also keeping an eye out for anyone who might be a threat. "First though, i need three things. One: guns. Two: you to show me where the hell we're going. Three: food. I'm starving."

"So lead the way 'Romeo'".

[Lilim_Savanant]

Corayn Ilrin was tired, wet and hungry. He was not in a good mood. The day had started off bad and got gradually worse as it went on.

First of all he'd overslept and had to rush out of the house in order to get to work on time, completely missing breakfast. Then his boss had given him a rant about deadlines and such, before warning him that if he was late again then he'd be out on the street. He'd had to miss lunch as well to make up for the time he missed in the morning.

By the time he'd finished and left the office he was about ready to drop. And then of course it just had to rain. Arriving at the train station to find that there had been some problems and that services would be running late was the final straw. He'd simply stormed out of the station and marched through the pouring rain all the way to his crappy little apartment building. He entered the main lobby and sighed in partial relief at the fact he was at least nearly home.

There were a couple of strange looking men in the corner of the lobby, smoking something that smelled highly suspect. They were both quite obviously drug addicts, possibly gang members as well. Corayn was used to seeing them around here. He wasn't yet able to afford a nice apartment in the good areas of town. Scenes of drug users, gang members, weapon smugglers and killers were common.

These two looked even stranger than the normal bunch though. They wore only black leather. Trousers, boots and sleeveless jackets. Their skin was dyed an extremely pale purple, nearly white, with swirling strange black tattoos over it. They had shaven heads and all manner of piercings. But of course, most distinct of all was the sunken eyes which showed the sign of a chronic substance abuser.

He simply ignored them and began to walk towards the elevator. Pressing the button for the fifth floor he waited for it to come down so he could finally get back to his room and rest. He only had less than a second to hear the crackle of the stun baton before his world went black and dark.
___________________________________________________

All over the city, similar dissapearences were taking place. Ordinary people, ordinary lives, no connection. Snatched from the streets, or near their homes. The police were in no immediate hurry to try and solve anything at the moment. People dissappeared all the time in Cazzie. It was a big city. Sometimes bodies turned up later in the rivers, or sometimes people came back and it turned out they'd just gone on a trip for a couple of days. It was so easy to misplace people that it generally wasn't worth looking unless they were important.

But despite the police's lack of enthusiasm to do anything more than take down a list of names, the dissapearences continued.
___________________________________________________

Corayn woke up suddenly to a pain in his arm. It took him a few seconds to get a grip of what was going on. He couldn't move much. That was the first thing he realised. The second was that he was tied standing up against a wall, with his arms and legs spread. Black leather restraints held him pinned at the waist, neck, wrists and ankles. The only movement he had was in his fingers and his head. He turned to see what had caused the pain, only to scream at the sight of a surgical scalpal jammed into the flesh of his right bicep. He screamed again and began to cry out of sheer shock.

A hand grabbed his face however and wrenched his eyes forward to look at the nightmare in front of him.

"I knew that would wake you up." The figure holding his faced smiled at him, which was a terrifying sight to behold. The face that looked back at him was simply a mask of flesh pulled tight over the skull of whatever man or monster he was now at the mercy of. Two glittering green eyes looked deep into his own, and in them he saw only madness. "I thought it was a bit rude of you not to reply when i spoke to you, so it was only fair that you should get a knife in your arm." The tall nightmare man grabbed hold of the scalpel and yanked it from the wound, causing Corayn to once more scream, this time from agony.

The tears fell from his eyes, but he was able to see a little of where he was from around the shape of the figure in front of him. Bodies were laying mutilated on the floor, with a sticky red pool of blood slowly congealing around it. It was impossible to identify how many, or what gender. All that was left was body parts and torn flesh, slick with a crimson layer of blood and gore. He vomitted down his chest at the sight, wretching uncomfortably as the neck brace choked him.

The stranger had wandered off into the dark recesses of the edge of the room but came back as the last remnants of vomit dribbled down his chin. He was carrying a cup of coffee and stirring it with the bloody scalpal. "You know something, the other fifteen all did exactly the same thing. I wish they wouldn't though, it does make such a mess of the place." He lifted the cup to what passed for his face and took a gentle sip. He lowered it and stood for a second in satisfaction. "You know, its the simple things in life that are so wonderful. Having a conversation over a cup of coffee. Marvellous."

Corayn spat some of the sickly flavour out of his mouth, and tried to find the courage to speak. He was shaking in fear, his lip trembled and his arm bleeding slowly. The drip of his blood was loud in the quiet room. He pushed himself to speak. "W-wh-why? Wh-why am i here?"

The figure looked back at him as if he had been woken from some inner reverie. "Hmmmm? Oh yes! Of course, how rude of me. My name is Asiraphel, your host. I hope you don't mind that i dont shake your hand, but you are of course restrained, which does make it rather difficult."

"The-then w-why am i h-h-here?" W-what h-h-have i done w-wrong?"

The figure who called itself Asiraphel looked a little puzzled by the question. "Done wrong? Nothing as far as i'm aware. But does that matter? Of course not. I'm not interested in what you've done. A poor little sad man like you with a miserable life? I can't imagine you've done anything i'd care about." The face became an evil grin. "But you will."

"P-p-pl-please! I'll d-do a-anything y-y-you want m-me to!"

The grin changed, into what looked like a genuine smile of approval and happiness. The voice too became light hearted and full of joy. "You will! Oh, that's good to hear. It's always so much nicer when people agree to help, it makes things so much easier." He casually pointed towards the pile of corpses. "They were all very ungrateful and wouldn't help, but i can see that you're a very understanding person."

"A-a-anything! J-j-just n-name it!"

Asiraphel put down his cup of coffee and held the the scalpal blade up against the skin of Corayn's cheek. "In that case lets start early, i'm a busy man. Could you just tense up a bit more, and try not to struggle. Otherwise you'll have no energy left to scream."

The screams echoed around the deep underground tunnels for half an hour before it finally faded to nothing.

A group of the black claded drug users shuffled into the chamber. Their eyes were glassy and vacant. Asiraphel turned from the mutilated corpse of Corayn and looked at the small group. "Could we get this cleaned up please, you know what to do with it."

He picked his coffee up and took a sip from the cup, before throwing it against the wall in disgust. His long spider like finger pointed to one of the group of five that were already dragging body parts through the door. "I hate cold coffee. Go get me a fresh one."

[Drawde]

Alletnam had returned to his office, the two escapies had never shown up at the hospital and he had grown tired of waiting there. But just as before there was a constant flow in and out of aides baring messages. Looking up from his paperwork he saw just one such person.
"What is it now?"
"Sir, the man from the gunfight on the ship seems to gone."
There was a long pause of silence while Drawde simply stared at the barer of bad news, and then, "What?!"
"Gone sir. We don't know what happened."
"No one could have possibly gotten in to take the body."
"No sir."
"Well he couldn't have just walked out."
"We think he may have sir."
"He was dead!"
"It would appear not sir."
The wealthy man was noticably angry.
"I've had enough. Let the governor deal with it. Send him all pertinent information dealing with the case... He police can handle... I have my own matters to deal with. But make sure I am kept informed about this. Understand?"
"Yes sir." The underling hurried off before his powerful employer became any more angry.
Yes, Cazzie did infact of a governor. Despite the fact that Alletnam owned nearly everything in the city, and despite that fact that he controlled nearly everything in the city, there was still an official governor. Of course Alletnam controled him too, but still he was handy to have around for times such as this when the busy man didn't feel like dealing with problems.

[Tybalt]

Tybalt followed the woman out of the ambulance, that then picked up speed and soon was gone.

- ...So in my mind we're just a couple of psycho's on the run with a plan to let all hell lose.

- Sounds good to me.

- First though, i need three things. One: guns. Two: you to show me where the hell we're going. Three: food. I'm starving.
So lead the way 'Romeo'.

He smiled.

- Follow me. This way.

He led her to a small door in a alley, and unlocked it. The small room was windowless and dark, the lighbulbs smashed, but this caused Tybalt no problem at all. He closed and locked the door behind them and opened a trapdoor in the floor. A light was turned on, shining up from the room under them.

- This way! he wispered, and climbed down.

This room was large, with concrete floor and walls, and around the walls were crates and cardboard boxes stacked. Two doors with massive locks were leading out from this room. Tybalt walked up to one of the stacks and, after pulling out a cratee to sit on, opened two boxes, revealing a computer and a mirror. The crates they were resting on served as a desk.

- It is good to have a few places like this in my line of work. Theres food in the boxes along that wall. The guns are in that crate, but I'm afraid nothing as fancy as your Carter gun. Ammo in the box over there. I have a few grenades there, and swords, daggers and stuff in those two crates. And a colection of "legal" wepons, like stun batons and tazers, in those crates. Have fun.

Then ha started washing away the dye from his hands and face, and removing the fake eyes and the plastic that changed the shape of his face.

[JoJo the Magic Sheep]

Simone hadn't slept at all that night. It was spent weighing pros and cons, planning strategy, and making a grocery list. The list itself was a combination of things, from formal dresses to guns and ammunition to a Psi-shield, to be installed before meeting Drawde. She didn't know much about the process, but she'd heard things and realized the importance of such a contraption.
Of course, there were issues with the shieled itself to be considered. Would Drawde be able to detect it, and then, would having a Psi-shield make her more suspicious? What reason should she give for having one, if he asked? If he demanded?
She was still thinking these things on the shuttle to Cazzie.
"You'd think they'd have more air," the Ambassador was saying. He was starting to smell slightly, even over the heavy cologne he wore, but Simone said nothing.
"Yeah," she replied, deep in thought. She'd sent a notice of her arrival in that morning, saying she was going to sightsee for a few days before meeting with Drawde. How many would she need? Would he want to meet with her at all?
She already had a few hundred thousand units of currency with her, as well as the key to a safe containing several more at the Philemon, the upscale hotel where she had a reservation. Aside from that was Schmidt's assurance that whatever she needed could be sent to her from where he was in Losan, doubly assured by the contract they had both signed and locked in her personal safe on CQ Fleet 9. There it would be safe, in case Losan decided to withdraw its support. However, if Simone was caught, her remaining aides were under order to destroy the contract. She would be on her own.
The notice came on that the shuttle would soon be entering the Earth's atmosphere. Simone hated this part of the flight, having never really gotten used to it, but as usual showed nothing. The Ambassador didn't care for it either, and grew soggier. They would be in Cazzie soon.

*****

Simone got off the shuttle first, accompanied by two of her aides. The first was a smart girl named Jenna, sometimes called Cricket because of her reversed back legs and incredible hearing. This aide rarely left Simone's side, so it was only natural for her to come to Cazzie. The second aide was the young man with the third eye, whom Simone knew would be honest with her. His name was Cesare, and he looked fairly normal aside from the eye, which was situated on his left cheek, just below and a little behind his left eye. Unlike the other two, it was an electric green that made anyone walking with him to the left feel nervous and vulnerable. Simone liked that, too. He flanked her with the green eye facing outside, and together they watched people shy away from it.

There was a good amount of ceremony that went with them. Simone was dressed in an elegant but practical way so that the other travelers noticed her and knew she was important. She wanted that. While all the attention was on her, the Ambassador would wait on the shuttle until it was nearly empty, then slip off and catch the first flight to Losan. No one would ever know they had been together. Not even if they looked at the records, thanks to Schmidt's alias. So far, everything was working beautifully.
When they reached a waiting limosine, Jenna turned to the Head Representative. "Where are we going, ma'am?"
"The hotel, briefly. But then I don't want to lose any time. We only have a few days to sightsee."
Jenna knew what she was talking about, and nodded. Suddenly Cesare spoke up.
"What about the bags?"
"They'll send them to the hotel. I made sure of that."
He nodded, then turned to the driver. "The Philemon, please."
The driver acknowledged, and soon they were on their way.