Street Outside MCA, Saturday Morning

[suitably_heroic]

It was raining.

Endless water, plunging down from the sky, streaking past the heavy neon signs sticking out from MCA. Jaq stood underneath it. He lifted his digital lighter and lit his e-cigarette, a puff of electronic smoke trailing off into the sky.

Something glitched in the corner of his eye. Was it reality? Or a fiction? He sighed.

"I need to go find one of these damned rickshaw runners," he said.

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Comments

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

[rebelseekspizza]

Not far from that rip, reality seemed to meld and bend, as if someone had punched a hole in its surface. Little flecks of computer code flashed past, binary but also Javascript, for some reason. Bricks seeped down. There was the sound of thunder, but no light; then it tapered off into a strange, distorted noise.

A boy stepped through the gap, his feet hitting the brick right by Shiemi's side.

"Cool," said Dante. "Now if only I could break this thing far enough to get me pizza..."

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

[rebelseekspizza]

"Why?" Dante said, smirking back at her. (There was still a little spark of binary numbers around his fingers when he moved his hands.) "Is it working?"

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante had no idea how he was doing what he was doing, but he didn't see the need to bring it up. Something pulsed in his veins, red, but only visible to someone paying attention.

"Eh, I wing it," he said. He looked up at the building. "So what's a nice girl like you do in a rainy-ass shithole like this?"

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

[rebelseekspizza]

"Staying here 'cause it's slightly better than the dreary-ass demon shithole I left," Dante allowed. He shrugged. "I could probably make it stop raining if I wanted."

But he was lazy.

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

[rebelseekspizza]

"Nah," Dante said. The grin he flashed her was a little brittle, jagged. "I'm just lucky."

Or weird. He tried not to think about why or how he had these powers; that seemed like it led somewhere really bad.

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

[rebelseekspizza]

"There's Pizza Planet," Dante said. He jabbed a thumb towards the streets. "Thataway. Their crust's not great, but they use nanobots these days."

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

[rebelseekspizza]

"C'mon, how else do you get that crispy just-right flavor?" Dante said. "Microwaves? Fuck."

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

Shiemi laughed. "It may surprise you to hear this, but I actually have an oven. I got someone to hobble it together from data I found in an old server I purified in Cyber." She leaned in and poked a finger at his chest. "Get this, it works by using hot air! Something called Conviction."

Convection, Shiemi. ConvEction.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante squinted at her. "Wow, way to cruise the Stone Age," he said. "Don't those things take like, minutes to work?"

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

"ForEVer," agreed Shiemi. "But honestly? I really do spend most of my time in Cyber. So it's nice to have something honest and real and solid after dealing with Demon Hacks and Sprites and all the other stuff in Virtual Hell. Something I don't have to doubt."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante shook his head. "Weird," he said. "I like it in Cyber. Gets your blood going."

... But he kinda liked it here, too. Just not 'wait half an hour for a pizza' like.

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

[rebelseekspizza]

"Guess everyone has their thing. I just prefer getting laid," Dante said. Was he smirking again? Oh well. "Waiting around to get your food... doesn't seem like a whole lot of fun."

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

[rebelseekspizza]

"Nah, just the actual viruses," Dante said. He rolled his eyes right back. "How's the demon hunt?"

[greenexorcist.livejournal.com]

[electrocynic]

Electroclash didn't necessarily need to sleep, these days. (Had she ever? It was unclear.) But if nothing else, there was safety in returning to the MCA each evening – and staying somewhere other than her office in the gloom of the warehouse district while various things were charging back up.

Maybe there was comfort in the routine, too. If comfort was a thing. She'd been here for longer than most remembered, but she had never been exactly forthcoming about whether she felt things like comfort. Or to what extent she'd ever been able to feel them.

It was morning. She was leaving. "Alright there, mate?" she asked with a faintly metallic drawl as she came out the door, spotting the smoke before the person.

[suitably_heroic]

"I think we're glitching up again," Jaq said, shaking his head. He plucked the e-cigarette out of his mouth. "Don't really want to deal with it."

[electrocynic]

Electroclash looked up, letting the rain fall on her face. It couldn't do much.

"Just another day in paradise."

Emotions or not, at least she had a handle on sarcasm.

[suitably_heroic]

"I guess so." Jaq twirled the e-cigarette between his fingers. "And nobody's gotten murdered today. Hell on my bills, but I'm okay with a day off."

[electrocynic]

"Still early, Jaq." She glanced over at him, then got that brief faraway look in her eyes – looking inward. Or really, accessing the world around her in an unseen way. However you wanted to put it. "Always interesting chatter in the air."

[suitably_heroic]

Jaq sighed. He tilted his head, looked over at her. "You picking something up?"

[electrocynic]

"You know the rules," Electroclash replied, lips twisting into a wry smirk in a way that had something of an automatic feel to it. "Always a price to pay for anything more specific than what I just said."

[suitably_heroic]

"It was worth a shot. You're making me poorer, you know."

Funny how Jaq didn't sound so put out.

"So what other vague crap is your brain telling you? A chance of rain in the evening?"

[electrocynic]

"Of rain, of someone doing something they shouldn't, and of goods changing hands." So, business as usual for this drab town. "Lots of chances."

[suitably_heroic]

"And of you and me getting a drink tonight...?" Jaq ventured.

[electrocynic]

"Fair."

She hadn't plucked that from the ether, no.

[suitably_heroic]

Jaq let out a soft laugh. "Nice," he said. "Gives me another reason not to get mindjacked today."

[electrocynic]

Electroclash took a step further onto the street.

"I'll be at Caritas." At some point, anyway. "Try not to be the one murdered today."

[suitably_heroic]

"I'll be working on it, sweetheart," Jaq said-- and then he inclined his head, the implant at his forehead flickering. "Aaaand that's a PI contract hitting the exchange."