Vega had the strangest sense of deja-vu, as she glanced around the old brick buildings that surrounded the marketplace. Farrah was bartering with a stall-keeper over some consumables, so Vega took the opportunity to stroll around. There was a dry fountain in the middle of the marketplace, that had probably once been a park. The small exposed metal pipes at the bottom of the fountain looked strange; as if they should be more finished - polished, ornate - but had been left as sawn-off chunks of metal because that was the extent of their function.
An argument broke out on the edge of the market. Something about someone wasting someone’s time, and having no tradables to offer. No one seemed to react, or even notice it, and Vega was about to return to her silent observation of her surroundings, to try and force some memories to resurface, but two of the three voices involved in the argument grew more threatening, while the other became more desperate.
“Hey,” Farrah approached Vega, bag of grains and herbs in one hand, long white rain jacket draped over the other.
The argument grew more distant. Vega glanced at Farrah, hoping to get an answer about whether they should get involved. Farrah tilted her head in reply, not picking up on the question.
“Umm, I think someone is getting, umm, beat up over there,” She made a small gesture pointing towards where the argument had taken place.
“In a keep?” Farrah didn’t sound like she believed it. But she swung the jacket in her hands over her shoulder and unholstered her pistol before nodding for Vega to lead the way.
She hopped off the edge of the fountain, and they both jogged towards the edge of the park-turned-market, where asphalt took over the trampled grass and gravel-covered mud.
When Vega glanced back at Farrah, she saw the woman reading something off a System screen, no doubt checking a scan. She did raise her eyes when she finally heard the arguing voices too.
“You do this once a month, don’t you realise we have actual tasks to complete?” A male voice came from further down the street.
A woman hastily walked past Vega and Farrah, glancing back like someone who didn’t want to get involved.
“All I was saying-” Another male voice got cut off by the sound of a punch.
The two women rushed to the scene, without even exchanging a glance.
They turned a corner and were faced with a trio of people. A tall blonde man in a casual outdoors outfit similar to Farrah’s was holding a shorter blond man, with his arms under his armpits, pinning him to his chest. Opposite him, stood the one who threw the punch. He was bald, the recently shaven kind, with a ginger moustache and beard, and was wearing a long sailor’s raincoat over sports shorts and a tank top.
“Hey!” Farrah called out, “Let the keeper go, Brant.”
“I’m not holding the keeper?” The bald one replied. He wanted to come off as haughty, but there was a touch of nervousness in his voice.
“Piss off.” The tall blond added. He didn’t even look at the woman.
The man who was being held down gave the two women a pleading look. He looked like he’d survive a few more punches until the duo got bored, but he clearly didn’t want to be there. A few locks fell out of his messy bun as he turned his head. Vega noted that he had unusually long hair for a man.
“Sorry, babes,” Farrah ran her hand through her hair before tossing her pistol into her good hand, and levelling it at Brant’s abdomen, “Do you want me to rephrase that?”
“Oh, come on Farrah, don’t be like that,” Brant put his hands up, moving his left hand dangerously close to the rifle hanging over his shoulder. “We’re not gonna make a scene over some keeper, are we?”
“You two know each other?” The tall blond asked.
Farrah shrugged.
“If I knew you were a bully, Brant, I wouldn’t have helped you with your Last Stand quest,” Farrah lowered her gun.
Vega’s gaze travelled between Farrah and Brant. They were saying things to each other, with barely perceptible movements of their hands, little nods, and twitches of the mouth.
“Hey, hey, what;s going on?”
“Let go of the keeper, Keith,” Brant gestured, before turning to look at the long-haired man, “We’re not doing this today, but if you bother us, or them,” he gestured at the women, “with your pathetic, underpaid, fetch quest, ever again, next time our talk will involve less talking and more burning your house down.”
Keith pushed the other blond aside. He regained his balance easily enough and pretended to brush dust off his shoulders where he’d been held. Then, he scoffed:
“I’d like to see you try. You’re not gonna make it past the next Horde wave. Half your domains are Untrained, and your muscle doesn’t have a build.”
Brant gave Farrah an undecipherable look, and Farrah shrugged.
“He’ll be just fine,” Farrah told the keeper, before turning to her acquittance, “Unless you continue to threaten to burn keepers' houses down. Then you might find yourself short on allies.”
“Come on, Farrah,” He scoffed, “He got Dom and his mates killed. Isn’t that right, keeper?”
The man opened his mouth, trying to think of something to reply. He didn’t look like the type who’d purposefully hurt anyone. Vega saw some of her old squad members in him, bursting out when cornered, but decent folk overall. She frowned, as she failed to recall more than vague silhouettes of people with the same grey haircut as her. One of them had a scar under his eye, she was pretty certain…
“He’s also an ass,” Keith added. “Every time we stop by, he harasses us to get some files from some facility. Magic rock this, magic rock that…”
“OBELISK,” The keeper corrected under his breath.
“The fact that he’s worthless in combat too,” Keith continued, “and has less of the one-time quests unlocked than me, and I’ve only been Collecting for five months. The prick had the audacity to ask,”
“That’s enough, let’s go get a pint,” Brant interrupted, before tugging on Keith’s long-sleeved t-shirt, and walking away. “I’ll see you around Farrah.”
Farrah hummed.
“You wouldn’t happen to be Daniel, would you?” She turned towards the keeper.
He raised both eyebrows, surprised, before taking a few steps back. The movement was meant to be a defensive one, but between Vega’s speed and Farrah’s firearms, which had both long since returned to their holsters, it didn’t really make sense.
“We’re also looking for OBELISK,” Farrah continued before he could speak.
“Then let’s not talk here,” He stated, “I have a house on the west end of town, we can meet there after sunset.”
“Uh-uh,” She nodded, thinking it over. “Alright, we’ll see you there,” She concluded with a nod, as she glanced slightly to the side, where her map usually appeared.
“Wait,” He seemed to have caught up to what Farrah had done, “You can’t just track me! What are you even using?” He read something off a screen of his own, “Hit Mark, seriously?”
Vega was trying to piece together his build. He carried a crowbar in a custom fabric and zip-tie holster on his belt and no long-range weapons. He didn’t master most, if any, of the physical skills. That much was obvious from how he’d moved, and the fact that he’d gotten restrained like that in the first place. Her theory about him having access to the Tech branch of the Utility skill tree was further confirmed when a notification popped up in front of her.
User [Vega] has been set as target of [System Breach] at mastery [Expert].
Reject intrusion?
Yes [Cost: 5P]
No
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Elif: Partially accept, with selected shared data?
Yes [Cost 15P]
No
Elif: Counter with [System Breach] at mastery [Trained]?
Yes
No
“Well, that way if you try something against us, like Brant was suggesting, I’ll have some extra leverage,” Farrah replied, seemingly unaware of the breach.
But Daniel’s face had already twisted into weariness bordering on fear.
“I’ll see you at 8,” He spoke, reading over the skills he’d unethically discovered, “I think, …” He looked up at Farrah, then gave Vega an equally worried glance, “You won’t have any trouble finding me at least,” He hastily walked off.
“Damn,” Farrah swore, “He is, well, I wouldn’t go as far as to call him an ass, but he’s giving off weird karma, don’t you think?”
“He just used a Breach skill on both of us,” Vega stated. “Well, umm, on me for sure at least…”
Farrah’s eyebrows rose.
“Okay, maybe he is a bit of an ass…” She spoke, checking her stat windows. “Do you mean ‘System Breach’? I presume you have it too then?”
“Yes. What will we do now? He has a tactical advantage over you.”
Farrah hummed, as she thought it over.
“I don’t think he does.” She eventually replied. “Well, we’ll have to wait and see what his connection to OBELISK is, but push comes to shove, we can always continue the quest without him.”
Vega frowned.
“I thought, umm, this quest was very important to you. You would give up on your main lead just like that?”
Farrah shrugged; a corner of her lips pressed into a smirk. The metal piercing in her cheek glistened when she moved her lips.
“You’re my main lead,” She nodded at Vega with a smile. “Now, let’s go grab a pint with the two wankers. We need to get more info on Daniel.”
Vega followed along with a nod, as she nervously tugged on those obnoxious straps that ran around her arms. Perhaps she could have been of actual help to Farrah if not for her memory loss. And she didn’t agree with the woman’s laid-back attitude to finding the OBELISK. It’s not that Vega wanted to go back, but that was the only proper bond she had; that she’d ever had. So she needed to at least know what OBELISK was doing now, where her squad mates – whose names she couldn’t quite recall – were, if nothing else to help them escape the organisation like she had. Well, to convince Farrah to help them, because Vega wasn’t sure what she could or would do in this situation full of unknowns.
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They were hit with a wave of darkness and a gust of cold wind when they stepped out of the pub, which despite being referred to by everyone as ‘Fowls’, was called ‘The Stag and the Crow’. The greys of the outside world were further discoloured and muddled by Vega’s sunglasses. Nothing that would actually impair her skills, but enough to get on her nerves.
“So, what do you think?” Farrah asked, as she turned on her flashlight and started walking down the deserted streets.
“About?”
“What we’ve talked about with the guys. Can we trust him?”
Vega wasn’t sure why Farrah was asking for her opinion. Perhaps she’d picked up on her discontent earlier. But she wasn’t going to voice that.
“No,” She honestly replied. “If we trust your friends, then Daniel is unreliable at best, or a saboteur. I think it will cost too much information to fully buy his trust. But we do need his help. Your friends might not have known about the, umm, servers, but they practically confirmed that he knows an outpost location.”
Farrah hummed in acknowledgement. She’d slowed down her pace, and then took a turn into a street that Vega was certain would lead them to the town centre.
“I think…” She reached for her tin and pulled out one of five remaining cigarettes. The flame of her lighter briefly illuminated her face, as she looked up to the cloud-covered night sky. She seemed lost in thought, with an impossible-to-name expression painted on her face. It was almost akin to nostalgia, but with something stronger, something sacred, added to it. She inhaled that toxic smoke, and started walking again, as she spoke, “I think we need to be more trusting of people. Facts of the matter are, we don’t know what really happened to that group of Collectors. They could have run off, they could have gotten ambushed. They chose to help Daniel out, he didn’t hold them at gunpoint.”
“We don’t know what skills he has. He could have forced them to.”
“Well, we can agree to disagree. I don’t think he killed them. I don’t think he’s capable of that.” She inhaled more of the smoke. It wasn’t that the smell bothered Vega, but she worried for Farrah’s health. If there was one thing she’d learned about the woman – through verbal accounts, not first-hand experience - it's that she didn’t have any type of passive regeneration, and could only heal serious injuries by using up one of her luck points. Slow organ degradation through prolonged exposure to chemicals did not fall under that skill.
“You’ve met him once. I,” Vega sighed, “I understand what you’re saying, I really do, I promise, and you’re right that we need him, but I don’t want him to have too much,” it took her a second to find the correct synonym for ‘power’, “hold over us.”
Farrah nodded.
“Then let’s keep you out of the story. You are an amnesiac Collector, and you’ve decided to help me on my quest because we went to the same secondary school.”
“Huh?” That was not the cover story Vega would have gone with. There were too many holes in it, mostly coming from the fact that she’d never been to secondary school.
“He’ll have no way of verifying that,” Farrah replied. “If he can breach into our Systems, he’ll know only I have the OBELISK quest, so we can’t use that as an excuse. And the amnesia needs to stay in,” She looked at Vega with an amused smile, “For obvious reasons.”
“Got it,” Vega reluctantly agreed.
After extinguishing it on the ground, Farrah put the cigarette bud in her pocket, and they circled around the pub once more, this time continuing straight ahead. Two minutes later, Farrah knocked on the door of a two-storey house with a weathered beige façade. It looked almost identical to the houses on either side, if not for a stripped blue and white flag hanging from the second-storey window of the house to the right, and the house to the left being in much worse shape.
Shuffling came from behind the door, before Daniel opened it.
----------------------------------------
“Come on in,” he gestured to the women, as he led them into his home. “Shoes off, if you don’t mind,” He added, before vanishing through a door on the left of the entryway, “Tea?”
“Sure,” Farrah agreed.
“Sir.”
“Huh?” His voice came from the kitchen, followed by the click of an electric kettle being turned on.
“That’s two teas, thanks,” Farrah replied, as she began undoing the shoelaces on her hiking boots.
The inside of the house was a good deal cosier than what one would assume from the state of the peeling paint and overgrown parking spot on its outside.
“Milk? Sugar?”
“Where do you even have milk from? I won’t say no to that.” Farrah replied, before heading to the living room.
“Don’t get your hopes up, it’s the one in packets,” Daniel replied, briefly popping in the doorway to show them two plastic sachets.
Farrah shrugged in agreement, and Vega passed. She left her black boots of inexplicable construction next to Farrah’s, letting black buckles and pieces of synthetic material unfold like two blooming flowers, and followed her in.
“Huh, this is … a lot,” Vega spoke as she entered the living room.
Clearly, the place had been re-arranged somewhat for their arrival. Two whiteboards stood side to side, partially blocking the access to the stairway on the left side of the room. A coffee table had been pushed against the couch by the furthest side of the room, and the textbooks and notepads littering it had been stacked aside to create some free space, where three coasters waited for their respective cups. The TV on the right side of the room was covered by a large map of Aireshire, that was taped to the wall above the TV. Next to it, a map of Angelinna ran over to the adjacent wall, where its coastal line got cut off by cutouts of different boroughs of Sambourough pinned over it. All maps were annotated with several coloured markers. In a few places, the thin paper with ultra-detailed roads and elevation lines had torn under the alcohol ink and had been precariously repaired with clear tape. There were pins in all three of the maps, marking locations in the middle of pastures, forests, and industrial areas. The whiteboards were covered in notes about station relays, programming, and data compression.
Farrah couldn’t make sense of most of the writing, but the maps were more her expertise. While Vega flipped through the manuals and textbooks on the coffee table, Farrah examined the map of Sambourough closer. She pulled up her own map of it, and compared the black lines to where that collapsed tunnel was. Unfortunately, the central part of the city was cut off, as Daniel had chosen to focus on two of the city’s biggest hospitals and several of the industrial areas.
“AeroSolar Renewables Ltd.,” Farrah read out.
“Yep. One of the six backup archives of OBELISK,” Daniel said, as he brought two white cups of steaming beige tea in. “Black lines are for their underground transport network, blue is for helipad and air transport, and red are the designated supply roads.”
“This one was cleared out,” Farrah tapped on one of the red streets in the university district, right by the St. Martin’s hospital.
“You’ve been to the city?” Daniel asked, setting down the third cup of tea, before hopping onto the couch, and scootching to the side, leaving enough room for someone to join him. He crossed his legs, having nowhere else to put them but over the coffee table itself, and looked at the women expectantly.
Farrah sat down on the carpeted floor and picked up a mug.
It smelled like the cheap stuff they served at brunch places, but even that brought up memories of the past; of how they had to ask for a high chair for Hubby, or at least a few cushions, of how mum always insisted on having tomatoes removed from any dish despite not being allergic, or how ‘pa always unfolded a napkin over his knees as if they were at a proper restaurant.
Farrah turned around to face the map so that the other two wouldn’t see her cry.
“Are you gonna take a seat?” Daniel asked.
“I’d rather stand,” Vega picked up her mug.
“Huh, so you do talk,” His tone was somewhere between genuine surprise and sarcasm.
“Okay, don’t start arguing,” Farrah wiped her eyes and turned around. “I found your memo on a computer in one of the ‘backup archives’ as you called them. You probably already know, from breaching my System privacy and all that, that one of my quests is to find OBELISK.”
Daniel took a sip of his tea, as he awkwardly stared at the books, trying to think of something to say.
“In my defence, I thought you were going to burn my house down,” He replied. “But yes, sorry about that. I won’t do it again. Especially if we are to work together. Umm,” He looked up at Vega who was doing a very poor job of masking her distrust of him. The sunglasses were perhaps making it worse. “Sorry, is there a problem?”
The woman glanced down at Farrah, who shrugged. She didn’t have a problem. She’d even left her Steyr AUG at the door, with her rucksack and hatchets.
“The other Collectors said you killed their friends,” Vega spoke. She hadn’t taken a sip of the tea, which with her regenerative ability came off as a strong insult that Daniel couldn’t pick up on. “And you have a lot of, umm, intel on OBELISK. It would be nice if you could provide some explanations.”
Daniel looked back at Farrah, clearly alarmed, as he put down his tea.
“There are rumours,” Farrah took another sip of the flavoured water before locking eyes with Daniel, “The short version of our story is that we came across that archive room, and the server, while trying to resolve my OBELISK quest. Now, what about you?”