Take me down....6 underground - Valentine's domain

[-V-]

Now, she didn't own the Crawl, that much was true. But it was still home to Valentine. By no means was she a native to Novus Orsa and not even when it had boasted another name before the Celesin Empire had touched down within the confines of the dirty city and laid claim to it. They'd both made it better and worse...but maybe there was only so much improvement a city like that could field before they'd have to knock it down and start over. The crime had only lessened so much and especially on the lower echelons of the settlement where the buildings weren't so shiny and black or silver and didn't have heir beauty framed by low hanging clouds.But it was getting more and more difficult to outwit the patrolling ALIS forces even in such a legendarily free and dangerous place like The Crawl.

Valentine didn't care who thought they owned which city, village or toilet to squat over. All that effected her came in both positive and negative and had not yet been enough for her to make any changes to her dangerous lifestyle. Some of the businesses had been ordered to clean up their act or face being shut down but sometimes they still got away with trying to move vole and claiming it was porcine, sex trafficking operations had been forced out of the city overnight and many of the night workers became independant-...and gangsters still on the trafficker's payroll were killing them left and right. The organized crime racket had been rendered toothless within hours and yet natives of NoVo, as the youth called it and always followed by a snicker considered Celesin to be just another method of organized subjugation in the form of fascism. Others thought their arrival to be a blessing.

As long as the gods who came down from the sky and pissed on Valentine's tree to lay claim to it didn't screw up the machinations of her life she cared less what they had improved or what they had degraded. The Crawl was still home, still familiar and well known. She moved through the tunnels without ever losing track of her location as they were a sprawl that had eaten some people alive. Runaways, criminals, fugitives and dealers would come into the endless tangle and lose themselves in it. Perhaps they were lucky as they were more likely to be killed by other vagrants who knew the map before they'd ever starve to death or die of some form of industrial exposure.

Just as Valentine was considering the horrors of said many forms of industrial exposure she all but leaped over a loose and very much live wire with the softly crackling business end in a puddle of dirty water; its alloy-wire fray promising to broil her alive from the inside out. They were a consistent danger in the tunnels; most of them unimportant electrical framework from the lightrail transportation system which extended all over the city.

A cigarette came out of the dirty leather motorcycle jacket worn over a dark gray hooded shirt; the waif standing about one hundred and seventy centimeters and with a frame that communicated plenty of skipped meals and perhaps a touch of dumpster diving. A Zippo illuminated the piezo-electric maintenance panels on the wall and made the grime in the tunnel stand out with horror-story relief as critters-- maybe too exotic tobe called rats, or, at least not all of them- scattered away from the light.

She was heading to Junction 23FF, one of at least seventy connection rooms in the Crawl with served as an apex for anywhere from three tunnels to six stories of space with upwards of thirty two entrances into another part of the labyrinthine underworld. And she was going there to make the deal of a life time. Maybe it would be enough to not have to go under Novus Orsa so much? Familiarity breeds contempt, after all.

No wonder people got lost here. People who weren't Valentine and other salty dogs, that is.

[Strings]

Strings, Sergeant Strings his men had called him, when he had a platoon of his own, had become accustomed to life in the crawl.  Moving beneath the dictators on high, running things, transporting things for a price, it had all become so normal.  It paid the bills anyway for his vices.  When one worked for the underbelly, one found vices the old mind couldn't even fathom.

This man was average which helped him blend in, roughly six foot and of a lithe dancers build, he wore loose clothing to not constrict him when he did what he did best, running.  His shorts and running shoes offered little in the way of protection, and his loose t shirt with some bands logo on it hardly helped when fire fights broke out.  A mop of brown hair, and clean shaven face made him look young, but his eyes brown and sunken spoke of horrors he had seen.  The only thing that really made him stand out was the acoustic guitar he carried with him.

Running through the crawl, for no reason than to escape a jealous one night fling, he was on his was to junction 23FF, and if timing was right, he would collide with Valentine in a headlong collision that may send them both sprawling on their asses.  Strings was good at two things, running and keeping quiet.  His own approach might of been too quiet to allow for this chance meeting of low lifes.

If he did fall on his ass, he would do so with a loud twang as chords on the guitar were struck unintentionally, and he would get a look at Valentine.  Eyeing her for a moment before hopping up to his feet.

"Oh, oh gods, I'm sorry, oh jeez, oh man.  I didn't see you there.  Fuck. "

[-V-]

Brown hands coursed over the enormous jacket Valentine wore. It was a surefire sign she was a staple of the tunnels where it could get so cold it was known to kill drifters overnight; their bodies trapped various nooks and crannies. However, she was dressed rather light under it as just as there were horrifically frigid locations in the tunnels so were there places of extreme heat-- and they did not stay in the same locations, either. Some of the tunnels switched functions and filters; their schedules not quite randomized but they were not maintained by the most punctual and consistent urban technicians. Perhaps when Celesin truly took over something more than the prettier parts of the city they’d do something about that.

As for the patting; Valentine had been making sure something was present. Something very important for the little “deal” she was excited about! Just as a smile bloomed over features so like a mother’s she had never met? She’d find herself colliding with a knobby bag of bones and a guitar; the impact throwing her back onto painful cement and wire grating with plenty of knobs and uneven bits to reach through the jacket and bruise her flesh. It hurt like a bastard, in so many words.

“Ugh” from the young woman; her face contorted in surprise and agony and she writhed on the ground for a few moments. Her ass definitely had a contusion and she’d knocked her elbows around pretty badly but none of it was enough to stop her from bouncing to her feet and, if the fellow had stood-- jabbing a finger into his chest and really start to scorch him as soon as she done sniffing about the pain.

“Keep it down! Are you stupid or somethin’?” she’d hiss; shaking her head at the man and giving him an expression as if he were a bump on her ass. “You’re fuckin’ late anyway. You were supposed to be here before me, you know that right? Now you’ve made too much noise here...I’m not feeling it, but I got what you need.”

“Ifriti Black. The good O, not that tar shit they’ve been trying to pass off to the Smacks.” Valentine declared and patted twice above her heart. And she’d about face and gesture for him to follow her without waiting for an answer.

[Strings]

Strings was trying his best to apologize, at no point had he yelled, or really caused a scene. But his loud nature, and the reverb from his guitar was probably enough to draw attention to himself. Even as the woman was pressing a finger into his chest he was looking over his shoulder more concerned if his one night stand was still chasing then what she was berating him about. She mentioned him being late and he had an upset look upon his face as she mentioned that, Strings was never late, it was something he prided himself on. In response he would reach into a pocket and pull out an old as sin looking pocket watch on a chain and pop it open. Something he'd swiped from the more well to do people up top.

He'd opted to stay quiet, not wanting to get another finger poke into his scrawny chest, however she mentioned something, Ifrit Black? Interesting. If it was some kind of drug he hadn't used it before. And if it was something else, running that information to people who would pay good money for it would be well worth the risk involved with following her. When she about faced he would follow behind her, keeping his foot steps quiet and light, it was almost like he wasn't touching the ground at all, or even breathing by the lack of noise he made.

Scratching at the back of his neck nervously as they proceeded through the tunnels he would keep his eye's peeled and his guard up the whole time. If this woman turned on him he would have to run. She didn't look much to fast in that big coat of hers. He was keeping a mental note of where they were going and which direction. Finally he got up the nerve to ask a single quiet question. "Is it as good as they say it is?" He kept his question as vague as possible. There was a damn good chance he had just hijacked a different persons deal by running into big coat.

[Sponsored content]