Eventually the two had passed the entire day by tinkering and it was time to close the shop. Naturally, Gilbert would keep working for hours on end, but Anastacia direly needed a nap before her planned nighttime excursion with one of her friends. Just as she was about to head out for the day, Gilbert remembered something and asked her to follow him to the second floor, where he lived – if sleeping there for a couple of hours every night and occasionally cooking when Anastacia didn’t bring him anything from her mother counted as living. Though Anastacia had worked there for a good while and known Gilbert for far longer, she had never gone upstairs as far as she could remember, nor had she ever seen anyone else go there.
The old wooden stairs leading up from the backroom of the shop creaked as the sturdily built old mechanic slowly lumbered up them, but they barely made a noise under Anastacia’s feet. As soon as Gilbert opened the door at the top, a scent of pipe tobacco and dust flooded out, as if he had opened a coffin of a chain-smoking mummy. It immediately overpowered the smell of oil and grease from the shop and brought water to Anastacia’s eyes.
“Sorry, it’s a bit messy here… I don’t spend a lot of time upstairs, so I forget to clean.” Gilbert apologized and flipped the lights on from a switch by the door. Only one of the three bulbs in the ceiling light actually lit up though, and even the last one was flickering ominously.
“I’m sure it’s nothing compared to my room, I can’t remember what my floor looks like because there’s so much cra- so many collectible things and important projects spread all over it.” The girl chuckled and tried not to cough from all the dust.
The room they arrived in was the kitchen and living space of the small apartment and it wasn’t so much messy than it was simply unused and dusty. There were no unwashed dishes or moldy food left on the table or anything, but almost everything had a thick layer of dust on it. Only one half of the small table, the chair by it, the sink and the fridge showed some signs of use, but even those could have used a quick wipe. Curiously, the unused side of the table had a dust covered coffee cup on it, with a tiny drop of coffee that had long since dried up at the bottom and some red lipstick on its edge. It hadn’t been moved in ages and something about it made Anastacia inexplicably sad. There were plenty of small kitchen appliances on the shelves and the countertop, as could be expected from someone selling and repairing them, but all of them were old models. They screamed their lack of use in years at the young mechanic and further lowered her mood, but none of it prepared her for what was to come.
A doorway barely wide and tall enough for the giant that lived in the apartment led into a small hallway that had doors to the bathroom, some storage space, the bedroom and a single firmly locked door. Anastacia warily followed her boss to the bedroom and could immediately feel a weight on her heart that tightened her chest and pressed down on her shoulders.
The bed by the back wall of the room was big enough for two, even considering Gilbert’s size, but only one side had been used and the other remained neatly made, clearly intentionally kept like that. On the nightstand by the unused side was a dust covered book that had been left open face down. More untouched books were stacked on the floor and the shelves by the window that looked down on the misty street. On the other side of the room, there were two comfortable-looking chairs with a small round table between them. One of them seemed frequently used and by it on the table was a tin of pipe tobacco, some matches and a hefty wooden pipe. Leaning against one of its armrests was a somewhat old-fashioned bolt action rifle that seemed like the single thing in the entire apartment that was maintained and cleaned often. The other chair was covered in dust, as seemed to be the theme there, but what was on the table by it wrenched Anastacia’s gut. A ball of brightly colored pink yarn, a pair of knitting needles still stuck on something that had remained unfinished for years and a single pink sock, small enough to only fit on a baby.
Gilbert noticed his apprentice staring at the lone sock with an agonized look on her face. “Don’t worry about it, I’m just too stubborn to put them away.” He explained and grabbed a framed photo from the nightstand on his side of the bed. He stared at it quietly for a couple of seconds before handing it to Anastacia.
She only had vague memories about the woman with a wooly, white hair depicted on it but could recognize her as Yulia. All she knew about Gilbert’s late wife was from overheard whispers between Rosie and Sister Emilia. Apparently, she had died in some accident when Anastacia had been four or five years old, but she had never known Yulia had been pregnant at the time, as was shown by the photograph.
“She was very pretty…” Anastacia complimented the woman after failing to come up with anything better to say.
“Aye, far too good for someone like me. She would have liked how you turned out.” The old man said and smiled briefly.
“Well, if you want to talk about her sometime, or something…” The young mechanic suggested, still not knowing what to say.
Gilbert carefully placed the frame where he had taken it from. “Maybe I will, but I didn’t bring you here to feel sorry for me, there’s enough of that going around already.” He grunted and opened the drawer of his nightstand to pull out a small wad of rolled up leather. “Quite some time ago, you asked if I could keep an eye out for appliances that were made by some weird foreign company, but nothing ever really came out of it.”
Anastacia gasped. “You didn’t…” Years ago, even before she had started working, she had asked the mechanic for help in a project of hers. What she needed were appliances, equipment or spare parts from a company called ‘Aureun Simulatronics’, but not a single shop, junkyard or mechanic within two days of travel from Valour had ever even heard of such a company, much less had their products available. She had almost given up on the whole thing already, but every now and then would look for foreign catalogues just in case they mentioned the company.
“A friend of mine, from my years in the service, managed a junkyard for some decades and has finally decided to retire from it. Last weekend he held a little private auction for some of the more interesting bits and pieces he had amassed over the years and gave me the chance to look through the stuff before the others got there, and well…” Gilbert explained and handed the wad of leather to his apprentice.
Anastacia greedily grasped it and unwrapped the present. Inside the rag was a smooth cylindrical piece of metal machinery, completely foreign to her despite her extensive knowledge on such things. On its surface was a stamped copper plate with the words ‘Aureun Simulatronics’ on it. All weight was lifted from her shoulders, and it almost seemed like Anastacia lit the room with her excitement as she carefully inspected the seemingly simple piece of metal.
“So? Is that the kind of thing you were looking for?” The old mechanic asked, sounding somewhat hopeful over the reaction he received.
Barely able to tear her stare off the machinery piece, Anastacia slid her fingers along the surface of the machine piece until they found a small circular seam at the top of the cylinder. The change in texture was just enough to snap her out of her trance. “I… This is… How… Uh… Can I?...” She stammered horribly trying to fight her urge to just run all the way to her room to better inspect the piece, but was more than thankful to Gilbert, enough to actually be moderately polite for once.
The old mechanic knew his student well and could easily tell what was going on. He patted the girl on the shoulder with his massive hand and smiled gently. “Run along then. I’ll close the shop in a while and head to the bar for the evening. Maybe you could convince your mother to ‘forget’ about charging me for a couple of pints? I’d also like to know what you manage to learn from that thing, so do find me once you’re done if you can.” He said and nudged Anastacia towards the door.
Needing no further encouragement to run back home, the young mechanic darted out of the dusty apartment, almost fell over in the stairs and tackled the front door of the shop open. Gripping her new treasure hard enough to cause her arm to cramp, she nearly knocked over a couple of pedestrians by squeezing between them. Finally slowing down by dragging against the wall before her mother’s bar’s door and coming to a halt by grabbing onto the handle and jerking the door open with the last of her momentum, she stepped inside. The strict rule against running when the bar was open had no exceptions to it and had burned into Anastacia’s mind so firmly that even if her thoughts were entirely focused on the machine piece, she slowed down out of habit gained from several evenings spent washing dishes as punishment.
The workday had barely ended for the people of Valour, so the bar was still fairly vacant, but the arrival of the more eager of the usual guests was a matter of minutes and in an hour or two, the rest would no doubt appear. So far, a few of the older frequent visitors had found their way to the tables nearest to the radio in the corner, Anastacia greeted them as she had been told to do. These old fellows were well familiar with the antics of the barkeeper’s daughter, as it was not once or twice Anastacia had somewhat accidentally hijacked the sports broadcast they were listening to, with the equipment in her room.
Other than them and one other person hiding in a booth in the furthest corner of the bar, the room was empty. Rosie must have stepped into the backroom for something before the first rush of the evening. This was a trap Anastacia knew well, heading there at the time was a good way to get stuck with chores for hours on end, but she still wanted to get Gilbert’s request to her mother. Turning to the next best thing from relaying it herself, she tried to step as softly as possible and headed to the occupied booth in the back corner.
“Anything new with the gods? Still high up in the heavens? Doing nothing and getting the credit for everything?” She inquired and poked her head into the booth, giving a major scare to the nun hiding there.
Sister Emilia let out a loud yelp and almost knocked over the cup of tea she was trying to enjoy. “Th- the gods aren’t up in anywhere. Their realms all surround us, and their presence is without a limit to space or time.” She explained after calming for a moment. “And their deeds are numerous. If you want to, you can see their influence in all that we do, are and see…”
Anastacia leaned on the table. “Did not expect an actual answer, good job!” She sarcastically congratulated the nun. “Anyway, I need you to tell mom that Gil drinks for free today, alright? And before you ask, no, I didn’t break anything. I just owe him a favor.”
“Oh, okay! I’ll tell her.” Emilia nodded delightedly. She looked like she was about to say something else, but ultimately decided to keep quiet since Anastacia appeared to be in a hurry and had already started to slide out of the conversation.
Perhaps regretting her behavior when they met earlier, the mechanic stopped in her tracks before straying too far off and returned to the booth. “Come on now, let’s get the advice of the day over and done with. Try to be brief, I have important stuff to do.” She sighed. Despite often openly ridiculing the faith her friend represented, Sister Emilia’s advice often seemed miraculously applicable to her life and a brief semi-daily quote from one of the holy books had become a habit.
Visibly excited, the nun took a sip of tea and pressed her palms together with a rather serious frown on her face. “I’ve actually put quite a bit of thought behind this one, and think it’ll suit you well, Miss Anastacia. In the The Tome of Opposites, fifth chapter and tenth paragraph, a saint of sunlight laments over the villainous acts of a hero he once thought of as his friend, but who was lost to dark thoughts over tragedies in his life. For his worries, he received the following advice: All are born with a light inside them and the uses for this light are as varied as people themselves. Some use their blinding radiance to gather followers, some brighten the room with theirs, some use theirs to search what was lost and some only shine theirs at each other. However, there are those who use theirs in vain attempts to illuminate an endless void of darkness. From darkness to darkness they wander, lost, as their light finds nothing to shine on. Yet, no matter the darkness, a light directed at these wanderers will provide them with directions out of their prison. Thus, it is the duty of us who still traverse in plentiful light to seek out these wanderers close to us and become a beacon for them.” She recited the paragraph to the confused mechanic.
“You lost me like halfway through that.” Anastacia scoffed and rolled her eyes. “What am I supposed to do with any of this?”
Sister Emilia smiled confidently for once and placed her finger on Anastacia’s chest. “I know a thing or two about these things and can tell that your light, Miss Anastacia, is no second to the sun itself. You often use it for questionable purposes to say the least, but perhaps there are people in your life you should align yourself with to provide them direction?”
Pondering the suggestion for the minimal amount of time it took to seem like she actually thought about it, the young mechanic shrugged. “The light in me is more like a burnt-out Nixie tube, so I’m not sure what you’re on about.”
“It’s something you’ll realize sooner or later, there’s no way around it.” Sister Emilia smiled and finished her drink.
“Well I’ll find you when that happens, but I have stuff to do now.” Anastacia smirked, left the conversation and headed towards the short corridor that led to the areas of the building that weren’t meant for the guests.
On her way upstairs, she changed the batteries to a whole series of surveillance equipment she had hidden throughout the building. The microphones and recorders were originally hidden there to catch a certain commissar and her cronies, who weren’t above trying to sneak in when no one was home. As far as Anastacia could tell, that hadn’t yet happened, but she considered it a matter of time and obsessively kept checking through every single tape and sensor. Meanwhile though, her array of microphones, recorders, radios and movement detectors let her in on much that happened behind her back and she had started to rely on them a bit too much, and thanks to her unique aptitude with machines, she considered them to be as much of a part of her as her own ears and eyes. Though Anastacia’s mother knew of a few of them, as did Gilbert and now Emilia, no one besides the mechanic herself knew the true extent and reach of her network. Had they known, there would have been an intervention ages ago, as her need for surveillance had long since crossed the line from overly careful to insane.
To avoid pointlessly triggering some of the sound activated equipment in the staircase, Anastacia carefully snuck up the steps, skipping the ones with pressure detectors on them that would have activated move microphones and intentionally stepping on the ones that would stop the backup recordings that were always on when she was downstairs or outside.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
At the top, the staircase opened up to a moderately sized living space containing a very small kitchen, a dining table and a sofa by an old radio and a bookcase. From there, a small corridor led to three doors: one to Anastacia’s room, one too her mother’s room and one to the bathroom. Far from lavish or roomy, but absolutely adequate for both residents, and neither would dream of trading it for anything else.
The newly obtained piece of machinery burning in her hand, Anastacia skipped her usual routines and headed directly to her door – or at least tried to, but before she could even grasp the doorhandle, she winced and recoiled. Negligence was the first step to failure, and there was absolutely no way she would let herself do anything before going through the equipment in their apartment. As far as she was concerned, both hers and Rosie’s safety depended on them, because who knew what could have been going on in their home if she wasn’t going to protect it, after all, they had plenty of secrets to keep.
The recorders under the sofa, under the fridge and on top of the kitchen cabinets were easy to get and change the tapes to, but the more hidden ones, like the ones inside an electric outlet and under the floorboards took a bit of elbow grease to get to. The rest all were microphones that had wires hidden into the ceiling and baseboards of the room and reaching all the way to the mechanic’s room. The one hidden in the doorframe to Rosie’s room took some effort to get to as well, as she had yet to run the wires from it, but luckily the rest of the equipment hidden in the room itself were basically undetectable and delivered their recordings directly to the room on the other side of the corridor via wires. Eventually Anastacia was planning to make the whole network like that, but budgetary reasons forced her to only limit it to the ones that were riskier to get to for the time being. As the last bastion of sanity in her obsession, she had refrained from setting anything up in the bathroom, partly for obvious reasons and partly because it didn’t have windows or other ways of being accessed.
With her routines over and done with, she could finally walk back up to her door. To deactivate the recording devices inside, she stepped on the left edge of the floorboard in front of it and lifted the handle up three times before turning it and opening the door.
Both bedrooms in the apartment were actually fairly roomy, and Anastacia had made use of the space with a layer of cables and wires that covered almost the entire floor. Countless stacks of technophile magazines and catalogues for parts and devices towered almost as high as the mechanic herself and took up much of the floorspace. Piles upon piles of cassette tapes and reels from her equipment cluttered what open spaces there still were and players of them were stacked nicely next to a workbench full of tools and electronic components. Her bed was right next to the workbench and half covered in clothes that had nowhere else to be. The room technically had a window, but it was covered with a sheet of metal that was bolted in place and had a hatch in the middle of it to allow for observing the street below.
Anastacia carefully placed the Aureun Simulacronics part on the workbench, flipped on the lights and sat down in a chair held together with tape, wire and copious amounts of solder. Before beginning the examination, she placed the tapes she had gathered into the players by the workstation, rewound the ones already in place and started playing them all at once. Every player was connected to a single pair of headphones, which allowed Anastacia to listen to the entire network simultaneously while still being able to adjust the volume of each recording individually, as some of them could become very noisy at times. On top of that, she had slightly modified the players to adjust the recording and playback speeds more than the machines originally allowed. By sacrificing some recording quality, she could slow down the speed the player burned through the tape while recording and then speed up the playback to get through the entire eight hours she was gone in less than one. This was both more efficient time and tape usage wise, but recently it had also come with the benefit of making the so called ‘bazonker honking’ a bit less traumatic to get through on a semi-daily basis. Though what she did was most definitely criminal and completely irredeemable, Anastacia did at least have the decency to destroy or scrub any tapes containing something she shouldn’t have heard – for what little good that did.
After checking one more time that she had locked the door, she dug an old key from her pocket and slid it into the lock on one of the drawers of her workbench. Anastacia had modified the lock to not be as simple to open as simply having the right key, it needed to be aligned correctly and turned around six times before opening each of the latches holding the drawer in place. Once that was open, she still needed to crack the small safe inside with a correct combination before being able to get what she wanted from the drawer. In this case, it was a metal box roughly the size of an average box of chocolates. On top of it, the box had an unlabeled dial and five buttons and on its left side, a round hole that could fit a finger in it. Aside from that, the only detail on the entire box was a copper plate attached to its bottom with the words ‘Aureun Simulatronics’ stamped on it – exactly like the machinery piece Gilbert had found.
To almost anyone, the unassuming box would have seemed like some worn down piece of electronics of no particular importance. However, to Anastacia, this box was a mystery that had consumed much of her life for the past few years. To her, every other piece of machinery, from the simplest of mechanisms to primitive computers had a voice of their own, something she could silently reason, bargain or otherwise coerce into telling her what was wrong and how she could help them – but the metal box was silent. She had opened it countless times in an attempt to understand what it did or what it was for, but absolutely none of the components inside made any sense, which was most certainly a first for her.
The way she had obtained it was equally mysterious and worrisome. She and her friend had been out in the streets of Valour, wasting time doing minor mischief, when someone they didn’t recognize as a resident of the area had rushed around the corner. Just as the person had seen Anastacia, a bullet spread a good portion of their head across the street and they toppled over. The box flew from his hands, and without thinking, the mechanic snatched it and escaped the scene with her friend. Only a day later, a certain Commissar found herself in the area and had ever since plagued Anastacia’s life. She had no way to tell if the two were connected or if it was a mere coincidence, but she wasn’t exactly eager to find out – and thus the vastly overblown security measures.
Anastacia slipped on her headset and started examining the cylindrical piece of metal. It didn’t seem to have any moving pieces to it, and almost felt like it had come off something larger. Though it did resemble a piston of some kind, it didn’t have any noticeable wear to it and the plate with the company’s name wouldn’t have been on it if it was one. One of the ends of the piece was flat and the other had its edges rounded. On the flat side, there were clear signs of welding that had given out, possibly years ago, and on the rounded one, there was a barely noticeable ring-shaped seam she had already found earlier. She picked a very thin piece of metal from the messy arrangement of tools and carefully tried to slide it into the seam. After a bit of resistance, the metal strip smoothly slid inside for about seven centimeters before hitting the bottom of the gap. She then wiggled it until she was able to run it along the seam and dislodge some dirt that had crept in over the years. This loosened the cylindrical piece of metal in the middle of the seam and Anastacia was able to drag it out with the strand she had been using.
Roughly seven centimeters long and with a diameter of almost exactly two centimeters, the piece fit easily on the palm of her hand but felt awfully hefty for its size. Though its sides were exceptionally smooth, weird swirly patterns were visible in some angles as they reflected light differently. It was impossible to tell it the surface had been treated in some way to cause the patterns or if it was the alloy dull gray alloy itself.
There was no indication at all on what the purpose of the detachable part was, as neither it or the hole it came from had any sort of connector or port that could have given her some clues, so as far as she was able to tell, it was decorative or simply there to plug up the hole.
However, as she rolled the cylinder between her fingers, she happened to glimpse at the metal box, and more specifically, the hole on its side. Identical to the one she had just dislodged the cylinder from, there was no way it could have been a coincidence.
Preparing, perhaps unwisely so, to insert the strange cylinder into the socket on the device that could have been a bomb for all she knew, Anastacia switched on her radiation detection equipment – just in case. She then slowly slid the cylinder into its place, along with the thin piece of metal she could pull it out with, if things suddenly went awry.
The cylinder nested firmly into the hole, which Anastacia took as a further sign of it being intended. However, the box remained silent – that is, until she started fiddling with the controls on the top. Previously unresponsive, each of the five buttons now started a ticking sound, each at their own frequency. She compared the noises to a timer on one of her tape players and figured that all five frequencies were a quarter of a second apart, with the fastest ticking four times every second and the slowest taking a little over a second per tick. None of this even hinted at the purpose of the device, unless it was some kind of an overcomplicated metronome.
Despite now being active, the mystery box still remained unresponsive to the mechanic’s powers and refused give out any of its secrets so lightly. Generally speaking, any machine or mechanism created for a purpose ‘spoke’ to Anastacia in a sense when she focused her mind on it, though the limits of her powers were vague at best, the box should have easily qualified. It was fairly simple for her to extract details like how the machine in question worked, what was wrong with it and strangely enough, how happy it was regarding its usage. Well-cared-for equipment used by professionals, such as the diagnostics equipment Gilbert used for his work, were usually grateful and pleasing to listen to. However, on the other end of the scale, there were machines used for horrific things, who pleaded to be scrapped rather than continue their work. Sometimes these poor things would endlessly scream into the void, and other times appear completely mute, but there were still some telltale signs Anastacia could pick up on. Once she had gained the trust of a machine, oftentimes through a bit of maintenance or even just promise of some, she could to a degree command them to do things such as function without a source of power for a very limited time, or override their controls. This was the only reason Anastacia knew her unusual powers were real, rather than a figment of her imagination.
But none of this seemed to apply to the mystery box of ticking noises. Being powered by a metal cylinder that didn’t contain an electrical charge or a radiation source shouldn’t have mattered, as she had conversed with a wide range of things ranging from spring-loaded mousetraps to primitive computing units in a nearby university after sneaking in with her friend. So, either the box wasn’t a machine, which it obviously was, or it was of some foreign origin that based their mechanisms on something different than the rest of the world – and then produced them under a brand for some reason.
A bit disheartened but all the more intrigued, Anastacia started to go through all the possible combinations of the five buttons, hoping that one of them would reveal something new. After systematically working through them for quite a while, she started to consider taking a break – see if Gilbert had come in already and maybe grab a bite with him. That is, until the first two and the fifth button from the left were pushed down at the same time, and the ticking noise changed drastically. Instead of the same plain and monotonous ticks, each of the noises started to feel much weightier. They didn’t seem any louder than before, but something about the ticks felt like they were suddenly caused by a massive hammer beating down on an anvil and they kept on ramping up to a point where each one felt like a small explosion within the box. Still hardly noisier than before, but sending out a shockwave-like effect that quite simply felt wrong, like the world itself was nudged by a fraction of a degree by them. The thumping permeated into Anastacia’s head and made it feel like her brain was being prodded with spikes as well as turned her stomach upside down.
Feeling physically ill all of a sudden, Anastacia slammed her hand on the buttons to make the infernal noise stop – luckily succeeding, as she was only moments away from violently throwing up and a few drops of blood had already dripped from her left nostril. The pain in her head immediately ceased as she hastily tore out the metal cylinder from the box to completely deactivate it. Suddenly exhausted, Anastacia leaned back in her chair and held a wad of paper from her pocket on her nose.
“What the fuck was that?...” She muttered, fully expecting her mother to barge in any moment to see what the ruckus was about. However, by the time the nosebleed stopped, it was apparent that the effects hadn’t spread down to the bar below. Instead of scared screams and the like, she could hear the usual noises from the first floor and figured she was probably off the hook.
Anastacia checked the radiation exposure equipment to make sure she hadn’t just given herself cancer, but that didn’t seem to be the case either. That meant that the only thing she now knew about the box was that it made her feel terrible, which was technically progress but not necessarily the type she had hoped for.
After half-assedly cleaning the blood, she figured that it was time for a drink and a short rest before continuing the experiments. She stashed the box and the cylinder in her safe and hid it in the drawer. For a moment, she continued to listen to the recordings because she thought she had heard something, but it turned out just to be the sounds of her mother cleaning and humming a song. Relieved, Anastacia placed the headphones on the backrest of her chair and paused the tapes.
Having been hunched over different pieces of technology and now the box for the whole day, she stretched her back and arms, making concerning cracking noises for someone of her age. While doing this, she noted something that sounded like gunshots in the distance, which her rebellious mind immediately blamed on the law enforcement cracking down on something vaguely illegal to keep the people of Valour compliant – something which happened at times and was a non-insignificant factor in Anastacia’s hatred for Stella and her type. Not thinking much of it beyond some grumbling, she left her room, locked it firmly, as she always did, and made her way downstairs.
A few of the usual guests had already found their way into the bar, but to the mechanic’s annoyance, her mentor had yet to do so. She was eager to tell him about the ticking migraine inducer she had found, but it would have to wait.
“Is there something going on outside?” Anastacia asked from her mother, who was behind the counter, waiting for more people to show up, just as a new burst of rounds were fired somewhere in the distance.
Rosie shrugged. “For a couple of minutes now. They have a lot of ammunition to burn through so I assume they’re finally trying to bust the gun shop by the park.” She guessed and poured Anastacia some coffee.
None of the other guests seemed bothered in the slightest either. They had all lived in the area for years and had grown accustomed to occasional skirmishes between the authorities and the parts of the population that had strayed from the straight and narrow life – or what the authorities considered that to be. The gun shop Rosie spoke of was a fairly well-known spot for getting weapons and other goods that may or may not have been looted from warzones and been illegally brought into the country without proper registration. Anastacia herself had done some work fixing some of the more obscure weapons the owner didn’t want to dismantle himself. In exchange she had received a bit of money and gunpowder, which she had needed for reasons better left unstated. On a few of the worse days of her paranoia, she had considered getting a small firearm to keep in her room, just in case, but had managed to talk herself out of it so far.
While Anastacia sipped her drink, the sounds of battle seemed to move closer over time, which was a bit unnerving to her, but none of the patrons seemed to mind – that is, outside of Sister Emilia, who had started to quietly pray in her corner booth.
Suddenly an explosion rang out that shook the bar’s windows and the bottles lined behind the counter. While not the first time ever, it did suggest that things outside had started to get out of hands. The lights flickered briefly and some people moved away from the windows, but not with as much haste as they probably should have. A couple of seconds later, a black car landed on the street in front of the bar – after a considerable flight judging by the angle it came in at. It flipped on its roof and slid for quite a distance while spinning and tumbling in a way that should have guaranteed the deaths of everyone in it.
Once it finally came to a stop, Anastacia realized that she recognized the car, as did everyone else in the bar. She had already seen this particular black classic once during the day, and this realization killed any intention she had for maybe going outside to help, so instead she took another sip of coffee and started to hope the car would catch on fire.
“That’s the commissar lunatic’s car, isn’t it?” Rosie asked, equally unconcerned by the well-being of the possible passenger.
“Yup.” Anastacia nodded and kept watching.