1 of 4 semi-planned writing exercises I have in mind.
Edit: Special thanks to Kybernetes Moros for catching most of my obtuse grammar errors in the beta draft.
Please meet me at the park across the street from Jensen's place at midday. I have a job proposition for you.
-Anonymous
Midday my ancestor's frozen ass, she thought to herself angrily. Kaseras fished around in the front pocket of her jacket, looking for her lighter and last discount cigarette. The Deteis lady took out the items with a practiced care, defiantly keeping the winter winds from whisking them away. She drew upon the last of her patience as she waited for the irregular gusts to die down just enough to light her cigarette safely.
Here I am standing at the gate to some park, out in the freezing cold because some unmarked letter told me to be here, Kaseras bitterly mused as she desperately flicked her lighter when the gusts stopped.
Stupid corporations and their stupid jobs, and this STUPID LIGHTER! She clenched her teeth when the winds came back, stopping her from getting a flame going any time soon. Kaseras shoved the lighter back into her jacket's pocket, but her numb hands lost her grip on the cigarette. It took her a moment to realize what was happening as her little friend was whisked away by another squall. She stood there and watched it vanish from her gaze, wondering if it was worth trying to chase down. Kaseras' annoyance deafened her to the sounds of someone approaching behind her in the snow. A man's cough from behind broke her from her stupor.
"Ahuhm, Kaseras?" The Deteis in question spun around at her name, entirely ready to give whoever spoke an earful about etiquette. She had been waiting well passed midday for this meeting and they didn't even have the decency to greet her correctly! Her impending tirade died on her lips when she saw who the speaker was. He was another Deteis like herself, decked out head to toe in grey formal winter wear. Yet behind his all too nice looking clothes, she recognized the shoulder length brunette hair and chiseled face with its bright blue eyes.
"Vitasi?" Kaseras asked in a disbelieving voice, completely forgetting about her own etiquette and anger. The man smiled and bowed slightly.
"Did you expect differently?" He said it in such a lighthearted way that Kaseras had trouble thinking he was real. Maybe the cold had gotten to her?
"You were ab-abduc...", She frowned and shook herself to get rid of the chills, "You were abducted by the Sansha."
Vitasi blinked at her statement, straightening himself up at it.
"Of course not! No, no no, nothing like that." The Deteis gentleman corrected her, smiling ruefully.
"During the confusion caused by the Sansha, I got lost on one of the transports. It's taken me months to find out where you've been!" He stepped towards her at that, opening his arms wide. Kaseras took a moment to think on it before she jumped into his arms, eagerly hugging him back. It was hard for her to believe that her old friend was back. That attack so long ago separated the two of them and the thought that he had been taken gave her nightmares for weeks. Between him holding her, her holding him, and the happy tears on her face she decided it was very real.
They separated, still holding onto each others arms, and she found her smile reflected in Vitasi's face.
"You big..." Kaseras was interrupted by Vitasi before she could finish.
"...Handsome oaf?" He wiggled his bushy eye brows, which earned him a slap on the arm and Kaseras' laughter. He snorted and smiled.
A chilling breeze brought their attention back to their place at the park's gates. Kaseras wiped at her face and Vitasi looked across the street to Jensen's Tea Shop.
"I'm all for freezing to death like the old days, but how about some tea before then?" He asked her, gesturing towards the shop across the street. Kaseras nodded energetically.
A bell rang as Kaseras walked in, shadowed behind by Vitasi. They were greeted by the only visible staff member there, a young Civire man in shop uniform.
"Welcome!", He greeted them as he prepared two electronic menus, "Table, booth, or bar?"
"A private booth if you have one, please. Business." Vitasi answered him before Kaseras could say anything, earning him a queer look. The Civire server nodded and motioned for the two to follow him.
Their were brought to booths deeper in the building, well away from the frontal area; the two Deteis took off their outer coats as they sat down, folding them neatly and placing them at their sides. Their server placed the electronic menus on the table when he saw they were seated.
"Please select what you wish from the menus to order. I, or another server, will ensure you receive your order as soon as it's done. You may pay with your menus and leave at any time." He bowed to the two Deteis, who nodded at the young man.
"May you graciously enjoy yourselves with Jensen's fine teas." The server left after that, leaving Kaseras and Vitasi alone.
There was an awkward silence between the two as Kaseras eyed her friend across the table.
"Business?" She questioned.
"That letter you got was from, uhh - me." Vitasi looked sheepish as Kaseras' stare turned into a half-hearted glare.
"Would it have been too much to ask for you have left your name
at least?"
"Complications, complications." He tried to wave it off.
The Deteis lady picked up her menu, pointedly giving Vitasi the cop-out he was looking for. Her friend mimicked her action and the two of them were in a markedly more comfortable silence as they picked out drinks. Neither of them said anything until a server arrived, setting down their orders of hot tea. They affirmed they would be fine to the server, who bowed politely and left the two Deteis.
After the first tentative sips, Kaseras was the first to speak.
"If that's your letter, why the secrecy? What job proposition? Where have you been?" She asked seriously, her earlier mirth disappearing. Vitasi saw the change in her disposition and seemed to take a moment to prepare himself.
"Do you remember that deal we made about, eleven years or so, ago?" Vitasi asked her suddenly, folding his hands together on the table. It took Kaseras a minute to recall what he was mentioning.
"If either one of us got into some big management position, we'd get the other hired and live our lives in luxury?" She repeated what she could recall of that deal. Vitasi nodded affirmatively.
"I remember it - and how hard I blew it for both of us when I ratted out my
boss." She spat the last word out.
"You did the right thing, Kaseras. At the cost of our jobs or not, at least it put him in jail." Vitasi reassured her despite her shaking her head.
"A lot of good that did. Blacklist us off every major corporation on the planet and we get stuck with these cursed contractor jobs for ye-" She stopped her self mid sentence, scowling and taking a sip of her tea.
"I know, I know. I mention it because some things have ... happened." Vitasi said with an uncharacteristic nervousness about him that Kaseras noticed immediately. She stared at him expectantly.
"What I'm going to tell you and ask of you ... I need to know that you will listen to everything, absolutely everything." The oddity of his request stuck in her mind, but she nodded.
"Of course I would for you." She told him, yet his nervousness didn't diminish. Vitasi took a breath in before he spoke.
"It wasn't long after we made that deal with each other that I was ... contacted. It was someone who knew about my grandfather." Kaseras blinked and the weight of his implication began to register in her mind.
"They knew about your grandfather being ... " She trailed off and Vitasi curtly nodded.
"Yes. It was a Sansha agent who contacted me." Kaseras stiffened; Vitasi kept going before she could say anything.
"They wanted me, as one of grandfather's descendents, to return to the Nation. I had the right, they said, and they knew my education would be of great use there. It was hard to see why they'd think that at the time, but I turned them down all the same. They told me I always had a line to them if I wanted and they never contacted me since." Vitasi took a sip from his cooling down tea, his hand shaking ever so slightly.
The Deteis lady stared at her companion, trying to understand where he was going with this. She made a hand gesture for him to continue.
"After you exposed that
bastard," Kaseras noted Vitasi still shared her distaste of her former boss, "I realized what it would do to us in the worker's world. I hoped it wouldn't, that we could just start over and work to the top again ... but no one took us. We got blacklisted. After a year of us having to live at the bottom like that I ... I called the Sansha."
She sucked in air at that, clenching her teeth so tightly and sitting straight so rigidly it was painful. A sinking feeling coursed through her and a terrible knot settled in her gut.
"You did
what...?" Kaseras breathed out the question as a dozen different thoughts all slammed into her mind.
"I called the Sansha. I told them I wanted in - I wanted out of here," Vitasi gestured around with a trembling hand, "And I wanted to have someone come with me - you." Kaseras leaned onto the table, resting on her elbow as she grabbed her head. A horrible sense of vertigo was poking at her and she wasn't sure how to deal with it.
"Why did you never tell me about this?" She asked him in a subdued voice. She didn't see him respond to her question.
"They told me it wasn't a free offer anymore. I had to work for it, especially if I wanted to take an ... outsider, with me. You didn't have family who were in the Nation before, they wanted extra from me for you." Kaseras looked up at him then and she focused intently on his face.
"What did you do?" Her question was sharp and accusing. Vitasi held up his hands in a timid gesture.
"Nothing ... dangerous. They wanted me to send them all kinds of really strange reports. What was the latest food trend, who was the last celebrity to come from this world, what was the local clothing material made of... so on. They wanted things anyone with any kind of GalNet access could look up." He shrugged at her disbelieving look.
"I don't know why, but they were pleased with it. They sent me care packages as a reward - sometimes money, sometimes food."
"Those benefits you got from your sanitation work." Kaseras pointed out and Vitasi nodded.
"Yes, those were from the Sansha."
An awkward quiet fell between them and Kaseras looked down to her tea. She slowly took a sip from the cold drink, not bothered in the slightest by the queer taste. The Deteis lady slowly rubbed the cup as she thought.
"When the attack came ... you didn't get lost in the rescue, did you?" She asked him, a creeping fear nagging at her. When he didn't immediately respond, she looked up at him.
"Did you?" She repeated more forcefully.
"No. I went with the Sansha dropships." Vitasi answered steadily.
Kaseras slowly put her tea cup down on the table at his answer. She stared at the cup as she tried to understand the myriad of conflicting emotions surging through her: the best and only friend of her life and the one she cared for most worked for one of the most horrible enemies of the Caldari. Her hand clenched and unclenched as she thought about it, something Vitasi noticed.
"When I asked them if you were among the ... uplifted," Kaseras looked up at him when he mentioned that last word, "They told me you weren't. I asked them to make sure, but their records were perfect. I was with them and you weren't."
"You want me to be some kind of mindless slave? You think I want to be one?!" She hissed out the accusation, her face contorting to show her incredulous outrage.
Vitasi slammed his hands on the table, surprising her at his action.
"They're not mindless! They're people just as much as you or me!" His angry look surprised her even more than him hitting the table did. Kaseras was about to give him a snappy response when Vitasi groaned and held a hand to his temple.
"I wanted more time! Curse it all." He mumbled venomously.
"More time for what?" Kaseras asked him with narrowed eyes. Vitasi looked up to her with those bright blue eyes of his and she had to remind herself to stay on the defensive.
"I came all the way from Stain itself for you, Kaseras." He told her in a gentle voice as he leaned back in the booth.
"I found what we both always wanted ... why we even made that deal. I was afraid at first of what the Sansha would do, but it's all been worth it! They provide all the food I could ever want, they give a good salary and honest work for me to do. It's not boring or evil or ... I don't know what!" Vitasi exclaimed, exasperated. The Deteis looked down at his jacket and pulled it into his lap, edging to move out of the booth.
"What are you doing?" Kaseras' became alarmed at his sudden actions.
"I'm out of time." He answered her simply, standing up and putting his grey formal winter jacket on.
"I came here with others to finish old business. They let me come with to see if you would take my offer to come with me - back to the Nation. I'm out of time, we're leaving the planet in the next couple hours." He buttoned up his jacket and looked at her with a sad smile.
"I can see it in you that you're afraid of me now. Hateful, even. I made a mistake doing this, but I had to try." He didn't wait for her response before he started walking his way out. Kasera quickly scooted over to the edge of the booth to watch his retreating back. Vitasi's words rang in her ears as she watched her best friend walk away.
~-~
One of his kin was waiting for him outside of Jensen's Tea Shop when he exited. There was a sleek, silver tracked car parked on the street just behind the man. Vitasi shook his head, telling the waiting man all he needed to know.
"Regrettable." He stated plainly, opening the door to the car parked behind him. Vitasi wordlessly agreed with him as he entered the back seat and shut the door. The Deteis sat back and pinched the bridge of his nose as he began to grasp the enormity of his failure.
The car chugged for a moment as the engine started and Vitasi felt the heater vents blowing air on his face. He smacked the vent closed.
He looked over in surprise when the door he just closed opened up and Kaseras shoved her face in.
"Move your fat ass over." She demanded hotly. Vitasi just stared at her dumbly.
"I said move over, I'm getting in."
"Why?" Vitasi asked, scooting to the other side of the back seat. Kaseras entered and shut the door, crossing her arms as she looked at him.
"You're an insensitive ass who still can't figure out how to ask me anything straight." She pointed it out to him as casually as one talked about the time of day.
"You know I'm with the Sansha..." He trailed off. Kaseras slapped him on the arm.
"I don't care about that. I care about you - and if you say it's fine then it's fine. I'll follow
you." She looked away from him at that, staring intently at the driver whose been silent throughout her intrusion.
"And if it weren't for me, you forget basic courtesy like paying the tea shop for their stupid tea."
The car drove off and its occupants paid no mind to the outside's cold wind.
Author
Topic: Too Human: The Caldari (Read 1217 times)