Roan was already in the cafeteria, hands wrapped around a coffee mug, thawing them. Her fur draped over the back of the chair. Most of her had been kept warm, but her gloves were missing. One of these days she'd give up looking & try to find someone who had a pair. Although, finding someone willing to part with gloves this time of year would be the big problem. It was quiet for once, and for once, the ever-perky Roan was enjoying it. It was nice to let her heart's inner war play itself out. Still sipping in the cafeteria, fingernails no longer blue tinged. There was a book in front of her, but in her eyes it was clear her mind was elsewhere.
Sirronalia, the very large Syrynykk wandered into the lobby, carefully bundled against the cold weather. After a careful glance around the room, he lowered into a tripod of legs and tail in front of a terminal. Its green glowing letters offset the terminal's black background. He wasn't really interested in the terminal...just in standing still and warming up. The terminal blinker just... blinked at Spike. Spike just sat there just...sitting in front of the terminal. The warmth of being inside slowly seeped into the big 'Nykk, his eyes started to show the fact that he was, in fact, mentally present.
Bliss Lovejoy drifted through the lobby, sending a wave to Sirronalia. He turned his head and waved back. Their greetings were clipped and short, like the cold outside. She kept on, strolling for the cafeteria. She was here for a bit of coffee and so she didn't climb the walls at home. Just before the pull out of the Nukes, there'd been one last, insignificant battle between a Nuke company and a Freemen unit. Insignificant in the way a rusty razor cut is insignificant. Bliss couldn't stand being at home, not knowing all the details of what had happened to those in the Legion unit.
As Sirronalia slowly got warmer, he got up and went to the cafeteria. Roan sipped her coffee, not realizing until the cup was turned up enough to block her line of sight that the cup was empty. She rose for a refill, her reverie done just in time, as a coup d'oeil of the room revealed others drifting in.
Bliss greeted Roan as she made her way to the coffeepot and Roan smiled softly and said, "Hi there," in return. Sirronalia lumbered in behind Bliss, casting an oversize shadow over her. Coffee in hand, Bliss dropped into a seat. When Roan drifted back with more coffee to her own seat, Bliss said, "Wake up Roan," because it was clear that the woman just wasn't in the real world today. Roan smiled. "Just thinking," she said.
Andoria Natarsha knew that cold was something she'd gotten used to. Now she had to see what was going on again... She'd caught flak from her employer for diverting for other contracts. Profit was profit, and she was getting paid, but not enough to simply sit her life away. However, one simply did not violate contracts if one wished to maintain a business reputation.
Her entry was in silent through the lobby, though. She was in a mood where caring did not factor; She wanted this one over with. Staying at one location too long risked too much, anyway. It had taken her a minute or so to determine Bliss' location in the cafeterian, but then she approached. She ignored the casual chat Bliss was having -- or not having -- with Roan. "It's been a while, Bliss. I trust my absence wasn't a problem? I had some pressing errands."
"Not a problem, Andoria. I've been pretty busy with things myself."
"Good. So you're not as pissed off with me as Red, then?" Andoria asked dryly, glancing around the room.
"Nope, intel says movements along the lines of Red's idea would be bad at the moment."
With all the arrogance of her family history, Andoria assumed, "You don't have access to intelligence data. Not much, anyway, I'd bet.
Of course, I might be wrong. You know I own a house in Perdoxx. It's not like it's hard to get there with me."
Bliss said simply, "My intel comes from a different source."
"Humint is still second hand data. I get mine from the source, literally. Believe me, the runs I did. The coastline there is quite clear. Can you give me a figure on how long you will be sure you will NOT be going? That way I can get some commercial business done."
"Hmm... at least two to three weeks due to bad weather and worse nuke patrols."
"Enough time for a run... And patrols WHERE?" She rather studiously pulled a slim cigarette out of one pocket and then a lighter, igniting the thing and taking a long drag as she listened to the reply."
"Local patrols, they're causing a bit of havok with my supply routes."
"Oh..." Andoria gestured with the hand holding the cigarette. "So the
problem is in getting guns for your guys?"
"No, my biggest problem is getting food into the city to feed my people."
"If you're using your own people for the mission, then they would not need food for the journey. I provide that.'
"Andoria, I have people to feed in the city." How dense was this woman? Or was it just single-mindedness.
"Do you want me to get food through, then? Or a food base? It'll be spring soon."
"I've got a source of food I'm just having a problem moving it."
Andoria took another drag on the cigarette. "Okay. Where?"
Roan was thinking of coffee plants from Perdoxx and she sighed twice, thinking of how many food plants had been lost in the earthquake. Tthe greenhouse was recovering. Slowly, but surely. She was barely listening to Andoria and Bliss until Bliss nudged her. "Wake up," Bliss said again. By this time, Sirro, aka Spike, had had some warm soup and made his way back out into the cold.
Roan grinned. "Why? I'm *thinking*." She waggled her brows suggestively prompting Bliss to call her a silly woman.
"It's an overland route, Andoria and if I told you where I'd have to shoot you after." It was clear to Bliss that Andoria just wasn't getting it. Bliss had enough problems without having to trade with someone for work she could do herself, in her own time. Explaining it all was impossible and deflecting Andoria's questions was tedious.
"Overland route, yes, but can the source be reached by sea? Sometimes things are easier that way."
The blonde young woman shook her head. "No, there isn't a way to reach it by sea."
"Very well. Still, food is worthless if you can't get it from somewhere."
Roan quipped, belatedly, "Perky, you can't forget perky."
"Silly and Perky," Bliss amended with a grin.
"Well, it's better than pouty & moody ..."
Andoria laughed softly. "Everything is."
Roan sighed yet again. "I just wish I could convince myself I wasn't making a HUGE mistake. Not that I'm going to *stop* making it; I ... "
"Which HUGE mistake are you making?" Bliss asked, nursing her coffee.
"Well, I guess I just couldn't live if I wasn't stressing about *something*! Which? Lemme think ..."
"I'm listening. Of course, I'm always listening." Andoria threw in. She took another drag from the cigarette. This was getting boring. Normally starving people would deal. It proved that she didn't understand that Bliss people weren't starving yet and neither was she or Roan. They were just having a small problem getting supplies through. It wasn't desperate yet.
"Betraying my vow to give up on men forever," Roan finished.
"You had to be insane to say a vow like that in the first place."
"Roan hasn't ever been wrapped quite right." And yet, Bliss had encouraged Roan to get involved with her best friend, Ricoh Gideonn, knowing that the woman wasn't 'wrapped quite right.' Women did odd things to, for, and because of one another. Maybe Bliss' next statement explained it all. "It's one of the reasons we get along so well." So Bliss was a little loopy as well, eh? Small world.
"Well, yes ... 'insane' would cover it. At the time."
"Hey, got a point there. I don't mind lunatics, though," Andoria quipped, aggitated. "C'mon you people. You must have something you want."
"After the earthquake, I wasn't the happiest camper on the planet for awhile," Roan nodded at Andoria. "Gloves. Pre-war Perdoxxian coffee plants, and... Whirled peas." She laughed at her own joke.
'What the bloody hell are whirled peas?"
Roan blinked, stopped laughing, and said, "I'm not sure. But my grandma used to say that when she meant 'world peace'."
"Ah. I think I understand.. No, I do understand it. How many tons of peas do you want, or do you want the seeds, or the actual plants?'
"Well, gram was a couple of bricks sort of a load, too ... Um ... well, that was a joke..."
Bliss sat listening and shook her head slightly.
"And the Coffee Plants are luxury items. Fragile. As for gloves... How many crates? So you don't want peas? Okay."
"Crates? Hell, I was just talking one pair. Hmmm ... however ... Well, what do you want for them. I don't have much besides real estate."
"D&D, of course. I want some of both. Diamonds and Diesel." She took another casual drag from her cigarette.
"OH!" The light dawned on Roan. "Ok. Well, gas is doable. Don't know about the diamonds. I'll have to see. I'm all new to this; usually I need something, I ask Bliss ... but she's been preoccupied lately, and I haven't wanted to bother her."
"Well, how many of these coffee plants do you want?" Andoria was enjoying getting to specifics.
And Coffee was something Roan knew intimately. "I brought 5 flats back with me last time ... can you get more?" Her wheels were turning, if creaking from the rust.
"What's a flat of coffee plants?"
Perfectly timed, Bliss looked up from her coffee cup and said, "'I've' been preoccupied? Me?" Roan told her she should be, she was getting married after all.
"'Flat' is the unit of measure plants come in ... about this size." She spread out her hands to indicate what she meant.
"So you don't want the trees?" Andoria's brows quirked high on her forehead.
"No ... They have a better chance of survive the transplant if you get
them small."
"Alright. I can carry three hundred and eighty four flats, then. Though normally I limited myself to three hundred sections of cargo to leave room for defensive ammo."
"Damn! That's a lot ... Three hundred would be more than enough. In fact, 150 would do. And some gloves."
"Yeah. The cost is thirty thousand gallons of diesel and seventy-five carats of diamonds. Unless you want to make a bulk order of gloves, I'll throw those in for the deal." The way Andoria said 'gallons' made it sound like 'galleons'. Her accent was not heavy, but frequently played havoc with her pronunciations.
Bliss laughed at the price that was set for the coffee plants.
Andoria looked at Bliss. "Well, I said I could get anything. That didn't mean anything was cheap."
"For that price I could get someone to walk to Perdoxx for coffee plants." In fact, she knew several someone's.
"But they could only carry back a few. I can carry three hundred and eighty four tons of cargo. But there's this thing called fuel."
"Whatever..." Roan sighed. This was why she usually just stayed out of these conversations. Prices were exorbitant, impossible. All she'd wanted was a pair of gloves. The coffee plants just reminded her of Mal, which only reminded her of why she was thinking so much earlier.
"Hey Roan, if you've got that much swag to hand over be my guest. It's way more then I've got in trade."
"Eight thousand gallons, then. I try to build up a surcharge.
"You two, however, have some moderate intelligence, so... Four thousand galleons of Diesel and seventy five carats of diamonds. Lowest I can go."
"Ok. I'll let you know." The way Roan said it, it was very clear she'd lost interest. But Andoria wasn't one to let a sale just slip away.
"That is for, of course, one hundred and fifty of those things of coffee plants and a crate of assorted gloves."
Roan wondered to herself why she had brought up the freakin' plants? Now she was depressed again. "Mmmmm..." she said to Andoria. She rose for another refill and told herself the plants would somehow just be taken from her again even if she could afford the trade for them. She shook her head, trying to shake the thoughts away; to make room for the perky ones again.
"OK, It was just a thought. I don't really need anything ... I was just thinking out loud. And I have no IDEA where I'd get that many diamonds! That was Caine's job ...." She stopped herself from going there and thought to herself, "happy thoughts, happy thoughts. Ric in a towel, ooo Ric not in a towel. It quickly made her feel better.
"Trader, businessman...occasional pain in the butt," Bliss supplied.
"Among other things," roan said. And thought father of what would have been my son." Then: Ric in a towel ... She drank down her newest cup of coffee and rather abruptly headed for the door.
"Later Roan," bliss called, not surprised. "I'll keep the towels warm for you." To Andoria she said, "There's nothing I can think of at the moment that I want." She too finished her coffee. "I wouldn't have anywhere to store that much stuff at one time." She rose to her feet, then, not waiting for a reply or another of Andoria's solutions. "Gotta go, just stopped in for coffee on my way home. My kids are waiting on me." She strolled for the door.
"You have kids?"
"Three to five, depending on who you ask."
"Yeesh. Lucky woman. Or maybe not. Of course, I've never been in labor, so I don't know either way."
"Oh, I do it the easy way. I adopt them." Bliss grinned over her shoulder. "Saves on the pain."
"Very good point. Well, let me know if you change your mind... Though
in a hurry. And... Remember.. Two to three weeks."
"I seldom forget anything, night Andoria." Bliss pushed out through the cafeteria doors. Andoria shrugged and loitered there for only moments before heading home her own way.
===
Adriann struggled up the stairs with boxes of those really annoying thin blankets for patients... the storm had left it very cold... And Asche was... well, Asche was there, following Adriann up with boxes of her own to carry - brought up from one of the basement storage areas - but was she really... there? He had three boxes stacked so that he had to peer around them... they were kinda heavy too so the further up the stairwell he got the slower he seemed to go. So that she, who was not paying attention, kept bumping into him or rather, her boxes kept pushing into his backside.
'Riann was talking, as he often did and each time her boxes hit his bum he sorta ... giggled. "I tried to explain to her that she couldn't use strips of bathroom tissue to wrap her ankle," another faint giggle. "But she simply wouldn't listen. I don't think her test tube was completely in the centrifuge..." He actually laughed. "If you know what I mean."
She couldn't see around her boxes any more than he could see around his. It was a litany of steps, starts and bumps and 'Riann prattling on... and voices, other voices.... no wait ... "Huh?" Where the hell am I?
Someone had left a bucket on the other side of the door leading to the stairwell. He tried to push the door open and the bucket made this awful *skreeeeeeeeeeeee* sound as it was moved over the floor tile. The noise cut through her like a knife and suddenly every nerve was twitching. "Geezus, 'Riann... what the abyss are you doin'??" Panic honed her voice sharp.
He nearly dropped his boxes but amazingly found balance. The door was halfway open when the bucket got ... well... stuck. Uhm. He thought. "Uhm," he said out loud. "I'm going to have to put the boxes down."
Again, she thumped into him. Leaned her boxes against him, resting her forehead against the musty sides. "Great. Just... great." Inward, she braced herself and backed down a few steps. She shuddered.
He tried to balance again, all three boxes on one hand so that he could find room on the stair to put them. Ah, there... carefully he lowered the boxes to the stair and tried to push one through the half open doorway. It just wasn't open wide enough. He sighed, slowly, deeply. "I think I'm going to have to take the blankets out of the boxes ..."
She pressed her back against the wall and closed her eyes. "It's too loud in here." She said quietly.
What an odd thing to say, he thought, pausing in his efforts to regard her. "Too loud?"
"Open the damn door!" She snapped. Gave him her best glare around the boxes.
"I WOULD if I could - but the door is STUCK on something!" He put one hand on the stack of boxes and stared back at her. "You come around - get yours through first maybe, then squeeze through..." The hall there
was narrower than most.
Imagine her, having a bout of claustrophobia. That's what she'd blame it on. Lack of sleep was good too. No one thought she ever got enough sleep. But there were boxes between her and door. She stared between
the three of them... box, door, 'Riann... "You can't fit through the door?"
"I might, but you can't hold all the boxes... and these won't go through. Yours seem smaller to me."
They didn't feel smaller. Her arms and back were aching. "Go through the door... find out what's blocking it... Clear the block and open the DAMN DOOR!" Many deep breaths...indeed it seemed like she was panting.
He flinched at the sound of her voice, the shout and balanced the boxes as best he could. "Fine, then." He didn't so much frown as ... pout ... and moved carefully around the boxes on the upper stair to squeeze through the door.
And suddenly she was alone. The voices were loud. She closed her eyes so she couldn't see who - no what - belonged to those voices. "Hurry
'Riann..." came her very soft whisper which he didn't hear.
He made it through and breathed a soft sigh of relief, then turned to see that it was the bucket... a wide, mop squeezin' gadget topped bucket. He shut the door just a bit... this hallway was at an odd angle to the cafeteria and the ER. Rather on the 'other' side of the cafeteria you might say... Shutting the door loosened it's grip on the bucket and he gave the bucket a good kick to skid it down the hall. Then the door could open wide, and he smiled into the semi-dark of the stairwell as he got it open.
Asche's knees had turned to jello, nothing could be seen in the semi-dark but her boxes and her legs, where she'd sunk down onto the step.
'Riann whispered, "Andy?" He saw her legs and he took his boxes, one by one until they were out of the well then moved carefully down the steps to help with hers. He peered over the top at her. "Hey."
Her arms were over her face. She whimpered. "Go away," she said very softly. "Go away... go away..." She wasn't talking to Adriann.
He wasn't totally certain of that, but he took her boxes too, one by one and moved them up the stairs to the hall, silently, until nothing remained but the two of them. He stepped over her, sat on the step below and tucked his hand behind the small of her back.
She drew her knees up tight to her body. She was surrounded, jumping at his touch. But the voices also died down, when he put his arm around her. Wary, she opened her eyes. And they were there... the nightmares... but they were back down the stairs.
"Hi there, sweetie. You okay?" His voice was very tender. His green eyes were full of concern and his bangs fell into them as he tilted his head to get a look at her.
Her eyes were round as saucers, giving her a much younger look. "You opened the door."
He nodded a little. "You told me to," he said as is this should be obvious. Then added in a very soft whisper, "Anything for you."
She took a deep, shuddering breath, then tried to get her legs under her. "Geezus... you must think I'm whacked." Maybe I am. No, they're real. Damn them.
"Easy ..." he stood with her and shook his head. "I've seen tiny things through a microscope that most people wouldn't believe existed. So you see... just because I can't see what you see, doesn't mean it's not there."
She leaned against him. Unafraid, as she might have been months ago, to do so. "They've always been there..." Asche took shaking, yet progressively stronger steps to get out of the stairwell. Have to get out into the light. "Monsters," she whispered.
He didn't miss a chance to encircle her with an arm whenever she did so. But carefully - because it always seemed so fragile a thing to him, her contact. Sometimes, he wished he'd taken up psychology trying under Raines or Brrace instead of genetics. "Even when you were small?"
She nodded. "Ever since I can remember." The hallway was heaven to her. Still feeling weak, she plopped herself down on a stack of boxes to catch her breath.
He'd rarely felt afraid in his life... 'cept that time with the Freemen in K-land... then he'd been terrified. But before that, sheltered... no
monsters...
"S'only in that part of the floor too." She wrung out her hands. "Don't know why I keep storing stuff down there."
"That's the only place the monsters are?"
She swallowed down her heart and gave him a considering look. "No. I'd give you a tour, but I don't..." She sighed. "No ghost is benevolent, 'Riann... They all want something."
He got down next to her on one knee there in the small corridor and let the door shut. "Why do they want these things from you?"
"Cause I'm the one with the 'gift.'" She laughed, bitter. "'Least that's what that 'Nykk told me. They just... know."
He gestured to the stairwell and then looked at the small dark window set in the door 2/3rds of the way up. It seemed ominous now. So it was only in that part of that floor where she felt the 'monsters'. But there were other floors where she felt others. "What do the really mean ones usually want?"
She looked up at him, into his eyes. That haunted look she wore so often returned. "If they can't live...neither should anyone else.'
A tightness clenched his chest and his hand went protectively around hers. "They can't have you."
She smiled, a rare, soft thing. Her hand was shaking in his. "They tried. When I was a kid..."
"From now on, I'll go down myself and get supplies, or I'll take Maxx with me. You don't need to go." He frowned definitively this time. His verdant eyes narrowed. "When you were a kid?" Every statement brought more questions.
She shook her head, gave his hand a squeeze then covered his with her free hand. "I'm not going run scared from a bunch of freakin' ghosts."
Up until now he'd thought of these ghosts as benevolent... maybe mischievous... like the one who'd pushed him -- he was sure of that!-- into her to kiss her. but this... "If it's only there they come after you, then don't put yourself through that. You don't have to."
She nodded and leaned into him. "This is my hospital...my home. Why can't they just... go away?" The frights were over. The wights were in the basement and there were cold and chilly people that needed the painfully threadbare blankets.
He didn't know why they couldn't just go away... but he had his arm around her snugly. Moving from that spot ... it just seemed wrong. And with him holding her so snug...She didn't want to move.
"What am I supposed to do with you, 'Riann?"
He thought about that for all of 2 seconds. "Marry me." He hadn't meant to say it... it just came out! Actually he meant it... but he knew she wasn't ready to hear that.
"I'm too old to get married." His words had changed everything. She stood up, pulling easily away. The moment broken.
He was ... he didn't know what he was. "Sure..." he went on softly, "sure..." He just keep thinking to himself, Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
She turned her back on him to consider the boxes and how best to get her share back in her arms. Marriage, no way I'm going down that route again. He'll just die and I'll live... She swore out loud... for-freakin'-ever alone.
"Look, Andy, I'm sorry. Really sorry. I had no right to say that ... I was outta line. but ... I meant it." His voice fell soft when he was sure the curse was for him.
Damn him to whatever abyss Etrigan crawled out of. She put her hands on top of the stack and eased her weight on them. "Yanno...I worked real hard to grow these spikes..." Meaning, the walls to keep everyone, everything out.
He mussed his own hair trying to straighten the blonde mop on his head. "I know. I'm..."
Ed Archer blinked at Asche, walking up from behind the both of them. "That is a pity," he said of her walls and walked past.
She turned her head, offering him a glimpse of ice frosted eyes... that narrowed into a glare that followed Ed. 'Riann was captivated all over by those eyes. "...sorry." He meant that he was sorry she'd found it necessary to work so hard at building up walls, not for asking her to marry him. He hoisted a box as her attention was diverted.
Ed did not seem to notice, looking about the hall at large. "Hm." What in the 9 hells of the Abyss was he doing here? "There was a man here...he looked like you." He said this to Asche.
"What about him?" Clipped tones answered Ed.
"I never thought you had family." He shrugged.
She took a deep breath, but her fingers dug into the box tops. 'He's the only one left."
"He is one."
"What does that mean?" Recovered from the initial shock... but not the latest. Why would he want to marry me? It was a true puzzle. It kept her off her game.
"You have family."
'Riann's eyes closed - he remembered when she got news of her younger brother... he chewed on the inside of his cheek.
Ed was an odd bird and Asche looked at him like he was a phlupp who'd grown wings. "He's older than I am. A real fossil." And for this world, that was true.
"Fossil." Ed scratched his head. "What is a fossil?"
"Remnants of a creature long dead..." She spoke as if by rote. "Fossilized - organic material converted to stone... so the bones fuse with the rock and are well preserved ... that sort of thing." 'Riann had half expected Elliott to answer that question and similar rote responses went through his head
"Remnants... Remnants?"
"Marshall's got a nice one...in his..." She stopped.
"Marshall?" Asking one question after another, it seemed as if Ed expected her to sum it up in one brief sentence.
She bowed her head. Maybe the demons in the basement were becoming preferable. "My brother is an old man." Meaning, he was near 40. Asche started piling up her boxes again.
Adriann found he couldn't resist a quip. "Marshall is well preserved."
"I see." Ed seemed satisfied and wandered off to his own devices.
'Riann decided he didn't want to carry the boxes and slipped down the hall in search of a spare gurney. When he found one a few minutes later, he came back, unfolded the carefully folded tops of the boxes and unpacked the thin blankets on the gurney. The boxes he flattened and tucked underneath the cushion. He could make rounds this way and make sure all patients had at least one extra blanket. Though for some reason, tonight, any and all kids would get special attention... to protect them from the monsters in the stairwells.