(Same Edge of Forever universe as 'Caedca's Last Mission' and 'Brewing', from the POV of another major character as he talks to another.)
I don’t think you’re seein’ what I’m tryin’ t’do, here!
No no, sit down, I’ll explain.
Want a drink? I know this great cocktail, hang on.
Hm? Of course it’s safe for me to explain it to ya here. You may be what I think you are, little lady, but if there’s one thing you don’t know about the enemy it’s that they catch on to us by lookin’ at us, not by listenin’. Plus there’s just you, me, and the regular in the corner. So, if y’get what I mean, we jus’ act all cool and collected, and I can blab all I want about what I’m doin’ here.
Name’s Odin, by the way.
So, okay. Why would a free guy leave the safety of pli sca or skyhome to come open a bar in enemy-controlled Beltark, where the very customers he serves might catch on he’s not what he says he is and chip him right there an’ then? That, little lady, is because I have a thirst for danger!
‘Little regard for my life’? Well, I think you’re right, actually.
Yeah, I know, usually it’s the drinker tellin’ the barman the sob-story.
Yeah I’m gonna tell you. Said I would, so you won’t leave here thinkin’ I’m crazy. Drink that up before it warms up and the sugar-ice dissolves. It’ll taste better. So, okay, picture this: I do some bad shit in Chira-salan when I’m there with my folks, namely negotiating the safety of our pli sca at the expense of some others. Dad finds out, but can’t kill me like law dictates, so I get exiled. Never to see them, my sister or my homeland ever again. Denied my birthright, as the books would call it!
Where? Now now, heh, you don’t need to know everything.
Miss them? What, parents and sis? Well I don’t really see the point when they could be dead anyway.
Hey well that may not sound like muchuva answer to you, babe, but it’s my one.
So imagine I’m wandering around, only just seventeen, with a half-full pistol a guard gives me – in his ‘mercy’ – and some jewellery Mom shoved in my hands to pawn. I do this wanderin’ for a few months, tryin’ to make my way to safe havens like she told me. I go from skyhome to pli sca to pli sca, getting drunker and more nihilist by the day, and nowhere feels good enough. I learn a whole lot, including some techie stuff, and it’s interestin’, sure, but I can’t really do much with it. I get good at charm, as I’m sure you can tell, but that ain’t gonna put food in my mouth.
Hm? Yeah, pretty tough, but hey, what did I have left to lose? So finally, a couple of years ago, I decide to apply for the job of a barman in Beltark. The funny thing, heh, was that I got it.
Haha yeah. Think I was just trying to mock the IREH by showin’ it just how close I could get into one of its little strands. Just how close one of its unchipped enemies could live, right under its fuckin’ nose. Hell, it’s got all this security and it’s fuckin’ AI-soul incarnate anyway, and it can’t smell a rat.
Now the extra-funny thing was that, now I’d had my fun fuckin’ around, I decided to go through with it and start workin’.
Well, I guess by that point I didn’t have anything to look forward to. Resistance army wouldn’t take me, ‘cus no papers. Nowhere felt like home or close enough to it. Guess I was just waitin’ for IREH and the Marks to put me out of my misery and either shoot me or chip me. Not that I really wanted to be chipped, even if I am bleak, so I probably would’ve just liked the excuse to shoot myself. Long since lost the fun of it, y’know? My little game, and life generally I guess you could say.
Bit extreme, yeah, but I don’t think you’d say that if you were in a similar spot.
So here I am, still. The one cool thing is that people like you catch on, and they come to me for a drink. We chat. But nothin’s really come my way to make me change my mind or catch me. Not sure why this seems like the best lot I’ve had in years – fear of change? Or maybe I just like being my own boss, an’ not havin’ to work for a Resistance or a Lord or whatever.
Y’know, you have some nice eyes. What’d you say your name was again? Rhea? And you’re a what from where?
Haha, turning my trick on me. No, I don’t need to know everything, Rhea. You just drink up. The night’s young.
